by Devin Hanson
“You’re behind the apartments being trashed and the murders?” I demanded.
“Stop hiding, Alexandra! Someone had to open the way for a vampire foothold. I learned that Caradoc was looking to rid himself of the pact obligations and saw an opening. The vampires sent one of their, well, agents, to lend a hand.”
“Why me?” I really should stop talking to Raveth. I could only play cat and mouse with him for so long before he guessed right and cornered me, but I had to know.
“It was nothing personal; I didn’t know who you were and had to start somewhere. You and a few others were the only ones actively promoting your business on the internet. I haven’t been able to crack into your laptop yet, but the others weren’t so careful with their information. I’ve almost cleaned out Los Angeles of everyone with the knowledge and ability to resist the vampires when they come.” He laughed heartily. “Do you have any idea how much the vampires are paying me to secure their foothold for them?”
“Don’t you realize how much pain and suffering they will bring with them?” I was horrified. How could anyone willingly work to open a way for the vampires to come to America? And he was killing people like me, people who knew about the djinn and the paranormal, in a preemptive strike. How many had he killed by now? How many were left?
“You should be thanking me, Alexandra. The more people are miserable, the more they turn to their vices to sooth their fear and unhappiness. There’s nothing like anarchy to promote greed! And lust too, I suppose, along with the other vices.”
“You’re a monster!” I cried.
“No,” Raveth said, “I’m lilin. I know what I am and I’ve embraced it. Soon, you will as well. It’s only a matter of time, cousin.”
His flashlight was coming closer. I slipped away, stepping carefully. Then the inevitable happened. I tripped over a gold brick and went sprawling to the ground. I automatically put my hands out in front of me to catch my weight and blinding pain washed over me as my broken hand hit the rock. A cry was wrenched from my lips and I rolled over, cradling my hand against my chest.
I heard Raveth’s boots come running and his flashlight swept over me, stabbing into my pupils. “There you are,” he grinned, showing off the diamonds and glittering gold on his teeth. He stooped down, grabbed my wrist and hauled me to my feet.
I was just happy he hadn’t grabbed my broken hand. I stood in front of him, my shoulders slumped. I couldn’t run from him, not in the state I was in.
“Aren’t you a sorry sight,” Raveth shook his head, but his grin stuck on his face.
“Why don’t you just leave me alone, Raveth?” I groaned.
“I don’t know, I kind of enjoy seeing you all beaten up.” He leered at me and I felt a trickle of lust coming from him.
It made me sick. I could feel him undressing me with his eyes. “You’re an asshole, Raveth.”
“Part of the job description. Now, what am I going to do with you?”
“Let me go?”
“Hah. You’re a funny one. I’m in a bind, here, Alexandra. You have a choice, and I’ll let you make it right here, right now. You accept your mother’s offer and agree to help me in opening the way for the vampires, or I kill you.”
He shoved me backward against the nearest stack and drew a gold-plated revolver from its holster. Gold coins cascaded down around me. The diamonds set into the barrel of his gun caught the light of his flashlight. “Choose, Alexandra!”
I had had the presence of mind to hold my injured hand in the air this time, but the jarring still hurt. I swallowed as I squinted into Raveth’s flashlight. “Can we make a deal?”
“There are no deals to be made. Either you are with me, and we work together toward bringing our mothers into this world, or I kill you.”
I felt the satchel holding the skull pressing into my side and a wild idea occurred to me. “Hey, Raveth, you wonder what happened to Caradoc’s guardian?”
Raveth waggled his gun at me. “We found the chain. I’m assuming Elaida killed whatever it was.”
“Well, that’s not quite right.” I dropped my hand to the satchel and eased the zipper open an inch and slipped a finger inside. I held my broken hand out, shielding my eyes from the flashlight. I felt the rough carvings of the skull under my fingertip. God, I hoped Elaida wasn’t wrong.
“Why? What happened to it?” I could hear the uncertainty in Raveth’s voice, and he turned his head, looking back toward his men.
“Zerachiel, I command you to leave!”
“Zerachiel?!” Raveth’s eyes darted to the pouch at my side and his face blanched. “What have you done?”
“Just evening the playing field.” I kicked out and hit Raveth in the hip. He was looking around, not paying attention to me, and my blow caught him off guard. He staggered, and before he could catch his balance I had rolled to my feet and was off and running through the stacks.
There was a bellowing roar and a rush of air overhead. Wings glimmered in the floodlights as Zerachiel swooped by. It rose up, all but invisible in the blackness. Wings beat the air as the archangel flew toward the gunfire, then it stooped down like a bird of prey. I saw the flash of its silver sword and a man shrieked in agony and terror, then Zerachiel beat its way aloft again with the upper body of a mercenary dangling from one hand, trailing blood and gore.
Laughter, high pitched and insane, echoed through the cavern. A moment later, the laughter was drowned out by a fusillade of automatic rifle fire as the mercenaries opened fire on the archangel. Debris rained down from the ceiling as Zerachiel swooped erratically back and forth, before dropping suddenly. The archangel’s sword rose and fell, and blood splashed in a glittering arc.
There was a bellow from the cul-de-sac and a marid came charging down the slope, heading for the archangel.
“Alexandra!” Raveth howled from behind me. “I will make you pay for this!”
I had slowed down to watch in horrified fascination, and Raveth’s cry snapped me out of my distraction. Time to go. Zerachiel was giving me the diversion I had hoped for; I just had to cross my fingers and pray the archangel wouldn’t see me running and decide to attack me next. I broke from cover and ran uphill toward the cul-de-sac as fast as I could.
Heavily-laden carts stacked with gold bullion were drawn up where the slope leveled off. A mercenary holding a clipboard watched me go running by, too distracted by screams and gunfire from the cavern to care much about me.
“Stop her! Stop that woman!” Raveth screamed.
I reached the entrance chamber. I could hear Raveth’s running boots behind me; he was closing the distance fast. I had maybe ten seconds of lead on him. Ten seconds to somehow figure out how to get back to David’s suite.
I almost gave up. I turned to look over my shoulder as I ran and saw Raveth sprinting up the slope after me. The mercenary with the clipboard was only just now registering what was happening, and was reaching for his rifle.
Then I stepped onto the flat stones of the entry chamber, and abruptly the light quality changed. I snapped my head around and plowed into David’s bed, sprawling headlong into the soft comforter.
I was back! Relief at escaping the hoard cavern was short-lived. Raveth would be only seconds behind me. I rolled off the bed and darted into the living room, slamming the bedroom door behind me. The focus. I had to find the focus.
Where had Ilyena hidden it? I ran for the couches and I heard Raveth scream my name from the bedroom. I stuck my good hand into the gap behind the nearest couch and swept my hand between the cushions, searching for David’s old phone.
It wasn’t there. I heard the bedroom door slam open and Raveth stood in the doorway, panting, his stringy hair in wild disarray from his run.
“Alexandra! You can’t run from me!”
I jumped the couch awkwardly and barked my shin on the coffee table. Raveth started walking toward me, confident that he had me trapped. Where had Ilyena put that God damned focus? I went to the next couch and pushed my hand behind the
back cushions.
“What’s the focus? Where is it hidden?” Raveth demanded. His lips were peeled back in rage, made ridiculous by the jewels on his teeth.
Something cold touched my finger. I looked up and met Raveth’s eyes. I had found the focus, but that meant Raveth would know where it was as well. If I spoke the command word, he would hear me and be able to use it. I didn’t have a choice though.
“Reveni,” I said, and the floor dropped out from under me.
My vision cleared and I saw the familiar walls of the garage around me, with the white paint of the circle beneath my feet. Frederick was sitting in a chair, his hands cuffed behind him.
I took half a step toward him and an enormous hand closed about my shoulder, halting me in my tracks. Before I could twist my shoulder free, an arm the size of my thigh wrapped around my neck and lifted me off the ground. Oh yeah. Raveth had two marid.
I kicked, I bit, I scratched, but nothing I did stopped the marid from slowly, inexorably, cutting off my air. My head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. And then the garage went dark.
Chapter Thirty
Consciousness returned slowly and brought with it a crushing headache. I groaned and tried to move. Pain lanced up my arm from my broken hand and snapped me the rest of the way awake. I was sitting on the floor, my hands restrained behind me. What looked like snow chains were wrapped around my chest and held me tight against one of the upright pillars of the car lifting jacks.
Elaida was tied up a few feet away. Her hands had been immobilized, each digit individually held in place by finger splints, and a gag was in her mouth. The skull sat on a table against the wall, along with the Shroud folded up and stuffed into a quart-sized zip lock bag. The sky visible through the dirty windows was deep blue and streaked with orange from the west. The sun was almost down.
The rest of the wall was lined by a few of the heavy gold carts from the hoard. I turned my head the other way and saw Dimitri wrapped in heavy chains and bound to the other car jack. His face was heavily bruised, and I was pretty sure his jaw had been broken. Frederick was still cuffed to his chair, but I didn’t see Eric anywhere.
“Ah, look who’s finally back with us.”
Raveth walked into the garage, trailed by a squad of his goons. His two marid peeled off and started wheeling two of the carts out of the garage. Even those stout carts were having a difficult time with the weight of bullion on them. Their wheels squeaked and groaned in protest as the marid maneuvered them out of the room.
“What, no smart words?” Raveth laughed and squatted down in front of me. “Damn, but it feels good to be rich. Look at all that gold! Of course,” his laughter dried up and he scowled at me, “I would have come away with twice that if you hadn’t released the archangel. But! Always look at the bright side, right? I’ve got fewer salaries to pay now, thanks to you.”
“You should write greeting cards,” I deadpanned at him. It was reflexive. I couldn’t help it.
“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Raveth bounced up to his feet, back to his expansive good mood. “Plus, I’ve got the skull back, so I should thank you for that. Eric, get in here!”
Eric? I had assumed he had died back in the cavern. I certainly didn’t expect to see him walk into the garage still carrying his rifle. Elaida lifted her head to glare at him, and Eric carefully avoided meeting her eyes.
“There you are,” Raveth grinned. “Come over here! Come on! Tell Alexandra how I captured Elaida Tindoras and the formidable Dimitri Marcel!”
Eric grimaced. “Really?”
Raveth’s grin widened maniacally. “You swore to follow my orders. Now explain!”
“Fine. Fuck the Priory,” he said angrily. “I never wanted to join, but I didn’t have a choice! It was that or go to prison for killing that hinn. That wasn’t even my fault! What was she doing, running through the forest during hunting season?”
“Maybe because she knew there weren’t any licenses being issued for shooting does,” Dimitri rumbled. “Do not try and shift the blame for your actions onto her.”
“You know what, Dimitri? Screw you too. You knew perfectly well I wouldn’t last a year as a prior in Europe. It would be a death sentence for me. I’m no djinn. I can’t fight the vampires.”
“So you joined them instead?” I asked.
“You don’t get to judge me either, little miss fuckdoll,” Eric snapped.
“You wound me, Eric. I would never fuck you.”
“With Raveth’s money, I can get the fuck out of America to somewhere far, far away from here.” Eric’s eyes were wild and he ignored me as he continued to shout. “So, yes. I told Raveth we were staging from the wrecking yard. I knocked out Elaida in the hoard so Raveth could capture her. I tranquilized Dimitri and held a gun on him so the other marid could bind him. I did! Is that what you wanted to hear, Raveth?”
Raveth clapped his hands delightedly. “Perfect! I’m so glad you’re getting on so well. But enough chit-chat. Eric, run outside and see if the servitor has arrived.”
Elaida snarled something unintelligible and strained at her bonds. Eric froze, and I could see the impulse to refuse on his lips. But he had given his promise. Receiving payment was contingent on following Raveth’s orders. His greed and his desire to escape the Priory had him pinned.
“You brought a servitor here?” Dimitri asked in disbelief.
“Well, I can hardly afford to have a few dozen people assassinated. Even I don’t have the liquid cash for that! Much easier for the vampires to provide their own assassin, don’t you think?”
There was a crunch from outside and a car alarm burst into frantic reproach. The door slammed open and the two marid hurried inside, along with the remainder of Raveth’s mercenaries. They ran across the room and only stopped once they had put Raveth between themselves and the door.
“What’s a servitor?” I asked. I could feel the fear coming off the mercenaries, and it set my own pulse to pounding.
“Looks like it’s here, Eric. You lucked out!” Raveth chuckled. He seemed unaware that all his men and the two marid were hiding behind him.
I tugged at my bindings and heard the clink of handcuffs. Raveth wasn’t going to risk me breaking out of plastic ties this time. Even if my hand wasn’t broken, I wasn’t going anywhere. I could hear the heavy clack of talons on concrete approaching, then sniffing at the door.
I opened my mouth to repeat my question and something slammed into the steel door. Elaida thrashed at her bonds and Dimitri strained against the chains holding him, his muscles bulging and veins standing out on his forehead. The car lift he was bound to creaked and the concrete around the base of the pillar crazed as the anchor bolts started to rip free.
Eric racked the action on his rifle and raised it to focus on Dimitri’s head. “Settle down, big guy,” he ordered nastily. “I’ll put a round in between your eyes just to watch the blood spray.”
“You will never get away with this,” Dimitri growled, but he stopped fighting against the chains. “The Priory will find you.”
The door creaked as something pushed against it, bowing in the center.
“Find what?” Eric laughed. “I died in the hoard. Nobody from the Priory will even attempt to verify it.”
With a crash, the door smashed open, hanging drunkenly from only the bottom hinge and flopping back against the wall. Something huge and dark was in the hallway outside.
“Ah, the servitor!” Raveth threw his arms wide, welcoming it. “Perfect timing.”
The servitor squeezed in through the door. It had roughly the same form and bulk as a silverback gorilla, but that’s where the similarities ended. Its long forearms ended in a pair of heavy talons and had vestigial traces of wings, webbing that hung in folds between its arm joints. Its head was huge, with articulating ears the size of satellite dishes that stood out from its head. Beyond the bunching muscles of its upper body, the rear legs were folded back with the joints g
oing the wrong way, and ended in widely splayed, long toes, tipped with claws. Its body was covered in patches of matted hair and it brought with it the sickly stench of rot.
It opened its mouth and screeched, its large ears twisting around independently. Its mouth was full of needle-like teeth, and its jaw unhinged horribly wide. It sniffed the air and focused on Dimitri, prowling closer. Besides the clack of its front talons on the concrete, it was surprisingly quiet.
This was what had been killing people. I knew it before I saw the caked blood on its front talons and smelled the sewer reek of rent intestines in its fur. This thing had the strength to rip someone limb from limb. All it needed was for someone to disrupt the threshold of its victims.
“How does it feel?” Raveth asked, walking up to stand next to the creature and grinning down at Dimitri. “Knowing you will die and being powerless to stop it?”
Dimitri met the beady black eyes of the servitor and strained at the chains. “You are a coward, Raveth,” he growled.
The servitor opened its mouth and a long tongue snaked out and licked up the side of Dimitri’s face. Dimitri pulled back as far as he could, but I saw no fear in his eyes, just controlled fury.
Then, as the servitor was gathering itself to strike, my phone alarm went off. The happy jingle coming from my pocket made every head in the room turn toward me, even the servitor. I gulped as the beady eyes narrowed at me. I couldn’t reach my pocket to turn the alarm off.
“What’s the alarm for, Alexandra?” Raveth demanded. He stalked over to me and tried to get my phone out.
There was a bit of slapstick as Raveth struggled to get the phone out of my tight jeans, but the way I was sitting and the tire chains wrapped around me made it all but impossible. He finally managed to pull the phone free and silence the alarm.
“What happens at 6pm?” he demanded.
“Time for my cookies to come out of the oven,” I deadpanned.
Raveth threw the phone back in my lap. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be dead in a few minutes. Now, where were we?” He turned to the servitor and pointed at Dimitri. “That’s the first one. Afterward, you can—”
