by Jane Kindred
“Maybe there’s a backlog in hell.”
She smiled in spite of herself. He’d always been able to make Lucy smile when she didn’t want to.
“You know Edgar set up the trust to transfer to you on our twenty-fifth birthday. Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe whatever effect Hamilton’s meddling has had on the curse, it can’t fully manifest until the time is right.”
Lucien nodded. It made sense. Their birthday was in a few hours. It gave him a sense of finality even as it terrified him. He couldn’t go on like this indefinitely. If he were his former self, he’d have hunted his new self down by now. But there were other things he could hunt down in the meantime.
“I’m glad the serum helped you, Lu. Take good care of the company. And don’t be too quick to send me new souls.” He smiled even though she wouldn’t see it and turned away.
“Lucien, wait.” Lucy crossed the room, holding something out to him. His phone. “At least take this with you so I can contact you if something changes.”
He shook his head. “What could possibly change that matters?”
“Just take it, goddammit.”
He showed her his claws. “How would I even use it?”
“I disabled your password and the thumbprint recognition. You can use your knuckles. I tried.”
Lucien sighed and snatched it from her to avoid an argument. “Happy birthday, Lu.” He leaped through the window before she could say anything else. He hated long goodbyes.
He went through his list mentally—rogue creatures and deserving half humans he’d kept in his sights. He supposed he didn’t need the crossbow now, even if he could have wielded it.
There was a certain priest in the Phoenix area who’d been transferred from one parish to another for years to hush up scandals. The harm he’d caused to the young boys entrusted to his spiritual care had been bad enough while he was mortal. Now he fed on his victims as well after having been turned by a former parishioner in an act of revenge. He ought to have died, but he’d managed to summon Smok Consulting in time to save his pathetic life and allow him to continue it as a closeted bloodsucker.
Maybe that phone would come in handy after all.
It didn’t take long to nail down the priest’s current location. Lucien took to the air and soared over the desert with the night birds. They viewed him with idle curiosity. He had a good sense of direction, and he’d memorized the map on his phone. The grid of the metropolitan area was laid out for him in lights.
At the church, his heightened senses led him to the scent of blood. He found the priest in the darkened chapel. Far too late for mass, he was cloistered in “confession” with a child he must have kept after. Lucien tore the roof off the confessional, exposing the monster. He hadn’t really thought about the standard problem with eradicating vamps. Wooden stakes were a Hollywood cliché, and burning them—with sunlight or fire—just made them angry. Though it did have the satisfying effect of making them experience a great deal of pain while they grew new skin.
But it turned out that Lucien’s enhanced abilities included being able to bite a vamp’s throat in two, taking the head clean off. Tasted disgusting, but it did the trick. The boy cowered on the floor of the confessional as Lucien tossed the priest’s corpse aside. What could he possibly do to allay the child’s fear? Nothing, he realized. He was the devil, and the devil had just killed a priest.
A familiar chill rushed into the church, the thundering of horses’ hooves and raucous calls accompanying a hunting horn in the distance. Through the open chapel doors, Lucien could see the approach of the Wild Hunt. He straightened to face the chieftain.
Leo Ström swung off his spectral mount, sword drawn, taking in the bloody scene with cold calculation. He approached Lucien with his sword raised, his brown leather duster scattering the flurry of ice that seemed to emanate from the Hunt itself—ice in May.
“So this is how I get to hell,” said Lucien. “Makes sense.”
Leo drew up short. “Lucien?”
His growl was still mostly intelligible, but he was surprised that Leo recognized him. “You have a good eye.”
“Just a good nose.”
He wasn’t sure how to take that. He imagined he wasn’t smelling too good about now, and he didn’t think he’d had a body odor problem before turning into a monster.
“Fair warning,” said Lucien. “I can more than beat you in a fight now, and I don’t intend to go easily.”
“Go? I’m not here for you. I came for this piece of garbage.” He kicked at the head and it rolled under a pew. Leo studied Lucien’s condition. “Slept with Theia, did you?”
Lucien burst out laughing—though it probably sounded more like a roar. It felt good for a moment to have a genuine laugh.
Leo sheathed his sword inside the duster. “I could use someone like you in my hunting party.”
“That’s a generous offer coming from a man I tried to kill, but I won’t be around much longer. Just waiting for my soul to be collected.”
“Sorry to hear that.” And he actually did seem sorry. “But it won’t be collected by me.”
Lucien nodded and turned toward the shattered stained-glass window he’d climbed through. “Do me a favor,” he said as he jumped onto the sill. “There’s a very frightened boy in the booth over there. If you could get him some help, I’d appreciate it. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’ll need some antivenin therapy from Smok Biotech. Give Lucy a call. She’ll know what to do.”
Leo nodded and tipped his hat. “Farewell, my friend.”
Lucien hadn’t expected that. Maybe he did have some capacity for emotion left in him, because it made him blink his eyes rapidly as he took flight. Maybe it was just the force of the wind.
As he pondered his next target, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Lucien ignored it. For all he knew, Lucy might have told Theia he had the phone, and he couldn’t afford to let himself indulge in any communication from her. When it buzzed again, he decided to set down on a rooftop and turn off all notifications before he took a moment to figure out where he was headed next.
A message from Lucy showed on the screen, just Hamilton.
Well, that was a thought. He could take out that piece of shit as a gift to both Lucy and Theia.
But the next message was just as brief and cryptic. Daisy.
Daisy? The shade that had possessed Lucy?
Painstakingly, he texted her back. Where are you?
He could see her typing, but there was a long pause before the answer came—in three distinct texts.
Holy C
Holy holy holy
Holy shit, you are both so stupid. Enjoy rotting in hell.
Lucien let out a roar and shot into the air, his blood boiling—and it didn’t feel like a metaphor. He’d been right about the incident with the shade. Carter Hamilton was controlling it, and he was using it to control Lucy. But what had all that “Holy” stuff been about? She’d started typing Holy C—but seemed unable to finish whatever word started with C. Holy Cow? Holy Christ?
It could be the name of a church. Holy Cross. The Chapel of the Holy Cross was a well-known landmark in Sedona. Lucy had been trying to answer his question: “Where are you?”
* * *
He arrived at the darkened church nestled between a pair of Sedona’s ubiquitous red buttes to find Lucy alone in front of the chapel. She faced outward atop the short brick wall that served as a tourist lookout point for the desert valley.
Lucy turned at the sound of his approach and grimaced. “God, she was right. You really do look like hell.” Something glittered in the darkness, nestled in her cleavage. She saw him zero in on it and looked down, fingering the gemstone. “Pretty, isn’t it? They let me in any time of day or night to visit Edgar. All I had to do was give him a little Judas kiss and take this with me.”
Lucien c
hose not to respond to the taunt. “I offered to help you the other day. I could have freed you from the one who’s controlling you. Lucy still can.”
A hooded figure stepped out of the shadows beside the chapel. “Lucy will do nothing but join you in hell.” The figure drew back the hood, and Lucien wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that it was Carter Hamilton.
He took a menacing step toward the necromancer. “Lucy is stronger than you think. And I’m about to end you.”
“Are you really? I highly doubt that.”
Hamilton made no move to block him or even evade his attack as Lucien charged with demon speed—and nearly tumbled off the edge of the wall behind the spot where Hamilton had been standing. Just like at the reception, it was only a projection.
“Coward.”
Hamilton smirked. “This from a privileged scion who didn’t even have the guts to take his place at the table of one of the most prestigious and influential firms in the world. So now that place is mine.” He glanced at Lucy. “And it can be your sister’s as well if I choose to keep her in her body.” He stroked his phantom hand over Lucy’s breasts. Her face had gone blank. Daisy’s autonomy within the body had apparently been suspended.
The idea of what Hamilton might do to Lucy when he was gone turned Lucien’s stomach and made his blood heat with rage. “You keep your damn hands off Lucy’s body. If you think I can’t find you wherever you’re hiding and tear your head off with my bare hands, just try me.”
“And how are you going to manage that while you’re fending off my friends?” Hamilton nodded over Lucien’s shoulder. Something in the desert night smelled even worse than Lucien.
He turned to find half a dozen shuffling revenants crawling over the rocks. But these weren’t just revenants. They were draugr, resurrected in putrefying bodies to serve their master.
“I understand they find living women irresistible,” said Hamilton. “Like a drug habit or a sweet tooth they can no longer satisfy while in their graves—and then, suddenly, they’re presented with candy.”
“You piece of shit,” Lucien growled and turned, snarling, to face the advancing draugr.
Chapter 31
Lucy wasn’t answering her phone. Theia had found her copy of the Smok Biotech contract, and she needed a legal interpretation of the fine print. If only Phoebe were back from the Yucatán. She’d stopped practicing, but corporate law had been her specialty in school before she’d gone to work for the public defender. Of course, this was more like infernal law.
While Theia was pondering what to do next, she got a call from a number she didn’t recognize. With all that was going on right now, she figured she shouldn’t ignore anything.
“Polly would like to have a word with you.” The voice was oddly thick, as though it was coming from a larynx not built for human speech.
“Oh, really? And just who is this?”
“Hello, Theia.” The caller had evidently handed off the phone.
“Polly.”
“I’ve been alerted to a situation I thought you ought to be aware of.”
“Oh?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t discuss one patron’s business with another, but when a patron betrays my trust, all bets are off. I thought you’d want to know that Carter Hamilton is currently employing necromantic means to put Lucien’s sister at risk. And when Lucy is threatened, Lucien responds.”
So that was why Lucy wasn’t answering. Goddamn Carter, up to his old tricks.
“Do you know where they are?”
“The Chapel of the Holy Cross. You’re likely to need reinforcement against Hamilton’s magic. That’s all I can tell you. It’s all I know.”
“Thank you, Polly. I won’t forget this.”
“I know.”
Theia tried to reach Rhea on the way to Holy Cross but got no answer. Ione was equally unresponsive. What was going on? The clock on her dash said it was almost midnight. She hadn’t realized how late it was. Maybe they were in bed.
She arrived at the road to the chapel with a sense of foreboding. The last time she’d been here had been under the hypnotic control of a century-old Nazi bent on stealing Leo’s soul. She had zero memory of the experience, but Rhea had told her enough that she counted herself lucky.
A gray, bloated form scrabbled across the road in front of her. Theia swerved to miss it, but it was already gone. A terrible stench, worse than Mrs. Ramirez, seemed to seep in through the vents as she drove through the space it had occupied. Theia’s stomach lurched. Rhea had described the undead thing that had been unleashed on them by the Nazi, Brock Dressler, and Theia was certain she’d just seen one. Another skulked in the bushes ahead.
As Theia parked the car in the lot at the top of the hill, it occurred to her that Polly might have been setting her up. Why should Theia believe she was betraying a confidence and not just helping Carter further his agenda?
An inhuman, gut-churning bellow came from the walkway to her left, followed by a slightly more human snarl and a thick sound, like something punching through gelatin. As she came around the corner of the lot, she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The remains of several of the things were strewn across the rocks, but the severed parts were inching back toward one another, and in the center of the melee what looked like a reptilian lumberjack was ripping one of the things in half.
Theia blinked, holding her hand over her mouth and nose against the awful stench. “Lucien?”
The glowing eyes fixed on her for a moment, and he growled. “Dammit, Theia. What are you doing here?”
Trying not to vomit. Theia swallowed against the urge. “Polly told me you needed help.”
“Of course she did.” He tore the arm off the draugr advancing on him and hurled it into the brush. “Start grabbing up these things before they reassemble and toss them as far as you can.”
Theia swallowed again. “Grabbing?” There was no time to be squeamish. Steeling herself, she plucked up a—God, she didn’t know what it was—and flung it over the low wall into a clump of cactus before grabbing another and hurling it into the parking lot below. “Isn’t there any way to kill them?”
“Not unless you’re a necromancer or you know where their graves are. Best I can do at the moment is keep them in pieces.”
Theia was pitching the things at a fairly even pace, keeping up with the ones creeping toward each other while Lucien battled the already reassembled. She tried not to look as he tore them to pieces. At least she’d forgotten to eat today, because she’d seriously be losing her lunch.
At a lull in the festivities, she realized someone was standing motionless on the top of the wall beside the chapel, facing out toward the valley. “Is that Lucy?”
Lucien hurled a bloated head up into the rocks, and it burst like a melon. Theia steadied herself against the wall, trying not to succumb to a convulsion of dry heaves.
“She’s being controlled by a shade. Waiting for Carter to come back and give her the order to jump. I’ve been too busy fending off these foul things to try to get her down from the wall.”
“A step-in?” If only Phoebe or Rafe were here. Phoebe was a talented evocator who’d been channeling step-ins most of her life, and Rafe, of course, had the power to command the dead. “Maybe I can get the shade to talk to me.”
“Be my guest. Her name is Daisy.” Lucien punched a draugr that had crawled over the parking lot wall, having apparently found all—or most, anyway—of its parts, and beheaded it with a kick to the jaw. “Wish I had that Viking sword of Leo’s. Would make this work a lot quicker.”
Theia approached Lucy carefully, sitting on the wall beside her and swinging her legs over the edge. The side of the butte below wasn’t a sheer drop—more like a wide, sloping ledge. Lucy would have to take a running leap to fling herself over it.
“Daisy, can I talk to you?”
Lucy didn’t move, but after a moment, she broke her silence. “What for?”
“I was just wondering if you could communicate with Lucy. Can she hear me when I talk to you? Can you hear what she’s thinking?”
“She’s asleep.” Daisy gave her a quick sideways peek as if she was curious about this new person addressing her. “I can wake her up. But she won’t be able to answer you.”
“Would you, please?”
Daisy shrugged Lucy’s shoulders, and her posture changed, becoming more tense and alert.
“Lucy, I don’t know if you can hear me—”
“She hears you.”
“Fran told me she’d given you something to control those symptoms you were having. Do you know if Carter is aware of your...condition?”
“I told you, she can’t answer.”
“Well, you can. Does she know?”
Daisy sighed and pondered for a moment. “She doesn’t think so.”
“And how long do you think the medication lasts? When do you need to take it again to keep the condition under control?”
Lucy’s brow wrinkled—clearly not an expression that was natural to her—as Daisy tried to understand the answer. “Not long? I think that’s what she said.” Daisy turned to look at Theia. “Why? What are you trying to do?”
“I don’t think you really want to do what Carter’s telling you. I think Lucy can help you defy him.”
“You don’t know anything about it. He said he’s got one of my bones.” She threw a glance at Lucien, who was flinging the lower part of a draugr torso over the wall.
“And we can get it back and release you. I’ve done this before with my sisters. We bound the necromancer so he couldn’t hurt anyone.”
Daisy laughed, making Lucy sound hoarse. “Yeah. I see how well that worked out.”
Theia shrugged in acknowledgment. “Well, we still have to find the source of his power, but we could certainly help you.”
“The ugly one over there said the same thing. It’s bullshit. You just want me to step out because all you care about is your friend. But even if I could, I wouldn’t. Why should I? You’d just double-cross me as soon as I did. And then he’d make me pay.”