Master and Apprentice

by Bateman, Sonya

  “Right.”

  I dropped to the floor as quietly as possible, forgetting about the shattered mirror right up until broken glass crunched under me and bit through my socks. A whimper caught in my throat. With no choice but to keep going, I moved to the door and tried to ignore the thousand-cuts Chinese torture my feet received. By the time I reached it, my socks were soaked with blood. I stopped and cupped both hands on the wood, then leaned in to listen. There was movement downstairs. A lot of it. Bangs and thumps, things breaking. The bastards must’ve heard the gunshot up here, so they’d probably decided to start on phase two of their orders, then come and kill us when the shooting stopped.

  Find their fucking lamps. Trash the place. I knew what they wanted—tethers. Ian’s and Akila’s. If they got them, it’d be game over for all of us. At least they weren’t close to finding them yet. I was pretty sure Ian’s was out in their apartment. Akila had never mentioned what hers was, but they must’ve stashed it just as carefully as Ian’s.

  I fell back a step. My throbbing feet protested louder than a rally leader with a megaphone. “Okay. Brief,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “Two guys. Armed. Shoot-to-kill orders. They saw you. Not sure if they know Cy’s here, but I don’t think so.”

  “Here.” The curtain rustled, and a hand thrust through holding a gun butt first. Her Sig Sauer. Heavy shit.

  “Keep it. I want you guys safe.”

  “I’ve got three in here.”

  “Course you do.” I took the gun and held back a laugh. That was Jazz—always prepared. “Listen. Stay right there. I’m going to draw them away—”

  “Don’t.” Her whisper wavered a little. “Can’t you just hole up here? Let them come up and we’ll pick them off.”

  Steel bands tightened across my chest. I wanted nothing more than to stay right here and protect my family—but I knew it wouldn’t work. If they cast a lockdown on me or something, Jazz and Cy would be sitting ducks, no matter how many guns she had. Getting them to engage me alone, making sure the thugs couldn’t even find them, much less take a shot, was our only chance. And I had no time to explain. At least not with anything that resembled tact.

  “Please stay there,” I repeated, already working on the full-length mirror that hung on the inside bathroom door. “I’ve got to take them on. They have magic.” And you don’t, I kept myself from adding.

  The fact that she didn’t respond said she understood, but she didn’t have to like it.

  This time I bridged to the mirror in the master bathroom. “Shoot anyone who tries to come in,” I said. “I won’t come back unless they’re finished. Marco Polo, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Crud. I really hated that word, especially coming from Jazz. She got what I meant—but things were not even close to fine, and I’d hear all about how not fine she was with this if I lived long enough. “Babe … I love you,” I whispered, then plunged through the mirror knowing damn well she wouldn’t say it back.

  I thought she called something after me anyway. It probably involved the threat of bodily harm.

  The cold that engulfed me on the passage through was brief. On the plus side, the other end was a full-length model too, so I didn’t have to crawl over anything. But I still had to walk.

  A single, agonizing step told me I wasn’t going any farther until I got the glass out.

  With a silent curse, I sat on the floor and stripped off the bloodied socks. Pain shagged up my legs when the motion shifted the shards embedded in my flesh. I tried to pull one of the big ones out, but only managed to elicit a supernova of hurt. I damn near passed out. Startled tears scalded my eyes, and I pressed back a frustrated scream. This wasn’t going to work. It looked a lot easier when Bruce Willis did it in Die Hard.

  I closed my eyes and told myself I had no choice. No matter how much it hurt, I’d have to yank out as many fragments as possible. If I sat here much longer, I might as well pull the trigger on Jazz and Cy myself. I needed to walk. Right fucking now.

  For an instant I failed to associate the blossom of heat in my chest with the clink and patter of glass on linoleum. By the time I realized I was magicking them out, it was done.

  Meanwhile, I’d lost precious minutes while the glorified frat boys downstairs plotted my demise. I levered to my feet and walked as fast as I dared. It still hurt like hell, but at least it didn’t feel like a hundred sword-wielding cockroaches were attacking my feet. The dim glow from the emergency light above the sink revealed bloody smears, not quite foot shaped, as I hobbled across the floor. Actual healing would have to wait.

  I made it out and crossed the bedroom. Carpet proved kinder to my shredded feet, even if I was staining it beyond salvation. I stood on the wrong side of the door and pulled it open slowly. The party on the first floor sounded like it was winding down. An occasional halfhearted thump, the casual crunch of a shoe on household debris. Voices, but far enough away that I couldn’t make out words. At least it sounded like they were both still down there.

  Just when I’d convinced myself I had a few seconds to think of a plan, I heard the distinctive creak of the bottom stair. Time to wing it.

  The main bathroom was almost directly in front of the stairs. If they searched room by room, they’d look there first. I fired a shot toward the window that overlooked the garage. And missed by a foot. But the crack of the gun was loud enough to draw attention, even without breaking glass. I’d have to hope they took the bait.

  And if they did, I’d have to shoot them. Or try to. I was a lousy shot, and I’d never actually killed a human being—or part-human, anyway. At least, not directly. But I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have a problem cutting down anyone who wanted to kill Jazz. I decided I wouldn’t miss if I held the muzzle against something vital and fired. Which meant getting them close enough to manage that, without getting shot myself.

  No problem. And after that, I could talk good ol’ Theo and Ray into forgetting the whole kill-the-thief idea and playing poker instead.

  A full minute passed without sound. At least one of the other stairs should’ve creaked by now. I had two choices. One, wait some more and hope they hadn’t managed to get quieter, and weren’t already opening Door Number One. And two, make damn sure they knew exactly where I was through an act of daring and outrageous stupidity.

  My mouth opened before my brain could argue that option two was assisted suicide.

  “Hey, assholes!” I yelled through the open door. “If you’re supposed to clean house, you missed a spot.”

  Nothing. Not a step or a rustle. I’d visited louder graves.

  “Come on, shitheels. The party’s up here now.”

  Still no response. I imagined Jazz huddled in the bathtub with Cyrus, dreaming up inventive and painful ways to cure me of stupid. She’d never approved of the direct approach. But I’d have to make a move soon, because my butchered feet weren’t going to carry me more than a few steps—and it was damned hard to crawl out of gun range.

  I decided to go in a personal direction. “How’s your head, Theo?” I called. “Must’ve been a bitch getting laid out by a knickknack. Did you learn your best moves from Martha Stewart?”

  This time I heard something. A soft rasp, like a hand running along a wall. The sound was close. Practically right outside the door.

  I held my breath and gripped the gun in both hands like a bad actor playing the expendable cop in a horror flick. Moving fast, I leaned out partway and squeezed off three or four rounds in the direction of the sound.

  The hall looked empty. But an answering shot punched a hole through my forearm.

  “Fuck!” I hit the floor and kneed the door shut, knowing there’d be more bullets. In the space of a breath, a prolonged volley battered the door and showered me with splinters. I dragged back, gasping and cursing, and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. They couldn’t be invisible—could they? I didn’t know much about magic, but a spell that only targeted Dehbei blood would’ve taken a fuck of a lot
longer. The snare Lynus cast had to be a general no-disappearing thing. So why hadn’t I seen my assailant?

  Finally, I realized the bullet had gone through my arm top down. The bastard was above the door.

  An abrupt halt to the gunfire left ringing silence behind. I set my jaw against anticipated pain and stood on feet made of needles and fire. Somehow, I’d managed to hold on to the gun. Score one for Donatti. That made the odds about as even as a three-card monte street game.

  I reached for the door and stopped. Couldn’t have a repeat performance this time. One more hole in me and I’d bleed to death before Jazz could have the pleasure of haranguing me into an early grave for leaving her out of this. I switched the gun to my injured arm against strenuous self-recriminations that I was an utter bonehead, then yanked the door open and reached out and up.

  My hand encountered flesh. I clamped on hard. A surprised shout preceded another shot that burrowed into the floor at my feet. I looked up to find Theo floating near the top of the door, with my fingers digging into the arm that held his weapon.

  He tried to pull back. “Son of a—”

  I yanked down on him midepithet. He came toward me easier than a balloon on a string. I brought the Sig up, pushed the muzzle against his chest, and pulled the trigger before my internal morality police could handcuff my intentions.

  He thumped to the floor. “Bitch,” I finished for him. “Don’t you know snakes can’t fly?”

  Theo didn’t answer. He must’ve figured it out for himself.

  Panic manifested in my gut and reminded me that there was still another guy with a gun out there, and I was losing enough blood to stock the Red Cross for a month. I scanned the ceiling in case Ray had developed Superman delusions too. Nothing but unarmed drywall up there. Down the hall, the bathroom door remained closed and untouched.

  “Theo. Goddamn it, you get him?”

  Still in the living room. I dropped so my head wouldn’t be an easy target through the rails, and crawled toward the stairs with the gun directed out. I’d have to take any opportunity I could get to fire on him.

  “Jesus jumpin’ Christ.” Footsteps crackled on fragmented things, growing closer.

  I made the top of the stairs and waited.

  “Theo? What the …” Ray stepped into the clear. “Fuck!”

  He sprinted for the kitchen, ducking low. I fired, he fired. We both missed. I couldn’t let him get out of the house—if he hung around here long enough for shit to calm down, he could just come back invisible and pick us off one at a time. But I couldn’t take the stairs fast enough on foot.

  So I slung myself over the banister and slid down.

  At the bottom, I managed a clumsy dismount and roll that would’ve earned me a negative score at the Olympics. But I reached the kitchen doorway while Ray was still trying to scramble past the table to the back door.

  With a mental promise to my feet that if I lived, they’d spend a week soaking in warm and expensive champagne, I wrenched myself from the floor and kicked off a shot that caught Ray—though not in a place I expected. He screamed and hit his knees, a few feet from the door. “My ass!” he bellowed. “You shot my ass, you dirty no-count fuck.”

  “I can count just fine,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to aim somewhere more lethal. Sweat drenched my shirt and trickled from my temples. Black spots pulsed a gruesome kaleidoscope across my vision. Just a few more seconds. Please … “One, two. I win.”

  “Don’t bank on it, wolf-boy.”

  A bullet grazed my hip before the sound of the report whip-cracked over my eardrums. I buckled, hit the door frame hard, and sank to my knees. The Sig in my hand weighed a thousand pounds. I couldn’t lift it again.

  Ray stood and flashed two grins—his teeth, and the black hole of death at the end of his gun. “Y’all say hey to Lucifer for me,” he said.

  When the back door banged open, for an instant I thought the silhouetted figure outside was Satan himself, come to collect me personally. But I didn’t think the devil spoke djinn. And even if he did, I doubted he knew how to cast a locking spell.

  I tried to tell the new arrival that he didn’t have to bother. I couldn’t have moved if he paid me. But the swirling blackness coalesced over my eyes before my tongue would obey.

  Chapter 13

  “Donatti.”

  The voice that dribbled through my fuzz-blocked ears sounded familiar. That didn’t necessarily translate to good news. I had far more enemies than friends, so the odds were stacked in favor of someone who’d happily finish the job Ray and Theo had started.

  “—the fuck’s going on?”

  I flexed a hand. It moved accordingly, and surprised me enough to crack an eye open. A dark-haired figure dressed in black kneeled next to me. I couldn’t make out his face, but he made no move to kill me.

  “Come on, man. Don’t pass out on me again. Where’s Ian?”

  At last an identity paired itself with the voice, and I realized I’d get to live at least a few more minutes. “Tory,” I croaked. “You finish that other guy off ?”

  “You know we can’t kill humans.”

  “He’s not all human.”

  “Shit.” Tory shot to his feet. “He’s still locked down. But I can’t—”

  “Handcuffs. Top cabinet, left of the door.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t even wanna know.”

  “And hit him in the head with something too. Make sure he’s out for a while. He might know a handcuff-opening spell. These guys can do some weird shit.”

  “If you say so.”

  I allowed myself to relax a little while he secured the thug. Tory would be glad we were even now; I’d saved his life a year ago. More or less. But he wouldn’t be so thrilled to find out what had happened to Akila. He was supposed to be some kind of royal protector for her, though he’d left most of the protecting in this realm to Ian. Not by choice. Ian had insisted, and he had a few centuries on Tory. Not to mention that she was his wife.

  My eyes must have closed again, because I felt Tory working a healing spell before I saw him come back. I decided to leave them shut for a minute and savor the shrinking pain. “Why’d you come here?” I said. “You psychic now, or what?”

  “You know that alarm system I set up for you?”

  “The wards.”

  “Yeah. Those.” He glanced toward the now silent thug. I really hoped he’d knocked him out. “Well, they went crazy. And then they fell apart. I tried to come through your mirror, but nothing happened.”

  “It’s broken.”

  “I got that impression. So I used Ian’s instead. And then I heard a gunshot in here.”

  “And then you saved my ass.” I opened my eyes. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” A deep frown etched furrows in his mouth. “I shouldn’t have had to, though. There’s only one guy here, and he’s not even djinn. What happened? Where’re Ian and Akila?”

  I really didn’t want to answer that last question. I sat up slowly and nodded in Ray’s direction. “There were five of them,” I said. “He’s the last. I killed one.” Saying it out loud sent a wave of revulsion through me. “The rest … well, they’re gone.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him they’d taken Akila. Not yet. There were too many things we still had to figure out, and either Tory or Ian would rush off to save her without a plan—and get themselves caught or killed in the process. Alone, I wouldn’t be able to get them all back. “They’re descendants, like me. Only they’re Morai.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Everybody keeps saying that, but it’s not going to change the facts.” I grabbed the door frame and hauled myself to my feet. “They’re Morai. There’s a shit ton more where those came from. And Ian … is in bad shape.” I had to drop my gaze. “He’s in the living room. I think.”

  Without a word, Tory whirled and ran for it. I took my time. Besides feeling like a pile of shit caught in an elephant stampede, I already knew what he looked like. And I was in no hurry to s
ee it again.

  Tory’s anguished cry tore through me when I stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Marco,” I called up after giving him a minute, hoping Jazz could hear me. I didn’t think I could climb all those steps. A few muffled thumps later, the bathroom door slivered open.

  “Polo.”

  It was the most beautiful word I’d ever heard. Relief convulsed my throat, and it took a few seconds for my voice to squeeze through. “It’s safe,” I said. “But I don’t know if you should bring Cyrus out of there yet.”

  Jazz opened the door farther. “How bad is it?”

  “Remember Buffalo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Worse than that.”

  “Great.” She let out a long breath. Back when I was a full-time thief, and Jazz drove getaway, we’d been in on a job that overlapped a mob operation. Nobody told us that little detail, and we’d accidentally busted up an informant torture party. It was the only time I’d seen her close to puking. “Well, I can’t keep him in here for long, and he sure as hell isn’t going to sleep. I’ll give you a few minutes, but we have to come down soon.”

  “All right.” A few minutes wasn’t going to be enough time to put Ian back together. I wasn’t even sure if Tory and I combined could fix him.

  I headed reluctantly to the living room, barely taking note of the destruction they’d caused. At first I didn’t see Ian—only Tory, standing motionless in front of a wall. Finally I realized Ian was there too. But it was an image my mind didn’t want to recognize.

  Lynus had crucified him.

  Arms spread, legs together, spears tacked him to the wall like a gruesome life-size poster. One in each wrist, one through both ankles. Another silver shaft protruded from his chest. I guessed that one had been to anchor him in place, since pinning his limbs alone wouldn’t have kept him upright. His bowed head wasn’t quite enough to hide the damage he’d taken from the bullet in the face. In the few places he wasn’t drenched in blood or blasted apart, his flesh looked dirty gray tinged with blue. Like a corpse fresh from the morgue.