Blood of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 2)

by Shannon Mayer

Fury lit me like a fire and I used it to fuel me. At the top of the ladder, I leapt off and onto a platform and looked around. “ABE!”

  A bark came from my right and I spun and was off, running again. How I could hear him through all these walls, I didn’t even question. Our bond was that of a boy and his dog and nothing could separate us. Not even Luca and his games.

  I stumbled to a stop, the footing below me turning into steel girders that crisscrossed above open space the size of a horse riding arena. I blinked, seeing movement below the girders. Below, the room was divided into small prison-like cells with chain link separators that reached up to the girders. The cells had no ceiling, making access easy from above where I stood. Each small space had at least one dog. Some had several. But the only bark I recognized came from the far end.

  Abe.

  “Bryan, get those fucking dogs quiet! The boss is here and he’s going to want to see them under control.”

  I pinned myself to the side wall with the sound of the new speaker and searched with my eyes for the men.

  A man stepped onto the girders, a long pole in his hand. “Fucking dogs.” With the pole, he reached down into one of the kennels and a spark of light lit up the tip. The dog he’d touched with it yelped and fell to the ground, writhing in pain.

  I put my fist to my mouth because the man I assumed was Bryan was going toward Abe’s kennel.

  Without another thought, I headed out onto the girders, following him silently. I could feel the eyes of the dogs on me, and a few of them growled. I glanced down once to see a trio of big dogs that looked like a mix between German shepherd and mastiff stare back at me with eyes dead of any emotion but anger. Their ears were pinned to their heads.

  Falling in would be a very bad idea.

  I kept my arms out to the side and hurried. Bryan was almost at Abe’s kennel.

  “Shut up,” Bryan snapped and brought the long pole around. I was five feet from him. I leapt, tackling his legs.

  He screamed, and as we fell, I wrapped my legs around the steel girder and Bryan slid to the side. I let go of his legs, and he fell. He hit the top edge of one of the kennels and managed to hang on there but it looked like his one hand got smacked in the fall, his fingers twisted. He stared up me, his features dark with fury. “What the fuck, kid?”

  “You can’t hurt my dog,” I said. “I won’t let you.”

  He glared at me, and then glanced down at where his legs dangled into the open kennel. His eyes widened. “Oh shit. Help me up, kid. Help me up! This is the bitch kennel!”

  I looked past him to a quartet of huge females that looked like they were at least part wolf. They slunk toward Bryan’s dangling legs.

  I didn’t dare pass him; he might’ve been able to reach me, and I could see the eyes on the female wolf hybrids. “You can have him.”

  “Shit, kid, they’ll tear me apart!”

  “You shouldn’t be mean to animals,” I said softly, something strange flowing through me. If I tried to help him I would die. I knew it. Which meant there was no going back. “It could come back to bite you when you least expect it.”

  He grimaced and looked over his shoulder. “Kimmy, go on, get out of here. I’ll bring you something nice. A big steak.” He swung a booted foot at the leader of the pack, the one I assumed was Kimmy. Her body was a mass of muscle and dark gray fur, her eyes golden as they narrowed.

  She snarled, showing massive white teeth as her lips curled and the fur along her spine inched upward. I shivered. I would not want to be in there. But then, I would never cage a wild animal, nor would I poke it with electricity.

  I lay on the girder, unable to take my eyes off the approaching canines. Kimmy crouched and launched first, biting into the back of his thigh. Bryan screamed and a chorus of howls went through the room, bouncing off the walls and feeding into one another. Kimmy hung from Bryan’s leg and thrashed her body, dangling from his flesh as she fought to rip him away from the last piece of safety he clung to with his one hand.

  “You bitch, I’ll kill you!” He screamed the words, his bad hand reaching for his pocket. A gun, he had to have a gun.

  I shimmied forward and sat up so my one leg dangled close to his face. Bryan’s eyes shot to mine and I kicked out, catching his shoulder and upper arm with my foot.

  “Little bastard!” He dropped the gun but grabbed for me, and his fingers dug around my ankle. The power of the female wolf hybrids would overcome my hold in a matter of seconds.

  “ABE!” I thought of nothing more than him, because he’d saved me before. I knew he could climb fences. I’d seen him do it. “ABE!”

  There was a scramble of claws against a fence and then Abe was on the girder with me above the other kennels, impossible and yet he was there. Only he wasn’t the Abe I remembered. He dug into the girder with his back feet that were now talons, and reached over the edge to grab the side of my belt with his teeth.

  He bit into my leather belt and gave a yank and I was free of Bryan’s hand. I twisted around on the girder in time to see the big female Kimmy go straight for Bryan’s belly. She slashed him open with her teeth, his guts spilling out, then she went for the throat while the other females began to feast on his still-warm innards. He was not dead when they began eating him.

  I turned away, the sounds of their feeding more than I could take, knowing I’d sent Bryan to his death. I reached up a tentative hand to Abe.

  “Abe?”

  He whined softly. His black fur was partially gone, having shifted to a thin scale that covered a portion of his body, and his back legs were twisted weird, like a lizard or something. Shaking, I closed my hands and let them slide over his head and the fur still there. The shape was the same, even if the feel was different.

  “We gotta get out of here,” I said. What was happening to my dog? What had they done to him?

  He bumped me with his nose. I stood, wobbled and started back the way I’d come.

  A black-cloaked figure stepped in the way. The Shadow. I paused and Abe let out a long low growl and bared his teeth.

  “Run, boy. I like the chase,” the Shadow said.

  I backed away, turned and ran deeper into the space, Abe right behind me.

  The howling of the dogs below us erupted in a chorus and I suddenly knew that there was a way to create chaos, even though it would be a danger to me and Abe, but it might also be our only way out. I stopped and did a slow spin. Vago still stood on the threshold of the door almost like he was waiting for me to come running back to him.

  That wasn’t going to happen. I kept turning until I saw something that might be what I was looking for. There in the middle of the girders was a tiny box that had wires and buttons all over it. The box was better than any other option I had.

  I ran to the small island above the sea of howling, snapping, and growling dogs. Apparently with Bryan dead, they had no reason to be quiet.

  I caught flashes of fur, and the white glimmer of teeth below me, but I also saw things no dog was ever born with. Claws, wings, long forked tails, double and triple heads.

  Whatever Luca was giving them had turned them into monsters. I hit the island of the paneling and slid to a stop.

  “Don’t!” a voice shouted from my left. I turned to see a man running across the girders toward me, his hands out as if he could stop me from there. “Stop, they’ll kill us all!”

  I started slapping buttons and pulling wires as fast as I could. “Abe, fauss!” I gave him the command and he shot away from me, those back talons of his wrapped around the steel girders with ease and giving him better balance than if he still had his old legs. I kept at what I was doing, knowing I would be pulled off the box soon enough. Abe’s snarl filled the air, and then a scream followed. I caught a glimpse of the man as he tumbled off the girder in an attempt to get away from Abe. I didn’t look down. I knew what I’d see and didn’t need to add to what would already be nightmares when I closed my eyes next.

  Lights and sirens went off around me as
the kennels began to open, and the monster dogs began their revolt.

  “Run!” I yelled. “Get out of here!”

  A howl that was not a dog, but most definitely a wolf, turned me around. The four female wolf hybrids were loose, and circling under the island I stood on. “Go on, get out of here!” I waved at them with one hand and then kept on slapping at buttons and pulling levers.

  “They want to eat you.”

  I spun and pinned my back against the paneling. The Shadow stood in front of me, just out of reach.

  “Maybe they want to eat you,” I threw at him as I stepped back.

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  He stumbled suddenly as Abe slammed into his back, silent as an assassin. The Shadow reached over his shoulder, grabbed Abe by the neck and threw him away, out toward the kennels in an arc that seemed to take forever, as if Abe could fly suddenly.

  “NO!” I reached for Abe as if I could pull him back to me, then turned to the Shadow. “You bastard.”

  “Such language for a child.” He reached for me and then paused and took a step back. “I think I’ll just leave you here. As far as my true master is concerned, you should not be kept alive.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose slowly as I turned.

  Two of the female wolves had climbed up onto the girder, their muzzles still covered in fresh blood. Deep amber eyes locked on me and a low growl rippled from their mouths in tandem.

  I had no illusions. I may have freed them, but I was just another human they would kill if they could.

  No choice now but to leap and hope I found a safer place to land.

  I sprinted to the edge of the girder in the direction Abe had gone and leapt with all I had. I prayed my mother hurried to find me, prayed I would still be alive when she did, and then closed my eyes as the ground swept up to meet me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Phoenix

  There was nothing in me but a single purpose and that was to get to Killian’s home as fast as possible and find Bear. No amount of phone calls had roused the Irish gangster, and even a call to Mancini had produced nothing.

  “I will send a man to you there, to meet you at Killian’s home,” was all Mancini had said as he gave me the address of Killian’s pub, and the information for a private plane that would take us from Seattle to New York in half the time, so there was that.

  There was not even a fucking answering service for the pub, no matter how many times I rang it.

  “Slow down, we need to get there in one piece if we’re going to save your boy.” Simon gripped my waist and yelled into my ear. The motorbike would be the fastest way through traffic from the airport to Killian’s home and I was driving.

  I wove around the cars, and up onto the sidewalk twice to avoid having to stop, unable to even speak to Simon. The anger and fear in me was a deadly concoction and I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t blast a hole in his head if he said the wrong thing. He seemed to finally catch on and fell silent except for a grunt now and then as I kept the throttle high.

  Finally, the Irish pub, the Blarney Stone, came into sight and I eased off, slowing the bike and leaping from it before it was fully stopped, laying it out across the sidewalk. Running, I yanked Dinah and Eleanor out of their holsters and pushed the door open with my hips, sweeping the front of the pub first. Bodies were scattered everywhere, killed where they stood with their drinks still in their hands by the look of it. I was not surprised that there were no cops. Something like this would be kept off their radar because if the humans knew how deadly abnormals really were, there would be a war no one would survive.

  There was very little blood left on the floor, and the skin on the bodies was pale as if drained.

  “This looks like a Magelore.” Simon came in beside me.

  “Vivian.” I hissed her name. “Romano tracked us through her and saved her life by sending the Shadow’s minion to gather her. That’s why he left so quickly.”

  “Fuck. The body we saw, then, it was just an illusion?” Simon growled the words and I had to agree. An illusion used to fool me.

  But right then, none of that mattered. I needed to find my boy. I refused to believe I was going to lose him a second time. Refused with every particle of my being. I should have come for him the second I knew he was alive. I should not have gone after Genzo first.

  There were not many times I could point to mistakes I made in my life, but this was one of them, and the fear I’d cost Bear his life crushed me. I pushed my way through the back door and into the rooms that led to Killian’s home. The home he’d tried to protect my son in.

  Jaw ticking, I moved with purpose and speed until I heard a voice I knew.

  “You awake now?” Zee asked. “Because Nix will be here soon and she’ll want to know what you saw, what happened.”

  “Aye, I’m awake. Fuck me sideways, that was bad.” Killian groaned the words as I stepped through the door to what looked like a library. He sat in a big chair behind a desk, his skin pale, Zee beside him.

  “Where is my son?”

  Killian grunted. “Your father took him. He had a Magelore with him, but she seemed to be on his leash.”

  I stared at him, swallowing words several times before finding the right ones. “Any idea where he took my boy?”

  “Said something about going to Genzo next, taking your boy to his dog there.” Killian pushed to stand, his body shuddering with the effort. “We can catch them if we take my helicopter.”

  I stared at him. “Why would you come with us?”

  “Because your boy saved my life. He lied to Romano, told him I was dead when I was helpless on the floor. He fought the Shadow without a single ounce of fear. That’s worth fighting for.” Killian limped around the desk he’d been sitting at, and went to a wall, pulling a few books from it. They fell to the floor and then the wall opened.

  “Load up with whatever you want or think we might need.” He swept a hand toward the opening that was easily twenty feet deep and full of guns, knives, body armor, and just about anything else I could think of.

  I stepped up first. “Simon, get my suit from the bike.”

  He was gone in a flash.

  “Nice sidekick,” Zee said.

  “You didn’t want the position anymore,” I countered. I glanced at Killian. “My boy really saved you?”

  “Fought like a lion, slid right between the Shadow’s legs and even shot your father point blank.” Killian shook his head. “I think that kid will out-survive us all.”

  A shiver ran down my spine, his words resonating with what I’d been learning about myself, about my blood. “Thank you. For what you did. For trying to keep him safe.”

  I didn’t tell Killian he didn’t have to come. I was not so stupid as to realize that a man like him, a killer like me, was good to have around. And unlike Simon, who seemed happy to have me boss him around and tell him what to do, Killian was no such man.

  From down the hall a third man stepped out of the shadows. Noah Black aka Lancaster, stared down at me, his blue eyes hooded. “I’m coming, too.”

  I stared at him. “And what are you going to do exactly?”

  “I have my abilities,” he said.

  I looked to Zee. “Has he been any help to you?”

  Zee shrugged. “He had a decent plan to get Bear out of the school. I think it would have worked if Bear hadn’t escaped.”

  “Fine, come. But I’m not saving you again,” I said. “You got one pass and it’s done now. Especially now that I know what the papers really were about.”

  Noah jerked as if I’d slapped him. “You broke the code?”

  I nodded. “It’s missing a couple things.”

  Noah shook his head. “Fuck, I knew it.”

  I turned from him, despite my desire to know just how much Noah understood about the papers. Did he know they were a recipe to bring down Romano?

  Killian went into the room of weapons first and started to go through them, picking out a few things, g
uns mostly, a couple of longer knifes that were long enough to be called short swords. The handles sparkled with tiny green gems that drew my eyes in a way I didn’t like. I looked away.

  I turned once more to Zee. “You got anything to charge Dinah and Eleanor?”

  “I’ve got something,” Killian said. “What kind of rounds can you do with them?”

  “Bullets and incendiary,” I said.

  “How about smoke bombs and gag jam rounds?” Killian raised an eyebrow.

  I stared at him as Dinah giggled. “Please, please, tell me you’re keeping him around.”

  Eleanor sighed. “Both charges would be lovely.”

  I pulled them from their holsters and handed them over to Killian. “Their ammo is bottomless, but not the flames.”

  “Smoke won’t be bottomless, but close. Gag jam will need to be charged after six shots per gun.” Killian turned the girls over and set them on a small table, then set up a series of gemstones around them. Deep gray, and bright, clear white gemstones. I was going to ask what the hell the gemstones were going to do when Killian put his hands over them and wild arcs of lightning danced from his fingertips.

  Dinah squealed. “Oh god, I think I just had an orgasm.”

  “Dinah, shut the fuck up,” Zee snapped.

  Eleanor let out a low groan. “Yeah, that was lovely.”

  I watched Killian, though, and saw the shake in his hands, the fatigue that hit his eyes. He removed his hands and stepped away with a stumble. A better person than me would have caught him and helped him to a chair. Or maybe I was just afraid to touch him.

  I shoved a chair toward him. “You’re no good to us exhausted.”

  “Point taken, lass.” He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “I’ll sleep on the way there.”

  Zee gathered a few things and I scooped up my guns. Noah didn’t move from his space at the end of the hall.

  Dinah and Eleanor were warm to the touch and sighing softly. I might not be able to charge the incendiary rounds, but smoke rounds were better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

  “You went through all the incendiary rounds?” Zee asked me softly. “There were a good number in there.”