Filthy

by Katherine Rhodes

  “Nothing. I’ll tell you nothing.” He stared at the ceiling above us, fixed on nothing. “I’ll die then.”

  Lily drew a line down his chest with the blade, and he shrieked—unlike I had ever heard before. “Do you think I’m kidding? Do you think that I’m making idle threats about your soul and damnation?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” he gasped.

  “You’re going to tell me where the children were being taken. You’ll tell me where you hide them, and you’ll tell me where Ben Sheehan is. Or I will reach into your corpse and wring it from your dying brain and send your soul to the deepest pit I know.” She pressed the tip against his collar again with the same screaming result. “And I know them all.”

  He was panting, and shook his head again. “No.”

  “You’re just going to anyway.”

  “No.”

  The tip scraped up this time, and Renold screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “This is only a taste of what you’ll feel in Hell,” Lily said over the screaming. “Just a tiny little taste.”

  He let out a hissing breath and didn’t pull another in. With a frown, Lily yanked him up and growled, “You’re not getting away from me.”

  I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she reached down into his soul with some invisible grip that I could feel through this new magical link. She slid her hand down deep into him and grabbed his soul, jerking it back into his body.

  “I told you,” she hissed. “Talk!”

  “Whhhhat hhhhave you ddddonnnne?” His voice echoed like someone had remixed it with reverb.

  “I have your soul. I want your knowledge. Tell me where the children are, or so help me, it’s the pit for eternity—and this is nothing compared to that.”

  “Nnno.”

  I laid my hand over hers and pushed what magic I could feel into her, and the scream from the dead man ripped through the room. “Tell us where they are!”

  I could feel him struggling against the pain to keep his secrets. We needed his information—there was no way Lily could keep this up, holding his soul. I closed my eyes so I could help her more.

  But instead, I could see.

  Everything in vivid color. Whatever I wanted to know about something, I could see it there.

  Pointing that at Lily, I could see her running blindingly white hot, and the magic, red and black, swirled through her and down into Renold.

  He was pure, ultrablack. There was no light in him. None. The magic that Lily was using to hold him there was tainted immediately upon touching him. She had a bright red, nearly white shield on the hilt of the knife, holding it back.

  I opened my eyes and the ability to see was still there, superimposed over reality. I held up my other hand and stared at it.

  Blue. Shocking bright blue white trickled through my fingers. My own magic. My own nature? I glanced down where my hand was on Lily’s and I could see her red grabbing and using it to feed her own.

  Holding my index finger out, I reached for Renold’s temple and touched him there gently. The violence in his black void tried desperately to push me away but it was like a soft breeze against the blue magic.

  “Holy shit,” Lily whispered. She glanced at me. “Do it, Wren. Do exactly what you’re thinking. Hurry. I can’t hold him.”

  She did know me well. I trickled the magic into his skin, into his brain. I could, on some level, hear him screaming against me but I didn’t pay it much attention. Instead, I led the magic into him and fed the spaces in his mind with the blue white. His neurons fired, again and again, and the information was all there.

  The magic flowed where I wanted it to, and I found the speech center of the brain. Like a lightning bolt, I jolted him—I could feel everything of his physical body dying as I did.

  “Tred Avon River. Waterview. Woodland. Three seven five five one. Waterview. Woodland. Tred Avon River. NO!!”

  His brain seized, but I didn’t let go. He needed to tell us where Ben was. He thrashed on the floor, spreading his blood everywhere, and tried to kick me and Lily off. I held fast with just one finger on his temple and let him think that he had some kind of power over us.

  Then, I squeezed.

  “Fuck. Ben is upstairs. Upstairsupstairsupstairs. He’s mine! Mineminemine! He’s mine! You can’t have him! He’s mine. Plaything. So yummy!”

  I squeezed as hard as I could at that. His scream turned to a shriek of pure pain and terror. Lily smirked, and waited a moment before she nodded. “That’s enough. He’ll have more when he gets there. We know where everyone is.” She looked down at Renold. “It’s going to be a pleasure to pick out your screams from the Pit, you rotten motherfucker.”

  I pulled my blue white magic back, out of him, and Lily pulled her dagger away. The dull life that had been clinging to her slipped out and away, and kept dropping out of sight below us, until a dark black creature leapt up and snatched it, swallowing it.

  The yelp got away from me as I fell back on my ass. “What was that?”

  “Leviathan,” she said, the red white glow tamping down to the color of a dying ember. “He eats the souls of the dead destined for the Pit and shits them out into the lake of fire there.”

  I stared down as the magic around me also tamped down and disappeared. The empty well below us folded in on itself, and Renold’s limp, dead body flopped to the ground out of Lily’s hand.

  “You have your magic,” she whispered. “All of it. Not just a little I can teach you, but all of it.” She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “God, I wish you had your memories.”

  “I seem to have my instincts,” I answered. “I don’t know how I knew to do that, but I did.”

  “Come on.” Lily stood. “Ben is upstairs. Let’s get him and I’ll contact the FBI for the kids at the other place. They’ll have people there in no time.”

  Fischer gasped, and ran to the door, “We have a serious problem.”

  Lily and I ran after him.

  The roof was on fire.

  “Fuck.”

  Lincoln

  I stared at the pictures Wren had sent me. I could believe that Polanski was part of this. It was an obvious choice, really. The man was a pervert.

  But the other one, Pablo Gutiérrez...

  That blew my mind. The man was highly respected and well known in his field. He had run the CHoP neurology department for ten years. He headed at least two charities and gave generously to a dozen more.

  And fucked small children.

  I wanted to puke.

  Ellie gasped behind me, “Where did you get that picture?”

  Spinning around, I pulled the phone out of her view. “I didn’t know you were there.”

  She reached for my hand with the phone in it. “Where did you get this? Who sent it?”

  I gave up hiding it. “Wren and Fischer, They’re at the compound and they’ve found a lot of the children and a lot of the Pipeline controllers.”

  “Including him…”

  “Yes.” I watched her face. “You know him?”

  “Mister Spring,” she whispered. “He’s a pervert. He was one of the worst I’d ever been sent to. Depraved. He had two of his own kids, one boy one girl, but he called up for others all the time. He made me…”

  My hand landed on her shoulder, softly. “You don’t have to, Ellie. You don’t have to tell me anything more. He’s a dead man at this point.”

  “I want to carve his dick off.”

  “Well, then.” I smirked.

  She stared at the picture. “Let me guess. Upstanding citizen. Rich. Donates a lot. Good man.”

  “Pillar of the community.” I nodded. “Brilliant doctor, brilliant administrator. Nice to animals.” I twisted my lip and felt the bile in my throat. “And twenty-four seven access to children.”

  “Oh, my God. Who was he?”

  “Pablo Gutiérrez, Chief of Neurology at CHoP.”

  Ellie honestly looked like she was going to throw up. “God, he was casing
the potentials from there. And who knows what he did when no one was looking!”

  “I know, baby dollBut he’s not much longer for this world. Not if Lily and Wren have anything to do with it.”

  She nodded. “I would love to pull a Salome and ask for his head on a platter.” Ellie paused. “Either head.”

  “They’ll burn the place to the ground and leave them there to die I guarantee it.”

  “Good enough.” She walked over to the table, sat, and grabbed her soda.

  Before it reached her mouth, we both froze and stared at each other. The sensation of heat and lightning raced through both of us, making us shiver.

  “What the fuck was that?” she whispered.

  “Bad news,” I answered. “Miriam? Laxi?”

  “On their way. The twins?”

  “In the basement,” I answered. “We need to get them up here.”

  Ellie broke into a sprint, yanking the door to the basement open and leaping down the stairs. I wasn’t far behind her, imitating her leaps.

  Tabitha and Timothy were huddled in the corner, surrounded by the strangest black light I had ever seen. It was crackling and swirling and closing in on them.

  At the same time, Ellie and I pulled out the blades—mine a black and gray anjir and hers a flameblade rimmed in red fire.

  “Bottom,” I said. “Slide the blade into the energy about two feet from mine. Tim, Tabi, you’re going to need to duck and run through the hole.”

  The two of them nodded, and Tabi pushed Tim forward just a little. Always the older sister protecting him. They were crouched and ready in a moment. I nodded at Ellie and we stabbed the blades into the cracking electricity, slicing it apart.

  There was a scream, as if metal was scraping against metal, and the power parted. Tim was through, and pulled Tabi with him. I caught them with my open arm and pulled them against me.

  Ellie and I pulled the blades back and she came to stand next to me, shielding the twins. She looked formidable and angry.

  The screaming stopped when we pulled the blade back, but the swirling energy closed in on itself and made a column of black and blue power. It felt evil, cruel, with more than a dash of desperation.

  “Versilange.”

  The word was distorted and pulled, but I heard it.

  “What do you want?” I screamed over the sounds it was making.

  A hand formed in the center and reached for both the twins and Ellie. “Versssssilanggggge. Claimed for Tartarus…”

  “Don’t try it!” Ellie snapped her sword up.

  “Versilange. Two hearts, one guardian…”

  This time I put my sword up. “No. They are not yours. They are ours.”

  “They’re too young to claim,” Ellie snapped. “They are innocents. You can’t touch them, it’s not allowed.”

  “Rules are gone” The entity cackled, and lanced out at the kids.

  Ellie swatted it away, and held the sword up again. “We can’t hold this off. I don’t even know what it is,” she said.

  “I agree.” I pushed Tim and Tabi onto her leg. “Take them and go.”

  “Go where?” she gasped.

  “Can you find Laxi or Miriam?”

  She paused. “Yes. They’re on the Schuykill, stuck in traffic.”

  “Go. Their backseat. I’ll be fine.”

  “Linc—”

  A lash of power sliced the air and cut down, and I caught it, hacking it off and absorbing the power into the sword. That was a neat trick.

  “Go! Go!” I snapped.

  The flameblade was gone, and Ellie pulled the twins close. She turned to the right and reality swallowed all three of them.

  The entity screeched, lashing out in all different directions. I cut a few away, but a few more caught me on my legs and it fucking hurt. I felt the skin slice, and the blood run down my legs. I backed up and kept swinging. I didn’t really know what I was doing.

  I felt a tear in reality, and Laxmi was suddenly there in the room with me, her flameblade lit white. She yelled something in the demon language that filtered in to my brain as, “You are breaking rules set by El, and you are not allowed to be near those innocents until they are of the age of majority. Back off, back down, and back to Hell with you!”

  The whirling energy cackled and cracked. It spun in on itself, and with a tremendous bang!, was gone. I let the tip of the sword drop to the ground and sighed.

  “Thank you,” I managed.

  “You did awesome,” Laxmi said, patting me on the shoulder. “Just awesome. The kids will be here with Miriam as soon as that traffic breaks up. That was a great idea, sending them to us.”

  “I just worry about them, and you guys are better at this than I am. I wield this sword as about as threateningly as a butter knife.”

  Laxmi laughed. “The bread at least should be afraid.”

  I chuckled and ran a hand down my face. “What was that?”

  “Not sure. There were a few things it could have been. A razkor, an elemental, a faundil. Of all those, the elemental is the most likely.”

  “Lemme guess. An electrical elemental?”

  Laxmi smiled, and tapped her nose. “You’re getting the hang of this.”

  I shook my head, and disappeared the sword.

  “Just help me make sure that no one is going to come after these kids again?”

  She took a deep breath. “I can’t wait for all of you to get your memories back. Then I wouldn’t have to show you.”

  Shaking my head again, I walked for the stairs. “For now, you have to show me.”

  Fischer

  The roof was going up quickly.

  “It’s regular fire,” Lily said.

  “Ben is up there,” Wren whispered.

  “Fucking shit,” I snapped and ran for the stairs. “Get the kids in the van! I’ll get Ben!”

  “Fischer, no! Come back!” Wren screamed. “Let Lily do it!”

  “Just get the kids in the van!” I slammed the door at the top of the stairs.

  I could smell the fire above. I had to think fast. Where the hell would this disgusting bastard keep a sex slave? The bedroom was almost too obvious, so I headed up there to rule it out.

  The master bedroom was on the other side of the house from the fire, and I hoped I could get Ben before that became an issue. I ran down the hall—

  —And found myself slammed into the wall opposite one of the other bedrooms.

  The pain ran up my arm and shoulder and made my vision hazy just long enough to be slammed to the ground.

  “Did you think I left?” Barry asked. His voice sounded far away for the ringing in my ears. “Did you really think I would leave all that property down there? They’re worth millions, you ass.”

  I pushed up to sitting. “You set the house on fire.”

  “This? It’s one of a dozen I own,” he said. “You fools should have just stayed away. Now I have to kill all of you and get as many of my goods out of the basement before this place collapses.”

  Jesus, he didn’t even care that there were dozens of children down there—just that he could make money off them.

  He pulled out a gun and pointed it at my head.

  “You’re all just meddling assholes,” he stated. “You think you can stop this? You can’t. This is bigger than you can possibly comprehend. We’ll never be stopped. There are too many people like us in the world. Too many men and women who want little sex slaves. Too many people with proclivities that—”

  While this bozo was busy chatting, I manifested my new sword and lobbed his hand off, gun included. He shrieked like a banshee and staggered back against the wall, holding his stump.

  “Idiot. Don’t monologue. Just shoot.” I snatched up the gun and shoved it in the back of the waistband of my pants. Holding onto the sword, I headed for the bedroom again and left Barry standing there, whimpering.

  The bedroom was more a mini apartment than a master suite. There was a sitting room, a wet bar, the bedroom, a huge walk-
in closet, and massive bathroom. There were no signs of anyone there. I plowed through each room, looking for a secret door and finding nothing. Nothing in the closets or behind other walls.

  I heard a bang at the other end of the building, and the whole structure creaked. It was going to start collapsing soon, and the part of the roof that was on fire was the part where the underground garage was.

  But above all the noise of the fire, I heard a whimper. I looked around, but didn’t see anywhere I could find a kid hiding. There was nowhere. As if they had built the room and furnished it to prove to visitors there was nothing to hide and nowhere to hide it.

  I heard the whimper again.

  I looked up.

  There was a trap door there in the ceiling.

  Christ, he was in the attic.

  That was currently on fire.

  Fuck.

  There was no way to grab the handle on the trap door where I was.

  Looking around, there were no chairs, no ladders, no step stools. Nothing I could grab and pull over easily. I glanced over to the bed, and realized that I didn’t have time to figure anything out. I had to get to that latch before the kid suffocated from the smoke.

  Reaching under the frame of the bed—a wealthy asshole like Sansom only had the cheap metal frame?—and heaved it up and started pulling it backward. I moved it as fast as I could, and placed it under that lock.

  Hopping up on the bed, I was just still a few inches short.

  Three little monkeys, jumping on the bed. One fell off and hit his head.

  Bending my knees, I bounced on the mattress a few times, and then trampolined it up, and caught the handle with one hand. With the other, I slapped the latch open and the whole thing fell into the room.

  I slammed backward onto the bed, a massive roil of smoke came billowing out and a small body landed on mine a moment later.

  Immediately curling in on himself, the boy started shaking. “Sir, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were going to open it. I didn’t mean to fall on you.”

  Wrapping my arms around him, I pulled him close. “No apologies, Ben.”