Page of Swords (The Demon's Apprentice Book 2)

by Ben Reeder

  “I need to get back to the cars before they do!” I cried out as I ran into the cover of the trees.

  Without a sound, eight wolves turned and headed into the brush in different directions, and Shade looked over her shoulder at me with glowing gold eyes, then took off at a run. I followed her, blessing every inch of pavement Dr. C had made me cover in my morning runs. The path she led me on wasn’t the straightest, but it was the smoothest and I figured the fastest.

  I heard a few of the Sentinels crashing through the brush behind me, and a couple of paintballs zipped through the woods somewhere to my right. Amid the shouting and curses from the Sentinels, I could also swear I heard someone laughing. Finally, I heard their voices fade behind me. When I looked over my shoulder for signs of pursuit, I saw the bobbing beams of a dozen flashlights moving along the road. A hill loomed in front of me, and while it was going to try to kick my ass, it probably took half a mile off our route back to the cars.

  Shade barked as she leaped a barbed wire fence, and I put my hand on one of the thick wooden posts and vaulted over it without half the grace of her jump. I hit the ground and found myself on the edge of an open field. With no trees to dodge, I could really open my stride and just flat run. Shade matched my stride, and the pack came out of the trees like so many lupine ghosts on my right and left. They formed up in a loose group around us, four in front, and two to either side, with Junkyard bounding along beside me with his tongue hanging out like a doggy grin. My lungs were burning and my legs felt like so much lead, but I caught my second wind about halfway across the field. I only saw the next fence as the pack vaulted over it. This one had the narrow steel posts that I couldn’t vault over, so I had to slip between the strands. Junkyard just belly crawled under the bottom strand and waited for me, then turned and sprinted into the brush behind Shade.

  We broke from cover a few minutes later, and I could see the parking lot about thirty yards ahead. Beside me, Shade started changing, her arms and legs elongating and her torso shifting to its normal shape. Her stride became a sort of front to back leg bound for a few steps until she went to her back feet and completed the changed from her hybrid form to human. The rest of the pack was changing as well, and by the time we hit the asphalt, they were running barefoot and naked. I tried to look away and spare Shade’s modesty while I caught my breath, but she took advantage of the gesture to ambush me.

  One moment, I was trying not to look at the naked girl five feet away from me, and the next, all five feet five of her was pressed up against me, and she had her mouth glued to mine. My arms listened to my monkey brain, and wrapped around her. She put one leg around my waist as I pulled her close, and dropped her hand to my ass. Not one to waste the moment, I let my hands run down her back, then brought my left hand up to wrap in her hair. It took a little effort to pull her mouth from mine, but as soon as I got my teeth on her neck, she arched her back and gasped. The soft sound of pleasure that she uttered cracked my concentration, but I pulled away after a few more seconds.

  “God you’re hot,” I panted in her hear. “But we need to stay on target.”

  Our hands came away from each other’s butt cheeks at the same time, and she took a step back, then shook her head. I damned the darkness for hiding her from me, then slapped monkey brain down. I had a friend to rescue.

  The good-natured chuckles of the rest of the pack followed me as I went to Dr. C’s Range Rover and opened the passenger door. Junkyard got in obediently, then turned around. He accepted the few affectionate strokes I could spare, then sat down like he expected to stay there.

  “Good boy,” I whispered, “Stay with Dr. C for now.”

  He made a sound in the back of his throat and cocked his head a little as I closed the door.

  I had to force myself to head over to Steve’s bike. Lucas waited with him, my backpack on his back and a duffle bag in his hand. Steve wore a blue leather jacket, jeans, and a black t-shirt with a red Love N’ Chains logo on it. He hefted a thick metal bar as I came up and offered me a hungry grin.

  “I see you found a stick you won’t break,” I said. He hefted it and nodded.

  “Yeah, it just gets all bendy if I hit stuff too hard.”

  “Guess you’re gonna have to make do with smackin’ on vampires then. Did you get everything?” I asked Lucas.

  He reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a bag of cinnamon candies.

  “Yup. I even brought your Scooby snacks,” he said as he tossed the bag to me.

  “Thanks, Shaggy,” I said as I turned and headed for the dark shape that lurked behind a park sign. “I brought something for you, too.”

  I pulled the tarp away to reveal the black sports car that had been parked in front of Dr. C’s place the night before. His jaw dropped, and if his eyes could have popped out of his head like in the cartoons, I think they would have. As he gawked and made sounds like speech, I lifted the door open and pulled the keys out of the ignition to dangle them in front of him.

  “Who’s your best friend?”

  “Wanda. You, man, are a GOD!” he shouted as he snatched them from my hand.

  From down the road, I saw the beams of the Sentinels’ flashlights.

  “Get in the car, and drive it like you stole it.” I didn’t have to tell him twice. I heard the whine of the pack’s bikes starting up as I lifted my door, and the low cough of Steve’s BMW. He pulled his bike over to Lucas’s side of the car and hefted the bat.

  “You want me to keep them from following us?” he asked over the top of the car with a smile.

  “No. We actually need them.”

  Shade pulled up on next to me and gave me a lingering look.

  “I’m glad you’re with me tonight,” I told her.

  “So am I. Be careful.”

  I answered her with a quick kiss. “Don’t know how. It’s why you like me.”

  She put her helmet on and leaned over the handlebars, then gunned the bike.

  I dropped into the McLaren’s seat and pulled the door down. Lucas laid down a layer of rubber before the tires got traction, and the car shot forward with a deep-throated roar. He passed Shade in under a minute, and took the first turn tight and hard.

  “This,” he said as he sped into the next turn, “I can do.” His bruised face was a mask of determination as we headed for Ozark.

  “How fast can you get me back to New Essex?” I asked him as I checked the clock on the dashboard. It was after ten thirty.

  “In this thing? Under an hour, if I don’t care about losing my license.”

  “Do you?” I asked as we blazed through the first little town.

  “Not as much as I care about Wanda. There’s Gatorade in the bag, and some snacks. You always eat like a horse after you do magick, so I figured you’d want to stock up. Now do me a favor and shut up so I can drive.”

  I shut up and grabbed the bottle of Gatorade.

  We blazed through two more towns in as many minutes before we hit Ozark. Lucas slowed down to the speed limit while we drove through the little town, but as soon as we hit the onramp to Highway 65, I heard the engine growl and felt the acceleration press me back into the seat. As the speedometer topped one hundred, we saw the first blue strobes light up our rear window. I looked back through the rear window and saw four sets of lights. Traffic slowed and pulled over ahead of them, and Lucas shot me a disbelieving look.

  “Cops? Already? What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Keep going. Those aren’t cops. Not real cops, anyway. That’s the Sentinels. Just keep them in your rear view mirror. I don’t want to lose them.”

  He nodded and gave the car more gas. Even in the fast lane, we had to weave around slower cars to keep from losing speed. Still, Lucas slowed down if he couldn’t pass safely. It kept the Sentinels on our tail, but it was too close for comfort. I left the driving to Lucas as I got ready for the rest of the night’s fun.

  When we hit Route 44, Lucas darted into the far left lane and pressed the peda
l down all the way, and the needle climbed toward the two hundred mark. I glanced at the dash clock. Between the delay at Dr. Corwyn’s, the trip to Blue Hole and the walk to the creek, I’d lost most of the night. The blue numbers jumped to eleven oh eight as we hit the halfway mark between Springfield and New Essex.

  “Dude, you’re not gonna be able to save Wanda and get the sword back in time,” Lucas said as it hit eleven fifteen. We were still fifteen miles from New Essex, but not even a speed machine like the McLaren could get across New Essex in under half an hour.

  “Shut up and drive,” I told him.

  “Uh-oh,” he said a couple of minutes later.

  I looked ahead to see a trio of cars backing up behind a pair of semis. The cars were in the right lane, and it looked like one of the eighteen-wheelers was trying to stay even with the other.

  “Do those mage cops have CB radios?” he asked.

  “Probably. Why?”

  “They’re getting the semis to set up a rolling road block.”

  As if to confirm what he was saying, blue lights lit up the rear window again, this time only fifty yards behind us. Between the cars and the semis, we were effectively blocked in with the Sentinels behind us. My heart sank as the first sign for our exit slid by overhead.

  My disappointment only lasted for a moment, until a black sport bike sped past us and shot between the two eighteen-wheelers, then pulled in front of the one on the right. Brake lights lit up on the back of the truck, even as we passed the one-mile marker for our exit. The truck on the left slowed down before a gap opened between the other cab and the rear of his trailer. We slowed down to almost forty-five miles an hour, and Lucas cursed.

  “Damn it!” I added. “We’re not gonna make it!”

  Lucas reached down and flipped a switch on the dash. The roof of the car lifted up and back, and I looked at him as we pulled up beside the right hand semi, a heavy-duty log hauler with three large trees supporting themselves between the front and rear wheels.

  “Yes we are!” he said over the wind and freeway noise. “Hang on . . . and get ready to take out the barrier!”

  He sped up, and the pack fell in behind us, cutting off the lead Sentinel. We pulled up beside the semi on the right, and the left-hand truck’s brake lights came on. Lucas looked to the right, then up ahead, and I watched his hands tense on the wheel. I gripped my wand and wondered what he was about to do.

  He turned to me and yelled, “Duck!”

  My head dropped instinctively, and he hit the gas. When we were near the front of the trailer, he yanked the wheel to the right and we slid under the heavy trunks. There was a scraping sound and bark flew from the top of the windshield as I watched Shade lean down over her handlebars and follow us.

  Then the yellow crash barriers were looming in front of us, and I put my wand over the windshield and cried, “Ictus latior!”

  The wave of force slammed into the barrels and sent water spraying into the air as they collapsed like they were supposed to. We caught air as we came off the edge of the road, and the front end of the McLaren clipped one of the flattened barrels and sent it bouncing back toward the freeway to bounce off the side of the semi. I looked over my shoulder to see the rest of the pack and Donovan slipping between the slowing cars to hit the offramp behind us.

  Meanwhile, the Sentinels were forced to keep going by the traffic that had backed up behind them. Dr. C’s Range Rover was at the rear of the line of vehicles, and came to a stop at the top of the overpass with Cross and T-Bone bracketing him. Lucas hit the bottom of the ramp and slid to a stop at the light. He looked left and right as I watched Dr. C get out of his truck and go to the rail. Lucas gunned the McLaren through the intersection, and Dr. C gave me a thumbs-up. Then we were zooming under the freeway and headed for Inferno with Shade and the pack behind us. Seconds later, the flashing blue lights of the Sentinels’ vehicles came into view.

  “Good thing you didn’t want to lose these guys,” Lucas joked as we sped down the street.

  In town, the McLaren’s advantage in speed was lost, and it looked like they were going to catch up to us in a few seconds.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t count on them being up our ass when we got to Inferno,” I told him as I grabbed the sword belt. “I wanted you to just drop me off and drive away. I needed to be inside when they showed up.”

  “Yeah, how’s that workin’ for ya?” he said. “Because I don’t think that’s happening.”

  One of the Crown Victorias pulled up alongside us on Lucas’ side, and another was sliding up on mine.

  “I think you’re right,” I agreed.

  “You just need to be inside, right?” Lucas asked. “Because, you know, I’ve already taken a couple of insane risks tonight, so I figure, hey, what’s one more?”

  “Luuucaaas!” I yelled as he hit the gas again.

  The two Sentinels fell behind as he skidded through the left turn, then yanked the wheel back to the right and gunned it again. We went airborne for the second time that night when he hit the angled entrance, then bounced hard on the asphalt. He stomped on the brakes and yanked the wheel to the left less than twenty feet from the side of the club. I barely had enough time to aim a TK blast at the front window before we slammed into it.

  I got fleeting glimpses of tables and chairs flying as we spun across the floor. When the McLaren finally came to a stop, there was a ring of pissed-off vampires in a ragged circle around us. To my left, Lucas had a death grip on the wheel as he took deep breaths. Off to my right, I could see Shade and the boys sprinting across the lot as the blue Crown Vics screeched to a stop outside the hole we’d made. And in front of me, a crowd of vampires were closing in for a snack.

  Gone was their human look. Their gray skin was drawn tight against their faces, making the strange jaw structure stand out, and their arms and legs were all bony and misshapen as they took on the appearance of the dead things they really were. The young ones were the most dangerous, because they barely had control of their blood-thirst at the best of times. In a fight, they’d lose control and suck you dry faster than a six year old with a juice box.

  Above them I could see the long row of angled floor-to-ceiling windows of an office. Standing in it was a vampire in a business suit. He glared down at me, and his lips curled away from his fangs in a snarl. I wasn’t sure if it was the long hair that brushed his shoulders in perfect curls or the face that was more pretty than handsome that made me sure that this was Etienne. All I was certain of was that he and I were going to see each other up close and personal before the end of the night, and that one of us wasn’t going to walk away. He turned away and slid his jacket off his shoulders, leaving me to face the closing ring of his minions.

  My brilliant plan was shot to all Nine Hells. I hadn’t counted on Lucas being inside with me, and I hadn’t counted on the vampires and the Sentinels seeing each other until after I was already inside. It was time to improvise. I tossed the duffel bag to Lucas, then popped the door and climbed to my feet. As the crowd of bloodsucking fiends closed in on me, I pointed to the fourteen blue robed magi gathering at the new door we’d made. Inhuman faces turned to look where I was pointing.

  “It’s the Sentinels!” I called out. “They’re here to stop you!”

  Surprisingly, a fight broke out.

  Chapter 21

  ~ Fight dirty. Fight to win. ~ TS Cross, Left Hand of Death

  There is a reason warlocks fear Sentinels. Mostly, because they’re badasses. Dozens of vampires swarmed fourteen Sentinels. Half of them died before they could get close. The girl with the ponytail brought her hand up, and a red beam lanced from her fingertip. She swept her hand in a narrow arc, and four fiery vampire heads fell to the ground. It was kind of moot, because their bodies burst into flame, too. The biggest Sentinel, Carter, pushed his hand out and knocked several of them sprawling as the boom of magickally compressed air flattened them like a cannon. Another one thrust his hands forward, and an arc of electricity jumped from him to
one of the vampires, then to two more before it died out and left three smoking bodies in its wake. Then they were on them, and the Sentinels drew the ankhs from their belts and got down to some serious vampire slaughter.

  Lucas and I saw this in the split second before we bolted for the bar. Then we had vampires of our own to deal with. The first one made a flying leap at us from behind the bar, fangs bared and claws out. I nailed him with a wide TK blast and sent him back over the bar. Three more of his buddies hopped up on the bar and crouched for a jump of their own. That was when Lucas got his first licks in.

  One of the goodies he’d pulled from the duffel bag was the watergun filled with true blessed-on-consecrated-ground holy water. For younger vampires, it was like getting hosed down with sulfuric acid that was on fire. If they’d been older than a few decades, it might not have worked, but these guys were new enough, they were still wearing this year’s clothes. One of the benefits of having a normal childhood, it seemed, was being pretty damn accurate with a watergun, because Lucas hit all three of them in the face with one steady stream. Hey, if you’re gonna douse someone with flaming acid, that’s the place to light up. As if that wasn’t enough, he arced it back across their torsos, too. They lit up and did the natural thing: they jumped back, away from the deadly stream . . . right into the bottles of flammable liquor. Fire, along with either a stake through the heart or decapitation, was one of best ways to kill a young vampire.

  As the bar exploded, I grabbed Lucas and shoved him down under my body until the bits of flaming glass stopped raining down on us.

  “Damn!” Lucas said when I let him up.

  “Congratulations on your first arson!” I called out over the sound of the fight. “At least this one isn’t all my fault!”

  I heard the hollow thunk! of metal on flesh and bone, and a vampire hit the floor like a wet rag and slid past us. A quick glance over my shoulder let me see Steve, Shade, and the rest of the pack fighting their way toward us. The Sentinels weren’t far behind, but catching me seemed to be further down on their “to-do” list than staying alive.