All I know in my wily little fox-brain is that I have to do what I can to save this mission, to save my brigade.
To save Penny, to save Alfie.
Whatever it takes.
24 Penny's Parachute
“Anomaly bitch, I said stand DOWN!”
If it weren’t for my overwhelming sense of indignation, exasperation, and pure rancid acrimony toward the vile traitor who is responsible for putting me in this position, I may have been mildly irked at being referred to as a ‘bitch’.
Especially coming from someone who—judging by the New Sovereign Yard police badge the bastard is wearing proudly over his left breast pocket—clearly has no issue sucking dick for a living.
“Joy of joys,” I mumble, as loudly as I dare. “He’s a cop, and a misogynist.”
I’m only going to get one shot at this. And if I can’t pull it off, I’m dead.
“You’re all conscious of the fact that this is complete bloody overkill, right?” I say more boldly, buying myself time. When in doubt, I always tell my lads, buy for time. I’ve got to retain my focus on my skin, my clothing, and the solid steel beneath my feet, all at the same time and without any one failing. “I mean, what. Twenty-billion of you. One of me? You know, this sort of flippancy is why the national debt is skyrocketing.”
A warning shot pings off my back, right between two of my ribs. It knocks the wind out of me in a wheezing gasp for air. I shake it off, gritting my teeth harder.
Don’t stop…
“All right,” I utter in a dark undertone. “That was just plain rude. Once you shoot me, mate, that’s it. I’m sorry. We’re done here.”
And with that, I send the blossoming ball of energy in my stomach bursting through my crouched lower half into the steel beneath me. It liquifies instantly and I fall through it as if it were mercury—slick and shiny and wet as it and I both splatter down to the floor directly below the vault.
I don’t fall into traps. I parachute.
I slam into solid carpet, my armored skin absorbing the majority of my momentum. It knocks me for six, but I’ve no time to recover. I roll to the side, anticipating the rapid gunfire in my wake, and dive between two rows of tiered benches for cover.
I have to get back to the party. Pronto. While we may have been fully prepared for the possibility of Gav’s betrayal, I may have to kick myself if we survive this for our lack of foresight into Izzey’s.
Bullets pelt the enormous, antiquated hall, shattering wooden furnishings and ripping holes through the padded, green leather of the benches. They don’t seem to have a visual on me—yet. Which buys me a couple seconds to get my bearings.
The chamber I’ve dropped into is humungous, and somehow familiar. Tiers of padded pews rise up on either side, with additional seating in the balconies above. There appear to be multiple exits, all solid wood doors. Easy enough to get through, if I can reach one without being—
Two solid raps on the wooden joinery, different to the splintering crack of the gunfire, snap me out of my thoughts. It’s coming from directly behind me. Twisting around, I peer down the aisle, and my eyes widen impossibly.
It’s her!
The tiny, delicate blonde from Illiam’s chaise is huddled between the pews, staring at me with enormous, sea-green eyes. I stare back at her. Regardless of the racket all around, I can’t help it.
“Who are you!?” I’m demanding before I can stop myself. I have to know who she is, why she’s here, and what the hell she has to do with that creep Illiam. What the hell she has to do with me.
She doesn’t flinch. Nor does she answer me. Instead, she crawls away, motioning for me to follow. Behind her, a nondescript wooden door stands ajar.
Don’t have to tell me twice. Between a unit of armed coppers and a strange, sweet stranger, I’ll take the stranger, even if that’s how nice girls like me wind up dead. I vault down the aisle without wasting another minute, leaving the earth-shattering din in my too-close past as I barrage through the offered door. The slight lass slips out after me, and the door clicks shut.
Panting for breath in the corridor, I do my best to stand upright as I shake liquid steel from one boot, then the other.
“All right, well apparently I owe you one,” I tell the tiny wisp of a thing. I raise my eyes when she again doesn’t respond, and offer a frown. “Are you all right? Can you understand English?”
She nods, her oceanic eyes bright and clear.
“Can you not speak it?”
This time, her head shakes. Part of me wonders more about her story, but I shut it down quickly. I have to get back to the party, find Alfie, and reconvene with my lads. PDQ.
“I don’t know who you are,” I tell her, glancing down at her thin linen robe. The pewter slave pin, a rare but not entirely unusual sight in the county of London, is a stark reminder of why she may be here. “But if I can ever return this favor, I will. You have my word.”
A genuine smile is the only response I’ll likely be receiving from her. I return it, turn on my heel, and take off running down the corridor.
I have to find my way back down to the undercroft, I tell myself. The corridors are winding and all look the same, but there has to be some way of—
An eruption of energy knocks me off my feet, sending me sailing across the floor on my back until I skid ungracefully into a wall.
I think I may have just found what’s left of the party.
Sprawled in a heap on the carpet, all I can do is stare. A hole has been blown clean through the floorboards from the levels below, leaving a smoldering crater at one end of a grand foyer.
They tore the world open…
“Alfie—!”
My mind is awash with hysteria as alarm bells begin to blare. The memory of my childhood friend, my lovely lunatic, choking on so much darkness and poison and hate—it can’t become a reality, it won’t. I refuse to allow it.
I’m coming, Alfie.
Every limb trembles as I inch toward the crater, taut with anticipation. A solid headache is beginning to thrum at the base of my neck, but I refuse to stop. Not yet. Not until we are all safe and sound, back on the van.
Within the depths of the hole, through layers of splintered foundation, I make out what I believe might be the stage area. It’s burnt, charred, but abandoned, save for the slow, rhythmic, rolling beat of what appears to be a gritty, pop-hop tune I’ve not heard before. One that takes the genre and darkens it to a shade I’m pretty sure the government wouldn’t give its seal of approval.
Steeling my nerves and holding my breath, I drop into the crater, landing boots-first in the center of the stage.
I parachute.
While I may have taken the time to ready myself, I’m not certain any level of preparation would have been able to fully brace me for what I see.
If Pyronamix had been twisted and chaotic before I hit up the green room, it’s devolved beyond all recognition by now. A writhing mass of bodies grind in slow, sultry symmetry with one another, in time with the beat and everyone around them. Clothes have been shed, as has all inhibition.
And I swear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I see blood.
It’s starkly crimson against the paleness of the majority of the young bodies, making it impossible to miss. It flows in warped, writhing rivers down arms and throats and breasts, staining skin as it seeks out every crack and crevice.
I’m so distracted by the horror of it all, of this freak-fest unfolding in front of me, that I don’t notice my silver-haired stalker until he’s practically on top of me.
“Well, well, well,” Dahmien purrs in a timbre slick and shiny with ice. I gasp and back up as quickly as possible, trying to lock onto a specific item or part of the stage I can utilize as a weapon. “The nightmare returns to us, and right on time.”
“We missed you,” chuckles the redhead, Zakh, from my left. His brother and bassist Monroe is already at my back again, his hands eager to find my hips once more.
“Well,” Zakh snorts,
“Dahmien missed you.”
“Shut it,” snaps the frontman, his stare as steely as the sheer curtain of hair across his pale face. His skin is like ivory, like stone, and equally as cold. I don’t want those hands anywhere near me.
“We appreciate that you made it to our party, Penelope,” he whispers, soft like leather or silk. And just as quick to bind me in place. “Now, be a good girl, and be still.”
This time, I don’t wait for the inky smoke to paralyze me. I lash out as he leans in, using the leverage of the band member behind me to drive my forehead into Dahmien’s pretty, pallid face as hard as I can without knocking myself out.
I must admit, it’s a Glasgow kiss Duncan would have to be proud of, had he been around to witness it.
Zakh is upon me in the blink of an eye, too unnaturally quick for me to have any hope of reacting. A frozen hand seizes me by the throat, lifting me clean off the stage before I can use it to my advantage. Apparently, they learn fast.
I whip a leg across his face in a vicious roundhouse kick. It feels good, kicking the most annoying and arrogant member of a boy band I’ve had to study up on all week. A second, a third, and he drops me into the waiting arms of a cohort, whose arms quickly spread across my torso, winding around me like a boa constrictor and pinning my own to my sides.
With a snarl, I drop-kick both feet out, driving my heels into Dahmien’s stomach as he comes at me again and leaving two impressive boot prints on the front of his crisp, white suit. Zakh catches one of my legs as they come down, knocking me off balance. He laughs, hooking my knee over his shoulder to lock it there, and slides his free hand, cold and uninvited, up the inside of my bare thigh.
I freeze in absolute horror. Another hand belonging to another band member is taking its time in working its way beneath the hem of my skirt. Seeking out the plump little divet where the back of my thigh meets my arse, and curling all about it.
“I said, be still,” is Dahmien’s repeated command, a pitch or two lower and more deadly than before. He’s once more in my sight line as my other leg is captured by the last of them, hands crawling over my knee to begin unlacing my boot at a torturously threatening pace. “And let us make a Dreamer out of you.”
25 Penny's Worst Dream
Dahmien’s frosty breath floods the hollows of my collarbone, and I shudder in both fear and the horror of the anticipation. Another set of cold fingers are starting to peel my dress up my body, exposing my hips and the vulnerable curve of my belly. The more of me they reveal, the more of me they gain access too, the more afraid I am.
And this time, they aren’t numbing my mind with any sort of haze or spell. I’m fully lucid, and fully aware of what’s happening to me.
“Back off!” I snarl, vicious and defiant, even as Dahmien leans in to inhale the pulse point at the base of my throat. Even as he grazes the tender skin with a fang that’s far too sharp to be a human one. I struggle valiantly, determined to escape. Determined to survive. Determined to find my fucking friend—
Dahmien draws back, and what I see on his face is nothing short of abhorrent. Or rather, what I see in his face. His eyes are pools of inky black nothingness, two abysses staring soullessly back at me, and his perfect lips have peeled back to reveal a glistening collection of inhuman white fangs.
Oh my god, is all I can think, incapable of doing anything other than staring in abject terror. He’s a vampire. He’s an actual, real-life, legit as fuck fucking vampire.
Before he can commit to what he’s planning, something harsh and bright blazes across my vision, searing the tip of my nose. A burst of flame, hotter than hell.
I’m able to whip my head around with enough time to see a blur of fire and freckled skin dart past. The impassive weight of the four men around me is wrenched away, one by one, and in the havoc I’m thrown from the stage into the writhing crowd below.
Alfie!?
He stands center stage, tall and proud, entirely nude save for the inky-black pigment that stains his skin, creeping from his feet up almost to his hips, shrouding his lower half in shadow. His eyes, dark and empty. His mouth, a fanged smirk.
“They tried to tear the world open, Penny,” he says, and I hear him, even over the din of music and mayhem and vampiric sex. “They tried to tear it open. But I did my duty—I did my duty!”
My lunatic—my sweet, beautiful, savage lunatic—throws his head back and laughs maniacally skyward. Flames rush up around his body, caressing the tatted muscle tone, dropping embers into the shadow beneath.
“They—th-the Abyssal Sin—” he stutters, staggering sideways. He’s struggling to remain on his feet. More important, for a moment, he almost sounds like himself again. “They fed—they fed me to it—”
And then, with another wail of not only agony but sheer amusement too, he leaps from the stage and crash-lands in a pyre of madness in front of me.
“But I! Am not! Their people!”
As he screams at me, he’s swinging his fists between outbursts, literal fists of fiery fury that streak past my face a hair too close for comfort. When it comes to martial arts, we grew up training together, only to individually develop our own personal techniques once separated by our parents. Even still, we’ve remained almost perfectly evenly matched in skill, speed, and strength.
The really interesting part is when Magick comes into play. But we’ve never, ever fought to hurt or injure one another before, which is why every single move I make is completely critical to my survival.
I have every reason to believe he is aiming to maim, if not kill. And if I don’t watch my step, I’m going to regret taking my time in naming my lieutenant.
I already know who it’s going to be, anyway—
I made a frantic bolt for the exit. Alfie chases me through the mass of slick, sweaty bodies. I need to get him out of here, away from innocent bystanders and anyone present who may have knowledge on how to manipulate him in this state.
A ball of fire crashes into the stone at my heels, searing the backs of my legs through my boots. I hiss in pain, but force myself to keep running. It’s a mad dash for freedom at this point, my arms pumping hard at my sides to keep me moving.
Alfie lunges at me from behind. His arms tackle my waist, driving me into the ground. His bare skin burns mine on contact and I writhe in agony in his grasp, the fictional pain of my fantasy finally becoming very, very real.
He’s hurting me! is all my panicked mind can cling to. It’s too hot—!
“Alfie, stop!”
My friend is an inferno all around me, threatening to set me ablaze as even his real name fails to reach him. The door is mere inches from my fingertips. For both of our sakes, I have to reach it.
“Please—!”
Snarling with the effort of drawing upon more of my own Magick, I take the hand not currently braced against Alfie’s jaw to keep those razor-edged fangs away from my bare shoulder, and spear it deep into the stone beside me. I snag a fistful of the concrete underneath, and it stretches between my fingers like rubber as I wrench it upward with a growl.
Don’t—stop—
Shrieking as a bolt of migraine-inducing lightning electrocutes my brain from the overstrain, I yank my pulled-taffy strip of concrete out of the ground and around Alfie’s midsection before letting it go, letting it re-harden. He’s pinned down for as long as it takes for him to wriggle himself free, which gives me more than enough time to haul myself to my feet and throw my body at the door.
The heavy slab of wood opens easily in my grasp. It’s what’s behind it that’s about to make things considerably more difficult.
“Gav!”
I’m barely capable of choking out his name. The sight of him there—still just as sweet and flaxen as ever, but all the while wearing that despicable, detestable uniform—is a metaphysical punch to my stomach’s softest, most sensitive spot.
“Party crashers, this early,” Gav chuckles, hoppy and bitter, and delivered via a cold-filtered draught that doesn’t suit him a
t all. In fact, it doesn’t even sound like a line he wrote for himself. “PS, sweetheart, you really gotta stop all this terrorism nonsense and find yourself a proper, honest graft.”
I have a straight choice between breaking down in tears, and laughing in his face. Naturally, I choose the latter.
“You’ll never get promoted to Branch 9 with that sort of a compassionate attitude,” I sneer at him, quite literally all mouth and no trousers as he waves a hand and another unit of uniformed officers begin to file in behind him. “Unless you’re planning on looking at another division?”
The baffled look on his face tells me what I had suspected. Like most coppers, the poor simple bastard has zero idea the secretive branch of his own metropolitan force even exists.
To be honest, if Gav knew there was a covert police unit serving the single purpose of hunting down and terrorizing Anomalies, I think his faith in the system may be shaken. If only a little.
Double-agent or not, he seems that type of bloke.
“You’re under arrest, PS.”
“You know, I was one of the people who didn’t want to believe you could betray us, mate,” I pipe up, refusing to let him finish what he’s about to say. It isn’t the first time I’ve heard the spiel, and it isn’t the first time I’ll escape with my freedom, either.
Gav stiffens, drawing something from his belt. An EMPR. I recognize it immediately, a friend having once shown me a prototype he stole when it was first in development half a decade ago. Back when that sort of tech was a weird, futuristic, comic-book-style fantasy, not a reality.
“Let’s not do this, love,” he says, and I swear I sense a genuine undertone of pleading buried deep within the words.
I open my mouth to reply, to respond with one of my patented catty remarks.
Alfie beats me to the punch.
No longer inhibited by the floor, he’s on his feet and charging full-force at Gav, who barks a sharp and almost believably stern order to his men not to shoot. He draws the EMPR to the side in a wide arc, flipping the baton expertly across his hand, and swipes it around to intercept the incoming Anomaly inferno.
Blaze of Glory Page 16