Micah pulled out a cigarette then fished in his pockets. “Fuck. My zippo’s gone.” He sucked the unlit cigarette, then tossed it to the floor. “Fuck.”
Oren touched his burned face gingerly. “Who’s with Torina?”
Katelina stiffened. He didn’t know.
Micah kicked her foot. “Hey, is pipsqueak with the kids?” She nodded and Micah said, “Loren’s in the room.”
Oren nodded. “Together they should be all right.” He looked around. “Where’s Sorino?”
“His human was attacked,” Brandle said. “He left to…avenge him.”
Oren stiffened. “The boy…?” When Brandle nodded, he shook his head sadly. “He was told to leave the human behind. Still, a pity.”
A blast came from outside, followed by another, and another. Plaster dust dropped down from the ceiling. Lilith might be waiting until Katelina was dead to finish the battle, but someone was stepping things up.
Micah stood and rubbed his sunburned head. “Might as well get this shit over with.”
Katelina tensed. When he started down the hall, she realized he didn’t mean telling Oren, but rather—
“Let them finish it,” Oren said. “We’ve done enough.”
“Yeah, but it’s two against one, with that son of a bitch,” Micah said. “
Zander stood. All eyes swung to him. His cheeks were tinted pink, but he was otherwise unaffected. “I will deal with the one you call Lilith.”
Katelina choked. “You might be powerful, but you’re no match for her. She’s thousands of years old.”
“She is also a deceiver and must die.” He swung his mace, as if in demonstration. “I will join you again when she has breathed her last.”
He stalked past them. Katelina looked wildly from one to the other, expecting someone to stop him. Instead Verchiel stood. “It might be interesting.” His smile didn’t meet his tired eyes, but he went anyway.
Brandle sighed, but followed, Angelica reluctantly on his heels.
Oren met Jorick’s gaze. Katelina felt a silent conversation pass between them. Though she couldn’t hear it, she could guess they were trying to decide what to do.
She pulled herself up. “We might as well…”
Jorick sighed, but the three of them made their way to the stairs. Though Katelina was slow, Jorick patiently walked with her. She expected Oren to raise a fuss, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry.
They were two floors down when another blast came from across the street. A second and third followed, then a loud rumble and the rushing crash of bricks falling across the street.
There went that building.
The farther down they went, the heavier the air grew. By the time they reached the ground floor, the atmosphere was like wet cement. Katelina sat on the bottom step to gather her energy. The wound in her stomach had stopped bleeding, but it hurt, as did the one on her shoulder blade.
“You should go back to the room,” Jorick said, worry in his eyes.
She shook her head. She couldn’t face sitting in there with corpses. Besides, what if Sarah attacked again. Right now, she didn’t think she could beat her.
Oren surprised her when he said, “We’re all weak. We’re better off together.”
When she had the energy, they made their way down shadowy hallways, stopping at a splash of morning. The scent of blood came, almost overpowering. Katelina pressed back against the wall to get control of herself.
She looked at Jorick and Oren to see a similar desire in their eyes. She could feel Jorick’s willpower. She tried to mentally leech from it.
When she was under control, Jorick led her into the lobby. Furniture was overturned and everything was covered in a layer of dust. Through shattered windows she could see the building across from them. The front was caved in, leaving floors exposed and filling the street with heaps of brick and twisted metal. Figures zipped through the dust. The lights of emergency vehicles flashed red and blue strobes. Among the rubble lay bodies, their heads split open like eggs, leaking puddles of blood and brains.
Jorick pulled her behind an overturned sofa, next to Oren. She pressed her hands to her burning arms. “Did you see the people? My God. What could do that?”
The question wasn’t what, rather who, and she knew the answer. She thought of the wave that flashed over them while she was upstairs; the strange sound that made the children’s noses bleed. Had that caused this?
“Hey, princess!”
Katelina saw Micah and Angelica hiding behind a fort built from chairs.
“Where are the others?” Oren called.
“Out there trying to get burnt to a crisp,” Micah shot back.
Katelina calmed her screaming brain to peek over the couch. She could see Brandle, Zander, and Ishkur. A blur bounced past them, no doubt Verchiel.
A figure stepped from behind an ambulance. Long black hair fell past her rounded shoulders and gold accoutrements winked in the light. Details of her face disappeared as Katelina met her dark slanting eyes. She forgot about the blood, the death, even the sun. She could feel Lilith in her head, like a warm ocean tide that came in and out, washing away all of her worries. The light seeped away with it, leaving a cool darkness that grew deeper and deeper, wrapping around her, pulling her down. The sound of a scream echoed in the depths.
“Katelina!”
Someone ripped her backwards. The real world crashed around her. Her head ached and she pressed her hands to either side, as if to hold her brain together.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Jorick demanded.
She blinked; not at the lobby but the shadows behind the ambulance. “I…I don’t know.”
Jorick’s shoulders relaxed a little. “I can feel your mind again.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was as if you—or someone else—was blocking it completely.” His gaze turned to the street where Lilith had been.
Katelina massaged her forehead. “Why would she do that?”
Samael’s voice came like an ocean breeze in her mind. “She was prying at the door.”
“What door?” A conversation with Verchiel leapt into her mind.
“Tell me what happened when you were a prisoner at Malick’s…Where do you think those memories went? Did you just forget them? Samael sealed them away, because he knew you couldn’t deal with it.”
Could that be what he meant?
“Yes,” came the silent answer. “But you will not allow her to.”
“How can I stop her?”
When no answer came, she peered around the vehicle, as if seeing Samael could make him reply. He stood among the rubble, his hand raised, and his face tilted upward, looking at something on one of the building’s exposed floors.
The sun was too hot. Katelina pulled back into the shade, panting. Her face and hands burned.
“You need to get inside,” Jorick said urgently.
The wind changed. His words disappeared behind the scent of blood. She looked to her right. A corpse lay near the back bumper of the ambulance, coated in dust. Her body tightened and her throat screamed. Before she could stop herself, she’d tackled the limp body, tearing through shirt and flesh with her fangs.
She gulped but very little blood came. Jorick tugged her back. She wiped her mouth guiltily. “I…”
“You’re wounded and awake long after you should be asleep,” he said. “But they’re nearly dry. Their blood is on the ground.”
Even so, the tiny amount gave her a burst of energy. She leaned around the ambulance in time to hear the crash. Ishkur stood on a pile of collapsed rubble, bleeding from a fresh wound. At his feet were Brandle and Zander, whose mace was only a splintered handle.
A flash of red and black bounced past him. Ishkur batted it down. Verchiel landed in a cloud of dust. He sat up quickly, shaking his head. Katelina could see blood on his face, but she wasn’t sure if it was from a wound or the sun.
Past them she could see the roadblock. Half a block beyond that
was another. A block later was a third. Though she couldn’t see around a firetruck, she imagined the other streets would be the same. As if the humans knew to put as much distance between themselves and what was going on as possible
Jorick tugged on her arm. Reluctantly, she let him pull her toward the hotel. They’d nearly reached the shattered lobby windows when Ishkur landed in front of them, swinging his heavy mace.
Jorick threw Katelina back, using himself as a shield. She slid to a stop, tripping over chunks of concrete. She righted herself in time to see Jorick dodging away from Ishkur’s attack.
“Jorick!” The sun beat down. Though she wanted to help him, her instincts drove her back into the shade of the ambulance. Ishkur swung. Jorick blocked with his sword. The ancient growled and pulled back. His eyes flicked from Jorick to her. He evaporated and reappeared before her, the mace raised.
Katelina tensed, ready to run. She met his red-ish brown eyes and everything stopped. The world was still there, only frozen like a photograph. She could see the dented mace, streaked with gore and dirt, see the way his dark hair blew back from his face. The stubble on his jaw. The way the sun gleamed on his breast plate. The wounds on his arms and legs, dust stuck to the patches of moist blood.
Over his shoulder was Jorick. His face was twisted in fury, his mouth open mid roar as he swung his sword. Beyond him, she could see Samael. His black hair danced. The sun set his dark eyes on fire in his pale face. He had one hand raised, a ball of energy gathering around it, aimed at the hotel where Lilith stood on a ledge, the ancient sword of Nu-Gua in her hand. Thick and blunt, it looked more like a bludgeoning weapon than a sword to slice. Strapped to her back was a string-less bow. Like Ishkur, she wore a breastplate of gold, engraved with runes, whose purpose Katelina could only guess. Matching bracers were on her wrists. She wore tall leather boots under a tunic of shimmering teal. Her thick hair had clips, but most of it had fallen wild about her face. A thin layer of white dust made her look like something long dead.
Then Katelina saw Inanna, one of the Kugsankal. In the midst of the rubble she shone like a star dressed in silver. Barely taller than a child, with long white hair and cerulean blue eyes. She wore a silver crown on her head. In her hand she held a sword. Behind her was Utu, dressed in black armor, his gaze a hell of empty darkness.
The world picked up again. Ishkur half turned toward his sister and brother, and Jorick’s sword found its mark. Ishkur stumbled face first into the ambulance. Utu moved, but Inanna held him back with a tiny hand.
Ishkur made to push himself up. Jorick didn’t give him a chance. Katelina watched with a mixture of horror and satisfaction as he swung the sword again and again, finally severing the ancient’s head in a spray of blood.
Ishkur’s body swayed. Jorick punched through his back. Katelina heard the crunch, even as blasts echoed from Samael and Lilith’s battle.
Jorick drew back, and threw something to the ground; Ishkur’s bloody heart. He ground it under his heel as the dead body crumbled to the ground. Brandle nodded, acknowledging it was over. Zander turned his fierce attention toward Lilith. The vampiress had dropped down from the building to stand on the crushed roof of a car.
Inanna swept forward, her movements more like floating than steps. She swept the crown from Ishkur’s severed head. With a glance to Utu, she replaced her own with it, then turned to Samael and Lilith.
“Enough!” her voice crashed between the buildings like a tsunami, and Katelina cowered against her will.
Lilith considered the diminutive vampiress like one might look at a yapping dog. “Why do you trouble us, child?”
Utu stepped forward, a bladed lance raised. His long hair snapped in the breeze. His eyes narrowed. His stance made Katelina think of a protective knight coming to Inanna’s defense. As if she needed it.
“You know that you have violated our Laws,” Inanna said. “There can be no exceptions.”
Lilith laughed. Samael took advantage of the lull to leap onto the car next to her. His feet had barely touched the roof before she was gone, appearing several feet away. She flickered, then reappeared near Katelina.
Her presence was overwhelming. Katelina curled in on herself to escape. Before she closed her eyes, she saw Lilith look at her dead lover’s body, then to Jorick.
No!
Katelina forced herself out of the tiny ball. Lilith chuckled. “As if he was important enough to avenge, child. He served his purpose long ago. It is one of the mysteries of nature that men do not understand when they are no longer useful.” She turned burning eyes on Samael. “Now we come to the end of our game. Though I set others to the task, I must score the final point myself.”
She pulled Katelina up by her shirt. Jorick charged, but Lilith sent him flying into the side of the hotel.
Katelina tried to look to Jorick, tried to see if he was all right, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Lilith. Darkness sucked at her. She felt a strange prying pulse in her head.
“She’s trying to open the door.”
Katelina screamed silently. Pain rippled. She stared into a blackness as dark as Utu’s eyes. Shadows of agony and torture writhed beyond it, smoke that reached toward her with twisting tendril-like fingers.
“Samael sealed them away, because he knew you couldn’t deal with it. Imagine if he hadn’t. For all you know, you might have wanted to kill everyone.”
Or yourself.
No!
The scream echoed in her ears. The world came back; the sun beat down, burning her tender skin. Her back shot pain down her arm. Her stomach hurt. Her insides were knotted, thirsty, desperate, but the darkness and the shadow wraiths were gone; sealed away where they belonged.
Lilith threw Katelina against the ambulance. She bounced off, landing in a pool of blood, next to Ishkur’s headless body. She looked up to see Samael standing before Lilith, his face as expressionless as ever.
“You don’t want me in her mind,” Lilith purred. “Your weakness is betrayed. I will drink from her heart before you die, so you can watch. You should know better by now than to try to replace me.”
“As if I would seek a replacement for one like you. I was relieved to be free the first time, and will be even more so now.” He stepped closer.
Lilith brandished the blunt sword. “So you think, but I will strike you down and lick your blood from the blade.”
Katelina felt Samael’s calculations, then he whispered in her mind, “Run.”
She slid in Ishkur’s blood, but made it to her feet and dashed away. Lilith spun to follow when the ambulance lifted into the air. Katelina stopped next to Jorick’s prone body. She looked back to see Samael’s arm raised, muscles tensed as though he was lifting the vehicle. He threw his arm, like pitching a ball. The hulking vehicle flew at Lilith. One minute she was there, the next both she and the ambulance were rolling across the street.
Jorick opened his eyes and shook his head. One arm and leg hung at odd angles, and his face was blistered by sunlight; yellow lumps that ran crimson. His lips were burned and cracked, but he’d never looked more beautiful—more alive.
She kissed him with desperate relief, then pulled back, licking his blood from her mouth. He grimaced and touched her face with his good hand. “You’re burned.”
They dragged each other inside to the safety of the shadows. Through the fractured lobby front, they could see the ancients. Inanna and Utu stood back from the fray. Though their faces were impassive, Utu was tensed, waiting for his prey. Brandle and Zander had moved into the shade thrown by a building, while Samael strode purposefully toward the overturned ambulance, energy gathering in his palm.
There was a loud squealing sound as metal scraped. The ambulance rolled over on its side. Lilith stood, her hair wild, scarlet running from her nose and one ear. Her breastplate was dented. With a snarl she tore it free. “Is that the best you have?”
Samael’s reply was to send a blast at the exposed undercarriage of the vehicle. The gas tank exploded. Unl
ike the movies, there was no fireball, no black smoke, only liquid that rained over the vampiress.
She attempted to shake the gasoline off, contempt in her voice. “Did you expect an explosion? Hollywood lied to you.”
Samael pulled something from his coat pocket. “Not at all.” There was a metallic click. Samael threw something shiny. Katelina had a nanosecond view of Micah’s missing Zippo, the flame pale in the sunlight.
Comprehension dawned on Lilith’s face a moment before the fire hit her tunic. The flames raced over the gasoline soaked material, down her legs and, as she beat at the fire, up her arms. Katelina drew back farther into the building, pulling Jorick with her.
She looked back out to see Lilith engulfed in flames, like an immortal torch. The vampiress screamed and beat at herself, shouting in a language Katelina didn’t recognize. Zander stiffened. Katelina thought that he must understand the words. The old language of the immortals. Like his ceremonies to the Night Goddess. Only the words weren’t beautiful this time, but terrifying.
Katelina shivered in spite of herself, clutching Jorick’s arm. He wrapped himself around her, like a protective shield. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if it could silence Lilith’s horrific shrieks.
The sound strangled off. Katelina peeked over Jorick’s shoulder. Lilith pulled herself up from the ground, still smoking. Her clothing and hair were gone, leaving her burned body exposed. Bloody flesh hung like turkey skin, revealing bone in places. She roared. A nearby car flipped into the air and swept Samael back into the ruined building. A moment later the car went flying and he stormed forward, hand extended.
“Pathetic, as usual,” he shouted. A crushed SUV rolled over Lilith, windows shattering. It came to a stop against the ambulance. Lilith climbed laboriously to her feet, her gory body studded with broken glass that winked in the sunlight, like diamonds.
“How is she still alive?” Katelina whispered. But she knew the answer: Because she was ancient.
With a cry, Lilith lurched toward Samael. Katelina saw her exposed muscles tighten and contract with each step. Her stomach heaved and she gagged.
Samael swept toward Lilith, disappearing and reappearing next to her. He grabbed her by the wrist and swung. She crashed into the firetruck. Samael threw something away. It took Katelina a moment to realize it was Lilith’s arm.
Goddess of Night (Amaranthine Book 9) Page 39