“So why do you think the founder wants the pup so badly?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Logan replied and changed course. We were nearing what used to be a giant cathedral. The very essence of the ground beneath our feet changed and Logan took a quick step back. The ground was still hallowed after all these years. That shouldn’t have affected Logan much. I mean Voln was a vampire, too, and he lived in a church. So why did it concern Logan?
In the distance, an ominous building jutted out of the ground like an enormous pustule. Giant, pink tendrils waved around it like cilia. Thick purple veins crisscrossed the entire structure, as though the giant mass had taken on a life of its own. Logan’s lips curled into a creepy smile. “Them Bears sure have a sick sort of way with things.”
I swallowed and pushed the scream back down my throat as we reached the structure. The very walls writhed. Screaming faces poked outward. The place was hewn from people… who were still alive. I shivered.
I’d heard that the Bears had the ability to rework flesh as though it was clay. That’s why so many of them had such huge muscles. Still, to actually go and collect people and meld them together into an actual flesh and blood structure was a real sick sort of deranged. I couldn’t imagine spending my entire life sewn into a living building. I shivered again.
I took a deep breath and glanced at the door. It resembled one of those medieval castle doors, the kind with giant bands of steel and a winch to open and close it. All around it flesh oozed and pulsed. Standing next to it stood a doorman dressed from head to toe in bright orange. He seemed entirely unconcerned by the wriggling tentacles that reached out toward him from the walls. I tried to smile at him, but he just looked at me in the sort of way that indicated I ought to leave.
“I’m here to see the founder, the wonderful founder of Oz.” I waved my hands about in a wide gesture as I bounced in an annoying sort of way.
He didn’t smile and neither did Logan. As I moved past him toward the door, he made no movement to stop me though he didn’t allow me entry, either. The handle glistened in front of me, slick with some kind of fluid that I didn’t really want to touch. My stomach turned and tried to run up my throat at the thought.
“We can’t get in unless you open the door, can we?” Logan asked.
The doorman nodded, and I glared at him. “What if I threaten to burn this place to the ground?”
The distinctive sound of several automatic weapons positioned at various points around the perimeter filled my ears. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes for a second.
“So how does one get inside?” I asked.
“Invitation only.”
There are times when I’m pretty calm. Normally, not being let into a creepy place wouldn’t bother me. This, unfortunately, was not one of those times. This place was basically a jigsaw puzzle made from people. This was exactly the type of thing the Dioscuri should be preventing. Instead it sat here taunting me with its hideousness, daring me to ignore what it was.
No… when this was all over I was going to come back here and burn it to the ground… or maybe nuke it. That would damn sure get rid of it.
“I want my baby back,” I said, grabbing the doorman by the shoulder. The guard’s hand clamped down on my wrist in a way that suggested he was used to overpowering people. Gross hideout or not, no damn vampire was going to refuse me access when he was the one who stole the baby I had kidnapped fair and square.
“Miss, I think you had best leave,” he said, still not realizing what was about to happen to him. Inside my rage was already building. It was the only way I could keep myself in control. If I didn’t focus on my anger, didn’t use my hatred as a shield, I was going to break down.
Behind me Logan was backing away. Pissing off a founder was a good way to get dead, and beating up one of his guards was very likely to piss the Bear founder off. Under normal circumstances, I would not have purposely done so. Most vampire founders were ridiculously powerful, and Bob, the Bears’ founder, was no exception. While he didn’t do some of the melt-your-brain-with-his-eyes stuff that the other founders did, he was more than capable of adding me to his meat structure. The thought sobered me.
“I’m going to ask you nicely. Please get me an audience with the founder,” I said, my other hand twirling in the air.
The doorman’s headset chirped, and he released my hand. “Okay, Ma’am. You may come inside. But the vampire stays out here.”
With a melodramatic gesture, he stepped to the side and swung the large door open. Admittedly, I was a little relieved at how easy that had been. I hadn’t even had to hurt anyone.
Darkness peered at me from the interior as I found myself thrust within. The inside of the room felt like wet breath. It was warm and sticky and made my skin crawl. I shivered in the nearly-empty room. There was a resounding slam as the door shut behind me and a slight buzz overhead as a fluorescent lamp flickered to life. The whitewashed walls were lined with utility benches that had stools strewn between them every so often. In the adjoining hallway, a series of wireframe cabinets sat perched along the wall, filled with various bins.
The odd feeling that I was being watched caused my hair to stand on end. I whirled around to face a person who I suspected had been there all along. How had he gotten between me and the door?
The bear founder stood unmoving, as though time had stripped away all nonessential action from his body. His black hair was slicked back with grease like a character from some old movie. He stared at me from behind a pair of expensive looking sunglasses.
“Hello, Bob,” I said, giving him a low curtsy. The vampire’s large, bulky body shifted, allowing me to take sight of his two legendary weapons; gigantic blades too large for a normal person to heft even with both hands, and yet, he was known to easily wield one in each. The blades, Frost and Melt, were named after the dragons of fire and ice who had supposedly given them to him when time was new and the earth was young.
It was rumored that during an attack on him in New Orleans he had used them to slice werewolves in twain with little to no effort. They said that each time he swung one of the massive blades, someone had died. Impressive, sure. But when you’re physically strong enough to throw a tanker truck, killing someone with a sword isn’t that difficult. He probably swung the things at a couple hundred miles an hour.
“Lillim Callina, it is a pleasure to finally meet the black sheep among the flock.” His face was impassive though his muscles grew larger beneath his black leather jacket and designer jeans. For a moment, I wondered if he was revving up for some kind of attack. Then I realized that the attackee would probably be me. That would not be good. I probably should have figured that bullying my way inside wouldn’t endear me to him.
“I like what you’ve done with the place.” I waved a hand across the room, annoyed that he knew who I was. It was one thing for me to be able to recognize one of the oldest known vampires; it was quite another for him to know who I was.
While Dioscuri were pretty damn strong and pretty recognizable, most had normal human lifespans. Plus we spent the majority of our lives fighting vicious monsters bent on killing us. That meant the life cycle of a typical high ranked Dioscuri could be short indeed. Vampires who had lived a couple millennia tended not to even notice people who lived in our time frame.
“I’m going to assume you haven’t brought me a gift?” Bob said as looked me over.
“Look,” I muttered, feeling a little stupid that I hadn’t brought anything to present him with. Even my mother, the vicious Diana Cortez, always brought gifts when she spoke to creatures like this. “I know you’ve got Gib’s kid, and I need him back.”
“You are mistaken. Please don’t hesitate to show yourself out.”
Just like that my only lead had gone up in smoke. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. What was it I was mistaken about? If he couldn’t lie then that meant he didn’t have the child. Vampires, being the curious lot that they are, love to get favors. If Bob had the child, w
ouldn’t he have tried to bargain with me, perhaps to get something greater? He wouldn’t, however, be able to bargain with something he did not possess. Of course it was possible that he had decided I had nothing to offer him. And why did he even want the baby in the first place?
Bob was already walking away, barely a shadow against the backdrop of darkness as he strode down one hallway. I had half a mind to run after him and… what? Force him to help me? I doubted I could force Bob to do anything he didn’t already want to do.
Behind me the door opened and the doorman was gesturing for me to leave. Without really thinking about it I stepped outside. Logan had said the child was in Rome. Like Bob, Logan couldn’t lie. Did he know where the child was? Speaking of Logan, where was he?
Chapter 11
A flash of lightning drew my attention to Logan’s figure in the distance, and my heart shuddered. I sprinted toward him as crimson energy tore from the clouds, slamming down in the same four points over and over again.
Power flowed from the hallowed church ground, illuminating an intricately designed circle. Logan stood in the very center with his back to me. The demon stood next to him, still confined in its pillar of salt. The cold iron sword swung from a loop on his belt as he raised his hands upward. The child squirmed in his hands, horrible screams ripping from its throat as it thrashed its tiny arms and legs.
Logan had tricked me— some detective I was. Was he the Owl who had stolen the baby? Knowing I would visit him for information, he probably planned on summoning the demon so I could help stop it. If I helped stop the demon, the other Dioscuri wouldn’t check up on what happened.
All Logan had to do was file a report saying I was there, and the other Dioscuri would assume I handled it. It wouldn’t show up as a problem until I failed to file my own report, but the deadline for that wouldn’t be for weeks. I had even signed the paperwork allowing Logan to come to Rome…
Where he had hidden both the demon and the sword? I hadn’t seen them on the plane ride over here. Then again, I guess when you have your own personal jet, hiding things on it is relatively easy.
And he’d used not one but two founders to get me to acquire him the baby. He’d probably been the one to secretly leak the information to Voln, knowing the old vamp would get someone to “rescue” the child. Then he’d ambushed me and taken the baby, knowing I’d eventually wind up at his coven for help. That’s why I’d been delayed so long; he needed to summon the demon while I was there. By the time the other Dioscuri figured out what was going on, Logan would have crafted his weapon.
The real question was, why did Logan want this child so badly? What was so special about this child that someone would go through all this trouble to kidnap him? Logan had to have thrown about some huge favors to get all that done. For a founder like Bob to be involved, the favor was likely beyond a guy like Logan. I almost didn’t want to know what it was, or worse yet, who was backing Logan because this had all started when the new drake had come to town. Coincidence? Maybe, but if this baby was really Dar Silver-tongue reborn, it seemed very likely that whatever had put this scheme together was large, scaly, and shark-faced.
I darted forward, screaming at Logan. He glanced at me and sped up his chant. Behind me the monstrous roar of a revving engine ripped through the air. I turned to see a black Lamborghini Diablo rushing toward me at breakneck speed. For a second, I thought about trying to stop the oncoming vehicle with my shield, but I doubted I could, what with the momentum and all that.
Thankfully, my body was moving much faster than my mind. I guess lifetimes of training come in handy because I flung myself upward, forcing my will into a leap that carried me over the speeding vehicle. It spun around sending up clouds of dirt and rushed toward me again. I ripped my wakazashi, Set, from its sheath, and pointed it at the front wheels of the sports car.
Red lightning exploded from the tip of my weapon and slammed into it, melting not only the front tires, but the entire front part of the car into slag. Inertia took over, and the Lamborghini flipped, toppling end over end. I leapt to the side as the vehicle skidded past me. Smoke billowed out of the thing, and the smell of gasoline filled the air. I vaulted to my feet, already running toward Logan when the sound of screeching metal stopped me in my tracks.
Bob didn’t climb out of the car so much as he ripped the car apart around him, his massive form bursting through the crumpled wreckage like it was little more than tissue paper. Without even grunting, he seized hold of the car and flung the vehicle at me. I dove to the side, burying my face in the dirt. The force of it ruffled my clothing as it sailed over me and crashed to the ground a couple hundred yards away. My ears were still ringing from the sound of the car bouncing across the rocky ground when it exploded. My hands shook as I crawled to my feet, my heart beating so fast in my chest that I didn’t think it’d ever slow down. That had been close… too close.
“That was my favorite car for running people over.” Bob took a step toward me; his pupils were ringed with several shades of red, ranging from light burgundy to crimson. “And you broke it.”
“You have a car for running people over?” The words tumbled from my mouth in that overconfident way they did when I was really nervous.
“Not anymore.” Bob’s lips peeled back in an expression that gave me an uncomfortably clear view of his fangs. They were so big that it was like he had a pair of daggers in his mouth. I swallowed and took a tentative step backward. I hadn’t really been scared before, but now… now I was.
This was a creature so old and powerful that in ancient times people had referred to him as a god… and he was pissed at me.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have tried to run me over,” I said as Bob disappeared completely from view. It happened so fast that I barely realized he was gone. His hand burst from the ground like a zombie and seized my leg like a vice. With a jerk that damn near wrenched my leg from the socket, Bob tugged me down into the earth. Pain, so intense that it was like rubbing lemon juice soaked sandpaper on my flesh, exploded through my legs. I wanted to cry, wanted to beg for him to stop hurting me. Mostly though? Mostly I just hated him.
I hated when vampires had ridiculous powers. Usually the older they were the more likely it was that they had some stupidly absurd abilities. Bob was several millennia old and could apparently travel through dirt at immense speed. That definitely needed to be on his dating profile.
I thrust my arms downward into the earth and shoved, forcing energy into my muscles as I did so. Power ran down my body, thrumming along my skin like soothing light. I knew that my flesh had been shredded, but right now, my power could keep the worst of that pain buried deep down inside me. My arms tensed, shaking with effort as I pushed myself up from the dirt. One inch… two… Sweat began to drip down my face. Three inches… four…
Bob exploded from the dirt and held me aloft in the air by one bloody leg. My entire lower body was like one brownish-red smear. To make matters worse, my skirt fluttered around my waist giving him a view I wished I hadn’t. Not for the first time I cursed myself for not wearing pants. Without thinking, my right hand tore the shotgun from beneath my overcoat and pointed the barrel at the chest of the vampire. My speed must have surprised the old vamp because he didn’t move as I pumped five shots into his chest. The first couple shots had as much effect as they would against a brick wall. By the last shot, I’d made him wobble.
Sure he was old and required a lot less power than a younger vampire to heal, but he still had to use it. That meant he had less to use trying to kill me. Unfortunately for me, however, he kept his steely grip on my leg. Bob the vampire founder had done little more than stagger backward under the onslaught of buckshot. That was not good.
He flung me like a sack of potatoes. I smacked into the ground, bounced once, and rolled onto my feet. I staggered, struggling to keep my balance as my ankle faltered. My right side screamed with pain that I struggled to push down. It was like trying to hold back a surging river with a beaver dam
.
I whirled around, holstering the empty shotgun and drawing my katana, Isis, from its sheath as his elbow crashed into my side like a freight train. Pain exploded through me. Stars shot past my eyes as I hit the remains of a brick wall. My body made some kind of wet squishing sound that couldn’t be good. Still, I tried to get to my feet.
“Goodbye,” he said, and his massive hands closed around my throat. He hoisted me up and slammed me backward into the wall, pinning me there by my neck. My head smacked against the stone and everything went blurry. “I can see why they call you the black sheep. No other Dioscuri would be so lowly and dishonorable as to use human firearms.”
“White Sparrow!” I choked out as I touched his chest.
He dropped me, and I fell gracelessly to my knees, collapsing into a heap at his feet. A shaft of white light shot down from the heavens, engulfing the vampire. He screamed in confusion, slamming his hands against the shaft of solidified light. It cracked beneath his blows. His flesh burned like a marshmallow dropped in the fire.
“Is that more honorable for you? Cause I can bring lots of non-gun-related pain.” I climbed to my feet and staggered toward Logan. I had to stop him before he finished his ritual. I knew that, in this particular case, Bob was just the distraction. That was a pretty scary thought. Even if I defeated Bob and Logan managed to create his weapon, it would all be for naught.
Admittedly, I wasn’t as up to date on the “this is how we make magical weapons that haven’t been used in millennia” stuff as I should have been, so I wasn’t exactly sure why Logan needed the child. Still, if that baby really was Dar Silver-tongue reborn, then using him as a focus for an already immensely powerful weapon would probably give the wielder a greater affinity toward dragons. If Sharkface, or someone working for him, had a weapon like that, I couldn’t even imagine how powerful the drake would become.
My spell shattered with an earsplitting crack that shook the ground beneath my feet. Bob stood there naked save for a few scraps of charred fabric. Bone stuck out from his blackened skin in places where the flesh had been completely burned away. He snarled and took a step toward me. Flecks of burned meat sloughed off of him as he bared his fangs and charged.
Kill It With Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 1) Page 7
