Sadie growled. “And if he ever does it to me again, I’ll carve his other face so they match.”
I decided not to ask her who the woman was. She was so pissed, she might extend the face-carving offer to me. “So, the bogeyman—er, bogeyperson. That’s what you do…scare people,” I said.
Murdoch grinned again. “More or less.”
“Do you hide under beds and in closets, stuff like that?”
“Only when I’m bored.” He gave me a speculative look. “And you are?”
“Gideon.”
“That’s a name. What else are you?”
“He’s not your concern,” Taeral cut in. “Is there anyone else down here?”
“Just you lot. Honestly, when you came down I was hoping for one of those human pill-bugs in the fancy armor,” he said. “They’re easy prey.”
A whooshing sound filled the cave, and we all looked to the slide as two figures rushed into view. The one in front tumbled off the end with a gasp. The other one managed to stop, and then moved fast toward the fallen figure.
Unfortunately, I recognized them both. Denei and Zoba.
Zoba helped his sister up. She’d been shot—blood soaked her right side and dribbled over the hand she held pressed to the wound. “Figures you’d be down here, Fae,” she grated. “And you’ve brought your dog, too. What happened, she run out of teeth?”
“I’ve got enough left for you,” Sadie said. “Come any closer, and I’ll show you.”
Denei sneered, then limped over to the wall and sat down, with Zoba taking position beside her like an angry, skull-faced statue. “Bastards found us,” she said in flat tones, and her amber eyes lit on me. “Funny how they showed up so soon after you, handsome. Anything you wanna confess—or maybe I should have Zoba ask you?”
Zoba made a noise. It lacked any form of question.
“Mind your manners, Duchene.” Taeral approached the pair slowly. “Where’s the rest of your brood?”
Her eyes flashed. “Taken.”
“And your master?”
“Like I’d tell you where he is.”
Taeral sighed. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, and turned so he was facing everyone in the room. “Right now, we have a common enemy. I’d suggest that we all put aside our differences and focus on survival.”
“Who made you Grand Poobah of the shelter?” Denei drawled. “Me and my brother ain’t listenin’ to you give orders. Right, Zoba?”
His ghoulish, sharp-toothed grin said he agreed.
Murdoch waved a hand in the air. “Do I get a vote?” he said. “Because I nominate myself for Poobah.”
“This is not up for discussion,” Taeral snarled.
Denei rolled her eyes and leaned her head back. “Fine, Your Wretched-ness. What are we supposed to do, then?”
He stared into the darkness above us. “We wait.”
CHAPTER 30
An hour in the shelter felt like a year—and we waited for two of them. Taeral was recharged enough to remove the tracking spell from Sadie and put his normal glamour back on by the time he called an all-clear, leading the way up a stone staircase and back to the Hive.
Or what was left of it, anyway.
Only a handful of structures remained standing—including what looked to be Taeral’s tent, though I couldn’t tell for sure at this distance. The rest were burning or flattened. At least two dozen bodies were scattered among the wreckage, most of them Milus Dei. But a few of them weren’t.
Except for the last of the guttering fires, nothing moved.
Sadie let out a choked sob and covered her mouth with a hand. Both Taeral and Murdoch stared without expression at the destruction, and I clenched my fists as bile rose in my throat.
Denei was a little more vocal with her displeasure.
“Dirty, lowdown snake-gut cochon bastards!” She kicked a nearby pile of burned debris, sending up blackened splinters and thick clouds of ash. “Come on, Zoba,” she said. “We see what’s left. Then we goin’ after the little ones.”
“Denei, wait,” I said.
She glared at me. “You don’t wanna speak to me right now, handsome. I got half a mind to rip your head off and shove it up his ass.” She gestured angrily at Taeral, and then stalked away. “Zoba. Come,” she called without looking back.
Zoba took a minute to lunge at me and snort a growl before he followed.
Damn. Even though working with those two was the last thing I wanted, we could’ve used them with us. This was not going to be easy.
Of course, I hadn’t told anyone else I planned to volunteer them to storm Milus Dei.
Murdoch shook himself and flashed a wry grin. “As fun as it’s been playing hide-and-go-piss-ourselves with you lot, I think I’ll take my leave,” he said. “It looks like I’m going apartment hunting. What a shame…it’s a bitch finding decent real estate in this city.”
I decided not to try stopping him. Taeral nodded absently in his direction, and the bogeyman slouched off toward the shadows.
The three of us stood there another long moment, until Taeral finally said, “May as well have a look. At the least, we’ll try to clothe you, a’ghreal.”
I refrained from looking at Sadie. I’d forgotten that all this time, she’d been wearing nothing but Taeral’s jacket.
We picked our way through the destruction, not speaking on the long trek to the tent. It was Taeral’s, but it hadn’t escaped intact. Someone, probably several someones, had gone looting and pillaging through the place. The front door flap was torn away, and most of the stuff from inside had been tossed out in broken heaps.
Taeral stared at it with a faint frown. “Stay here,” he said, and went in.
When he was gone, Sadie whispered, “We should’ve fought them.”
“No.” Much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, Taeral had made the right decision. If there was one thing living with the Valentines had taught me, it was to pick my battles—even though there’d never been a chance to win. The only choices I’d had were losing somewhat, or losing everything in a spectacularly painful way. This would’ve been the latter. “It wasn’t the time to fight,” I said.
“When is the time, then?” She looked at me with hollow eyes. “Everything’s gone. Everyone is gone. They win.” A shudder wracked her frame, and she cut her gaze away. “Because of me.”
A protest rose to my lips. I blamed myself for going off half-cocked to save her, with no idea what I’d really be facing. What happened here proved that Milus Dei was bigger, stronger, and more ruthless than I’d ever imagined. And my botched rescue attempt had been the catalyst for this.
But before I could say all that, Taeral came back out with a pile of clothes and yet another full bottle—the rotgut whiskey Sadie bought him when we first came here. “Get dressed,” he said, handing her the bundle. “I’m going to drink.”
She didn’t comment on the bottle, not even with a disappointed look. She just took the clothes and went inside.
Taeral watched her with dulled eyes, and then shrugged and opened the whiskey. “You may as well drink, too,” he said to me. “Celebrate our success.”
“Success,” I repeated.
“Aye. We’ve made sure you’re alive, haven’t we?” He drank sloppily, spilling whiskey down his chin, and swiped an arm across his mouth. “That was the mission. To protect my brother, the DeathSpeaker. So, as the humans say…” He made a sweeping gesture at the destruction around us and flashed a bitter grin. “Mission accomplished.”
“Really,” I said as a pulse of anger flashed red behind my eyes. “That’s it, then. After all they’ve done—to you, to everyone you know—and everything they’re going to do now with a fresh batch of meat to torture, you’re just going to crawl into a bottle and ignore it.”
“Yes, that about covers it.” He thrust the whiskey at me. “Drink?”
I swatted the bottle from his hand.
His brief shock turned angry. “Listen, you—”
“No. You listen.” The sheer fury in me sharpened the words to a booming threat. “As far as being the DeathSpeaker, or even being anything that isn’t human, I’m only about three days old. So yeah, I’m a moron. I’m reckless and impulsive, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I’m doing something, damn it!”
Taeral’s lip curled. “And look what this doing has led to.”
“Yeah? So what’s doing nothing gotten for you?” I glimpsed Sadie emerging from the tent, probably drawn by the shouting. But I wasn’t about to stop. “All this time you’ve been down here playing it safe, they’ve been up there capturing and torturing and experimenting, finding out what makes you tick. Now they’ve moved into recruiting their very own pet monsters with magic powers and tracking spells. It’s time to draw the goddamned line!”
“To what end?” Most of the fight had gone out of Taeral, and he looked at me warily, like he expected me to attack any second. “Should we save the others, they’ll only regroup and strike back.”
“Then we make sure they can’t,” I said. “We take them out permanently.”
“Impossible.”
“Wait.” Sadie eased out cautiously and stood next to Taeral, staring at me. “Do you really think we can, Gideon?”
“I think there’s hope.”
“How can there be?” Taeral shook his head. “There is nothing to hope for.”
“There’s everyone Milus Dei just dragged off to the dungeons,” I said angrily. “And there’s Daoin.”
Taeral’s eyes flared to life. “What do you mean, there is Daoin? You know nothing of him, halfling spawn!”
“I know he’s alive!”
He flinched like he’d been gut-kicked. “How dare you say such things,” he said through clenched teeth. “Brother or not, I will end you for your lies.”
“Damn it, he is alive. When I went after Sadie, I used a glamour to get in, and—”
“You can generate a glamour?” he said with a sneer. “You’ve barely mastered activating the moonstone.”
“I used a glamour,” I said. “This one.”
It took a bit of effort, but I managed to channel the chief again.
“Foley,” Taeral spat. And just as quickly, his jaw dropped as he registered the rest. “Gideon, you…should not have been able to do that.”
“Well, I did.” I let the spell drop.
Sadie nudged Taeral. “He cast one on me, too,” she said. “It worked, until we took the elevator and they weighed us or something.”
Taeral stared at me. “How can you have such power? You’re half human.”
“Anyway,” I said forcefully, not wanting to get into this particular fight. “The goon who was showing me around thought I was Foley, so he started babbling about my so-called nemesis. Subject Seven, the full-blood whose son escaped. I figured out who he meant from there.”
“No,” Taeral whispered. “They killed him. I saw them.” He closed his eyes, as if he could un-see whatever it was. “They forced me to watch as they took him apart, piece by piece, with their steel hooks and scalpels and bone saws,” he rasped. “And he lived through most of it.”
My stomach performed a sick flip at the thought of what they’d done to Taeral. And what they were still doing to Daoin. I shook my head slowly. “Not sure what you saw, but it wasn’t him,” I said. “They’ve had him all this time. The goon, Hullman, was very clear on that. I guess he’s crazy now, but he’s alive.”
Taeral shuddered. “My father lives?”
“Not for much longer,” I said. “Hullman said they…can’t get anything more out of him. So they’re going to terminate him.”
“When?”
“A few days.”
His jaw firmed. “And you believe we can save him. Save all of them.”
“Yeah, I do,” I said. “I even have a plan.”
Suddenly, Sadie coughed and made a quick gesture at something behind me. “Um. Gideon…”
“What?” I frowned and turned slowly to look.
Denei and Zoba stood a few feet away, with Murdoch lurking behind them. I thought I’d seen the Creole queen pissed off before—but now she looked downright murderous.
“You have a plan, do you?” she said in carefully measured tones. “Oh, I just can’t wait to hear this. DeathSpeaker.”
CHAPTER 31
Murdoch circled the Duchenes, regarding me like an interesting species of bug. One that should be squashed. “I saw what’s in your mind. It is one scary place—and that’s saying something, coming from me. So I thought these two might like to know who brought the humans down,” he said. “They want to kill you. I’m inclined to agree, just because we’re all safer if you’re dead.”
I didn’t even notice Sadie come up next to me until she said quietly, “It’s my fault. I led them here.”
Murdoch glared. “You’re lying, little sister. Protecting your friend.”
“I’m not! They have a Seelie working for them, and he…put a tracking spell on me.” She stiffened and looked at Denei. “Go ahead, swamp witch. Bring it.”
“I don’t give a damn whose fault it is,” Denei snarled. “I want him. Think we don’t know what you mean to them, DeathSpeaker? Complete annihilation, every last one of us.”
Taeral edged forward. “Lay a hand on him and I’ll blast you into oblivion.”
“All of you, shut the fuck up!”
I was at least as surprised as the rest of them at my outburst. More so, because they actually did shut up. “I’m not going to be their weapon. You got that?” I said. “What I am gonna do is fight back. I’m going to get everyone they’ve taken out of there and close them down for good. So you can come with me, or stay the hell out of my way.”
“Please.” Denei planted her hands on her hips. “Like none of us have tried that before. There’s no way in but one, and even less ways out. They know a whole lot more than they should about us, and we know jack squat about them.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t have me before.”
“Sorry to tell you this, handsome, but you’re worthless. You’re more human than those Milus Dei bastards.”
“I’m the DeathSpeaker,” I said.
“So?”
“So, the dead can’t lie.” I gestured at the smoldering ruin of the market, the scattered bodies. “And hey, look at that! A bunch of dead guys who know everything about Milus Dei…and can’t lie to me.”
Denei lowered her arms slowly, and Murdoch grinned. “I think I like you, little brother,” he said. “Tell me more about this plan of yours.”
Zoba made a low, liquid sound that might have been approval. That, or he was just hungry for my flesh.
“What he said,” Denei muttered. “You think we can…save our family?”
I looked around and located the nearest black-clad corpse. “Let’s find out.”
The closest dead guy had the Milus Dei cross tattooed on his throat. I guessed he was pretty hardcore into advertising how much he liked to hunt down and torture Others.
I hoped when I interrogated his soul, or whatever it was, that it hurt like hell.
I’d never done this with an audience. Even when I spoke to my mother, Taeral had been up at ground level and probably ignoring me. Now I had a loose line of spectators, half of them hostile. And I barely knew what I was doing.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t suffer from performance anxiety.
I knelt beside the body and looked up at the audience. “Should someone maybe take notes or something?” I said. “I’ve never interrogated anyone before. Not sure how this is supposed to work.”
Sadie produced a cell phone. “No signal, but the audio recorder still works.”
“Great. Um, is it a problem that the dead people only talk in my head?”
She frowned. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure this thing can’t read minds.”
“Just repeat what you hear aloud,” Taeral said. “Then we’ll have a record.”
“Fine.” I was going to feel ridiculous doing that, but I
guessed it could be worse. “Listen, just so you know, I can’t keep this up forever,” I said. “I don’t know why, but it’s painful. And the connection breaks eventually.”
Denei snorted. “Some DeathSpeaker you are.”
“Hey, do you want to try talking to the dead guy? Because you’re welcome to.”
Her mouth flattened. “Whatever, handsome. Just get on with it.”
“All right. Here goes.” I drew a long breath and put my hand on the corpse’s chest.
The tugging in my head was immediate and fierce. Let go of me!
“Settle down there, dead guy,” I murmured. “We’re going to have a chat, you and me.”
DeathSpeaker. The word pierced my brain.
“That’s right. Let’s start with something simple, because I don’t want to keep calling you ‘dead guy’. What’s your name?”
I could feel his struggle in the pause before he said Travis.
“Okay, Travis.” I glanced at Sadie, to make sure she was getting this. “I’ve got questions you’re going to answer.”
Suck my balls, you fucking sideshow freak.
I decided not to repeat that out loud. “How do we get into the warehouse?”
Through the front door, so they can take you monsters down.
“Asshole’s being sarcastic,” I said. “He says use the front door. It’s technically the truth. Guess I have to get specific.” I leaned closer to the corpse. “How do we get into the warehouse without being noticed?”
Pain exploded in my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Almost lost the connection. But the voice came through with grinding reluctance. Subtunnel. Under…Ninth Avenue…station.
“The subtunnel under the Ninth Avenue station.” I shook my head, trying to clear the pain. “Where does it lead?”
Sublevel…five. Storage room. The words had already reached fishhook levels.
“Storage room on sublevel five,” I said. “Is there a control room? Somewhere to take out the cameras and sensors?”
Ye-es you BASTARD.
“He says yes,” I muttered. “Where is it?”
Sublevel one across from elevator fuck you.
Wrong Side of Hell (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 1) Page 15