Siren's Song (Cassandra Palmer Series)

by Karen Chance

  It was a very nasty hex, and was going to hurt almost as much coming out as it had going in. But it had to come out. He pulled slightly, attempting to pry a piece of it loose, but the damned thing played games. A bit of it came free, spraying a fine mist of blood over John’s hand. But the rest retreated into Zheng’s body, hiding inside his flesh, where it was probably doing even more damage.

  Damn it! Another few minutes and John was going to have a dead weight on his hands, possibly literally. And that was assuming the army didn’t find them first!

  He faced up to reality, looped the tendril several times around his fist, and braced his other hand against Zheng’s shoulder. He met the vamp’s eyes. “Sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For this,” John said, and ripped the whole bloody thing off.

  The next thing he knew, he was slamming into the opposite wall of the alley, hard enough to stun him. He hit the ground, his ears ringing. But not so much that he couldn’t hear the roar coming from his companion and echoing across the whole damned neighborhood.

  Shit!

  Even worse, the damned spell was trying to latch onto him, and trying hard. It spit and sparked against the pavement, dangerously close to John’s face, before he stripped off the gauntlet. And managed to wrap it around the bastard thing to create a pocket, much as he had back in the pharmacy with the dhampir’s illicit spells.

  He shoved it in a pocket, because if he ever got out of here, he wanted to figure out what this thing was! And because he didn’t want to risk it snaring anyone else. It quieted down after a moment, and he stumbled back to his feet, head spinning, ribs on fire, and chest clawing for air he wasn’t getting.

  But Zheng was worse. He was weeping blood from every pore, like something out of a nightmare. The spell had clung to whatever particles it could on the way out, essentially exsanguinating him. And covering John in a red haze that slicked his hands and face and gooped up his eyelashes, to the point that they were sticking to his cheeks.

  But they were both going to have to deal with it because they had bigger problems!

  Like that, he thought, his head whipping around at the realization that the hundreds of running feet were no longer running. They’d stopped abruptly, as if a single organism had paused to listen, maybe to the sound of John’s heart, which was currently beating like a kettle drum. But not as much as when they suddenly decided to move again, all at once.

  And headed this way.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  Zheng collapsed, going to his knees, and John grabbed him under the arms. He half supported, half dragged the heavy body down the street for a short distance, before realizing that they were out of time. So, he flung them back into the area under a fire escape instead, and jerked a shadow around them.

  A dark one.

  “Wont work,” Zheng slurred, so low that John could barely hear him. “Vamp eyesight—”

  “Shut. Up,” John whispered, and increased the depth of the darkness, pulling in shadows from the whole street and piling them up, layer on layer on layer.

  “They’ll smell us—” Zheng added, before John elbowed him in the gut—hard.

  The big vamp shut up, possibly because of the pain. Or because of that, John thought, as what looked like every vamp on the planet appeared at the end of the street. They paused again, sniffing the air like a pack of dogs, only vamp noses were said to be far more keen.

  He was so fucked.

  And then his own nose started twitching.

  A moment ago, John hadn’t been able to smell anything but Zheng’s blood and his own panicked sweat. But maybe the rain running off the surrounding roofs and pouring through the metal stairs of the fire escape had cleaned them up a little. Because, suddenly, he was smelling something else.

  Garbage, he thought. Pungent garbage. They must be near a skiff, although he hadn’t seen one. But it was there on the air, nonetheless: the eye widening smell of fish guts, left to molder too long in the sun; the sweet-sour stink of rotten vegetables, so overpowering that there simply had to be crates and crates of them; the sulfur like odor of old eggs; and over it all, the maggoty stench of putrid meat.

  John gagged, despite being more familiar with strong smells than most due to years of brewing his own potions. Garbage didn’t usually affect him, even strong garbage. But this . . . was on another level.

  He felt Zheng heave behind him, although he kept it together. John wasn’t so sure he was going to do the same. God, he thought, his eyes watering, his stomach churning. The damned smell could be categorized as a lethal weapon!

  It was so bad, and so distracting, that he didn’t realize they’d been swarmed until the vamps were right on top of them. And even if he had, there was nothing he could have done. Except to grab Zheng, his fingers digging into the vamp’s bloody flesh in a silent warning not to move.

  It was one his companion didn’t need, because the army was everywhere. It flooded the cobblestones, obscured the buildings, blocked out the sky. And slammed into the fire escape at a dead run, causing it to clatter and clang and John to jerk back reflexively.

  But the flood of vamps never so much as paused.

  For a moment, he just stayed there, clutching Zheng in disbelief. They had to see him—or smell him or something! They were right there, the vacant expressions a marked contrast to the desperately scrabbling limbs; the pale faces, some damaged from the previous fight, running with blood and water; and the hair slinging droplets of both in his face as they fought to find a way around the obstacle.

  Which they did, but not in the way that a group of humans would have, not even a group of enthralled humans. They moved as a single organism, their motions all but synchronized. It was as if Dagon had grown thousands of claws, all of which were raking the city, looking for him.

  But not finding.

  Not yet.

  Because, as close as they were, they couldn’t seem to smell him over the skip. Couldn’t hear any little sounds he made over the echo of all those running feet. And couldn’t see him thanks to his spell.

  Or maybe they were just distracted, too.

  If anything, the odor was getting worse!

  Finally, they passed on, like a human train boiling down the alley, only twice as fast. John huddled in the shadows, waiting, until the last one had cleared the street. And then stumbled back out into the storm light, retching and gagging, and wondering if it was possible to choke to death on a smell.

  Zheng didn’t look any better.

  “Oh, God,” he said, getting to his knees only to fall back against the wall. “Oh, fuck.”

  John just nodded, wondering how bad the reek must be to one with vampire senses.

  He was really grateful not to know.

  “We need . . . to get off . . . the street,” he gasped.

  “We need to get off the block,” Zheng replied. “What the hell did you do?”

  “Pulled us . . . into shadow. But in a better lit area. . . it might not have worked. We can’t rely—”

  “I meant the smell,” Zheng said, shaking his head and then pounding on it with the heel of his palm, as if he could knock the stench loose.

  “That wasn’t me. There must be a skip around here—”

  “Full of bodies?”

  “It’s not that bad,” John said, because suddenly, it wasn’t. He turned his face up to the rain, feeling it wash over his skin and slick his hair. It felt as if the smell was being washed off, too, receding into the distance until it was almost indistinguishable through the scent of rain and smoke, like a dissipating spell. . .

  Or maybe he was just getting used to it.

  “Speak for yourself,” Zheng said, getting unsteadily to his feet. “I may never breathe again!”

  A moment later, John was echoing the sentiment, although for a different reason.

  Zheng had taken the fire escape up seven stories to the slightly pitched roof of an apartment building, with John close on his heels. He didn’t know what the big v
amp had planned, but he was hoping to grab a passing vehicle. Preferably one that wasn’t on its last leg!

  That wasn’t what he found.

  The building was taller than the majority of the surrounding ones, giving them a bird’s eye view. They’d ended up a few streets over from the pharmacy, which was still burning despite the deluge, and lighting up the night in brilliant pyrotechnics as the fire reached caches of magical ingredients. Between it and the street lights, they had a decent view of their situation.

  It wasn’t good.

  “The sewers?” John whispered, despite the thunder rolling all around them. He didn’t trust vampire hearing.

  Zheng shook his head. “None of the type we’d need. This is the old section of the city, and the water level is too high. They use smaller pipes under the street and pump everything to the mains across town.”

  Great.

  “If we stay away from the larger groups of vamps, we might be able to handle the smaller,” John said, although it came out as more of a question. Because they were both wounded and the “smaller” groups rocketing through the streets below contained fifty or more men. Whereas the larger . . .

  He couldn’t even count the larger.

  Zheng shook his head again. “Hive mind,” he rasped. “What one knows, they’ll all know a second later, and converge on top of us.”

  “Then we’ll get a rickshaw and fly over top of the whole damned mess!”

  “You see any rickshaws?” Zheng gestured around. “People have already fled the area. There might be some on the main roads, but we can’t get to ‘em.”

  “We’ll run across the rooftops until we do, like we did last time—"

  “Uh huh. ‘Cept the army is up here, too. And most of the blocks in this sector don’t touch. You up for jumping twenty or thirty feet every few rooftops, mage? ‘Cause otherwise—”

  “You have men here, damn it! Call them!”

  “Already did. Told them to grab a couple rickshaws and come find me.”

  “And?”

  “And the spell messed me up. I can’t mind speak at the moment.”

  John cursed.

  Zheng seemed to agree. “Face it, war mage, we’re fucked.”

  “If we’re fucked the city’s fucked, so we’re not fucked!” John said, fear making his voice harsh.

  Zheng looked down at the heavy hand John had placed on his bicep, but didn’t bother shaking it off. Perhaps he didn’t have the strength. He was looking a little less like a skinned corpse at the moment, as if his body was reabsorbing some of the shed blood, leaving his clothes a blotchy mess but his face almost clear. But if it was helping, John couldn’t tell.

  John let him go and stalked over to the edge of the roof. The dhampir’s plan had been a good one, but they had too many enemies. She couldn’t lead all of them away, and without a distraction . . .

  John stared out at the city, trying to think. He’d been trained for this. And had been pompously telling Cassie for months now how to manage stress, how to think clearly under pressure, how to find a solution no matter the circumstances.

  And now that it was his turn, what was he doing?

  Waiting to die.

  No! Goddamnit! Cassie had risked her life to get him back! He was finally out from under his father’s thumb and the demon council’s interdict, for the first time in a century. He had a new life waiting for him, one he’d never even dared to hope for. He was not dying here!

  Although he might not have a choice, he thought, as the city shuddered beneath him.

  “We just lost another pillar!” Zheng said, stating the obvious.

  And then the lights went out.

  John could see illumination in the distance, smears and puddles of artificial lighting here and there, dotting the horizon. But this neighborhood hadn’t been so lucky. Not that it had had many lights to begin with, since it looked like most people had already left. But now it was pitch dark except for the vague greenish tint of the storm light, lightning, and the flaming pharmacy.

  And one other thing.

  “What is that?” Zheng said, from beside him.

  John just stared for another moment, water and blood dripping off his eyelashes, fuzzing his vision. “I have no idea.”

  They stood there for another moment, staring down into a crossroads a block or so away, where a splash of golden light surrounded a bunch of softly glowing creatures. They weren’t human, they weren’t vampire, they weren’t even demon. For a moment, John didn’t know what they were.

  And then he figured it out.

  “Come on,” he told Zheng.

  “Come on where?”

  “I have an idea.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  T wenty minutes later, John found himself being jerked up to a very large, very unhappy face. He’d reapplied the bandage around his ribs, but it still felt like he was wearing a girdle made out of knives, and the rest of him wasn’t much better off. But he’d long ago learned to deal with pain.

  Other things were more problematic.

  “You rip my dress, and I swear to God,” he told Zheng.

  “Fuck your dress.” But Zheng let him go. And then just stood there, vibrating. “If you ever breathe so much as a word—”

  “As if I want to remember this!” John snapped. And hiked up his bosom.

  “Here, you need this,” the little dancer said, bustling over with a parasol and a fan. They appeared to be made out of light, too, like John’s flowing skirts and Zheng’s massive kimono, but were probably enchanted silk. John started to take the fan, but she snatched it away and used it to smack his hand. “Not for you.”

  “Why does he need both of them?”

  “Why?” She looked at Zheng and waved a hand up and down. “Why you think? He so ugly!”

  “I’m not ugly,” Zheng told her, with admirable dignity considering that he had a face full of glowing makeup, courtesy of a girl with an oversized powderpuff.

  She was from a billboard on the nearby main road, which had been raining clouds of fragrant cosmetic down onto passersby when John first arrived. But the general mayhem taking over the city had spooked her, so now she was here, cheerfully threatening to do her thing to everyone in sight. Including him.

  “I will cut you,” he told her seriously, and she backed slowly away.

  She was part of what John had seen from the rooftop, half disguised by the rain: a group of animated ads who had fled the fight on the road only to end up dodging an army over here. But unlike the enthralled war mages, who attacked everything in their path without question, the vampires were under tighter control. There was a single mind directing them, and it didn’t care about panicked refugees.

  But the little dancer did, and had assembled them into a sizeable group whilst John was away. She’d kept them together in the middle of the crossroad, giving the hordes of vamps plenty of room to flow around. Which they had obligingly done, ignoring them the same way that they did buildings, lamp posts and fire escapes—when they weren’t being rammed into them by the crowd behind, that is.

  The hope was that they’d continue to overlook the little gathering if it started to move, seeing it—and the two men hiding within it—as merely part of the scenery. At least, that had been John’s initial plan. But now that he saw everyone up close, he had his doubts.

  Their company most definitely drew the eye.

  “As man you not ugly,” the dancer told Zheng. “As girl. . .” she rolled her eyes.

  “Then dress me as a goddamned man!” he said, and snatched the proffered offerings.

  “They looking for men. So, you be women instead.” She glanced back and forth between Zheng and John, and shook her head. “Ugly women.”

  John, for one, did not dispute her claim. He was indeed a very ugly woman, not to mention a very uncomfortable one. He was dressed in a badly draped sari—how the devil did women keep up with these things, anyway—that kept trying to slip off one burly shoulder and slide between his legs, t
ripping him up.

  He also had a parasol, one of the shielded ones, which was fortunate, because his coat was as dead as Zheng’s armor. It had saved his life in the fight, but it wasn’t going to be doing it again. And neither were his weapons, which had never returned from the fray.

  Hence the disguises.

  At least Zheng finally seemed to be getting with the program, to the point of flinging the parasol over his shoulder and unfurling the fan. And simpering at John over top of it. “How do I look?”

  John caught himself just in time.

  “That good as we going to get,” the little dancer sighed, and snapped her fingers. “Map!”

  A couple of glowing, Aladdin-esque guards, with bare chests, harem pants and scimitars stuck in sashes around their waists, came forward carrying a large lighted sign. It was a map of the city, probably for tourists, with a cheerful “you are here” smiley face stuck over their position. Another floated slowly across the map’s surface as John watched, to a point by a harbor.

  One halfway across the city.

  Shit.

  The golden dancer furled her own fan and used it as a pointer. “Here is us,” she told the assembled crowd. “Here is bastard attacking city,” she slapped the waterfront. “My sisters have eyes on him right now.”

  John silently thanked the thirsty citizens of Hong Kong for having no restrictions on where enterprising businesswomen could leave calling cards. And Dagon for being so very easy to spot. Once they knew who they were looking for, finding him had taken literally seconds.

  Getting to him was likely to be much harder.

  “It long way, through much danger,” the dancer agreed. “And we out of time since somebody stay for hour in a pharmacy!”

  The coconuts in John’s bra shifted guiltily.

  “But mission is mission. We get these two to water, city live. We fail, city die. So, we get them there, no matter cost. Understand?”

  Her troops nodded solemnly.

  John felt less than reassured.

  They were in the middle of the Japanese section, so their troops consisted of a motley crew of geishas—real ones, or real in the sense that they looked the part—with gorgeous kimonos, platform shoes, and elaborate hairstyles that shimmered with gold whenever they moved; a bevy of giggling anime girls with wildly unlikely proportions and minimal clothing that were playfully kicking water at each other; and a massive Hello Kitty with a head bigger than John.