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

by Ben Reeder

  Through the boiling mass of combat, I saw Deek’s face still at the hole in the wall, outside and watching as my friends fought their way to me.

  I pulled the paintball gun, checked to make sure I had the hopper with red tape on it and pointed at the knot of vamps surrounding Shade and Steve. Lucas got the idea and pumped up the water gun, then gave me a nod. I aimed left and pumped a couple of rounds from the Ariakon into two vampires in sport coats and slacks. The red paintballs were supposed to be filled with an incendiary, but when the rounds hit, the two vampires’ chests just disappeared. They fell in two pieces and started to wither. Lucas had doused four more with the holy water, and they were busy writhing in pain on the floor while Steve made short work of the two that were still between us and the pack with a swing from his club that sent them flying for the far wall, and into the group of vampires that had emerged from behind the club’s stage.

  “Man, you know how to make an entrance,” Steve said with a grin as he made it to us.

  “Yeah, it’s the exit I need to work on,” I said as the rest of the pack joined us.

  I turned to head for the door behind the bar, and found another half-dozen vampires coming out of it. Lucas screamed and soaked the first one in holy water, then turned the water gun on the second one. The water gun gave a spurt of mostly air and spat a few drops, then went dry. I hit the second one with a paintball, but the next one landed on me and knocked me flat. The Ariakon and my wand went spinning, and it was all I could do to get my forearm against the vamp’s throat before he ripped mine out. I fumbled with my right hand for the LeMat as he grabbed my shoulders and pulled, trying to overcome leverage with sheer inhuman strength. Just when I thought my arm was going to break or my shoulder was going to pop out of its socket, the pressure on my arm disappeared, and the vamp screamed. Then he got pulled off of me, and I saw Shade hurl his armless body into the group that was running at her.

  She leaped on the nearest one as Steve waded into them with his club flying. As she twisted the head off one, Steve knocked the head of another off by sheer force, and I dove for the Ariakon. My wand was nowhere in sight, so I turned the ring on my right hand around and cried out “Vocare!”

  My wand came flying from under the McLaren, drawn to the summoning ring’s quartz setting. I made a note to thank Lucas for all the ideas he’d given me by making me watch all six of the Star Wars movies last year as I turned back to the brief fight for the door.

  Shade had one by the neck and was busy swinging him into another while Steve drove his club down through the skull of the last of them.

  “Who’s next?” he called out.

  The door opened and six-and-a-half feet of vampire stepped out in jeans and a black t-shirt. This guy gave him a toothy grin and a ‘Come here’ gesture, and Steve lunged forward. I barely saw the other vamp’s hand move as he slammed it into Steve’s chest and sent him sliding across the floor toward me. Shade hunkered down into a fighting stance and circled him warily. She lunged in with a punch that he blocked with his forearm, then reeled back as he backhanded her. I holstered the Ariakon, drew the LeMat and thumbed the hammer back.

  “Hey!” I said as I walked toward him.

  Both his and Shade’s heads turned toward me.

  “No one hits my girl, asshole,” I growled to keep him off balance.

  As he tried to size me up, I pointed the wand at him and hissed “Ictus!”

  The blast knocked him back through the door and into the kitchen behind it. I heard him hit something metal and heavy, then there was a curse. I lifted the LeMat and fired at the empty door. The trick to fighting bad guys with superhuman speed and reflexes, Dr. C had taught me, was thinking ahead. The bullet arrived at the door about the same time the vampire did. After that, it wasn’t very pretty.

  I offered Steve a hand up as the vampire in the doorway screamed and writhed on the floor.

  “Damn, conservation of ninjitsu works!” he moaned as we made for the door.

  “Huh?” I said as he picked up his club.

  “It isn’t the hundred ninjas you have to worry about, it’s the one guy who steps up. Only so much badass to go around,” Lucas explained as we went through the stainless steel and white tile maze that was Inferno’s kitchen.

  Shade turned to her left and pointed at a wooden door.

  “I smell them. They’re back there,” she said. She grabbed my shoulder and kissed me hard for a split second. “For calling me your girl,” she said before she turned to follow the others.

  Steve didn’t bother to use the knob to open the door. The vampire on the other side had a split second to be surprised before he was slammed against the brick wall behind it, and skewered by half a dozen shards of wood. One of them must have hit his heart, because he just slid down the wall and started melting.

  “I thought they were supposed to . . . you know . . .” Lucas said as we stepped over the spreading pool of goo.

  “They all die differently for some reason,” I explained.

  We followed Shade and the boys down the steps, letting their noses lead us to where we needed to be. We ended up in the building’s basement, in a room that looked like it used to be bar of its own a long time ago.

  Of course, it was a trap.

  Vampires vaulted over the bar and dropped from the ceiling. One landed next to Steve and got backhanded away. Another landed on Shade and one of the boys. The one who landed on Shade got flipped over her shoulder, while the one that had vaulted onto Tyler went stiff as Tyler’s fist erupted from his back with its pulped heart oozing in his grip. It burst into bloody chunks a second later, and Tyler rolled over and puked.

  Another one landed in front of me, and I reflexively pulled the trigger on the LeMat. It flinched, then we both looked down at the gun, inert in my hand. I’d forgotten to pull the hammer back. Its grey skin pulled back from inch long fangs as it smiled at me hideously.

  “Duck!” Donovan yelled, and I hit the floor.

  His bat caught the vamp in the chest and flung him across the room. It flattened against the wall for a moment, then slid to the ground. I pulled the hammer back on the LeMat and took aim at its chest as it shook its head, then pulled the trigger as its eyes met mine. Even from across the room, I should have been able to hit it, but the bullet just made a fist sized hole in the wall beside it, and it leaped for me with a grin on its face. Halfway across the room, one of the pack caught it in mid-flight and slammed it against the wall.

  I thumbed the hammer back again as another one grabbed me from behind. My first instinct was to put the gun in his face and pull the trigger, but his hand caught the gun by the barrel. I heard him chuckle from behind me and slammed my head back into his face. Fire erupted on my scalp where I hit him, but he let go of the gun and me long enough that I could turn and jam the gun against his chest and pull the trigger. The left side of his chest exploded and I saw one of his buddies take the flaming round just below the ribs. He got a wide-eyed look just before he burst into flames. Then the only sound was the wet thump of a vampire’s head being slammed into the wall again and again.

  I walked past Shade, heading for the heavy steel door on the far side of the room. Set into the brick wall, it looked like it would hold up against the worst I’d seen Steve and Shade dish out. That was where magick and a little applied physics came in. From the front of the Ariakon’s holster, I pulled a spare hopper, this one marked with a strip of blue and white tape. As I changed it out, Lucas’ phone played Wanda’s ringtone. He pulled it out with a sheepish look and put it to his ear.

  “He wants to talk to you,” he said after a few seconds.

  I took the phone from him.

  “Honey, I told you never to call this phone,” I said, my voice flat.

  “I know you’re outside the door,” Darth Fedora’s voice hissed over the line. “If you so much as knock, I’m going to blow her pretty little head off. Her faith may be strong, but it won’t stop a bullet.”

  “Hey, little piggy, l
et me in,” I said as I brought the paintball gun up and pulled the trigger.

  The first pellet hit the center of the door. A web of frost covered the surface and I could feel the cold even from fifteen feet away, but it didn’t cover enough of the door. I put another pellet in each of the four corners, and I heard the steel start to groan as it contracted in on itself from the intense cold.

  Darth laughed at me as I holstered the gun.

  “Or what? Are you gonna huff and puff and blow my house down?” he asked.

  I ended the call and gestured for everyone to get back.

  “Something like that, asshole,” I muttered as I raised my wand and gripped the touchstone.

  I pictured Wanda on the other side of the door, and I remembered that she had been praying to her Goddess for me. She had faith in me, and I was not going to let her down. Darth Fedora and his crew had taken her, and I could imagine what they were trying to do to her. I could almost feel the vampires and servants on the other side of the door, waiting for her faith to fail so they could have their fun with her. I let my own anger build, and felt the touch of the dark Goddess and the horned God’s rage as well. I let it form a core of power inside me, and with the release word of my spell, I delivered the wrath of an angry Goddess.

  Extreme cold makes steel very brittle. The door shattered under the impact of the TK bolt I’d just hit it with, and sent Darth Fedora and several of his cronies flying across the room. I stepped into the open doorway, gun and wand in my hands, with Steve and Shade beside me and a pack of angry teen werewolves behind us.

  Thirteen kids were chained to the wall on our right, each one in front of a circle of Lemurian glyphs. The blackened metal of the stolen G’Honn fragment sat on a table in the back of the vault. At least a dozen vampires and just as many wanna-bes were picking themselves up off the ground, and thirteen heads were turning our way along the wall. Wanda’s head raised last, and I could see that they’d found a way to hurt her without touching her. Several, from the looks of her swollen eyes and bruised cheeks. Blood ran down her face from her hair, and her lips were swollen and bleeding.

  “Chance?” she slurred as she tried to focus on me.

  “You prayed to your Goddess with unwavering devotion,” I heard myself saying, “and I am come, your faith rewarded.” The words weren’t mine, even though they came out of my mouth. They sounded right, though. So very right. And even if they weren’t mine, Wanda smiled, and I was grateful they’d been given to me for her sake.

  “Kill them!” Darth Fedora yelled, breaking the moment.

  Vampires and hopefuls ran toward us, but they never made it. As they started our way, I saw a glow start from Wanda’s pentacle, then spread from her entire body and the whole room was suddenly lit up with a blinding white light. When it faded, all that was left of the vampires was their clothes, and the vampire groupies were screaming in agony on the floor.

  “What was that?” Shade asked.

  “Faith,” I said softly. “All her hopes rewarded, and her fears quieted in the presence of that which her Goddess sent to comfort and aid her.” Again, words that were not mine were coming out of my mouth, but they still felt right. “However unworthy the vessel,” I whispered. Somehow, I got the impression someone was laughing at that, but it wasn’t me.

  “Can I get a ‘Blessed be’?” Lucas joked in a shaky voice.

  “Amen, brother,” Steve said.

  “Keep an eye on them,” I told Steve as I headed over to Wanda.

  I pointed the paintball gun at the chains holding Wanda’s hands over her head and pulled the trigger. Links shattered under Wanda’s weight, and she fell into my arms. I laid her gently down as Lucas knelt beside her. Tears ran down his face as he saw the extent of her injuries.

  “I prayed that you’d come,” she said to us.

  “I know. She told me.”

  “You saw Her?” Her split lips stretched into a pained smile, and my heart wrenched at the thought that the Goddess had appeared to me instead of her. If anyone deserved a vision like that, it was Wanda.

  “I did,” I said softly as I felt my hand start to get warm. “She gave me a gift for you.”

  I put my palm on her cheek, and I felt the warmth flow from me into her. The bruises and swelling faded, and her face glowed as her eyes closed in relief. When she opened them again, her face was back to normal, and she put her hand on my face.

  “I saw Her. She’s beautiful. Thank you, Chance.”

  “It wasn’t me,” I said as I turned my face away. “It was all Her. I just carried it for a while. It’s yours now,” I said, not sure of how I knew that. Maybe it was because the warm place that it had taken up in my head was gone, or maybe it was because all that was left was the rage of the Horned God who stood behind her. What I did know was that Wanda was the one to give comfort to those who needed it. My job involved a lot more bloodshed.

  There was still a lot to do before the night was over, though, and I had more than one more promise to keep. One at least was going to be easy. It only took a few steps to retrieve the G’Honn fragment from the floor and slip it into my backpack. I turned to Lucas and Shade and pressed my backpack into Lucas’ hands.

  “Stay with Wanda. Shade, can you get the rest of them out of here? Lucas, hang on to this. There’re extra hoppers for the Ariakon in there. Just don’t give it to anyone else but me, okay?”

  Lucas nodded and dug the extra hoppers out and stuffed them into his pocket. The rest of the pack started working on the chains holding the other kids up. I looked them over as they pulled them down. All of them were outcasts, outsiders. Crystal wore skinny jeans, a black shirt with a band called Kill Hannah on the front, and had piercings on each eyebrow, her nose, and one through her lip. Another wore black strappy pants with a mesh shirt and had the sides of his head shaved. Another girl closer to Wanda had the remains of a spiky Mohawk drooping over her head. A couple looked like the invisible kids everyone talked about but never to, one with a headband that Lucas had told me was part of an anime character’s costume. Of the thirteen, only four of them were white. The rest were as diverse as New Essex: black, Asian, Hispanic, and Arabic faces looked back at me, and my mother’s Romany blood boiled in my veins. Between their race and their differences, they were the kids people would be least likely to go looking for. The ones the cops would be less likely to connect as part of a pattern. The ones too many people thought didn’t matter.

  “What did you do to me?” Karl cried out to me.

  I went over to him and squatted down in front of him. His legs didn’t seem to be working, and both of his eyes were red like they were filled with blood. He only seemed to have partial use of his left hand, too. Bruises stretched along his face and neck.

  “Me? Nothing. But I’m guessing all that vampire blood you’ve been sucking just got purged. Bet that hurt.”

  “I’ll kill you!” he screamed.

  “No, you won’t,” I told him. “Do you remember what I promised you would happen if you hurt Wanda?”

  “Fuck you!” he snarled.

  “No. I promised you even death wasn’t going to be mercy enough if you hurt Wanda. And while this hurts, it’s nothing compared to what I’m going to do next.” I stood and headed for Steve.

  “You’re too weak!” he crowed. “You can’t kill me, you don’t have the balls!”

  I gestured for Steve to come with me, then turned to look at Darth Fedora over my shoulder.

  “I don’t have to kill you to hurt you. I’m going to go kill your master.” We left the room to the sound of his impotent screams.

  “You’re a cold-hearted bastard,” Steve said as we walked through the old bar.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said coldly.

  “Maybe not right now. So, what’s the plan for this Etienne guy?” he asked as we took the steps.

  “We kill him.”

  “Yeah, I got that part. But how?”

  “Violence.”

  “I�
�m good with that.”

  Chapter 22

  ~ The worthy always refuse power when first offered. ~ Merlin.

  When we got back up to the first floor, Dr. C, T-Bone, and Cross had joined the fight and the Sentinels, down by five from what I could tell, were starting to turn the tide of the fight with their help. By now, they held the middle of the main floor. It was still twelve against more than fifty, so I figured it was going to take a lot of time, and that wasn’t something we had a lot of.

  Steve and I crept up the spiral staircase as Cross went toe to toe with another vamp carrying a pair of blades, and T-Bone put bullets into vampires so fast that the sound of his pistol was more a single roar than a series of shots. Cross’s sword barely seemed to move as he parried the twin blades, and when T-Bone’s gun went empty, he dropped the clip and had another one in before the spent magazine hit the ground.

  Dr. Corwyn knelt over one of the fallen Sentinels with his staff in one hand and his own pistol in the other. He fired at a charging vamp and the slide locked back. As the disintegrating corpse slid toward him, he holstered his gun, got to his feet and started to spin his staff. Each end lit up with a blue white fire, and the staff wove a pattern of light in the air in front of him. A pair of vamps tried to rush him from opposite sides, but they’d underestimated what a badass my mentor was. He spun around to slam the tip against the face of the one on his right, then kept going and planted the other end in the chest of the one on his left. Another tried to rush him and he spun the staff to spear it in the chest, then brought the length up into another charging blood-sucker’s face. As it reeled back in a spray of broken teeth, he brought the staff around his body and started weaving it through the crowd that had closed around him. As we slipped through the door, I saw Cross’ blade slip forward and impale his opponent as one of the paired blades took him in the shoulder.