by Rob Cornell
It slammed into his eye instead. Close enough.
His good eye shot wide. He coughed once. The rock dropped out of his hand and crumbled to dirt on its way down, peppering my face with dust and soil. Then he tipped over and thumped onto his side.
Rather than feeling relief at having his weight off me, a whole new wave of pain burrowed through my gut. I could taste blood in my mouth, metallic and tangy.
I rolled my head one way, then the other to check on the women. Neither of them moved. Skunky’s hair was gone, as was pretty much all the flesh on her head, leaving only a blackened skull. Platinum’s robes had melded to her back, making it look like her skin was made of paper.
So many nasty smells filled the room now, it was hard to parse them. Cooked flesh. Hellfire. Something like the inside of a freezer. And a whole lot of death.
I closed my eyes. Oblivion rose to catch me the moment I did.
But I couldn’t let it take me.
I forced my eyes open. They didn’t want to stay that way. I bit my lip. It barely hurt compared to my stab wound, though I noticed some numbness taking over. I also felt so cold. Maybe Platinum had hit me with her magic, but I couldn’t remember. Sparks went off in my head. Short circuits and power surges. System shutting down.
No.
I bit my lip again. I rolled onto my side. I had a little magic in me. I tried to hold together the damaged muscles in my back. I didn’t have skills that specific, though. I could mask the pain, but shock had already started doing that on its own.
I thought of Mom. I thought of our burnt house. I thought of Fiona, and Markus, and betrayal. I thought of Goulet, and that creepy old vamp that had fed me his blood and started my fucked up, unturned life. And I thought of Dad. His patient lessons. His acceptance of who I was. How I should have told him I had taken up demon hunting, but I’d been too afraid to lose that acceptance.
I thought about a lot of things.
But mostly, I thought about bringing this all to an end.
And that was what got me up.
I caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of my vision. I twisted toward it too quickly. More jagged agony ran up and down my back and clear down into my thigh. I braced myself for another attack.
Mayor Kirkland had fallen off his chair and had shoved himself as deeply into the corner as he could.
I had completely forgotten he was in the room.
A large wet spot soaked the crotch of his pants. His face shimmered with sweat, and his eyes were partially rolled back in his head as he tremored and drooled. This was why you didn’t bring the unacquainted into the paranormal world without a great deal of preparation.
“Mayor Kirkland,” I shouted. “Hey!”
His eyelids fluttered, and his eyes rolled back in place. But when he glanced at the carnage before him, I could see him about to pass out.
“Hey! Look at me. Not any of this other stuff.”
Kirkland’s gaze floated to me. “Wha…wha…”
“It doesn’t matter. You know about the Ministry?”
He nodded.
“You need to contact Prefect St. James. Tell him he needs to get some guardians and bring his ass over here promptly. Can you do that?”
He nodded again. His hand absently fumbled under his sport coat and drew out a phone.
I left him to it.
I wanted to check on Mom, but I needed to check on Toft first. I needed to make sure to send that damn cloak to hell.
I shuffled to the door opposite the one Markus had claimed Mom was behind and went into the room.
Toft sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed facing the window. The curtains were drawn. The only light came from a lamp on the nightstand. Toft sat with his back to me. He kept his head bowed, didn’t move at the sound of my entry.
The cloak lay draped across his shoulders.
Otherwise, he wore the same black dress pants and white dress shirt I had seen him in last.
On the nightstand, I spotted a carafe half-full of water and a wooden crucifix about twelve inches long. I waddled my way over to him. His shirt hung open. Several burn marks in the shape of the crucifix on the night table seared his chest. His clothes were completely drenched in what, judging from Toft’s condition, was holy water. They’d used a lot, more than what had been in the carafe there.
He shivered, his gaze staring at nothing. Several sections of flesh had sloughed off, probably from prolonged exposure to the holy water. Smaller, square burns marked his face. I gathered they had used the end of the crucifix to do those. His skin looked gray and mottled, but the glow in his eyes was gone. He looked stuck between his natural form and his human glamour.
What made the obvious torture all the worse was that it was done to a twelve-year-old body. I knew who Toft really was, what he was, yet it still pained me to see what had once been an innocent boy brutalized like this.
Heat bloomed in my belly. I wanted to go back out into the suite’s common room and beat on the dead bodies out there. Of course, I could barely stand, so that wasn’t really an option. I would have to sate my anger in another way.
I pulled out the hell bag. I whipped the cloak off Toft’s shoulders and threw it down onto the bed. Then I opened the bag to about the same diameter as a manhole. The roiling flames inside instantly dried the sweat on my face. I had to stagger away before it burned of my eyebrows.
I picked up the cloak.
“This is my city, assholes.”
I threw it into the bag then quickly drew the bag shut. If there were more hellhounds in there, now they had a pretty chew toy made of hummingbird feathers. And this whole shit storm was done. Even though Stump Lady had taken off, and even if there were more conspirators, their plan was now toast. We could probably expect some more vampire rioting. But even that would die down when they realized their main players in the Ministry were out of the picture, permanently.
“What did you just do?” Toft asked in a pinched rasp.
“I sent that fucking cloak to hell. Take it easy. Ministry’s on its way.”
He slowly turned. He looked near tears. I’d never seen a vampire cry. Hadn’t thought they could.
“The cloak is gone?”
I smirked. “That’s right.”
He closed his eyes. “All hells, this city is doomed.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
I had to sit. Blood loss had taken its toll. I was a sorcerer. I was tougher than the average mortal, even without my magical stores. That’s how we lived longer than everyone else. But we weren’t invincible, and if I didn’t get to a Ministry healer soon, I wasn’t going to make it.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Doomed how?”
“They made me, Sebastian. I know you believe I’m evil incarnate, but I never wanted to do it.”
“Do it? You mean…” I lost my breath. The taste of blood in my mouth thickened.
Forget this, Markus. We’re done anyway.
That’s what Stump Lady had said before bailing.
We’re done anyway.
“You’ve already done it?”
Toft nodded.
I turned my attention to the bag. The fucking bag of hell that was supposed to be the final answer, the way out, the end to nearly four years of misery, from the day I learned about Dad’s death and Mom’s fugue till now. The end, damn it. And I had let my angry need for that end rush me into throwing the cloak away without stopping to think, just think for a damn minute. In the process, I had assured death for thousands of Detroit residents.
“You can’t undo it without the cloak?”
“I would have to personally visit each and every thrall. It’s impossible.”
“There has to be another way,” I shouted as if he were to blame. I broke into a coughing fit. When I held my fist in front of my mouth, I felt blood spray across my knuckles.
Toft waited for me to stop, then said, “There is another way.”
I gripped his arm. The chance to make up for my stupid m
istake sent a thrill through me. “What is it?”
“A thrall dies with the vampire.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If I die, my thrall will break. It should free them all.”
“But you’re not dead.” I heard how stupid it sounded, but denial makes you say funny things.
Toft’s little boy smile with all those burns on his face tricked me for a moment much like Odi could trick me into forgetting he was a vampire. “It’s sweet that you’re concerned for my life.”
“To hell with your life,” I said. “What about Odi?”
Toft shrugged. “With my death, the blood oath expires. You can walk away, return to your life without worry. Like you’ve always wanted.”
“I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about him. He’ll have no one.”
Toft looked away, toward the window, as if he could look through the curtains and the city below. “I know. But you have no choice. You must kill me.”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t decide how to feel, either. I’d gone emotionally numb, which made way for the physical pain in my back to flare up. I gritted my teeth. It hurt to breathe now. I didn’t have a lot of time.
Neither did all those people.
“Do it,” Toft said.
Which was easier said than done. I didn’t have enough power to burn him. The dagger in Able’s eye was metal, so it wouldn’t do any good piercing Toft’s heart with it. And it was too small to cut off his head. I couldn’t see myself yanking the hell bag over his head either. I just…couldn’t.
“What are you waiting for? My brothers and sisters will feed on these people tonight, and you don’t look like you have long to live yourself. Kill me before you die.”
I looked around the room. On a chair in the corner was a duffel bag. I glanced at the vampire torture items on the nightstand. You don’t fuck around with a vampire unless you were prepared to kill him. I shuffled over and, sure enough, found a sharpened wooden stake within the duffel. I pulled it out and looked at it as if it might change into something else, something silly, like a dirty sock or a bag of jellybeans.
“That will do,” Toft said. He had laid down on the bed while I had my back turned. His head rested on the pillow. He had his hands laced and resting on his belly. He already looked like a corpse.
I limped over to him. I could tell he was struggling against tremors. I could see the fear in his eyes. For the short time I’d known him, he never looked more like his young body’s age than now.
I lined up the stake over his heart. My hands shook, making the stake’s point jitter.
“One thing,” he said. “You owe me nothing once I’m gone. But, as you said, Odi will have no one.” He pressed his pale lips together for a moment. “Unless he has you.”
I lost my breath for a second, and it had nothing to do with my pain. “You are a son of a bitch.”
“Son of a whore. From what I remember, at least. It takes a while for a life of several centuries to flash before one’s eyes.”
I wouldn’t feel sorry for him. I couldn’t feel sorry for him. I wouldn’t feel sorry for him…
“Please,” Toft said.
“I’ll…” I cleared my throat. Blood gurgled up into my mouth. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He closed his eyes. “I’ll have to accept that.”
“Do you really care so much about him? I thought he was just a pawn to you.”
“My pawns are my family.” His lips curled in the vaguest of smiles. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
He had me there.
“Quit stalling. Put that stake in my heart. Save those people.”
I really couldn’t believe these things were coming out of Toft’s mouth. He didn’t sound anything like the vampire I thought he was. Which made it all the harder to stake him.
But it didn’t make it impossible.
There was too much…too much at stake. (What a terrible time for a pun, intended or not.)
I said the only thing I thought might comfort him before death.
“I promise I’ll take care of him.”
He still had his eyes closed when he smiled.
I hesitated a couple seconds more.
Then I pierced his heart and turned him to dust.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I flopped down on the bed next to Toft’s ashes, that familiar dry smell of vampire remains surrounding me, and fell into darkness. At one point I thought I heard Mom’s voice, but I couldn’t answer her calls.
The next thing I remembered, I woke up in a strange bed in a strange room, surrounded by strange people. The walls had ancient looking tapestries depicting everything from mating fae to what looked like a chorus of angels. They reminded me of the rug in Prefect St. James’s office, the one that looked like fairies had woven it.
The mattress and pillow I lay on might have tricked me into thinking I was levitating, if not for the soft feel of the sheets under me.
A bookshelf stood against the wall to my right, stuffed with leather bound books of various sizes and conditions. A floor lamp in one corner provided a mellow glow. The walls were painted a soothing earth tone. I didn’t see any windows, but the air felt cool and smelled like incense.
An elderly woman with a blue scarf covering her head stood at my beside. When she smiled, a legion of wrinkles and lines circled her features, yet her eyes had a vibrant glow that spoke of eternal youth. I knew somehow that she was a healer, and she had fixed me up.
“You are well,” she said like a statement of pure fact.
And I was. I felt pretty damn good compared to how I had.
In a chair pushed back from the bed, Prefect St. James sat with his chin resting on his folded hands, his elbows braced on the chair’s arms. He studied me with a steady gaze. I couldn’t read his expression. Anger? Fascination? Disappointment? One of those.
The other two people in the room stood on the opposite side of the bed from St. James—a man and a woman. I didn’t recognize either one, but I could tell from their stance and general presence they were Ministry.
The healer pressed the back of her hand against my forehead, nodded, then backed away. She gave St. James a small bow, then left the room.
St. James cleared his throat and lifted his chin off his hands. “You’ve given us quite a mess to clean up.”
I groaned and closed my eyes. Here it came. How many Ministry members had I killed? Four? And maimed a fifth. I was going away for a long time.
“It’s lucky for you Mayor Kirkland was so…forthcoming. But you and your mother still have a great many questions to answer.”
Mom!
“Where is she? Is she all right?”
St. James nodded. “She’s recovering like you. She’d been put into a near death stasis. Ugly magic the Ministry doesn’t approve of.”
I curled my hand into a fist.
St. James noticed. “I told you, she’s fine.”
“Still pissed at your colleagues for touching her.”
“I understand.”
“Really? Because I don’t think you do. I don’t think you have any idea what these bastards did right under your nose all this time. I should assume you were in on it, only I’m pretty sure you weren’t. But my life, my family’s life, has been wrecked because you couldn’t control your branch of the Ministry.”
His nostrils flared, but he showed no other outward signs of anger. His gaze flicked up to the pair standing on the other side of the bed.
“On behalf of the Ministry,” St. James said, “I extend our sincerest apologies.”
I smirked, turned my head to face the two of them. The man wore a three-piece suit. The woman an elegant but simple green dress with a high collar. The woman had very dark skin. The man, on the other hand, had a pasty pallor as if he hadn’t seen enough sun.
“You two aren’t Detroit Ministry, are you?”
The woman shook her head. “No.”
His gaze danced up to the Ministry pair again, then back to me. “The Global Ministry Faction is here to assist in the investigation.”
“How much do you know so far?”
“Only what the mayor shared, and a few answers to questions your mother answered.”
“It’s a hell of a story,” I said.
“Tell us,” the pasty-faced guy said.
And you bet your ass, I told them every last bit.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
I sat in Sly’s basement on a folding chair next to Odi’s coffin. Dusk was minutes away, and I wanted to be there when he first rose.
The Ministry had had me and Mom in custody for three days while they investigated, cooperated, and debriefed. They had asked us all sorts of questions, but didn’t offer many answers. I got the feeling from the general tension that they had discovered more Ministry members involved in the conspiracy. They would also have to decide how to handle the vampire side of things. Separating the co-conspirator vamps from the general vamp population would be all but impossible.
The vamps wouldn’t talk.
Amazingly, when they finally let us go, the pair from the Global Ministry Faction assured me I wouldn’t be charged with any crimes. They even provided a piece of parchment saying as much, with an official signature from the prefect of the GMF (the prefect of all prefects) herself. I felt kinda special.
During those three days, we’d been completely cut off from the outside world. Sly and Odi had no idea what had happened to us or where we were. And, of course, the Ministry covered up any evidence of the incident at the RenCen Marriott, so it wasn’t like they’d see something in the news about it.
Sly got the news first, since Mom and I arrived during the day. About halfway through our story, Sly stopped us so he could roll a joint. It was the first time he’d ever smoked weed in front of me. I couldn’t blame him. This story was seriously messed up.
I heard stirring inside Odi’s coffin. I braced myself. I didn’t know how he’d take the news. I didn’t really want to break it to him. But I’d promised Toft I would take care of the kid, and part of taking care of someone meant you told them the truth, even when it was hard.