“Hunter, watch out!” Henna grabbed the back of my shirt and threw me straight at the motherfucking window. Face meet reinforced whatever the fuck it was. Behind me my friends fought the reapers, charging them, knocking them back, and doing their best to keep them off my back. The next stop wasn’t for another five minutes.
Five minutes to stay alive.
Five minutes to avoid the slice of bone, because it would slice. The quiver in my gut, the roiling in my belly, told me this was a killing weapon. They’d figured out a way.
The asuras and Victor formed a barrier in front of me, protecting me from the reapers. The asuras were strong, Victor was a tank, but so were the yamduth with their acidic mist and death-dealing experience. And we were sorely outnumbered.
Gita fell to the ground, her shirt blooming red. Kiran yelled, leaping across the seats to get to her.
She was hurt bad. Henna screamed, jumping back as a yamduth’s sword sliced through her top. Blood spattered across the windows. Victor grappled with another yamduth to my left. But there were four more wanting to play.
Time to even out the odds. I gripped the cuff on my wrist. Paimon, come on, I need you. Like real bad.
The four yamduth closed in, eyes glowing, swords raised, ready to strike as one.
My dragon roared, expanding, desperate to take the reins. The world grew crimson. No. Not here. If I lost it I could hurt the others. There was nowhere for them to run in such a confined space.
The dragon faltered.
Anything but that.
It shifted gears, sending a pulse of energy tunneling out from my solar plexus. It expanded on exit, smashing into the reapers, and sending them back a couple of steps. Not enough through. Not nearly enough. They came at me hard and fast. A primal roar shook the cab and Victor leaped over them to stand between us.
His shoulders heaved. He charged the four Yamduth. They met him head on, slamming into him, lifting him and hurling his body to the right. His huge frame smashed into the wall too hard, the whole car swung from side to side. He slid to the ground.
Slender arms wrapped around the yamduth leading the pack. Henna? Kiran attacked to my left, but it wasn’t enough.
Paimon …
I sagged against the window, legs shaking. My dragon was spent. The blast of power she’d expelled had done us in.
Paimon wasn’t coming …
I was done for. But no way was I going down without a fight. Come on legs. Stand the fuck up. Yes. I lifted my chin and stared those fuckers right in the eyes.
“Do it.”
The center one stepped forward. “The bounty is at hand.” He raised his sword.
“Fuck you.”
A vibrating mass of darkness attacked the Yamduths from the left, sweeping them away from me and crushing them against the back of the tram.
Oh god. Oh fucking god. It was the creature—the one who’d tried to kill me, the one who’d taken me apart in the abandoned Guild facility under Soho.
Where the fuck had it come from? The tram was slowing down. The mass was whirring around the Yamduth—vibrating darkness against swirling shadows. And then the mass was flying backward, slamming against the same wall that Victor had hit a moment ago … that Victor had …
Oh, god.
The vibrating mass stopped moving, the darkness cleared.
Victor’s unconscious form was revealed.
13
Victor was the creature.
No.
Please no.
The air before me shimmered. “Seriously. You should do your own damned dirty work … Oh …” Amon turned to face me. “What in the world? Carmella is that you?”
Paimon had sent Amon. But crap, I had my armor on, and he didn’t recognize me, and there was no time. “It’s me, and those seven dudes are the bad guys trying to stab me with their bone swords.”
His eyes narrowed. “Well, we can’t have that.”
Henna and Kiran charged the Yamduth again, both bloody and battered, but Amon cut them off, striding up to the seven reapers, his body catching fire as he went.
The Yamduth, to give them credit, didn’t falter. Amon whooped and flames whooshed toward the reapers, encasing them in a fiery halo. They continued to advance through the flames for a moment and then stopped.
The fire winked out and Amon crossed his arms. “Well, looks like you guys lost your boners.”
The Yamduth stared at their empty hands. They traded glances, and then they did their favorite shadow-swirl disappearing trick.
“How?” Henna asked Amon. “How did you do that?”
Amon dusted off his hands. “Efreet fire burns through anything. Except, it seems, those creatures. They weren’t to confidant without their weapons though. No need to thank me. That was surprisingly satisfying. Any other beasts we need to vanquish?”
I glanced past him to the unconscious figure of my friend.
Henna followed my gaze. “I’m sorry, Hunter.”
“Yeah. So am I.”
_____
The IEPEU Dark cell unit was buzzing with the news of Victor’s capture—a possible break in the case. Amon had winked out before the IEPEU arrived at the scene. There’d been no time to thank him for his aid, or find out why Paimon hadn’t come.
Victor was visible through the extra-thick, double-reinforced, one-way glass. He paced his cell like a caged animal—which he kinda was. The bars were thick and electrified. And runes were etched into every inch of the structure—the handiwork of the independent witches on the IEPEU payroll. The runes nullified power, so right now Victor was perfectly harmless. But then, he hadn’t fought or protested when they’d turned up to bring him in. And the compliance wasn’t through fear they’d discharge their weapons. No. Bullets would do nothing to him if he went into vibrato mode. It was more than that. It was something in his eyes, something akin to relief.
“I need to see him. I have to speak to him.” I headed to door connecting our control room to the detainment chamber.
Parker sidestepped to block my path. “Not until Murdoch has finished with him. Look, I get that he’s your friend. But going in there now could compromise the interrogation. You could unwittingly feed him information about the case that could—”
“He knows everything all ready. I told him what happened to me. There’s nothing left to feed him. I can’t believe he’s responsible. There are other rakshasa out there. It doesn’t have to be him. He’s not the only one of his kind. This doesn’t mean anything. I mean, he has two rakshasa friends for godsake.” Excuses. My words sounded like desperate excuses, even to my ears.
Melody arched a brow. “He has two friends? The two guys that were at the soup kitchen when it was attacked by yaksha?”
“Yes.”
Melody sighed. “You said there were three rakshasa at the lab that night.”
Oh, shit. This looked bad. Bad for Victor. Bad for my conviction that he was innocent. “It has to be a coincidence.”
Melody sighed. “Let Murdoch do his thing, meanwhile you need to give me the names of the other two rakshasa. We need to trace them and bring them in.”
“I can’t remember.”
“Hunter …” there was warning in her tone.
She thought I was withholding information again “No. I mean it. I don’t know their names.”
Murdoch entered the room beyond the glass. He took a seat at the table facing the cage and switched on his tape recorder. Melody flipped a switch and the speaker above us cracked with sound.
“Victor Reynolds, aged twenty-eight, arrested on charges of attempted homicide and several kidnappings.”
Victor stopped pacing and faced Murdoch. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“Can you account for your whereabouts on the night of July the fifteenth this year?”
His brow crinkled. “I was at the soup kitchen. I’m always there in the evening.”
Murdoch glanced at the glass and Melody nodded. She flipped through a file in front of her. “Hunter
, the night you were attacked, you said you visited the soup kitchen. Was Vincent there?”
Honey had been there helping Mira, who’d been in her adult Caro skin. I’d asked where Vincent was and they’d shrugged. Oh, god.
“Hunter?”
I swallowed. “No. I didn’t see him there.”
Melody slipped on an earpiece. “He wasn’t at the kitchen that evening, Murdoch.”
Murdoch didn’t give any indication that he’d heard her, but his next words told us he had. “In that case, you’ll be aware that Miss Hunter paid the kitchen a visit that night, before she was attacked. She claims you weren’t on the premises.”
Victor began to pace again. “I was. I’m always there.”
“Maybe Miss Hunter is lying then?”
“No, Carmella wouldn’t lie. And that night isn’t something she’d forget.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Do you wish to change your statement? Let me ask again. Were you at the soup kitchen on the night of the fifteenth of July?”
“I … I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember. Alright.” He rattled off a bunch of dates, and I recognized one—the date Urvashi had gone missing. “Where were you on these dates? Can you confirm your whereabouts on any of those dates?”
Victor ran his hands over his head. “I need my diary.”
“Your diary?”
“Yes, it has a list of the missing times.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Reynolds, I don’t understand.”
Victor sighed. “The blackouts. I made a note of all the times when I … lost time.”
“How convenient,” Murdoch drawled. “You keep a list of the times you kidnapped an apsara, and make a note of your almost homicide, and then claim theses entries represent time lost?”
Vincent’s chest heaved. “It’s the truth. If I did do those things, I don’t remember.”
Murdoch nodded. “Fine, we’ll retrieve your diary, but let me ask you this: did Miss Hunter tell you about her attack?”
Victor’s mouth turned down. “Yes.”
“Did she describe her attackers to you?”
Victor squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.
“And so, you knew exactly what creatures had attacked her.”
Victor exhaled. “I suspected. Yes.”
“And yet you kept this information to yourself. Why?”
“Because rakshasa aren’t killers. Despite what you may believe, violence isn’t our way. If we do fight, it’s for survival. There aren’t many of us left, and I know the ones that exist. None of them would do such a thing. I believed that what attacked Carmella was something new, something similar yet different.”
“Let’s say I believe you. Assume that everything you’ve just told me is true. Why didn’t you make the connection between your missing time and Miss Hunters attack? Didn’t you wonder if maybe the culprit could be you, and that maybe you just didn’t recall?”
Victor groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Yes, of course I did. You have no idea how much it’s tormented me, but I care about Carmella. I would never hurt her. Even if I wasn’t in control of my mind, even if someone was making me do these things, my instincts would be to protect her.”
“Melody,” I grabbed her arm. “Oh, god. I think it was him. He attacked me at my flat, but instead of killing me, he knocked me out and hid me in the apartments under Soho. I think he was trying to keep me away from the other two rakshasas. And at the end, only two creatures attacked me. He didn’t participate.” The fact that they kept their other form a secret hadn’t helped us identify them. If the yamduth hadn’t attacked me, then he wouldn’t have had to reveal his hidden form. “Plus, he revealed himself to save me from the Yamduth.”
Melody sighed. “Yeah, he did.” She switched on the mike on her headset. “Murdoch, take a break. We need to talk.”
The temperature dropped and an all too familiar cool breeze blew across my skin. Melody glanced up at the air vent in the wall.
It wasn’t the AC acting up. This was something else. It had my pulse racing and my stomach fluttering. Breathe, Carmella. Just act casual.
He materialized in front of me and Melody had her gun pointed at him before either of us could breathe.
“Don’t move,” she said.
Paimon ignored her, his gaze fixed on me. “Where is it?”
“Hunter? You know this guy?” Melody asked.
“It’s Paimon.”
“The djinn?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t take my eyes off him: his eyes, his nose, his mouth, you know, all the little things making up the face that haunted my dreams. The jump in my pulse and the skip in my heartbeat were proof—this was more than the after-effects of the binding. Was he feeling the same? Hard to tell when he was glaring at me as if I’d kicked his puppy.
“Carmella, where is the creature?” He asked.
“Amon told you?”
“Of course he told me. And it’s lucky he did, because it seemed like you had no intention of calling me.”
“I did call you, remember? But you sent your brother.”
Melody cleared her throat and lowered her weapon. “Someone care to fill me in on what the fuck is going on? How did you get into the complex? This area is for authorized personnel only.”
He kept his attention on me, but addressed her question, his jaw tight. “Your security means little for those of us who travel the in-between.”
His tone, his attitude, everything grated. My dragon stirred, affronted on my behalf.
Paimon’s gaze narrowed. “When were you going to call me?”
I stood up straighter. “When I was fucking ready.”
He flinched. “You have the creature in your custody, yes?”
“Yes.” My gaze slipped past him to the reinforced glass through which Victor was clearly visible, pacing in his cage.
“Then the deal is done. Give him to me. We will mete out justice in my realm.”
“Whoa!” Melody held up her hands. “No one is taking anyone anywhere.”
The door opened and Murdoch entered. His gun was in his hand so quickly it looked like it had just materialized out of thin air. How the fuck did they draw weapons so fast?
“Parker? Do we have a situation?” Murdoch asked.
“It’s all right, Murdoch. He’s one of the good guys.” Melody replied.
Yeah, he was supposed to be, but right now I wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know how things work in your realm, but in mine you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
Paimon exhaled through his nose. “So he isn’t the same creature that took my people.”
“At this point we believe he was involved, but he doesn’t recall any of it. We believe he was somehow controlled or brainwashed.”
“You believe? But do you have any solid proof?”
“Not yet, but—”
He held up his hand, and I almost lost my shit. The dragon surged upward in indignation, burning a path up my throat.
“He has taken djinn,” Paimon said. “And we have a right to know what he has done with them.”
Was he not listening to me? “But he doesn’t remember anything.”
Paimon closed his eyes, chest rising and falling. “The absence of memory does not absolve him of the crime. If what you say is true then my people may never know the fate of their loved ones. The ascendant djinn who were taken may be lost to us forever. The creature who took them from us must pay the price.”
“No. There is someone else involved. Someone pulling the strings. That’s the person you want.”
His expression softened slightly. “Do you have this person?”
“No. Not yet but—”
“In that case you have the only person I need. Justice must be served.”
Murdoch holstered his gun. “Is this the djinn you briefed us on Parker?” He fixed a reproving glare on me. “The one Hunter failed to mention when debriefed after her attack.”
Melody nodded absently,
and took a step toward Paimon. “Look,” she said sympathetically. “I understand you want justice. But lynching a man just because he’s the only one you can get your hands on isn’t justice. We need to work on getting to the root of the problem.”
Paimon’s lips tightened. “We don’t have the time. My people are filled with a rage you are incapable of comprehending. There is talk of invasion, of war; and trust me you do not want war with the djinn. Our worlds may have overlapped, but you do not want the djinn invading your homes and your lives. Not all of us are as … sympathetic to humanity as I.”
Oh, god. This was bad, and the pallor of Melody’s skin told me she agreed. We’d not long ago avoided being annihilated by the void. Another war could be the end of us. The djinn were a different breed. They did magick without a skein, and could move between time and space. If they attacked, we were fucked. But there was no way I was throwing Victor under the bus.
I lifted my chin. “I won’t let you take him.”
Paimon’s nostrils flared. “You cannot stop me.”
Oh, man. Maybe if I appealed to his other side, the side that appreciated humanity? “Victor is a good man, a decent man. I know in my heart that none of this is his fault.”
“Your heart cannot be entered as evidence.”
“Enough.” Melody stepped between us. “We can crack this case. We just need a little more time.”
Paimon turned his attention to her. “You have two days. After that we will come for him and there will be nothing you can do to stop us.”
He stepped back and vanished into thin air, leaving us gaping at an empty space.
“Well that was fun,” Murdoch said. “On a separate note, I believe the rakshasa. I think he’s someone’s puppet.”
“Good,” Melody said. “Then we’re on the same page.”
The intercom buzzed and a harassed voice filled the room. “Um. Miss Parker? We have a situation at reception. Please come. Now.”
Parker hit the button to speak direct to the receptionist. “What is it Carly?”
“Ghandarva. And lots of them.”
“What are they doing here?” And then it hit me. The rakshasa had killed one of their brothers.
Defying Magick: an Urban Fantasy Novel (The Witch Blood Chronicles Book 2) Page 9
