What the…?
I had been expecting a creature of some kind. Instead, I was looking at an ornate casting circle painted on the floor in what looked like blood and bone dust. Dark candles stood at the points of the circle’s star-shaped pattern. I raised my gaze to an altar above the circle. It featured an old iron chest about the size of a cinderblock, thick candles bracketing it. When I leaned my head toward the claustrophobic space, I picked up the stink of rancid blood.
Arnaud placed a chilly hand on my back. “I believe you’ll find everything you need.”
“Everything I need for what?”
The armory shook again, this time toppling several of the racks of weapons. Arnaud removed his helmet and shook out his hair. He looked as if he was wearing a grotesque mask, the dried blood thick over his jaw and around his eyes but absent from the rest of his pale face.
“I don’t need to spell out our situation,” he said when the noise settled. “I underestimated our opponents, or at least the lengths they were prepared to go. They have already decimated half our ranks. They mean to finish the job. Our only recourse now is the Scaig Box.”
I studied the trunk on the altar. “Scaig Box?”
A cold force seemed to emanate from the word, like fingernails dragging across stone.
Outside, the pounding continued. A giant crack appeared in the drawbridge-like wall.
“Listen to me, Mr. Croft,” Arnaud said quickly. “The box holds an ancient being, a precursor to vampirekind. We will use the being to destroy the trolls, then order it back into its hold.”
I jerked away, understanding what he wanted. “Are you fucking insane? No, I’m not calling forth any ancient being. I’m forbidden for one, and for another … That thing’s related to you? Yeah, no.”
“You’re bound by the Pact.” Arnaud’s eyes burned into mine.
“To aid you in battle, not unleash some ancient evil on the world.”
“I know how summonings work,” he pressed. “The circle I’ve prepared is extraordinarily powerful. The being will remain under your control. You can test the circle for yourself.”
The armory shuddered again, rubble falling from a fresh proliferation of cracks. The image of the troll shoving the gunman into his mouth flashed through my mind.
I eyed the casting circle. Though it had elements that looked vaguely Sumerian, the pattern wasn’t one I’d seen before. With a flick of my mace, I cast an ounce of energy toward it. The circle gobbled it up. A moment later, the pattern began to pulse like a heart, amplifying the energy several fold. Alright, so it passed the power test. But what in the hell would I be calling forth?
I raised my eyes to the iron trunk. It sat on its dark altar perch as though biding its time.
This had disaster written all over it.
“I hear more of them out there,” Arnaud said above the thundering blows.
My heart slammed in my chest. It was only a matter of time, I got it. But summonings never worked out for me, from my first experience with Thelonious to nearly succumbing to a gatekeeper a few weeks ago. And then there was Chicory’s warning—not only about the penalty for summoning, but why the Order forbade the practice. I could be opening a fissure…
To the Whisperer, I thought, the being who nearly destroyed the Elders.
“I can’t do it,” I said.
“Can’t or won’t?” Arnaud asked.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not happening.”
“What about your mother?” he asked, his narrow tongue spearing the word.
I stiffened. “What about her?”
“Well, if I understood your grandfather correctly, she was slaughtered like a little lamb. If you fall today, who’s left to avenge her death?” Though he spoke softly, almost teasingly, I could smell his musk, could feel my already-racing pulse kicking into a higher gear. He was inciting my anger.
“They’ve won,” I said.
Arnaud stared at me. “I don’t believe I heard you.”
“There are creatures out there we can’t kill,” I said, “and a being in that box that might be even worse. Our best option is to contact City Hall, have the fae call off the trolls, and then see if we have any chips left to bargain with. If nothing else, it buys us time.”
My mind made up, I turned toward the elevator.
“Oh, Mr. Croft,” Arnaud said. “I did hope it wouldn’t come to this.”
I was still processing his words when he swooped in behind me and seized my wrists. The talons of his thumbs pierced the network of tendons below my palms, and my hands jerked open, dropping the maces.
Fear and anger spiked hot inside me. He was attacking me in violation of the Pact!
I twisted my right fist around until the ring was aimed at him. “Balaur!” I shouted.
The cold metal remained inert.
“You poor fool,” he hissed in my ear. “Do you think I would hand you a loaded weapon? The design is identical, yes, and there are magnetic elements that might feel like power, but the ring is a worthless copy. Now,” he said, steering me back toward the vault, “I believe we have a summoning to perform.”
The son of a bitch had tricked me.
Furious, I snapped my head back to smash his face, but he was too quick. Far, far too quick. Cold breath brushed my exposed throat an instant before his spiny teeth plunged in.
29
My eyes shot wide.
He’s doing it. He’s actually biting me.
In an instant, the piercing pain was replaced by a warmth that flooded my system, relaxing everything. It was like slipping into the warmest, most lavish bath. Though my mind struggled, my body relaxed into Arnaud’s embrace, his high-pitched suckling. I couldn’t stop him. Couldn’t dam the endorphins dumping into my bloodstream. And that was the worst part. Despite the horror of what he was doing, my brain was flashing pleasure signals.
My eyelids fluttered, even as I strained to keep them open.
No, dammit! No, no, no!
I felt Arnaud slipping into my mind, growing inside it like a fluid-filled sac. He was turning me into one of his minions. I groped for my mental prism, found it, but couldn’t summon the will to cast through it. Arnaud controlled that will now. And with it, he controlled me.
Arnaud broke away with a wet gasp.
He turned me until I was facing him, my blood glistening across his mouth like a lurid lip gloss. His swollen pupils narrowed to pin points. Wizard’s energy pulsed around him.
I stared back dumbly.
“Be grateful, Mr. Croft,” he said, releasing my wrist. “I could have taken far more.”
I saw one of the maces on the floor at my feet. I felt myself stooping for it, seizing the leather-bound grip, swinging the silver-edged flange into Arnaud’s head. But, in fact, I hadn’t moved, couldn’t move.
Arnaud tsked. “What a cruel thing to want to do to your master.”
He’s inside my damn head, my thoughts.
“Indeed, I am,” he said. “Behold.”
Arnaud turned and walked toward the vault. I followed, my legs kicking into a series of jerky steps. I couldn’t stop them. The vault swallowed us into its frigid hold. Arnaud stepped aside, and I fell to my knees inside the casting circle, as though thrust down. Arnaud moved in beside me.
“Cerrare,” a foreign voice spoke.
No, my voice. The word had been spoken through my mouth.
Could Arnaud direct my magic? Certainly not. But energy was already pouring through my mental prism and down my body. The casting circle glowed with protective power. Flames sprouted from the candles.
That’s why he held back, I thought. Not out of charity, but to preserve my prism.
“Den-lil lugal kur-kur-ra ab-ba.”
Arnaud moved my lips and tongue around the Sumerian words.
“Re-ne-ke inim gi-na-ni-ta.”
Ropey strands of dark energy sprang into being, linking Arnaud to the Scaig Box on the altar. The summoning was starting, and God only knew how it was going t
o end.
“Gir-su dsara-bi ki e-ne-sur.”
The trunk stirred. Something inside strained against the hinges, but they were bound by a powerful magic. Hope found a fingerhold inside me. Maybe the binding magic would be too strong for me to dispel. But the magic was familiar. Like the long-forgotten scent of a childhood home, I felt the magic resonating on a limbic level. I’d sensed it before.
“Yes,” Arnaud whispered. “Your grandfather sealed this box, centuries ago. Only someone of his bloodline can unseal it. How fortunate that I found you—or more accurately, that you found me.”
What in the world’s in there?
“A forebear, Mr. Croft.”
“Ensi ummaki-ke nam inim-ma.”
The magical binding released in a pair of audible pops.
“Soon, the city will look on me as a god.”
“Diri-diri-se e-ak!”
The lid cannoned open and a horrible shadow rose. It took form above the trunk, unfurling a pair of ragged black wings. A black bat’s face squinted down at us, fangs jutting up from its lower jaw. I’d been right to be wary. Arnaud had just summoned a shadow fiend.
“Arnaud Thorne,” the fiend said in a voice that sounded like a rusty nail being drawn from wood. “You dare call me forth after hundreds of years of neglect. Hundreds of years in which I’ve foundered in the blackest shadows. Why should I not destroy you here and now?”
I expected Arnaud to cower from the towering creature. Instead, he stepped forward.
“I am protected, for one,” he replied from inside the circle. “And two, I have bound you to me.”
The fiend’s eyes burned as it raised a taloned hand.
“Gal bi-su!” Arnaud had me shout.
The ropey umbilicus connecting him to the fiend looped around the creature’s neck, becoming a barbed collar. The fiend’s hands flew to its throat as Arnaud tugged the cord. Arnaud yanked again, and the massive fiend fell to the floor, as though it were bowing before the vampire.
“Any attempt to harm me will redound on you a hundredfold,” Arnaud said. “Are we clear?”
The fiend’s face twisted in evident pain. “I will obey.”
I looked on, horrified. Combining the ancient ritual with my power, Arnaud had taken complete control over the entity. And something told me Arnaud had larger ambitions beyond troll killing.
“Get up,” he commanded.
The being flapped to its feet. “What is your bidding?”
Arnaud’s eyes cut toward me, and I could see the calculation in them. He had what he wanted: the Scaig Box opened, the shadow fiend in his command. He was no longer dependent on my magic. And that wasn’t all. Arnaud’s access to my thoughts ran both ways. Before he could cover the keyhole on his end, I saw the full extent to which he had manipulated me.
Everson, I thought, you ever-loving idiot.
Late last night, Arnaud learned the mayor’s wife had succumbed to the bullet I’d lodged in her aorta. Penelope Lowder was dead. With the head of the werewolves gone, he saw an opportunity. The false story about me working for the vampires hadn’t been planted by the fae and City Hall. The timing of the story—on the heels of the Central Park disaster—had only made it seem that way.
The story had been planted by Arnaud.
It was brilliant, really. Drive me to him, force the city into a confrontation, and then use my powers to unleash his fiend. The coordinated werewolf attack had surprised him. He hadn’t known Cole was the second wolf in command. The captain had fooled us both, apparently. But with that battle won, Arnaud’s plan was back on track. And the fae’s response helped—or so he thought. He had believed the trolls would convince me to summon the shadow fiend.
They hadn’t, and so here we were.
“The mayor was already threatening to end my empire,” Arnaud said, having followed my thoughts. “I merely forced his hand. And now that he has sown the wind, his city shall reap the whirlwind. Remember what I told you, Mr. Croft. ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means.’ So too is terror. Rise, please.” When he gestured, my body jerked like a marionette, and I was on my feet. “And step outside the circle.”
I fought with everything I had—the circle was my only defense against the shadow fiend—but it was no use. My right leg broke through the circle’s humming border, breaking it. My left leg followed.
Arnaud had his control over the creature to protect him, but I was exposed now. Nightmare images ripped through my mind as the fiend crawled toward me, its dreadful eyes boring into mine. It reeked of sulfur and carrion. I tried to squint away but couldn’t even do that.
Beyond the vault’s entrance, gunfire erupted in fresh bursts. A large stone shot past.
Arnaud sighed. “It seems the trolls have made their way inside. Come,” he said, jerking the fiend by the collar toward the vault door. “I have work for you.”
I could only stare as the immense being rose and drifted past me.
“We shouldn’t be long, Mr. Croft,” Arnaud said. “Call if you need anything.”
His fangs grinned through my drying blood as he slammed the door closed, extinguishing the candles and sealing me in blackness.
30
I’d read that an attack from a shadow fiend was like being disemboweled while having your brains sucked out through the back of your skull—the victim conscious the entire time. I almost pitied the trolls. Beyond the thick wall of the vault, I heard the first one being set upon, his grunts and roars followed by an unearthly scream and then a foundation-shaking collapse.
In the darkness, I felt over the metal door. Arnaud was no longer in direct control of me, but I couldn’t cast, dammit. It was as though my prism was stranded in the middle of a huge chasm. I doubted I’d be able to raise a hand against Arnaud, either. I was his slave now. Maybe not to the degree of the others, but still doomed to serve him. Until his fiend killed me.
The inside of the door was smooth metal, nothing to grasp or turn. I put my shoulder to it and shoved, but I’d heard the giant magnets engage after the door had swung closed. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Another troll screamed. The vault shook with his collapse.
Okay, calm down, I told myself. Relax. Remember your training.
I heard Lazlo’s voice from years before. A wizard who cannot cast is a dead wizard.
Leaning my arms against the door, I inhaled through my nose and exhaled through pursed lips. I recited my centering mantra.
After several cycles, I saw it wasn’t going to work. Arnaud had siphoned out too much of me. The distance between where I stood and where I needed to be remained too vast.
Arnaud was the bridge, and unless he commanded it, I couldn’t cast.
I straightened and pulled my coin pendant from beneath the collar of my shirt. I ran my thumb over the symbol. It was the first magical item of his Grandpa had given me, the only one he’d given me while still alive. I’d acquired the sword and ring after his death—and managed to lose both, I thought bitterly. Right now, the ring’s loss was the more damning.
The coin’s metal pulsed warmly in my hand.
As I considered its round shape, I thought about Grandpa’s penchant for acquiring things in pairs: tools, slippers, straight razors. To have an immediate replacement, my grandmother had said. What about the Brasov Pact? Grandpa hadn’t owned a second ring, but he would have wanted a backup. My thumb made another pass over the symbol. The coin could cast light and protect against lesser beings. Might Grandpa have also instilled it with the power of the Pact? It was the only other wearable ornament he’d possessed.
As though in answer, the coin let out another pulse.
Hope kicked inside me. Yes, the enchantment was buried, but it was in there! I could feel it! It was just a matter of manifesting enough magic to access the enchantment, to release its power.
“Illuminare,” I said, concentrating into the coin. I waited for several moments before repeating the word. But no energy stirred. No light shone forth. The vault
remained as dark as my situation.
I twisted off the fake ring Arnaud had given me and threw it with all of my strength. “Goddammit!” I shouted, the echoes seeming to chase the clattering ring around the vault before both fell silent. With my back to the door, I slid to the vault floor, landing with a rustle of chainmail.
Another troll’s scream pierced the vault.
I closed my eyes. Backup or no backup, I was powerless to cast. The vampire had won.
Checkmate.
I could search the vault in the hopes of finding something to use as a weapon. Perhaps the iron trunk the shadow fiend had emerged from. I could stand to one side of the door and await Arnaud’s return. I could bring the trunk down on his head, or attempt to. And it would all be for nothing. At every turn, Arnaud had been a dozen steps ahead of me. He’d enticed me, repelled me, vexed me, possessed me—all moves in a complex dance that he’d been leading the entire time. He hadn’t come this far to be foiled by a box on his head.
Exhaling, I muttered, “Trust in the one you trust least.”
I cast back to that final moment with Lady Bastet. I remembered the feel of the stone table beneath my forearms, the tendrils of incense in the air, the strand of my mother’s hair. I remembered Lady Bastet staring into me, losing herself so completely that she didn’t remember the experience. Could she have erred? Gotten her signals crossed? Trust in the one you trust least. From the mouth of an oracle. And the one I trusted least was Arnaud. Zero doubt.
But that’s not what Lady Bastet had said, I realized. Not exactly.
In my memory, I watched her violet lips shape the message. Trust in the one your heart trusts least.
Yes, that’s what she’d said. Heart. And that one word changed everything. The divination no longer fit Arnaud Thorne, but it conformed perfectly to my feelings for Caroline Reid. Caroline was the one I was supposed to have trusted—the one who had been offering to help me the whole time.
I kicked the floor in disgust.
Tabitha had been right. I’d let my wounded heart play foil. I was so hell bent on punishing Caroline for choosing Angelus and the fae over me, that I slammed the door on her offer, on her.
Purge City (Prof Croft Book 3) Page 20
