“Bait for what?” I called back.
“One of you will explain how to reach the Tributary.” Odessa’s voice swirled around us from every angle. “And the rest will be spared.”
“Likely story,” I shouted back.
“Not your lives,” Odessa replied, disdain dripping like rainwater from her tone. “Spared the indignity of being torn limb from limb.”
“Pass,” I said, aiming down the sights. “But thanks for the offer.”
“Very well, fools.”
Suddenly, the Vanished surged forward like enraged animals, their mistress’s restraints finally coming loose. Kalos and I gave each other a knowing nod.
A bolt of blue lightning erupted from the shotgun’s barrel, turning a vacant-eyed car salesman into ashen dust. Kalos, for his part, got off two headshots with the .45, but the ranks quickly closed, the sea of Vanished rumbling toward us with bats, knives and whatever sundry rocks were available.
Roark’s pistol fired like a metronome behind me. We dropped the first wave before they’d even closed half the gap. But ammo wasn’t unlimited, and the Vanished had strength in numbers.
They also had a pocket ace up their sleeve: if they bit us, we’d be consumed by demon bloodlust. A slow-moving affliction that robbed you of your sanity—and eventually turned you into little more than another soulless acolyte. Not before you had a psychotic episode that made the worst meth binge look like rational discourse, though.
“Faster, you worthless creatures!” Above the pounding rain, the demoness squealed, desperately trying to galvanize her army. I had Harcourt to thank for this attack. His public release of the details had every crazy who believed in the Tributary licking their chops. Even from beyond the grave, that damn Fae was causing me no shortage of trouble.
Hopefully, other would-be treasure seekers and power grabbers would ignore him. Odessa and MagiTekk were more than enough chaos to deal with.
I racked the shotgun and fired, the chamber going empty.
“I gotta reload!” I jammed a mixture of MagiTekk and supernatural rounds into the chamber, working as fast as my rain-slick fingers allowed.
Kalos grunted a response, but I knew that a .45’s magazine didn’t hold an infinite number of bullets. Behind us, the pistol stopped ringing, and ice sluiced through my veins as I heard Roark say, “I’m down to my last rounds.”
He’d been out here fighting the Vanished long before us. Figured he would run out of bullets first.
Scanning the approaching barbarian horde, I estimated that there was a minimum of thirty demon associates still standing. Once human, now nothing but meat puppets, they stalked forward, ready to execute Odessa’s wishes.
“I’m running low, too,” Kalos said. Another thunderous shot exploded from his .45, catching a former waitress in the head. But still the Vanished came forward, feeling no fear or pity for their fallen comrades.
I finished loading the shotgun and squeezed off another shell, cutting off a burly fellow at the knees. He still crawled forward through the bloody, rain-spattered dust, dedicated to his mission even in the throes of death. The obsession would’ve been impressive had he not been crawling toward me.
“Here,” I said, shoving the shotgun at Kalos. “Cover me.”
“You can’t go out there—”
But I was already racing toward the army, taking the lightning blade from its sheath. Its electric glow cast a glistening blue sheen over the soaking landscape.
Reaching the first row of bodies, I spun to avoid a golf club, slicing through a neck as I ducked beneath the clawing arm of another would-be attacker. Pirouetting around a gray-haired man with a cane, I sprinted through a gap in their ranks, my focus centered on one goal.
The horizon.
If I could draw the Vanished away, then Roark and Kalos could pick them off. Maybe thin out their ranks enough to have a chance.
But that was Plan B—a worst-case scenario.
Because, really what I was doing, was following the trail of red wisps. Right back to the source.
Cut off the head off the snake, and the body dies.
I jammed the knife into an office worker’s skull, feeling the bone crack from the force. As I tried to wrench the weapon free, two Vanished closed in and grabbed my arms. I unleashed a bloodthirsty cry, temporarily giving up my pursuit of the blade to trip one.
His partner had a copper pipe, and the woman brought that down on my knee with a howl. Angry, I wrestled the pipe from her hands. She tried to bite me, but a sharp elbow to the stomach nipped that in the bud.
Clutching the slippery metal tight in my hands, I flipped over, just in time to see a rock plummeting toward my face. She’d grabbed a new toy. I swung the pipe, connecting with the woman’s attack. Her neck snapped back like an impact dummy’s as she flew back into the gooey dirt.
Not wasting time, I quickly swung the pipe at her partner, caving in his head. Pulse pounding, I returned to my original task, placing my boot against the fallen office worker’s chest and tugging on the blade. It slid out with a gruesome noise that made even me wince.
Shots from Roark’s pistol and the shotgun peppered the landscape behind me. The Vanished seemed torn between attacking me and going after my allies. Not the intended effect, but their ill-fated divide and conquer approach was making survival easier.
But I had a demoness to kill.
I dropped into a dead run, sprinting in pursuit of the wisps. The fringes of the group were ragged and unkempt, comprised of the stragglers. I weaved through the ultra-wide openings, rather than picking unnecessary fights, my focus always on the horizon.
The desert can be deceiving—what looks empty for miles can suddenly be filled with sparse flora or mountains. The opposite too—one can imagine an oasis that, upon reaching a distant vista, was nothing but sand.
In this case, however, it was no desert illusion keeping Odessa hidden. It was a garden-variety cloaking spell, which I sensed as I tore ass away from the Vanished horde. I sensed the aura of the crude spell from many yards away.
The wisps turned a shade of deep crimson that I hadn’t seen in years. Perhaps ever.
This demoness needed to die. It was her blood, or ours.
But I wouldn’t get the chance. The illusion shattered with the rumbling start of a loud truck engine, the gray horizon disappearing in a cloud of thick black diesel smoke. The pickup truck’s high beams flashed. I stopped, shielding my eyes.
Its engine revved, and I heard Odessa call, “I will find a way into that Tributary.”
“Not on my watch, you won’t.” I regretted handing the shotgun off to Kalos. In the distance, I could hear the fragments of the battle still raging. I needed to dispatch her before the remaining forces devoured him and Roark.
“We are alike, you and I.” Odessa leaned out the window and waved. I don’t know what I was expecting—maybe a hideous, Medusa-esque monster with tentacles flowing from her wrinkled face. But what I saw was a pretty brunette wearing a cowboy hat.
“I’ve been hearing that too much, lately.” I gripped the knife, wondering if I could hurl it through the windshield. “And it’s pissing me off.”
“That’s what allows us to survive. Rage.” The engine exploded, all that Detroit steel humming at once as the tires screamed forward in the muddy desert. I stood my ground as the truck bore down, gauging my chances of killing her.
None.
But anger and defiance kept me standing there until the wisps screamed I was going to die. I dove out of the truck’s path as it tore ass away from the melee. Coughing from the exhaust, I scrambled to my feet.
In the distance, I saw a field of bodies, a few lost stragglers wandering about without their mistress. And, in the middle, two men.
One standing.
The other on his knee.
Lungs burning, I raced across the rainy expanse, worst-case scenarios playing in my mind.
When I was within earshot, I yelled, “What happened?”
The
man on the ground looked up. I could see Kalos’s salt-and-pepper flecked beard. I almost breathed a sigh of relief, until he said, “One of them got me.”
And then he craned his neck to display a fresh red bite.
15
Breathing heavily, Roark and I helped Kalos back to his desert cabin. Argos greeted us at the door, his plumy tail wagging like a metronome until he sniffed the air.
His ears immediately went down and he said, “Someone’s been corrupted by demon bloodlust.”
“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before, buddy,” Kalos said, offering a weak laugh. He shook off our arms and walked to the table under his own volition. I watched him take a long drink directly from the bottle of bourbon. Then he limped into the kitchen–bedroom–living room and slumped onto the cot.
Argos nodded me into the adjacent room, where all the workstations and tech beeped. It was amusing to me that Kalos—he of the shitty apartment and mattress on the floor—would reinvent himself as some sort of technical wizard. I guess the job market forced everyone to learn new skills.
I leaned against the crumbling wall, Roark taking the other side of the small room. He’d made a remarkable recovery after the booster shot. Guess they worked better when you weren’t completely exhausted.
I could already feel the weariness begin to set within my bones.
“Do you have something that can help?”
“I can’t heal him here,” Argos said. For a moment, he looked every bit of 3,000 years old. Worrying for his aging and hurt friend, who had long ago saved him from the Underworld.
“We can’t bring him along,” I said, glancing at Roark. “He’ll just slow us down.”
“He’ll die.”
“What about Nadia or Gunnar?” Kalos’s other associates might be able to help.
“Gunnar doesn’t live close by. And Nadia…” Argos’s voice trailed off. “She left.”
“Is he trying to win her back?” I nodded to the open doorway.
Argos said in a growly voice, “It’s complicated.”
I glanced at Roark, sharing an unspoken understanding.
“We need to get him to a doctor.” Argos’s ears flicked back. My eyes narrowed, sensing a problem. “There something I should know?”
Kalos appeared in the low doorway. His salt-and-pepper hair brushed against the top as he ducked beneath. “We’re going with you to the Tributary, Ruby.”
“Like hell you are.” I glanced at everyone in the room. Suddenly, I was the center of attention. How that had transpired was a goddamn magician’s act bordering on Houdini. First we were discussing Kalos’s bloodlust, and now everyone was looking at me like I’d peed in their cereal.
Sorry if I thought it unreasonable to include a bitten man with goals counter to my own in my party. Silly me.
I stomped my boot against the ground, the shotgun banging against the wooden slats nearby. “Y’all going to stare at me, or give me a damn answer?”
“We’re trying to fulfill Kalos’s destiny.” Argos looked to Kalos for guidance. The former half-demon gave his loyal dog the nod. With an aristocratic throat clear and a puffed out chest, the border collie added, “And we’re willing to die for that.”
“So it seems,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “Thought we already checked that box twenty years ago. I absolve you.”
I’d already heard the rap about creating a goddess. I wasn’t having any of that shit.
Argos let out a toothless growl. I gave him a nonplussed look, and the growling ceased. Kalos looked ready to interject, but instead pointed to one of the screens. The group collectively turned and watched. Malcolm Roark appeared, wearing a dapper custom-tailored suit. He looked every part the CEO and leader.
His eagerly anticipated announcement, one presumed. I pressed my finger against the volume control.
“Good afternoon to all,” Malcolm began, staring coolly into the camera. “You’ve all been waiting for this announcement, so I will not disappoint or waste time with rumors. There have been many untrue rumors and accusations thrown about in the media. They are causing a great company no small degree of harm.”
He slammed his hand against the lectern, causing Argos to bark in surprise.
“And our mission will not be derailed by naysayers and liars. It is clear, then, that free enterprise is not working toward our collective goal. To make us safe from this supernatural scourge, and to ensure that humans are never again the target of such violence, more aggressive measures must be taken. Law enforcement, however, does not agree. They have not ceased their investigations. And so, as promised, we shall display our power.”
Bold move, even for dear old Malcolm. His imperious tone was filled with hostility and anger. I wondered if he actually believed his rhetoric—or was merely upset about the lost earning power the inconvenience of sanctions and a plummeting stock price brought.
“As a punishment, we have chosen one of the Four Points in the Southwest District for a special test,” Malcolm said, expression not changing. “For those unfamiliar, the Four Points are the magical hubs and capitals of the supernatural world. The locus of their power.”
He paused for effect before delivering the final blow.
“And now, they will understand ours.”
The feed cut to a live weapons launch. Even the media anchors didn’t know what they were seeing. The cameras just outside Santa Fe, however, captured the scene. There was a flash of blue light, and then one of the oldest magical cities in the world was reduced to ash.
The broadcast cut out to a multicolored screen as the stunned anchors took a commercial break. Guess law enforcement might rethink their investigations. Malcolm had shown them all that he wasn’t bluffing.
I blinked and said, “What the hell was that?”
“Pure essence bomb,” Argos said. “Only theoretical, but…”
“I’d say it’s more than theoretical.” I ran my fingers through my hair, staring at the static. This was far beyond bending. Malcolm was making a power grab for the world’s throne. With an arsenal like that, who would stand up to him? The FBI was already split, riddled with MagiTekk lackeys.
Who knew how the rest of the government fared? I wasn’t exactly hopeful they would stand up and fight.
“You see why we need a goddess,” Kalos said quietly. “It’s the only way to heal the world.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “I just got done dealing with some idiots who thought dredging up god-like power was a good thing.”
“We aren’t the Crusaders of Paradisum,” Kalos said.
“And we aren’t Malcolm Roark, either.” I wanted to say more, but bit my tongue. “We’ll find another way.”
“That’s the only way I see.”
“Then you’re not coming.” I pushed off the wall, feeling the cabin shudder slightly around me. I jerked my head toward Roark, indicating he should follow. “That’s the end of the story.”
“He’ll die,” Argos said, voice whiny.
Kalos stood in the doorway. He stepped to the side with a wary look, making no attempt to block my exit even with his skin beginning to turn the color of paper. Maybe he had two hours. Three at most. If he didn’t get the antidote soon, he’d turn into a Vanished.
The name was accurate—once it took hold, the state was irreversible. All those souls outside lying dead in the dirt? That fate had been a mercy. There was no return from becoming a demon acolyte.
Kalos knew this all too well. A quick glance at the half-empty fifth of whiskey told me as such.
There was one thing I could do, though.
I reached into the leather jacket and took out Serenity’s huge needle. For use during emergencies. Serenity’s warning about running at diminished capacity whispered in my ears. It would be useful for my journey to the Tributary. But being a total hard ass made me no different than Malcolm.
I flipped the dagger-like syringe to the former half-demon. He caught it with a slight wince and said, “Is this meant for hum
ans?”
“Mystery shot,” I said with a grim smile. “Should give you enough time to get to that doctor.”
“I’m not going to the doctor, Ruby,” he said, looking deep into my eyes. So deep that he stared into my soul. An illusion, true, since he wasn’t magical. But there was a certain magic that living 7,000 years bestowed upon you, too: that of wisdom.
Argos yipped on the table, his claws scratching as he beelined across the surface. He leaped toward one of the workstations and mashed his wet nose against the keyboard. The terminal emitted a loud, blaring beep.
“What if we could help?” Argos’s tail wagged as he gestured for Kalos’s help. The dog awkwardly slapped his paw against the touchpad. Being a genius stuck inside a four-legged form with no opposable thumbs had to be some sort of curse.
“I already know where the door is.”
Kalos flashed me a wry smile and sat down. Leaning in close to examine the screens, he let out a surprised grunt.
“Is that a good huh or a bad one?” I asked.
No answer came. Maybe they were going to make me say please after I’d put my foot down on a demonic-infected Kalos coming along for the ride. The silent seconds ticked painfully past. A glance at my watch told me that time wasn’t getting more plentiful. If the Tributary closed, I’d miss my chance. Worse, if someone arrived beforehand…
Silly me and my logic.
“Well?” I said, tapping my foot against the dirt floor.
“You might know where the door is, sure,” Argos’s lip was turned up in a slightly wolfish sneer, like he had me. “But how were you planning on getting through? It’s only for Fae.”
“I—I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.” I rubbed my forehead. This was where Harcourt’s map had led. But yes, that was a rather obvious problem: a Fae needed to accompany anyone stepping through the threshold. Otherwise, things didn’t really work. “I’ll just use a Realm Rift.”
“Come on, Ruby,” Kalos said. “You know that won’t work.”
I ran the numbers in my head. The nearest Realm Rift was in Las Vegas. That would burn all the remaining time, even if I could hop a plane. That was assuming the Rift was still accessible. It’d been over thirty years since I’d ventured down into the Golden Tiger’s sub-basement vault. They could’ve blown up the casino in the meantime and paved the neon desert over with a parking lot.
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