by Karen Chance
I didn’t say anything. Because I was too busy watching the golem. And the little energy crystal in its forehead, which had just cracked, turned gray, and started smoking.
The golem pulled it out and looked at it for a moment. And then dropped it on the floor, crushing it under a big orange heel. And turned those expressionless eyes on me.
“You are Cassandra Palmer?” a deep, gravelly voice asked.
“Yes.”
“The one who killed Apollo?”
I swallowed, trying to decide if that was a trick question, but my brain wasn’t up to it. I could only hope the truth was something he wanted to hear. “Yes?”
The shotgun slung across his back was suddenly in his hand, and ratcheting. “What can I do for you?”
I stared at him, so relieved I could barely speak. “Fuck shit up?”
He looked at me silently for a second, and then turned and shot the two mages nearest him, who were still firing at Billy. And who I guessed were the owners of the other golems. Because their control crystals shattered and burned as soon as the men hit the floor.
“One moment,” the first golem said to them as their eyes began to glow. “We have a small job to do first.”
“Oh yes. Oh yes, indeed,” a sibilant voice whispered, from inside the nearest one.
The other just nodded.
The first golem looked at me. “Consider it fucked.”
His body started to vibrate, and chunks of clay began cracking and falling off. But not as fast as the second guy, the one with the creepy voice. Who erupted from his shell in a glowing nimbus of power and then spread out across the space above us, like a massive, iridescent jellyfish.
I stared at it, mesmerized. It was beautiful. The silvery white strands glimmered, shot through with every color of the rainbow, riding on currents only it could see. . . .
It was beautiful.
“Fuck me,” Billy whispered, back in ghostly form at my side.
“Get back to your body, small one,” the first golem told me, still in its clay form. “And get your friends far from this place. Or the scouring may take them as well.”
“What? No! Not them!” Billy said, because I was still staring stupidly upward. “And not the hotel! Just the bad guys!”
“We will contain it as well as may be,” the golem told him. “But this space you call the drag is not safe. Get them out.”
“But we can’t get them out,” Billy said furiously. “You don’t understand! We need—”
But we didn’t have a chance to say what we needed. Because one of the jellyfish tentacles reached out and brushed us—
And the next second, we were flying.
Billy caught me; I felt his arm go around me in a warm embrace, felt him pull me close, felt his anger when he said: “Demons! I really hope you know what you’re doing, Cass. You just made a deal with the devil!”
Three of them, I thought, staring down at the drag as it blurred beneath us: dark and neon bright, spells flying, fires burning, artificial rain pelting down onto the black-coated half circle surging at Augustine’s tiny shop. It was strangely beautiful, too.
I closed my eyes, just for a moment, so tired. . . .
“Cass! Don’t you do this to me! Don’t you fucking do this!”
I heard Billy’s voice, but it was so far away, so far. And this darkness wasn’t like the other. It was warm, and welcoming, and peaceful. . . .
“Goddamn it, I said no!” Billy said, and the next moment, I felt him everywhere, all around me, all through me. He engulfed the rapidly dissipating strands of whatever part of me was still left, merging it with the more solid brilliance of his own spirit.
And then we moved, like we’d been shot out of a cannon. Rocketing back down to ground level, zooming past and then through the bodies of the jostling, straining men, sizzling along with the overstrained ward, while blast after blast of spell power buffeted us, strong enough collectively to be felt even in the spirit world. And then we were through, bursting into the middle of the ruined little shop—
And the next second, I was choking to death on the messy, bloody, trash-strewn floor of Augustine’s.
Everything slammed into me at once: pain—God, so much pain—almost indescribable exhaustion, shock and the confusion of crashing into yet another body, and the fact that it was my own didn’t seem to make that much difference.
Realizing that I couldn’t breathe.
After a second it dawned on me that the sprinkler system was still going off, resulting in pools of stagnant water everywhere—including the one I was facedown in. It looked like I’d been propped up against the back wall of the shop, but I’d fallen over, probably after Billy left. And of course I’d fallen facedown.
I rolled over, gasping and choking, and finally heaving up a bunch of nasty-tasting water while trying to roll to my hands and knees—
And ended up retching and almost blacking out instead.
I lay there, pale and cold and trembling, taking heaving breaths while the room around me shook like an earthquake had hit it. Drifts of dust and plaster were raining down, along with what looked like half the ceiling; people were running everywhere. I didn’t know why, because there was nowhere to go. And everyone was screaming, although I couldn’t hear them even though my ears had just popped.
Because the barrage was deafening.
And then the screaming suddenly got louder, loud enough that I could hear it. And the ward started shivering, like it was caught in a high wind. And the latest raft of spells didn’t stop at the surface, but stretched inward, heads forming as power piled up behind them, looking for all the world like the elongated blobs out of old lava lamps.
Until they broke through, the ward evaporating in an instant, with spells exploding and people screaming and diving for the floor, and the rest of the roof caving in.
A war mage jumped for me, his cape billowing out like a piece of the night, throwing some kind of spell I didn’t know. But it was pretty strange, because suddenly, there were two of him. The original and a second like a shadow . . .
A red shadow.
I stared at the man’s doppelganger as it hung in the air for an instant, only feet away from me, wondering what this new hell was, but unable to run or even move—
And then it collapsed, hitting the floor and splattering everywhere, like a bucket of warm red paint. Or a bucket of blood, I thought, blinking suddenly sticky eyelashes. Because that’s what it was: all the blood in the man’s body, which had been ripped out of him in a split second, leaving his exsanguinated corpse to tumble lifelessly to the floor.
And the torrent of blood to splash all over me.
I was still almost completely immobile, but I didn’t need to turn around. I didn’t need to see the next group of mages, who had been heading into the shop at a run, suddenly also preceded by leaping shadows. Didn’t need to watch them tumble to the floor as their friends stumbled into and over them, as both living and dead hit down, sliding on a sea of red.
I didn’t need any of it.
Because there was only one thing on earth that could do something like that.
“Shield!” one of the mages yelled. “Shield, you idiots! They’ve got—”
“Vampires,” I whispered along with him, finally turning my head.
And saw a war mage jump for the six-foot-five-inch hulk of my chief bodyguard, Marco. He hadn’t even made it all the way through the back wall yet, a fact that didn’t stop him from plucking the guy out of the air halfway through the motion and ripping him in two. And then throwing the halves aside with a roar, all in one fluid movement so fast I could barely track it with my eyes.
And then he was through, bursting out of the wall that contained the impossible-to-break-into main safe of the casino.
Which I guess hadn’t been so impossible after all, because he wasn
’t alone.
There was the redheaded southern charmer, Roy, who wasn’t looking so charming as he leapt through the hole and plowed into a bunch of mages, who foolishly thought their shields would save them. And they did—for a couple seconds. But these guys had been at the front of the battle, and their shields were wrecked.
And a second later, so were they.
I saw portly Fred, who used to be an accountant and still looked like one, at least until he threw out his hands toward the latest wave of mages. And then pulled his fists apart in a savage motion, like someone tugging on both ends of a length of rope. It didn’t exsanguinate the men, who were shielded, too. But it did cause all the blood in their bodies to suddenly relocate to one side or the other.
And I guess that wasn’t healthy. Because I was left looking at a group of maybe ten guys, half of whom had dark flushed faces on the right side—and burst capillaries, and red-flooded eyes—and half of whom had the same thing on the left. And the next time I blinked, the group had parted down the middle, falling to either side like Moses had just shown up ready to party.
And then someone was grabbing me and jerking me off the floor and up to a furious, blood-drenched face. “Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”
Blood was all over my face, too, and in my eyes, and dripping in my mouth when I tried to talk. And yet I felt my lips stretch into a smile. The last time I saw Marco, he’d been drained almost dry, that massive body too quiet, too still, so still that I’d wondered if I’d ever see it move again.
Guess so, I thought, head reeling.
“Cassie, I swear, if you don’t answer me right this—”
“Tried,” I said indistinctly. “Didn’t have my phone. Had to use someone else’s.”
“Whose?”
“Hers,” I said, looking at Carla, who was as blood-drenched as I was but seemed okay otherwise, except that she was screaming and screaming and—
“Who the hell is she?” Marco demanded.
“A reporter—”
“Damn it, Cassie! We blocked all their numbers weeks ago!”
I just stared at him for a second, and then I started laughing—why, I didn’t know. But it felt good, it felt right, like Marco’s bulk under my hands. Like the sight of Rico, the suave Italian, gently scooping up Rhea’s unconscious form from behind the counter. Like seeing more people step through the mutilated wall, this time women with wands in their hands who I didn’t know, but who Marco must have rounded up somewhere.
And who, along with the vamps, were fast clearing the shop. And in a few cases, heading beyond. And no, no, no.
“Pull them back,” I croaked.
“What?”
“Pull them back! Pull everyone back!”
And to Marco’s credit, he didn’t waste time arguing. “To me!” he called, the deep bellow not needing any amplification.
And to him they came, blood-splattered vamps, the droplets already melting into their skin; the older lady in the floral dress, her face pale and pinched, cradling an obviously broken arm; Augustine, bloody and shaking, but also quietly enraged, his long white hands flexing and unflexing as he stared back at the mages; the chick with the pink hair, crazy-eyed and grinning, a wand in each bloody fist; and the rest of the group of sobbing, filthy, traumatized people.
All except one.
“Where’s Grafton?” I looked around, but I didn’t see him.
People were getting through the wall, scurrying on hands and knees through a tunnel of plaster and wood and warped steel. But I didn’t see him in line. I didn’t see him outside, either, where something was going on, something that sounded like a hurricane and looked like one, too, with chairs from one of the nearby cafés sailing by the missing windows, along with bits of paper and debris. And dark mages, running with their coats flying out behind them, and then flying themselves when they were suddenly ripped off their feet.
Carla, no longer screaming, but blood-drenched and pale, with her daughter’s head buried in her neck, tugged on me. “Lady—we have to go.”
“Where’s Grafton?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything.
“That’s his name, isn’t it? The older man—”
“That was his name,” she said quietly, and handed me something.
It was small and black, and chewed and mangled. And now also wet and bloody. I looked back up at her.
“He died buying us the time to get back in here,” the biker chick told me, from the line. “He went out like a goddamn war mage!”
Carla didn’t say anything. She just hugged her child closer, looking at me with haunted eyes. And then handed the girl off to one of the witches for the trip through the wall, before heading through herself.
“Your turn!” Marco said, taking us toward the ruined wall.
I looked back at the drag, at what definitely looked like a hurricane now, at the glass and wood and bloody, burnt couture that was beginning to get sucked out of the shop. And my fist clenched over the small item in my palm. And then, with the shop starting to disintegrate around us, I laid my head on Marco’s shoulder.
And we were gone.
Chapter Twelve
I woke up. That was sort of a surprise, since I couldn’t remember falling asleep. Or going to bed, although I was in mine. And clean and bandaged and wearing an oversized tee, although I only knew that by feel because the room was dark.
Pitch-dark.
I sat up, heart hammering, although I didn’t know why. And then I remembered why and slightly freaked out, despite the fact that I was safe; I was home. I knew I was.
But something was wrong.
I clutched Billy’s necklace in a confused half panic. The faint light it gave off was usually too dim to see, but the darkness was so profound that it shone like a beacon, illuminating my palm and shining through my fingers. He was in there—I could feel him—although he wasn’t coming out. Probably too exhausted. Ghosts don’t recharge by sleep; they need life energy, and he’d used up most of his saving me.
I gripped the necklace tighter, until the gaudy setting bit into my palm, remembering how close we’d come. How very, very close. But he was in there. He was safe. And so was I, although it still didn’t feel like it.
Something was wrong.
It wasn’t a sound; all I could hear was the whoosh of the air-conditioning and my own too-loud breathing. It wasn’t a smell; the only scent was the fabric softener the hotel used, and an antiseptic tang from the bandages. And it certainly wasn’t a sight, since I could still barely see my own hand in front of my face. It looked like I’d slept through the day, because I could see a few faint stars gleaming through a crack in the curtains. . . .
I could see stars.
I pushed back the covers and rolled out of bed, and immediately regretted it. Everything hurt, a thousand little and not-so-little pains all suddenly vying for attention. For a moment, I just stood there, swaying slightly on my feet, wondering if this was what it felt like to get old. And what was wrong with my life, that I was asking that question at twenty-four.
Then I sucked it up and limped over to the bank of windows that I almost never looked out of, because the vamps kept the blackout curtains closed most of the time.
There wasn’t much to see anyway. The neon glow from the big Dante’s sign on the roof tinted everything a reddish hue and washed out the stars. Except for tonight, when a few, faint glimmers of light were just visible above the city’s raucous glow, little diamond flecks against the deep midnight of the sky.
Because there was currently nothing to overshadow them.
The great sign had gone dark.
I had to fumble with the balcony doors, my fingers stiff and clumsy on the latches, to slide them open. And to step outside, staring upward as the warm desert wind hit me in the face and threw my hair around. And yet I still saw nothing, because the de
ep red glow had simply vanished.
“End of an era,” someone said behind me, and I whirled to find Marco standing there, cigar tip flaring in the darkness. And then burning brighter when a gust of wind caught it, sending flakes of ash spinning off into the night. “Damn.” He scowled. “That’s one of my Behikes. Come back in before the breeze puts this thing out.”
I came back in, shivering a little despite the heat, and he put a comfortingly large arm around me. I looked up at him in disbelief. “They closed the casino.”
“They closed everything. No choice—there’s not enough of the drag to put in a baggie, and the lobby’s not much better.”
“Then . . .” I swallowed. “Then all that . . . actually happened.”
“Oh, it happened,” Marco said, letting go of me so he could shut the door and stop the curtains from billowing in. He locked the balcony back securely, and then shrugged when he saw me noticing. “Habit. They’ve had wardsmiths crawling over this place all day. I doubt a fly could get in unauthorized.”
“It should have been done a long time ago,” I said, hugging myself. “We were vulnerable in the public spaces—we were even attacked there before. Why did no one think—”
“’Cause the senate isn’t used to feeling vulnerable. You know how long it’s been since anyone challenged them?”
“The Circle challenged them,” I said, thinking of the coup that Jonas, the current head of the Silver Circle, had pulled on Saunders, its corrupt old leader. The battle had played out here, with the two sides fighting each other in a miniature civil war. It had been terrifying.
At least I’d thought so at the time; I had a new definition now.
“Yeah, but that was played off as a fluke,” Marco said. “Rivalry within the Circle that could have taken place anywhere. Saunders just happened to be here.”
“And now?”
“Now the senate got hit two times in twenty-four hours, here and at the consul’s own home last night.”
“So they’re taking action.”
“Oh, I think you can safely assume that,” Marco said dryly. “The other side just gave ’em two black eyes in a row. They just made the senate—the goddamn senate—look bad. Worse, they made ’em look—”