Under Pressure

by Isobella Crowley

  The fairy wafted out from behind Conrad. “Yes, you’re right. Give me a moment.”

  As the witch began to voice the arcane words from the book in her hand in strange, droning vocalizations, Riley flew up to inspect the borders of the reading room and get a feel for them before she worked her own magic. After a moment, she spread her hands and cast faintly shimmering silver light all around the walls, ceiling, and floor.

  With a smile, she floated toward Remington. “I think I got it,” she reported. “Even though I’ve never done it on a room this big before.”

  He stroked her head briefly with the tip of his index finger. “What would we do without you? Thanks awfully—again.”

  Bobby strode up to Taylor. “She needs to touch the dagger,” she said and held a piece of paper on which Alice had written the procedural instructions to be followed. “Only for a second.”

  With a nod, the vampire hastened to the witch’s side and extended the weapon, hilt first, toward her. Alice did not look at her. The witch’s eyes were glazing over as she focused totally on the book and the strange words that poured slowly from her mouth. She extended her right hand and tapped the center of the knife’s golden handguard near the base of the thin sharp blade.

  Taylor drew it back to herself. For the moment, she decided to stay beside Alice in case the sorceress needed anything else. It was very likely that the dagger would have to be anointed with the substance in the bowl at some point but not yet. Not until they had the final ingredient.

  Conrad took a few steps back and half-turned toward the vampire.

  “I have weapons arranged on the seats under all those tables—there and there,” he explained and pointed to the reading surfaces closest to them. “They won’t know how well armed we are at first. I’ll remain in human form to start with. We’ll shoot as many as we can before they get close, then bring the weapons back before we engage them hand to hand.”

  She inclined her head. “Good. That ought to work well, provided they come through the front. Moswen lacks subtlety. However, we can’t discount the possibility of flanking.” She gestured toward the high, arched windows to either side of them. Rail-guarded walkways ran along the walls under the windows. They might help in keeping the battle away from Alice but they were too narrow to be effective positions for an extended fight.

  She frowned when she realized that damage to the beautiful structure and its impressive collection would be almost impossible to avoid. If they failed to defeat their adversary, however, New York could expect far worse.

  The incantation rose and fell in intensity, but the witch did not yet seem to have reached the ultimate passage.

  The air grew colder. Temperatures did not bother Taylor much one way or another, but she was still highly sensitive to changes in the air. Tension boiled through her and gave way to the limber relaxation she always tried to cultivate before a deadly struggle.

  Their radio device crackled softly. “Someone appeared in front of the main entrance,” Kendra’s voice reported hurriedly. “I don’t know how they got there. They might have dropped off the roof.”

  Taylor pressed the button to respond. “Only one?”

  “Yes. And I should mention—”

  “Not now,” the vampire said brusquely. “I need to focus and make sure I’m ready when Moswen appears.”

  The agent made a sound of protest, but Taylor turned the volume on the radio down and ignored it.

  The front doors opened, footsteps ascended the stairs, and a moment later, a single figure strode toward them down the central aisle between the broad reading desks. It was not Moswen but rather an average-sized if muscular man and no one Taylor recognized.

  “Hi!” he called and waved. “Parley? I have a message for you. It’s kind of important, ha-ha. You might want to listen.”

  This is a trick, Taylor surmised. Little does the bitch realize that she may, in fact, be helping us.

  Conrad gave her an uncertain glance as the strange man approached and continued his spiel.

  “So, I happened to be in the neighborhood,” he went on, “and word out on the street is that you people need to learn to negotiate properly. So—”

  Taylor darted forward. By the time the man realized what was happening and switched to a combat stance, the vampire had already caught him in a headlock and dragged him toward the altar.

  “Hey!” he protested, his voice thin and strangled. “You can’t—”

  “Be quiet,” she snapped. “Conrad, hold him.”

  The werewolf seized the man’s arms and pinned them behind his back as she ripped the front of his shirt open. There, over his heart, was a faintly glowing golden brand. The stranger’s eyes widened in fear.

  “I think,” the vampire stated, “that we already know what this ‘message’ will be.” She thrust her hand out, seized the man’s head, and twisted it sharply to break his neck. He slumped in Conrad’s arms.

  Bobby’s hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. This was probably the first time she’d ever seen a person die by violence.

  Alice, too, seemed disturbed, although her back had been to them the whole time as she tried to concentrate on the spell. And, crucially, the volume of her voice was rising, the stream of ancient words reaching a crescendo.

  Taylor seized the extra, empty saucer on the altar with one hand. With the other, she drove her fingernail into the messenger’s jugular. As he’d been dead only a second or two, the blood pumped out, thick and red and hot. She ignored the crude hunger she felt as she caught the fluid in the bowl and then returned it to the table.

  The witch did not miss a beat. Still chanting, she poured the blood into the earthen bowl and mixed it with the rest of the sludge, grinding the pestle with her right hand while the book trembled in her left.

  Remy glanced around nervously. “Okay, so, does this mean that—”

  The four windows closest to them all shattered at once. Dark shapes streamed into the library, scuttling and darting to spread out along the walls while others flew directly to the central floor.

  “Oooookay!” Remy interrupted himself and his eyes went wild as he smoothed his hair. “Surprise boss fight, no save point. Let’s fucking do this.”

  Alex, slouched against the wall in the extreme rear corner, groaned and gibbered in abject drunken terror and covered his face with his hands.

  Conrad had already seized the nearest gun and opened fire on the thralls near the windows and on the walkways. Eight of them, two per window, had penetrated the building.

  To everyone’s unpleasant surprise, the thralls returned fire. Moswen had finally caught up with the modern world and armed at least some of her servants with pistols. Taylor pivoted to catch the bullets with her own body—even if they were silver, they would only slow her down so it was better to absorb them and protect the humans. Chunks of regular lead struck her in the chest and thigh, stabbed her with pain, and made it momentarily harder to shoot, but her regenerative abilities were already dealing with the problem.

  She aimed her carbine and fired ten shots at the thralls on the right side of the hall. Conrad focused on the left. Three figures screamed and fell amidst the bookcases lining the wall. A fourth dodged behind a table and surged toward her.

  More streamed in through the windows along with three figures who, during all the excitement, had come in through the third-floor doors and the stairs. There were probably more who’d flown or jumped onto the roof from other buildings, thus bypassing Gilmore’s people.

  Conrad had gunned down two thralls himself, and Remy had picked up a revolver to wound another and send him scrambling toward cover.

  Furthermore, Riley worked magic of some kind from her position near the ceiling to create walls of viscous light that the thralls had to slow down to a quarter of their usual speed to pass through.

  Taylor saw one of the attackers, a lithe woman with stringy hair and crazed eyes, struggle through one of the transparent barricades. She raised her ca
rbine and squeezed off a single shot. Half of the woman’s head burst apart in a spray of red chunks and she toppled without a sound.

  The trio approaching from the front stopped halfway down the hall. On either side were two men, huge and strong, with dark glasses and shaven heads, one white and one black. In the center was Moswen Neith.

  “Taylor Steele,” the vampire hissed and her voice somehow filled the hall even amidst the chaos, although she had not shouted. “This will be our last meeting. Your impudence shall be punished with agony and death everlasting. Whatever paltry enchantment your servants are enacting will not save you.”

  As Taylor drew a bead on one of the bodyguards, both men suddenly whipped out submachineguns and opened fire.

  “Shit!” Conrad exclaimed and flipped the nearest table over to form a barricade, but most of the hail of bullets pierced through the wood.

  Again, she leapt directly into the line of fire and held up a heavy chair as a shield. It seemed the two men were mostly aiming for her and the werewolf, anyway. A dozen or more bullets drilled into the wood. A few pierced through and struck her flesh, momentarily paralyzing her with pain and shock.

  As she twisted in agony, she saw that behind her, Remy and Bobby had fallen prone. By some miracle, Alice had not been hit. Riley hovered before her, maintaining a shimmering screen with her hands to deflect the stray rounds.

  The bullets had only been of lead but the pain they inflicted gave Moswen’s remaining thralls—at least ten of them—the time they needed to move in for the kill. The Egyptian now advanced, too.

  The witch’s voice, grown to a raw-throated shout, finished the incantation and fell silent.

  A fountain of light, radiant white and tinged with blue, erupted from the bowl and brightening the whole chamber around them.

  “Taylor!” Remy shouted. “The dagger!”

  Two thralls had already closed on the vampire’s position and she was only now recovering from the barrage.

  She raised her carbine and fired four shots into the nearest thrall. He shook as blood spurted and he collapsed, and she fired the last five in the magazine at the bald white guy on Moswen’s right. He dodged behind a table but still took two rounds in the arm and shoulder, which made him drop his SMG.

  “Kill them!” their adversary shrieked and strode forward at a deliberate pace.

  Remy appeared beside Taylor and pulled her back, urging her toward Alice and the bowl as he raised his revolver and delivered a volley the other thrall, now mere feet from them. It was a small but scrappy-looking man, and in trying to protect himself, he took a round through the hand and another in the knee. He fell and writhed in anguish.

  Taylor reached the witch’s side and extended the dagger.

  Alice, who looked simultaneously zoned-out and terrified as she tried not to look at what was going on behind her, drew the luminous white substance up and rubbed it along the blade and guard of the knife.

  As both women watched in wonder, the dagger seemingly absorbed the holy ointment and now, the light emanated from the weapon itself.

  “Go,” the witch said.

  Taylor turned. Conrad had shifted into his wolfen form, his suit discarded beside him, and ripped the head off a thrall while three others piled against him, seeking at least to busy him enough for Moswen and her servants to strike at Taylor.

  The two vampires locked gazes.

  “What is that? You coward!” Moswen raged. “You know yourself to be the weaker. That trinket will not be enough.”

  Taylor’s lips drew back from her fangs. “We’ll see about that.”

  Putting all her strength and speed into the act, she launched forward to dart, weave, and barrel directly at her enemy, seeking to simply overwhelm her with a single overpowering strike and surprise her when she probably expected that she would be hesitant to fight her directly once more. In a fraction of a second, she closed the distance between them.

  Moswen’s hand, already twisted into a bestial claw, lashed out and caught her full in the face. She tumbled aside and crushed a table beneath her, although the dagger stayed in her hand.

  Her roll put her back on her feet. Before total wrath and bloodlust consumed her, one final lucid thought emerged from her brain.

  This won’t be easy, after all.

  Holding the glowing dagger firm, she lunged.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  New York Public Library Main Branch, Midtown Manhattan, New York

  Remy drew in a sharp breath as he watched Moswen knock Taylor aside like a Doberman resisting the charge of a housecat. His sight of both vampires was blocked by a ravening, hatchet-wielding thrall, a man with a buzzcut wearing a long coat.

  Rather than draw back and fight defensively against the hatchet, he stepped into the man’s attack and launched a fast side-kick squarely into his solar plexus. With an explosive “oof,” the man staggered back.

  That was enough time for the investigator to pick a chair up and swing it onto the thrall’s head and shoulders. The wood shattered and the man dropped, unmoving.

  “Never bring a hatchet to a chair fight,” he stated.

  He nonetheless picked the ax himself up and ran back to where Alice, Bobby, and Alex waited in the far rear corner.

  “Bobby,” he said, “take this, just in case. We’ve dealt with most of her minions, but it’s definitely not over yet.” He handed her the ax and she accepted it, wide-eyed but surprisingly calm.

  Conrad had wrought terrible havoc on Moswen’s thralls, killing six or seven of them and knocking out a couple of others. Now, he struggled against the huge black guy who’d stood to the Egyptian’s left. The man had wrapped a massive arm around his neck from behind, but the werewolf was so strong and ferocious that he was quickly losing his grip.

  A female thrall raced toward the combatants. Remy picked up a loaded crossbow, aimed, and fired. The sharp bolt caught the woman low in the back and narrowly missed her spine, but ruined her day quite effectively all the same. She squawked, fell, and rolled under the nearest table.

  Their radio crackled again.

  “Colonel Russel is here,” said Gilmore’s voice when Bobby quickly turned the volume up again. “His team is coming in to assist immediately.”

  “What?” Remy almost screamed. After a second of mental chaos, he wondered if that might be a good thing but he still didn’t exactly have time to explain what the fuck was going on to a team of National Guardsmen who’d decided to crash the party.

  By now, Conrad had the upper hand in his struggle against the bodyguard. He’d freed himself and shoved the man to the ground, his jaws open to bite his head off.

  I’m sure he’s fine, Remy thought and raced past them toward the front doors. I need to make sure the whole operation doesn’t get blown out of the water.

  As he sprinted to the center of the hall, however, he glimpsed Taylor and Moswen.

  The two slashed and lunged at one another, circling at speeds his eye could barely follow. Both bared their fangs and occasionally tussled at clinch range. At no point was Taylor able to plunge the dagger into her foe.

  She needs a leg up. We have to think of something.

  He ran on and almost collided with Colonel James Russel himself, along with four of his men.

  “What—” he stammered, “what are you doing here? A routine book security inspection?”

  “Mr. Remington,” the officer greeted him, “it looks like a hell of a scuffle. Do you want me to waste time explaining, or do you want help? Where are the hostiles? I have more men coming in the back and through one of the windows.”

  Remy froze, almost flabbergasted, and gestured vaguely over his shoulder. Then, he protested, “Wait! Taylor—you can’t hit Taylor. She’s trying to fight Moswen—”

  Russel was already beside him and examining the scene. “There she is. Oh, I recognize her. Time for a little—whoa, shit!”

  Spinning around, Remy immediately saw what had startled the colonel.

  The vampir
es had separated, and Moswen had begun to grow. Her body elongated, her hands became animal-like claws, her face stretched into a monstrous snout, and her feet became cloven hooves. A tail like a serpent’s burst out the back of her brown dress and swung behind her.

  It almost looked like Taylor, watching her in the total focus of battle frenzy, was about to shapeshift, too.

  “Jesus.” One of the Guardsmen gasped. “Is this for real, Colonel?”

  Without looking at the man, Russel replied, “I’m reasonably sure it is, Corporal. Like I said, this isn’t exactly a normal operation.”

  “Correct,” Remy interjected. “We might actually be able to use your help. But you won’t be able to do much against that…thing…even with all those guns. Not unless certain other forces are involved. This sounds crazy but trust me.”

  “Nothing,” the Colonel shot back, “that you could possibly say could sound any crazier than what I see right now. Hell, we thought we saw forms moving around in here, but we couldn’t hear anything. That’s already damned strange by itself.”

  Conrad ambled up—back in human form and having quickly pulled his pants on. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “Conrad,” Remy snapped, “help Taylor get Moswen out of the way, and clear any thralls. We need to get these men through. Alice might be able to tell us what the hell to do next.”

  The lycanthrope didn’t linger to ask questions. He located a thrall rising from behind a table close by and turned, punched the man in the face, and tossed him into the nearest wall. Without hesitation, he raced toward the duel between monsters which was already working its way toward the front corner of the hall.

  “This way,” Remy beckoned and jogged toward the rear with the Guardsmen close behind. “Feel free to shoot anyone who attacks us. A few of Moswen’s guys might still be alive.”

  They passed the corpse of the black bodyguard, missing the top half of his head courtesy of Conrad’s jaws. He wondered where the other one was—the guy Taylor had shot in the arm.

  There was no time to contemplate this since the man himself suddenly lunged from between two overturned desks. He’d finally reloaded his submachinegun one-handed and now aimed it at the troops.