“You’re not the one paying it, asshole,” I snapped. “She is, and all the others like her you’ve already killed and will kill or hurt if you’re successful. And over what? Some imaginary sickness?”
“It is not imaginary, Strigoi.” He said the name of my race like a title, with respect. “Humanity itself cultivates this sickness. Their minds and their eyes are closed, both inside and out. Willingly.” Lan stepped carefully out of the circle, gesturing broadly at the city. His shattered arm seemed more or less intact now, but both limbs moved stiffly and awkwardly, and his right eye was still completely destroyed. “Ignorance and stupidity are embraced and fostered; they grow rampant like an epidemic. People turn their back on the mind and the soul, ostracize and ridicule those who do not. Humanity is leading itself down a one-way trip to oblivion, and it must be reversed with a shock of undeniable truth.”
“And you honestly think this shitty ritual is going to do that?” I scoffed. “Please.”
“An avalanche begins with a single stone,” Lan replied. I rolled my eyes. “And this will be…a very large stone.” He smiled a thin smile, his cracked gray eyes worn, jaded, and humorless. “If the people will not open their eyes, I will open them by force.”
“Over my dead body,” I said, matching his smile with an unyielding one of my own. I hefted the long, thick piece of rebar I’d been carrying in my other hand, tapping one end on the packed dirt near the silver circle. “Last chance before I pry up that ring and force it down your throat.”
Lan tilted his head, seeming surprised, or curious. Or maybe disappointed. “Would you actually let me go if I surrendered now? After all I have done?”
“No,” I rumbled, my anger rising. “I’d bury you without you having murdered an innocent girl.”
“Ah,” he smiled again. “That’s more what I expected.”
The Jiangshi darted toward me without warning, and the fight was on.
I leapt back, making certain to leave plenty of room between my heels and the edge of the water, and planted my feet. My first, powerful swing of the rebar clipped Lan in his injured shoulder, and he winced as the blow nearly knocked him down. While he staggered, I whipped the long metal pole completely around and into Lan’s knees, taking his legs out from under him. The agile vampire put one hand down, catching himself and flipping back upright, but not before I got close enough to put a boot in his sternum, compressing his ribs and throwing him across the ritual circle.
“It almost seems,” he remarked, flipping himself back onto his feet once more, “that the more we fight, the more you learn how to dismantle me. Impressive.”
I didn’t bother with a reply; instead, I tried to cave his head in with my ten-foot length of rebar.
Even injured, the Jiangshi was still fast. He twisted to the side at the last moment, and my strike missed him by inches. I swiped back and forth, keeping the still-dangerous Jiangshi from closing with me, but Lan ducked, leapt, and dodged, as hard to hit as a wisp of smoke. I chased him, striking tirelessly again and again, trying to pressure him into making a mistake I could capitalize on, but the vampire’s face was serene as he flowed like water, anticipating and avoiding every blow. Things got even more complicated as he managed to maneuver himself close to the terrified intended sacrifice; I had to rein in my wild, relentless strikes lest I accidentally clip the mortal with my length of rebar and kill her myself.
My frustration mounted as the moments passed, neither of us slowing, the momentum of the fight never shifting. Sure, I could fight all damn night, but Lan was just as dead as I was and could flip around in the air or roll around on the ground until daybreak hit. Not that we had that long; the clock was ticking, the others were depending on me…
And Lan was wasting my time.
He saw it in my eyes as I realized his tactics; Lan wasn’t trying to fight me at all, but merely delaying me. He dodged back once more, lingering mere inches out of reach as if taunting me, and my anger rose again, a hint of crimson at the edge of my vision.
So instead of chasing him, I flipped him off and dug the end of my rebar into the earth, trying to pry the metal ring out of the ground.
A shock ran up my arms as the rebar touched the silver ring, metal on metal, a current running through me as if I’d grabbed hold of a live power line. My vision blurred as energy coursed through and out of me, grounding out into the dirt—and stirring something familiar in my core.
There was no time to figure it out. Lan was on me in an instant, closing ten feet in a flash while I was distracted. The vampire crashed into me, kicked off of my chest with both feet, and knocked me free of the now-stuck rebar pole. I tumbled to the earth while he landed gracefully back on his own feet.
Like a predator, the Jiangshi was on top of me before I’d finished falling. He pinned my arms with his knees, using his hands to hold my head still as his own mouth gaped, opening far too wide as he took in a deep breath, pulling hungrily at the energy that animated me; my extremities tingled sharply as he began to siphon away my strength. Lan’s remaining eye flashed, the dull, dead gray igniting into a fiery red as he fed on me. I tried to claw at his legs, to push him away, but his leverage was too good and his skin too tough for him to be so easily escaped or cut away.
So I finally let out that breath instead.
A thwump and crackle stirred the dust and dirt around us as the energy I’d “borrowed” from my church manifested, pouring into and out of me, rumbling powerfully through my limbs. Sure, I’d let some of it leak out while bitching at Lan, but more than enough remained to fan the spark in the Jiangshi’s cherry-red eye into a momentary blaze.
And for me to surge upward and headbutt him so hard it knocked out one of his fangs.
While Lan reeled from the whiplash, I devoured more of the borrowed energy, burning it up to brush aside his grapple and free my arms.
And as the vampire shook off the hit and refocused on me, I rammed my claws into his gut.
Despite my enhanced strength, they didn’t dig in cleanly; Lan was too tough and too dead for that. Instead, the rusted iron shredded his hoodie and raked across his belly, ripping away swaths of ashen skin before they finally found purchase in his ribs.
With a rumbling growl and deathly energy leaking out from between my clenched teeth, I skewered Lan on my claws, rose to my feet with the vampire held high above my head, and slammed him back down on the protruding length of rebar. He coughed blood and broken teeth in response, blinking with surprise as he looked down at the rebar jutting from his abdomen, and my growl transformed into a full-throated roar as I kicked him halfway down the length of metal, nearly tearing it completely out of his side.
In the blink of an eye, the Jiangshi became smoke and reformed, now holding the rebar pole instead of impaled by it. Before I could reach him, he grunted and yanked it from the ground, then whacked me in the face with it.
I flinched away as the weapon whipped across my head, my vision blurring for a moment as it brushed an eye. I threw my hands up to stop further assault, and a burning pang of pain in my side blossomed as Lan dug the rebar tip into the hole he’d made in my side instead, pushing the dirty metal into the wound and leveraging it to push me back, away from the ritual circle.
As soon as I set my heels against the stabbing pain and reached for the length of rebar, the ache stopped as Lan pulled away.
Blinking away the impact to my eye, I watched as Lan stepped back, the bloody tip of the rebar drawing slow, menacing circles in the air. His ribs were torn open, and at least one was broken, the pale white of bone glowing softly in the circle’s eerie silver light. His abdomen bore a ragged puncture wound, continuously leaking dead, oily blood down one of his legs.
But still he stood, resolute, warning me away from the circle.
I hadn’t expected the damage to stop the Jiangshi outright, but I’d certainly hoped it would have had some sort of effect.
“I have thought on it much since we first engaged,” Lan commented, more blood dr
ibbling liberally from the corner of his mouth as he kept pace with me, keeping himself and his new weapon between me and the circle or the young woman. “I did not think you stood a chance. I thought no one’s will to succeed would be stronger than mine, but you have put me to shame.”
His tone had a note of admiration. I shook my head in disgust.
“You made this happen,” I replied, more concerned with keeping him talking than anything. Now that I’d inadvertently armed him, I had to even the odds somehow. I couldn’t afford for this to turn into a repeat of the drainage pipe incident. “You put my back to the wall, tried to take someone I love away from me.”
“In your place, most would simply die instead,” Lan replied. “You would have made an excellent Jiangshi.”
“If you’re the shining example, I’ll pass.” I took another look around, then smothered a smile and put my eyes firmly back on Lan’s face. “You made me hate you,” I growled, keeping his attention on me. “Conviction is one thing, but your blind devotion has led you to commit atrocities I just can’t forgive. And now it’s time to put you down.” I circled him, stepping slowly to the side as I talked—and pressed against the laces in one of my boots as I walked, quietly breaking them. Just a few more feet…
Lan just nodded. “You may defeat me, yes. But I will still win.”
I stopped moving and stared him down. “Well, you’re right about one of those.” I wiggled my foot, loosening my shoe.
His eye abruptly narrowed, shuttering the blot of glowing crimson with a suspicious look.
I kicked my boot off at him.
The impromptu missile flew a little wide of the mark, but a confused Lan took a step back anyway, deflecting it with the length of rebar.
And in that single moment of what the fuck, I picked up the Vulcan’s spear.
Lan’s remaining eye went wide as my dead muscles strained, creaking as I hoisted over three hundred pounds of century-old cast iron onto my shoulder.
And grinned.
I even tugged my mask down to make sure he could see it.
“What’s wrong, Lan? Don’t want a spear fight?” I took one step toward him, my bare foot indenting the packed earth, and watched him take a wary step back in response. “You killed a lot of innocent people, Lan.” My smile dissipated with my first swing. The Jiangshi saw the blow coming, but it smashed through his defenses anyway, bending rebar and tearing one shoulder open to the bone.
Lan staggered, nearly fell, and pointed the bent makeshift spear at me again anyway.
I took another step forward, stalking him one step at a time. “You tortured people. For your own benefit, your own goals.” The Jiangshi steadily backpedaled, and I followed him. “And you seriously think you’re the hero here?”
He lunged at me, lightning quick, and I let the blow connect, tearing into the channel of already ravaged flesh along the underside of my jaw. In return, the flat side of the Vulcan’s spear tip crashed into him like a massive fly swatter, crushing him to the ground like an insect.
The rebar rang dully as it hit the earth and bounced away. I flipped the spear head around, glancing at the dark Jiangshi blood staining one side, feeling the intermittent thud-thud of righteous rage pumping through my veins. “You tried to kill Tamara. Twice. You made me watch her die.”
Lan tried to crawl away, toward the circle, but my next blow slammed down on his legs with the crunch of shattering bones. The dead man cried out and stopped crawling, throwing out his one good arm and clawing at the earth instead in an effort to pull himself a little further away.
I stepped on his broken ankle, pinning him in place. “But you know what? This last one’s not for any of that.” I raised the cast iron spear high overhead, grinning victoriously as the broken vampire gazed back at me through a haze of pain. “This one’s for my poor dead laptop.”
I brought the massive spear tip crashing down, putting all of my substantial supernatural strength behind it—
—and shook the ground with a heavy whump as I blew apart the gray mist that Lan became.
“You’re right,” Lan’s pained voice echoed softly from the dispersed smoke all around me. “And perhaps you always were.”
I swung at the mist with the spear, sending it curling in billows through the night air. “Why can’t I shut you up?” I growled, looking for his single red eye as the vapor streamed around and past me.
My hackles rose as I felt an ominous, overwhelming pressure build Next Door, a tingle of gathering energy dancing along my skin.
“But now…” His voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, even as the mist floated away. A strange tonal resonance reverberated through the air, and I spun around to see the silver circle gleaming unnaturally in the darkness. “Now, it no longer matters.”
In a rush, Lan congealed in the center of the circle, and everything went to hell.
I took a step forward, only to throw up a shielding arm as the circle blazed brightly, as if in warning.
Prone, Lan smiled at me from beyond the ring’s edge, fumbling a final silver stake from the waistline of his pants.
Transfixed, the young woman behind him struggled frantically, uselessly, at the back of the circle, her eyes wide, wet, and pleading.
With a roar of denial, I brought the spearhead down a final time on the edge of the circle, as a serene Lan shoved the stake deep into his own empty eye socket.
The impact numbed my arms, resonating in my chest and knocking me flat as the Vulcan’s spear burst into a million sizzling, sparking shards.
But it didn't stop the ritual.
Ignited by Lan’s death, a throbbing pulse of energy just Next Door pinned me to the ground as the cracked circle sparked, focusing a torrent of energy high into the sky, angled toward the distant figure of the Vulcan. I couldn’t actually see the pillar of energy; more, I felt it, and my mind’s eye filled in the blanks.
I couldn’t see the girl, either.
I pushed and clawed my way back to my feet, pressing back against the sinister force now hanging heavy in the air around the ritual circle. Wisps of its energy absorbed into me unbidden, sympathetic death mixed in with the miasma of fear and despair, but I barely noticed.
I’d failed.
Almost as abruptly as it manifested, the tsunami of energy subsided, though I could still feel the low hum of ambient power in the air, on my skin, and just Next Door. I looked, but the circle itself was obliterated, now just a smoking ring of dull, burnt-out metallic dust.
The air was empty and quiet, save for one faint mortal heartbeat.
I beelined for the sound…
…and found the girl from the rooftop, just outside the husk of the silver circle. Prone and unconscious, but definitely alive. I bent and gently snapped the chains binding her to the iron stake which had been blown completely over by the ritual’s final metaphysical blast. I picked the girl up and examined her more closely; she seemed a little worse for the wear, but fine.
Then I noticed the rut in the ground where the stake had been planted, a few inches outside the ring.
“You psychotic fuck,” I looked from Lan’s battered, smiling corpse to the girl in my arms. “You never intended to kill her, did you?”
I held my ground, thinking the whole thing over as two familiar heartbeats rapidly approached.
“Chica, what happened?” the coyote asked, his eyes wide with alarm, the fur on the back of his neck standing at attention.
“I screwed the pooch on this one,” I rasped after a moment. “But something here…” He stared at me as I frowned, then glanced at the unconscious girl. I noticed Dezi hung further back, hesitant or perhaps too spooked to enter the ritual area. I didn’t blame her. “Something about all this…it’s not right.” It nagged at me, like a familiar thought just out of reach, like an itch I should have been able to scratch, but couldn’t.
But there was no time to stand around and ponder it, not now.
“We can still win this,” I rasped, startling Jason a
s I suddenly burst into motion. “But it just got a helluva lot harder.”
23
Fear and self-loathing
We didn’t make it to the next ritual circle before another pillar of unseen energy split the night, this time from far to the south.
I felt its ripples in my bones despite the intervening miles as another portion of the spell’s power poured into the Vulcan high above our heads. Dezi slowed, looking up at me and whining quietly in apprehension.
“No time for worries,” I told her. “We can’t stop now. No choice left but to win this thing.”
The silver wolf huffed, gathering her resolve, and took off again with me in pursuit.
I didn’t listen to my own advice. Did the flow of magic from the south mean that Charles had failed, too? Were he and Rain still okay?
The only way to find out was by moving forward.
Rusted chains creaked in the empty night, abandoned children’s swings drifting eerily in the breeze as storm clouds stirred overhead. Dezi and I slowed as we entered the dark, run-down neighborhood park; I’d had Jason take the unconscious girl to Bookbinders, and without a packmate left, the wolf shifter had become increasingly on edge.
Not that I blamed her. Oracle Hills was a bad neighborhood in broad daylight, and tonight’s darkness it felt much worse, despite the conspicuous lack of anyone out-of-doors. Garibaldi had shut off the district’s power as requested, and the gathering clouds blocked the majority of the moonlight. It left several city blocks nearly lightless, too dark for even a wolf’s comfort.
Here in the deserted playground, the night felt even darker and more alive at the same time. Venerable playground equipment groaned softly in the static-charged air, as if still in use by unseen children. Scattered trees whispered softly in the same wind that stirred the weeds strewn across the tiny soccer field or poked through the playground’s gravel. The deepest shadows shifted and flickered of their own accord, reaching out to me with lengthy fingers when I wasn’t watching.
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