Which to me could mean only one thing.
We’d been found.
21
I hurried to the far end of the subway car and got my hands on the doors. They were locked tight, which was not in my favor.
I pushed on them and was about to pull Dinah when the door at the other end slid open. I turned and dropped to a crouch as I raised Dinah and held her steady. Two figures stepped into the subway car and the first gave me pause.
Tall, blondish, super nerdy with glasses and bright blue eyes that were full of fear. He quickly ushered the few humans out of the subway car with a soft voice and a quiet demeanor.
“Eligor.” I stayed where I was. “That was quick.”
“Your discussion with Namaa alerted us,” he said as he stepped farther into the car and was quickly followed by Easter, which was where my attention stayed.
Namaa. That must be my grandmother’s name. Grandmother. Damn, I still couldn’t believe it.
Easter’s head had been shaved on one side and the remainder of the long strands of rich red were swept all to the other side in a low ponytail. She wore street clothes, but it was the wand in her hand that kept my eyes on her. She was a cleaner, the kind of abnormal who could make it look like nothing had ever happened in a crime scene. But that was not where her abilities stopped.
“I don’t want to shoot her,” Dinah whispered.
“No choice,” I said. “We used all the sedative rounds on the fallen.”
Diego gave a grunt but was otherwise quiet, keeping my little lie between us. The subway train got moving again and the car we were in lurched a little. Eligor stumbled, but neither Easter nor I so much as flinched.
“It’s about time we had this out, you and I,” Easter said. “You should have fought at my side when I tried to break free of that fucking facility.”
I smiled at her. “You should have listened to me and had patience.”
She bared her teeth and snarled as she lifted her wand in a sharp twist of her wrist. I squeezed off a round at her hand, wanting only to disarm her.
The bullet missed as she dropped and spun away from it, knocking Eligor to the ground. He yelped and crawled to one side.
“Please don’t do this! Phoenix, there are men waiting for you at the next train station!” Eligor yelled.
“Shut your traitor mouth!” Easter swung a fist toward him, sloppy and loose as though she had no idea how to fight. Which wasn’t her at all.
With her no longer looking at me, I shot again, this time hitting the wand in the middle and shattering it.
It broke like glass, shards flying throughout the small car and a pulse of energy blowing out with it that sent me tumbling through the air. Ruby yelped and went end over end, her paws unable to get purchase until she slammed into the end of the car. I stood and tucked Dinah away.
“Try not to shoot me,” I said as I walked toward Easter.
She stood straight and settled into a stance.
Her fist snapped out for my chin, then she feinted and drove her left fist into my side. I took a step back and let her come at me, keeping my fists up, blocking her here and there. Mostly just waiting.
Killing people was easy.
Not killing someone while still handing them their ass required patience.
Easter kept at me, a grimace on her face as she shot close and tried to drive a knee into my belly. I crossed my arms, blocked her leg and shoved her back. I suppose I could have just shot her with the sedative, but I needed to see how deep the real Easter was. Or if there was anything of my friend left.
“Easter, snap the fuck out of it.” I blocked another flurry of blows, pushed her back again.
“Time, you don’t have the time!” Eligor called.
I glanced to the side to see that we were indeed coming up on the next station. Figures in army black and holding a shit ton of weaponry were visible even in that glance.
Easter took my moment of inattention and came at me hard, tackling me to the ground, and I let her. She got her hands around my neck and started to squeeze. I grabbed her wrists with my hands and dug my nails in enough to force her to relax her hold on me. “Easter, you’re being ruled by a master.”
Her face twisted with rage and I dug deep into my own body, looking for the power that made me what I was. That power that was an ascendant. My bloodline was from the fallen, so who said I couldn’t do exactly to Easter what the others had done to her?
I closed my eyes and let myself fall into that state of meditation that had saved me. My hands went limp on Easter’s and her fingers tightened around my neck.
Everything around me was distant. The sound of the car doors opening. The screaming of Easter as she strangled me. Ruby snarling from behind us, snapping her teeth at Easter. Dinah yelling at me to do something.
I blinked and stood in the fog of my mind and reached out with a hand to where I thought Easter should be, my fingers brushing against something.
Metal, it was like she was wrapped in metal that I couldn’t see. I wiped my hands over the metal and it cleared like glass. Easter pressed her hands on the glass as she stared up at me, her mouth working but no sound coming out.
Help me.
I spun on one foot and drove a roundhouse kick into the glass and metal cage that held Easter tightly. I bounced off the cage and hit the ground hard, gasped and felt my heart stutter.
I was dying.
I needed to break this cage now.
A hand touched the back of my mind, Eligor making his presence known. “You have to use the power that is in you to break it,” he said and then he was gone.
The power in me. That rage in me was red hot and it swelled up, a magic that was nothing but death and destruction. But even those things were good. They’d saved me more than once, and they were going to save Easter.
I placed my hands on the cage, and the power in me rolled upward through my fingertips and into the bonds holding her. A moment of pause, like the world held its breath and then the cage exploded around us, not unlike her wand. A scream of a woman who had to be the one controlling her echoed through the space, a screech cut off mid-scream.
I was thrown back into my body as her fingers loosened and her forehead dropped to mine. Easter’s hair flowed over our faces, as close as lovers. “Took you long enough,” she whispered.
“Impatient,” I whispered back.
She grinned and pulled me to my feet. I stayed limp, falling into the roll that would save us both. Ruby whimpered, and I motioned to her with the slightest flick of my fingers. She settled and limped to stand where she could butt her head up under my loose fingers.
“I got her, boys.” Easter lifted me into a fireman’s carry over her shoulder.
We had it all going smoothly. I already knew exactly what she’d do. She’d take me out of the subway and we’d take whatever car was waiting for us and lose the army blokes. We’d get the fuck out of here, both of us free.
But neither of us had counted on Eligor not understanding that she wasn’t hurting me.
Nor did I think he had it in him to try to stop her.
“No!”
Eligor hit us from behind, throwing Easter to her knees, and I fell from her shoulder, hit the ground, rolled and came up with Diego. Spinning to the army boys, I squeezed the trigger, spraying them with a barrage that sent half of them to the ground, and the other half running for cover.
“What the fuck?” Easter tucked in behind one of the seats as the doors to the subway car tried to close, getting stuck on the leg of one of the men I’d killed. She grabbed the downed body and pulled him so the doors shut. I ducked down and looked back at a still standing and very stunned Eligor.
“I thought . . . she was going to hurt you,” he whispered.
“Get down,” I snapped and he dropped to his butt as if he were Ruby, trained to commands that I could give in my sleep.
Easter snorted as she went through the dead man’s gear, pulling out two guns and his flak jacket
which she slipped on. “What are we doing?”
I noted she was ignoring Eligor. For the moment.
He, on the other hand, was staring hard at her. “You can’t trust her. Susan is a terrible handler and she hurt your friend to make her be able to kill you,” he said.
I peeked up over the edge of the window as we pulled out of the station, ignoring him. The army boys were climbing into the cars behind us. “We’ve got company pulling in.”
“Why aren’t you listening to me?” Eligor whispered. “Please, I am trying to help you!”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet, pulling him behind me as Easter stood and started for the door that would lead us to the car ahead.
“Here’s the deal,” I said. Easter shot the door handle, flipped it open and did the same for the next car. We stepped across the open space and I all but dragged Eligor across with me. His face was pale, and his skin slicked with sweat. I tightened my hand on his arm and pulled him close to my face. “I burned Susan out of her. Do you understand?”
His jaw dropped. “You . . .”
“I met my grandmother.” I grinned as I said those four words. I couldn’t help it, and it was not a happy, yay for a family reunion grin. More like a I know all your secrets, little man grin and I’m going to use them to destroy you.
Eligor managed to get his jaw closed and he swallowed hard. “But your abilities, I locked them away. I didn’t think Namaa was that strong!”
Easter shook her head, red braid flipping back and forth. “Not the time to discuss. They’re coming in on both sides.” She motioned with her gun to the car ahead of us now and the flickering lights that showed the figures creeping toward us, weapons raised.
I turned to see the first group behind us in the previous car too. “How big of a boom can you give me, Diego?” I pulled him around and let go of Eligor. The fallen stumbled to the middle of the car and sat in a seat, clinging to the seat handles.
“Well, what are you thinking?” Diego rumbled.
“You got anything that will blow the coupling between the cars?” I made my way to the front of our car. Better to let that one pull away from us.
“Grenade?” he offered.
“Switch it out,” I said. Easter blew the door open with her gun, and I stepped up to the edge and looked down at the track moving beneath us. I lifted Diego and barely squeezed the trigger. The grenade shot out and I threw myself backward. Easter was already on the floor as I landed beside her and the front of the subway car rocked upward, the explosion shaking the whole system.
Ears ringing, I lifted my head to see that the section ahead of us was pulling away. One set of idiots down, on to the next.
Ruby let out a snarl and I turned in time to see her launch at one of our pursuers. She clamped onto his forearm and dragged him to the ground, snarling and wrenching him around. His screams only seemed to send her into a further frenzy.
He reached for his side arm and I rolled to my knees, pulled Dinah and shot him in the head. His friends started to push their way through. Not understanding that they were coming right into a trap.
“Killing them all? Pretty please?” Dinah said.
In answer, I lifted her and shot the next two in the head in quick succession. They kept coming, though, through the funnel we’d created, dying on top of each other, stacked up like firewood.
Beside me, Easter watched and waited while Dinah and I did the dirty work. Not that I minded.
In under a minute, the men that the facility had sent after us were dead, and our subway car had coasted to a stop.
I tucked Dinah back into her holster, stood, and snapped my fingers for Ruby. She pressed herself against my side and I rubbed her head. “Good girl.”
She gave the slightest of wiggles, her whole body getting into it for just a second.
“Ready?” I looked at Easter and she nodded.
“Let’s go.”
I took a step and Eligor grabbed my hand. “They’ll find you again. I . . . I didn’t bring them here. I swear it.”
I looked down at him, feeling him try to get into my head and quickly shut that down. I pulled my hand free. “I suggest you run, Eligor. Because Easter and I are about to go hunting.”
His face, which was already pale, went ghostly white. “You can’t kill the fallen.”
Easter laughed. “You were in her head all that time . . . how the hell do you for one second believe she won’t find a way? She freed me, and you think she won’t find a way to fuck up those who captured us?”
Eligor looked to her and then back to me. “They’ll kill me, but they’ll take my mind first. They’ll know everything about you.” He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “You have to kill me.”
I looked at Easter and she shrugged. “We could use him,” she said. “He has information.”
That had been my thought, but I didn’t quite trust myself when it came to Eligor. I believed his intentions were good and that made me trust him when I wasn’t sure I should.
“Why?” I asked again, knowing that I was using up precious time, but despite my penchant for killing first and asking questions later, sometimes I did it in the proper order.
“You have to kill me,” he whispered again. “They will find you through me and they will kill all your friends, your son, anyone they find to hide their shame.”
I stood next to him and really looked at him. “Why do you care so much, Eligor? When the others were taking us down, why did you not hurt me? You could have broken me, and we both know it.”
He started to shake, and a tear slid from one closed tight eye. “You are not the only one motivated to do what you do for the love a child you’d protect.”
A rush of air slid out of me. The fallen who was my grandmother had said as much, that the other fallen were wiping out their own children. “Is your kid alive?”
“No,” he whispered. “I . . . broke her mind myself and . . .” a sob rippled out of him and he covered his face with his hands.
I lifted Dinah and pressed her muzzle against his heart. “If I thought I could kill you on my own, I would. But we both know that isn’t possible. Is it?”
His eyes opened and I motioned for him to back up. He looked down at his feet and I squeezed Dinah’s trigger. She gave a surprised Ooh! as the bullet slammed into him and flipped him over the bodies of those who had died.
“I wasn’t actually expecting that,” she said. “I mean, I’m all for it. But you just—”
“He’s like Justin,” I said. “At least in a way. They’ll find him and make him respawn into another body, and another, and another. But he’s right. He can’t come with us.”
“So why shoot him?” Easter asked.
“Because they will hurt him no matter what, but maybe a little less if they think I tried to kill him so easily,” I said.
I hopped out of the car down to the tracks. “Watch that third rail.”
The lights of the subway car quickly faded as I led us back to the previous stop.
Down there in the dark, the sounds of the city were muffled. The smell of the homeless who lived here was heavy.
Easter and I moved quickly, jogging through the darkness, moving in quiet tandem.
The smell of burnt wood tickled at my nose.
I slowed and frowned, picking up the sharper intense scent of an abnormal that I normally wouldn’t have found except that I had smelled someone like him before.
Easter took a sniff. “You getting that too?”
“Here, it’s coming from here.” I held up a hand and found myself stopping beside a service door. I stepped up to it and touched the handle. The door swung open and I was through, following the smell of someone I knew all too well no matter how impossible it was. Because they were all dead. Weren’t they? Another strong whiff of abnormal with the blend of burning wood and I knew without a doubt who we were tracking.
Someone from my family.
One of my siblings was here in the subway.
22
Easter didn’t question my choice of direction. “You know who it is?”
“I am hoping I’m wrong.” I kept my voice low as did she. This was not the time to be shouting about our presence.
I made my way through the semi-darkness with only emergency lights flickering here and there, leading us forward in conjunction with the scent that shouldn’t have existed. That fact that the light and the smell were together made my skin crawl on my back.
My siblings were all dead. All of them. So who the fuck was I smelling? Maybe a bastard child of Romano’s? I supposed that was possible, but he kept close track of all his dalliances and any children produced from them. I couldn’t believe that any would have slipped his leash.
I followed the smell of my sibling—whoever they were—letting it lead me through tunnels that otherwise would have been nearly impossible to navigate. Luck came with being an ascendant. Luck and coincidence to help survive what would kill most others.
Which was why it was so easy for me to follow my feet and the freakishly familiar smell and not lose my mind over the ease of it.
The only sounds were that of water dripping and the click of Ruby’s claws on the concrete. Otherwise, we were quiet. Dinah included. The three of us knew that silence was a tool to be used liberally.
Impossible, that was what kept running through my head, and yet there it was, pulling me through the darkness.
The light disappeared and I held up my palm, calling up my fire to pool, red-gold and brilliant enough to give us an easy path. Easter gave a low grunt from behind me, the tension growing.
A few more turns and we were in front of a ladder rising high above our heads. I bent and scooped Ruby up, settling her on my shoulders, then started the climb. She didn’t squirm, didn’t so much as flinch as I went up. I was breathing hard by the top, and glad she was no bigger.
The end of the ladder had no covering. I popped through and Ruby scrambled off my shoulders.
“Took you long enough to find me.”
A Savage Spell (The Nix Series Book 4) Page 19