I laughed, managing to sound entirely unperturbed. From my peripheral vision, I watched as Eli and Thema maneuvered around the room for the best firing positions. The unchained humans on the floor watched too, their hands hidden. Yeah. Too many against our few. Bruiser was to my left. Molly shuffled to my right. Big Evan moved behind her, humming so low it vanished into nothingness. Magic rose on the air. Shimon didn’t seem to notice. He had no witches with him and either he had changed himself too much to use his own witch magic, or his control of Edmund kept him from seeing and hearing the magic I felt rising in the air.
When my laughter trailed off, I sighed, stealing a ploy from Leo’s playbook, shaking my head. “Ah,mon ami. I bring you a sad tiding. Joses is...” I tapped one claw, one time, on the jade hilt, as if looking for a better word. Tapped again, the sound ringing in the sudden silence. “... dead.”
“Foolish female,” Ed’s lips said. “The Sons of Darkness cannot be killed. We are truly immortal.”
“Not so. Dead. Headless, heartless, chopped up into small pieces.” I let my smile widen, showing my fangs. “For starters.”
The last hints of the languid pose vanished as Shimon sat up. “Where is my brother? What have you done with the pieces of his body?”
“Give me my primo.”
Edmund began to scream. The wail was unlike anything I had ever heard, a note so painful it hurt my ears like fingernails on a blackboard, like rats being roasted alive over a fire, like piano strings made from the guts of a human prisoner, but ten times louder than any of these sounds. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, my ear tabs folded over in reaction, and my eardrums vibrated stridently. He was killing Edmund with just the power of his mind. I caught sight of the thing in the background again, but it was gone too fast to register as more than a charcoal-bright blur. It moved fast enough to be a vamp, but it didn’t look human-shaped.
Moving slowly, so the gathered would know that I wasn’t attacking, I pulled the Mughal blade and the vamp-killer. I had never properly cleaned the blades. They were still coated with the blood of Joses and Titus. I grinned, showing all my teeth, all my viciousness. “I killed your brother with these knives. And I’m going to kill you.”
CHAPTER 10
After I Chopped Him into Kibble, I Fed Him to the Wolf
The screaming note went silent. The stillness ached with its absence, and Shimon sniffed the air. His black-on-black eyes widened as he recognized his brother’s blood scent in the rancid stench of decay, even over the stench of the assembled vamps and the herbal scent of Ed’s fresh blood. Edmund took a breath. “Impossible,” Shimon said with Ed’s lips.
“Problem,” Kojo said across the public channel, in my earbud. “Do you see? Shall I let it pass?”
“Affirmative,” Alex said into the comms system.
I smelled him before I saw him and I started to laugh for real. Brute appeared, jostling Evan aside, shoving between Lincoln and me, his head at my hip, all three hundred plus pounds of him. The white werewolf was growling, the sound like boulders grinding, like grizzlies fighting. He had missed the helo ride, but an angel-touched werewolf who could timewalk didn’t exactly need a helo. There was no grindylow with him, which was odd in a room full of humans, but that was a problem for another time.
So softly that the Flayer of Mithrans had to lean in tohear, I said, “On the contrary, you bucket of crap. After I chopped him into kibble, I fed him to the wolf.” Brute growled again. More Leo-like, I repeated, “Let my primo go. Abase yourself to your betters. Or suffer the evil that will follow.”
“My brother is not dead. I would know this. Therefore you lie.”
I remembered the heart in New Orleans, kept by Jodi and the witches, safe from this thing. But I didn’t let that show on my face. Maybe he really could tell there was a scrap of his brother left alive. What did I know? “Give me Edmund Hartley.”
Into my earbud Alex said, “The woman in purple, standing against the fireplace pillar. Her name is Monique Giovanni. She’s Onorio from Italy.”
“Copy that,” Bruiser murmured. He focused on the woman, who had brown hair and skin the color of hazelnuts. Monique was wearing a shade of purple that reminded me of black grapes. Her eyes shot to Bruiser and she went pale. The sensation of magic kicked up a notch, peppery and electric on my pelt tips. She had been about to drain one of our vampires. Now she was too engaged in a mental Onorio battle to hurt my people.
In Shimon’s syntax, Edmund said, “Perhaps we might effect a trade. Offer me something I would want. Or someone.” I didn’t know which of my people he thought he could trade for, but that wasn’t happening. His fingers fanned out, casually, “It is said that you have found the iron spike of Golgotha, and that it is yours. I have an appreciation for antiquities. I will trade your primo for this artifact.”
Leo had once said,“The Europeans’ greatest desire is for the remaining iron from the spike of Golgotha.”Because the iron could control vamps and witches and time itself. The iron and its magic were the most powerful metal on Earth. Shimon had to have a small piece at least, in order to create a time circle and to chitinize his own body. I had a few pieces, but not a full spike, not that I’d tell him that. Beside me, Bruiser began to breathe harder. I smelled his sweat. “No,” I said. “Give me Edmund Hartley.”
The sensation of magic in the room went even higher. I thought my ear tabs might burn from the power. “You will give unto me this spike,” he said, his tone laced with mesmerism, directed straight at me.
My knees went weak. My stomach went sour and sick, and my skinwalker magics began to race. I wanted to throw up, pass out, run with my tail between my legs. The Flayer could create fear, paralyzing terror. I couldn’t even breathe.
Beast growled deep inside, pierced my brain with her claws. The pain was needle sharp, and I settled. I managed a breath. I didn’t spew. “I will give you nothing,” I said, sounding almost like myself. “You will give me Edmund Hartley.”
The Flayer laughed, the sound like velvet and brandy and the stink of human ashes. Leo had never laughed so powerfully, so full of might. Beast sent steel into our knees or they might have buckled. “No,” he said. “I have claimed him. You have lost him. The thing you call Edmund is mine by right of might.”
Impasse.I stepped to the side, seeing Eli. He was in firing position, halfway concealed in a niche behind an open door. My fingers twitched toward my throwing knives.
To the side of the insectoid Shimon, two of his vampires fell, dropping as if dead. My first thought was Bruiser. But he was busy. So... Molly and death magics. As the vamps landed and bounced slightly, she inhaled, nostrils fluttering, excited, satisfied, yet wanting more. Her eyes closed in ecstasy. It was like sex and desire and power all mixed in together.
Shimon flinched. Just a little. His eyes flicked to my side, to Molly’s face. He said something with his own mouth, words Ed had never heard or couldn’t interpret, a curse for certain. Recognition, rage, a hint of something else in Shimon’s eyes.Avarice.He wanted Molly or wanted her dead.He knew what she was.
Edmund was bleeding from his eyes, watery, bloody tears. He was lying on his side, draped over the feet of the last Son of Darkness. Two more vamps dropped. Ed’smouth fell open; his eyes rolled back in his head. Shimon was killing him. I forgot to breathe. Molly chuckled, an evil witch cackle of pleasure and absolute strength.
Evan hummed a note so high his voice nearly broke. Stress drained his face to a pasty white. Wild hunger lit Molly’s. Bruiser, on my other side, was gasping, his magics erratic, rapidly depleting as he fought his first Onorio.
