by C. C. Mahon
Lola cleared her throat and said, “The two Customs officers who were here this morning. Where are they?”
“Ah,” said Callum, “yes. The Customs officers. Follow me.”
He pivoted, and his multiple arms pivoted with him.
“Move,” ordered Enola, her knife still against Britannicus’ throat.
They proceeded to execute a strange pas de deux towards the depths of the loft. I didn’t want to follow them. Not at all. I focused on the heat of my sword in my right hand and the thickness of the fur under my left hand.
You’re not here for you, I thought. You have to find Matteo, Kitty, and Patricia; get back Julie, Lizzie, and Britannicus. Once that’s done, you’ll have all the time in the world to listen to your fear. But until then, put your traumas back in your pocket and forget about them.
I almost managed to convince myself and followed the others to the back of the loft and what those shadows concealed.
33
THE LIVING ROOM led to a dining room where the morning sun was coming through the vast windows. The Strip extended beneath our feet and, beyond that, Vegas, a bland urban expanse interspersed with the crazy architecture of the casinos.
If my eyes were incessantly drawn towards the windows and the landscape they revealed, it was because my mind refused to face Callum. The daylight revealed without alterations what the darkness had spared us until then.
Callum was standing in the middle of the room. His feet were bare, covered in green scales, his toes adorned by black claws. His luxurious pants were held low on his hips by a belt because of the pair of legs coming out of his waist. They were long black and hairy legs, tipped by a kind of claw. This pair of legs, unfortunately, wasn’t the worst spectacle that Callum offered. No, the worst was that he had three other pairs that came out of his torso at regular intervals. The top pair was implanted in his shoulder blades. That might be why he kept his arms crossed over his chest covered in green scales. And then there was his eyes. Too many eyes for a human face, but I refused to look at them. My stomach would not have been able to handle it.
Lola and Barbie spread out with whispered curses. Walter let out a silent growl. I felt Nate vibrate under my hand. Even Britannicus managed to let out an aghast gargle, despite his precarious situation, to say the least. As for me, I was no longer able to breathe and even less able to make a sound. I did, however, have a very strong urge to vomit.
Callum could have masked his deformities with an illusion. If he had managed to take the magic of a phoenix, a dragon, and a spider, he undoubtedly had mastered such a basic glamor. In fact, he must have used one when he had come to the club with his dryad, or I would have noticed his greenish scaly skin. No, he had decided to show us his full transformation, to intimidate us, destabilize us.
Enola turned toward us with a radiant smile. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”
Callum didn’t say anything, settling for clucking his tongue, but she hung her head in shame and murmured an apology. He seemed to forgive her her interjection and brought his attention back to us.
But this break, short as it might have been, had allowed me to catch my breath and partly clear my mind.
“Callum, what did you do?” I murmured.
He spread out his arms—his human arms—as if to better present himself to our eyes. “Magnificent, don’t you think? The phoenix’ powers are invisible—until you need them. The dragon’s aren’t matured yet. It’s unfortunate, but it’s almost impossible to overtake an adult dragon, so…I know how to be patient, just like that spider I caught yesterday. Turning the predator into my prey was one of my biggest pleasures. I’m happy that you’ve come to visit me this morning. I just finished taking the spider’s magic, and I was going to take care of your vegetarian vampire friend. What a waste, truly. At least I will know how to make good use of his powers. We’re going to put this wizard on ice until I can get to him. A conscientious man never stops working, right?”
He gestured to Enola. Lola, Walter, and I instantly moved forward to circle the woman and her prisoner. Nate placed himself between Callum and us without taking his eyes off Callum. A feat, when you considered how ugly the man was. If he could still be called a man.
“Creature,” I decided. Callum was now a creature, a comic-book villain, an arachnophobe’s nightmare.
His appearance finally reflected his true nature.
“Where’s Matteo?” I asked. “Where are Patricia and Kitty?”
“Who?” asked Callum.
“The victims you kidnapped,” said Lola.
“Oh, the donors?” asked Callum in a detached tone. “In the transfusion room.”
He gestured towards the ceiling. His victims were on the top floor. Got it.
“They’re not donors if no one asked them about it,” said Barbie.
“Hmm,” said Callum. “The harpy. I wonder if I could fit a pair of wings in addition to all these legs… But flying is so overrated, and I’m not a pigeon. Enola, do you want wings?”
“One question,” interjected Britannicus, still just as British as ever despite the blade against his throat. “I know spiders shoot out silk from the back of the abdomen. I’m wondering how it works for you.”
Callum let out a thunderous growl, and he planted one of his legs on the marble floor, halfway between him and Nate. Small bursts of stone flew up. A second leg came down near the first one. Callum’s human legs didn’t touch the ground anymore; he put all his weight on his spider legs. He moved forward several feet this way, seeming to lose his balance, steady himself, and fall back onto his human legs just in front of Nate. I had backed away without even thinking about it to get out of the way of the giant spider. Deprived of the reassuring presence of the grizzly, I clutched my sword with all my strength.
The grizzly had stood up on his hind legs and answered Callum’s dragon growl with a more than satisfying bear’s roar. Callum collected himself and jumped at Nate, his eight hooked legs in front of him. The two fighters rolled on the ground. Cries resounded—I wasn’t the last one to yell.
Silently, Walter the puma jumped into the mix.
Enola let out a muffled cry when Britannicus took advantage of the overall confusion to throw her an elbow to the nose. She dropped her weapon to hold her face in both hands, and Britannicus took advantage of it to get away from her and join me.
“Did you have to ask him that?” I asked.
Anything other than having to look at the fight between the two metamorphs and the giant spider.
“What’s that?” asked Britannicus, who seemed fascinated by the spectacle.
“If he shits silk rope.”
“Oh, well…it’s a valid question.”
Lola’s voice brought me back to the present moment.
“You!” she yelled. “On your knees, hands on your head.”
She kept her gun trained on Enola. Rather than comply, Enola jumped like a goat over a couch and galloped towards the back of the apartment. Lola pushed off from the back of the sofa and vaulted over it to go after Enola. But Barbie was even quicker: with a powerful movement of her wings, she flew up and, taking advantage of the loft’s high ceiling, took off after Enola. Lola let her take up the pursuit.
Callum and the metamorphs were still locked in repugnant melee, from which cries of pain and occasional splashes of scarlet were coming.
“Can you do something?” I asked Britannicus.
“Not without injuring our friends.”
“So don’t stand there twiddling your thumbs!” shouted Lola. “We have prisoners to free!”
A staircase made of metal and tempered glass led to the top floor. There, under a huge stained glass window, was a room intended as a library. The shelves were still on the walls, filled with books that must have come with the loft. But the place wasn’t destined for reading anymore. It had been emptied of all of its other furniture—marks on the carpet betrayed the placement of the tables and chairs. They had been replaced by three rugs, set up lik
e the leaves of a clover. On the rugs, there were magical symbols. Around the rugs were crystals of all sizes, shapes, and colors and candles whose wax had dripped on the carpet. The air was heavy with the smell of incense that struggled to mask the odors of sweat and magic.
Two rugs were taken up by bodies laying on them, naked and motionless. I recognized Kitty’s blond hair, and I guessed that the woman lying on the other rug was Patricia. Magical symbols were drawn—no, carved—all over their bodies. In front of the rug on which Kitty was laying, a man was sitting on the ground, in the middle of a circle of candles and crystals. A woman was sitting in a similar circle in front of Patricia. Seeing us arrive, they seemed to be about to get up, but they froze mid-movement, an expression of anger and frustration on their faces. They looked at each other and sat back down.
“What is this thing?” asked Lola.
She went to move a crystal with her foot, and Britannicus let out a cry.
“No! Nobody touch anything. It’s the ritual Lizzie discovered. Or rather its degenerated version that allows you to steal someone’s magic against their will.”
He looked at the scene in front of us, the lines formed by the candles, the crystals and the symbols on the rugs, with visible disgust. “What blasphemy,” he murmured. “A violation of the soul.”
“Are they still alive?” I asked, indicating Patricia and Kitty.
“For now,” said Britannicus. “But the transfer—the theft—of magic could very well kill them in the end. As was the case for Adam and Phoebe…”
Yes, of course, the only way to keep a phoenix from being reborn from their ashes was to drain them of their magic.
“Stop the ritual,” I said. “Before it’s too late!”
He shook his head. “Lizzie’s right; I don’t understand this magic enough to risk touching it.”
“What are the risks?” asked Lola.
“Killing the victims. Or causing an explosion. I don’t know. There’s a lot of energy flowing. I don’t understand…”
He suddenly paled and wavered. I caught him by the arm.
“You okay?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”
“The ley lines,” he breathed.
“What about them?”
“They’re pulling energy from the ley lines. That’s why they can take their victim’s powers.”
“The what now?” asked Lola without turning around—she kept her eyes and her gun pointed at the two strangers.
“Ley lines,” I said. “Kind of like high voltage lines for magic. There’s several of them that converge under Vegas.”
“And Carver tapped into those lines?”
I tried to understand the magical device surrounding the four people around us. I saw the circles, the crystals, the mysterious symbols…I felt the magic in the air. But I failed to see how it all worked. As for this ley lines thing…
“No idea,” I said. “I didn’t know you could use the ley lines like that.”
“Me either,” admitted Britannicus in a flat voice.
“Is it important?” asked Lola. “Here, right now…”
Britannicus lifted a finger to request silence. He slowly made his way around the rugs, the crystals, and the candles that took over the center of the room, observing, occasionally pointing at one element or another, and muttering to himself too quietly for me to understand what he was saying.
In a low voice, I explained to Lola, “Normally, magic seeps from the ley lines, filtered by the ground, and comes through in a much less powerful form. It’s this ‘diluted’ version that wizard’s use. That’s why you need symbols, formulas, and the whole shebang.”
“And why don’t you just pull directly from the ley lines?” asked Lola.
Britannicus interjected, “It would be like plugging your kettle directly into a power line,” he said. “An excellent way to blow yourself up and a useless risk for most magical endeavors.”
“But Carver did it?” I asked. “He was successful?”
“Clearly.”
The sound of broken furniture reached us from the floor below.
“We have to find the girls,” I said. I turned towards the man in his circle of candles. “Where are the Customs officers?”
He settled for shooting me a dirty look. I turned to his companion.
“The two women who came here this morning: where are they?”
The woman didn’t even bother to react.
“There are still rooms that way,” said Lola, gesturing to the start of a hallway with her chin.
“Let’s go look.”
“I can’t leave the suspects without supervision,” she said. “Go see if you can find Matteo.”
“As long as the ritual is in process, they can’t leave their circles,” said Britannicus. “Not with the amount of energy in play. But I can keep an eye on them.”
It was clear that he was much more interested in the magical device than he was in the two suspects, but Lola agreed and followed me.
34
THE HALLWAY LED to a bedroom just as oversized as the rest of the loft.
“Callum’s bedroom,” the voice in my head told me.
My feet refused to enter the room.
Lola went in. She searched everywhere, opened the dresser drawers, and went to another room, from where she declared, “Bathroom, all clear.”
She came back out and gave me an inquisitive look. “Erica, is everything okay?”
“If the girls aren’t here,” I said in a flat voice, “let’s not waste time.”
I turned around and walked away quickly.
There were no other rooms on this floor. Passing in front of Britannicus again, I noted that nothing seemed to have changed. I went down the glass staircase, Lola on my heels.
“Where did they go?” asked the cop.
It took me a moment to understand who she was talking about; the dining room looked like a debris field stained with blood. But Callum, Nate, and Walter weren’t there anymore. I listened for sounds of a fight or a cry. Nothing.
Lola put her index against her lips and pointed towards the hallway down which Enola and Barbie had disappeared. I nodded and followed in silence.
The hallway led to a series of rooms more reasonably sized than the rest of the loft. Guest rooms, mainly. Even if it was a little hard to tell, seeing as the beds had been replaced by metal cages, the types meant to hold bears or gorillas.
The first three cages were empty. In the fourth, we discovered Julie and Lizzie, bound and gagged but conscious. Lizzie had a split lip, Julie a bruise forming under her make-up.
The cage was closed with a giant lock. Seeing us arrive, Julie and Lizzie let out frantic groans. I followed their gazes and found a key hanging on the wall. I unlocked the lock and untied the two women while Lola stood guard near the door.
“Shhh,” I said. “Callum is somewhere. I don’t know where.”
They frantically nodded, their eyes wide with terror. Lola approached us, walking backwards, without taking her eyes off the door.
“We ran into two guards, plus Enola and Carver,” she breathed. “Plus two suspects upstairs, in magical circles. Have you seen anyone else?”
“No,” whispered Julie. “Where’s Patricia?”
“Upstairs,” I said. “Lizzie, Brit needs your help to stop the ritual. Go up the glass staircase. Can you do that?”
They nodded and stood up, grimacing. Lola checked that the hallway was empty before signaling them to go ahead.
When she crossed the threshold of the room, Lizzie whispered, “I didn’t have time to deactivate the system. He did it. It was a trap. Sorry.”
I tried to reassure her with a smile and probably just managed to pull off a grimace. I knew Carver’s ruses all too well to hold it against Lizzie.
Already, Lola was exploring the rest of the hallway. She swore and exited a room backwards. Very pale, she called me over to discover for myself what had provoked that reaction. It was Henry, the spider-man who came to the club to drown h
is heartaches in alcohol. The poor guy would never drink bourbon again, and no woman would break his heart ever again. He was laying on a bed. Without a glamor to hide his true appearance, he wasn’t easy to look at. Completely naked, body covered in markings carved into his skin, he was laying on his back, and eight spider legs, black and hairy, had folded back onto his chest, like a strange cage. His eyes, huge, with countless facets, stared at the ceiling.
I closed the door quietly and led Lola to the last door of the hallway. She opened it and let out a muffled cry.
Matteo was there, in a cage. He was laying on his back, despite his arms clearly tied behind him. Utterly pale, he was as straight as a rod. His face was covered in signs of a beating. Blood had spilled from the corners of his lips and dried into his neck.
Lola threw herself on the key, hanging on the wall like in the girls’ room. She unlocked the lock and froze, her wide eyes focused on Matteo.
“Is he…” she breathed.
I pushed her gently to kneel near the vampire. He wasn’t moving, and I didn’t hear any breathing. I placed my hand on his shoulder, and I felt him shudder. Lola let out a sigh of relief and knelt next to me.
“It’s daytime,” I said. “He’s sleeping. Let’s leave him alone. He’s in no more danger here than anywhere else.”
“Help me turn him over,” said Lola. “I want to at least untie his hands and feet.”
She cut the ligatures holding Matteo then gently placed him on his back again. There was, on Lola’s face, an expression I had never seen on her before. An absolute tenderness that squeezed at my heart and forced me to turn away.
I left the cage and went to wait for Lola in the hallway. Dead silence reigned in the loft.
We had found Matteo, Julie, and Lizzie. Kitty and Patricia were in a precarious situation, but I couldn’t do anything for them, except make sure that Lizzie and Brit could work on the problem without interruption. But where were Carver, Nate, and Walter? Where had Enola and Barbie gone? I listened, looking for the sound of Enola’s signature hooves. I thought I could make out a brushing sound muffled by distance and the walls. Somewhere in the depths of the loft, something was brewing. I turned my head to find my bearings and discovered that I wasn’t, like I had thought, at the end of the hallway. After a ninety-degree angle, the hallway continued. The sound seemed more distinct now. I moved forward slowly, without a sound, my sword ready to strike.