The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (33 page)

The living gaunt had a white, sallow hand out, its claw ready to rake Ken’s face. Ken was barely managing to keep it at bay with both hands pushing against it. Sara half-ran, half-stumbled over, and when she was close enough that she couldn’t miss, fired the gun again.

The gunshot echoed again throughout the room and the concert hall at large.

“Goddammit,” Rakev’s voice boomed. “This is why you people can’t have nice things. Reeker! Do your thing.”

A minute later, the backstage room was filled with thick, gray fog, the same kind she’d encountered in Wallace’s office. It was hard to see, but she knew she was near Ken. She moved forward slowly, feeling in the mist for him, finally grasping his hand.

“You okay?” she said, though she could barely hear herself. As before, the fog was dampening sound, though the effect seemed less pronounced than it had earlier.

She could at least see Ken, who nodded. She helped get him to his feet. They clutched at each other’s hands, two islands in a sea of gray. She couldn’t even tell which way the stage was anymore.

She dreaded seeing the black, tentacled monster in the mist again, but the next figure to emerge from the fog was a stoneskin, its tall form suddenly looming over them both. Ken let go of her hand and fired his gun, but the bullets didn’t appear to have any effect. It kept walking forward, ignoring Sara and grasping Ken by the shoulders. It head-butted into Ken, the blow dropping the detective like a rock.

With her good leg, Sara kicked at the stoneskin’s knees as hard as she could. The blow connected, but it felt like kicking a statue made of concrete. The thing lumbered toward her.

She aimed the gun and prepared to fire, aware she was wasting precious bullets. Before she could, however, she felt strong hands grab her and pull her back into the fog. The stoneskin and Ken’s limp form vanished from sight as she was yanked away.

She fought to hit what was behind her, trying to turn to see her attacker. But she felt a sharp blow on the back of her head, and everything collapsed into darkness.

Rakev could not have given Soren a better weapon if he had tried.

The fog was meant to keep a potentially unruly crowd from fleeing, but the cloak of grayness was exactly what Soren needed to attack Rakev’s supernatural henchmen.

He moved carefully down the aisle, trying to remember where the monsters had been positioned. He could only see five or six feet ahead of him, but judging from the audience’s reactions, that was further than humans could.

Soren spotted a shirken in the aisle in front of him. It was looking toward the crowd and didn’t notice Soren’s approach. Soren flexed his hand, remembering the speed and strength he’d used earlier in fighting the men. He needed that now.

He walked up behind it, the creature noticing him only when Soren moved within striking distance. It turned just as Soren punched directly into the thing’s head, aiming for its right eye. It felt like hitting a wall of sand. His fist disappeared inside the creature. When he pulled it out, there was some small resistance, the creature’s anatomy making it hard to pull out, but Soren was too strong. The shirken collapsed onto the floor, dead.

Soren saw movement and looked up as a stoneskin emerged from the mist. It tried to grab Soren by the throat, but he knocked the hand away, surprising them both. Soren launched himself at it, driving it back until it hit the chairs nearby. Soren managed to grab the stoneskin’s head and rammed it with a surge of strength into the metal armrest at the end of the aisle. The creature stopped moving almost at once.

This hadn’t been like fighting the stoneskin at Rakev’s place. Soren was faster and stronger now, still buoyed by his memories of the real Soren’s life. He paused long enough to flip through them, like a slide presentation in his mind. He pictured the first time he and John met Sara, when they were eight. He recalled his father teaching him how to ride a bike. And he remembered the simple happiness that came from jumping off a swing, trying to calculate when it was at its maximum height so he could impress his friends with his daring.

Soren moved through the mist like an avenging spirit. He found a stoneskin facing away from him and reached up behind it, snapping its neck before it even knew he was there. He spotted a gaunt and leaped into the air, his foot catching its head with such force he knocked it clean off. He landed on his feet, and found a shirken nearby. This one must have seen what he’d done, because it turned tail and began running, trying to escape into the fog. Soren ran it down and took it out.

To Soren, his opponents seemed to be moving slowly. Their punches were slow and clumsy, their attempts to block him almost pathetic. He killed shirkens, gaunts, and stoneskins while knocking Rakev’s remaining men unconscious. His senses were sharper, his instincts keener. Instead of hampering him, the mist masked the sounds of his slaughter, preventing his enemy from knowing he was even there.

He wondered if it was the same for Friday. He’d heard no sounds from the upper balconies, but the fog would have covered it even if she’d been making a racket. He just had to hope she was taking as much advantage of the fog as he was.

Soren actually found the thing called the Reeker once, a horrific creature that lashed out at him with black tentacles that Soren dodged. He didn’t bother to kill it. It didn’t appear to be hurting anyone, likely because Rakev was trying to preserve everyone for his ritual sacrifice. It was there to help sow confusion among the crowd, which stayed rigidly in their seats. Soren jumped over the Reeker, preferring to work under its generous cloak of invisibility.

Soren lost track of the numbers he killed. He was out of breath and sweating, pushing himself as fast and far as he could go. He estimated it had been less than ten minutes since the fog had closed in.

When he’d cleared sufficient numbers, Soren ran to the back of the concert hall, and tried to get the attention of some of the people still in their seats. He found one woman near the aisle and pulled on her, pointing to the exit, but she drew away from him in fear.

After a moment, he could see why. He was covered in blood, some of it different colors. Not all creatures bled red apparently. With a thought, Soren cleaned his clothes, coming to the ill-timed revelation that he would never need to go to the dry cleaner’s again. Unfortunately, his performance did nothing to persuade the woman he wasn’t a monster himself. Unless he physically picked her up and carried her out, she wasn’t moving.

“I wouldn’t bother,” a voice behind him said. “They’re too scared.”

Soren turned to find Rakev standing in the aisle before him.

Rakev watched him with an inquisitive look on his face.

“Sam, right?” he asked, and then he shook his head. “No, that’s not it. Smith? Don’t help me, I know it starts with an S.”

The Reeker’s fog swallowed up sound, but Rakev’s arms were stretched out and the mist was moving away from him. He was effortlessly pushing the mist back with a mere gesture, clearing a small circle around them in one of the main aisles.

“Soren!” Rakev said, snapping his fingers. “That’s it. Didn’t I kill you? I could’ve sworn I did. My information said you were human, and judging from your recent performance, I kinda doubt that now.”

“You could see me?”

Rakev nodded.

“I kept thinking I should step in and stop it, but it was actually very entertaining. I don’t know if you could tell, but I was completely bored up there. It was fun to play with them at first, but those last few kills—between you and me, I was just phoning it in.”

“They were your men,” Soren said.

Rakev shrugged.

“They were going to die in a few minutes anyway,” he said. “I only needed them for crowd control, and it turns out I didn’t even need them for that. These stupid yahoos aren’t going anywhere. They’re too trained to just sit there like the dumb sheep they are.” He sighed with evident disappointment. “I expected more of a fight.”

Rakev’s lips curled up in a cold smile. “Looks like I’ll get one from you, though.”

Soren thought of Friday, hoping she was nearby. With the two of them together, they might have a shot at taking Rakev down. As soon as he thought of her, he glanced above him, not that it did him any good. The fog obscured the upper balconies. He wasn’t sure shouting would help, either. He had no way to reach her.

Rakev followed his look.

“Oh I see, you’re hoping your partner will assist you,” Rakev said. “Won’t happen. I spotted one of my men up there killing the rest of my guys. Wasn’t hard to figure out a pretender was involved. There was a lot of screaming and yelling as I ripped her apart, but she’s dead now.”

Soren’s heart sank. If Friday was gone, Soren was in real trouble. He would just have to hope that perhaps some small part of Friday had survived, and she might be able to reform. He doubted it would happen in time to help him, but he wanted to hold onto the shred of hope that she wasn’t gone for good.

For right now, however, he would just have to accept that he was on his own—again.

“Just you and me, buddy,” Rakev said, as if reading his mind. “I saw what you were doing to the shirkens and stoneskins though. You’re good. Of course, those are lesser demons. I doubt you’ve faced a higher one yet.”

“I didn’t realize you were ranked,” Soren said.

“There’s a whole hierarchy, really,” Rakev continued. “But me? I’m on a whole other level, pal. You should have walked away when you could.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because it’s fun,” he said. “Also, because they kicked me out for being a problem child. They’re about to learn just what kind of a problem I can be.”

“Who?” Soren asked. “Who did this?”

Rakev rolled his eyes.

“A bit slow, aren’t you?” he asked. “The same people that made your kind. They go by lots of names, but the most common is—”

“The Council,” Soren said, understanding suddenly dawning on him.

“The one and only,” Rakev said. “They ruled here once, and they aim to do it again. But not if I get there first. You ought to thank me. Once I’m through with them, I’ll return here and mop your world up. I’ll deliver humanity a quick and somewhat painless death, with the exception of Sammy Hagar. That’s more merciful than the rest of the Council has planned. But the rest of the Council will not be as generous as me. When they come—and they are on their way, trust me—the lesser demons and humanity will all be under their yoke once more.”

“You said ‘the rest of them.’ So you work for the Council?”

A flash of anger passed over Rakev’s face, but he quickly regained control.

“Work for them?” he said. “A long time ago, I was a member of the Council.” He said the word as if it were a disgusting thing. “One of its leaders. And the bastards thought they could throw me out. Now all the doorways between their world and ours are either shut or kept hidden. So I decided to make a new one. And I’m close, buddy. I will walk through that portal, and wipe them all out.”

Rakev pulled something out of his jacket. It was a silver gun with smooth, rounded edges. It didn’t look like anything Soren had ever seen before.

“Humanity, the pitiful wretches, found the answer,” he said. “I forget what this actually does. Blah, blah, blah, quantum entanglement, blah, blah, blah. The point is it will kill anything—anything—in its path. Including members of the Council.”

As Rakev talked, Soren noticed a strange, blue light behind Rakev, glowing through the mist. The dagger’s light was now as bright as a lighthouse on a foggy night.

Rakev turned back to see what Soren was looking at.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked. “Take a look at the people you wanted to save, Soren. It’s already too late. They’re trapped in its spell, like ants in amber.”

Rakev extended a finger, pointing to the woman in the aisle. She wasn’t looking at either Soren or Rakev, but straight ahead. Her eyes were glassy and dull and her mouth hung open. A trail of bluish smoke, almost invisible in the gray fog that still surrounded them, drifted out of it.

The knife was taking her life force. Soren could see beyond her to the man in the chair next to hers, and saw a wisp of blue smoke coming from his mouth as well.

“It’s stealing their lives,” Rakev said, a note of triumph in his voice. “Anyone human anywhere close to this room is now completely immobilized. The door will open soon. And when it gets strong enough—boom! No more DC, but I get a nice, open doorway. You know you’re almost out of time, right? I’ve been monologuing you to run out the clock. I don’t care if we stand here and yak all day, but if you’re going to fight me, you might want to give it a go. This is it, the final countdown. Damn, I wish I’d gotten them to play that song. That was a missed opportunity. Anyway, I estimate you’ve got about ten minutes—”

Soren leaped at Rakev. Before he could hit him, however, Rakev held up a hand and a force stopped Soren in his tracks. Rakev gave him a cocky smile.

“What’s the matter, buddy? I’m standing right here.”

With a small gesture, Rakev threw Soren into the air, sending him flying so high he crashed into the outside of an upper balcony, and then was sent hurtling to the ground. He landed on people in the seats below. They didn’t notice him, but continued to stare straight ahead. Soren scrambled off them and into the aisle.

“What’s your plan, huh?” Rakev called to him, his voice somehow cutting through the mist. “Were you going to sneak up on me, too? Did you really think that would work?”

Soren couldn’t see where he was, but instead could only see the blue light glowing like a beacon through the fog. A wave of despair washed over him. Even with his enhanced abilities, he didn’t think he could beat Rakev. How could he defeat someone he couldn’t touch?

Just give up. You failed John. You failed Alex. You failed Sara. You failed everybody. You’re the villain, not the hero.

It was that voice again, the same one that had tormented him for the past two months. He hadn’t missed it. He recognized it now as the voice of surrender. It was the same voice that had urged him to kill himself, the same one that constantly reminded him of his failings. He was fucking tired of it.