Cauldron

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Almost there,” I muttered. I’d grown used to Ben’s magic, and I felt it covering us like an invisible blanket, deflecting notice and encouraging the few people who were around to busy themselves elsewhere. We just needed to get to the middle of the large cauldron, when I could say the last of the incantation and cast the chalice into the fires.

  Of course, it couldn’t be that simple.

  Between one blink and another, Rasputin appeared, standing on the catwalk to block me from the cauldron.

  “What are you?” He fixed me with a glare that might have glamoured a regular mortal, but I knew that neither Ben nor I could be captured by his vampire abilities.

  “The servant of Svarog, and the champion of Krukis.”

  For an instant, I saw surprise in Rasputin’s features before his lips twisted into a sneer. “Svarog has no power here! The flames belong to Veles.”

  For yet another time tonight, I prayed to Krukis and felt a shimmer over my skin. His magic didn’t turn me into a tin man. My skin remained as supple as ever, with only a faint metallic sheen, but it became my armor and made me much harder to kill. With one exception.

  Fire.

  “Give me the chalice, and you and your friend can leave here alive,” Rasputin said, holding out his hand for his treasure.

  “Go to hell.”

  “I’ve been, and I won’t go back.” He lunged at me with vampire speed and strength. As solid as I was when I was mortal, that would have been enough to knock me over the railing and into the cauldron without my new strength. As it was, Rasputin only managed to push me a foot back down the catwalk. I shoved him in return, a push that should have sent an ordinary man tumbling, and felt as if I’d hit a stone wall.

  I sincerely hoped Ben got the fuck out of the way because it was going to get brutal.

  “Give me the chalice!” Rasputin repeated, and this time he tore at my jacket, where the tell-tale bulge revealed my prize. “I did not come this far to lose!”

  I swung at him, but his reflexes were faster, and he dodged out of the way, still managing to ram me with his shoulder, and I stumbled. I grabbed for him and held on. We fell to the catwalk, and it shuddered with the impact. When I went full metal, I wasn’t exactly light. Rasputin was as scrawny as he’d been before being turned, but now he was all vamp power, regardless of his skinny build.

  We rolled on the narrow catwalk, high above nine-thousand-degree steel. I tried to pin the vampire, and he tried to use his speed to twist out of my grip. The chalice dug into my skin as we tussled, and would have broken my ribs without my metal “armor.” Rasputin abruptly changed his tactics and went for my throat, fangs bared. I chuckled when he found himself with a mouthful of metal, and I used his surprise to flip him again.

  “I’m not leaving without the chalice!” His breath smelled of old blood and rot. Fire and madness glinted in his eyes. He might not have been entirely sane as a mortal, but turning vamp hadn’t helped.

  This time, when he tore at my clothing with his sharp nails and clawed hands, he managed to rip at the fabric beneath the leather as he scrabbled for the chalice. I figured Ben was somewhere working his magic to keep us from being disturbed, but even he could only do so much and sooner or later, someone would notice the fight to the death up on the catwalk. I needed to finish this fast before bystanders got hurt—or worse, were used as hostages.

  If the legends were true, the one who possessed the chalice held the upper hand in battle. I wasn’t about to turn over that advantage to a damn vamp. I brought my knee up, hard, gambling that vampire nuts were just as sensitive as ever, and put my whole weight into it. From the way his eyes bugged out, I’d guessed right.

  The chalice began to slip from where I’d secured it, and I needed to cast it into the cauldron, not lose it to the shop floor below. I pulled it from inside my coat, gripping it with all my strength, hard enough that I felt the metal give a bit beneath my fingers.

  Rasputin surged beneath me, knocking me to one side, and his bony fingers tried to tear the chalice from my hand. I head-butted him, and he scored scratches in my metal skin with his vampire-strong fingers. We might tear each other apart before either of us emerged victorious.

  I couldn’t let him get the chalice. The world’s future depended on me—me—to prevent another Great War and millions of deaths. Rasputin wanted the goblet for glory and power. His victory required him to leave here with his prize. Mine, technically, did not.

  Maybe that was Krukis’s test, to see whether I’d throw myself into the cauldron with the chalice, into one of the only forces that could destroy me. If so, passing his challenge meant he’d need to find a new champion, but it wouldn’t be my problem anymore. I thought about all the friends who’d passed on before me, and the people like Ben and Grace, Colin and Aislin, and even West, who I’d leave behind. I didn’t want to leave, but if it meant sparing the world another Great War, my loss would be a cheap price to pay.

  Rasputin’s grasp faltered, just for a second, just enough. I tore loose and sprang for the railing with the chalice in hand, a prayer to Krukis on my lips. I recited the last of the spell, staring at the fiery liquid where I would meet my end. As I reached the rail, Rasputin threw himself at me, grabbing for the chalice. He gripped the relic with all his vampire strength, and we began to tumble over the railing.

  Just as my feet left the steel catwalk, I felt a force around me and heard Ben’s voice above the din of the mill.

  “Let go!”

  Trusting fate—and Ben—I released the chalice. Rasputin clutched it against his chest in the second before gravity took over. Before he could grab for the rail, I punched him with all my might, sending him flying, and as he fell backward, I glimpsed realization in his eyes.

  I hung, suspended in mid-air when I should have fallen to my death. Ben’s magic dropped me back on the catwalk, hard enough to jolt the breath from my lungs, but so much better than the alternative.

  I forced myself not to look away as Rasputin and the chalice plunged into the molten steel. Vampire or not, that heat would destroy him. Long ago, I’d seen a man fall into a cauldron, and he’d been burned to nothing almost before the metal finished closing over his body. They’d found no trace of him in the steel, not even bone or teeth. Superstition demanded setting aside the castings made from such a tainted pour, but cold greed overruled, and somewhere, a building held the last traces of that unfortunate worker.

  Just like someday soon, the only remainders of the great Rasputin and the Chalice of St. Theodore the Black would be locked for eternity into the rails beneath a locomotive, or the I-beams in a skyscraper.

  “Come on!” Ben urged, rousing me from where I stood, rooted in shock. We ran down the catwalk, slowing only when we got to the stairs. I didn’t know how much longer Ben’s magic could shield us; he’d been using a lot of energy, and I knew he couldn’t keep it up forever. I guessed some of his ability to deflect attention was slipping when we drew notice hurrying toward the door.

  “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” a floor supervisor yelled after us. We bulled our way past the few men who tried to stop us and burst from the door. Ben’s magic locked it behind us, stopping our pursuers.

  And trapping us with nowhere to go, in the middle of a war between vampires, mobsters, and werewolves.

  “What the ever loving fuck is going on?” I took in the battle that raged across the parking lot, amazed that the local cops hadn’t also gotten involved as well. Hell, call in the Army. The vamps and wolves went at it hand-to-hand, while the Mob guards, West, and Grace fired round after round to protect where they were pinned down behind the cars.

  “I guess we need to break this party up,” I said. With my metal skin, no regular bullets could hurt me, and Ben’s magic, done right, would protect him. Two of us against more than twenty vamps and wolves wasn’t the odds I preferred, but someone had to do something.

  Just before we strode into the middle of the fight, four black Cadillacs pulled up, su
rrounding the battle. Someone reached out of the first car’s passenger window and fired a Tommy gun into the air.

  That got everyone’s attention. To my surprise, when the rear door of the lead car opened, Vincent Lavecchia stepped out. He looked every inch the Mob boss—or powerful businessman—in a black mohair coat over his custom suit.

  “Do I have your attention?” he called out in a raspy voice that suggested cigars and hard liquor. “Because I can have them shoot a little more if you’re not listening.” The silence that greeted him answered the question.

  “This fighting, it’s going to stop. Right now, it stops. I’m declaring a truce—between my people, the wolves, and the vampires. And you’re going to accept the truce, because if you don’t, I’m declaring war. If that happens, my boys will go hunting—loaded with silver.”

  I looked around, and at least a dozen burly men had gotten out of the cars, holding machine guns at their sides. I looked back and forth between the two sides, holding my breath. If the vamps and wolves didn’t take the truce, this was going to be a bloodbath. They were fast, but a machine gun was faster.

  I spotted Flint among the vampires. Two of their group conferred with a third, a tall, skinny man I guessed must be the leader, Stan. On the weres’ side, I was glad not to see anyone else I recognized, but I had no problem picking out the Alpha, a tall, strongly built man talking with his advisors.

  “Take your time,” Vincent Lavecchia called out sarcastically. “We’ve got plenty before the cops arrive.”

  Stan stepped forward, glowering at the Alpha wolf, who also moved away from his followers. They stared at each other for a tense moment, then nodded, almost in unison.

  “All right,” Stan, the vampire, said. “We accept the truce—as long as they keep the bargain,” he added, stabbing a finger toward the Alpha.

  “And we accept, as long as the vamps play by the rules,” the Alpha snarled.

  “Neither of you is in a position to bargain,” Lavecchia pointed out. “Remember that. Now get out of here, and understand—I’ll be watching. Nothing happens in this city that I don’t know about. Nothing.”

  The werewolves slunk away toward the shadows on the right, and the vamps vanished in a heartbeat, leaving Ben and me out in the open, West and Grace rising from behind Ben’s car, and the Lavecchia boss and his goons in a quiet, darkened parking lot.

  Before Vincent could say anything, another car pulled up, moving slowly as if to signal that it meant no harm. The black Maybach Zeppelin was long and sleek and on a normal night would have looked totally out of place in a steel mill parking lot. But tonight, between Vincent Lavecchia’s Cadillacs, Ben’s black LaSalle coupe, and Steven in the Duesenberg, we had a snazzy car rally going.

  The Mob goons turned toward the newcomer. They didn’t raise their guns, but no one could miss the weapons in the glare of the headlights.

  The driver leaned out of his open window. “Don’t shoot! It’s the Countess—and her guest.”

  Vincent Lavecchia didn’t look won over, and his goons didn’t move, but they didn’t start shooting, either—which I took as a good sign.

  “He’s coming out—unarmed,” the driver shouted. “He wants to talk with the witch.”

  West cut a look at Ben, who shrugged. I stayed beside Ben and kept my metal skin since I had no idea what was going on, or who was in that car.

  “It’s Countess Demidov’s Maybach,” Grace said from where she stood next to West. “It’s the only one in Cleveland.”

  Even the Mob goons gasped when Tsar Nicholas II climbed out of the back of the Maybach. He wore a uniform I recognized from the newspaper pictures, and he stood ramrod straight, carrying himself like a military man—and an emperor.

  When he stopped in the glow of a streetlight, I caught my breath. Whatever magic Rasputin had worked to bring the Tsar back from the dead was failing. Nicholas’s face was mottled with dark spots, his eyes had the sunken look of a corpse, and even at a distance, the smell of rot was unmistakable.

  “Please,” he called out in a voice like a death rattle. “I need the Italian witch. I followed the magic here. I beg of you—set me free.”

  A man like Nicholas didn’t beg. But even across the distance, I glimpsed raw pain in his eyes. Ben exchanged a glance with his father, who gave a curt nod. Ben started forward, and I kept pace right beside him, not bothering to glance at the older Lavecchia for permission. If this went sour, I could get between Ben and bullets faster than anyone else.

  We stopped a few paces from Nicholas. Close up, I could see where decomposition had set in, bloating his slender body, turning his skin a sickly green.

  “I never asked to be brought back,” Nicholas said, and I wondered if the scratchy voice was normal, or a side effect of rotting vocal cords. “He forced me to return,” the Tsar added, contempt clear in his expression. “Like a trick pony. Pozhaluysta. Please. Let me return where I belong, to rest in peace with my family.”

  “I’m not a necromancer,” Ben said. He closed his eyes and held up one hand, and I felt Ben’s magic probe tentatively at the dead Tsar. In my mind’s eye, I saw Nicholas’s aura like an oily residue, and I could feel the taint of the dark god Veles’s touch behind what remained of Rasputin’s power. That’s when I knew I’d be asking Krukis for another favor, but after the fight on the catwalk, I figured the god owed me.

  “If we work together, I think we can break what’s left of the magic that bound him,” I said quietly. Ben nodded. I placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder, and while he and I hadn’t worked together quite like this before, I knew instinctively to “think” my power toward him, directing it to twine with his.

  I didn’t know what to ask Krukis for exactly, so I just sent, Help me. He was a god. He could figure it out.

  Ben murmured something that sounded like Latin. Nicholas’s whole body began to tremble. His skin drew up tight on his bones like a mummy, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. In the next instant, the Tsar crumpled to the ground as his body and uniform turned to dust. I moved my hand from Ben’s shoulder and felt the connection with his magic sever like a shock that ran the length of my arm.

  Before I could debate what to do with the ashes of the dead Tsar, a brisk, all-too-convenient wind scattered them into the night.

  Which left us staring back at a small army of mobsters.

  I knew the relationship between Ben and his father wasn’t warm and fuzzy. After all, Vincent Lavecchia was a Mob boss, and Ben had defied his wishes to leave the family business. Now, completely outgunned in a dark parking lot, I hoped that this wasn’t going to go horribly wrong.

  Ben left my side with a glance that warned me not to follow. I stayed where I was as Ben approached his father. A few paces away, he inclined his head and made a shallow bow, like a prince before a king. Vincent placed his hand on Ben’s head, and the large gems in the gold settings of his rings gleamed in the streetlight’s glow.

  “Thank you,” Ben said. I could see what it cost him in the tight lines of his body and the stiff way his hands fought clenching into fists. Then again, Vincent Lavecchia had saved our asses. Maybe Ben and I could have taken the vamps and weres, but then again, maybe not. I’m glad we didn’t have to find out the hard way.

  “You’re my son,” Vincent replied as if tonight was unremarkable. “Bad business with the Tsar.”

  “You knew?” Ben asked, with a stunned expression.

  Vincent shrugged. “I know many things.” He looked beyond Ben to where West and Grace had come to stand next to me. “Not exactly the friends I’d choose,” he said, fixing his gaze on West in particular. “Still, you got the job done.” He clapped Ben on the shoulder, and then turned, walking with great dignity back to the Cadillac, where his driver hurried to hold the door for him. Ben remained where he was, looking after the Mob fleet until only the tail lights were visible.

  Sirens sounded, growing closer. I suspected that Ben had done something to keep the factory guards from noticing us, but after a
ll we’d done tonight, I doubted he could hold off the entire Cleveland police department, and from the number of wailing klaxons, that’s exactly what it sounded like was closing in on us.

  “Go,” West said, taking charge. “I’ll deal with the flatfoots. They can’t touch me. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Ben nodded, then walked to where his goons waited, got into his car, and drove off.

  Exhaustion had begun to set in as the adrenaline from the fight crashed. I let my metal skin disappear and felt even more tired without its magic boost. When I stumbled, Grace rushed to get under my shoulder, slipping her arm around my waist.

  “Come on,” she said, patting me on the back. “Steven will drive you home. I don’t know what happened in there, but I think you two just saved the world—with a little help,” she added, grinning.

  I’m not ashamed to say I fell asleep on the drive back.

  Epilogue

  “Well, that could have gone worse.” Jack West sat back in his seat at the blind tiger, in the corner booth I’d started to think of as belonging to the three of us.

  Grace Harringworth sat beside him, glamorous as ever in a beaded flapper dress. She took a drag from her long jade cigarette holder, with a grin that said she thought the whole thing had been a grand adventure.

  “The museum got big headlines over the mysterious disappearance of the chalice. I’ve heard it was international art thieves,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper, eyes alight. “They announced they were bumping up security—and donors are flocking in to help.” She took another inhale and let out the smoke in a long stream. “I’m quite sure they’ll come out ahead.”

  I watched Ben Lavecchia at the bar. He had greeted us as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, though I caught his glances in our direction. We’d saved the world from another Great War two nights ago, and no one knew except the four of us. I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of, but this I could feel good about—even if nobody else would ever know.