Scorched tdf-2

by Sharon Ashwood

  Her son was sprawled on the couch, reading a magazine. Viktor was asleep on his side, filling up the other side of the room. She was the only one suffering from nerves.

  For hours, she had talked with Sylvius, turning over the subjects of his birth mother and what that meant. She had understood the overwhelmed expression in Mac’s eyes as he kissed her and left with Alessandro to go call the council of Fairview’s supernatural leaders. She felt much the same way.

  She reached the end of her path and turned again, pacing back in the other direction. Anxiety tingled through her body to the point where she half expected to see sparks shooting from her skin.

  Oblivious, Sylvius turned a page. He wasn’t worried; he was convinced Mac would take care of everything. He didn’t have a mother’s imagination.

  She was beginning to think Mac was right. They should all just leave the Castle. She would endure the full force of the bloodlust if only Sylvius would be out of danger. If the Castle collapsed as a result of removing the Avatar’s son, she would be sorry, but her boy would still be safe. Whether it was right or wrong, he was her priority. She paused to watch her son reading, the perfect picture of sloth. For an illogical instant, she wanted to dump Sylvius off the couch, demand a reaction, and make him worry right along with her. She loved her son, but there were times when she could have throttled him. Some days, that incubus calm was too much.

  Let this be over soon. She turned, pacing back the other way, wishing she were less energetic. At this rate, she would never grow tired enough to settle. Would I have wanted this power if I knew how it felt? Supernatural strength was an uncomfortable blessing.

  Mac said he’d felt the same when he changed. What was it he’d said about Lore? And about Atreus? They’d told him he had a destiny, a mission? He has a destiny, but Lore told me that if I reached for my power, I risked destroying the good that destiny would bring.

  What did that mean? Were those two halves of the same prophecy? That she would somehow cancel Mac’s destiny out?

  What kind of a monster am I? Or am I reading too much into Lore’s words?

  The door blew open with the crrrrrash of splintering wood. A charred stink—a smell that mixed magic and gunpowder—brought tears to her eyes. Guardsmen!

  They’d used a wizard to help them past Lore’s wards. Viktor was on his feet in a second, and in the air a second after that. The wizard went down under a mass of snarling fur. Two guardsmen tried to beat the werebeast off, their swords almost useless against Viktor’s tough hide.

  A spear sailed through the air, landing with a thud in the back of a chair and knocking it to splinters against the stone wall. Glass and books flew as shards of wood spun through the room, a bowl exploding on the floor like a gunshot.

  Sylvius flew up toward the ceiling, following the instinct of all winged things to seek safety in height. Constance leaped, landing squarely in front of the guardsmen. She had no plan, just the dead certainty her place was between Sylvius and these men.

  “Hide!” Sylvius shouted to Constance, balancing on the top of a bookcase. “Look after yourself. I can fight!”

  “So can I!” she retorted. I have my powers now. “Where’s the wizard who ruined my door?”

  The wizard got to his feet and scrabbled from the room, wailing in terror. Viktor bounded after him, barking like this was all a delightful game. There was a wail of anguish a moment later. Viktor liked to play with his dolls.

  Connie felt the scream through her bones. One of the guardsmen was Bran. She didn’t know the names of the other three, but she recognized their faces. Reynard was nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s Captain Reynard?” she demanded.

  “He’s not one of us anymore, Mistress Vampire,” said Bran with false politeness. “Captain Reynard was a demon-lover. He refused to use the incubus to save us, much less give us a little pleasure. The guardsmen had enough.”

  “Mutiny!”

  “Call it what you like. I’m in charge now, and we’re taking the incubus back.”

  “Like hell you are!” Sylvius shot back, grabbing a book from a high shelf and hurling it at the guardsmen. It struck one in the side of the head.

  “Get him!” Bran commanded.

  A red-haired guardsmen carried a heavy recurved bow. In one smooth move, he knocked an arrow and drew it.

  “No!” Constance threw herself forward, jumping to dash the thing from his hands. The arrow sang over her head, feathers whirring.

  She turned to see the arrow strike Sylvius in the side. He flared with silver light, trying to turn to dust, but the glow flickered and died in an instant.

  His wings crumpled, their angle awkward, wrong. He dropped to the floor.

  Fury blanked her mind. She grabbed the bowman, hurl ing him to the floor as if he were no more than a half-empty sack of oats. Her fangs were out, the stink of his fear putting an edge to her hunger, but he wasn’t what she wanted. The urge to protect was stronger.

  The others were converging on her son. She pushed away from the bowman and ran after them.

  Bran was bellowing orders. “Keep him separate from the others, especially the sorcerer. Put Atreus in the corner cell. Keep this one downstairs.”

  Enraged, Constance grabbed Bran’s tattooed arm, spinning him toward her. She swiped with her long, sharp nails, aiming for his eyes, but he jerked away. Long slashes sprang red on his cheek. He backhanded her. She barely staggered back. The look on his face made her give a sharp bark of laughter. “I’m not a little girl anymore!”

  Then he swiped his sword in a beheading blow.

  Oh!

  The only thing that saved her was diving behind the sofa. She heard the blade chop into it, then Bran cursing when the sword stuck in the old frame. He pulled it away with a splintering of wood.

  She was panting, still more angry than afraid. She looked around for something to use as a shield. Someone kicked the sofa, scraping it across the floor. She moved with it, still searching for something to counter the sword.

  “Leave her,” she heard Bran order. “She’s nothing. We got what we came for.”

  Nothing. The word stung as if Bran had finally gotten a slice of her flesh. She had to act. Get help. Anything but crouch there.

  How am I going to defeat four guardsmen? Bran, no less? It didn’t matter. She just had to. They couldn’t take Sylvius a second time, especially now that Reynard was overthrown. There was no one to keep them in check.

  She didn’t really know how to fight men with swords. She would have to improvise and hope for the best.

  Smoke from the spell clung to the floor, tickling her nose. She turned her head, looking under the sofa for their feet to see how close the guardsmen were. Holy Saint Bridget! One man wore modern lace-up sneakers—traded, no doubt, for one of Lore’s captive hounds. She sucked in her breath. It was one thing to be a prison guard. It was quite another to sell your charges for comfortable shoes. I’ll kick his backside clear to Kilkenny.

  She gave up on her hunt for a shield and started working her way forward, crawling on elbows and knees, picking her exit point. She wanted enough room to get to her feet before she had to defend herself.

  They moved away, the clank of their armor a soft percussion under the rumble of their voices. She couldn’t hear Sylvius. That silence was worse than a cry of pain. Bloody hell.

  Now that they’d moved, there was more space to maneuver. Crawling from behind the far end of the sofa, she kept low to the ground and out of sight. Frantically, she tried to make a plan. If she whistled for Viktor, would he come? Could she attack Bran from behind? Surprise him with a single swift snap of the neck?

  She gathered herself and peered over the arm of the sofa at an empty room.

  They were gone.

  Sylvius was gone. She was too late. Her throat burned with the urge to scream. How could this happen? I let them get away!

  She clutched the arm of the sofa like it was the last solid thing in her world. She cursed herself for letti
ng Sylvius stay in the Castle. I should have made him go. It doesn’t matter what he thinks will happen if he leaves this place. To hell with it.

  The doorway gaped like an empty eye socket. The room was a shambles. Her room. The place where she and Mac had made love.

  A horrible thought hit her.

  She sprang to her feet, half flying to the bed. It was largely untouched, but her heart thumped wildly, fright ened into life, until she reached beneath the mattress and found her secret treasure. The key.

  It was safe. She’d not had the courage to use it before. She’d not had the courage to face the world outside the Castle door by herself. She was going to have to do it now.

  A plan flowed together in seconds. Mac was meeting with the council. They needed to know what had just happened. She needed to convince them to help. She needed to bring back enough people to defeat the immortal Castle guards.

  But that meant she would have to search for Mac on the streets of Fairview, alone with her hunger. The very idea of it filled her with nauseated terror, but fear was something she could overpower. Now she had faced her vampire side. She knew what to expect, and it wouldn’t trip her up again. She would be stronger this time.

  Brave thoughts didn’t stop her hands from shaking. Panic felt like a beast clawing her from the inside, but she squashed it. She was the fiercer beast now. She was a true vampire.

  Constance rose, grabbed the stack of magazines Mac had brought her, and shuffled through them until she found the one she wanted. It was filled with news and sporting events and was the one he said he had delivered to his home. She ripped the address label from the cover.

  Chapter 24

  October 10, 1:00 a.m. 101.5 FM

  “This is Oscar Ottwell, your daytime host filling in tonight for the incomparable Errata. We’re at 101.5 FM at the beautiful University of Fairview campus. For the next hour I’ll be talking communities. I know many of the listeners out there live and work in the area some call Spookytown. Is it a business district, a ghetto, or a neighborhood? Can it be a community with so many different species in so small a space?

  “To put it another way, what makes a few square blocks more than a place on a map? The cafe that remembers you like your tea with lemon? The grandma down the street who lets the kids climb her tree? Or is it the guy down the street who always gives your car a push when the battery goes dead?

  “Folks, our lines are open. Call and tell me what makes a neighborhood a community.”

  October 10, 1:30 a.m.

  CSUP boardroom, University of Fairview campus

  “That’s not the answer!” retorted George de Winter, tossing back his dark mane of overstyled hair. “Fairview is not a homeless shelter. We can’t open the door to an unlimited flood of refugee trash who can’t even feed themselves.”

  Mac glared across the scuffed table at the representative for the Clan Albion vampires. The crappy overhead lights in the CSUP boardroom were giving him a demon-sized headache. “Look, dickhead, we can’t just wall the Castle up and forget about everyone inside. We have to do something.”

  “The Castle has survived for who knows how many thousands of years.”

  “So?”

  “Perhaps it’s meant to self-destruct. It’s a prison filled with the dregs of supernatural civilization.”

  “Which you don’t want in your backyard.”

  “Of course not. And I don’t like your tone.”

  Am I allowed to stake the stakeholders?

  Once upon a time, he’d sat as police liaison on assorted committees and actually enjoyed it—but somewhere between chowing down souls and turning into Mac the Barbarian, he’d lost all patience for idiots. Fancy that.

  He took a deep breath, refilling his water glass from the pitcher on the table. The others in the room exchanged glances. Mac knew he was there on sufferance, only there because he was Caravelli’s guest. Keep a lid on the sarcasm.

  He tried for a conciliatory tone. “I appreciate your concerns and every effort will be made to minimize the impact on Fairview as a whole.”

  De Winter gave an eye roll. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Let the rabble out of the Castle and the humans will quickly find out there’s a supernatural prison on their doorstep. Right when we’re pushing for equal rights and trying to convince them we’re good little law-abiding monsters. Good thinking.”

  Mac cast a sideways glance at Holly. She was doodling on a legal pad, drawing a bat with a cartoon bubble over its head. The bubble said, “blah, blah, blah.” She caught Mac smirking and moved her hand over the drawing to hide it.

  “Oh c’mon, George,” said Errata, the werecougar radio host. She was in full kitty Goth regalia, somehow managing to make stretchy faux snakeskin—black, of course—look tasteful. “Sooner or later someone’s going to start talking to city hall. Right now they think it’s an urban myth, but what are they going to say about us when they find out we’re abusing our own people? The council risks a lot more exposure by standing by and pretending this isn’t a train wreck.”

  “And when someone blows the whistle, you’ll be right there to break the story,” de Winter shot back. “The biggest one since the coming out in Y2K. Forget it. Keep your scoops in the litter box, young lady.”

  A hostile silence followed. Mac glanced around the table. Most looked like they agreed with the radio host. Others looked worried or about to fall asleep. The room was stuffy, plain, and ugly, one of the light ballasts humming hypnotically overhead.

  Holly started to draw a cat eating the bat.

  Just enough council members had shown up for a quorum. There were ten present, including Holly, Caravelli, and Errata. The rest were vamps and werewolves. The fey, as usual, hadn’t bothered to show. Lore was late, which ticked Mac off. The council meeting had originally been for his benefit.

  One of the vamps looked at her watch. Mac had already forgotten her name.

  The meeting was going nowhere.

  Dr. Perry Baker, university computer prof and the youngest of the wolves, spoke into the sudden quiet. “Look. I agree with Errata. If we know there are people who should leave the Castle, we can’t just blow them off. They’re our people. They’re supernaturals, like us.”

  “Maybe these are your people,” de Winter drawled. “They aren’t mine. Not to mention the fact that it’s— hello!—a prison, which means bad people are inside. Remember Geneva?”

  “De Winter,” Caravelli growled. He didn’t say anything else, but the other vampire folded his arms and shut up.

  “Let me cut to the chase,” Mac said. “The hounds have an extensive information network inside the Castle. Lore told me earlier today that he received word of a group of about forty hellhounds who’ve escaped from an area that just collapsed. They’re working their way toward the door. They’re moving slowly because they’ve got women and children in the pack, and the risk of capture is high.”

  “Oh,” said Errata. “Children.”

  “So we go get them,” said Perry Baker. “Any questions?”

  “Is there anyone else we can identify immediately for rescue?” asked Errata.

  “Just a moment,” said a vampire who had been silent so far. He had been older when he Turned, with the exquisite manners and handsome face of an old-fashioned film star.

  Mac turned to Holly, widening his eyes. She scribbled on her notepad, Big Important Vamp. Beaumont clan. His name is Antoine.

  Everyone turned, as if this guy was worth listening to. He spread his hands a little, an orator’s gesture. “We are under the emotional pull of a sad story, and that is making us throw out all our previous policy regarding the Castle. If we begin to rescue people, where do we draw the line?”

  “The vampires have opposed every rescue attempt!” Errata objected. “Every time this comes up, Antoine, you block us!”

  Antoine leaned forward, eyes flashing. “Mind your tongue, little cat. The wolves have always agreed with us.”

  “What?” Perry Baker rose from h
is seat. “All I’ve ever said is that we’d better know what we’re doing before we throw open that door!”

  “That’s not how I remember it,” Errata snarled.

  This is going south. “Silence!” Mac shouted, then used his two-finger whistle.

  All heads, fangs out and eyes aglow, turned to glower at him. A shudder of demon heat went up his spine.

  Mac cleared his throat, forcing himself to calm down. “Antoine is right. We need to be clear about what we’re doing. The hellhounds have to be our immediate goal. Because some of the inmates are dangerous, and we don’t know for sure which ones those are, we can’t just rush in there with big hearts and no brains. It sounds cruel, but I more than anybody know the consequences when someone like Geneva gets loose.”

  Antoine nodded, his expression relieved.

  Errata sat down. The others followed her example. “Okay,” she said.

  “At the same time,” Mac added, “we need to fix the Avatar. In some ways that’s the bigger problem.”

  “I don’t really understand this business about the Avatar,” said Perry. “How do the guardsmen think they’re going to put it back by killing its child?”

  Holly pulled a folder out of her backpack and opened it. “I found a passage in a book that talks about the ritual for freeing the spirit from the body. It’s called disincorporation.”

  “Sounds like murder to me,” the werecougar replied tightly.

  Mac frowned, growing hot with the fierce, dry heat of his demon. They’re talking about Sylvius. Anger sucked at him, leaving an ashy taste on his tongue. He grabbed his water glass, gulping down the cool liquid. Where he gripped the glass, the condensation on its side fizzled in a puff of steam.

  Caravelli gave him a curious look. Mac shrugged. At least I’m not kidding when I say I’m hot stuff.

  “This ritual is supposed to save the Castle from collapsing?” Antoine asked, sounding subdued.

  “That’s the theory,” Holly answered.

  Perry looked confused. “Wouldn’t the energy draw have to be huge in order to re-create a spirit form like the Avatar?”