So much for the invincible Genghis Khan.
Jason looked up at Morgan. Her golden eyes gleamed with intensity. If anyone here was invincible, it was Morgan. She motioned Jason impatiently out of the grave. He’d seen her act several times now. That didn’t make it easy to watch. She went quiet as she raised the Wand.
It began to glow. Slowly, the glow enveloped Morgan. It was as if she was becoming one with the Talisman. Jason raised his arm to shield his eyes. The light grew more intense. He turned to the grave. He wouldn’t miss this for the world.
The feeling of power hung heavy in the damp air. The mustiness of bones and rot infused his senses. The glow expanded, enveloping the grave. The skull rose to hover over the shards of the coffin. Various pieces of bones floated free of the sludge in the grave. A rib reassembled itself from sharp, small pieces. A thigh-bone, mostly intact, found a hip socket. The process began to accelerate. Splinters of bone whirled up from the coffin in a dark haze. The skeleton began to take shape out of the fog of biological goo. That wasn’t the best part. Here it came. The sludge at the bottom of the coffin almost exploded as it began to hang itself over the skeleton, creating organs and layers of raw muscle over the structure of the bones. The whine of power in the air assaulted his eardrums. There was a ripping, tearing feeling in the room. The dirt walls began to melt and drool. The metal of a light stand sagged.
Morgan said all that the fallen warrior had been was still in the smallest remnant of his DNA. Using that pattern, her power pulled elements from the surrounding earth and air and metal to fulfill that plan again, like using building blocks removed from the last project to create the new construction.
Before his squinting eyes, skin and hair were added. The figure resolved itself into a naked man with the slanting eyes and broad cheekbones of a Mongol. Thick black hair with graying streaks was pulled back into a queue. A similarly colored beard trailed down his chest. This process didn’t make anyone young again. But whatever diseases or wounds that person had experienced in life weren’t part of the DNA and weren’t recreated. The guy would be in much better shape than he’d been at his death. The man who’d once been named Temüjin had been muscular, especially for his age, but then he’d been a warrior as well as a general and an administrator. He had an impressive organ, too. It made Jason believe Hardwick’s report that six percent of modern humanity was genetically related to this man.
Morgan sucked the glow back into the Wand, leaving Temüjin wavering on his feet as he stood in the grave that had housed him for nine hundred years. The warrior gave a piercing shriek. Jason lunged forward and collected Temüjin just as he collapsed. Laying him on the dirt next to the grave, Jason glanced up to Morgan. She leaned on the Wand. Using that much power took it out of her, too.
He slipped the pack off his back, got out the telescoping litter and the thermal blanket. “Get him on the litter,” he ordered Rick and Duncan. “We’ll have company any minute.”
Jason heard a scuffle of boots on the stairs to the surface. He glanced at Morgan. She shook her head. Okay. She wasn’t strong enough yet to use the Wand on the intruders.
“Rick, you’re up,” Jason said to the younger man as five or six guys in fatigues clattered down into the dig, crouched over their Uzis. Rick jerked a nod.
The lead guy sprayed a string of sharp Mongol words that had to be the equivalent of “Stay where you are.”
Rick raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender. “No problem,” he said, shrugging. Duncan raised the litter about three feet off the ground. They were ready to move.
The Mongol leader was barking orders as his men’s guns turned to rust. Particles drifted to the ground. Taking advantage of their enemies’ shock, Jason stepped up, knife in hand, and made short work of the two on the left. He whirled on the leader, who lunged for Rick. As the leader’s helmet collapsed in rust, it blinded him. Jason slit his throat from behind.
“Look out,” Rick hissed. Jason turned.
The man attacking him found himself holding empty air—his knife crumbled into rusty shards. The two remaining streamed dust—bullets, belt buckles, zippers, strap buckles, anything metal rusted into nothing. They were too stunned to put up much resistance. as Jason gutted them. They fell into an untidy heap, holding their exposed intestines as they screamed.
“Let’s go,” Jason growled. He threw up a Cloak. Duncan levitated the litter. Morgan followed, looking slightly less pale. They moved up the stairs and out into the slicing wind of the compound. The gate stood open. The cavalry, so to speak, poured through the gate from the tents pitched just beyond and down into the tomb.
Jason guided the others to the fence just east of the gate. Duncan levitated the group, litter and all, over the razor wire. Two helicopters rose into the sky, searchlights skittering over the ground. The Cloak would protect the Clan from being spotted if Jason could maintain it all the way out to the Land Rover. His powers had grown but they weren’t unlimited.
The small party strode into the sparse grasses that covered the plain. They headed down to the ravine. Shouts from multiple throats rose behind them. The shouts became a wail. Guess they’d just discovered their loss.
The helicopters were making a circle directly overhead by the time they got to the Range Rover. Jason wouldn’t be able to hold the Cloak forever.
“Rick,” Morgan said. She sounded calm. “You take that one.” She pointed. “I’ll take the other.” She popped up a channel of light from the Wand and cast it at the copter as it passed overhead. The belly of the beast exploded. It slowly fell away from them. The wind kicked up a metallic-smelling dust storm. Jason covered his mouth and nose with his arm. The dust nearly blinded him to the fireball the helicopter became as it hit the ground. Several thuds shook the ground nearby. He looked up as a body screamed passed him and hit the ground.
The second helicopter was gone. A last screaming soldier fell from the rust cloud that was all that was left of his ride. Rick’s eyes gleamed with excitement at using his power.
“Get Khan here in the Rover,” he said to Duncan. Morgan was already weaving over to the shotgun seat, her power temporarily spent. He looked around at the havoc they had caused.
Stand in the Clan’s way at your peril, he thought.
CHAPTER FOUR
‡
Lan waited in the shadows of the alley. He’d parked his bike in the shadows between dumpsters that gave off smells of old food and kitchen grease. He’d been getting more and more wound up, waiting in the darkness for that hack band to leave the stage. The music in his head had gotten positively painful. Come on, you’re not U2. You’ve tortured them enough already.
But now was his time. The music inside roared to a close. The bandleader announced they were taking a break. Lan slid out of the shadows and through the parking lot of Diamondback to the front. No line tonight. The velvet ropes formed an empty aisle that led to the dark door. Probably because everyone was sure he wouldn’t show, since he’d been here last night. House music spilled onto the sidewalk.
He saw the beefy bouncer recognize him. The guy’s eyes widened in surprise and he elbowed his partner. “It’s him. I thought he never—”
“Ghost,” the other guy said. “Didn’t expect you back so soon.”
“You telling me to leave?” They were still blocking his way.
“No, no, course not.” They stepped aside. Damn right. They wanted him in, where he could give customers the right to feed off the energy of his music like vampires in some addictive cycle. He flung pain into the crowd. They consumed it and recycled it into adoration.
Lan pushed into the club. Both guys were talking to their earpieces. Spread the news, boys.
The joint was half-empty. Tables crammed together so tightly that the servers could hardly move between them made the place look sad, like the geeky guy who dropped names to conceal the fact he didn’t have friends. Lan didn’t want much of an audience tonight. Why scar more people than necessary with the music he wa
s likely to make?
Speaking of scars, the guy at the end of the bar had a doozy slashing down across his face. He was sitting partly in shadows, but Lan couldn’t help feeling he was familiar. Had he seen him at Magma the other night? Or maybe last week at Flash? Some losers spent their lives at the clubs. Like he didn’t.
The lights on stage were harsher than necessary. Every available surface seemed to be covered with faux snakeskin. No one was dancing, though a couple of drunks at a table were arguing loudly. He really hated this place.
But the rolling in his belly, the shaking of his hands and the music crashing in his ears said he had to be here. He stared at the stage. The instruments promised nirvana, like the whores of both sexes on every street corner of Fountain Avenue. It was all a lie, of course. But they could maybe stop the shaking for a while.
“Ghost,” he heard whispered around him. “It’s him.”
He strode to the stage, hopped up and tossed his backpack to the edge. Someone dimmed the stage lights and brought up atmospheric spots. He bypassed the guitars, sitting complacent on their stands, and headed for the keyboard. The snarl of tangled melodies and baselines, rhythm tracks and jazz attacks pounding in his head needed keyboards.
He gave no introduction. They knew who he was, and he didn’t care if they understood the music or not. He didn’t ease into it slowly. He didn’t ask for quiet. Let the drunks at the bar shout at each other. He would drown out their noise with his own. Standing at the keyboard, he just let the music just pour out of him. The chords and fingering spilled into the darkness of the room. His aching belly seemed to vomit out the intricacies in swirling crescendos.
When he could finally breathe again he ran his hand through his hair to get it off his face. It was plastered with sweat. How long had he been playing? He slowed the music. He tried, at least. It occurred to him that one day he was going to sink into the music and never come out again. Maybe madness was his Destiny, not magic.
Something struck him.
He sucked in a breath. Goddamnit. She was here: that girl from the other night. He could feel her out there, over by the bar. Her presence had been masked by the music ripping from his soul. What were the odds of her turning up here? Crap in a hat. The music started getting unruly again, twisting into whorls of anxiety just when he’d been coming down from the release it had given him.
He had to get out of here. But the idea of stopping only seemed to goad the demon notes to coil inside him. The music tore at him. He felt like he was in some vortex as it began to whirl faster and faster. If he didn’t escape the tornado now, he’d be torn apart.
With a grunt of effort he wrenched himself away from the keyboard, leaving the shattered music in mid-measure. He heard audience gasp in the ensuing silence. Notes still seemed to vibrate in the suddenly quiet air. His rasping breath was loud in his own ears. He hunched his shoulders and stumbled to the edge of the stage, grabbed his pack and practically fell to the dance floor. He looked around, dazed. How long had he been playing? The place had filled up. From the nearest table, hands reached out to steady him. People were murmuring at him, wanting to touch him. Not waiting for a security escort, he staggered to the back hall, to the restrooms. He could feel her sitting at the bar, staring at him. He had to run.
But he wasn’t capable of running right now, not literally anyway. Someone put a hand on his shoulder. He turned with a snarl. It was some guy in a leather-fucking-suit jacket. Who wore something like that? “Don’t touch me.”
The guy raised his hands as though he’d been caught in the candy jar. “No touching,” he promised. “But how about a recording contract?”
Lan would have laughed if he’d been capable of it. “You’re fucking crazy.” He turned to go.
“Maybe. You’d be a nightmare. But the music…”
The wistfulness in his voice brought Lan’s head back around.
“The music is like nothing I’ve heard,” the guy said simply. “So emotional, evocative…”
Lan managed to focus on the guy’s face. Pain welled in his gut. She was responsible for the pain. He knew it. He glanced over to the bar now that the lights had come up a little. Damn. She was there, with that short blonde hair and those angelic blue eyes, looking very pale. He had to get out of here. He jerked his attention back to the record producer. “Yeah. Sure. I want to play under contract. All I have to do is stuff my intestines back in my belly after I perform. I could do it all day.” He pushed past the dude.
The guy reached out, trying to hand him a business card. Lan stumbled away and into the men’s room. He’d better make this quick. With his luck, the producer would follow him in here. There were three guys standing at the urinals. He pushed into a stall just as his stomach caught him by surprise and he lost ‘Cooking Adventure Night’ into the toilet. On his knees in front of the porcelain god, he retched out his guts until there wasn’t anything more to offer. He heard the others in the room beat a hasty retreat. Nobody liked to hear a guy hurl. Barely able to hold himself up on his elbows on the toilet seat, he just hung his head. Had to get out of here. Had to avoid the producer guy. And her of course.
Stick with the plan. With painful movements, he peeled off his leather duster. He opened his pack, took out his all-purpose white jacket and stuffed his arms into the sleeves. A hairnet plastered his long curls to his head. Paper hat. Roll up the duster. Into the pack. He stood, shaky. Why the hell was he sick like this? His control of the music had taken a way-bad turn for the worse tonight, first at The Breakers and now here. Was nowhere safe anymore? The music seemed to be taking over, pulling him down into some private hell.
He had to escape.
He shoved himself up and snagged his pack by one strap. No time to calm his heaving chest. He pushed out of the stall to an empty bathroom. The mirror showed him a busboy. Maybe a little sweaty, but nobody ever noticed busboys. He slipped out into the hall, keeping his head down. A crowd had formed at the entrance to the club. That was okay because the back door to the kitchen was the other way.
“Did you see the Ghost in there?” a woman called.
He just shook his head, hunched his shoulder and pushed through the swinging doors, into the busy kitchen, where everybody else was wearing a white jacket, too. There were calls of “burger up” and “dragging chicken.” No one had time to notice him. He wormed his way through the chaos and out into the night and the dark. He staggered to his cycle, hidden between the dumpsters, and just leaned against the cool brick wall, trying to get his bearings and his breath. He could wait here a while. He was concealed from the door in case anybody came out, looking for him.
His stomach ambushed him again. Must be the smell of the dumpsters. He added to the stench of the alley. When he was done retching, he stood and turned his face up to the narrow strip of sky between the buildings, wiping his mouth and trying to get some balance. Couldn’t see many stars here. City lights and all. He breathed in a little easier and felt the vise around his chest loosen a little under the starlight. Okay. He’d be able to make it out of here in a little while. He was glad he’d brought his bike. He didn’t feel up to walking back to his flop. Probably ought to change back into his duster. A busboy on a kick-ass classic Harley might draw attention.
*
Greta stared at him from across the club that had grown crowded in the hour he’d been playing. Word must have spread. How could she be so unlucky as to choose the one place he’d be tonight? Jax was in second heaven. She was dragging the guy she’d met—well, picked up if you wanted to be accurate—over to where the Ghost had disappeared into the back hall. Guess even musical specters had to take a leak.
Greta wasn’t sure how Jax could be so excited and happy after hearing that music. Greta was shaken. Like really, down inside her pancreas, shaken. The music had held so much torment, such pain, and then slowly, the pain had worked itself out into…how could she explain it? Nostalgia? Wistfulness? It had been like an epic story or something.
And then
he’d raised his head and looked right at her, and the music had spiraled up into pain again. Was she imagining there might be a connection? She shook herself. Of course she was. It was just…well, he’d jerked himself away from those keyboards with such a sudden wrenching that the whole crowd was on edge. The story wasn’t finished. The monster had raised its head again after the hero had struck the killing blow, and the hero was in danger again and…nothing. No resolution.
“Hey,” the guy behind her at the bar shouted to his companion. “Did you see him blow off Antari? Michael fucking Antari was trying to get him under contract, I bet you anything.”
“You think Antari offered a contract, just like that?” The voice sounded wistful.
“Who wouldn’t want to put that under contract? Fuck, he’s a god. I hate him.”
They were right about the record contract. If you could bottle lightning, you’d make millions. Apparently the Ghost wasn’t interested in that.
The crowd around the back hall to the bathrooms grew impatient. He’d been in there a long time. She heard Jax call out to someone, “Did you see the Ghost in there?” She tried to take her mind off the guy who had just ripped open his heart to deliver that music. She sipped her drink. Drunk would be good, but she wasn’t the type. Across the bar from her, she saw a guy get up. It was the guy with the scar from the other night at Magma. What were the odds she’d run into him again and the Ghost too? She should thank him for the other night, but before she could decide to get up, he strode toward the front exit and melted into the now-sizeable crowd. Oh, well. He didn’t really look like the kind of guy who wanted to be thanked.
The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) Page 5