Chapter 32 Daylight Attack
Daylight Attack
The clouds thickened as noon approached, a beaten-iron ceiling hung threateningly low. He took the exit with careful braking, his nerves raw and skin tingling with her nearness, and even the consciousness of Jake running guard wasn’t truly comforting.
Not with what he suspected.
“Rochester?” His lirai—oh, it was stupid to even think in such possessive terms, but he couldn’t help it—stretched catlike, looking around with bright interest. Her shining dark hair was a glorious cloud, obviously glad to be free of confinement, and once he’d handed over the latte she’d relaxed all at once, abruptly, and even smiled at him. “Why am I not surprised?”
“You know the town?” Erik should have been feeling an active temple’s pull the instant they got off the freeway.
Instead, they rolled to a red-light stop at the end of the onramp and a few heavy, feathery flakes whirled down, whisked from the windshield by a quick flick of wipers.
He felt nothing but mounting unease. The wind was rising, too, and everything pointed to a blizzard soon.
He wanted her safe in an active temple with other lirai explaining everything and other Sons handling his and Jake’s debriefing. He’d expected Ignatius to reappear long before now, too; Father’s absence was… troubling.
If Erik had fought off two sarnaki, what had the older man come across once the hounds were led safely away? More goatmen? They could mass like the leng-spiders and bring a lone fighter down. Ignatius was old and canny; it would be an undignified return for long years of sacrifice and service.
You didn’t get into this line of work without knowing it could end that way, bleeding out alone in the snow while the Mad God’s minions snacked on your entrails. If a control liaison had turned, who knew how much damage had been done? If it was one of their trio, though…
He was well on the way to even suspecting himself. It wasn’t anything new, but it was distinctly uncomfortable.
At least his lirai wasn’t so anxious now.
“We lived on the west side when I was in elementary school, after my dad… well, my grandparents lived off Shaffee Road, too. Never thought there would be monsters here.” Her faint smile widened—good childhood memories, looked like—before fleeing, but at least it had been a fact for a few milliseconds.
“An active temple should keep them away.” Erik decided left was the correct direction and waited for the light to turn, still uneasy.
There should have been a tingle of anticipation all along his arms and legs, but all he felt was emptiness and a swimming, indefinable dread. I don’t like any of this.
“Should?” She managed to raise a single eyebrow, a feat Erik had tried once or twice in the mirror when younger and failed dismally at. Of course she would be able to, and of course she’d fasten on the one word in the sentence that said more about his unease than he wanted her to know.
“Well, some of the unclean aren’t very bright.
” Erik sensed familiar, disciplined attention behind them, approaching quickly.
Jake would have been riding the giant refrigerated semi Erik had been careful to keep in range, making sure little brother didn’t have to jump too often to keep up.
Jake might even complain about the bone-slicing windchill, though it rarely bothered a Son.
The same thought returned, swirling through his skull just when he needed clarity and calm the most. It can’t be him. But if it wasn’t Erik, and it wasn’t Jake… it couldn’t be Ignatius either, especially since the older man had drawn the hunting hounds away.
There had to be some other explanation. He knew them, both of them; Erik had trusted his life to Jake and his conscience to Ignatius more times than he cared to count. It just wasn’t possible.
Still…
“Green light,” Liv said, and the smile was gone. Instead, she eyed him sidelong, and any small progress he’d made toward soothing her was more than likely demolished.
“Yeah.” He checked, though the intersection was deserted, and the green SUV slid smoothly to the left. A few more flakes whirled down, heralds announcing a dignitary’s arrival. “Just waiting for Jake to catch up.”
“Is he back there?” She twisted to look, a stray breath of heated air from the car’s vents bringing her scent, with a thread of harsh hotel soap and the deep spice of a pretty dark-haired woman, across his nose. “I don’t see anything.”
“You won’t unless he wants you to.” Erik’s nape crawled, tiny dread-tipped fingernails trailing down his back. “Better luck feeling him, but don’t try right now.”
“Why not?” The question wasn’t a challenge. Another civilian might have been sunk in shocked apathy, but his lirai was curious, attempting to gather any information she could.
“Because it’s like a searchlight.” There was no time to instruct her in the fine and patient art of tracking, even if she’d somehow take the lessons without irritation. “And once you see things, they can also see you. Generally.”
“I’ve seen them all my life.” She settled back in her seat, and the worry invading her scent was deep blue. The mark gave him greatly enhanced sensory acuity, but she was almost an open book anyway. “Not while awake, though. You probably guessed that.”
Actually, I didn’t. He would bet her dreams had been vivid, color-saturated, and probably gruesome most of her life. She’d no doubt considered it no big deal, the way any kid thought their family was absolutely normal until they grew up.
No family was, not really. And she didn’t give details about hers.
“You keep things close,” he said, noncommittal, and wished he could feel an active temple’s welcoming, radiating calm. “But your potential’s pretty high. Which is great. You probably avoided his servants by chance and minor precognition.”
“Not that it did any good in the end.” She shivered, reached for the heater knob, cast a sideways glance at him, and her hand fell back into her lap. The small movement sent a thin, sharp pain through his chest, right where the sarnaki had driven the spear-claw.
“You cold?”
“Yeah. It’s snowing again.” She was pale.
The town rose on either side to swallow them—a GasGo station across the street, its blue and yellow sign glaring in the thickening dimness, a smattering of fast-food restaurants and a Dewdrop Inn ready to service the concrete artery swinging around the city center.
As far as he remembered, the temple here was on the northern edge, so he started looking for a major thoroughfare heading that way.
“You were right about the dream with the yellow door. I never… well, you were right.”
She’s trusting me. A sudden, suspiciously warm glow in his chest made the discomfort sharper. “I wish we could have moved you earlier.” Scattered flakes thickened again, and he flicked the windshield wipers to a steady speed instead of just occasional clearing sweeps. “Or found you earlier.”
“Kidnapped me, you mean.” But she didn’t sound combative, or even angry. Just sad, and more than a little unnerved. “Erik?”
Let me think. But when a lirai spoke, a Son listened. “I’m here, Liv.”
“Something’s wrong.” She hugged herself, palms cupping her elbows, and he realized how drawn and exhausted she looked. The oneiros was a plain white eye against her grey sweater, and that wasn’t usual either. “I’m not imagining it, something’s really not right.”
That was when he realized the streets were far too quiet.
Rochester was a thriving large town or small city, depending on who you asked, and its Main Street had pretensions to both culture and commerce.
The buildings glowed with electric light, but nobody hurried hunch-shouldered along storefronts, trying to escape the storm.
Parked cars stood sentinel, most of them swiftly vanishing under falling snow, but a silent menace lingered in the alleys between buildings not quite tall enough to scrape the sky.
No bicyclists, no public transport moving, no shadows in the lit windows—it looked like a stage set, and his lirai was absolutely right.
“I know.” Hoped to give you a few more minutes without worrying, beautiful. “It’s all right, Liv. This close to a temple, we’re practically home free.”
He was lying, he realized, and it didn’t bother him so long as it kept her calm.
She stirred uneasily, her head turning—Jake was on a rooftop high on their right, which wasn’t the best, tactically speaking. He should have been on the left, setting himself up for a quick hop across more than one office building and a furniture store.
Which meant either he was the traitor or was sensing a trap, and Erik had to make the right call either way.
Oh, shit. He stamped the accelerator, snow tires chirping as they dug in a scrim of slush and ice; the vehicle leapt to obey just as a cold, snarling, invisible mass hit where they had been a moment before.
“Ow!” Liv flinched, though nothing had touched the car, and Erik’s jaw set.
“Hold on.” He twisted the wheel, and if they expected him to stay bound to the road when there were no pedestrians, they were sorely mistaken. The engine guzzled at fuel, translating liquid into motion, and both of them were shoved back into their seats by an invisible hand.
A daylight attack. What in the name of—
He didn’t have time to finish the thought, because something bulleted from the sky, a streak of gold with a straight, disciplined sword of darkness at its center, and Jake gave battle with a bellow and a spatter of gunfire.