"No, but it's the only chance I have."
"Good luck," Cummings said.
"You too." I hung up the phone and made the left turn, putting the cemetery clearly in my view after another minute. Standing out in the middle of the street I noticed a rather large crowd gathering in front. It was too dark to make out any of the faces or what they were doing, but something told me they shouldn't be there. Sure the area was clear, which would've given them a fairly unobstructed view of the fireworks display just to the east. But I could think of a better place to watch them from, instead of at the front gates of a cemetery.
I crept closer, using the bushes and trees on the nearby center island to give me some cover. Something wasn't right. Why would Abby have the cab driver stay in the middle of a crowd of people just to wait on me. Surely she would've had him park somewhere else, if only to make sure someone else didn't give him a better deal to get them out first.
Across the street, I noticed a couple walking by, holding hands, passing close to the crowd. They made it to the corner before the woman stopped, looked towards the crowd that had started sauntering over to the couple, and screamed.
My natural instincts wanted desperately to pull me to the couple to help, but there wasn't anything I could do to save them from the massive horde of undead standing in the middle of the road.
With the horde currently distracted, I shot back across the street at a sprint, not stopping until I was back on St. Peter. Frantically, I pulled out my phone and pulled up the last number that called, and pressed dial.
"Cummings."
"It was a trap. There's a group of the dead heading towards the display now."
"Where are they now?"
Screams filled the air just south of me, telling me the horde was somewhere in the middle of the French Quarter causing havoc to the partiers who opted to celebrate in the taverns and bars instead of down on the riverfront.
"Getting close to you. Get your people ready."
He didn't say another word, opting to drop the call instead. Probably to get on a frequency to communicate to the other agents stationed around the area. I put my phone away and focused on the one thing I could control. Finding Abby. With her minions now on the attack, and the death aura well in play, I knew she had to be close. Trying to find her in the middle of the French Quarter was going to be hard enough, without adding the extra people here for the holiday. I needed something to draw her out into the open, but I'd thrown it away on my way to the cemetery.
It was hopeless. I wanted to kick myself for throwing away my only bargaining chip. It was the one thing keeping her in line. The bright point was that Abby didn't have the necklace. Rachel did. She was capable enough against smaller groupings of the dead, but even I doubted her ability if she were to run up against the horde. Especially with a tail.
I took off at a sprint, hoping to find a sign of Rachel somewhere in the chaos. The odds were well against me in a city this size, but if she was wearing her black outfit, it would make it just a little easier since most of the crowd was wearing stuff that was a little more festive. Not to mention cooler.
When I reached the Krazy Korner, the scene outside was still calm, but just down the street I noticed a crowd of people sprinting towards me, away from the first of the undead rounding the corner. The first gunshots echoed through the streets. They wouldn't have been noticeable if it weren't for the direction of the sound. The shots came from the north, well away from the display.
I filed in with the crowd as they fled from the undead all the while looking for any sign of Abby, Cedric, or Rachel as we charged through the streets. I kept to the sidewalk as much as possible, waiting for an opportunity to duck off as I felt like a lemming in the crowd, rushing off to my death. Being caught in a crowd in this situation is as good as a death sentence, one I wasn't willingly going to accept.
When the crowd passed Royal, I ducked off to my right onto the street finding myself trapped between two massive hordes. One being the group of people who were scurrying to safety just behind me. The other, the group of undead up ahead looking for an easy meal. I darted for a nearby trash can and ducked down, hoping to avoid the attention of the undead at least, since they were the ones actively looking to kill me. Being here made it difficult to tell what direction the loud pops were coming from as the sound echoing off the buildings was nearly drowned out by the crowds. In either case the pops were happening a lot faster now meaning the agents were either unloading into the undead at an increased rate, or the fireworks display was speeding up.
I was about to get up when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Thankfully, I avoided jumping out of my skin, but my heart wasn't so lucky as my heart rate shot up to nearly double the speed it was. I looked back noticing Rachel standing above me with a displeased look on her face. I was willing to put good money on the reason for the face. It was kneeling down in front of her.
"I won't ask why you discarded the relic in the trash like any other piece of rubbish, but I do want to know why you didn't call me when you found this."
"Things have been a little crazy since we last talked," I said, peering around the side of the garbage can. "What is it anyways?"
"It is a necklace that once belonged to my great grandfather, Hugo Renou. He believed it had magical properties to help ward off the dead."
"Why'd he need to ward off the dead? Did one of the mummies get ticked off that he discovered his tomb?"
"More than one," she said without so much as a blink. "Magical curses have been around a long time. Did you know, some of the pharaohs had their personal guards mummified along with them when they died. The priests handling the ritual would mark the bandages with a spell that would activate the moment someone entered the tomb. The only problem was that the spell would activate too early. Even while the servants placed the pharaoh's riches in the tomb."
"I've seen it in movies, but never heard about it really happening."
"Hugo escaped many close calls over the years, many thanks to this," she pulled the necklace out of her pants pocket, "worthless piece of garbage."
"About that," I said. "The woman you are after has a friend of mine. She told me to put the necklace in the trash or she would have a friend of mine killed. You were the last person I expected to recover it."
"I barely got there before her companion," she said. "Lost him in the crowd around the cathedral."
"Did you get a good look at him?"
She shook her head. "Only that he was tall and had no hair."
I sighed. Even the most observant and tactful person I knew didn't catch a good glimpse of him. Even with various witnesses saying they noticed a tall bald man on the scene wouldn't be enough to bring an accusation against him to the council. Even now I could smell his involvement in the chaos, all seemingly revolving around me.
"How does the necklace work?" I asked. "My friend was working on it before she was captured. I was hoping to figure it out long before now."
"I'm not really sure," she said, examining it. "He always said it allowed him to get out of some sticky situations."
"Then why would Abby want it? Other than the fact she controls the dead."
"I don't have that answer. Maybe she just wants to make sure her victims are unable to escape."
"Could be it. That or she wanted whatever advantage it gives."
"Or perhaps I just wanted to place it on the mantle next to Hugo's skull," a voice said from behind us.
I turned around, still kneeling beside the trash can and noticed Abby standing in the middle of the street clutching her glowing broomstick. Behind her, the crowd still filed down the street in a tangled mess of bodies fleeing from a threat most of them hadn't seen.
"I'm disappointed in you, Raymond. I thought we had a deal. Drop the necklace then catch a cab back to the hotel."
"Your deal involve having your little pets standing outside the cemetery the whole time?"
She smiled. "No," she admitted. "I left them inside the gates. Some
one probably heard a noise and opened them. I would have words with them, but something tells me they won't understand what I'm saying anymore."
I stood up and clutched the handle of my sword as I took a few steps towards the witch. "Where's Stacy?"
"Your little friend is taking a little nap. When she wakes up, she won't have a clue where she's at, or how she got here." Abby got in a fighting stance and held her broomstick in her arms, bristle side aimed right at me. "I'm going to have so much fun with a skinchanger in my army. She will be my personal assassin. When people finally suspect something is wrong, it will be too late."
Rachel screamed as she leapt at the woman, pulling a sword out of a sheath on her back and a dagger from one on her hip. The necklace was still in hand, wrapped around her palm with the amulet dangling below the pommel.
Abby turned the broom at the attacking woman, then fired off a bolt of sick green energy at her. The blast hit Rachel square in the chest and sent her flying down the street, stopping only when her body slammed through the windshield of a Dodge Dart parked alongside the road. Her swords clanged off the pavement, sparking as the metal hit the road. I looked desperately for the necklace, but couldn't find it. It was either still wrapped around her hand, or it had been thrown back to the ground in the attack. Neither was a good thing with Abby standing in front of me, cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz.
I took my hand off the hilt of my sword and took a few steps back, raising my hands in the air. "It doesn't have to be like this," I said.
"It's too late for that, Raymond. If I allow you to live, you will take everything that happened to your precious council. That will begin a manhunt like no other. There are those inside your ranks that would kill me in a matter of seconds. I will let them know of me soon enough. Once my preparations are complete."
"I thought you were some badass who was ready to take on the world? Can't handle a fair fight?"
Abby laughed. "You are so cute. But no. Fair fights aren't very... pleasant. I want to crush the council and its members like a thousand little ants underneath my boot. When the time is right, they will be hopeless to stop me."
One of the shells from the fireworks display exploded overhead, creating a flash of light that illuminated the dark street. On Abby's wrist I noticed a silver bracelet with several charms attached to it dangling to the ground. On her hand she had four different rings, one for each finger on the hand. I didn't notice any other jewelry, but guessed if she had it, the pieces would've been worn under her clothing in an attempt to hide it from prying eyes.
"Nice jewelry," I said, still backing away. "Get the rings and bracelet from other dead people?"
"They didn't need it anymore. Besides, they hardly knew how to properly use them."
Without having them examined, I wouldn't be able to know what they did, but my best guess told me they were the primary source of her power. I was willing to bet that those were the reason she was more powerful than any other death witch in existence.
While backing away I noticed Abby nod her head ever so slightly. I dropped to the ground and pulled out my sword on the way down, then turned as I drew the blade, slicing my would-be attacker in half at the waist. The top half of the body dropped to the ground with a sickly thud as its intestines poured out onto the pavement. The legs, no longer with anything to support, took two feeble steps before collapsing to the earth as well.
As I got up, I took a good look at the man on the ground. He was tall and bald, with dozens of dark colored lacerations across his smooth face. His eyes were dark and lifeless as well as recessed in his skull. He'd been dead for a while now.
Was this the man she'd sent after Rachel to recover the necklace in the first place?
Sword still in hand, I faced Abby while getting into a general fighting stance with the blade. "You have to do better than that."
All around, the sound of screams filled the air, making the scene sound more like a haunted house than a celebration. Abby sneered as she held her arms to the side. "You are too late. Soon, I will have an army large enough to conquer the United States."
"It's never too late," I said, removing my bottom hand from the hilt of my sword and reaching for one of the stun grenades attached to my belt. "All it takes is one well placed bullet to the head for all your fun to come to an end."
"This is not fun!" she shouted, stomping her foot on the ground. "This is my legacy to this shattered world. A grim reality of what awaits us in the afterlife."
"Somehow I doubt the afterlife is just a bunch of people trying to eat each other."
"The afterlife mimics reality. If something happens down here on Earth, it will happen in the after."
I waited until she was distracted to pull the grenade off my belt. The safety pin popped off from my belt as I ripped the grenade away, holding the handle for safety. When she raised her hands triumphantly to some unknown god or another, I tossed it at her then fell to the ground, making sure to cover my eyes and ears.
Even though my feeble protections, the light was near blinding to my closed eyes through the cracks of my arm and the sound of the explosion had my ears ringing. Once the blast was over, I stood up and tried to draw in enough essence to finish this for good, but found myself still shielded from the source. A cloud of smoke filled the air, making it difficult to breathe and see. Barely visible in the cloud Abby was doubled over in pain, holding her ears with her hands.
How was this possible? As she writhed on the ground, her concentration had to be shattered. Why was I still cut off?
I shrugged off the thought, knowing there was still another option. Gripping the hilt of my sword with two hands, I rushed at Abby with my sword in the air, preparing to remove the witch's head when I got close enough. Five feet away, I started the downward movement with the blade when a blast of green energy hit me squarely in the chest. The force of the spell sent me flying backwards in the air.
Pain shot through my arm and hip as my body slammed into the hood of a parked car, followed by pain in my head as it crashed into the hood, denting it. The force of the blast sent my legs tumbling over my head, causing me to land on the pavement on my stomach.
I tried to stand up, but my leg struggled for purchase thanks to the jarring pain radiating from my hip. It was horrendous. Through all the negative that had just happened, the positive was that I had landed on the iron necklace as it lay on the pavement not far from Rachel's outstretched hand.
If I felt bad, Rachel looked even worse. She had a broken nose and jaw, distorting her otherwise beautiful face. Trails of blood ran from her wounds, pooling on the pavement under her cheek. Her right arm was set at an awkward angle, looking like the arm had shattered both right below her wrist and above the elbow. The one thing she had going for her was that she was still clearly alive, a fact I confirmed when I noticed her chest swell and contract as I glanced over.
Abby laughed as she walked through the cloud of smoke, clutching her broomstick the same way a hunter would hold a shotgun aimed at its prey. "I hope you enjoyed your last act, Raymond. It's a shame one of my dead isn't close enough to turn you. The damage I could cause with your shattered corpse would be legendary!"
Just in front of me on the ground, I noticed the hilt of my sword under the car I'd crashed into. As Abby crept closer, I slowly reached my good arm under the car for the weapon while clenching my fist around the necklace with another. She stopped about ten feet away as her brooms sickly green glow changed to one of glimmering gold.
"Décalage," I heard a raspy voice say to my left.
"What?" I said to Rachel, whose eyes were now wide open.
"The necklace is French. You activate it by saying décalage and focusing on your target."
There wasn't time to question her. I had one chance to make this work, otherwise I was going to die. I glared at Abby as her broom changed again to a near blinding white, focusing my gaze on the pavement right behind her. As my fingers wrapped around the blade of my swo
rd I shouted, "décalage!"
I saw the flash of light leave her broom, aimed at the remnants of my body still lying prone on the pavement. As the blast hit, however, my body faded from existence, causing her spell to scorch the pavement and bubble the paint on the car. I'll be damned, Max was right. Teleporting does place your body in two places at once.
Rachel rolled out of the way to avoid the aftereffects of the blast, but her clothes still happened to ignite from the near miss.
As I swung my sword, I wished I could see the expression on her face as the strike hit. Instead, I settled with knowing she would spend the rest of her life behind magical bars, answering for her crimes here this week.
The edge of my blade caught Abby's arm, right above the wrist, narrowly missing her dangling bracelet. The bones in her arm offered no resistance as the blade cut through skin and bone alike, severing her hand from her body. Blood shot out of the wound near instantly, mimicking the beating of her heart though it sped up as she realized what happened.
I felt my attachment to magic return as the lifeless hand hit the ground, so I drew in as much essence as possible and converted it to a flame that leapt into my hand as I dropped my now bloodied blade. I grabbed her severed arm with one hand and placed my flaming palm on the stump with the other. The sickly smell of burning copper filled the air as the wound cauterized, sending tendrils of steaming blood into the air. Abby barely had a chance to scream when the pain caused her to black out and fall to the pavement. My body collapsed beside hers as my hip failed to support my weight.
- 31 -
All around the screams slowly came to a stop as the grand finale thundered above. Rachel limped over, holding her shattered arm in place with her other, to look at the witch who was now on the ground. "Good work, Raymond," she said, kicking Abby's hand away from her body.
"Easy there. Doctors should be able to reattach the hand." Without a way to keep the hand cold or to even protect it, it was doubtful, but even after all Abby had done, she deserved the chance to get it reattached. I knelt down and grabbed the hand, pulling the jewelry off of it and putting it into my pocket along with the necklace I carried here to begin with.
Dead of Night: The Nephalem Files (Book 3) Page 19
