“Dev thinks I might be in danger from this rogue sorcerer now,” Erin announced as we walked into the graveyard.
Still a little unsettled by the incident in the driveway, I stopped dead—excuse the location specific pun—and stared at her. “What?”
“Apparently the sorcerer was in the office when you guys got there this afternoon. I checked but I don’t think anything was disturbed.”
“It’s because of me, isn’t it.” God, I should have cut all ties to Erin months ago. “They know you’re linked to me.”
“If anyone’s to blame it’s Aurum,” she reasoned.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to be your problem.” I kept walking. “After this is over, we’re not working together again.”
I could feel Erin’s scowl even if I couldn’t see it. “You asked me to work with you, remember.”
“Yeah, back when I thought it was just vampires and werewolves. Not when there’s demons and mad sorcerers and God knows what else is out there.”
“Precisely,” she snapped. “So, learn what is out there and learn how to fight it, then show me what to do.”
“No. I’m not putting you in that danger.”
“Hypocrite.”
I swung around to face her. “What?”
“Don’t you remember a couple of months back, when we sat in my office and you argued that I should tell Ivan everything. I believe you said his ignorance wouldn’t stop him turning into a vampire if he got bitten.”
“I didn’t say that.” Before she could protest, I added, “I said werewolf, not vampire.”
“Whichever monster of the week. The point is the same. You dragged me into this world, now teach me how to survive it.”
Something in her words was a catalyst. As she spoke, all the half-arsed thoughts and vague wondering of the last couple of days came together. From me realising Sue’s curiosity was normal, to knowing I shouldn’t have gone berserk today over nothing, to listening to Erin try to excuse all the terrible things I’d done.
There was something wrong, and that wrong thing was me.
Right from the start, I’d been wrecking the lives around me. I’d rescued Mercy, unleashing another vampire on the world, when she should have died in the Mentis Institute. She shouldn’t be alive. She was a freak, even amongst all the other Old World freaks. It would have been better if she’d died. Then there was Erin, forever embroiled in a dangerous world she knew even less about than I did. I was well on my way to ruining her good reputation; putting a strain on her already tender marriage; tearing through whatever chance she had making friends; throwing her into danger by just being around her. Vampires had even gone after Roberts. It was probably only a matter of time before someone, or something, targeted Jacob.
I felt it, to my very core. I was not right. Something had shifted inside me.
Erin was still looking at me, partially angry, partially worried.
“All right, you want to know how to survive it?” I took a deep breath and lowered my voice. “Fine, I’ll tell you. Put a bullet in my head.”
Erin stepped back, gaping at me. Her aura leaped out at me, all dark chocolate and swirling Moscato, full of fear and shock and horror and a desperate disbelief. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m the most dangerous thing near you. Dev didn’t say as much but I guess I did something terrible to you today and I don’t even remember it. I could have hurt you, or killed you. Or killed someone else. So here’s your first monster slaying lesson. A bullet to the brain usually does the trick.”
Erin was shaking her head. “Matt, don’t talk like that. You’re not a monster and you couldn’t help yourself. Remember what else you said to me back then? Amaya wasn’t in control of herself and yet you didn’t hold that against her. I’m doing the same for you.”
“Fine. Then tell Courey the truth. Have me put away again. When I was in prison the only person I hurt was myself.”
“Fuck you,” Erin snapped. “Why do you get to be so selfish? Think about the rest of us for once.”
“I am!”
“No, you’re not. You’re just worried about what it means for you. What about what it means for the rest of us? It means we have someone out there who is capable of defending us from vampires and demons and crazy as fuck sorcerers! What about Mercy? If you di… went away again, what would it do to her? She needs you. I need you. We all do.”
I pulled back from her, my head clear of pain but all twisted up with guilt and confusion and a low level anxiety I couldn’t shake. I wanted to believe her but I just couldn’t.
“Hire Dev. He does contract work and has a level sixteen threat rating. I’m sure he’d do a better job than me. And not accidentally kill anyone in the process.”
“God. Stop being a bastard.”
“No. I won’t stop, because I am a bastard. I could have killed a bunch of kids today. Kids, Erin. Sure, Chop might need a good lesson about being a decent human, but not from me. And none of the others deserved what I did to them, either. You saw the tape of what I did to Jessica and you know about my uncle. And let’s not forget Tanqueray. None of them needed to get beaten to within an inch of their lives. And you can’t blame that on Mercy. It’s all me. And I need to be stopped.”
Chapter 32
I took the Cougar from the back of my pants and held it out to her. When she refused to take it, I tossed it, as far as I could. There was a distant splash as it landed in the river. There was a brief moment of regret, but that was all.
“You have to ask yourself, how many of the monsters would be here, or crawling out of the woodwork, if I wasn’t out there, upsetting the balance. Things went along well enough before I caught the high-ideal virus. It’ll get back to the status-quo if I’m not around anymore.”
Erin reached for me and I jerked away.
“I’m not making things any better. I’m making them worse. Hell, you’d probably do a better job than me.”
“Matthew, no. You don’t mean what you’re saying. It’s just the concussion.”
“No, you don’t get it, Erin. I know exactly what I’m saying. I don’t help anyone. I just get them hurt. Or dead.”
“No one died today.”
“Not today, no. But I sat there, night before last, and watched a person die right in front of me. And I didn’t stop it.”
I hit the ground on my arse, all the strength fleeing my body. Didn’t realise I was crying until I put my face in my hands and felt the tears.
It happened again, inside my head. I sat opposite Sean and lied my arse off. He leaned forward and grinned conspiratorially. Then that grin was covering four square meters of inner city footpath.
I’ve seen a few dead bodies in my time with the ambulance service. I’ve known people who’d died. But I’ve never seen the actual moment. That split second between alive and dead. Smiling, then not. Sure, there had been vampires and a weredingo, things that had begun as human, but ended as something definitely different. But not a human. Not someone who, but for the sake of a couple of feet, could have been me.
Something inside me twisted and I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. My heart tripped over itself and everything shook.
Then Erin was there, wrapped around me. She pressed her face to mine, her hands soothing against my head and back.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’m here. I’m with you. You’re okay, Matt. I’m here.”
Nope. It wasn’t all right. It was all wrong. She was lying her arse off.
Would a stone monkey drop out of the sky on my head?
“Hawkins!”
The frantic shout jerked me out of Erin’s arms. I scrambled to my feet, turning to find Kermit.
“Hawkins!” He was racing toward us from the direction of the caretaker’s hut. “Hurry up! He’s got her! He’s got Mercy!”
Fuck.
The tears and panic vanished and I leaped into a sprint. Kermit skidded to a stop, seeing me coming.
“This way!” He to
ok off, back the way he’d come, long, skinny limbs flailing in all directions but managing to propel him along so fast I think he might have given Dev a challenge.
I chased him and heard Erin coming along behind me. I reached as I ran, but hit a manic block of rage and screaming fury and… and… fear.
Very few things scared Mercy. Anything that did would be worth the fear.
At the same time, I got a sense of sorcery, of those acid needles crawling over Mercy, further infuriating her. It echoed over my body and I ran even faster.
The earth sorcerer. It had to be.
Kermit disappeared around the corner of the hut and I pelted around it a second later.
In the clear area before the hut, a huge shadow had hold of Mercy, wrestling her off the ground as she kicked and thrashed. One massive arm was wrapped round her chest, the other hand was clamped over her face, keeping her from shouting. Mercy was smaller than average, her attacker larger than, much larger, and the size difference between them was enough to make my knees quiver. Her eyes burned bright silver, tiny moons in the dark, so far gone into the fury she was more beast than thinking, cognitive being.
I had a moment to think ‘not the sorcerer’, then I was throwing myself at them.
I landed on the giant’s back, knees clamping to his sides, arms hooked over his shoulders. He bellowed and spun, trying to dislodge me while keeping hold of Mercy. The body against mine was rock hard, solid, and terrifyingly strong. And big. Bigger than I remembered it being. Broader across the shoulders, thicker from front to back, legs like fucking tree stumps, muscles bulging like boulders.
Henry Tanqueray growled and threw his head back into my face. I dodged it and wrapped my left arm around his neck.
“Let her go,” I screamed.
He yelled back, a wordless, frustrated sound of pure rage. Back arching, he tried to throw me off, Mercy tossed against his body like rag doll.
I punched him as hard as I could in the side of the head. The Colonel’s head barely moved and my hand exploded in pain. Didn’t stop me from punching him again. He answered by staggering backward. A moment later, my back slammed into the side of the caretaker’s hut. Hard brick met my spine and shoulders and my head bounced off it. No matter the strength of Mercy’s anti-pain compulsion, nothing was going to make that not hurt. I nearly lost my hold on the mountain of flesh. He roared and smacked me into the wall again.
Head ringing and spine one long blaze of pain, I just grabbed on tighter. His head might be too hard, but there were other vulnerable spots. I punched him again, in the kidney region. The Colonel bellowed and tried to pull away from me, only succeeding in taking us away from the hard wall. I pummelled his kidney again and again. He let go of Mercy with one arm, keeping the other over her face, and reached back for me. The huge paw scrabbled for purchase on me, getting a handful of shirt, ripping the material. Tossing that aside, he grabbed again and got my shoulder.
A vice closed over my bones and clamped tight. I screamed but it only made me hit him harder.
Mercy twisted and heaved against the arm still wrapped around her head and got a hand up. Her black-varnished nails dug into Tanqueray’s wrist, cutting into his flesh. She dragged her hand back, digging deep furrows into his arm. Skin and flesh parted in four long streaks, but no blood welled. It had the desired effect, though, and he let my shoulder go.
Already aching, my left arm burned in the wake of the crushing grip. I couldn’t afford it to give out on me, though. Hooking it around his throat, I put my right forearm across the back of his neck and choked him.
Tanqueray gasped and growled, thrashing against my hold. Mercy, pinned by her head and shoulders, kicked at his legs and gut. I hoped she got a shot at his balls but didn’t bet on it. Feeling him quiver and start to panic at the loss of air, I squeezed harder.
“You,” I ground out between clenched teeth, “should rest, and dream of large women.”
Over Tanqueray’s shoulder, movement caught my attention.
Kermit was crouched against the hut, long limbs pulled in close, head buried in his knees. Beyond him, perched on a gravestone, was the earth sorcerer.
The hood was pulled all the way forward, sinking his face in pitch-black shadows. Even though I couldn’t see the eyes, I knew they were focused on me. The weight of his power pushed down on me, a thousand rat claws digging into my skin all at once. There was a pressure in my head, like steel rods being pushed into the top of my skull with slow, inexorable force. It dragged on me, trying to push me down, off Tanqueray.
No. Not until he let Mercy go. I held on and put more pressure on his neck. Tanqueray gurgled and crashed to his knees. Mercy used the leverage of the ground to push back against him, shoving him into my hold.
Erin moved into my line of sight. Gun out, she stalked toward the sorcerer.
“Stop this,” she called, her voice clear and firm. It never failed to surprise me how well she’d taken to this work. She knew exactly who was in control here, and it wasn’t the giant. “Call him off or I’ll be forced to fire.”
The hood turned to Erin.
Chill terror rolled down my spine.
“Erin!”
Green tentacles whipped out of the ground and wound around Erin’s legs. She shouted in surprise and went down, wrestling with the attacking vegetation.
I had to stop this before she got hurt.
“All right,” I called. “All right!”
With a massive act of sheer will, I unclamped my arms and slid off Tanqueray’s back.
“Let Erin go,” I shouted. “She’s not part of this.”
The sorcerer faced me again and I felt the utter nothingness of his emotions. Cold, bleak, empty. Just what drove this person to do these things was nothing I could discern.
With a small motion of one hand, the sorcerer stopped the attack on Erin. The vines slithered off her and back into the ground. Erin, panting and wild-eyed, scrambled to her feet and backed up rapidly. She still had her gun and held it ready, but not pointed at anyone.
Between me and the sorcerer, Tanqueray got back to his feet, Mercy dangling from his arms. She was limp now, still consumed with the need to fight and hurt and kill, just biding her time, knowing I would do something.
It was an empty faith, because I had nothing. There was no fighting this person here. Too much was in his favour. Tanqueray, his sorcery, the very earth under our feet. I had zero options.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Want?” It was the voice I’d heard in my vision. Inflectionless, toneless, almost sexless. “I want to be left alone. I want Randy Devantier to stop chasing me. I want you to die so I can go about my life in peace. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Then the sorcerer raised a hand and made a little twisting motion.
Tanqueray twisted his hands and broke Mercy’s neck.
Chapter 33
Red dropped over my vision. A loud roaring filled my head. Everything went dark and vividly bright all at once. The world pulled away from me, leaving me isolated. At the same time, I was aware of every little movement around me unfolding in excruciatingly slow motion.
Kermit jerked, eyes going wide, hands flashing out as if he could have stopped something that’d already happened. A gasp of surprise burst out of him.
Erin shouted, a sound of denial and pain, not for Mercy, but for me, for what this would do to me. Her gun came around, pure instinct directing her arm. She aimed at the sorcerer.
Tanqueray opened his hands and stared at them, his expression perplexed, as if he didn’t recognise them, or what they’d done, staggering back a step, two steps. His mouth opened and closed, no sound coming out.
And Mercy. Mercy dropped, boneless, arms limp, legs crumpling under her. She hit the ground and rolled, coming to a lifeless stop against a gravestone, black curls tangled, sweet face blank, eyes staring at me, seeing nothing.
The sorcerer shifted and he was the only one moving at normal speed. At least, normal in my pe
rception. He sprang off the gravestone and fled.
Hunt. Hurt. Kill.
Then Tanqueray was in my way. He growled and caught my arm, jerking me around. I used the momentum to propel myself off the ground. Free arm locking around his neck, my body swung out, pulling him off balance and he went down. Coming around, I twisted my arm out of his grip, reversed the hold and wrenched his arm out and back. He shouted and writhed in pain. I didn’t care, just put more pressure on his elbow, aiming to break. His hand spasmed and I shifted, using my whole body weight to force the bones in directions they weren’t supposed to go.
The pressure in my head intensified, the slow driving of the spikes turning razor-edged, slicing into me. My left arm bucked out of control and I let Tanqueray go.
He yelled wordlessly and rolled, knocking me off. I tumbled away and he came after me. I came up on my feet just as he reached me. Massive fists flew, punching me into the wall of the hut. I ducked the next blow, turning around between him and the wall. A thick arm wrapped around my shoulders from behind. I shoved back against him, running my feet up the wall, then pushed off. Tanqueray crashed backward, losing his hold. I flipped over his falling body and landed in a crouch.
I looked around. Kermit was next to Mercy, shaking his head. Erin was racing away, chasing the already vanished sorcerer.
About to follow her, I was brought up short by Tanqueray. He grabbed my ankle and yanked. I went over hard. He punched me in the guts, once, twice. Then got a knee into my side and something in me broke. I felt the snap but not the pain.
Tanqueray rolled over me, got up and ran. For a muscle bound rock, he moved fast.
Flipping to my feet, I chased him.
The Colonel sprinted through the cemetery, smashing through old headstones and snapping young trees off at the base as he went. A human juggernaut. A human.
My speech to Erin about how I could have killed one of those kids today replayed in my head, but I ignored it. Tanqueray might be human, but he was a human who had taken my Mercy away from me.
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