Greywalker g-1

by Kat Richardson

  I murmured to him, "How'd you manage all of that?"

  "I don't want you to know."

  "Thanks. Will you come inside?"

  "Only as far as the kitchen, where the electrical box is. I want to stay near the switches, in case anyone starts prowling around."

  "OK. Have you seen anyone else yet?"

  "Vampires and ghosts? Not yet, but I might not see them at all. They're sneaky bastards. Besides, it's barely dark yet."

  "'Sneaky. Charming description." We all turned and faced Edward.

  He stood in the shadows under the covered driveway. "I hope I didn't miss much. Eavesdropping is one of my best techniques."

  None of us blushed.

  "Who else are we to expect?" I asked.

  "Only Carlos and Cameron. With your friend here, it should prove sufficient."

  "No one rallied to the flag?"

  "There were volunteers, but I didn't get to be the lead dog without having some teeth. Occasionally, it's necessary to prove I still have them. It wouldn't behoove me to ask my people to do what I wouldn't. Besides which, they will be busy creating the illusion that all of us were busy elsewhere tonight."

  Quinton muttered under his breath, "Teeth and balls. Nice combo—for a pit bull."

  Edward turned his gaze on Quinton and skewered him with it. Quinton squirmed a bit, but didn't look down.

  "And for lone wolves," Edward added. "Just be careful whose pack you run across this time."

  I looked at them both. "You guys know each other?"

  Edward gazed at Quinton. "By reputation."

  Quinton gave a slight nod and we all chose to look toward the side door.

  Edward pointed to it. "Shall we go?"

  We went as stealthily as wet gravel would allow—a train of phan-tom follow-the-leader—and let ourselves in. Quinton stood aside and waited for us to pass.

  "I'll stay here until I see another vampire," he whispered.

  "And Cameron."

  "OK. Stay quiet, all right? Neighbors like to walk their dogs around here, even in the rain."

  Carlos and Cameron joined us as we started up the stairs. We all hesitated at the top, glancing about. I don't know what made the vampires scope the area like that, but in my case, it was fear. Mara looked nervous and overwound. She cast a look at me and sketched a sign in the air between us. It sparked a moment and shed warmth on me, then faded.

  We went to the parlor. The door was sheathed in a blanket of ugliness that oozed and seeped around the edges, flowing onto the floor, creeping like a spreading puddle of blood. Carlos brushed past the rest of us and touched the door, whispering. The darkness squirmed aside. We followed him in. He closed the door behind us.

  The room was swathed in the rolling, icy blackness that had retreated from the door. Carlos pushed it back with his hands, clearing space. We moved furniture to his direction, shuffling in aching silence. Mara and I were sweating before we were done, and I moved at an old woman's pace. I had to give the organ a wide berth. Every time I came near, it sent a tentacle of darkness toward me. Carlos pinched them off with a smell of burnt flesh.

  With all the furniture pushed up to the farthest walls, we rolled up the rug. We stood back as Carlos began to chalk symbols on the floor. Mara held one of my hands and chanted something that kept the Grey back from us. The Grey web inside me buzzed with exhausting activity, crackling and arcing over my nerves and joints as the energy from the nexus hummed through me. I watched the darkness lap at the arc of chalked sigils. After a while, Carlos motioned to Edward and they began to push and pull on the organ. Judging from their grunts and stifled noises, it was terrible work.

  Cameron started forward to help. Carlos waved him off.

  "Better for us to do it." He gave a rictus grin. "We are old in our own evil."

  Once the organ was a few feet from the wall, Edward fell back, looking as ill as I felt. His face and neck bore thin, white weals that had not been there the night before. Carlos crept around the floor, singing in a low voice, drawing a careful circle of runes and symbols that writhed and connected into an endless, glowing gyre enclosing himself and the organ.

  Then Mara began a larger circle of her own, outside and around his, that encompassed most of the rest of the room. She muttered as she walked, making a trail of dim sparks along with her chalk line that pushed the darkness into a heavy, gathering storm around the organ. She left a small opening opposite the door. I went to stand by it with her, facing the door. I could feel the organ's power surging.

  "The scent of blood to draw him," Carlos said and looked toward me and Mara.

  She glared at him.

  Carlos watched me and started to reach for my hand.

  "No," Mara snapped, her words coming out of her mouth sharp gold and scintillating. "And not mine, either. You know that."

  Edward raised a languid hand. "Don't be cruel, Carlos. It's poor form to repay our friends in that coin. I'd give mine, if I had any."

  "Maybe your friend downstairs," Carlos suggested. "I could call him here."

  I tried to glare at him. "That's not fair."

  Carlos growled, "Fair…" Cameron started to say something, but Carlos shut him up with a look. "Very well, then. Cameron, open the door for our guest."

  Cameron edged around the circle as Carlos, mumbling something that sounded more like curses than spells, drew a small knife from his clothing. He slashed it across his right wrist.

  Nothing happened. Then Carlos closed his eyes. His lips moved but no sound came out. His chest heaved as though from heavy exertion and dark, slow drops of blood welled along the wound, then dripped to the seething floor. They splashed loud as cymbals. Carlos flung his hand in an arc, dark droplets splattering over the organs mirror and stops with the sound of shattering crystal.

  Stillness and the sickening stink of corrupted blood held us. I was panting as I called out, "Sergeyev. Grigori Sergeyev. I have your vessel. Come and get it."

  A wind burst up from the floor with a roar and a shape rushed through the door. It crossed the edge of the first circle, racing toward me. Mara dropped to her knees and closed her circle with a word. A wall of white light leapt upward. The Grey shape smashed against the barrier and recoiled with a howl of frustration, collapsing into the form of my spectral client, trapped between the two charmed circles.

  He cursed us all in vociferous Russian. Cameron stood spellbound by the door and I cowered behind Mara, oppressed by the ghost's withering hatred and battered by my own fear, pain, and exhaustion.

  "There's nothing he can do to you, so long as the circles remain intact," Mara whispered, as I held her shoulders. "The only one at risk is Carlos, and no ghost wants a taste of a necromancer's fury if he can avoid it." She looked uncertain and pale with fatigue, hands wound into her circle's spell, keeping the ghost confined between it and Carlos's circle of necromancy. Her own power strained to maintain the circle's integrity as Sergeyev stormed against it. I hoped whatever flowed, pulsing, through me was helping her, but I didn't know.

  Carlos reached out and yanked one of the stops out of the organ. Sergeyev turned with a jerk and threw himself against the inner circle with a shriek. The ivory decoration on the knob crumbled to dust and sifted to the floor, frosting the blood with a thin coat of white. Carlos dropped the knob and reached for another.

  "Nyet!" Sergeyev screamed, followed by a babble of Russian sounding imploring and threatening by turns.

  Carlos answered him. "We come to release you, you ungrateful wretch. Seven hundred years of torment and all you can think of is revenge. Against whom?"

  Sergeyev spat out a name, stalking in frustration around the perim-eter of Carlos's circle. His appearance wavered and flickered through a vertigo-inducing montage of every person he'd ever worn, stolen, or devoured. I leaned one shoulder against the wall, which flickered with strange lights.

  "Dead," Carlos snapped back. "A long time dead. I knew of him." He yanked out another stop. "From his torments, I release thee.
From this prison, I release thee…"

  The revenant shrieked and howled, clawing at the air between them and cursing in gouts of fiery storm until my knees shook and I thought my ears would bleed. Carlos screamed back at the ghost, long, entwining words that wove around the spirit, loosening and thinning him as the vampire dashed more and more of the organ to the ground. Music rails and preset knobs rattled to the floor and sloughed into dust. Keys groaned as they were wrenched from the boards and fell away in slivers of memory.

  The hallway boomed. I was slow to turn my head, but heard Cameron scream and fall.

  "What a lovely party," Alice hissed from the doorway. "And I wasn't invited." The flesh on her face still showed deep gashes, but her hair, face, and dress were covered in fresh blood.

  The sight staggered me, and I leaned one hand hard onto Mara. Quinton…?

  "Bitch," Edward spat, whirling toward Alice.

  She laughed and darted forward, tearing a hole in the circles on the floor. She snatched the mirror from the organ. "Mine!" she shouted. Colors and streamers of power roared around her, twining over and through her. "I am your mistress now. Attack the ones who would harm you!"

  Sergeyev howled unholy glee and rushed into the inner circle, pouncing on Carlos and the organ.

  Mara sobbed and rocked backward. We lurched back against the flickering wall, cringing.

  Edward flew toward Alice, who danced sideways from the circle, clutching her prize to her chest. She howled mad laughter and shouted, "Edward! It's only you I want! Run away, mice! Run and hide, or I'll eat you, too!" She fired a cold glare of triumph at me and laughed harder.

  Cameron lurched to his feet near the door, his neck and head looking lopsided and loose. He snatched at her, missed, and swung his arms again.

  Carlos had fallen back against the organ, his arms up, warding against Sergeyev's slashing energies. Shrieking faces and savage blades of light lashed from the instrument. Single-minded, the necromancer swiped at the music rail, dislodging the last of the spindles, which dissolved and powdered on the floor as they came away from the instrument. The ghost yowled and wavered a moment, then attacked with savagery.

  Mara struggled up out of my arms and flung a ball of blue light at the ghost's back. It splattered across him and he howled as Carlos howled, too.

  She winced. "They're too close together. We'll have to reclose the circle. Come and help me."

  I tried to move and felt ice tighten on my limbs and a sharp shortening of my breath. Sickness and revulsion held me back with a muttering in my brain: "Neither help nor hinder…"

  Mara threw herself onto the floor and began to crawl, drawing new symbols and chanting in gasps. She looked up at me, desperation in her eyes. "Come on!"

  I stumbled a step back. If I moved forward I felt the weight of Alice's geas against me. But I could go and nothing would happen to me—she had promised me that, screamed the chittering voice in my head…

  Mara tore her gaze from me with a frightened face and kept crawling, painfully, across the floor.

  I backed toward the door, curling against the shuddering, battering of the Grey in violent discord, while the double-pronged battle raged around me, cutting me with stray blades of energy that played tearing chords on my chest.

  Sergeyev smashed at Carlos, oblivious to every counter his opponent made. Even as his substance faded, his strength, drawn from the artifact, seemed to grow, and his wrath burned a reeking red and black pall around them.

  Edward and Cameron flung themselves on Alice from opposite sides and grabbed her. She fought and screamed, slashing and biting, tearing flesh wherever she touched them, a whirlwind of fury. Cameron caught her flailing arm and yanked it backward. A sickening pop and a rending sound—Alice shrieked and wrenched toward him, jaws gaping. Edward snatched at her head, tangled his hands in her flying red hair and yanked, twisted, jerked…

  Her neck snapped with a crunch and she flopped onto the floor, thrashing like a gaffed fish and gnashing her teeth. The mirror dropped and smashed. Cameron grabbed the nearest thing: a needlework stand. He knocked the embroidery hoop off and plunged the long spindle of wood down, into Alice's chest.

  Her scream shook the house. I sprawled to the floor as Mara crawled the last few feet to close the circle. The rush of magic as the circle closed rattled my teeth, and the temperature plummeted ten degrees.

  "Mirror!" Carlos yelled. I could see his groping hand for a moment under the barrage of Sergeyev's assault.

  Edward grabbed a ragged piece of the broken mirror and threw it. Carlos's hand reached for it, dark, dead blood flying wide. The ghost flung himself against the sparkling shard of mirror. It cut into his form, slicing the hot threads of power that cloaked them, melting and flowing into him.

  Alice's heels beat the floor into buckling ripples and her teeth snapped as she pawed at the rod through her chest. Beside her, Sergeyev shimmered silver and red, inching toward solidity as his appearance slid and wavered over his uncanny surface.

  The room heaved and shuddered. Sergeyev screamed and dove at Carlos, slashing him with razor hands. Cameron and I both lurched forward. I pulled up short, held back by a stab across my chest.

  Mara snatched him back. "Don't break it or we're done for," she cried.

  "Fire!" Carlos shouted, one hand groping as he tried to roll away from the glittering monstrosity that tore at him. "Please!"

  Mara caught her breath and Edward froze. He gave a jerking nod and Mara scrabbled in her pockets, yanking out a wooden kitchen match. She struck it and tossed it over the chalked circle.

  The lines and charms blazed upward in flame, then bit into the dry wood of the floor. Beyond them, Carlos muttered, gasping and waning. Edward backed from the fire, stumbling, blind, over Alice, while Cameron pounded the floor with his fists, howling, "No, no, no!"

  I looked toward the door and saw more flames. The fire was spreading on the lines of force. Alice dragged herself from the floor, lurching for Edward through the growing inferno. I couldn't move to stop her and live, and I couldn't help Carlos. Only stopping Sergeyev would save anyone, but I'd made the wrong choice—under the weight of Alice's geas and my own fear, my own weakness—and my friends would die for it.

  Dead if you do and damned if you don't. I wouldn't survive if Sergeyev won, whether Alice took me out later or not. But if she needed to threaten me, then I must have a choice. And she'd have to find me—or my body—first. I started crawling forward, pushing against the pain in my chest. The house shook, bucking and roaring with a sound like a freight train bearing down.

  A gut-tearing chill ripped into me and I rolled onto my back. The huge shape of the black guardian beast burst from the flame, vaulting upward, through the ceiling, trailing fire and smoke, then rushing back toward us, frenzied, roaring. Its maw gaped an infinite, lightless pit above me as I lay cold in motionless terror.

  I pushed my hands uselessly against the pressure rushing before the monster and felt fire sear along my arms. "No, no, not me," I gasped, "not now." The knot in my chest burned and twisted like a blade as the jaws closed over me. I was too slow, too late, and I couldn't help anyone now. I sobbed and let go, not caring what the monster did to me. Who cared if the Grey swallowed me whole?

  I gave up struggling. I let it have me.

  I felt the knot in my chest loosen, blooming open, pouring the writhing, living Grey through me, knitting it into my body and mind. I let it wash across me and I felt bright as the soft snow-mist that enclosed me.

  Then the floor slapped my back and I looked up into a blaze of light, streaming and boiling around a black void. The guardian breathed out an odor of tombs and poised above me, confused. I pointed at Sergeyev.

  The beast reared back, spinning and shrieking, and its tail of pure pain lashed across me. I gasped and sank toward the dark as screams erupted nearby.

  The creature plunged toward Carlos and Sergeyev, forms of fire and shadow, engaged to death. It whipped a circle around the two figures. For an insta
nt, the awesome horror reflected in Sergeyev's shifting mirror, spinning, its terrible jaws agape. Then the beast reared and the ghost shrieked as the black creature swallowed him and dove down, through the buckling floor, vanishing under a boil of black smoke and the reek of inferno. The scream swelled and roared, consuming, powered upward and outward by the flick of the flaming tail.

  Crackling and groaning pierced the vacuum of sound left by the monster's rushing exit. I rolled to my knees and looked around. Alice lay still nearby, skewered to the floor between Edward and Cameron. The house was still shuddering, the flames of the circle now gobbling at the floor and walls, gouting noxious smoke. Behind the ring of fire, Carlos struggled, making weak, broken movements, pulling himself up against the organ, which shivered and collapsed against itself, sending him to the burning boards. Cameron leapt up, but Edward grabbed him before he could cross the fiery line. I curled into an anguished crouch.

  Edward touched my shoulder and I shuddered. "Out," he ordered. "Before the house collapses."

  Mara dragged me to my feet and toward the door. The house seemed ramshackle and doomed, staggering beneath us as we stumbled and crawled for the stairs. I glanced back, blinded by smoke, tears, and pain, ears ringing, seeing the parlor in flames, three dark shapes moving within it, tearing the organ to pieces.

  Halfway down the tilting staircase, Mara and I met Quinton coming up. He grabbed me by the shoulders and I winced, yelping, the pain so sharp I gagged on it. Ignoring that, he hustled both of us out through the kitchen at a furious pace, yanking something out of the electrical panel with gloved hands as we passed.

  I gasped. "Cameron, Carlos—"

  Quinton snapped at me, "They can take care of themselves. They're vampires. We're not!"

  I whimpered and folded myself around the memory of pain at my core. Quinton and Mara dragged me down the rain-washed driveway and out the gate. I was all heels and slippery ankles. Between the two of them, they shoved me into the backseat of the Rover. Mara climbed in beside me, shaking. Quinton pickpocketed my keys and drove through the grim, ash-darkened rain. Finally, he parked on a side street and turned to look back at me.