by Skye Knizley
“It was probably the longest relationship you ever had,” she said. “You need to get out more. Some sun and moisturizer would do you good.”
“I was in love once,” Reynolds said. “She was supposed meet me onboard, but she never came, she left me here all alone. I sold my soul for her and she left me. I’ve been so alone, Raven.”
Swell. A jilted mummy. Didn’t they make a movie out of this?
“I’d ask for a refund. Do demons give refunds?” Raven asked.
She rummaged in her vest and pulled out the second of Du Guerre’s grenades.
“I exchanged love for power, Raven. And my power will make you mine,” Reynolds said.
Raven slipped the grenade in her pocket and stood, hands over her head. “If I give myself to you, will you let Aspen and all those forgotten souls go?”
The flames in Reynolds’ eyes dimmed in what Raven assumed was a blink. “You would give yourself to me? Willingly?”
Raven walked forward. “Let Aspen and the souls go.”
The fires rose again and Reynolds raised a finger to her lips. “Prove to me it is not a trick.”
Raven spread her hands. “No tricks. Just me and you, honey. Let them go.”
“Ray, no…” Aspen said from the doorway.
“Shut up, faerie!” Raven snapped.
She saw the pain in Aspen’s face and hated herself for causing it, but she looked back at Reynolds with a smile. “What do you say, babe?”
Reynolds’ face creased into a hideous smile. “As you wish, beloved.”
She raised her hands over her head and the ship shuddered violently. There was a noise like voices crying out in surprise and pain, and then there was nothing, almost utter silence.
“It is done,” Reynolds said. “Aspen Kincaid may leave whenever she wishes.”
Raven stepped closer and licked her lips with desire. “Then kiss me and let’s get this show on the road.
Her lips met Reynolds’ and it was then that she pushed the grenade through the paper-thin skin of the creature’s back, just below her skull. Reynolds straightened in surprise and pushed her away.
“What did you do? Raven, what did you do?”
Raven held up the grenade’s spoon and tossed it away. “Consider it a divorce. Aspen, get down!”
Raven dove aside a beat before the grenade exploded. Reynolds vanished within the firestorm the incendiary released; Raven wasn’t so lucky. The blast threw her across the room and scorched her to the bone. When it was over, she fell to the ground, her body blackened and smoking. She coughed and pulled herself up using the wall as support. There was nothing left of Reynolds or her unholy throne.
“Asp? Aspen are you okay?”
She turned and staggered toward the door, which was scorched black by the blast.
“I’m here, love,” Aspen said.
She leaned through the door and looked at Raven. “Do you ever kill anything without hurting yourself? How did you even know that would work?”
Raven picked up her Automag, which was somehow undamaged. “Francois made them for killing preternatural things. I figured if it worked on lycans it had to work on mummies.”
Aspen shook her head. “I think you have a death wish.”
Raven started toward the engine room. “Not today.”
She stopped to rummage through her scorched vest where she retrieved the block of C4. The remote detonator had been destroyed in the blast, as had most of her blood supply, but the timer was still serviceable. She pressed it into the C4 and tried to stand, but pain lanced through her back and she felt dizzy.
“Raven? Honey you aren’t healing,” Aspen said.
Raven coughed and spat blood onto the deck. “You’re hurt, Rupert is hurt, I’m hurt, it is taking a toll on me.”
“What about the blood you brought with you?”
Raven shook her head and wiped the blood off her lips. “Fried in the blast. Help me up, we have to do this.”
“You need blood, Ray.”
“I can’t, Asp. I can’t feed from you, it doesn’t work that way.”
Aspen bit her lip, then pulled an energy bar from the pocket of her own vest. “Then draw energy from me. I can eat this and you can take the energy.”
Raven looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Asp, you’re wounded. That only works when the familiar is healthy and had a full meal. Even then it doesn’t heal the vampire, it will just keep a starving vamp alive.
Aspen bit into the bar and chewed. “You don’t know that is how it works between us. You’re Master level. For all you know this will be like having an energy drink and a pound of chocolate.”
She swallowed and took another big bite.
“It still isn’t going to be instant, Asp.”
Raven held out her hand and Aspen helped her up. Together they crossed the chamber and passed into the next room, which housed the massive diesel engines and fuel tanks. As with the rest of the ship, the controls were badly damaged and coated in a mix of sticky blood and offal. The engines were nothing more than long banks of cylinders and cylinder heads connected to what had once been, in 1971, a state of the art control system. Raven let go of Aspen and waded to the nearest one, where she slapped the C4 into place atop one of the cylinders.
“Why are we even bothering? You killed the creepy-crawly.”
Raven shook her head and fumbled with the timer, which had been damaged in the grenade explosion. “I don’t think so. Reynolds, whatever she is, is part of the ship. As long as it exists, so does she.”
The ship rocked and shuddered as if in response to Raven’s statement and the words, “Et non effugient!” echoed throughout.
“See what I mean?” Raven said. “She doesn’t want us to leave.”
She set the timer and started back to Aspen. Aspen helped her back to the catwalk and they turned to the exit.
“How long is the timer?” Aspen asked.
“Ten minutes,” Raven replied. “Plenty of time.”
Together, they made their way back to the midship elevator, step by labored step. Aspen sending her energy had helped, but it wasn’t enough to heal her and every step was agony. The elevator door was still open and they collapsed inside. Aspen pressed the button for the promenade and the doors closed with a thud. Raven sagged against the wall and rested, just letting her mind wander. She was almost asleep when there was a sound like metal on metal and the elevator stopped in a shower of sparks. A moment later, the lights went out.
“What was that?” Aspen asked.
Raven drew her pistol. “Something bad. Get back!”
Aspen jumped out of the way just as the doors were pulled off and tossed aside by a creature more than nine feet tall. It was man-shaped, but there any resemblance to anything that had ever been alive ended. Rather it looked as of dozens of corpses had been melted together like old candles and formed into a grotesque mannish thing. Raven shot it through the forehead and pushed it back from the door.
“Run, Asp, get to the stairs!”
Aspen didn’t argue. She passed behind Raven and ran for the stairs. Raven emptied the Automag into the thing and followed her, ignoring the pain in her legs and back. Pain was better than being torn limb from limb.
Ahead, the corridor was blocked by more of the undead passengers, shuffling forward with hunger in their eyes. Raven ejected her pistol’s magazine and reloaded, but Aspen didn’t break stride. She threw a fireball underhanded and it destroyed three of the groping zombies. Raven head-shot the next two and they slammed through the stairway door at the end of the hall. They raced up the companionway, all the while listening to the grotesque golem plod along below them, and ran out into the promenade. The sun was just beginning to rise, it was a pink and orange glow astern. That wasn’t what attracted their attention, however. It was the sparkling red light flickering to
life ahead of the ship. It looked as if thousands of fireworks had been trapped in a single moment, just after detonation. The ocean splashed against it and passed through out with no rhyme or reason, and Raven could see shapes, things she didn’t want to contemplate, standing on the other side. Waiting.
“We have to get out of here,” she said.
“Lifeboats are this way,” Aspen said.
Raven followed her out the starboard door and down a flight of steps to the deck, where the lifeboats were. Or had been. They were gone.
Aspen beat her fists against the rail in frustration. “They were here. I know they were.”
“They’re gone now. Come on, there should be life-vests astern.”
Raven took her hand and half dragged her along the deck until they reached a white-painted deck box. Raven ripped the rusted lock off and tossed it aside. Inside the box were more than two dozen orange flotation vests. Raven handed one to Aspen and started helping her into it. Once she knew Aspen had one, she started on her own. She’d just put it over her head when the ship shook violently. Raven looked up and knew they were running out of time. She could see the portal looming ahead of them. She grabbed one of the lifeboat ropes and clipped it to Aspen’s vest.
“What are you doing?” Aspen asked.
Raven looked at her. “You’ll be okay. Keep your legs together and for God’s sake unclip the rope when you hit the water. Then swim away from that thing. Just get away.”
She kissed Aspen hard and lovingly and hugged her tight. “I love you.”
“Ray, what the hell are you doing?”
Raven smiled. “Making sure one of us gets off this thing.”
She picked Aspen up and, as gently as she could, pushed her overboard. Aspen screamed in surprise as Raven held onto the rope, letting it slide through her hands as fast as she dared. Aspen was almost to the water when the golem stepped into view.
“Et non effugient!” it roared.
Raven used all her strength to snap the rope, dropping Aspen the last ten feet, and turned.
“I heard you the first time. I get it, no one leaves.”
Raven backed away from it, silently counting off the seconds in her head. How much time did she have? A minute? Thirty seconds?
“Come on, big guy. Let’s dance.”
The golem swung a wide haymaker at her head, slow and clumsy. Raven ducked beneath it and drew her pistol. The Automag spat flame and she put three rounds into the thing’s head. It grunted in surprise and fell back, then spat the bullets onto the deck with a smile.
“Okay, that’s a new one. Would it help if I told you, you were under arrest?”
The golem swung a massive fist, faster this time, and Raven backed away again. When she had some room, she began to run, heading to the stern of the ship with the golem close behind. Her feet ate up the deck and she saw the rear of the ship and the loading crane, exactly where she remembered it.
I better have timed this right.
She ran up a set of deck stairs, took a leaping step onto the railing and launched herself into space with the golem lumbering along just a few paces behind her. She caught the dangling chain of the crane and swung out of the way as the golem crashed into the railing and fell into the water below, where it was drawn into the engines and turned into a few hundred pounds of undead hamburger.
The crane carried her around in a half-circle and Raven dropped to the roof of the aft casino. The nose of the Crescent Star was now well inside the portal and Raven could see shapes, frightening demonic things, scurrying over the hull, hungering for her soul. She turned away and ran, tears of pain streaming down her face. She reached the edge and leapt with all her remaining strength as the ship exploded beneath her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Somewhere Off The Coast of New York
Raven could hear the odd whump whump noise of helicopter blades and feel the steady thrum of an engine, which meant she wasn’t dead. She opened her eyes and saw she was in the passenger cabin of some kind of aircraft. She was lying on a cot with an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth and a blanket pulled up to her chin. She turned her head and saw Aspen, her violet hair still matted to her head with seawater, sitting in a seat, dozing. Aspen must have felt her looking because she opened her eyes and smiled.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi honey,” Raven replied.
She pulled the oxygen mask off and sat up. “What happened?”
Aspen folded her arms and looked stern. “You threw me off a cruise ship.”
Raven rubbed her head, which felt stuffed with pudding. “Yeah. I meant after that.”
“You threw me off a cruise ship and jumped off just before it exploded. The minute the bomb went off, that portal thing vanished and the Star started to sink. I found you floating face-down and brought you back. Again. The Coast Guard arrived about half an hour later and pulled us aboard. We’re on our way back to New York now.”
“Any word from King?”
Aspen’s reply was interrupted by King, himself, who was seated out of Raven’s view.
“You did good, Agent Storm. You and Kincaid both. But if your partner Levac hadn’t solved the mystery, you would still be floating around out there,” he said.
Raven leaned back against the pillow. “That’s what partners are for. Tell him I owe him a bottle of scotch.”
“You can tell him yourself. I’m assigning you and Kincaid to the Chicago field office,” King said.
Raven sat up again. “What about Seattle?”
“I’ve got your sister and Kinnamon and a handful of new agents to train. I don’t need you and Kincaid under foot while I do it. Your sister is enough,” King said.
Raven looked at Aspen. “Is that okay with you?”
Aspen smiled. “As long as I’m with you, it’s perfect.”
Raven lay back. She was tired. But it was good to be going home.
II
Chicago, Illinois, The Donut Vault: 9:00 a.m.
Levac took another bite of his powdered donut and leaned back, watching traffic outside. Raven and Aspen were on their way to Boston, where they would recuperate and check on Mason before returning to Chicago. King had said that the three of them were re-opening the old S13: Chicago Field Office while Sable went to help Bobbie and Weaver train new agents. They’d lost a lot of good people in the last week. He didn’t know most of them, but he knew they were good people and would be sorely missed.
He washed the donut down with a swig of coffee and looked at Sable, who was nibbling on a breakfast sandwich of some kind and reading a comic book.
“So, are you coming back?” he asked.
Sable raised her eyes and smiled. “Do you want me to?”
Levac scratched the side of his head with one finger, heedless of the powdered sugar he was mixing in. “You know, you grew on me. You’re not a bad partner.”
Sable laughed and set her comic book aside. “You too, Rupe. I see what Raven sees in you, and I approve. I hope I can call you friend.”
Levac took another bite of donut. “I think we can definitely say we’re friends, Sable.”
Sable’s smile was almost as pretty as Raven’s. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.”
“Likewise.”
Sable’s phone began to sound an alarm and she pulled it out. “I have to catch my flight.”
She stood and pulled her bag over her shoulder. “See you around, Levac.”
Levac stood and offered his hand, which Sable shook with a firm grip. “You know where to find us, Sable. Don’t stay gone too long. It’s time Raven got to know you and you got to know her. You’re a lot alike.”
“I will. Soon, I promise.”
Levac watched her walk away, then paid their bill and headed for the door. With any luck, Sloan would be home, and he could use a good day’s rest.
>
EPILOGUE
Boston, Boston Memorial Hospital, 10:00 a.m.
Raven sat beside Mason Storm’s hospital bed. It was empty. According to hospital records he’d checked out an hour before after calling King and making sure she and Aspen were okay. He’d left nothing but an antique key and a note.
Hey, Kid (it read.)
I know you were expecting to find me here, waiting for you, and maybe I’m a coward for not being here, but I couldn’t. I screwed up, Raven. I should have told you years ago that I was still here, should have brought you two together and let you grow up as normal as possible. Your mother and I never wanted this, for either of you. It’s just the way the cookie crumbled. You might say it runs in the family.
You should know that I always loved you, always watched you, and you have grown into a wonderful woman I am so very proud of.
When you are ready, follow the key. It will tell you the rest of the story.
I love you,
Dad.
Raven balled the note up and stuffed it into her pocket, along with the key.
“Are you going to find him?” Aspen asked.
Raven nodded. “Yeah.”
“But not today?”
Raven looked at her. “No. Not today.”
The End
RAVEN STORM WILL RETURN...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My fellow gamer girls, gamer dorks, geeks and nerds. I love you guys!
My publisher, Sarah, who still has faith in me.
My editor, Elizabeth, who makes you think I can spell.
My publicist, Jen, who always gets the word out.
My stylist Kelly, because without her, I’m not platinum.
And my fans, who keep reading. You mean the world to me.
Thank you all so much!
Skye
