by Faith Hunter
Shimon was watching me and must have seen my understanding because he suddenly relaxed, smiling. “Yes. You see what is possible for the Sons of Darkness.” His lips didn’t move with the words, but there was no doubt who was speaking to me through Edmund’s tortured lips. “The magic of time,” he said, in case I misunderstood.
Somewhere he had put witches into a time circle and forced them to work it, and they were dying. They were tools, nothing more. Like his possession and control and torture of Edmund. I’d kill the Flayer of Mithrans for Ed alone.
Hayyel would be tickled pink.
Before I could speak, Lincoln stepped around me. “It is my belief that both of the Sons of Darkness could read. Yet, here you are, in my city, without presenting yourself to me, in di-rect contradiction of the original Vampira Carta, and the Vampira Carta of the Americas. You owe me fealty, you foul creature.”
“Kill the Dark Queen, give unto me her magical items, and I will depart your shores.”
“Ain’t happenin’,” he said, sounding more mountain man than Blood Master. “I reckon you and me’ll have to battle, then. Once my queen’s done thrashing your butt, expect to meet me on the field of battle at dusk. Of course, that’s assumin’ there’s enough of you left to fight.”
While Shaddock spoke, I had let my snarl fade away into disdainful neutrality. “You will release my primo to me,” I said, sounding bored.
“You will release my brother to me,” Shimon said, sounding bored-er.
I laughed, managing to sound entirely unperturbed. From my peripheral vision, I watched as Eli and Thema maneuvered around the room for the best firing positions. The unchained humans on the floor watched too, their hands hidden. Yeah. Too many against our few. Bruiser was to my left. Molly shuffled to my right. Big Evan moved behind her, humming so low it vanished into nothingness. Magic rose on the air. Shimon didn’t seem to notice. He had no witches with him and either he had changed himself too much to use his own witch magic, or his control of Edmund kept him from seeing and hearing the magic I felt rising in the air.
When my laughter trailed off, I sighed, stealing a ploy from Leo’s playbook, shaking my head. “Ah, mon ami. I bring you a sad tiding. Joses is . . .” I tapped one claw, one time, on the jade hilt, as if looking for a better word. Tapped again, the sound ringing in the sudden silence. “. . . dead.”
“Foolish female,” Ed’s lips said. “The Sons of Darkness cannot be killed. We are truly immortal.”
“Not so. Dead. Headless, heartless, chopped up into small pieces.” I let my smile widen, showing my fangs. “For starters.”
The last hints of the languid pose vanished as Shimon sat up. “Where is my brother? What have you done with the pieces of his body?”
“Give me my primo.”
Edmund began to scream. The wail was unlike anything I had ever heard, a note so painful it hurt my ears like fingernails on a blackboard, like rats being roasted alive over a fire, like piano strings made from the guts of a human prisoner, but ten times louder than any of these sounds. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, my ear tabs folded over in reaction, and my eardrums vibrated stridently. He was killing Edmund with just the power of his mind. I caught sight of the thing in the background again, but it was gone too fast to register as more than a charcoal-bright blur. It moved fast enough to be a vamp, but it didn’t look human-shaped.
Moving slowly, so the gathered would know that I wasn’t attacking, I pulled the Mughal blade and the vamp-killer. I had never properly cleaned the blades. They were still coated with the blood of Joses and Titus. I grinned, showing all my teeth, all my viciousness. “I killed your brother with these knives. And I’m going to kill you.”
CHAPTER 10
After I Chopped Him into Kibble, I Fed Him to the Wolf
The screaming note went silent. The stillness ached with its absence, and Shimon sniffed the air. His black-on-black eyes widened as he recognized his brother’s blood scent in the rancid stench of decay, even over the stench of the assembled vamps and the herbal scent of Ed’s fresh blood. Edmund took a breath. “Impossible,” Shimon said with Ed’s lips.
“Problem,” Kojo said across the public channel, in my earbud. “Do you see? Shall I let it pass?”
“Affirmative,” Alex said into the comms system.
I smelled him before I saw him and I started to laugh for real. Brute appeared, jostling Evan aside, shoving between Lincoln and me, his head at my hip, all three hundred plus pounds of him. The white werewolf was growling, the sound like boulders grinding, like grizzlies fighting. He had missed the helo ride, but an angel-touched werewolf who could timewalk didn’t exactly need a helo. There was no grindylow with him, which was odd in a room full of humans, but that was a problem for another time.
So softly that the Flayer of Mithrans had to lean in to hear, I said, “On the contrary, you bucket of crap. After I chopped him into kibble, I fed him to the wolf.” Brute growled again. More Leo-like, I repeated, “Let my primo go. Abase yourself to your betters. Or suffer the evil that will follow.”
“My brother is not dead. I would know this. Therefore you lie.”
I remembered the heart in New Orleans, kept by Jodi and the witches, safe from this thing. But I didn’t let that show on my face. Maybe he really could tell there was a scrap of his brother left alive. What did I know? “Give me Edmund Hartley.”
Into my earbud Alex said, “The woman in purple, standing against the fireplace pillar. Her name is Monique Giovanni. She’s Onorio from Italy.”
“Copy that,” Bruiser murmured. He focused on the woman, who had brown hair and skin the color of hazelnuts. Monique was wearing a shade of purple that reminded me of black grapes. Her eyes shot to Bruiser and she went pale. The sensation of magic kicked up a notch, peppery and electric on my pelt tips. She had been about to drain one of our vampires. Now she was too engaged in a mental Onorio battle to hurt my people.
In Shimon’s syntax, Edmund said, “Perhaps we might effect a trade. Offer me something I would want. Or someone.” I didn’t know which of my people he thought he could trade for, but that wasn’t happening. His fingers fanned out, casually, “It is said that you have found the iron spike of Golgotha, and that it is yours. I have an appreciation for antiquities. I will trade your primo for this artifact.”
Leo had once said, “The Europeans’ greatest desire is for the remaining iron from the spike of Golgotha.” Because the iron could control vamps and witches and time itself. The iron and its magic were the most powerful metal on Earth. Shimon had to have a small piece at least, in order to create a time circle and to chitinize his own body. I had a few pieces, but not a full spike, not that I’d tell him that. Beside me, Bruiser began to breathe harder. I smelled his sweat. “No,” I said. “Give me Edmund Hartley.”
The sensation of magic in the room went even higher. I thought my ear tabs might burn from the power. “You will give unto me this spike,” he said, his tone laced with mesmerism, directed straight at me.
My knees went weak. My stomach went sour and sick, and my skinwalker magics began to race. I wanted to throw up, pass out, run with my tail between my legs. The Flayer could create fear, paralyzing terror. I couldn’t even breathe.
Beast growled deep inside, pierced my brain with her claws. The pain was needle sharp, and I settled. I managed a breath. I didn’t spew. “I will give you nothing,” I said, sounding almost like myself. “You will give me Edmund Hartley.”
The Flayer laughed, the sound like velvet and brandy and the stink of human ashes. Leo had never laughed so powerfully, so full of might. Beast sent steel into our knees or they might have buckled. “No,” he said. “I have claimed him. You have lost him. The thing you call Edmund is mine by right of might.”
Impasse. I stepped to the side, seeing Eli. He was in firing position, halfway concealed in a niche behind an open door. My fingers twitched toward
my throwing knives.
To the side of the insectoid Shimon, two of his vampires fell, dropping as if dead. My first thought was Bruiser. But he was busy. So . . . Molly and death magics. As the vamps landed and bounced slightly, she inhaled, nostrils fluttering, excited, satisfied, yet wanting more. Her eyes closed in ecstasy. It was like sex and desire and power all mixed in together.
Shimon flinched. Just a little. His eyes flicked to my side, to Molly’s face. He said something with his own mouth, words Ed had never heard or couldn’t interpret, a curse for certain. Recognition, rage, a hint of something else in Shimon’s eyes. Avarice. He wanted Molly or wanted her dead. He knew what she was.
Edmund was bleeding from his eyes, watery, bloody tears. He was lying on his side, draped over the feet of the last Son of Darkness. Two more vamps dropped. Ed’s mouth fell open; his eyes rolled back in his head. Shimon was killing him. I forgot to breathe. Molly chuckled, an evil witch cackle of pleasure and absolute strength.
Evan hummed a note so high his voice nearly broke. Stress drained his face to a pasty white. Wild hunger lit Molly’s. Bruiser, on my other side, was gasping, his magics erratic, rapidly depleting as he fought his first Onorio.
Evan took Molly’s hand and altered the note he hummed. They were working together to control the death magics and point them at the enemy, at Shimon, but he didn’t fall, didn’t react at all. Molly was close to losing control and frying everyone in the room. Everyone except Shimon.
The Flayer’s eyes fell on the big witch, knowing Evan for a sorcerer. Greed brightened his eyes. He wanted them both. He lifted a hand as if he was about to throw a stone.
Magic. Danger! Beast thought.
I didn’t have time to plan. I flicked the throwing knife at Shimon. It missed the seam in the carapace at his neck and bounced off his chest. Oh crap.
The vamps in the semicircle all stepped forward, in unison, under the control of one mind. No wonder Shimon hadn’t felt Evan’s and Molly’s magic. He was fully engaged, using his own.
His vamps each pulled handguns. Fast. Aimed them at our tight group.
We were outnumbered, outgunned.
We were screwed.
Unless I could pull off a bluff.
I managed not to throw up and in my best Dark Queen royal hauteur, I said, “Let Edmund go or we will kill all of your people and go on with our business. And Brute”—I placed a hand on his furry head—“will eat the evidence. Are you hungry, Brute?” The werewolf chuffed, tongue dangling, white fangs showing in a doggy smile. The weapons instantly re-aimed. All of them at Brute and me. Oh goody. Yeah, that helped.
Time slid sideways, that battlefield slowdown where I saw, felt, heard, knew, everything, in layers of tactics and potential outcomes. Everything happened in slow motion.
In a flash of sapphire light, Gee appeared in front of me.
“Hold!” Gee shouted, throwing his blue-on-blue magics into the air. Shimon’s head rocked back against the gold-plated skull of an enemy with a thonk, like the sound of a war drum struck by an enemy’s skeletal fingers. In a single instant, he bounded to his feet. His jaw ratcheting wide. Six-inch fangs snapped down. The elongated teeth were black as night, the color of obsidian. The tips of his fangs touched his carapace.
The vamps around him readied their weapons for firing, multiple schnicks, bright and dangerous. Eli murmured, “Aim high, vamps only, upper chest. No collateral damage. The humans may not be acting of their own volition.”
Evan whistled a single note. A hedge of thorns snapped up around us, the magical shield glittering and visible, but not strong. It might slow the rounds as they fired. But . . . Shimon didn’t know how weak the hedge was.
“Hold!” Gee shouted again. He looked healed, whole, but Gee DiMercy was magic wrapped in spells and tied up with glamour. He could be missing limbs and I wasn’t sure we’d see that. His magic swirled into the room, a vibrant blue.
Time still in battle phase, two more vamps fell, their weapons clattering to the floor. Molly was laughing softly, whispering, “Yes, yes, yes.”
On Gee’s shoulder stood a lizard, striped and swirled in shades of red and blue and vibrant green. I knew that lizard. Gee had taken him from a vamp I killed. Now it had scarlet wings, had morphed into a miniature lizard-dragon. It leaped. The lizard dove at the woman in purple and took a bite from her ear lobe. Monique jerked, pulled from the fight for a microsecond. Bruiser managed a shaky breath and firmed his stance, but the woman snarled at him and leaned into the battle as blood trickled down her neck.
The lizard whipped around the room and flew back to Gee. It hovered over Gee’s head, scarlet wings moving so fast they were a red smudge in the air. The SOD Two leaned forward. Silent. Watching the lizard and the Onorio battle. He coveted everything he saw. Until another vamp fell. This one landed across Shimon’s arm and slid to the floor.
Shimon said, “Why should I listen to you, Misericord? You and your kind killed my young and stole my Mercy Blade from me.”
“Your long-chained were never coming back. They had raved for a thousand years and it was long past their time.” Gee leaned in, looking taller and more muscular than normal. His skin darker, hair in dozens of braids. “You caged your Mercy Blade and stabbed at her mind.” His voice dropped down into a lower register. “Misericords do not sing for your pleasure.” He pointed at Edmund. “Give him to my queen or suffer another attack by my kind.”
The Flayer snarled, fingers tapping on a femur.
Edmund rolled over and stood. He lifted one foot and took a step toward us. Another. Another.
“Moll, stop,” I said softly. “Please.”
“Yes. Okay. Stopping,” she said, staccato. But I could hear her need, her craving for death’s power in her voice.
Ed stumbled and Gee raced forward. Caught him, the small man leaning into the bloody muscle of Edmund’s abdomen and picking him up. Speaking fast, Gee said, “We are grateful for the act of bounty bestowed upon us by the Flayer of Mithrans.”
A woman dressed in white, standing near Shimon, turned to him and slid her weapon into her clothes. “We are magnanimous. This once,” she said, in the strange intonation Ed had used. I figured she was now interpreting.
Gee turned with his burden and glanced at the hedge, his eyes saying, Let it down. Let’s go. Aloud, the words urgent, he said, “My Queen.”
The hedge didn’t fall. Bruiser was wavering on his feet. Monique Giovanni was equally exhausted, her purple dress sweat-stained, but she was clearly older, more experienced and more powerful. She was going to win. The vamps still standing still had guns. The lizard flew in a flashing, stuttering circle around the room, Shimon’s eyes following. Another vamp fell, this one bleeding from her mouth. The Flayer turned his eyes to his people and, oddly, he looked uncertain, as though he hadn’t realized that his people were falling.
Bug creature has not seen his children fall, Beast thought. Has not seen lizard fly. Has not seen half-form of Beast. Bug creature is confused. Is not used to being confused.
Ahhh, I thought. “Put down your weapons and we’ll leave in peace,” I said, urging his momentary indecision. Shoot us and we’re all dead. Didn’t say that.
The woman at the Flayer’s side began to bleed in a scarlet stripe down her left side. I realized that the flaying of the vamp’s flesh was the result of the Flayer of Mithrans using her brain. He took his title from the act of using his magic. What a peach.
Beast pawed to the front of our minds and peered out at her. Is not fruit. Woman vampire smells ugly. Like smell of sick flashlight. Same as vampires killed in snow at sweathouse.
Bad batteries. Acidic. Yeah. Though I’m not sure what it means or if we can use that.
Shimon, his eyes locked onto Molly’s face, waved a negligent hand. His vampires’ weapons disappeared. Their hands reappeared in front of them and clasped together, like some bizarre sy
nchronized dance of parade rest.
Edmund’s hands twitched too. I wondered if Shimon had left a listening/control bug in Edmund’s brain. Crap.
The Trueblood hedge fell in a showy shower of red sparks. The lizard flashed through the air to Gee’s shoulder and curled his striped tail around the Mercy Blade’s neck. Bruiser staggered.
“Have your people call my people,” I said, somehow pulling off the ironic, mocking tone I was going for. “We’ll do dinner. Parley. Talk politics. Religion. Killing people. The usual.”
Shimon and the bleeding woman laughed together, sounding eerily exact.
Gee carrying Ed, Evan steadying Bruiser with a hand on his arm, Molly breathing hard and fast, we backed out the door and into a blowing, black night, storming with sleet. The city power grid went off, leaving us in total darkness for too many heartbeats. It flickered on and off a few times, and steadied in the on position. Lightning lanced across the sky. The wind and ice cut through my pelt like frozen knives.
Shaddock eased up to my honeybunch and offered his sliced wrist to the drained Onorio. Bruiser took the wrist in shaking hands, pulled the MOC’s wrist to his mouth, and drank. I turned my attention to my partner and listened in.
“Say again,” Eli said into his mic. He cursed, soft, succinct, savage. To me, he said, “Our transport is in a ditch. We’re on our own.”
“How does a transport vehicle end up in a ditch?” I asked, because I knew Eli and Shaddock had planned for all eventualities.
