Chapter Twenty-Six
They found him.
Hours more had passed, hours in which they had drawn closer to the killer without rest. It was unnerving how the rogue, driven by paranoia, had created a confusion of a trail across London. It wasn’t normal rogue behaviour—but then again, this wasn’t a normal rogue.
For a brief interlude, the hunt had taken them down into the sewers, and for a moment Lavinia had feared that they would have to crawl through tunnels and tunnels of stinking filth to reach their target.
Luckily, it seemed like this had just been another attempt at shaking off any pursuers, and they had climbed back into the relative freshness of the open air after half an hour.
And now the trail had ended. They were on the outskirts of London, the iconic high rises of the inner city barely visible along the horizon. It was an industrial estate, all warehouses and small factories. Lorries thundered down a road close by, making the ground vibrate.
“Are you sure he’s in there?” Quintia asked sceptically.
“Pretty sure,” Octavia said.
“That’s not what you said five minutes ago.”
“Maybe you should stop asking.”
Quintia huffed, holding the binoculars in front of her eyes.
“I don’t see anything.” Vampire eyes were powerful, but not omnipotent.
The Sisters lay on the rooftop of an empty warehouse, closed for the day, looking over the estate to a building on the far side.
It was a good choice from a tactical standpoint.
It lay on the intersection of a pair of roads and had doors along three sides of its walls.
Not easy to surround. Unless you brought seven of your Sisters.
“There was some movement a little while ago.”
“What if it’s just some bored human security guard?” Quintia challenged.
“Look closely at the doors.”
Quintia repositioned the binoculars. “Shit,” she breathed.
Lavinia knew what her Sister would see. Sigils had been painted in black onto the sheet metal of the doors. Some kind of ward. Whoever was hiding inside that building most definitely wasn’t an innocent human.
Lavinia crawled back, letting herself drop from the ledge of the roof onto the ground. The leather of her armour creaked. They had all changed into their battle gear, their weapons at the ready. They were only waiting for one thing: for the witches to finish their ritual.
Three of them sat cross-legged in a small circle in the shadow of the building. One of them was the forever child, Balor; she didn’t recognise the other two. The scent of magic wafted from them, the warm smell resembling cinnamon or cardamom. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t visible.
Lavinia left the witches to their meditative trance and walked up to Arran, who paced back and forth between some parked trucks.
“Anything?” she asked. His normally unflappable demeanour carried a dark cast. Perhaps there were things that disturbed the witches, too. A vampire who could use magic probably fit the bill.
“Not yet,” he said. “They’re trying to break through the wards.”
“Is that possible?”
He shrugged. “There will be a crack somewhere. And once pressure is applied to the weak point…”
Lavinia suppressed the urge to shudder. Give her a sword and an enemy, and she could rise to the challenge. This battle of the mind, probing invisible magics, was something she wanted nothing to do with. It was a good thing the witches were on their side—kind of.
Time crawled, the shadows lengthening as the sun made its way to the horizon.
Still, the three witches did not move. A breeze picked up, blowing through the strands that had escaped Lavinia’s braid.
Somehow, the wind didn’t affect the three witches: their clothes remained perfectly still, not even a hair tossed about.
Lavinia went back onto the roof to escape their eerie unnaturalness, preferring to keep watch away from them.
She could see Arran pace back and forth, back and forth from the corner of her eye. Then, he suddenly stood still, snapping his head towards where the rogue was hiding. “They found it,” he said, almost conversationally, though no one stood close by.
The vampires crowded around Arran, his three companions still sitting, motionless. It seemed to Lavinia like nothing had changed except for an air of anticipation.
“How long do we have?” Luce asked.
“About five minutes. Once the wards fall, you’ll have to move quickly. He will notice them being broken.”
“Alright. Vesta, Brigh, you take the east door. Vin, Octavia, the south one. Quinn, you’re with me. Messalina, you will take float and make sure there isn’t some exit we don’t know about. Once we engage, you can approach. Clear?”
They all nodded.
“What about…them?” Brigh asked, inclining her head in the direction of the witches.
“We will do what we can from here,” Arran said.
“We may move in, should that be necessary.” The vampires were about to march off to their positions before he added, “Don’t be…
alarmed. If you see some things.” Without any further qualifications to that ominous statement, he stalked off to resume his restless pacing.
Lavinia lifted her eyebrows at Luce, who pulled a face that said, don’t ask me.
With Octavia by her side, Lavinia snuck towards the south-facing door.
It was more of a gate, large enough for a small vehicle to drive directly into the warehouse.
Their footsteps were lost in the whispers of the wind and the rumble of the nearby road.
The breeze came from the northeast, hopefully masking their scent until it was too late.
The dark sigils looked jagged, foreboding.
Lavinia crouched, checking her weapons: the sword at her side, the daggers strapped to her thighs.
Beside her, Octavia pulled her twin short swords.
The wind tugged at her braid. They sat unmoving, awaiting the signal. It was the quiet before the storm, this pocket of time. Lavinia thought of Michelle and was glad she was safe. After tonight, she would be safer still.
Lavinia’s heart beat steadily in her chest, a war drum keeping time.
One, two, three, four. The others would be in their positions now.
Five, six, seven, eight. The five minutes were almost up.
No movement from inside the warehouse, no sound.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Her muscles clenched, ready to face whatever was coming.
The dark symbols on the gate burst into bright, green flames, flashing briefly.
That’ll do it. Lavinia charged at the gate, Octavia behind her.
Picking up speed, she crashed through the gate, the sheets of metal tearing from their hinges.
Something whirled towards her, and Lavinia ducked instinctively, hoping that Octavia was doing the same.
The end of her braid singed, the stink of burned hair filling the air.
What the hell was that? Behind her, the remainder of the gate blasted outwards, heat radiating from the glowing metal.
Before Lavinia had a moment to think, another projectile moved at her at incredible speed.
She only had just enough time to see it coming from the corner of her eye: a ball of flame, hurtling through the air.
She dropped to the ground, rolled over her shoulder, and landed in a crouch.
This time, she was prepared when another fireball grew and raced towards her.
Its centre was a bright blue, with licks of orange on its surface.
It blasted through the hole where the gate used to be.
“It’s coming from that sigil,” Octavia yelled behind her.
Lavinia scanned the floor ahead. Rows of haphazardly stacked wooden pallets and mouldy cardboard boxes littered the floor.
There. On one of the cardboard boxes, an angular design had been painted.
A bloody handprint overlapped the design, the blood still fresh and gleaming.
As she watched, another fireball formed in the air above the sigil, appearing as if from nowhere.
Before it could finish its growth, she dashed forward, lifting her sword.
The fireball whirled around itself, the orange flames covering its surface, and was released.
Training her eyes on her goal, she dodged out of its path, leapt and slashed through the cardboard, her sword cleanly tearing through the sigil.
There was an audible pop as the spell collapsed.
Lavinia took a second to survey the battlefield.
The stench of magic suffused the air, mingled with the scent of the rogue’s blood.
On the east side of the building, Vesta and Brigh were engaged with their own magical trap as thick, sinuous vines burst through the concrete to tear at them.
Brigh was hacking at one of the vines with her battle axe, new tendrils appearing for every one that she destroyed.
Vesta was slowly marching forward, pulling vines that had wrapped themselves around her from the ground as she strained to reach the sigil that was undoubtedly close.
The west side of the building was obscured by a hill of stone pebbles.
From the noise cascading through the building, Quintia and Luce had been engaged as well.
There was no sight of the rogue yet. Her nose couldn’t detect his location as his scent suffused every part of this building, nor could she hear his heartbeat through the noises of battle.
She ran on, Octavia’s footsteps following closely behind.
They jumped over a pile of debris and were stopped in their tracks when a shape appeared in front of them.
For a moment she thought the demon, the tenebris, had come back, but that was impossible.
Though the sun was low on the horizon, Lavinia could sense its presence in the sky, sapping her strength. Demons only walked after sundown.
A closer look revealed that the shape wasn’t a demon, at least not any kind that she had ever seen.
It looked like a man, but as if seen through a grimy window.
There was a blurriness to him, as if he wasn’t quite within this world.
The man simply floated before them, immobile.
His head tilted back, his mouth opening in a wordless scream.
Agony crossed his face as if invisible irons tortured him.
His mouth closed, and he aimed his absent gaze at Lavinia.
Without any further warning, he lurched forward, feet floating an inch above the concrete floor.
Lavinia held her ground, planting her boots firmly on the floor in a defensive stance, sword raised.
Still, he came at her, undeterred. As he came within range, she stepped aside, slicing through the figure’s waist. The shape muddled, disappeared for a blink of an eye, before reshaping behind her, tendrils of mist folding back together.
Before it had had time to fully restitch itself, Octavia lunged, crossing her twin short blades and slashing through his neck, some of the mist wisping away.
The figure floated unmoving, slowly reassembling.
“Shit,” Octavia swore.
“We have to find the rogue,” Lavinia urged. Unless they stopped the source of the magic, they might never reach him. He might slip through their fingers, still.
“I’ll keep this one busy,” Octavia agreed. She hacked again, the figure blinking away and back again. Lavinia turned, coming face-to-face with another one of the strange ghosts, this time a woman, her arm outstretched, a face full of melancholy and regret mouthing at her in complete silence.
“Don’t let it touch you!” someone yelled behind Lavinia, and she didn’t need to be told twice. She ducked, the sudden movement jostling her hip painfully. She hacked at the woman’s legs, dangling above the concrete. Her blade didn’t connect, but it arrested her movement.
“What are they?” she shouted back, not taking her eyes off the woman, who was joined by yet another figure. She stabbed this one through the heart, another attack that merely seemed to slow them down rather than do any type of damage.
“Souls,” Arran answered, appearing beside Octavia.
He carried no visible weapons but clearly needed none.
His hands moved in fast, complicated shapes, which produced gusts of wind that tore at the figures, peeling shreds of mist from them.
“They’re the souls of the victims that the warlock commanded the demons to tear from their flesh. ”
Lavinia looked at the figures again. That man…
Black hair, thinning along the crown. His brown eyes were mournful, pain distorting his features.
A white line ran across the side of his neck, which Lavinia had assumed was a scar, but the flesh was still parted.
It was the man she had found hidden underneath a pile of garbage in the alley, behind where Lavinia had fought that demon the night she’d saved Michelle.
A moment of horror overtook her. This was a soul?
Their being had somehow been detached from their bodies after a horrifying death, and now the rogue was using them like puppets, forcing them to do his bidding?
There was no time to dwell on the perversity of it.
Victim after victim appeared before her, faces of agony and regret compelled by some invisible magic.
She rolled out of the grasp of reaching hands, jumping back up to slash at them.
One had crept up behind her, and she reacted instinctively.
She dodged a hand, jumping onto her right leg, trusting it to bear her weight.
The joint wobbled, then held, but the fraction of time it took to regain her balance, a woman Lavinia didn’t know—a victim they had never discovered, perhaps—grasped her shoulder, her face full of remorse.