Ignoring her continued creep-factor, I thought back. “I ... actually don’t know. I mean, it was kind of chaotic back then and she was out of the loop for a lot of it. Then afterward, well, it wasn’t really a memory lane either of us wanted to stroll down.”
“Then I submit that perhaps we have found the missing piece of our puzzle. It is why they attacked you, my darling, followed by your...”
“Don’t say it.”
Vincent leaned forward. “Why would they even want this spell? It was designed to close The Source.”
“Yeah. Not to mention ... holy crap, I’m an idiot.”
“No argument here,” Ed replied.
I ignored him and turned toward Christy, working this out in my head. “Could a spell designed to close a door be reengineered to open it again? Hell, it happens all the time in programming. You tighten up a system, but sometimes that same code functions as a backdoor in case you need to get in.”
“Coupled with ancient gods pushing from the other side?” Ed offered.
Christy nodded. “In theory, yes. But it took me some time to modify the original and even then I was only able to complete it with help.”
“Would a Magi probing the whore’s mind know this?”
“Do you have to keep calling her that?”
Gan fixed me with her green eyes. “Forgive me, my love, but I believe the time for pleasantries grows short.” She turned back to Christy. “Would they?”
Christy met her gaze. “Yes. Any Magi who speaks Enochian well enough would be able to figure out what the cave spell did and didn’t do. The problem for them would be the time and expertise required to modify it for their needs.”
“Except they wouldn’t need to if they were to become aware you had already done the work.”
Oh crap. “Sally. She didn’t see the new spell, but she was definitely aware Christy had worked on it.”
“Then I suggest we depart for your home post-haste, witch. There have been more of those pulses since the whore was kidnapped, likely enough for our foes to have learned all of this already.”
“Tina,” Christy said in a low voice, barely a whisper.
Gan nodded. “If they’ve figured out you are the sole holder of this incantation, then they will be seeking you, or any they can use as leverage against you, to get what they need.”
BEATING THE AMBUSHES
A part of me refused to believe Sheila was behind this. But I’d seen the proof. It was hard to dispute and, besides, there was no time. For now, I had to push my doubts to the side.
Even so, I could understand her guilt causing her to do something stupid. Hell, I’d been there and done that. But I had a hard time believing that she’d purposely endanger a child.
Regardless, both Christy and Vincent called ahead, or tried to, sealing our next course of action.
There was no answer from either Christy’s landline or Kelly’s cell. Sure, it was possible she and the tyke had decided to crash. Probable, even. Nevertheless, that got our asses moving.
Dave graciously declined to join us, wishing us well in our quest to stop Apocalypse 2.0. It was probably for the best. Even knowing what he did, he still wasn’t a part of this. Besides, neither Gan nor Christy liked him much. If he opened his mouth at the wrong time, I couldn’t promise there wouldn’t be any not-so-friendly fire.
Gan summoned her limo, offering to give the rest of us a lift. Despite it being the size of a bus, far from ideal for Brooklyn streets at rush hour, her driver navigated the route to Christy’s like a taxi driver on crack. Sure, it resulted in lots of angry horns blown, but fuck those guys. If they knew we were trying to stop hell from returning to earth, I have little doubt they’d have ... probably still honked at us. This was New York, after all.
Interestingly enough, I noted, at no point did the driver ask Christy for an address. He simply took Gan’s orders to head to the “witch’s place” at face value, leading me to remember she’d been playing the part of voyeur with my life for the better part of five years.
Oh well, we could discuss her creepy proclivities at a later time. For now, it saved us precious minutes.
Not to diminish our panic, but the interior of Gan’s limo was pretty goddamned swank. She definitely didn’t believe in suffering for the cause. We’re talking jade arm rests, a wet bar, and even a big ass TV. Hell, if we hadn’t been in a hurry I’d have checked to see if there were any new episodes of Game of Thrones, as I was pretty sure she got every channel known to man in this thing.
However, not all the décor was designed purely for hedonistic comfort. Some of the designs throughout the interior – inlaid in silver, of course – looked strangely familiar. “Are those...”
“Enochian sigils,” Christy said, eyeing them. “Scrying wards.”
“Indeed,” Gan replied. “Specially crafted so as to work in a moving conveyance such as this.”
“Seems a bit ... paranoid,” Ed replied. “I mean, if none of this had happened...”
Gan smiled, her eyes glittering. “Then it would have merely been a wasted expense, minimal for one such as myself.”
They were both right. It was paranoid to build a bomb shelter ... until such time as missiles rained from the sky. Then you instantly went from eccentric to insightful.
Following that exchange, silence descended in the back where we sat. I noticed that Christy kept staring at her hands, held a few inches apart on her lap. I’d seen enough spell casting to know she was calling upon her power, keeping an active watch for any pulse activity.
I should have told her to keep an eye on me. If I keeled over, it was magic time. However, I didn’t want her worrying about me at that moment. If it happened and I fell behind, so be it.
Just to be clear on that, though, I pulled Ed aside once we made it to Christy’s place.
“If one of those pulses hits again...”
“I’ll tell them you fainted or something so nobody loses focus on Tina.”
“Thanks. Although you could also go with something more manly. Just saying.”
“Yeah, fainting works.”
I offered Sheila’s sword – having grabbed it on the way out – to Vincent before we headed up. As a former Templar, he was far more adept with such weaponry. He wasn’t too keen on taking it, being a holy relic and all, but relented when I pointed out we needed every advantage we could get.
That done, we raced up to Christy’s apartment at a pace that made me rue not having vampire stamina anymore. Gravity really was a bitch for us normal folk. On the other hand, my godchild was well worth a potential heart attack.
We got to Christy’s floor, her and Vincent in the lead. It seemed all was quiet, just how we hoped to find it.
“Hold,” Gan replied just as Christy was about to put her key in the lock.
“What is it?”
“The door.”
“The door’s fine,” Christy snapped. “I set up wards in case anyone tried anything during one of those...”
“That door is fine,” Gan replied, cool as a cucumber. “This one is not.” She walked over to the apartment next door and tapped a finger against the doorknob. It clattered to the floor. Someone or something had snapped it off, then simply hung it back on the broken jamb to make it look intact.
Oh, shit.
♦ ♦ ♦
Almost as if in response to the ruse being discovered, the door in front of Gan was pulled open and a man dressed in body armor stepped out holding an assault rifle. He was fast, but Gan was faster. She disarmed him with a quick twist of the gun’s barrel, flipped him onto his back, and slammed the butt of his own weapon into his face before he could so much as tell us to put our hands up.
Sadly, he wasn’t alone. Doors up and down the hallway opened and more armed invaders stepped out, weapons at the ready. Vincent managed to fend off one with the sword before another, a woman, came up and clubbed him in the back of the head, dropping him to his knees.
Ed and I were, unsurprisingly, the lea
st useful members of our party. By the time either of us responded with anything other than shocked stares, it was all over. Guns were pointed at us, at least three locked onto Gan alone.
We’d underestimated our opponents, assuming they’d attack when they were at their strongest. Thing was, we were at our most powerful during those pulses, too ... and by we, I meant everyone else. Turns out they’d learned from their earlier mistake with me, realizing the smarter move was to surround us when we were at our weakest, their guns being more than enough to tip the balance.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Keep your mouths shut and do as you’re told,” one of them growled at us in a low voice, making me think perhaps they hadn’t overrun the entire building. If we made enough of a commotion, maybe someone on another floor would hear it and call the cops.
Sadly, that seemed like a sucky strategy, as the ruckus needed would likely involve gunfire. Considering who had the weaponry, that probably wouldn’t work out for us in the short term.
Either mindful of the wards Christy had put on her door, or just being extra cautious, they shuffled us into the apartment neighboring hers.
The place was a mess, and that was just the furniture. I caught the barest glimpse of slippered feet lying unmoving in the living room and then we were directed toward a gaping hole in the wall. It had been crudely made, and probably quickly, too. If I had to guess, one of those neo-vamps had waited to power up and then plowed straight through it into Christy’s place. Effective, not to mention hell on her renters insurance.
“Her name was Greta McDavish,” Christy said from somewhere behind me. “She was a nice woman with two grandchildren. I just thought you should know that.”
“One sacrifice made for the greater whole,” the woman who’d clubbed Vincent replied.
“I thought you were better than this, Liz.”
“Better? I was, but then you betrayed our coven, our whole damned race. Spare me the lecture.”
I decided to go out on a limb and assume they knew each other. Before I could ask, though, we were shunted into Christy’s apartment, me first with Ed on my six.
Despite the weapons pointed my way, seeing Tina unharmed was a massive load off my chest.
She was sitting on the couch with a few of her toys. She wasn’t tied up, but there was something around her waist, a wide belt or harness of sorts. Before I could get a better look, however, one of the armed intruders pointed his gun in my face.
Somewhat less well-off was Kelly, Christy’s former and, I guess once-again, coven sister. She’d grown her hair out and either switched to contacts or gotten Lasik since last I’d seen her. It was a good look for her, or would have been minus the shiner under her right eye and her hands being trussed up behind her back.
“Are you okay?” I asked just as Vincent entered the room behind me.
He tried to push his way past me to get to his wife, but all that did was get him clubbed again for his troubles.
“Leave him alone,” Kelly protested to no avail.
As the rest of our number were brought in, Tina cried out, “Mommy!”
For a moment, I feared Christy would get the same treatment Vincent had, but she managed to keep a cool head about her, although I’m not entirely sure how. “Are you okay, honey?”
“I’m fine, but they were mean to Aunt Kelly.” She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “I tried to stop them, but my fire didn’t work.”
Hmm. Earlier there’d been a long pulse, followed by a much shorter one – one which ended with me doing an impersonation of a cream pie. I wasn’t exactly a tactician, but if they’d somehow timed it right with that second one, I could see how that might’ve played out in their favor.
Considering the lack of scorch marks around the place, it made sense.
They’d struck fast, breaking into the surrounding apartments and then busting through the wall – unwarded like the door. The pulse, however, had been short enough to end before either Kelly or Tina could blast these assholes back to the Stone Age. After that, it would have been a minor issue to take them captive.
Of course, this assumed they knew when to expect these pulses, something that was starting to seem more and more likely. First my place, then Sally’s, and now here. The timing of these strikes was too perfect to be mere coincidence.
They herded everyone into the living room and made us all kneel. We hadn’t exactly come well-equipped, but they took what little we had on us – mostly Sheila’s sword and Christy’s purse – and tossed it all into the corner.
I counted more than half a dozen armed intruders, most of them aiming their weapons at Gan.
“Tie them up,” one of them, possibly the head fuckwad, said. “Secure the witches and other threats. Wire ties on the rest.”
Liz, the woman who’d traded barbs with Christy, stepped forward. She had short, brown hair and appeared to be a few years older than Christy, although that might have been deceiving. There was a world-weary appearance about her that might have added to her years. Mind you, her looks were far less important than what she was holding: a pair of old manacles with sigils clearly etched into the iron.
Holy shit.
It had been five years since I’d seen anything like them. They were designed specifically for Magi, the glyphs on them somehow canceling out their magic. I glanced over at Kelly. I couldn’t see her wrists from my vantage point, but it seemed a safe bet she was wearing them, too.
But what about...
I craned my neck toward Tina, even as another of our captors pulled my arms behind my back and laced them together with zip ties. Guess I counted as one of the rest.
She was still untied, thank goodness. But, now that I had a free moment, I was able to get a better look at the thing around her waist. It was made of worn leather, with more of those sigils etched into it. Suddenly it made sense. Tina was too small for old-timey manacles. She’d have slipped out of them no problem. This must’ve been the witch hunter’s equivalent of a booster seat. They’d come prepared, which didn’t exactly give me warm fuzzies about our predicament.
Glancing at the rest of my fellow prisoners, I saw Gan and Ed had apparently been labeled threats. Their arms and legs were shackled with heavy-duty cuffs, the type you’d expect to see used on a guy like Luke Cage. At least Vincent got wire ties, too, making me feel slightly less insulted.
More importantly, this confirmed that whoever was behind this knew who we were and what we were capable of.
What have you done, Sheila?
Once they were finished tying us up, the one in charge removed his helmet, revealing himself to be one of the assholes who’d kicked in my door the prior week – Blond Crewcut. It wasn’t exactly a reunion I’d been looking forward to.
“I know you,” Gan said, her tone indicating she still considered herself firmly in control. Gotta love the criminally insane. “You were assigned to the Boston prefecture. I must apologize, but while your face is familiar, I never bothered to make note of your name.”
Blond Crewcut gritted his teeth and said, “Komak. Ernest Komak, formerly of Boston Strike Team Draco.” The pleasantries out of the way, he turned toward Ed and gave him a curt bow. “You may not believe this, considering the circumstances, but it’s good to see you again, sire.”
The fuck?
LAST OF A DEAD SPECIES
“I can’t help but notice you’re all staring at me like I have any clue what’s going on,” Ed said after several seconds of stunned silence.
Komak nodded as if he expected this. “That’s okay. The esteemed members of the Last Coven all remember you. How could we not? You’re the reason we’re alive today.”
Ed appeared as confused as the rest of us, but then recognition began to dawn on his face, giving way to a look that screamed “oh shit!”
“The battle with Calibra,” he said more to himself than anyone else. “But how?”
Komak nodded. “I’m sorry we didn’t rise in time to help, I would’ve liked to have take
n a chunk out of her myself.”
Gan turned to Ed and narrowed her eyes. “Those vampires you attempted to turn during the battle?”
Despite the fact that she was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, my former roommate still turned a shade paler. “You remember that, eh?”
“I remember...”
“Yeah, yeah, a great many things,” he replied. “I get it.”
“Care to fill the rest of us in?” Kelly asked, looking even less pleased than when I’d first laid eyes on her.
“It’s quite simple,” Komak said. “I was part of a strike force that Lord Alexander led to liberate Boston from Vehron the Destroyer. We were captured, taken below, then left to rot in a cage. And why not? I was nobody, fodder for that witch to turn into one of her slaves. But then, just when I thought I’d go mad from hunger, a riot broke out. Those of us not already beyond help escaped and came across Ib’s chosen one here.” He gestured toward Ed.
Holy crap! These were the same guys we’d talked about when I picked Ed up from the airport, the vamps we’d casually dismissed as being long dead. Guess we weren’t exactly batting a thousand with that one.
More and more, my theory that the differences between vampires and these neo-vamps ran deeper than mere resistance to sun tanning seemed to make sense, much to my dismay.
“I’ll admit,” Komak continued, seemingly caught up in the memory, “having already died once, the prospect terrified me, but being free from that whore’s compulsion was worth it.”
“But you guys never woke up,” Ed replied. “No offense, but I kinda assumed...”
“That we died with the rest?”
“Seems to be a lot of that going around,” I muttered
The witch, Liz, threw me a glare. “Keep your mouth shut, Freewill. You may have been hot shit back then, but you’re nothing now.”
“And yet you assholes still trashed my apartment.”
Komak put a hand on her shoulder, likely staying her from caving in my teeth with the butt of her rifle. When it came time to kick this guy’s ass, I’d have to remember that.
Strange Days (Bill of the Dead Book 1) Page 15