Red reckoning, p.17
Red Reckoning, page 17
“No, can’t be,” Sullivan said from behind me.
“What is it?” I asked. The fact that I genuinely didn’t know was alarming in its own way. I’ve been around for a good long while and though there were still a few things in the supernatural world I hadn’t squared off against, I prided myself on knowing what most of them were, at least.
“Strigoi,” he said. “I’ve never seen one in the flesh, but I remember reading about them back when I was a probationary judge.”
“One of the five?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “This is a hatchling. Newly born. Likely turned in the last few weeks or so. Look at the eyes. Bright red. Blood vessels are blown. That happens during the turn, but eventually clears up. Hatchlings are unthinking, though. Nearly uncontrollable without guidance from an Overlord. Which means one of the five was likely a part of this raid...”
My blood ran cold as he trailed off. The implications were enormous. If the Morrigan was giving the Overlords a pass to start actively breeding again, then stopping her was more urgent than ever. The Overlords were as bad as the Morrigan in their own way, and though they might be playing nice with her at the moment, they would turn as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Once they did, it would be humanity that suffered the consequences.
Levi ushered us past more chaos and bloodshed, past the winding staircase that led to the second floor—where the war room and the bedrooms were—then down a small hallway and into what was probably once a sitting room.
I whistled through my teeth.
The air was thick with magic and the room was thoroughly trashed. Coffee table upended. Leather couches and sitting chair, smashed to pieces. Artwork torn from the walls. Oh, and there were bodies everywhere. Nearly a dozen of them, all sickly pale like the thing we’d found in the hallway. Bullet holes peppered faces and chests, leaving sprays of black blood across the horrid floral wallpaper. Others had been hacked to pieces, which was probably Sir Gal’s doing, and at least two of them had been ripped apart at the joints or charbroiled beyond recognition. That had to be the arch-mage.
A brightly colored area rug was shoved into one corner, revealing a metal-topped cellar door set into the floor. The panic room.
I hustled over to the metal door and knelt, brushing my fingers along the rivets.
The damn thing thrummed with potent, unseen energy, which spoke to wards, painstakingly worked into the metal. My eye went out of focus and I let my preternatural, Vis-enhanced senses brush along the surface. Yep. Heavy-duty constructs, likely drawing energy from the formidable domicilium seal that filled this home with an arcane power of its own. The power of the mundane. The power of human life, invested a piece at a time as its inhabitants shuffled across the mortal coil, leaving bits and pieces of themselves behind like a static charge on the surface of a balloon.
There was no way we were getting through that thing.
I pounded on the surface with the side of my hand, thump-thump-thump, then called out, amplifying my voice so whoever was inside would be able to hear me.
“Ferraro? Greg? Anyone? It’s Yancy. Anyone home down there?”
For a long beat, nothing happened, then there was an audible clunk and the sound of whirling gears.
“I’d stand back if I were you,” came the arch-mage’s muffled voice.
I shuffled back a few paces as the door groaned and hissed, swinging upward with the aid of a hydraulic piston. The arch-mage’s face was the first sight to greet me, her silver hair in disarray, her face smudged with a combination of soot and blood. She had a nasty cut running down her cheek and across her chin, which was telling. The arch-mage was a powerhouse, and if she’d been personally injured in the throw down, then it meant things were dire.
“Everyone okay?” I asked, voice thin, chest tight.
“No,” she replied curtly. “We have wounded.” She turned and headed down the steel steps, motioning for us to follow.
“Levi, go get Chris and Winona, would you?”
He shook his head. “If we have wounded, best if I have a look first. Might be able to help.”
“I’m on it,” Sullivan said, slapping me on the shoulder.
Levi and I followed the arch-mage down into a sparsely decorated room that looked like a steel walled bomb shelter. There were a couple of cots, a bank of surveillance monitors and computer equipment, and a small armory—swords, maces, guns of various makes and models, and enough ammo to supply the lot. A door led deeper into the panic room, presumably connecting to storage and a latrine. Darlene sat in an office chair, monitoring the surveillance system and clacking furiously away at a computer.
I spotted Ferraro and Sir Gal at once, and though they both looked worse for the wear, they were alive. Spread out on one of the cots was Greg, his dark skin unusually pale, sweat beading on his forehead. His eyes were closed and for a second, I was sure he was dead. Then I saw his chest rattle and rise. Not dead, but dying. His breathing was labored. Sir Gal was applying a pressure dressing to his stomach and a tourniquet had been slipped around one of his legs, staunching the flow of blood from a ragged wound in his calf. Looked like a chunk of meat had been rudely ripped away with hungry teeth.
Ferraro glanced up, offering me a tight smile, then went back to work, rigging an emergency IV. There was already a bag of saline suspended from a stainless-steel infusion rack, and she was adding a second line. A blood bag.
“Is he okay?” I asked, the words feeling like sandpaper being forced through my throat.
“He’s alive,” Ferraro replied. “For how long, I don’t know. The wound in his leg is nasty, but one of those vampire things carved up his stomach. We’ve got internal bleeding. He’s been in and out of consciousness for the past hour or so. We’ve been busy trying to stabilize him, but it’s not looking good.”
Every single word hit like a hammer blow. Like a bomb blast.
Rock Bottom
MY KNEES BUCKLED, REFUSING to hold me up a second longer, and I collapsed to the floor. Not Greg. He couldn’t die. He was a rock. The guy had saved my ass, and more than once. He was my oldest friend, my best friend, and the one guy in the world I could count on being there for me if everything went sideways. He’d been with me since the start. He’d even been there in that damned temple deep in the sweltering jungles of ’Nam when Wrangle turned on us. When Rat had pulled the pin and burned himself alive with white phosphorus.
He was going to outlive us all, Rube or not.
“Give me room,” Levi said, marching across the floor and shouldering his way past Sir Gal. He dropped onto a knee and pulled the blood-drenched pressure dressing aside to reveal a ragged series of gashes running across Greg’s center. He’d been nearly disemboweled. “I can fix this,” Levi said.
He went to work, transforming his remaining hand into his trademark meat cleaver, then slashing it across his chest without a thought, opening a deep gash, allowing golden ichor to well to the surface, shimmering softly in the overhead halogen lighting. I grimaced as I watched. He banished the meat cleaver and jammed his fingers into the cut, smearing golden blood across his fingertips. He traced his fat digits over the edge of Greg’s gut wound, liberally coating the torn flesh with his blood. Double dipping when he ran out. We waited in silence as seconds ticked into minutes. Finally, satisfied with his handiwork, Levi directed Ferraro to thread a curved needle with thread.
“Aren’t you worried about infection?” Ferraro asked, brow knit in concern. “Or any internal bleeding.”
“Not at all,” he replied curtly.
Even with one hand, he worked deftly, almost as though he’d done this a time or two before. Winona and Chris arrived, but we all remained quiet as Levi sewed, watching on in mute horror and fear as the golem stitched the gash closed. He had Ferraro tie off the thread, smeared more gold blood over the stitches, then applied a fresh pressure dressing, held in place with an ace bandage. The whole process was nasty and looked about as hygienic as a gas-station bathroom, but I had to admit, Greg already looked remarkably improved. His color was better, his breathing easier.
Levi wiped his bloody hand on his trousers, then fished a familiar silver flask from inside his jacket pocket. He unscrewed the cap and pressed it to Greg’s lips, forcing more of the sludgy ichor down the unconscious man’s throat. Greg was only too lucky to be passed out because that shit tasted just awful—something I knew from personal experience. Like spoiled milk and old pennies: bitter, rancid, and slightly metallic. Greg sputtered, rustling a little, then went still.
“He’ll be touch and go for a bit,” Levi said, standing. “His leg will need work too, and I doubt it’ll be bearing weight any time soon. But, if we can keep up the fluid changes and blood transfusions, the ichor should do the rest. It’ll kill anything that isn’t supposed to be there and patch up everything that is.”
“Fascinating,” the arch-mage said, tapping at her chin, a gleam in her eye. “And how exactly does that work? That blood of yours?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, shaking my head. “Not now, anyway. What matters is what in the fuck happened here. And what about the Scion? Where is she?”
“Gone, obviously,” the arch-mage said coolly. And the way she said it made me want to punch her right in the stupid face.
“Gee, gone you say,” I shot back. “Huh, I must’ve missed that. Where is she and why is she gone?”
“The Prophet hit us,” Ferraro said, offering the arch-mage a bitter glare. “About four hours after you left.”
I did some quick mental calculations. Four hours would’ve been just about the time we headed into the Cult Headquarters... Shit on a brick. They’d been watching our movements. That asshole from Wayland and Smith had probably reached out to the Morrigan as soon as we left their Seattle headquarters. The Morrigan, in turn, must’ve known we would put the pieces together eventually—pieces that led us right to the Cult of Akroid. Hell, they’d practically spoon-fed us clues. Waved that damned symbol in our faces. They’d probably posted a lookout just outside of the Cult.
That way they would know exactly who was with me and thus who was back at the safe house. And once we were inside that freakshow factory, we wouldn’t be in any kind of position to help out. The Morrigan hadn’t just played us like a fiddle, she’d played us like a friggin’ symphony. Dammit.
“They were watching our movements,” I said, deflating from the sheer weight of it all. “Waited for us to get elbow deep into a shitstorm of our own, then kicked down the door.”
“But how did they find us?” Ferraro asked, glancing subtly at James.
I waved away her suspicion. “That’s part of the Prophet’s superpower. On top of having Old Man Winter’s Mantle, the guy also has access to the Fifth Seal, which contains the essence of Orobas the Chrysós, Great Prince of Hell, and Deceiver of Humanity. The shithead demon’s an oracle spirit. He can glimpse portions of the Tapestry of Fate. It’s not a perfect ability, but he can use it to stack the deck in their favor. If he got a glimpse of this place through the Oracle, it wouldn’t be hard to match the house to the Big Easy—the architecture screams New Orleans.”
“Well, however, they knew,” Ferraro said, “they came with a plan. The Prophet had someone else with him. Short guy, maybe only five two or five three. Middle Eastern complexion. Black hair. Large scar running down his cheek and onto his neck. Red eyes.”
“Akiya of Assyria,” Sir Gal chipped in helpfully. “One of the five. He predates me by about two and a half thousand years or so. Used to be a king of Assyria. We have some history. All the Strigoi hatchlings are from his brood.”
“It was a strategic strike,” the arch-mage said, folding her arms and clenching her jaw. “The Prophet hit us head-on. Mr. Chandler there”—she nodded toward Greg’s still form—“activated the security protocols, then he and Agent Ferraro immediately moved to secure the Scion and bring her down here.”
“Problem was,” Ferraro said, “Akiya was waiting for us. He came in through the rear while the arch-mage and Darlene were dealing with the Prophet and all of those... those things. Greg and I threw everything we had at him. None of it worked. Bullets fell away. I OC sprayed him in the face. Tased him.” She paused, lips stretching into a thin line. “I even dosed him with Holy water for good measure, but he walked right through us. He would’ve finished Greg off, and probably me too if Gal hadn’t shown up.”
“I felt his presence the second he arrived,” Gal offered somberly. “Like I said, Akiya and I have history. I also have sort of a sixth sense where the Overlords are concerned.” He paused and ran a hand through his golden hair. “One of the little perks of my job.”
The Scion was gone, but Gal had saved my friends. Every bad thought I’d ever had about the stupid, goody-two-shoes knight vanished—I had a debt to him I would never be able to repay.
“Thank you,” I said, with a grim smile and a nod. “I owe you one.” I paused and glanced between Ferraro and Greg. “Scratch that. I owe you two.”
“So what about you guys? Hopefully you have better news than we do.” Ferraro eyed Levi, who was still missing an entire friggin’ arm. “Though, based on appearances, I’m going to guess we weren’t the only ones that had a rough go of things.”
“Rough is painfully accurate,” I said. “Though we walked away with the prize.” I waved Sullivan forward.
He slipped between us and unfurled the blueprints we’d pilfered from Wayland’s study.
“We managed to take these, which is something,” Sullivan said with an apologetic shrug.
“And we also know what they’re up to,” Levi grunted. “How they plan to pull off the ritual and kill the Elder Fae.”
Slowly we walked them through our trip into the mechanically beating heart of the Cult—starting with our tussle with Kristi the not-so-friendly receptionist and culminating in our heart-to-heart with the Mad King himself. From there, Levi dribbled out snatches of his own history before unspooling the details regarding the utterly unique design of the building.
“So, the Philosopher’s Stone is not only real, but the Morrigan is creating a giant version capable of transmuting immortality itself,” the arch-mage said, sounding a bit dazed. “You know, the Elder Council used to meet quite frequently to discuss looming existential threats. We would sit around late at night, brooding, drinking copious amounts of wine while we discussed the things of nightmares.”
She slumped forward, looking broken for the first time I could ever remember. “An Eldritch uprising, perhaps. Humanity awakening, en masse, to the realities of our world. Or some zealot releasing Fenrir from his slumber. Such were the things that haunted us...” She trailed off, eyes hazy and distant. “The truth is so much worse than anything we could’ve imagined.”
I looked around the bunker and saw that same defeat mirrored in the faces and postures of everyone else present. And why not? We had a day to figure out a way to stop the Morrigan from forever changing the face of the world and we had nothing going for us. Sure, we had a when, where, and a how, but we had no way to throw a wrench into her plans, and now she had the Scion—the last piece of the puzzle to kick-start her ritual. She also had all of the resources of the Guild, an impenetrable fortress, and a literal army of supernatural muscle on her side. We had a handful of plucky rebels, who’d been beaten into the ground over and over again.
It was easy to look at things and see defeat. This was rock bottom. The dark night of the soul.
Truthfully, it would be damned easy to throw in the towel and call it quits. And if someone didn’t do something to pull us out of this death spiral, we would give up. Thing was, I’d been here before. I’d tasted the worst the world had to offer—I’m a connoisseur of pain, grief, and hardship. I’d lived through the death of my friends, driven mad and turned against each other in the heart of a bloody war zone by a supernatural power no one understood. I’d survived the death of my marriage, the loss of my love, the betrayal of the Guild, and the possession of my soul by a demonic entity.
These were dark valleys, but I was an expert navigator.
“Welcome to my world,” I said, standing. “A world where you are constantly tangling with horrors outside your weight class. One where the odds are always stacked against you. Where you’re operating under a shot clock and even the tiniest slipup spells disaster. Where everything is on the line and the situation feels hopelessly bigger than you. I know how things look. How bad things are. But I’ve been here before, and if there’s one truth I’ve learned from a lifetime of suffering, it’s this. The only enemy that can put you down for good is you. We might lose and we might die, no matter what we do. But if we quit? If we quit, I can guarantee it.”
“But where do we even start?” Winona asked, glancing up, eyes haunted.
“We start by picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off,” I replied. “We start by fixing our minds and reminding ourselves that the Morrigan hasn’t won yet. She has the precautions she does because she’s scared of us. She made a deal with some of the most dangerous things in Outworld to stop us—you don’t do that unless it’s possible to be stopped. And here’s the thing about that. This building”—I waved to the blueprints—“this is some pretty complicated shit. Give me ten lifetimes and I still wouldn’t be smart enough to build something like this or pull off this ritual of hers. But we don’t need to build it. We just need to break it. And that? That we can do. There’s a weak point somewhere, and so long as we don’t give up, we’ll find it.”
“I’m all for a good rousing speech, ol’ boy,” James replied, “but words aren’t going to stop the Morrigan. We need a plan. One with action steps.”
“You’re not wrong,” I conceded, thinking for a beat. “Well, the first thing to do is get the hell outta here. Clearly, we aren’t safe here anymore, if we ever were. I have a bolt-hole of my own, out in Gunnison. The Farm. It’s not much, but it has everything we need. Food, medical supplies, weapons, and most importantly enough heavy-duty wards to keep even an ass-clown like the Prophet away. At least for a little while. The rest of you can hole up there and regroup. Ferraro can show you the way, and she has a key to get past the wards.”
