Chapter Eighteen
Angie
“I don’t need the help. I don’t need a babysitter. I need you to go ’way.”
“You do need us, sweet pea,” Grizz said. “And we’re staying. You want to have hot hetero monkey sex—which is gross, by the way—with the cop, you’ll do it sober. Right now, you’re blood-drunk, and no way are you getting your blood-drunk hands on him.”
I gave Grizz my best scowl. “Hetero sex is not gross. It’s messy, but not gross.”
“All sex is messy, kiddo.”
“I want Villetti.”
“Not my problem.”
“I’ll turn you into a toad.”
Grizz laughed. “And MG will flay the skin off you until you change me back.”
“Boots?” Angie begged the other woman. “Please?”
“What is this? Mama says no and so you ask Mama number two? Nope.”
I opened my mouth.
“I said no.” She turned to the side and grabbed a hand that was reaching across her for me. “Villetti, get off me, or I’ll knock you out and drag you to the balcony to die of hypothermia,” Grizz said.
“Worth it. Soul mates,” he mumbled.
“Good Lord A’mighty,” Boots said. “I hate true love.”
Knowing I was sowing division among Grizz’s unit, I said, “I’ll give you a pair of the queen’s Lucchese boots if you go away.”
Boots’s blue eyes went wide.
“Boots,” Grizz warned.
“But…Lucchese boots. From the queen,” the boot addict said.
“Two-inch heels. Three-inch toe.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Green snakeskin, and the scales are almost iridescent.”
As I described the boots, a look of longing overcame Boots. “What size?”
“Seven. A little larger than normal because of the toe shape. She wore them dancing on the first anniversary of her marriage to the Consort. They’re legendary.”
“Holy Mother,” Boots whispered. “I’ve seen pics.”
“No,” Grizz said.
“But—”
“No.”
Boots frowned at me. “You are an evil little girl.”
I fell still as something slid across my consciousness. A feeling. A knowing. A swirl of visions, emotions, still shots of death, nothing solid, nothing sure, but something bad.
“Trouble coming,” I whispered. “Maybe fifteen minutes out.” Louder I said, “There’re some amulets on the charger. A dozen small wooden disks that have umbrellas painted on them. One that looks like a glass of wine. Bring them all to me.” I sat up. “Now!”
Grizz moved nearly as fast as a vamp and dumped them in my lap. I handed the umbrella disks back to Grizz. “Onetime-use hedges. Press in the center three times to activate.” I turned to Villetti, “Sorry, Lee, baby. This is gonna hurt.”
I grabbed him by the back of his head and pressed my mouth to his.
As our lips met, I forced the disk with the wineglass on it hard against the back of his skull.
We screamed together as the effects of being blood-drunk were ripped out of us.
Our bodies stiffened. Shook. Together we tumbled off the couch and onto the floor, landing in a tangle of limbs, Villetti’s elbow in my gut.
I oofed out a pained grunt. Shoved him off.
Tried to stand and nearly fell on top of him.
Boots caught my arm and steadied me. I eased away to sit on the couch. To breathe past the pain of muscles and glands and my brain being shocked through with the magic working.
On the floor, Villetti gagged and heaved, but nothing came up. He curled into a tight ball of misery. I knew how he felt, but I didn’t have time for the reaction.
Shoving myself upright, I ordered, “Ojos. Code Aardvark. Sound general alarm. Attack by land.” I looked at the two women who were already checking weapons. “Those won’t help. It’s carrying a single heavy weapon and some big kind of magic. EEBs. A bomb. Fire. Explosions. People dead.”
Grizz touched her ear, heading for the door. “Raccoon. Roof. Now! We got an attack incoming, unknown mundane heavy weaponry and at least one magic weapon. I’m bringing you a onetime, short-term hedge. Switch out to demon rounds.”
Raccoon said, “Roof, demon-rounds, hedge. Roger that.”
Grizz stopped at the door, one hand holding her in place, and looked at me. “Can you tell its location? Direction?”
I went still, standing by the sofa, fingertips on the arm to give me stability against the lingering vertigo from the blood and the bitch-slap of the amulet. Images and feelings of death and loss. It was too late to stop it.
I closed my eyes and willed the potential future memory to me.
“Street level. Could be back of the building. I’ve had flashes of cars blowing up since this started.
But those flashes could have been from the flying bots, which did take out some vehicles.
Or from a future assault strike, not this one.
Wait.” I breathed, trying to pierce the mixture of emotion and tease out one single image.
“I think it’s…a tracked military bot. Heavily shielded. ”
Grizz sprinted from the room, barking that potential intel to the unit.
Boots followed her, leaving Villetti and me alone.
Ignoring him, I opened my closet, removed the queen’s armor, black and gold with touches of dark gray, matching war boots.
A helmet. A Ballistic Off Body Bag, which I stuffed with amulets I picked up from around the apartment, placing each one in its specified pocket.
I pulled on an extra pair of socks and applied my thumb to the armor’s biomarker opener.
The armor separated from left thigh to right shoulder and down the back.
I stepped into the ankles and the matching battle boots, pulled the onesie up and over my shoulders, shoved my arms into the sleeves, and sealed it.
It was way faster to don, and much more efficient than my older, more basic personal armor.
I slung my null cloak over my shoulders and took up my staff.
It took all of forty-five seconds, and during that time, my brain went into overdrive.
Glancing at Villetti, still hungover, curled on the floor, I latched a gorget over my throat. Caught sight of my hands. Bone white. Ragged skin hanging off here and there. Later. I’d deal with that later. If I lived. I slapped on an ear-patch and headgear.
As I dressed, I caught more emotions, more images.
Avarice, fear, desire. Images of snow, snow, snow, a whiteout of snow all around, burning, blistering, freezing white.
In some images, I caught glimpses of buildings beyond the falling snow.
In others there was blood splattered across the intense white blanket.
In each vision, I was alone. But…in each, the electric was back on, windows glowing softly, streetlights working to push back the night.
Without letting go of the impressions, I looked out the windows and watched as the power flickered and came on all along the street as the utilities were restored in this part of town. I closed my eyes again.
In some of the images there were bodies, and I didn’t know whose. No dead. I mouthed the words, as if I could command the future. Which I had never succeeded in doing.
In two of the sliced images I was dead. “I’ll try to avoid that too,” I muttered to myself. I adjusted the cloak over my armor. It was too vibrant, too bright a shade of blue. I would be a target in the snow.
At the thought, I got a glimpse of something and stopped.
Ohhh. I tapped my ear-patch to a private channel with my brother.
“EJ. We were right and we were wrong. This isn’t a direct attack on us, or the queen, or the emperor.
The people pushing this, encouraging this, they want Walter.
The urgency is all about getting Walter.
And not just Nyoka and Willim. The others want him too.
Walter and that blasted brand have to stay inside and safe. ”
EJ swore. “Why do they want him? What did you see?”
I didn’t mention the glimpses of my own mangled body.
“Walter being carried away through the snow, over Willim’s back, a stake in his belly, with Nyoka chasing behind.
Willim wasn’t at Asshat’s just to fulfill an alliance to make Asshat a master of a city, but to do some backstabbing.
To get close enough to take Walter. And Nyoka was there to…
probably to do several things at once, but also to save Walter.
Except she got herself possessed. And Konstantin…
He wants Walter. He wants that brand and the geas in it. ”
“Why?”
The thought came fast. “The first layer of the geas was about forgetting the pain of the branding and the degradation of that night. The next layers were about love and controlling Walter for herself. But…”
My knowing strengthened. “By happenstance, the geas can strengthen the working of the elixir, and the bad guys figured that out and want to see how Walter handles possession.” I breathed out.
“What if the geas in the brand allows Walter, with the elixir in his system, to fully control demons while possessed and not have to be killed and the demon recaptured?”
“Hell’s hounds,” EJ cursed.
From the floor, Villetti crawled onto the sofa and shoved a pillow against his stomach. Bending over it into the fetal position, he groaned quietly and held his head in both hands.
EJ said, “The Rus used an elixir in the war. They called the ones who survived, ‘demon riders’ and then they shot them. If Walter’s brand gives him the power to fully control demons, they’ll never let him go.”
“So why was an elixir at Londyn’s?” Walter asked, standing at my open door. I hadn’t heard it open. His brand was shining with a bright greenish-bluish glow.
Adrenaline kicked into me. Fight or flight.
Walter wouldn’t attack me, but that glow meant something vital.
His geas had been fully activated. I had seen him in all of my potentialities, staked, being carried away.
I had to stop that from happening. One hand hidden beneath the cloak, I removed an amulet from an inside pocket.
As my fingers touched it, several of the feelings slipped away.
The futures realigned for Walter. And for me.
I said, “Second question—what does this have to do with our subject, Ivyanna Holmes?”