There was a snap and Gabriel re-appeared, off balance. He held out his hands, took a faltering step. “How did—”
Adalia cut him off with a look, then turned to Just James. “James Malory, your voice is gentle and kind and spoken from your heart. I give it back to you.”
Just James coughed. “Wow. That was … intense.”
“Adalia Kendrick,” said Saint John. “Adalia Kendrick, I take from you your power. I take it from you, and call it my own. I hold it in my hand—” and here, he held his book in front of him like a shield “—and in my heart.” He held the rosary to his chest, and a low rumble of thunder crawled across the sky behind Adalia. The room darkened, leaving a small pool of light around where Gabriel stood. “The Master calls and you will come.”
Adalia laughed, the sound ringing from her like the peal of a bell. The light eased back into the room. “Saint John. There is not enough power in the world to bind me.”
Saint John looked at the book he held, then at the rosary. “What—”
Adalia stepped forward, brushing her hair from her face. “Do you think I walk with the living and the dead by accident?” She felt full of energy, her skin taught with it. It felt like anger, it felt like justice. “Saint John, I call you by your line of Jones. I give you back your name, Bastian. Bastian Jones, I have given you back your name, and you will give me Saint John.” Adalia held out her hand, palm up. Waiting.
The man shuddered, then sank to his knees. He retched once, twice, then threw up something black and bubbling onto the dark carpet of the lobby, where only the moneyed rich had walked. His face — a young face, now full of fear — looked at Adalia. He tried to reach a hand to hers, the fingers hooked like claws, before he fell sideways onto the ground. Blood started to seep through the robe he wore, and Bastian Jones let out one last breath before he died.
“You … you killed him,” said Just James.
“You called me back,” said Gabriel.
“He was already dead. Stabbed, through the heart. I gave him back himself, and took away the thing that was keeping him from dying all the way.” Adalia stepped back from the other place, and almost fell. She felt strong hands and looked up to see Just James, his face full of concern. She waved him away, standing tall. “We have work to do.” She pressed the button on the elevator, heard the soft chime, and walked inside.
The living and the dead followed her, the living a little more cautious than before. The doors closed with a hush.
None of them saw as Sky and Agni hit the pavement, a fireball rocking the street outside. The windows of the lobby shattered inward, glass and tables and chairs and pieces of the sidewalk flying through the hotel’s foyer.
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
“Talin Moray. I have come for you.” Danny felt the words as rough stones against her lips, as something less honest than what she wanted — needed — to do to the man who had caused her so much pain. Who had hurt those she—
Pack.
—loved. She finished shouldering aside the broken, sundered door, splintered wood and pieces of metal falling aside, made brittle by her anger.
“Then come,” said a man’s voice, the lilt of the Caribbean in it. “We are well matched, you and I. What do you hope to do here? Kill me? You know you can’t.”
The floor, the very top floor of Trump Tower, had been cleared out. It was a penthouse suite reserved for the very best, but no gated lobby stood in her way. The walls had been cleared aside, their roots exposed through what had been rich carpet and tile. Where expensive couches and coffee tables and televisions had stood, there was rubble, detritus left here after some cataclysm. The smell of broken wood, sheared metal, powdered marble filled the air, confusing her senses. Her eyes narrowed. There was something else here, something hidden. She placed one foot in front of the other, sniffing at the air.
“Do you like it?” The man—
Deceiver. Hunt. Kill.
—stepped out from behind a pile of junk that could once have been a refrigerator, or just as easily one of a hundred other things that made up an apartment. “I’ve been redecorating.” He laughed, strong shoulders moving easy with the sound.
“I will kill you. I have done it before.” Danny stalked closer, wanting to change. She wanted more than anything to be able to do that thing that her Valentine—
Pack mate.
—could do, to change when he needed it enough. But she couldn’t, hadn’t learned the knack. It didn’t matter. She’d crush the life from this little man, send his body falling all the way to the hard Earth below.
Talin held up a hand. “You mean Volk?” He frowned, then tapped the side of his head. “I’ve been trying to remember. To see what happened. But I can’t. Which means it must have been you that did the deed, not the wastrel Everard. He bit you, and so the line of memory stops there.”
Danny remembered flashes, bits and pieces, the fight in a small room with her—
Cub.
—daughter, the impossible jump to a forest below, a bright flash and a race through trees, tongue lolling, teeth showing, the red rage falling around her and the sweet taste of victory as she licked her jaws. “I remember,” she said. “I know how we can die.”
“That is something we share,” said Talin. He smiled. “Oh, not the way you’re thinking. Not by tooth and claw. There are other ways. If you stretch your mind back, you’ll see. So many ways we can die. Have you never wondered why the Earth isn’t full of our kind? Why we few remain?”
“You are not one of us.” Danny stepped closer, cautious now. Her muscles bunched and flexed. She wanted to rend this little man into pieces, couldn’t understand why he wasn’t fighting her, tooth against tooth, claw against claw. It was the right way. “You have stolen from the Night.”
“True enough,” said Talin. His eyes sparkled at her surprise. “You expected me to deny it? For many long years I’ve been watching, waiting, hunting. I knew it was out there, snatches of story, told around a hearth, pointing at impossible power. Untapped, ungoverned. All that was needed was for one of you to not want it. And then it could be lifted, light as a feather, soft as a dove. Transferred. I’ve almost got it all, and soon — when Everard comes in here in a deluded attempt to save you — I will have the last few drops.”
“Save me?” Danny laughed at the absurdity of it. The sound was harsh and guttural, the change sitting just under her skin, waiting for release. “From what? You, a fragile little man with a stolen bag of treats?”
Talin’s face darkened. “Do you know the power of this gift? How much strength you have both wasted?”
“I know it is a curse. I know it drives us from hearth and home. It makes us wander the dark places of the world, to take our Cub into places it is not safe. But for all that, it is a gift. It is the gift that will end you.” Danny wiped drool from her chin, then licked her lips.
A snarl of anger twisted Talin’s face. “You are so sure? I have made a city fall! I have taken the Night and crafted the tools that sundered the Shield, that broke the Good Right Arm. The Reluctant Wanderer is a petty joke, and your Guide is blind and wayward. Only the Sword and Knight remain, and we both know the Knight fell long ago. I sit here, in command of the living and the dead, and you think you can break me?”
“You waste words,” said Danny. “These names you give to our Pack hold no power under the moon and stars.” She bared her teeth, and stepped forward.
There was the clang of metal, and the trap fell shut around her. Bars of the hated metal revealed themselves from under the torn carpet, and a lid fell from the roof, plaster falling around her. The cage, the walls hidden from view by the ruin around her, snapped into place, the bright silver burning her eyes. She felt sick and weak, and held her hand up in front of her eyes.
“I waste nothing,” said Talin. “And here you are, bait for the rest. The mighty Sword, held in a silvered cage. You asked what your useless Everard would save you from? Yourself, of course. Your pride. Your power. Your sen
se of your place in the world. And once he is drained dry, I shall take it from you as well.”
Danny lunged forward, grabbing at the bars of the cage, then screamed as her hands smoked and seared against the silver. She pulled back, then tried again. Her palms started to blacken, her strength fading as the filthy, hated metal smothered her. Danny stumbled, a hand coming against silver on the ground, and she hissed and pulled back.
“The names I give to your precious Pack hold all the power in the world,” said Talin, standing well clear of the cage.
“How—” Danny coughed. “How did you make this?”
“I was able to use my servants—” and Talin spoke this word as if the people in his thrall were paid a wage, willing participants all “—for most of the gathering, the smelting. But the finer work, for that I had help.” He held a hand out, palm upward. Another man stepped out from behind a broken cupboard, his face familiar.
Ajay Lewiss looked down on Danny. “This is for the best. You will see — we are telling a new story, and it will change the world.”
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
Carlisle didn’t like the sound of crying. Not a baby’s, not a woman’s, and not a man’s either. Didn’t matter if you were black or white, male or female, hell whether you were Christian, Muslim, Jew — no one cried pretty. No one. That shit on movies where someone had a few delicate tears, dabbed at them with the edge of a piece of white cotton, then gave a moving speech?
Horse shit.
Most people crying were doing that because they were in pain. Hell, Carlisle herself—
A smaller, weaker girl, afraid of the dark, and what came to her when the lights went out.
—was no stranger to tears. But this, this sound carried agony, and as she made her careful, methodical way up the stairwell, she thought she knew the man who was making that sound.
But that couldn’t be. It had to be another trick, and she was so tired. She didn’t know if she had enough strength to fight another one of those, those things, whatever they were. Not even the Eagle’s wings could carry her through this. She looked down at the weapon in her hand — no idea how it had got there, she remembered holstering it, but okay — and took a break. Just a small one, leaning her head against the cold concrete walls of the stairwell.
It was funny, she expected the stairwell to be paneled in oak or some other excess like the rest of the place, but no, stairwells were the same the world over. You could still burn to death on nice carpet if you were rich, so best have the stairs bare, spartan, utilitarian.
She was thankful for it. Despite the cold she was sweating, and the chill wall felt good against her face. Maybe she could rest here for a moment, just take it easy for a little while. Maybe her work was done, the steady drip, drip, drip that had accompanied her on her long climb marking out the end of her contribution.
Maybe you can rest when you’re dead. Get up, Carlisle. Get up. Your friend, the one with all the teeth, she needs your help, so she can be a mother again and not just something her daughter’s afraid of. Your other friend, the one who’s young and scared and alone in the dark, just like you were, she needs your help. Get moving.
She held the Eagle up to her eyes, picking out its familiar shape in the gloom. “I don’t need you yet,” she said, lips close to the metal, inhaling the scent of the weapon, all metal and oil and smoke and promise. It slipped back into the holster at her back, leaving her hands free. She pushed herself away from the wall, leaving a bloody hand print on the pale surface.
Carlisle didn’t know how she got to the door, easing it open with whisper against carpet. She swayed, dizzy, her tired—
Blood loss. You’re not tired, you’re about to die.
—brain trying to keep up. She saw a room full of wreckage, charred holes punched clean through walls. Not much left, it was like a wrecking crew had been through here. She picked her way across carpet littered with bits of wallpaper and drywall, her boots crunching the flakes into white powder. The crying: that damn sound wouldn’t stop, all sobs and pain.
She found an open door, not that it mattered here with all the holes everywhere, but it felt better, just a little easier, to walk through an open door rather than bend down around her hurt to try and fit herself through a gap. This door creaked, stuck, then gave, falling off its hinges to the carpet, the fall more thud than crash. Carlisle took in the scene, saw the broken window, no glass on the carpet — broken outward then — and the old man standing in front of it. He was holding back John Miles, who was sobbing, great wracking heaves, and John’s hands were outstretched to the window. The old man was stronger than he looked, but Carlisle figured he was holding John back more by force of will and sheer orneriness than anything else.
John was trying to get to the window. Huh.
Carlisle looked around, swaying again, looking for the missing person. The one person who might be able to explain this.
Skyler Evans wasn’t here. Carlisle’s eyes went back to John, to his cries, to Rex, and to the window. Oh. Then, oh no.
Using the door frame for support for a second — just a second, God she was so tired — Carlisle pushed herself off and into the room. She felt like a ship at sea, voyaging across that space between where she was and the impossible thing that had happened. It wasn’t that Sky was gone—
Died. Say it, at least to yourself. She’s dead, Carlisle.
—but that she’d taken something with her. Carlisle had seen a lot of broken men before, she’d seen them in cuffs and she’d seen them in cells. She’d arrested some, punched a few, killed more than she wanted to. She knew what broken looked like, and John Miles was broken. Sky had taken a piece of him with her, down the side of Trump Tower, and Carlisle was pretty sure it was gone for good.
She was also pretty sure they didn’t have time for this.
Rex looked at her, with old, sad eyes. “She … jumped.”
“She fell!” John almost screamed it, then tried to lunge around Rex. The old man was like a stone, immobile, resolute.
“She jumped,” said Rex, “and saved us, son. She saved us all.”
“That’s not how it works,” said John. “I loved her. I’m supposed to jump for her.”
“Miles.” Carlisle’s hand went out, delicate as a moth’s wing. “Miles, look at me.”
John spun to face her, anger and fear and pain and rage and hate and loss all rolled up into his eyes. “You — what—”
“Miles, I need you to listen to me,” said Carlisle. Her right knee started to buckle, and she forced it steady. “Miles.” His eyes were crazy, shifting from place to place, all over the room, looking everywhere but at her. “John.”
He seemed to settle then, looking at her. His shoulders bunched under his shirt, and she got a good look at him. Roughed up plenty, burnt hair and patches of red skin. Something had gone down here too, maybe something like she’d been through. Carlisle’s eyes went to the window.
Maybe something worse.
“John, she’s gone.” Carlisle dropped each word out as soft as she knew how. She didn’t know how very well, but they didn’t have time for her to learn.
“No.” He shook his head.
“She’s gone. Sky is gone.”
“No.” John licked his lips. “Adalia. She can see the dead. She can—”
“John,” said Carlisle. “Sky’s not coming back. They don’t come back. You know that. Not really.” Elliot hadn’t come back, just a hint of what he was. “It’s not fair on them, to be with us anymore.”
“You’re right.” His voice shook, and he ran a hand through his hair, burnt bits of it flaking away. “Look, I’ll just wait here. Just in case.”
“John,” said Carlisle. “Look at me.”
He did, first at her eyes, then at the rest of her. He took in the blood, the cuts in her jacket, the pale face, the pained breathing. “What … happened?”
“Something,” said Carlisle. “I can’t do this myself. Val needs you.”
John barked a
short, bitter laugh. “He doesn’t need me. He’s a fucking werewolf. He’s got strength, and an invincible girlfriend, and a step-daughter who sees the dead. I’m just a washed up personal trainer trying to hustle my next gig.” There was real bitterness there, a self-loathing she’d never seen before.
“Oh, John,” said Carlisle, reaching out a hand to touch his face. She wondered at the motion, so unlike her, blamed it on the loss of blood. “That’s why they need us so much.”
“Son,” said Rex. He’d been so quiet Carlisle had forgotten he was there. “Son, I don’t know about werewolves, or the dead, but I know what love is. That girl of yours loved you more than life. Do you see? Actually more than life. She wanted you to … I don’t know. That’s between you. But she didn’t want you to jump after her.”
“She didn’t?” said John.
“Probably not,” said Rex. “I’m not an expert on the female mind, but I’m pretty sure she would have left more clues.”
Carlisle let her hand fall from John’s face. “I’m a worn out ex-cop who can’t walk.”
“I’m a retired firefighter whose wife died of cancer,” said Rex.
John looked at them both, then at the window. “Right,” he said.
“Son,” said Rex. “Son, we’re having a moment here. Now’s where you share.”
Carlisle looked at John, at the pain in his eyes. She said, “You’re John Miles.”
“I’m John Miles,” said John. He shook his head, eyes darting to the window. “It isn’t enough.”
Carlisle stumbled, head feeling light as a feather, empty as air. “We need to get moving.”
“You need to sit down,” said Rex. “You look like hell.”
“Huh,” said Carlisle. “Plenty of time for sitting. After.”
“After what?” Rex reached out to take her arm, and she shook him off.
“After.” Carlisle looked at John. “So, Miles. It’s been a long day. Going to get a little longer. That girlfriend of yours—”
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 71
