Blood Wyne (23 page)
“Damn, look at this. We could so easily get lost down here. What the fuck went on in this freak city?”
“As I said, there was a fire back in the late 1880s. It destroyed over twenty-five blocks of the city. What you see down here are the remains of the original city streets and buildings—” Chase ducked. “Shit! Spider! Crap,” he said, brushing something off and stamping on it.
We spread out in the room.
“What do you suppose this was? An intersection?” Morio flickered his light at his feet. Wooden slats, broken and rotted through in places, lined the floor.
“Probably a little market square or something,” I said, as a sudden gust blew by. “There’s no wind down here, is there?”
“Not that I would think,” Vanzir said. “Why?”
“Because if it wasn’t a breeze, then something just flew by me and jostled my elbow.” I was about to explore one of the side tunnels when another gust hit into me, only this time it was square in the back and hard, like hands shoving me forward. “Who the hell is that?” I whirled around.
Camille shrieked and went sprawling to the floor. “Fuck! Somebody just knocked me down.” She scrambled to her feet.
“Quick! Back to back!” I rushed over to her side and the five of us formed a circle, covering our backs. “Who’s there? What do you want?”
But there was just a loud echo as laughter ricocheted off the walls. And then, our flashlights went out and we were plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER 13
“Motherfucking pus bucket! What the hell—” Vanzir’s voice echoed in the darkness as our unseen assailant took a swipe at me.
Camille let out another yelp. “Something scratched me and man, it stings.”
“Enough of this.” Morio let out a growl and began to grow into his full demonic form—eight feet of youkai-kitsune, a cross between gorgeous man and dangerous fox with claws that could eviscerate a buffalo. As he shifted, he muttered something under his breath and there was a loud flash in the room and then, slowly, in the inky void, I began to see shapes around us.
Discorporate figures, black silhouettes surrounded by a faint green aura, filled the room. There must have been ten or eleven, circling us, no features showing—just shadow men, darting around us.
“What are they? Ghosts?” Camille breathed slowly, but I could still hear the tremor of her voice.
“Not ghosts,” Morio said. “I don’t really know what they are.”
Chase let out a low sigh. “I can see into them. They’re . . . they’re little bits of evil, incarnate in shadow form. They have no real consciousness, but they’re hungry for our life force.” His voice was distant, as if he were a million miles away.
“Chase?” I felt Camille shift as she turned in his direction. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t know, but I just do,” he whispered, sounding afraid of his own voice. “We need some light.”
Morio mumbled and foxfire lit the room with a neon glow. The effect was eerie—the shadow men circling us, a globe of green light hovering over us.
“So, what do we do about them?” I stared at our opponents. They could obviously hurt us, if they’d knocked Camille to the ground and managed to almost shove me off my feet. And now, in the light of the foxfire, I could see that Camille was bleeding from a long scratch down her arm. “You okay?”
She glanced down at it and shrugged. “Yeah, unless it turns out to be poisoned. I’ve been hurt so many times that I feel like I’m constantly wearing a big red bull’s-eye on my back. Let me try a blast of Moon magic.”
“Shit, just don’t backfire. We don’t want to spread too far apart here.”
With a nod, she raised her hands and closed her eyes, focusing. I surreptitiously stepped to the side. Although the death magic she performed with Morio usually went right, her Moon Mother magic still backfired a good share of the time. One backlash was all it took.
As she summoned her power, one of the shadow men suddenly let loose and raced for me. I raised my arm to block his high kick and was surprised when he slammed into me hard enough to knock me off my feet.
“They’re tough!” I somersaulted backward, rolling easily to my feet. As I came up in a crouch, the shadow closed in on me, and I could hear a faint snarl on the wind. It slashed out with one darkened hand and hit me in the gut, a razor-sharp slice cutting me deep above the belly button. I jumped back and it kept on going, tumbling over itself as I threw it off balance.
As it went down, I decided to see just how corporeal it was and stomped on its back, landing dead center. My boot met solid flesh. “These things have to take form to attack us!” I jumped on its back with both feet, landing as hard as I could. The creature let out a huff and flattened to the floor. Then, before I could do anything, it vanished.
Camille held out her hands toward four of them that were congregating around her. “Eat this, suckers!”
Maybe not the most elegant of spells, but a brilliant flash came forking from her fingers, the lightning striking all four, branching out in the cavern with a concussion that shook the walls and floor. The creatures vanished, sizzling.
Morio raced forward and two of the shadow men engaged him. They swiped at him and blood trickled down his side. He caught them in his massive hands and the next thing I knew, they were howling and trying to get away, but he began to squeeze the shadows together and their screaming grew louder. There was a loud slurping sound and they vanished like bubbles popping.
Stepping out in front of us, Vanzir held out his hands. “Let’s see if these motherfuckers have anything to feed on.” He closed his eyes, and pale snakelike tentacles emerged from his palms to barb themselves into the shadow men. Vanzir could feed on life energy. If these creatures
had
any form of life.
had
any form of life.
It occurred to me that whatever spell Morio had cast was allowing us to see into the astral—which made sense if we could see the auras of our enemies. Vanzir’s tentacles weren’t visible in the physical realm.
Vanzir let out a throaty laugh, reveling in his hold on the creatures. In a way, I felt sorry for him. He had tried to walk away from his nature but we had forced him back into it, the same as Karvanak—his previous owner—had. But at least we were fighting the bad guys.
As his head dropped back, a look of pure lust stole over his face and he opened his eyes. Like pinwheels, unfathomable colors flickered through Vanzir’s eyes. His gaze was scintillating. Camille stared at him, mesmerized, and started forward.
“Get away,” he said hoarsely, motioning her back. “I can’t control myself when I feed, even if my life depends on it. If I didn’t snag you in with my feeders, I’d end up tearing your clothes off and fucking you raw.”
Camille shook her head, blinking, as Morio yanked her out of the way.
I turned at a scuffling noise behind me and saw Chase wrestling with one of the shadow creatures. I poised myself to leap on it and help him when he let out a shout and the thing rebounded back. I couldn’t see what he’d done to it, but the thing went
poof
and vanished.
poof
and vanished.
“Are you okay?” I ran to his side and yanked him to his feet as he raised his hand for help.
“Yeah, I think so.” Chase dusted off his suit and nodded toward Vanzir. “He’s got the last of them, it looks like.”
“Yeah, he does. I think.”
Just then, Vanzir drained the shadow men dry, and they vanished. Panting, he turned around to stare hungrily at Camille, and she took a step back. He stepped forward, then stopped himself.
“Don’t ever get near me again when I’m feeding.” He gave her a stark look. “You have too much life energy and stand out like a lollipop in the middle of a bunch of broccoli. I don’t think I could help myself.”
Morio let out a low growl, but Camille put her hand on his arm. “Stop. He can’t help it—it’s his nature.” She nodded at Vanzir. “Understood. I’ll try to keep my distance when we’re in a fight.”
He gave her a bleak smile. “Babe, you’d better.”
“Now what?” Chase asked.
“I think the question should be, what did you do to that creature?” I stared at him. “You couldn’t just knock it out with a punch to the kisser.”
Chase looked at me, bewildered. “I don’t know, to be honest. I just . . . I reached out and pushed. I remember thinking,
Get off me
, and I . . . shoved and it vanished.”
Get off me
, and I . . . shoved and it vanished.”
“Shoved . . . do you know if you touched it physically or with your mind?” Camille swung around, eyeing the detective.
He shook his head. “Don’t know. I really don’t remember.”
I gave Camille a warning shake of the head. Chase was obviously opening up in his abilities, but what they were, and what they would become, we didn’t have time to find out standing here below the streets of Seattle. “Well, whatever you did, it worked. As to what next . . . hell, I don’t know. We could explore each of those passages, but I’m afraid we might get lost.”
“Why don’t we head back to the main tunnel and see where it leads?” Vanzir nodded back toward the way we’d come. “This area seems too dangerous right now.” He seemed antsy.
I stared at him. “What’s up with you?”
He blinked. “Nothing. I just don’t want anybody hurt.”
Camille shrugged. “He may be right.”
“Okay,” I said. “The tunnels leading out of this chamber look too dark and too narrow anyway. And our flashlights aren’t working in here.” I led them back through the narrow passage, hurrying to get us back out to the main tunnel. Once we were there, our lights came back on.
“I don’t like it down here,” Camille said. She drew close to Morio. He put his arm around her shoulder. “I hate being underground.”
“I know. Let’s get a move on.”
We fell back in formation again. We’d been traversing the passage for another ten minutes when I stopped and looked up. Slivers of dim light filtered down.
“Wait here,” I said, then slid my gloves back on and headed up the iron-rung ladder again. As I came to the top and cautiously slid the manhole cover aside, I blinked, surprised to find myself smack in the middle of the park in which I’d found the girl’s body. About ten yards from where I’d found her body, to be exact. That meant our serial killer was probably using this tunnel system to come and go. If I was right, he had built himself a nest down here somewhere.
I scrambled back down the ladder. As I jumped the last five feet and turned to tell them what I’d found out, there was a loud shriek and a laugh, and one of the broken slats from the wooden floor sailed into the air, directly at me. Morio was standing nearest and he leaped to push me out of the way, but as he did so, the splintered end of the board lodged into his side.
Deep.
Blood began to flow heavily from the wound and he groaned, sinking to the floor.
Deep.
Blood began to flow heavily from the wound and he groaned, sinking to the floor.
“Crap!” I leaped to his side. Camille was already there, kneeling by him as Vanzir and Chase looked in vain for the attacker. The next moment, a hail of pebbles rained down on all of us, including a few stones as big as my fist. They hit hard, and we were all under attack.
“What do we do?” Chase yelled, trying to shield Camille and Morio.
Vanzir pushed Chase out of the way. “Get the kitsune above ground,” he said. “I can’t take him. If I tried to move him through the astral, it might worsen that wound.”
“I can do it,” I said, prying Camille’s hands off Morio. She was sobbing, trying to wake him up. Morio had fainted—probably from the pain. Demon or not, a large wooden stake in the side had to hurt. I gathered him in my arms and slowly began to rise toward the manhole, floating up. Carrying someone made it doubly hard to control the power—passengers were always problematic, but we didn’t have a choice. I’d done it a few times and I could do it again. My main goal was to get him up topside before the ghost decided to attack us while we were airborne. I bit my lip, concentrating on keeping us afloat.
Vanzir pushed Chase toward the rungs. “Get the fuck up there, Johnson. Menolly will need your help once she’s topside with Morio.” He turned back to the direction the stones had pelted us from.
Camille raced to his side, calling up the Moon Mother’s energy. As I neared the manhole cover, I heard Vanzir shout something, and then he laughed in that deep, terrifying throaty way he had.
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