The blow missed by inches as Alice jerked out of its path, dropped one shoulder, and delivered an uppercut to his jaw that sounded like someone flat-handing a ripe pumpkin. Chibueze slammed into one of the parked cars, stumbled sideways in a desperate attempt to keep his balance, and sprawled on the ground.
Before Alice’s blow had connected with Chibueze’s jaw, Matt attempted to strike her in the ribs. The punch landed, but she rolled with it, sapping much of its impact, while simultaneously twisting to land a horrifyingly powerful counter to Matt’s jaw. His head rocked, his face seemingly folded in on itself for a moment like a boxer caught on super slow-motion playback.
Even with his own draw on fear, Matt was no match for Alice. Neither was Rose, and she knew it, but that didn’t mean she would give up. Suppressing her urge to catch Matt before he could hit the pavement like Chibueze before him, she drew speed and charged Alice in hopes of catching her off guard.
Screaming, almost entirely unaware of the bullets whizzing past her or the brawl raging all around, Rose barreled into the other woman with outraged abandon. She threw a left-right-left combination that should have floored Alice, but though one of the punches grazed her shoulder, Alice slipped and rolled away from them with the agility of a ballerina. Rose screamed in rage, fists and feet awhirl with deadly intent, but no amount of anger, speed, or even discernment appeared adequate to the task.
Alice, almost playfully, struck Rose across the face with an open hand followed by a blow to her throat that left her gasping for air. It was all she could do to remain on her feet as purple blotches burst in her vision. She drew healing to clear it and just had time to right herself before Alice slammed her against Thandiwe’s car. The door bit painfully into her back. She tried to free herself, but Alice held her pinned, one arm across her throat. Rose threw a knee in an attempt to catch Alice unprepared, but she deftly evaded it and pressed closer.
“Your people are dying.” Alice spoke into Rose’s ear like a lover, her voice frustratingly calm despite Rose’s struggles. With a grip like a thousand-ton glacier, Alice turned Rose’s head to face the abandoned park.
In the chaos of her own fight, Rose had lost track of the larger battle. She saw now that many of her people hadn’t engaged. The same was true for Thandiwe and nearly a dozen of her forces. A handful of their combined crew had left their positions in the park to take on the enemy, but most stood in place, unmoving. Preston, the only vampire left with Olivia dead, fought on, but despite his best efforts, and the seemingly limitless powers of an enraged vampire, he was no match for Alice’s lads combined with nearly thirty more succubi allied with her. Though he remained dangerous to any five of them, they were, at this point, playing with him—pummeling him slowly into submission. Not that he would ever stop fighting. From the look of manic rage on his face, Preston would die seeking revenge for his slain sister.
“Charmed,” Rose said, the realization coming with the word. Alice’s powerful charmers hadn’t bothered keeping Rose, Matt, and Chibueze in check. Instead, they had focused on the bigger threat: Tanner and his guard units.
“It’s one of the most undervalued of our gifts, don’t you think?” Alice gazed on the frozen slinkers arrayed before them. “We all have it, which I suppose makes us take it for granted. But it’s a most deadly sort of power in the hands of a master.”
Try as she might, Rose couldn’t tell who amongst Alice’s people might be the charmer turning her forces into mannequins. Not that fingering the perpetrator would do her much good. With her impossible strength, Alice didn’t need mind tricks to neutralize Rose. Fighting her was like trying to swim against a whirlpool. Rose had as much chance of breaking free to stop the charming as a puppy had of jumping a chain-link fence.
“What do you want?” Rose grumbled past Alice’s arm across her throat. She was keenly aware of the gun still holstered at her hip but knew she could never draw it faster than Alice could react.
“The first thing I want is your vampire friends dead. The lads are having their fun with that one,” Alice cocked her head at Preston, his face a blood-streaked mess. “But I think playtime is over. Lads, kill that monster already.”
No creature Rose knew of could soak up damage like a vampire or one of their misbegotten cousins, the wight. But though their capacity for healing outstripped even the most powerful of succubi, all things had limits. Unlike movie vampires—fanciful creatures possessed of life beyond life—real vampires were living creatures. Their bodies, while resilient, functioned according to the dictates of their peculiar biology. Therefore, when one of Alice’s lads caught Preston about the middle with both arms, and two others set about ripping his head from his shoulders, the dictates of life demanded their due. Preston’s screaming cut off abruptly as his skull separated from his body. One of the lads, smiling like an imbecile child, held it aloft while the others cheered.
Rose’s gorge tried to rise. She struggled to look away, but Alice kept her head turned to the gruesome scene.
Satterfield, frozen in place like everyone else, showed no sign of emotion, but Rose got the feeling she knew exactly what had happened and was undoubtedly screaming inside the silent prison of her body.
“We don’t abide vampires in our lands.” Alice relaxed her grip on Rose’s jaw. “That is the first law of Irish rule. Simple, eh? The second is even easier: you do as you’re told, and we let you live. I know you think you can make life hard for us here, but you’re wrong. In fact, I’d wager you’re starting to understand that better tonight, aren’t you? You see, I don’t fight limited wars, Rose. I don’t leave enemies to stab me in the spine. That is why I win. Do you understand?”
Rose swallowed and nodded. She did understand. And though she raged inside for the loss of Olivia and Preston, and maybe the Order itself, she knew her best chance at saving the remainder of her people rested solely on her willingness to submit. She glanced at Matt. He had regained his feet but appeared charmed like the others.
“You will quell your people,” Alice said. “You’ll tell them not to fight. Otherwise, I kill them. All of them. Everyone who has ever associated with you or your Order will die.”
“Everyone?” The male voice spoke so close to Rose’s back, she momentarily thought he must be inside the car behind her.
Alice’s eyes went wide. “Who the devil are you?”
“I’m not the devil, señora, just his son.”
Rose knew that voice. “Rubio?”
“Si. How are you, Rose Carver? Not so good, I think. You remember, Señior Kraft and I offered our help for you all that time ago? Perhaps now you want to take it?”
“Yes! God in heaven, yes.”
“I thought you might reconsider.” Rubio’s voice had moved. He sauntered into view around the backside of Thandiwe’s car to lean on the trunk. “If I’m telling the truth, señiorita, I was going to help you anyhow. I’ve been meaning to run down this Irish puta for months, and now seems as good a time as any.”
“Lads!” Alice shouted without taking her gaze off Rubio.
Rose expected to hear running feet headed their way. Instead came the sound of renewed gunfire and the unmistakable wail of vampires going to battle. Shoving hard at the now distracted Alice, Rose managed to turn her head enough to view the park. The sight made her smile.
Dozens of vampires boiled out of the trees like living shadows. The bewildered succubi, both the Irish and their American counterparts, struggled to face the onslaught, but the numbers were quickly overwhelming their ranks. Pound for pound, a vampire outstripped a succubus in strength, speed, and power in almost every case. Even a relatively weak vampire tended to possess more votaries than the average succubus, since blood ties created bonds for them not only with their victim but with that victim’s family as well. Because of their relatively low population compared to their succubus cousins, vampires could rarely front large enough numbers to pose any significant threat. From the look of things, however, Rubio had solved that problem.
/> “Stop this!” Alice’s drawn-enhanced voice boomed across the lot with so much force, Rose felt it reverberate in her chest.
Rubio nodded as he stood up from the car. “Si, let’s stop this.”
The words had barely escaped his lips before Rubio had his hands wrapped tightly about Alice’s throat. He slung her to one side like a sack of dirt and slammed her against Rose’s van. Her back dented the door, and her head cracked the window in a spray of tiny glass fragments. Giving her no time to recover, Rubio reversed directions and pounded her into Thandiwe’s car. Her arm went through the driver’s side window and came out bloody.
“What happened? Why are there vampires?” Thandiwe, who had only a moment before been standing like a department store dummy behind the car, grasped Rose’s arm and pulled her away from the fray. “I lost time, I think.”
“Charm.” Rose didn’t have time to say more. She wrested her hand free and dashed after Rubio and Alice, who had progressed almost to the edge of the lot.
The vampire no longer had things all his own way. While he had managed to get the upper hand via surprise, she was without question the strongest succubus Rose had ever faced. Rubio’s strength and speed might outclass hers—it was hard to tell—but if so, not by much.
Alice slipped from his grasp, side-stepped like a seasoned boxer, and punched him three times, two in the ribs, once in the face. He stumbled sideways, off-balance, and would have received another, likely more damaging blow from Alice if Rose hadn’t slammed into her from behind at speed. She took the other succubus to the ground. They slid in the overgrown grass, Alice struggling to throw Rose off her, but her angles were wrong.
Knowing she couldn’t maintain the dominant position for long against a far stronger opponent, Rose punched Alice twice in the face while she had the chance and then rolled quickly away.
Alice jumped to her feet in the wet grass, her jeans and designer shirt covered in muck. She looked ready to tear Rose apart with her nails. Unfortunately for her, she no longer faced Rose alone. Rubio stood like a stone monolith facing her, and so did Thandiwe, who had taken up a position next to Rose, and Matt, and Chibueze.
Rose could see Alice calculating her odds at taking them all and coming up short. Powerful she might be, with her draw on fear, but even she had her limits, and the fear draw tended to give its succubus a clear mind for logic. A short glance over one shoulder made that estimation even worse. Two of her lads were down, along with most of the extra muscle she had brought along. Leeds and the male senator whose name Rose couldn’t remember both lay still in the grass.
Alice cursed and started to turn, obviously intending to run for the trees. With her level of votaries and pure drawing power, Rose knew she would never catch the woman. One of the vampires might have better luck, but given the tumult of battle behind her, Alice stood a good chance of escaping.
Despite her doubts, Rose nonetheless drew speed in anticipation of chasing after Alice, but the Irish succubus never got the chance. Without warning, a gunshot flared in the night, and Alice jerked suddenly, her shirt turning dark with irregular splotches of blood. The gun fired three more times, and Alice collapsed.
Jason Kraft stepped out of the darkness wearing a gray trench coat and a vintage 1940s style hat, a large caliber revolver smoking at his side. “God, that felt good.”
“You came,” Matt said, his voice flat.
“You invited me.”
Rose stared between them, her heart hammering, her mouth hanging open. “You called your father?”
“I never trusted Alice for one second.”
“But you said—”
“I said I didn’t trust my father.” Matt’s lopsided grin looked forced. “But better him than her.”
“Sounds like my stock is on the rise.” Jason turned to survey the last of the fighting. A handful of Alice’s people still battled the circling vampires who had mixed liberally with Rose’s force while the Consortium members stood watch. The tables had turned.
“What shall we do with them?” Rubio asked.
“This.” Jason marched to the edge of the circle. “Stop playing with your food, people. Kill them!”
“No, wait!” Rose started forward, her heart in her throat. She wasn’t opposed to using lethal force when attacked, but she would never condone siccing vampires on an already defeated group of succubi.
Unfortunately, her voice went unheard, or at least unheeded. The vampires made short work of the remnants, some feeding, most settling for beating their victims to death.
Rose swore and buried her face in Matt’s shoulder until the sounds of ripping and tearing ceased. The sight, sound, and smell of the fight left her feeling sick.
“They would have done the same to us,” Jason said without the least bit of sympathy or regret in his tone.
“They did exactly the same to Preston.” Rubio, not one given to moving unless forced, actually inclined his chin toward the young vampire’s remains, his face a blank slate.
Rose followed the gesture, and her breath caught. “Valerie.”
Satterfield sat on her knees, both hands folded over Preston’s headless body. At some point, part of her long hair had escaped her bun. It hung in her face, unnoticed. To Rose’s surprise, the supermodel-level beauty wasn’t crying. She sat in silence.
Seeing her that way brought back the gravity of all that had happened. Rose sank to her own knees, her chest tight, her eyes stinging with tears. First Olivia, whom Rose had grown closer to than she had ever imagined possible, and now Preston, who had clearly loved Satterfield. Sadness like a smothering weight flooded over her. She wrapped her arms around her friend, and the two of them sat rocking, taking what solace they could from one another under the glare of magnified loss.
Rose wasn’t sure how long they remained that way. Eventually, Matt and Tanner helped her and Satterfield to a car. The police were coming, or so Rose gleaned from the stream of talk that fluttered around her without ever quite entering her skull. She might have slept, she couldn’t say, but Matt’s voice eventually penetrated through to her consciousness.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“About what?” Rose sat in the front seat of their van. She twisted around, momentarily frightened they had separated her from Satterfield, but no, Valerie lay asleep across the van’s backbench.
“I said, Piper’s going to find out what happened tonight one way or another. We should probably be the ones to tell her.”
Rose swallowed. Her throat felt parched. “Yeah, we probably should.”
“She’s not going to take it well.”
“She’s going to go insane. More insane than I feel right now.”
“What do you think she’ll do?”
Rose looked at him, her blood running cold at the thoughts his question raised. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s going to be bad.”
They drove in silence for several minutes before Matt spoke again, his tone inquisitive. “You know, something odd struck me just now.”
“What’s that?”
He turned to face her, his brows furrowed. “Where was your sister tonight?”
23
Catalyst
A twinge of guilt washed over Rose as she stood in the wings of the auditorium. How could she go on with business as usual a mere three days after losing Olivia and Preston? It shouldn’t have been like this. They deserved to be mourned. Problem was, Rose didn’t have time for that. None of them did.
She and Matt had organized a short notice confab at the offices of Run Time Error, Inc. for their allies. What the building’s auditorium lacked in size—it could accommodate little more than a hundred people—it made up for in amenities. The flat-screen hanging over the stage appeared larger than a jumbotron to her unpracticed eye.
Rose had worried Moss might get upset at so many people invading his private domain, but the slim incubus had appeared excited by the prospect. He said he liked the idea of bringing so many different factions together.
That didn’t mean he enjoyed the sight of Jason Kraft in his building, but the two hadn’t interacted so far as Rose knew, and she doubted they would.
“I have hosted so many speaking engagements I’ve lost count of them all,” Thandiwe said. “But for some reason, this one is making me more nervous than all the rest combined.”
“I feel it too, but we’ll get through it.” Rose patted Thandiwe’s shoulder.
“Well,” Matt said, grinning, “either that, or we’re doomed. Can’t see order coming from all the chaos we’ve caused.”
“Thank you for that piercing insight.” Thandiwe gave him a sour look.
Rubio grunted. “He’s right. If this doesn’t work, I’m taking my people back to Mexico.”
“And I’ll go with you.” Kraft nodded at the vampire, though his expression spoke reluctance at the prospect.
Gloria Torres, who had mounted the stage a moment before, stepped up to the lectern, the stage lights illuminating her silken black hair and gorgeous face. She had taken the end of her campaign bid as more of a blow than Rose would have expected, but like any true professional, she bounced back fast. She pulled the microphone down to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming here on such short notice. Your respective groups have convened this meeting to best decide how we all should proceed in the future. We are conducting it based on Consortium rules, which call for voting representatives to consider proposals and make decisions as they see fit, because haste is important right now.”
Rose couldn’t see the audience, but their utter silence made her worry. Did they mistrust their leaders? Or perhaps they hated the idea of siding with one or the other faction in the mishmash coalition she and the others were trying to form. She couldn’t blame them. If the slinker she had been a few years ago happened upon this conclave, she doubted that Rose Carver would have stuck around five minutes. She would have figured the thing for a lost cause and gotten on with her life.
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