I staggered up from my seated position and stumbled down the hall, heading towards the private room at the back of the plane as fast as my legs would carry me. I had to get out of here before I shot a hole in the bulkhead and sent us all plummeting to a fiery death 50,000 below.
Brushing past the thick, velvety curtain that separated first class from coach, I slumped into the first chair that I could find, drawing my knees up to my chest.
It was all my fault.
If I’d remained dutifully serving the Trust, Ewan would have been too cowardly to step outside the bounds of their sphere of influence. Cat’s bill to help the demi-humans might have passed and I wouldn’t have been forced to marry one of them when this was all over.
A small snort of laughter escaped me. My chances of making it to any kind of altar, no matter who was waiting for me at the end of it, were slim at best. Ewan was just as strong as I was, but now armed with an arsenal of weapons last wielded by the strongest magical bruiser in all of Greek history.
I was going to be slaughtered.
A knock on the doorframe made me sit up straighter. I leaned over and grabbed an abandoned neck pillow and readied it to lob at the newcomer. I wasn’t in the mood for company.
“Go away.”
“Nat, it’s just me.” Dom’s voice filtered through the curtains. “Can I come in?”
I hesitated, clutching my knees more tightly than before. Dom was the least objectionable company on this plane, but I still wasn’t sure I wanted to see him.
“I won’t shoot you,” I said flatly. At this point, it was the best I could offer.
Dom emerged from behind the curtain, hair mussed, dark eyes immediately searching my face. A small frown tugged down the corners of his full mouth.
“You left pretty quickly,” he noted, settling into the checkered gray seat in the aisle across from mine. “Don’t listen to Saunders. He’s trying to get into your head before the death match. You have to know that. None of this is accidental. Riling you up at the museum, his off-handed casual barbs. It’s psychological warfare 101. You’re holding back, waiting till you get in the arena—but for him, the battle has already started.”
“Don’t you get it?” I said. “This whole thing was a bluff to buy us some time. I never planned on facing him, for real. If we actually make it to Mictlan, we’re going to leave him there somehow, duel or no duel. But he can’t know that.”
Dom’s eyes widened and he breathed in a deep sigh.
“Thank God, Nat.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
I held up a hand to cut him off.
“But he’s right. I knew better than to join up with Landon. If I’d never gone outside of the Trust, none of this would have happened. Cat and Findlay would be married and disgustingly happy. Sienna would be alive, and you and I…”
Where would Dom and I have been? Married? Would we have a kid already? I’d never considered myself the maternal sort. But my strong gut reaction to my niece Sophia had proved the urge was buried in me somewhere deep down.
Dom shook his head.
“That’s a crock of shit. Ewan would still have found new ways to hurt people. Findlay would still have gone to my Uncle Fabian to create the homunculus body for Sophia. And by that token, the vampires would still have owned his loyalty. He would still have killed Sienna to start his assault on House Grieves. You changed the when, not the how or why, Nat.”
Somehow the logical way he laid it out only succeeded in making me feel worse.
“But I’m still responsible. I haven’t even told you the worst of it; Lamonia was keeping Ewan in check with regular blooding. When I killed him, Bryne was so eager to be free she literally exploded. So you see, I killed the wolves. I freed Ewan and Bryne.
“You couldn’t have known,” Dom said, reaching for my hand.
I smiled sadly.
“Lamonia told me, or he may as well have. He said he had a failsafe. I killed him anyway.”
“Well as long as we’re wallowing in self-pity and blame, if I hadn’t pushed you away, if I hadn’t told the Trust about your moonlighting gigs, none of this would be happening. And if you want to get technical, I didn’t see or stop Findlay or Saunders. They’d both been turned. I was so caught up feeling guilty about what I did to you, I could barely tie my shoelaces.”
“You can’t know that,” I sighed.
Dom shrugged.
“And neither could you,” he finished. “So let’s stop blaming ourselves for things that we couldn’t control. Now… what’s really bothering you?”
I took a deep breath, lowering my voice.
“I don’t know if I can win this, Dom,” I whispered. The words came tumbling out of my mouth, as though I’d just been waiting for his prompting. The vice-like fear that clutched my chest loosened as I confessed it to a willing audience of one.
“You’ve faced worse, Nat. I watched you and Valerius dismantle House Lamonia with very little effort. Algerone and his ilk have been walking the earth for millennia. I mean, you’ve always been fast and fierce, which made you dangerously underestimated. But the things I’ve seen you do recently… don’t count yourself out of this fight just yet.”
“But what if that’s what I’m afraid of. Ewan’s a psychopath because he has no empathy, because he’s capable of pure malice and violence, devoid or humanity. I might be dark, but I’m not… like that. But what if, to beat him, I need to become him? All my life, I’ve been holding in my worst tendencies, and it’s not just my Catholic upbringing, my judgmental sister or the broodingly moral Tempest as my moral compass. What if, to beat Ewan, I have to let it all out.”
Dom reached across the space between us to wipe away one stray tear that had fought its way free of my careful control. “You’ll never be a monster, Nat. I don’t care what’s inside you, or what you’ve done. You’ll never be one. Do you know how I know?”
“How?” I whispered.
“Because you still care. It’s a sure sign you’re not as far gone as you think.”
A small, lopsided smile curled my lips. Despite everything, the sentiment touched something in me.
“You just can’t help but be a decent person, can you?”
“You don’t have to go through with this, you know,” he said, brushing a strand of hair behind my ears.
“So what, we’ll just hang out on a beach in Mexico, sipping margaritas waiting for the end of the world?”
“I can think of worse ways to spend my last few days on earth.”
I ran my fingertips over his lips gently.
“There’s know one else who can stop him. I have to at least try.”
“I know,” Dom nodded. “But you don’t have to do it alone. How’s this for a fall back plan: even if we can’t actually get to Mictlan, your plan is gathering our old team. If we fight Ewan together, we might have a chance.”
“Iron Heart, the Phantom, The Queen of Hell and the Tempest, teaming up against Nature’s Fist to save the world? Sounds like a bad movie.”
“I’ll bring the popcorn,” Dom said. “It’s about time I took you on a proper date.”
“You don’t need to seduce me to get me in bed,” I said huskily.
Before he could attempt to deny it or formulate a response I leaned across the aisle, seized his lapel and tugged him out of his seat. He ended up half-sprawled on top of me, and our lips locked in a firm clash of teeth and tongues.
And that was the last we spoke for the rest of the flight.
chapter
8
STEPPING FROM THE COOL INTERIOR of the plane onto the remote Mexican airstrip was like entering a sauna. Heat pressed into me, seeming to pervade even the air I breathed. A hot, heavy weight settled in my chest. My skin felt sticky and a latent, barely-there curl I’d inherited from my abuela threatened to spring into action, called forth by the climate of my ancestral
home.
“Christ,” Findlay muttered. “The humidity is insane.”
“And it’s a blistering one hundred and five on the ground,” I announced with a hint of manic cheer. “But not to worry. We still have giant mosquitos, jaguars, and deadly snakes to look forward to if the heat doesn’t get you down.”
The pilot stood a little way off, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. He was a short, Asian man with a twitch in one cheek and a balding pate. I’d expected him to take off the second our boots hit the tarmac. I’d gotten a bad feeling when he’d followed us from the plane and his greasy smile pretty much confirmed my suspicions. He wanted to squeeze us and see if any more cash fell out.
“Before you go, there’s still the matter of my fee.” He had a rather oily voice that instantly set my teeth on edge. He reminded me viscerally of the scammers who used to call my grandparents on the weekends.
“Fee?” Findlay spluttered. “We paid you fifty grand!”
“For the flight over. I’m gonna need a little more to keep my mouth shut. There are a lot of agencies looking for you. Any one of them would pay me for the information”
Ewan shoved a hand into his pocket and produced a lighter a few seconds later. He flicked it open with a deft twist of the wrist and a flame cascaded from its tip into Ewan’s palm. He closed his fist around it and the fire spread until the flames licked his elbow.
“You’ll keep your trap shut and I won’t be inclined to turn you into Korean barbeque.”
“I’m Ch-Chinese,” the man said faintly. “And you won’t get away with that. I’ve got the police on speed dial. They’ll catch you.”
Ewan’s smile was a grim slash of satisfaction in the shadow of the plane. The reflective strip lighting caught his new fangs as he flashed them at the nervous pilot, who visibly paled.
“They’ll get a lovely rendition of your screams as you crisp, then.”
I stepped in front of the man before Ewan could make good on his threat. Now that his mask had slipped, he seemed inclined to kill for any reason, up to and including mild inconvenience.
“Besides,” Dom chimed in, cutting across the pilot as he opened his mouth to answer. “We’ll just tell them the truth.”
Dom wiped his brow with a shirt sleeve. The black coat was entirely inappropriate for the heat but he’d decided to wear it anyway. Now that he’d had it enchanted, it was too useful as a walking arsenal to abandon.
“The truth?”
“That you aided and abetted us. You escorted a dead man, a missing Trust executive, and two traitors over international boundary lines, knowing full well our intent to breach the territory of a sovereign supernatural power.”
I tapped my chin thoughtfully, catching on to Dom’s game.
“What’s the penalty for that? Life imprisonment?”
“Depends on the nation. In the U.S. it’s likely twenty to life. In Greece, it’s a definite life sentence, plus a fine.”
“Ah, right.”
The pilot was pouring sweat, and the twitch in his cheek vibrated his burgeoning double chin.
“I need to go.”
“Excellent plan,” I chirped with patently false sweetness. “We’ll forget we ever saw each other, right?”
He forced a shaky laugh and tried for a stab at humor. “Who are you guys again?”
I was ready to turn away when I got a flash of something in my periphery. I lunged at our pilot, taking the only civilian to the ground purely on reflex.
My gut reaction proved wise when a gunshot split the air, whizzing past where I’d been standing only moments previously. Sparks flew as the bullet ricocheted off of the plane and onto the scorching tarmac.
The pilot let out a terrified squeak and tried to scramble to his feet. I pinned him in place with my legs, hoisting myself into a semi-crouched position above him.
Grabbing the pilot by the scruff of his tan uniform, I dragged him behind the nearest wheel.
“Don’t move,” I hissed.
“But—”
An actual snarl escaped my chest. The pilot shrank back against the wheel with a whimper. “If you want to live to extort another customer, you will park your ass right here,” I growled.
I didn’t wait to see if he’d listen to me. Snapping the strap off my holster, I drew my CZ-75 and spider-crawled my way across the tarmac toward the source of the gunfire. From this vantage point, I could make out a crowd of footwear behind the plane. I knew immediately which side contained my allies. Ewan’s spurs were an unmistakable beacon of irritating familiarity. I’d never seen him wear anything but those damned boots.
The other side mostly consisted of heavy combat boots, which was utterly unhelpful. We could be facing anything from terrorists to a squadron of military personal, come to drag us in.
I needed to know what we were dealing with. I’d approach the situation differently if it were plain vanilla mortals out there versus, say, a group of Trust mooks here to drag us off to a timely execution. After the destruction of Wolf Isle, I was probably #1 on a handful of most-wanted lists.
I extended my aura cautiously and flinched at the amount I could now perceive. With Valerius’ power piggybacking on mine, I could sense the magic radiating off of the nearby Yucatan Peninsula like a distant heat haze. I could also feel the sucking void that lay just before me, dragging at my magic like a black hole, ready to consume me whole.
Vampires.
I reached the edge of the plane cautiously and poked my head out to gauge their numbers. At least sixteen blood suckers, no doubt leftovers from house Lamonia, out for revenge on their master; although I hadn’t parted on good terms with Graves either. I was surprised to see them out in broad daylight, but their wide-brimmed explorer hats kept them mostly protected. Even so, they stuck near the edge of the tarmac under the thick jungle foliage, forming a loose formation around my friends and enemy, caging them against the plane. No one had been hit yet, but it was only a matter of time.
Shrouding myself with Valerius’ demonic shadow, I wormed my way behind them and straightened. Someone had to break their line, and as I hadn’t been spotted yet…
Sprinting forward, I took the first vampire completely by surprise, pinning him to the ground and twisting his head to the side. His neck snapped like a twig, and his body went limp. Sliding my arms under his shoulders, I hefted him as a makeshift shield and charged the rest.
From their military gear and training, these had to be grunts from House Grieves. I should probably have been surprised we hadn’t seen more of them. I’d shot and nearly killed their leader, Barabbas Grieves, in the Paris catacombs when he attempted to murder my recently discovered niece. Even knowing that I’d flipped one of the most bloodthirsty vampire houses the bird, I still couldn’t bring myself to regret the decision.
Extending an arm around my vampire shield, I took aim at the nearest and fired. The engraved runes on my pistol lit up before unleashing a devastating blast. The stocky female vampire spasmed once and then erupted into a fountain of gore, splattering her fellows. Two more followed suit, bursting like overripe fruit as my bullets found their marks.
For several confused seconds, the vampires scattered, unsure why their comrade appeared to be shooting at them. They recovered quickly, turning to aim at me. I managed to get a few more rounds off, taking out the vampires in the middle before they returned fire.
My vampire shield jerked, absorbing most of the fire aimed at me. A lucky shot must have grazed his heart because a few seconds later his body dissolved into soupy goo and slid down my front. I frowned as blood dripped past my short shorts and onto my bare legs. I was just getting used to this outfit.
The distraction afforded my allies time to regroup. A jet of flame about the size and shape of a bowling ball hurtled toward the remaining vampires, lighting them ablaze. They scattered in every direction, running across the weed-filled tarmac like torches. Two died instantly, and a third, who’d attempted to douse hi
mself in a puddle of stagnant swamp water, was dispatched with a well-placed shot by Dom.
The remaining vampires barely had time to react before Ewan pulled water from the puddle, shaping it into a blade. I knew what he’d do a second before he unleashed his attack. I flattened myself to the blistering tarmac, rolling out of the inevitable splash zone.
People tend to underestimate water as a destructive force. At high enough pressure, water can peel through skin as well as any knife. The crescent-shaped scythe that Ewan hurled at them spun like a blender blade, chopping very effectively through vampire necks as it made contact.
Heads popped like champagne corks and an instant later, blood and viscera dropped to the ground, spattering the hot tarmac with a sizzle.
I straightened and took stock of the situation, stomach rolling at the feel of vampire blood all over my blouse. If I ever got out of this alive, perhaps I should put some thought into a cleaning spell that would get out the gore of battle.
“Jesus,” I muttered, taking stock of the field. “It looks like Jason Voorhees threw a party out here.”
I felt a prickle of unease deep in the pit of my stomach. Ewan had made short work out of at least a dozen vampires. There wasn’t a square inch of the tarmac that hadn’t been stained with blood. Even the plane hadn’t been spared. The pilot was nearly apoplectic, and was giving Findlay an earful. Apparently he’d decided not to heed my warning after all.
I half slid over to Dom’s side, glancing warily around at our surroundings.
“We need to go. Even if this is a private airfield, there’s no way that the locals wouldn’t have heard the gunfire. This place will be swarming with dodgy cops and militia soon. And if the vamps found us, the Trust won’t be far behind. We don’t want to be here when that happens.”
Dom nodded in agreement.
“Let’s get this dog and pony show on the road,” he shouted over the bickering.
“Findlay, give him an extra grand and let’s go.”
Findlay shot the pilot one withering glance before he reached into his pocket, pulling out a fistful of bills. He stuffed them into the pilot’s hand and turned away, falling into step with us a few seconds later.
Agent of Magic Box Set Page 49