by Keri Arthur
“Just why are you still lead investigator?” I asked. “You should by all rights still be in the hospital. Those runes did a hell of a lot of damage.”
His gaze came to mine. Something dark and dangerous flared in his eyes, but it was anger and frustration—maybe even regret—that stung the air. “Had I still been human, I undoubtedly would be.”
Meaning the virus had gifted him with fast healing. I guess that, at least, was something good to have come from the infection, even if it was outweighed by all the bad.
I pulled my gaze away from his and skimmed the lonely street. The buildings seemed more decayed than ever before. Wind keened through shattered windows and rattled loose roof sheeting and broken doors, but nothing else stirred in this place. Nothing other than the ever-present plastic bags that pirouetted down the street, anyway. The only real difference this time to all the other times I’d walked into this place was the soot that fell like black snow all around us, and the orange glow of the fire that was somehow contained within one area. That area might be protected by Frederick’s magic, but why, if there were items within the barrier that Rinaldo wanted, would they contain rather than erase the inferno? It made no sense.
The closer we got to that area, the more unpleasant the sting of magic became, though it didn’t in any way feel threatening. I guess that was no surprise given Rinaldo wanted us in there to retrieve shit for him.
We passed the intersection where our final battle with Luke had begun. Blood still stained the road—blood that had not come only from Luke but from Sam, the cloaks, and even me—but little remained of the buildings that had lined the intersection. What Jackson and I hadn’t blown to smithereens, fire had apparently finished.
But those fires were long gone. There wasn’t even any heat left in the few bits of blackened, burned wood that remained.
The night began to take on a deeper orange glow, but there were no plumes of smoke rising to blot out the stars, and the air was filled with not only the stink of death and decay, but also magic. It felt like thousands of tiny gnats were tearing at my skin, and it was a goddamn wonder blood wasn’t being drawn.
We turned down another street. At the far end was an almost sheer wall of concrete and metal, and recognition stirred. I’d been here before. My gaze darted to the side street on the right just before the barrier—that was where I’d first confronted Luke. Though he’d been protected from my flames by a barrier of magic, it hadn’t saved him from bullets. Rory’s shot, however, had only winged him. The bastard had fled into a nearby building, which I’d subsequently brought down on top of him, but he’d escaped that, too. At least Death had eventually caught up with him; now we just had to pray she caught up with Rinaldo and his witch.
I’m thinking Rinaldo is far cannier than Luke ever was.
Undoubtedly. But he will make a mistake eventually.
Then let’s hope we’re around to both see and capitalize on it.
A smile touched my lips but faded quickly as we walked into the side street and stopped. The fire was now a sheer wall of dancing, orange-yellow flames that rose high above us, and yet the heat that rolled across my skin held none of the fierceness it should have. In fact, the only thing that seared was the closeness of the magic that was somehow containing it.
I rubbed my arms and eyed the street warily. It wasn’t very long, and was dominated by the huge pile of rubble that had once been a building. My gaze swept across the destruction, and I wondered again how the hell Luke had survived. He really shouldn’t have—though I guess in the end the “how” didn’t matter; he was dead, and we were now battling the people who’d stepped into his place.
The fire I couldn’t really feel ran across the top of that huge mound of brick, metal, and god knows what else. If we wanted to progress into the fire zone, we’d have to climb up it . . . The thought stalled as my gaze went to the building that ran the length of the street on the opposite side of all the rubble. It was a three-story brick building that had obviously once been a warehouse of some kind. Though the far end of it disappeared into the fire zone, the bricks nearest the barrier weren’t holding any heat, and neither the wall nor the roof showed any signs of recent damage, suggesting there was a chance the section we couldn’t see was also whole. There were two roller-door entrances in the visible portion that were blocked by bricks and metal, and all the windows were protected by heavy-duty mesh. While we had neither the time nor the manpower to remove the debris, the mesh had little chance of standing up to the heat of a phoenix.
Rinaldo might want us to take the obvious entrance, but maybe it’d be better to take a different route. Neither he nor his witch wanted to go into this place, and that suggested there was something wrong here—something they had no control over.
“According to the witches we consulted,” Sam said, “there’s a break in the fire at the highest point of the building rubble. They believe it’s an entrance of some kind.”
“And, naturally, it’s an invisible entrance.” Jackson’s tone was a mix of amusement and frustration. “Because almost nothing in this goddamn investigation has gone according to plan or been easy.”
Sam snorted. “And you’ve only been investigating it for a couple of weeks. Imagine how we feel.”
“I’m thinking ‘pissed off’ would be putting it mildly.”
“Yeah.” Sam’s gaze came to me. “Can you sense the break?”
“No.” I hesitated and waved a hand toward the warehouse. “What did the witches say about that building?”
He frowned. “Nothing that I’m aware of—why?”
“Because we’re very obviously meant to climb that pile of shit ahead, and I’m thinking we should do the exact opposite.”
Jackson frowned. “I doubt they’d leave such an obvious means of entry unprotected.”
“True, but it’s still a better option than climbing a debris mound that may or may not be stable.” Sam motioned toward the nearest window. “Care to flex a flame muscle or two, Em?”
A smile touched my lips. “It would be my pleasure.”
I did, and all too quickly the mesh was little more than molten gray liquid oozing down the grimy bricks. Sam unclipped the small flashlight from his belt and walked over. The powerful beam parted the shadows that dominated the building’s interior, revealing the broken remnants of walls and a sea of hanging wiring and lights.
“There’s no life in the immediate vicinity,” he said.
“But plenty of the dead if that smell is anything to go by,” Jackson muttered. “I wonder if this was one of the feeding areas for the red cloaks.”
“Feeding areas?” Sam’s question was somewhat remote. His attention was still on the building’s interior.
“Luke was using animals of various kinds to feed his army—a fact we discovered when we tried to rescue the three witches he’d kidnapped,” Jackson said. “And it strikes me as odd that there was no outcry, given the number of animals that must have gone missing over the past year or so.”
“Vampires can go a fair amount of time before the need for blood becomes all consuming,” I said. “If it’s the same for the cloaks, then the disappearances could have been spread out.”
“It is the same for the infected.” Sam’s voice was clipped. “And people did notice. We just managed to keep it out of the mainstream press.”
“PIT seems to be doing a lot of that lately. And yes,” Jackson added, “I know you have no real choice.”
I sidestepped the puddle of metal and stopped beside the two men. My arm brushed Sam’s, and awareness surged again; this time it was an all-too-brief flicker that contained far more heat than the flames that towered above us. Rather surprisingly, he made no attempt to pull away. Maybe almost dying for a second time had mellowed him somewhat.
And maybe tomorrow vampires would fly.
I peered into the gloom. Beyond the wall remnants
and the gently swinging fittings and wires, there was little else to see but rubbish. There certainly weren’t any bones or bodies. If the building was another of Luke’s feeding areas, then it was happening in another portion of the structure. I doubted it, though. The smell might be potent, but it still wasn’t strong enough for the source to be anywhere close.
“I can’t sense any additional magic,” I said, “but given the strength of the main spell, I might not. Are you familiar with the building’s layout?”
“I’ve been here once or twice.” Sam handed me the flashlight, then grabbed the windowsill and very quickly hauled himself up and into the building. Dust bloomed as he landed, a choking cloud of black that briefly snatched him from sight. “Em, you’re next.”
I handed him the flashlight, then stepped into Jackson’s cupped hands. In very little time, I was standing next to Sam. Jackson joined us a heartbeat later.
“This way.”
Sam moved forward cautiously. We walked through a series of smashed rooms and rubbish, heading toward what once must have been a wall dividing section of the warehouse from the other. There were two doorways—one into the shell of an office, the other into a hallway. Not even the flashlight’s bright beam could penetrate the darkness that held that place captive.
Magic, my inner voice whispered, even if I couldn’t actually sense it.
Two metal doors that had once divided the two areas lay on the concrete; one of them so badly twisted, it looked more like a crinkled bit of foil. The other was blackened and covered in rubbish.
Sam skirted them both and stepped into the gloom. I half expected him to disappear, but nothing happened. There was little in the way of sound, and the only thing moving besides the three of us was a stirring breeze. Which was weird when we were so close to the fire zone. Considering the height and strength of those flames, we should have at least heard their roar.
Though there was no immediate threat, Sam unclipped his weapon in readiness. Heat instantly touched the air, a brief but bright flash of orange that lit the darkness.
That flash came from Jackson rather than the nearby wall of fire.
He took a deep, steadying breath and gave me a tight smile. I’m okay.
I know. And a flash of light was infinitely better than a burst of flames. He might not yet have full control, but he was improving a whole lot faster than most young phoenixes ever did.
We walked on, our footsteps stirring up a cloud of dust and soot that choked every breath. The flashlight still wasn’t having much luck against the almost impregnable darkness, but Sam nevertheless seemed to know where he was going.
“We should be about level with the beginnings of that debris wall,” he said. “Feel anything different, Em?”
“No. Nothing different to what I would have outside, anyway.” Which was decidedly weird, given they had to be aware that this warehouse was a direct route into the fire zone. Why protect a rubble-filled road with magic and fire, and not the warehouse? Or was it simply a matter of our not having reached whatever defenses had been set up here yet?
“Let me know if it changes or gets worse as we step under the fire wall,” Sam said.
“That’s presuming what we’re seeing is actually a fire,” Jackson said. “It’s always possible it’s nothing more than an illusion.”
Sam glanced back at us, blue eyes bright in the shadows. “What makes you think that?”
“The fact that I’m a fire fae and feeling no fire.” He glanced at me. “What about you?”
“There is a fire ahead, but it’s nowhere near as strong as it should be.”
He grunted. “Meaning it’s being enhanced to look worse than it is.”
“I guess we’ll find out why soon enough.” Sam returned his attention to the corridor. “We should be near the magical demarcation zone.”
As he spoke, the shadows closed in around us, becoming thicker—heavier. The flashlight’s gleam became little more than a glimmer, and I couldn’t see Sam’s back even though he was close enough to reach out and touch. The magic burned so fiercely across my skin now that my entire body shuddered under its force and sweat trickled down my spine. Had I been this close to a real fire, I could have sucked in the force of the flames and used the energy to fight the sensations. But while there definitely was fire somewhere in the zoned-off area up ahead, the rearing wall of flame that dominated this section of Brooklyn was little more than a subterfuge.
Jackson lightly touched my spine, and heat leapt from his flesh to mine. I resisted the temptation to draw it even deeper, to fuel my nerves and my strength with his fire, and stepped away from his touch. You need to keep your heat to yourself, especially since we have no idea what we’re about to walk into.
I’m barely keeping a lid on the inner flames, he said. Sharing is helping me as much as— The sentence was abruptly cut off. “Turner, stop.”
“Why?” Sam’s voice was curt, but more from tension than anything else.
“There’s movement up ahead.”
“I’m not sensing any kind of heartbeat,” Sam said. “So whatever it is, it isn’t human.”
“That’s not exactly a comforting thought,” I said. “Not given that the witch has already used hellhounds against us.”
Sam glanced at me, something I felt rather than saw. “Hellhounds actually exist?”
“Most mythical creatures do, even if humans have enhanced the reality of them over the centuries. In this case, hounds are actually spirits who live deep within the earth.”
Sam grunted and raised his flashlight; the beam did little more than flare uselessly against the wall of black. “Em? You want to try?”
I called flames to my fingers and shaped them into a ball before throwing it upward. It had no immediate impact on the gloom that surrounded us, so I increased the strength of the fiery sphere, until it glowed white-hot. Still nothing.
“This darkness is definitely sourced from magic,” Jackson said, “and it leaves me wondering what, exactly, is being concealed.”
“Can you still sense movement?”
Jackson hesitated. “Yes. Just.”
“Then let’s try my other party trick,” I said, and called to the mother. She answered instantly, rushing through me in a wave of power that briefly made my skin glow white-hot, then rolled outward in a wave. Whatever the spell was, it had no counter to the mother’s power. The heavy blanket peeled away from her touch, and the source of Jackson’s movement was revealed.
It was rats. Hundreds and hundreds of rats.
CHAPTER 5
If they were frightened by either our presence or the sphere of flame hovering above them, there was little sign of it. They were too busy eating.
They weren’t feeding on rubbish. They were feeding on bodies.
Human bodies.
Memories stirred, and a shudder ran through me. I’d seen scenes like this all too often in times of plague and other calamities. The rats had always been there at the end, growing fat on the flesh of the unfortunate.
But in this case, the unfortunate were probably better off, because the flesh the rats were feeding on was that of the red cloaks.
“I guess that answers the question of what happened to the cloaks.” Jackson’s voice was grim.
“Not entirely,” Sam said. “There’re probably only twenty or so bodies here. Luke had a much larger force than that.”
“The rats wouldn’t be back if there were some cloaks still alive,” I said. “Rats are many things, but they’re not stupid.”
“And if there were some left alive,” Jackson said, “they’d surely be hungry enough to have swarmed both the military and us by now.”
“True,” Sam said, “but it does make me wonder why Rinaldo—if he is able to control them—would only keep a small force of them alive to attack you two.”
“Those cloaks attacked
Frederick before they turned on us, remember, and I doubt Rinaldo would have ordered that.” I shrugged. “If he does control them, maybe his connection is telepathic rather than hive based.”
“A possibility with those who, like me, are infected but not hive bound,” Sam said. “But the cloaks had no mind to control.”
He took a cautious step forward. The nearest rats briefly glanced his way but otherwise didn’t move.
“Bold bastards, aren’t they?” Jackson said. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m rather reluctant to walk through a damn sea of them. So if no one minds . . . ?”
He didn’t wait for an answer; he simply unleashed the heat that had been building within him. A thick stream of fire shot past Sam, then spread out, becoming a fiery wave that hit the nearest rats, setting both them and the remains of the cloak they were feeding alight. As their high-pitched cries of pain filled the air, the wave rolled on, seeking out the rest of them. But they were already on the move, scurrying away into the darkness beyond both Jackson’s fire and the mother’s light.
I briefly raised the intensity of the fire to put the burning rats out of their misery, then cindered the bodies of the cloaks. The light breeze stirred the ashes into a gentle flurry, and brought with it the stench of burned flesh.
But it wasn’t coming from the dead inside the room. It was coming from somewhere up ahead.
I sent the sphere of light forward. It revealed a low row of skeletal offices and a door at the far end.
An open door.
“Now there’s an invitation if I ever saw one,” Jackson said. “Anyone care to bet on it being a trap?”
The sphere hit the doorway and went through. There didn’t appear to be anything more than rubble and rubbish in the street beyond, though that wasn’t to say there wasn’t a cast of thousands hiding in the shadows beyond the illuminated area. I released the mother’s light and allowed the darkness to close in around us again. If it was a trap up ahead, then I needed to conserve as much energy as I could.
