The Isis Collar (37 page)

But we were going in early, hoping to throw her off-balance. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the best we could do. We needed to act fast. Children were dying.

“We leave in a half hour. Be ready and at the front door. Landingham, come with me. There’s something we need to go over with you.” Rizzoli rolled up the blueprints and left, with Matumbo and Kevin right behind him.

I grabbed the duffel, pulled out one of my daggers, and checked the edge. It really could use some sharpening. I’d been taking them to the gun range to practice throwing them. They weren’t really intended to be throwing daggers. But the last few times I’d used them, throwing was what ended up happening.

Bruno was watching me work with the daggers, but his brow furrowed when I took out the second dagger, the black one. “What the hell? What happened to that knife, Celie?”

I flinched. I didn’t have any reason to feel guilty. But I did. “I threw it through Lilith’s heart. The ancient vampire who attacked Matty? Might have been a spawn that got turned, or worse. It’s been black ever since. It still works, though.” He reached for it and I handed it to him. His hand began to glow when he passed it over the flat blade.

John looked interested. “Can I see the other one?”

I looked at Bruno. He shrugged, so I handed it over.

John let out a low whistle as he handled, flipped, and glided fingers over the blade. “Man! Sweet piece of work, DeLuca. What was the production time?”

“Five years.”

I thought John was going to spit up blood again the way he was coughing. “Five
years
?! Actual working, bleeding yourself, or just manipulation?”

Bruno dipped his head with pride and fire in his eyes. “Actual working. I did it to keep Celia alive. She wouldn’t be standing here today if not for these. That’s what Vicki Cooper predicted back in college and it was worth every cut, every drop of blood, every
minute
to see Celie here today. Fangs and all. She’s alive, has her soul.”

Awww— I smiled at him and he smiled back. John took a serious look at the interaction and suddenly wasn’t so sure of himself, and his effect on me. There was a bond between Bruno and me that even the pain of his actions lately couldn’t completely erase.

John handed the knife back, hilt first, and I slid it into the sheath. Bruno did the same. The forearm sheaths were nearly part of me. There were even permanent dents in my skin where the leather braces crossed, like a dent in a finger where a ring has remained for years without removal.

“I hope you all brought me some fresh clothes.” I stank. Seriously. I’d been tazed, fought, and had slept in these clothes. “And a toothbrush.”

“Toothbrush, yes. Change of clothes, no,” Creede answered. “You’re supposed to have been Jean-Baptiste’s captive. But I did bring beef broth.” He handed me a still-warm Styrofoam container.

I accepted the meal gratefully, but it sucked about no change of clothes. I could pull down my sleeves over the sheaths, but the outfit I was in really didn’t have anywhere for me to hide much in the way of spell disks or other weaponry. Definitely sucked. Big pond scum–covered rocks.

“You always look good to me,” Bruno said.

Creede rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. Whatever. Go brush your teeth and get ready for the party.”

25

We
strode
boldly up to the building. Well, Matumbo/Jean-Baptiste and the “guards” strode up. I was supposed to be a captive and injured, so they were pretty much dragging me. It was harder than it should have been for me to remain passive. My vampire nature was rising as the sun lowered, and adrenaline was pounding through my system. I managed it by reminding my inner beastie that we would get a chance to fight; we were just waiting for the right target.

Despite the fact that we’d arrived at sunset rather than midnight, the barrier I’d felt burning against my skin for almost a mile lowered when we approached.

The door swung open of its own accord—not like automatic doors at the grocery, but the slow, ponderous grating of squealing metal as the two-story delivery doors opened inward. It was meant to be creepy, and succeeded admirably. Even creepier, the witch was using magic to create invisible walls forming a hallway leading to the very center of the room. Those walls were all that shielded us from dozens of M. Necrose victims who shambled and scraped across the floor toward the living, moving beings they could sense but not see.

If I’d thought Principal Sanchez and the guy in the hospital were the worst things I’d ever seen, I simply had nothing to compare them to. Now I did, and the principal and her security guard were positively red-carpet material by comparison to the creatures pressing in against the magic. Skin hung in shards from nearly liquified muscles and bones that glowed with an eerie green-white. The sounds they made as they shuffled and scraped were … wet and made me want to claw away from Matumbo and run out in panic.

Where was aggression when I really needed it?

Glinda’s voice came from above and to our left. “You came early. How rude! I haven’t even had the chance to finish my preparations.” She was standing on the second-floor balcony, staring down at us like a Roman empress looking down on the Circus Maximus.

Those who are about to die, and all that. But I didn’t plan to.

“I brought the siren bitch.” Matumbo was flawless in her portrayal of Jean-Baptiste. There was contempt in the voice as she dropped me heavily to the floor.

Wish she’d given me warning she was going to do that. Ow. I pretended to rouse slightly, as though I wasn’t in my right mind.

“So I see.” Glinda looked me up and down critically. “Hmph.
This
is what my husband betrayed me for? By the way, did you enjoy fighting him, Siren? It seemed perfect retribution to send him to the hospital to kill you after what he did. I really thought that would have done it. But really, he died to protect
that
?”

That was Jamisyn? Yeah, he deserved it, but I felt sort of bad about snapping his back now. Oh, and the incinerator, too, I suppose.

“I want my money!” The fake Jean-Baptiste was doing a bang-up job keeping Glinda distracted.

Until she wasn’t anymore.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” And she dropped the walls.

The smell assaulted me first and my stomach threatened to bring up the beef broth. I kept it down, but it was a struggle.

I’d really hoped to keep up the charade of the trance until I was closer to her. But I didn’t know if Agent Matumbo could be killed by M. Necrose. I didn’t dare take the risk. Instead, I took the initiative and leapt forward, kicking the first zombie off her feet. My foot sank into what appeared to be a solid calf and squished. Eww. Sheer instinct made me pull it back before I normally would have and scrape off the gook on the floor so I didn’t slip later.

Oh, I was so throwing away everything I was wearing tonight if I made it home alive. I didn’t want to look at their faces closely. I was afraid I’d recognize someone from the school. Matumbo raised a shield that stopped them cold, and Bruno reached around it to throw a fireball at the nearest zombie and slammed the fallen zombie with multiple spells that froze her in place. Apparently, they’d discussed a strategy that I didn’t know about. Rizzoli had drawn his firearm, and began carefully putting a bullet between each zombie’s eyes. The creatures burst into flickering blue-green flame. The effect was eerie as hell, but effective.
What in the hell?

He turned to catch my eye. “Experimental rounds.” He put down two more zombies in rapid succession. Between all of us, we were nearly through them. “The director commissioned them for use on vampires, but this works, too.”

I have got to get me some of those.

“We get through this and I’ll make sure you get a box.”

The key, of course, was getting through this. Because losing a few zombies wasn’t going to stop Glinda. There were plenty more coming, crawling over the bodies of the fallen. Plus, she still had all her stolen magic, and who knew what else in reserve. Since the troops hadn’t come in, the barrier had to be backed up, and its magic made it impossible for me to speak mind-to-mind to John.

The action didn’t stop while I was thinking this. In fact, it had intensified. Glinda threw a blast of power our way that narrowly missed hitting me in the leg. I threw myself sideways and skidded across linoleum slick with vile fluids. Bruno and Matumbo sent nearly simultaneous attacks at her from opposite sides of the room, but she stopped them effortlessly.

I noticed, when the guys attacked, that the glow from the collar diminished a bit. Maybe she hadn’t taken enough power to keep it regenerating. I had to tell the others but couldn’t let her know what I noticed. It was time for me to, as Rizzoli put it, do my damnedest. I pressed fingers to my temples and shouted in my head for all I was worth, praying that Matumbo would keep the zombies from sinking fangs and claws into me.

Aim for the collar. Make her defend it. Can you take down the barrier, or is she the one powering it?

I felt a tentative brush of words against my head. It hurt to listen for it, as though it was on the other side of a powerful waterfall.
No, it’s not her. I’ve been trying to feel for the power source, but that damned necklace is putting out too much interference. If you can keep her off-balance, I’ll see what I can do.

For the most part, she was ignoring me as being beneath her notice. They needed a distraction, and I was the only one available to give them one. I could jump straight up twenty feet if I tried, but she’d simply blast me out of the air. But if I moved from perch to perch, she’d have to focus on me to hit me. That could give the mages the time they needed. If I was really lucky, I might even get within striking distance.

I moved to where she couldn’t see me very well and crouched, ready to pounce to my first spot. That’s when the cavalry arrived in the form of a dozen FBI agents, a glowing John Creede, and one tall gray wolf. They all aimed weapons for the balcony and apparently Rizzoli wasn’t the only one with the special shells.

Glinda took one look at John Creede, his eyes filled with fire and fury etched on his face, and panicked. She pulled a small ceramic disk from her pocket and hurled it onto the floor between Bruno and Matumbo. It shattered, as Glinda had meant it to, and I felt a sickening, and all-too-familiar lurch.

She’d summoned a demon.

Oh, crap.

We’d closed the rift, so demons could no longer pass through at will. But their dimension still existed. A human stupid enough, with enough power, could still summon one. And Glinda had summoned a doozie. I wondered immediately if it was the demon disk Eirene once lost in the desert. People had searched for hours but came up empty. She had the money to pay for it if someone found it and decided to profit from the sale.

The demon screeched with a lipless mouth, showing row after row of serrated teeth that dripped venom. His bellow of fury was loud enough to make my ears bleed, and I found myself as deafened as if I’d been standing next to an explosion.

He stood three stories tall, his hide like that of a rhinoceros—if the rhino came in black with oil-slick-colored highlights. He had only one pair of legs, but sported six tentacled arms. Each one of them had a weapon and they all moved independently of the others.

Fuck a duck.

A mace ball the size of a chair descended on us and Matumbo barely managed to get a shield up in time. It deflected the blow but sent us to our knees. She looked at us like we’d lost our minds. “So what are you waiting for? Attack it!”

Bruno returned the shocked look. “You’d have to lower the shield. You’re nuts!”

Apparently to prove a point, John raised a hand and flung a fireball at the creature, right through the shield, causing a new screech. “Most of my ability is offensive magic. It’s why George and I made a good team. He was a defensive guy. You just keep the shield moving with us. I’ll fight right through it. It’s my best thing.”

Bruno was suitably impressed, as was I. We attacked. Not that it did a lot of good. The thing was huge, and fast enough that it was nearly impossible to see the blows that were raining down on us. On the bright side, they were raining down fast enough that it would be hard to miss. Drawing my knives, I struck blindly, and felt the blow hit home down my arm to my shoulder.

I was knocked off my feet and skidded across the floor. Another tentacle came down that I fully expected was going to lop off my head and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. But the blow never reached. Instead, I saw teeth and claws and fur fly past my face and the demon screamed again from the werewolf attack.

Way to go, Emma. I owe you one.

The beast appeared to shriek again if the open mouth was any indication, as Kevin attacked again. Gook abruptly splashed on my skin, burning like hot oil mixed with acid. I was actually glad I couldn’t hear anymore, because both Matumbo and Bruno flinched in pain at the sound.

Celia, you need to do that again. I need a distraction to make my way over to that door.
Bruno pointed.
The power for the perimeter is coming from there.

I could see his lips move, but I was hearing him with my siren gift. Matumbo nodded grimly and blocked another blow with a shield of magic. I couldn’t hear her in my mind but could read her lips. “We’ll keep it busy.” She shook her head, trying to keep her balance.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one whose ears were shot. I yelled in my head, hoping she’d hear. I really needed to start to train the telepathy. “
Get ready. On three
.”

On three I threw myself forward and the shield moved with me. I sliced the nearest arm twice. My knives cut in deep and true and the arm fell off the body in a flood of eerie green blood. But this time I didn’t wind up with any demon blood scorching my skin. Let’s hear it for shields.

The beast turned, swinging a mace in a heavy blow, not at me but at Matumbo. He was smart enough to know that breaching her shields would leave us all vulnerable.