“Oh man, I think he’s getting’ ready to blow some major chunkage,” Hurley says, sliding past the seats and flattening himself up against the door of the train.
Slimy blood-red, gelatinous lumps of gore spew out of Zulu’s mouth. Oh man, are those his vital organs? The hideous discharge squirms. Unable to look away–but desperately wanting to–my mind finally registers what I’m seeing. A pile of wriggling newts.
“Counter spell activated,” Zulu announces as he wipes goop off his mouth with the back of his hand.
“That was disgusting.” Constantine stops to gag. “My eyes hate me for seeing that.”
“It made me barf in my mouth,” Justice agrees.
“Other than making us all want to hurl, what’s it supposed to do?” I ask.
“I just turned the biggest, baddest Evil Eye there is on those she-devils. Whatever they throw at us is gonna bounce back on them like a bad case of crotch crickets.”
Pandora nudges me with her elbow. There’s fear in her eyes and she’s signing that something’s wrong. Zulu’s spell isn’t working. She taps my ear, telling me to listen.
I tune in, hearing a faint but gradually increasing thrum. There’s no real source to the noise but now I can’t turn it off. The sound fills me with dread as the volume dials up into a deafening clamor.
In less than a minute I’m grabbing my head and rolling on the floor with the rest of the gang. Except the Mech. Gort kneels next to Justice’s writhing form, tilting his head in concern.
Pandora pulls on my arm, dragging me out from under Fletcher’s swiping claws. It’s a major effort to crawl even a few inches, but I somehow make it over to where Hurley’s curled in on himself, eyes shut and screaming.
It takes every ounce of concentration not to join him and put my mind to getting us out of this. One measly idea punches through the chaos. I look at Pandora. “You’ve gotta ghost through the wall and dust the Dreads.”
Motioning her fingers into the shape of a hooked beak, she points at her horns and clamps one hand over the other. “The witches set demon traps.”
Shit. Half the gang has demon blood.
Slumping against the walls of the sliding door, she palms her fist, “Help me–” She stops before she gets to the next word, suddenly clawing at her temples. Lost in the clash of noise, her mouth stretches in a silent scream.
Terror shoots up my spine. The Dreads are trying to get her to scream out loud. She’s putting up a fight, but if she gives in, we’re all a pile of mush.
I grab onto her, squeezing tight. “Fight it, Pan.”
She throws me off. Easily. She’s damn strong.
With a crazed look in her eyes, she slices her finger across her neck.
“What?”
She beats her chest furiously, demanding I kill her.
“No, you’re not sacrificing yourself to save us,” I yell back.
Pandora flings herself back, her arms and legs thrashing. She’s close to that killing scream.
The clamorous uproar intensifies. Beneath it all, a voice, low and harsh, worms its way into my brain. The words are unintelligible, every syllable filled with malice, drawing the darkest part of me into the forefront. I don’t understand the words, but the meaning is clear.
Somebody’s going to die. The question is, who? Pandora or us?
Before I know it, I’m holding my switchblade up to Pandora’s throat. She wants this, I tell myself. She’s a threat. Not just to me but to everyone else. That’s reason enough to take her out.
Knox’s fire goes out, plunging us into the pitch black. Pandemonium breaks out inside the subway car. I hear growling, smashing, snarling, grunting, wrestling and fists breaking faces.
The witches have turned us all against each other.
9
Shadow Surfing
SOFT LIPS AND HOT BREATH BRUSH MY EAR as a voice whispers, “You cut my sister and you’ll be the one bleeding.”
“Nyx?”
The pitch black unfolds as she steps into view, her face a smudge of silvery light. I’m inside her shadow cloak, but nothing prepares you for the sensation. It’s like being wrapped in a huge woolen blanket, closed off from the chaos with all the noise muffled to near silence. Quiet falls in around me. Pure, sweet quiet.
That’s when I realize my knife is pressed against Pandora’s throat. I jerk my hand away and close the blade. “Sorry, I uh...”
Pandora moves in next to her sister, her movements a blur of gleaming pale-gray as she stares at Nyx in shock.
“Looks like I showed up just in time,” Nyx says.
Pandora signs angrily, wanting to know why Nyx didn’t let her know she was alive earlier.
“Yeah, it would’ve been nice to know,” I add, knowing how much the three sisters use their telepathic link between them.
Mostly for cheating at poker.
Nyx’s face becomes a silvery smear as she shakes her head. “Chill, you two. Rade knocked me out when he fired on me. I crossed into shadow so I could stick that rat from behind, but his blast hit me at that same moment. It punched me through a random shadow portal and I woke up next to some bakery on Broadway, of all places. Not sure how long I was out.” She looks at Pandora. “I tried getting through to you as soon as I came to, but something was in the way. I guess by then the Dreads had their claws in you. It’s just a good thing I knew you’d be on the train.”
The anger drains from Pandora’s face. Smiling with relief, she gives Nyx the peace sign and the two sisters bump fists.
As for me, I’m stoked Nyx is alive. I’m so relieved I could kiss her. I lean in toward her. “You okay?”
She sidesteps me, her expression all business. “Let’s book it out of here.”
“What about the others?” I glance over my shoulder. On the other side of the cloaking, dark liquid shapes blend together in frenzied motion. “Nyx, they’re gonna kill each other if we don’t break it up.”
“I can’t move the whole gang at once. I’ll come back for them after I get you two out,” Nyx insists. Taking her sister and me by the arm, we slide forward, phase through the seats and windows of the subway car, and glide down into the tunnel. I’m in awe of Nyx’s dominion over darkness, surfing this black tide and shifting solid objects into mist, all while keeping us hidden. She’s asked me to go shadow surfing more than a few times, but I always turned her down. I wish I’d taken her up on the offer long ago.
When we reach the back end of the train, I hear the same grating voices that pushed me to kill Pandora. Fury explodes in me, igniting a stream of electricity that crackles over my skin. My vision sharpens suddenly. I can see past the cloaking better.
The Dread witches are reciting their evil incantations, each one wreathed in the aura of her shadow demon. They’re standing in a circle, holding their wands–thin, pale sticks I’ve heard are carved from the bones of children–pointed inward at a sickly green glob of pulsating light.
Vicious hags. I’ve had it with conjurers like Maddox trying to make me their bitch.
The narrow space forces Nyx to surf right next to them. Taking advantage of my nearness to them, I whip my switchblade open and draw my blade up to the neck of the witch closest to me. I’ve never killed before, but opening the artery of one these sadistic gorgons might interrupt their spell long enough to buy us some time before the rest of the gang kills each other.
The witch turns her head in my direction, her pale, vacant eyes probing the pitch black between us. Startled, I freeze. Her dark aura goes wild, billowing with wings and swelling with numerous crow heads, their gleaming, beady blue eyes staring straight at me.
Pandora grabs my hand, forcing it away from the witch with a warning glance. Nyx steps up our speed, putting a safe distance between us and the witches.
“Why’d you stop me?”
“The Dreads have what it takes to mess with my shadow powers if you let them know we’re here,” Nyx says.
In a swift blur, we sail along the track, up onto the sub
way platform and over the stairs leading to the street. Once we’re topside, Nyx dissolves the shadow cloak and my feet touch down on the sidewalk. Unprepared for the sudden heaviness of my body, I grab the railing and look around to see where we are.
We’ve come out on River Avenue. A few cars whip by under the overpass. There’s quite a few people walking the streets, a lot of them clutching sparklers, small flags and beer. The sounds of sirens, firecrackers and rockets echo from distant neighborhoods. The party’s not over.
I check my watch. It’s only 11:35. The night’s still young.
“I’m going back down to grab three more,” Nyx says, turning toward the stairs.
I’m beyond impressed. After seeing what she can do, I can see how she escaped Rade’s blast. On a sudden impulse, I catch her by the wrist and pull her into a kiss. She yields, parting her lips as her tongue meets mine. Her sweet saliva fills my mouth, soaking into my bloodstream, shooting a nitrous-like rush of euphoria to the top of my head. I let go, smiling wide and feeling powerful all of a sudden. If this is how pixie spit makes me feel, I can easily go back for more. “Hurry back,” I say, raising my eyebrows up and down. “There’s more where that came from.”
“Watch him until it wears off, and don’t let him do anything stupid,” Nyx says to Pandora, before vanishing in a dark mist.
“What’s she talking about? I can be not stupid,” I mutter, more to myself than to my silent friend.
Huffing impatiently, Pandora yanks me across the street to wait in a more protected, shadowy corner under the overpass.
Minutes tick by like hours. I can’t stand still. I’m all juiced up. I start bouncing on the balls of my feet and punching the air like a pro boxer. I’m itching to whomp some Dread ass.
“I can’t wait any longer. I’m goin’ in,” I say.
Pandora’s in front of me the second I step off the curb, shoving me back into the shadows. She’s lightning quick and could flatten me if she wanted to.
“Alright already,” I grumble.
Sagging against the concrete wall, I stare down the length of River Ave at the wavy red tracers trailing off the car’s tail lights.
Trippy.
As I watch the cars float away from me, a movement catches my attention. Just above the stoplight, crouched high up inside the rusted steel girders of the elevated tracks, a winged creature stares down at me. My blood runs cold as it leans forward into the light and I see its mournful, bone-pale face.
The dark angel.
I haven’t seen that thing since I joined the Forsaken. I’m pretty sure it’s a fallen angel. I say ‘it’ because like some demons, angels also lack the parts to tell you if it’s male or female. This one’s smack in the middle. I had several names for it back then: Gloomy Gus, Grim Reaper, or just plain old Dick. Not that it matters. Point is, I couldn’t get away from it. The angel always found me, casting its doomsday shadow over me wherever I went. Its presence was always a bad omen. Disaster followed every time it appeared.
My gut fills with a queasy feeling. So much for the sweet lift Nyx gave me. How’d the angel find me so fast? I haven’t been back in the city for more than a few hours.
Someone punches me in the arm, snapping me back into the present. “Hey man, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Hurley says, his face sweaty. “Thought I was toast, didn’t you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Me too. A close call down there. My entire life flashed before my eyes.”
“Must’ve been a snore,” I say, managing a smile.
“Yeah. After tonight, I’m definitely gonna color things up,” Hurley agrees.
I glance back up into the steel girders. The dark angel’s gone. Hmm, maybe I imagined it…?
Knox and Zulu cross the street toward us. Other than a cut near his eye, Knox is in good shape, but Zulu looks wrecked. His gait is slow and his normally dark, purplish skin is kind of green, especially around his mouth and the gills on his neck.
“Nice job down there with the counter spell,” Hurley yells at Zulu. “That was some premium voodoo you threw at ‘em.”
Any other time, Zulu would go at him, but he’s barely dragging himself to the other side of the street. “Those bitches are strong,” he says, his shoulders slumped as he sits down on the curb. “At least I stepped up. I wasn’t the one curled up in a ball sucking my thumb and loadin’ my Pampers.”
I grab hold of Hurley’s arm to keep him from tackling Zulu. “Whoa, lay off. We gotta stay tight or we won’t make it home.”
Hurley lets up when Zulu hangs his head between his knees and pukes up another slimy newt. Shaking his head, Zulu watches the creature scrabble off and dart into a sewer grate. “Damn witches. They threw my mojo back on me.”
Normally I’d enjoy seeing Zulu chopped off at the knees, but we need all the firepower we can get right now.
Pandora’s staring at the stairs leading down into the subway platform, watching for her sister and the others. “Everything cool?” I ask.
She remains still, focusing on whatever’s going on with Nyx and the others down below. The longer she takes to answer me, the tenser I get. I wonder if the dark angel’s appearance has anything to do with what’s happening down there.
“Yo. There they are,” Hurley says, pointing across the street as a cloud of dark mist dissolves away from Nyx, Constantine and Justice.
And Gort, but I don’t see Fletcher. Where the hell is he?
Glaring at the Mech, I meet them halfway across the street. “You brought him up instead of Fletcher?”
Nyx is fuming. “I didn’t want to, but Justice wouldn’t leave without him.”
“He rushed to battle and his heroic deeds saved me from a hapless fall,” Justice says.
“Damn straight. Gort stepped up big time,” Constantine admits. “Took all the blows for Justice. Kept him from taking his gloves off. We’d all be lifelong enemies if he hadn’t.”
There’s no denying Gort’s all torn up. The mechanized monocle covering what’s left of his eye is cracked and dripping with black, oily blood. The steel plate riveted to his chest is partially torn off, exposing a gruesome mess of mechanical parts, wiring and tubes fused into sticky, necrotic organs.
“What about Fletcher?” I look at Nyx. “Go get him!”
Nyx looks at Pandora as her sister crosses the street toward us. Pan’s features are stone cold, but I see tears standing in her eyes. Nyx swallows hard. “I couldn’t touch him even if I wanted to. He never shifted out of the demon.”
Constantine presses the torn sleeve of his jacket down over his bleeding arm. “Chances are good we lost him. It got real hairy down there. Gort took the worst of it from Fletcher.”
Poor Fletch. The Dreads made his worst nightmare come true. Losing himself to the beast was the one thing he was scared of. I just hope he crawled into the Harlem River like all the other Mishipeshu vengence demons. I’d hate for our paths to cross between here and home turf. It would kill me to have to fight him.
Pandora walks slowly past us, her gaze fixed on the subway stairs. She stops and turns to look at me. She’s probably thinking the same thing. She’s trying to cover, but it’s obvious she’s all cut up inside over losing Fletcher.
Constantine finally notices Pandora’s not taking the news well. “Hey, Fletch got away though. Busted through the door and headed straight for the Dreads. Even managed to tear a few of them a new one before the bitches scattered.”
A cold look of satisfaction spreads across her face.
Losing Fletcher’s going to hurt us. A lot. He’s always been the cool voice of reason whenever things go bad. Somebody’s got to put a cap on everybody’s tempers, including my own. Guess that’s up to me now.
Nyx steps up next to Pandora. “Don’t worry, sis, there’s always the chance Fletch could come out of it.”
The beat of enormous wings whips up a hot gust of wind directly overhead. Nobody else notices it sounds like Big Bird just roosted above us. I’m the only one who glances up.
/> The dark angel crouches down, folding raven-colored wings behind its rail-thin body. God, that dreary expression makes me want to slit my wrists. Its presence is unnerving. I want to point at the angel, tell the others to look hard and make them see it too. But I know it won’t make a difference. I’m the only one it ever appears to. That’s how it’s always been.
The only difference is, I’m not buying into its message of doom and gloom this time around. I’m going to make my own luck. Starting now.
“Knox, leave our sign,” I say, throwing the angel a glare. “We’re gonna leave a trail for Fletch to follow.” I glance at Pandora. “Nyx is right, he’s gonna come out of this, and we need him along for the ride.”
Pandora's mouth sets in a determined line as she nods at me.
Hurley high-fives me. “Hell yeah. Leave no soldier behind.”
“I don’t know, man,” Knox says. “We’ve got no idea whose sandbox we’re in. Marking our tag on someone else’s turf will bring down all kinds of wrath.”
I level my gaze on Knox. “Then we’ll deal. I don’t know about you, but after what the Dreads did to us, I don’t care who knows we’re here.”
Knox stares at me in surprise. “I like it. I’ve got some serious refueling to do though. Those crones made me burn nearly all the gas in my tank, but I should be able to squeeze out enough diesel for this.” With that, he summons a small amount of fire and lightly scorches our Forsaken mark onto the wall below the tracks.
10
Downhill From Here
MAGIC BREW MIGHT AS WELL BE ON THE OTHER SIDE of the world for how far away it feels. We’ve all agreed it’s suicidal to hoof it back to Coney through miles of enemy territory. The subway’s still our best bet. The Dreads may’ve forced us off the train, but they won’t be expecting us to ride the rails again. Not this soon.
We have to get to the next station at 155th, which means a full-tilt run past Yankee Stadium and across the Harlem River. We’re screwed if the D train gets back up and running before we get there.
The run’s taking it out of me. My lungs burn and my muscles are cramping. I had no idea I was this out of shape. Guess that’s what happens when teleporting is how you roll.
Magic Brew Page 6
