by Faith Hunter
I went back to covering the foyer, Wrassler’s Judge steady in my hands, ready to fire.
Eli tied the T-shirt around Wrassler’s thigh, capped the water bottle, and went back to work.
“I was standing in security. Saw it all on-screen. Ordered lockdown. Ordered security to fire at the dragon only. With steel. Ordered our people to hold fire at the Mithrans and the human. And then the shooters rushed in through the gate. Ten shooters.” He swore a long line of fine and detailed curses as Eli tightened the tourniquet below his knee. Sweat was dripping off his jaw and he started shivering. Shock. Not a good sign.
Eli laid Wrassler’s body flat and lifted both thighs onto a chair, then pulled a military-style metallic blanket from his gobag, shook it out, and tucked it around the blood-servant. He pulled his cell phone, looked at the screen, and said, “We’re jammed.”
Wrassler nodded, his breath coming too fast, teeth chattering. “The power grid went down first. Then the generators died, just as something jammed all coms. About two seconds later we were hit . . .” He stopped to breathe.
Eli tucked his cell away. “Why order your guys not to target vamps and humans?”
“They had Leo.” He looked up at me, his pupils wide in a too-pale face. “I gave orders to use only steel on the dragon,” he repeated, his thoughts starting to wander. “That was before the shooters came in.”
I ground my teeth, knowing my friend was dying. Smelling it, tasting it on the air. Not Wrassler. Not Wrassler, I prayed. Not him.
“They went down the hallways first. Taking out everyone they found. It took maybe four seconds. We had dead and dying everywhere. When this floor was clear, they went up the stairs to Leo’s office. I directed everyone there.” Wrassler fell silent but I could hear him breathing, fastfastfast, shallow and desperate for air.
“Four of Derek’s guys were on duty. In seconds, two were dead. Derek showed up then. I don’t know where he came from, but I was never so happy . . .” Wrassler blinked and fell silent.
I looked at Eli, who was frowning at the discrepancy of timelines. No way Derek could have gotten there so quickly. Not without folding time. Or getting caught up in the arcenciel’s magics. Eli frowned harder, putting that ability into any strategy we might develop. He tightened Wrassler’s thigh tourniquet.
Wrassler started in the middle of a different thought. “Derek ordered the rest of his guys to pull back, to take them as they left the office. But Peregrinus knew about the hidden passages and the elevator in the room next to Leo’s office.” The service elevator went down and opened into a room on sub-four, not far from the storage room, just like I thought. Everyone knew about the previously hidden passageways, stairs, and the service elevator, thanks to the local cops who were called in about a death not so long ago, a death on my watch. Reach had access to police reports from when a were–black panther had been murdered in Leo’s office. He knew about the elevator. Therefore Peregrinus knew. My fault. So much was my fault. “Grégoire followed them into the hidden room and took on the Devil. I saw the first moves and Grégoire was bleeding pretty bad.” Wrassler stopped to breathe. “No one ever beat the Devil. Not even Grégoire. And he wasn’t beating her then. He ordered everyone to retreat and regroup.
“I was on the move through the back stairways. I met them on sub-four. Derek was with me. And five more of his guys. Firefight from hell, dude,” he said to Eli. “The dragon went solid and black as night. But it was covered in what looked like metal scales with metallic spikes and spines along the sides and at the tail. The rounds hit it. Crazy loud. Pretty sure it was hurt. It was thrashing. Tail hit me in the arm. Then it picked me up by the leg and shook me. Threw me. So fast. I went down. Derek pulled me back and stuffed me into the small elevator to take me back up. I don’t know what happened then. But . . . guessing they headed down. I made it up to Leo’s office on the last generator power before it died too.”
“So you crawled down here,” Eli said, “hoping to get coms and call for backup. Cells are damaged. House lines are down. I’m thinking EM interference.”
I nodded to show I’d heard. “Who’s manning security?” I asked. The hallway floor lights were on now so the security system was working, even if coms were down or jammed.
“Angel Tit’s on.” Wrassler coughed, the sound hoarse. “He’s trying to call out. Get help. Friends at the Marine Corps Support Facility on Opelousas Avenue. Water,” he said to Eli.
Eli gave him the rest of the water and set a new bottle down by his good right hand. With Beast’s hearing I could tell that Wrassler’s heart was beating far too fast. If we didn’t get him help, he’d die, and soon. But if we took him for help, others would likely die.
“Where are Sabina and Bethany?” I asked.
“Sabina’s off-site, at her lair in the graveyard,” Wrassler whispered, mumbling. Dying. He was dying. “Bethany . . . She was here,” he said, sounding dazed. “She’s hurt. She was . . . she was shouting about riding the dragon. The arcenciel. She was crying bloody tears.” Wrassler stopped to breathe again. Eli gave him more water. He drank it fast, some dribbling out of his mouth. “She was talking about them taking her magic. I saw her fall.”
“Taking her magic . . .” I didn’t know what that meant, not exactly, but I remembered the pain when Peregrinus had put the crystal on my chest. The feeling like I was dying before the hatchling had appeared and he’d turned his attention from me. Somewhere deep inside, it all came together. This was about the Gray Between, and the ability to fold time. This was about stealing and storing power for later use. Any vamp who had control over time and could steal the magical ability from other supernats, and who had access to stored witch power, on top of the power of magical icons, would be unstoppable.
Access to the White House. The Kremlin. Fort Knox. Whoever had all that power could do anything, anytime, anywhere. And no one could stop them.
“What do you want to do, Jane?” Eli asked.
I didn’t know what to do. This was more than “pull a stake and charge in fighting.” This was military tactics and strategies—hard to think through when you don’t know what the enemy wants. The enemy was still here, so he wanted something stored here. Sub-four. That was where it attacked Wrassler. My head felt like it was stuffed with wool. We had no coms, no security, no electricity. My breath sped up and the palms of my hands started to tingle with hyperventilation.
I said, “Peregrinus has all our security info, building plans, Reach’s thoughts and guesses about what’s on every level.” I banged my head on the wall once, the sound soft and hollow. “He’s had a week to play with it all. A week when the elevator’s been doing strange things and the electricity’s been wonky. Peregrinus probably even has the stuff I changed after I heard about Reach.”
“The brownouts and the electrical troubles,” Eli said. “Peregrinus caused them, searching for something?”
“I don’t think so. I honestly think that’s just the old electrical system showing its age. But the elevator, maybe. Peregrinus wants something stored on sub-four, which he can’t get to without help, unless he can override the system with Reach’s IT data. I think he’s been testing to see if he can get in remotely. And he can.
“There’s a safe on sub-four, probably filled with magical items. I should have gone snooping, no matter what Leo said.” Sweat trickled down my torso. Beast pressed a paw onto my mind, the same way that she might calm or reprimand a kit, her claws pricking. The discomfort cleared my head and the moment of panic passed. I pulled the magical fishhook out and thought about our attacker. “It makes sense that Peregrinus caused everything—the troubles started after he got Reach—but I can’t prove it.” I looked down at the wolf, who was watching me with the kind of patience canines show for the human in charge. I patted his head and rubbed his ears while talking to Eli. “I want you to take Wrassler and retreat. Get us some coms. Get us help. We need fighters. Shooters. We need Sabina and her weapons.”
“No, skinwalker, Enforcer
, pest.” The words were whispered with the hissing ssss of a snake, and an electric shock zinged through me. I shifted the Judge, cradling the huge weapon in two hands again, scanning back and forth, trying to find the source—because it hadn’t come from one of us. “You need only me,” the voice said. “And that obscene charm you hold upon your person. Together we can ride the arcenciel.”
From her words I guessed the speaker. The more-than-half-crazy priestess. “Bethany?”
She appeared at my side with a tiny pop of air, moving vamp-fast. Her black skin blended into the dim light, her skirts swirling, stinking of her own blood, the cut on her neck from my house mostly healed. Her eyes glistened with an internal light that was way worse than spine-chilling. It looked like a tiny candle flame was lit inside her skull. There was blood around her mouth and I smelled both vamps and humans on her breath. Bethany had been drinking people down to heal herself. I stepped between Bethany and the guys.
“Leo is in great danger,” she said, her mouth too close to my ear. “The gift is in great danger. Grégoire is in danger. Katie is near unto true-dead. There is no one else to save them but you and me.”
She pointed to the charm I had hooked into my T-shirt. “With your charm you can immobilize Batildis. I can fight the Devil with my magic until you are free to do so. Then I can charm the dragon. That will allow the human fighters who await you to save the Master of the City. And together we can protect the reward I bestowed upon my Leo.”
“Yeah? Peregrinus is gonna give us the arcenciel?”
“No. She is solid. I will ride her. She will be mine.”
No way am I letting you be in charge of time, I thought. But, under the circumstances, that was a battle to fight another time. I pulled out the small charmed fishhook and stared at it. Then at Eli. “Get Wrassler to safety. Get us some help. I’m going with the crazy vamp lady, and hope she really knows that some of our humans are down there, near enough to help.” Beast, I thought. I need more of us to . . . I don’t know. Just more of us.
Instantly the bones of my arms and legs twisted and broke. I landed on my knees in the Gray Between, my back bowing so tight that my forehead met my knees with a bang. I saw stars, glittering white motes on a black background. Then my body snapped into an arch that threw back my head. I body-slammed the floor. All breath was squeezed out of my chest.
My eyes were open, however, and I could see Eli, watching, possibly with a look of concern on his face. Yeah. His mouth was turned down on one corner. Maybe. Just a little. If I’d had air in my lungs, I might have laughed.
CHAPTER 20
Dance with the Devil
Instead of laughing, remembering what Beast had said about the Gray Between, I reached out and tried to slow down time. I had no idea what I was doing, and it felt like I was mentally swatting flies, like seeing something flying past, and trying to bring it down or slow it down with my mind only. I tried to envision my hands grabbing it. Nothing changed. Then I tried to envision a net I might toss over it. Again, nothing. In reality, outside the swirling gray energies, Eli bent over me, worry clear on his face this time. Distantly, I heard him say my name. He tried to reach into the gray place and he jumped back as if I’d Tased him. The look on his face made me chuff with laughter.
Beast pushed at the sparkling energies around us and they parted, leaving me/us lying on the cold floor of the weapons room at vamp central. The night air blowing in through the broken front entry was warm and humid, smelling of the river nearby mixed with blood and death.
I pushed to my hands and knees and caught one horrible, painful breath. It sounded like I was breathing glue, thick and sick-sounding. And I was afraid, for a too-long moment, that I was going to both throw up and lose my bowels at the same time, which would have been horribly humiliating. But then they settled and I was able to breathe.
I chuffed and looked at myself. My hands had the long-fingered, big-knuckled, bony look of my half-Beast form; my knees were stretching the denim of my jeans; my hips were narrow, jeans hanging low; my shoulders were broad and stretching the tee. My lower face was all bone and teeth. I clacked my jaws together, feeling the strength in my bite.
I looked at Eli, who had his emotionless fighting face back on. I chuffed. Power ran through me like a live wire, the sensation heady and potent. “Take ‘Rrrrasssler. Go.” To Wrassler, I said, “Live. Or I beat your butt.” It came out “heat your hut,” but he seemed to understand because the ghost of a smile crossed his face.
“You can try, Li’l Janie.” He used his good hand to pull at a pocket. “More rounds for the Judge. Put a hurtin’ on ’em for me.”
I chuffed in agreement, bent, and took the rounds from his pocket, five more, and tucked them into my own pocket. Hoisted Wrassler up and over Eli’s shoulder. How the big man managed not to scream was beyond me. I picked up the Judge. And covered the two as Eli trotted from HQ and into the night, the wolf at his side.
Clacking my oversized teeth together, I said to Bethany, “Go. I follow.”
Bethany moved like the wind in the night, swirling around corners, gusting down steps, the air popping as she moved. Vamp speed. I kept up with her. Somehow. And suddenly we were in unknown and unexplored parts of the interior of the old building—unknown and unexplored by me, though Bethany had no problem making her way through them. Narrow, dank, damp corridors raced by, walls constructed of old brick on one side, newer concrete block on the other, the rare, rotting stud and bracing beam between the walls, clay and pooled water beneath our feet. Black mold on the walls. Bethany, like me, ran barefoot, splashing through puddles. There was only the sound of my breathing, the splash of water, our feet drumming on clay. Dark, darker than the underside of midnight. Even Beast’s eyes failed me, and I followed by sound and feel.
We raced down a flight of old concrete stairs, slippery with mildew and water. Made a left through a brick passageway. I stumbled over something in the dark and felt dry, rotting wood beneath my paws and my thick fingertips when I righted myself.
Ahead I saw a faint light, an outline of a doorway. I stopped when Bethany did, in front of the door. I was breathing hard, my heart pounding. She wasn’t even breathing. No heartbeat. So weird. I chuffed at the differences between us.
“We are on the records floor. There is a way down into the darkness,” she said. “Down into the prison, the dungeon, the place where, long ago, Amaury kept his scions safe and his enemies chained. Where Leo imprisoned my gift to him.” She was talking about Amaury Pellissier, Leo’s uncle and the previous MOC. And she was talking about the dark scion lair, not sub-four, where I thought we were going, but sub-five. Her lips stretched into a smile, which looked so wrong with her eyes vamping out, shining with madness.
“We must move as silent and fast as moonlight. And must leave Grégoire where he lies. No pity for the fallen. No surcease for their pain. Do you understand?”
“We sssurprizzz,” I said through the teeth and fangs that mangled my jaw.
“Yes. First we must stop Batildis. Then you will engage the Devil. She will not tire. She will not be slowed. I will ride the arcenciel.”
My mouth wouldn’t say what I needed it to. It came out, “D’rrreeenhious?”
“Peregrinus will be otherwise engaged.”
Which meant nothing to me, except that we were two against the Devil, two vamps, a dragon who could skate through time, and no help from the hostages. No help from anywhere.
Just me and a dance with the Devil. We were supposed to have help.
“Where humanzzz?”
“They are close, but slow and broken. We may not tarry.”
It felt like part of a lie, that last part where help was nearby but not in time. But really, what choice did I have?
I looked at the door, ancient wood with dozens of raised panels and carved swirls and dimples. It had a vaguely Persian style, metal button-like things, like nipples on each raised panel. Iron strap hinges. Three iron bars holding it all together. And no doorknob.
Bethany was already vamped out. With the talons of her right fingers, she stabbed into the wood and ripped a section of door out. Again and again, until she had torn a hole near one of the hinges in the door, a hole large enough for a small child to crawl through. Then she rammed it. I could feel the force of her strike, vibrations passing through the wood beneath my paws. Which meant that anyone close enough, anyone with ears, would hear it and feel it too. The door broke, a long crack through the splintered hole. Two rams later, it fell with a massive crash. Katie leaped through. A spot of brightness leaped to the broken door.
I pivoted on my oversized paw to see Brute, a pale shadow in the black of the subbasement. He snuffled at me over his shoulder and raced after Katie. It was stupid, but seeing the werewolf thrust relief through me like a spear of happiness. And now we were three.
From somewhere far off I heard words, chanting, sounding like some foreign language. Perfect scary-movie sounds, the kinds with Satanists, big twirly mustaches, and stupid teenaged blondes in tiny bikinis going downstairs into the basement. Soulless big-bad-uglies. Human sacrifice couldn’t be far behind. Too bad I didn’t have a bikini. I leaped through the door after the wolf and the mad vampire priestess. Mad. We were all mad.
Laughter started in the back of my throat. We raced past the records room I had seen from the elevator, a room I recognized by the smell in the dark—old paintings, papyrus, vellum, heavy cloth paper. Inks. Wood. Bethany was right. The bad guys hadn’t spent any time on sub-four. We tore down stairs I couldn’t see. I saved myself a nasty fall hearing the echoes of bare feet slapping and the click of Brute’s claws leaping down several feet. Holding the Judge in my right hand, the wall against my left palm, I followed, falling behind. Ahead, my enhanced nose caught the stench that had nearly buckled my knees the first time I smelled it, a combination of decaying blood, rotten herbs, vinegar, sour urine, and sick sweat. We were near the boo room.
