Nothing magically appeared, so I took a swing of the gin, wincing at the bitter taste. I hauled myself upstairs and lay down on my bed, exhaustion pulling my eyes closed. When I opened them again, I realised it was sunrise and I’d slept longer than I’d wanted to.
Deciding against the luxury of a bath, I stripped off my bloodstained shirt, replacing it with a blue knit top. A leather bustier corset went over that, one with a sheath running down my back, the handle of a long knife touching my nape.
I pulled my motorcycle jacket back on, figuring I could do with all the luck I could get. I’d cleaned the little Ruger gun, convinced the jamming had to be a once off and strapped the quick-draw to my arm. Jeans and the tanker boots were next, followed by a quick refitting of the knee brace. I retrieved the small flask of Apertor Elixir and tucked it in one of the leather jacket’s pockets. Feeling better now I was armed to the teeth, I grabbed my cane on the way out and headed for Abraham’s Alley.
“Lora!”
Crowhurst appeared from behind the thick trunk of the ash tree. He wore his wide-brimmed hat and a blue greatcoat, ruby earring still in his ear. His beard had been freshly clipped and he smelt of expensive cologne.
“Nice to see less fangs in your mouth,” I said. “And less hair in your ears.”
Crowhurst ignored the jib, like there was nothing to discuss. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Gideon doesn’t want you to go anywhere alone.”
“You want to admit he really hired you to follow me?”
“I would think you could do with something watching your back right now.”
“If you’re asking me to trust you, you’re insane. I saw what you were.”
“Baby, I saved your life. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Didn’t stop Orella from getting hurt,” I said bitterly.
We locked eyes. I let mine gently unfocus, trying to read him. I needed to know I could trust him. Sometimes touching skin helped, so I reached up to press my fingertips against the side of his face. His skin was smooth and warm. Too warm for human. The air around his head shuddered and wavered, reluctant to reveal its secrets. Crowhurst reached up to pull my hand away, but not before I’d caught a glimpse of something. Instead of colour, an image had reared up, curling around his head like dark smoke. I didn’t know much about griorwolves, just that they were the last type of werewolf around. Thought to be more intelligent and able to transform on will from human form. I’d heard rumour there was a pack of griorwolves living in a slum neighbourhood called The Narrows. It was a shanty town section of the city, the streets choked with brightly coloured wagons, and inhabitants who were raven-haired and feral-eyed. It was the kind of rumour that was shot through with hearsay and fuelled by drunken suspicion. Frankly, I’d always thought it was bullshit and that all species of werewolves were extinct.
Crowhurst pushed my hand away, gentle but firm. “I told you not to do that.”
I watched him warily. The image I’d seen had almost been bestial, with eyes that reflected a dark light. “I thought your kind were extinct, gone the way of the original werewolf.”
Crowhurst narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to make a big deal of it, are you?”
“Can you control when you shift?” I asked.
“It’s hard. Usually I only shift when provoked.”
I shook my head. “Since you saved me and Orella, I won’t bust your balls about it. I guess we’ve all got our own problems.”
We walked to Abraham’s Alley in silence, weaving through the morning crowds until we reached Blackgoat Watch. A glance showed me several Runners loitering along the street, each with sharp eyes and hard expressions. I made out Cloete down the street, leaning against a shop front and reading a street press paper, tail flipping about lazily.
“They moved Orella back to her place,” Crowhurst said in a low voice. His eyes watched me as if I were an unpredictable freak of nature. As if he was in a place to judge freaks. “Gideon has Runners posted everywhere.”
“I’d better go see her then,” I said wearily.
Crowhurst put a hand out to stop me. “Lora. My shotgun. I saw you use it.” His eyes had a hungry gleam. “How?”
I moved away from him. “You have your secrets and I have mine.”
Chapter 41
I leant against one of the window-panes in Orella’s Arcania Apothecary store, chewing the end of an unlit cigarillo and staring blankly out the bay window. I’d raided Orella’s stash of willow bark extract since the Bishop’s Balm wasn’t working so well anymore. The bitter ointment helped numb the pain in my broken finger.
The store had a closed sign in its window and the front door was locked. My thoughts were a whirlwind. Thinking about last night. About the last week. About Caleb. Something he’d said was bothering me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
My eyes caught a movement in the shadows of an alley across the street. I leant forward, my breath fogging the glass. Crowhurst’s voice came from behind me.
“Why are you still down here?”
I was sure I’d seen someone watching me. A moment passed. Then two drunks stumbled out, arms looped around each other. I grunted and turned around to face Crowhurst, thumbing a match from my belt and lighting my smoke.
He jerked a thumb to upstairs. “Orella wants to see you.”
Puffing to keep the cigarillo lit, I pushed off the window-pane and walked slow towards him. “Tell me something, tinker-wolf. Why did Gideon want you to keep an eye on me? Did he even tell you?”
Crowhurst’s expression shifted, like a storm cloud racing across a clear sky. I couldn’t read the emotion and was too tired to try and read his aura again.
“Leave it alone, Lora.”
“Just leave it alone,” I mimicked, the cigarillo dancing in the corner of my mouth. “Like that. I shouldn’t ask, right? None of my business, then?”
“You’re pissed at the wrong guy, baby. I just got hired to do a job. And I don’t get paid enough, because you really are a royal bitch.”
I glared at him, mad because he was kind of right. “We’ll sort this out later, tinker-wolf.” I brushed past him and pulled myself up the staircase, smelling a strong incense over the earthy scent of my smoke.
Upstairs, Gideon was sitting in Orella’s rocking chair, fez jammed forward and scowling down at a bottle of vodka in his lap. Orella was perched on a short stool beside a couch, rummaging through a bag at her feet. I heard the clink of ointment bottles. A bandage was wrapped around her face, covering one eye and stained dark with the healing poultices mashed underneath it.
My eyes zeroed in on a figure on the couch, wrapped in blankets and propped up with cushions. It took me a moment to realise it was Vivian. Her face was pale, lips tingled blue and some of the feathers on her arms were broken.
“Vivian?” The cigarillo nearly dropped from my mouth. “What happened to you?”
“The Scarlet Wren was attacked by your hellspawn,” Orella looked up at me with her good eye. It wasn’t lost on me that she’d said your hellspawn.
“I’ll be fine.” Vivian’s gaze stopped at my collarbone, not meeting my eyes. “I managed to escape them.”
“Where have you been?” Gideon asked me. He unscrewed the vodka bottle and took a healthy drink.
“What do you care?” I blew out a sullen smoke ring.
Gideon wiped his mouth and made a weary gesture. “Blessed gods. What are you, thirteen years old again? I asked you a question. Answer it.”
“Leave her alone, Gideon.” Orella was trying to read the label on one of her ointment bottles, one eye squinting. “We need to concentrate on locating the hellspawn and their master.”
“It is the female who is the most dangerous,” Vivian said in a hoarse voice. “The male seemed weak.”
This snagged my interest. “He’s sick?”
Vivian shifted her position and winced in pain. “I heard them talk about how he is starving. The female, she can feast on flesh
easily though.”
“How did you escape them?” I asked her.
Vivian’s shoulders tensed visibly. “With some difficulty.”
A nasty thought had arrived screaming in my head and I made a rather unpleasant connection. “Why did they come to The Scarlet Wren?”
A thick silence descended in the room. Gideon took another long swing of vodka and Orella stared blankly at her broken window, now bordered up with wood. Vivian made a small weak gesture, her eyes still not meeting mine. “They said they had heard of my talents.”
“What talents?” I asked. “I know you have prophetic dreams, what could they want from that?”
Vivian shook her head. “I don’t just have…dreams of the future, Lora. I also have the Sight.”
I took the cigarillo out of my mouth and tapped ash on the ground. My unpleasant hunch was becoming less realised now. “I see. So what did the hellspawn want?”
“Let it go, Lora,” Orella said quietly. “What is done is done.”
“No. I want her to answer.”
Vivian’s face became haggard. Guilt nibbled at my mind for pushing a friend after she’d been through so much. But it seemed to be the week for uncomfortable truths, so I didn’t back down.
“They were seeking a female,” Vivian whispered. “A female nephilim. They knew from their master it was her blood that had enabled them to breech the Calling Circle.”
“Seems like everyone’s been keeping secrets then.” I ground my cigarillo out on the bottom of my boot and pocketed the stub. “So you knew what I was and thought you’d point them in my direction?”
“I am gifted with Sight, Lora. I’ve always known what you were.” Vivian’s eyes finally met mine, full of tears. “They were going to kill me and I was afraid.”
“You betrayed me.” I took a few steps towards her, fists clenched.
“Enough, Lora.” Orella pushed herself to her feet. She swayed a little, then stiffened. “We must not fight among ourselves. We make plans on our next move.”
I shook my head. “I’ve got an idea about who knows where the hellspawn are. Since it’s my fault they’re here, it’s my job to stop them.”
“Don’t be stupid, Lora,” Gideon growled. “You need to stay here until the hellspawn are captured.”
“Like hell.”
“Do you realise the danger out there for you?” Orella threw her hands to the ceiling, as if pleading to the gods to send me some sense. “You are at the eye of this storm.”
“We could hunt the hellspawn with dogs.” Crowhurst had appeared from downstairs. “Or scry their location.”
“I’ve tried.” Orella shook her head. “They are cloaked from any magic.”
“That’s great.” I ran an absent hand through hair that was coming loose. “Let’s get some hunting dogs. Just don’t expect me to just stay here doing nothing.”
“It is imperative you are safe, Lora,” Gideon said. “You need to stay here until this is over.”
“You want to keep me here?” I snapped. “Then you’ll have to do it by force.”
A frosty silence descended in the room. Gideon cleared his throat, when a shout from downstairs cut him short. The sound of breaking wood and glass met our ears. Then I heard another shout that sounded like Cloete swearing. A pistol cracked through the air. Vivian gave a gasp of fright, arms tightening around herself. Crowhurst met my eyes and then we were moving, heading back down the stairs. All of Crowhurst’s languid grace was gone, replaced with a bristling and deadly energy.
The front door of Orella’s store had been smashed in, and a heavy-set Runner lay unconscious at the base of the stairs, blood on his face. Several other Runners lay in the street, not moving. A tall man stood in the middle of the street outside Blackgoat Watch, staring in. He wore old-fashioned knight amour, grey with dust. His head was bare and a sword hung from his belt. His eyes were sewn shut with thick thread and Sanskrit words were written on his forehead in black ink. A bullet hole smoked in the centre of his cheek, but he looked alarmingly undisturbed by it. Cloete stood in front of him, a small wheellock in one hand, tail whipping behind her.
“Get back, Cloete!” I shouted, wondering what new horror the female hellspawn had summoned for me. Cloete backed up until she was inside Blackgoat Watch, standing with Crowhurst and myself. She was breathing hard and looking a little wild-eyed.
“Anyone know what that is?” she asked. “It won’t die.”
The knight spoke, his voice sounding like crumbling grave dirt. “I have come for the female Witch Hunter, Lora Blackgoat.”
“I don’t believe it.” Gideon was standing halfway down the stairs, Orella behind him. He glanced back at her. “Someone has summoned The Defiler.”
“Lora?” Orella asked, and then everyone was looking at me.
“I can explain,” I said, then stopped.
“Yes?” Gideon’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Yes? Yes?”
“I might have pissed off one of the Craft Alderman.”
“Son-of-a-feckless-goat-whore,” Gideon raged.
“I hope you aren’t addressing me.” I frowned at him.
Gideon looked like he could chew glass. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Bring the Witch Hunter to me, and I will leave all else unharmed,” the knight said in an almost weary tone.
“Eat shit and die!” Cloete shouted, while working at reloading her wheellock..
“Let’s not provoke The Defiler, dear.” Orella came down the rest of the stairs and brushed past us, heading for the kitchen. “He is an appointed guardian of The Weald, after all. It’s not his fault a moron gives him his orders.”
The knight drew his sword. In place of a blade, a line of white fire spat and hissed. He advanced towards us, the fiery blade before him.
“I’ve never seen a weapon like that before.” Crowhurst glanced at me. “I wonder how it works.”
“Who the hell cares?” Cloete hissed. The knight stepped into Blackgoat. Cloete fired her wheellock, hitting the knights’ left knee, but he kept coming, undisturbed by the wound. He stepped towards Cloete, swinging his line of fire. She ducked and rolled, and the knight’s sword dug into the ground, setting the polished wooden floor on fire, the flames spreading quickly.
Gideon grabbed one of my elbows and pulled me back up the stairs. “Move, Lora. Move now.”
I started to protest. I was armed and ready for a fight. But Crowhurst took my other elbow and then I was halfway up the staircase. We paused when we heard Orella’s voice from downstairs ring out.
“Stay where you are, Defiler,” Orella told him. “Or you force me to defend myself and what is mine.”
The knight turned to look at her. “I cannot be killed. My will is infinite.”
“I would not bless you with death,” she said as she cast. The sparkle of salt igniting into a spell flew over the knight and he hesitated. Orella appeared near him, her fingers dancing through the air, tracing sigils I didn’t recognise. Her hands strummed a radiant red and I felt a heavy pull towards the power she was drawing on. Her lips moved, whispering words of power.
“That one won’t work.”
A voice came from behind me. I glanced around to see Vivian standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at us. Orella’s spell hummed in the air, sweetening it, and I knew she was using darkcraft, bringing to life a powerful hex. The knight stood at the base of the stairs, sword burning bright in his hand. The fire was taking hold in the reception area and anxiety pinched my chest.
The Defiler hesitated, then reached for Orella. The outline of the spell she had created was wavering in the air, then began to disappear, as if it couldn’t quite sustain itself. Sinister words cracked through the air and I heard Vivian cast. The otherkin’s talons clawing the air, casting her own hex. Unlike Orella’s spell though, this spell was crackling a violent green colour. And it looked strong. With a click of her tongue, Vivian flicked the spell towards the knights and it shot out, smashing into Orella’s
spell. The two hexes combined with a spitting sound, then a heartbeat of power pulsed through the air, slamming into the knight.
The Defiler became instantly immobile, as if someone had disconnected his power. His shoulder drooped, his heavy arms falling to his side and head bowing. His flaming swords dropped to the ground with a thud and the line of fire began to burn through the floor.
I shook myself free of Gideon and Crowhurst, taking the stairs two at a time to get to the bottom. Orella was sitting on the ground, looking exhausted. I dropped beside her, taking her hand as the small fire behind us grew. I heard Gideon’s hooves clopping back up the staircase, while Crowhurst appeared, trying to stomp out the fires.
“Her spell needed more power.” Vivian came alongside of me. She was moving slowly, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. “I had to help her.”
“Doesn’t make us square,” I told her coldly.
Vivian watched the fire in the rug absently, seemingly unconcerned as they grew larger, despite Crowhurst’s efforts. “We don’t have much time. We can’t kill The Defiler. What binds the knights to life cannot be broken.”
“A little help here?” Crowhurst called.
“Lora, pick up the sword.” Orella’s voice dragged with exhaustion. “We must stop the fires.”
Biting my lip and feeling a little more than reluctant, I stood and inched towards the knight, avoiding looking directly at him. The heat from the small fires made me dance around a little, but I managed to pick up the fallen sword. The metal hilt was freezing to touch and the moment my fingers curled around the metal, the fiery blade vanished, leaving only an empty hilt in my hands. I hefted it around, feeling the weight and wondering where the fire came from. I mean, handy as all shit, right?
Gideon passed me, a pump fire extinguisher in his hands. Releasing the clip, he began to pump, spraying the fires with a frothy white foam.
Chaos Born Page 27