Obsidian Wings (Rune Alexander)

by Laken Cane

  Smooth, silent, surreal.

  When Cree had splintered her and delivered her to Horner, it’d been different. Her mind had been dark and filled with pain and fog.

  Now…

  She sat up, her breath leaving her as she surveyed the world around, ahead, and below her.

  It was spectacular.

  “God,” she whispered, but only to herself. The wind snatched the breath from her lungs and whipped her eyes, ran cold fingers through her growing hair, and slapped her face with icy disregard.

  But the world was serene, the sky was quiet, and she was flying.

  It was spectacular.

  Cree’s zooming freefall was as unexpected as it was exhilarating. Maybe Cree meant to scare her, to make her cry out and beg for mercy, but Rune slapped the bird’s back and laughed with unbridled elation.

  All too quickly the ride was over. Cree dumped her unceremoniously on the ground, then shifted to her human form.

  She stood with her hands on her hips, grinning as Rune struggled to reacquaint herself with her legs.

  “Enjoy the ride?” Cree asked, her voice mocking, her stare was full of arrogance.

  “I did,” Rune said, jubilant. “It was almost as good as feeding.” She giggled.

  “You’re fucking high,” Cree said, lowering her hands to her sides.

  Rune stood, finally, and shrugged. She wanted to grin, but forced herself to calm down. There were demons to fight. “Let’s find Horner. Where exactly is he?”

  “I have to find Fin,” Cree said. “But after I do we’ll come help you fight.”

  Rune shook her head. “There’s no time. Until Fin joins us, I’ll have to settle for you.”

  “So very flattering. That’ll get you what you want.”

  “You want to live, don’t you? If Horner has his way, the Others, all Others, will be annihilated as soon as possible. You have to know that.”

  “He can’t defeat the birds,” Cree said, looking down her nose.

  “His demon can.”

  And even the arrogant Cree knew that was the truth. “Fine. Somebody has to save the world. It might as well be me.”

  Rune curled her lip and bit back words of derision as she walked beside the bird. “How’d you know he’d be here?”

  “Stuff I heard. Once he told the scepters that everything about Spikemoss was magical—enchanted, something like that. That was when he first began negotiations about some attached land COS owns.”

  “The scepters actually thought he’d stick to his word and give them the land?”

  “Not give, sell. And cheaply. The birds aren’t rich, you know. And we…” She frowned, hesitating over her choice of words, before continuing. “They already got the land. There were lawyers on both sides involved from the very beginning. The scepters wouldn’t have agreed otherwise. We trust no one.”

  “Do you know the COS attorney’s name?”

  “No.”

  From far below came the faint sounds of the battles between River County and COS. She shivered as an image of her crew flashed through her mind. They were down there, fighting, getting wounded almost certainly, trying to save the county from the church. She should have been with them, but there was no help for it. She’d just have to trust in their abilities.

  They were Shiv Crew, and they could take out fucking COS, no matter how large the church’s numbers.

  They could.

  “Where the cages are,” Cree said, interrupting her thoughts. “There’s a trail behind them that leads to a clearing. There’s a pond, a circle of weeping willow trees, and a depression in the ground. It’s like a shallow bowl, about six feet in diameter. I think that’s where he’ll be.”

  Rune nodded. “I can find it. I’m going to run.” She looked at the bird. “Meet me there, Cree. Do not take off.”

  Cree’s eyes glittered in the moonlight. She said nothing.

  “Cree.”

  The bird rubbed her arms. “I can kick a lot of ass, but I can’t defeat all my people. If they see me here, no matter who I’m fighting, they’ll kill me.”

  “That’s a chance I’ll have to take.”

  “Fuck you.” But her words were halfhearted. “Fin can’t take another attack, not so soon after his last one. He won’t come.”

  “If the fucking demon is called, the birds are going to be too preoccupied with it to mess with you. I need you to take out as many slayers as you can. But I have to keep Horner alive.”

  Cree remained silent. Her hesitancy was uncharacteristic and Rune was quite sure the bird was going to shift and run for cover. Cree was afraid—not of COS, not even of the demon—but of the birds.

  “I’ll protect you,” she promised. “You can’t back out of this.”

  Cree snorted. “You can’t protect me from the birds.” Then she sighed. “I’ll give it a try.”

  “You’re an asshole. If I see you when this is all over, I might hurt you for the shit you’ve pulled. But thanks. Thanks for braving the birds to help me kick COS ass.”

  Cree threw her a tight smile. “I’m doing it because helping you might be the only way Strad will forgive me.”

  Rune shrugged. “As long as the job gets done.” And she tensed her body to run.

  “It may,” came a voice from the shadows, “but not if you don’t get Alexis Love up here to take on the demon.” The new master Simon Kelic stepped into their path, his children at his back. “The church is calling the demon as we speak. And it is answering.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  She shot her claws out and dropped her fangs, startled by his silent approach.

  One of his vampires stepped up beside him and put his hands on his hips. “Don’t you hiss at my master, girl. He came to help your sorry ass.”

  “Hush, Iker,” Simon said.

  Iker had been around twenty or so when he’d turned. His skin was as smooth and rich as dark chocolate. His hair hung in wild, colorful dreadlocks—red, purple, green, and yellow. Every inch of exposed skin appeared either tattooed, pierced, or both, and his darkly lined eyes were light green, standing out like sparkling jewels in his intriguing face.

  Rune tore her stare away from the fascinating vampire and eyed the master. “Lead the way, Kelic. I need to stop Horner.”

  “Pay attention,” Iker said. “You can’t do this without your little girl demon.”

  “Iker,” Kelic snapped. He turned his head and scowled at the young vampire.

  Iker licked his lips, swallowed hard, and then stepped back.

  “He’s right,” Simon said. “You’ll need your own demon to send the church’s demon back to hell.”

  “Lex isn’t a demon, Kelic. I told you that.”

  “You’re wrong.” He didn’t look quite as harmless or young as he’d looked when she’d first met him. “Question is, are you going to waste time arguing about it, or are you going to take a chance that maybe, just maybe, I know what I’m talking about and get Alexis Love up here?”

  Rune waved her claws in the air. “Fuck me! Cree—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll go fetch your demon bitch.”

  She started to turn away, but Rune had her claws at Cree’s delicate throat before she could move. “Do not fuck this up, bitch. I will kill you if you hurt her.”

  Cree glared and shoved Rune’s hand away, though Rune could easily have slid her claws through Cree’s thin skin. Cree might have been a motherfucking selfish piece of entitled shit, but she wasn’t a coward.

  Then she ran, jumped, and shifted, the air from her huge wings fanning Rune’s face as the bird shot through the darkness.

  “Let’s go,” Rune said to the vampires.

  Kelic nodded, and without another word, took off.

  She was right behind him. He was fast, fast as a vampire should be, but so was she. Faster. But she didn’t pull ahead of him—instead ran side by side as the lesser vampires were sucked along in their wake.

  Her feet skimmed the ground, flying over rocks and holes and de
bris, her strong legs carrying her closer and closer to the demon, to Horner.

  “Ravine coming up,” Simon said, his voice carried by the wind to slide into her ears, into her mind. “Jump.”

  She jumped without question, glancing once to see the dark emptiness below her, wondering what bodies had been lost to the chasm that yawned without warning like a great, gaping wound.

  Wondering, as well, why Cree hadn’t bothered to warn her about that abyss.

  Then her feet hit earth and she was once more rocketing over ground turned silver and black by a watching moon.

  Simon stopped so abruptly she was a few feet past him before she realized he was no longer running.

  She jogged back to him. “What are you doing?”

  “The ones you want are just ahead. Will you charge in or tiptoe?”

  She blew out a hard breath. “Let’s go in heavy and kill anything that moves.”

  His smile was wide and happy. “My kind of attack. Ready?”

  She tilted her head. “Do you know any special way to kill a demon—or to send it back to wherever it came from?”

  “No. No, I don’t. The demon I had contact with was not dealt with by me, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Then we’ll have to wing it,” she said.

  “Ms. Alexander…”

  “Yeah?”

  He glanced at her top. “You’re bleeding.”

  Shit. She shoved her palm against her chest. “Nothing I can do about it right now. Let’s go.” And she released the claws she’d retracted before running, dropping her fangs so fast they cut her lip.

  No more talking, no more delays. It was time to leap blindly into the fierce battle waiting around the corner. When it was over…

  They’d find that out soon enough.

  She closed her eyes, drawing the faces of her crew to her, whispering silently the name of the man whose image lingered when the others faded away.

  Berserker.

  She was running almost before she realized it, her claws out, her body hurtling through space toward the chants, the fire, the slayers.

  The demon.

  She and the vampires burst onto a tableau that wasn’t totally unexpected, but still bizarre enough to give her pause.

  The slayers stood around a fire in the bowl-like depression, their backs to the flames as they guarded Horner.

  Horner was on his knees before a bench on which a bloody victim lay. A black blade protruded from the corpse’s chest.

  The fire shot high into the night, competing with the moon to light the area. Sparks dropped from the flames that licked the darkness with eager blue tongues, and the sharp scents of fresh blood and fear hung in the air.

  More slayers poured from behind the trees surrounding the pit, guns up and ready. COS went to work, methodically cutting down vampires with silver bullets to keep them from reaching Horner.

  It took the vampires a few precious seconds to regroup and target the ones protecting the ceremony, but the guns were lethal and the vampires were not many.

  Still, the vampires were vampires and they would use their insane speeds and extraordinary strength to take care of business.

  And Rune had one job—to stop the demon’s entrance into the world.

  She ignored the battle going on around her and went for the inner circle. She went for Bach Horner.

  If she ever needed her monster, it was then.

  The air was changing, growing heavy with expectation, thick with an insidious presence that waited just beyond an invisible veil. Rune could feel the demon looming. Her heart beat impossibly fast, fear and dread choking her with something too vast and horrible to comprehend.

  The demon was coming.

  She leaped over the heads of the slayers circling Horner’s fire, tumbling through the air, grunting as bullets ripped through her flesh.

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion and she could see and feel and smell the world with an overwhelming clarity. The colors of the night were too intense, the sounds painfully loud, the scents pungent and somehow sinister.

  But her body was almost numb. She didn’t feel any pain, and she knew she should have. The slayers targeted her as the biggest threat, and their aims, for the most part, were true.

  Horner was waiting for her. He was expecting her.

  She landed hard enough to slam her teeth together and bruise her bones, but was up before he could even acknowledge that she was there.

  He glanced at her, and then, as though she was of no consequence at all, turned back to his fire and his sacrifice.

  Empty vials that had once held her and the twins’ blood lay atop the body, a corpse that had been donated to the demon, a man who had most likely been force fed her blood.

  All Horner had needed once he lost the twins was the blood and a human to contain them. He’d found that.

  The body on the altar began to undulate forcefully. She drew back her hand and leaped at Horner, poised to take off his head.

  But she was snatched from the ground and dragged through the air, talons piercing her skin as they took hold.

  It happened with shocking, perplexing quickness—one second she was leaping at Horner, sure for a moment that yes, it really would be that easy. The next she was flying with uncomprehending powerlessness through the air, dangling a mile above the ground, caught in a bird’s claws.

  “Cree,” she groaned. “Why?”

  But she knew why.

  The birds were for sale, with their blank, black minds and their hard, greedy hearts. They were for sale.

  COS had lined their pockets, whispered promises in their ears, and swore they’d rule side by side with the church. COS had bought them.

  And no matter that she’d been exiled, that her convocation had tried to kill Fin and would surely try to kill her, Cree had allowed COS to buy her, as well.

  It was only when Rune saw another bird flying through the sky, a familiar figure sitting atop feathers as shiny as fish scales, that she realized she’d gotten it all wrong.

  Cree hadn’t sold herself to COS.

  Fin had.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Perhaps catching sight of Fin circling high above the pit with Rune in his talons, Cree screamed.

  A golden eagle bird shifter screaming was a sound like none Rune had ever heard—the sound itself was a weapon, assaulting the ears of those who heard it, scrambling thoughts, battering hearts.

  It was a battle cry, a cry of death.

  Cree had recognized Fin’s betrayal, and she was pissed.

  Fin’s entire body shook beneath the rage in that scream, and he returned the cry, his talons opening to release Rune.

  She was too high and her fall would not be gentle. She’d survive it, because she was just that sort of monster, but she would be unable to function until her body knitted the broken bones and crushed organs.

  And while her body was busy trying to heal, COS would take her head. That, she wouldn’t come back from.

  But Cree caught her.

  Rune gave her own scream when the sharp talons pierced her flesh like giant needles, but those wounds she could heal.

  That pain she could use.

  Cree dropped her, dropped her back into the circle almost on top of fucking Horner, but her attention was no longer on Rune. It was all for Fin.

  She screamed again and Rune’s insides trembled and loosened. If she’d been anyone else she might have fallen to her knees and covered her ears like a child.

  Her sensitive vampire hearing must have made it worse, because none of the humans on the ground seemed to be having trouble with the eagles’ cries.

  She spotted Simon Kelic shaking his head, hard, before he became a blur of movement as he ran to destroy a slayer.

  The birds’ cries weren’t just affecting her, and for some reason that helped her relax.

  “Rune,” Lex yelled, grabbing her arm. “You sent for me.”

  The slayers not occupied with vampires converged on Rune and Lex and
there was no time to talk, no time to tell Lex that yes, she’d sent for her because Kelic had convinced her that Lex was a demon and their only chance of defeating the monster Horner was calling.

  She had a feeling Lex was not going to deal well.

  But Lex surprised her.

  “I don’t know how to be the demon,” she said, twirling around to drop kick a knife-wielding slayer.

  “We have to get to Horner,” Rune said. “But if he calls the monster, you need to figure it out fast.”

  The fucking slayers were trying to delay and distract them, and they were doing a damn good job of it.

  And where were the birds? Rune didn’t expect them to join the fight, but surely one or two of them would have been curious enough to drift overhead to watch.

  But the sky, except for the moon, Cree, and Fin, was empty.

  It appeared that the birds were going to do what they always did when the fight wouldn’t benefit them. Take off until it was over.

  She felt them before she saw them—her crew—coming to help. They’d likely followed Cree and Lex, and she’d never been so happy to see them in her life.

  They threw themselves into the thick of the battle, even as more slayers poured into the area like BBs from an open box.

  Horner’s voice drifted to her over the shouts, grunts, and screams as he continued to chant in a deep monotone.

  The air changed. It grew heavy and dim, and a breeze began to blow. On that dark, spring night the air was cool, but the breeze was hot.

  Lex stumbled, her usual grace giving way to an uncharacteristic clumsiness. Rune shot her claws into a man’s chest and then yanked Lex off the ground. “You okay?” she shouted.

  Someone hit her from behind, a blow to the head that sent her crashing away from Lex and into a knot of slayers trying to stand between her and Horner—and that was the first time that night she heard the berserker’s familiar roar.

  Blood, hot and sticky, oozed down her neck and over her back, but she shook off the pain and fought her way through that last line of defense.

  And finally, she stood at the stone altar, staring across it at Bach Horner.

  Behind him rose the fire, shooting angry blue sparks into the sky. The man on the bench was long dead, his mouth gaping hideously, his arms and legs restrained.