by Sara Hanover
“You look prepared.”
“I’ve my ax and shield in the car.”
He was.
That left my mom. As I sized her up, Gregory said, “She’s taken care of.”
“How?”
Mom rebuked me. “Don’t be a doubter, Tessa.”
I curled my fingers around an unclaimed mug and pulled it toward me to add cream and sugar. “Curious.”
“She’s bespelled.”
“Until you drop?” I raised an eyebrow at our wizard. I took a cautious sip. The coffee was gloriously hot and wonderfully flavored. Someone had ground some good beans and brought them to our kitchen.
“I won’t drop.” Gregory gave me a hard look. “None of us will.”
“Today is the day?”
Carter nodded. Jam dotted the corner of his mouth. I so wanted to kiss it away yet knew I couldn’t, not in front of everyone. Scout left Evelyn and came to me, leaning heavily on my legs, and rolled his eyes up at me. I gave him a flaky corner off the first biscuit that came my way. I opened my mouth to tell everyone about my father and the stone, but my father’s voice flooded my mind.
“Don’t.”
So I didn’t, instead stuffing another bite in before swallowing the last completely and dabbing the melted butter off my chin.
“Manners,” my mother chided.
“Sorry.” A few crumbs flew out, and I ducked my head. I could understand why Dad didn’t want them alerted since his plan stipulated that I get overwhelmingly close to a set of very sharp fangs. Carter wouldn’t allow it if I telegraphed it early, for which I felt grateful and annoyed. If I had to do what I had to do, it would be nice to have backup.
Evelyn asked, “Why do you need me?”
“You open doors.”
She tilted her head. Someone had braided her pale blonde hair tightly and wrapped it closely about, so that it couldn’t be grabbed. I imagined it was Hiram, who had obviously been in a pitched battle once or twice, and had had Mortimer as one of his instructors. I ought to have my brunette hair fixed as well and cleared my throat to ask if she or Carter could do it, but my father’s ghostly voice stopped me again. Seriously? He wanted the vampire to grab me by my pony tail and reel me in?
Yes, he did.
“Doors?”
“You can see into the future enough to wedge our way into a protected building, we are betting.”
Evelyn frowned slightly. “I dreamed of that last night, I think. Two paths, one victorious and one disastrous. I don’t remember much more than being terrified. But the door, yes. A thick wooden door, chestnut wood, with a great carven B on it, and slightly scarred from many passages over the years. Worn and antiqued.”
She nailed the description. I hunched down on my chair and decided to rub Scout’s soft ears and neck wrinkles to hide my upset. I told him what a good dog he was. I really had no idea of my father’s exact plan, but my feelings about it grew worse and worse. If Carter or any of the others heard a word of my intention, I’d be hog-tied and left by the side of the road.
I had a couple of aces in my pocket that I dared not think or talk about because it seemed very probable that I would be argued out of them. Beyond that, I had my three offensive spells, my bracers, and whatever shields the maelstrom stone could produce before my father took it over for his offensive. I had my own trusty hockey stick as well.
Gregory put his hand on my shoulder, startling me a bit before I shrugged him off. “No spells for me. Mom needs all the power you can spare.”
He patted me instead. “You’ve a point. And, I trust, Carter will be looking out for you.”
Carter assessed me before smiling a bit, that little offset dimple in his chin deepening. “She’ll be fine.” He dusted his hands off on his napkin. “When do we want to bring in Malender?”
“Not until we’re deep enough into the Butchery to see our target.”
“You’re going to ask him to help?”
I nodded at my mother. “He owes me, and he has a score to settle with the Master, as well. We can’t be sure he’ll help, but I think he might.” I paused for a minute. “That’s right. You’ve never seen him in action.”
“No.”
“He looks like a troubadour. But he’s got abilities and power.”
“If he’ll use them on your behalf.”
“He owes me a life-debt. He damn well better help.”
Something flashed deep in her eyes, and I don’t think it was aimed at me. “He’ll get a swift talking-to from me if he tries to back down.”
Gregory chuckled softly at that. “The being is a demigod, Mary.”
“I assume he’s met a mama bear or two and knows what to expect.”
Carter bumped a shoulder against mine, muffling his laughter, as my mother sat up straighter in her chair. He said, “I wouldn’t bet against her.”
“So it seems.” Gregory pushed his mug and plate to the center of the table. “Are we satisfied with our planning? Prepared to go? Have advice from our seer?” He fastened his attention on Evelyn.
“May the odds be in your favor,” she quoted back at him. “Actually, high noon seems to be a good time, from what I’ve sensed and felt.”
“Excellent for me.” Carter took her advice well. He needed the sunlight, whatever he could absorb of it, although his powers also had a stored battery component to them, which made him doubly dangerous. He didn’t need daylight to flex his abilities though it helped now and then. If Nicolo had been an old-time, myth-ridden vampire, the daylight Carter could shine on him alone would have made the being dry up and float away. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. Everyone about the table took out their phones and put them on silent.
Gregory joined in. “I’ve reinforced the wards as I can. Tessa, your father will be alone here, in the cellar, but I trust he will not be disturbed.”
“Hopefully not.” I bent out of my chair and hugged my pup, then massaged him lightly up and down his flank. “I’m sending Scout with Mom, a little extra protection.”
“Oh?” Gregory eyed the two of us thoughtfully before adding, “Good idea.”
Did he have some idea of what I planned? Possibly. But if today wasn’t a day to pull out all the stops, I didn’t know when one would come. I thought of something else that might be important. “Oh! And a word . . . well, it sounds silly but if you smell strong peppermint, duck. The Master’s minions seem to soak in it. I didn’t get close enough to Remy to know if she did as well, but it seems to be a fetish with the old vampire. He doesn’t like the smell of the Undead.”
We took three cars: Hiram’s SUV with Evelyn, the professor’s somewhat sedate sedan with Mom and Scout, and I accompanied Carter in his SUV. Few people were out on the road, it being a work day, and true to the weather forecast, one of bitter cold and low humidity, too chilled to even snow. We didn’t get many days like this in Richmond. This front had edged its way down from Canada and would be gone in a day or two, most of its nasty effects across the Great Lakes and into the Midwest before turning our way. We just caught an edge of it, and I could only be happy that was all.
Old Town seemed very quiet, streets near empty, the carousing waiting for Happy Hour and evening. Classes hadn’t started up yet, so the students and the Gen Z and Gen Xers weren’t about, likely at work, before showing up to drink and circulate. Carter gave an approving murmur. The less crowd/witnesses we had to deal with, the better.
We parked a bit up the street. When the professor and Mom drove up, I settled Scout in the front seat and gave her the leash. Gregory went to mull over some last details with Carter, and I said to her, “When the time comes, let him off the lead, and let him go.”
“Time? What time? What are you talking about?”
“You’ll know. Trust me, you’ll know.” I hugged Scout again. “You’re the best boy, you know that? I love you. You stay my good
boy.”
Scout wiggled a bit and gave me a sloppy kiss, before sitting back on the car seat and giving me a worried look. It matched the one my mother wore. I shoveled out four flash-bangs and pressed them into her hand. “If they come out of the building and after you, throw one or two at their feet. Make sure you throw them hard enough to crack like an egg, all right? It’s called a flash-bang and you’ll see why. It’ll slow them down enough for you to run or drive away. Save two for the worst.”
“What are you up to?”
“I can’t say, not just yet. But you’ve got to know, we’re going to need everything we’ve got to put this guy down.”
“Please come back to me.”
“I will definitely do everything I can to do that.” I hugged her, too. I whispered in her ear, “I never told Dad, but I think he knows about Gregory. He’s okay with it.”
She hid a sniffle as I moved away. I turned my back on them and willed my feet to walk me away or I never would have left.
Evelyn and Hiram stood, arms hooked together, on the sidewalk just out of range of the Butchery’s front windows. He had a wicked looking double-headed ax in his right hand, and since I’d seen him work on a demolition and construction crew, I knew he had the muscle to wield it. A slightly dented shield leaned against his leg. His chain mail looked like pewter in the light. He held a vest hooked on his thumb and threw it toward me. “Not much, but it will help.”
I caught it. Heavier than it looked, but when I shrugged into it, the weight distributed nicely about me. It looked as if it could be made of the same stuff as my bracers. I rolled one cuff up to compare. It did match the bronzed metal of my armament. “Nice. Thank you.”
“Not as good as my mail, but it’ll do you. Better than nothing.”
Evelyn stirred. “Are we all ready?”
I fetched two flash-bangs out of my inner jacket pocket, a little tough to do under the vest, but I fumbled them out. Two more rested inside, but I wouldn’t use them until the last minute—whenever that was. Like I told my mother, it was one of those things you’d know when you saw it.
“Ready,” Carter agreed.
“One moment.” The professor lifted both his hands and chanted a few words that sounded harsh and booming against my ears. When he finished, the whole world seemed muffled. I think my head had been stuffed with fog and cotton. Gregory gave himself a pleased nod. “Muted. We shouldn’t draw too much attention.”
Evelyn pulled away from Hiram. “Are you all certain you want me to do this?”
“This is our only way to catch the Master at a disadvantage, and believe me, he must be caught and dealt with. His shadow is knotted through the countryside, drawing it down into a mire from which it might never return if we don’t act.” Gregory met her question squarely if somewhat dramatically, but it was her kind of language.
She inhaled. Said, “I know Tessa believes in you.”
As if my judgment could be depended upon. I almost spoke up to argue with her. She trembled, her slender body caught in a whirlwind, and put one hand up to shade her eyes. “Open, oh doors of breath and morrow, let fate come in.” Somewhat Shakespearean; I wondered if it would work.
The immense brick building that had warehoused a near three-hundred-year–old butcher and slaughter shop and now a modern-day bar and restaurant/dance hall shuddered at her words. I could see the shimmer of time move swiftly across its feature as if years ran across it.
And then, with a moan and a creak, the massive wooden door swung open.
I wondered no more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
FATED
THEY RUSHED US. I don’t think any of us expected that, but a wave of peppermint essence hit us suddenly, and I had just enough time to yell, “Incoming!” before the threshold filled with snapping fangs and supernaturally quick bodies. I spun Evelyn out of my way, put a bracered arm up and caught a mouthful on it. With a certain satisfaction, I felt them crack and splinter as the vampire fell back. Like a serpent, he recoiled, smacked his lips, brought new fangs down, and struck at me again.
He might have gotten closer if not for meeting with Hiram’s ax and losing his head over it. As it fell to the sidewalk, body tumbling after, I recognized the too pale but still insufferably arrogant face of Judge Parker. I kicked his remains to the side and ducked as Hiram yelled at me to, and his ax swung over me again, effectively cleaving another minion in two from head to toe. I didn’t recognize her.
Gregory brought one down, tangled in webbing as Carter torched first his opponent and then Gregory’s victim.
Just like that, the doorway cleared.
It looked incredibly dark inside. Musty and filled with the dust of years. The sting of candy cane aroma faded. The coppery tang of blood and . . . spilled beer? . . . flooded us in its wake. I didn’t know if they’d been waiting for us or if the four vampires were always at the door. They hadn’t been when I’d entered those earlier times, but those realities had been even more twisted. Parker, though, had to have been a “new hire” since I’d last seen him at the Society meeting. He wasn’t what I would have called Bouncer material. I hoped Sophie had evaded his grasp.
Thinking of her, I conjured up that small bowl of light Sophie had taught me to conquer and stepped inside, my throat dry and my ears stinging. In the somewhat dulled atmosphere, footsteps shuffled beside me, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint their position with respect to mine. I knew my friends were with me. I guess that’s all that counted. Air pressure imploded slightly nearby, making me jump, but I didn’t know what caused it.
Carter muttered a word or two in the shadows and grabbed for my hand. He caught me up after first fumbling and twisted my hockey stick out of my fingers, pressing a hilt of cold metal in its place. I lifted it up and stared at it.
It was a wicked, wicked blade. Not a straight-edged sword but more like a blazingly sharp sickle had met a sword and conquered it. The point end of it bent cleverly. I flicked a look at Carter, my sun lion. “Egyptian?”
“It’s a khopesh. You can hook shields and other weapons with the end, but the sickle blade is extremely sharp. Use it well.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me outside?”
He smiled, his teeth dazzlingly white, as if the sun itself shined there, and answered, “I didn’t have it then.”
He could do that, I knew, transport to the sands of his eternal magic and back in a wink if he had to. He’d taken a calculated risk, based on the need he saw, and whatever energy he’d expended, he’d pay for later. Beyond the journey itself, the destination carried severe consequences of its own. Creatures prowled there that would pounce and slay if they had the chance. But he’d done it and come back safely. He’d also told me, in his way, that he had an escape route planned for me. I knew I’d have to stay away from him if the mission went sour. I had a fate I intended to carry out.
I saw he carried a similar weapon, although his was longer and straighter, as if a Japanese katana had influenced ancient Egypt as well. He carried the smell of hot wind and burning sands with him, and a wedge of white-gold light spilled across the Butchery floor in front of him as if the world had cracked open. It revealed the blood-and-guts–stained sawdust, splintered bones, and joints with sinew and tatters of meat still hanging from them among the blocky tables and accoutrements of slaughter. Beyond, I could see the dark shapes of bodies dangling from meat hooks hanging from racks in the overhead beams.
I took my hockey stick back from him and shoved it under my mail vest, in the back between my shoulder blades.
We halted and fanned out a bit. Evelyn had stayed at Hiram’s flank. I frowned her way. “You should get out of here. Safer outside.”
“Then how would you all get out? I stay.” Her body chimed slightly as she moved a bit closer. I could see then that he’d equipped her with a long duster coat of mail, dainty and silvery and, I swear to the good Lord, it m
ust have come from lore straight out of Tolkien. I’d never seen anything like it. Unless someone hit the floor, did a slide and attacked her ankles, she looked protected from head to calf. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. She must have been wearing it all along, but only the ancient magic interred in this lair revealed it. I would have whistled low in admiration, but my throat and mouth had gone dry.
“Let your light go,” Gregory told me. He pulled out his cane and the diamond end did a much better job of illuminating the room, so I snuffed out my bit of light. With the crescent that beamed from the cane and from Carter, we had no need of my small contribution.
Chains unwound. Bolts and screws squealed, metal twisting inside metal. The entire warehouse stretched before us answered to our appearance. A low moan began to run about the room, undeterred by the professor’s previous spell. Wood creaked and sounded as the building felt the weight and anger of Hiram’s Iron Dwarf heft. The floor echoed with a low moan of its own. I had never heard metal groan before, though, and the noise of it raised every hair on my body. It also screeched, so high a note I could barely hear it, nails on a chalkboard sound. A steady clink, clink, clink punctuated it. The professor’s mute spell had no purchase here at all. I wanted to shutter my ears against the noise. Unnatural. Threatening. The smell of rust filled the air.
A voice split the noise. “Showtime, my loveys.” A beautiful voice, strong and elegant, compelling. The building was cavernous enough that it should have echoed, but it did not—it shot into us, a sharp arrow of command. I gulped as it reached me, for I knew who must have spoken. Felt glad I’d never heard him speak before because, if I had, I wouldn’t have thought he could ever be defeated. He compelled me, and I tried not to think of what his command to me might be. Now I was in the fight, with no way to back out.
A turning of the screw whine answered. Every occupied meat hook swung about to face us, its unfortunate occupant stirring. I didn’t know what armor Nicolo carried, but these poor souls hung as his shield. My left arm pulsed. For a moment, I thought it was my father, flexing his strength. But no. It was the barely healed bite mark, stinging and pulling at me. I fought the urge to answer whatever command Nicolo had just given his nest.
