They got to the door, then froze, looking around. I stopped in mid-stride. I nodded to Abby. I heard it too. Feet coming, and a lot of them. I took a deep breath, and let out a groan. A lot of feet, and at least half of them belonged to werewolves, if the smell was anything to go on.
Bishop shook his arms free of William and Abby, then grinned at me. “Sounds like my cavalry has arrived.” He raised his voice. “Boss! Over here!”
“I know where you are, idiot. I’m not blind.” A tall vampire with tan skin and wavy dark hair stepped out from behind one of the Morlock buildings. Emily was right, he did have a look in his eyes like he wanted to dine on souls for breakfast. I’ve met a lot of predators since becoming one myself, but this guy might be the darkest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Jimmy Black,” he said. “My name is Ian Carter, and I’m here to kill you.”
“Well, Ian,” I said, drawing Excalibur. “I hope you won’t be too disappointed if I object to that plan.”
He smiled at me. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“Did you bring help?” I asked. “Or just your pet Labradoodles?”
Terry Aves stepped into view, smiling, with the vast majority of his pack standing behind him. He gave me a little wave. “Hey there, asshole.”
“Hi Terry,” I replied. “Decided today was the day to die?”
Terry’s smile vanished. “Good day for somebody to die,” he said. Terry looked around. “Maybe a lot of somebodies, depending on how it goes.”
I turned my attention back to Ian. “So what is this, a challenge? You know those are single combat, right?”
“I don’t give a shit about your challenge, Black. You screwed with my business, so I’m going to kill you and everybody you’ve ever cared about. Nice of you to bring them all here for me and my Downgrounders to take care of.” He turned around, addressing the gathered vampires. “KILL THEM.” I felt the compulsion roll out over the gathered Morlocks and Eastland vamps, and suddenly about half of the vampires standing around Greg, Emily, and the vamplets turned to them, murder in their eyes.
I looked at Abby and said, “Well, shit.”
Chapter 39
I LOOKED AT IAN, who stood there with the kind of smirk on his face that just begs to be punched. “Mass compulsion, huh? Well, I guess two can play at that game.” Then I turned to the assembled vampires, gathered my will, augmented by my connection to the Soul of the City, and said, “Your minds are your own. Ignore all compulsions, now and forever.”
Their eyes cleared, and most of the advancing Morlocks looked at each other, then stepped back, leaving Ian, a couple dozen werewolves, and maybe ten vampires. Still not great odds, but decidedly better. Ian grinned. “Well, maybe you do have the power of the city’s magic behind you after all. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll kill you, kill all your friends, and take that magic. Then I can go back to doing business the way it’s always been done.”
“What are you calling ‘business,’ asshole?” I asked. “You were brain-blasting vampires and selling them as mobile sex dolls. That’s not business, that’s human trafficking. That’s sex slavery!”
He didn’t flinch. “To-may-to, to-mah-to. I made good money under Lilith, then you had to go and kill her. Your bitch here kicked me out on my ear and cut off all my revenue. You mess with my money, you die. Right, pups?” Terry and the rest of his wolves nodded.
I looked at the Alpha, then his pack. “Terry, this is stupid. You know you can’t beat all of us.”
“I don’t care if I can kill all of them, as long as you’re dead. Nobody humiliates the Alpha of the Panthers and lives.” He started to shift, and his shirt and jeans shredded. The rest of his pack transformed as well, and in seconds I was staring down most of a pack of giant half-man, half-wolves determined to rip me and my friends to pieces.
“Screw this,” Abby said from beside me, and raised her pistol. I expected her to count to three or something, give them an out, but apparently Abby was done with all the talky-talky. She squeezed the trigger, and the wolf beside Terry dropped, a hole blossoming in its chest. As the dead werewolf lay there, it transformed into a skinny white guy with a scruffy goatee.
Then all hell broke loose.
“William, get the kids! Greg, get the Morlocks clear!” I yelled, drawing Excalibur and running forward. I cleaved one vampire in half before I got near Ian, who leapt straight up into the air and did a flip backward. No wonder people used to think we could fly. Watching this jerk, I almost believed it.
Three vamps converged on me, but they couldn’t even get close. I was amped up on the Soul of the City and holding the most famous magical sword in history. I was Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Sylvester Stallone all rolled up into one, only without the biceps. I swung my sword, and arms fell to the ground. I slashed again, and blood fountained into the air as I severed two heads from their necks. A spin and a stab pierced the heart of the armless vampire, and they were all down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw William step out of a building. “Catch!” I shouted, and flung my shotgun at him. He snatched it out of the air at the pump, slipped off the safety, and jammed the barrel into the chest of a werewolf rushing at him. The twelve-gauge barked, and William turned his attacker into puppy chow. Greg slammed a werewolf into the floor, then stomped its skull to paste while yelling at the Morlocks to help the Eastland vamps to find cover.
“Jimmy, down!” I recognized Abby’s voice, but instead of diving to the floor, I spun around and swung my sword up into a guard position. That put the blade at the right height to catch the oncoming arm of a werewolf, so I stepped back and let the wolf run its arm into my sword. One sweep of the blade back into an overhead cut, and I sliced the wolf from its shoulder diagonally across to its hip. The two pieces of its torso fell to the ground to land beside its severed arm, and it shifted back into a very surprised-looking middle-aged woman, who would have looked more at home at a PTA meeting than dying in a sewer.
I turned to help Abby, but she was fine. As my gaze fell on her, she kicked a vampire between the legs so hard he lifted a foot off the ground, then she shot another one in the face. I heard her revolver click empty and shouted “Glock!” I threw my pistol, and she snatched it out of the air and put down a pair of werewolves that made the poor decision to go after the girl, thinking that Abby was an easier target.
A sledgehammer hit me in the kidneys, and I left my feet with the impact. I sprawled on my chest on the floor, and Excalibur slid ten feet beyond me. I rolled over just as Bishop—the Clydesdale of vampires— kicked at my side, so he caught me full in the sternum instead. His big boot brought a lightning strike of pain from my chest, along with a thunderous crack. I folded over, gripping his foot with both hands as he tried to draw back for another kick.
“Let go, asshole,” he grunted, leaning down to pick me up by my hair. I let go of his legs, and my arms dangled behind me as he hauled me to my feet. Bishop was even taller than me, and way stronger, so holding me up was nothing to him. He held up a head-sized fist and grinned. “I’m gonna punch out your spine like it’s a damn video game.”
“Go to hell,” I gasped, and spit in his face. His cheeks flushed purple, and he drew that giant ham hand back. When he did, I raised my right hand, with my Ruger LCP in it. I put a .380 silver-tipped round in each eye and dropped to the ground, falling to one knee as pain shot through my fractured sternum.
“Impressive,” Ian said from behind me.
I struggled to my feet, one elbow pressed to my side trying to hold my lungs in the right place. I turned, scanning the ground for Excalibur. Its healing properties would be really useful right about now.
“Looking for something?” Ian asked. I looked at him, and my heart sank as I recognized the three-foot blade in his hand. “Nice sword. Not my choice of weapon, but I like the throwback style. Didn’t expect you to be that
cool, Black.”
“Funny,” I said. “You’re exactly the level of douche I expected.”
“I’m going to enjoy cutting pieces of you off with your own sword.”
“I’m going to enjoy . . . nah, I’m not going to enjoy anything about you. You’re just a prick.”
He was closer now, close enough that I couldn’t get my pistol up and shoot him before he could close on me and ram that sword through my chest. I heard more shots and sounds of fighting from behind me but had no idea if my friends were winning or losing. Didn’t matter, I had the Big Bad in my sights, and I had to win the boss fight if we were ever getting out of this level.
“How do you want to do this?” I said, more a pant than speech.
“I want my boy Warren here to hold your arms while I chop your head off and play soccer with it. How does that work for you?” He nodded, and a blond vampire with a puka shell necklace came at me.
I fired three times, but Warren was fast, and every shot pinged off the floor and walls. I felt hands of iron latch onto my left arm, and I spun around to press the pistol to the center of his forehead.
“I counted shots, jackass. You’re empty.” He grinned at me, then said, “Make this easy on me, and he’ll make it quick.”
I sighed. “Okay,” I said, then pulled the trigger. The back of his head blew off in a shower of blood, brains, and silver shards. I turned back to Ian, who stood wide-eyed. “Your friend couldn’t count for shit.” I pulled the trigger again, firing my last round, but Ian dodged to the side as I did, and my shot went wide.
I dropped the Ruger and drew my KA-BAR in my right hand and one of my silver stakes in the other. I offered up a quiet prayer to the Soul of the City, asked Mike to put a word in with God, and finally asked anything that was listening to give me a little more strength or speed. I turned in a circle trying to find where Ian sprinted off to. Abby hadn’t joked when she said how much more powerful this guy was. He was faster than me, and I didn’t even want to think about how much stronger he was.
I caught sight of a shadow on the ground and leapt to the right as a sword flashed down and sparked on the floor right where I’d been standing an instant before. I lashed out with my stake, and felt the tip drag through cloth, but Ian danced back and out of reach before I did any real damage. He grinned at me, twirling Excalibur in lazy circles before him.
“You can’t beat me, Black. I don’t understand how you beat Tiram, much less Lilith. I’m going to—” His eyes went wide and one hand reached around behind him as he jerked free of the stake Abby buried in his back.
I stepped forward and slashed the back of his hand with my KA-BAR. His fingers opened reflexively, and I dropped the stake from my left hand to grab Excalibur. “I get by with a little help from my friends,” I said right in the vampire’s ear as I jabbed my knife into the half-healed hole Abby made in his back. My knife pierced his heart with its silvered blade, and without Excalibur to heal him, he died almost instantly.
I looked at Abby, covered in blood from staking werewolves and vampires alike, and said, “Thanks for the assist, but next time you want to kill somebody, make sure they aren’t holding a magical healing sword.”
She looked at the blade in my hand. “Sometimes I really dislike that sword.”
“I like it a lot more when I’m holding it,” I said. The blade’s healing magic coursed through me, repairing my shattered sternum and reattaching my ribs. Also not a painless process, but it felt a lot better than trying to move with shards of glass poking me from the inside out. “The rest of them dead?” I looked around and couldn’t see any more vampires or werewolves. I also couldn’t see Greg or William, but I figured they were with their respective charges.
“I think so. I haven’t seen Terry, though,” Abby said. That was worrisome. Out of all the remaining wolves and vampires, he had the most reason to hate me.
As if on cue, a scream of fury cut through the last sounds of battle. The sound came from a building to my left, and I started in that direction. I heard a shotgun blast, then another scream, then Greg came charging out of a building three over from the source of the blasts.
“Emily!” he shouted, and barreled through the door, me and Abby hot on his heels. The scene in front of us was like something out of a horror movie. William stood holding my shotgun, Terry’s human form lying dead at his feet. Emily crouched beside the limp body of her friend Shelly, tears pouring from her face like a bloody river. The walls of the flimsy building were painted with blood, and a tiny tendril of smoke wafted up from the barrel of the shotgun.
William turned to me, his face stricken. “I didn’t hear him. I’m so sorry, sir. I was watching, but the sounds of battle subsided, and I looked outside to see if all was clear, then he just . . .” William’s voice trailed off, and he pointed up. I followed his finger and saw that just like most of the Morlock buildings, this one was open to the air above. I could see exactly how it went down. Terry snuck around until he found the vamplets’ hiding place, then leapt over the walls and attacked. Apparently he landed next to Shelly, and he ripped her throat out before William could shoot him.
I moved over to where Greg held a sobbing Emily, and knelt by the body. I looked over her, and it looked like Terry ripped her throat out with one swipe of his claws. I turned her over, but her back was as unmarked as her chest. “What are you crying about?” I asked Emily, then pressed Excalibur into the dead girl’s hands.
Emily whirled on me, her eyes blazing. “What do you mean, you asshole! My best friend is dead, and it’s all your fault. Your guy didn’t keep her safe, and now she’s gone.” She drew back to throw a punch, but Shelly reached up and caught her hand before it connected with my jaw.
“I’m dead, but not gone, idiot,” Shelly said, sitting up with a grin. The sword’s healing magic had repaired her throat in seconds, and she looked none the worse for wear as she laughed at the expression on her friend’s face.
I took my sword back and stood up, looking over to William. “What were you so worried about?”
He couldn’t blush, but he did look down at his shoes. “I thought the wolf wasn’t stupid enough to go for her throat. With all that blood, I assumed he ripped her heart out. How does anyone that lacking in common sense rise to the rank of Alpha?”
I looked at him and laughed. “Come on William, what do you expect? They’re dogs. They sniff buttholes to say hello.”
Epilogue
I DRAINED THE last of my Firefly and ice and set the glass down on the coffee table. Pleasantly tipsy after half a dozen drinks, I looked down the sofa at Sabrina and said, “And that’s how we became the Brady Bunch.”
“So what now?” she asked. “You’re here with William and Abby. Greg, his sister, and her friends are living underground with the Morlocks.”
“Under what used to be Eastland Mall, since the Mallrats place is bigger and less smelly,” I added.
“I guess the Panthers are looking for a new Alpha, or are they looking for revenge?”
“They’re fighting amongst themselves over who will be the new Alpha, but after I delivered Terry’s head to their chapter house in a cake box, they decided that revenge was probably not on the menu. At least not this week.”
Sabrina took a drink from her glass of wine and stretched out her legs, wriggling her toes under the edge of my thighs. “You know as a foot warmer you are absolutely useless.”
“Downside to dating a dead guy,” I said.
“Are you going to make them pay the back tribute Terry owed?” she asked.
“No. I’m just going to make them pay the tribute they were light this month. I’ll let them slide on the old stuff, but I can’t let them off completely scot-free. They have the money, since they have all of Terry’s accounts now. Turns out he was skimming from the pack’s tribute money into a private account in the Caymans. I guess Ter
ry was building himself a little golden parachute, in case things went sideways for him here.”
“His parachute failed,” Sabrina said.
“Idiot never even reached for the ripcord,” I said with a nod.
“So why aren’t you happier?” she asked. One of the drawbacks to dating a detective, especially one as gorgeous and out of my league as Sabrina, is that they are damned perceptive. She’d been giving me the side eye all night while I told the story of the last day or so when she’d been trapped at Fitzpatrick’s bedside filling out a mountain of paperwork.
I stared at the ice slowly melting in my glass. After a moment, I spoke. “I can’t help but wonder how much I’m screwing up as Master. A lot of this crap would never have happened if I hadn’t been the boss.”
“Yeah, because Lilith would have destroyed the whole city months ago. Hard to run a sex trafficking ring in an apocalypse. You know you’re doing good. What’s the real problem?”
“I don’t know if the good I do outweighs the bad I’m doing, I guess.”
She laughed. “That’s easy, idiot. Stop doing the bad stuff.”
My head whipped around so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. “What?”
“Quit. Doing. Criminal. Shit. It’s not rocket science, Jimmy. Good guys don’t do bad stuff. You want to walk on the side of the angels, stop selling drugs and renting girls.”
“I don’t—”
She cut me off with an upraised hand. “Stop taking a cut of the weed and prostitution trade. You want to be a good guy? Then stop being a crime lord. It’s not rocket science, you just got used to having a pile of money, and now you’re scared to do without it. But it’s tearing you up whenever you see the dark side of your business, and it sure makes my life complicated as hell.”
All Knight Long Page 26
