I had Donatti park right in front of the place. We had no idea how fast Zee’s acolytes could get around, or if they could do anything besides turn invisible. On the way here, Donatti said he didn’t think they could cast spells, and that the invisibility was just a side effect of guzzling so much djinn blood. But their ability to vanish was more than enough.
We needed to be ready for a quick getaway.
I got out first and stood with my hands up, waiting for Donatti to come around and join me. Both of us were still banged up and low on power. I figured the little we’d been able to recharge on the drive might give us one more spell apiece.
And getting shot when you couldn’t heal was a risky proposition for any part-human. Even Donatti, who may or may not be immortal. We didn’t have the juice between us to force her to come with us magically—or to survive a firefight if we tried.
That left convincing her the old-fashioned way. Which probably wasn’t going to work, either.
With both of us lined up to surrender, Frost blasted me with a fiery glare. “Is it true?” she said. “Is Gilmore dead?”
I wasn’t going to take this particular bait. “You must know that by now.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Yes. He’s dead.”
“How?”
“How do you think?” It was all I could do not to shout. “With his blood drained and his heart ripped out of his chest. Okay?”
A white-lipped stare responded. Finally, she turned for the door. “Bring them,” she said. “Yes, my people are armed with cold iron. And they will shoot. Repeatedly.”
I glanced at Donatti as the four agents approached. He shrugged, and we walked.
Frost led us through the maze of desks. She passed the conference-interrogation room where I thought she was bringing us, and eventually reached the stairs to the basement. Then she started down them.
I wasn’t going to follow, until a gun pressed into the small of my back changed my mind. Donatti was similarly convinced.
The main room of the morgue had been cleared of bodies. I guessed they were all in the cooler. While the agents corralled us at the base of the stairs, Frost dragged two heavy wooden chairs to the center of the room, near a large drainage grate in the floor. “Sit down, both of you,” she said.
The agents stayed on us as we followed the order.
“All right,” Frost said. “Cuff them.”
That was a bad idea. “Hold on. I said I was turning myself in, remember?”
“Like I’m going to trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”
Donatti bristled. “Listen, you—”
“Don’t,” I said, resigned to the struggle. “We’ll figure it out, somehow.”
He looked furious enough for both of us. But he didn’t finish the sentence.
We were cuffed with our arms behind the backs of the chairs. Then for some reason, Frost dismissed the rest of the agents. She brought another chair over, set it across from us on the other side of the drainage grate, and sat with her gun drawn. “Mr. Black,” she said. “You’re going to tell me who killed my partner. And when the retrieval team gets here with his body, you’re going to do that … whatever you did with the Valentine victim, and bring him back. Permanently.”
My heart promptly sank. “I can’t bring him back,” I said hoarsely.
“Yes, you can. I saw you do it!” This time I sensed an undercurrent of grief beneath the rage. “He was sitting up. Talking and moving. I want Knox back — and you owe me a life, you bastard.”
I swallowed hard. “That was a glamour,” I said. “An illusion. Don’t you know about Fae magic? I mean, you’re Milus Dei.”
“Look. I don’t know about any magic. I’m in administration, not the field.” She leaned forward and brandished her gun. “What do I know is, if I shoot you enough times with this, you’ll die. And I will if you don’t bring him back.”
“He can’t,” Donatti said, a lot harsher than I’d been able to. “And we can’t tell you who killed him, because you’d never believe it. But I’ll make you a deal and tell you who’s going to kill you if you don’t stop being so damned stubborn!”
She turned her attention to him. “Are you threatening me?”
“I wish. This asshole won’t let me kill you.” Donatti’s eyes flashed coldly. “That magic you don’t know about, though? A bunch of guys who happen to have some are after you right this second. And I guarantee you’re not gonna see them coming.”
“Really. Why’s that?”
“Because they’re invisible.”
Frost laughed. It was a harsh, almost panicked sound. “Oh, bullshit,” she said. “You’re just as full of—”
Donatti vanished.
“What the fuck?” Frost scraped her chair back and stood, pointing her gun at his empty-looking seat. “Goddamn it, Black, what did you do to him? Where is he?”
“I’m right here.” Donatti’s voice came from nothing. “And Gideon didn’t do anything.”
I scowled. “Christ, Donatti. You could’ve just let her think—”
“Screw that. It’s high time she pulled her head out of her ass.” He flashed back into view and scowled at Frost. “Let me repeat,” he said. “A bunch of invisible guys with really sharp daggers are on their way to kill you. And if you don’t come with us, they’re going to succeed. Understand?”
Frost shook her head and took a trembling step back. “How did you do that?”
“I fucking told you how,” Donatti said. “I’m — ”
A tremendous bang sounded from somewhere below us, and the drainage grate shot from the floor like a cork out of a champagne bottle. It tumbled in the air a few times and landed on an empty autopsy table, collapsing it with a tortured metallic shriek.
Wide-eyed and breathing hard, Frost aimed the gun at the open shaft. “Who did that?” she gasped. “Which one of you did that?”
I couldn’t answer. I was busy staring in horror at the shimmering person-shape boosting itself out of the hole.
“Donatti,” I said. “They’re here.”
CHAPTER 37
“Who’s here?” Frost screamed, waving her gun wildly at nothing.
Donatti was already on his feet, the handcuffs dangling from one wrist. “Picked the lock,” he said. “I think it’s time to go now.”
I agreed. “Oscaihl,” I said, and my cuffs clicked open. One smudge-person was fully out, and another one had already started to follow. The first one was moving toward Frost. I stood and moved back, pointing at the shape. “Frost, your two! I think. Just shoot right there, now.”
She hesitated only a fraction of a second before she swung the gun and fired.
Blood spattered the air first. Then a half-naked acolyte with an upraised dagger wavered into sight, clutching the hole in his chest. He groaned loudly and thumped to the floor.
“Oh my God!” Frost’s expression screwed into sheer panic.
She started firing randomly. Four shots in rapid succession, all over the place. They zinged off concrete, punched through metal, shattered a glass cabinet, but hit exactly zero invisible enemies.
“Stop that, lady,” Donatti barked. “They still coming, Gideon?”
I nodded. “Three now, plus the dead one,” I said, just before the gun blasted again. I felt the wind of the bullet pass my face. “Frost, get the hell over here and stop shooting!”
“Well, at least they die.” Donatti dropped to one knee. “Gonna try and close the door on them,” he said. “Get that lunatic clear, will you?”
I was already headed toward her, giving the open hole a wide berth, when Frost let out a bubbling shriek. She sank to her knees as blood soaked rapidly into her shirt.
An invisible acolyte stood in front of her, with an invisible dagger plunged in her gut.
I cut across and ran. She was shaking, trying to lift her gun at the unseen assailant. I grabbed it from her, pressed the muzzle against the faint shape of the acolyte’s chest, and pulled the trigger.
/> His blood splashed my face a split second before he blinked into toppling death.
“Gideon!” Donatti called. The entire floor was shaking. “You gotta move!”
“Yeah. Moving.” I bent and slung Frost’s arm around my shoulders. “You’re going to make it,” I said, wrapping her hand around the now-visible dagger embedded in her stomach. “Try to hold that. Keep as much blood as we can inside you, okay?”
She moaned something in pained gibberish. But her hand stayed put, and she stumbled along with me as I half-dragged her toward the stairs. Behind us came the grinding rumble of stone. I glanced back to see the hole filling with debris as the cement floor around it buckled and heaved.
When Donatti stood and ran to catch up, there was a twisted, broken body caught in the rubble.
“That’s three down,” he said. “How many did he say he had?”
“Fifty.”
“So, too many.” We’d almost reached the stairs, and Donatti put an arm around Frost’s waist. “Give her to me,” he said. “We’ll need your eyes. I can’t see these bastards.”
I shifted her weight to him and stayed behind as they started up, walking backwards to keep watch. “There’s at least two down here still, maybe three,” I said. “They got smart. I think they know I can see them, because I can only spot one.”
“Great. What’s the one doing?”
“Rushing us.”
“Of course he is.”
I still had the gun. And I hated every second as I aimed at the shimmering figure, pulled the trigger, and watched him die.
“Four down,” I said.
“Good. Walk faster.”
It seemed to take an hour to reach the top of the stairs. Frost was still conscious, leaning hard on Donatti and trying to say something that sounded like hospital. “Yeah, we’re going,” I said, slamming the door to the stairs shut. That was a lie, but I wanted to keep her from panicking if I could. She wasn’t going to make it to a hospital. I’d have to use what little power I had left to heal her, and hope it was enough.
The hallway we were in stretched left to right, with turns at both ends and another corridor about halfway down the left branch. It all looked the same to me. “Which way did we come through here?” I said. “We have to get back outside.”
“That way.” Donatti pointed right.
“Okay. You—”
Lead the way died in my mouth as an invisible shadow rounded the far corner from the direction he’d just indicated. With two more behind it.
I got off a single shot and missed. “We’re going this way,” I said, practically pulling them both to the left. “That way’s occupied.” The smudge-people were running now, and still somehow making no sound.
Then another small group came around the end of the hall in front of us.
“Fuck!” I tried to aim better this time and pulled the trigger. The gun went thunk.
Frost had used up most of the bullets shooting nothing in particular.
Still stumbling along with an increasingly unresponsive Frost, Donatti shot a panicked glance. “How many now?”
“A lot.” I took Frost’s other side. If I couldn’t try to shoot things, at least I could make us go faster. “This way’s clear,” I said, nodding at the hallway we’d almost reached. The invisible shapes in front of us were still fifty feet away.
Carrying Frost fully between us, we ran and ducked right into a narrow, low-lit corridor with office doors on both sides that ran about a hundred feet before it ended in a wall.
“Goddamn it!” Donatti kept us moving forward, flicking a glance at every door. “No, no, no … in here,” he said, wheeling to the left.
The door said LADIES.
I managed to keep the are-you-crazy comment to myself long enough to realize what he was doing. Bathroom meant mirrors, and mirrors meant he could get us out of here.
It was a fairly large bathroom, as office facilities went. Mirrors over every sink, and a full-length one on the wall between the sinks and the hand dryers. Once we were in, Donatti left me to hold a now-unresponsive Frost and went back to the door.
He pressed his hands against it. There was a groaning, creaking sound as the wooden door expanded and fused with the steel frame. Then he took a step back and held a hand out. “Sukkayati,” he said.
Far as I could tell, that word didn’t do anything.
“Not sure if that’ll hold them for long,” he said. “But I cast a snare, so if any of them get through, at least they’ll be visible. You know what the plan is? I’m guessing yes, since you’re not screaming at me.”
I nodded. “Do your thing. I’ll try to heal her a little.”
“Hope it works.”
Me too. Frost was clammy with sweat, and her skin had gone an alarming shade of gray. She was barely breathing. With no time for gentle, I laid her on the floor and yanked the dagger out of her as Donatti produced a knife of his own and sliced his finger.
I held a hand just above the sodden mess of her stomach. Healing wasn’t as precise as a spoken spell, but I got started easily enough, letting the magic flow through me and into her.
Until it started to hurt. A lot.
My spark was just about gone.
The moonstone activated itself, the way it did sometimes when I really needed the boost. But even that was weak. The stone’s glow pulsed slowly, a little more faded every time it returned. I could barely manage to focus on the task.
Frost opened her eyes with a whooshing gasp — a split second before the bathroom door shuddered beneath a massive blow from the outside.
“Ready or not, she needs to go!” Donatti shouted.
I hadn’t even realized he’d finished working the spell. The full-length mirror reflected the parlor at the Castle, and the empty chair Ian must’ve left in front of the mirror there. “Come on,” I said, practically jerking Frost to her feet. “We’re getting out of here.”
“What happened?” she slurred. At least she probably wasn’t going to die.
Donatti grabbed her arm. “Tell you later,” he said. And flung her through the mirror. The surface instantly reverted to normal once she was gone.
Another bang at the door. This one came with a loud crack.
“I’m burned out,” Donatti said shakily as he squeezed blood from his finger. “Can’t draw from the earth. You got anything?”
I didn’t say no, but he read it on my face.
“Shit.” He turned to the mirror, scrawled the symbol in blood, and started chanting.
The thumps and bangs at the door intensified. The center of it cracked, and a jagged chunk of wood flew out. There was a wrenching, splintering sound, another crash. And the edge of a fire axe breached the crack in the door.
Behind me, Donatti loosed a strangled snarl. I turned in time to see him stagger and fall to the floor.
The mirror showed Sadie trying to interrogate an injured, freaked-out Frost, and I heard faint shouts that were probably Ian and Taeral. “You go,” I said as I rushed over and tried to get him up. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Can’t. One at a time,” he gasped, pushing me away. “Take a picture.”
“What?” I flinched at the splintering crash of the axe falling on the door again. “The hell do you mean—”
“Of the mirror! I can’t … Ian can hold it for more than one. But he has to see the other side. Hurry the fuck up!”
I was already getting my phone out. By the time he said fuck, I’d pushed the gibbering panic in my head aside and snapped a photo.
Donatti managed to get to his knees. “Go, now. Get Ian to open it from that side.”
Despite every shred of me screaming that I couldn’t leave him like this, I turned and jumped through.
CHAPTER 38
It was freezing in the mirror.
I popped out, shivering and weaving drunkenly across the parlor floor, into a different brand of chaos. Frost shouting and running into furniture, Sadie threatening to violently murder her if she di
dn’t tell her what happened to me, Taeral apparently trying to calm Sadie down enough to level threats of his own.
And then Ian, in front of me out of nowhere. “Where is Donatti?” he demanded.
That got Taeral and Sadie’s attention. They broke off the shouting and came toward us fast while I fumbled at my phone. “Here,” I grunted, showing him the photo. “He’s tapped. Get him out of there.”
Ian snarled and headed for the mirror. But halfway there, he stopped short and jerked as if he’d been stabbed — then went down on one knee, holding his side. “He is hurt,” Ian gasped. “Thief…”
I tensed, looking for invisible acolytes. But it was just Ian. Not visibly injured, and already lurching to his feet. He made two more steps before he flinched hard and gasped again, this time holding his shoulder. Still, he kept moving grimly forward.
What the hell?
“Gideon, what happened?” Sadie said.
I grimaced. “Bad guys happened. Someone — ”
“Donatti!”
A barrage of sounds followed Ian’s shout. Hollow bangs, harsh grunts, breaking glass. He’d opened the bridge. In the mirror, three visible acolytes were making a spirited attempt to kill Donatti.
He was almost holding his own. But it wasn’t going to be enough.
“I will go through,” Ian said, one hand already gripping the mirror frame. “We will find another way back.”
“No, wait! You can hold that spell open, right?” I said.
He glared at me. “Yes, for a short time.”
“Then do it. I’ll get him and bring him back.”
“Like hell you will. You can hardly stand,” Sadie growled. The moonstone chips on her collar glowed softly, and she was already changing. “I’ve got this.”
She was through the mirror before anyone could so much as blink.
Ian stayed beside it, trembling with effort as Sadie’s snarls punctuated the crashing and breaking. There were a few brief, garbled screams. Some awful ripping sounds.
In less than a minute, Sadie’s wolf emerged with a battered-but-breathing Donatti slung over her shoulder. I caught a glimpse of blood, bodies and massive destruction before Ian stumbled back with a harsh cry, and the mirror replaced the image.
City of Secrets (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 5) Page 14
