Broken Soul: A Jane Yellowrock Novel
Page 33
Bethany rounded a corner. There was a huge crash. Another. Light stabbed into the dark. Light and dust and the sound of voices chanting and sobbing and the stench of blood. And silver. I rounded the corner only half a second behind Bethany. Air popped around me. The wolf was racing through the door, his body a gray-and-white smear on my retinas, fast as a vamp. Faster than me.
I had seen this sight before, the wolf racing-leaping into battle. Stupid dog. Yeah. I had thought that before. Stupid dog. And stupid me to race in after him. But I did. Screams sounded as I leaped through the opening. Screams and laughter. And the pong of something rotten and burning. The stink of ozone.
The light of dozens of candles stabbed my eyes. I squinted to protect them, seeing the room in front of me through Beast-lashes. Time slowed, stuttered, stopped. I was in midair, midleap, hanging as if gravity no longer existed. From this vantage, I took in the room as if I had all the time in the world. And maybe I did.
Chained to the wall to my right was a skeleton, a blackened thing, like twigs held together with twine. It had skin like rotten cowhide, hair in tufts, limbs splayed out like a bug. It was wrapped in heavy, tarnished, silver chains. Pocket watches dangled from smaller chains interwoven through the larger ones. Which seemed important, but something for later. The creature was fastened to the wall with spikes. It had been crucified. Silver spikes at its widespread wrists, a spike through its crossed feet. It was naked.
It was alive.
Its mouth was open with laughter, or a scream. It was bleeding from a hole in its right side, nearly black blood, thick as tar. Its eyes glittered with horror and insanity.
Beneath the thing on the wall lay Grégoire. I was pretty sure he was dead or would be in seconds. Across the way, entering from another door, was a bloody apparition, teeth bared, body in midleap. Derek. Forms were behind him. I counted three. The cavalry was here. Between us, as if in a pincer move, lay the rest of the players. Everyone, including me, was halted in midaction.
Three yards or so from the feet of the chained being lay Leo and Katie, naked and bound, bodies posed toward the ceiling but their faces turned to the thing crucified on the wall. All of the downed vamps were bleeding at necks and wrists, and their torsos had been split from neck to groin—wide, gaping wounds, slick with congealed blood. Skin pale in the candlelight, bodies unmoving, unbreathing. Undead, close to true-dead. So close. From my vantage point near the rough ceiling beams, I could see their eyes were open but glazed, their veins flat and dark like blue tracks drawn on parchment-thin, too-white skin. Weak, watery blood had dried on their white, white flesh.
Above them stood the vampire known as Peregrinus. He was dark haired, dark eyed, with a bloody mouth and three-inch-long fangs, hugely big around, some of the largest-in-diameter fangs I had ever seen. Power emanated from him like from a live wire, a glowing, humming power that lit him up from within, like a lantern in a window on a moonless night. His very skin glowed. Peregrines were tattooed on his wrists, wings out and up, legs and claws spread and reaching, beaks wide and screaming.
Peregrinus was wearing a plain loincloth, the front and back draping, much like the men of the plains tribes of North America wore theirs, but without decorative porcupine quilling or beads. And I knew the moment I saw it that it wasn’t animal hide, not deer hide. It was made of skin, though. He was wearing human skin. Or vamp skin. Yeah. Vamp skin. He had tanned the skin of an enemy and was wearing it around his privates. Something told me the skin had once belonged to a female vamp who had insulted him in some way, but maybe I was projecting. Behind him lay a pile of bodies. The human soldiers he had brought with him. Looking dead.
In front of me, fixed in the moment of attack, was the white wolf, Brute, jaws wide, all three hundred plus pounds of werewolf in midleap, going for the human woman who was fighting Bethany. The Devil was dressed in black, so dark and matte that no light reflected anywhere except from her spinning blades. Though time seemed frozen, I could make out motion on the part of the human’s weapons, this time the long and short swords of the Duel Sang. They were moving faster than I was, the swords coming together in one of the scissor motions Grégoire had tried to teach me. The movement was a stepping-forward, crosscutting, kill-move that was intended to behead or cut an opponent in half. Neck or waist, either body site was a way to die.
The swords and the fighting method had one purpose, according to Grégoire. They were made for killing Mithrans. And Bethany was about to be beheaded. Faster than I could shove either of the opponents out of the way. Faster than the wolf could stop it. At least in regular time.
Batildis stood to the side. Close to the action. Watching. Expressionless. Her fists on her hips, arms akimbo. She wasn’t dressed for fighting. She was dressed for something else entirely in a long dress with full skirts, pale petticoats beneath and showing at the hem, full sleeves on a peasant blouse that left her breasts partially visible in the candlelight. Just three of them against the entire vamp HQ. Their magic and the arcenciel’s were that strong.
The Devil’s swords moved again. This time nearly six inches. Then another half foot. Time was speeding up. I wondered if—
There wasn’t time to figure it out or to determine the chances of it working. And I had no way to calculate the physics of the possibility, even if I had taken higher maths in school. Beast, on three, I thought.
Beast can count to three, she chuffed.
One. Two. Three.
Still in midair, I pushed through time, reached up, and removed the fishhook-shaped amulet. Hooked Batildis with the small charm, passing it through the flesh of her neck above her gorget. Time sped up for a moment, with a crash of sound, movement, and a blur of candlelight. Still in midair, I whirled and kicked the vamp. Hard. Paralyzed by the charm in the fishhook, Batildis fell toward the Devil’s blades. And all hell broke loose on earth.
Batildis fell into two pieces with a fountain of blood that shot toward the unfinished beams overhead. Horror crossed the Devil’s face. The swordswoman hesitated for a fraction of a second. Just long enough for Bethany to fall on her, fangs buried in her throat. The blood-servant and fighter of legend fell back, dropping her arms, her swords pointing to the clay floor. Her mouth opened to scream. Brute leaped over them, raced to the thing on the wall, and bit its foot.
Derek, coming through the doorway, raised a weapon and shot Peregrinus. Like a hundred times. With an automatic gun that crushed the silence, that echoed against the walls. Rounds missed and ricocheted. I landed, my back paws firm and stable on the clay floor. But Derek hadn’t seen me enter, leaping through a bubble of space and time given to Beast by an angel.
I took a round midcenter, just right of my navel. Another penetrated my left shoulder. Beast screamed. I fell at Derek’s feet and he leaped over me, still attacking Peregrinus, firing the weapon that shattered the stillness of the room and boomed against my eardrums. Bethany rose from the Devil, the priestess’ face and clothes covered with blood. The Devil stared sightlessly at the beams overhead, her swords out to the sides, her legs bent and limp, like a fallen angel of death on the clay of the earth. She no longer had a throat, just the bones of a spine. She was no longer a threat.
Bethany stood beside me, her arms out to the sides, screaming. Or, I was pretty sure she was screaming. Her head was back, her mouth was open, and her eyes glittered with fury. But the gun ripped into the air, stealing the sound, and then there was a flash of light, the scintillation of smoky wings, a flash of blacked snake tail. Peregrinus pulled reality around him in a wash of flashing energies. He was gone, the bodies of the Devil and Batildis with him, shadows on the move. Derek raced after, his men chasing behind.
I lay on the floor, cradling the Judge, the weapon that I hadn’t even fired yet, as Derek’s men raced after their boss. I was feeling too weak for the wounds—unless a round had hit something important, had bisected or ruptured something. Like the descending aorta or the big artery that feeds the liver. Funny. I couldn’t remember the name of t
he artery. The cramps that resulted from playing with time hit me and I curled tight in the fetal position, gasping.
Beast? I said.
She didn’t answer, which could mean something good or could mean something bad. I was facing the front of the room, and I saw Bethany stop screaming. She ripped the silver chain from Leo’s wrists and ankles and picked him up, placing him below the thing on the wall, holding the MOC’s head like a baby’s or a lover’s. As she raised back up, she paused and tore the thing’s leg open. With her teeth. A trickle of black blood fell from the fresh wound into Leo’s mouth. He shook as if an electric pulse had hit him. He vamped out and swallowed.
Bethany wiped her thumb through the black trickle and placed it into Grégoire’s mouth. He didn’t respond and she slapped him hard, rocking his head, before adding another trickle. And another. He took a breath, a wet, grinding sound like rubber over sand. She repeated the action with Katie. All three vamps were stirring. Bethany then ripped her own wrist and offered it to Leo, who latched on and drank. Grégoire, looking like an ill, bloodless child, took her other wrist. Katie crawled up Bethany and bit into her throat. Three mostly naked and blood-smeared vamps, all with their torsos cut open and gaping, feeding on the priestess. Ick. If I’d had breath, I might have said so, or laughed. Instead, the candlelight fluttered and telescoped down into a pinhole of vision, centered on the thing on the wall. It was staring at me. And I had a bad feeling that it knew what I was and that it wanted me. For dinner.
My last sight was of gray and black motes rising to obscure my vision. Took you long enough, I thought to Beast.
Beast was busy, she thought back.
And then I remembered the arcenciel. It had been here. Bethany hadn’t taken her or ridden her or whatever. But the pocket watches that were hanging on the crucified thing . . . Yeah, pocket watches. I’d last seen them in use in Natchez. And all the ones I’d managed to get hold of were in my safe-deposit boxes.
Now some were hung on the wall in the dungeon of the Master of the City of New Orleans and most of the Southeast. I had to wonder, as the last of the light shriveled down to a bright pinprick, where Leo had gotten his pocket watches. From Natchez? Or from my bank? Which would imply that the MOC had way more power in the human and financial world than I had known. I needed time to check all that out. Because if Leo had gotten into my boxes . . . that would totally suck.
The last of the light disappeared.
CHAPTER 21
A Bucket Full of Snakes
I came to in a room I didn’t recognize. A chandelier hung over me, one of the expensive ones, lead crystal and real gold gilt, polished and so brilliant that the light reflecting back from each facet hurt my eyes. The ceiling overhead was painted like the Sistine Chapel, or another fancy cathedral in Italy, with angels and humans sitting on clouds, faces etched with ecstasy. Vampires with wings flew among the happy group, fangs out. Weird. Vamps were weird. Their art was weirder.
I took a breath. It hurt so bad that I groaned, then coughed, which hurt even worse. I wrapped my arms around my middle, feeling cold blood on my flesh. Oh yeah. Right. I probably died. Again. This was getting old. Cats had nine lives, but I had already pushed that score into unknown territory and I had to wonder how many times I could die until the one time I didn’t get shifted in time.
Time.
I blinked, remembering. Beast had done something with time. Not just speeding me up, but taking me outside of time. A time bubble that let me do stuff inside it while the world didn’t go on without me. Folded time. My guts twisted into a knot and then yanked tight. I pressed into my middle, kneading, but the charley horse only seemed to get bigger.
I tried to stretch out and thought my insides would rip in two. Beast?
Jane must lie still. And wait.
Wait? I can’t breathe. I’m dying here.
Breast chuffed at me. Jane is not dying. Jane has air. Jane should think of time.
In the deeps of my soul home, Beast looked away, bored. She was lying in front of the fire pit, flames casting light and leaping shadows across her.
Time. Great. I fought to relax, to not panic, and closed my eyes.
I had actually seen a time bubble once, or maybe a time loop. I had been working with Molly way back when, and we had found a time loop in an old house that had been diagnosed as having a poltergeist. Wrong. It had a vampire stuck in a time loop, in a time bubble, with a witch. I had always been aware that time slowed down in battle. Soldiers had reported that phenomenon from time immemorial. But this was different. More distinct. More intense. Longer lasting. Now Beast and I had more control over the experience. Now Beast could do something like slow down time, fold time, at will. Or place us in a bubble at will. Freaky stuff.
Unfortunately, it looked like I would be the one to pay the price for the time shifts, not Beast.
I managed to get an elbow out and rolled over slightly, so I could see. I was on a bed, in a room with some light. Fighting panic, I pulled a pillow to my middle and shoved it hard against me. I was able to inhale. A long moment later I exhaled, slowly, slowly. My guts roiled like a bucket full of snakes. I pushed down on the nausea, hard. It would be really bad if I threw up right now. I took another breath and this time, I smelled Del everywhere, in the coverlet, on the pillows, permeating the air. This was her bedroom.
I coughed again. Stuff came up. Too tired to lift my head, I spat it onto the covers beside me. Old blood, black and phlegmy. Totally gross. Old blood meant that I hadn’t shifted totally. If I’d shifted, any blood in my system would have been absorbed by the shift and rearranged inside me. In a total shift, nothing got wasted. But in a partial shift, I was starting to realize, things could be way different. Things like my level of pain, and the degree of my body’s change, and the functions of my brain.
“How are you?”
I tilted my head to see Adelaide staring at me, but her head was at an angle that made my stomach roil. I closed my eyes. From behind the darkness of my lids I said, “I’m sick as a dog. How are you?”
“Alive. Thanks to your help. And thanks to the priestess.”
“And Derek. Last time I saw him he was chasing Peregrinus.”
“Peregrinus got away,” she said shortly.
I swallowed and the nausea faded just a hint. I could hear Del moving around the room. Cleaning up my mess. “The others?” I managed to ask.
“Leo and his heir are well. Grégoire is recuperating. Derek is injured, but will survive, as will most of his men. Your wolf raced away, last seen leaping through the front entry. And . . . and Wrassler. He said to give you his thanks.” I felt the mattress beneath me shift, which made sickness rise again. I swallowed it back down, desperate not to be sick, desperate to hear Del’s report. I pressed the pillow harder into me. “Leo has promised him the best of prosthetics for his leg. His arm may heal.”
I opened my eyes to see Del sitting on the edge of the bed. “How many dead and injured?” I asked.
Del sighed. “Of Peregrinus’ fighters, ten dead and left to rot. Of ours, seven dead, two of them Derek’s men. Nine injured, one critically. Four humans missing.”
“Missing?” I focused on her face. Missing didn’t sound right. Why would anyone be missing?
I realized I had spoken the question aloud when she said, “We don’t know. But it has something to do with Bethany. After she got all the Mithrans fed, she disappeared. And she took some of our people with her.”
I thought about that while I gathered my strength and pushed up with my arms, swiveling to sit upright, my knees held close, pressing the pillow into me as hard as I could. Del placed pillows behind me and I rested back on them. I was in a bedroom, a lacy, silken chamber done in shades of gold and cream and touches of sapphire. A nine-millimeter handgun—not one of mine—lay on the bedside table. The room looked like Del, all soft and reserved but with hidden surprises that could hurt you. “Sorry about the spread,” I said, my breath coming easier. “What time is it?”
I could hear the vibration of generators. “I’ll have to deal with the power situation.”
Del nodded. I realized that we both were trying to avoid dealing with the reality. So I took a slow, deep breath and asked, “I’m guessing that everyone knows about the thing on the wall of Leo’s dungeon.” Del looked away. “What was it? Who was it?”
She cursed softly, smelling of worry and fear. While she debated on telling me the truth or an artful lie, I managed to get my knees to uncurl an inch, and touched my belly. It was still hard, and now ached. I should never do that again. Never. And certainly never in the middle of a battle.
The gesture elegant and lissome, Del dropped her arms and lifted her head, her shoulders relaxing, as if freeing herself from a prison. “They called him Yo-sace, Bar-Ioudas. Joses, son of Judas, in English. He is a Son of Darkness. A child of Ioudas Issachar.” She stood and walked to the door, looking elegant and delicate and all the things I would never be, blond and beautiful and graceful. She stopped at the door and looked back at me. “This changes so many things. The presence of Joses Bar-Judas, as a prisoner here, makes it quite likely that, rather than parley with them, we will go to war with the Europeans.”
Shock made my chest ache again. Leo. Leo had known. The Son was Leo’s prisoner. Leo had been . . . drinking from him. That was why the MOC was so strong. Why his primo could be saved—or brought back to life—and turned into an Onorio—because Leo had been made uberstrong by the blood of the Son. And why Grégoire’s twin primos, Brandon and Brian, had been turned into Onorios.