Cal and Niko - Moonshine Part 17

"Educational." Shadowed green eyes brooded from the b.l.o.o.d.y blade to me. "That's a mortal wound for an Auphe. Freaks seem to be more resilient. Keep your heart in the human location, do you?" Another poniard was in his hand; he must've bought them by the gross. He tossed it in the air, and caught it in a throwing position. "Let's test that theory."

He was Goodfellow, every inch of him. I'd half forgotten how uncanny the physical duplication was. The only thing missing was the grin. Whether it was smug, lascivious, cajoling, breezy, arrogant, salesman voracious, Robin usually had one version or another on his face. This puck never smiled. Not even with the psychotic glee of a killer. He was empty, a vessel of ice filled with the lung-suck of nothing. The pride, though, he had to have that. Any member of the race would crumple up and die without that overweening ego. It was the only weak spot I could hope for and I went for it.

"Why didn't you do it yourself?" I gritted between hard-clamped teeth. The blood was soaking the back of my shirt, but he was right. It wasn't mortal. h.e.l.l, if I was given the chance, it wouldn't slow me down that much either. "Take the crown from Cerberus? For that matter, why didn't you let Caleb do it?" My backup piece was at my ankle. I could easily reach it, if I could just distract him. It was a d.a.m.n big if. Robin would've been too smart to fall for it. If the same went for his evil twin, I was well and truly f.u.c.ked.

"Is it too difficult for your half-breed brain to determine, freak?" he asked mockingly. "Then let me clarify for the low functioning among us. Caleb didn't have the intestinal fort.i.tude, which is more obvious than ever now." The eyes seemed to take on a b.l.o.o.d.y cast, a reflection of what remained of Caleb. "And Flay," he snorted disparagingly, "breeding will tell. He's barely house-trained. As for me, I wouldn't have been welcome. Unjustly labeled thief, amoral turncoat..." The grin I'd thought he didn't have in him blossomed, chilling and dead. Whatever emotion had lived in him had curdled and died long ago. "Who am I kidding? I'm the original reason there is no honor among thieves. Cerberus wouldn't accept me.. No member of the Kin would."

"That's one good thing you can say about them." I inched fingers farther down my leg and kept my eyes unwavering on his. I couldn't deceive like a puck-no one could-but I wasn't an open book either. If I could fool him long enough...

But of course I couldn't.

"As much as I enjoy playing this tedious game with you"-his gaze flicked to my ankle and back-"I have things to do." He c.o.c.ked his head, gauging the sounds around us. Flay in some other part of the building. Screaming and howling out front, meaning Niko had yet to make it through the door. "Psychics to drain. Blood sacrifices to make. Freaks to kill." His foot slammed down on the gun at my ankle, pressing the flesh and bone beneath it to the breaking point. Before I could make a suicidal lunge at him an identical voice stopped us both.

"Hobgoblin."

It came from above and then from next to us as Goodfellow plunged down through flimsy ceiling tile. He landed neatly, doing what had to be everything in his power to conceal his weakened leg. His own blade, not as elegant as the poniard, but as deadly, came to rest along the neck of his carbon copy. "Long time no see," he finished silkily. "I thought you dead. Justly dead."

My attacker's head turned easily and the smile came back, that G.o.d-awful, ghastly grin. "I go by 'the Hob' now, a t.i.tle for my inferiors."

"Which would be everyone, yes?" Robin's face was a mask, the skin stretched inhumanly tight.

"No one would know that better than you, Goodfellow." His foot ground harder and I felt my ankle-bone creak under his heel.

I didn't wait for Goodfellow to give him a warning. I yanked my leg free and rolled to one side only to discover Robin hadn't given one at all. Instead he'd done his best to decapitate Hob-be d.a.m.ned if I'd call him the Hob. I looked up in time to see the end of the backswing and the whole of the follow-through. It was a beautiful blow, if anything so inherently violent and fatal can be called beautiful. Economy of motion, grace, and a stunning speed... yeah, it was beautiful. It was also an utter failure.

Hob was as agile as Goodfellow, if not more so, and he was unwounded. One moment he stood at Robin's side; the next he was gone. Robin's sword cut nothing but air. He almost stumbled on his injured leg, caught himself, and then turned just in time to catch the poniard blade on the hilt of his sword. I didn't stand on ceremony. Grabbing the small .38 at my ankle, I fired. I thought I hit Hob, but I couldn't be sure. As my shot rang out, he threw off Goodfellow's attack, crouched, and then propelled himself upward, disappearing through the same opening Robin had appeared through. A flat-footed jump of nearly ten feet and he performed it with ridiculous ease. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h." I aimed upward and sent five more shots after him. "You can't do that, can you?"

"No." Lips a bloodless line, Goodfellow shook his head. "He's older than I. He's grown stronger, faster."

I measured the jump again with my eyes as my hand impotently squeezed the b.u.t.t of the .38. Ancient or not, he still had one h.e.l.luva leap. "How much G.o.dd.a.m.n older?"

"The oldest. Perhaps even the first. The original Mad Hatter," he said darkly, "without the sense of humor. He's insane, Cal. Utterly. He wants what he wants and no price is too high, no consequence worth considering. He's been the power behind a hundred thrones. Alexander himself bowed to him."

"Yeah, that's all very fascinating." I reloaded, then shoved the gun in the back of my pants. "Boost me. Then go find the others and tell them what's going on."

"He'll kill you," Goodfellow said instantly. "I'll go."

Now, that was a total lack of faith if ever I'd heard one, but I didn't have the time or the luxury to be offended. "Fine. Get your a.s.s in gear. I found Slay, but not George. If your evil twin gets away, we're screwed." I cupped my hands and sent him flying up.

There was the grunt of effort as he caught the edge of the hole and heaved himself in. "Without the crown he won't go far."

"How about we don't let him go a f.u.c.king inch. Now go already." But I was talking to myself. He was already gone. But that didn't mean that I was alone.

I heard a scuttle and sc.r.a.pe before four revenants flowed into view, climbing over one another in the fashion of hungry rats competing for the same meal. I hadn't liked the revenant I'd b.u.t.ted heads with in Cerberus's organization, and I wasn't looking to like these any better. What little light there was gleamed off the moist flesh and curdled in milky eyes. Curved incisors were bared with appet.i.te, not anger. No, these were happy little pseudocorpses-right up until I put a bullet in each squirming brain. Sometimes the movies are right. They went down, tumbling and twitching. It slowed their five friends waiting in the wings not in the slightest.

I had two bullets left and no time to reload. Firing twice, I dropped the .38 and scrambled to find the Glock Hob had kicked from my hand. It had gone to the right; I'd heard it skitter and slide as it hit the floor, but I didn't see any sign of it. One of the revenants was faster than the others and made its leap. Strangely jointed arms reached out for me with grasping hands, hooked fingers, and talons like fishhooks. I ducked beneath the charge, but the revenant wasn't as easily avoided as that. It twisted in midair with the agility of a cat and snared my shirt in its claws. I dived to the floor and rolled, dislodging it with the ripping of cloth. I still had my knife and I used the blade to slice it along the length of its torso when it threw itself on me again. The warm blood soaked me, and I kicked the revenant off as its teeth snapped at my neck. It hit one of the others, knocking it flat, but two more were still coming and coming fast.

Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed a chair from one of the tables and swung with enough force to put one over the fence. The flimsy bundle of plastic and metal disintegrated in my hands and didn't do a d.a.m.n thing to my attacker. Swearing viciously, I hooked an arm around its neck as it landed on me. Swiveling, I threw it down to the floor and planted my knife in its chest. The effort allowed the last one the opportunity it needed. It landed on my back and rode me down. I landed hard on the wounded revenant beneath me as the one on my back buried teeth in the meat of my shoulder. The one below me wasn't about to sit this one out either, knife in chest or no. It snarled soundlessly, brown blood frothing from its mouth, and wrapped moist, spidery fingers around my throat.

Growling, I twisted the knife in the revenant's chest, eliciting a bubbling scream, then threw myself backward. I was trying to simultaneously break the hold on my throat and throw off the one on my back. I was only partially successful. The fingers fell from my neck, but the son of a b.i.t.c.h on my back was hanging on for all it was worth. Its teeth ground in my flesh and its arm snaked around my chest to clamp me closer to it. It was strong as h.e.l.l. They might look like skinny corpses fresh from the grave, but they had a. grip like steel and bundles of muscles as strong as metal wire. As I tried for a grip behind its head to flip it over my shoulder, its legs wound around mine, anchoring itself to me. Jesus, if I let myself get taken out by a f.u.c.king revenant, it would be better to be dead. Niko would ride my a.s.s until the end of time.

The fangs in my shoulder began to withdraw and I knew the next target would be my throat. If it took out my carotid artery, I would be unconscious in minutes and bleed to death in five. I needed a move, no matter how desperate, and I needed it now. However, when it was made, it wasn't mine. There were two consecutive tw.a.n.gs and the revenant jerked on my back... once, twice, then fell. The other revenant I'd knocked from its feet was starting to rise only to be bowled over with a quarrel through an eye. Staggering with the loss of weight from my back, I regained my balance and then bent over to rest hands on my legs until my breathing evened out. "Thanks," I said hoa.r.s.ely, and in the same breath, "Don't tell anyone."

Promise materialized beside me, her eyes tranquil and her unpainted mouth a gentle curve. "We all have our bad days." Extending her crossbow to indicate Caleb's mutilated body, she added, "He would no doubt agree with me."

Stripping off what remained of my outer shirt, I twisted it rapidly and tied the makeshift bandage tightly around my waist. It would stanch the blood trickling from the Hob-inflicted slash in my back until I could get Niko to st.i.tch it up. "It wasn't Caleb," I said with a poisonous quiet as I bent down and ruthlessly yanked free the two poniards that pinned his dead hands. I offered them to Promise. "It's the puck. That slimy piece of s.h.i.t that runs this place. You know, Hob, the one I talked to without a f.u.c.king clue he was even involved?"

"Hob?" she repeated in disbelief. "That was Hob? Hob of legend? Hob of old?" It was a Promise I hadn't seen before, one well and truly shocked.

"Yeah, and apparently that's not a good thing." Hurriedly, I scanned the floor. I found only the Eagle. The .38 was missing in action and I didn't have time for an in-depth search. I also retrieved my knife from the chest of the revenant. "Slay, you little fuzzb.u.t.t, get out here now," I snapped off toward the bar. "We're going." Where, I wasn't sure. Up after Goodfellow or out front to where Niko was still fighting the good fight. Maybe Promise and I would split up and do both.

"You found." It wasn't a question; it was a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving. "You found boy."

Flay hovered in a doorway behind us. Blood stained his white fur liberally and although he stood upright, more or less, he was in his wolf form. His clothes were gone and his back legs were the graceful curve of a greyhound's. His ears perked slowly from their flat position against the wedge of his skull as he sniffed the air and then he crooned. As difficult as it was to picture a gore-stained predator crooning, that's what it was, and it received an immediate answer.

Slay came rocketing into view. He ran so fast he was little more than a pale orange blur, and then he jumped. When he landed in Flay's arms, he was a boy-a small, naked boy with vodyanoi blood smeared around his mouth and coating his tiny white teeth. But he was also a boy with freckles, a thick shock of apricot hair, and a grin that wouldn't quit. Small arms were wrapped around his father's throat and he put his round face close to the p.r.i.c.ked white ear to whisper.

No matter what you thought of Kin wolves or of cubs that might grow to raging carnivores, it was a bright moment. And there was no d.a.m.n time left to appreciate it. Making a fast decision, I told Promise to take the back while I took the front. Flay could stay here with his cub. Whether Hob and the trailing Robin ended up outside or back here, we would be there. We would be ready. What a lie. I wasn't ready for what I found. I wasn't ready at all.

Niko was gone.

Chapter 20.

Bodies littered the cracked sidewalk in front of the building. Vodyanoi, revenants-there were at least twelve of them. It wouldn't have been enough to overcome my brother. But in the midst of the bodies there was the spore of something that had been. Slim and silver, another poniard lay. By the gross, I thought numbly. He bought them by the gross. It didn't lie there alone; Niko's sword was beside it. Both were bloodied. And both were what it took to split me in half.

I'd held it together, mostly, this past week. I'd found a place within me to hide, carved out a craven sanctuary. I was stunned at how quickly that sanctuary crumbled, and I was almost immolated by what swelled free of it. Fear, red and raw. Hatred, black and suffocating. And over it all, fury-white-hot and blinding.

Blood sacrifice.

That's what Hob had said when I'd been more concerned with trying to kill him than paying attention to his cryptically poisonous words. And now Niko was gone. He wasn't lying wounded or dead by his sword. Hob, who wouldn't lift a finger himself to do anything that he didn't absolutely have to, had taken him. Hob, who needed a sacrifice. I'd tried to guard Niko from the Auphe when something else wanted him as badly. This was what Abelia-Roo had kept from us, out of pure, malicious spite. We'd sensed the crone was holding back something about the Calaba.s.sa. We should've guessed. We should've G.o.dd.a.m.n known. The world is about sacrifice, our world even more so. For the crown to take, someone would have to give. It would grant George's gift to Hob, and it would take Niko's life in return. The Rom and the Ba.s.sa had been allies, according to Abbagor... their lives intertwined. It took the blood of one to make the device of the other work. Elegant, logical...

And not going to happen.

I couldn't hear anymore, or perhaps there was nothing to hear. Velvety silence surrounded me as I bent down and reverently cradled Niko's sword. It was his katana, modern but with the heart of the ancient implicit in its spare form. He would've said he didn't favor one weapon over the other, that they were tools to be respected and admired... nothing more. That's what he would've said, but I knew better. He did play favorites with his edged family and this one was his pride and joy. It wasn't made in the old way-no one did that these days-but it was as close as you could come. He loved that d.a.m.n sword, and guess what? He was getting it back.

At the hesitant touch on my shoulder, the hilt found its way into my hand and I whirled, surrounded by a halo of silver steel. There were flashes, disjointed and vague. Brown, green. Fox face and mobile mouth. To carve all that from the face of the earth wasn't a decision I made. It simply happened. The sword flew and I followed.

"Cal, don't!"

The words beat at the layer of pulsing rage that coc.o.o.ned me. Sound had come back. It faded in and out, but it was there. Real. The sight that was before me was real too-as little as my anger wanted it to be. Robin, not Hob, was on his knees in front of me. He was panting with exertion as his white-knuckled fists gripped his own sword and kept Niko's blade from his neck by bare millimeters.

"Don't," he repeated between clenched teeth. "Don't make me hurt you. Please, don't make me."

I didn't delude myself into thinking it was only talk. Goodfellow very probably could hurt me. He predated swords; he'd had a lot longer to practice with them than I had. Not that it mattered. I didn't want to hurt him any more than he wanted to hurt me. I saw what my rage was slow to recognize; it was Robin. It was my friend. Not the monster who'd taken Niko.

Not Hob.

I let the tip of the katana fall toward the ground. My hands shook and cramped from the anger that had no outlet. "Nik's gone." If I hadn't felt my mouth move, I wouldn't have recognized the thick, choked words as mine.

"I know." Robin let gravity take his own blade and sat back to rest on his heels. Head down, he pa.s.sed a hand over his face. "I know."

"Where would he take him?" The twitch of one of the downed revenants was visible from the corner of my eye. I swiveled, gave a vicious swing of the sword, and turned back before the brown blood had time to drip from the blade. "Where?"

"I don't know. I haven't a G.o.dd.a.m.n inkling." In a sudden explosion of frustration, he threw his sword against the asphalt. "He was supposed to be dead. Why couldn't he stay dead?" he said savagely before looking up at me. "And why Niko? Why not take just the crown? He already has a hostage. What would he need with another?"

"For the Rom blood." My mouth twisted. "For the d.a.m.n Ba.s.sa, who made sure there was a price to be paid for what you took." I had the key in me as well, so why hadn't Hob taken me instead? He might know who was d.o.g.g.i.ng my steps lately and not want the added distraction of vengeance-crazed Auphe dropping in on the ceremony. Or maybe the Auphe gene in me was so strong it tainted all the rest, made the Rom half of me unrecognizable to the Calaba.s.sa. It would be a chance that a scheming son of a b.i.t.c.h like the puck wouldn't want to take.

"Niko?"

Promise had moved up silently behind us. "Hob took Niko? No." She shook her head in denial. "He couldn't overcome Niko. No one could." Then her gaze touched the katana in my hand and pansy-colored eyes turned velvety black, even the whites swallowed whole by the dark cloud. "The first of your kind, Robin, but he will not live long enough to be the last. I'll kill him myself."

"Get in line." I started back toward the club. I didn't expect to find clues or hints to Hob's location, no bulls.h.i.t like that. Hob wouldn't be anywhere close to that stupid. But there was something in the building that would help. Had to help, because it was our only shot. I quickly grabbed what I needed and hauled it back outside.

Stopping by the pile of Niko's attackers, I gave Flay's fur-covered arm a hard shake. "Niko," I snapped. "Find him."

When his cub had been taken, Flay had come home to discover shattered furniture, blood, and Slay's dead grandmother broken on the floor. The kidnapper's scent turned out to be that of Caleb, but the wolf wasn't able to determine that at first. Too many changes of cars were made; too many hours had pa.s.sed. He lost the trail. He hadn't been able to find his son. But while the trail had been old then, and degraded, it was fresh now.

"Find him." I shook him again.

Slay, resting against his father's shoulder, growled. It was a wholly lupine sound emitting from wholly human lips. With clawed hand cupping the ginger head tenderly, Flay made a wordless soothing sound before wrinkling his upper lip at me to reveal red-stained teeth. "You find mine." He put his blunt muzzle up and drew in great draughts of air. "I find yours." There was one more sampling, and then he ran. Slinging the boy to sit up on his neck, he went down on all fours and became the wind.

Goodfellow ran for our transportation while Promise and I followed Flay on foot. Three blocks away the van caught up with us. It slowed and we both climbed in while it was still moving. Robin then careened us around a corner and up onto the curb to take out a newspaper box, and kept going. He wasn't the only one scorning the streets. Flay and his pa.s.senger didn't stick to them either. Alleys, vacant lots-it was all fair game. We managed to keep him in view, flickerings of phantom white our guide.

There were other flickerings... red and yellow ones ringing my vision. The rage wouldn't die, wouldn't subside. The fear was side by side with it. It wouldn't let me take a breath without squeezing my lungs with acid-coated fingers. Without Nik, I was nothing. Living life to prove your genes wrong wasn't worth doing. Living life to be the reflection of who your brother thought you were, thought you could be, that was worth it. That made the price of existence not quite so steep.

"Won't Hob suspect we'll use Flay to follow him?"

Robin addressed Promise's question with a logic that proved familiarity breeds contempt. "I strongly doubt it. He'll a.s.sume Flay has what he's come for and will move on. Hob doesn't understand the concept of loyalty. He especially wouldn't apply it to one who runs with the Kin. Arrogance, it's the downfall for my race. For every last thrice-d.a.m.ned one of us."

I had something else planned for Hob's downfall. The metal glimmered across my lap with the coldest of comforts. Goodfellow went on. "He wants George's ability so he can rise to power again. With it, he could blackmail anyone, manipulate everyone ... be what he once was. It's not as it was in the old days. The brightest, the most respected, even the most cunning, they don't always win anymore. He needs an edge if he wants to play in these politically unenlightened times." If it had been any other situation, he would've waxed poetic about the time when all you needed was a toga and an in with the Roman army. But it wasn't any other situation. It was this one.

This one.

"Drive faster," I ordered gutturally. It whirled in me, the rage, bright and furious. An emotion so intense that it was nearly an ent.i.ty all its own. Aware... plotting. When your subconscious has a mind of its own, things happen. They f.u.c.king do indeed.

"I can't. This is as fast..." The words trailed away as Goodfellow checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. His shoulders twitched and he hissed, "Not the time. So very not the time."

The shadows swirled out of Promise's eyes as she turned and looked behind me. "No. Not now. Not now." As I gazed back at her implacably, she said with a worry strained to near desperation, "You're doing it again, Caliban."

Like I didn't know. As if I didn't feel the turn and suck of the gateway behind me. It was small, no larger than the size of my hand. I didn't have to see it to know that either. It was mine and I knew it, inside and out. The shifts and eddies of it, the ferocious bite. It was an attack dog, only mildly loyal and completely untrained. I had a choke chain on it for now, but the leash was slipping through my fingers so fast I could feel the burn.

"Where does it go?" Robin asked with a desperation that mirrored that of Promise.

I smiled.

"Ah, G.o.ds," he breathed, "what are we going to do?"

The smile grew and I bared my teeth in a death's-head grin that would've done any Auphe proud. "Drive faster."

He did. At one point he nearly ran down our wolf. I heard the yip and snarl of surprise through the metal walls of the van. It didn't restrain Goodfellow's driving. The gate was traveling with us... with me... and that concerned him more than a close call with Flay's hairy a.s.s. Fifteen more minutes pa.s.sed and I wondered in the back of my mind, the only portion that still had the smallest grip on rational thought, how long the wolf could keep up the brutal pace. He was lupine, but even a wolf couldn't run forever. Fortunately, he didn't have to. We stopped at a church, old but lovingly maintained.

"A house of G.o.d. Appropriate," Goodfellow murmured. "He always considered himself one of the first."

He'd killed the lights a block down when he'd seen Flay begin to slow. The van rolled quietly to a stop and the panting wolf flowed inside to deposit a grinning three-year-old into a seat. "Again!" Slay demanded, bouncing on the cushion. "Again!" Someone, at least, had enjoyed the headlong rush.

Flay's eyes widened to show the whites as he saw the now cantaloupe-sized whirlpool of gray light behind me and he put himself between it and his son. "Inside church. Puck, brother, girl. Others."

"What others?" Promise had discarded her cloak and stepped out as a singular figure of black silk and cold steel.

"Same. Revenant. Vodyanoi. Many." He shifted uneasily on splayed feet as I pa.s.sed him on my way to the street. The gateway followed me, a luminous shadow. "I not go."

I hadn't expected him to. He had his family to protect now. He had his life back, and I hadn't antic.i.p.ated his risking it again. I nodded in acknowledgment. "Keep the engine running. Just in case."

Unease and impatience twisted his face as his features slid into something closer to human, but he nodded. "Fifteen minutes. Then we go."

It was a fair offer and I took it. I turned and headed toward the church, making no effort to hide. How the h.e.l.l could you begin to hide a rip in reality itself as it trailed behind you? And it was still there. Hungry, impatient, and growing inch by slow inch no matter how I tried to rein in the process. It was pulling at me harder now, every minute. I didn't have much longer. "Heel," I murmured under my breath. "That's a good boy."

Robin came up beside me, giving me a little more personal s.p.a.ce than usual. "I say we forget splitting up," he suggested. "It didn't precisely net us many gains last time. Let's go in the front, the three of us, and take whatever comes. It would be the last thing Hob expects. Brute force over cunning."

"I don't have a problem with that." I'd taken out the Eagle as we walked. Reaching the bottom of the church stairs, I aimed at the front set of double doors and fired... all ten rounds. It was impressive, to say the least. Sheer destruction, how can that not do a vengeful heart good? Running up the stairs through the sharply acrid smell and smoke, I kicked aside what remained of the doors and entered the church. I didn't wait to see if Goodfellow and Promise were behind me. Truthfully, it wouldn't have mattered either way.

I holstered the gun and concentrated on the weapon in my other hand, Niko's katana. It knew me. Inanimate object or not, it knew me. I swung it double-handed and sliced through the neck of the first revenant with quicksilver ease. Another loathsome jumble of spidery arms and legs began to leap for me only to reverse and tumble away at the sight of the gateway at my back. "Auphe," it hissed, crouching on its haunches.

"Yeah," I snarled. "Auphe. Tell all your little friends."

It recoiled and scuttled away. Too bad I hadn't been hauling my badge of dishonor around at the club. It could've saved me some work. Several more revenants plunged from between the pews and followed the first. The only illumination was candlelight and it dappled the wet flesh as they rippled out of sight. The vodyanoi weren't so easily impressed. They dealt very little with the dry world, rarely creeping from their rivers. They had knowledge of the Auphe, but to them it was mostly rumors. Legends. It wasn't an intimate acquaintance.

Not yet.

They didn't have the spidery motion of the revenants. The vodyanoi flowed like the water that had whelped them. They weren't fast, but there were enough of them that it didn't matter. And like their lost and unlamented cousin, they were armed. Some with identical machetes, some swords... anything with an edge. Their crudely formed fingers were too large to fit in the trigger guard of a gun.

"What a shame you wasted all your explosive rounds knocking on the door," Goodfellow gritted at my elbow.

"I didn't." I pulled out the gun and shoved it into his hand, and then followed it with a box of ammunition. "It's sighted for me. Aim a few inches high." Whirling, I sheathed Niko's sword in a tiny black eye. The vodyanoi bubbled a cry of agony, a thin, mucous scream. I withdrew the blade and hit the heavy rubber of its chest with my shoulder. It fell onto its back, where it thrashed wildly. Promise followed my example and sent the one behind it down with a quarrel through an inky orb. And then the one to the left and the one to the right. Her face a tight ivory mask, she was a cold wind of destruction sweeping through the place. And when she ran out of quarrels, she used her hands to pierce their eyes, and her teeth to peel their thick flesh down to bone. An enraged vampire isn't something anyone would want to face, not even a vodyanoi.

I didn't stick around to see how the rest of the battle went. I didn't have the time, and Niko and George didn't have it either. There was no up in the church other than a vaulted ceiling and the jigsaw puzzle of darkened stained-gla.s.s windows. That left down. I ran through the milling vodyanoi, dodging and parrying blades. I heard another of the shrill screams in my wake and turned to see one seal-blubber arm sliced off cleanly at the elbow. The stump was pumping blood, but the amputated section was gone. The gateway, it had pa.s.sed through the vodyanoi and gobbled the creature's arm as it went.

It was bigger. Almost big enough for what I heard whispering on the other side. Yeah, running out of time-on all fronts.

I found the stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt and was forced to sacrifice speed for stealth. If he heard me coming, Hob would be sure to rush through whatever twisted ceremony he was conducting. Or he might escape as he had done before. Couldn't have that, the rage murmured in the back of my thoughts. Couldn't have that at all. My quiet care was successful. He didn't hear me.