“He’s my brother,” Ely said, pulling Callum away from the wall and from Lena. “Callum, come on.”
He didn’t seem to want to move. Ely gave him a shove in Tess’s direction and she caught him around the waist. Ely nodded to her and whirled to face Lena, who was only just starting to recover.
Even disarmed and bleeding as she was, Ely wasn’t fooling herself. Lena was powerful. This was not a fight Ely could win, but she didn’t have to. She only had to hold the woman off until Tess and Callum were clear. She could remember the layout of the house. If she could give them two minutes…
The flickering lantern stood out in her peripheral vision. Ely manifested her wings.
Lena cracked her neck to the side, the look on her face very somber. As she lunged forward, Ely gave a great flap of both wings, one geared downward. The candle hissed out and plunged the room into darkness.
The world was a blur as Tess pulled him into the light. The smell of blood was thick on the air and he felt nauseated for a dozen other reasons. He clung to her arm, because he knew if he let Tess go right now he was going to fall.
“Come on,” she said. “A little farther.”
“Did,” he started and his chest heaved. He took a moment to catch his breath. “Did we leave Ely back there?”
“Ely is more than capable of taking care of herself,” Tess said. “Come on.”
“Tess,” he said. She looked at him. The concern on her face was sharp and immediate. Callum touched her cheek with his fingertips. “I think your demon got out…”
Her response was half a laugh and half a sob.
“I know,” she said. “Come on, we can wait for Ely at the gate. Have you ever ridden on the back of a bike before?”
“Hell no,” Callum said, softly. “I always drive.”
“You’d crash right now,” she said.
He gave her his best frown. She smiled softly and pinched him.
“Come on,” she said. “I’m not sure you could hold on let alone steer.”
There was something very deep and wounded in her eyes. For just right now, he decided not to press the issue and got on the back of the bike.
“Joey,” Zenith said. She was leaning on the wall on the inside of the wine cellar and watching him. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Her voice told him she knew the reason why. When Danny emerged into the cellar behind him her eyes shifted to him.
“What have you been doing in the catacombs, Zen?” Joey asked.
“They’re convenient for moving my wares,” she said. “I could be asking you the same thing.”
“That concubus,” Joey said. “You do know her, don’t you?”
Zenith drew a pack of cigarettes out of her cleavage, worked one out and offered him one. He shook his head. Danny did the same. For once, Joey didn’t offer her a light.
“My daughter,” she said. “I had sincerely hoped it wasn’t her.”
He searched her face, but she wasn’t meeting his eyes. There were always people you didn’t want your kids getting mixed up in hurting. His family was one of those for her. He understood that.
“My son is alive,” Joey said. “Your daughter knew. Do you know what she’s been doing in the catacombs?”
“It wasn’t supposed to go this far,” Zenith said. “The idea was that she could take out a large portion of Gate Street and some of the aristocracy all at once. They were never supposed to go after Callum.”
“So why did she?” Joey asked.
“She didn’t,” Zenith said, softly. “She was the reason he lived. They’re trying to call down something big and nasty, one that takes a lot of sacrifices. She thought the Gate Street players would be numerous enough, expendable enough. She gave them the daggers. It was one of them that made the call, but he was never the afrite they were supposed to be going after.”
“So what are we gonna do about all this?” Joey asked. He kept his face schooled to a careful blank, showing her nothing. He’d always thought he’d had ears to the ground. The fact that this could all happen under his nose…
“It’s too late to stop her,” Zenith said.
“Well, then, clearly you don’t know me well enough,” Joey said. He started for the door behind her, the one that led out into the bar area of the Ninth Gate. Above them, he could hear the sounds of revelry.
“Joey,” she said, turning her head. She didn’t turn her body. He hesitated almost shoulder to shoulder. “Please don’t hurt her.”
“I suppose that’s up to her,” he said, and cleared the door. He could hear Danny’s voice behind him as he left, low and comforting, but he was too far by then to know what his brother said.
It didn’t matter. It mattered that he was doing it in the first place. He was glad Danny had it in him, still, to think of others.
Right now, Joey just needed to get home and rally the family.
Ely darted to the side as a plume of hellfire erupted, bathing the room in scarlet for just a moment. Ely shot back with a tendril of silver seraph’s flame. Their blows were solid impacts, arm against arm against flank against cheek, and the fight was illuminated in brief flashes between.
Lena was fighting one armed. It took both of Ely’s just to block her blows.
“Are you sure you’re even really his daughter, nephil?” Lena asked. Ely didn’t respond. She was her father’s daughter. She was an aberration and a disappointment to both of her parents, but she belonged to both of them.
She cut through the blow in her mind.
“Yes,” Ely said. “Joey Trezza raised me. If I went to him now he would know my face and welcome me into his arms. Can you say the same?”
The next blow came hard with a plume of hellfire and Ely could see the fury on Lena’s face until it flicked back out. There it was. The exposed nerve.
“No,” Ely said, taking a step back. “I didn’t think you could. You’re an unknown bastard and now that you’ve hurt his son that’s all you’ll ever be to him.”
“I kept him alive!” Lena roared. Ely darted back and the next blow made a rough clanging sound against the metal of the crate she’d been hiding behind previously. Ely’s steps were soft as she started to move around Lena. The sounds of blows being thrown were clear on the air. “They nearly killed him and I was the one with the magic to heal him! I was the one with the potion to make him look as if he’d died! I kept him safe! You didn’t even know he was hurt!”
There was another plume of fire, but by then Ely had crept around to the back of Lena. She started to whip around. Ely drove the heel of her foot into the back of Lena’s knee.
There was no point in stealth, now. She ran like her life depended on it, emerging from the Cassander’s cellar like a bat out of hell. Through the kitchen, to the right, out the front doors.
The midday sunlight was too bright. She could see Tess and Callum at the end of the little brick road that led out to the gate. She could hear Lena scrambling behind her.
Ely didn’t stop.
“Go,” she called. “Go I’ll catch up.”
Tess didn’t need to be told twice. Good woman.
There was a moment Ely considered leaving the bike and continuing to run, but that was an animal’s instinct and not a solid plan. It cost her a moment. It took everything she had to stop, pick the bicycle up and mount it. Behind her, Lena was gaining.
Ely started peddling. A clawed hand grabbed her hair and Ely did not stop peddling as a chunk of it was ripped out by the roots.
She veered left where Tess had gone right. Lena would have to choose which of them to follow and Ely would have to trust that Tess was fast and clever enough to lose her. She would have to hope the same for herself.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Homecoming
“On the off chance you haven’t already heard about this, a runaway rhakshasi turned the mayoral manor into a blood bath today as, presumably, someone in the Cassander family lost control of her.
It’s…honestly massively breakin
g news, folks. A very big deal. And I’m sorry but…I think I’m going to have to fail you as a reporter tonight and go back over that caramel recipe my assistant left in my desk again…
You…you all know how much I hate reporting on celebrity gossip after all…and…
Nevermind. You’re all just going to have to get on without me tonight. I’m sorry.”
Callum’s head was starting to clear as Tess pulled into the gate and helped him off of the bicycle. She left it leaning on the interior wall and he only had to lean on her a little as they moved for the house.
Joey Trezza stood on the front porch, his arms folded. Callum couldn’t look away from the severity of that frown. He disentangled himself from Tess, giving her arm an appreciative squeeze before he moved to climb the steps and face his father.
For a moment they stood, a foot of air and tension hanging between them as Callum did his best to straighten.
Joey reached out and pulled Callum into a tight hug. Callum folded around him, and tried to convince himself that he was shaking from exhaustion and not tears.
“Why would you do that, knucklehead?” Joey asked, softly.
“It seemed like there were reasons at the time,” Callum breathed, face buried in his father’s shoulder.
“I assume there’s a lot to this story,” Joey said. Callum pulled back to look him in the eye, swiping tears with the back of his hand, unable to keep how unsettled he was off of his face. In this instance, he didn’t even want to.
“There was a witch involved,” Callum said. “She claimed she was your daughter.”
“Well that’s…news to me,” Joey said, brow furrowing.
“I’m not sure if I should believe her, but…” He paused. “Can we go inside? Sit down and talk about this? And…can Tess come? Her house is kind of on fire right now.”
“What—” Joey sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, come in.”
He ushered the pair of them through the door. Tess said nothing. They swung a left into the sitting room and she curled up in the window sill and looked outside while Callum dropped into one of the arm chairs by the hearth. The sound of pounding paws raced across the floor and a moment later Ashes was in his lap and licking his face. He didn’t have the energy to razzle her, but he wrapped his arms around her soot-colored body and scratched behind her ears.
“I did get stabbed,” Callum said. “I’m not sure how she kept me from dying.”
“Okay, before we get into all that,” Joey said. “Are there any pressing issues that we should probably handle before story time?”
“The rhakshasi got loose,” Tess said from the window. She sounded far away. “It looks like the Hellwatch is handling it.”
“And this…witch?” Joey asked.
“Ely picked a fight with her to give us time to get out of the house,” Callum said. “She got out too, took a different route away. I’m not sure where she went but I know it wasn’t here. The witch followed us and Tess lost her somewhere in the side streets.”
“So there is potentially still a witch after you right now,” Joey said, a hard note creeping into his voice.
“…yes.”
“Danny!” Joey bellowed. Heavy steps came down the stairs and Danny ducked as he came into the sitting room with his arms folded. He glanced at Callum, and a moment of eye contact said more than words could have. Danny was glad he was home.
“Someone hurt?” he asked.
“Well, probably, but not the most pressing issue right now,” Joey said. “There could be a witch coming here. I’m not entirely sure what she’s capable of but…get some guys on it.”
Danny gave him a mock salute and ducked back out of the doorway.
“She’s part concubus,” Callum called after him. “A quarter, I think? Send women.”
After a beat, he added.
“Straight women.”
“Is there anything else I should know before we go on?” Joey asked.
“Not unless you want to send someone after Ely, but if I know her—and I do—they aren’t going to find her until she wants found,” Callum said.
“Unfortunately you’re probably right,” Joey said.
“She’s safe,” Callum said. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince his father or himself.
“Well. I guess all that’s left is to start from the beginning,” Joey said. So Callum did.
The silence stretched as he finished his recounting. There was nothing to do but wait for Joey to say something, or ask something. Tess’s knuckles had turned white as she clutched her knee and pointedly did not look at either of them.
Callum could see, in her reflection in the glass, that she was crying. He had the good grace not to say anything about it.
“Well,” Joey said, finally. “I think the smartest thing to do right now is wait, then. What do you think?”
“I think you’re probably right,” Callum said, softly. “Mom’s out there fighting that thing, isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Joey said. He ran a hand through his hair.
“I’ll need to fill her in on all this too when she gets back,” he said, putting an unintentional emphasis on ‘when’. “Dad?”
“Yeah?” Joey asked.
“Is she…? Lena I mean? Could she actually be yours? She had the afrite blood,” Callum said. The words came out awkwardly slow, like he almost didn’t want to ask them. There was a small stretch of silence before Joey answered.
“She could be,” he said.
“What…do we do about that?” Callum asked.
“Cross that bridge when we come to it,” Joey said, sighing.
Callum nodded. If that was all he was willing to say about the matter, he was not about to push the issue.
Ophelia got home just as the sun was starting to dip and paint the sky bloody. There were claw marks along her side, scoring the metal of her breast plate, but it had done its job and she didn’t appear to be injured.
She dropped into an empty chair and leaned her massive claymore against the side of it before her eyes fell on Callum. He didn’t make her stand again. He went to her, arms going around her shoulders.
When she pulled him into her lap like a child, Callum didn’t stop her. He owed her this. She held him tightly, stroked his hair and this time he was not the only one who cried.
Joey called Samael down and Callum went over the story again. This time, Sam broke in in places to add things, and when he started, so did Tess.
“We never had time to talk about this, before,” Tess said, “but I was researching. I…actually think I know what they’re trying to call down.”
“Well, you have the floor,” Joey said.
Tess took it literally and stood, coming into the center of the room. She paced as she spoke, not looking anyone in the eye.
“It was that door Ely has the drawing of that made me realize,” she said. “The names of greater entities are never invoked save partially. It’s okay to draw power from them, but never to summon them outright. Doing so requires great sacrifice and great risk. The lettering in the glyphs was like that. The one on the dagger, too. But there was something off about it.”
Tess dipped to the carpet and drew a shape with her finger.
“This is the glyph for siphoning. But if you turn it upside down it sends power the other way. A sacrificial knife. That’s how those are meant to work. It’s a long term summoning. But a greater demon or even a greater angel wouldn’t require so many and none of the other letters were attuned to either plane.”
She looked up. Ophelia seemed to have started to realize what Tess was about to say before she actually said it, and the look of realization on her face was not a good one.
“I think they’re trying to call an ancient.”
“That sounds like bad news,” Joey said. “That’s bad news, right?”
“Potentially apocalyptic news,” Ophelia said. Her throat sounded dry.
“You hear the Church of the Veil preaching a lot about Iaric Kernaghan, but an anci
ent is the closest entity to a god that we have concrete evidence exists,” Tess said. She sounded a long way off, like she was repeating something she’d studied for long hours. “They are to angels what angels are to us.”
“So what do we do about that?” Joey asked.
“We find out where they’re planning the final pull and stop them,” Callum said. “We all have pieces, people who were involved. We need to put them together. Trace it back to the top. There are shiners and aristocracy alike involved in this. There’s one thing I’m really sure of, and that’s that Lena knows.”
There was a box waiting on Barghest’s desk when he got back to the office. His chest rose and fell, belabored from the fight. His body and bones stung and ached in equal measure from being thrown around and cut and burned.
He’d gotten his protege back today. They’d defeated a rhakshasi. The streets of Daelan City had become a blood bath and he had already been through the worst the day could have offered, and yet one unmarked package sitting on his desk instead of in his mailbox made his stomach drop.
He eased into his chair and picked up a letter opener from his desk. The tape along the seam of the box split easily. The first thing he noticed inside was the color orange. Soft fire. Spun dawn.
The lock of hair was tied around a severed, freckled finger.
It took him a moment to reconcile what was in front of him with what it meant. There was a moment where his mind simply couldn’t grasp it, and then it began to set in in the form of a mounting rage.
There was a folded note beneath the digit, stained slightly in her blood. He didn’t want to reach into the box. Even as he thought it, his hand slipped inside to retrieve the note. The lock of Augury’s hair brushed it and something inside him shuddered.
‘Hellhound,
She lives. Afriteborn cambion are a dime a dozen. We will leave her alive if you stop intervening. Continue to act against us and bigger pieces will follow.’
There was no signature, only the drawing of a familiar glyph at the bottom of the page. The same one Augury had revealed to him in hellfire.
Torchlighters Page 34
