by Kim Harrison
“No!” I shrieked. But it was too late.
Piscary’s lips pulled back. Forcing my bleeding arm to the floor, his head tilted to reach my neck. The haze of pain swelled into ecstasy as he ground his fingers into my broken arm. I screamed into his moan of anticipation.
A distant boom of sound struck through me, and the floor trembled. I spasmed, the warm rapture of my arm shocking into a breathless feeling of pain. The sound of men shouting filtered in through the haze of nausea.
“They won’t reach us in time,” Piscary murmured. “They’re too late for you.”
Not like this, I thought, out of my mind in fear and cursing the stupidity of it all. I didn’t want to die like this. He bent to me, his face savage with hunger. I took a last breath.
It exploded from me as a green ball of ever-after smashed into Piscary.
I wiggled in the minuscule shifting of weight. Still on me, Piscary snarled and looked up.
My arm was free, and I wedged my knees between us. Tears blurred my vision as I fought with renewed desperation. Someone was there. Someone was there to help me.
Another blast of green smashed into Piscary. He rocked back. I got a leg under me and levered us up, flipping Piscary off me.
Scrabbling to my feet, I grabbed a chair and swung. It hit him, the shock echoing up my arm.
Piscary turned, his face savage. He tensed, gathering himself to leap at me.
I backpedaled, my broken arm clutched tight to me.
A third blast of green ever-after hissed past me, hitting Piscary and sending him flying backward into a wall.
I spun to the distant elevator.
Quen.
The man stood beside a huge hole in the wall beside the elevator in a cloud of dust, a growing ball of ever-after in his hand, still red but taking on the tinges of his aura. He must have had the energy stored in his chi, since we were too deep underground to reach a line. A black satchel sat beside his feet, several wooden swordlike stakes extending out from the open zipper. Beyond the hole was the stairway. “It’s about time you got here,” I panted, staggering.
“I got caught behind a train,” he said, his hands moving in ley line magic. “Bringing the FIB into this was a mistake.”
“I wouldn’t have had to if your boss wasn’t such a prick!” I shouted, then took a shallow breath, trying not to cough at the dust. Kisten had taken my note. How did the FIB get there if Quen didn’t bring them?
Piscary had regained his feet. He took us in, showing his fangs in a wide smile. “And now elf blood? I haven’t fed this well since the Turn.”
With a vamp’s speed, he raced across the large room to Quen, backhanding me in passing. I was flung backward. My back hit the wall and I slumped to the floor. Dazed and hovering on the edge of unconsciousness, I watched Quen evade Piscary, looking like a shadow in his black bodysuit. He had a wooden stake the length of my arm in one hand, a growing ball of ever-after in the other. The Latin spilled from him, the words of the black charm burning themselves into my mind.
The back of my head throbbed. Nausea flooded me as I touched a spot of agony, but I found no blood. The black spots before me cleared as I got to my feet. Dazed, I looked for my bag of charms through the haze of wall-dust.
A masculine cry of agony jerked my attention to Quen. My heart seemed to stop.
Piscary had caught him. Holding him like a lover, Piscary was fastened to his neck, supporting both their weights. Quen went slack and the wooden sword fell to the floor. His shriek of pain swelled into a moan of ecstasy.
Using the wall for support, I got to my feet. “Piscary!” I shouted, and he turned, his mouth red with Quen’s blood.
“Wait your turn,” he snarled, showing me his red-smeared teeth.
“I was here first,” I said.
Angry, he dropped Quen. If he had been hungry, nothing would have moved him from downed prey. Quen’s arm lifted weakly. He didn’t get up. I knew why. It felt too good.
“You don’t know when to leave well enough alone,” Piscary said, coming at me.
Latin fell from me, burned into my mind from Quen’s attack. My hands moved, etching black magic. My tongue swelled at the taste of tinfoil. I stretched for a ley line, not finding it.
Piscary slammed into me. I gasped, unable to breathe. He was on me again, reaching.
In the fear, something broke. A flood of ever-after flowed into me. I heard my scream at the shock of the unexpected influx of power. Gold laced with black and red burst from my hands. Piscary lifted from me. He crashed into a wall, shaking the lights.
I pulled myself up as he slumped on the floor, realizing where the energy had come from. “Nick!” I cried in fear. “Oh God. Nick! I’m sorry!”
I had pulled on a line through him. I had pulled the energy through him as if he had been a familiar. It had raced through him as it had me. I had pulled more than he could handle. What had I done?
Piscary was slumped where the wall met the floor. His foot shifted and he swung his head up. His eyes weren’t focused, but they were black with hatred. I couldn’t let him get up.
Racked in pain, I grabbed the leg of the chair Piscary had torn free and staggered across the room.
He lurched to his feet, supporting himself with a hand against the wall. His robe was almost undone. His eyes suddenly focused.
I gripped the metal rod in one hand like a bat, pulling it back even as I ran. “This is for trying to kill me,” I said, swinging.
The bar of metal hit him behind the ear with a sodden smack. Piscary staggered, but didn’t go down.
My breath came in an angry sound. “This is for raping Ivy!” I shouted, my anger at him for hurting something so strong and vulnerable giving me strength. I swung, grunting in effort.
The metal rod met the back of his skull with the sound of a melon.
I stumbled, catching my balance. Piscary fell to his knees. Blood seeped from his scalp.
“And this,” I said, feeling my eyes grow hot and my vision blur from tears, “is for killing my dad,” I whispered.
With a cry of anguish, I swung a third time. It smacked into Piscary’s head. Spinning from the momentum, I fell to my knees. My hands stung and the rod slipped from my senseless grip. Piscary’s eyes rolled up and he dropped.
Breath sounding like sobs, I looked at him and wiped the back of my hand across my cheek. He wasn’t moving. I looked past my hair at the fake window. The sun was up, shining on the buildings. He would probably stay down until nightfall. Probably.
“Kill him,” Quen croaked.
I pulled my head up, I’d forgotten he was there.
Quen had risen, a hand against his neck. The blood seeping through his fingers made an ugly pattern on the white carpet. He threw a second wooden sword at me. “Kill him now.”
I caught it as if I had been catching swords my entire life. Trembling, I turned its point into the carpet and used it to get up. Shouts and calls were coming from the hole in the wall. The FIB had arrived. Late as usual. “I’m a runner,” I said, my throat sore and my words rough. “I don’t kill my marks. I bring them in alive.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
I lurched to an overstuffed chair before I fell down. Dropping the sword, I put my head between my knees and stared at the carpet. “You kill him, then,” I whispered, knowing he could hear me.
Quen moved unsteadily to his satchel by the ragged hole in the wall. “I can’t. I’m not here.”
The puff of air that escaped me hurt. I looked up as he crossed the room to me, his steps slow and careful. He took the sword from the floor, jamming it into in his duffle bag with a bloody hand. I thought I saw a gray square of explosive in there, too, telling me how he had blown a hole in the wall.
He looked tired, his lanky stature hunched in pain. His neck didn’t look bad, but I’d rather be in traction for six months than have one saliva-laced bite from Piscary. Quen was an Inderlander and so couldn’t be turned vampire, but by the look of fear edging his vene
er of confidence, he knew he might be tied to Piscary. With a vampire that old, the bond might last a lifetime. Time would tell how much binding saliva, if any, Piscary had laced the bite with.
“Sa’han is wrong about you,” he said wearily. “If you can’t survive a vampire without help, your value is questionable. And your unpredictability makes you unreliable and therefore unsafe.” Quen gave me a nod before he turned and headed for the stairway. I watched him go, my mouth hanging open.
Sa’han is wrong about me, I thought sarcastically. Well goodie for Trent.
My hands hurt, the palms red with what looked like first-degree burns. Edden’s voice in the stairway was loud. The FIB could take care of Piscary. I could go home ….
Home to Ivy, I thought, closing my eyes briefly. How did my life get this ugly?
Tired beyond belief, I got to my feet as Edden and a string of FIB officers exploded out of the hole Quen had made.
“It’s me!” I croaked, putting my good hand in the air since there was a frightening clatter of safeties going off. “Don’t shoot me!”
“Morgan!” Edden peered through the sifting dust and lowered his weapon. Only half the FIB officers did the same. It was a better than average number. “You’re alive?”
He sounded surprised. Bent in pain, I looked down at myself, my broken arm clutched close. “Yeah. I think so.” I started shivering, cold.
Someone snickered, and the remaining weapons were lowered. Edden made a motion, and the officers fanned out. “Piscary is over there,” I said, looking that way. “He’s down until sunset. I think.”
Coming closer, Edden eyed Piscary, his robe fallen open to show a good portion of muscular thigh. “What was he trying to do, seduce you?”
“No,” I whispered, so my throat wouldn’t hurt so much. “He was trying to kill me.” I met his eyes and added, “There is a living vamp named Kisten around somewhere. He’s blond and angry. Please don’t shoot him. Other than him and Quen, I haven’t seen anyone but the eight living vamps upstairs. You can shoot them if you want.”
“Mr. Kalamack’s security officer?” Edden’s gaze roved over me, cataloging my hurts. “He came with you?” He put a hand on my shoulder to steady me. “It looks like your arm is broken.”
“It is,” I said, jerking back as he reached for it. Why do people do that? “And yeah, he came out here. Why didn’t you?” Suddenly angry, I poked him in the chest. “You ever refuse to take my call again, and I swear I’ll have Jenks pix you every night for a month.”
Arrogance crossed Edden’s face and he flicked a glance at the FIB officers warily circling Piscary. Someone called for an I.S. ambulance. “I didn’t refuse your call. I was asleep. Being woken up by a frantic pixy and a panicking boyfriend telling me you went out to stake one of Cincinnati’s master vampires is not my favorite way to wake up. And who gave you my unlisted number?”
Oh God, Nick. The remembered burst of ley line energy I’d pulled through him made my face go cold. “Nick,” I stammered. “I have to call Nick.” But as I looked over the room for my bag and the phone in it, I hesitated. Quen’s blood was gone. All of it. I guess Quen was serious about not wanting any evidence that he was here. How had he done that? A little elven magic, perhaps?
“Mr. Sparagmos is in the parking lot,” Edden said. Peering at me and my cold face, he snagged a passing officer. “Get me a blanket. She’s going shocky.”
Numb, I let him help me across the room and the hole in the wall. “Poor guy passed out, he was so worried about you. I wouldn’t let him or Jenks out of the car.” Eyes alight in a sudden thought, he reached for the radio on his belt. “Tell Mr. Sparagmos and Jenks that we found her and she’s all right,” he said into it, getting a garbled answer back. Taking my elbow, he muttered, “Please tell me you didn’t really leave a note on your door saying you were going to stake Piscary?”
My eyes were fixed upon my bag with its pain amulet clear across the room, but my head snapped up at his words. “No!” I protested as my vision swam at the quick movement. “I said I was going to talk to him and that he was the witch hunter. Kisten must have done that, because my note is here somewhere. I saw it!” Kisten had replaced my note?
I stumbled in confusion as Edden pulled me forward. Kisten had replaced my note, giving Nick the only number that would bring the FIB out here. Why? Had it been to help me, or simply to cover his betrayal of Piscary?
“Kisten?” Edden questioned. “That’s the living vamp you don’t want me to shoot, right?” He took the blue FIB blanket someone held out and draped it over my shoulders. “Come on. I want to get you upstairs. We can figure this out later.”
Leaning heavily on him, I tugged the blanket closer, wincing as the rough wool hurt my hands. I wouldn’t look at them, thinking they were nothing compared to the smut on my soul for having invoked that black charm Quen had taught me. I took a slow breath. What did it matter if I knew black charms? I was going to be a demon’s familiar.
“My God, Morgan,” Edden said as he put the two-way back on his belt. “Did you have to blow a hole in his wall?”
“I didn’t,” I said, focusing on the carpet three feet in front of me. “It was Quen.”
More officers clattered down the stairs and into the room, a hoard of official presences suddenly making me feel like an alien. “Rachel, Quen isn’t here.”
“Yeah,” I said, shivering violently as I looked over my shoulder at the pristine carpet. “I probably imagined it all.” The adrenaline was gone, and fatigue and nausea pulled at me. People were moving quickly around us, making me dizzy. My arm was a solid ache. I wanted my bag and the pain amulet in it, but we were moving in the wrong direction, and it looked as if someone had dropped an evidence card by it. Swell.
My mood darkened even further when a woman in an FIB uniform stopped us short by dangling my gun in front of Edden. It was in an evidence bag, and I couldn’t stop my hand from reaching out. “Hey, my splat gun,” I said, and Edden sighed, not sounding at all happy.
“Tag it,” he said, his voice laced with guilt. “Put Ms. Morgan as a positive ID.”
The woman looked almost frightened as she nodded and turned away.
“Hey,” I protested again, and Edden kept me from following her.
“Sorry, Rachel. It’s evidence.” He ran a quick look over the surrounding officers before whispering, “But thanks for leaving it where we could find it. Glenn couldn’t have downed those living vamps without it.”
“But …” I stammered, seeing the woman disappear upstairs with my splat gun. The dust was worse here, and I swallowed hard so I wouldn’t cough and make myself pass out.
“Let’s go,” Edden said, sounding tired as he tried to pull me forward. “I hate to do this, but I should get a statement from you before Piscary wakes up and presses charges.”
“Presses charges? For what?” I jerked out of his grip, refusing to move. What in hell was going on? I had just tagged the witch hunter, and I was the one being arrested?
The nearby officers were carefully listening, and Edden’s round face went even more guilty. “For assault and battery, slander, trespassing, illegal entry, malicious destruction of private property, and whatever else his pre-Turn lawyer can come up with. What did you think you were doing, coming down here and trying to kill him?”
I struggled to speak, affronted. “I didn’t kill him, though he by God deserves it. He raped Ivy to get me to come here so he could kill me because I found out he was the witch hunter!” I reached up with my good hand as if it could sooth the raw ache of my throat from the outside. “And I have a witness willing to testify that Piscary contracted it to kill the victims. Is that enough for you?”
Edden’s brow rose. “It?” He turned to look at Piscary, surrounded by nervous FIB officers until the I.S. ambulance got there. “Which it would that be?”
“You don’t want to know.” I closed my eyes. I was going to be a demon’s familiar. But I was alive. I hadn’t lost my soul. Focus on the positiv
e.
“Can I go?” I asked as I saw the first of the stairs past the hole in the wall. I had no idea how I was going to make it up all of them. Maybe if I let Edden arrest me, they would carry me up. Not waiting for his permission, I pulled away and held my arm close as I limped to the ragged hole in the wall. I had just tagged Cincinnati’s most powerful vampire as a serial murderer, and all I wanted to do was throw up.
Edden took a step to catch up, still not having answered me. “Can I at least have my boots?” I asked as I saw Gwen taking pictures of them, carefully making her way through the room, her video camera recording everything.
The FIB captain started, looking down at my feet. “You always tag master vampires in your bare feet?”
“Only when they’re in their pj’s.” I clutched the blanket around myself miserably. “Want to keep it sporting, you know.”
Edden’s round face broke into a grin. “Hey, Gwen! Knock it off,” he said loudly as he took my elbow and helped me wobble to the stairs. “This isn’t a crime scene. It’s an arrest.”
Twenty-Nine
“Hey! Here!” I shouted, sitting straighter on the hard ballpark seat and waving to get the attention of the wandering vendor. It was almost a good forty minutes before the game was scheduled to start, and though the stands were starting to fill, the vendors weren’t very attentive.
I squinted and held up four fingers as he turned, and he held up eight in return. I winced. Eight bucks for four hot dogs? I thought, passing my money down. Oh well. It wasn’t as if I had bought the tickets.
“Thanks, Rachel,” Glenn said from beside me as the paper-wrapped package hit his hand, thrown by the vendor. He set it on his lap and caught the rest since my arm was in a sling and obviously not working. He handed one to his dad and Jenks on his left. The next he gave to me, and I passed it to Nick on my other side. Nick flashed me a thin smile, immediately looking down to where the Howlers were warming up.
My shoulders slumped, and Glenn leaned closer under the excuse of unwrapping my hot dog and handing it to me. “Give him some time.”