by Karen Chance
The problem was that Magnum bullets pack a whale of a punch, and not just on whatever they hit. They also put tremendous pressure on the barrel of the gun firing them. Including more than was recommended for a .410.
Like, far more.
Don’t try this at home, boys and girls, I thought, and filled the autoloader with another three shells, which was as many as it would take. And wasn’t that going to be fun?
“Shit, shit, shit.” That was Ray again, only he was looking at the gun this time. Like he thought this was crazy, too.
“Can you hack it?” I asked him, as the pounding increased to a crescendo.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Somebody else’s, sure, given enough time, but—”
“You’re not going to have a lot of time,” I warned him.
“How much are we talking about?”
I checked my ammo. “Two, maybe three minutes.”
“What?”
I grabbed his shoulders. “You’re the best. You said so. You’ve hacked portals all over this city—”
“But not the Senate’s!”
“You’ve hacked some of the Senate’s.”
“But not the gateways!”
“Ray.” I looked at him seriously. “We are not getting back upstairs, okay? I’m just laying it out there. We go through the portal, or we don’t go at all.”
“But you—you’re good—”
“I’m not that good.”
“But best-case scenario—”
“We die on a higher floor, that’s all. There’s just too many of them.”
He stared at me.
“You can do this.”
“I—you don’t understand,” he whispered. “I’m a screwup. I’ve always been a…I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. You can and Radu’s going to help you.” I looked at him. “Aren’t you?”
And it was a testament to how fucked we were that even Radu was looking serious. He nodded soberly. “I know the old passwords, and the kind of things they use. I can…guess…at this one.”
“He can guess,” Ray said faintly, as I pulled them over to the door.
And looked at Radu. “When you get through, tell them that I think we’re dealing with Jonathan. Tell Louis-Cesare.” Because he and the necromancer had a past, and he needed to know.
“You can tell them,” Radu said quietly.
“Yeah, well. Don’t wait for me. If you get the portal open and I’m not close enough—”
Ray said something really foul.
“I don’t have time to argue,” I told them, my head pounding so hard the room was pulsing in and out. “Just remember, all right?”
Radu nodded, Ray glared and I licked my lips.
And then I threw open the door.
The corridor was packed with vamps, but only two fell in—the ones who had been trying to batter down the door, presumably. And got heavy extinguishers shoved into their stomachs for their trouble. “Hold these,” I told them, while Radu shoved them viciously toward the hall. They staggered backward and I pulled the peashooter. Which made a hell of a bigger bang with Magnum bullets in it.
Especially since I’d aimed for the extinguishers.
The cylinders exploded like white bombs, more spectacularly than I could have hoped for. Instantly, the entire corridor disappeared under the dense cloud of icy vapor, thick as a blizzard and bitterly cold. It boiled up everywhere, freezing the sweat in my hair and the rivulets coursing down my back, and frosting my eyelashes. But not before I glimpsed another bunch of vamps jumping down the elevator shaft.
It looks like the necromancer has lost his sense of humor, I thought.
And then somebody took my hand and jerked me in the opposite direction.
I knew we were moving lightning quick—Radu had grabbed Ray and me and he wasn’t wasting any time. But it suddenly didn’t feel that way. I’d had this happen occasionally in battle, when time seemed to invert itself, and the crazier everything got, the slower it seemed to go. I felt the ice crystals in my half-frozen hair hit my cheek softly as I turned my head. Saw a bunch of dark figures erupt out of the mist right behind us. Felt bullets tear through the air, so close one brushed the tiny hairs on my temple, a smooth, slick caress.
And then we hit the ramp and things sped up again.
I twisted out of Radu’s grip. “Go! Go!” And pushed him and Ray toward the swirl of color I couldn’t see because the corridor bent maybe ten yards behind me. And then I was slamming into position behind the wall.
Three vamps followed us around the corner, outpacing the rest by a large margin, like they just appeared out of thin air. My first bullets exploded the first one’s head before Radu and Ray could get away, spattering them with a fine spray of mist, blood and snow. And thankfully it was one of ours, because nobody started disintegrating. Then I took out the second, slammed the third’s chin back with the barrel while I reloaded, and then blew half his chest away in the blast.
It didn’t kill him, but it slowed him down enough that I was able to get a knife across his throat, sending the head lolling uselessly about on the neck. And him stumbling blindly back around the corner. And into three of his friends.
That would have been enough to make a human slow down or possibly rethink his approach altogether, but zombies don’t think. They only obey, like the ones in the elevator shaft had. And the necromancer was pissed.
But I didn’t have time to think about how screwed we were. I didn’t have time to think about anything except loading and firing, so fast my fingers were a blur, so fast I could barely aim. So fast that, despite the distance, some shots went wild, hitting shoulders or torsos or legs instead of heads. Which slowed them down but didn’t stop them because zombies.
And the necromancer wasn’t stupid; he was keeping the ones with guns in the back so I couldn’t steal any off the bodies. Not that I had the ammo for them if I did. A few shots and they’d be as worthless to me as rocks.
But there was one advantage, because it looked like Radu had been right. The necromancer couldn’t control more than two or three at a time on anything other than autopilot. At least, those were the numbers that kept rushing my position, using vampire speed against me, while the others just kept coming, pushing steadily forward, getting into position to be of use to the master.
And they were doing a damn good job of it.
In less than a minute, I had to fall back to the first bend in the ramp, shooting another rush as I went, which hit the fairly steep incline and rolled down toward me, one of them still moving and trying to attack even as I pulled back, tripping over spent shells and trying to reload while walking backward. I somehow made it without falling on my ass, but it didn’t help much. Because the ramp was shorter than the corridor, and every step they took meant that the next rush was faster.
The main group was going to be here any second, and that would be it, but I couldn’t worry about it now. All I could keep doing was loading and firing. And trying to breathe through a fog of gunpowder and CO2 and bloody mist, and trying to hear past shots echoing off the walls and the ringing in my ears, and trying to reload a gun that had grown so hot it was burning my fingers because the barrel wasn’t meant to take this kind of pressure.
And then, suddenly, that wasn’t a problem anymore.
I’d just shot two vamps through the head with one bullet, which had stopped that particular rush. But that piece of luck seemed to have bottomed out my supply. Because a vamp I hadn’t seen came out of nowhere and grabbed the gun, moving in a blur I didn’t understand until I looked up—
And shit.
One of Marlowe’s senior masters, one I’d nicknamed Frick because he and his partner, Frack, had never bothered to introduce themselves, must have been sent along with the newbies. Because he tore the gun from my hands in a blinding motion and then I guess he slammed me in the head with it. All I knew was that I hit the wall, pain flashing through my skull. And for a second, all I could see was the corridor whirling
around me—
And an image of Frick turning my own gun on me.
I dove for the nearest cover—another zombie—even knowing I wouldn’t make it. Or that if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Because a Magnum shell could tear through a couple of bodies, maybe more, especially at point-blank range, which is what this was—
Until the gun blew up in his face.
There was a blinding flash of light and a crack so loud that it even tore through the ringing in my ears, so loud that for a minute there I thought it had been a bullet. But the bullet had ended up lodged in the overheated, overstressed barrel, which it had solved by splitting it right down the middle.
Flaming fragments flew out everywhere, like a small bomb, setting the nearby vamps aflame. Frick was hit the worst, with what would have been flash burns on a human setting his whole arm alight. But he was a master, so he just kept coming, ripping the vamp I was using as a shield to pieces even as the flames spread up his torso and engulfed his head, those dead, burning eyes still staring into mine, while the maniac controlling them laughed and laughed—
And then someone was grabbing me around the waist—from behind—and time did the slo-mo thing again. Only I could hardly tell the difference, because it was Radu who had grabbed me, and he wasn’t wasting time. Frick lunged for us both, Radu jerked me violently backward, and something blue and shimmery reached out and caught us like a fist.
And then we were gone.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The people were clustered together in a little knot far below, in the center of the cavernous space. It wasn’t a storehouse like some of the others. There were large pieces of rusting machinery hunched in the shadows, like sleeping giants, visible against the starlight filtering in from a gap in the roof. The faint light also glinted off the crossbeams cutting through the air just below, like the one on which I was balanced.
A factory, then. But one long abandoned and unused, with no slick smell of oil or harsh tang of gasoline. Just dust and rust and rot. And a bright thread of life running through it from the grasses pushing up through the cracked concrete floor.
It was not echoed in most of the people, despite the fact that all of them were on their feet and some were quite animated.
If that had been true for all, they could have met mentally and saved themselves the danger of an assembly. But there were humans in the mix, hotter, brighter lights next to the cool colors of the vampires. And, to my surprise, even a few fey, burning like candles against the dark. And most humans and some fey are mind-blind, requiring a face-to-face meeting.
They did not appear to be enjoying it.
The air shimmered around them in wildly fluctuating colors, nervous purple, angry red, and the sickly yellow-green of fear, blending into a cloud the hue of a bruise that stank of suspicion, recriminations, panic. No, it was less like a bruise than a gathering storm, with the sparks like threads of lightning in the heavy atmosphere.
And then someone chuckled.
“You think this is a joke?” one of the vamps lashed out at another. He was a large man, swarthy, with hard black eyes and an off-center nose he hadn’t bothered to try to conceal. He was dressed in jeans, a generic polo and a Windbreaker, the cheapness of the outfit belied by the expensive watch on one hairy wrist. He was one of the more powerful of the assembled vampires, third-level easily, perhaps a weak second. And he was angry.
“Yeah,” another vamp said, crushing a cigarette under his heel. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I think it is.” He was smaller, slimmer, fairer, and dressed so well as to look almost foppish next to the larger man. But he was also the only one who rivaled him in power.
“Then share the gag. The rest of us could use a laugh!”
“It’s the almighty Senate and their holier-than-thou lectures on the rules. Rules they don’t bother to follow when it’s easier to slit our gullets and dump us in a portal!”
“And that’s what you call funny?” one of the other vamps demanded. His power swirled around him in a dark blue haze, but was shot through with streaks of the larger vampire’s crimson. A senior servant, then.
“It’s called irony, genius. Look it up.”
“If it was the Senate,” one of the fey said mildly, her light, lilting voice at odds with the vamps’ harsh tones.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” the first vamp demanded.
“I think you know. That it could be one of us.”
“Bullshit!”
“No, not ‘bullshit,’” she said, making the ugly word almost musical. “We are competitors. A major force has been removed. Someone must fill that gap.”
“I agree,” said another vamp. Short, blond, innocuous-looking. And dressed like the teenager he was pretending to be. “Why should the Senate resort to murder when they can have a big trial, show how powerful they are? It’s not like they ever pass up the chance.”
“It isn’t one of us,” the first vamp said impatiently.
“You so sure of that?”
“Sure enough to invite you all to meet. If I thought one of you was some kinda modern-day Jack the Ripper—”
“Naw, he’s on the Senate,” someone said. And this time a few in the group gave genuine, if nervous, laughs.
“—would I have got you together? So you could kill me easier?”
“You might if you knew you were safe,” one of the humans pointed out. A small, dark man, he matched the two others he’d brought with him closely enough that they were likely related. They were also all enveloped in a grayish tan smog, a muddle of colors for the muddle of different magical devices they were using, each of which had probably originated from a different source. It swirled around them like a borrowed cloak, not theirs, but serviceable enough.
Which probably explained why no one had yet tried to drain them.
“And exactly how would I know that?” the big vamp demanded.
“If the one killing everybody was you.”
His servant’s power flared, going from navy to cerulean in an instant. But just as fast, the crimson streaks of his master’s power brightened, and then tightened around his like a clenched fist. The servant went pale and backed down, and the master glared at the mage.
“Shut it!” Arrogant humans were not popular, even when tempers were not running high.
But the human did not shut it. “No, I don’t think I will,” he said pleasantly. “And you should know that I’ve taken precautions. If I were to suffer some…unfortunate accident…on the way home, you would not outlast the week.”
Unlike his servant, the vamp didn’t noticeably react, other than to roll his eyes. Nor did his power even flare. He’d expected the accusation.
“Right. Sure.” He flung out a hand. “I’m guilty as all hell. Only—if I got the resources to kill off fifty guys—fifty fucking good guys— in a couple days, why haven’t I taken over by now? Why am I even talking to you? I should be sitting at home, with a glass in my hand and a smirk on my face, waiting for my supermen to come tell me they plucked off another bunch of the competition. But do you see me at home? Do you see a drink in my hand?”
“Then why did you ask us here?” the second vamp demanded. “I almost didn’t come.”
“But you did. Why?”
“Because we got a problem.”
“And that’s why I called you here. ’Cause I noticed something about those deaths. Not a single one was somebody into narcotics or magic or weapons or ordinary shit. No. They were all in our line of work. So I wanna know”—his glance went around the small circle—“which one of you losers brought in something he shouldn’t have?”
The room exploded for a moment in violent outbursts of color and sound and recriminations. But I was no longer listening. I was watching one of the fey.
Occasionally, a tendril of someone’s power would rub up against that of another’s and spark in the air, like the words their masters were exchanging. One of the tendrils curling off a male fey rose a little higher than the rest, like a
twist of smoke escaping from a fire, if smoke glowed from the inside. It could have been random, but I didn’t think so. I stepped back, back, back, as it rose, silent, ominous, searching.
It did not find me.
But something else did.
“You do not listen very well.”
The words were mild, unthreatening. But they were also something else that wasn’t. They were in my head.
I spun away, kicked out and somersaulted backward, barely missing the searching tendril in the process. But barely is good enough. And landing steadily on the pitted metal beam was better, knife in hand and coming up—
And slicing only air.
I looked around, confused, because someone had been there. And still was, for the next instant, the knife was plucked from my grasp—from behind. I spun again, and this time, I saw…
Something new.
That was rare enough to make me pause, if only for a split second. But that was all it took. The edge of my own knife found its way under my chin, denting the skin over the jugular as it pushed up, forcing my head back with it.
“And I am not in the habit of repeating myself.” A rich masculine voice echoed in my mind as I absorbed the sight of a creature made of light.
Hovering in midair.
It was why I had not seen him. I had been looking for someone behind me, balanced on the narrow beam as I had been, because people did not walk on air. But then, people did not burn silver bright against the night, either, like a fallen star. It was so intense he may as well have been invisible, because I could not look directly at him. But I did not think it would have helped.
I had never known anything to give off power like that.
“I understand your Senate’s interest in these creatures,” he told me. “But your habit of interfering in my affairs is becoming…annoying. It must stop.”
I heard the words, but they barely registered. I was too busy trying to retain my balance against the waves of energy rippling over my skin. It felt like a consul. It felt like the end of the world. And then he moved closer and it grabbed me, coiling around me like a vise.
And I Screamed, putting all my power behind it.