The Staff and the Blade

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “You realize there are far more, don’t you?” Kostas asked with a smirk.

  Sari nodded.

  “Are you going to save them all, Sari of Vestfold?”

  Maybe. Maybe she was going to save them all. Maybe she couldn’t, but she’d damn well try.

  Sari met Kostas’s eyes and let the ghosts that tormented her rise up to meet the bitter Grigori leader. He met her look, and the cynical smile fell from his face.

  “I don’t think you can comprehend how many children I have watched die, Kostas, son of Barak,” she said quietly. “I don’t have the luxury of cynicism. So if I want to save these children, then I will. And I’ll save the next ones. And the next. I’ll save them or I will die trying. That is my penance for failure. What’s yours?”

  “Killing the Fallen. As many as I can until the day I die. I don’t have longevity spells, so I don’t have all that much time left.”

  For the first time, Sari noticed the marks of age around his eyes. There were no traces that a human would notice, but Sari could see the bone-deep signs of exhaustion with life. The average Grigori had a set lifetime unless an angel was feeding them power. Kostas had already lived well past his allotted time, and Sari didn’t feel like asking why.

  Sari nodded at him. “Then we understand each other, Grigori.”

  She turned to go.

  “Rest well,” Kostas called.

  Sari paused.

  “No hidden meaning.” Kostas looked back to the forest. “I know how well I sleep. I truly hope you rest well, Sari. We’ll get your children tomorrow night.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DAMIEN nodded to Leo, who moved through the dark brush as silently as a hunting cat. One archer covered them from a vantage point across the river while two others had their eyes trained on the dock where Sari, Mala, and Kyra would land with three other singers from Mikael’s house. Hopefully the distraction Damien and Kostas would provide at the gate would draw their guards away.

  Aurel’s compound was built in three tiers and surrounded by decorative electrified fencing and electronic sensors. The lowest level near the river was the women and children’s apartments, a long narrow building surrounded by gardens and lawns. A cheerful play area for the children, but also one that left no cover to hide. All the riverbank was landscaped to provide maximum visibility. Guards patrolled it regularly, and Leo had seen motion sensors along the riverbank.

  The second tier was farther up and contained the Grigori quarters along with the armory and training areas. It wasn’t a large force—Aurel had another compound where his sons were trained—but it was enough to keep the grounds and his personal home well covered.

  The third tier lay south of the other buildings on the rise of a hill. As angular as the others, this building made no attempt to blend with the hills but towered over them. A large covered walkway surrounded the property on the second level. There were no exterior stairs.

  That was Aurel’s home. To breach it, Damien would have to enter it from the ground floor, putting himself at a disadvantage since they had little idea what the interior contained.

  The black blade was strapped to his thigh, heavy and hidden beneath tactical pants that would rip away easily when he needed to draw.

  A buzz against his leg. He shielded the light from his phone when he checked it. Sari and her sisters were in place.

  Damien pointed at Leo, who moved into position with five scribes from Rěkaves, their talesm covered even though the night was warm. If everything went according to plan, the scribes, singers, and Grigori children would be fleeing together, and they didn’t want to terrify the little ones.

  Spreading out along the perimeter fence, Leo and his men disappeared into the brush. Damien looked at Kostas and nodded.

  ※

  Sari knew the moment the alarms had gone off. Grigori flooded from the house and ran up the hill. There were still two positioned along the riverbank, but hopefully the alarms sounded the same. Sari had decided there was no way to avoid tripping the sensors, so the best idea was to trip them all at once. Mala and Kyra rowed the boat toward the dock, and Sari ducked as the boat slid under. Securing it with rope, the six singers stepped out of the boat and waited.

  There was no shuffling. No sound of alarm. The only sound was the steady sound of the river and the creaking wood of the dock. Mala ducked out from under the dock and moved toward the shoreline. They were all clothed in black, and Mala moved like a panther up the grass. She crouched low, dug something out from behind a rock, then tossed it in the river.

  Camera, she signed.

  Any others?

  Not that I can see. Move now. I’ll immobilize the guards.

  No kill unless necessary.

  Mala nodded and disappeared into the night. Sari and Kyra moved toward the children’s apartments. When they encountered the electronic lock, she stepped back and let one of the Rěkaves singers step forward.

  The singer slid a keycard in the lock. The card was attached to some electronic device Rhys had sent from Istanbul. Within a few moments—like magic—the door clicked open and they slipped inside.

  Another siren, but this one worked to their advantage. Children walked out of the rooms, rubbing their eyes and yawning, only to gape at the black-clad women they encountered. Sari did a quick head count.

  Two girls she could see, holding the hands of small boys who might have been their brothers. Six boys of various ages. The Rěkaves singers spread down the hallway, weapons concealed, to check the dark rooms.

  “Vaclav, get back here!”

  The woman’s voice didn’t stop the small boy from darting into the hall. It was the boy Damien had seen on the dock. Tiny Grigori children surrounded her, and Sari felt her skin begin to crawl. She had to stop herself from shouting at Kyra when the woman knelt down to eye level with the boy.

  “Hello, Vaclav,” she said. “I’m Kyra.”

  “Vaclav!”

  Two gasps from the end of the hall pulled Sari’s attention from Kyra. Two pregnant women stood at the end of the hall; one was holding a sleeping girl, one hand on her swollen belly.

  “Vaclav!”

  Another human voice, but this time coming from her right. “Who the hell are you?” the voice asked in English.

  The pregnant woman was holding a gun and pointing it at Sari. It was the woman from the dock, the one wearing opera gloves.

  “I’m here to get you out of here. To help you and the children,” Sari said, glancing at the gloves the woman still wore. “You know they’re dangerous.”

  “What?” one of the women at the end of the hall said. “Why would we want to leave? Aurel takes care of us. Tomik takes care of us.”

  “Gabina, shut up,” the woman said. “How can I trust you? Maybe you just want to get rid of them. Tomik said the babies aren’t wanted in the world. That they’d be taken away.” She glanced at Kyra but didn’t lower the gun. “Woman, get away from my nephew. Vaclav, come here.”

  “We want to keep them safe,” Sari said.

  “See her?” Kyra rose and stepped closer, pointing at a little girl holding her brother’s hand. “I am her. My brother protected me. Took me away from my father. She’s not the only one.”

  Sari could tell the woman with the gun was still a long way from trusting them.

  Kyra knelt down by the girl.

  “Stay away from her!” the woman shouted.

  “What’s your name?” Kyra asked.

  “Zuzana.”

  The woman’s attention wavered between Sari and Kyra. “Get back. Don’t touch her.”

  Kyra kept talking. “I’m like you, Zuzana.”

  The little girl’s eyes were suspicious. “What do you mean?”

  Kyra whispered, as if sharing a secret. “I hear voices too.”

  The little girl blinked. “I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Milena and Tomik.”

  “It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. But I can teach you how to make them stop.”

&
nbsp; “You can?”

  One of the Rěkaves singers at the end of the hall tapped her wrist at Sari. “No word yet from the guardhouse. If the praetor hasn’t neutralized the threat, we won’t be able to hold them off. The boat will be coming in five minutes. We need to move.”

  ※

  It was much harder, Damien decided, to immobilize opponents without killing them. Zip ties and duct tape were marvelous inventions, but they took a lot longer. A dozen men were tossed in the guardhouse, and they still hadn’t seen the last of them.

  “Go,” Leo said. “Take the men. I’ll hold here with the rest. I can eliminate any stragglers. You and Kostas go to the house.”

  One of the men started shouting behind his duct tape; his panicked expression struck Damien as more than concern for his sire. He knelt down by the oddly familiar man.

  “If I take the tape off, do not yell.”

  The Grigori nodded vigorously.

  Damien ripped it off. No sooner could the man’s lips move than he was speaking.

  “There are women in the house with Aurel. He keeps them there until they become pregnant. I know who you are, but they’re human. You are pledged to protect them, son of the Forgiven. They are innocent.”

  Damien narrowed his eyes and realized why the man seemed familiar. He was the Grigori guard who had been on the dock with the children the other night. “What is your name?”

  The Grigori hesitated. “We’re not allowed to speak our names to outsiders.”

  “Some magic?”

  The man nodded.

  “Can you tell me what is in the building down by the dock?”

  The man’s jaw clenched. “No,” he ground out. “But know that heaven will judge you if the innocent pay for the guilty’s crimes.”

  Damien glanced at Kostas, who nodded. The Grigori pulled the man up and tossed him toward one of the Leo’s men. “Hold this one. Damien and I are going after an angel.”

  ※

  “I can’t wait much longer,” Sari said. “You cooperate, or we’ll put you out.”

  The woman hissed and firmed her hold on the gun pointed at Sari. “You will not drug children. You said you were here to help them.”

  “Milena,” one of the pregnant women down the hall called, “what is going on?”

  “Gabi, Belinda, go back in your room. Shut the door and wait for Tomik or William. Children, go back into your room. Tomik will be here soon.”

  The pregnant women turned to go, and Kyra shot to her feet, holding the little girl she’d been talking to.

  “Zi yada!”

  The little girl started crying when the women fell to the ground. Kyra turned to the woman the others had called Milena.

  “What have you done to them?” she screamed as the children all began to wail.

  “Listen to me, human.” Kyra marched up to Milena, who lowered the gun as soon as it was pointed near a child. “The women are fine. We are here to help you escape this angel.”

  “Angel?”

  Kyra grabbed the gun out of her hand and handed it to Sari. “Yes, angel. He’s a monster, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” The woman looked defeated. Hell, she looked on the verge of falling over.

  Kyra continued. “These children and you are innocents. I was once like them. We are taking you away from here, saving your life, and getting help for these babies. Are you with me, or do I need to knock you out too?”

  The woman’s eyes were tortured. She didn’t look at Kyra, she looked at Sari.

  “How do I know? How do I know I can trust you? I cannot trust anyone. Not with them.”

  Gritting her teeth, Sari knelt down and picked up a little boy who was sniffling and staring at the women Kyra had knocked out.

  “Please believe me,” Sari said, stroking his dark hair. “I would never harm a child.”

  The child stopped crying at her touch. He nuzzled into Sari, wrapping his arms around her neck and clinging to her. Sari swallowed the lump in her throat and held him tight. The screams in her mind died back as she focused on the vulnerable little boy in her arms.

  “I would never harm a child.”

  ※

  Damien didn’t waste time trying to be covert. If the angel didn’t know they were coming at this point, he was an idiot and he’d be easy to kill. The Rěkaves scribes fanned out and covered him as he and Kostas breached a narrow door in a utility area on the far side of the house facing the electric fence.

  Damien grunted when the sting of electricity coursed through his body. “Doorknob is wired.”

  Crude but effective. Especially for human intruders.

  “Let me guess,” Kostas said. “There’s some mystical spell that will allow me to enter this place even though it’ll be painful as hell. But don’t worry, it won’t kill me.”

  “No.” Damien picked up a two-by-four that had been stored in the utility area. “Just electricity. It’ll kill us both.”

  He used the two-by-four to ram down the door. It took four tries, but the hinges gave way.

  “I see we’ve abandoned stealth,” Kostas said.

  “The alarms didn’t give that away?”

  The question was, would Aurel already be gone? Angels couldn’t fly, but some could transport themselves. If Aurel had fled, he’d be returning with more of his men. His children, those Sari was rescuing that moment, would still be under his control. Damien didn’t want to think about what the angel could make them do. Or what that could do to his mate.

  The utility door led to what looked like a basement. Locked rooms were along one wall, but Damien heard nothing behind them. Still, they’d have to be checked later.

  No movement on the stairs.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Kostas whispered as the scribes moved to the main floor. They spread out and searched the rooms, but no one was found. No Grigori. No women. No angel.

  Damien was near rage. If they could not find Aurel, they would have to abandon the children. There was no telling—

  “Wait.” Kostas put a hand on his arm. “I hear something.”

  He calmed the rush of his blood and focused his senses.

  “I hear it too.”

  It was a quiet, whimpering sound.

  “Dear God,” Kostas said. “Please tell me he doesn’t have a taste for children.”

  There was no stopping the man. Kostas bolted up the stairs before Damien could shout at him to stop. He was through a door and flung across the room as Damien ducked. He came in low and rolling, drawing the large hunting knife at his waist. Not the black blade. Not yet…

  “Bastard!” Kostas yelled from the ground. “Let her go.”

  Aurel was in human form, lying naked on the bed, a young woman between his legs. He had a silver knife at her throat and a thin line of blood trickled down her breast.

  Damien tried to meet her eyes, but she was frozen in panic. The whimpering had come from her. She was staring at the body of another girl across the room. That one wasn’t moving. Her blank stare told Damien she would never move again.

  “Who are you?” Aurel asked. “Which house are you from?”

  “No house sends me,” Damien said calmly. “Let the girl go. What need have you, a son of heaven, for a human to shield you?”

  Aurel chuckled. “Pretty words say court training. Are you one of Katalin’s warriors, then? You’re better than most, but you’re still not better than me.”

  “Do you think so?” Damien was taking stock of the angel. If he’d been able to transport himself, he’d already be gone. The fact that he was using the girl meant he didn’t have the confidence to fight even two scribes on his own. Or Aurel had so much confidence that he wanted to toy with Damien and Kostas. Not atypical behavior from one of the Fallen. They were easily bored creatures.

  “Let the girl go,” Kostas said, lurching to his feet. He was leaning against the wall, but he was standing.

  “No.” Aurel swirled the blood in circles on her skin. “I like her here. Besides, your little att
ack came at an… inconvenient time. I’m modest.”

  “I doubt that.” Damien glanced out the window to see the river in the distance. There was someone running across the grass. “We’re getting rid your children, you know. Even if you kill me and my brother, they will all be gone.”

  Rage flared on the angel’s face. “They’re mine!”

  “They’ll be dead soon.”

  Aurel tossed the girl off the bed and stood, his form growing to seven feet tall and broad as a barn door.

  Not scared then, Damien thought. Bored. Damn.

  He raised the knife, but it was no match against the angel’s voice. Aurel roared, and the force of it flung Damien back into the wall, pinning his hand over his head. The roaring went on. It was a feral howl and a thundering train. The cry of a storm and a felled tree. The sound was elemental. He wanted to clutch his ears and curl up in pain, but he was pressed against the wall with no hope of escape.

  The angel’s gold eyes glowed in the darkness. The human girl screamed and scrambled to the corner. Damien heard the other scribes trying to climb the stairs, but the voice of the angel held them back.

  Then, as suddenly as the sound came, it died. Damien opened his eyes to see Aurel with an arrow lodged in his temple. He looked confused. Another flew through the window and pierced his neck.

  “Go!” Kostas yelled.

  Damien drew the black blade and stumbled across the room, every muscle and bone screaming. One of the Rěkaves scribes ran into the room, launching himself at the angel’s knees as his brothers drew their weapons.

  With a crash, the angel fell forward, crushing the scribe who’d tackled him, arrows still piercing his neck and his temple.

  “Praetor, the blade!”

  The scribes pinned Aurel down as he struggled. Kostas crawled over and yanked the arrow at the angel’s temple to the side. Then he shoved a fist in the monster’s mouth to try to keep him silent.

  Damien crawled over the massive form and straddled Aurel’s back.

  “I need his neck!” he yelled.