And once they saw where he took the book, they could act.
High heels clicked against the bank's steps, and Caina looked up to see Nadia striding towards her.
“Okay,” said Nadia in a low voice. “The woman emptied out the deposit box and gave the deeds and the book to Sulzer. They’re coming out now. Want to act like we’re still talking about business from earlier?”
“Yeah,” said Caina, and she started talking about quarterly budget projections as Sulzer, the Masked woman, and the six undead men emerged from the bank’s doors. Sulzer had a leather briefcase in hand, and through it Caina saw the sickly green light of a necromantic spell.
The book was in his briefcase.
She and Nadia kept up their inane business chatter as Sulzer and his party walked past. As before, neither the Congressman nor the Masked woman spared them a look. The undead looked grim, but the sunglasses and suits gave them a semblance of life, and their grim appearance wasn’t out of character for private security.
“Okay,” said Nadia once they had moved out of earshot. “Now what?”
“Let’s go,” said Caina, pushing away from the wall. “They’ll almost certainly be parked in the same structure we used.”
Nadia nodded. “God knows there’s nowhere else to park around here.”
They headed after Sulzer and his group, keeping about twenty yards behind them. The sidewalk was crowded, but Caina had no trouble seeing the arcane auras around the Congressman. It looked as if Sulzer was deep in conversation with the Masked woman. There was no way Caina could overhear them, but she wondered what they were discussing.
“Looks like you were right,” said Nadia as Sulzer and his party approached the base of the parking ramp. They disappeared through the door in the corner.
“Come on,” said Caina, and they broke into a jog. She caught the door before it closed, and she and Nadia slipped through. They came to the ramp’s corner stairwell. Caina let the door click closed, and in the stairwell above them she heard the echoes as Sulzer and his people climbed. She lifted a finger to her lips, Nadia nodded, and together they climbed the stairs. Nadia made more noise than Caina would have wanted, but much less than she would have expected. Caina heard the click of a door opening above, followed by the rough growl of Sulzer’s voice and the woman’s softer tones.
“Fifth level,” whispered Caina. Nadia nodded again. They hurried up the stairs, and Caina eased open the door to the fifth level. The ramp had nine levels, and at this time of day, all of them were packed. Sulzer and his companions headed for a van two-thirds of the way down the ramp from the door. Caina hurried across the aisle, Nadia followed her, and together they ducked behind a parked car.
Caina peered at the van as Sulzer approached it. The vehicle was a long white Royal Motors passenger van, and Caina memorized the model, make, and license plate number. She and Nadia had parked on the third level, and the van would have to drive past them to get out of the ramp. All they had to do was get back to the third level, and it would be child’s play to follow the van.
Then one of the undead froze.
Sulzer had unlocked the van doors, and the other five undead had obediently followed him. But the sixth undead had gone motionless in the center of the aisle.
“Hey!” said Sulzer, snapping his fingers. “You! Come on!”
The undead did not move.
Sulzer glared at the woman. “I thought you said these things were perfectly obedient.”
“They are,” said the woman, calm as ever. “Unless they notice something.”
Caina’s throat went dry.
Then the sixth undead started to speak.
“A distortion in the pattern,” it announced. “A thread removed from the tapestry of fate. Dipped in silver fire.”
Maglarion’s undead had sometimes talked. They had spoken in strange, cryptic riddles. Apparently, the undead could see the future, but since they were mindless, it didn’t do them much good. But if their masters paid attention, sometimes they could learn secrets.
“Is the damned thing prophesying again?” said Sulzer, glaring at the woman.
“So it is,” said the woman, gazing at the undead with fascination. “Perhaps we shall learn something.”
“The sword of white fire,” said the undead. Caina’s alarm got worse. “The flame that burned the shadows. The one who burned the worlds, the Worldburner.” Nadia tensed next to Caina. “Your enemies come. Your enemies come.”
“Shit,” whispered Nadia.
“What?” said Sulzer, taking an alarmed step back. Ghostly green fire played around the fingers of his left hand, and Caina saw him drawing necromantic magic to himself, cold and twisted and corrupt. Sulzer was indeed a necromancer, and he was the one commanding the undead.
“Your enemies come. The Worldburner comes to burn slay you in ice.”
“Wait!” said the woman, lifting a hand. “It might...”
“The defend me!” snapped Sulzer. “Defend me now!”
The undead man moved in a blur. He whirled, his hand coming out of his jacket, and fired his pistol.
It happened so fast that Caina did not have time to react, and the bullet had been aimed at her head. It would have struck her forehead, had Nadia not shoved her to the side. The shot that had been aimed at Caina’s head instead struck Nadia’s left shoulder in a spray of blood, and she fell back with a groan, her head bouncing off the ground.
That shattered Caina’s paralysis, and she snatched her handgun from her purse, raised it, and fired. Her reflexes had taken over, and her bullet caught the undead in the forehead. The shot did enough damage that it canceled the spell, and the corpse fell inert to the ground. Caina sent three quick shots at the remaining undead. Her first bullet caught another undead in the forehead. Her next two shots went wild and slammed into the side of the van.
Sulzer started casting a spell, and the woman stepped forward. Her Masking spell dissolved, and the illusion of the woman in the white dress vanished.
In her place stood an Archon Elf.
The Elven woman wore the usual black uniform of the Archons, their three-headed dragon sigil across the chest. Her expression was cold and imperious, her eyes a brilliant shade of gold that matched her hair. The Archon woman gestured, and purple fire and shadow flared around her hand as she drew on the Dark One that no doubt inhabited her flesh. Caina started to aim at her, remembered that normal bullets could not hurt an Elf, and then sent a shot at Sulzer. The Congressman had time to duck, and Caina’s bullet pinged off the side of the van.
Both Sulzer and the Archon woman continued their spells, and the four remaining undead charged, drawing the pistols from inside their coats. Caina realized she only had time to shoot one of the undead, maybe two, before the others shot her.
Then Nadia rolled to one knee, her lips pulled back into a snarl, her eyes bright and feverish, and flung out her right hand. Fire blazed from her fingers, and a sphere of flame leaped from her hand and landed at the feet of the charging undead.
Then it exploded.
The blast of fire filled the aisle, engulfing both the undead and several of the surrounding cars. Caina couldn’t see if the fire had reached the Archon or Sulzer. Nadia was already casting again, her face gone white with strain, and she raked her hand through the air. A sheet of white mist sprang up between them and the fire, a sheet of mist that hardened into a glittering wall of ice that sealed off the aisle.
Nadia had just bought them time.
“Come on!” said Caina.
“Yeah, we should probably go,” said Nadia, her voice a croaking whisper. Her right hand was clenched to her left shoulder, and the gray sleeve of her jacket had gone dark with blood. There was another dark spot on the back of her shoulder – the bullet had gone right through her. Caina started to help her up, but Nadia got to her feet with a grimace. That was surprising – she should have been in shock on the ground, not able to cast spells and stand.
If anything, Nadia looked more anno
yed than in pain.
Caina nodded, and they darted across the aisle and into the stairwell. She started to reach for Nadia to help her along, but the shorter woman shook her off.
“Just go,” said Nadia. “I’ll be fine. Get to the car before those undead punch through the ice wall.”
They scrambled down two levels of stairs and back to the third level. As they did, Caina heard an explosion echoing through the stairwell.
“They got through the ice wall,” said Nadia.
“We’re here,” said Caina. She unlocked the car door, stripped off her jacket, and got into the driver’s seat. Nadia dropped into the passenger seat, sweat glittering on her face, her eyes feverish. For the first time, she let out a grunt of pain, the cords standing out on her neck.
“Goddamn it, but I’m sick of getting shot,” said Nadia.
“It’s not fun,” said Caina, wadding up her jacket and passing it to Nadia. “Here, hold this against it.” Nadia took the jacket, and Caina noted that her white blouse was starting to show a red stain around the edge of her coat. The bullet must have clipped a blood vessel.
She stabbed the key into the ignition and started the car. Caina punched the gas, spun out of her parking spot, and shot down the ramp. The gate was down by the ticketing booth, but Caina drove right through it, shattering the gate and spinning into the street.
“Homeland Security’s going to get after you for that,” said Nadia, her voice a little slurred, Caina’s jacket pressed against her shoulder.
Caina shook her head. “Nope. Car’s registration and plates are faked. I’ll change them out when I get back to headquarters. But we’ve got to get you to an ER. If you don’t see a doctor now, you’re going to bleed out.”
“Nah,” said Nadia. “I’ll be fine, just incapacitated for a day or so. Get me back to your office. We’ll talk more when I wake up.”
“You need a doctor,” snapped Caina, driving as fast as she dared through the crowded traffic. “You don’t just walk off bullet wounds. You...”
Her skin crawled with a sudden surge of arcane power, and golden light flickered before her vision.
She risked a glance to the side and saw that Nadia’s hands had started to glow with golden fire, the light spreading through the veins of her neck and face.
“What the hell?” said Caina.
“This is going to look weird,” rasped Nadia. “Don’t touch me, and don’t interrupt. Also, I’m going to scream a bit. Here we go...ah!”
She went rigid, her feet slamming against the floor, her back arching and her shoulders pressing against the seat, and she screamed as the golden light washed over her. Caina wanted to stare, but she didn’t dare take her eyes from the road. Nadia screamed again, the golden light blazing brighter, so bright than Caina needed to squint. The currents of arcane power surging around Nadia grew brighter, and for an awful instant, Caina was sure that Nadia was going to lose control of her magic and blow up the car.
Then the golden light winked out, and Nadia slumped against the seat, wheezing and sweating like she had just run a marathon.
“Oh,” she croaked. “Oh, I always hate that.”
She tossed aside Caina’s jacket and scrabbled at her collar, pulling back her blood-wet blouse and coat.
Caina did a double-take so violently that she almost went off the road.
The bullet wound had vanished.
“What the hell?” said Caina.
“Oh, goody, it worked,” said Nadia, her voice growing thick.
“That was an Elven regeneration spell,” said Caina. “How did you...”
“Gonna pass out now,” said Nadia. “Guess I’m gonna find out if I can trust you or...”
Her eyes fell closed, and she slumped against the seat.
Caina drove as fast as she dared.
###
Don’t get me wrong, the regeneration spell is better than spending months recovering in a hospital, and if I hadn’t used it before, I would have died of my wounds in Chicago and Washington DC and New York.
But the regeneration spell carries a price.
The pain is immense. It’s kind of like the system restore feature on a computer operating system, the feature that lets you reset the computer back to a working state if an important file gets corrupted or something. The regeneration spell acts like that, and you can feel every cell in your body rewriting and restoring itself in the torrent of regeneration magic.
It hurts. A lot.
Then there’s the coma after, and the dreams.
They’re like nightmares and hallucinations mixed together, only worse. Like, you sometimes hear about some idiot who overdoses on hallucinogens and kills himself to get away from the horrors in his mind.
The coma is like that.
Except times a thousand.
This time, I fled through an endless concrete maze that looked like Manhattan. Except Nicholas had used the Sky Hammer, and the towers of the city burned like torches, the sky blazing the way that Venomhold burned in the Shadowlands. Undead stalked me from all directions, pistols and rifles in hand, and the bullets pierced my flesh. I stumbled through the city, bleeding and dying, fighting for my life. The undead were so much more effective when they used firearms. It was a good thing that Vastarion and Victor Lorenz had never thought to equip their undead with guns. If they had, Russell and Riordan and I would never have gotten away from them.
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I saw my brother and my husband lying dead in the street, riddled with bullets.
I screamed and ran for them, except now I found myself back in the Cattleman’s Pride, the music blaring, the lights a harsh crimson. The undead stood around me in the club, and the dancers on the stage had gone motionless, blood leaking from the bullet wounds in their heads.
The music stopped and the undead charged at me, and I fought for my life. Except I was back in the Eternity Crucible, and wraithwolves and anthrophages joined the undead. At last, they overwhelmed me and drove me to the ground, and suddenly I was back in the ruins of Chicago, the myothar’s undead rushing towards me in a mob.
On and on it went, one nightmarish vision flowing into another and another.
After a while, the visions faded, and I started to become aware of sensations.
I was lying on something. A cot, I thought. It wasn’t terribly comfortable. I had a nasty headache, and my throat was dry as dust. The faint metallic rattle of an air handler echoed in the distance. Voices came to my ears. Two women, talking.
No, arguing.
“Then you don’t know when she’ll wake up?” said Caina in her posh Brit accent. She sounded upset.
“Could be in five minutes, could be in a day, could be never,” said a second woman. She sounded American, and her voice was full of hostility beneath a calm veneer. “Caina, she ought to be dead. Her pulse was about twenty-five beats a minute, and her body temperature had dropped below eighty degrees. I’ve never heard of a human who could cast an Elven regeneration spell.”
“Neither have I,” said Caina. “She was shot through the shoulder, and I think it clipped an artery. I was afraid she was going to die of blood loss before I got her to a hospital, but she cast that regeneration spell.”
“Then,” said the second woman, “there’s nothing we can do. She’ll either wake up, or she won’t.”
There was silence. I concentrated on opening my eyes.
“She took a bullet for you, didn’t she?” said the second woman, accusation now in her voice.
“Yes,” said Caina.
The second woman scoffed. “You’ll be fine then, won’t you? People take bullets for you all the time. It never bothers you. I wonder if the people who work for you realize just how cold-blooded you really are.”
“I would have changed it if I could,” said Caina. She just sounded tired, sad.
“Oh, sure,” said the second woman, her control starting to slip. “You’re just full of regret. I...”
My eyes popped open, and I sat
up with a gasp, the cot creaking beneath me.
“For God’s sake,” I croaked. “You two. Keep it down. I just got shot.”
I was in a cinder-block room with the look of an infirmary. There were four cots, several cabinets, and a long counter with medical supplies. Caina stood with her arms crossed over her chest, wearing the same blouse, slacks, and high-heeled boots from before. The second woman stood facing her, scowling. She wore tasteful jewelry and an expensive pantsuit of dark gray that screamed either lawyer or doctor. She was about Caina’s height but heavier, with long blond hair and green eyes that flashed with rage.
Both women stared at me in astonishment.
“Hi,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “How long was I out?”
“About nineteen hours,” said Caina. “It’s...let’s see, a little after 7 AM.”
“Huh,” I said. “I’m getting better at this. Only nineteen hours. But I was just shot once. Hey, do you have some water?”
“Yes, of course,” said the woman in the gray suit, crossing to the counter. She picked up a bottle of water, opened it, and handed it to me. I drained it in about three gulps. “How do you feel?”
“Terrible,” I said, “but since I got shot through the shoulder yesterday, on balance I feel pretty good. Thanks for the water. Who the hell are you?”
The green-eyed woman seemed amused. “I am Dr. Claudia Dorius, that’s who the hell I am. For a woman who was shot, you seem to be remarkably healthy.”
“Guess so,” I said, looking at my left shoulder. My jacket was gone, and someone had cut away my left sleeve. The skin of my shoulder was smooth and unmarked. I patted my back, feeling for the exit wound, but it was gone.
“Let me have a look quick,” said Claudia with brisk medical authority, reaching for a medical kit and dropping to her haunches in front of me. She shone a penlight in my eyes, checked my pulse, and took my blood pressure. “As far as I can tell, you’re healthy. Just exhausted and heading towards dehydration. You should probably drink a lot of water and eat something.”
Cloak & Ghost: Blood Ring Page 9