The Isis Collar

by Cat Adams

  Bruno dipped his head with pride and fire in his eyes. “Actual working. I did it to keep Celia alive. She wouldn’t be standing here today if not for these. That’s what Vicki Cooper predicted back in college and it was worth every cut, every drop of blood, every minute to see Celie here today. Fangs and all. She’s alive, has her soul.”

  Awww— I smiled at him and he smiled back. John took a serious look at the interaction and suddenly wasn’t so sure of himself, and his effect on me. There was a bond between Bruno and me that even the pain of his actions lately couldn’t completely erase.

  John handed the knife back, hilt first, and I slid it into the sheath. Bruno did the same. The forearm sheaths were nearly part of me. There were even permanent dents in my skin where the leather braces crossed, like a dent in a finger where a ring has remained for years without removal.

  “I hope you all brought me some fresh clothes.” I stank. Seriously. I’d been tazed, fought, and had slept in these clothes. “And a toothbrush.”

  “Toothbrush, yes. Change of clothes, no,” Creede answered. “You’re supposed to have been Jean-Baptiste’s captive. But I did bring beef broth.” He handed me a still-warm Styrofoam container.

  I accepted the meal gratefully, but it sucked about no change of clothes. I could pull down my sleeves over the sheaths, but the outfit I was in really didn’t have anywhere for me to hide much in the way of spell disks or other weaponry. Definitely sucked. Big pond scum–covered rocks.

  “You always look good to me,” Bruno said.

  Creede rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. Whatever. Go brush your teeth and get ready for the party.”

  25

  We strode boldly up to the building. Well, Matumbo/Jean-Baptiste and the “guards” strode up. I was supposed to be a captive and injured, so they were pretty much dragging me. It was harder than it should have been for me to remain passive. My vampire nature was rising as the sun lowered, and adrenaline was pounding through my system. I managed it by reminding my inner beastie that we would get a chance to fight; we were just waiting for the right target.

  Despite the fact that we’d arrived at sunset rather than midnight, the barrier I’d felt burning against my skin for almost a mile lowered when we approached.

  The door swung open of its own accord—not like automatic doors at the grocery, but the slow, ponderous grating of squealing metal as the two-story delivery doors opened inward. It was meant to be creepy, and succeeded admirably. Even creepier, the witch was using magic to create invisible walls forming a hallway leading to the very center of the room. Those walls were all that shielded us from dozens of M. Necrose victims who shambled and scraped across the floor toward the living, moving beings they could sense but not see.

  If I’d thought Principal Sanchez and the guy in the hospital were the worst things I’d ever seen, I simply had nothing to compare them to. Now I did, and the principal and her security guard were positively red-carpet material by comparison to the creatures pressing in against the magic. Skin hung in shards from nearly liquified muscles and bones that glowed with an eerie green-white. The sounds they made as they shuffled and scraped were … wet and made me want to claw away from Matumbo and run out in panic.

  Where was aggression when I really needed it?

  Glinda’s voice came from above and to our left. “You came early. How rude! I haven’t even had the chance to finish my preparations.” She was standing on the second-floor balcony, staring down at us like a Roman empress looking down on the Circus Maximus.

  Those who are about to die, and all that. But I didn’t plan to.

  “I brought the siren bitch.” Matumbo was flawless in her portrayal of Jean-Baptiste. There was contempt in the voice as she dropped me heavily to the floor.

  Wish she’d given me warning she was going to do that. Ow. I pretended to rouse slightly, as though I wasn’t in my right mind.

  “So I see.” Glinda looked me up and down critically. “Hmph. This is what my husband betrayed me for? By the way, did you enjoy fighting him, Siren? It seemed perfect retribution to send him to the hospital to kill you after what he did. I really thought that would have done it. But really, he died to protect that?”

  That was Jamisyn? Yeah, he deserved it, but I felt sort of bad about snapping his back now. Oh, and the incinerator, too, I suppose.

  “I want my money!” The fake Jean-Baptiste was doing a bang-up job keeping Glinda distracted.

  Until she wasn’t anymore.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” And she dropped the walls.

  The smell assaulted me first and my stomach threatened to bring up the beef broth. I kept it down, but it was a struggle.

  I’d really hoped to keep up the charade of the trance until I was closer to her. But I didn’t know if Agent Matumbo could be killed by M. Necrose. I didn’t dare take the risk. Instead, I took the initiative and leapt forward, kicking the first zombie off her feet. My foot sank into what appeared to be a solid calf and squished. Eww. Sheer instinct made me pull it back before I normally would have and scrape off the gook on the floor so I didn’t slip later.

  Oh, I was so throwing away everything I was wearing tonight if I made it home alive. I didn’t want to look at their faces closely. I was afraid I’d recognize someone from the school. Matumbo raised a shield that stopped them cold, and Bruno reached around it to throw a fireball at the nearest zombie and slammed the fallen zombie with multiple spells that froze her in place. Apparently, they’d discussed a strategy that I didn’t know about. Rizzoli had drawn his firearm, and began carefully putting a bullet between each zombie’s eyes. The creatures burst into flickering blue-green flame. The effect was eerie as hell, but effective. What in the hell?

  He turned to catch my eye. “Experimental rounds.” He put down two more zombies in rapid succession. Between all of us, we were nearly through them. “The director commissioned them for use on vampires, but this works, too.”

  I have got to get me some of those.

  “We get through this and I’ll make sure you get a box.”

  The key, of course, was getting through this. Because losing a few zombies wasn’t going to stop Glinda. There were plenty more coming, crawling over the bodies of the fallen. Plus, she still had all her stolen magic, and who knew what else in reserve. Since the troops hadn’t come in, the barrier had to be backed up, and its magic made it impossible for me to speak mind-to-mind to John.

  The action didn’t stop while I was thinking this. In fact, it had intensified. Glinda threw a blast of power our way that narrowly missed hitting me in the leg. I threw myself sideways and skidded across linoleum slick with vile fluids. Bruno and Matumbo sent nearly simultaneous attacks at her from opposite sides of the room, but she stopped them effortlessly.

  I noticed, when the guys attacked, that the glow from the collar diminished a bit. Maybe she hadn’t taken enough power to keep it regenerating. I had to tell the others but couldn’t let her know what I noticed. It was time for me to, as Rizzoli put it, do my damnedest. I pressed fingers to my temples and shouted in my head for all I was worth, praying that Matumbo would keep the zombies from sinking fangs and claws into me.

  Aim for the collar. Make her defend it. Can you take down the barrier, or is she the one powering it?

  I felt a tentative brush of words against my head. It hurt to listen for it, as though it was on the other side of a powerful waterfall. No, it’s not her. I’ve been trying to feel for the power source, but that damned necklace is putting out too much interference. If you can keep her off-balance, I’ll see what I can do.

  For the most part, she was ignoring me as being beneath her notice. They needed a distraction, and I was the only one available to give them one. I could jump straight up twenty feet if I tried, but she’d simply blast me out of the air. But if I moved from perch to perch, she’d have to focus on me to hit me. That could give the mages the time they needed. If I was really lucky, I might even get within striking distance.

  I mo
ved to where she couldn’t see me very well and crouched, ready to pounce to my first spot. That’s when the cavalry arrived in the form of a dozen FBI agents, a glowing John Creede, and one tall gray wolf. They all aimed weapons for the balcony and apparently Rizzoli wasn’t the only one with the special shells.

  Glinda took one look at John Creede, his eyes filled with fire and fury etched on his face, and panicked. She pulled a small ceramic disk from her pocket and hurled it onto the floor between Bruno and Matumbo. It shattered, as Glinda had meant it to, and I felt a sickening, and all-too-familiar lurch.

  She’d summoned a demon.

  Oh, crap.

  We’d closed the rift, so demons could no longer pass through at will. But their dimension still existed. A human stupid enough, with enough power, could still summon one. And Glinda had summoned a doozie. I wondered immediately if it was the demon disk Eirene once lost in the desert. People had searched for hours but came up empty. She had the money to pay for it if someone found it and decided to profit from the sale.

  The demon screeched with a lipless mouth, showing row after row of serrated teeth that dripped venom. His bellow of fury was loud enough to make my ears bleed, and I found myself as deafened as if I’d been standing next to an explosion.

  He stood three stories tall, his hide like that of a rhinoceros—if the rhino came in black with oil-slick-colored highlights. He had only one pair of legs, but sported six tentacled arms. Each one of them had a weapon and they all moved independently of the others.

  Fuck a duck.

  A mace ball the size of a chair descended on us and Matumbo barely managed to get a shield up in time. It deflected the blow but sent us to our knees. She looked at us like we’d lost our minds. “So what are you waiting for? Attack it!”

  Bruno returned the shocked look. “You’d have to lower the shield. You’re nuts!”

  Apparently to prove a point, John raised a hand and flung a fireball at the creature, right through the shield, causing a new screech. “Most of my ability is offensive magic. It’s why George and I made a good team. He was a defensive guy. You just keep the shield moving with us. I’ll fight right through it. It’s my best thing.”

  Bruno was suitably impressed, as was I. We attacked. Not that it did a lot of good. The thing was huge, and fast enough that it was nearly impossible to see the blows that were raining down on us. On the bright side, they were raining down fast enough that it would be hard to miss. Drawing my knives, I struck blindly, and felt the blow hit home down my arm to my shoulder.

  I was knocked off my feet and skidded across the floor. Another tentacle came down that I fully expected was going to lop off my head and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. But the blow never reached. Instead, I saw teeth and claws and fur fly past my face and the demon screamed again from the werewolf attack.

  Way to go, Emma. I owe you one.

  The beast appeared to shriek again if the open mouth was any indication, as Kevin attacked again. Gook abruptly splashed on my skin, burning like hot oil mixed with acid. I was actually glad I couldn’t hear anymore, because both Matumbo and Bruno flinched in pain at the sound.

  Celia, you need to do that again. I need a distraction to make my way over to that door. Bruno pointed. The power for the perimeter is coming from there.

  I could see his lips move, but I was hearing him with my siren gift. Matumbo nodded grimly and blocked another blow with a shield of magic. I couldn’t hear her in my mind but could read her lips. “We’ll keep it busy.” She shook her head, trying to keep her balance.

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one whose ears were shot. I yelled in my head, hoping she’d hear. I really needed to start to train the telepathy. “Get ready. On three.”

  On three I threw myself forward and the shield moved with me. I sliced the nearest arm twice. My knives cut in deep and true and the arm fell off the body in a flood of eerie green blood. But this time I didn’t wind up with any demon blood scorching my skin. Let’s hear it for shields.

  The beast turned, swinging a mace in a heavy blow, not at me but at Matumbo. He was smart enough to know that breaching her shields would leave us all vulnerable.

  The shield fell abruptly and I had to duck a lightning flash of magic. Matumbo was knocked unconscious. I had to get her out of there or she’d wind up zombie food.

  We definitely had to take out Glinda.

  I wasn’t the only one to think it. I caught a bare glimpse of Rizzoli standing at the top of the stairs, firing methodically into the witch’s shield. It was a good move so long as he had ammo. Because unlike the spawn, Glinda couldn’t maintain her shield and attack us at the same time.

  Movement was all around me, men and women in navy jackets with block white lettering reading FBI who were shooting at everything. Zombies were falling but had stopped burning. Maybe they became immune? I hadn’t a clue, but the bullets didn’t have the same oomph as when Rizzoli fired the first shot.

  None of the FBI were mages but Matumbo. But she was out of commission for now. John and Bruno joined forces, doing their best to shield everyone but the demon. Unfortunately, it couldn’t last long, and on the second floor Glinda had used magic to mow down three officers who’d come in from the fire escape. I could hear the screams of the wounded. My ears had finally healed, at least until the demon’s next scream.

  Glinda was holding Rizzoli off as she inched her way backward.

  Don’t let her escape, Rizzoli!

  I’m trying, damn it! But I’m almost out of ammo.

  The demon’s attention was on the Feds, who were finally starting to make some headway. It gave me the opening I needed. I sheathed my knives and pulled Matumbo into the most sheltered spot I could find, then dashed to the floor beneath the balcony on the end opposite from Rizzoli. Leaping with every ounce of my strength, I was able to grab onto the balcony railing and pull myself upward—in time to be greeted with a blast of power from Glinda that hit close enough to singe my hair and melt the clothing to my skin on my left side. I howled in agony, stumbling to one knee. I could see Rizzoli pull the trigger, aiming to take her with her shield down. But his gun clicked empty. She whirled to face him. With a triumphant shout she let loose a bolt of energy that hit him full in the chest, sending him into the wall behind with a sickening wet thud.

  I guess intuition isn’t always infallible. Like clairvoyance.

  Pulling my knives, I pounced. I hit her before she could shield, driving both knives deep into her chest. I knew when one of them found her heart, because her eyes dimmed, and the fire of magic that had flickered and glowed around her died.

  The witch was dead.

  I had to get back to the fight. But I wasn’t about to leave the collar on her neck. God knew who was liable to pick it up. When my hand touched the clasp I felt a surge of power unlike anything I’d ever encountered. Sudden, blinding light that seemed to scorch through my retinas. My eyes watered and I couldn’t breathe.

  “You summoned me?” The voice was alto, tinged with a hint of an accent, and came from inside the light … no, it was the light. I looked away, blinking away the tears, and realized that everything else had stopped. The creature’s arm, raised in a blow meant to crush the huge wolf that was Kevin, was still and suspended in the air.

  The light had stopped time.

  Oh, crap.

  That just wasn’t possible. Except maybe for God.

  The voice took on a melody of humor. “Or a goddess.”

  “There’s only one God.” I believed that. Even now, facing … this, I believed. Maybe my gran’s lessons had sunk in after all.

  When I turned back a woman had appeared before me. She was Egyptian, beautiful beyond measure. “You are a true believer. And yet I am still Isis.” She wasn’t happy. But she didn’t seem angry, either. More curious, and amused. “Goddess of magic, the home, and children. You touched the collar that was my gift. More, you have done me a great service, taking my tool from a hand that wielded it against all I ho
ld most dear. What do you seek? Wisdom? Power?”

  “Take it back.”

  The voice turned in an instant. No longer amused. Now angry. “Excuse me?”

  Okay, that had been blunt, almost rude. I wouldn’t get away with talking like that to Queen Lopaka or King Dahlmar and they were mortals. “Please, Isis, the gift of the collar was meant for the pharaohs. But they are no more. Take it back, away from those who don’t understand it, and don’t respect it.”

  “You could take the collar as your own, or ask for power, make yourself desirable to all men, whatever you wished. And yet you choose to throw it away?”

  I sighed. I so didn’t want it. But I didn’t want to insult her, either. Still, as I looked down at Bruno and Creede, frozen back-to-back, moments from death … we were all moments from death, even without Glinda to add to the storm, there was no question in my mind. “I mean no offense. But I already have more power and men than I’m comfortable with. Sure, I’d love to get rid of the demon, cure everyone here afflicted with this disease, make sure Rizzoli’s all right. But mostly, I want this—” I deleted the expletive that came to my lips as I looked at the bejeweled golden artifact, and simply extended it toward her. “I want the collar gone.”

  She smiled, and it was as if the sun rose. “Very well. I will take the collar from this plane. And I offer you a piece of wisdom. All power, including the collar, is no more than a tool: like the knives you wear, or the guns so favored in this time. In the hands of an ethical person with training and skill they serve a noble and useful purpose. They protect the innocent, keep the world safe. It is in the hands of the untrained and unskilled, or morally corrupt, that power becomes dangerous.”

  She wasn’t talking about the collar now. “My siren abilities.”

  “And your vampire nature. Use them with skill or risk corruption.” And with that she vanished, in a literal puff of smoke.

  So did the demon. Just like that, with nary a tentacle left behind, leaving everyone in the room looking around at each other in confusion. But they were all healthy and literally glowing with power.