I had just gotten my torso fully up, hinging at the hips over the lip of the ditch, when I saw the others. A couple dozen remnants, I honestly couldn't count them through the dirty water stinging my eyes, amassed in the field. They had stopped paying attention to the convoy, enchanted by the scent of my blood on the air.
As I pulled myself out of the ditch, coming up to my hands and knees in the scratchy grass, their heads turned. Slowly. Zeroing in on me. I managed to get to my feet and draw my blade before the rush began.
Twenty-Two: Friendly Flames
The remnants in the ditch wasted no time in scrambling out after me. I spared one quick glance over my shoulder, then pushed to my feet. Those who had fallen with me were weakened from our battle atop the van, but their strength didn't matter much. If I couldn't fight my way free of these monsters soon, their sheer numbers would overwhelm me. Sunstrider powers were only so strong, especially when the sky was overcast.
The mass of remnants that had been chasing the convoy rushed me, many falling as their feet tangled in the brambles that covered the ground. It didn't matter how many of them fell, they would reach me in large enough numbers to run me to the ground all the same. I cast around, looking for a way out of the quagmire. To my left the ditch separated me from the road, and the swarming mass of remnants pulling themselves out the muddied water made that a difficult path. To my right an empty field stretched into the mist. I could see no further than maybe twenty feet, and I had no idea what waited for me on the other side of that misty barrier. Behind me ran the road to London, an inviting escape, but if I were to run away then the remnants would lose interest in me and turn around, going after the convoy.
I was one sunstrider. The convoy shielded fifteen. It was the easiest math I'd ever done.
Drawing my blade, I tested my knees, feeling strength fill me from what scant light remained in the sky. The wound on my hip had sealed, but blood matted my clothes, filling the air with enough of my scent to drive the remnants wild. That was fine by me. If I were going to be brought down, then I'd be brought down fighting.
I spun back to the remnants in the ditch, bringing my blade across in a wide, glittering arc. None of them had managed to extricate themselves yet, and so my blade severed the heads from five and got stuck in the clavicle of the sixth. The heads of those I decapitated rolled back, splashing into the water.
Bracing my foot against the shoulder of the man my blade had gotten stuck in, I wrenched it free. His body spun away, down into the pesticide-heavy water. Like crabs in a bucket, the remnants below used the corpses of their dead to drag themselves upward, reaching bloodied fingers toward me. The howling of the remnants who had been chasing the convoy grew closer, and I spared them a quick glance as I slashed down, chopping heads open like melons.
A hand gripped my ankle, yanking me down. I hit the ground with a grunt and twisted, wrenching my foot from the remnant's grasp. I kicked out as another hand reached for me and brought my blade around to sever the arm of the remnant who grabbed me to begin with. I kicked back to my feet and dispatched the two who had been scrambling after me. All the movement that remained in the ditch was little more than a worming, throbbing mass of damaged limbs. I turned my attention to the mob.
If I stood my ground here, with my back to the ditch, the mob would easily overwhelm me. There was, so far as I could tell, only one thing to do. I said a quick prayer that Roisin had taught me and shifted into a defensive stance. Funneling strength into my legs, I burst forward to meet the fiends, howling to match the screeches of the remnants. A normal army would have hesitated, maybe even recoiled at my screaming, but my anger and my presence combined to excite the remnants. They wailed in anticipation and pushed themselves as fast as their undead legs would carry them.
I hit the center mass hard, slashing wildly. I'd like to think I had some sort of form, some nuance of guard in my fighting style, but the truth was I just screamed and slashed and waded my way into the throbbing mass, spinning in all directions and hoping to keep them at arm’s length even as I allowed myself to be surrounded.
I dropped low enough to snag the knife from my boot and sprung back up, slashing out to both sides. For all the effort the remnants put into protecting themselves, I might as well have held my arms out and spun around in a circle. There was no technique to what they did, but they were wearing me down all the same. Overwhelming numbers were still overwhelming, no matter how untalented they might be.
I caught a glimpse of sunlight forcing its way through the heavy clouds. That little touch of warmth spread through me, and I gathered up what power I could from it, savoring the strength seeping through my veins. Teeth grazed my shoulder, but I could do nothing about it. I was hard pressed keeping another pair of gnashing teeth away from my middle.
I forced my new strength downward, leaping straight up into the air. The remnants howled as I escaped their reach, but my reprieve would be short-lived. Hovering in the air for just a moment, I grabbed at the last scraps of light and lashed out at the empty sky. Great swathes of searing light tore through the remnants, and I watched them fall in fives and tens as the power thundered through my veins.
My strength was just as short-lived as that flickering sun beam. I dropped to the ground, landing on one knee in a deep crouch. The remnants had scattered under my assault, but fear was not a sticking thing in a creature mad with bloodlust. The moment my burning arcs of light stopped, they tipped their heads back in the air, catching the scent of my blood already heavy on the air.
I had just pushed myself back to a standing position when they swooped in upon me. I staggered a grinding retreat, putting distance between me and the mounting pile of remnant corpses. I tried to make them come at me from one direction, but in their frenzy to feed they were not easily funneled. Surrounded once more, I hacked through the throngs, feeling my arm grow leaden with each desperate slash.
It would not be so bad to die this way. At least I had gone protecting those I had sworn to defend.
A gleam of golden light marred the horizon from the direction deeper into the mist, the direction I had decided against running into. No sunlit power accompanied it. I couldn't pay it any mind, I was too busy trying to keep my arms up, and my strikes true and straight.
A mechanical scream broke through the crunching sound of hacking meat and bone. I landed a strike in the neck of the nearest remnant, planted my boot in that person's chest and shoved. A hole opened up in the ranks, and not ten feet away from me I saw… I saw a ghost.
She rode a horse of iron, a two-wheeled beast that ate the ground and threw it in great waves of dirt behind. A petite creature, her mass of red-golden curls caught the faint hint of sunlight and looked like it was aflame as the wind tore it out in all directions. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the thickening mist, and though I did not recognize her clothing, her ferocious grin was enough to make my heart leap with joy. I knew that grin. It had flashed at me almost every day after I had come over to the sunstriders. That grin, those golden eyes, and that copper-bright hair.
"Roisin!" I called the name at the top of my lungs.
She waved at me with her fingertips, winked once, then leveled a pistol and blew away the head of the remnant nearest to me. The iron horse screamed again, tall brown leather boots kicking at it as her dark brown trenchcoat flared out behind her. Roisin re-aimed the gun, took the head of another remnant, and reached to her hip, drawing a twin to the weapon already in her hand while the beast charged on. She fired both at once, then threw her head back and laughed.
"Welcome to the 21st century love, you've got a lot to learn."
A remnant barreled into me, and I struck the ground hard on my side, feeling a half-dozen mouths bury themselves into my skin all at once.
Twenty-Three: Iron Horse
Roisin's iron horse roared as she poured power into the engine. I couldn't see her through the throng of remnants that had descended upon me, but I felt her presence launch toward me as the tires crunched th
rough the undergrowth. Remnants screeched and screamed, falling away as Roisin's gun blasted fire into the mist. She brought the iron horse up alongside me and stilled it for just a moment, bracing herself on one leg as she extended an empty hand down to me.
"Hop on, love, unless you wanted to be a snack."
My body screamed with pain as I hauled myself upright, but I managed to reach Roisin's hand and grip it tight. With her help I sat behind her, my legs carefully straddling the hot iron beast. In seconds, the blood from my many wounds seeped through my clothes and pooled on the seat. My head swam as my powers went into overdrive, desperately trying to fix the damage who-knows-how-many teeth had done to my skin. I gripped Roisin's waist tightly with one arm as she kicked the iron horse to life, throwing back her head to let out a warcry.
"What's going on here?" She yelled above the screech of the engine. She guided us in tight circles, looping around so I could hack down the remnants that surged after us. We'd double-mounted cavalry many times before, so this was an old, familiar tactic.
"I was moving the sleeping sunstriders to a safer location. How did you get out here? You weren't in your vault."
"I'll explain it all later, but I was staying at a cottage across the moors and caught the stink of sorcery heavy on the air. Was surprised as anything to find you when I came to investigate. I've only been awake a day."
Roisin sheathed her gun and poured all of her attention into piloting the iron horse. She leaned over the handlebars, coppery curls whipping behind her as she increased speed and swerved maniacally through the clusters of remnants who were trying to rally an assault. I leaned with her, trusting in her skill as I brought my blade around in admittedly weak strikes. But I didn't need a lot of strength to cut through human flesh, and the remnants went down one after another until the entire moor was nothing but a blanket of blood-slicked bramble and heather.
While I had never been keen at picking up on the scent of sorcerous activity, Roisin had been born of a sorceress, and had some aptitude in that direction herself before Sebastian turned her into a sunstrider. That woman could smell a spell from a mile away. She did one more circuit of the field, tearing us through the blood-muddied ground at high speed to make sure we hadn't left a remnant standing. She didn't need to know exactly what had happened to understand the importance of killing off all the remnants. Roisin had always been a fan of putting the servants of nightwalkers out of their misery as quickly as possible.
"I can take you back to the cottage," Roisin called over her shoulder, "a descendent of mine lives there. She can get you patched up."
"No. I was traveling with the Sun Guard, and fifteen unconscious sunstriders. We were on our way to the Durfort-Civrac estate. Someone has been attacking the guard compounds, stealing us out of our barrows. I have to get to them to show them that I live, and to help secure the estate."
Roisin threw a twinkling glance at me over her shoulder. "It doesn't take you long to get into trouble now, does it, Magdalene?"
I grinned at her. "I woke up in the sewer and stumbled into a club full of ghouls. It hasn't been the most pleasant few days."
Roisin brought the iron horse around, angling it to intercept the road that we had been traveling down. I pointed in the direction of Adelia's estate, and she nodded. "Ghouls and remnants are running all over England, that explains why I woke up. Where's Sebastian?"
I tried to hide my wince by sheathing my blade. She knew me too well for that.
"Is he all right?"
"Honestly, I don't know. His coffin was just as empty as yours. I feared the worst, until I saw… I saw a nightwalker take a living sunstrider from a vault, and throw it into a van. They're not killing us, but I don't know what they're doing, and there must be sorcerers involved if this false dark is associated with them in any way."
"About a week ago, my niece—I call her that, but she has to be my great-great-great-whatever-grandniece—caught a ping on the GPS chip her family had embedded in my skin when I interred myself back in 2010. They saw that I was being moved, so they tracked me down and stole me back before I could get wherever the van was going. That's why I woke up at the cottage, not in the crypt with you."
"And I was in the sewer. Someone saw fit to move the two of us. I wonder if they've done the same for Sebastian?"
Roisin shook her head and leaned even tighter over the sleek line of the iron horse, cranking speed into the engine after her tires hit the smoother pavement of the road. The mist clung to us, making visibility atrocious, but Roisin had never been much concerned about safety.
She poured power into the engine, flying toward Adelia's estate at speeds that made any further conversation impossible. I was grateful for that. My whole body trembled from weakness, and I let myself lean against the back of my old friend, watching the world whip by in shades of lavender and gray.
Twenty-Four: The Stink of Magic
The Durfort-Civrac estate had been built to withstand a siege. Walls made of stone quarried from the bones of England encircled the building, with a single wrought-iron gate so heavily warded I could smell the magic seeping off it punched through the stone. The estate itself had been constructed with some eye toward beauty, the manor faced in red brick with black trim with a grey stone patio leading down into a well-tended garden. At the sight of the gates, Roisin slowed the iron horse down.
The looped, packed-dirt drive in front of the garden was in chaos. All five vans clustered near the grand doors to the estate, boxed in by Basil's black car and DeShawn's beat-up old Mini. Mortal Sun Guard scrambled here and there, mixed in with a few of what must be Adelia's house staff, rushing to get the sunstrider coffins onto hand trucks and into the house. They'd be much more organized if Adelia took command, but their leader was embroiled in a battle of wills. With Seamus.
"I'm going back," Seamus said, his voice raised to be loud but not high-pitched. He was as steady and firm as I'd ever seen him.
"You will follow the orders given to you. Assist in the unloading and then secure the estate's security system. Then—"
"Then will be too late." He shot out a hand to Basil. "Give me the keys."
The big man shifted from foot to foot. "Lady Adelia says—"
"If you don't give me those fucking keys, I'll walk."
"That's suicide!" Talia cried. She stood between Seamus and Adelia, off to the side, wringing her hands together as her gaze flicked from one to the other like a tennis ball.
"Then he'd better give me the keys," Seamus growled.
"Either way," Adelia said, tugging the front of her shirt down with a sharp jerk. "It's suicide."
"I'll go with him," DeShawn said, wandering over from the unloading. "We can't leave her behind."
"You, Inspector Culver, are essential personnel needed to secure the safety of these people." Adelia spread her arms expansively to the hectic unloading. "Miss Shelley is perfectly capable—"
"She was swarmed," Seamus said, voice straining from barely restrained hysterics. "I don't care what kind of super-vampire she is, she got dragged down by a host of those things that were growling like dogs who'd found a juicy bone."
"And if they killed her, what chance do you believe you have?" Adelia actually snapped at him, then pressed her lips hard together and leaned back as Seamus flinched.
"I don't care." He turned, facing DeShawn. "Do you have a spare pistol I could borrow?"
"Shit, son—"
"Rev the engine," I called into Roisin's ear.
She squeezed something and twisted the handlebars, making the beast let out an ear-rattling roar. The group spun around, probably fearing another attack. Adelia brought her hand to her lips and took a step back, eyes wide. DeShawn's hand dropped to his gun. Seamus, bless him, squinted and took a step forward, bringing a hand up to shade his eyes.
"There's a woman on a motorcycle—wait..."
I leaned around Roisin's shoulders so that they could see my face. It was scratched to hell and back and covered in blood, but Se
amus's eyebrows leapt with the shock of recognition all the same.
"It's Mags! Open the gate!"
DeShawn did not move his hand from his gun holster. "We don't know who that is with her."
"I do," Adelia said. "That's Roisin Quinn, one of our missing." Adelia was already walking toward the gate, a large chatelaine dangling from her hand. She inserted one into the lock at the center of the gate, twisted, then spoke in a low, rumbling chant that made the small hairs rise all over my body. A tannic smell filled the air, and a wisp of otherworldly light danced around the lock before the gate began to pull itself ponderously open.
Roisin shot through the gap and brought us alongside the group, kicking the stand of the motorcycle down in the same fluid motion she used to kill the engine. Hands resting on the handlebars, Roisin pinned Adelia with a look. Her body tensed against me.
"Lady Adelia Durfort-Civrac. Mind telling me why your house stinks of the same flavor of magic that came with those remnants?"
Lady Adelia had been striding toward us, but she arrested her steps, taking a startled step backward as her face drained of all color. I hadn't been able to catch the similarities—if I'd had Roisin's bloodhound nose for magic, my head was swimming from lack of blood—but even through the haze of my tired mind I could see that Adelia was just as surprised as I was.
The group gathered on the drive turned toward her, wary. Behind us, the gate groaned as it slid shut. A prickle of power tickled across my skin as the warded lock shuddered into place. Adelia eyed the gate, then scraped a few strands of grey hair back from her forehead and looked Roisin in the eye. Locking gazes with Roisin wasn't an easy thing to do, that woman's irises were brighter than raked coals, but Adelia didn't flinch away.
"I do not know. These gates were warded to respond to my family's blood shortly after they were built. My ancestor, the commander of the Sun Guard at the time, employed a hedgewitch to do the job. I have the records in the house, somewhere. They have her name and lineage."
Sun Cursed (Shades of Blood Book 1) Page 13
