Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2)

by Gail Z. Martin

  Sorren rose with a roar and barreled toward Baldy, catching the fallen angel in the gut with one of his blades. Baldy screeched and raked Sorren’s face with its nails, leaving bloody tracks down his skin. Three of the ghosts from our circle rushed in to help, solid enough to grab at the Nephilim’s arms and legs to help Sorren.

  Close by, Higgins fought with his talwar in one hand and the three-sided phurba knife in the other, as more of our ghostly comrades threw themselves at Blondie to hold him back. Higgins moved with deadly speed, blocking the Nephilim’s blows. He kept his talwar wheeling at head height, while he struck with the phurba any time Blondie tried to get close. It was a fearsome defense, and his opponent shrieked in anger, denied an easy kill.

  I wondered why the Nephilim didn’t just transform and fight in their monstrous shapes, when I realized that Donnelly was chanting. Still within the circle, the necromancer’s magic might not have the same control of the fallen angels as he did over the spirits of the dead, but he could dampen the Nephilim’s magic enough to keep them in their human form. And while human Nephilim were hard to kill, they were a damned sight worse when they turned into monsters.

  Unfortunately, that left us shy one fighter, since while Donnelly was busy squelching the Nephilim’s magic, he couldn’t join in the battle. From my perspective, an equal number of Nephilim to humans is already an unfair fight. The ghosts were definitely on our side, but their best efforts couldn’t do any real damage, so they focused on slowing down the fallen angels.

  Three Nephilim came running toward Teag and me—Crow, Ebony, and Asian Dude. I went left, Teag went right, and the ghosts that Donnelly had summoned for the circle went right up the middle. Nephilim weren’t Reapers, so the ghosts had no fear of them, and empowered by Donnelly’s magic, the ghosts were solid enough to run interference between us and the Nephilim.

  I didn’t have time to watch, because I had problems of my own. Crow, the Nephilim coming for me, had the good looks of a rich boy gone wrong: high cheekbones, a cleft chin and thin, sensual lips with a lock of dark hair that he flicked out of his eyes with a casual toss of his head. Maybe I was supposed to be impressed, but I had seen what these guys looked like for real, and that destroyed their appeal.

  Bo’s ghost was already beside me, and he lunged for Crow, managing to score a deep bite on the fallen angel’s left wrist until the creature flung him loose. While he was preoccupied with Bo, I raised my athame with one hand and clutched my spindle whorl with the other, drawing on the memory the whorl held of its previous owner, a Norse witch named Secona. That boosted my power, and I channeled my magic through my athame.

  A cold-white torrent of power erupted from the athame and caught Crow full in the face. He staggered, blinded and battered, as Bo sprang for the throat. Two ghosts, one in the uniform of the British Indian Army and another in the parka of an Arctic explorer, rushed at the Nephilim and grappled with him, keeping him from coming closer to me. I saw the ghost of a Conquistador and another in an aviator jacket struggle to hold back Ebony while Teag battled Asian Dude. I dared not use Alard’s walking stick for fear of catching the house or my allies on fire. But I had one of Josiah Winfield’s pistols, loaded and ready, and Teag had the other one.

  I dropped the spindle whorl back in my pocket, drew Josiah’s gun and fired, knowing that I might not get another shot. As I did so, I hooked my magic into Josiah’s weapon, letting the memories of its previous owner run through me, gaining a temporary advantage as his knowledge became mine.

  Silver is unpleasant to vampires in the real world because it gives them a rash, not because it destroys them. Same with holy water. Nephilim, on the other hand, are highly allergic, on top of not much liking getting a bullet to the heart. I’d used one of Josiah’s special rounds, packed with silver, iron, and obsidian and both blessed and baptized in holy water. Before I could lower my pistol, Crow lurched forward, shoving me hard enough to hurl me across the room and into one of the Society’s wunderkammeren. The closet of oddities smashed open, showering me with its strange and singular wonders, momentarily stunning me as glimpses of the pieces’ power and history flashed past me.

  Crow screamed and tore at the raw wound on its chest. Its skin began to blacken, first near the wound and then radiating outward from the point of impact along the veins. If that’s what a supernatural allergy looks like, there isn’t a big enough EpiPen in the universe to contain it. The blackened veins began to glow red, and the Nephilim’s once-handsome face contorted, bone structure halted mid-morph, so that it was a grotesque combination of man and monster. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging, lips swelling and blue. The red glow became fire burning through thousands of arteries, veins and capillaries. The fallen angel let out one more ear-splitting scream and then blew apart into hundreds of blood-soaked gobbets.

  Teag let loose on Asian Dude with Josiah’s other gun a second later, splattering his remains over the other half of the ballroom. That left three more of the fallen angels to battle, and I could see that Donnelly was tiring fast. If his magic failed and the Nephilim got their full powers back, it was going to be ugly. Then again, we had less than half an hour to worry about it, before the Briggs Society’s protections destroyed us and the Nephilim. Around us, the golden containment dome had begun to pulse slowly.

  “Why is the gold light blinking?” I yelled.

  “It’s warning us,” Higgins shouted back. “It will blink faster and faster the closer we get to the half-hour mark.” And if we weren’t done by then, ka-boom.

  Sorren and Higgins were battling Blondie and Baldy old school, with swords and hand-to-hand combat, and the fact that it wasn’t a quick rout for either of them provided dim prospects for success for Teag and me, if the Nephilim could put up that kind of fight against a vampire and whatever-the-hell Higgins was. There was one more Nephilim on the loose, and he was closing on us fast. Getting up close and personal with these guys was a recipe for disaster, and with Josiah’s one-shot pistols done for, I needed some distance weapons, pronto.

  Teag got between me and Ebony, circling his staff warily. He loosed two of the knots from the rope that hung from his belt, releasing stored magic to replenish himself. In the next moment, the staff was in full motion, runes blazing, moving swifter than I could track in a complicated series of circles and figure-eights, designed to keep an attacker at bay and make it impossible to grab the staff. Ebony tried to come past Teag, probably figuring that he could survive a thump or two from the staff, and drew back, shrieking, as the staff connected with a charge of magic like a high voltage shock.

  I hit the Nephilim with a blast from my athame, and the cold power drove him back a pace. I’d learned from the first encounter, and aimed for the face. Bo’s ghost followed up with a deep-throated growl and a lunge nearly throat-high, sinking his teeth into Ebony’s arm. The Nephilim shook free, howling in rage and pain.

  Where the staff had connected with Ebony’s arm, the skin was blackened, and his eyes glowed red with malice. I had managed to get to my feet, and I looked at the scattered contents of the oddities cabinet, desperately searching for a weapon. The golden containment dome was blinking more quickly.

  “Teag, catch!” I yelled. I hurled two objects his way. One, an old net of knotted rope, landed near Teag’s feet. The other was a thin, sharp piece of coiled steel with a handle. Teag was the martial arts expert; I figured he’d know what to do with it.

  I needed more mojo if I was going to do any more blasting with my athame, and even the spindle whorl could only replenish me so much. Then I saw a flat metal disk with a sharpened edge. It was a chakram, an Indian weapon, and I’d seen someone on television use something like it. I figured it was worth a shot, assuming I could handle the damn thing without losing a finger. There were a lot of weapons I might not be able to pick up and easily use, but I knew how to throw a Frisbee.

  No time for second-guesses. I picked up the chakram as carefully as I could. As soon as my skin touched the elaborately etched brass I
had a vision of old India, and I knew I was seeing the memories of the weapon’s former owner. I sank my waning magic down into those memories and pulled with my remaining strength, channeling the skill and knowledge of that long-ago warrior and taking them into myself. Without hesitation, I flung that sucker at Ebony, who was circling Teag. I aimed for his throat, but he was quick enough to side-step just enough that the razor edge sank into his left shoulder instead, severing his arm.

  I glimpsed a silvery sliver of steel lightning, and then another. Bone-deep cuts opened up on the Nephilim from shoulder to hip from Teag’s metal whip. Each time the whip hit, a flash of green fire burst from its hooked tip, and then the coiled steel retracted, peeling a strip of skin with it.

  “Cassidy – the net!” Teag shouted.

  I scrambled for the net at his feet and threw it over the bleeding Nephilim. The net was weighted, so it spread and fell evenly. The Nephilim screamed again as the rope net glowed with silver fire. The fallen angel collapsed to his knees, shrieking threats and trying to tear the net apart, while its magically-strengthened fibers burned his hands. Teag brought his boot down on the nearest edge of the net, and as soon as he made contact with the rope, I felt his magic channel through the fibers, until the net was a brilliant silver. With a final screech Ebony writhed beneath it and then fell still.

  I looked up just as Higgins got inside his opponent’s guard. His curved blade slashed Blondie through the neck, while his triangle-bladed knife stabbed the monster right in the heart. The Nephilim gave a last, ear-piercing wail and exploded.

  The magical golden energy was flashing like a strobe. We were nearly out of time. I really did not want to be stuck for eternity with a bunch of Nephilim. But we had minutes left to fight before the Briggs Society would handle the problem for us.

  Sorren was getting the best of his attacker, though from the way both of them were bloodied, the fight was between equals. Sorren thrust his sword deep into Baldy’s belly, sacrificing his shoulder to take a wicked slash in return. While the Nephilim was impaled on the blade, Higgins drove his phurba two-handed into the fallen angel’s back, between the ribs, and into the heart. The creature burst apart, covering Sorren and Higgins with its blood.

  The golden dome strobed. “We won!” I shouted, looking at Higgins and Donnelly. “How do we tell the house that we won?”

  In the next heartbeat, the flashing golden light winked out. “Don’t worry, madam. The house always knows,” Higgins said in a cool voice as if I had merely inquired about when dinner would be served.

  We looked around at the ruined ballroom. The Nephilim had been destroyed. Donnelly lowered his arms, brought his chant to a close, and walked the circle clockwise to release his wardings, then extinguished each of the candles. The ghosts acknowledged us with nods and gestures of approval, and vanished.

  “How many times do we have to kill these guys?” I asked.

  Sorren shrugged. “They’ll keep coming back as long as the nephilmancer is around to call them.”

  Though Donnelly had not been involved in the physical fight, the toll that the magic took was clear in his face. He looked as exhausted as I felt, only he wasn’t soaked with Nephilim blood.

  “Sorry about the cabinet,” I said, looking back with chagrin at the broken piece of furniture and its spilled contents.

  “Seems to me that the cabinet provided exactly what you needed, when you needed it,” Donnelly replied, raising an eyebrow as his gaze traveled from the metal whip in Teag’s hand to the old net, to the brass chakram.

  “What is that thing, anyhow?” I asked, nodding toward Teag’s new weapon.

  “It’s an urumi,” Higgins replied. “A favorite of the gent whose ghost you might have seen in the British Indian Army uniform – Nain Singh Rawat, one of the greatest pundits of all time.” He pointed to a portrait that had managed to escape being spattered with gore. In it, a dignified Indian man with angular features and a stern expression stood proudly as he was presented with a gold medal by a scholarly-looking man in a top hat. Glancing around at the other paintings, I recognized some of the other ghosts who had tried with all their spectral might to protect us, and I offered up my silent thanks.

  “Did we get anything useful from all this?” Teag’s tone was sharp, and I knew that meant he was dead tired.

  “Confirmation that the Reapers are behind the stairway disappearances,” Sorren replied. “And a clue to the whereabouts of another Watcher portal.”

  I thought back to the fragments Harry’s ghost had been able to share. “Bad ghosts. Dark place. Chains on the ceiling.” One place came to mind, to anyone familiar with Charleston’s bloody past.

  “The Old Jail,” Teag and I said in unison.

  Sorren nodded. “My thoughts, exactly.”

  “But we don’t know whether the Watcher is already here, or about to come,” I protested. “And come to think of it, I didn’t feel the overwhelming guilt that I’ve always felt before a Nephilim attack.”

  “That’s because the Nephilim who attacked us were already inside the Briggs Society, and our protections would keep a Watcher well away,” Donnelly said.

  “Cassidy’s right about the danger from a new Watcher, but we’re in no condition to do anything about it tonight,” Sorren said firmly. Worried as I was, I knew I was not up to another fight, and by the look of it, neither were Teag or Sorren.

  “What now?” Teag asked.

  “I’ll see both of you safely home, and we regroup tomorrow night,” Sorren said.

  I looked at the mess the battle had made. “What about all this?” I asked. “We trashed the place.”

  Donnelly chuckled. “There’s more magic in the Briggs Society than dreamt of in your imagination,” he said. “Higgins and I will make sure it’s taken care of.” He glanced at the net, chakram and the urumi. “In the meantime, at least for the duration of the present emergency, keep the weapons. They suit you. I believe their former owner would be proud to see them used for a noble fight.”

  “We can’t have you leaving looking like that,” Higgins said, shaking his head. “Come with me. You can clean up before heading out.” Just like that, he was back in butler mode, and I vowed to ask Sorren for the real story some time when we weren’t up to our necks in Nephilim.

  It turned out that the Briggs Society had guest rooms, and Higgins led us each to comfortable sleeping quarters with private bathrooms. When I emerged from a hot shower, I found that my blood-soaked clothing had been removed and a fresh outfit, exactly the right size, awaited me. Next to the clothes, the chakram lay on a black leather pouch, spotless and shining. I resolved not to question the magically miraculous concierge service and happily got dressed, tucking my wet hair back in a tail.

  When I came downstairs, Teag and Sorren were dressed in clean outfits as well, and except for a few fresh cuts and bruises, we looked none the worse for the wear. “Keep me updated, Sorren,” Donnelly said as he waved good-bye and Higgins walked us to the door. “If I can help, I will. Hell of a task, this.”

  Sorren’s lips quirked. “Oh I will, Archie. Believe me, I will.” With that, we stepped outside to find Teag’s Volvo right where we left it several hours before. I turned back for one last look at the Briggs Society, but the Georgian brick building was nowhere to be seen. In its place were three white clapboard Charleston single houses that looked as if they had been there for the better part of a century.

  “Where –” I stammered. Teag turned around and stood, dumbfounded, as well.

  “‘When’ is a better question,” Sorren said with a chuckle. “That’s what I meant about the Society being able to protect itself. It appears and disappears on no particular schedule, not always in the same place, and it never stays long.”

  Which could mean that those explorers from other times might still stop in for a hot toddy now and again, in the past or future. Thinking about it too hard made my head hurt. I got into the car, leaned back in the seat, and was asleep before we reached my house. />
  I WAS RESTLESS, so I decided to take a walk the next morning, after we opened the shop. “I’m going over to the Lowcountry Museum,” I said. “Lucinda’s exhibition should be ready to open, and I wanted to ask her about what Caliel said when we were at the power plant.”

  “Take the rental car,” Teag said. “We don’t need another Nephilim incident. If Sariel is behind this, then you and I are a way he could get at Sorren. Please – drive.”

  I sighed. It was sunny and mild and the idea of a walk to clear my head was attractive. Still, I couldn’t argue with Teag; there had been too many attacks to be careless, and I didn’t relish another run-in. “All right,” I conceded. “I won’t be long.”

  My car wouldn’t be out of the body shop for a while, so I appreciated having a rental, which saved me from needing to borrow Teag’s car. I took the long way to the museum since I wanted to enjoy the sunshine and get some perspective on all the weird stuff that had been going on. Teag and Sorren and I had fought some scary supernatural plots before, but this series of attacks was personal, and that made it worse – as if someone planning to kill tens of thousands of people wasn’t bad enough.

  As I drove past one of the Ghost Bikes I slowed down. The front wheel was turning slowly, but a few seconds later it spun wildly, and the bike began to shake and shudder, as if it were trying to tear free of the chain that held it to the telephone pole. Hurry, it seemed to say. Time’s running out.

  The Ghost Bike incident rattled me, and I took a few deep breaths when I parked in the Lowcountry Museum’s lot. Big banners proclaimed ‘Voodoo and You: Loas and the Lowcountry’, and other banners included pictures of items on display. It looked like everything was ready to go, and I knew it would be a real accomplishment for Lucinda to bring off a successful exhibition.

  I navigated the receptionist and ignored the velvet ropes that prevented museum-goers from entering the exhibition before it opened. Lucinda and her team had gotten a lot done since my last visit. I kept my hands behind my back, resolutely not touching anything. I could hear Lucinda talking with her assistants, and did not want to interrupt, so I killed time by taking a stroll around the display cases.