Daughter Of The Blood Part 7

Izzy grabbed the Medusa with both fists and pounded on the monster's left wrist, then on the top of its head. She kicked and flailed and somehow got it to let go of her. She tumbled off its back, landing hard. As she scooted away, she covered her head.

A gun went off.

There was a moment's delay, and then the minion exploded.

Eyes against her knees, she clasped her hands across the back of her neck in a protective gesture. Smoking fragments thudded to the ground around her head and shoulders. Izzy clutched her malfunctioning gun and breathed hard through her mouth, working to get herself back under control and into the action.

But there was no more shrieking, no more gunfire or explosions. As she sat up, she saw bodies on the ground and fronds and ferns undulating as something raced off. None of the bodies were her people.

Thin moonlight poured down like a weak searchlight.

We're alive. We've all made it.

What the h.e.l.l is wrong with my gun?

She pulled down the f.l.a.n.g.e on the left side of the barrel and pushed the cylinder open. The cartridges were in the chambers. The mechanism to deliver them must be faulty. Or Louise had done something to it.

"Guardienne?" Bernard shouted. He dashed toward her. "Tu vas bien?"

"I'm..." she replied, but her voice died away as her focus went past the Medusa to a dark shape slithering next to her right boot.

Another cottonmouth!

"Snake!" she shouted.

"Where? Where?" Bernard yelled, aiming his gun at her feet.

She got to her feet and danced backward. The shape broadened and expanded, filling out into the hazy shadow of a man. It looked like the chalk outline of a murder victim. Then it lifted from the ground and rose into the air like a kite. It hung in the air about two feet from Izzy, a.s.suming a three-dimensional form, devoid of facial detail.

"Guardienne," it rasped. Its voice was a whisper that echoed in her head, in her chest, in her bones.

"Where's the snake?" Bernard asked her.

He and the others and were searching the ground with their weapons pointed down. No one else saw the shadowy figure or heard its voice. Was she having another vision?

"It must have gotten away," Louise observed. "We have to get out of here. They probably weren't alone."

"Guardienne," the voice said again, flat, hollow and almost dead-sounding. "Vous voyez avant vous le va.s.sal du Roi Gris."

Roi Gris. The Gray King. The patron of the Devereauxes. Was this the Gray King? Should she kneel?

"Je cherche Alain de Devereaux," she said aloud, before she even realized what she was doing. I am looking for Alain de Devereaux.

"Moi, aussi," the figure said. Me, also.

"Madame, what are you seeing?" Louise demanded, her arms extended as she whirled in a circle. Mathilde ripped open one of her cargo pockets, and the two men fanned the perimeter with their machine guns.

"Do you know where he is?" Izzy asked the figure. Her French deserted her, as it usually did after a few spoken words.

The figure rose higher into the air, thinning and streaming like a column of smoke, difficult to see against the black night. Ignoring the questions of the others, Izzy shielded her forehead and squinted hard, straining to separate the figure from the background of trees and darkness.

Her head was throbbing, her chest and throat ached, but she shouted after it, "Where is he?"

"What are you seeing?" Louise yelled at her, circling again. The two men followed her lead, flanking Izzy, placing her inside a circle as they scanned the black bayou with the barrels of their weapons.

The figure became nothing more substantial than a wisp of smoke that arced over the trees and trailed downward.

"What is it?" Louise insisted. "Ms. DeMarco, tell us what is there!"

The two men swiveled in Louise's direction.

Ms. DeMarco? Not Ma Guardienne?

In a split-second instant of clarity, Izzy realized that Louise had lied to her: "Nothing gets in, nothing gets out."

Louise had told Izzy that her bedroom was so heavily warded that they didn't need to worry about it being bugged. That Michel was equally warded such that he couldn't be contacted telepathically. Yet, when Catherine and Laure had arrived, she had sensed their presence before they had a chance to knock.

A guilty shadow crossed over Louise's face. Then she said, "Let's hustle!"

"My gun jammed," Izzy said. "You loaded it and it didn't work anymore."

"Give it to me. It should work." Under the guise of reaching for the gun, Louise aimed her palm at Izzy. A burst of light erupted from the center of Louise's hand, shooting straight for her.

"Non, madame!" Bernard shouted, rushing Izzy and flinging her to the ground. Crouched in front of her, he formed a palm strike with his left hand. Blue light coalesced into a fireball and slammed into Louise. Louise was thrown backward, her body hurtling through s.p.a.ce until she smacked into a cypress tree. Izzy heard the impact. Then she landed on the sharp, jutting sections of cypress root encircling the tree, and fell sideways into the swamp water.

Meanwhile, Mathilde took off at a dead heat. After she'd put in some distance, she wheeled around, reached into her cargo pants, and flung something cylindrical at Bernard.

"Look out!" Izzy yelled, attempting to intercept it with another sphere of energy. But nothing came from her palm.

"Stay down!" Bernard ordered Izzy, as he shot a ball of blue light at the object and it exploded in midair.

Hugues tackled Mathilde, pushing her facedown on the ground. "Don't move!" he yelled, as Bernard got to his feet and trained his submachine gun on her.

Hugues straddled Mathilde. He wrenched her gun out of her right hand and threw it hard. Then he began patting her down, slapping his hands down her sides and back.

"What else do you have? What do you have?" he shouted at her. "Give it up! Give it all up now or I'll blow your f.u.c.king head off!"

"Who are you working for?" The barrel of Bernard's submachine gun jammed against the back of her head. "Talk! Now!"

Mathilde didn't move. He nudged her with the barrel. She remained motionless.

Bernard threw down his weapon and yelled, "Merde! She's done something. Suicide spell."

"CPR," Hugues said. "Get the armor off her. It's bolted."

Izzy saw the bolt that kept the armor in place. She shouted, "Terminus!"

Hugues slid out the bolt and pulled the two halves of the armor apart.

The men fell into French as they stripped her armor off and ripped open her sweater. Bernard pushed down too hard; Mathilde's rib cracked with a terrible wrenching sound.

"Un, deux, trois," Bernard counted as he pushed on Mathilde's chest. Then he waited as Hugues blew into her mouth.

Izzy dropped down beside them, clasping one of Mathilde's hands in both of hers.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art Thou among women..." The Catholic prayer of intercession fell easily from her lips.

Bernard stopped counting and murmured to Hugues. He answered back in French.

"I have a healing Gift," Hugues declared. "Let me join you, madame."

Hugues wrapped his hand over Izzy's. Heat from his flesh scorched her skin, but she didn't flinch, only forced more words of the prayer between her lips.

"Ne meurs pas, garce," Bernard said under his breath. "Don't you die. I will find your soul and I will tear it apart."

Bernard got up and walked to the swamp. He bent down and picked up Louise's body, her arms and legs bent at impossible angles.

"This one is dead, too," he announced.

The back of Izzy's palm began to blister. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out.

"Mon Dieu, madame!" Hugues cried, raising his hand off hers.

Izzy's hand was badly burned. The peeling skin was bright red, the wound, weeping and b.l.o.o.d.y. Izzy quietly got to her feet and formed a palm strike with her aching hand. But her palm remained cold.

"Too late. She beat us. She's gone," Bernard declared, shaking his head. "Both of them."

Izzy reached down and found Mathilde's gun among the rushes and ferns, and raised it up with both hands. She was in agony. She took a breath, let half of it out and got ready to shoot them dead.

Bernard looked up at her. His eyes widened and he put his hands on his head. "Hugues," he warned.

"Guardienne," Hugues protested, raising his hands where Izzy could see them. "Please, put that down. We're loyal to you. We only want to protect you. We need to get you out of here now."

"You're Louise's men," Izzy said.

A long shriek pierced the shadows. It was terrifyingly close. Izzy had no idea how she kept from jerking the gun. It startled the men, too. Bernard spoke to Hugues in rapid-fire French. Then in place of the dark-haired man, a s.h.a.ggy blonde with a half-moon scar on his cheek stared steadily back at her. Beside him, Hugues changed as well, to a dark-skinned man in dreadlocks.

"We are members of the House of the Shadows. Devereaux," Bernard said quickly. "I am Maurice, he is Georges. We're on your side. We'll explain, but later. We have to get out of here now. It's another attack."

It cost her to lower the weapon, but she did it. The two men immediately leaped to their feet, and Bernard took the submachine gun back from her.

She said, "Okay. Get me out of here."

They each grabbed one of her wrists and held tightly. She felt strength flowing from them into her as they took off at a dead run.

A sphere of light crashed into the nearest tree, lighting up their surroundings.

"Merde!" Georges cried.

He spoke to Maurice, then released Izzy's arm and wheeled behind her as Maurice kept her running. More spheres exploded. Maurice pushed her in front of him, cradling her against his body as they rushed through the darkness.

Overhanging trees burst into flame. Explosions shook the ground. Maurice muttered in French as he shielded her, slamming her to the ground and throwing himself on top of her.

Then he dragged her back up to her feet, shouting, "Vite! Vite!" She was literally seeing stars, perhaps from the percussion. Her eardrums had shut; she could barely hear him.

They came to another inlet of water. Maurice pushed her hard, and she tumbled in. Her body armor weighted her down. She flailed, trying to get to the surface, but she was sinking fast. She felt his hand around her forearm; then she broke through the water, gasping.

"Can you swim?" he asked.

As an answer, she tried to progress forward by windmilling her arms, but the armor was too heavy. Seeing her predicament, he propelled her along as he crashed through the water beside her.

Something scaly and sharp b.u.mped against her and the only thing she could do was swim harder, although everything in her wanted to panic. It hit her again and she opened her mouth to scream, but the fetid water filled her mouth and she began to choke and cough.

Maurice shot a blue-tinged fireball over her shoulder. It hissed into the water, and whatever had brushed against her thrashed in response. Izzy had no time to see what it was, no desire to know.

It seemed like hours until Maurice half pulled, half carried her onto land again. All she could do was pant and keep moving. She had both her hands around his wrist and she kept a tight hold.

I'm really glad I didn't shoot this guy.

Maurice murmured words and spread his hands. Blue light issued from his palms, forming a thin veil between them and the place they had just come from. Izzy took the opportunity to catch her breath, planting her unhurt palm on her thigh as she sucked in air.

A vast section of the bayou was on fire. Flames rushed up the trunks in columns and ignited the canopy. Branches fell into the water, making hissing noises. Frantic birds took to the sky. Smoke raced along the water like fog.

"Allons!" Maurice cried, taking her hand.

The smoke raced after them, scrabbling onto the land and grabbing at Izzy's ankles. As she ran with Maurice she looked down. Taloned claws inside the smoke reached for her. A skull face leered up at her as its jaws snapped open and tried to bite her calf.

"Demons!" Maurice shouted. "And zombies, dead ahead!"

About twenty yards before them, the bayou sloped steeply upward to form a rise. White-faced men lined the crest; their eyes were blank. Portions of their faces had rotted away. Their clothes were tattered rags.

They shambled down the embankment, sliding and falling. The next rank walked over them, smashing bones; the hand of a fallen man clasped the ankle of another, and the walker moved on, unaware.

Maurice pressed his hands together and them pulled them apart. A fireball appeared; he flung it, hard. It slammed into a zombie in a decomposed business suit, who kept walking until he fell apart, devoured by the flames.

Maurice hurtled more fireb.a.l.l.s. Izzy gazed down at her palm to find it glowing with pure white light. She made a palm strike and aimed it at the closest rank of zombies.

Jehanne, give me power, she prayed.

Flame shot from her palm and sprayed at least half a dozen of the walking dead.

Then more vampire minions divebombed from the trees. She dropped to a crouch and aimed her palm upward. Flying at her, they ignited, shrieking as they went up in flames.

Howls rose above the terrific noise. Rising and falling in crescendos, they were the cries of her vision-the same cries she had heard when Andre leaped off the verandah.

"The wolf pack!" Maurice yelled, pointing. He was jubilant.

The zombies began to fall over like bowling pins as enormous black-and-silver-coated wolves barreled through their ranks. Leaping and snarling, the wolves raced straight for Maurice and Izzy. Izzy was alarmed, but Maurice shouted at them in French, and they gathered around them both. Then half of them-there were maybe ten-turned and faced the oncoming zombies. They snarled and pranced, eager for prey.