Devil Sent the Rain (9 page)

“What do you need?”

Adrian hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “With this eye in, I can see a line of energy running from me up into the sky. I think I can follow it and get us out, but the eye won’t stay in my head anymore.” He held the eye in his palm to show Jim.

“That’s a weird damn sentence,” Jim said.

“It’s a weird damn experience.”

“Is that the Third Eye?”

Adrian shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe an … analog of it, or something? We’re in my shadow here, so it’s a version of some real thing.”

“Affected by your experience and perceptions.”

“Yeah.” Adrian held the eye up and Jim took it from him. “Elaine seems to think you know some magic.”

Jim pressed the tawny eye to his own socket. Strange as it was to push the thing into his own eye, it was stranger still to watch Jim’s eye take the object. The singer’s long-lashed eyelids slid forward like the two lips of a mouth and wrapped themselves around the bloody, squashed orb, sucking it in. Jim reeled back, a little unsteady, clenching his eyes shut.

Adrian looked nervously past the singer at the rest of the band. Twitch was down on the ground and Eddie stood over the drummer, fists up defiantly as two Fallen swung at him. He couldn’t even block the punches now, but just shrugged into them, trying not to get knocked out or take the blows directly on his biggest wounds. The third Fallen stood, holding Mike by the throat and shaking him like a doll. Elaine Canning clung to his shoulders, biting and screaming, but it wasn’t clear she was doing any damage.

Hurry, Adrian thought.

Jim straightened and his eyes opened. One was silver and the other was tawny.

“She’s wrong,” he said. “I’m no wizard. But I’ll do what I can.”

“Do you have the umbilical cord?” Adrian asked him.

Jim shook his head. “You do. And it doesn’t come from your belly button, it comes out of your mouth.”

Of course. “It’s the string,” he realized out loud. “The string I swallowed as a conduit to the ka-energy of the ward I was trying to hack into.”

“So you can follow it back out.” It wasn’t a statement. It might have been an order.

“Yeah, I think so.” Adrian wasn’t as confident as he thought he sounded. “If I can see it or feel it.”

“Here.” Jim grabbed Adrian’s hand and pressed it against his throat. Hand at his own Adam’s apple, Adrian could feel a soft, warm vibration, like a battery-powered plush toy giggling faintly for the ten thousandth time as its battery died.

“Yeah,” Adrian agreed. “Get the others.”

He started chanting. Chalk would be good, but he had none in his pockets. Fortunately, he had plenty of his own blood, and in streaky red lines he began tracing some basic wards on the fleshy floor around him.

Eddie was on his knees when Jim hurled himself sideways into the angels attacking him. Adrian didn’t know if the whole Cyrano de Bergerac story was true—didn’t know what the story was with Elaine Canning, or how old Jim really was, or anything else—but the guy could
fight
. He spun horizontal like a log going down a river through the air. His boots kicked one angel in the face and with his hands he grabbed the long hair of the other and dragged it sideways with him into a muddle on the ground.

“Go!” Jim shouted to Eddie.

Eddie picked up Twitch and stumbled in Adrian’s direction. The fairy bled from numerous wounds in her body, and Eddie looked like he’d been chewed on by a pack of dogs. Beyond them, Jim kicked one of the angels out of the way and then drew the other back by its hair to punch it in the face—

and paused.

He squinted at the Fallen’s chest. He’s seen the chest-plate, Adrian thought.

The third angel jumped Jim.

“Mike!” Eddie shouted. The guitar player tossed Twitch to Adrian’s feet in a crumpled heap and lurched to grab the bass player.

Jim staggered sideways, punched in the temple, but Elaine Canning didn’t abandon the singer. She lunged into the fray, grabbing the third angel’s ankle and dragging it to the ground. Jim kicked that Fallen in the shoulder, flipping it over on its back and staring at its chest for a moment before one of the others grabbed him around the knees.

“Go!” he yelled, falling to the ground.

Adrian sucked in the cold wet air of the storm and tried not to think about even the possibility of passing out. He felt the warm vibration at his throat, visualizing it as the anchored end of the golden cord running into the sky, out of his belly and into the ward in the restaurant of the Silver Eel. He felt ka-energy under his fingertips, and coursing through his being.

“
Per Wepwawet Mercuriumque semitam sequitor
,” he chanted, willing himself up the cord and into the Kansas City club.

“I love you!” he thought he heard Jim say.

He gritted his teeth, stayed awake, and passed from one storm into another.

***

Chapter Nine

SPLASH!

Adrian hit the water, deep as his waist, choking. Around him he heard more splashing, thuds and muffled curses. His body was too numb to feel the cold, but on his face the filthy flow felt like ice water, and burned his skin. His hands tightened convulsively as he bumped into the hard floor, and he was a little reassured to realize that he held the Third Eye.

Not the weird-dream meatball of the tawny eye, but the hard glass of his uncle’s monocle.

Of Adrian’s monocle, dammit.

He retched, gagged, and spit out the string running down his esophagus, then pushed up off the floor and arced out of the water, blowing grit and mud from his teeth like a porpoise emerging from a tank of sewage to spout out its blowhole. Around the rain- and river-blasted wreckage of the Silver Eel’s restaurant, he saw others doing the same—the band as well as the three Fallen—everyone regaining his balance in the howling wind and sideways rain of the storm.

The dim and downward-pointing lights of the restaurant, even with a number of them shattered by the weather, were a relief from the shifting, psychedelic colors of attic-roof in Adrian’s shadow. Also, none of them looked like bugs or body parts, so that was a serious improvement.

As Mike had predicted, the former angels were once again twenty feet tall and bestial. Semyaz didn’t look quite as scary, though, flailing in a muddy soup like a naughty kid taking a bath in a puddle. Adrian almost laughed—

until he saw the headless body of Mouser, the club gopher. The corpse lay with limbs in broken-doll positions against a pile of restaurant flotsam, shattered tables and chairs, pulverized china, ruined table cloths, bits of mantisoid demon burnt extra-crispy, and other junk, all piled into a blockage at the top of the stairs leading down. It was an accidental dam, and Mouser lay dead on top of it. That was why the water in the restaurant was so deep, Adrian realized. He tried not to think about the girl.

Or Elaine. What had happened to Elaine Canning, who had helped him more than once?

Adrian saw his taser on the pile beside Mouser and picked it up.

“Run!” Eddie yelled.

“
STOP!
” Semyaz bellowed.

The Fallen sloshed to their feet, sending up colossal sprays of water.

Adrian snapped his monocle to his eye and threw a glance around the restaurant. The wards were gone, ruined. Probably their energy had been diverted into creating the shadow-trap Adrian had sunk them all into, but that was an academic question at this point. The wards were gone, so the band could leave.

Semyaz and Ezeq’el lunged for Jim at the same moment. He scooted between them, moving himself further away from the rest of the band and the stairs down. Fists pounded into the choppy water around him, and it looked like he was heading out the front door. Where’s he going? Adrian wondered. The van is totaled, and the only one of us who knows how to hotwire cars is Mike. Does Jim think he can just outrun them on foot?

Adrian was close enough to help. He raised the taser and pressed its
fire
button.

Fitzzzz.
Nothing.

“Hell.”

Eddie charged towards Adrian. He jammed the Glock under one armpit and dug in his jacket pocket for shells as he ran, kicking up thick sprays of brown water. “Go!” he yelled, kicking Mike in the direction of the stairs.

“Where?” Mike wiped water from his face and followed. “Mierda, where are we going?”

“Anywhere but here!”

Twitch pushed into Adrian’s face, snapping her fingers. “Are you awake, big boy?” the fairy asked him. Adrian felt the sexual allure of her Glamour and grinned. It was familiar and normal enough that it almost felt good.

“I’m awake,” he said, and jammed the taser into his jacket pocket. “I’m trying to figure out if I should firebolt one of those big guys.”

Together they turned and looked at the action. Jim didn’t run out the front door; at the last second he slipped to one side and ran vertically up the steel doorframe, his speed carrying him forward and into the air like Jackie Chan on steroids, despite the fact that his boots were designed for other things and were also soaking wet.

Bull-headed Yamayol lurched forward, grabbing at Jim. He missed, and his barrel-sized fist punched through the steel of the frame, crumpling it—

but Jim was already kicking off and leaping away into mid-air, flying backwards and leading with his head.

Semyaz snapped with his tusks, and missed.

Jim completed a reverse somersault and came down on Ezeq’el’s broad back. The centauress reared up, surprised, and rammed her own head and shoulders into the ceiling. Chips of concrete and a cloud of white dust exploded downward and were instantly swept into the flood by the wind and rain. Ezeq’el staggered sideways; Jim held his seat by virtue of having his two hands balled up in the long curls of Ezeq’el’s hair that flowed wet down her back.

Adrian raised the Eye and tried to choose a target. He patted himself for the candle but couldn’t find it; that would make the spell harder, more exhausting, but they couldn’t leave Jim behind. For starters, Jim had the hoof.

“Can you help him?” Adrian suggested to Twitch.

“Can
you?
” the fairy countered, but she leapt forward into the wind, flapping her wings once and becoming the silver, horse-tailed hawk that was her avian form. She circled the fray, looking for an opening.

“Come on, dammit!” Adrian heard Eddie yell. “Jim knows what he’s doing!”

“No man!” Adrian yelled, and looked for his open shot.
No man left behind
was a stupid thing to say. They weren’t Marines, they were rock and rollers, and not very organized rock and rollers at that. But he hadn’t come this far to leave Jim in the hands of the Fallen.

Besides, this was Jim’s body, and not just his name and ba. And Jim’s body had Azazel’s hoof taped to its belly.

Yamayol jumped at Jim, swinging with both fists. Adrian winced, imagining the crushing pain that contact would inflict, and raised the Eye, taking aim at the bull’s forehead—

but Twitch plowed into Yamayol’s face, clawing at the bull’s cheek and eye with her talons and emitting a high-pitched, piercing shriek.

Yamayol stumbled and missed. He fell heavily with his elbows on Ezeq’el’s back and pushed her hindquarters down and into the flood. Ezeq’el slapped behind her with both hands. She shook her head, still a bit dazed from punching her head through the ceiling. Jim scrambled to his feet, clinging to her hair and writhing this way and that to avoid being caught.

“Crap!” Eddie yelled. He and Mike opened fire. They’d have to make a ridiculously lucky shot to do any real damage, Adrian thought. Mouser had already tried this and failed—and died for her trouble. Adrian deliberately didn’t look at the dead club gopher.

What Jim needed was a little support from the band’s big gun. That would be Adrian.

Semyaz charged, roaring. Adrian raised the Eye again, to fire at Semyaz—

Jim jumped. Narrowly avoiding both sets of giant arms grabbing for him, he hurled himself upward and into the porcine face of Semyaz.

Blocking Adrian’s shot.

“Son of a bitch!” Adrian snapped. Darkness clouded the edges of his vision and his heart pounded loud in his ears. He shook off the creeping fatigue and focused.

Jim slammed into the Fallen’s chest and Semyaz staggered back. Somehow, Jim held on—was he gripping the former angel by his chest hair? Adrian wondered—and rode the collapsing Fallen down like a surfboard on a tidal wave.

Then Yamayol whipped around, fist out like a tetherball. He bellowed like the monster that he was and his head scattered a halo of thick blood as he snapped in a circle—

POW!
—

and punched Jim.

The singer sailed through the air in Adrian’s direction. The wizard ducked and quickly shuffled to one side, and Jim splashed heavily against the dam of tablecloths, body parts, and restaurant furniture.

Right on top of Mouser’s body.

“Huevos!” Mike yelled. The big guy had been taking cover behind the piled up debris, and Jim’s landing soaked him again.

Twitch touched down immediately after Jim, and she and Eddie pulled the singer from the water.

“Downstairs!” Eddie barked. “The water’s draining, so there must be a way out!”

“Water can drain through a toilet,” Adrian pointed out reflexively, and regretted it. However bossy he was being, Eddie was probably right. There was probably a way out on the bottom floor, at the level of the river. Depending on how long the rain lasted, they might not have much time to take advantage of the fact.

Semyaz rolled in the water, regaining his feet. Yamayol wiped blood from his eyes and blinked to recover his vision, and Ezeq’el shook her head. They’d be after the band again in a moment.

“Hey,” Mike said, and picked up something from the flotsam of the dam. It was Jim’s sword, and he held it out to the singer.

Jim took his weapon and grabbed Adrian by the front of his jacket.

“Can you make wards of commanding?” he demanded.

Adrian hesitated. There was a crazy light in Jim’s eyes, even crazier than his normal driven mania. “Sure,” he said. “But there’s no point, without the true name of the person being bound.”

“Get downstairs,” Jim snarled. “Do whatever you have to, and turn the downstairs into a ward of commanding. I’ll give you as much time as I can, but that will be very little.”

“What are you doing, Jim?” Eddie asked. “Let’s run.”

“I’m not leaving Elaine.” Jim’s skin was whiter than usual from the cold, and the veins in his temples and the cords in his neck stood out with the effort of speech. He turned back to the Fallen, who were lumbering in their direction.

“And the names?” Adrian said. “For want of a nail … you know.” Jim was very tall, and his leaning over Adrian reminded Adrian of his own diminutive stature.

“Leave them blank,” Jim told him. “And be ready.”

He spun around and bounded back to the attack, sword slashing the air in front of him.

Elaine?

Adrian remembered something he’d glimpsed through the Eye earlier, so he held it up and looked again. It was still there: a pulsating red light on Semyaz’s chest, in the shape of a rose. Elaine, when she looked like Mouser in Adrian’s dream-shadow nightmare house of flesh, had been wearing pajamas with roses on them.

That was what the Fallen had come to try to barter with Jim. They had his lover, and were offering to give her back. Her presence in the … object on Semyaz’s chest, whatever it was, had led to her being trapped in Adrian’s shadow with the rest of them.

Adrian had a sudden sick feeling in his stomach that Semyaz’s offer was probably really, really attractive to Jim.

No time to worry about that. He turned and ran.

Adrian climbed over the debris at the top of the stairs. On the other side, water poured down the steps in a shallower stream. He shivered from the storm’s cold and dug with numb fingers in his pockets.

He had chalk.

The stairs zigged one direction, zagged the other and then the four of them sloshed into a short hallway lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. The water was up to Adrian’s waist again, and he noticed with disappointment that the ceiling was plenty high enough for the Fallen to force their way through. Of course it was.
They’d
chosen the location for the trap.

“Mike,” Eddie gruffed. “Wait here for Jim.”

“Carajo,” the bassist said. He snapped the clip out of his M1911 and pushed a few bullets into it. “Why me?”

“’Cause if it’s you,” Adrian joked, “at least you’ll have your brother to keep you company.”

“That ain’t as funny as it must have sounded inside your head, man,” Mike complained. “But maybe a good joke about your uncle would make us all laugh.”

Adrian’s shoulders drooped. Ah, hell.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Sorry.”

“I’m the better sentinel, anyway,” Twitch offered. They all looked like they’d been roughed up, but she looked the worst. The hurricane of wind and water weren’t enough to wash away the blood from the wounds she’d received when she’d been smashed head-first into the concrete ceiling. Fairies were tough, Adrian thought. If he’d been in her place, he’d have left his brains behind.

“I wish you were better-armed,” Eddie said, offering her his Glock.

“Why would a girl need to be
armed
,” Twitch asked with a grin, “if she’s
winged?
”

“Too much banter.” Adrian started off down the hall, looking for a room. He needed to enclose all three of the Fallen in a single circle, if he could, and he didn’t trust the smallness of the space. He pushed forward holding the chalk over his head in one hand and the lens in the other, and suddenly it occurred to him to wonder how he was going to inscribe a circle, when the floor was four feet under water.

The sloshing sound of his friends at his heels didn’t reassure him. Whatever Jim had in mind, they were all depending on Adrian to get his part of it right. He breathed deeply, fighting back a constricted feeling in his chest. You’re the big gun, he told himself. Be the big gun.

Then the hall ended in a large room, and his heart sank.

The ceiling here was lower than it was on the upper floors, but still might be fifteen feet high. It would cramp the style of the Fallen to fight under it, but they’d fit. That wasn’t what made Adrian’s heart sink, though; there were boxes floating in the water, boxes and shelves stacked everywhere. This must be the Silver Eel’s stock room, he realized. However well-organized it might have been kept before, it was a disaster now. Soggy boxes of napkins and crates of frozen beef patties drifted around in the churning water like chunks of carrot in a stew of mud. Alcohol bottles puttered in circles like Sunday afternoon yachts, their labels slowly puffing up from the water. Shelves lay knocked over, with a folding ladder lying across the top of two of them. At the far end of the room, wind gusted in through shattered windows and a door that hung off its hinges.

The water didn’t flow out of the stock room, it just eddied in a slow circle. Outside, the water was just as high, and Adrian saw the dingy white hulls of cheap boats drifting in the darkness and the fury of the storm.