Carved from Stone and Dream

by T. Frohock

  “Lucky me.” Miquel snarled through bared teeth.

  Nervous now, Nico looked down. “We’ve found the drug enhances our powers, but it also makes some nefilim more aggressive.”

  “Do you see what he is doing?” Miquel stepped around Guillermo and snatched up his rifle.

  Everyone tensed. Diago shielded Nico’s body with his own.

  Miquel deliberately slowed his movements. “He’s trying to turn us against each other.” Taking a deep breath, he chambered a round. “Okay? You want him, you be his nursemaid. If he betrays us, I’m putting a bullet through his head.”

  This isn’t Miquel. This is how I used to act all the time. Before Miquel found him, Diago’s aggressiveness was his defense and paranoia his code. The behavior his husband currently exhibited was precisely what he feared he’d lapse into once he began using his daimonic song again.

  Yet I haven’t. Stunned by the revelation, he realized just how much Miquel had helped him change. And now I’ve got to remind him of who he was before Nico injected him with the drugs. The same way he taught me: by example.

  Diago helped Nico to his feet and held up his fingers again. “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “Good.” He’s healing fast. Diago took the other nefil’s arm and guided him.

  Nico jerked free of Diago’s grip. He shouldered the rucksack and hissed, “I don’t need your goddamn pity.”

  Diago knew the feeling all too well. “I don’t pity you. I just know where you’ve been, because I’ve been there, too.” Not waiting for an answer, he left the alcove and joined the others.

  “Which way are we going?” Guillermo glanced at Nico somewhat uncertainly as he said it.

  Nico started haltingly but gained confidence as he spoke. “We can’t go through the infirmary, a group this large will be remembered. We also risk someone recognizing either Miquel or Rafael. Our safety lies in hiding among the soldiers.”

  Miquel’s eyes narrowed. “You mean go downstairs and circle around using the main corridor?”

  Nico nodded. “And then take the stairs in Gold sector to reach Blue. If we get separated, you know that route. You can find it yourself.”

  Miquel lifted his gun. “The only thing that will separate you from us is a bullet.”

  Nico swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Okay.” Guillermo motioned for Nico to stand beside him. “I’m going first, center aisle. We walk like we own this place. Our uniforms will throw the newer recruits off balance. If one of the old ones marks our presence, shoot and go into an attack pattern.” He pointed at Rafael. “Fight with everything you’ve got. It’s you or them. Miquel on the right, Diago on my left. Nico, you’re beside me. Fuck up, and you won’t have to worry about Miquel putting a bullet in your head. I’ll do it. Rafael, you have the rear guard. That means every three steps, you look back and make sure no one is following us. Everyone clear?”

  Rafael gripped his rifle. His lips were white, but he gave a sharp nod. Miquel reached for him. Rafael flinched as if he anticipated a blow.

  Sorrow touched Diago’s chest. He’d hoped never to see his son exhibit that behavior. Still, he held his peace to see what they would do.

  “I’m sorry.” Miquel lowered his hand. “I’m so sorry I struck you. I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It’s okay.” Rafael touched his father’s shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.” He chambered a round into his rifle and offered Miquel a smile. “We’ve been through worse than this.”

  A faint smile touched Miquel’s lips. “We have.” He wiped the blood from Rafael’s forehead and kissed his son’s cheek. “We certainly have. But I’m still sorry, and I’ll never raise my hand against you again.”

  “Family time is over.” Guillermo grabbed Nico’s arm and started for the stairs. “Let’s go!”

  Diago waited for them to descend five steps, then he motioned for Miquel to go next. His husband winked at him as he passed, and for the briefest moment Diago saw the man he loved once more.

  And I’ll get him back. But first they had to get out of Jordi’s hell alive.

  21

  At the bottom of the stairs, they fell into formation. As their march gained rhythm, even the old floorboards couldn’t muffle the stamp of their boots. Nico shed his lab coat and tossed it to the floor.

  Diago snatched a shadow and twisted it between his hands. He listened for his son’s footsteps.

  One-two-three, turn.

  He thought of the humiliations Jordi and Samyaza had inflicted on his family. In doing so, he touched the outer core of his fury and coughed a harsh note into the shadow. The reflex came easier now, as natural as breathing. And that’s not something I want.

  Or was it? Didn’t he grow stronger with each song? Wasn’t stifling his daimonic nature no different from hiding his relationship with Miquel when circumstances warranted?

  One-two-three, turn.

  As he shaped the darkness into a sigil, his rage took the form of a scorpion. Gold and silver marbled its back. He ran his thumb over the lines, feeling each ridge of his hate. Wasn’t this as much a part of him as his love?

  One-two-three, turn.

  Maybe. But animosity murdered empathy and gave understanding little room to grow. The darker emotions had their place. Diago glanced over his shoulder and noted his son’s grim features. But they’re not to be nurtured.

  One-two-three, turn.

  From somewhere behind them, a muffled explosion shook the corridor. Patches of plaster and stone rained down on them.

  Guillermo lengthened his stride. “That was the ward I placed in the pit.”

  Klaxons suddenly screamed in the corridor ahead.

  Nico’s step faltered, then he regained his pace and kept going. Diago watched him carefully as the group broke into a jog.

  One-two-three, turn.

  He knew from his own experience that this was a critical moment for Nico. The lure to go back to the abuser was real and dangerous and strong. Jordi, malicious though he was, represented a known factor in Nico’s life. Nico understood Jordi’s moods and how to mitigate the danger. Stepping into the unknown probably terrified him.

  It certainly did me.

  Worse, Nico wasn’t moving toward a better relationship. Acceptance in Los Nefilim presented a difficult route for him.

  One-two-three, turn.

  Returning his attention to the scorpion in his palm, Diago adjusted the line of a silver ward, nudging it closer to a thread of gold so that three letters spelled HCI and formed the sigil for hydrochloric acid.

  One-two-three, turn.

  Guillermo wrinkled his nose at the strong odor but said nothing. Nico and Miquel pretended not to notice.

  One-two-three, turn.

  The passage didn’t seem nearly as long on the way out. As they stepped onto the main corridor, a group of five soldiers passed them at a run, heading toward the upper levels. And why not? That’s where the original emergency sent them.

  To the right, the hall was empty. Guillermo turned left and suddenly stopped. They halted in a loose line: Guillermo, Nico, Miquel, Diago, and then Rafael.

  Guillermo’s gaze remained locked on something far up the corridor. Diago kept his attention on the five soldiers who had just passed them. The group slowed their pace and then moved to the left. As they did, they revealed Jordi, with Samyaza at his side. Four more nefilim followed the Grigori and the generalissimo.

  This is bad. Diago took a sliding step forward to block Rafael’s body with his own. The act won him a vicious stare from his son.

  Nico’s lips barely moved. “I’ll stall them.”

  Miquel growled, “Move and I’ll blow your brains out.”

  “Easy,” Guillermo murmured.

  As the five soldiers fell into formation behind the four already flanking Samyaza, Jordi finally noticed Guillermo. He staggered to a stop and his mouth dropped open.

  Had their situation not been so dire, the shock of the moment would have
been comical. Unfortunately, Diago had lost his sense of humor somewhere in the Tavascan Pass. All he saw before them now was certain death.

  Samyaza halted beside Jordi. “What are you waiting for?” he screeched at the soldiers. “Take them alive!” His malignant glare landed on Miquel. “Leave Miquel for me.”

  Samyaza formed a sigil. Jordi’s hands moved in tandem with the angel.

  Nico is right. Samyaza is using Jordi. Diago riveted his attention on the glyph’s lines. With its blunt edges and concussive sound, it was meant to stun.

  Miquel reached into his pocket, retrieving a bottle of Pervitin. Popping several of the pills into his mouth, he swallowed and returned the angel’s glare. A slow smiled spread over his mouth, chilling Diago to his bones.

  The stamp of boots against the floor drew his attention to the advancing soldiers. The time had come to fight.

  Diago strode forward. He shouted and whirled, throwing his scorpion to the floor.

  The glyph shattered into a million scorpions that scuttled over the soldiers, crawling over their bodies in a relentless cyclone of motion. The Nationalists dropped their weapons and writhed beneath the scorpions’ stings. Instead of venom, the arachnids injected acid into the nefilim’s flesh. Smoke rose from the soldiers’ bodies. Their howls careened off the walls as their flesh melted from their bones.

  Samyaza and Jordi shielded themselves with protective sigils. The scorpions flowed around the pair. Neither the angel nor the generalissimo made any effort to aid their men.

  Guillermo took the sounds of the soldiers’ deaths and wound them into a glyph. He formed a ward made for fire and murder.

  Rafael followed Diago’s sigil with one of his own. The blinding flash of amber light turned into a golden snake with sparks flying off its scales. It struck the wall and slithered past Samyaza to envelope the soldiers still waiting there. The men jittered in place as if electrocuted.

  “Quick! Before their reinforcements arrive!” Rafael pushed Diago toward another hall. “We’ve got to get to the tracks! I know the way!”

  Diago maneuvered behind Miquel and grabbed Nico’s arm. “Go,” he hissed. “Get to the tracks with Rafael. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Nico hesitated with a fearful glance toward Miquel, but Diago’s husband remained fixated on Samyaza.

  Jordi’s eyes narrowed. “Nico! Get your ass over here now!”

  The Italian made his decision. He backed away from the fury in Jordi’s eyes and fled with Rafael.

  Suddenly Samyaza ran at them with lightning speed. The angel’s tin mask was gone. The lower half of his face hung to his chest, as if his jaw had come unhinged and he intended to swallow them all whole. He emitted a ferocious shriek. With his wizened claws outstretched, he lifted his sigil.

  Miquel danced forward and whirled. His lips moved as he murmured a litany of names: “Vicente, Alejandra, Juan, Luciana, Remedios, Indalecio, Gaspar . . .”

  Then he snatched a beam of light from the bulbs overhead. Molding the electricity between his palms, he fashioned a glyph and sang it to life. A shield rose between their group and Samyaza’s ward. Miquel’s sigil struck down the angel’s concussive glyph and sent it back toward the angel.

  Jordi fashioned a shield of his own. He raced in front of Samyaza and skidded to a halt, lifting the ward just in time to block Miquel’s glyph. Though the veins in his neck stood out and his face turned as red as his hair, Jordi held the barrier.

  Guillermo finished his ward. He sent the sigil forward, where it burned with the fire of a thousand flamethrowers. The blaze scorched through the hall.

  Jordi’s glyph held firm, matching Guillermo’s ward with angelic fire. The Grigori remained behind Jordi’s shield, cowering from the scalding touch of Guillermo’s song.

  “Quick!” Diago motioned for them to follow Nico and Rafael. To his surprise, neither Guillermo nor Miquel argued.

  Guillermo waited until Miquel was past them and fell into step beside Diago. “Did you see that?”

  Diago nodded. His husband had just redirected an angel’s ward. Only a king or queen of the Inner Guard possessed that kind of power, and even then only through the authority of their signet. “It’s the Pervitin.”

  Yet again, he found himself thinking back to the gruesome choral room; the litany of heart attacks and psychoses that killed the young nefilim. He forced himself to stop thinking. “We’ll treat him when we get to France.” We’ll fix him. We will. We must.

  Guillermo nodded and broke into a jog. “Take the rear guard.”

  Diago fell back and turned once. The hall behind remained clear. When he faced forward again, he caught sight of Rafael running down a narrow passage with several wooden doors along the left wall. Nico followed him, with Miquel close on their heels.

  As Guillermo drew parallel with the first door, it opened. Without pausing, Guillermo aimed his pistol at the surprised officer and shot him in the face.

  Diago leapt over the fallen body and found another nefil blocking his path. He couldn’t risk shooting—the bullet could pass through the soldier’s body and hit Guillermo.

  The assessment flew through Diago’s mind in a flash, which was how quickly the other nefil was on him. The soldier had no weapon, but he attacked anyway, his fist narrowly missing Diago’s face. Diago jabbed blindly with the rifle’s stock. A lucky strike took the other nefil in the diaphragm, causing him to double over. Diago brought the stock up and into the soldier’s chin. Three more strikes, and the nefil stopped breathing.

  Looking up, Diago noted that no one pursued them, but from ahead, bursts of gunfire suddenly filled the passage. He straightened and tried to ignore the cold fear in his gut. Rafael was in the lead. Had he taken them into an ambush?

  Passing the nefil he’d just killed, Diago found Guillermo engaged in close hand-to-hand combat with a third soldier. Their fast, violent blows left no opening for Diago to enter the fray.

  Guillermo bent low and threw his weight against the other nefil, pushing him against the wall. He fired point-blank into the man’s forearm. The nefil screamed and twisted, giving Guillermo a better target. The next bullet took the man between his eyes.

  In the distance, the firefight slowed to sporadic pops. Guillermo moved cautiously. Diago followed with his heart pounding. He prepared himself for the worst.

  No one emerged from the last door they passed. Behind them, the corridor remained clear.

  The sound of four more shots reached them.

  Then Miquel’s voice: “You got him, osito!”

  Diago’s relief almost overwhelmed him. They were both alive.

  The hall widened to reveal a platform. The bodies of five Nationalists littered the concrete. Miquel disarmed a man and then used the pistol to finish off the mortally wounded soldier.

  Nico ran out of an office and headed for the edge of the platform. He hesitated on the first step and looked back.

  Rafael emerged next with the barrel of his rifle raised. He spun and lifted the stock to his shoulder when he heard Diago and Guillermo.

  They skidded to a halt.

  Rafael’s pupils were dilated with fear. He slowly moved his finger off the trigger. “Papá?” he whispered through pale lips as he lowered the gun.

  Christ, he came close to firing on us. “It’s okay.” Diago eased forward and glanced inside the office. A sergeant sprawled on the floor. Crawling over his dead eyes was a sigil with gunmetal-blue lines; a syringe protruded from his chest.

  The song and drugs that killed the man belonged to Nico.

  Diago joined Nico and checked the tracks in both directions. He saw no other sign of soldiers. Turning to the Italian, he said, “Good work.”

  Nico grimaced. “All I’ve done this day is murder. There is nothing good about that.”

  “You saved a boy’s life. Don’t lose sight of that. Because I won’t.” Diago lowered his voice. “And you’re going to help me wean my husband off your drugs. Understand?”

  Nico pressed his lips t
ight and nodded.

  On the platform, Miquel shot another groaning soldier.

  They all started at the pistol’s crack.

  The sound jettisoned them back into action. Guillermo grabbed Rafael’s arm and rotated him toward the stairs. “Follow Nico!”

  Diago tilted his head, and that was the only permission Nico needed to start running again.

  Holding his position, Diago waited for Rafael and Guillermo to pass, and then he descended with Miquel covering their retreat.

  Thirty meters down the tracks, they came to a junction.

  Guillermo paused. “Where does that go?”

  Nico slowed but didn’t stop. “Barcelona.”

  Which was crawling with Nationalists by now.

  “And the sigil leading into France?”

  Rafael pointed down the tracks. “There. You can see the outline from here.”

  The glyph held the faint glow of red and gold. Complete darkness enveloped everything beyond the ward. Even the tracks disappeared.

  Nico merely glanced at the sigil. “We’ll never open it.”

  Undeterred by Nico’s pessimism, Rafael led the way forward. “While you were talking to that doctor . . . Jimenez, I saw the choral unit inside the control room, and I heard them. I also remember the song Carlos used to open it from the French side.”

  Guillermo studied the lines. “Can you teach us?”

  Rafael sang a note and gestured for Nico to join him.

  Nico hesitated, but only for a second. Then he harmonized with Rafael. A glow of amber light strengthened around the edges of the glyph.

  Nico stopped singing and the glyph faded. “We need more voices.”

  Miquel faced the distant platform and lifted his rifle. “We’ve got company.”

  “Guillermo!” Jordi’s shout rolled down the tunnel.

  They whirled, weapons raised.

  Guillermo lifted his hand. “Hold your fire.”

  Jordi descended to the tracks. Samyaza came next. Several other soldiers hurried behind them, leaping to the tracks and taking up firing positions.