by Amie Gibbons
He shrugged and turned, walking away. “We’re out. That’s all that matters.”
“No, no, you threatening to rape me matters. It matters a whole hell of a lot, you…”
I couldn’t think of a bad enough name to call him.
“Carvi, you just sexually assaulted me!” I screamed after him.
“It worked,” he called over his shoulder.
I scrambled after him.
A portal opened and he walked through, me runnin’ fast as I could to catch up.
I skidded in behind him, shoes sliding over the sudden tile.
“No, don't look!” came from the side as I slid to a stop.
Carvi grabbed me and slammed a hand over my eyes.
After what he just pulled, he had the nerve to touch me?
I yanked his hand off and slapped it down.
Wow, I was strong on the astral plane.
“Why? What are you hiding?” I asked.
His mouth dropped open. “You're not insane?”
“Noooo, but I'm starting to think you are.”
Starting to? Ha!
I looked around. We stood on a chessboard with pieces large enough to ride, but the checkers and pieces went on forever in all directions.
“What do you see?” Carvi asked.
“Giant chessboard, same as you.”
He burst out laughing. “That's how you interpret this? Yeah, okay, it fits.”
“Interpret? What is this?”
“This is the war room.” Carvi looked around. “I'm seeing if the boss has anything on what's going on. I can't believe... Yeah, maybe I can.”
“I…” I was pretty sure I was in shock. Everything looked real but there was no sense of reality to it, like I was in a VR game. The air didn’t move and… there was no smell to the place.
It was a complete blank, worse than having allergies or a cold. Just nothing.
The panic and anger were gone too. I’d slapped Carvi’s hand, but I didn’t feel the revulsion I was pretty sure I should. I knew I was mad, theoretically, but I didn’t feel it. I knew I was scared too, but again, it was just gone.
“What is going on?” I asked, studying the centaur statue next to me. So, what? He was this game's version of a knight?
“Mortal minds can't handle the divine. It's chaos, noise, too much input, not a big enough bandwidth. They go insane. You are seeing it. In a simplified way, sure, but you're fine.”
“So?” I asked. “That means, what? Psychics can see it?”
He snorted. “Not human ones. I don't know what you are, but you're no more human than I am.”
I rolled my eyes up. Of course I was human.
Hey, wait a second.
“Carvi,” I said, pointing up at the statue, “this guy kinda look like you?”
The statue turned so I could see him full on and winked a gold eye at me.
He was, ahem, anatomically correct.
And yes, it was.
Carvi placed a hand on my shoulder and jerked. “You really are seeing a giant chessboard. Damn, not a bad analogy. And thank you, lea, that's me. You can tell because I'm hung.”
I scowled and smacked his hand.
Like they heard him, little pawns moved forward, converging on his position.
“Fuck!” Carvi said, following it up with a string of something definitely not polite in one of his old languages.
My stomach dropped as the first pawn shot a green stream at the knight.
“We’ve got Fae,” Carvi said, grabbing my hand. “Let's go.”
“Wait, the boss did have something then?”
“Yes. Fae are definitely behind this.”
He dragged me across the board.
“Carvi, who's the boss?”
“Tony Danza,” he said as a portal appeared two squares down. “Now move!”
###
“What happened?” Blanche asked as I jerked and blinked.
The real world. Yes!
Carvi was up and out before Grant got his hand out to help me to my feet.
“What?” Blanche asked as I ran after Carvi.
“How long?” I yelled over my shoulder.
Blanche caught up to me in about two seconds and said, “About two minutes.”
We zipped out through the giant French doors and through the hall, the landscapes and pretty girls zipping by too fast to see anything but impressionistic blurs.
Blanche could’ve easily pulled ahead but she stayed by me, probably because she didn’t know where I was going.
I appreciated her apparently wanting to watch my back.
And on that note.
I glanced behind me. Sure enough, Grant was right behind us.
We burst out into the beautiful hot night and I slammed to a stop.
Carvi was already waving his arms at the huge crowd of people, trying to get their attention and order them back inside.
I closed my eyes.
Okay, visions, come on!
Something ran down my spine. Something I’d never felt before. Nausea took me and I doubled over, wrapping my arms around my middle.
Someone put their hands on my hips and I didn’t have to look to know it was Grant.
I shook my head. “Inside! Now!”
Grant pulled me to him, lifting me and holding me close to his chest as he backpedaled.
The world flashed, something pushed us back hard and fast, and my vision went dark.
Chapter thirteen
Screams met my ears as the world spun and my stomach tried crawling out.
My ears rang more than they had the other day when we were shooting up the kitchen, and everything came in fuzzy but I was pretty sure there was a lot of noise going on around me.
Arms pulled me back and held me tight against a hard chest and the smell said it was Grant.
I forced my eyes open and couldn’t make sense of the scene in front of me. There was running and blurs, way too many of them. Colors just whizzed by and something smacked into me, sending me and Grant stumbling back into the wall.
Pyro appeared in front of me before I got my senses back and Grant pushed me onto him, climbing on after me.
Could Pyro even hold both of us?
He went straight up and we looked down from the top of the high ceiling lobby at the chaos below.
It made more sense up here but everything still felt fuzzy, like I was watching the world through gauze and marshmallows.
Did that make sense?
I was pretty sure it didn’t.
Vampires blurred and humans ran below, stampeding inside.
A human got knocked down and a blur picked him up, slinging him over his shoulder.
Was that blur Carvi?
Yeah, pretty sure it was.
The Carvi blur cut through the crowds faster than any of the other vamps, so fast he could’ve been teleporting.
And the vamps kept pouring in.
What the hell had happened?
I turned my head and pain shot through it and I tipped sideways as the nausea took me.
Grant caught my arm and some noise made it through, so he was tryin’ to say something.
I couldn’t hear more than a deeper rumble cutting through the high-pitched hum.
When the blurs slowed down and it looked like most of them and the humans had made it back into the ballroom, Pyro floated us down.
Carvi appeared in front of us and lifted me from the carpet by my waist.
I tried pushing against him and may as well have been pounding sand.
Grant hopped off and looked between us as I weakly shoved at Carvi.
The vamp put his finger in my ear and I could barely move my arm to try to knock his aside. It didn’t budge.
Something wet entered my ear and it popped. He did the second and I could hear again.
The world was still fuzzy but it made a little more sense.
“Don’t touch me,” I said, pushing against Carvi again. “Not after what you did.”
“Not now, lea,” Carvi said. “We have real problems.”
“Ass. Assaulter. Rapist,” I spat at him.
“What!” Grant boomed, grabbing Carvi’s arm.
“No,” Carvi said. “I didn’t. She’s just pissed because I acted like I was going to. I had to scare her.”
“It worked,” I said. “Don’t touch me. Don’t want you to touch me.”
Carvi rolled his eyes. “You have a concussion. Shut up. I need to fix you because we have work to do.”
“No!” I tried to slap him but his hand moved so fast I didn’t see it and he grabbed my wrist.
“Ariana,” he said, eyes boring into mine, “we have dozens of injured people and Fae who aren’t done. We are under attack and I need you. I’m sorry I scared you, but we had to get out and that was the fastest way to do it. You want to be mad at me, great, deal with me later. Right now, we have work to do. And I need you healed for that.”
I nodded and wished I hadn’t as pain shot through my neck and skull.
What had happened out there?
Like he heard me, Carvi said, “Bomb.”
My head went fuzzy and my knees gave out.
“No,” Grant said, catching me under my arms and pulling me up to standing. “Do it fast, Carvagio. We’ll talk about you scaring her later.”
Carvi bit his wrist and held it out to me.
I gulped him down, heat flushing through me with every pull.
Making the memory of him on top of me hot.
I didn’t want to be turned on by that.
Not when he’d completely ignored me saying no.
There was no forgiving that. No matter what the reason.
My head cleared and I nodded as I let him go.
“Bomb?” I asked. “How bad?”
“I got a shield up pretty fast,” Carvi said, leading us to the door, “but there were people outside it, and even the ones inside got blasted. Like you. We’ve got a few humans with minor injuries vampires are healing in there, but the ones outside the shield…”
He pushed the door open, holding up a hand at us as he poked his head out and looked around.
“Okay,” Carvi nodded after a moment. “Hurry.”
The courtyard looked normal and we hurried behind him as he led us down one of the paths between the random trees and bushes.
We hit the front and my hand flew to my mouth.
Vampires were grabbing people one at a time and zooming them in down the other path and coming up the one we’d just used. A system like a restaurant probably, to make sure they didn’t run into each other on the rotation.
There were still some bodies out here, vampires and humans with bits of shrapnel, but the injured vamps were moving and already healing.
Meaning no silver.
What?
Who’d set off a bomb in the middle of a bunch of vamps without silver?
Unless they only wanted to kill humans.
I gagged.
A Fae would want to kill vamps, but what if this wasn’t Fae? What if this was a vamp trying to kill the humans here?
There was only one human laying in the middle of the road who was obviously dead.
His head was nowhere to be seen.
The vampires were clearing the street pretty fast and others stood watch.
I recognized a few in the crowd from last night.
The Fae couldn’t have gone to all that trouble just to set off one bomb. Especially knowing Carvi might have been able to warn people.
“We have to figure out what they’re up to,” I said.
“No shit,” Carvi said. “I didn’t pull you out here to kiss the injured better. Get on it.”
My jaw fell open and I turned on him.
“No time,” Grant said. “Deal with him later. Focus on the job.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I closed my eyes, holding my hands up.
This place had to be soaked in magic and emotion from the attack.
I had to get something.
Right?
The world reeked with blood and death and that musty, almost snake like smell I’d come to associate with dead vampires. It was something alive, but shedded and dry, like a snake skin.
Come on, visions.
Flash.
The world was the exact same but there weren’t dead and injured in the street and dotting the sidewalk, and there weren’t scorch marks around the circle that must’ve been Carvi’s shield.
How was he gonna explain that to the authorities?
How was he gonna explain any of this?
The vampires started pouring out of the hotel and the air shimmered.
They didn’t appear to notice it.
More and more came out, not in that blurring panicked way they got back inside, but definitely hustling.
They gathered around the front and inched back as more and more came back.
Some of them got out into the courtyard and kept filling it as more people made their way out.
It must’ve taken a few minutes.
This was when we were hanging around in the astral plane. Maybe while we were wasting time. Maybe while Carvi was assaulting me.
The vamps hung around, probably waiting for Carvi to give them the all clear.
The giant fountain in the middle of the courtyard had trees forming patterns around it and blocking the views of the people around them. It was probably supposed to look cool and give more of a sense of privacy, but here all it really did was break up the line of sight so the vampires didn’t see what was coming until it was too late.
It rose up out of the fountain.
I couldn’t see it.
It was like the Fae magic thing on the astral plane, too many things at once and all of them awful. It twisted and morphed, changing from something with too many legs to some kinda saucer lookin’ thing, and it made my stomach roil and want to escape even through the veil the visions usually put between me and horrors.
What was this thing?
Carvi ran out and my stomach clenched as we followed.
Carvi’s eyes flew wide and he threw his hands up just as Grant was grabbing me.
The shield flew out in a brilliant flash of gold, encompassing the courtyard and shoving the Fae thing out beyond the shield.
And it went off.
It got the people outside the courtyard.
Some were vampires, others were people. It was obvious some of them were just pedestrians wandering by.
Wrong place, wrong time.
Not fair.
The bodies went out to the building across the street and at least two buildings down on either side.
We’d only seen the one dead body though.
The vamps were blown back, and had shrapnel, but were already getting up. Already healing.
There were maybe three dead out of the humans. The others looked shaken, and some were seriously injured, but at least they were alive.
“Lea,” Carvi said.
I blinked and looked up.
The dead bodies were still there.
Had they been hidden before?
“I came in to help you navigate,” Carvi said. “We have to follow the trail.”
“Again?” I asked. “Carvi, where did these guys all go?”
Vampires sped out into the road and scooped the bodies up.
“Ohhhh,” I said. “So we just saw the last of the cleanup.”
“We’re not going to be able to explain this away easily,” Carvi said. “The Fae magic cloaked itself so no one should have seen the explosion, and we got them cleaned up so fast I doubt more than one or two saw bodies before they were removed, which means the people will just sound crazy, but we have more than a few dead humans who were merely walking by, and those disappearances will be investigated.”
He took a deep breath.
“They’ll never be found,” he said. “They’ll never know what happened to their loved ones. They can’t.”
I looked up and he was lig
hting a cigarette.
An ache stabbed through my heart and I shook it off.
I didn’t want to feel for him. Not after what he did.
“Show me the trail,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”
He nodded and walked down the street, me close behind.
“When we find them,” he said, “will you let me handle it? After this, I need violence.”
“When do you not?” I asked.
He growled under his breath. “You want to lose the attitude?”
“You want to go back in time and not sexually assault me? Because that’s what it’ll take.”
“I told you-”
“You just did it to get me scared so my magic would pop us up outta there,” I said. “Yeah, got it. Doesn’t change it. You… I can’t believe you don’t realize how bad that was.”
The cement zoomed under us as we flew forward.
And stopped in front of the same damn restaurant as last time.
“Fuck!” Carvi said. “Them again? We fucking had them!”
A tentacle rose outta the sidewalk without a sound, just suddenly there.
I screamed and Carvi grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
I opened my eyes in the real world mid mental scream.
The world was way too quiet since I could still feel the scream in my throat.
“What was that!” I yelled.
“The Fae. Fuck!” Carvi said. “They were waiting for us. We’re not going to be able to go back in there till we kill them.”
Carvi took my hand, pulling me behind him at a fast clip, but slow enough that I wasn’t dragging behind him like being hauled behind a car.
“Fucking gangsters,” Carvi said. “They were in on it. Had to be.”
“Unless the Fae cast the spell from there to get you to focus on them,” Grant said.
“I can feel the Fae were there, and would’ve had to be there for a while to make that spell,” Carvi said. “Those,” he said something in another language, “know what’s going on.”
“We go talk to them again then,” Grant said. “Full battle gear.”
“No time,” Carvi said.
“She’s not going there without body armor.”
“She’s not going.”
“Guys!” I stepped between them. “I have to go. I’m the psychic. We’ll need me to see stuff. I can get my gear on fast, sir. Won’t move very quick in armor, but…”
I shrugged and Grant nodded at Carvi.
