by E. A. Copen
Crux’s smile shifted effortlessly into a sneer. “I know!” he screamed, swiping his good arm through the air. “Of course, I know that stupid oaf murdered my cousin. But I can’t very well kill him for it. He’s got half a brain. Where’s the satisfaction in that? No, he did it for this little cunt.” He pointed at Mara.
“Don’t say that,” said Sven, standing from the seat he’d been sitting in inside his barrier. “That’s mean.”
Crux ignored him, preferring to address Mara. “Do you still think you’re better than us? Too good for the Stryx? Now that we’ve had our fun, I bet you don’t. No one rejects a Stryx and goes on to speak about it.”
I stepped between Crux and Mara, breaking his stare. “If you think I’m handing her over for you to kill, deal or no deal, you’ve got another think coming.”
“There are other ways of collecting on a debt. I know the value of something when I see it, and a girl who can call up the dead and let them speak through her…” He shook his head, pacing back and forth like a panther stalking a rabbit. “That’s valuable. Perhaps not to me, but there were plenty of interested buyers. Didn’t your elf friend tell you how useful she’d be to my partner?”
“Your…partner?”
“Seamus’d never work with the likes of you,” said Creven. He appeared in a shimmer from nowhere, using the same trick he’d used at Kim’s estate to hide himself. This time, though, he showed up right behind Crux, swinging his staff like a club. The bulbous end of it struck Crux in the head, sending him sprawling out on the floor. Crux scrambled away and stood as Creven lowered the staff, adding, “He can’t be a strong candidate for king if he can’t protect his own people. Word gets out you’re selling fae behind his back, bleedin’ them dry for profit, how d’ya think he’ll feel about his partner? It’ll look like Seamus’ hands are just as bloody as yours. He’d lose the few supporters he so desperately needs to stake his claim.”
“That’s an unrelated business transaction,” stammered Crux, backing away from Creven. “It doesn’t concern him.”
Creven closed on Crux. “He didn’t seem to think that was the case when last we spoke, Seamus and I.”
“You lie!”
“Do I?”
Crux kept backing up, stopping only when he felt the cold steel of my gun pressed against the back of his head. Then, he raised his one functional arm. “You would shoot me in the back of the head, agent? What about Stryx retaliation? Do you know what my father could do to your precious little town?”
“That fact is the only reason you’re still alive,” I said and kicked him in the back of the knees. “Get on your knees, you scheming ass monkey.”
Crux went down. I unhooked a pair of silver handcuffs from my belt. There wasn’t much I could hold him on, not for long, anyway. BSI would insist he be released and return to his home country. I could, however, keep him from hurting Mara so long as he was in custody. As for Sven, I could deal with him later. After everything I’d seen, I was sure I could make a convincing argument Crux had no right to his property. It looked like there was a way to salvage the situation after all. “Creven, you can lower the barriers now. I think we’re done here.”
As I gripped Crux’s limp arm and brought it around to cuff it to the other one, there was a loud bang upstairs. All eyes went to the empty balcony.
“Was that a gunshot?” asked Ed from behind me.
“No,” I answered.
Gunshots have a distinct sound. Once you’ve heard it once, you never forget what it sounds like. This noise wasn’t from a gun. It was a very different kind of thundering boom, but it was one I’d heard before. I finished putting the cuffs on Crux, making sure they were extra tight. The loud, thundering noise happened again, this time, close enough to shake the floor.
Creven came to stand beside me.
“Is that who I think it is?” I asked him.
“Aye,” he said and then glanced behind him at Abe’s still body. “Looks like the giant finally decided to join the party.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“So, what’s the plan, lass?”
“Why’s it even here?” I turned to check on Mara. She looked like she’d passed out at some point. With as many blows as it looked like she’d taken, I wasn’t surprised. She needed medical attention and soon. “Mara’s not even in danger.”
As soon as I turned, Crux found his feet and stumbled away and over to where Sven was waiting. Sven grabbed his master and, with a mighty yank, jerked the cuffs apart, freeing Crux’s hands. Then, the vampire turned and pointed at me. “Kill Agent Black,” he ordered. “And then kill yourself.”
Something in Sven’s face changed, and his whole body stiffened before he lumbered toward me. In a blur of supernaturally fast movement, Crux sped across the room, grabbed an unconscious Mara, and jerked her away from the table, dragging her toward the exit. Several bikers stepped in his way, but I didn’t have time to stand and watch as they brandished weapons in their attempt to stop the vampire from cutting out early. I had to deal with Sven.
Like a charging bull, Sven came across the dance floor, head tucked and low, strangely fast for such a big guy. He barreled into both Creven and me, taking us down with a tackle before either of us could get a spell off. When my back hit the floor, all the air went out of me. My field of vision shrank to a pinprick where a whole army of stars danced. When my sense finally came back, I realized the stars were splinters of wood and Creven’s staff had broken when he threw it over my face, protecting me from a skull-shattering punch. But now that it was broken, there was nothing stopping Sven’s fist as it got bigger and bigger, closing in on my face.
Out of instinct, I threw a hand up and pumped what I like to call panic magick into it. Panic magick isn’t anything particularly sophisticated. It’s crude, the source often an intense fear of dying. When magick comes from primal instinct, it’s often more powerful but also more unpredictable.
I caught Sven’s fist just inches from my nose. The impact reverberated up my arm in an aching wave and broke my concentration on the spell. My strength gave way. Sven must have been surprised because he didn’t try to pull any of the weight from behind the punch. When my arm gave way, his went crashing down and him with it. He would have landed on me full force if I someone hadn’t yanked me back. And it was a good thing, too, because a big foot came crashing down on beside where Sven landed. I found myself scooting away from the backside of a giant.
Creven jerked me back farther. “I’m bloody worthless without a focus,” he complained, lifting the broken end of his staff. “So, I hope you’ve got a plan for dealing with this, lass.”
“Kill it!” Crux screamed at Sven. The vampire was standing in a circle, held there by Bran, Sal, and Istaqua. Not a place I’d want to be, for sure. The three of them looked like they could do some damage, but they were smart enough not to start punching Crux as long as he was using Mara as a human shield.
Sven pushed himself off of the ground and tried to trade punches with the giant. The giant smacked Sven aside and turned his eyes on Crux. I cursed and shouted for Sal and the others to back away, but they didn’t hear me in time. The giant brought his club sweeping toward them only to be knocked back by a sudden explosion at his feet.
Something round like a marble and red like a candy came down from the viewing balcony above and landed at the giant’s feet, causing another explosion. I looked up to see Robbie balancing on a rail, tossing those things—whatever they were—down in small handfuls. As soon as they hit the ground, they exploded, leaving behind tiny flame and black powder. It didn’t seem like much to me, even though I was sure it would hurt if one hit me. But to the giant, it was anti-matter. When one hit an exposed toe, the whole toe burst into flames and melted into nothingness in the space of seconds.
Now enraged, the giant swung his club and bashed it hard against the floor three times, shaking the whole building. Robbie tumbled down and landed with a loud thump. Frost crawled up the walls and ice spread ou
t from the holes the giant’s club left in the floor, sliding across the floor in a frosty fog. When the fog hit the nearest thing, which just so happened to be a table, the whole thing froze as if it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen only to explode half a beat later.
We all scrambled for higher ground. No one even stopped Crux as he fought his way up to the balcony, not until he tried to go out the door. Then, he found Bran’s katana blocking his exit. I found a spot several stairs up on the crowded stairway and stood there, trying to figure out what to do. Robbie and Abe were still down there.
Sven was still under Crux’s compulsion to attack me, though, and he fought his way through the bikers, mowing through them like a football player. He punched the one who had been celebrating at the table earlier and wrestled a knife away from him before charging at me. I backed up, trapped between him and the fog.
“Stop,” Mara screamed above us, and Sven froze. I watched the battle in his face, the fight between doing as he was compelled and what he wanted.
“What are you waiting for?” Crux shouted. “KILL HER!”
I inched back down the stairs, the cold making my ankles go numb. The frost hadn’t reached me yet, but he would soon.
Sven’s eyes went to the knife, and he gritted his teeth so tight I heard them strain. “I-I…” He stammered.
Then, with a loud cry, he let the knife clatter to the floor and threw himself at me. I ducked, bracing for the impact that would push me to my death, but it never came. Sven charged down the stairs and past me into the fog.
The deadly fog rolled across the floor and up, blocking everything below the giant’s ankles from view. Against the opposite wall, Robbie balanced on top of some overturned tables, just barely out of the fog’s reach. He was bruised, bleeding, and busy hurling fireballs at the giant to keep it busy. I couldn’t see Abe or Sven.
Then, like a ghost in the mist, Sven appeared at the edge of the fog. His whole body was covered with an inch of frost, his skin blue and breath labored. But in his arms was Abe’s limp body. When Sven reached the stairs, he fell to his knees and dumped Abe on the bottom stair. I ventured down, and with Creven’s help, we hauled Abe out of danger. Then I went back for Sven, but I was too late. A wall of fog rolled across the floor between the two of us. He was gone.
I turned back to Abe and knelt. He made a small noise. With a lot of effort and concentration, I was able to determine it was a single word: “Out.”
I looked at him closely. His eyes darted down to the knife in his chest and held there.
“Don’t be stupid,” I told him. “That’s the only thing keeping you from bleeding to death.”
“Get…it…out…” he managed through a closed mouth.
Fire sailed overhead and crashed into a wall right beside us, clearing a path through the freezing fog. Robbie narrowly avoided being struck with the giant’s club.
“He’s staked,” said Creven next to me. “D’ya think he’ll heal if we pull it out?”
“Heal from a stab to the heart?”
“He is a vampire.”
“Half…” Abe growled through clenched teeth.
I looked down at the knife and then at the fog closing in on us. Robbie wasn’t going to be able to keep the giant busy for much longer. I didn’t have much to lose, pulling the knife out.
“This is going to suck,” I said, gripping the handle of the knife. In one sudden upward jerk, I pulled the knife free and cast it aside.
Abe sucked in a big chest full of air and then sat up stiffly, rubbing at the still bleeding wound. “Mary, mother of God, that smarts.”
“We need to take care of the giant before this whole place burns down.”
I handed him his hat. He used it to fan some of the fog away before taking a moment to glare at Crux.
“Abe,” I said and drew his attention back to me. “Giant. Let’s deal with that first.”
He tried to push himself up but forgot about the cut on his arm and fell back down. “Blood,” he cursed and looked at where he’d been cut open. The cut had gone all the way to the bone, and while it appeared to be knitting itself back together, it would be a while until he had the full use of his arm back.
The giant swung his club wide and hit Robbie. One of the spikes on the giant’s club smashed into Robbie’s gut. From her place in the upper viewing balcony, Kim stood and screamed after him as Robbie got flung into a wall, all his effort going into keeping from getting crushed completely.
A memory flashed through my mind. The last time the giant had managed to drive the spikes of his club into anyone, they got back up as draugr. If it started doing the same thing here, we’d be overrun. I turned to Abe. “Tell me you know how to kill it.”
“All I have is a guess. Most things don’t survive too well without a head.”
“I can’t. I don’t even have anything to cut off his head.”
Abe turned and shouted up to the biker with the sword. “Swordsman, lend us your blade?”
Bran looked down at the katana he had displayed across the doorway, keeping Crux from leaving. A small smile curled his lip, and he decided he didn’t need a sword to keep the vampire in check. He brought a big fist down on top of Crux’s head, and the vampire crumpled out of sight. Then, he tossed the sword. Abe caught it with his good arm and held it out to me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how to use a sword!”
“It is easy,” he said. “Pointy end in other guy. Push hard enough, and it will cut through. I am not asking you to duel. If you can hack up a steak, you can cut off a head.” He forced the sword into my hand. I stared at it. “You have the strength, Judah. I have seen you use it. Put it behind this. The worst that can happen is you die, which is almost assured if you don’t try.”
I looked back at the crowd of bikers I’d hired, standing guard on the stairs. They were occupied, making sure Crux didn’t leave. A few of them had wrestled Mara away from him and now Sal had her, checking her over. Things were barely contained as it was. If Robbie got up as a draugr, we wouldn’t be able to hold them.
But the giant had to at least be twenty feet tall with a neck like a tree trunk. I was five-foot-two. How was I supposed to even reach its head, let alone cut it off?
The fog at the bottom of the stairs rolled away and revealed the frozen form of Sven kneeling there. He hadn’t shattered. A chair had fallen off the barricade and lay toppled next to him. Suddenly an idea came to me. A stupid idea.
I righted the chair. It slid a little across the ice, but it would put me out of the fog. “Give me a push,” I told Abe, climbing up.
Abe grabbed the back of the chair and, with a loud grunt, he pushed it across the iced-over dance floor toward the giant. The chair held steady for about a yard and then started to wobble. Then it hit a bump in the ice and tipped. I was still too far away to hit the mark I’d been hoping for, but anything would be better than falling into the freezing fog. I sent a burst of magick into the muscles of my legs, jumping through the air at the giant.
It wasn’t a particularly graceful jump, as I went sailing through the air, flailing for the first thing I could grab while still trying to make sure I kept ahold of the katana. I had been aiming to land somewhere near the giant’s neck and, if the chair hadn’t tipped, I would have made it. Since I didn’t get quite the distance I was hoping for, I landed lower. I went flying with a panicked yelp. The giant turned and readied his club, intending to bat me away as he’d been doing to Robbie’s fire only a moment ago. But then he must have realized—about the same time as me—where my trajectory was taking me.
I slammed into the giant’s balls at roughly the speed of a charging rhino.
I don’t care who you are. A shot to the family jewels gives you pause. The giant doubled over with a roar of pain while I tried to grip the strange, hide-like material his pants were made of and climb up. He made a quick recovery, gaining some sense back about the time I’d managed to get a secure enough grip I wasn’t afraid I’d fall. The cold em
anating from him made it all but impossible since my hands were going numb, but I used magick to pump more blood into my extremities, keeping them warm and functional. He swatted at me with a hand and then tried punching. Big brained, the giant was not. All he managed to do was punch himself in the nads when I scampered out of the way and onto the giant’s back.
The giant let out a roar of frustration and threw himself back first against the nearest wall. I avoided being squashed like a bug only because I managed to get up on the giant’s shoulders just in time. By then, though, even magick wasn’t keeping my skin warm. When I caught a glimpse of my fingertips, I tried not to notice the growing splotches of black and blue on them. The giant slammed his back into the wall again and tried to grab me but I managed to kick his hand. There was a resounding crack as my foot came into contact with his knuckle, and pain shot up my leg and into my brain. I was blind with it for a half-second. My grip slipped. The giant swatted at me again, knocking the katana from my grasp. It clattered loudly to the floor and the giant kicked it away toward the steps. It landed at Father Reed’s feet.
The priest stared down at the sword, looked up at the giant, and then narrowed his eyes. He was about to reach for it when another blast of fog rolled over the sword, keeping it out of reach.
I was losing even more feeling, and my grip was relaxing. If I fell…
My hand slid away from the giant’s shirt collar and hooked onto something else. My body slid down the giant and hung just above the deadly fog, stopping with a sudden jerk. The giant jerked too, head dipping backward as he made a choking sound. Whatever I had hold of had drawn tightly around his neck. I stared at what I held between my fingers. It looked like a simple rope.
With a renewed sense of determination, I gripped the rope tighter, put my foot in the giant’s back, and began to climb up, twisting it as I went. The strange rope was wrapped around the giant’s neck, meaning if I could get it tight enough, I could suffocate him. The giant pulled at the rope desperately and flung his back against the wall. By the time I made it back up to his shoulders, his eyes were bulging, and a vein in his forehead protruded as I cut off the oxygen to his big brain. More magick than I had ever used before went into the muscles in my arms and hands, willing them to keep pulling, even against the desperate cries of the giant.