Chapter Twenty-Seven
Saul
The doors to cells nine and twelve slammed shut in tandem, and the wards that dampened magic flickered on with a bright flash of silvery light. Saul reattached both pairs of handcuffs to their respective hooks on his belt and wiped his hands on his pants; touching the idiot brothers always made his skin feel greasy. Then he followed Adeline toward the exit, throwing a friendly wave to Victor, the lone guard on duty in the holding unit.
After double-checking to make sure the holding unit’s heavy steel entry door locked behind them—the battery-powered backup systems in the Castle acted wonky sometimes—Saul said, “I know we’re supposed to head up to Roland’s office, but I want to stop by the infirmary first and check on Tanner.”
“While you’re doing that,” Adeline replied, “I’ll grab some grub from the cafeteria. It seems like we’re going to have a long night, and you’ve barely metabolized any of the food you’ve eaten today. Don’t want you to fall out in the middle of something important.”
Saul patted his stomach, which had in fact been gurgling on and off for the past half hour. “Good idea. I’m starting to feel like I’m running on empty. Can you see if they’ve got any of those soft pretzels?”
“Sure. You like mustard on yours, right?”
“I sure do. They…” Saul trailed off as he spotted two familiar figures in the dim glow of the emergency lights. “Romano, Berkowitz, hey!”
The two team leaders, who were sitting across from each other in a small lounge space cut out of the otherwise straight hallway, perked up at the sound of his voice. Spatters of thick, brown river mud coated both men from head to toe.
Romano was currently struggling to remove a boot that was practically glued to his leg by a half-dried layer of the rancid goop. Berkowitz had apparently given up on removing his own shoes. He sat on a towel that had been laid out to protect the antique sofa from any grievous stains, picking bits of green and brown detritus out of his hair.
“Reiz,” said Berkowitz, “heard you bagged a couple of lowlifes.”
“Yet the primary offender remains at large,” Saul said sourly. “What about you two? Did you find that sable wight?”
Both men shook their heads in frustration.
“Witnesses said the damn thing went for a swim,” answered Romano, finally tugging his boot free with a wet pop. “We spent hours combing the riverbanks for it but came up empty. Either it washed ashore miles downriver, or it’s at the bottom somewhere, stuck in the muck. I’m sure it’ll resurface eventually, but it’s too dark out there now to continue the search.”
Saul stifled his disappointment—he wanted that wight destroyed—and gave them both polite nods. “Well, I hope the rest of your night goes better.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.” Berkowitz flicked his wrist, flinging bits of river gunk onto the floor. “The reason we’re sitting here while our subordinates get to take nice, hot showers is because the big man wants to see us. Apparently, there’s a new assignment coming down the pipe for both our teams, and it’s top priority. Surprised you guys haven’t been brought in on it.”
Adeline and Saul exchanged a knowing look.
“Pretty sure we’re already on it,” Adeline said. “We stumbled upon a serious scheme today.”
“Roland’s about to hand you guys overtime assignments, no doubt,” Saul added. “A lot of ground needs to be covered tonight, more than we can handle on our own.”
“Oh great.” Romano scratched his head, and grimaced when a water beetle skittered out of his hair. “Another all-nighter. My wife’s going to be so happy when I come crawling home at dawn again.”
Berkowitz said, “You could’ve taken that desk job in Philly.”
Romano groaned. “The only thing worse than skulking around in foul-smelling mud is pushing papers all day long. I don’t care if it’s safer. I would lose my—”
Rolling thunder sounded on the nearby stairs, and they all whirled around to see Roland hustling to the ground floor. Cassidy’s entire team slogged down the steps behind him, all four members bleary from their extended trip to Hartford. Frasier and his two teammates who weren’t out on medical leave were hot on the heels of Cassidy’s team.
Everyone looked extremely concerned about something. Presumably whatever had Roland moving like someone had lit a fire under his ass.
If Roland is rushing, Saul thought, apprehensive, then something has gone terribly wrong.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Roland spotted the two team leaders in the lounge and the two other schmucks loitering beside them. He motioned for all of them to join the train of agents.
Saul and Adeline scuttled toward him without complaint. Romano and Berkowitz swore under their breath before complying. Romano grabbed his discarded boot, Berkowitz peeled his butt off the towel, and they jogged to catch up with the rest of the group so they didn’t get rebuked.
Wordless, Roland set off down the hall, and everyone followed.
Unease bobbed in Saul’s gut. He pushed his way to the front of the group, intentionally elbowing Frasier in the process, and asked Roland, “Is something up with Tanner? What’s going on?”
“Your brother is fine, as far as I know,” Roland replied in a hushed, nervous tone. A manner that was completely out of character. “But what we need to discuss involves his experiences today, so I want him present for this conversation.”
“Isn’t he asleep though?” Adeline asked. “I thought Laura said he wouldn’t be up till morning.”
“There were some significant developments while you were out.” Roland did a pinpoint turn into the hall that led to the infirmary, and the group mimicked him in a far less graceful fashion. “I’ll review those developments to get everyone up to speed, but I strongly believe we’re on the clock, so I’m not taking questions right now. Just do what I tell you.”
Perturbed by his manner, Adeline and Saul fell silent.
As they neared the infirmary, one of its hefty doors swung open, and Laura emerged, looking mildly concerned. “Wow, that’s quite the gathering,” she said as she caught sight of the group. “You’re not all hurt, are you?”
“We’re not hurt at all.” Roland gestured for her to reenter the infirmary. “We simply need to include the other Mr. Reiz in an important conversation.”
Laura winced. “Unfortunately, the other Mr. Reiz is who I’m looking for. I let him out a little while ago to stretch his legs and get some fresh air, but I started getting worried when he didn’t come back after the lights went out.”
Saul sputtered, “You let Tanner walk around by himself? The library entrance is on this floor.”
Laura shot him a flat look. “Unlike you, your brother has some sense, so I felt comfortable letting him take a short trip to the courtyard.”
“Maybe he’s still there,” Adeline said. “There aren’t any emergency lights in the courtyard. He might’ve just decided to stay put to avoid getting lost, since he doesn’t know the layout of the building very well. Why don’t we go check the courtyard and see if he’s hunkered down on a bench or something?”
Roland grumbled, “We do not have time for these kinds of shenanigans. But very well. Let’s continue.”
The group headed onward, now with Laura in tow, the healer shamefaced for having lost track of her ward.
At the back of the group, Romano faked a cough and said, “So, anybody want to tell us what all this hubbub is about?”
“Yeah,” Berkowitz threw in, “starting with the fact that Reiz has a brother now. When did that happen?”
Saul sighed. “Look, it’s a long story—”
“Longer than you know,” Laura muttered.
Adeline quirked an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well,” Laura said, “for starters—”
An earsplitting screech barreled through the hall, startling everyone and cutting off Laura’s explanation. A moment later, a door around the next corner slammed shut, sending
faint vibrations through the floor.
“What the hell?” shouted Frasier. “Is that the perimeter breach alarm?”
“It is,” Roland confirmed.
“I thought our perimeter defense wards were top notch,” Adeline ground out, hands over her ears.
“They are,” Roland said. “Only something extremely powerful could’ve broken through them.”
Electricity zipped down Saul’s spine. “The door that just shut. That might’ve been the door to the courtyard.”
Adeline reached out for him. “Saul, wait.”
Saul evaded her grasp and darted around the corner. The same fireball spell he’d used to roast the manticore sitting hot on his tongue, he surveyed the hall along which the library and courtyard entrances both lay. The library doors appeared undisturbed, but the little glass window on one of the courtyard doors now sported a spider-webbed crack.
Saul crossed the distance in three beats of his heart, bolstering his speed with a spell that sprayed gold embers from his heels. He hurled himself through the damaged door just as everyone else came spilling into the hall, shouting for him to stop.
Cool night air wafted over him as he stumbled onto the stone path of the courtyard. Spinning this way and that, he searched for any sign of Tanner, ramping up the acuity of his eyesight with another murmured spell to cut through the inky darkness.
He didn’t see Tanner anywhere.
“Tanner!” he yelled.
Nothing answered but the wind.
Saul reproached himself for not staying at Tanner’s bedside and making absolutely sure that no more terrible things befell him. He stamped his foot on the wet stone, sending beads of water flying. Along with something that looked and behaved almost like a leaf.
Saul snatched the drifting object out of the air and brought it close to his face.
It was a feather. A black feather.
His stomach dropped into a pit, and he craned his neck up, up, up at the stormy sky, raking his gaze across the contours of the roiling clouds.
There!
Soaring up in a tight corkscrew toward the low-hanging cloud cover was a large feathered beast with a man hanging from its oversized talons. Saul’s sharpened vision identified the creature instantly: It was a harpy. Another necromantic chimera. One even more difficult to construct than a manticore.
Armed with the power of flight, the reflexes of a snake, and the shrewd eyesight of a nocturnal predator, harpies were highly effective tools in a variety of combat situations. But they were so rarely produced that Saul had only seen them in black-and-white photos shown in the PTAD academy classes.
If I throw an offensive spell from this distance, I might hit Tanner, he thought, clenching his teeth. I don’t have enough pinpoint accuracy to target only the harpy.
Adeline barreled into the courtyard, the rest of the group mere steps behind her. “Where’s your brother?” she said breathlessly.
“Hanging from the talons of a harpy.” He pointed with an emphatic finger.
“A harpy?” She glanced up at the receding figure of the undead creature. “Who the fuck is this necromancer?”
“I don’t know,” Saul said as the others came pouring into the courtyard, “but I’m going to find out. If that thing was planning to kill Tanner, it would’ve dropped him already. So it must be taking him somewhere.”
“Where?” Adeline tracked the creature with her curious gaze. “And why?”
“No clue, on either point.” Saul strong-armed his way back through the huddle of agents to reach the door, ignoring all their complaints. “And right now, the questions don’t matter. We can beat the answers out of the relevant parties after Tanner is safe.”
He looked to Roland. “Unless you have a problem with me chasing down the chimera that just abducted my brother?”
Sparks danced between Roland’s teeth as he answered, “No qualms. Just a warning: I do not want a repeat of that fireball incident from this afternoon. That was enough potential exposure for one day, Agent Reiz.”
Saul mocked a salute. “I promise to be the subtlest combat wizard you’ve ever seen.”
Roland sighed. “Please don’t blow anything up. Other than the harpy.”
“Your command is my guideline, boss.”
“Also, be extremely cautious if you encounter the necromancer,” Roland said as Saul hauled the door open. “This developing situation is far more perilous than you know. So be careful. I mean it, Saul.”
“Will do,” Saul replied absently and let go of the door.
As he raced back down the hall, Adeline half a step behind him, Saul heard Roland order Cassidy’s team to play the assist, since Saul’s team was down two members. Cassidy herself caught the door as it was swinging closed and called out to Saul, “I’ll ring you when we’re on the road.”
Saul gave her a thumbs-up, then doubled his pace. He blew through the hallways and covered the distance between the courtyard and the garage in record time, kicking one of the exit doors out of his way so hard that his boot left a dent in the metal panel.
Adeline, huffing and puffing as she tried to keep up, reproved him for needlessly inflicting damage on PTAD property. But Saul didn’t bother to produce a snide remark. He dove into the team car, shoved the keys into the ignition, and started to reverse out of the parking space before Adeline even closed the passenger-side door.
The only reason he didn’t ram straight through the boom gate was because Adeline threatened to have the valraven still perched on the side mirror peck out his eyes if he carelessly broke anything else. The moment the gate cleared the minimum height, he slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the car peeled out of the garage with a resounding squeal.
Hold on, Tanner. I’m coming for you, he thought as the car drifted across two lanes before the wheels caught traction and shot them off down the street. For you, and for whoever dared to mess with you again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tanner
Tanner Reiz had never been afraid of flying, but he had a feeling that was about to change.
Three hundred feet above the city of Weatherford, he hung suspended from the sharp talons of a beast his revenant memories had labeled a “harpy.” Every time he showed the barest hint of struggle, the talons tightened, threatening to slice through his thin shirt and pierce the tender skin that was still healing from all the abuse it had been dealt earlier today.
So Tanner stayed as limp as possible, mimicking dead prey plucked from the ground by a high-flying scavenger. Closing his eyes to block out the frightening view of his nighttime flight, he racked his brain to figure out a solution to this dilemma.
From his dreams back in the infirmary, he knew his past lives had fought necromancers and their creations. So he dug around in those evanescent memories of all the people who’d worn his soul before him, searching for a spell that could deal a crushing blow to a necromantic creature.
A strong gust of wind buffeted the harpy, and it rocked up and down like an airplane during turbulence. Tanner’s stomach did a series of flips, bile rising uncomfortably high in his throat, and he accidentally opened his eyes at the worst time—as he was passing over a church with tall, pointy spires.
The mental image of his body being impaled on a spire like a shish kebab assailed him, and he lost his tenuous grasp on the memories that had been forming a neat and orderly queue for his perusal. Swearing internally, he swallowed down the burning bile, preparing to try a second time.
Or you could wait until the damn thing lands, said a dissenting voice in his head. Then you can just run away.
It was a tempting thought. But it was also a foolhardy one.
Though Tanner didn’t know why the necromancer had decided to abduct him instead of sending another killing machine to hunt him down, he was certain the man hadn’t grown any kinder since their last encounter. Once the harpy deposited Tanner at its master’s feet, Tanner had a feeling his lifespan would be slashed to mere minutes. And if Tanner couldn
’t escape from the harpy, there was no way he’d escape from the necromancer.
No, his best bet was to free himself now. Even if doing so ran the risk of gory impalement by religious architectural quirks.
I don’t need to perform any complex spells, he thought. A simple, raw attack spell should work, like the golden flash of energy I use to zap the sable wight.
Startled, Tanner craned his neck to look up at the deformed face of the harpy. “Um, did you just say something?” he muttered, half his words scattered by the rippling wind.
The harpy didn’t respond.
“Weird,” Tanner breathed out. “I could’ve sworn someone just spoke.”
Tanner looked left and right and up and down. But there was no other person in his vicinity.
Tanner’s right wrist throbbed, and he raised his arm to find a tiny circle of pink light was emanating from somewhere beneath his skin. The thing inside my wrist has activated, he realized. Does the voice belong to the person who put it there?
Tanner poked at the glowing bead of light inside his wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said, not quite believing he was talking to a disembodied voice, “but who the hell are you?”
A Knight of Cold Graves (The Revenant Reign Book 1) Page 24