The Secret (45 page)

All Jaron had was knives.

“I will kill you,” Volund said. “I will kill you and your children. Take what is mine and—”

“She was never yours!” Jaron flew at him, felt Volund’s blade pierce his shoulder, but he did not stop. “She is my child. She was
never
yours, thief.” He and Volund rolled across the bright roof of the cathedral, then Jaron pushed back until the sword left his body, knowing he would not heal from the wound.

“I claimed her,” Volund said, panting. “And she is mine. And when you are dead, I will find her and she will
torment me no more
!”

“If you want her,” Jaron said, “then follow me.”

He pushed off the building and launched his angelic form into the air, knowing that Volund would follow.

Ava watched from a window across from the Stephansdom, the great gothic spire of the cathedral knifing into the grey sky as the Irin and Grigori battled beneath it. Dark clouds hung over the normally bright roof, hiding it from human eyes. Thunder rumbled, though no lightning struck. And like a dark fog, the Grigori spread over the square, lurking as the shadows fell.

“There’s no end to them,” she whispered. Kyra was huddled in a corner, eyes closed, clearly in agony over the violence below. Ava had tried to enhance the woman’s shields, but panic was her enemy. The only relief Kyra seemed to find was clutching Leo’s hand with grim determination. Of course, when Leo had to let go…

“There is an end,” he said, stepping beside Ava to look down. “And Malachi will survive.”

His face was set, his eyes fixed on his brothers fighting below.

“You don’t know that.”

“Look.” He pointed to one small clearing. “There he is.”

Ava squinted. “Are you sure? How can you see?”

“I can’t see his face. I know how he fights, though…” Leo’s eyes shuttered. “The children are unexpected.”

Ava turned her eyes away. “Am I a coward?”

“No.” Leo placed a hand on her shoulder. “He needs you to be here, away from the blood. So that when he returns he’ll remember what it is to be clean. Some memories you carry until you die. There is no reason you need to carry them as well.”

“Leo—”

“I need you to stay with Kyra while I check this floor,” he said. “Can you do that, Ava?”

She nodded. “Find me something I can use as a staff.”

He grinned. “I’m sure there’s a janitor’s closet somewhere.”

Ava gave one last glance to the fighting below the building, then she turned back to Kyra, opening the door in her mind to listen and keep watch as thunder sounded over the city.

“THEY’RE attacking the Irina,” Damien said, running up to him. “Fall back and protect the singers or we will have no shield.”

Malachi looked over his shoulder, and he could see Sari and the others wielding their short staffs, batting back the children who had managed to sneak past their circle of magic. That must have been why Grimold had sent them. For some reason, the smallest of the Grigori seemed immune to the singers’ power.

Children. His watcher was ordering him to kill the children.

“Damien—”

“We
must
protect the Irina. The small ones are immune to their magic.”

Children.

He saw one holding two daggers, rushing at the legs of a singer who tried to kick him away. Blood bloomed above her knees, and Malachi ran toward them just as the child tried to plunge a blade into the Irina’s abdomen.

Sari’s staff lifted and struck, tossing the child away.

“Sari!”

Her tortured eyes met his. “We can’t hold them back. I have no spells that work on them.”

“Then defend yourself,” Damien said. “
Míla
, you know you have no choice.”

She nodded, even though tears filled her eyes.

There was no time to mourn. The Grigori children were unrelenting.

Damien glanced at the sky. “I do not see any sign of Volund.”

“I think Jaron might be taking care of that problem. Grimold is directing his sons. We just need to hold them off until Kostas and his men find him.”

Malachi was hoping it would be soon. And he really hoped they hadn’t overestimated the skills of their free Grigori allies.

He hazarded a glance at the building where Ava hid before he fell back to his grim task.

“DON’T look at me,” Ava whispered as she watched him as he retreated to defend the circle of Irina. “Pay attention.”

Ava was sick to her stomach as she watched the vicious children with beautiful faces assault the Irin below.

“Why doesn’t the magic hold them off?” Kyra asked, coming to stand next to Ava, her face pale and her eyes sunken.

“Maybe the magic is designed that way,” Ava said. “Irina wouldn’t want to hurt children.”

“
I
want to hurt those children,” she said. “Grigori children are more vicious than the adults.”

Ava gave her a look.

Kyra said, “Harbor no illusions, sister. The female children can be just as frightening. There is a reason I was glad your friend Mala stayed with the group in Prague.”

“He will hate himself. If only there was a way…” Ava blinked before she grabbed the Kyra’s arms.

Kyra looked at her like Ava had lost it. “What’s wrong?”

“Their sires can control them, can’t they?”

“The angels? Of course. But I don’t know how.”

“I know,” Ava said with a smile. “I just have to get close enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ava was trying to pry open a window. There was a balcony out there, and if she could get near enough…

“Vasu gave me spells. Words that knocked the Grigori on their ass when they came after me in the cemetery. I know the Irina probably created spells with safeguards to protect children, but I’m betting Vasu didn’t.”

Kyra nodded. “Try.”

Ava finally stopped trying to pry open the window and just grabbed a chair.

“Stand back.”

She threw the wooden chair at the window and it bounced off.

“Well… shit.”

She heard Leo approaching and turned to—

“Not Leo!” Kyra shouted.

Three Grigori smiled, hungry eyes on Ava and Kyra.

“What do we have here?” one said. “Humans?”

“Humans with angel blood,” said another. “Even better.”

BARAK was relieved to admit he had underestimated his sons. What he had seen as cowardice had clearly been something else. They had retreated, yes, but then they had regrouped. Grown stronger. More stable. A better-trained group of Grigori he had never seen. Kostas wielded authority like a true child of the Fallen. Violence was his currency. Praise rare. Discipline expected.
 

“It helps them,” Kostas said quietly as they walked the rail yards in Simmering.

Snow blanketed the grey tracks. The bustle of humans was eerily silent. Though trains smoked in the station, no one boarded them. Nothing moved but the drifts of dirty snow that fell from the clouds above.

“Oh?” Barak said, mind on the strange swirling movement of the sky overhead.

“The discipline,” Kostas said. “It helps the hunger.”

Yes, that made sense. It had never occurred to Barak to teach his sons discipline. They were… incidental. Though he had ruled much of Northern Europe for thousands of years, he didn’t have the patience for strategy. He’d held his enemies at bay with strength, and that had been reflected in his Grigori. Most were brutally handsome children with more power than brains in his opinion.
 

When Volund had outmaneuvered him, he hadn’t been surprised. He’d been… resigned.

“They control everything better if they’re disciplined,” his son said. “Bodies and minds. Your death gave them hope. Their sisters gave them purpose.”

“I do not wish to steal that.”

“Oh?” Kostas asked. “So if we walk away now, you’ll do nothing to call us back?”

“No. I’ll just kill Grimold myself.”

“Why are we here then?”

“Because he’ll have his sons with him. The strongest—though none of his children are particularly that strong—he’ll keep close by. I imagine with your newly grown goodwill, you don’t want to set them loose upon the humans.”

As if by signal, a clutch of Grimold’s children leapt down on some of his men. They were quickly surrounded and killed. Their dust rose to the sky within seconds, and Kostas’s men barely slowed down.

“No,” Kostas said. “We do not want them loose.”

Barak watched him from the corner of his eye. “I did not teach you conscience.”

“No, I acquired it when I saw what killing humans did to my sister.”

“Oh?”

His son was quiet for a long while. “She heard their terror. Even worse, their love.”

“Ah.” Barak shrugged, beginning to like the human gestures Vasu imitated. “And your brothers?”

“I have bent them to my way of thinking whether they like it or not.”

Barak smiled as his son walked forward, surveying his men as they searched the train yard, exterminating any of the stray Grigori that were starting to creep out to meet them.

“We’re getting closer.”

“Yes.”

“There are many,” Kostas said.

“He finds them useful,” Barak said. “Grimold has never been powerful. Only… prolific.”

“Most of the Fallen have adopted that strategy. You did not.”

“You and your sister are some of the last children I sired. I grew tired of human attention after that.”

“Why?”

“The earth has little appeal for me anymore.” The image of two small children drifted across his tired mind. He had thought they were brothers. Twins. They wouldn’t remember him any longer. It had been too long. But the image of their small, blood-covered bodies held in his arms would remain with him through eternity. “This realm is so very brutal.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Humans,” Barak said. “It has always been so. Be careful. Free will is a dangerous thing.”

He was only looking a little. Sight had never been his strength. The Creator had given him the gift of hearing, so he used it now. Throughout the rail yard and the industrial neighborhoods of the district, he could hear the humans dreaming. Soft and soothing, their voices melded together in a murmur he’d become accustomed to over his thousands of years on the earth.

There were so many more now.

Perhaps that was another part of it. And another reason he wanted the daughters of the Fallen to find relief.

“Do you hear anything?” Kostas asked.

“Not yet, but I know Grimold is here.”

“How?”

“His children are growing bolder.” He nodded toward another small group of Kostas’s men who surrounded two men twitching on the ground. “And because of what I do not hear.”

“What is that?”

“Birds.” Barak lifted an eyebrow and returned his son’s incredulous expression. “They don’t like Grimold. I have no idea why.”

AVA didn’t hesitate when she saw the three Grigori soldiers.

“
Zi yada
,” she hissed the spell Vasu had whispered in her mind.

The first froze just as Leo burst into the room. He halted for only a second, then drove the point of his silver blade into the spine of the frozen Grigori.
 

“
Zi yada!
” Ava said again, louder. Another stopped. The third lunged at her, but Ava grabbed Kyra and threw herself out of his path. Within seconds, Leo had killed the two remaining attackers. One still twitched while the others stood frozen. Ava watched as they dissolved like statues melting into the sky.

“What did you do?” Leo asked.

“Fallen magic,” Ava said. “Can you get a window open for me?”

Leo kicked the chair out of the way. “Will it work at this distance?”

“Hopefully?”

“It’s worth a try.” Then he stopped and turned. “But will it affect the Irin?”
 

Ava paused. “I don’t know.”

Kyra said, “It only worked one at a time on the Grigori. Maybe you have to direct it at each person.”

Ava looked at Leo. “Should I try it?”

“If it freezes the Irin down there, they’re dead.”

“Especially since I have no idea how to undo it.”

Kyra stepped forward. “Try with us.”

“What?”

Leo nodded. “I’m Irin. She’s Grigori.”

“But—”

“If you knock me out and Leo’s still moving,” Kyra said, “you’ll know it’s safe. And if you knock both me and Leo out… just do your best. It can’t last forever.”

Ava eyed the open door.
 

“We’ll barricade the door,” Leo said, tossing her the short staff that looked more like a sawed-off broom handle. “You can protect us, Ava. But we need to try.”

“Okay.”

They pushed as much furniture in front of the door as they could. It was an older office, dusty from disuse and isolated about halfway up the building.