Dawn Slayer

by Clara Coulson

  “Wait. Hold on. I can’t just—”

  Annette doesn’t give me the chance to protest. She practically throws Barnett over my shoulder and marches off toward the oncoming DSI agents. Barnett is not a tiny woman, and my beleaguered body struggles to hold our combined weight. But I’m so close to getting out of this damn park with the big prize in tow that there’s no way I’m letting my knees buckle now.

  I steady myself, adjust Barnett’s limp body, and mutter the word to switch on the veil spell in my medallion. Then I take a deep breath and count the seconds. One DSI. Two DSI. Three DSI.

  Gunfire breaks the quiet air, faint flashes through the falling snow.

  And that, everybody, is my cue to go.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The car I steal is fifteen years old, littered with rust spots, and has a custom paint job the color of raw sewage. It’s the sort of vehicle most people refuse to look at twice out of sheer disgust, which makes it the perfect vehicle with which to flee from a smoking disaster zone surrounded by ninety-odd percent of Moscow’s emergency personnel. A few minutes fiddling under the dashboard allows me to hotwire the cramped car—a skill I picked up after the torture shack fiasco—and then off I go down the snowy streets with a sword in the passenger seat and an unconscious witch in the back.

  I recall the roundabout path we took to Izmailovsky Park from the Hyatt and follow it in reverse, adding a few circles into the mix to make sure I’m not being tailed. Paranoia gets the better of me even though I spot no suspicious vehicles or people anywhere in a three-block radius of my puttering car. I keep glancing at the rearview mirror, peering into alleyways, expecting the Children of Enoch or one of their golems to come charging out of the shadows at any moment.

  The snowfall thickens along the last stretch of highway leading to the Hyatt, so I slow down and use the extra time to turn myself back into something that resembles a functioning person. To calm my racing thoughts, I fixate on the unanswered questions that cropped up during the battle, force myself to detach my raw emotions from what happened and think rationally about the situation. The first question that comes to mind concerns the man who spoke through that golem, the man I tentatively identified as the Children’s leader.

  How did he learn my name?

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he knew my name all along. He sent a golem after me when I was a child, so it stands to reason that this man knows quite a bit about me. However, if he knew who I was the moment I set foot in Moscow, if he recognized my visage as worn by Hays, then why didn’t he tell the cloaked duo about me? If they’d been properly informed about me, the whole “faerie thief” ruse I pulled over on them yesterday wouldn’t have worked, and I’d either be dead or imprisoned.

  If their leader wants Dawn Slayer as badly as he seems to, he wouldn’t have withheld vital information about me from his minions. He would’ve told them every pertinent detail he knows about me—which should be more than I know about myself, since I’m fairly certain he knows what my nonhuman father is. The fact that the cloaked duo knew nothing about me leads me to believe that their leader didn’t figure out who I was until sometime over the past day.

  Supporting that theory is the fact that this guy came after me once, and only once, when I was a child. After my mom died destroying that one golem all those years ago, the guy never sent another to kill or collect me. Which suggests that he didn’t know my name, or my location, when I was growing up.

  As he was speaking through that golem, taunting my mother in the burning ruins of her home, he must not have been able to pinpoint the golem’s location. It’s possible that was one of the golem’s design flaws. It’s also possible that my mom disabled any tracking magic that was embedded in its structure. Either way, the man behind the golem could see my mother, could see me, but he didn’t gain the information he needed to hunt me down a second time.

  However, if the leader didn’t learn my name way back when, then how did he learn it between the time I stepped off the plane at Sheremetyevo and the confrontation in Izmailovsky Park? There’s only one answer that comes to mind.

  DSI Moscow.

  Volkov made it clear that he was going to smear my name to hell and back. So it’s not a stretch to think that he and his buddies at DSI Moscow didn’t keep a tight lid on the matter of my arrest yesterday. If the Children have an informant inside DSI Moscow or one of the government entities the organization reports to, then it’s possible the leader scraped the news about my identity from DSI’s files, or by word of mouth from one of their agents.

  Long story short, DSI blew my cover. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.

  Damn you, Volkov. You’re intent on complicating matters as much as possible, aren’t you?

  Waiting at a red light, I peel my hands from the steering wheel and massage my temples. My right hand still burns where the sword bit me, but the pain has settled into a minor nuisance. So I don’t bother stripping the burned glove off and examining the hand. I trust my body to take care of all the bumps and bruises on its own. I have more urgent things to worry about.

  When the light changes, I gun it for the Hyatt. I need to get the sword someplace it can be protected from all the other people who covet its terrifying power, get Barnett locked up somewhere she can’t cause any more trouble, and get…

  What in god’s name?

  I slam on the brakes and swerve the car into a street-side parking space, accidentally running one tire onto the sidewalk. But I don’t care to correct the parking job. Because I’m transfixed on the horrifying sight four blocks down the street.

  I jam the car into park, use my shoulder to shove the sticky door open, and stumble out onto the street. My gaze slowly drinks in all the stark details of a tragedy painted against the backdrop of a dreary winter sky.

  The Ararat Park Hyatt is on fire.

  The entire top floor, which houses the presidential suite, is engulfed in roiling flames. A huge column of black smoke is pouring out of the windows and billowing across the sky, carried off by the rising winds. Guests of all nationalities are streaming out of the hotel’s front doors and running every which way through the street, their arms full of the belongings they were able to grab as they fled their rooms. The employees of the hotel are manning the doors, ushering people out as fast as possible, their faces a perfect picture of terror and dismay.

  I stand motionless in the street, a numbness falling over me.

  Foley was in that flaming suite, along with Lucian and Trisha. Did they get out in time, or—?

  Something tugs at my magic sense.

  A thin thread of energy has attached itself to the sleeve of my coat. It pulls at my sleeve intermittently, like a fishing line with a curious trout nibbling at the bait. I trace the thread down the street toward its point of origin. It stretches on for three blocks in the opposite direction from the hotel, where it curves into a narrow alley between a couple closed businesses.

  I recognize the magic signature immediately: it belongs to Lucian.

  Scrambling back into the car, I grind the gearshift into reverse and take off backward down the street like a madman. Not that it matters. There’s no traffic. Between the explosions yesterday, the park disaster today, and the flaming hotel, everyone who’s anyone is well on their way to getting the hell out of this city before the next building to blow is the one they’re standing in.

  My only competitor on the road is the snow, which sends my stolen car into a spin when I jerk the wheel too hard. That turns out to be mildly helpful, however, as the car ends up pointing the way I came, allowing me to maneuver into another parking space with minimal effort.

  Jamming the parking brake on, I look both ways down the street, and into the sky, to make sure no first responders or flying enemies are heading for me. Then I exit the car again and dart across the sidewalk, coming to a stop at the end of the alley.

  The shadows in the alley are thick, but my magic sense cuts straight through them, revealing t
he faint glow of Lucian’s aura. He’s slumped against a pile of trash bags carelessly dropped alongside a dumpster.

  There’s someone else curled up in his arms. A woman. Trisha, it must be. Though it’s hard to discern her features, due to the horrendous burns all over her body.

  There’s no sign of Foley.

  I shamble into the alley and cautiously approach Lucian. Just in case this is some sort of trap. Nothing jumps out at me though, and no magic attack strikes me from behind. So I crouch next to the pile of trash and take stock of Lucian and Trisha.

  Lucian’s eyes are closed, but his breathing is intentionally regular. He’s awake and conserving energy to recover from a multitude of injuries, including broken ribs and widespread bruising. Trisha, on the other hand, is fully unconscious. Which is a good thing. She has third-degree burns over at least eighty percent of her body. She also has a wicked head injury, a cracked skull peeking through the bloody scalp.

  Neither of them, thank god, appear to be suffering the effects of the golem poison.

  Hesitantly, I reach out and grasp Lucian’s shoulder.

  His eyes pop open, and his lips draw back, baring his fangs. Then he recognizes me, and his false display of ferocity collapses. “Kinsey,” he rasps out, “you caught my string?”

  I tap my sleeve, the remnants of his magic thread still hanging from the fabric. “Got the message loud and clear.”

  “Saw you drive by. Couldn’t flag you down any other way.”

  “It’s fine.” I give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You didn’t need to do anything more.”

  “You say that, but…” His attention falls to Trisha, and his eyes fill with pain. “I didn’t do anything at all. I couldn’t do anything at all. When they came, I was helpless to stop them. Trisha jumped in front of the fire spell meant for me and took the brunt of it. It was so strong, it knocked us off the terrace, and I was so fucking weak I could barely cushion our fall.”

  “When who came, Lucian?” I press. He’s fatigued and fading. He needs to rest. But I have to find out the gist of what happened. “The Children?”

  He nods, wincing at the motion. Something in his back or neck is broken. “A guy in a cloak, one we hadn’t encountered before, and three of the golems. They barged in about ten minutes after Trisha and I finished sending that message to your dad. I don’t know how they tracked us to the suite. We must’ve made a mistake somewhere, left a clue to our whereabouts, or let a tracking spell go unnoticed, or failed to shake a tail somewhere along the way. Whatever it was, we messed up, and this is the result.”

  He pauses to take a labored breath. “The golems broke down the door without warning and immediately ganged up on Foley. He fought back, but they didn’t give him a chance to throw any spells. They just started beating on him with all their strength.”

  Bile surges up my throat, and I choke it back down so I can say, “Did they kill him?”

  “No.” Lucian shuts his eyes. “They beat him into submission and carried him out of the suite. They took him. Took him away. And there was nothing I could do. As soon as Trisha and I stumbled out of the bedroom, that bastard in the cloak started slinging spells at us. We were forced out onto the terrace, and then the guy threw the big fireball at me, and…that was that. By the time I came to on the ground after the fall, the guy and his golems were gone, along with Foley.”

  “Why did they take him alive?”

  “Not sure. Leverage, maybe?”

  I glance up at the roiling smoke blending with the stormy clouds. “How long ago did this happen?”

  “Ten minutes, maybe. Or fifteen. It wasn’t long ago.”

  “After the park battle ended,” I murmur. “Once the leader knew he’d lost the sword to us, he took Foley, our most important asset, so he’d have something to trade for it.”

  Lucian’s eyes pop open in a sudden burst of clarity. “You have the sword?”

  I point my thumb at the ugly car. “Sure do.”

  “So that’s why…” He frowns. “The man spoke right before he knocked us off the terrace. He gave me a time and a place. Two o’clock sharp and a set of GPS coordinates.” He rattles off the coordinates from memory.

  “Do you know what that location is offhand?”

  He gives me the sharpest look he can manage in his current condition. “Kid, you can’t waltz up to those people without backup. They’ll kill you and Foley, and take the sword. Where are the others?”

  “Detained, I assume. DSI surrounded the park in full force, and everyone was so badly injured after the battle that I doubt they were able to muster the strength to overpower so many agents. I only got out because Annette went to bat for me, so I could keep the sword out of DSI’s hands.” I bite my tongue, thinking hard and fast, but all my mental roads lead to disaster. “And without Foley, we won’t be able to force DSI to release them from custody, will we?”

  “No, we won’t. We’ll have to break them all out.”

  “And we don’t have the time or the resources to assail a DSI office.”

  Lucian lifts a quivering hand and grabs my arm. “Regardless of what resources we do or do not have, you cannot rush blindly into that exchange setup, Kinsey. You have to come up with a workable plan. And you can. I know you can. I know you’re smart. You’re smart and you’re strong, and you can do this.”

  My throat suddenly feels very dry. “I, uh, appreciate your faith in me, but I’m not sure what to do, Lucian. I’m not used to doing this sort of thing alone. I usually have a team. And when I don’t have a team, things rarely go well.”

  Lucian stares me down with the last ounce of energy he has left. “If you need a team to win this game, then find one.”

  “Where could I possibly…?” My words die out as an idea—an utterly insane idea—takes root in my head. “Actually, you know what? I think I might know where to find my first recruit.”

  I peer over my shoulder at the ugly car. Where Delilah Barnett, the cowboy witch, is taking a cozy nap.

  “I know that expression,” Lucian says weakly, the hint of a smile on his lips. “That’s the one you slap on right before you run off to do something crazy.”

  “You don’t even know my plan, and you’re already critiquing me?” I retort, trying to lighten the mood.

  “No critique. Not this time. Crazy is exactly what you need. Because crazy is unpredictable, and being unpredictable is how you’ll beat those goddamn…”

  His voice softens to an unintelligible whisper, and a moment later, Lucian is sound asleep. Too injured to fight. Too exhausted to help. Stripped of everything by this mission gone sideways, including the house lord he’s sworn to protect.

  Patting Lucian’s shoulder, I say, “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now let’s get you and Trisha out of this trash pile so you can rest somewhere more comfortable.”

  Over the next ten minutes, I move Barnett to the crappy car’s front passenger seat, with the sword resting between her feet—right within her grasp yet so far out of reach, an irony that amuses me—carefully load Trisha into the back seat on the driver’s side, and lastly haul Lucian into the car beside her.

  I don’t bother buckling anyone in. Because if this car gets hit by a strong gust of wind, it’ll disintegrate. So once everyone is in a position where they can’t easily fall forward and hurt themselves, I hop back behind the wheel and take the long way around the Hyatt, heading to the one place in this city where I haven’t encountered the bad guys: the Moscow Grand Marriott Hotel.

  Which is, funnily enough, the only place on this continent that has my name physically attached to it.

  Cautious, I case the place twice, hunting for DSI stakeout teams or people peering into my room from windows across the street. The coast seems clear.

  I park four blocks down, cut the engine, take a few seconds to compose myself—and then rip the sleep charm off Barnett’s forehead.

  The witch jerks awake and immediately goes for her guns. She doesn’t find them because I tosse
d them into the trunk while I was moving her to the front seat. Instinctively, she rounds on the potential enemy in the seat beside her, prepping a spell on the fly. Only to falter when she finds me, with my arms crossed and my best glare plastered across my face.

  She blinks at me several times, confused, before she examines her surroundings: the sword between her legs, the apocalyptic sky of Moscow, filled with smoke from the Hyatt fire and the destruction of Izmailovsky Park, and finally, the two vampires lying half dead in the back seat.

  “Okay,” Barnett says, “what the hell is going on?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “So that’s the debacle I’ve found myself in,” I say after explaining everything about the Children of Enoch, the seraph blade, and Foley’s kidnapping to Barnett, “and you’re going to help me fix it.”

  Barnett, slouched in the sunken cushion of the crappy car’s passenger seat, scowls at me hard enough to make milk curdle. “What makes you think that? I don’t work for you, Kinsey.”

  “Your interference made this situation a great deal shittier than it already was, and as far as I’m concerned, you have a responsibility to undo some of that damage. If you refuse to own up to that responsibility, I’ll spread it far and wide that Delilah Barnett the bounty hunter purposefully entangled herself in the affairs of the Vampire Federation in a way that contributed to the abduction of the only remaining heir to the Tepes family line. So you can help me get Foley back, or you can end up on the hit list of every House Tepes vampire, and a social pariah in the practitioner community for being a target of the vampires’ wrath. I’d love to see you get hired for jobs with that bull’s-eye on your back.”