Druid Vices and a Vodka: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Six

by Marie, Annette

  “He’s smart,” Ezra murmured as we trekked along the grass that bordered the building. “He doesn’t strike me as the type to fall victim to a sudden case of recklessness.”

  “I suppose,” I muttered, a cold wind smelling of salt water and rotting seaweed blowing across my face. Zak was too wily to do something outrageously stupid.

  We reached an intersection and Ezra slowed to a halt, his back against the wall. He scanned the street, then closed his eyes, stretching his senses for any hint of movement.

  “Let’s go,” he breathed.

  We darted into the shadows of the next building. Aside from overhead doors, the surrounding walls were blank, and everything was quiet. Farther west, light hazed the sky and the distant clatter of machinery reached my ears, almost too faint to hear.

  Moving cautiously, we crept another half a block, then Ezra stopped in a shadowed nook. Across the street was a small parking lot that ended in a tall security fence covered in big warning signs. Beyond it were behemoth-sized cylindrical reservoirs, three stories high, with pipes and catwalks running around them.

  Hesitating, he looked around. “I don’t see him.”

  “Who?” I asked dumbly.

  “Zak. This is the rendezvous point.”

  My stomach dropped. “He’s late?”

  “He should’ve beat us here, unless he had trouble with the other guard station.”

  Other guard station? I leaned out enough to look again at the parking lot and its tall fence. A security gate spanned the center, and tucked beside it was a small booth, lit up inside. Security for the facility.

  “The other station was too exposed, so it was better he handle it with his shadow magic.” Ezra puffed out a breath. “If he’s been delayed—”

  “Ezra.” I squinted at the booth. “I don’t see any guards.”

  “What?” He leaned out for a better look. “I can’t see well enough to tell.”

  The bright windows were unobstructed by human shapes. Either the guards were napping on the floor, or nobody was home. “The booth is empty.”

  He hesitated. “Let’s get closer.”

  Slinking into the open, he paused, then sprinted across the street. We cut along the fence line in a swift, half-crouching jog. Ezra stopped again, head canted as though listening, then he scooted under the window of the booth and peeked inside.

  He swore under his breath. With no caution at all, he rose to his feet.

  “What?” I demanded in a hiss. “What is it?”

  He waved at the booth. Standing, I looked through the window.

  I’d been partially right. The uniformed guards were on the floor—but they weren’t napping. A shimmering silver potion splattered their unconscious faces. At least they weren’t dead. Or … probably not dead? I wasn’t sure.

  “Zak did beat us here,” Ezra said. “And he decided not to wait.”

  I groaned. Selfish, overly independent dickhead of a druid. He probably figured he could handle the golems himself. Why wait for his partner/backup/babysitter?

  Ezra pressed his earpiece. “Andrew, do you copy? I’m at the rendezvous point. Zak was here, but it looks like he went ahead. Tori and I will try to catch up before he reaches the golems.”

  He listened for a moment. “Copy that.” Lowering his hand, he said to me, “Andrew doesn’t want us to rush. Zak can disable the golems without us. We just need to reach him before he finishes.”

  I clenched my jaw. Zak wanted to get the golems done fast—so he’d be free to go after Varvara. Growling under my breath, I faced the security fence, but my angry determination faltered at the sight of the barbed wire on top.

  “Watch me first,” Ezra suggested as he grabbed the thick metal post where two sections of fence joined. Pulling himself up, he used the top of the post as a hand and foot hold. He carefully swung one leg, then the other, over the barbed wire and dropped to the other side.

  Gulping, I took hold of the fence and started to climb. It took me three times as long, but I made it over the barbed wire without tearing any skin or clothes. Ezra caught me, then we were moving again, this time at a quick jog.

  Running alongside a set of train tracks, we crossed the facility. Scaling the fence at the far end went a lot faster, and we hopped yet another line of tracks. A steel yard stretched ahead. Ezra led me past stacks of I-beams and pipes, some shining and new, others rusting in the salty breeze. We jogged past two storage buildings with flimsy-looking roofs and open fronts.

  Fifty yards away was the biggest warehouse yet—at least three stories with a single huge overhead door, dead center in the middle of its face. Train tracks ran across the back for easy loading of cargo directly onto the cars.

  That was it. The set of warehouses where Varvara was storing her collection of golems.

  A man-sized door, tucked at the edge of the building and miniscule compared to the overhead door, was a dark rectangle—but as we watched, a tiny orange light flared. A cigarette, its faint glow illuminating the shape of a man leaning in the open doorway. He was short, heavyset, and definitely not Zak.

  Dread plunged through my center. “Is that one of Varvara’s men?”

  “Where’s Zak?” Ezra muttered. “No way he didn’t beat us here. No way.”

  But if he were here, he wouldn’t have left that guard standing at the warehouse door.

  “Did he run into trouble?” My hands clenched. “Was he captured or …”

  “If he’d been spotted, I don’t think that rogue would be casually smoking with the door open.” Ezra raked his fingers through his hair, then touched his earpiece. “Andrew, do you copy? Andrew? … Anyone?”

  He slid his phone from his pocket and tapped across the screen, then shook his head. “No signal. We’re in a dead spot, and Bryce is too far.”

  I drew in a steadying breath, fighting back panic. Somewhere nearby, the combat teams were creeping into position: Kai and Makiko’s team infiltrating the building where the rogues were staying; Aaron’s and Tabitha’s teams, as well as the Odin’s Eye guild, encircling the building from the outside; and Darius’s team positioning themselves halfway between our location and the dock where Varvara would arrive on her yacht.

  Where was Zak? He’d been through here. Who else would’ve taken out the human security guards with a potion? But why, then, wasn’t he here?

  “He knows how important this is,” I whispered hoarsely. “He knows we have to disable the golems before Varvara arrives. Where could he have wandered off to?”

  Ezra looked up at me, his features frozen in disbelief. “He … shit.”

  “What?” I demanded.

  “He told me how to disable the golems.”

  “He did? Wait—I thought it required obscure Arcana knowledge.”

  “That’s what he told Shane, but at the guild, while we were waiting to leave, he described the symbols to look for. I thought he was explaining it so I could make myself useful, but …” He bit off a curse. “Did he tell me because he wasn’t planning to show up?”

  The blood drained out of my head, leaving me dizzy. “He wouldn’t. He … he wouldn’t do that.”

  Ezra woke his phone. The clock ticked from 6:38 to 6:39. Time was running out.

  “We’re going,” he growled, uncharacteristic fury darkening his features. “Whether he intended to show or not doesn’t matter. He isn’t here, so it’s up to us.”

  “But—” Meeting his determined stare, I straightened my spine. “You’re right. He told you how to disable them, so we can do it ourselves. Then we’re going to find that asshole. In fact …”

  I tapped the back pouch on my belt. Hoshi uncoiled in a swirl of glowing silver scales, and Ezra and I stepped shoulder to shoulder to block the faint light emanating from her.

  “Hoshi,” I whispered, laying my hand on the pink crystal in the center of her forehead, “can you find Zak? Find him, then come get me, okay?”

  She bumped me with her nose, then faded out of sight.

  “Oka
y,” I said grimly, unholstering my paintball gun. “Let’s go.”

  Ezra crept to the corner of the building we were using as shelter. “It’s about to get a little cold.”

  “Huh?”

  A faint red glow sparked in his left eye. The temperature plunged and the surrounding shadows thickened as though they were devouring the light. Aeromages couldn’t create darkness, but demon mages could.

  He darted into the open space, and I followed on his heels, scarcely able to discern his outline. My breath puffed white. We raced toward the waiting warehouse. Five more identical ones butted up against it, available to be rented by any client or criminal.

  As soon as we were in range, I stopped, set my feet, and raised my gun. Taking aim, I fired two shots.

  One hit the smoking rogue in the head, and the other burst against his shoulder. He yipped in pain, then pitched sideways, falling on the interior side of the threshold.

  At the doorway, Ezra let the icy darkness around him fade. I joined him, and we peered into the warehouse. I couldn’t see a thing—only unbroken black. He listened intently, then stepped over the downed rogue. I ducked in after him, swinging the door most of the way closed. It smacked against the sleeping man’s foot.

  “I can’t sense any movement,” Ezra whispered.

  He activated the light on his vest, leaving it on the lowest setting to preserve our night vision. The pale glow swept across the empty floor, the ceiling obscured in shadows. A steel catwalk ran around the perimeter of the echoing space, the only accessory on the blank walls.

  “What …” he whispered with muted horror.

  My limbs went numb, my brain buzzing with confusion.

  The concrete floor, stretching over a hundred and fifty feet to the far wall, was marked with dozens of the most complex spell arrays I’d ever seen—not that I’d seen a ton of them. Each web of interconnecting geometric lines pierced a large hexagon, with three triangles pointing inward toward a small center circle. Hundreds of runes filled the arrays, and small bowls of spell ingredients sat in the inner circles.

  But the arrays … they were empty.

  The golems were gone.

  I grabbed Ezra’s wrist, my fingers digging in. The golems had been here. What else could those spells be? But where were the steel beasts? Why weren’t they here? How could we disable them if they weren’t here!

  He seized his vest light and snapped the button, switching it to full brightness. The white glare blazed across the warehouse interior.

  My stomach dropped a second time. My hand ached from how tightly I was holding his wrist.

  The golems weren’t all gone. There was one left.

  At the back of the warehouse, in the center of the largest array, was a steel monstrosity. Similar to the super-golem that had attacked the Odin’s Eye guild, this one had gorilla-like arms and a thick bipedal body—but it was closer to twenty feet tall than twelve, and instead of fat fingers, its massive fists were solid blocks adorned with three sword-like claws, each one well over a foot long.

  “Ezra,” I choked out. “We have to disable that thing. It’ll kill everyone.”

  “Yes. As soon as we’re done with this one, we need to get back in signal range and warn the teams.”

  Nodding shakily, I holstered my gun and together we rushed forward—but three steps from the doorway, Ezra yanked his wrist from my grasp.

  As I stumbled, thrown off balance, he pivoted with deadly grace and whipped his two short swords from their sheaths. He sliced them through the air, blades crossing. A blast of wind tore across the warehouse and hit the catwalk with so much force the steel rattled.

  An answering swirl of pink magic danced above the catwalk, illuminating the silhouettes of three people.

  As Ezra drew his swords back for another strike and I reached for my paintball gun, magic tingled over my feet. I looked down and saw what I hadn’t noticed before, my attention on the new mega-golem.

  A spell array on the floor under us, drawn in gray, almost invisible against the dingy concrete.

  Its lines blazed with amber light. The radiant beam shot upward, and my body lifted off the ground. Gravity had vanished and I hung suspended in the glow, my feet kicking helplessly. The air felt thicker than mud and I could hardly move.

  Caught in the spell with me, Ezra fought to raise his arms, sword blades shining in the spell’s light.

  A new color snaked through the amber array. Ugly blue lines lit up—a second array scribed inside the first. The dark magic twisted off the floor like dense smoke, then shot upward. Two bands coiled around Ezra’s wrists, growing darker and denser, and more magic wrapped around his lower face. His hands snapped together as though drawn by magnets, and his swords fell from his grasp. They plunged to the floor, unaffected by the amber light.

  The dark power flashed, and when the glow faded, black manacles bound his wrists together. A dark muzzle covered his lower face, a sizzling cord of power running from it to the manacles.

  Red flashed in his pale left eye—then both eyes rolled up in his head.

  “Ezra!” I screamed. My voice sounded wrong in my ears, muffled and deadened. I wasn’t sure whether I was making any noise at all. “Ezra!”

  Quiet footsteps tapped against metal stairs. Three figures descended from the catwalk and approached us. Terror and hatred fought for dominance as I looked into Varvara’s deep-set eyes.

  She smiled, lips painted a vivid red. Just like the last time I’d faced her, she looked ready for an exclusive dinner party with the world’s most rich and powerful. Her silver hair was pulled into an elegant bun, a scarlet blouse and dark slacks clothing her slim figure, her chic coat hanging to her knees.

  Strolling to the edge of the amber spell, she reached into the beam of light and caressed Ezra’s cheek. His eyelids fluttered and focus briefly returned to his gaze, left eye still glowing, but he didn’t otherwise react.

  “More talented than I expected,” she sighed in a thick Russian accent. “He sensed the shifting air as soon as I began an incantation. And it appears he is still conscious? I am rather impressed.” She gestured to her companions—more henchman, these ones tall and muscular. “Pull him out.”

  The two men, their brutish faces impassive, stepped closer. Varvara moved aside for them—and turned to me.

  “I was not expecting you,” she mused. “How intriguing. I had assumed he liked you.”

  “What did you do to Ezra, you bitch!” I yelled, fighting against the spell as though I could swim through the thickened air and strangle her with my bare hands.

  “You’re wasting your breath, darling. I can’t hear you—though I recognize one of those words.”

  The two brutes dragged Ezra out of the glowing beam. His knees hit the floor, head lolling forward then backward as he struggled to straighten. The men seized his arms and lifted him, his manacled wrists jerking taut. His unfocused gaze found me still trapped in the light—and I saw terror in his eyes.

  Terror for me.

  “Let me go!” I dragged my arm toward my belt of artifacts, but the farther my limb moved, the thicker the magic became. It was like trying to wade through hardening cement.

  Varvara smiled, no doubt reading the words on my lips since she couldn’t hear them. She raised her hands. Delicate metal claws and multiple rings adorned each finger. A fine net of chains connected the claws and rings to a disc on the back of her hand. According to Zak, each piece was a dark-magic artifact.

  I expected her to utter an incantation. I expected magic to spear my body while I was caught helpless in her spell.

  Her clawed fingers closed around my arms and she turned me to face the opposite direction, as easily as if I were suspended on invisible chains. I stared across the warehouse at the gargantuan golem, unable to look anywhere else—unable to see Ezra or the men who held him.

  Varvara walked past the spell toward the monster golem. Stopping at the edge of the array, she glanced over her shoulder. “My other steel beasts are alre
ady animated and lying in wait for your guild friends. This one, however, was too large to hide—but it seems a shame to leave it here to rust.”

  She raised her arms and began to chant. I could do nothing but hang in her spell as she recited the incantation, each word of Latin flowing into the next with perfect rhythm. The array on the floor lit up with pale reddish light.

  Her chant went on and on. I did nothing. I couldn’t turn to see Ezra. Couldn’t reach for a weapon. Couldn’t even scream for help. No one would hear me.

  Runes lit up across the golem’s twenty-foot-tall body. With a final shouted phrase, Varvara lowered her arms. The golem creaked as it shifted its monstrous weight. Turning, she glided back to the amber spell and stopped in front of me a second time.

  The fine lines around her eyes crinkled with her cruel smile. “I’d thought the druid a soft fool, but he is as pragmatic as his reputation suggests. Trading a demon mage for his grimoire’s return, certainly, but sacrificing you as well? Not what I expected.”

  She stepped away, adding, “But he still thinks he can kill me once he’s reclaimed his grimoire. I will enjoy telling him of your demise.”

  I wanted to scream at her, to call her every horrible insult I knew, but I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t even breathe through my spiking panic as she walked away, disappearing from my line of sight.

  She murmured a command to her minions. Grunts of effort as they lifted a weight. Footsteps accompanied the scuff of limbs dragging on the floor as they hauled Ezra away.

  Trading a demon mage for his grimoire’s return.

  Varvara knew our plan. She’d already animated her golems. She’d been waiting here for Ezra, and now she would escape with him on her yacht while her golem army ambushed all my friends and guildmates.

  And I …

  The floor shook as the twenty-foot mega-golem took a long stride on thick steel legs, its blank face pointed at me.

  And I would die right here, crushed flat by the golem before it joined the desperate battle about to commence outside—and massacred everyone I cared about.

  Chapter Twenty-Six