by Lisa Shearin
We were in the hallway outside of our rooms. The door to Yasha and Ian’s room was now open, but Yasha hadn’t come out yet. Ian was helping him tidy up after what had been quite the feeding frenzy.
Yasha emerged less than a minute later, having to turn sideways and duck his head to get through the door. His eyes were a warm gold instead of the hangry yellow they’d been before the arrival of his pre-mission snack.
Yasha nodded his maned head and rumbled what I interpreted to be a thank-you to Rake.
“You are most welcome,” the goblin replied solemnly.
The walkie-talkie on his belt beeped softly. Rake listened through his headset. “Gethen’s ready when we are. Are we?”
There were nods all around.
Rake keyed his mic. “Garr, take us dark.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It would never cease to amaze me how utterly silent it was when the power was out.
Silent turned to spooky when you combined the complete darkness of a hotel corridor with the near certainty of being attacked by a living nightmare—or at the very least, having a grimtog latch on to your ankle. We’d all rubbed some three-alarm pepper the chef had sent up onto our combat boots, hoping that’d at least give the little bastards second thoughts. Except Yasha. If grimtogs wanted to try to take a bite out of a hunting werewolf, it was their funeral, and Yasha wouldn’t turn down another snack.
Suddenly, it wasn’t so quiet anymore. Then I realized I was hearing the blood pounding in my ears. I tried taking a deep breath to calm myself. It kinda sorta worked, but not really.
The distortion from my night-vision goggles wasn’t helping my nerves. Goblins and werewolves could see in the dark. Human and elf eyes were pretty much worthless. We’d determined long ago that my seer vision worked just fine with night-vision goggles. I could tell I’d hit pay dirt when I saw an object or person covered with what looked like heat waves rising off hot pavement.
Even if Yasha and Lotte could hear the magetech generator, chances were near a hundred percent that it would be magically shielded, warded, or both. A shield would keep it from being seen. A ward would encourage anyone who got too close to go away. Such a spell commonly used fear or unease to impel a person to take their attention elsewhere. That type of spell was a bit heavy-handed, but it was easier to detect. You simply walked around until you got scared for no good reason. If a mage was determined to keep anyone from taking their stuff, wards or shields could be loaded to go off with deadly results if their protective boundaries were violated.
Our goal, objective, and solemn intent was to violate the heck out of those boundaries and destroy what Phaeon Silvanus had hidden inside.
Rake had several ideas about how to rid ourselves of the magetech generator, and while all of them sounded intensely satisfying, until we found it, there was no way we could know the safest course of action, i.e., how not to destroy ourselves, the hotel, and Lower Manhattan in the process.
Yasha went a little way down the hall while we hung back. After all, we were only mortal, and breathing was necessary. When you were listening for a device its inventor didn’t want you to hear, let alone find, you needed all the quiet you could get.
The Russian werewolf cocked his head this way and that, listening and sorting through what he was hearing. I couldn’t hear a thing except the high-pitched hum of my own nerves. Yasha wasn’t constrained by that. Maybe.
After a couple of minutes, Yasha extended his paw, and with one razor-sharp claw, pointed straight down.
We regrouped and headed for the stairs.
On the next floor down, Yasha again went to the middle of the empty hallway, paused to listen, and again pointed down.
Gethen had contacted Rake and told him that Lotte was indicating that their team needed to go down as well, not up. Rake agreed, and told his security chief that to cover the floors faster, we would skip the next floor down, leaving that for his team.
Yasha padded down the hallway on the third floor, faster this time.
Then suddenly he stopped, hackles up, a low growl rising from deep in his chest.
That was all the warning we got.
Doors were flung open and creatures with claws, tentacles, and fangs burst from at least six rooms—in front, behind, and on either side of us—cutting us off from any escape.
When the bad guys threw everything but the kitchen sink at you, that meant you were getting close, and they were getting worried. While that was good, this was bad.
If we were attacked, the plan was for me and Kitty to get in the middle and for Rake, Ian, and Yasha to form up around us. I hated that it was necessary, and while I’d worked constantly to become a better fighter, I had to face facts. If I didn’t, I’d not only endanger myself, but put the rest of the team at risk. So I’d agreed to stick to the plan and stay put.
The monsters didn’t give jack crap about our plan.
Rake was shouting in his mic for his people to give us light. Now. Our goggles could adjust, protecting our eyes and letting us go from dark to bright light and not be blinded.
The glow from Ian’s spear let me at least see my attacker.
Before we could form up, two flicks and a flail from a tentacle as big around as my leg separated me from the others.
An addendum to the plan said that if we got separated, to go straight to the lobby.
Then the hotel lights came on and I got a real good look at what was coming at me.
The rest of the tentacles surged out of the room, dragging a bulbous body with one eye the size of a dinner plate behind it.
Focused on yours truly.
It was an octopus with one eye. A cyclops octopus. I’d call it a cyclopoctopus until a better name came along.
There was nothing between me and the stairway at the end of the hall but an empty stretch of carpet. I might not be the best fighter in the world, but I could haul ass, especially when I was motivated.
The cyclopoctopus stayed right on my heels the entire mad dash down the hall, so my motivation knew no bounds.
“Lobby!” I screamed, both giving vent to my terror and telling my team where I was going.
The cyclopoctopus could flat-out move in a straightaway, but I was betting (and hoping and praying) that eight legs wouldn’t do so well on multiple flights of concrete stairs. Knowing my luck, the thing would trip, tangle its legs around itself, and bounce its way down, squashing me in the process.
I hated leaving the others, but running for the lobby was both the plan and my best option. Unlike the boss, I couldn’t breathe fire and turn my pursuer into fried calamari. The lobby was three floors down, and so were our commandos.
Get help for the team.
I dug down and managed a burst of speed, hands hitting the push-bar door without slowing, nearly knocking the air out of myself. I had just gotten into the stairwell when a wet, sucking sound came from right behind me and something splatted on the closing-way-too-slowly steel door, followed by a sizzling noise.
A normal octopus spat ink. This thing horked acid.
The door closed before the octopus could get there. I wasn’t about to stop. I’d seen Nat Geo specials where an octopus could unscrew jar lids to get at the live (and frantic) fish inside. The only thing keeping me from becoming a tasty treat was an unlockable push-bar door. That was an octopus no-brainer.
I didn’t stop until I burst through the stairwell door to the hotel lobby . . .
. . . and into a warzone.
Chapter Thirty
The lobby was chaos.
Phaeon Silvanus was pulling out all the stops to stop us.
While we’d hatched the plan to find the magetech generator in Rake’s eavesdrop-proof penthouse, by necessity those plans had been finalized throughout the hotel and shared with those needed to carry it out.
It was obvious that the elf CEO had heard enough to know he was in trouble. If any reflective surface could admit a monster, one evil elf inventor could certainly use them to eavesdrop.
We knew what Phaeon Silvanus was up to, we knew how to stop him, so now we had to die.
All of us.
That was not going to happen.
What he didn’t realize was that we Earthlings had a saying: Of course, you realize, this means war.
I couldn’t begin to imagine what it had taken for Phaeon to do this. He had to be pushing the limits of what his invention was capable of.
For the first time, he’d been reduced to using reruns.
Bukas, flying monkeys, leggy snakes, and other creatures I hadn’t seen personally, but knew had been part of the hotel’s cavalcade of horrors, now filled the lobby and ballroom.
But one thing was different.
The monsters weren’t vanishing when wounded, with new ones appearing to replace them. Nor were any of them cloaked. But best of all, weapons of any and every kind now worked against them.
The monsters could be killed.
Yes, the delegates had been overrun, but they were the leaders of their peoples, and were fighting back with bravery and determination. Our people and Rake’s were doing what they’d been trained to do, and they were doing it well, while reaping the rewards of a target-rich environment.
The flying monkeys couldn’t resist that the delegates were gathered in one place. They should’ve tried. The two Jötunn would reach up, snatch one out of the air, and slam it repeatedly against a wall. While the male sniffed the one he’d just caught to see if it’d be good to eat, the female was tossing her catches to the cheering gnome delegation to finish off. Another of the represented races was a cat-like people, so low-flying monkeys were merely kitty toys waiting to happen.
The ogre chefs were easy to spot, with their absurd size and white chef hats. They’d come up out of the kitchens to help and had brought their cutlery with them. The resulting carnage was gruesome, but it was beautiful in a getting-payback kind of way.
Sandra Niles had just killed a creature that was a sick twist between a spider and a cockroach, both supersized. The commando commander was furiously looking around for something else to kill. Roy was her friend, and she’d taken his near death very personally. It didn’t appear she’d gotten to kill enough yet to slake her rage. Monsters were now fleeing from her—at least some of them were smart.
Vlad Cervenka had his arms around the necks of a pair of fanged and scaled hominids. The vampire mercenary gave a sharp twist, breaking both monsters’ necks. He dropped the limp bodies to the floor and eagerly looked around for something else to play with.
Mago Benares was armed with a rapier in each hand. I’d only seen them used in movies. This wasn’t anything like the movies. Mago was Death himself in midnight blue velvet.
Dakarai Enric was armed with a long goblin saber and wielding it to lethal effect.
Vivienne Sagadraco was helping Mago and Dakarai defend the delegates who were either unarmed or unqualified to wade into the fray. An iridescent blue glow surrounded her dragon form—a much smaller dragon form. The boss’s actual height was three stories. I had no idea that she could transform into a smaller but no less deadly version. She was twice Mago’s height, and the glow appeared to be helping to keep her from growing further.
The good guys were holding their own.
Rake had told me once that he could get blood out of anything. The Regor Regency’s lobby and ballroom carpet was gonna need some serious attention after this was over.
A buka came flying down the main staircase. Flying as in airborne. Bukas didn’t have wings, but the method of propulsion soon showed itself.
An enraged Yasha the werewolf.
Followed by the rest of our team and Gethen’s.
Yes!
I ran to join them.
At least I tried. Rake met me halfway and caught me up in a bone-crushing hug. I couldn’t breathe all that well, but I really didn’t mind. He set me on my feet long enough to order Gethen to oversee the safety of the delegates, that he could take it from here. Ian dispatched Rolf and Lotte to help Gethen.
“Take what from here?” I asked.
“Yasha and Lotte have locked on to the sound,” Ian told me. “It’s still down.”
“Way down,” Kenji added with a fierce smile. “The closest part of the hotel to the ley lines.”
So much for starting where the monsters manifested.
“The lowest level of the garage.” Rake’s voice was clipped with barely restrained anger. “Employee parking. I could kick myself for not—”
“It could’ve been anywhere,” Kitty told him.
“The magetech generator’s in the garage?” I asked.
Kenji’s smile broadened into a grin. “Turns out a certain hotel maintenance manager has a car.”
Chapter Thirty-One
It made total sense.
Phaeon wouldn’t have needed to worry about getting the generator into the hotel without being seen. Not only had he taken the hotel maintenance manager’s identity, he’d stolen his car, and had simply driven it right in and parked over a ley line. Rake told me that the garage had three levels and was below even the hotel’s subbasement, putting the car a mere fifty feet above the ley lines.
Brilliant.
Of course, all of this was conjecture until we actually got to the car and found Phaeon’s pride and joy inside.
We didn’t dare use the elevators.
That left us with a narrow, poorly lit, concrete stairwell.
Though it wouldn’t have seemed nearly as narrow if there hadn’t been six of us, including a seven-foot-tall werewolf. Or been nearly as poorly lit if it hadn’t been for the dark magic that even I could sense.
Good things had never happened to me in underground parking garages. It was bad enough that to fit as many cars into as small a space as possible, the ceilings were barely high enough to clear the roof of an SUV. Whoever built this space must have figured that cars had headlights, so lighting appeared to have been installed as an afterthought.
Magic-dimmed lights were our first clue that we were on the right track. Our second clue smacked us in the face once we reached the lowest level and opened the door.
Underground parking garages weren’t known for smelling good. Exhaust, gas, oil, and other olfactory delights were compounded by damp and stagnant air. But what burned our noses had nothing to do with cars.
Ammonia.
Something big and nasty was down here waiting for us.
We smelled it, then we heard it.
It wasn’t trying to hide. Either it had a brain the size of a chickpea without enough sense to be afraid, or it didn’t need to be afraid of anything.
We didn’t have to wait long to get a gander at what was scuttling around in the dark.
We hadn’t seen a giant scorpion in the lobby or ballroom.
Phaeon Silvanus had been saving something special for us.
On the upside, most people would be happier to die without having to get a good look at the horse-sized scorpions that killed them.
And yes, I said scorpions. Plural. There were clicks and scuttling coming from every part of the garage. We all heard them. And I’d seen them before, having sprayed Raid in the eyes of the one that’d nearly killed Roy.
Ian simply got his game face on and his weapons in his hands. “Where’s the car?” My partner was a take-direct-action kind of guy.
Rake hesitated just enough that we knew the answer was bad. He nodded his head forward. “The far side and in the corner.”
We all just stared at him.
“Hey, I just own the hotel. I don’t make parking assignments.”
Ian looked to our team werewolf. “Yasha, is it down here?”
Yasha didn’t hesitate at all. A low growl and two nods.
Affirmative. One car containing one magetech generator.
Kitty shot Rake a dirty look. “Far side and in the corner?” she asked Yasha.
One louder growl, this time directed at Rake.
Target and bad location confirmed.
; Lovely. Let’s make it easy for the scorpions to pin us down and sting us to death.
I didn’t say it out loud, but from the faces of my teammates, we were all thinking it.
Ian blew out his breath in acceptance of our less-than-ideal circumstances. “Okay, here’s the plan.”
Giant scorpions could flip cars. Who knew?
Rake, Ian, and Yasha were waging all-out war on the scorpions. The concrete shook beneath us as a scorpion slammed its claws into another car, adding its anti-theft alarm to the chaos. Four cars down, a scorpion’s tail whipped forward and punched a hole in a convertible top.
When going up against black magic and monsters, a plan was more of a loose collection of hopes and dreams. It was what you wanted to do and have happen if said magic or monsters didn’t throw a supernatural lug wrench into the works.
Phaeon’s scorpions were throwing the whole toolbox at us.
Car alarms were loud by design. Their purpose was to attract attention to some schmuck trying to steal the screeching car. Put that car in what was basically a concrete-lined underground box, and if we survived, we’d probably be doing it without our eardrums. Putting my hands over my ears might have helped, but when I made a break for the corner, I needed my hands for weapons. Saving our lives was more important than saving our hearing. You can’t hear if you’re dead, nor would you care.
My flashlight could blind a buck at fifty yards. I was using it now to keep the scorpions disoriented enough not to snip us in half or sting us to death as we scrambled, crawled, and dashed our way across the garage. It was working—for the most part. Some of the scorpions were either adapting to the brightness, or were just too determined to kill us to care. Thanks to the cover provided by the guys, Kenji, Kitty, and I had made it to the other side of the garage. I shined my ultra-bright beam into the corner.
