Mandy M. Roth - Magic Under Fire (Over a Dozen Tales of Urban Fantasy)

by Unknown

  “Both of you, actually. They feel like my children, so I’m going to go with it.”

  “I used to dream of a big family.”

  “There’s not enough Turducken in the world for that holiday dinner.”

  The comm buzzed. “Attention in the compound. Attention in the compound. This is Commander Whitman. Stay where you are. Do not activate the failsafe. I repeat, this is Commander Whitman with Bureau 7 SWAT. Stay where you are. Do not activate the failsafe. We will come to you.”

  All the playfulness was gone from Elizabeth’s face. Her face had gone chalk white. “You can’t let them catch you.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he said, knowing that he had to. For now.

  “Find me. You can, right? Even though you’re free?”

  “I’ll never be free of you.” He wrapped his arms around her. “And I don’t want to be.”

  “That’s so the right answer.” She looked up at him. “Kiss me.”

  He didn’t hold back—not his strength, not the electric current that lived inside of him, and not everything that he felt for this woman.

  His woman.

  She kissed him back. “Don’t be gone too long.”

  Adam thought he’d done hard things before. Killing Harriet Shelley had gone against everything in him he knew to be right, and it had ripped him apart to hurt her. But the curse made it impossible to deny.

  Walking away from Elizabeth, no curse compelled him to put one foot in front of the other. To not look back and walked away from her and left her in the middle of a crisis. Perhaps the immediate danger had passed, but no one could protect her like he could.

  He knew he was protecting her by walking away. If the Bureau wanted him badly enough, and they realized she was like him, they’d lock her away, too. They’d take her apart and put her back together all to dissect the divine.

  He tried not to think about the taste of her on his lips, the way she felt in his arms, or the simple, pure joy he’d felt knowing that she lived.

  The only peace he’d ever known was when she touched him.

  He would find her again, when it was safe, and hope that this horror hadn’t all been a fevered dream. Adam would take all of it, all the long years, the loneliness, even the first time they burned him—it was all worth having Elizabeth.

  When he exited the compound, helicopters buzzed above like shiny wasps, darting here and there, and an army of what looked like tiny ants swarmed down rappelling lines. The SWAT team they’d been promised. They were armed to the teeth and outfitted in body armor.

  He watched them for a long moment and wondered if they’d notice the No Stars drifting away from the dock. If they did, he could always lose them in the sea. He could walk to the mainland if he had to, but Adam had decided maybe he had use for some human things after all. He really enjoyed his boat and, someday, Elizabeth was going to be naked in the sun on that deck.

  Adam crept aboard, and it seemed all attention was on the facility. There were a few stray revenants, and they were quickly put down. He supposed he blended in, as well as a monster could, in his fatigues and combat boots. They must’ve assumed at a distance, he was one of them.

  Sloppy work on their part.

  He was half-tempted to turn around.

  But he kept hearing her say, “Find me.”

  Adam untied his boat and let the wind and waves do as they wished with him. At least until he got out of sight of the island.

  He grabbed a bottle of wine he’d been saving. It was the last from his maker’s cellar. Adam knew it was probably pure vinegar swill by now, but it was the end. It was a beginning.

  It was time.

  “I assume you have another glass for me?” John Polidori climbed up from below deck.

  “You piece of shit,” Adam said with a sigh. He didn’t bother to ask what the bloodsucker was doing on his boat. It was obvious he was trying to escape.

  John waved him off. “Oh, you say the sweetest things. It’s positively poetry.”

  “I should rip your arms off.”

  “If you were going to, you would have.” John reached for the bottle of wine and took a long pull. “This is piss. Why are you drinking—oh. That’s why.” He inspected the bottle.

  “Aren’t you even going to ask what happened to Elizabeth?”

  Polidori looked up from the bottle. “I rather thought you wouldn’t want me to.” He narrowed his eyes. “You Tarzan, Her Jane?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “She was bitten.”

  “I know. Rather clever of me, don’t you think?”

  Adam considered murder. Popping his head off like a dandelion in summer and making a wish while he sprayed the vampire’s guts all over the Aegean.

  “Oh my god, you’re so boring.” He handed Adam the bottle. “Silly little Prometheus. It’s not like you were going to kill her just so you could give her your gift. You wouldn’t have been able to do it. I helped you. Now, you just have to get her bone marrow to do what yours does and it’s happily bloody after.”

  “How do you propose I do that?”

  “Must I do everything? You graft one of your bones to one of hers. Rib is the easiest, I hear. Downright biblical, if you ask me.” He smirked. “Ironic, isn’t it? The creation of man, bitter at his creator playing divine, must now play the game himself or lose the woman he loves. Personally, I like it.”

  “You left her alone, John.”

  “And is she not just fine?”

  “That’s not the point.” Adam advanced on him. “You let her be afraid. That’s not something I’m willing to let go.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Seriously?” Polidori put up his hands, as if that would ward him off. “Let’s be civilized about this.”

  “There’s nothing civilized about abandoning a woman who trusted you.”

  “I didn’t ask her to trust me. I mean, if we’re dissecting particulars.”

  “Oh, but you did. When you agreed to work with her. When you signed your contract with Bureau 7. Elizabeth says they’ll put a price on your head.”

  “As if that’s anything new.” He rolled his eyes. “Back up, sir. You are decidedly in my space.”

  “I’m going to do a lot more than be in your space,” Adam promised.

  “How rude.” Polidori sighed as Adam picked him up by his arms. “Those take forever to regenerate. Don’t tear them off.”

  “I have something better.”

  Polidori didn’t squirm in his grip or even try to get away. “Don’t hurt yourself. You get those gears in that skull turning too quickly, something important might catch fire.”

  “Indeed, Doctor. Indeed,” he agreed jovially.

  He hurled John Polidori over the side of the boat.

  “You’re not really going to leave me here, are you?” John said when he surfaced, treading water.

  “It is fair. You left Elizabeth drowning in a sea of death. I will leave you here.” He nodded.

  “I can’t drown.” John looked smug.

  “No, but you can wish you could.” Adam called on the electric current and stuck his hands into the water. “There is a little known species of eel—”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake. Electric eels are freshwater, air-breathing—”

  “Let me finish. There’s a little known species of eel that lives in the deep ocean. It tolerates both the darkest depths and the surface surprisingly well. Most animals that live that deep die on the surface. Not these guys. They grow to lengths of twenty to fifty feet. I discovered them after Mary had me hammered into a coffin and dumped at sea. They were drawn to my electricity. They think I’m one of theirs.” Adam laughed as he watched the terror wash over Polidori.

  “You’re immortal. They could drag you down so far, the pressure of the water could crush even your bones. And they’ll keep you there. That’s where you’ll spend your eternity, in the bellies of eels. Unless you start swimming now.”

  Polidori composed himself and raised a brow
. “You sir, are a motherfucker of the lowest caliber.”

  “No, I don’t abandon helpless women during a zombie apocalypse of my own making. That is a motherfucker of the lowest caliber.” He cocked his head. “Oh, what’s that? They’re coming. I can feel it.”

  “Damn you, Adam. I saved her! I helped you!” he snarled.

  “Perhaps you did. And that’s the only reason that I didn’t tear your limbs from your body and reattach them with your own intestines. Enjoy your swim to shore, Doctor.” Adam winked at him and went to engage the engine.

  He couldn’t go back to Trieste, not now. So it was on to warmer waters and maybe a beach where he would dream of Elizabeth and wait until the time was right to find her.

  Even though she’d released him from the curse, she was part of him still. He’d always know where to find her.

  “Find me,” he replayed her whisper in his ear as sailed away from Polidori, from Bureau 7, from all the darkness that had always plagued him.

  He may have left her behind, in a way, he was still sailing toward her. Toward their future together.

  Toward home.

  ELIZABETH WAS in a helicopter next to “Mad Dog” Whitman when the installation lit up the night sky. Fireworks exploded around them in a bright, colorful display. The populace had been told it was a planned entertainment, but it was to mask the utter and absolute destruction of the compound.

  “It just came over the wire, Dr. Wollstonecraft.” The SWAT commander nodded. “They’ve captured the X operative in Turkey. I thought you’d like to know.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “After the mayhem she caused, I hope they throw her in the deepest, loneliest, blackest pit.”

  “And if they gave you the key to this pit?” The corner of her full mouth turned up with a smirk.

  “I’d give it to a rusalka.”

  Mad Dog laughed. “Hardcore. I respect that. I’m sure the information extraction process will be painful for her, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “I wish I could say it did. I mean, you know, kind of.” She gave the other woman a lopsided grin. “But it doesn’t undo all the harm she did. The people’s lives she destroyed. The resources we’ve lost.”

  “Maybe it’s not all bad. You’ve got the survivors who were able to be evacuated.” Her dark brown eyes narrowed. “What’s that scar on your arm? It looks like a bite.”

  Elizabeth smiled at her. “It is.”

  Mad Dog lived up to her name, and she pulled out her glock and held it to Elizabeth’s head. “You better start talking.”

  “I’m immune.”

  “You could have a secondary infection. You could—”

  “I don’t. My last name is Wollstonecraft.”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn what your last name is, lady.”

  Elizabeth tried to think of a way to distill the information without revealing too much about Adam. “The people who are in those cages recovering? It’s because one of them bit me. The cure is in my blood.”

  She eyed her. “Should’ve known you had some shit, what with your stripes in your hair like Frankenstein’s Bride.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Exactly like Frankenstein’s Bride.” She didn’t bother to correct her that Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. Because in truth, he was the monstrous one. It was the monster who was noble. The monster who was good. The monster who was… Adam.

  “You’re a strange one. You’re the only woman I’ve met to go anime-eyed over Frankenstein.” She holstered her weapon. “But I can’t blame you.”

  “Oh? A supernatural crush of your own?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Mad Dog eased back and looked out at the fireworks as they disappeared in the distance.

  “I probably would. A little girl-bonding couldn’t hurt.”

  “We went all this time without talking about men. Let’s not ruin it.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Come on. I’m dying to know.”

  “Your monster is real, though. Isn’t he? He was the big, dark shadow on the security footage.”

  Elizabeth had a split second to make the decision whether or not to trust Mad Dog Whitman, SWAT Commander and fellow Bureau 7 employee. She knew full well she could be a plant to ferret out any information about Adam.

  Elizabeth had some otherworldly perception about the woman. She knew instinctively, that as long as she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone with her secret, she would keep it to herself.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, don’t worry. I erased the tapes.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Call it a hunch.” She shrugged. “In all the years I’ve worked for 7, I’ve never heard of this monster. If he was the kind of thing I hunt, I’d have heard about him.”

  “So tell me,” Elizabeth prompted.

  “Oh, for shit’s sake.” She sighed. “His name is Karl. He’s not real. He was my imaginary friend when I was a kid. I’m probably just wired wrong. Most people who do what I do are.”

  “No, you’re not getting off that easily.”

  “Okay, I’ve never actually said this out loud. If I tell you this, that’s it. We’re friends. You’re coming at the holidays to meet my family and it’s a forever thing.” Whitman took a deep breath. “Karl Prinzehausen is his full name and he’s the Headless Horseman.”

  Elizabeth kept her face neutral. “Seriously? Like, Sleepy Hollow Horseman?”

  “Yeah. My parents own a B&B and an orchard just at the edge of town. Wanna come for Halloween?”

  “Can I bring a date?”

  “Sleepy Hollow won’t know what hit them.” She grinned. “Since we’re best friends now, or something, I guess you can call me Mads.”

  “If you call me Lizzie, I’ll kill you.”

  “Fair enough, Elizabeth.” Something came over the radio and Mads answered. “10-4. I’ll escort her myself.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Roanridge wants you stateside for debriefing. There’s a private plane in Athens waiting for you.”

  “Do you know where my patients are going?”

  “Don’t worry about them, Doc. We’ve got no orders to terminate. They’re headed to the Shetland Islands. I’m sure you’ll be there shortly. I guess you’ll have to come home with me next Halloween.”

  “I hope you weren’t kidding about that because I’m coming.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.” She laughed. But her stomach was unsettled. She was not looking forward to debriefing. Why did he want to do it in person?

  She guessed she’d soon find out.

  9

  Shetland Islands, Scotland Bureau 7, Roanridge Island Installation

  THE COLD WIND whipped at her face as the boat forced its way through from St. Magnus Bay to the Norwegian Sea.

  Elizabeth was headed home from the Roanridge Island Installation. She’d learned her lesson about living on site. She had her own tiny island and, like Roanridge, it was on no map. She’d named it Legacy. It had craggy desolate shores and tall, ancient trees. Just being there instilled a sense of rightness in her, and she knew what to ask for when Director Roanridge had offered her a bonus to continue working on the project.

  It was either continue the project or become part of it, anyway. That had been the Director’s ultimatum. So she’d moved to the frigid north, closer to Norway than to Scotland. It was different here than Greece, the island living. It was more rugged. Harsher. Living alone on an island here was like waving your middle finger in the face of mother nature and daring her to strike you down.

  But that was in the Wollstonecraft blood, too, apparently.

  If Elizabeth hadn’t had the survivors of Kythnos quarantined in Sector 4Z, she might have wondered if it had all been a fevered dream.

  She rubbed the scar on her wrist absently, and thought about him—Adam.

  Had a man made of death really come to save her?

  Her logical mind said it was the fever as her body fought of the infe
ction, but the infection itself, the fact that she was immune, that was enough to remind her that she was something else. Something different.

  And that he had happened.

  He was more than a figment of her imagination.

  Tears stung her eyes as the frigid salt spray splashed her face, but she kind of liked it. It reminded her that she was alive.

  It wasn’t too long before her dock came into view, and she was disappointed to see yet again that hers was the only boat in evidence. He said he’d find her when the time was right and so she waited.

  She hoped.

  And sometimes, hope was a miserable bastard. Nothing could be so sharp a blade as the yearning behind hope.

  Elizabeth guided the boat into the docking system, and it was locked down into position. If she wished, she could use the system she’d installed to carry her all the way to the secret lagoon under her house and from there, into a decontamination room.

  Kythnos had inspired her, and Roanridge hadn’t given her a limit on her spending. Not that she’d gone crazy. Her home was made of old shipping containers, powered by the sun and the wind. Gray water and rainwater systems, the whole works.

  Technically, she could survive an apocalypse, zombie or otherwise. She hadn’t neglected a panic room, a bunker, or an extra layer of security. She’d found herself a cold water rusalka who was more than happy to play guardian.

  Everything was as she wanted it, except for Adam.

  After she disembarked, she hiked up the rocky incline, breathing deep and enjoying the air.

  She carried a package in her bag, and she couldn’t wait to get inside and open it.

  Inside, were the original three, hand-written installments of Frankenstein.

  In the months following Kythnos, she’d become obsessed, collecting everything about her family that she could.

  Her study contained some gruesome, yet fascinating items. Percy’s calcified heart, wrapped in his poetry. Mary had kept it after it had refused to burn when he was cremated. Mary’s mother’s secret journal, and the bone of her left pinkie. This, and many other items were said to contain the key to the true alchemy behind life ever-lasting.