She wanted her dad. If Dad was here....
What? What could he possibly do? When would she finally accept that he was gone—that he’d never really been there in the first place? Just a fucking ghost of himself, a complete lie; someone who had done unforgivable things and hidden them from her, then left her in the dark, weak and vulnerable.
Edie glared at the toes of her pumps as Sárr stepped over Cal’s still form and spoke.
“Brothers and sisters. I know that none of you know who I am, and you fear me. But, hark— I know you. I have been watching for many years, from the shadows, witnessing the decline of our faction. It is sickening and pathetic.” He raised his chin. “Those of you who are members of the Gloaming … your lives, your beliefs, have all been challenged by the Aurora in their false crusade. For thousands of years, this has happened, and too often, of late, I have watched your leaders respond with fear and weakness!”
Some of the crowd members, though still frightened, looked more intrigued now. People looked at one another, whispered, watched the Wounded warily.
“It isn’t just here, in the Americas; it is the entire globe. Those who would have you relinquish your power, your wealth, your very lives, have already demolished thousands and millions like you. Hundreds of sects of the Gloaming around the world. It. Ends. Tonight!” he cried, clenching his fists tight. “Forget the Gloaming you pledged your allegiance to. They have surely forgotten you! Your leaders are dead or dying or trapped. Corrupted, useless. It is time for a new Gloaming, one more united and powerful than we have been for a thousand years.”
Stronger murmurs flooded the ballroom, and Sárr stomped past Edie to elevate himself on the dais just behind her. He turned and raised a fist.
“The false crusade will end! We will seize power once more. The world will be ours again, as it was for thousands of years. And it starts here.”
To Edie’s horror, the crowd that had previously been so terrified rallied in Sárr’s favor. People began to applaud and shout affirmations.
“Yes! It starts with us, brothers and sisters. No more cowering in our caves and forests, no more tolerating the feeble, no more languishing in obscurity while the Aurora closes in on us. I will lead us to honor and victory, in the names of the gods!”
The applause became overpowering. Creatures yipped and howled, cheers and roars and shouts echoed. Sárr was suddenly by Edie’s side again, and he grabbed her wrist with a wicked grin, raising her fist with his.
Zaedicus cried from the mezzanine landing, “Hail Lord Sárr! Hail the Wounded! Hail all the gods in their enigmatic glory! Hail the New Gloaming!”
The realization hit Edie, and she struggled to remain on her feet. She remembered something Astrid had said. The Gloaming didn’t want to kill her like the Aurora did; that had never been their plan. For god-knew-what reason, they needed her.
They wanted her to join them. They wanted to use her.
Surely death was preferable.
She yanked her wrist from Sárr’s grip and took a step back, trying to put a little distance between them.
But the Wounded seemed to barely notice, looking up at Zaedicus with a smirk.
“My brothers and sisters, if you’ll have me as your general now, my first act will be to give you back the protection your families enjoyed under Fahraad. New Gloaming, I hereby name Zaedicus Oldine Gloaming Lord of this province.”
There were fewer shouts at that; the applause was more polite than passionate. Edie watched as people turned to one another, confused but too intimidated to say anything.
So much for Zaedicus not being a player.
Still, there was enough celebration that Sárr and his high-wight lackey were utterly pulled into their little play-act from the Dark Ages. No one but Edie noticed when, a few feet in front of them, Cal shuddered and shook some glass off himself.
The Wounded stepped forward again, probably poised to start another spiel. But as he stepped over Cal’s discarded body, the revenant suddenly jerked upward, swinging one arm. Something flashed in the dim light, and his blow connected.
When he pulled away, a long, ragged shard of glass protruded from where he’d shoved it into Sárr’s lower back.
Before Sárr even had time to cry out, Edie had darted away from the dais. She dove into the nearest crowd, knocking partygoers out of the way. Cal skidded across the floor, grabbing his Colt on the way, and joined her a few seconds later.
“Sorry,” she whispered as she struggled through the crowd.
“Raise them,” Cal said gruffly, his revolver aimed toward the ceiling.
Edie’s head still spun. Was she hearing things or was Cal telling her to use her necromancy? “What?”
“Those Gloaming bastards he killed. Raise them, throw ’em at these assholes, and make a break for the windows while they’re distracted.” Cal grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, pushing her further into the crowd. As she stumbled forward, he threw his head back and shouted, “Eat glass, fucker!” aiming for the chandelier above Sárr’s head.
He fired two shots and crystal shattered. Bedlam broke out around them. People scattered, fleeing the sound of gunshots and the raining glass; the two wolves’ howls reverberated through the mansion, shaking it.
The chandelier swung dangerously. Cal fired two more shots.
With a horrible groan, it slumped. Then it slipped from its abused fixtures and plummeted toward the ballroom floor.
Edie hesitated, at a loss for a moment, then ran. The floor shook with the chandelier’s impact, and the chaos escalated. Guests flew past her, toward the ruined windows. She had to find Mercy and anyone else who needed protection and get them the fuck out of there.
And considering she didn’t even know how to use her powers the way Cal had told her to, she’d have to do it without undead backup.
She floundered through the discord for a while, trying to find her way around or spot her friends. It was like drowning all over again. Finally, someone grabbed her upper arm, and when she spun to see who it was, relief washed over her. “Mercy.”
“Edie! Oh my god, you’re okay!” Her best friend pulled her close, burying her face in the crook of Edie’s neck for a moment before quickly pulling away again. “What is going on? Who is that guy?”
“I don’t know. No one seems to know,” she said, looking around. “Where are Fisk and Satara?”
“I— I don’t know. I lost them when the chandelier fell. It was so loud, Edie.”
Edie looked over Mercy’s shoulder to the center of the ballroom, which was partially obscured by the partygoers rushing to get past the chandelier. Its body stuck up haphazardly, collapsed in on itself, the gilt chains and crystals tangled. There was no sign of Sárr, but his wolves were going absolutely mad, tearing up the floors as they skittered across, ripping out throats. About ten yards from where Edie stood, the golden one brought a shrieking elf to her knees with its claws in her back, stripping the skin.
“We have to get out of here.” She took Mercy’s hand again. “Come on, before one of those things sniffs me out and comes after us.”
“Where are we going?” Mercy asked unsurely.
Around them, the chaos had turned to fighting; some of the Gloaming tried to force their weaker companions to stay and some saw the panic as an opportunity to revel in bloodshed. Edie thought it was probably likely that a lot of them were frantically looking for her, too, now that they knew she was worth something to their new masters.
She and Mercy staggered forward, trying to find their way in the dark, battered by people struggling and pushing past them. Those who could were rushing to the Gothic windows on the north wall, and some had managed to climb out of them and drop down.
Edie pointed wordlessly.
Mercy followed her finger and balked immediately, letting go of Edie’s hand. “What? I am not jumping out a two-story window!”
“You’d rather get eaten by a wolf?”
Mercy opened her mouth to respond, but something c
ame flying towards them—an end table, still covered in a tablecloth—and they both ducked instinctively. They turned and watched as the table splintered against the marble-tiled floor just behind them.
Mercy looked back, her brown eyes wide. “Uh, okay ... I’ll try.”
Keeping their heads down, they worked their way through the pandemonium, heading toward the windows. Nearby, Edie spotted Satara with a spear-ended tapestry rod in one hand and a serving dish in the other, blocking blows from a huge, heavy-set man. The shieldmaiden didn’t even blink when the man roared and turned into a massive white bear; she simply leveraged the time he spent transforming to bolster her defenses with a magical battle-cry.
A couple of yards to her left, Matilda and Cal were standing back-to-back, a pearl-handled handgun in the vampire’s grip and the revenant’s Colt Trooper in his. They were tossing ammo back and forth, picking off wisps that a skeletal sorcerer was conjuring.
Mercy gasped and pointed up ahead. “Look!”
Someone had beaten Edie to the punch when it came to raising the bodies of the people Sárr had killed. A vættr woman with long ears and mauve scales sprinkling her olive skin stood on one of the banquet tables, gathering noxious blue energy between her fingers. The pale, loose bodies of the fallen were drawn to the energy, to her target: Fisk, who was struggling under their dead weight, trying to claw his way to the necromancer.
Edie noticed that he had also managed to completely undress himself, and sighed.
“Come on, let’s go.” She and Mercy kept low, creeping behind the banquet table.
“You should never have crawled out of your disgusting hole, baseborn!” the witch cried over the chaos. Around her palm, small molecules of water separated from the air and merged to form an icy ball pulsing with energy. She flung it at Fisk, and it connected, shattering against his chest and embedding in his scales like glass.
Edie and Mercy had inched closer until they were almost behind the witch, and Mercy gasped when she saw Fisk stagger back, sagging under the weight of the bodies piling on him and tearing at his flesh. Though he was shaking them off as best he could, his strength wasn’t enough. There were too many.
“We have to— Mercy?” Edie looked to where her friend had been half a second ago, crouching right beside her, but she wasn’t there. It took her a moment to realize Mercy had jumped up onto the table, behind the vættr.
The witch barely had time to turn around before Mercy drew her hidden knife. With one click, the Hello Kitty stiletto flicked out, and Mercy lunged without warning, sticking the witch right in the stomach.
Purple-red bloomed and stained the woman’s toga dress. With her concentration broken, Fisk had enough time to shake off her minions and tackle her to the ground, crushing her windpipe with one massive forearm.
“Oh, for the love of god!” Edie shouted up at Mercy. She looked between her and Fisk. “I’m supposed to be the one protecting you!”
“Sorry.” To her credit, Mercy really did look embarrassed. Not to mention shaken up, considering she’d just stabbed someone. She sat on the edge of the banquet table, shuddering, and eased off with Edie’s help. Looking to Fisk, she said, “Are you all right?”
“I will be fine, my pearl,” the vættr snarled. “Go!”
They didn’t waste any time, taking off toward the windows again. As they reached the north wall, avoiding anyone who might push them out in their haste, Edie slowed down a little and looked at Mercy skeptically. “My pearl?”
“Yeah ... I think he’s into me.”
An intense gust of freezing night air blew through the window and drew Edie’s attention back to what was happening below. Weapons clashed, magic flew back and forth, blood watered the lawn. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear an ambulance siren. Apparently, those who had managed to fight their way outside were being met with resistance—but from whom?
“Uh,” she said, “maybe the lawn isn’t the best place for us after all.”
“Edie!” Mercy shrieked and grabbed her arm. When Edie turned, she saw the two ghostly wolves. They were ignoring the chaos in the ballroom, now, their heads bowed and teeth bared. And they were making a beeline for the ruined windows. She and Mercy were sitting ducks.
“Freaking hell.” Edie looked at Mercy and took her hand, squeezing it. “Ready?”
“Not really.” Mercy shook her head. “But I am so not getting blood on this dress.” She kicked off her heels, and Edie followed suit.
They both took a big breath, glanced at each other, and jumped.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The first thing you learned in cheerleading was how to fall. It was a combination of knowing where to land and how to release the energy of the fall after impact.
Unfortunately, after their inelegant performance during tryouts, neither Edie nor Mercy had made the squad.
The fall from the window to the garden below was over a lot faster than Edie anticipated. She landed clumsily on her feet for a split second, then bent her knees and tried to tuck into a roll. The result was more of a tumble than anything, and pain shot up her ankles and arms as she thumped into a bush.
She lay there for a moment, looking up at the spinning sky, wondering if Mercy had made it all right.
A groan next to her answered her question.
“What’s wrong?” she managed, grimacing as she pulled herself up on one elbow. She was wet for some reason, all over her arms and legs, but she assumed it was dew from the garden and grass.
Mercy was lying nearby with her right arm cradled to her chest. Even though tears welled in her eyes, her face was blank. “I hurt my ... my fucking arm or something. I can’t ... move it.” She tried to sit up, but yelped and fell on her back almost immediately. “Something’s wrong.”
Edie’s heart leapt, and she crawled on her hands and knees over to her friend, laying a hand on her uninjured side. “It’s going to be okay.”
The sirens were louder out here. At the end of the drive, bright, flashing red lights refracted off the tree line and the wet grass.
“You’re hurt,” Mercy said, wiping her good hand down Edie’s arm. It came away pinkish, streaked with blood.
Guess it wasn’t dew after all.
“We’ll be okay. Someone called the paramedics,” she breathed, though her focus wasn’t on Mercy anymore. The battle on the lawn was a lot hotter, louder, and more frightening up close. Now that she was down here, she could see warriors and mages dressed all in black and silver, adorned with raven feathers, picking off those who tried to flee the scene.
Thump. With a horrible braying, a large stag reeled and fell to its side before them, going still. After a moment, the great beast shimmered and morphed back into a man, his party clothes drenched in blood from his throat and stomach.
Mercy screamed and squeezed her eyes shut, looking away. These assholes were killing people just for running away. Sárr must have sent them … but why? And how had he amassed followers without anyone knowing who he was?
Something heavy landed easily behind them. Steel clanked against steel. “The culling of the weak,” the Wounded growled as he straightened from his crouch. “Isn’t it marvelous?”
Before Edie could turn, he had reached around her and grabbed Mercy’s hair, pulling her up. Blood from his gauntlets mingled with her bubblegum-pink locks as she cried out in pain, struggling to come to her feet. But he didn’t give her the chance, throwing her aside like a ragdoll.
“No!” Edie lunged after her, but only got so far, stretching a hand out in Mercy’s direction.
Sárr looked between them, smiling before walking calmly toward Mercy. The battle bent around them, avoiding him. “Who is she to you, Edith?” When Edie said nothing, he turned and barked, “Answer me!”
Her voice trembled with rage and terror. “She’s my friend. Don’t lay a fucking finger on her!”
He snorted and dropped his claymore, raising his hands as if in surrender. “Not a finger,” he promised in a purr.
&n
bsp; Then he turned, and stomped hard on Mercy’s right leg.
The crunching of bone could be heard even over the battle raging around them. Mercy’s shriek pierced the air, her face twisted in pain.
“Stop it!” Edie inched closer, ignoring her own aching body. “Stop hurting her!”
“You had a chance to surrender, woman, and you elected to defy me.” He stomped on Mercy’s left leg, and ground his foot into her.
This time, Mercy didn’t scream; her head just slumped to the side.
“This could have been so much easier for you.”
“Mercy!” Edie screamed, trying to get her attention, to wake her up.
Her desperate cries only seemed to spur Sárr on, but Edie couldn’t help crying out as she watched splintered bone penetrate her friend’s skin. She covered her mouth, trying to quell the sobs, her vision pounding with her head. She struggled closer, fingernails digging into the soil. If she had to throw herself on Mercy to make him stop, she would.
Before she could reach them, he stopped and rolled Mercy over with the toe of his sabaton. She was completely limp.
He rounded on Edie, markings blazing red. “Look at you, at how pathetic your ignorance has made you. There’s so little you can do.”
Edie slowly brought herself to her feet, trying to tune out how her bones begged her to stop moving, and spared a glance over her shoulder.
The paramedics had called for police backup, and those that had arrived were clueless, completely vulnerable to what was going on around them.
Two streaks of silver and gold tore past her and dove into the small team of human civilians, making short work of them. Blood coated the pavement. The wolves shook the bodies by their necks like squeaky toys. The golden one tossed a young woman to the side, and she slumped face-first into the sparkling fountain at the center of the green. The sight drew another cry from Edie.
Rune Awakening Page 29
