Chapter Seven #2
I raced for the door, down the stairs. Out into the icy night.
Into the Chat-uber. I gave the address, tossed a hundred-dollar bill at him, and told him there was another hundred dollars if he got there in five minutes.
The man, who had a strong Latino accent, found the address on his app and took off as fast his tiny Ford-el-car allowed.
Bloody-bloody-bloody. Screaming. EJ dead.
My chest ached. My breath came short. My magics swirled around me, glaring, piercing, indistinct, and vague.
In the silence of the Uber, I pulled the premonition to me—half dream, half warning, all hazy and blood-drenched. My brother, a human man, and a woman were in danger. Or would be in danger. Very, very soon.
Son of a witch…
Syncing both the legal and illegal AE headsets, I tried the channels The Firm usually used, asking for EJ.
Asking for Walter. No one answered. Had they even brought headsets?
I hadn’t seen one on EJ. I adjusted the tall staff so I could grab it better when we arrived and tugged my cloak around me, covering thin wool yoga pants and tee.
I was not dressed for public, and the cloak was not made for warmth.
911 still rang. On the other device I called EJ. Voice mail.
I called Walter. Voice mail.
911 answered. “Emergency services. What is the nature of your—”
I interrupted and ID’d myself to the operator. “This is Angelina Everhart-Trueblood. My brother and anyone with him are in danger.”
“Not to worry, Miz Trueblood,” the dispatcher said. “There are officers on scene. And Detective Leandro Villetti is following the action on the vest cams.”
“One is about to die. Patch me through. Now.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but—”
The heat of anger exploded in my chest with wrenching agony. I shouted, “By the order of the Dark Queen, patch me through!”
“Ummm—”
“If you don’t patch me through,” I ground out, “and someone is injured or dies, it’s on you. And the Dark Queen will not look kindly on you if the victim is her godson and prince.”
“Affirmative,” a different voice said, faintly Italian, faintly Southern, instantly recognizable. Villetti, no spiteful tone in his words for once. “One moment.”
There were no clicks, but the ambient background noise changed. I said, “Walter, EJ. It’s a trap. Shoot to kill!”
Into the AE comms system, EJ grunted, “Understood.”
Instantly, the bloody vision released me. I managed a single breath before the images started again. In them, a small wooden disk landed in blood. Bloody-bloody-bloody-demon-smut. EJ wrapped in its power.
“There’s a small wooden disk! It’s possessed!”
Into his mic, only a mile away, EJ shouted, a guttural sound. A wyrd of power. It sounded like “Smachdachadh. A ribe,” which was Gaelic for “Control. To trap.”
The connection ended. “EJ? EJ?”
“Angie. This is Villetti. We’ve lost connection with our officers on scene. Backup is on the way. Can you advise—what kind of attack?”
“Magical. Demonic. They need to stay outside.”
“You should have called us in right away.”
“Yell at me later, Villetti. Your officer is about to die.”
“I’m on-site in one minute.”
“They don’t have that long.” The sounds of weapons being checked came over the connection. I nudged the shoulder of the Uber driver. He whirled around a corner and I slid across the seat with momentum. “Don’t cut me off, Villetti. I can help.”
“Sometimes you piss me off, Everhart.”
I laughed, the sound unhinged. “You always piss me off. I’m a few seconds behind you. EJ should have null sticks on him, but they weren’t enough.” When he didn’t answer, I said, “That last phrase was a wyrd to trap a demon.”
Smachdachadh. A ribe was a binding working, developed in the war to hold a demon until a containment vessel could be brought on scene. The wyrd was temporary, short lived, and if not handled properly, left the speaker possessed.
Detective Leandro Villetti didn’t reply.
Instead, I heard the squeal of Villetti’s brakes and another change in ambient noise.
His Italian-accented voice directed his officers.
“Two-man teams. Full protective null gear. Multiple null sticks foremost. Douglas and Piedmont, take the front. Patel, you’re with me. We enter the back.”
Voices said “Roger,” or “Copy that,” and went silent.
“Damn it, Villetti,” I snarled, “you’re all gonna die.”
He ignored me.
I readied myself to leap from the Uber as it careened through a left turn. Tossed the hundred over the seat. The car squealed to a stop, and I reached for the door.
Heavy breathing came over my unicom. The sound of boots and shoes hitting the cold ground. The house itself, and any comms from within, were silent. My AE headgear wasn’t going to help me inside a house, against magic. I pulled it off and crammed it into my yoga pants pocket.
EJ
The door was unlocked. The officer was only a couple of years younger than he was, but they were eons apart in life experience.
Too young to have served. Unprepared. Stevens opened the door to the dark entryway and stepped inside, shouting, “Law enforcement. Lay down your weapons!” As he spoke, EJ stepped in behind him, his basic flute at his lips, ready to blow one-handed.
In the other were three null sticks. Voices came from the kitchen in back, Walter speaking, urgency in his voice.
His ear-patch system crackled. Angie said, “Walter…EJ…trap. Shoot to kill!”
Into the AE comms system, he grunted, “Understood.”
“…den disk!…possessed!” she said.
Battlefield reflexes kicked in.
The world slowed around him. Time altered into fractions of seconds.
Beta brain wave patterns leaped into Alpha, instantly into Theta. Delta Mode hung in his mind, folded, coiled around his magic, mental techniques learned in the war.
His senses sharpened.
Delta patterns were ready to blend with Theta and engulf him if his magic was needed. Power thrummed through him. On a thermographic reader, his hands and head would be glowing brighter and brighter. He inhaled deeply and exhaled. In that single breath, his body, mind, and gifts were ready to kill.
Officer Stevens moved ahead, stepped past a tiny closet, not seeing it in the uncertain light. But EJ knew this house. He reached to clear it. Opened the door. A woman lunged at him.
EJ dodged away. A knife snagging his coat. His reflexes feeling-seeing-knowing the blade.
He blew a single note. A directed bruciare working.
Her blade went scalding hot, glowing red.
Her brittle blade cracked at the instantaneous heat transfer.
She dropped it with a yelp. EJ slammed the door shut.
Catching her blistered fingers in the crack.
She squealed louder and jerked her fingers, breaking them.
EJ directed the same working at the latch and blew the same note.
The mechanism was cheap metal and melted in place.
Scorching her flesh. Another note cooled the melted metal, locking, trapping her in.
She threw herself at the door, fingertips peeking out. The melted lock held. She screamed. Banging on the door. Fingers crushed and burned in the crack. Stinking.
EJ’s single glimpse of her. A vamp. A blade in her hand. A vamp-killer. What the…
He turned to Stevens. The kid was stopped in the doorway to Londyn’s office. Gun held in nerveless fingers, pointed somewhere toward the floor. Immobile as a mannequin.
A vamp’s arms were around him. Fangs buried in Stevens’s throat.
EJ’s reflexes changed.
In a single instant, Delta Mode unfolded.
Magic swept through him. Battlefield fast, EJ lunged forward. Buried the null sticks in the vamp’s side. He blew the first note again. Less directed. Less sure. Poor aim. But it worked.
The null sticks melted inside the vamp. The silver in the runes poured into the vamp’s abdomen.
Shrieking the ululation of a vampire death call, the vamp jerked away.
Yanked fangs from Stevens’s throat. Together, Stevens and the vamp dropped to the floor.
All Stevens’s metal weapons, including his Glock, were melted or heat damaged.
Even his belt buckle and the metal eyelets on his shoes holding his laces.
He’d have burns, but the kid was grinning in drunken bliss. He’d been well and truly rolled.
EJ tapped an ear-patch. Got nothing. The protections built into the walls were on, stopping all electronic communication. He was sorely out of touch with what was happening in the rest of the house.
His brain in Delta Mode battle pattern, had become time selective, malleable in his thoughts. Beneath the ear-patch, his hearing went sharper. Placing his feet carefully, every sense alert, his breath was slow and deep.
EJ stepped over the two bodies, one writhing in pain, the other grinning in sexual bliss.
He cleared the office. Backtracked.
In the entry he again stepped over the bodies.
Paused. He carried small healing amulets made from an old flute, keys that once covered the holes.
As a child, he’d rescued them from his father’s collection when their house burned to the ground in a magical attack.
When he grew skilled enough, he’d imbued them with different air and sound workings.
He placed one between the two wounds on Stevens’s throat to help him recover.
The vampire stopped moving. She looked true-dead, but the light was dim. The vamp could die for all he cared, though that would mean involving politics. With a swift strike, EJ plunged a wooden stake into the vamp’s belly, piercing the small knot of nerves that paralyzed bloodsuckers, just in case.
Never leave a live enemy behind you. Training from the war.
In the closet, the vampire was weeping but had stopped thrashing against the door.
He pocketed the flute and pulled another. The point was silver over steel, a three-hole flute. The sharp edge, a razor. The notes on this one were S&R workings—search and rescue workings—nothing defensive or offensive. His null sticks were all melted.