I took in Brandon and Brian. They were secured back to back. The only evidence I had they were alive was... nothing. No evidence at all. Until one took a faint, shallow breath and mewled again.
In the corner was a large silver cage. Inside was a vamp in rags. He was sitting on a three-legged stool, hunched over a rounded boulder, tangled hair trailing down over it. It was hard to be sure, with the degree of emaciation and scraggly beard and hair, but I thought it was the man from the mural, Adan Bouvier, the male witch-vamp who could call storms. Which he was doing, but clearly not by choice. He was mostly skeleton, his feet bare, burned where they touched the silver cage, his hands like bird claws. His talons were buried in the stone.
No. Not just a huge stone, but a massive geode. One end had been cut open and the inside was filled with crystals of pure, clear quartz. I remembered the saw outside. And the forklift. They’d have needed both to maneuver all this equipment. This wasn’t a room that had been quickly thrown together. This room, this scenario, had been in planning for a long time. Fernand and Amitee had been busy.
Eli fired. Fired. He raced from the protection of the trunk, toward us. He took cover behind the silvered cage, which on first thought was foolish, but then I realized it had to be warded. That was part of the glow on the bars. Eli wasstanding near the door to the cage. He was trying to get it open. I wasn’t sure that was wise, but I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it. Beast ripped part of Amitee’s upper arm away and chewed it. I remembered a time when the thought of Beast eating from a human had made me ill. Now she was eating a vamp who was still alive (undead) and all I could wonder was how long it would take the vamp to regrow the musculature and wonder if Beast would throw up the vamp flesh.
Around and within the silvered cage, surrounding the vamp, a nimbus of power bloomed, a burning, spitting corona in a shade of yellow like Beast’s eyes. Outside, lightning cracked, hitting nearby. The silver cage lit up with power. Tilting Beast’s head up, I followed the cage walls high. They weren’t sterling, they were plated with a heavy coating of the stuff, but underneath the coating and above the cage, they were steel. Which would conduct power really well. The cage rose to the top like the spines of an umbrella, to the center, where they met and formed into a rod that went straight up into the roof. The lightning rod up top was attached to the steel and silver cage.Oh crap.The cage itself was a spell. With a witch-vamp inside it. With the quartz geode. In a storm that was affecting time magic.
Quartz was the best crystal to catch and traparcenciel. And with a such a massive amount of quartz crystals, vamps could imprison the rainbow dragons easily. They wanted to ride the rainbow dragons and move through time, changing the future, and maybe the past.
I felt it before I heard it. Before I saw it. That hair-raising moment before lightning strikes. The instant between life and death by Mother Nature, when everything stands still. And then lightning struck the rod atop the roof. In less than a heartbeat of time it raced into the building and exploded down the silver cage. Lightning so hot it melted the silver off the steel in places, in an acrid sizzle of molten metal. And into the body and hands of the imprisoned vampire-witch. His head arched back, hair flinging and standing high, back warped in unbearable pain. Mouth open, he screamed in what sounded like an orgasmic moment. The nimbus of magics around him glowed and went white.
Beast took back over and turned our eyes away to protect our vision.
Outside, in the storm, I heard a scream, a sound I had never heard before but instinctively knew. Magic was callingarcenciels, trying to trap them in the crystals within the geode. To take them as slaves for use in stopping and altering time.Lightning transformed into magic, I thought.In the hands of Leo’s enemies. Oh crap. We’re in so much trouble.
A weak growl vibrated through me/us. Pain shuddered through with it.
Beast dropped her head and tore out the shoulder of the vamp she clutched in her claws. She lapped up Amitee’s blood. The agony in my/our hip and side decreased. I/we were healing. But too slowly.
In the room before us, Edmund took a bullet in the face. Went down to one knee. Bruiser swept through the opening in the wall at the bedroom, swords flashing as he mowed down the humans. Three fell, one to the left and two to the right, dead at the hand of Leo’s former primo, former Enforcer. Bruiser was a source of death, like the Reaper’s darker evil twin. He was laughing softly as he moved. Laughing as he carved and cut and brought death to the humans in the strange camo clothing.
The remaining attacking humans gathered around him, swords glinting, flickering. They were fast for humans, slicing and advancing, using a form of La Destreza that was different from the one I was learning. Within moments the Onorio was bleeding from dozens of cuts and stabs. He staggered. I/we stood. Screamed out a challenge.Mate!
Gee stepped through the broken doorway. His sword cut so fast I couldn’t focus on it. He engaged the humans, all at once. In moments they were on the floor. A bleeding, groaning mass of humanity.
Fernand rose to his knees. Pulled a gun. Took aim with his one eye. He shot Bruiser.
CHAPTER 18
Yada Yada, Physics, Yada Yada
Bruiser dropped to knees. Fell face-first into blood and gore on floor.
Bruiser?Jane thought, trying to take over Beast body.
Beast held Jane down.Bruiser is Onorio. Is not dead. Is not meat.
Bruiser rolled over, groaning.
Gee rounded on Fernand and cut him across belly and chest and down one side in move that Jane calledZorro. Fernand shot Gee.
Beast laughed, chuffing sound. Pulled paws beneath. Tight. Balanced. I/we launched across room.
A hundred forty-five pounds of Beast–mass and momentum, Jane thought.This one is meat.
Hit Fernand in stomach with front paws. Claws extruded. Caught flesh. Landed on top of Fernand. Vamp bounced on floor. Face was not healed. Tore out his throat too. Ate it. Tasted good.Like vampire meat. Like vampire blood. Want more!Screamed challenge.
Gee got back to feet. Took down the rest of humans in cutting arcs of silvered-steel death. Fight was over.
Scent of big-cat alerted me/us. Ricky-Bo dropped from flat limbs in ceiling. Landed beside us. Looked at Ricky-Bo. Snarled. Pulled vampire close.Mine. Will not share.
Rick looked at me/us. At meat in claws. Turned away. Like black shadow, he moved into darkness and out beneath garage door into sleet.
The entire fight took maybe three minutes,Jane thought.A long time for a firefight.
Eli squatted in front of us. “Babe. You’re freaking out the natives. You gotta stop chewing on the dead.”
