Fury's Kiss

by Karen Chance

I didn’t understand why until I noticed the shields of the fey clustered around them. Which instead of being shiny black, were now a blowing, snowy white, as a blizzard raged—beneath their surfaces. Somehow they’d trapped it, or most of it. The crazy winds and snow of a second ago had lightened to a few thin bands blowing across my vision, which did nothing to obscure the sight of Louis-Cesare and Ray fighting for their lives.

  Louis-Cesare was showing the fey that he hadn’t been the European dueling champion for nothing. His form was fluid grace, liquid motion. If it had been slower, it would have looked like an exotic dance. But at speed it was easy to see the moves for what they were, violence doled out with deadly precision.

  But it wasn’t enough, even though the fey hadn’t just shot him. I don’t know why. Maybe they didn’t want to waste the ammo or maybe he was too close to the portals, and they didn’t want to risk more going out of commission.

  Or maybe they just didn’t want to admit that a single warrior could hold them off.

  But he couldn’t, not forever. There were just too many and it didn’t look like he could manage that disappearing trick again. He was already defending instead of attacking, dodging and weaving and twisting, yet finding no opening because there was none to find. Just a solid wall of shields closing in, and swords flashing and—

  And Louis-Cesare looking at me, searing me with his stare, for a long second.

  Before he fell.

  A cold wash of disbelief tore through me, like the blood had suddenly left my body all at once. And if I’d ever had any doubt about how I felt, it was gone in that second. When I couldn’t do a damn thing about it but scream my head off, a hopeless, horrified sound that hurt my own ears with the intensity of it.

  But not as much as it seemed to hurt everyone else’s.

  Suddenly the whole room went quiet. The portals were still running, still murmuring to themselves, like two dozen rushing rivers. The thin bands of ice were still blowing, making shush-shush sounds against the stone. But nothing else talked—or fought or moved. Even the fey coming over the precipice, the ones who had been about to swamp Zheng, were frozen in place, as if they’d all been hit by one of their own weapons.

  But I didn’t think so. They weren’t cold and blue; they were simply stopped. Or stunned, I realized belatedly, as one of them fell off the wall and crashed to the floor, and just lay there, looking up with portal light gleaming in his wide-open eyes.

  I stared at the fallen fey for a second, and then at Zheng, who was just as unmoving by the wall, face set in a snarl, fist raised. And then I moved. Over the wall and down what felt like a fun-house slide, three bumps of slick, icy shields and then a spray of snow over a cold, cold floor. And then through an army of frozen obstacles, not one of which was less than seven feet tall, with helmets that made them even taller.

  It was like being in a shiny black forest, one that could suddenly come to life and kill me at any second, because I had no idea what I’d just done or how long it would last. But something told me to hurry, hurry, hurry, to the point that I was pushing soldiers over, jumping past their bodies, fighting and clawing and—and finding them. Both of them, Louis-Cesare bent over Ray, still trying to defend him, even with no fewer than five swords sticking out of his body.

  But none were through the heart; none had slit the throat. He would live if I could just—

  And I couldn’t. If I’d been weak before, it was nothing to how I felt now. That scream had taken every bit of energy I had. And even if it hadn’t, Louis-Cesare was a column of solid muscle and I couldn’t budge him. And then there was Ray.…

  “What the hell just happened?”

  Somebody growled behind me, and I spun, hands still on the shield I was trying to get in place for a travois. But I didn’t need it now, because Zheng was there and—

  “Grab them!” I told him desperately, even as eyelashes started to flutter around us and limbs started to twitch. And to his credit, he grabbed them, without asking further questions that I couldn’t have answered anyway.

  “We’ll talk later,” he threatened, throwing Louis-Cesare over one burly shoulder and snatching Ray up under one arm, like a package he was carrying home from the store. And then we were moving, back through the crowd that was more like a forest than ever, but the wind through these treetops was sighs and groans and vague, slurred words—

  And then action, as the forest came alive even as we neared the not-so-fun slide. Which had been easy coming down but was a bitch going up even for me, and I wasn’t carrying two. But Zheng’s boots were made for walking—and stomping and kicking—and we made it up the first level, and then the second, before our footbridge realized what was going on and all hell broke loose.

  But by then Zheng was able to unceremoniously dump his two burdens over the edge of the rock shelf, and then it was just about getting the two of us over. Although that was harder than it sounds with a mountain of fey disintegrating around us. And then surging up underneath us as Zheng caught the ledge and swung us over, arcing just ahead of the grasping hands—

  That caught us anyway.

  But they caught us at the top of the arc as we fell onto the ledge, not over the side, and that made all the difference. Or it would if I could—

  There! I wrestled the vampire’s gun out of its holster just as someone grabbed my leg. And jerked me back, trying to pull me off the ledge or himself up, I wasn’t sure which. And it didn’t matter, because either was equally bad for me and equally not happening. I twisted, trying to line up a shot, while it felt like I was being torn in two.

  “GO!” I yelled, as Zheng threw off three fey who had jumped him, sending two over the ledge.

  His head whipped around at me, and then at the two bodies lying so still on the floor. But they were on the floor by the portal because Zheng wasn’t stupid, and he’d thrown them as far as he could. And now he dove after them, because we both knew I couldn’t drag them through with me or protect them on the other side if I did.

  But he threw his last attacker into mine as he went, buying me maybe two seconds of freedom in the process. But not to run. Because running wouldn’t help, just like the few regular old bullets I had left wouldn’t do much against the dozens of fey now surging over the ledge.

  But something else might.

  I rolled onto my back, took aim and fired—at the cages just above the ledge. I’d almost forgotten about them, despite the fact that the contents had been rattling their bars and howling. And I guess they’d slipped the fey’s minds, too, because they looked a little surprised when a wave of snarling, slashing hate fell on them as soon as the locks popped open.

  I didn’t wait to see who won. I didn’t even turn around. I leapt back into a circle of blue, even as the third fey Zheng had thrown off recovered and twisted and lunged—

  And missed.

  Because the portal’s familiar jerk caught me.

  And I was gone.

  Chapter Forty-six

  The consul’s place was a disaster area.

  Of course, it had been well on its way before. But after another hour of fighting, which was what it took to clear the house and lock up the fey who had gotten through the portal but had avoided being gutted, the place had finished its descent into an expensive heap of rubble. Not that that seemed to bother Zheng.

  He tossed what might have once been a quality settee aside, and searched through the debris underneath. And emerged with—

  “Don’t you think you have enough?” Ray demanded.

  Zheng ignored him and dusted off his find, before severing it from its remaining tether and adding it to his collection. “She said—” he began.

  “I know what she said,” Ray interrupted testily. “And it was a head. Not seven heads!” He regarded with loathing the collection bouncing along at his former associate’s waist, tied there by bloody silver-blond hair.

  “Yeah, but she don’t like me so much,” Zheng pointed out. “And it don’t hurt to have insurance. Not that I ou
ghta need it after saving the senates’ collective—” He broke off as a younger vamp sped by, clutching a gory trophy tightly against his chest.

  And then looking around in shock when he realized that it suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

  “Oh, come on!” Ray said, as the young vamp caught sight of his golden ticket being tied securely onto Zheng’s waist.

  Zheng grinned at him. The younger vamp’s shoulders slumped, and he sped off.

  “He wouldn’t last a day against the competition anyway,” Zheng said. “Anybody who don’t get a seat and thinks they ought to have, will be challenging for it for weeks, maybe months. There’s a lot of fighting ahead.” He looked pleased.

  Ray looked skyward—literally, since that part of the roof was missing. “I wasn’t talking about him!”

  “Oh? Then what?”

  “You saved their collective asses? I thought I had a little bit to do with it, too!”

  “Oh, yeah.” Zheng grinned. “That was pretty good. Where’d you send ’em, anyway?”

  “This swamp I know,” Ray snapped.

  “Swamp?”

  “In Faerie.”

  Zheng looked disapproving. “That don’t seem so bad.”

  I had a brief flash of that vision Ray and I had shared once, about a primeval-looking quagmire straight out of Jurassic Park, and begged to differ.

  Only I didn’t have time, because Anthony staggered out of a hole in the wall, hugging a pretty blonde in one arm and an amphora of wine in the other. His toga was gone, his tunic was bloody and he was sporting what looked a lot like an old-fashioned shiner. But he seemed happy.

  He looked around at the spotty fires, the drifting clouds of smoke and the tumbled marble of what had been a beautiful atrium only hours ago.

  “She really knows how to throw a party,” he told me, with apparent satisfaction. “You have to give her that.”

  He staggered off.

  Zheng shook his head, frowned and looked around one more time. “I think that’s all of ’em.”

  “What?” Ray asked. “There had to be, like, a couple hundred fey who got through before we hijacked their portals.”

  “Yeah, but the consul cheated. Her sandstorm scoured half of ’em, and then Hassani’s fire cooked most of the rest and then Ming-de got hold of what was left—”

  We collectively shuddered.

  “—and then she has the nerve to say she won’t take ’em unless they’re in good shape.” He clucked over his collection, all of whom looked pretty good to me.

  For severed heads, that is.

  “Yeah, but I still don’t get it,” Ray said fretfully.

  “What’s not to get?” Zheng asked. “She wants people who’ll fight for her. What’s the use of Senate members if they won’t do anything?”

  “No, I mean I don’t get this,” Ray said, gesturing at their surroundings. “I know how the fey hacked through the shield, okay? But it shouldn’t have mattered. It should have been back up in minutes—”

  “And it woulda been, if somebody hadn’t offed Marlowe’s guys. You heard him, all five ended up—”

  “Dead, yeah. And that’s my point. Who killed them?”

  “Whaddya mean, who killed them? The damned fey killed them. Or their mutants did. Those things were strong—and fast. Did you see—”

  “Yes, I saw,” Ray said sharply. “I saw a bunch of…things…come through the portal. But Marlowe spoke to Dory just after that—like less than a minute after—telling her that he’d sent guys to the basement. So he must have sent them practically the second he saw anything come through.”

  I nodded. “He told me he had people taking care of it.”

  “But they didn’t take care of it. And a couple minutes later, he had Halcyon ask you to check on ’em, because the shield wasn’t back up and they hadn’t reported in.”

  “Yeah.” I was starting to see where he was going with this.

  “So the mutant things are back in the ballroom and then a few minutes later, they start showing up in the hall. But Marlowe’s boys are dead by then, because you and me, we’re already on the way to check on them. So again, who killed them?”

  “It couldn’t have been Jonathan’s experiments,” I said slowly. “Marlowe’s boys should have been ahead of them.”

  Ray nodded.

  “Unless a portal opened down in the basement,” Zheng pointed out. “We wouldn’t have seen it, so we wouldn’t know.”

  “Okay, say it happened that way,” Ray replied. “Say somebody figured Marlowe would be sending a group to fix the shield, and opened a portal down there before we even realized they could do that. That still leaves a bunch of other things unexplained.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Slava’s.” He looked at me. “It’s been bugging me since our convo in the car. The bad guys, they got this perfect plan for getting into Central, right? But that requires us arresting a bunch of Slava’s guys and taking them back there. They got in so easy because they were let in, and they were let in because they were expected.”

  “You’re wondering how the fey and their allies knew we’d be showing up at Slava’s,” I said, wondering why that hadn’t occurred to me.

  Ray nodded. “They couldn’t just wait around, hoping you’d get there sooner or later. It was too elaborate a plan for doing on the fly. And anyway, Slava was known as a pimp, not some big-time conspirator. Why would they think Marlowe would go there at all?”

  “He went there because of the yacht,” I said slowly, my headache getting worse. I was too tired for this, too tired to think. But Ray was right; something was…off. “Mircea saw it in my head, and then Marlowe tracked it down from the description he gave. And discovered that it belonged to Slava.”

  “Yeah. So if it was in your head, who else could have known?”

  “Whoever Marlowe told,” Zheng said.

  Ray rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because we all know what a forthcoming guy he is, right?”

  “Nobody was in the kitchen when he told me but us and Louis-Cesare’s cook,” I told Ray. “And I somehow can’t see Verrell being involved in the conspiracy.”

  “Neither can I, but that still don’t explain how the bad guys knew.”

  “You need to let Marlowe know there might still be a problem,” I said. “Some loose end somewhere.”

  He nodded. “I’m going to if I can ever find him. He’s probably off interrogating the fey—”

  Zheng nodded. “I heard they’re bringing in Jack for that. Should be fun.”

  “—but, yeah, I think we got a problem. I mean, that attack itself was a little weird, too, if you think about it. Who shows up and attacks Central and just assumes they’re gonna find the password? What if the senior guy on duty gets offed by your crazed killing machines? What then?”

  “We know what,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, we do. A total screwup. If they hadn’t overheard us using the password, and if Marlowe hadn’t failed to change it—”

  “You heard him.” Zheng said. “He’d just changed it the day before. On a hunch.”

  “—then they’d have been SOL. It seems a really slipshod way of doing anything.”

  “Well, you know the Black Circle,” Zheng said, obviously losing interest. “Anyway, I’m gonna go turn these in. What about you?”

  He was looking at me, but Ray answered. “I’m going to go find Marlowe. And some different shoes. These have been killing my feet all night.”

  Zheng was still looking at me.

  “I think I’ll hang out for a while,” I said, going for nonchalant.

  It didn’t work.

  He grinned. “That healer’s gonna have your ass, you go back again before morning.”

  “Louis-Cesare will be fine,” Ray told me irritably. “Well, physically, anyway, I don’t know what you did to his head. I still don’t feel so good.”

  Me, either. I had a headache that wouldn’t quit, and I was so tired it felt like I was drunk. Which is probably why Zh
eng took pity on me and led Ray away, still fussing.

  I looked around. That doc had been a bastard, but he had a point. The makeshift clinic had spilled out from the box seats into the charred remains of the ballroom, and usable space was at a premium. And since Louis-Cesare was in a healing trance, I couldn’t do anything at the moment but sit at his side and be in the way.

  I thought maybe I’d go do something useful, and get a little sleep—if I could find a bed that was still intact. Or a couch. Or a chaise. Or considering how I felt right now, any flat surface that wasn’t covered in rubble and broken glass would—

  Some sixth sense had my thoughts breaking off, had me turning. And that was all the warning I got before something slammed into me with an almost audible whummmp, knocking me off my feet and sending me sliding.

  Into a horribly familiar scene.

  Suddenly, the atrium’s half-destroyed walls were replaced by gleaming skyscrapers, the steaming piles of rubble became water lapping against the sides of boats, and the haze of smoke and dust in the air turned into silvery moonlight flooding over—

  No.

  No! I jumped to my feet and whirled around, hoping I was hallucinating. And maybe I was.

  Because somehow I was back in my head once more.

  And worse, I was back at that fucking pier.

  This time there was no Louis-Cesare, no Radu, no Mircea. There wasn’t even a mysterious assailant trying to gut me. But there was a group of men standing on the bloody concrete, with flashlights in the hands that weren’t holding smoking guns.

  Or not, I thought, staring. Because one of them wasn’t a man. Which might explain why I was suddenly looking at a memory that didn’t seem familiar.

  And hearing a mental voice that wasn’t mine.

  “Hurry up,” the idiot in the dark overcoat said urgently. He was looking around, gun in hand, tensed as if for a fight. And no wonder.

  Black scorch marks marred the concrete, and burnt gunpowder hung in the air like a cloud. Even muffled gunshots are far from silent and this wasn’t exactly remote. The fools had probably woken half of Manhattan.

  It was typical of the “Black Circle,” Lawrence thought viciously. A bunch of the biggest stoners and losers he’d ever encountered, too strung out on magic to remember the simplest of instructions, and too incompetent to carry them out if they did. He gave the man the response he deserved—none—and knelt by the girl.