by Alicia Wolfe
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said.
Davril said nothing.
Then we began noticing a different group of people, a third group. They stood in the corners dressed in black, their faces pale. They stared at us with hideous dead eyes. One had a trickle of blood leaking down from its lips. He grinned at me with an awful smile, and I shuddered.
“Stay close,” Davril said.
I obeyed, almost pressing myself against him.
We continued following the first man with the scarf down the hall. I knew now why he and the other people here wore scarves. Under that swatch of fabric would be puncture wounds. Twin wounds, like the kind fangs would make. Maybe many such wounds.
“The vamps must have put them into some sort of trance,” I whispered to Davril. I spoke in such a low voice that I didn’t even think the vampires with their preternatural hearing could detect my words. I depended on Davril with his keen hearing to pick them up.
“The vampires’ thrall,” Davril agreed, pitching his voice at the same volume. “A terrible power to have over anyone.”
The man with the scarf showed us into a large study, guarded by two bloodsuckers in black. Their eyes were impossible to see behind their sunglasses. At night. Indoors. With the lights off. Sheesh, I thought. Trying much? But they were creepy as hell.
Davril and I passed through them and into the study. No fire lit the fireplace, and the furniture had been pushed back along the walls, all except for an expensive armchair facing us. In it sat a figure, a man dressed elegantly and wearing the head of an impala, one of those African deer with the weird horns. An actual fur-covered, horned head. The effect was even creepier than the vamps outside. This must be Skull-Face, I thought, not even willing to show his face to us now. He wants to remain anonymous.
That was a good thing. That meant he intended for us to survive.
If all went well. If it didn’t, well, he had a lot of vampires to serve him. Did that mean he was a vamp, too? I didn’t think so. His skin was too healthy looking, and I thought I heard a pulse.
“Welcome to my home for the moment,” he said through the lips of the animal.
“You must release these people,” Davril demanded. “You can hold them hostage and feed from them no longer.”
“Oh?” Skull-Face’s voice sounded amused. I still thought of him as Skull-Face, even though he had an animal head on now. Impala Head just didn’t have the same ring.
“Yes,” Davril said, and there was iron in his voice. “I won’t allow it.”
His hand went back to his hip.
I cleared my throat. “Before you two start fighting, I want my sister back.” I patted my hip, drawing Skull-Face’s attention to the golden antler. “I think you want this, right?”
Skull-Face regarded me. “You look…familiar.”
“I don’t think so, pal. Where’s Ruby?”
He paused, and I could sense him thinking, staring at me. I could see his eyes, his real eyes, watching me through the eye holes in his creepy mask. At last he seemed to sigh. He snapped his fingers. A door opened, and two vampires hauled Ruby in. She was wobbly on her feet and seemed drugged, but she looked clean, healthy and not mistreated. Thank God. A huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
I started to take a step toward her.
“Not yet,” said Skull-Face. He extended his hand. “A deal’s a deal.”
I glared at him, then turned to Ruby. She was blinking her eyes and shaking her head, red hair dark by the scant light, and I wasn’t sure if she’d seen me yet or was aware enough to know what was going on. She seemed pretty dopey.
“Whatever,” I snarled and held up the antler.
“Be careful,” Davril told me, and his hand flexed at his hip, as if itching to have at his sword.
“I will,” I told him.
I sucked up my courage and started toward the man in the chair. Ruby murmured something and struggled weakly against her guards, but not, I thought, in an effort to get away, but more like someone trying to climb out of a nightmare. My heart wrenched for her.
“I’m right here, sis,” I told her, passing very close to her.
She glanced around. Blearily, she said, “…Jade?”
Joy flushed through me. “Yes! It’s me!”
Once more, I started to go toward her, but Skull-Face cleared his throat pointedly and, with a sigh, I turned back toward him. Up this close, his impala head was even more eerie and sinister, especially with his real human eyes looking out from it.
I took a step toward him, starting to lift the antler toward him…
He lifted his hand to accept it…
And that’s where everything went wrong. Because, as his hand came up, the ring on his middle finger caught the faint light, its black jewel gleaming like obsidian. A chill ran through me, and my body went stiff.
I would know that ring anywhere. It was the ring that had stolen my fire.
My gaze jerked up to Skull-Face. But to me, it was no longer Skull-Face. Seething in rage, I lowered the golden antler and yanked out the knife instead.
“Walsh!” I screamed at Davril. “This is Vincent Walsh!”
Chapter 21
I heard Davril give a startled oath behind me, while Ruby stirred in agitation at my side. Before me Skull-Face—now Walsh—was rising to his feet. As he unfolded, I realized just how tall he was. He loomed over me, the horns of his mask arcing up like alien antennae.
With one hand, he ripped his mask away, revealing the handsome but cold features of Vincent Walsh, with his swept-back black hair, straight long nose, and severe jaw. His lips were pouty and cruel. He looked relatively young, but I knew he was ancient. His eyes were as frosty as the Arctic.
“You,” he said, and his brows lowered. “I knew I recognized you.” He lifted his ring and gave it a quick look, then returned his attention to me. “I think I have something of yours. Well, two things, actually.”
I heard Davril unsheathe his sword. Jumping to my side, he said, “This is the mage who stole your fire?”
“Yeah,” I said, and it took everything in my power not to leap at Walsh and start hacking. I wasn’t sure how many slices I could get before his vamps descended on me, and I strongly suspected he was protected by wards, but I was willing to give it a shot. “He also killed my father and grandmother.”
“They were…impertinent,” Walsh said.
I wanted to smash something across his pretty face. “I’m going to kill you,” I said.
He stared at me. “You know,” he said, and I could see him reach a conclusion as he spoke, “I think you’re right.”
Suddenly, I felt cold. “W-what?”
Walsh looked pitying. “I think you will be a problem, and I don’t require you to be alive.” Raising his voice just slightly, he said, “Kill them!”
The doors burst open and the vampires poured in.
“AWAY!” roared Davril and waved his free hand.
A huge wind tore through the room, flipping my hair and ripping at my clothes. The howling wind smashed the wave of vampires back.
“Wow,” I said. I hadn’t known he could do that.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said.
Indeed, it would only hold the vamps at bay for a moment. Worse, I could see that using his magic had tired Davril out, if only a little. He was extremely powerful, but even he had his limits.
Before the vamps could pick themselves up, Walsh, who had not been affected by the sudden windstorm, raised his hand toward me and said, “I think I’ll take that, thank you.” The golden antler tugged out of my hand, drawing blood, and flew into his palm. His fingers closed around its shaft, and his pouty lips twisted in an icy sort of satisfaction. “Thank you and farewell,” he said.
With that, he ducked out through a rear door.
The two vampires holding Ruby had propped themselves up and were still on their feet; maybe by being close to us they’d been in the eye of the storm, so to speak. They each grinned wide, their
fangs elongating, and bent toward Ruby’s neck. She was so out of it she couldn’t even offer up a token resistance.
“Fuck off,” I said, and tackled the nearest one to the floor. As I moved, I said a spell under my breath, turning the blade of my knife to wood. The spell would only last for a few minutes.
I’d be lucky if I lasted that long.
I stabbed the undead son of a bitch through the heart, then leapt up as he exploded into fiery ash. Sparks whizzed around me. Other vampires had reached us by this point. Davril leapt and slashed with his sword. His enchanted blade apparently worked just as well as wooden stakes, and as he hewed through ribcages and necks the vampires burst into fire, then dissipated in clouds of ash.
Ruby, no longer supported by the vampires, collapsed to the floor. The other vampire that had been holding her flew at me, rage on his face. I must have just killed a buddy of his. Well, too bad.
“You want some, too?” I asked.
I dodged his first pass, then spun to catch him wheeling about for another. Snarling, he hurled himself at me. I ducked under his talons and stabbed him in the heart with my wooden blade. He screamed and burst into flames.
A wave of vampires descended on me, and I hacked and thrust, kicked and punched. At last, I made enough room to bend down and sling Ruby over my shoulder, then stand up again. She wasn’t as light as she liked to pretend, or maybe I was just exhausted. I was stronger than a full-blood human but I was no Fae, that was for sure.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
Davril sliced a vampire down the middle of its head, then turned to see me carrying Ruby over my shoulder while fending off a horde of vampires. It wasn’t easy. Sweat beaded his face, and his eyes were hard.
“This way,” he said and started for the door. He sliced his sword with every foot, and I hacked and stabbed at his side. I was tempted to ask him to carry Ruby, but we needed him free to move. He must have known that, too, or else he would’ve volunteered for the task. He was an asshole, but he was a righteous asshole.
I kicked a vamp in the balls, then drove my blade through another’s skull as we reached the doorway. Davril slammed it behind us and locked it, but it instantly bulged inward. Any second, and it would break.
“Allow me,” I said.
Concentrating hard, I laid my fingers against the wood, feeling its grain, and said, “Havra kuum!”
I pulled my hand back and the door hardened, became denser, thicker. One moment, it was light and thin as plywood; the next, it was like a sturdy oak. Roots erupted from its sides, digging into the door frame and holding it fast.
Panting, I turned to Davril. “They’ll have to go around now.”
The look he gave me was downright admiring, and I felt a flush of pride flow through me.
“This way,” he said.
He charged through the halls back toward the terrace where Lady Kay waited, and I ran at his side. Vamps, having heard their master’s summons, poured out of the rooms. I kicked one back into its room, then stabbed another in the chest. Davril severed one’s arm, then sledgehammered another in the jaw with his fist. At last we burst out onto the balcony and ran toward Lady Kay.
I lowered Ruby into the backseat, then scrambled into the passenger seat. Davril jumped behind the wheel and started the engine.
The vampires, the whole damned horde of them, smashed out through not just the door but the walls of the penthouse, too, and streaked at us across the terrace.
“Go go go!” I said.
Davril floored the gas pedal and twisted the wheel. Lady Kay shot up and away from the terrace just as the vampires reached the spot where we’d just been. Raving, they gnashed their fangs and clutched at the air with their talons.
Breathless, I turned to Davril. His face was exultant.
“Good job,” I said. “You saved our asses.”
“We saved…our asses.”
I grinned, then turned back to Ruby. She was gasping, too, and blinking her eyes more rapidly.
“Are you starting to come around?” I said.
She blinked a few more times, focused on me, then nodded. “Jade,” she breathed, and her eyes filled with tears.
I felt it, too. Strong emotion came over me, and I jumped over the seat top and dropped down beside her. As Davril flew us away from that place of horrors, Ruby and I held each other and cried, in both relief and fear of what might have been. We cried and cried, and at last, I realized I was smiling, too, and laughing. Ruby was, too. In the front seat, Davril said nothing, letting us have our moment.
I pulled back, wiping at my eyes. “I thought I was going to lose you.”
Ruby swallowed. “Me, too.” A weird look crossed her face. “Jade, it was Walsh! It was Walsh that took me!”
“I know.” She must have been so out of it she hadn’t even noticed what had transpired back in Walsh’s study. Well, his stolen study. I knew it wasn’t really his. “I can’t believe we ran into him after all this time.”
“I hope you didn’t give him what he wanted.”
I grimaced. “Shit, I think I did. Well, he took it, I didn’t exactly hand it over. What does he want with the antler? Do you know?”
She shook her head, red hair flying in the wind. “No, but it can’t be good, whatever it is. If a man like Walsh wants it that much, it can only mean dire things for the rest of us, I can tell you that.”
I sighed. “We’ll have to deal with that another time. For the moment, how do you feel?”
“Crappy. I need a beer or three.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that…until next month.”
“And food. Lots and lots of food.” She rubbed her belly, and I could hear it growl. “They didn’t feed me at all.”
“We’ll get you squared away, don’t worry.” I paused. Now we’d come to the big question. I hated to bring it up because I didn’t want Ruby to think we’d rescued her just so we could use her skills, but I didn’t see much choice. “Are you up for some healing magic?” I asked lamely.
“Is someone hurt?”
I grabbed Ruby’s hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want you to exert yourself after all you’ve been through, but if you can—at all—we need you.”
Her face was grave. “What happened?”
“It’s Queen Calista—Queen of the Fae. She was stabbed by the horn of a demon named Mortock, and we think she’s dying.”
“Jeez. That’s terrible. Sure, I’ll help if I can. Once I’ve recovered a bit, I think—”
“Aaagh!”
That was me, unfortunately. I wish I could say it was someone else, but nope. Because I had my head half-turned to face Ruby and was able to see behind us…and what I saw was bad. Like really bad. Like really, really bad.
A giant red dragon with golden scales along its underside was rising from the top of the skyscraper we’d just left. The one whose penthouse was still swarming with vampires. Well, now above that penthouse was this huge dragon, its great wings pumping, smoke rising in twin trails from its quivering nostrils. Its great amber eyes with their slitted pupils seemed to shine with their own lights, and like searchlights they scoured the skies—and fixed on us.
Ruby, seeing my face go pale, turned in her seat. Then she too let out a strangled gasp.
“Davril,” I said, and pointed.
He must have looked in his rearview mirror (I didn’t turn to find out; my gaze was fixed firmly on the dragon) because he loosed another Fae swear. Someday, I would have to learn what he was saying. If I lived long enough. Right now that seemed damned unlikely.
“Walsh!” Ruby said. “It must be Walsh.”
“But…but…he only absorbs fire, he doesn’t become a dragon,” I said with some attempt at reasonability.
“Evidently he’s absorbed enough of the former that he can become the latter,” said Davril from the front seat.
“Thank you, Dr. Spock,” I said.
“That’s Mr. Spock,” Ruby corrected me. “Dr. Spock was someone else.”
“I really don’t think that’s important right now.”
The dragon—Walsh—was barreling toward us. The few aerial vehicles and magical steeds between the penthouse and Lady Kay hastily found somewhere else to be. I saw a pair of cops riding griffons pop out of an alley where they’d been lurking, waiting to catch some drunken aristos riding their pegasi badly—the cops popped out, took one look at the dragon, glanced at each other, then ducked back into the alley.
Real helpful, guys. They were probably just radioing for backup, but still.
“Um, Davril,” I said. “Please go faster?”
He mashed the gas. Lady Kay bucked forward, and Ruby and I braced ourselves against the backseat.
“Shit,” she said. She sounded far less bleary now. A huge dose of adrenaline can do wonders.
“Fuck,” I corrected her. “This is definitely a ‘fuck’ situation.”
“I bow to your expertise, Sailor Jane.”
Behind us, Walsh, smoke trailing out behind him, gained on us. His wings were so wide he couldn’t fly between the buildings but had to go above them. He blotted out the stars overhead. Something cold slithered up my spine.
Ruby and I held hands tightly.
This was it. At any moment dragonfire would consume us, and then it would all be over. Without us, Queen Calista would die and the Shadow would prevail, whatever its true agenda was. Ironic that dragon’s fire, that thing I had been trying so damned hard to recover for so long, would be my undoing. At least I would die with Ruby at my side.
Above, fire bloomed in the back of Walsh’s mouth; I could see it past his sharp fangs growing brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter. Then it shot out right toward us. In seconds, it would roast us alive.
Chapter 22
I cried out as I felt the heat of the dragonfire approach and cringed closer to Ruby. She held my hand so tight it was painful.
The car jerked suddenly. Davril swung us around the corner of a building and down a cross-avenue. The plume of fire shot through the space we’d just been, then faded, turning to smoke.
