“I know,” said Val, “but it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You’re right,” said John, “because you already know. So does Just James. In a way, the only person here who doesn’t know is Sky.”
“Know what?” said Sky.
“Baby?” John led Sky around the counter, sitting her on the couch next to Rex. “Baby, there’s something you need to know.”
“You’re married,” she said. Her voice was flat, her arms crossed in a way that said and I always suspected.
John blinked. “It’s not that bad,” he said after a moment. “But it’s a little … I’m going to say, it’s a little odd. This might come as a surprise.”
Rex looked at John, then Sky, then across at Val. Sky was angry, John worried — which is damn strange, guys like him never get like that — and Val was resigned. “What’s going to come as a surprise?” He looked at Val. “What’s going on?”
“Val has superpowers,” said Just James.
Rex tried for a second laugh, but no one joined in. “Come again?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” said the kid. “He can do things no one else can do, can’t tell anyone his real identity, and has a secret lair.”
“It’s an apartment,” said Val.
“I like the kid,” said John. “Good save on that one.”
“Val doesn’t have superpowers,” said Sky. “His girlfriend left him and he’s been staying in our apartment for the last six months. That’s pretty ordinary.”
“Baby?” said John. “Baby, five years ago Val was bitten by a werewolf. His girlfriend—”
“Danny,” said Sky.
“Danny is a werewolf too,” said John. “They turn into hideous monsters and get really angry. They don’t like silver, but near as I can tell they don’t get any older and they can’t die.”
She snorted. “There’s no such things as werewolves,” she said.
“That’s the common theory,” said John, “and usually I’d run with that. But this is real.”
“You are all,” said Sky, “on drugs.” She held up a hand. “Wait. Prove it.”
“Prove it?” said Val.
“Yeah. Turn into a werewolf.”
“I can’t,” said Val.
She snorted again. “Of course you can’t. Not a full moon?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Val. “It got … it was stolen.”
“Son,” said Rex, “and I don’t mean to intrude on what’s obviously a very personal moment, but clear something up for me. Assuming — and this is a big assumption, mind — that you are, in fact, a werewolf, how does one go about having something like that stolen?”
Val jerked a thumb over at the silver case, resting against the wall. “The case,” he said. “The case took it all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Talin wiped his hand across a mouth red with bloody drool. The Night was gaining strength each time he used it, like a muscle that wanted to be flexed. The man, Everard, that he’d tracked across half a continent and more to get to this point, had wasted this strength.
Because that’s what it was. An inner strength, no matter how it shone to outside eyes with terror and power. Talin kicked the remains at his feet, a corpse that had been torn across the chest, teeth marks in the flesh. Some of these were large, like that of a bear or something even bigger. Others were small. Talin didn’t remember when he’d changed back, or if back was really the right term. He was becoming something else, a blend of two things with one glorious purpose.
He grinned, red stains on his teeth marring the white. Before, he knew his teeth had started to rot, decaying. It was a thing that happened to the houngan — the male priests of his faith — from time to time. The power they used, that they funneled and marshaled, twisted their bodies just as it perfected the world.
A week ago, Talin had been a tiny man, scrabbling for loose coins under the couch of life. His vodou had been weak; no l’wha had responded to his call. He’d had just a few simple tricks, used to turn the minds of men against themselves. Enough to bait a collection of traps, seeded along the trail of the Night. Because of that, here he was — and soon, ruler of the world.
Still. One thing at a time. He looked down over the city from his new perch high above. He’d moved to this tower, feeling drawn to the potential of this place named after the forgettable man who’d built it, a hotel for the rich. Such stories flowed through its doors, politicians and lovers and whores and thieves. The altar had stayed behind with the old leather chair, devices he had no need of anymore. Should never have needed in the first place.
The flat roof showed him all he had made in just short days. The zombi did as he wanted; a remarkable few of the city’s rabble still scrabbling for freedom as his horde took them on the hoof. He stared down at his hands, his arms, the body he had been gifted for his audacity to steal what could not be stolen. It was changed, strength coursing along limbs made young again, the physique of an Olympian shoving aside what had been old and withered.
There were only a few things he needed to resolve before he extended his influence into the wide world, borne on the wings of Night. Three perfect quests remained. Talin held up his knife, using the blade to carve lines into his flesh. They healed almost immediately, but the marks would be graven on his soul, weighted and measured, giving him strength. Three lines, for each thing remaining. He no longer needed the snakes and rodents, the vermin that had powered his magics before. They were dross, the tiny implements of a tiny man. The Night was power itself, and upheld its end of every bargain without flinching.
The first line was cut the deepest for the man, Everard. He yet lived, with the merest fragment of the Night remaining inside. Something had gone wrong, the trap Talin laid falling short of the mark. He was like an almost empty bottle of rum, barely a swallow left in the bottom, but Talin wanted it all. And he would have it — and the man’s lover too. She was coming and he would drain the Night from her just as easily as water from a glass. She would be left gasping and begging. Or perhaps she would join him at his side, a dark bride to walk down the centuries with. He discarded the idea almost immediately — power is not to be shared.
A second line joined the first, his flesh sizzling and smoking as the knife cut through it. This was for the shrew Raeni, who continued to be a thorn in his side. Always meddling, always following, dogging his heels to the end of days. She would have to be destroyed. He’d tried before, but had … failed. As a mambos she had held the true power always denied to Talin, riding the l’wha like the cattle they were. She could still be a threat, and her instrument would be broken upon the rocks of the Earth before the end.
A helicopter buzzed overhead, Talin watching it thud over the city where the rivers met, this Chicago, another relic of squandered, forgotten power. It rode over the skies like a fat insect, lights set in nose and tail flashing as night fell across the city. They were riding higher now since his zombi had pulled one from the sky with a whispered urge. This one was watching from above, no doubt telling its masters what happened here. So was marked the third of his quests, his skin scorching under the blade, the third and final line for the guardians who stood against his conquest. A thin line of men and women who had given their service for a nation carelessly spending their lives. It was a coin of blood Talin understood well enough, and he would spend it himself before this night was done.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“His name was Thomas, and he was a soldier,” said Ajay. “Not a sailor, not something … in between, like me. A soldier first, last and always.”
“Something … hurts,” said the boy, his lashes long. They’d been the first thing she’d noticed when he’d come back like a kiss of mist on the dawn. “Something is missing.”
Ajay frowned as if he’d heard something faint, on the edge of the wind, then shot Adalia a look. “They do not always tell the truth.”
“Who the fuck doesn’t tell the truth?” said Carlisle, from the driver’s seat. She
was looking across at Ajay — Adalia could see the side of her face from her perch in the back passenger’s side. Her mom was beside her, sitting behind Carlisle. You sit there, Carlisle had said, because I don’t want you punching through the seat and killing Ajay — before I do. Her mom had given that look, the one that said things Adalia didn’t understand, but had got in the back seat anyway. “You’re being strange again, like you’re having two conversations.”
“Sorry,” said Ajay. “I forget that not all of us here can see things that cannot be seen.”
Carlisle said nothing for perhaps two heart beats, then, “You need to quit that shit. See, you’re not making any sense.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Danny, her hand clutching at the edge of Carlisle’s seat as she leaned forward. “What matters is what happened to Thomas. I can still … I can feel him, like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff.”
“The Cliffs of the Damned,” said Ajay.
“What?” said Ajay.
“They have a name,” said Ajay. “It is where the dead go when they die.”
“That doesn’t … that doesn’t sound nice,” said Carlisle.
“It isn’t always,” said the boy, his feet up near his chin. He was between Adalia and her mom, somehow not touching either of them, the space in the back of the Yukon stretching in a way that made Adalia’s head hurt to think about. No one seemed to notice him there except for her.
She pulled out her phone. How do you know?
He looked at her sideways, face pale, eyes blue against the black of his lashes. “I can’t—”
Adalia waved a hand at him. Forget it.
“Soldiers spend their lives as a … you would call it a currency,” said Ajay. “Your GIs spend their blood to buy you a freedom. Thomas spent his blood to buy something else.”
“What’s that?” said Danny, leaning forward, her eyes bright.
“Time,” said Adalia. “He bought us time.”
No one spoke inside the car for a moment, then Carlisle said, “What?”
“Yeah,” said Danny. She turned to Adalia. “What do you mean, sweetie?”
Ajay sat silent, shoulders hunched as if something was bottled up inside. Adalia watched the back of his shoulders for a moment, and when he didn’t say anything, she said, “Can’t you see? We wouldn’t have made it to Valentine in time.”
“No time left,” said the boy, “to save the world. The world would have turned around only a handful more times before the end, if we hadn’t bought a road paved in blood.” He shivered. “But I still don’t … I don’t know why I’m here.”
Ajay shifted in his seat. “There was no way we could have made it to the city where the rivers meet before the end unless we stole a little time back from the universe. Well, not stole. That’s not right, because we needed … tribute.”
“Thomas,” said Carlisle. “Let’s say for a second that I buy your voodoo—”
“Vodou,” said Ajay. “You say it wrong, like we are in a Hollywood movie.”
Carlisle blinked. “Whatever. Let’s say that I agree you’re some kind of voodoo—” and here, Ajay winced “—sailor. You go and buy us some time, or whatever, because we all know we’ve driven further and faster than is possible even if we had the Starship fucking Enterprise. So tell me, Gandalf, and this is important. I want your full attention. Who did you buy the time from?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Ajay.
“It works exactly like that,” said the boy.
Danny was looking at the space where the boy sat, blinking her eyes and turning her head. “I think I’m seeing things.”
“You’re not seeing things,” said Ajay, “because they aren’t there to be seen.”
“Maybe you should have ridden in the front,” said Carlisle, “because all I want to do is punch this guy.”
Ajay breathed out a sigh. “I know what you want, Detective,” he said. “You want what you can’t have.”
“Can’t have?” said Carlisle. “Like, world peace?”
“No,” said Ajay. He tossed his head backwards, as if in Adalia’s direction. “Your job is to be her Shield. Your chance to become what you were made to be is fast approaching.”
“Wait,” said Danny. “Melissa’s a good friend—”
“Thanks,” said Carlisle.
“—But I’m Adalia’s mother,” said Danny. “And, lest we forget, a werewolf. I think I’ve got the job of shield.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said the boy.
“What do you mean?” said Adalia. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean that I’m going to look after you,” said Danny. “It’s kind of what I signed up for.”
“You each play a part.” Ajay’s jaw clenched. “The … roles we are given.”
Adalia leaned forward, almost touching the boy. He looked like he wanted to pull away and stay at the same time, and she gave him a little smile before speaking. “The Shield. The Sword. The Knight.” She licked her lips, wanting to stop, but the words kept tumbling from her. “Sacrifice, Guide, and the Doubtful Soldier. The Good Right Arm. The Lost Warrior.”
Ajay was nodding as she spoke, until she hit the last role. Lost Warrior. “Who is that?” he said.
“Her,” said the boy, pointing out the windscreen. They were rounding a bend formed from a bank lined with trees. On the other side of the bend was the remains of a barricade, an overturned Humvee lying on the road, wheels still turning. Carlisle slammed on the brakes, the Yukon slowing as the ABS stammered against the snowy ground. Soldiers were running around with what looked like ordinary people running among them, biting, clawing … and feeding.
The rapid hammer of automatic weapons fire sounded close to them, holes appearing in rapid succession across the hood before the windscreen of the Yukon was gone in a shower of fragments. Without it, the cold and the noise of the outskirts of Chicago poured in to the cabin, the sound of fighting and dying. The sound of war. Carlisle was wrenching the wheel, her eyes squeezed shut as the Yukon bucked and slewed across the road, tires screaming. The vehicle almost tipped before sitting back on its haunches.
Ahead of them, standing in the middle of the road, was a handful of soldiers in combat fatigues, rifles firing. In their midst was a woman, a little older than Melissa, and Adalia could see the burden that had made her lose her way pushing her to the ground and carrying her up at the same time. It gave her fear. It gave her strength. It gifted her with purpose. “There,” said Adalia, a kind of nervous energy making her shift in her seat. It wasn’t fear of what was happening outside the Yukon — it was something that clicked inside her as she saw the woman. “Right there. The Lost Warrior.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
They were standing around, looking at the case. It sat on the table in the middle of them. The rounded metal corners of the thick case meant Val couldn’t help but think of a bloated spider, heavy after feeding. The front was still chipped and scratched, the latches buckled from when Val had forced it. They’d pushed them closed, but a casual flick would set them open again.
Rex was reaching for it. Val stopped him, a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Rex looked at him, then at the case, then back to him. “It’s just a box with a handle.”
“It is,” said John, “the gateway to Abaddon.”
“Isn’t Abaddon a dude? Like an angel?” Sky was crouched down in front of the case. Val felt a tingle of apprehension as she sat there — as they all sat there — around this thing that had done so much harm.
“It’s a dude and a place,” said John.
“Bottomless pit,” said Just James, scratching behind his ear.
“My point,” said John, nodding at Just James. “Thanks, kid.”
“No problem,” said Just James. “So, are we going to open it?”
“No,” said John and Val, at the same time. Val looked at John, then said, “I think it would be a bad idea to open it again.”
“I must say,” said John, “you’re taking this whole sorcery thing pretty well. Not having much trouble suspending disbelief.”
“I got pulled out of a burning bus by a guy with superhuman strength,” said Just James. “It got me thinking.”
“The only superpower that Val has is doing our laundry,” said Sky. She cocked her head to one side. “Also, the place has been spotless since he moved in.”
“I lived alone for a while,” said Val. “I learned some skills. Look, just don’t open the case.”
“Val,” said Rex, looking up at him. The old man rubbed a weathered hand against stubble growing strong despite the gray in it. “We need to open it. Find out what we’re dealing with.”
Val turned and walked to the windows looking out over the city. Smoke was rising from down the street, cars scattered in a panicked gridlock. There had been no orderly exit, just a rush for the exits as madness descended on the city. The old man had a point — there was a responsibility to put this right. He nodded to himself, then turned around. But a bit of caution would go a long way. It seemed unlikely that just one of these cases had been in Chicago, and Val had to wonder what happened to the other ones, or the people that had found them. “Rex—” Val froze. The old man had moved away to the kitchen, the breakfast bar between them.
John was standing with an astonished look on his face. “The old timer moves pretty quick.”
“I used to pull people out of buildings that were on fire,” said Rex. “That kind of thing motivates you.” He had the case with him, and he laid it on the breakfast bar. “I owe you one anyway,” he said, his eyes on Val, before he turned his face away and flicked the lid open.
Night's Fall (Night's Champion Book 2) Page 19
