The ladder to the fire escape was retracted to the highest level. Someone had made sure no one could simply jump and grab hold. So he’d have to do this the hard way.
EJ climbed on top of the dumpster. The metal lid groaned under his weight, though held together. He leaped, caught the last rung, and dangled, grateful he wasn’t hanging over a pit of quimaera from a ladder covered in slippery goop. A quick glance above confirmed no lights had flipped on.
EJ swung himself onto the fire escape, careful to maintain silence. He checked every window only to find each barred with a security window gate. A criminal’s worst nightmare. Too bad it locked the owner in as much as it kept the criminals out. Yet, on the third floor, he spotted an open window directly across from the fire escape.
Frosted glass. A bathroom, he guessed. Smaller than the other windows, it would be a tight fit to get his body through.
A small ledge dissected the fourth and third floor. It had just enough space for him to grab a hold of. Hopefully.
“No problem.” He hyped himself up for the challenge of squeezing his two hundred and fifty-pound body through a window he estimated to be no more than twenty-four by thirty-eight inches.
EJ hiked to the sixth-floor fire escape and balanced on the edge of the railing. He had one chance at this. The movement played out in his mind.
Spread arms, jump, grab the windowsill before plummeting to the cement and cracking my head open. Maybe I’ll heal.
Probably not.
EJ snapped his head to the left and right, releasing a burst of tension, then rolled his shoulders. Now or…NOW.
He leaped.
The fifth and fourth floors whizzed past much too fast to process, but he reached out with both hands and grabbed the ledge. His body smacked into the side of the building like a bug on a windshield. One hand slipped, leaving him dangling by one arm. At any moment, someone passing by could see him. He had to get inside before that happened.
Unfortunately, he was two feet left of the open window. He walked his hands over until he hung in the proper place and used his foot to open it more. EJ swung his lower half inside, releasing his hands only when he was sure he had enough leverage to prevent him from crashing to the ground.
The narrow opening and the width of his shoulders conspired to keep him half in, half out of the building. No matter how he twisted, he couldn’t get himself into the room. He had one choice. A hard push cracked the frame and shattered the glass. Glass crashed inside of the room.
So much for the stealth approach. EJ wiggled the rest of the way inside and dropped into a bathtub. Glass crunched beneath his lucky size thirteen boots.
Damn. The voice inside his head sounded exactly like Avery as it issued a string of curses. Someone had to have heard. He crouched, to make himself less of a target and listened. Quiet greeted him.
The bathroom door creaked as he peeked around the edge into the adjacent bedroom. Though dim, EJ spotted the outline of a body on the bed. He didn’t draw a weapon. Information was his objective, not killing. He eased out of the room and approached the person.
By the breasts and curves, he guessed a female. Great. All he needed was for her to wake and see him looming in the dark. Terrorizing a woman wasn’t his idea of fun, especially not like this. About to turn, he noticed the woman’s eyes were open.
EJ stopped, watched, and waited for her to make a move. Ten seconds stretched into a full minute as he studied the rise and fall of her chest and the slow blinking of her eyes.
Two words circled his brain. Not normal. Then, could be a setup. He dropped low and palmed knives in each hand. Another sweep of the room revealed no one hiding, so what was the woman waiting for?
She had to be injured. Right now, she may be bleeding out. EJ eased over to the bed and flicked on his Maglite. The pale face of a fiftyish woman with curly, salt and pepper hair, and dark brown eyes stared at a fixed point on the ceiling.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered. “I’m here to help. Where are you hurt?” Except for the steady blink of her eyes every five seconds and the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, the woman didn’t move. He scanned the light down her body, checking for injuries. There were no obvious signs, and he wasn’t about to rifle through her black robe with red trim to search for any. Though, he did press a finger to her carotid and felt the steady thrum of a pulse.
She was alive, most likely not bleeding, so what the hell was wrong with her? He aimed his light at the ceiling to see what held her fascination and found uninspiring white stucco. Then shined the light in her eyes. Her pupils shrunk to pinpoints so her brain had activity. She had to be drugged, though he’d never seen any street narcotic do this.
The bedroom door was partially open. Anyone could’ve walked by and seen him gawking. He listened again for a tell-tale sign of someone planning an attack, the rustle of clothing, the squeak of a floorboard, a shift in the air. Thick silence blanketed everything.
EJ stepped into the hallway. At some point, the building had been gutted and turned into a dormitory-style dwelling. Rows of open doorways lined the hall. He pressed his back against the nearest wall and glimpsed into the next room.
Another woman, flat on her back, blinking at the ceiling. This time a brunette, dressed in the same black and red robes.
What the fuck is going on? EJ marched back into the hall. He stopped in each doorway and found a woman in each bed, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, old, and young; thirty women, all zombies. Could be a cult? Some strange religious order the world had yet to discover?
The mission was over. These females needed help more than he needed info. And maybe they were one and the same. He retrieved his cell from a breast pocket and swiped the screen. No bars and a slash through the signal meant he wouldn’t be calling anybody.
Ok, now we do this the hard way. EJ traded one of his blades for his nine millimeter with a silencer. Some things required a bullet, others a slice and dice. Either way, fortune favored the prepared.
As he walked down the hallway to a marble and wood staircase, a voice inside his head warned, Get out…while you can! Normally, he listened to that voice since it had never led him wrong. Leaving a house full of defenseless women to whatever fate awaited went against the grain.
Treading lightly, he made his way to the second floor. The bedrooms were bigger, nicer and occupied with more zombie women. On the first floor, he found a foyer with a large reception area. He tried the exit but a cypher lock prevented anyone from leaving. Two bullets solved that problem. The door swung open. EJ stepped through and stumbled back. A soft iridescent glow flared over the doorway, then dissipated. He tried again, this time with only his hand.
EJ reached out and touched the barrier, a clay-like substance that gave a little, allowing his fingers to sink an inch before cementing and forcing him to retreat. Shooting it seemed like a bad idea. He tried the knife and the blade got as far as his fingers had penetrated.
Big house. Big damn cage. A prison you could break into but not get out of. “Shit.”
He didn’t waste his energy trying another door but went to a window in an office next door and received the same results. A walk through the ground floor revealed a cafeteria, a living room, an auditorium, several meeting rooms and lastly a library. Along the way, he checked every window and found the same thing. Only, the library didn’t have any windows, so why did cold air drift over him, especially when the overhead vent pumped warm air?
The circular room had no doors other than the one he entered. That didn’t mean one wasn’t here. He spotted the tapestry hanging on a wall and thought of the one hanging in the great room at RockGate. Commissioned by Roman in the sixteenth century, the scene recreated a battle he’d fought and lost. It was also a good place for a child playing hide-n-seek, though Avery had always found him.
He walked over to the tapestry and pulled it aside. An open doorway led to a narrow hallway and angled down to a set of stairs. Quietly, he descended into the bowels of the
house, aware of the dip in temperature and the damp, earthy scent filling his nostrils. Footsteps echoed, coming from below. One set that he could tell. A faint voice filtered to him. He waited for another to join, but silence filled the space. EJ moved down the stairs, each foot lifted and fell with precise movements. With every step, a small alcove and an open stone door came into view. Again, he stopped, pressed his shoulder to the cool stone, and listened.
A quick peek inside showed no one. He didn’t buy it. The footsteps and voice led him here and unless there was another exit, the owner of both was still here. The chamber was large, could easily hold more than two hundred people, though there were no chairs or tables. The raised altar and dais suggested a sanctuary, a prayer room, or a church. He crossed the floor tiled in a black and red mosaic similar to the robes on the women. A book rested on the dais, the frayed yellow pages led him to guess its age: old. Real old. And probably valuable, along with the scroll laying nearby. Something no one would leave unguarded for long.
Footsteps sounded to his right. EJ spun and met the startled gaze of a woman. In one sweep he took in her platinum pixie haircut, pale skin, slim body dressed in a red sweater cut like a bodice, a pleated red tartan miniskirt which showed a foot of milky thighs, and kick-ass red patent leather, knee-high Doc Martens. But what really captured his attention were her amethyst eyes beneath pale, sculpted eyebrows.
Hmm? Does her rug match her curtains?
The thought made him hard. He gave himself a mental slap to get his mind out of the gutter and refocus.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered furiously.
No terror in her voice. No fear for her life. She knew him—and he wanted to know her. “How do you know me, Candy Cane?” EJ demanded. Dressed in red with screamy…yeah that milky, cream-of-the-crop skin did make him want to scream something dirty. Wasn’t a surprise Candy Cane just popped into his head.
She walked up, got in his face, well as much as her five foot, nine or so inches could. “No time for introductions. You gotta go.”
Her scent hit him, decadent and seductive. His mouth watered. “I’ll leave after you explain the women upstairs.”
Her gaze narrowed and her voice dropped low. “You’ve been upstairs?”
EJ shoved her against the nearest wall, pinned her there with a hand wrapped around her throat. She was a part of this, whatever this was. “What did you do to them?”
Her eyes were wide, fearful, and focused somewhere over his shoulder. “Please, don’t hurt hi—”
Before he turned, something wrapped around his waist and yanked him away from the woman. He slammed into the opposite wall and dropped to one knee. EJ sprang to his feet, gun ready in his hand.
A woman? had joined his Candy Cane. Her face was warped: too long, eyes too large, gray skin pulled away from her misshapen skull. Plus, she hovered. Her lower half—not feet—but writhing ribbons of dark bands. Ignoring his gun aimed at her head, she floated to him.
“Great Goddess—” Candy Cane began, but a tendril lashed out, straight for her head, a decapitating blow.
He fired and struck the tendril, which recoiled. Candy Cane darted away in a red streak, fast enough to survive, though not fast enough to escape. Another tendril wrapped around her feet. She crashed hard, went down in a tangle of limbs and red plaid. The tendril dragged her to the base of the altar.
“I lured him here for you,” she shrieked. “He can help you capture—”
“Silence! You incompetent mongrel. I have not forgotten you have cost me my pet.” The room shook.
EJ rocked on his feet, but his gaze never left Candy Cane and the one she called Goddess.
“Please forgive me. As recompense, I have brought you EJ Nicolis. He can help us trap his brother.”
EJ emptied the clip into the Goddess. Bullets pinged the back wall and chipped the altar. He reloaded and kept firing. None did any damage to the creature floating in the room. Tendrils flicked, slammed into his wrist. The gun flew from his hand. EJ withdrew a double-edged, serrated knife from his side. Didn’t matter which brother they spoke of, no one fucked with the family.
“I need no assistance in bringing my pet to heel.” Yet her eyes lasered on EJ. “I am Khuket, Goddess of Chaos, you may worship me.”
He clutched his blade tighter, brought it up, ready to strike. “Yeah, umm, not happening.”
“Elroy Jasper.” Her voice sang. “You shall be of service.”
That cut worse than her ordering him to worship her. “The name is EJ,” he growled. No one living had the right to utter those two words. “And I won’t be servicing any of you.” Cold seeped into his skin, turning his muscles to lead, but he didn’t break posture.
She emitted a dry crackling sound. “I know your name. And I know your sibling.”
A strange fluttering started in his stomach and flashed its way up to his chest and neck. His vision blurred, then cleared and for a second he could see into the Goddess. He peered past her misty layers into the void that was her soul. A bottomless core no light could pierce. A single blink and the effect was gone. What the hell?
“What do you want with Avery?”
She stopped just out of arms reach. “What I want with your brother is everything. But concern yourself not with the condition of your sibling when your life is in the balance. You, Elroy Jasper, shall retrieve something very important for me. Very precious.”
Faster than a rattler, she struck. Midnight swallowed EJ in a thick blanket, strangling him like a cement straitjacket, cutting off his witty reply and his sight. He slashed, fighting back even as he heard a cry. Then all sound ended, but his staggered breathing and the heavy metal drum of his heart.
Something slick entered through his nostrils and slid down the back of his throat. He gagged; more slipped inside. His lungs quivered in confusion at the loss of air. His muscles strained against the force immobilizing him, then spasmed as he lost all autonomy of his body. The blade slid from his numb fingers. The blanket receded, leaving him face down and drooling on the tiled floor with a view of a pair of red Doc Martens.
“You have done well, Ridley. You may rise and live one more day.”
Ridley, that’s Candy Cane’s name. EJ tried to rise with her. Not a single muscle moved except his eyelids. They blinked slowly as if they hadn’t a care in the world. His chest rose and fell in steady, unhurried increments as his muscles relaxed. But his mind scraped against the inside of his skill, demanding a way out of this hell. He came here for information, then decided to be a hero, now he was a victim.
That echo in his head…yeah, that was him screaming.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“S-sweet J-Jesus!” Emeline croaked, disbelief framing each word.
Avery echoed the sentiment. Everything about Alamut was bigger from his height to his width and deadlier than the quimaera they had previously seen. Avery didn’t have time to explain that once Alamut was Daniel, his erstwhile—serial killer—brother. A beloved member of the family. He gave everything up to be a monster and lap dog to the God Anubis because that story would take more than two seconds.
Avery raced over to her and slipped a gun into her palm. “Take this.” His gaze never left Alamut who blocked the only exit. “Get to the back of the warehouse, stay there.” She knew how to use the weapon, though he hoped she wouldn’t need to.
“Brother, ssshe looks tasssty. I want sssome.” Alamut’s forked tongue brutalized his speech.
Emeline gasped. Avery stepped in front of her. “Focus on me, Alamut. She has nothing to do with this.”
Alamut’s head weaved to the right. He shifted his body and peered around Avery. “My decisssion. Not yoursss. I’m here for my army. Why are you here?”
Avery countered his move. He blocked Alamut’s every effort to lay eyes on Emeline.
Alamut barked, an attempt at a chuckle. “You want her….Me too. Let’s ssshare like old timesss, Brother.”
A cold wedge lodged in Avery’s core and spread
outward. He welcomed the chill in his blood, it banked the fire always burning in the pit of his stomach, and gave him the clarity he needed for the coming battle. “You are not my brother and she’s mine,” he growled and palmed a blade in each hand.
“Avery?” Emeline said.
The fear in her voice pissed him off. Alamut would bleed for frightening her. “Go, Emeline. Now.” She touched his shoulder, squeezed, lingered a second longer, then their footsteps creaked on the boxes as she and Grand backed away.
“Emeline. Pretty name. Doesss ssshe tassste asss pretty asss ssshe looksss?”
“You will never know.” Avery’s hands curled into a fist and scraped against the box he stood on. An odd sound, he’d never previously heard. He glanced down. Shadowy claws extended from his hands. The exoskeleton had returned. For a brief second, he wondered if Alamut could see the change. The bastard deserved a surprise.
Avery returned the blades to their slots inside his coat, raised his hand, and then he charged.
Alamut did the same, loping over the crates with the sure footing of a predator on a mission of death. Avery didn’t waver, he kept moving forward…until the last moment. He slipped between a mini-canyon made by a few crates, claws outstretched. They sliced the tendons in Alamut’s legs. Blood sprayed; the beast toppled, crashing into the hoard of boxes, containers, and crates with a cacophony of noise.
Avery climbed back up to the top of the pile. He spotted Emeline near the sarcophagus. To his left, Alamut tossed obstacles out of his way and rose. Blood ran from his ankles, but he seemed unfazed, a testament to his quick healing abilities.
His reptilian eyes rotated and locked on Avery. His head tilted, studying. “What have you done to yourssself?”
Avery was tempted to shrug as they circled each other. He had as much of a clue as Alamut. Avery placed himself between Emeline and Alamut. “I may not be perfect, but have you looked in a mirror lately?”
Evermore (Descendants of Ra: Book 3) Page 27
