by Karen Chance
And yes, that was as insane as it sounded, but then so was the current war.
John didn’t know why he was surprised by what was happening in Hong Kong. It was par for the course lately, with the supernatural community locked in a literal war of the worlds. The Svarestri, one of the leading fey houses, and their human allies were working to overthrow the current political order and to bring back rule of the gods—ancient, terrible beings from the heavenly dimension who had wreaked havoc the last time they were here and would enjoy a chance to do it again.
Since that havoc would almost certainly involve the death of the entire magical community, which had helped to banish them the last time, John was against it. He was thus also against the development of these super bullets. After all, if the vampire hosts were killed, the demon riders would be useless in Faerie, where their magic was weak.
However, he would prefer to debate it another time!
And another place, he thought, as the building suddenly shook like a bomb had gone off.
That had been happening for a while, after the typhoon hit in earnest. Winds had been battering the old pharmacy and howling around the eaves like banshees, while sheets of rain pounded down on the roof. It had been loud enough to force everyone to raise their voices when they spoke, to the point that they’d literally been shouting at each other.
It wasn’t helping anyone’s nerves, including John’s.
“I could give a damn about your senate!” he told the dhampir. “But unless there are two major conspiracies going on in Hong Kong tonight, we’re after the same people. But for different reasons.”
“And your reasons would be?”
“I’ve told you—”
“Damned little.”
“Enough.”
“I don’t think so.”
That last voice was Dorina’s. She seemed to have recovered from their adventure, and wasn’t holding any fondness for the man who’d abandoned her in a trap with a bunch of dark mages. At least, John assumed that was why she was looking like she’d like to eat his face.
Or perhaps just get in it, because in the time it took him to blink, she had him by the throat and slammed him back against the wall.
He’d lost count how often that had happened to him today, but his back was keeping score and it was too damned many!
“We’ve shown you ours, magic worker,” she hissed. “Now show us yours.”
“Is—is it wrong that that just turned me on?” Ray asked quietly.
“I’ll show you something,” John snarled, his temper getting the better of him. “And without your bag of tricks, let’s see how well you handle it!”
“My pleasure,” she smiled—if you could call it that. John had seen demon lords with kinder expressions. He didn’t know what was on his own face, but the redhead in a mirror suddenly made a sound.
“Dory—”
Her expression reminded him of the other high-born he’d met, who had always looked at him as if he was something nasty that had been dragged in on the bottom of their shoe. What her problem was he didn’t know, since he was the one being held against the wall! He never found out, as the Irin took that moment to intervene.
“My time is short,” he said. “As is yours, if you do not find the ones responsible for this.”
“Then tell us who they are,” John snapped.
“That is easier said than done,” the creature informed him. “There were rumors of a new superweapon in the war, something that would destroy the advantage of our newly combined force with the vampires. But I couldn’t find out what it was, and I was afraid to make my interest too obvious. We’re known as Watchers, but others watch us as well, and I was not sure who to trust.”
“You’re talking about other demons,” the dhampir said, abruptly releasing John as her human half took back over. “You think they’re involved in this?”
“I don’t think anything at this stage, but it is not impossible.”
“But your kind—we’re supposed to be allies—”
“Some of us are. But your people are not a monolith; why would you expect ours to be?”
“Because everyone in the hells will be prey if the gods come back?” she said incredulously. “I thought that was the whole point of this war: them wanting back on Earth to use it as a staging ground to hunt your people, and the power they’ve amassed over the centuries! Why would anyone—"
“’Cause they don’t think we can win,” Ray broke in. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Once again, John was forced to re-evaluate the dhampir’s servant, who had mostly acted the fool to her straight man routine. But that had been genuinely insightful. And it appeared that the Irin agreed.
“There are those who think the gods are too powerful and that their return is inevitable,” he admitted. “Who think that the only reason we have prevailed so far is their arrogance in one case, and their greed in another. But that, eventually, they will realize that none of them can succeed alone and will combine their forces, and on that day . . .”
“We lose.” That was the redhead, whispering from the mirror.
“Do not fear, princess,” the Irin said kindly. “Most of us do not agree with that assessment. But those who do wish to prove their loyalty now, so as to spare their lives later. And they are being very careful to hide their true intent. My people pride ourselves on the completeness of our information, but on this there are only rumors, whispers in the dark, any or none of which may be true. We won’t know more until whoever is behind this shows himself—if he does.”
“He has to, though, right?” Ray asked. “Something like this don’t happen by itself. You gotta get the flowers, which I’d bet ain’t easy, then smuggle ‘em in here and—” he suddenly cut off.
The Irin nodded. “And demons cannot enter Faerie on their own, at least not without great peril. If one of my kind is involved, he would need help.”
“You’re talking about Cheung, aren’t you?” the dhampir asked.
“Cheung?” John interrupted.
“Newly appointed senator, used to hail from around here but now he’s on the North American Senate.”
“Does he have an associate named Zheng-zi?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You know Zheng?”
“We’ve been working together—”
“Small world.”
“—and he swore this wasn’t his old master’s doing.” Although he’d seemed defensive and none too confident about that, come to think of it.
If Cheung’s triad was behind this flower business, John didn’t blame him. The senate would have his hide for this, and possibly Zheng’s as well. Although John didn’t understand why, if Cheung was the mastermind they were all after, it had been his vamps who ended up dead in that basement.
Ray seemed to agree. “It isn’t,” he said, frowning.
The dhampir looked skeptical for some reason. “Come again?”
Her helper sighed. “Look, Cheung’s a bastard, okay? A pirate through and through, no matter how many expensive suits he wears. But he’s got a code. Back when we were raiding, he had a list of no-no’s for the guys: no rape, no pillaging old ladies, no burning fishing villages, that kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of sketchy stuff still happened, and staying on the good side of the locals sometimes paid off, like when the imperial fleet came looking for answers. But compared to what everybody else was doing . . .”
“You’re saying this isn’t his style.”
“Smuggling fey contraband? Sure. Smuggling shit to help bring back a bunch of ancient assholes to kill us all? Not so much.”
“I can only tell you what I saw,” the Irin said. “Rumors came to me about the possibility that vampires were involved in this, so when a group was sighted in the Shadowlands, I followed them—all the way to that basement in New York. Whereupon they promptly shot each other and wounded me.”
“Mind control,” John said, sounding grim. There seemed to be a lot of that going around. Only, up unti
l now, it hadn’t involved the vampires. If even they were vulnerable—
The dhampir seemed equally concerned, because her face had darkened.
“Yes, but how?” she demanded. “If it’s Cheung, okay. A master vamp can control all but the strongest of his servants. But if it’s not—”
“Ming-de?” Ray asked, naming the consul of the East Asian Senate. “They say she’s as strong with the mental stuff as Mircea, maybe stronger—”
“I never heard stronger.”
“Just ‘cause she can’t read him doesn’t mean he’d win in a duel—”
“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t, either.”
Ray grinned. “That’s a contest I’d like to see. Only, you know, not in person. From like a couple miles away—”
“Mind control was my thought as well,” The Irin said, cutting in. “Fortunately, one of the vampires remained alive, and after using a device to retrieve the bullets, he traveled via portal here, to Hong Kong. Specifically, to a tailor’s shop his organization employed as a front. I followed him, hoping for leads, only to be assaulted on the other end. The vampires in question were like rabid beasts; I killed four in self-defense, but they kept coming—”
“But you escaped.” John said. He didn’t bother to keep the suspicion out of his voice.
“Barely. And only because they killed themselves after setting the shop alight!”
“Someone didn’t want you following any more leads,” the dhampir summed up.
“No. But I had managed to take a few images from one of the creature’s minds before he self destructed, images that led me here. Where I ran into another ambush—”
“And that was after fighting at the temple,” the dhampir said. The Irin looked surprised. “There were traces of your power there.”
“Ah.”
“Temple?” John said sharply.
The Irin nodded. “My people do not need to use the usual entry points, as you know, and they are often crowded. I materialized in the Pagoda of the Hidden Moon, usually a peaceful spot. But there was some sort of disturbance going on, and I was already wounded. I made my way out of there as quickly as possible, and came here.”
“You didn’t call for back up?” Ray asked. “’Cause I’da called for backup.”
“He didn’t dare,” John said, looking at the Irin. “You don’t even trust your own people!”
“I don’t trust anyone, nor should you.” For the first time, the answer was sharp. “Ask yourself, why did those vampires kill themselves in New York, where the senate was sure to find them? If someone merely wished to do away with them, it could have been done anywhere—including the hells. They were sent back only to die. Why?”
“Somebody wanted them to be found,” the dhampir said.
“You see the problem,” the Irin told her, but looked at John. “Trust no one until you deal with this.”
“I can’t deal with this!” John said furiously.
“And why not? Is that not why you’re—”
He broke off as what felt like a giant hand picked up the room and then abruptly dropped it, sending everyone but the Irin staggering.
“—here?”
John grabbed the railing and threw out a hand. “Because I have to deal with that!”
“What is that? Dory? What’s wrong?” That was the redhead.
“I don’t know.” The dhampir flinched and looked up, as a few damaged beams dropped down from the ceiling. “I didn’t think they had earthquakes in Hong Kong!”
“They got ‘em, but not like that!” That was Ray, springing back up as the tremors subsided. “That was no quake!”
“Then what was it?”
“A pillar. We just lost one!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
J ohn swore—he knew he’d been here too long! Expecting any help from a damned Irin may have cost him—and the city—more than they could afford. At this rate, he’d have been better off going with Zheng!
And then, as if on cue, the man himself ran into the room below, chased by what looked like an entire army. That wouldn’t have been so bad, since he’d gone to fetch one. Only this one didn’t look friendly.
“Mage!” Zheng yelled. “Time!”
Suddenly, everything crystalized for John, the way it always did in battle. It was one reason he often thought that he was only truly alive here, right here, in moments like these. He felt all the confusion, frustration and pain of the day fall away, and the familiar wave of calm washing over him, even as every weapon imaginable came rushing at the balcony.
And just as suddenly stopped, hanging suspended in mid-air.
John felt a power flood out of him, an ocean of it, to support the barrier he’d just erected, and staggered a bit under the strain. But the massive ward held, how he wasn’t quite sure, but there was no time to worry about it. That was the nature of battle: you made it through one challenge and immediately faced up to the next.
In this case, the next was getting out of here—now—because that shield wasn’t going to last.
The dhampir seemed to understand this, because she’d started wrestling with her servant, who had just flung himself on top of her.
“They have vamp killing bullets!” she yelled, and threw him off, before leaning over the railing to give Zheng a hand up. And was promptly shocked all to hell by his suit.
She didn’t ask what it was; maybe she already knew, because they seemed friendly. Same senate, John reminded himself. And Zheng was too busy doing a double take at the Irin to answer if she had.
“What is that?” he demanded, looking from demon to dhampir. “And what are you doing here?”
“Dead angel and wishing I was someplace else,” she said breathlessly, crawling past him to get to John. “How long can you hold?”
He ignored the question, because how the hell should he know? He shouldn’t be doing this now! He focused instead on Zheng. “Well?”
“We’re losing,” was the big vamp’s terse reply. “Cut our losses on two ‘cause it wasn’t happening—”
“Two?” John really hoped he didn’t mean two pillars.
“—and pulled my men and the remains of those things of yours back to protect the rest. But even so, it won’t hold. You?”
John wondered what the hell he was talking about, but it was a little hard to concentrate when it felt like his guts were being ripped out!
“No better,” he gasped, straining. “I still don’t know who’s behind this; all I’ve done here is waste time!”
“And save our asses,” Ray muttered, staring at the wavering blue barrier. “Not that, you know, that matters.”
“It won’t if we don’t get out of here,” the dhampir said, and it looked like the Irin agreed. Because he was moving for the first time, floating down toward the shield, why John didn’t know.
He also didn’t care. “We have to go,” he told Zheng. “We have to go now!”
“Feeling you, buddy,” Zheng said, frowning up at the hole in the roof.
Only, apparently, he didn’t, because he then proceeded to bring John up to speed. The tong was on board, having finally recognized the threat, and had raised the city’s massive shields. But not in time to trap the majority of the corpsmen, who had already spread out to the peripheries, where they’d brought the pillars under a ferocious attack.
“We’ve rerouted everything we have, leaving the civilians to take care of themselves,” Zheng said. “But even so, we can’t stop ‘em. Your lot has started focusing their attack on one pillar at a time, and no way can we stand against that. Nobody could!”
“Then go behind them,” John panted. “Get the pillars they’ve toppled back up—”
“Yeah, except they haven’t toppled them, have they? They’ve obliterated them; turned them into dust. There’s nothing left to raise!”
John would have cursed some more, but he didn’t have the strength. His vision was pulsing at the edges, his heart was slamming into his ribcage, and his fingers felt like they m
ight be on fire from channeling that much power. How the hell much magic had been in those vials, anyway?
And then the Irin was calling his name.
“Princeling!”
John had a second to look down, at the main room near the shield, and see the Irin holding what might once have been a vampire. Judging by the fact that half of it was now missing and the rest was a smoking, blackened mess, he assumed that it had just been jerked through the barrier. Although why it had, he didn’t know.
And then he found out, when the Irin pulled a ghostly fist out of the man’s skull, where he’d been rooting around, and threw something at John. Something that looked like a black cloud and hit like a speeding truck. Something—
That took him somewhere else.
Klaxons were blaring, people were running, and dirt was coming down from the ceiling in great clots.
One hit John’s neck and slid down his collar, and he reflexively moved to brush it off, but nothing happened. His hands, clutching a semi-automatic rifle, never moved. Possibly because they weren’t his hands.
It also wasn’t his voice that cursed when the dim tunnel he was pelting through suddenly changed. The half dozen men ahead of him disappeared, swallowed up by a gaping, dirt filled mouth, one with rocks for teeth and a tongue of soil that flooded around his feet and tried to snare him, too. But he sidestepped with vampire speed, fleeing down a newly opened passage, with a dozen people behind him.
He was in front, so John couldn’t see the rest of his crew. But his new vampire senses told him that they were a mix of humans and vampires, with the men’s hearts beating hard enough to threaten an attack. The vampires’ didn’t beat at all, but he could sense their unease anyway.
This wasn’t the plan.
What was the plan? John asked, but received no answer. Because this wasn’t a possession, was it?
It was a memory.
But for once, it wasn’t his. It had been plucked from the vampire’s mind by the Irin and thrown at John. There was something here that he was supposed to see.