“Deluge of battle?” Holy said.
I chuckled. You and the Old Man should hang out together; you have a lot in common.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yeah, there are angels not as straight-laced and proper, and you both raise storms with your magic. You do cloud and lightning and he does wet—a whole lot of wet.” I led the way to intersecting halls, turning toward the stairs.
“Ooo, I love wet,” Holy said.
I was about to make a dirty crack about Holy’s crack, when Ryella jumped into the conversation. “It isn’t fair. I’m storm fey and I can’t get a wet wind to save my life.”
We came to the stairs. I opened the door and we went inside the stairwell.
“You just need the right man to blow you,” I said.
“Don’t be crude,” the Old Man said.
I stopped in the middle of a flight of stairs, and turned, for once able to glare at him eye to eye. “You’re saying that now? And you’ve known me for how many years?”
“It’s crowded in here,” Shiva said. “Keep moving before I accidentally step on someone.”
I noticed she was very careful not to specifically mention who she’d step on. “When we get back, I’m implementing sensitivity training for everyone—but me. I’m beyond saving, but you guys need brushing up.” I turned and continued up. We exited at the third floor, a level I wasn’t familiar with.
“Holy, you’ve been all over this place, right? Where’s the roof access?”
She gestured. “Go that way, then right, and keep going. You’ll see open stairs to a roof landing before reaching the end of the hall.”
“Okay, got it. The rest of you find places to hide until the revenant gets here. I’ll phone if I see it first from the roof. Those of you who can’t work a fucking phone,” I glared at the storm fey, “just follow Holy and Shiva if you hear them break from cover and start running.”
I got a round of nods from the fey. With a last glare, I went on, leading Osamu and the Old Man toward the coming violence. I smiled, almost tasting the blood now. A happy song whispered off my lips. “See, anybody could be good to you, you need a bad girl to blow your mind.” I might sing in rare moments, but not loud enough to draw criticism. I know my limitations. There are somethings I’ll never be good at.
My cell phone played Angie’s ringtone: Bang, Bang. The same song I’d almost been singing. I must be psychic. As we rounded the next corner, I took out my phone. Angie was my big bad wolf—literally—and a lawyer as well, twice a wolf. She ran the wolf pack in L.A. A mental image of her cascading red hair and her hot, toned, naked flesh flashed across my mind’s eye. It had been way too long since I’d last, uh, consulted her.
I answered the call. “Caine here.”
“Caine! Are you all right? I just heard. It hasn’t fallen off yet has it?”
“Has what fallen off?”
“Leona just told me you have a mystical STD.” Angie’s voice lowered to a stage whisper. “They’re calling you the poisoned cock of doom. We need to get ahead of the legal liability on this. You can’t sleep with anyone until it gets cleared up.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” The revenant going to pay in buckets of blood. Blood made me think of Leona. She has a stuffed bear she sleeps with. She thinks I don’t know. I smiled, thinking about a gun at the bear’s head, slowly squeezing the trigger. Stuffing is going to fly everywhere!
“Caine? Are you there?”
“Angie, baby, excuse me, but I’ve got to go kill something now.”
Osamu’s face was respectfully bland. Not even a twinge of sympathy. He knew my hatred of pity—when it doesn’t serve a greater good. The Old Man was silent, but his huge smile needed no words.
“Shut up!” I said.
We reached the stairs to the roof. My own smile—my battle mask—stretched my face. I pounded up the steps, kicked open the door, and burst out onto the roof, leaving the little booth that sheltered the roof access.
The Old Man and Osamu had stayed close, but then with my nod from me, they fanned out, on the lookout for trouble. I knew it was improbable for the revenant to show up this soon after my arrival on the property, but I wasn’t about to get stupid-careless when caution is seldom lethal.
The noon sun baked down, putting my shadow under me as I glided across concrete, heading for the fifteen by fifteen foot brass yantra that I had earlier discovered. On the way, I noticed that Teresa’s people had been up here planting cameras everywhere. I knew she was watching us from her van out front. I waved at a camera as I went by. I hadn’t told her about the yantra, or that I expected a showdown up here.
Thorn probably told her, for a price. That kid’s going to own a corporate empire someday. Note to self: keep track of all her stock market investments.
The cameras were thicker around the yantra’s brass work. I took this as confirmation that the revenant would die here, and that I could get my final check from Teresa.
I shot the Old Man a sharp glance. “I can’t use dragon fire here to destroy it. The whole place would go up, and the rest of the guys are hiding downstairs. Lightning would do it—the same temperature as a plasma torch—but we’d have to use a steady stream of electricity; ten seconds maybe to cut it into disposable sections we can toss off the roof.”
The Old Man said, “I need to wait until the revenant arrives and our people get up here. Then, if I set the building on fire, Holy or I can draw rain to put out the blaze, and you’ll still have back up.”
He lifted his face to the sunny sky, communing with it. Sunlight gleamed off his shaved blue head. Several minutes later, the sky darkened. Black-gray clouds scuttled in, blocking out the sun. The overcast flickered with ragged ribbons of lightning. My shadow vanished. The clouds grumbled at being disturbed. The air grew wet.
Ryella would have been envious if she could have seen this.
“Good party trick,” Osamu said. “Speaking of which…”
He held his hand out—the one with the brand—and his demon sword popped in. The blade was less intelligent than my own, a lot less trouble, but just as good an edge adorned it. He took a low, bent knee stance; horse stance, meant to generate maximum power by Japanese martial arts. In that position, a safe distance away from the Old Man and me, he made a few experimental slashes and thrusts against imaginary swordsmen. They died, one by one, making him smile.
I summoned two Storm PX4’s to my hands, wondering when the scumbag revenant was going to get here. I expected he’d come up through the building, or maybe even climb the outside of it, smelling me on the wind. What I didn’t expect was that he’d use his ghostly levitating power to fly high into the sky so he could drop on me like a cinderblock.
Which he did.
I was crushed to the concrete. It crumpled, webbing under my suit. My breath was slammed away. I felt a few ribs break. Had I been human, I’d have died instantly.
Focus, damn it. Fight back.
His hiss of triumph filled my ears. I smelled dripping venom. Sizzling drops smoked the concrete near my head. I knew I was heartbeats away from being bitten. The suit could probably turn the fangs away, but then he could always bite me in the face.
Rage surged; my blood boiled. Adrenaline hit my system, a copper taste on my tongue. I spun, one hand against my broken ribs, teeth gritted in agony, and swept my other arm blindly—the attached short sword slicing air.
No contact; the revenant had moved.
1
THIRTY-ONE
“Death is for other people, and things.”
—Caine Deathwalker
Osamu intercepted my blind swing. Our swords clashed, scraping. Then I saw the Old Man had rushed in to pluck the revenant off me. I’d come very close to slashing my adoptive father across the side. Osamu had spared me a load of guilt.
The Old Man had the revenant by the neck, slowly crushing it, forcing his head and fangs away. The creature’s feet dangled off the ground. He pounded a fist into the Old Man
’s arms but they didn’t weaken or budge.
The Old Man’s face was grim and hard, lightning blazing in his eyes. Mirroring his mood, the sky was bruised, black, charcoal, and purple clouds seethed and roiled. Webs of electrical fire burned in them. A heavy rain fell.
“I expected more,” the Old Man said.
The sound of running feet told me reinforcements had arrived. I stayed where I was, making a strategic decision; plan for worse case, always. “Osamu, the yantra. Your sword can cut the brass. I want it in pieces.”
“Yes, Caine-sama.” He moved quickly to do as I’d ordered. Running off, taking a deep horse stance, he postured for his first swing—and got tackled by a nagi who’d come across the roof from an unexpected direction. She was snake from the waist down and human otherwise. Hissing, she was climbing Osamu like a tree.
Fuck! I knew it. Things were going too well so of course the revenant’s girlfriend has to pop up, too.
The fey men waved swords around, trying to move in on the nagi without hurting Osamu. Ryella hung back, an amulet in both hands, waiting for a clear shot.
My instincts screamed at me that I really didn’t want the nagi to die up here and have their blood and energy tangled up in a yantra keyed to a snake deity.
Why did I not think of that earlier? Still not myself.
Shiva moved behind the revenant in the Old Man’s clutches. Using a boxer’s stance, she punched his kidneys with all her stony strength. Then a punch to his spine. I heard vertebra breaking. And knew it wasn’t enough. Damaging dead things doesn’t really hurt them, or often slow them down, especially when they have nagi shape-shifting strength and cellular regeneration.
The revenant’s lower body finished changing. The legs were fused and scaled. The upper body was all snake as well. This made the revenant even bigger, and harder to hang onto as the heavy rain made him slick. Flailing, tail slashing, body clubbing, the snake burst free.
The Old Man muttered something suspiciously close to a bad word. He reached skyward to drag down some lightning.
Fuck no. We weren’t all in an insulated battle suit. Standing on wet concrete, meant we couldn’t bring out lightning. And Hell help us if the storm dropped a high-voltage bolt on the rooftop.
Holy pushed Ryella toward me and said, “I’ve got this. You help the boss. He looks hurt.”
Every breath was a knife in my side. My back hurt fiercely, and I’d done something bad to one knee. But I knew a mistake when I saw it. Holy’s answer to the girlfriend was going to be a friggin’ bolt of lightning once Osamu was clear.
I tried to yell a warning. “No, lightning. The rain will—”
The damned snake suddenly remembered it wanted me dead. It lunged my way, maw wide, fangs leading the way. I braced myself as best as I could, bringing my forearms up to block with the attached swords.
Ryella knelt beside me, an amulet extended in her hand like a gun about to go off.
“No lightning,” I repeated.
The snake coiled up mid-air like it had slammed into an invisible wall. “Iron Air spell. I can do that two more times.”
“I got this,” I said. “Make sure Holy doesn’t fry us all.”
Ryella looked down at the accumulating water. Her eyes got very big. And then she was gone, running back to Holy.
And Mr. Snake was up, shaking his head, glaring hate and annoyance.
I’ve got to go on the attack. Playing defense sucks ass. Going to risk a spell.
Dragon Flame could fry friend and foe as easily as lightning. I decided on Demon Wings instead. That would let me get in close to the snake. Now where did I drop my guns? No matter. I concentrated and they went back to my armory as a fresh set of semi-automatics filled my hands.
I pulled raw magic—slightly contaminated magic—to the tattoo across my shoulders. The tribal-style wings absorbed the magic that activated the magic in the ink. Pain came for payment of the magic. It now felt like my ribs were being sawed off while my fingers went into a meat-grinder.
Double fuck.
I lifted my guns and let mf-tipped bullets fly.
And missed as my slugs hit the Iron Air still dissipating. My bullets went through, but were deflected, like shooting in water. Miniature explosions bloomed all around the snake without doing more than showering him with concrete chips.
Not trusting my knee to support me, I stayed grounded, dragging myself to a new position. He knew where I’d been; that place wasn’t safe. From my new vantage point, a great deal closer to the yantra, I took aim again.
The snake’s head swung toward me. He stared at the guns as if he could see them.
The Old Man yelled at me. “Caine, I can see the guns.”
I let go of them. They ghosted away, returning to my armory. I rolled away, getting clear of that spot. Banging my knee in the process. Damnmitdamnitdamnit!
The giant snake heaved himself to the spot I’d just left. He thrashed, unable to see me, but knowing I was close. His head swayed. His garnet tongue flicked out, tasting the air.
The Old Man had his lightning-shaped sword out. He ran at the snake, drawing its attention away from finding me. The only thing I could figure was that my Demon Wings you-don’t-see-me spell had been weakened with the poison in my system, which I’d known was possible. I was still being shielded, but not the things I touched, maybe not anything I might say. I couldn’t be sure when the spell might collapse and totally expose me.
While I had a second to spare, I looked to see how Osamu and the girls were doing against the nagi. A billow of fog made details blurry. Osamu had escaped the lady snake. He and the two fey warriors were flat shadows surrounding her. Swords struck in unison. One went into her torso, one slashed her tail-tip off, and the last sword lopped off her head and sent it flying. The nagi collapsed, dead but writhing in death as snakes tend to do.
The fog thinned and I saw Ryella and Holy behind the yantra. Fresh arterial blood from the nagi had spurted everywhere. A lot of it had washed across the yantra. A twisted sea-foam spray leaked from the headless corpse—a soul on the way to wherever. The nagi soul sank into the yantra and vanished. The brass grillwork corroded and turned butter soft in the blood splattered areas. The whole pattern of brass deepened to a hunter green. Glimmers of lime twinkled along the metal as it morphed into something not of our world. The grill legs that were anchored in the concrete shivered and rippled. I had the weird impression that the whole thing was trying to pull loose and go for a walk.
Not good, but not OMG-I’m-gonna-die either, not yet. We need to end the revenant fast so we can deal with a freakin’ yantra coming to life.
I looked back at the Old Man. He’d driven his made-in-China sword through the revenant’s snake form, piercing its heart, pinning it to the concrete and whatever lay under that.
The snake hissed like escaping steam, twisting its undead body violently, trying to pull free.
The Old Man retreated, but he wasn’t done; a band of shadow formed like a collar on the snake, just behind its head. The band was shadow, thick, strangling. The Old Man was using shadow magic to choke the snake and restrain it.
Good idea.
I reached deep in my spirit for the darkness buried there. I called it to hand, shaping the emptiness into a blade that jutted from my hands. I didn’t move to swing or stab. I didn’t need to. The blade was an extension of my dark desires. It lengthened—sword into spear—and pierced the giant snake, in one eye, out the other.
And then Ryella was there. She tossed an amulet, chain and all, at the wounded monster. A bile green mist frothed up out of the amulet. The swirling vapor clung to the snake’s skin, eating it away. In a moment, the muscles became soup, dripping away. Organs rotted into black clumps. The acid mist thinned to nothing, leaving a white spine and countless curved ribs, all picked clean.
Even the Old Man looked impressed.
As if she hadn’t done enough, Ryella unsheathed her war hammer, walking up to the eyeless skull that was finally still. S
he raised her hammer and brought it down.
Thwunkk!
Pieces of skull rattled around, tumbling like leaves. Another blow broke the skull completely open, showing an empty braincase where no brain remained.
The shadow weapon I held smoked away.
For some reason, my heart pounded with a terrible urgency. My hands were shaking, but I didn’t think it was an adrenal reaction setting in. I felt my Demon Wings tattoo go dormant and knew it had lost power. I was visible again.
Suddenly, seeing me from the corner of her eye, Ryella spun my way, leaping, the hammer raised over her head. Realizing it was me, I saw the temptation in her eyes to just continue and bash my head in, a mistake made in the heat of battle. Accidents happen. Cue the big goofy smile.
But she stopped, honor outweighing vengeance. I wouldn’t have made that mistake.
A frosty green light hung in the air, a blobby, spiky mass of spectral energy. This was the unified energy of the revenant’s many eaten ghosts. The revenant’s corporal death had freed the spirits. The shape of the ghost-light kept changing, as if it fought an internal war. The strongest ghost in there was the naga baby, but if the others were coordinating an attack…
I heard a drawn out metallic screech behind me that made me look. It was the yantra pulling free of the concrete. Some of its metal was left in the splintered concrete. The square fifteen-by-fifteen foot grid was bowed, its corners almost meeting underneath it. From the corners, the brass legs tapered, thinning, becoming spider legs. Inside the brass shell, in the hollow core, I saw a spectral face, the revenant’s girlfriend—just her head and shoulders materialized. Her gaze focused on the cluster of fighting ghosts.
She tottered that direction.
Osamu slashed one of her legs, severing it, but more of the brass flowed down to extend the limb. The yantra bobbed but recovered its step. It put on a burst of speed and scuttled into the struggling ghosts. They bled through the brass grillwork and joined the ghost inside, becoming an even more chaotic fusion. The girlfriend’s face dissolved. The yantra wobbled and spun in a frenzied dance.
Demon Lord 6: Garnet Tongue Goddess Page 23
