by Julie Kagawa
“Ah ah ahhhh, where do you think you’re going, minion?” Stalking into the attic, the raider king threw the human into a wall with enough force to put a hole in the plaster, and the man slumped to the floor, dazed. Jackal loomed over him, his eyes murderous. “I think you’re going to sit right there and tell me what the hell is going on, before I start ripping off important body parts. If you tell me what I want to know, right now, I might start with your head, and not your arms.”
I caught a glimpse of a dark silhouette in the corner by the window: Kanin, watching impassively from his place against the wall. Briefly, I wondered how the Master vampire had gotten in without being shot…but it was Kanin. There was a whole lot I still didn’t know about him.
The man groaned, pawing weakly for the rifle. With a growl, Jackal reached down, grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him into the wall. I forced myself not to interfere. I knew Jackal had to be starving, on the brink of losing it, the blood from the gunshot wound still wet and glimmering against his back. But he smiled evilly at the raider, his voice ominous but under control when he spoke.
“I believe I asked you a question, minion,” the raider king said in a conversational tone, though his fangs were bared and fully extended. “And I don’t have a lot of patience to spare right now. So, if you don’t want me to rip the arms from your sockets, I’d start talking. Why are you attacking us? Who’s involved? Is this some offshoot of discontents I’m going to have to wipe out, or does the entire city have a death wish?”
The human gagged, clawing futilely at the hand around his throat. But, shockingly, he looked up at the raider king, his eyes bright with pain and fear, and gave a raspy chuckle. “You’re…not in charge…anymore, Jackal,” he gritted out, with the defiance of someone who knew he was dead. “You promised immortality…and you never delivered. Well…we have a new king now. One who agreed to Turn…whoever got rid of you.”
My insides went cold.
“Is that so?” Jackal continued, his voice gone soft and deadly. “And does this new king have a name, or do I have to guess?”
“He said…you would know who he is,” the raider choked out. “And…to come find him…in the flooded city.” He coughed and held up his hands. One was empty, but the other held a tiny metal box, which he clicked open to reveal a small flame. Glancing at the raider king, he gave a last defiant sneer. “If you make it that far.”
Against the wall, Kanin straightened. “James—” he began, but it was too late. The raider opened his fingers, and the item, whatever it was, dropped to the floor.
A few things happened all at once.
As soon as the flame dropped from the raider’s hand, Jackal leaped back, flinging himself toward the wall. Abruptly released, the raider’s body hit the ground at about the same time as the metal box. There was a short hiss—
—and a wave of fire erupted from the tiny flame, racing across the floor and up the walls, turning the room into an inferno. It engulfed the human on the floor, who screamed and thrashed, flailing about in agony as his clothes caught fire. I barely heard him. Terror rose up, blinding and allconsuming, and I looked wildly around for an escape route. The walls were a mass of rolling orange flames, snapping and tearing at me; I could feel the awful heat against my cold skin and cringed back with a hiss. I had to get out of here, but there was nowhere to go; wherever I looked, there was fire….
“Allison!”
Something grabbed my arm as I stood there, on the verge of panic. “Calm yourself,” Kanin ordered, as I snarled and tried yanking back. “Listen to me. We cannot take the stairs; the lower rooms are completely engulfed, and it will take too long to reach the door. We must go through the window.”
The window? I looked to the far wall, at the opening where the human had been shooting. I could barely see the window through the snapping flames, and cringed back. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No.” Kanin’s voice was ruthlessly calm. “It is the only way. Jackal has already gone through. We must follow him if we are to survive this.”
The flames roared at me, filling my mind, until all I could see was orange and red. I couldn’t think; I could almost feel the skin peeling from my bones, blackened and bubbling in the heat. If it wasn’t for Kanin’s grip on my arm, I would’ve fled, though I didn’t know where I would go. All I could think of was getting away from the flames. And Kanin wanted me to leap through the fire? “I can’t!” I told him, baring my fangs in fear. “I’ll never make it.”
“You must. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Kanin…”
“Allison.” Kanin grabbed my other arm, forcing me to look at him. His voice compelled. I felt it reverberate through me, a quiet, undeniable thrum. “Trust me.”
I bit my lip, and squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the flames. “You can do this,” Kanin went on, in that same soothing tone. I focused on his voice, ignoring the roar of the flames around us, the heat burning my face. “The fire won’t touch you. It will be over in a few seconds, but you must be quick. Are you ready?”
Swallowing, I clenched my fists, pushed back my fear, and nodded.
“Then go.” Kanin released me. I turned and sprinted for the wall of flames.
They loomed before me, horrifically bright, snapping and clawing in the wind. For a second, I almost balked, my vampire instincts screaming at me to stop, to run away from our deadliest enemy besides the sun. Kanin’s voice echoed in my head, pushing me forward. I reached the roaring, living wall and dove through the flames, praying I wouldn’t catch fire.
There was a moment of blinding pain, a scalding heat ripping across my face and hands. And then cold winter air hit my skin as I tumbled through the window, hit the edge of the roof, and fell into the bushes below.
Snarling, fangs bared, I struggled to my feet and lurched away from the house. Heat clawed at my back as I ripped through vines and branches and fled into the road. Only when I was on the other side of the street did I turn and look back.
My instincts cringed, urging me to move even farther away. The house was a raging inferno against the sky, tongues of fire snapping in every direction. I panicked for a moment, not seeing Kanin anywhere, afraid that he was still trapped upstairs. But then a shadow melted away from the house, and Kanin’s dark form glided across the street toward me, making me slump in relief.
“Are you injured?” he asked, joining me on the sidewalk. I shook my head, still trying to calm down. My face and hands stung, and I caught a faint scent of burned hair that I tried to ignore, but I didn’t seem to be badly hurt. Another few seconds, and it might’ve been a different story.
“Where’s Jackal?” I asked, looking around. I vaguely remembered Kanin telling me that Jackal had gotten out, but everything from the past few minutes was sort of a blur.
“He leaped out the window the second he realized what was happening,” Kanin replied, his voice taking on a slight edge. “I expect he’s around here somewhere.”
I shook myself. The fire had apparently made my brain stop working; the only thought on my mind had been to get away, but it was slowly starting to focus again. “I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean, when he realized what was happening?”
“This was a trap, Allison.” Kanin looked back at the inferno. “Nothing catches fire that quickly unless it has been doused in something. Gasoline, or alcohol. I didn’t notice when I first came in, and I expect you and Jackal didn’t, either, but the walls and floor had been soaked in something flammable. Sometimes, not having to breathe is a blessing, but not this time.” He shook his head, looking annoyed, with himself or with us, I couldn’t tell. “I’m certain our raider friend did not intend to set the house on fire with himself still inside,” Kanin continued grimly, “but when we surprised him, he figured he was already dead.”
“Which is a shame, if you ask me,” said a familiar voice, and Jackal sauntered out of the darkness. Ignoring me and Kanin, he shot an annoyed glare at the burning house. “I d
idn’t even get to rip his heart out before he went up in smoke. Inconsiderate bastard.”
I scowled at him. “You’re one to talk. You left us in there! No warning, no hesitation, nothing. I bet you didn’t even look back when you hit the ground.”
“And what would you have had me do, exactly?” Jackal questioned, baring his fangs. I smelled the blood on him, soaking his shirt and duster, and realized he was probably starving after taking that shot to the chest. “Hold your hand while you jumped out the window? Go back inside with the whole house about to collapse on top of me?” He sneered. “We’re still vampires, sister. We still look out for number one. If I’d been trapped up there, I wouldn’t have expected you or the old man to come back.”
“Guess you don’t know me as well as you think,” I said in a cold voice. “Because I would.”
“Really?” Jackal mocked, crossing his arms. “I find that a little hard to believe. I bet you can’t even look at the house now without wanting to figuratively piss yourself.”
“I believe,” Kanin said, sounding exasperated, “that you both are forgetting the more pressing bit of information we’ve learned tonight.” He looked past the burning building, the firelight dancing in his dark eyes. “Namely, who has turned the raiders against us, and who is still waiting in Old Chicago.”
Sarren. The thought made me tense, and hatred flared up again, searing and deadly, pushing back everything else. I hadn’t forgotten. Sarren would still pay for what he’d done. Just because I refused to become a demon didn’t mean I wouldn’t kill him. When I found him, I’d stop at nothing until his head was impaled on my sword, and his body was a pile of smoldering ash.
“Sarren,” Jackal agreed, and there was something new in his voice, too. A dangerous edge that hadn’t been there before, speaking of violence and retribution. “Okay, you psychopath. You want to play games? I’ll play games.” His eyes gleamed, and he looked back at the burning house, a completely humorless smile crossing his face. “Screw around with my city and my minions, will you? Think you’re going to be the new king?” He chuckled, and the sound made me shiver with anticipation. “I’ll slaughter every human and burn the entire city to the ground before I give it up to you.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Kanin warned. “Vengeance can easily cloud the mind, and Sarren is hoping for that. We cannot become so caught up in revenge that we rush straight into a death trap, like we did tonight.” His gaze flickered to the inferno, just as there was a roar from within and the roof collapsed in a burst of embers and sparks. I flinched, and Kanin’s voice turned grave. “Sarren has us at a disadvantage,” he murmured. “There is an entire army between us, and he knows we’re coming for him. From here on, if we are to even reach him alive, we must be very careful. And ready for anything.”
I met Jackal’s eyes, and he gave a small smirk. For once, both of us were thinking the same thing. It didn’t matter how many thugs Sarren had between us and him, it didn’t matter what kind of nasty surprises he had waiting. We would fight our way through an army if we had to, carve them down one by one, until we found Sarren.
And destroyed him utterly for what he’d taken from us.
We took a winding, indirect route into the city that night. True, we had every intention of finding Sarren, even if we had to slice our way through the entire raider army to do it. But, as Jackal pointed out, there was more than one way to skin a vampire. The raiders were likely watching all the main roads into Old Chicago; there was no reason we shouldn’t try to sneak up on Sarren and avoid having to fight the whole city. Instead, Jackal took us through a series of rubble-strewn alleys and old buildings, claiming that the raiders never used them because they couldn’t get their bikes through.
Also, rabids still lurked in the empty corners of Old Chicago, a fact I discovered when we followed Jackal through an underground mall and several pale monsters leaped at us through the broken windows. After cutting our way through the mob, we continued to slip through narrow, deserted streets, always alert for guards and sentries, though the city remained eerily still. At one point, Kanin put out an arm and pointed silently to where a pair of raiders leaned against the railing over a levee, their backs to us. Jackal grinned, motioned us to stay put, and slipped into the shadows. A few minutes later, both men were yanked into the darkness with separate yelps, and Jackal returned reeking of blood, a satisfied grin on his face.
A few hours later, we stood on the banks of a sullen black lake so vast you couldn’t see the other side. According to Kanin, in the time before, it was called Lake Michigan, and Chicago had stood proudly along its edge. Now, the lake and the rivers that cut through the downtown area had crept over their banks and merged together, flooding part of the city but also creating a natural barrier against rabids.
I gazed over the rough waters, narrowing my eyes. I remembered Jackal’s city from the last time I’d come through; a tangle of narrow bridges, walkways and platforms that crisscrossed submerged buildings. From where I stood, it looked much the same. I could see the old barge that sat in the center of the river, and the ramshackle bridge that spanned the dark waters. Motorcycles and a few other vehicles were parked in haphazard rows along the surface of the barge, the final stop before you crossed into the lair of a raider king.
Or a deranged psychopathic vampire hell-bent on destroying the world.
“Home, sweet home.” Jackal sighed. “Or it will be, once I slaughter all the bastards who turned on me, stick their heads on pikes, and decorate the city with them. Maybe shove a torch through their teeth and use them to light the walkways, wha’d’ya think, sister?”
“It would definitely be you.” I gazed out over the water, seeing the distant lanterns and torchlight glimmering in the haze. Even from this distance, I could tell something was wrong. “There’s no one on the bridges,” I mused, remembering that the last time I’d come through, the walkways had been swarming with raiders. Now, the bridges and platforms stood empty, abandoned. “Everything looks deserted.”
Which meant we were walking into a trap, of course.
“Where do you think Sarren will be?” Kanin asked quietly. The Master vampire gazed over the water, observing the city with dark, impassive eyes. Jackal shrugged.
“Only one place he would be.” He pointed to where a tall, narrow skyscraper stood against the skyline. A light shone near the top, bright and familiar, making my skin prickle with recognition.
Jackal’s tower. The place I’d met my blood brother for the first time. Where we’d fought, on the top floor of the building, and he’d nearly killed me.
The place where Jebbadiah Crosse had died.
“It’s the only building in the city that still has power,” Jackal continued, staring up at the tower and the flickering light at the top. “And you can see everything that’s going on below. If I were Sarren, that’s where I would be.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.” The light shimmered across the water, taunting me, and I felt my fangs slide out. Sarren was close. This time, I wouldn’t just cut off his arm. This time, I was going for his head.
“I suggest we do so quietly,” Kanin interjected, his low, calm voice breaking through my sudden hate. “Sarren knows we’re coming, and the whole city will be on high alert. If we can, we should avoid alerting them to our presence. It would be wiser to deal with Sarren first, before confronting the rest of the army. If we remove their new king, they will have lost their reason to fight us.”
Jackal snorted. “Sneak into my own city and skulk around like a sewer rat,” he muttered darkly, shaking his head. “Oh, heads are going to roll for this. I’m going to set up a special lane and use their skulls for bowling balls.”
Ignoring him, I glanced at Kanin. “How are we going to sneak in?”
My sire gave a tight smile. “I expect the roads will be well guarded, but slipping into a flooded city is not hard. As large as this army is, they cannot watch the whole river.”
Great. Looked like we w
ere going for a swim.
Chapter 6
We crossed the river easily, as silent as the shadows that clung to the waves. Thankfully, though there was a thin sheet of ice clinging to the edges of the bank, the rest of the river was clear. And navigating large bodies of water wasn’t difficult if you didn’t have to worry about things like breathing or hypothermia. We slipped below the hulk of the huge barge, vampire sight piercing the pitch-black waters, as we continued into the flooded streets of Jackal’s territory. Fish glided past us in large schools, flitting through an eerie underwater world of drowned buildings and submerged roads, rusty cars lining the pavement. A massive dark shape, almost as long as me, swished by my head, making me grit my teeth. Kanin had assured me that fish could not become rabid—and Jackal had laughed at the question—but I had no issues with drawing my katana underwater and slashing the next thing that came out of the depths toward me.
Above us, the city was silent. Bridges and walkways sat empty, platforms were deserted and still. Nothing moved overhead, and the ominous silence began to eat at me. This was a trap; I knew it, and the others had to know it, but there was nothing we could do except press forward. I’d face whatever Sarren could throw at me if it meant I would find him waiting at the end, with nothing between us but my katana.
“Careful.” Kanin grabbed my collar when we surfaced, drawing me back a pace. We’d come out beneath a bridge, a flimsy walkway of wood and metal that stretched from one roof to another. Puzzled, I frowned back at him, and he pointed to the underside of the planks.
A strange metal device had been taped to the bridge, wires poking out in every direction. I didn’t know what it could be, but the blinking red light on one corner looked fairly ominous.
“That’s why the city is deserted,” Kanin mused as Jackal looked up at the strange device and swore. “He likely has the whole place booby-trapped. Step on the wrong bridge, and it won’t be there anymore.”
“Huh,” Jackal remarked, gazing at the wired bridge with the hint of a smirk. “That must’ve taken him a while. Bastard sure went through a lot of trouble, just for us. I feel so special, don’t you?”