by R. S. Black
“No.” She shook her head, her gray wispy curls danced around her face. “There’s no connection as of right now.”
“Fine.” I swiped the air with my hand. “One problem at a time.”
Grace gave me a worried smile. “Sadly, lass, I wish I could agree with ya. The order’s sending me to Acuna night after tomorrow. Mary has been packin’ all night.”
I gave a short burst of stupefied laughter. “Do they not know we’re dealing with vamps running wild here? We can’t move on.”
She shook her head. “You won’t. At least not until you’ve dealt with the vampire problem. You have things well in hand here. I’m no longer needed as liaison.”
“Excuse me. Under control?” I threw my hands up in the air. “I. Do. Not... have things under control. Grace, we told you it’s a hive down there. I need backup.”
She shook her head, mouth pinched with anger. “You cannot take any other Neph with you, Pandora. It would compromise the mission. You said there was Neph down there.”
“No.” I shook my head adamantly. “I said we thought there might be. We’ve told you a million times the I.R. was running defective. To rely on any information we gathered off that is asinine.”
She crossed her arms, bird chest beginning to rise and fall with the weight of her anger.
“I’m taking Luc,” I admitted, notching my chin in defiance.
Grace stared at me; the look was hard and cold.
“Without help, I’m doing little more than committing suicide. A lone fighter, even a Neph, is useless against the might of numbers. I need help. Send me something. Give me something. Send members of the order. Anybody you trust, I don’t care. But I am asking you as a friend because I cannot do this alone.”
And that was my last ace up the sleeve, plan B. Petition for help—not as the order’s brawn, but as one friend to another.
“We have none to spare.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Had she heard nothing of Luc’s report? “Grace, I didn’t just stumble onto a cult of a few. I found the whole lair. Even I can’t promise I’d make it out of there a second time.”
She slammed her hand down on her armrest in agitation. “We have bodies floating in lakes, zombies run amok.” She groaned. “Dear child, I wish it were otherwise. I wish I had an army of angels at my disposal, but I canna spare even one. And even if I tried, the order would overrule me. I am not even captain of my division; my power within the circle only goes so far.” Her eyes pleaded with me to understand.
I shook my head, lost for words. Betrayed, upset; it didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. She reached for my hand, but I yanked it out of reach. “I should leave. I should leave you to clean up your own mess.”
She took a deep breath. “To betray the order’s directives is to forfeit your life. Please, Pandora, don’t make me do that.”
I snorted. “My life is forfeit either way.” The only reason I wouldn’t leave was those kids. Did no one care about them but me?
What the order was doing made no sense, and what Grace did, less so.
“So what of my family?”
She looked at the carpet, at the wall behind my head, at anything other than me. “We will give them a week to pack up.”
I bit my bottom lip, hearing what she didn’t say. “And me?”
Rheumy blue eyes held mine. “You stay until you are done,” she said, words ringing with finality. Irish brogue barely heard in the steadiness of that voice.
I licked my teeth, strangely calm inside, though I knew it for the disbelief it was. Once I got over the shock, heaven help anybody who stepped in my path. “Then I guess I’d better finish this tonight.”
The phone rang. She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut as it rang a second time, seeming to grow louder and more obnoxious with each subsequent ring.
She rose to her feet, movements slow. “Please, Pandora. If it weren’t such...”
“No. Don’t bother.” The phone seemed to scream this time. “You’d better answer that.” I turned and left, walked down the stairs, keeping my head low and hands shoved into my pocket.
I’d been so sure and so wrong.
Footsteps sounded behind me. I turned, expecting to find anyone other than Mary running full speed at me, hugging the beige trench coat she wore tight over her slender frame. I jumped into a fighting stance and, with the fluid movement of a trainer killer, grabbed one of many daggers strapped to my arm.
She skidded to a halt, eyeing the weapon with large frightened eyes. She held up her hands. “Please, may I approach ye?”
“What do you want?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t even be out here. Father be merciful,” she mumbled.
I frowned, relaxing my grip on my weapon.
She licked her lips, opened her jacket, and sank her hand deep into a hidden pocket.
I tensed, holding up my knife. “Get your hand out of there.”
Her skin turned a mottled shade of gray and white. “It’s a book. A book. Just a book,” she repeated, voice straining with nerves.
I narrowed my eyes, but nodded for her to continue, wary for any sign of deceit.
She pulled it out. Like the priest’s book I’d been given, this one too was leather bound. She handed it to me. I took it.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this.” She raised her eyes heavenward, crossed herself, and then placed her thumb to her lip and kissed it. “Guard it with your life.” She swallowed hard, then turned swiftly on her heels and ran back.
Stunned, I turned the book over. The stenciling was faded and small. “Castel Caudron.”
That was Anglo-Saxon writing for castle cauldron, an Old English style of writing that faded sometime after the twelfth century.
Why had she given me this? I flipped through the book. Was this a clue? Some way to defeat the vamp swarm?
But with each turn of the page my heart, sank lower and lower. It was a child’s book, a silly collection of poetry and sonnets depicting the life of a thirteenth century farm boy.
I smelled sulfur.
“What’s that?” Luc asked a second later, peering over my shoulder.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But we don’t have time to figure out this riddle either. She didn’t budge,” I said, closing the book.
“Unbelievable,” he snarled. “It’s just us?”
I nodded and started running. He followed. It was five till ten.
“Who was following us?” I finally asked, overcome by curiosity, hoping that maybe he had better luck than I’d had trying to figure out who it was.
“Followed the trail for miles before it vanished.” He shrugged. “Whoever it was is long gone now.”
I was aggravated but tried not to show it. He was right. Whoever that was wasn’t an issue at the moment. Getting inside the club was.
I ported to the rooftop I’d been on yesterday and remembered the other book. Luc crouched on the roof’s edge, looking like some Gothic statue watching the streets below.
I jogged to the vent, and my stomach churned with relief when I spied my clothes and the book still tucked inside. I snatched it out.
“I’ll be right back, Luc.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Where you going?”
I jiggled the book Mary had given me at him, keeping the other one tucked behind the safety of my body. “I don’t know why she gave me this, but there must be a reason. I’m going to hide it.”
He eyed me hard, as if trying to decide whether to believe me or not. Finally he clipped his head.
I ported to my trailer, sailing on the breeze faster than I’d ever gone before. I took a second to gather myself after materializing, tamping down the vertigo before I trusted myself to walk.
I shoved the books under my mattress and just as a precaution set a quick ward over it, and then I ported back to Luc. But even I wasn’t used to moving so fast, my molecules buzzed angrily, bouncing against one another so violently it was making my stomach r
oll. If I continued porting, I’d puke. I had to stop.
Spying an empty alleyway, I jumped behind a Dumpster a full block away from where Luc waited. I was still weak from the stabbing last night. Though the wound was no longer visible, my insides still ached and I felt at less than full speed.
I leaned against the large metal garbage bin and greedily sucked in air, wiping my hand down my sweat-slicked neck.
Lungs still heaving and insides screaming, I knew I couldn’t chance another port. I took two more breaths then started jogging, paying my surroundings little more than a cursory glance when I saw something that triggered a memory.
Have you ever glanced at something without really looking at it? But then you do a double take and realize here was the clue you’d needed all along?
A small white sign hung over the door of a nondescript building. Staring back at me was the image of a Chinese dragon and the black lettering of a single word: Neo.
I ran, pumping my arms and legs with a burst of newfound adrenaline.
“I knew it,” I growled between clenched teeth. Vyxyn hadn’t returned last night, and I’d bet I knew why. She must have been the black robed figure from last night. I’d broken its leg; she wouldn’t want to return until it had healed fully. She knew I’d know.
Not even breathing heavy, I finally got to the building where Luc still crouched. I cupped my hands around my mouth and trilled a long birdsong.
“Dora?” I heard his harsh whisper a second before he ported.
I turned on him. “It’s Vyxyn, Luc.”
His brows gathered into a sharp vee. “What?”
I gathered my glamour, wrapping my body tight in it. Like second skin, it clung to me. I was invisible to any I chose to be invisible to. The problem with using this much glamour is any parasite sensitive to the use of power would sense me, but stealth no longer mattered. I needed inside. After that, the walls would come tumbling down.
Luc followed my lead and cloaked himself as well. He kept my pace.
“The other day I was at the chow hall when I overheard Vyxyn talk her nonsense. I didn’t think anything about it until I saw the sign.”
“Sign?”
I breezed past groups of people headed for the club. Many of them turned, a startled look plastered on their faces as they felt me brush by them. But they couldn’t see me, and I didn’t slow.
From the opposite end of the street, a line formed behind Sanguinary. Some of the people held children, others didn’t. I gritted my teeth and ran with an extra burst of speed.
My hope was to sneak inside with the group.
“Neo,” I said, finally answering Luc’s question. “A restaurant one block from here. It’s her, Luc, without a doubt.”
He didn’t speak again until we’d reached the door. It’d already opened and bodies were piling in. Children were screaming and trying to get away. Much more chaotic than last night. As if the kids themselves sensed the inherent danger of this full moon.
I shoved more glamour down my body, thralling anyone who looked at me to not see me.
My heart raced as I reached the door. I hugged the frame and hunched. I did not want to expose myself until the door was secured and everyone was trapped inside.
The vamp with the scarred face stopped talking; the hooded head turned my way, and he narrowed blood red eyes. He was an elder and probably very good at sensing dark magick.
“Who goes there?” he asked, voice deep and laced with the hint of a growl.
I glanced at Luc and shook my head. He nodded. He wouldn’t attack until inside.
I scooted past the vamp; all the while his dead eyes followed me. I knew he couldn’t see me, but he knew I was there.
Luc entered next, but the vamp was so intent on finding me he didn’t pay him any notice. When the last client entered, the vamp swung the door shut; the metal rang with a shivering note of finality.
The elder reached into his robe and pulled out a Smith and Wesson automatic, then twirled on me.
“Come out and show yourself, chère,” he muttered with a slight trace of Cajun French. “I promise I’ll make this painless.” The silky sweetness of his voice dripped with ironic intent.
The children gasped as the adults threw themselves to the dirt floor. Panic swept the room.
Luc and I revealed ourselves at the same moment.
“Neph,” the Cajun hissed, then shot at me, but he missed by a hair’s breadth. The bullet ricocheted off the wall, and I heard a man scream as he sat up clutching at his foot.
Luc circled behind the vamp, who was trembling now. He shot again and again; one of the bullets grazed my cheek before I finally reached him. I grabbed his wrist and crushed it. He dropped the gun, and his chest rose with what would probably have been a loud scream of warning when Luc gripped his neck from behind and tore out his vocal box.
The body collapsed to the ground. I sat on him, ripped my claws through his chest, and tore his still-beating heart out. I squeezed. Blood filled my nostrils, sprayed my face and eyes.
I coughed and tried to wipe it off but only smeared it further.
As if watching the vamp die spurred the humans into their primal instinct to survive, they jumped up, pounding on the door.
“Let us out,” a woman screamed.
Another man moaned, “I don’t want to die.”
Anger whipped through my body with the speed of thought. My claws grew longer, sharper. Lust roared to life and demanded to be let loose.
“You ask for mercy,” I said, voice guttural and full of demon. “And yet you give none. None you shall receive.”
My limbs reshaped, forming into something monstrous as I began to lose control. I advanced with slow, deliberate steps. Many started running down the stairs.
“Pandora,” Luc said at my side. I snarled. “Keep it in,” he warned. But I shoved it off. He hadn’t been here last night, and for the first time in my life it felt good to let the demon take over. For the first time I didn’t want to fight it. I wanted to kill them all.
The rest of the group followed downstairs, leaving the kids behind. Luc ran after them. Grunts and groans followed in his wake.
I laughed.
A child whimpered. A small sound and yet it was like slamming headlong into a tree. I blinked. Lust wanted blood. Yes, blood.
No, another voice.
I frowned.
Blood! Screamed The demon, raking her claws down my sensitive innards. I clutched my stomach.
The children. The children. The voice grew louder, the light overcame the darkness, and then a picture formed in my mind of a little girl in a pink dress. “Brianna.” Her name was the anchor that brought me back.
“The kids,” I croaked, and the voice was my own. I licked my lips and looked at them, at their faces shiny with tears, and I smiled. “It’s okay.”
Several started to wail and shake like saplings in the wind.
“You’re safe now.”
But they did not trust me, not a single one. They’d seen who I really was, and to them I was more the monster than the vamp had been. The older children hugged the younger ones to them and postured, warning me back.
I couldn’t leave them unprotected, and yet I couldn’t stay. I held up my hands and took five steps back. “I will not touch you, but please you must listen to me, those people that brought you were going to do terrible things to you. There are more kids downstairs, and I have to save them, so I will need to leave you.”
A child looking no older than seven or eight asked, “Can we go home? Can we leave, please?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but no. You must stay here for now, and I need you to do something for me. Can you do something for me?” I asked, my tone gentle and soothing, hoping to get them to trust me.
The boy spoke up again, clearly the more brave of the pack. “What?” There was wariness tinged in the little voice, but not fear, as if he’d seen the worst of humanity before.
In some ways he reminded me of mysel
f, and I felt a growing affinity for the scrawny redhead.
“I need you to gather the children in a tight circle. I’m going to ward you so no one can hurt you guys.”
He cocked his head, as if mulling over my words. “How can we trust you? For all I know, you’re just trying to make me think you’re nice so you can hurt us yourself.”
“Pandora.” Luc touched my elbow, materializing beside me quiet as a stalking cat.
I nodded. We needed to go. Though I knew from personal experience how loud it was in the sacrifice room, someone might have heard and could be right now gathering troops to bring down the intruders.
“Listen, kid...” I could tell this little guy was tough, probably grew up in the city, and he’d likely respond better to a firm command then gentle cajoling. “You need to man up and trust your instinct. What does your gut tell you?”
He notched his chin, and the light of knowledge filled his big blue eyes. I breathed a sigh of relief. He gathered the children.
“Pandora, hurry,” Luc whispered viciously.
I growled. “I will not leave these kids without guard.”
His anger punched at me like a fist. I ignored him and turned back around.
Once the kids were in place, I set a ward, taking longer than normal to make sure no one could penetrate through who meant them any harm. The silvery webbing of my magic settled around them like the pulsing light of jellyfish in deep waters.
I nodded at the boy, and he nodded back.
“You wasted valuable time,” Luc snarled and raced me down the stairs. I had to step over the twisted and mangled limbs of broken bodies. He’d killed them all and, what’s more, I didn’t feel a thing.
“You might be a heartless bastard, but I’m not.”
“You can’t save them all.” In less time than it had taken me yesterday, we were at the bottom of the stairs. He grabbed the latch and wrenched open the door. It swung in on silent hinges.
“Maybe not,” I said, “but I’m damn well gonna try.”
Chapter 24
I raced ahead of him and glanced at the cages with every intention of ripping them open and pulling the kids out. I stopped and turned in a giant circle. Fear lodged in my throat like a greasy ball of wax.