Hammer of Darkness (Veil Knights Book 8)

by Rowan Casey

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” I told the wailing child.

  Behind me the patrol car cut short and went over the side of the hill behind me, trying to cut me off. It went down a cement staircase bouncing wildly, and I swore in frustration as I realized it was going to cut me off.

  The baby continued wailing and I felt very small inside myself.

  Coming onto the street, I popped into neutral to avoid killing the engine and yanked the handbrake, forcing the rear end to swivel hard in a tight, half-moon pattern. Coming to a stop, I gently dropped it into D and goosed it.

  But the cop car was right there, less than a block down, grill gleaming fiercely at me. It rode its own skid out, whiplashing into position, and then the engine snarled as it shot toward me.

  “Piss you off, did I?”

  I cranked up my RPMs, working the transmission without mercy, and shot forward, gunning straight into the teeth of the onrushing patrol car. Skill was gone. Now it was down to balls and who had the most brass swinging between their legs.

  I tried to shut out the baby’s cries. Feeding Euryale had been easier.

  The morning was overcast, gray and rainy, so that the streets showed wet. Both our vehicles had their headlamps on against the gloom, and as we hurtled toward each other I squinted hard against the glare of the patrol car’s powerful twin beams of illumination. The dazzling brilliance filled up my windshield, blinding me and I gritted my teeth, braced for impact.

  I heard someone screaming and realized, once again, it was me. My hands stood out in white knuckled fists on the steering wheel. A detached, cynical part of myself realized it was too late to turn, even if I wanted to. My laughter was more than a little wild.

  At the last second the driver of the patrol car proved a saner adversary than me. The black-and-white car cut hard to the right and shot past me in a streak. The cop looked furious. Murderous even. There was the sound of metal screeching and a brief shower of sparks as the driver side mirror ripped free in the glancing collision.

  In the next breath, I was past the patrol car and out in the open. I slowed and cut down a narrow side street. My eyes darted to the rearview mirror as I made the turn and I saw the patrol car lock up in an attempt to slow. The vehicle’s momentum was too great and it went sideways down the middle of the street.

  Under the centrifugal friction, even the high end tires couldn’t take the force and the rear one popped with a loud, sharp bang. I grinned, showing my teeth, then, in the next moment, I was down the street and gone. Letting the car ease down from its suicidal speed, I took a series of corners, losing myself in the grid of streets leading toward the Bay and waited for my heart to beat out the last of the adrenaline.

  Merging with the light traffic, I breathed in and shot the air out my nose. Did it again. With each breath I let the tension seep out of my body. The car began driving itself as I shifted my focus over what I was going to do next. I was going to get out of the vehicle, I knew. That was what I was going to do. The baby continued crying.

  My focus narrowed as I ticked through options. The patrol car had happened fast, I recognized danger and reacted. Then the inevitable happened and a black and white cut through a red light and sped down the street toward me. You can’t outrun the radio. Things were starting to get complicated.

  Chapter 18

  I'd made it to through Russian Hill and was running down Filbert St. toward the Financial District. A second patrol car cut in behind the first, and we all let out speed climb. Suddenly, up ahead, I saw the public parking garage and swerved into it, the baby still crying. I hit the up ramp going too fast and scraped the undercarriage, sending sparks trailing out behind me in a rooster tail.

  I spun the vehicle around, climbing a level then cutting over and hugging the wall, stopping just short of plowing the front end into a parked car. I worked the gearshift, putting the vehicle in reverse. I had to thread the eye of a needle now. I kept the clutch pinned to the floor, toe gently pressing on the gas to keep my rpms high.

  After a minute the patrol car shot off the ramp and into the second level of the garage. I popped the clutch and fed the gas. The Accord shot backwards without warning as I sprang the ambush. I couldn’t see the driver’s face behind the patrol car’s windshield.

  I rammed the trunk into the grill of the oncoming patrol car, stopping both vehicles in a catastrophic instant of shattered glass and tearing metal. The impact threw me forward into my seat belt and I gasped as the air drove from my lungs. I came up painfully against my restraint, hard enough to leave bruises and my head whiplashed forward.

  Move! I told myself. It was nothing more than a hard landing like the dozens I’d taken in the Marines, what felt a thousand years ago. My hand was already on the release catch and I popped the seatbelt free. I shouldered open the door and rolled out.

  I stumbled, dizzy from the impact, and forced myself to start moving.

  The parking garage level had a cement battlement against which lines of cars parked, nose in. Above that ran a long opening, providing a view of the city before the ceiling buttress formed the outer wall of the next level up. I saw the cold, Oxford blue waters of the Bay.

  Darting between two cars, I came up against the waist-high balcony. Leaning out over the two-foot-wide ledge, I looked down. Twenty feet below there was an alley between the parking structure and a three story shopping center. The narrow alley had several of the big green, municipal garbage dumpsters and a lone, dirty white, delivery van parked under a single street lamp.

  None of them within reach.

  I looked back. Two cops, athletic builds, no-nonsense head crackers, dragged themselves from the ruined patrol car. Their hood was crumpled up like waded paper and the windshield was spider webbed with cracks from the impact. The cop on the left was bleeding down his chin from where the airbag had broken his nose.

  The cop riding shotgun drew his service weapon.

  “Baby!” I screamed. Just in case they couldn’t hear the kid crying.

  It bought me a moment as they looked toward the Honda, and I didn’t wait for them to shout ‘freeze,’ as I was almost 100% sure they weren’t going to bother. I slid across the rampart ledge and swung my legs out into space, keeping low in case they did open fire. The two men, still looking shook from the crash, gathered themselves and sprang after me.

  “Freeze!” one of the cops shouted. Kudos for him.

  He lifted the pistol up and assumed the traditional modified Weaver stance I myself favor. I let myself slide over the edge, catching onto the lip of the slick cement with my fingers spread wide to maximize purchase. Lowering myself down until I hung from arm’s length, I took a big breath. Now, instead of being six meters above the unforgiving pavement, I’d brought my feet almost two meters closer. I could take that far a fall.

  I dropped.

  I landed with knees slightly bent, and folded over in a smooth collapse, rolling along my side and dispersing the impact force. Bleeding off potentially damaging inertia, I somersaulted over my shoulder and came up to my feet. My ankles screamed, but adrenaline numbed the pain for now.

  It was a smooth execution, but it brought me only moments to get out of target range. I saw the worn wood of the backdoor leading into the shopping center just in front of the delivery van.

  I crouched, spun, dug my heels in, and sprinted as more yelling exploded from above me. Four hard steps and I was in front of the door. Turning my shoulder into it, I struck it at a dead sprint. The dead bolt snapped clear, ripping free as the door popped open. Cement exploded next to my head, cutting me with brittle shards and laying my face open as a gunshot barked behind me.

  Then I was through the door and out of the alley. I struck something, rebounded, and spun away from the opening in case the cops shot again. I came up short, trying to get my bearings. I was inside a storage room, long lines of shelving running in a fence around the perimeter, and piles of wooden crates and cardboard boxes stacked at intervals around the floor.

  A
fat man with greasy hair in a bushy buzz cut, holding a clipboard, stared at me, gaping. I ignored him, saw an open door, and ran for it. “Hey!” the man shouted but I left him behind.

  Busting through two swinging doors, I came out in the back of a shoe store. But I was on the other side of it now, I realized, as I cut through the store and pushed out into the street. I was going to make the water and pray I was strong enough to make a good swim of it. I wasn’t worried about hypothermia. I’m hard to kill, I think I’ve mentioned that.

  Coming out of the water at Gold Gate Park, I jacked a homeless guy for some of the stinking second hand clothes he had stuffed into ripping apart at the seams garbage bags. I was still barefoot, but at least I was no longer naked with the smeared blood on my flesh showing.

  The guy was mentally ill and a long time off his meds, which is a hell of a lot less funny in person. Scaring him was easy enough, and I got out of there with a shirt and pants that probably would have run me three dollars at a Salvation Army story. It wasn’t that far now to Cynthia’s.

  I carefully made my way down the alley behind the Spell Book

  Outside Cynthia’s window the morning sounds of San Francisco and the Haight dulled. A breeze picked up the scent of the Bay and blew it across the area. There were no lights on in her building.

  I carefully broke the warning geas set on her back door by carving a larger one around it, using an old nail, then entered the building and climbed her back stairs. Reaching the second floor, I stopped for a while, growing use to the creaks and breathing of the old building. I heard nothing from Cynthia’s rooms.

  Something primal in me warned against calling out, announcing my presence. It was a vestige of the wildling within me, I do not often ignore its warnings, though I frequently do not understand them. The hall remained empty and silent, soft overhead fixtures providing subdued illumination.

  I narrowed my eyes, taking in the bar of dark space separating the edge of the door with the jamb. Cynthia owned the whole building outright, she had no neighbors, and the shop was essentially her downstairs. Even allowing for that, there was no good reason for the door to her private apartments to be standing open like this.

  I started down the hallway trying to decide what to do. If she was in there, I risked scaring her to death, but it had already been one hell of a night, and I wasn’t taking any chances. Putting my back against the wall I cat danced down the corridor, moving slowly, passing one leg over the other as I shuffled.

  I reached the door and halted, cocking my head and listening. I heard nothing from inside. I carefully placed the heel of my foot against the edge of the door and then pushed it open. It swung wide on well-oiled hinges.

  Pivoting around the jamb, I entered the dark apartment and scanned the interior. It was basically as I remembered it from our time together. Cynthia was a minimalist in her design taste, and her personal quarters had always displayed a marked contrast with the semi-controlled chaos of the store below.

  My tattoos warmed like an electric blanket. I started then relaxed. Of course her place would have active thaumaturgical residue; she was a sorceress. This understanding did little to ease my apprehension. She was a pretty damn good sorceress.

  Methodically, I began moving around the apartment, clearing each room before moving on. Cutting through the living area, I inspected the kitchen. There wasn’t even a dirty coffee cup out of place on the counter. Moving on, I cleared the main bathroom, which had grown decidedly more feminine over the years, and then the hall closet. In moments there was only one room left.

  The door to her bedroom at the end of the tall felt ominous, foreboding to me. My tattoos were ablaze now and I resisted the urge to head straight to it and get my answers. At the threshold I halted, then reached out and tried the doorknob. It turned easily under my hand and the door swung open. The curtains over the picture windows were thrown back and ambient city light seeped in. My already dilated eyes took in the scene easily.

  All the furniture, from the California king bed and mattress, to the old oak desk she’d used to sit and write her research out on, was slammed in a jumble against one wall. The floor was hardwood, salvaged from an 18th century whaling ship and lovingly cared for by her. It had been violated.

  The inverted pentagram was large enough for the outline to contain each one of her limbs and frame her head. Candles burned at the corners, black tallow dripping down to the coat the floor from beneath purple flames. I slowly straightened.

  Cynthia was naked, her throat cut. I ground my teeth against each other and made fists of my hands. My body trembled and my chest heaved at the sight of her mutilated body. I willed the switch inside me to flip, and after a moment it did, and I eased my hands open, breathing slower.

  My tattoos alerted me, and I stopped, ear cocked and listening for sound. I heard the feather light steps and turned.

  Maria, the young woman from the bistro earlier who had taken such an intense dislike of me, stood in the doorway, dressed in full dominatrix regalia. Stiletto heel riding boots, thick black leggings that hugged her obviously well muscles legs, a black rubber A-line dress designed to shatter the 10th Commandment to pieces.

  Her makeup and hair was goth inspired glam punk, and she must have worn thirty pounds of steel with all her piercings. Her bare, seriously buffed out, arms were done up in the swirling blues and greens of full on sleeve tattoos, wrist to shoulder.

  She chewed gum casually, long bladed tanto sheath knife in her hand. It was smeared with blood.

  "The left hand path starts out pretty innocuous," I said. "Like libertarianism for magicians. But the slide into dark is inevitable."

  She chewed her gum and looked at me, obviously not impressed with what she was seeing. I had seen better days, it was true.

  "But if you want the serious mojo, the real juice you've got to trade in currencies the Veil-kind desire. One of the best?" I said, "sacrifice of someone you love." I jerked my chin toward Cynthia. "Was it hard? Betraying and murdering someone who trusted you?"

  Maria grinned. I met her eyes and very much felt the abyss staring back. She popped her gum, smirking.

  "Who? That lazy bottom?” She indicated Cynthia with her chin. “She never saw it coming." She shrugged strong shoulders. "No thing."

  "Bullshit," I said. "I recognize your ceremony, not my first rodeo." I looked around for a weapon. Didn’t see any submachine guns or swords. "In order for it to work it has to be real." I looked deep and long into the abyss behind her eyes. "You don't fool Moloch, or Baal, or Dagon, or who-the-fuck-ever. If it's not real they don't accept the sacrifice, and you're nothing but a murderer in stupid ass clothes."

  She began edging toward me. I began edging around her. She lifted the tanto.

  "So what, I loved her?" she asked. "The Veil falls I am rewarded." She grinned. "You die, we open the rend, I rule beside Moloch over a shadow kingdom that only grows stronger the more the Veil fails." She threw back her head and laughed. "By the time Erica is finished, le Vey herself will need permission to enter our domain."

  "Erica doesn't share power," I said. "She'll use you up and throw you away," I pointed toward the altar. "Just like you did Cynthia." I smiled, dialing in on her insecurities. "You think she wouldn't step over your corpse to ingratiate herself with le Vey?" I laughed. "You're window dressing, little bitch."

  She didn't shout in rage and charge. The only warning I got that my provocations worked was a slight narrowing of her eyes. Then she exploded toward me.

  I crouched, caught the arm holding the knife and deflected it upward, going over backward with her rush. I wasn't taking her out muscle against muscle. She was so juiced with black magic I felt her body fairly thrum with it.

  I went with her inertia, rolling up onto my shoulders, legs to either side of her body, one under her right armpit, the other over her left shoulder. Her momentum carried her forward, and I crossed my legs behind her back in a figure 4 leg lock, both my hands on the wrist of the hand grasping the ta
nto.

  We came to rest with me stacked up hips over shoulders, her head between my thighs and face only inches from mine. She screamed and warm saliva splattered my face. She struggled to free herself as I bore down on the chokehold and I used her movement to roll us onto our sides. Her face turned fire engine red with trapped blood and began swelling up like a balloon under the pressure. She tried striking at me with her arm, but, pinned against the floor as it was the blows had little effect.

  I wrestled the arm holding the knife, pulling up with my two handed grip while pressing down with my hips, using the entire strength of my back. Her feet dug frantically for purchase.

  For a moment, I was locked in combat with Kay again, and I cried out in anguish. Maria took the sound for weakness and pressed her attack, snapping me out of the endless playback loop and into the moment.

  I twisted her wrist to the side, forcing the joint locked elbow to do the same, and was able to trap it under my armpit and the snake my left arm around hers behind the elbow.

  "Helpless," I told her. I saw the light dying behind her eyes as she asphyxiated. "You are powerless. All that evil, all that betrayal," I whispered through gritted teeth, "and in the end you're just as helpless as when you started."

  She struggled but that only sped up the process. She went to sleep and I rolled free, taking up the tanto.

  Maria would regain consciousness quickly. She wasn’t out in a deep sleep as if I’d drugged her, but she was caught in a confusing twilight of asphyxiation that made her easy to deal with. I drug a kitchen chair over and put her in it, using silver duct tape from Cynthia’s toolbox under the sink to wrap her up. I used more than I needed so it would hurt more when it came time to take it off.

  I’m not an alchemist, I should mention that upfront.