by Elisa Paige
As one, we shaded and hurtled across the yellow house’s lawn, meeting the unsuspecting vampires in a whirling blur of ehrlindriel daggers. Our attack came as a total shock to the immortals, and happily it was over so fast, there was never a danger that the bitterns would succumb to the frenzy.
The humans continued farther down the street, gradually realizing their keepers were no longer with them when no one harassed the stragglers. In ones and twos, they broke away from the group. Then the rest of the “herd” realized they were free and scattered in all directions, clambering over cars and setting off their alarms, pounding on the doors of houses farther down the street, shrieking and crying their terror.
Ahanu stared at me. “What did you do?”
“Killed four vampires,” I said in my best droll tone, wiping my twin daggers on the jacket of a dead immortal at my feet.
“But they’re almost impossible to kill.”
I allowed a smirk. “For you, maybe.”
He rocked back on his heels. “What did the fae make when they made you?”
Not having an answer, I disguised my flinch by sheathing my blades. Looking at Onas and Târre, color high in their cheeks, I told them, “Well done.”
“Nomad-shakti,” Onas responded as they both bowed, triumph enriching his tone.
“Zihna’s at Tulane.” Ahanu spoke to Koda like no one else was present. “I’m going to get her the hell out of town until whatever’s going on blows over.”
I lifted a brow in disbelief. “You would flee?”
His black eyes flashed with fury. “I would keep my fiancée safe.”
Koda put a staying hand on my arm. “Ahanu is a healer, Sephti.”
Uncertain, I backed off. “But you’re brothers. You’re a warrior.”
“I am. And while all of us could fight well enough, each of the seven brothers was given a different strength. Ahanu’s is to heal. Mine is to kill.”
Koda’s sharing something about himself—his past and his family—brought me up short. Touched, I reached a gentle hand to his cheek. He gave me a soft smile and turned his face to kiss my palm.
Ignoring Ahanu’s muttered curse, I asked, “How far is Philippe’s place?”
“About ten blocks that way.” Koda nodded toward the east—not coincidentally, the direction the humans had been headed. “We should leave the truck. We’ll get closer on foot without them hearing us.”
The sound of an engine pushed to its limits roared closer, bringing us around to face the new potential threat. Tires squealed as an old station wagon careened down the street, its frantic driver over-correcting and sideswiping parked cars on both sides. Crashing through a row of full garbage cans, the resulting explosion of old newspapers, half-full drinks and refuse covered the windshield, blinding the woman at the wheel. She slammed on the brakes; the old car’s heavy back-end swung wide and the vehicle began to slide. The front bumper struck a light post, sending the station wagon in the other direction before a back tire blew. When the car rocked to a stop, the things chasing her caught up.
“Sluagh,” I rasped, dry-mouthed. “I can’t believe Reiden would release them from the Underworld.”
“Churrashme!” Onas swore, his hand going to his dagger’s hilt. Târre sidled closer to him, her face blanching.
Koda flicked an irritated glance at the bitterns before meeting my horrified gaze. “The only thing that surprises me is that you’re surprised by anything Reiden does.”
A graveyard stench saturated the air, overriding the acrid sting of melting rubber and smoke permeating New Orleans. The sluagh came, riding the wind, their forms tearing and blurring as they flocked like a demented group of lethal birds. Now they were black carrion crows; their cruel beady eyes hungrily fastened on the car’s sole occupant; their sharp, daggerlike beaks clacking together as they flew. Now they were a riotous swirl of rotting leaves, black and leprous with mold, churning inside the agitated cyclone. Now the sluagh were smudges of sooty smoke. Now desiccated flesh and feathers and fungus-coated bone. Now an amorphous, roiling black cloud of dead dreams, of hope crumbling and dying in the unrelenting maelstrom of cold rage and corrosive hatred the sluagh bore for all things living.
The bitterns’ trainer had droned on and on about sluagh, about their tactics and strategies, about their hivelike mentality. That they were thought to be what was left after the death of creatures so evil, even the earth would not accept their remains. That they flocked together, bound by their shared cruelty and hatred, driven by black rage to annihilate every living thing they came across.
If Philippe and his bloodthirsty vampires were the equivalent of supernatural weapons of mass destruction, then the sluagh were a combination of bio-and chemical warfare—indiscriminate in who they killed, horrific in the way they killed and impervious to all known weapons. It was why the Light Faes’ last effort before Reiden exiled them was to condemn the sluagh to a hellish plane called the Underworld.
I fervently hoped Reiden had released only one flock. Given a fraction of a chance, the creatures would wipe every living thing off the face of the planet.
I had no idea how to stop them.
Freezing wind tore at my hair and clothes, making me squint against the airborne sticks, dirt and leaves battering us even as the sluagh’s black essence tore at my awareness.
Reinforcing my mental shields, I struggled against terror, something I’d never known when facing a threat. I couldn’t hide any of us by shading—the psychic onslaught battering my mental shields would be unendurable. Nor could I fight these creatures. I didn’t know of a species that could. Even the Dark king couldn’t control them—he’d simply opened the dimensional gate and set them free.
In training, we’d been taught that the best way to survive an attack was to get yourself elsewhere as fast as possible and hope you weren’t the slowest one in the group. In our current situation, this meant the terrified woman, screaming and sobbing in her car. Yet I was strangely reluctant to abandon her. The idea was actually…repellent.
It became moot when Koda bellowed and charged to intercept the flock. After a moment’s shocked stupor—nobody ever attacked sluagh!—I flung myself after him, ignoring my instinct’s gibbering panic. Interestingly, Onas and Târre were a step behind me, their faces white and eyes wide with fear.
“What are you doing?” I yelled to Koda, his incredible speed getting him to the car twenty feet ahead of me.
“Stay back!” he snarled, casting a furious glance at me before lifting his glittering black eyes skyward. As he flung his arms out at shoulder height, I sensed him drawing upon his will. And I had the distinct feeling I was about to see what the astonishing power that filled every space Koda inhabited could do.
Determined to back him up, I pulled my daggers. When they cleared their sheathes, a blazing-white glow limned the blades’ lethal edges and I had to squint against their brilliance. I hadn’t known the fae metal would do that. Of course, I’d never faced sluagh before tonight, either.
I was still in motion, still hurtling toward Koda, when something slammed into me like an enormous fist, almost driving me to my knees. Staggering, I caught my balance and looked up, wondering what the hell the sluagh had done…
Which is when I saw what was left of the flock. Little black tatters sailed in all directions on the dissipating wind they’d ridden, looking like the flaky black ashes of a long-cold fire.
My daggers flickered and returned to their normal flat sheen and the bitterns and I stumbled to a stop. “What just happened?” I asked, bewildered.
A smug Koda glanced my way. “It’s a bad night to be a sluagh.” Looking toward Ahanu, he called, “The driver is injured.”
The healer jogged over, bending at the waist to talk with the terrified woman, calming her enough that she opened the door and let him see to her wounds.
As black flakes fluttered down all around us, I stared at Koda. “You did that?”
He nodded.
“To sluagh? You did
that to sluagh?”
“Yes, Sephti.” Koda looked amused.
“But…how?”
“I cancel out dark energy.”
I looked at the flakes fluttering down the street, harried by the breeze. “They exploded?”
“Close enough.”
I’d figured Koda could do something amazing—power like what I sensed in him was never just for show. But…wow. Sluagh. “You blew them up? Just by wanting to?”
“Yeah.”
“Very freaking cool,” I whispered. “What about other supe species? Can you blow them up, too?”
Blushing a little, he shrugged. “A couple. Some, like wendigoes, my presence just slows down. Makes them easier to kill, though.” He changed the subject. “The task force rolls in thirty minutes. We have just enough time to get into place.”
I grinned. “Then it’s my turn.”
Koda withheld comment, but his expression spoke volumes. He strode off to make sure that none of the ashy pieces were trying to reconnect—not likely, given their current condition—but I approved of his thoroughness.
“Female,” Ahanu called to me, slanting a sideways glance at Koda. Which told me the jerk wanted to make sure his brother was occupied and not paying attention.
This should be fun, I sighed to myself. Tilting my head, I lifted an arch brow, not bothering to make my expression pleasant.
Ahanu stopped a few feet away, contempt radiating from him. “If you genuinely care for Koda, you must ask yourself what being with you will cost him.”
Only the greatest self-control kept me from flinching. But despite my resolve, something must have shown in my eyes.
“You’ve thought of this already,” Ahanu guessed.
Grudgingly, I nodded.
An ugly light sparked in his eyes. “So if you have the capacity to care, do you also have the capacity to act honorably?”
Stung, I got my chin up. “You question my honor?”
“Absolutely.” His jaw tightened. “I love my brother, and as impossible as it seems, you appear to as well. But do you care enough to do what’s best for him? Enough to leave him? Because being with you is an affront to everything he and our people stand for. It will make him an outcast. He will lose all that he holds dear.”
Wounded, I did what I always did when attacked—I retaliated in kind. “Looks like you’d be the first to turn your back.” Glaring icily, I sniffed. “Just what kind of brother are you?”
Ahanu recoiled and I let him see my pleasure at having scored.
With obvious effort, he regained his composure. Barely. “You’ll get over Koda. Find another.” Gesturing toward Onas, Ahanu said, “That male, for example. He’s interested in you.”
Startled both by the new topic and by his observation, I glanced at the bittern. Now that I was paying attention, Onas did seem a little too aware of me. Even more than battles for rank and our current war footing would account for.
“You’re so focused on my brother, you hadn’t even noticed,” Ahanu marveled, a statement not a question.
Trembling with anger, I stared scornfully at him. “You think so little of Koda? That he could be so easily replaced? I ask again—what kind of brother are you?”
Clenching his hands into white-knuckled fists, Ahanu nonetheless refused to rise to the bait. As if I hadn’t spoken, he said, “It doesn’t matter if you’ve noticed the male’s interest. I guarantee Koda has. So all you have to do is reciprocate. My brother is noble. If you convince him you care about that creature, he will do the right thing and withdraw.”
I coiled, livid. “You’re a real bastard, you know that?”
Ahanu studied my face, his eyes cold and hard. “Love isn’t selfish, female. Forget yourself and what you want. What’s best for Koda?”
Rage, hurt and guilt clashed violently inside me. With perfect clarity, I knew I either walked away now or I’d probably kill Ahanu.
After a long, painful moment, I found the control to turn and get my feet moving. The skin on my face felt brittle, like it was stretched way too thin over my skull. I could draw only a trickle of air into my lungs and there was an odd roaring sound filling my ears that had nothing to do with the night’s supernatural insanity or the sirens’ shrieking.
I became exquisitely aware of Koda’s sudden tension as he noticed me walking away from Ahanu. Noticed the bastard’s gloating intensity—something I could feel between my shoulderblades like the crosshair of a rifle. Alarm tightened the line of Koda’s jaw and he strode in our direction.
Barking a command to the bitterns, I got the three of us running. While I had no answer for the impossibility of Koda and me, there was at least one thing I knew with utter certainty. That it involved rampant violence felt both right…and capable of shredding my heart.
As I ran, head held high—no matter what, I would never bow—the bells in what had to be every church in New Orleans began to toll the alarm.
Chapter Sixteen
I figured if we kept going in the direction the human herd had gone, we were bound to find the center of all the craziness. Like a massive spider’s web, I had no doubt that Philippe would be in its center. I was also counting on bullets flying, cops in SWAT uniforms and slayers staking vampires being big freaking clues we’d found the right place.
Koda caught up before we’d gone thirty yards. From the corner of my eye, I saw the fear and anger in his face, but refused to look at him.
“What did Ahanu say to you?” he asked in a strained voice.
I shook my head, not wanting to talk about it. Not able to talk about it.
“Dammit, Sephti, what did he say?” Koda’s hand on my arm drew me, unwilling, to a stop. When I wouldn’t meet his gaze, he swore long and loud. “I’ll kick his ass.”
Shaking my head, I jerked my arm free. Onas came up on my side, eyeing the way Koda and I were squared off. “Resume your position,” I snarled at the bittern, blasting him so hard with my will that he staggered.
Koda reached to touch my cheek and I flinched, finally getting my feet moving again as I backed away from him. “What he said…” My voice was faint, hollow. Unable to continue, I spun on my heel and took off, tears blinding me to my surroundings. Scrubbing the back of my wrist across my eyes and catching sight of Koda’s green sweater, the one I still wore, got the tears flowing faster.
His standing and watching me go set off a veritable waterfall.
Which was when I cursed myself for an idiot. Crying and self-pity wouldn’t resolve anything, with the possible exception that the emotional distraction might get me killed, and dead people pretty much don’t feel anything. They’re just dead.
The heartbreak’s enormity filled every space within me. I couldn’t comprehend a time when it wouldn’t. Tomorrow…I sucked air into my lungs, staving off fresh tears. Tomorrow, I’d think about what Ahanu said. Think about what I should do. But for right now, I’d damn well better focus.
Snuffling and ruthlessly getting the weeping under control, I took note of the landscape we ran through. The closer we got to the violence’s epicenter, the more surreal things became. Burning cars lay on their sides, some with the blackened husks of their former inhabitants still upright in the driver’s seat. Violated corpses were strewn everywhere and I could only hope the atrocities committed on them occurred after death. Lights were on in every house and the sounds of humans in mortal terror filled the brief spaces between the sirens’ ululating wails and the churchbells’ incessant bonging. One street over came the roar of a shotgun, followed by the guttural snarls of a bodach pack. A little closer, the crash of breaking glass preceded an all-too-human shriek of unspeakable agony that went on and on before it was mercifully silenced. Layering over everything and scorching my awareness like sizzling grease was the metaphysical inferno of Dark Fae and vampires letting their power surge free.
My head and senses and awareness were so overloaded by the sensory barrage, I could barely think straight. And with my intellect under assault, my in
stincts rose to the fore, demanding I either withdraw or allow the frenzy.
If I was struggling, Onas and Târre were seconds away from losing it. The last thing I needed was for them to take off on a homicidal, mindless berserker rage. Calling a halt, I turned to study the bitterns, my gaze lighting on the bindings Koda had woven. With nothing to lose, I imagined an impenetrable wall between the bitterns and their rising frenzies. Singing Koda’s lullaby, I wove its haunting melody into the necklaces banding Onas and Târre. The effect was gratifyingly immediate. The wildness left their silver eyes, they unbent their coiled postures and the violent energy sizzling and crackling around them disappeared.
I let the song fade, running a weary hand through my hair and idly noting that we three were going to need several pounds of jelly beans at the rate we were burning through energy tonight. Swearing, I remembered that everything I had was in the truck. Which was in the garage. Which was in the wrong freaking direction.
Onas drew a deep breath and briefly met my gaze before dropping his in deference. “You can…you can give us peace from the frenzies?” Wonder filled his tone.
Târre flicked a hopeful look at me. When she saw me notice, she bowed her head. Lifting her fists to chin level, pressing the knuckles together in a warrior’s salute, she whispered, “Nish’ttalos, yeamu—”
Even as I commanded her to stop, movement drew my eyes. Koda stood a few yards away, watching us. I saw from his expression that he remembered when I’d offered the same abject apology to him. The memory of my animalistic behavior at the hotel was cruel reinforcement of Ahanu’s hateful words.
Koda called, “Where are you headed, Coyote?”
I swung away, breaking into a jog when I heard him keeping pace. That he’d obviously wanted me to hear spoke volumes about his frame of mind—communicating a clear intent that he would not be left behind.
Torn by this knowledge, I concentrated on keeping my feet moving and on scanning the night around us. My senses were pinging like crazy from all the supernaturals infiltrating the city. It was becoming impossible to differentiate one from another without visual contact. Like a pilot trying to fly through an immense cloud bank must feel, I was running blind.