by Tanya Huff
Rising over the chanting, a single voice spoke in a language that Henry didn’t know, using cadences that sounded strange even to ears that had heard four and a half centuries of changes. Whatever else they were—and Henry had no doubt they held layers of meaning wrapped around each syllable, each tone—the words were a calling. Only the outermost edges brushed against him and he could feel himself urged closer.
He burst through the disco’s main entrance, past an arc of empty tables. The background chanting grew louder.
Tawfik stood on the raised platform, inside an arc of padded rail where the dee jays usually sat, arms raised in the classic high priest pose. He wore a pair of khaki colored pants and an open necked linen shirt—not exactly the style of ancient Egypt, but then he didn’t need a costume to declare what he was. Power crackled around him in an almost visible aura.
Crowded to either side of the dance floor, gazes riveted on Tawfik, were high-ranking officers from both the Metro and the Ontario Provincial police, two judges, and the publisher of the most powerful of the three Toronto daily newspapers. Henry had thought he’d heard a dozen voices, now, if he’d had to rely on hearing alone, he’d have said six although there were clearly more than twenty people involved. Individual tones and timbres were dissolving into the chant.
The most incongruous part of the entire scene had to be the giant silver disco ball that hung from the ceiling and spun slowly, flinging multicolored points of light over both Tawfik and his acolytes.
All this, Henry took in between one heartbeat and the next. Without breaking stride, he gathered himself up to spring forward at Tawfik’s apparently unprotected back.
“AKHEKH!”
For a single voicing of the name, Tawfik joined the chant, the points of light began to coalesce, the silver ball stopped spinning, and Henry barely got his arm up over his eyes in time. He staggered, almost fell, and tried to blink away the afterimages left by the tiny fraction of the brilliance that had actually gotten through.
The volume of the chanting rose, then fell to a nearly subliminal murmur, almost easy to ignore, and Henry realized that the overlay of spell-casting had stopped.
“You are interfering in things you have no understanding of, Nightwalker.” The voice was cold, distant, a counterpoint to the golden sun now burning in Henry’s mind, larger and more brilliant than it had been only two days before.
Teeth clenched, Henry ignored the pain and wrapped the sun in his anger, dimming the overpowering life of the wizard-priest to the point where he could function. Through dancing patterns of light he saw Tawfik frown, an elder disturbed by the actions of a youth; those actions not a threat but merely an annoyance.
“Fortunately,” Tawfik continued, still parent to child, teacher to student, “we have reached a point in the ceremony where a short pause will not affect the final outcome. You have time to explain your presence here before I decide what to do about you.”
For an instant, Henry felt himself sliding into the role the wizard-priest defined. Snarling, he thrust it aside. He was Vampire, Nightwalker. He would not be made subordinate again by mere words. The confusion Tawfik had used and twisted before had all been burned away in his rage at Vicki’s disappearance and the elder immortal’s part in it. He has hurt one of mine. I will not have that.
He’d nearly gained the edge of the platform, less than an arm’s reach away from Tawfik’s throat, when red lines flared and slammed him back against the wall of the disco.
“I told you when we first met that you couldn’t destroy me. You should have listened.” The words stood out flat and uncompromising against the background chant as Tawfik realized that the Nightwalker’s relative youth could no longer be manipulated and dropped the pose of bored disdain. After the challenges he had ignored the night before, he had known this confrontation would come, but tonight, when all his attention should be focused on Akhekh, tonight was not the time he would have chosen.
Not even the ceremony of sanctification had blocked the approaching glory of the Nightwalker’s ka. He wanted it, wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything in his long life, and he had known from the moment the wards were shattered that tonight, at this moment, he held enough power to take what he so desperately desired. But the power he held wasn’t his and Akhekh, for all he named his lord a petty godling, had painful ways of claiming ownership. The centuries had taught caution. After the ceremony, when Akhekh would be in a mood to grant favors, there would be power to spare and no risk of angering his lord. And once he had the Nightwalker’s ka, he need never fear his lord’s anger again.
If words were not enough to hold the Nightwalker, then other steps had to be taken. With a curt gesture, he raised the volume of the chant a fraction and then carefully, so as not to disturb the magical structures already in place and using only his own power, he began to weave a spell of binding. The mortals, still in the stairwell, could be ignored until they arrived, then their destruction would become part of the ceremony.
Stunned and bruised, Henry struggled to his feet. He had no idea how far behind him Celluci was as the scent and sound of the acolytes blocked the scent and sound of the detective’s approach.
“So you distract him and Mike shoots him. Simple.”
Not so simple. Although if a physical attack had no effect, perhaps the wizard-priest could be distracted in other ways. He was fond enough of the sound of his own voice. Henry moved away from the wall. There was only one thing he was interested in hearing about. “Why did you attack Vicki Nelson?”
Tawfik smiled, fully aware of what the Nightwalker attempted, for the accumulated power gave him access to all but the deepest levels of that glorious immortal ka. It didn’t matter. In a moment he would invoke the binding spell and the moment after begin the third and final part of the calling. And the moment after that, he would feed. Answering the Nightwalker’s question would serve to fill the time. “Your Vicki Nelson was chosen by my lord. To use an analogy you might understand, he occasionally orders a specific meal rather than taking what’s offered on the buffet. As the gods may not directly interfere except in the lives of those sworn to their service, I prepare the meal for him, placing the chosen ohe in a situation of optimum hopelessness and despair. That she happened to be the mortal you cared for was pure coincidence, I assure you. Did you go to a great deal of trouble getting her out of jail?”
“Not really.” Henry stopped at the edge of the platform, at the point where the ambient power surrounding the wizard-priest brushed against him, throbbing in time with the single heartbeat of the chorus. “She’d nearly gotten herself out when I arrived.”
“Almost a pity that she came along with you tonight.” The Nightwalker’s ka flared and Tawfik nearly lost himself in desire. “You didn’t think I was unaware of your companions, did you? I’ll have to kill her, of course.”
“You’ll have to kill me first.”
Tawfik laughed, but Henry’s expression didn’t alter and his ka burned high and steady. Slowly, he realized that the statement, as unbelievable as it was, came from those guarded, innermost regions of the ka and that the younger immortal had meant exactly what he’d said. Shock and confusion destroyed his control of the binding spell. Ebony brows drew down to meet in a painfully tight vee. “You would lay down your immortal life for her? For one whose entire existence should mean no more to you than a moment’s nourishment?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane!” With the binding spell in tatters, Tawfik saw his options slip from his grasp. From the time the two mortals had entered the tower, their deaths had been woven into the ceremony of sanctification. The woman had to die. Her death was promised to Akhekh. But in order for the woman to die, he must kill the Nightwalker as well. If he killed the Nightwalker, all the power of that glorious ka would be lost.
No! I will not lose his ka! It is mine!
Henry had no idea what caused Tawfik to scowl so, but the wizard-priest certainly looked distracted. He pushed against the po
wer barrier. It pushed back.
I could take the ka. Take it now. Use the power generated by the first two-thirds of the spell of sanctification. Use the power bled from the acolytes. Pay the price . . .
But would there be a price? Surely the devouring of an immortal life, would give him power equal to Akhekh’s. Perhaps greater.
The chant began to rise in volume. The time had come to begin the third and final part of the spell of sanctification. He had no time to create another binding spell. He had no intention of losing the Nightwalker’s magnificent, glorious ka.
Decision made between one heartbeat and the next, Tawfik wrapped his will around the accumulated power and threw all of it into the spell of acquisition. This would be rape, not the seduction he had initially planned, but the end result would be the same.
The sun flared white-gold behind Henry’s eyes and he felt himself begin to burn. He could feel the strength that fed the flames, feel his edges consumed, feel . . . something familiar.
Hunger. He could feel Tawfik’s Hunger.
Then he felt Tawfik’s hands cup his face, lifting his head so their eyes met. Ebony eyes with no bottom to stop his fall.
The heartbeat of the acolytes roared in his ears. No. Not the acolytes. Not the heartbeat he had heard since he gained the top of the tower. Another heartbeat, a little faster than human norm, sound carried through the contact of skin against skin. Tawfik’s heartbeat. Driving Tawfik’s blood. For all his stolen centuries of life, Tawfik’s scent was mortal. Had been mortal that night in the park. Was mortal now.
Henry set his own Hunger free, loosing the leash of restraint survival in a civilized world forced it to wear.
Steel fingers clamped down on Tawfik’s shoulders and he cried out, forcing focus past the ecstasy to find the threat. He recognized the Hunter snarling out at him from the face between his hands.
“Nightwalker,” he whispered, suddenly realizing what he held, what the legends meant when they were not legends any longer. During the time it took him to say the name, he felt the ka he sought to devour pull almost clear of the spell and just for that instant he slid beneath the surface of hazel eyes gone agate hard.
The grip on his shoulders tightened. The bone began to give. Desperately, Tawfik sucked yet more power from the acolytes and fed it into the protection spell—so stupid to have touched him and rendered all but the most basic defense useless. If he released the spell of acquisition, he had power enough to break free, but the spell of acquisition was all he had left. There could be no turning back.
He wrenched his gaze free of the Nightwalker’s and dropped his hands down to the corded column of throat. An instant later, an answering band of flesh closed tightly around his own throat, only his magic keeping the crushing thumbs from his windpipe.
I will not loose this ka! He slammed the spell of acquisition against the Nightwalker’s strength.
The sun became a holocaust of flame, but the Hunger dragged Henry through it to answer the blood that called from the other side.
How the fuck am I supposed to shoot at that? Celluci leaned panting against the wall of the disco, one hand shielding his eyes from the painfully bright lights scattering off the spinning silver ball. Goddamned son of a bitch was supposed to distract him, not fucking dance with him.
From where he stood, Celluci could see Fitzroy’s back and, just above that, long golden fingers wrapped around Fitzroy’s throat. A slight shift to his right showed him that Fitzroy’s fingers were in turn locked around the throat of a tall dark man; probably good-looking under more normal circumstances. Although he couldn’t say why, Celluci had the strangest feeling that the attempt at mutual strangulation was merely window dressing, that the real struggle was taking place somewhere else.
Maybe I should let them throttle each other and then shoot what’s left. Gun cocked, he stepped out onto the dance floor. The new angle moved the combatants into unobstructed profile. Although their upper bodies swayed back and forth barely a hand’s span apart, both sets of feet were firmly planted with nearly a meter between them. Well, I’m no Barry Wu, but I think that I can at least guarantee not to hit the wrong legs. He took his stance, braced his service revolver with his left hand, and tried to steady his breathing. He’d probably have a better chance if he waited until his lungs stopped heaving air in and out like asthmatic bellows, but it was coming up on midnight, and if Rachel Shane was right, the world didn’t have much time. Once in the knee to get his attention and then a second round to finish him.
In such a small, enclosed space the sound of the gunshot expanded to touch the walls then slam back. And forth. And back. The shot itself went wide.
“Shit goddamnit!”
Ears ringing, Celluci raised the gun to shoot again, but unfortunately, although he’d done no damage, he had gotten the wizard-priest’s attention.
The sound nearly jerked his grip from the Nightwalker’s ka and only centuries of practice kept the spell of acquisition from shattering. He tightened his grip, slammed his rage at the interruption against the younger immortal’s will, and, in the instant of breathing space that bought, sucked yet more power from the acolytes in order to snarl, “Stop him!”
“Stop him?” Celluci stepped back a step and then another. “Oh, fuck.” He’d been so intent on the battle between Fitzroy and the mummy that he’d completely ignored the semicircles of chanting men and women that lined both sides of the dance floor. He had, in fact, passed right through one group in order to gain his current position, their presence never even registering. Look, it’s been a long day, I’ve got a lot on my mind. But that kind of inattention to detail could get a man killed. I can’t believe I did that.
Somewhere between twenty and thirty people shuffled out of the shadows, placing their bodies between their master and the threat. Still chanting, they moved slowly toward Celluci, faces frighteningly blank.
He backed up another few steps and raised his gun. Although he recognized a number of the group as senior police officers, they didn’t seem to recognize the weapon and kept advancing. In another two or three feet, he’d be at the edge of the dance floor, his back against the wall. Fifteen years on the force allowed him to maintain a patina of calm, but he could feel panic beginning to lap at the edges.
Almost frantically he searched for something to shoot, something that would get their attention, force them to acknowledge that he was the one with the gun. Unfortunately, the spinning disco ball, the most obvious target, was providing over half of the available light. Backing up another step, he made his decision and squeezed the trigger.
The ceiling tile exploded, throwing compressed foam and sound insulation down over the chanting crowd. Ignoring the echos battering the inside of his skull, Celluci lowered the gun.
Some instinct of self-preservation seemed to kick in and they stopped advancing, but the living barrier between him and Tawfik remained.
Okay. Now what?
A single man shuffled forward out of the front rank. In spite of the bad light, Celluci had no trouble recognizing . . .
“Inspector Cantree.”
His hand grew sweaty around the pistol grip as his immediate superior shuffled closer. While there were any number of high-ranking police officers Celluci could’ve cheerfully shot, Cantree wasn’t one of them. He’d been a black man on the force long before affirmative action programs and, in spite of all the bullshit thrown at him, he’d risen through the ranks with both his belief in the law and his sense of humor intact. That Tawfik could take a decent man, who had survived so much, and strip him of free will and honor twisted Celluci into knots, and to his horror he felt his eyes grow damp.
“Inspector, I don’t want to shoot you.”
One massive hand came up, palm outstretched, miming, “Give me the gun,” very clearly over the continuing chant.
The roaring in his ears made it nearly impossible to think. “Inspector, don’t make me do this.”
Vicki heard the gunshot as she fell out of the
stairwell and onto her knees, forehead pressed against the pale gray carpet. Shooting should’ve been over ages ago. What the hell’s going on up here?
She had very little memory of how she’d managed to climb the last few flights of stairs although she knew that every movement had been imprinted on muscle and sinew and that her body would collect payment later, with interest, for the layers of abuse. She’d fallen twice and the second time, sprawled writhing on a concrete landing, only the thought of Celluci, already at the top, had given her the strength to move again. Her howl of desperate denial still echoed up and down the length of the tower.
Teeth clenched against the agony in her calves, she crawled to the wall and inched her way along it, not bothering, not able, to stand. Having been the native guide for her mother on numerous occasions, she ignored the disco’s main entrance and continued around the curve of the hall as quickly as tortured muscles and bones could take her. All she could hear was her own labored breathing—in with the taste of blood, out with the taste of defeat.
You can’t have won, you antique son of a bitch. I won’t allow it.
Almost a quarter of the way around the arc of the tower was a window, designed so tourists could stand and watch the gyrations inside on the dance floor. The disco side of the window had been heavily tinted—apparently the management assumed the dancers had no interest in watching the tourists.
Just beyond, a dark line of shadows advanced toward Celluci.
Backing carefully away from the window, one hand still clamped to the frame for support, Vicki jammed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. Looks like it’s time for plan B.
Close by, tucked discreetly into an angle in the wall, was an emergency exit; beside it, a glass-fronted cabinet of firefighting equipment. Vicki fell toward the cabinet, hung off the latch for a heartbeat, and finally managed to get it open. Clamping the nozzle under her arm, she turned the water on full force, then let her weight drop against the bar-latch on the door. She figured she had between five and ten seconds before the water reached the end of the hose and the pressure blew her off her feet.
