One oath, I reasoned. One oath had to be worth saving thousands.
“I give you my word,” I whispered. “I swear to you on my magic that I will champion your people and all other demi-humans that do no harm. I will make sure that the abuses heaped upon you will be repaid sevenfold by those who abuse you.”
Volkar sat back and considered me. “Pretty words. An admirable oath. But why trust a mage; words aren’t binding to humans. To show us the depths of your dedication, we request one additional thing from you.”
I nearly groaned. Really? They’d just pulled a promise from me. I wasn’t sure how much more generous I could be with the Barbegazi. This was pushing things a little far. I hadn’t actually hurt any of them. Findlay was the one who should be giving his oath, not me.
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“When your business is done, we ask that a member of your folk will marry a non-human. Prove to us that you think of us as something that isn’t contemptible.”
My stomach dropped into my boots. They wanted a human in-law. It was going to have to be me, or possibly Dominic, in the end. Who else was going to deign to do such a thing, even in the name of change? Cat might have, once upon a time. But she had Findlay, and if all went well, she’d have her own family to think about.
I nodded stiffly. I’d lost track of the days, but it had been a few since I’d died last. I was just like Sophia; a soul clinging unnaturally to a body. A wind-up doll programmed to expire every three days, until Valerius took full control of my body and burned a hole in the world. Each breath could be my last. It would be a miracle if I lasted another week.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
Volkar’s reply was unintelligible to me, because Dom didn’t translate it. He stopped mid-sentence, mouth hanging open as he stared at me. “You can’t be serious, Nat. This isn’t reasonable. Your services maybe, but not marriage. That’s your choice.”
“People enter political marriages all the time, Dom,” I snapped. “Don’t piss them off. We can talk about this after we’ve cured the wolves and rescued Cat.”
“We can talk about this now.”
Everyone at the table watched us in uncomfortable silence. I breathed in once and pinched the bridge of my nose. I just nodded to Volkar and hoped that he would understand my meaning.
It’s a deal.
He smiled, revealing crooked teeth. I shivered. Well, he hadn’t specified that I had to marry him. So there was my silver lining.
I stormed out of the room before Dom could dictate to me again. Declan followed me closely.
“That was….interesting. Are you going to be alright?”
“No,” I huffed as Vance pushed past us. “But I don’t want to talk about it. Can you get the chopper outfitted with transportation stones? The jump is going to be too large and complicated for your magic.”
He gave me a mock salute and led out of the chamber and into a much larger space that housed the spoils of the Barbegazi’s conquest. The massive vaulted ceiling, made of ice and blue crystal, had been carved into relief sculpture and rimmed with bronze supports. A hundred strands of white Christmas lights revealed shimmering veins of quartz and gold lining the walls, half hidden by the blackened remains of some kind of wooden lattice. It took me a minute to realize it was the former library, now a burned-out shell. Guilt and anger mingled in my stomach. Thousands of years of Barbegazi culture, destroyed in order to keep me from discovering something that could ruin Lamonia’s plans. Findlay, that smug asshole. He did this, and now we were effectively teaming up with him. We had to get out of here before they discovered Sophia was his daughter.
Dom pulled me to the side before I could follow Declan around the corridor, pressing me against the charred remains of a bookshelf.
“You can’t marry one of them,” he said, rage sparking like fire in his eyes.
I wrenched my arm away from Dom’s grip easily and took a few steps back from him, baring my sharp teeth in a snarl. I was so tired of being told what to do. “You aren’t my fucking father Dom. You don’t get to approve my suitors.”
“I’m your suitor, Nat. Damn it, why would you agree to that tripe back there!”
“We can’t get out of here without their help. There are about a hundred vampires out there, Dom. Not to mention the squadron of Trust flunkies they managed to mind rape into helping them out. We owe them for the damages we’ve caused. I owe them. Plus it’s not like you and I were ever going to work out.”
The pained look on his face told me I’d hit a nerve. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, not really, but I also knew I could speak sense until I was blue in the face and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. And we didn’t have time for this conversation. He stalked away from me cursing to himself, down an icy hallway that sparkled under the torchlight.
chapter
22
“IS THAT A CANON?” DOM’S voice crackled over my silver earring, sending tingles down the shell of my ear. I resisted the urge to slap at it.
“Yup,” I drawled, popping the ‘p’ sound to annoy him. He’d been insufferable since the summit with the Barbegazi. “It’s the one I made for them, too. It seems like there should be a rule against something you’ve made being used against you.”
I’d worked with Ewan to construct the weapon and knew the sort of damage it could do. It was a shame the crazy redneck hadn’t ever seen it put to use in a warzone before he died.
I lay face-down on a jut of snowy rock, overlooking the vampire line. Lamonia’s cowardly generals had placed the fifty or so mind-rolled Trust members in the front lines, ready to use them as a human meat shield should the tide turn against them.
The only thing that kept me from being spotted and shot down was the cloak that Volkar had given me, made of white fur. I pulled the soft lining tighter around my shoulders. It felt like I was wearing a blanket.
Satisfied I’d gotten the full measure of their defenses I stood, stretched, and let the cloak fall off of my shoulders. Though no one liked it much, it was crucial that I be the one to go in first.
Gathering darkness around me like thick, velvety cloth, I jumped, falling thirty feet. The darkness solidified beneath my feet when I impacted the snow, forming a cylindrical sheet of obsidian beneath my feet. It coasted like a sled over the ice, shooting me towards the opposing forces.
It wasn’t as exhilarating as riding on a Barbegazi’s back, but the journey down the mountain still drew a bubbling laugh from me. Despite the danger, this is what I imagined skiing would be like.
The first cannonball lit the night like a comet, trailing blue and silver sparks behind it before hitting the snow feet away from me with a sizzle. I shifted my center of mass, urging my makeshift snowboard on faster before the explosion went off.
The ball burrowed deep into the snow and exploded upon contact, releasing a load of compressed earth magic within. The ground beneath the ball jutted upward, sending a row of sharp spikes hurtling fifteen feet in the air, mere feet away from where I stood. If I’d been a little slower, I’d have been impaled gut first on a spear of sharp rock.
I cursed under my breath. That cannon needed to be stopped. I was the distraction, meant to keep the vampires from noticing the line of mercenaries and Barbegazi approaching on either of their flanks. But I couldn’t distract them if I was dead.
“The next round should be air,” Dom informed me.
“Gee thanks, I didn’t remember what freaking order I arranged the shells in!” I snapped back.
People tended to underestimate the damage air could do. Because we depended on oxygen for survival, we tended to think of it as harmless. As unfortunate workers had discovered in factories around the world, compressed air could harm a person just as much, if not more, than a knife to the gut.
Ewan’s air magic was especially potent. This shell was designed to act like a thermobaric weapon. The vacuum effect alone was enough to kill. The pressure could rip a person�
�s lungs out through their mouth.
I wasn’t eager to add that to my list of gruesome deaths.
I used a stone shelf to launch myself above the oncoming cannonball just as it left the barrel. The kickback of the cannon nearly blew me off course. I managed to catch my balance mid-air and redirect myself towards the canon. Sparks leaped up from the steel as I rode it like a rail.
A grin stretched my lips when I landed in the midst of the Trust line. I kicked the obsidian disc into the gut of the vampire just yards away.
“Eat your heart out Tony Hawk,” I quipped, going for my newest weapon as the hypnotized members of the Trust trained their weapons on me.
Volkar had given me a plant that only grew in the depths of Monte Rosa. With roots stretching down to the River Lethe, just a pinch of the powdered bark could put a minotaur into a sluggish stupor. I had a plastic bag the size of a grapefruit full of it. I tossed it above my head and shot it out of the air, using my scarf like a gasmask so I wouldn’t breathe the stuff in myself.
The package exploded into a fine golden mist, landing on the upturned faces of the crowd. Fifty mages swayed on the spot, and several fell on their asses. Most of their grips had gone slack on their wands and weapons.
“Now!” I shouted, hoping my voice would carry over the unreliable earrings.
I didn’t get a chance to see if my signal had gone through. The first vampire to rush me got a muzzle-full of lead from my Beretta, tearing his jaw off. His head burst like a ripe cantaloupe, spattering his blood and grayish brain matter all over the pristine white snow. The rest of him followed suit a few seconds later, melting the snow where he’d stood.
Several more charged forward and met the same fate as the first.
I stooped to retrieve the obsidian disc, hefting it into place like a shield. Sparks flew off of its surface as one of the armed vampires shot in my direction. I rounded on him and aimed, firing off an incendiary round as the vampire blazed towards me.
His flaming corpse allowed me to witness the arrival of the cavalry.
Eight Barbegazi soared over the hill, their dustbin-sized feet carrying them through the snow with more speed and grace than Olympic skiers. They arced down toward the vampire line, silver swords and daggers drawn, vaulting six feet into the air when they reached the bottom of the hill. It was the perfect height to separate about a dozen vampire heads from their shoulders. Some of them even did flips in the air, slicing through the vampires and severing limbs upside down. They looked like murderous little garden gnomes.
I’d eliminated eight more by the time the Barbegazi arrived. Twenty down, thirty to go. Time for Declan and his bunch to do their thing.
Almost on cue, the chattering of automatic gunfire began in the distance. Dom and his faction had been instructed to creep around and hide in the nearby treeline, ascending into the higher branches for added cover.
The reading glasses I’d enchanted would work as well as any scope, and every bullet jammed into their magazines had been enchanted by yours truly. I’d need a full day’s rest after that kind of magical exertion, demon or not.
I flattened myself to the earth just in time to avoid the first hail of bullets. The vampires all around me jerked and flailed as they were hit over and over again by the magical rain of metal.
Fire and guts spewed everywhere as vampires exploded like fucking detonators all around me. A deluge of blood splattered all over my sweater, plastering it to my front.
“Guh, not again,” I complained. I wasn’t a fashionista by any stretch of the imagination, but I was getting pretty damn tired of washing vampire out of my clothes. There were some things club soda couldn’t do shit about.
A quick glance to my right showed the Barbegazi had been true to their word, despite their anger at the Trust over what happened to their sacred library. They’d erected a barrier of ice around the mages and kept the ricocheting bullets from accidentally spilling human blood.
The battle finished in about fifteen minutes, tops. I didn’t dare raise my head until the last shot echoed across the flat expanse of snow.
When I finally determined the carnage to be over, the field all around us was coated in so much gore it looked like a lake of blood. The top layer of snow had soaked up most of the pulped vampire to make the world’s largest and grossest snow cone. I licked my lips involuntarily. Valerius was enjoying this far too much.
Rapid footfalls approached and I raised my head just in time to see Dom and Declan race toward me, doffing the makeshift scopes. Gashes left by vampire claws raked across my chest and thigh, but I didn’t bleed much without a heart. I holstered my pistols and slid the shield behind me.
“So,” I drawled lightly. “Did we win?”
chapter
23
ELLE HURTLED AT ME LIKE a skinny, dark-haired bullet.
“Natalia!” she squealed, squeezing my middle as though a treat might pop out of me. It was lucky I was dead, because the world’s cutest mad scientist seemed determined to squeeze the life out of me.
“Down girl,” I said, though I couldn’t help but laugh. To say I’d had a rough few days would be the understatement of the century, so it was a relief to see her face again. She looked a little haggard, but a bright smile eased most of the weariness from her face. I smoothed her hair back from her forehead, searching her profile for bruising. Declan had informed me before the battle that the crossing to Europe had been far from smooth. Some sort of debacle had gone on at a border check. Aside from a shiny pink burn on her right hand, Elle appeared mostly intact.
“Declan told me you’d arrived, but I wasn’t sure if he was lying to keep my spirits up. It’s been a long week.”
The statement resonated in my bones. This had been the longest, most trying week in my existence, and it wasn’t even over yet.
“Well we’re here. Declan told us you’d finally cracked the case. Way to go, kiddo.”
Elle stuck her tongue out at me. “I’m not that much younger than you, Nat. And I think my undisputed genius should boost my maturity by at least a decade. So I’m probably older than you in some senses.”
The statement rankled because it was true. Compared to Elle, I was swimming in the shallow end of the intellect pool. God or fate had seen fit to make me savvy and street smart, not a scientist.
“How’d you come up with the idea?” I asked, letting my hand drop to the small of her back. Together we sidled for the corridor that led to the stone antechamber. The rest of my friends and family were camped out there.
Elle held up her burnt thumb. It was puckered and shiny under the dim phosphorescence exuding from the nearby geodes.
“Declan took most of the attack meant for me. One of the vampires enthralled a Trust guard at the French border. And he came at us with a flamethrower. I sustained a third-degree burn on my hand. I was pretty sure I was going to lose my arm, but when the Barbegazi allowed us into their stronghold one of their healers applied a floral paste and it healed right up.”
She rubbed the tight, pink flesh of her healing thumb against her wrist thoughtfully. “I asked if the juice had ever been used for illness or infection. The healer told me that it’s the most common use for it. So I did a few experiments and voila. The cure was born.”
She made it sound simple, as though any mundane human could combine science and magic to create a miracle.
I pulled her into my side and squeezed her tight. “You’re amazing and I’m so glad I didn’t kill you.”
She let out a half-hysterical bark of laughter. “Yeah, I am too.”
We emerged into the stone antechamber. The guttural sound of a tiny German swearing met my ears first.
“Nein! Back you scaly brute!”
A huge grin split my face as Horst sprinted into view, going as fast as his tiny legs would take him. The long shadow of a winged creature fell over him and the house spirit brandished a ballpoint pen, flattening his cap as he prepared for the miniature dra
gon’s attack.
I pushed two fingers into my mouth and gave a sharp whistle, startling both demi-humans. Halcyon banked the moment he caught sight of me, abandoning his playful pursuit of Horst in favor of gliding over to me. I half-expected him to balk when he sensed Valerius within me. Almost every demi I’d met had an adverse reaction to the demon.
I swallowed hard, throat constricting painfully as I considered the possibility of losing my two housemates forever.
Halcyon slowed a fraction, but didn’t fly away, which I considered promising. In the end the baby dragon was too young or too fearless to let something like a demon keep him from one of his possessions. His warm weight settled on my shoulder and one leathery wing batted the side of my face in an inept, reptilian hug.
Unexpected tears stung my eyes as I stroked a spot just behind his ears. “I missed you too, buddy.”
Halcyon let out a small brassy cry of greeting before burrowing into my hair, curling his tail around my throat like a scaled copper necklace. I glanced down at Horst, who’d backed a few steps away from me, eyes guarded, his fingers crooked in a prime position to hex me.
“It’s just me, Horst.”
“Not just you, fraulein. There’s something else there too, and that is what I do not trust.”
I couldn’t blame him. I barely understood or trusted Valerius myself. For the time being I was stuck with him.
I knelt, offering Horst my open palm. “Can I get a hello, at least?”
Horst regarded the hand warily, as though he was afraid I’d crush him. He finally stepped onto my palm and I lifted him up to eye-level.
He patted his hand gently against the side of my face. It was the most affection I’d ever been able to wrest from the curmudgeonly house spirit. “I am glad you have returned safely, fraulein. Someone must muzzle the winged beast.”
I smirked. The little guy would never admit it, but I was pretty sure he actually cared about me.
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