Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Nothing came flying at us, no fun house version of a magic attack.
So far, so good. EJ replaced the tile and motioned Raccoon to take point.
I took center. EJ followed me into the claustrophobic space and released the door at the back, exposing the hidden staircase.
He activated one of our Aunt Cia’s moonstone amulets, a small sphere with a flat bottom, and placed it on the third step to give us working light and a quick view of the stairwell.
Ah heck no, I thought. EJ made a face. Raccoon grumbled, “You trying to kill an old man?”
I hadn’t known, and clearly EJ hadn’t remembered, the height of the risers. Normal stairs had six-to-eight-inch risers. These had ten-inch risers. My legs were gonna kill me before we reached the ninth story.
EJ secured the door to the restaurant, placed the moonstone in Raccoon’s hand, and we all studied the stairs. There was dust on the treads, suggesting no one had been this way since EJ had come last. However, we would leave a trail.
EJ tapped his ears and we snapped ear-patches in place.
Raccoon led the way up, weapon readied, taking the twisty turns and the tall risers.
EJ was breathing steady and hard. I was gasping, my thighs burning by the time we reached the third floor.
Raccoon’s breathing was unchanged. There were advantages to maintaining a battle-ready physique.
The queen’s people trained like Olympic athletes, and they sipped vamp blood for healing, leaving their bodies in perfect shape.
EJ and I drank from Walter only when we were badly injured.
The difference was stunning, especially since Raccoon was in his forties. So much for the “old man” comment.
By the fifth floor, EJ was breathing hard. Raccoon was fine. Grinning. My muscles were on fire. I was pretty sure I hated Raccoon.
EJ tapped the only cold-air return grille I had seen. Air witches were constantly alert to things that affected the movement of air.
We took the tight turn at the eighth floor.
There was a pressure beneath my boot and a faint crunching sound. Liquid shot out. A bitter tang coated my tongue as I took a breath. Before the brittle sound of crushing glass faded, I said, “Uh-oh.”
My staff banged into the wall as it fell from my nerveless fingers. My body slumped in the same direction, banging into the staff. I was conscious, could see, could hear, but a fast-acting paralytic was already inside me. I fought to stay upright but that wasn’t happening.
As I started to fall, EJ sang, a pure, ringing note, exhaling, and said, “Gaoth a’ sèideadh.”
A wind swept down the stairs. The air pressure dropped. It had to be flowing through the air vent he had tapped on the fifth floor.
Above me, as I slumped, Raccoon jumped up three steps.
I slid down onto the landing below us with a thump and a rattle of amulets and weapons.
Raccoon’s feet touched down. Triggered something else. Lights strobed in the dark, flashing like knives, blinding. I couldn’t close my eyes.
The wind grew in strength, carrying the liquid-to-air working away. My ears popped. But I wasn’t breathing. I hoped EJ noticed.
I was lying on my staff. The labradorite in the head of the staff was attuned to my magic, but it was mostly a parlor trick. There was little I could do with it—
A door opened above us.
A harsh laugh tore past on the howling wind.
Raccoon made a strange sound. Choking. His weapon fired. Seven rounds.
The woman laughed again.
Raccoon flew past me to crash into the wall. He slumped down. Out cold.
EJ
Delta Mode unfolded, his body sliding into the hyperaware, hypercreative state. Two-handed, he drew three throwing stars. With the last breath in his lungs, knowing if he inhaled they were all dead, he threw, singing, “Bruciare!”
The silver-plated stars hit. Two bounced off her armored clothing. One embedded in her throat. Instantly glowed red-hot. Fire blossomed. Her skin and hair whooshed into flame.
Unable to scream, she stumbled into her apartment.
EJ followed. Took the next steps. Moving fast. Seeing everything. Raccoon behind him, unconscious. Concussion? His sister not breathing. Less than four minutes to end this. End enemy. Figure out the paralytic working. Reverse it. Get them breathing.
He seized the moonstone where Raccoon had dropped it. It had settled on its flat side.
EJ pulled a wooden disk, pressed, and dropped it.
The amulet released a complex minor chord in his magical awareness.
A wind working to empower his wyrd working.
The air flow increased, whistling to the vent he had tapped on the way up.
The temperature fell as the pressure dropped and the stairway’s curse-tainted air was sucked away. He still hadn’t taken a breath.
He lunged the final three steps. Drawing his favorite flute. Lungs burning.
At the top of the stairs, EJ sucked in a single breath. He didn’t drop, so he took several more. Smoke, burned vampire flesh, and the stench of scorched hair whipped past, pulled from outside the apartment by the powerful pressure. A window popped, cracking.
No one had known Gertrude was a vampire. And fangheads on fire were doubly dangerous.
He stopped, protected and hidden by the wall. He put the flute to his lips—a simple open-hole flute with four holes. Blew a soft, pure note, directing his stored working toward the moonstone.
The sphere began to glow as he overlaid his version of a wyrd working into the illumination working it contained.
He bent. Rolled it into the apartment and ducked back out.
It thumped as momentum propelled it crookedly across the lair floor.
EJ tapped his ear-patch onto auto. He felt the moonstone crack.
Crack again. It exploded with light. A stone version of a flash-bang, but with rock shrapnel.
He waited an agonizing two seconds until the light vanished and the debris landed. Rushed inside.
Triggered something. Dove and dropped. A shotgun went off where his chest had been.
He rolled across the floor. Beneath a table. His ear-patch protected his hearing from the concussion.
He could hear. Whistled hedge.
Pulled three explosive amulets.
Took in his surroundings. Seeing everything. Every detail. All at once. Delta informed: Apartment unchanged. Luggage. Bed unmade. Guns on kitchen counter. Female present.
Armor.
In his low-light ocular, Gertrude was a green glow, tiny fangs out, eyes black as hell. Hair scorched on the right side. Bleeding. Throat bright. Still burning. Her face changed as if melting. A glamour falling away to reveal something else. Someone else.
He knew this face. He’d fought her once, in the Witch War.
Her name then had been Gisselle. Gisselle got away.
Her history and her present blurred together. Vamp hunter turned vamp.
Bounty on her head from the war.
As he took all this in, he was pulling a silver-edged throwing knife.
Her lips formed two words. “Everhart. Die.” A wyrd. But her throat was damaged. The working failed.
She dove for her weapons. Vamp-fast.
He dropped the hedge, flicked the throwing knife at her back, raised the hedge.
She whirled. Fired. Splat rounds hit his hedge. It wavered. The working was like acid, eating through his magics. The notes were cracked bells and howls of grief. Death magic. Illegal.
She pulled a small automatic weapon. A wartime Uzi. Fired. Full burst, his ear-patch dampening. The gun wasn’t meant for prolonged use. It would jam. Eventually.
He pulled his magic to him and opened a new hedge, nearly touching his skin. Dropped the damaged hedge. Hummed a new note, lost beneath the barrage. Pulled three silver stakes. Explosives in his left hand. Stakes in his right.
Her weapon jerked.
He dropped the hedge and threw the explosives. Reactivated the hedge.
The energy-grenades detonated.
He leaped for her. Pushing his hedge through the shrapnel. Through the blast. In midair he dropped the hedge. Buried the stakes in her belly.
Landed atop her. She went limp.
Maybe fifteen seconds since Gertrude’s trap.
Angie and Raccoon. Not breathing. Injured.
One-handed, he shoved to his feet. Whirled for the stairs.
Just ahead, a form silhouetted in the window. Outside. Nine stories up.
“Son of a witch,” he muttered. Opened yet another hedge. This one was solely powered by his own energies. For an instant the ley line and all its power hovered in his mind. He didn’t know how to reach that power. And he was out of helpful amulets.
He lifted his flute to his lips, readying an air working defense.
The window shattered.
A form swung in. Psychedelic armor top to toe. Sword in her hand. She landed, lithe as a cat. “Well, dang. I missed all the fun.”
“Paralysis air working. Stairway. Angie and Raccoon.”
Shiloh sheathed her sword and yanked two crystals from her gear belt. Followed him. He sang a soft note and an illumination working opened in the stairway for him. Shiloh had vamp vision.
She pushed past him, one of the crystals glowing yellow. She waved it over Angie. The glow brightened, turning a pale pink. Shiloh rolled Angie over. His sister was gray-faced but alert, eyes panicking.
Shiloh pressed the pink crystal to Angie’s throat. Stuck a finger in Angie’s mouth and pressed a crystal orb—looked like a cat’s-eye marble—against Angie’s tongue. Held it in place with that finger.
“Roll her again,” Shiloh demanded.
EJ knelt and rolled his sister over. She was limp as the freshly dead.
Shiloh released the amulet at her throat and whacked Angie’s back with the heel of her hand. Hard. Just below her shoulder blades. Again. Again. On the third thudding strike, Angie gagged. Sucked in a breath. Another. Started coughing. Shiloh caught the marble. Jumped the stairs to Raccoon.
EJ turned his sister over and said, “Ange?”
She gagged, coughed again. Long and racking. She waved him to Raccoon. Sucking in deep breaths and blowing them out. Hard and fast.