Shadowland

by Karen Chance

  “But they didn’t kill you—or Sid or whomever--”

  “Because he left. Which is when they communicated with their counterparts here, instructing them to attack my court.”

  John blinked, because that made an insane sort of sense. “Because you were then viewed as a traitor for breaking your oath.”

  “It has a certain beauty to it,” Rosier said admiringly. “Sid assumed the bomb would take out the girl, but if not, the Allu would. He probably hoped the explosion would also kill you, and that the forces he’d prepped in the Shadowland would kill me, making for a nice, tidy operation. But he had an alternative plan, in case that didn’t happen.”

  “To make me believe that it was all your doing.” John was beginning to see where his father was going with this.

  Rosier nodded. “At which point, you could be relied on to do exactly what you did, and come after me in a murderous rage. Thereby insuring that you broke your oath not to enter the demon realms without the council’s express permission, and forfeited your life in the process.”

  “He thought that I would kill you if the Allu failed, and that they would then end me,” John said, fist clenching around Cassie’s talisman.

  Rosier nodded. “He planned this perfectly, with layer upon layer of assurance that, no matter what we did, we ended up dead.”

  “But we didn’t. Cassie lives, and so do we! He failed.”

  “Yes, well. That remains to be seen,” Rosier said dryly. “The problem is to get him to show himself. We need him, and not only to break the spell. We have to—”

  Casanova cut him off with a curse. “Details can wait! Rian already told you—we don’t have time for this. The Allu are everywhere in the streets below—to the point that we barely made it through. And there’s more of them now than before!”

  “They’re going door-to-door,” Rian acknowledged. “Searching every house. They aren’t familiar with this area—no one who lives here is usually important enough to come to the council’s notice—but they learn quickly.”

  “And too many people saw that display you two put on,” Casanova added. “Someone’s bound to turn us in. I’m surprised they haven’t done it already.”

  “The Allu aren’t popular,” Rosier said grimly. “But it doesn’t matter; they’ll find us soon enough, and I can’t hold them off in the shape I’m in. I expended what little energy I had left in the fight—”

  “You’re an incubus,” Casanova said impatiently. “In a brothel! Feed, for the love of—”

  “Now, why didn’t I think of what?” Rosier asked sweetly.

  “It wouldn’t be sufficient, Carlos,” Rian told him. “The Master was almost drained by the wounds he sustained at court. He needs a proper feeding, more than any of the workers here could provide, even if we could find them again…”

  “Then what about you?” Casanova asked. “Can’t you loan him enough—”

  She shook her head sadly. “I do not have a body on which to draw. And a spirit feeding will not be enough.”

  “No,” Rosier mused. “I need to feed from a body, but a normal one won’t do. This calls for someone old, rich, powerful. Someone who has been storing up energy for centuries. Someone like…”

  He suddenly looked up, and met John and Rian’s eyes. And then they all turned to look at the vampire. Who was still staring worriedly out the window.

  “And how are we supposed to find someone like that around here?” Casanova demanded.

  Rosier smiled gently. “I may have an idea.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I hate you,” Casanova said weakly, grasping hold of a roof tile.

  “Which one?” Pritkin asked, grabbing his forearms. And hauling him roughly onto the roof.

  “All of you,” Casanova gasped. “Every single…damned one…of your hateful, misbegotten clan!”

  “You’re part of that clan,” a loathed voice reminded him. He turned his head to see Rosier—God damn him—vault up from the room below like an Olympic gymnast.

  And why not? That was his power the bastard was using. Almost all of his power, judging by the way he felt. Casanova groaned and rolled over, wishing he still ate so he could throw up.

  “Don’t be such a drama queen,” Rosier said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “Pudrete en el infierno!”

  “Too late.”

  Rian came up and slipped a cool hand onto his shoulder, but wisely didn’t attempt anything else. He’d had about enough of incubi for the moment. He’d had more than enough.

  “Well, that’s less than encouraging,” Rosier said, after a moment, and his tone caused Casanova’s head to come up.

  “What is?” he demanded.

  But nobody was paying him any attention. They were all staring over the edge of the roof, including Rian. She’d moved from his side to peer between Rosier and his spawn’s shoulders. “Oh, dear.”

  “What?” he asked again.

  And was again ignored.

  “Hijueputa,” he muttered, dragging his exhausted body up and over to the edge, which was crumbling like the rest of the building, and didn’t sport anything like a proper guardrail. Casanova scowled. He hated heights.

  Especially ones looking out over torch-wielding mobs.

  “What the—what’s that?” he demanded, grabbing Rosier’s shoulder so the bastard couldn’t avoid answering this time.

  “What does it look like?” He turned to Pritkin. “Any ideas?”

  “Yes,” Pritkin said shortly, and wandered off somewhere, making some weird kind of trill.

  They were all mad, Casanova decided. Every damned one of them. “If someone doesn’t tell me what the hell—” he began dangerously.

  “It’s the locals,” Rian said. “It seems the madam has convinced them that the disturbances in the area are all to be laid at our door.”

  “Which in fairness—” Rosier began.

  “Shut up!” Casanova snarled. He turned back to Rian. “We have to get rid of them. They’ll lead the damned Allu right to us!”

  “I think it’s a little late for that,” she said softly, staring down at the street.

  It was a long one, running the length of this sordid little part of hell, but something seemed to be going on near the end of it. Something that resolved into a bronze-colored wedge driving through the crowd like a bulldozer, or like the cow catchers on the front of old trains. A hateful, murderous train that was going to kill them all, Casanova thought blankly. There had to be a hundred of them down there.

  “One hundred thirteen,” Rian supplied unhelpfully.

  “Do something!” he told Rosier.

  But the demon—damn his hide—was just standing there, lighting a cigarette. “And what would you have me do?”

  “You’re a council member!”

  “Yes, and I would normally call on the council’s guards to protect me.” His lips twisted. “Unfortunately, they’re already here.”

  “Then…then use magic! Do some sort of a curse. You’re a demon!”

  “I’m one demon. They are many demons. See how that works?”

  “Then why the—what was all—why did we—” Casanova spluttered.

  Rosier let out a smoky breath. “At the time, I assumed I’d only have to deal with small groups dispersed throughout the area. That seems to have changed.”

  “Then…then all that was for nothing?”

  “Don't be like that,” Rosier reproved. “I’ll always cherish our time together.”

  Casanova let out a little screech and went for the creature’s throat, intending to throw him off the roof. At least he’d have the satisfaction of watching him die first. But then a horrible shriek rent the air, right behind him, like a thousand nails on a hundred chalkboards.

  He spun and saw something out of a nightmare, which completely matched the sound. It was huge and deadly and spreading massive, leathery wings against the night. And Pritkin…was on its back?

  “Get on,” Pritkin told him shortly.
>
  “Die in pain!”

  “The idea is to avoid that,” Rosier commented, climbing on behind his bastard of a son.

  “Carlos, please,” Rian tugged on his hand.

  “You’re planning to fly that thing out of here?” Casanova asked, horrified. Torchlight glistened off a maw of eight-inch fangs. It could devour them all, any second.

  “Unless you have a better idea?” Pritkin asked.

  “Give me a minute,” Casanova said desperately.

  But they didn’t have a minute. One glance over the roof was enough to show a mass of homicidal demons flowing through what would have been the front door, if the place still had one. And he didn’t need vampire ears to hear them tearing around the house below. Or to feel them shaking the very walls by the number of boots on the stairs.

  “Get on, or we’re leaving you,” the infernal mage said.

  Like it was just that easy.

  “Get on Carlos,” Rian begged. “Please!”

  Casanova glanced over the roof again, only to meet the faceless mask of one of the Allu, looking up from the window below.

  “Oh, just leave him,” Rosier said carelessly. “Once we’re gone, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  “They’ve already seen me!” Casanova said shrilly.

  “Oh, well. Probably not then.” Rosier shrugged.

  Casanova screamed and went for the demon, and Rosier grabbed his arm as soon as he was close enough. And then—

  “Mierda,” Casanova gasped, as his feet left the roof, just as three Allu crawled up on top of it. And lunged for them, almost too fast to see. But a beat from the great wings knocked one of them down, and the wind of it tumbled a second off the roof, and a third had to whip up his shield to defect a fireball somebody threw.

  For a moment, it looked like they might make it. But then a fourth Allu Casanova hadn’t seen snuck up from the other side of the roof, and threw what looked like a fiery lasso around the great beast’s back paw. It roared in pain, getting the attention of the Allu still in the street, who raised their heads in one, bronze ripple.

  And then a barrage of thrown swords came flashing at them through the air. Casanova screamed, the damned beast flapped harder, almost bucking him off, and they jerked slightly higher in the sky. Making them an even better target for the swords that were about to—

  Disintegrate a few yards out?

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Rosier yelled, as the weapons hit a barely perceptible bubble in front of them.

  “Pritkin—” Casanova gasped, ready to forgive the man for everything he’d ever—

  “Nope,” Rosier yelled cheerfully, to be heard over the beat of massive wings shredding the air. The beast they were riding gave a tremendous heave and surged upward, taking the Allu trying to restrain him right along for the ride. “That’s your power! Feel better about our time together now?”

  “Get your hand off my butt,” Casanova snarled, and kicked the Allu back into the crowd below. And then the great wings caught an updraft, and they were spiraling hundreds of feet skyward, at an angle that left them almost perpendicular to the rapidly receding ground. Casanova screamed.

  “If you don’t start holding on, my arm may get tired,” Rosier warned him.

  “Hijo de mil putas!” Casanova gasped, but somehow he dragged his tired, bruised body further up the beast’s huge back, clinging there like a limpet.

  “No, just one,” Rosier laughed.

  And then they were gone.

  Epilogue

  “You had better be right about this,” John said, as they rematerialized in the middle of the main drag at Dante’s. He glanced about, but the only one in sight was the girl at the coffee kiosk. And she just looked bored.

  “Sid’s a vindictive little shit,” Rosier said confidently. “He’ll want to watch us die. My bet is that he rejoined the hunt for Cassie, after insuring that you were on your way to finish me off. Speaking of which—” he glanced at Rian, who nodded and disappeared.

  John clutched Cassie’s talisman inside his pocket, hard enough to leave an impression on his palm. But he didn’t move. As a spirit, Rian could check all the little spaces where Cassie might be hiding in a matter of seconds, far faster than he could hope to do.

  She would find her, of that he had no doubt.

  The question was--in what condition?

  Yes, the spell might have kept her alive, but at what cost? How long had they been gone? With time looping here, there was no way to tell, and the demon world worked so differently as to give no point of reference. It could have been hours, as it felt to John, but it could also have been days. Or weeks. Or…or it could have been years.

  What must it have been like, he wondered, being all alone, battling for her life, hiding or running or dying, over and over again, for what must have seemed like infinity? With no way out and with no one to even share the burden? He couldn’t imagine.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to imagine.

  What would he find, back in that damned hotel room, or in that dark little closet Casanova had described? She might be alive, but would she be alright? Would she be sane?

  Would she still be Cassie?

  “We need to find Sid first,” John heard himself say. “If he never left, then I was the only missing piece of the puzzle, and my return just broke the spell. If he kills her again…”

  “Yes, but where to start looking?” Rosier asked. “He could be in spirit form still, or have possessed someone, anyone. I say we find the girl, and then let him find us, assuming the Allu don’t do it first—”

  “Like that?” Casanova croaked, from the floor. Which he appeared to be clutching.

  John followed the vampire’s gaze to see one of the Allu coming at them at a run. He grabbed one of his potion vials and prepared to throw, only to have a hand descend onto his shoulder. “Wait,” Rosier said softly.

  It was then that John noticed something odd about this particular Allu. It’s once bright armor was battered and dented, one side was singed almost black, like an explosion had hit it, and it was limping badly, essentially just dragging its left leg behind it. But it was limping fast.

  “Please…” The creature called out, its voice as scratchy as its armor, cracked and helpless. And the hand it lifted out to them, as if in supplication, was shaking.

  “Cassie?” John asked carefully, wondering if she’d somehow managed to disguise herself as one of the enemy. But no. Because a moment later, he saw her flying across the lobby, blond curls bouncing, pink t-shirt crisscrossed with weapons, and half a dozen Allu right on her tail.

  “Cassie!” he yelled, but she didn’t hear.

  “Now!” she screamed, running onto the drag. And the words had no sooner left her mouth than the windows on the upper floor of the Old West buildings slammed open, almost in unison, and she hit the deck. And a second later, a massive barrage of gunfire erupted in the space in between, catching the Allu completely off guard.

  “No,” Casanova said pitifully, crawling past John. “No. No, stop it!”

  But nobody heard. And then Cassie flipped back to her feet, right on the edge of the gunfire, and tossed something into the hellscape the center of the drag had become. “Yippie Ki Yay, Motherfuckers!” John thought he heard her say, although clearly he’d been mistaken. And then she turned and ran behind an overturned wagon at the edge of the street.

  Rosier looked at John, and then they both grabbed Casanova and dove in behind her. Just as the street erupted in a massive explosion. The ground trembled, the shop windows blew out, and something caught the hay spilling out of the front of the wagon on fire.

  The automated sprinklers started up, making it look like it was raining indoors, as Cassie bounded back to her feet. And lunged at the battered Allu, which had followed them over, and which John had managed to totally forget. “Get away from me!” the creature screamed. “Get away!”

  It ducked behind Rosier, pawing at him pathetically, while dozens of vampires poured out of the ruined s
torefronts on either side, weapons and fangs out.

  “Cassie?” John asked again, confused.

  She jerked her head around, teeth still bared from glaring at the Allu, and for half a second, she looked alarmingly like one of her vampires. And then she recognized John. “You’re back!” And suddenly he found himself with an armful of Pythia, warm and breathless and alive. And almost immediately squirming away.

  “Sorry, but I don’t want to miss this,” she told him. “It’s my favorite part.”

  “What is?” John asked wonderingly, as Rosier pushed the Allu off him with a look of refined disgust. The movement snapped the already battered face plate in two, and beyond it—

  A terrified elder demon stared out at them.

  It looked like Sid had been right, John thought, when he once said that he could make a body for himself at will.

  “John?” he wavered, looking at him pleadingly. But apparently he didn’t see anything helpful. Because he let out a wail and started limping down the drag again, toward the back stairs.

  “Wait,” John said, catching Cassie’s arm as she started after him. “Where’s Jonas?”

  She looked confused. “No idea.”

  “He isn’t…coordinating this?”

  She shook her head. “I tried calling him a few dozen times. But it always takes too long to get him to believe me. And when he does, he just wants me to hide away somewhere.”

  “That sounds like a good—”

  “I tried that. But it’s unbelievably boring. I don’t need to sleep—time isn’t passing for my body, so I don’t get tired. I don’t get hungry—well anymore hungry,” she said, shooting him a look. The sad excuse for a donut had apparently not been forgotten. “I don’t even need to pee. And there’s never anything new on T.V.”

  “You’ve been doing what, then?” he asked, in disbelief. “Killing demons?”

  “Well, it occurred to me sometime back in the sixties—”

  “The sixties?”

  “The sixtieth go ‘round,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Anyway, I knew that when you got back, the spell would break. But then we’d be right back where we started. We might dodge the bomb this time, but we’d still have a casino full of demons.”