by Kingsolver
Using every trick I knew, I made sure no one followed me to my apartment and no one was watching it, then I snuck in. I didn’t turn on any lights, just curled up in my bed. So many things were running through my mind, but somehow, I drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 27
Sunshine through the window woke me. I was still dressed, lying on top of the covers. I took a shower and made myself a cup of tea, thinking about the night before. But my time machine was broken and the damage was done.
My stomach sent signals asking if my mouth and throat were broken, too. The piece of pie for dinner hadn’t filled me until morning. There wasn’t anything to eat in my apartment, so I got dressed and headed to the diner nearby.
Along the way, I called Michaela.
“What time is your operation scheduled for?”
“When will you be available?” she replied.
“About an hour, but I’m not at Rosie’s.” I gave her the location of the diner.
One thing about vampires was their punctuality. I guessed if you always needed to know the exact time of sunrise, it gave you some incentive to be on time. And having spent her life living with them, I wasn’t surprised when Michaela’s sports car pulled into a parking space at the diner exactly one hour after I spoke to her.
I had already paid my bill, so I went out and got in the car.
“How did it go last night?” she asked as we drove toward the nearest bridge.
“Eileen listened. I’m not sure what she’ll do, but I’m pretty sure she’ll call him. Flynn has an ego. I think the idea of pledging fealty after the freedom he’s enjoyed these past few months sticks in his craw.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I assumed that would be the case. With George you never know if his intelligence will override his pride. Barclay has been kicking his ass, and he’s lost almost everything. I’m sure George is angry as hell because he has such a low opinion of Rodrick.”
“Michaela, is Barclay mage-blood crazy?”
She licked her lips, glanced in her rear-view mirror, then passed the car in front of us.
“Yeah. Mage blood and witch blood. My dad tried to make Lord Carleton aware of the problem, but Barclay denied it, and Carleton couldn’t believe one of his children would lie to him.” She barked a brief laugh. “Hell, they all lied to him. He had an eighteenth-century arrogance of nobility. But Flynn and Barclay were younger sons, and Dad was mercantile, not noble at all. None of them had a deep affinity for the truth when a lie served their purpose better. And Eileen? He expected truth from an adulteress?”
“I take it you don’t care much for Eileen.”
Michaela turned a rather enigmatic smile on me. “She’s my best friend, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind. She’s an opportunist and manipulator. She’d sell me out in a minute, but she’d feel bad about doing it. I do trust her not to poison me or stick a knife in my back herself, but that’s about all.”
We drove toward Carleton House, but before we reached the police roadblock, Michaela took a side dirt road that turned after a hundred yards and paralleled the main road. We passed a few large houses and several much smaller ones. After a few miles, we encountered cars and pickups parked on both sides, and then the road dead-ended.
“End of the line,” Michaela said. “This is our staging area. The house up ahead is owned by the beta from the North Bay Pack. They aren’t involved, but they aren’t against what we’re doing. Their alpha wished me luck, but he isn’t sticking his neck out if we fail. They live too close to Carleton House.”
Michaela’s ‘sisters’ were there—sixteen dhampir—and a huge crowd of shifters. Some were in their wolf form, more in human form, and most unusual were those who were half-shifted—wolfmen from a horror movie who walked on two legs. I was aware they could do that, but I had never seen it. One guy walked past carrying a double-barreled shotgun in a clawed hand, a bandoleer of shells hanging over one shoulder and across his chest. A machete hung from his belt. I looked around and saw almost all of those in human or wolfman form were armed with shotguns, assault rifles, and machetes or long knives.
Michaela saw me staring and said, “That is their battle form. They’re as strong as vampires but much slower. Fully shifted, they’re much quicker but no match for a vampire. We’ll use some of the wolves as our scouts, and all the rest will half-shift when we make the assault.”
“You know, I don’t mind the hike, but I can’t keep up with you and the shifters,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it.” Michaela looked beyond me, over my head, and waved at someone.
The amazon who came over was truly awe-inspiring. I could easily see her cast as the badass in a fantasy movie or as a professional basketball player. I estimated she was at least six-feet-four, athletic, and super-model beautiful. She wore a semi-automatic pistol on her left hip and a saber on her right.
“Donna,” Michaela said, “this is Erin, our mage. Erin, Donna has volunteered to carry you so you don’t fall behind.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Donna said with a big smile, sticking out her hand. I shook it, my hand looking small and dainty next to hers.
“Are you left-handed?” I asked.
“Yes, why?”
I returned her smile and pulled back my coat to show her my short sword. “I prefer my right hand, so we just need to make sure we line up in the right place.”
“Gotcha.”
Everyone had been waiting for us, so Donna knelt down, and I crawled on her back. Michaela used a couple of leather straps to support my legs around her sister’s waist, leaving Donna’s hands free.
“These have quick-releases,” Michaela said, showing me the clasps.
“It looks like you’ve done this sort of thing before,” I said.
“Naw,” Donna said. “Those are from Carlotta’s bondage gear; we just adapted them. We figured you might need a little lift.”
She took off at a lope, me bouncing around on her back with my hands holding onto her shoulders. The group was moving at what looked like an easy pace, but I knew I would have been running full speed. Climbing the hill the way we were, I couldn’t have kept up the pace for more than a few minutes.
We passed through forest, then into open grassland, crossed a paved road, then back into the forest. At that point, Donna stopped, her hands on her knees and panting like she was done. Although the day was cool, she was sweating profusely.
One of the wolfmen, larger than Donna, walked over and unclipped my legs from the straps, then motioned I should climb on his back. A while later, we passed another paved road, and soon after that, the group slowed. Wolves fanned out and disappeared. We soon encountered a number of wolves that Donna told me had been keeping an eye on the Carleton estate for the past couple of days.
I released the straps holding my legs and slid off the wolfman’s back. The shifters who remained did a half-shift, some from wolf to wolfman, the others from human to wolfman. It was fascinating to watch.
“Is that painful?” I asked. “It looks painful.”
“I’m told that it is when they’re young,” Donna said. “I’m not sure if it is when they’re older, or if they just get used to it.”
We crept through the forest until we came to an old carriage house, half tumbled down. The last time I had been there, a member of the Illuminati—an earth mage—had caused a small earthquake that destabilized it.
“Obviously, the only ones awake are thralls,” Michaela said. “The scouts report that a lot of them are armed. Pistols and submachineguns. Anything you can do to save lives when we assault the place is welcome.”
“I can’t cast a shield that covers more than me,” I said. “But if you can point out the guards, I can go in first and try to take them out.”
“That we can do,” she said. She turned and called to a wolf lying in the grass.
“Tommy, if you can show Erin where the men with guns are,” she said to the wolf, “she’s offered to go in and disable them. She’s a mage.”
The wolf was huge—his back was even with my waist, and his head was almost high enough for him to look me straight in the eyes. He yawned, then extended his neck and sniffed me. I scratched him behind his ears, and he leaned into my hand.
“Okay, Tommy,” I said. “Let’s go play the catch-a-vampire game.”
He gave me a wolfish grin, then sprang away from me, stopped, bowed down with his butt in the air, tail wagging, and woofed. Then he jumped up and started off toward the mansion.
“Wish me luck,” I said, drawing my sword and casting my shield around me.
I trotted after Tommy, who ranged ahead, nose to the ground. Every so often, he would stop and wait for me, and when I caught up, he would turn and head out again.
When we reached the gardens surrounding the mansion, he crouched down and slunk ahead, his belly skimming the ground. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled after him. He stopped at the end of a hedge, turning his head to look at me.
I peeked around the hedge and saw two men sitting in a small gazebo. Both carried submachineguns. I drew back and gave Tommy a thumb’s up, then dropped to my belly, and inched around the corner of the hedge.
Guard duty was one of the most boring activities humans ever invented. During my training as a young Hunter, I and my fellow trainees had served many shifts on guard duty. Lapses in attention had invariably resulted in very painful punishments. It taught us focus, blocking out everything but the task at hand. It also taught us a host of techniques for sneaking up on people, as the Masters were very inventive.
I managed to get within fifteen feet before one of the guards noticed me. Before he even opened his mouth, I hit both of them with a push of ley line energy that blew them off their feet and sent them crashing against the far wall inside the gazebo. Before either of them could recover, I leapt to my feet and sprinted inside.
I hit the first one I encountered in the side of the head with the pommel of my sword, then lashed out with my foot, catching the other one in the face. Both slumped to the floor unconscious.
I tucked the guards’ ammunition in my pockets and used my spelled sword to chop their guns in half. Placing my hand on each of their heads in turn, I cast a spell that would put them out for hours. I signaled to Tommy, who crept forward and joined me. He stuck his nose in the air, sniffing, then started out toward another target.
Two hours later, I was tired and a little sore. I had taken care of eighteen guards, and only had to kill two. Tommy assured me there weren’t any more on the outside of the house, so I sent him back to Michaela. I took a drink from the last guard’s canteen and chewed on one of their granola bars and an apple while I waited. The half-eaten bag of chips and the braunschweiger sandwich didn’t hold any appeal. I kept one of the submachineguns, and when I unloaded my pockets, I figured I had enough ammunition to hold off a small army.
The plan was that I would lead a contingent through a side door closest to Barclay’s living quarters. Since I didn’t have to worry about bullets as long as my shield was intact, the dhampir and shifters could come in behind me, using me as protection against Barclay’s thralls.
Michaela was sure she knew where he hibernated during the day, and we would wrap him up and spirit him away. Then I would contact Laurent and arrange to give him Barclay. At that point, I could consider my job done.
The one niggling little detail that bothered me was where Barclay was getting his mage blood. I would have heard if he was waylaying people in the alley outside of Rosie’s. If he had enthralled several mages, their combined power might be enough to penetrate my shield. And if, all the gods forbid, he had managed to gather thirteen witches or thirteen mages who could close a circle, my butt would be toast. They wouldn’t even have to be very powerful individually.
My mind kept trying to drift back to Trevor, but I schooled myself. Distractions get people killed. Even such simple acts as crossing the street can be deadly.
A wolf crept into the space between the row of rose bushes and the wall where I sat. I watched as he changed, fascinated by the process, until a large, naked man about forty years old sat in front of me. He wasn’t bad-looking, though it was a little hard to tell with a full beard that covered his face and neck, and shoulder-length hair that fell across his face.
“Tommy?”
“Good day, to ya,” he said. “Yep, it’s me. Sorry about the clothes thing. Michaela and the rest are right behind me. You ready to go?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be. I was in there once, but we came in the front door. You going in with us?”
“Nope. No weapons. I’ll just stay out here, shift back to my fur coat, and bite anyone I see who I don’t recognize. Kinda cold, ya know?”
I laughed. “Yes, I can see how it would be. Not exactly sun-tanning weather.”
He glanced up at the overcast sky. “Don’t get much sun here in Westport. Hard to tell normal people from the vamps by the end of the winter. Well, you take care of yourself. I have to say, what you’ve done here was impressive.”
“Thanks. Stop by Rosie’s sometime, and I’ll buy you a drink. Thursday through Sunday on the evening shift.”
“Well, I just might take you up on that. See ya later.”
He shifted back and trotted off. About ten minutes later, Michaela and forty wolfmen showed up on the other side of the wall from me. She peered over and down on me, and asked, “Ready to go?”
“Yeah. Tired of sitting.”
“Well, don’t get up quite yet,” she said, her eyes shifting toward the building. I looked over there and saw two naked men doing something with the door.
“Former U.S. special forces,” Michaela said.
The men finished what they were doing and ran toward where I was hidden. They came around the edge of the row of roses and threw themselves face down on the ground. Following their lead, I flopped over on my belly and fed a little more power to my shield. Good thing I did, too, because I was a little too close to the explosion. The shifters had been a bit overzealous with the amount of plastic explosive they used, but the opening in the wall was large enough for two wolfmen to walk through side by side.
CHAPTER 28
I leaped up and charged the hole in the wall of Carleton House. It was impossible to tell there had been a door there a minute before. But when I crossed the threshold, I chuckled to myself. The shifters should have saved some of their explosives, because the hole led to a short hallway and another door. Two of the wolfmen would fit in the outside opening shoulder to shoulder, but then they would have to go single file down the hall.
I pushed with ley line magic and blew the door in front of me off its hinges. It took out several men on the other side of it on its journey to the wall beyond.
“Damn,” I heard Michaela’s voice behind me. “If I knew you could do that, we wouldn’t have blown the door. You’re a lot quieter.”
“You didn’t ask,” I said.
I rushed to the end of the hall and emerged into a wide corridor. A man came at me from my left, and I punched him in the chest. He flew through the air, and the plaster on the wall he hit showed cracks as he slid to the floor. I made a note to dial it back. He was human and wouldn’t just rejuvenate overnight like a vampire would.
The chances of us meeting a vampire at two o’clock in the afternoon were slim, which is why we timed the assault the way we did. Michaela had also assured me that while there were several hundred thralls on the estate, most of them would also be sleeping, and only a small number of those who were awake were used as guards.
Michaela directed me down the corridor and around a corner. There we found a few more guards. They got off a couple of shots that bounced off my shield. I didn’t slow down, and when I got within range, I pushed with ley energy, knocking them down like bowling pins.
Even with all that going on, I couldn’t help but admire the décor. Carleton was an eighteenth-century aristocrat and brought a number of master craftsmen from Europe when he built the mansion in the lat
e nineteenth century. Hand-painted silk wallpaper, polished hardwood, parquet floors, cast plaster moldings, and very expensive artworks decorated the interior. I allowed myself a fleeting hope that we didn’t damage things too badly.
But as much as the Georgian-style mansion resembled those in Europe, Carleton House had been built by a vampire. Instead of the household’s bedrooms being on the upper floors, a wide staircase took us down.
On the basement levels, the opulence stepped it up a notch.
“You’ve been down here?” I asked.
“You don’t say no to the Master,” was Michaela’s clipped response. I assumed she meant Carleton. I doubted she had been in the house since Barclay took control of it after Carleton met the final death at the hands of the Hunter.
Contrary to popular literature, I had never heard of or seen a vampire sleeping in a coffin. Also contrary to legend, they didn’t turn into torches at the touch of the sun. Photosensitive, yes, and fifteen minutes in direct sunlight caused a sunburn bad enough to have inspired the legend. It was the one non-lethal injury they were slow to recover from.
Depending on age, they could also stay awake during the day. None of the Westport vampires would be able to manage that feat. Laurent might be old enough to do it.
Michaela stopped in front of a pair of massive ornate doors. She tried the handle, but it was locked.
“Can you open this?” she asked me.
I waved her to the side. I didn’t want to damage the doors, so I pushed against where they met with a narrow beam of ley line energy, steadily increasing the pressure until they burst open. Since they were hung to open outward, that sent them crashing to the floor as the hinges broke, but the doors themselves were undamaged, and I felt a little proud of myself.
