There'll be Hell to Pay (Hellcat Series Book 6) (31 page)

“
Send me the address. We’re on the way,” Gabi told him.
“Whatever else happens, do not let him leave.”

“
Hellcat,” Butch called out, the phone still to his ear,
“Murphy says there’s a graveyard less than a klick from where we
are now. It sounds as good as anything.”

Gabi caught
herself already on the way out the door, torn.

“
You take the Maleficus; I’ll take the traitor.” Julius made
the decision for her.

She nodded in
quick agreement; divide and conquer, it was the only way. “Kyle,
give Julius five minutes to get closer; then you and Lance meet me
at the graveyard. Butch will send you the address.

“
Copy that,” Kyle returned.

“
And Fergus is going with you,” she told Julius, whose
expression immediately went hard.

“
It’s Caspian…you need the non-Werewolf backup. I’m chasing a
woman who just gave birth and who has been bedridden for weeks.
Send Caspian my best,” she said with a vicious smile, giving him a
quick, hard kiss.

*********************

A man wearing a
stolen overcoat over his loose medical scrubs stood in the shadows
between two narrow houses. Across the street was the clinic where
the Vampire had taken the babies. It had been difficult to follow
them without making his presence known, but he’d done it. He knew
better than to take on the Vampire directly. That wouldn’t work.
But the pull…the pull.

“
Must get the babe,” his brother told him again.

“
Yes, yes, I know,” he told the voice in his head.

“
Must get it soon.”

“
We have to be patient.”

“
No, now.”

“
No, wait. Wait for the right time. It will come. It has been
prophesised.” His brother had become more demanding since he woke
from the weeks of darkness, but then his twin had always been the
more impetuous one.

And so they
stood in the shadows, arguing in whispers.

********************

Gabi, Razor and
Butch hurtled down the streets, following the directions Murphy
sent to Butch’s phone. Several groups of young people looked at
them with wide eyes as they rushed past, or maybe it was just Razor
they were looking at. No one tried to stop them or ask questions.
Butch’s phone chimed and he didn’t miss a stride as he checked the
message.

“
Murphy says that Trish has found a back door into the police
network,” he told Gabi, “and Murphy himself is in control of the
local surveillance cameras. They’ve got our backs.”

“
Excellent,” Gabi panted, “one less thing to worry
about.”

“
It should be just around here,” Butch said as they sped around
a corner. The small groups of tourists and revellers had dried up a
street or two ago, and the sudden quiet was eerie. A crumbling
stone wall replaced the apartments and small houses. A cold shiver
crawled up Gabi’s spine and nipped the back of her neck.

“
They’re here,” Gabi whispered just as Razor gave a low growl.
Movement to her left had Gabi pulling Nex from her sheath, but it
was only Kyle and Lance. Kyle fell in beside her and they kept
moving down the road until they reached a pair of rusted metal
gates secured shut with a large padlock. A quick flick of Kyle’s
wrist broke the lock, but it took both the Werewolves to shove the
heavy gates aside. They all slipped inside and pushed the gates
back into place, wincing at the hoarse shriek of metal on rusted
metal. Hopefully it would serve to discourage any inquisitive
norms.

Once inside
they paused, the Werewolves lifting their heads to sniff the breeze
as Gabi sent out her Vamp sense, to no avail. It felt like her
sense had been covered in fog, somehow muted. Perhaps it was the
setting, which was strangely chilling. Gabi had never been
perturbed by graveyards before, but there was something
particularly unsettling about this one. On the surface it seemed
much like any other graveyard she’d ever been in—angels wept from
atop tall headstones, the Virgin Mother prayed over tombs, engraved
slabs of marble and glossy concrete crosses stuck out of the ground
like broken teeth—but there was something more here, something
over…

“
That way,” she and Kyle said together, pointing in the same
direction. Kyle raised an eyebrow at her. She shrugged.

“
I can sense something in that direction. I can’t tell if it’s
the Mole or the Maleficus, but it’s something out of the ordinary.”
She tried to explain the weak sense of wrongness that tugged at
her. Just then the graveyard darkened, a thick cloud rolling in to
blot out the pale sliver of moonlight, and, as they glanced at each
other, a growl of thunder rippled over their heads.

“
That’s not normal,” Butch said, sounding uncharacteristically
shaken.

“
Mariska,” Gabi confirmed grimly. “She can control the
elements. She has regained her Magi powers.” They broke into a run
in the direction she and Kyle had indicated. Gabi dodged graves and
leapt over burial sites, her eyes focused ahead, as the sense of
wrongness grew.

They could hear
them before they found them in a small clearing on a grassy slope
under a huge sycamore.

“
Leave me, you monstrous creature,” Mariska shrieked. “Run now
while you still can.”

The hunched,
cloaked figure shook his head. “No,” the man said hoarsely.
“Protect you.”

“
You can’t protect me,” Mariska sneered as the wind began to
blow, whipping dry leaves and small twigs around her legs. She was
wearing nothing but a stained and torn nightdress, her hair tangled
and unkempt. “You can’t even protect yourself. He used you. Used
you to get what he wanted. I will find them and I will kill them.
They are mine to kill. They should never have lived.
Never.”

“
Mariska,” Gabi called as the group slowed to a walk, Kyle and
Lance spreading out to either side of her while Butch worked his
way to the far side of the knoll. The woman’s head whipped around,
and when she saw who had yelled, her eyes narrowed and her mouth
twisted into a snarl.

“
You,” she spat.

“
Yes, me,” Gabi said with an unfriendly smile. “Did you think I
wouldn’t find you?” Wind swirled around them both, tugging at
Gabi’s hair and clothing, bringing her a brief but familiar scent
of dead animal. She was pretty sure it was dog or maybe wolf. The
tree beside the Dark Magus bowed under the onslaught, branches
whipping from side to side. Thick cloud continued to roll across
the sky, low and ominous, throwing the graveyard into a murky
gloom.

“
You should have found me earlier,” Mariska screeched, her face
changing, losing some of the crazed expression, a vicious glee
lighting her eyes. Thunder crashed and lightning forked through the
dark cloud, illuminating the scene and showing Gabi that Mariska
now stood alone; the Moleman had vanished. “My power has returned.
You cannot take me now. The imbecile chose well. A graveyard is
exactly where you need to be, you unholy abomination.”

Wow, sticks and
stones, Gabi thought. Aloud, she shouted to be heard above the
storm, “That’s rich coming from a Magus who consorted with demons
and performed Blood Magic.”

The woman only
snarled in response, raising her hands as another bolt of lightning
ripped the dark apart, striking the ground on the far side of the
graveyard. Gabi glanced over at Lance, but he shrugged helplessly,
his eyes a little rounder than normal. Weather Magi were rare, and
a Dark Magus who could control the weather was probably unheard of,
but Gabi had hoped Lance would have some ideas on how to curb
her.

“
Hand yourself over to us, and we’ll protect you from the Magi
High Council. You have the right to be a mother to your children,”
Gabi called out. She didn’t really mean it, and it was an extremely
long shot, but if they could resolve this quietly…

“
My children?” Mariska screamed through clenched teeth. “Those
things aren’t my children. As soon as I am finished with you, I
will find them and send them to join you in the afterlife. They
will not usurp me. I am the prophesied one. Me, not them.” She
brought her hands downward with a flourish and two lightning
strikes hit the hill just metres from them, shaking the ground,
leaving Gabi momentarily deaf and blind and almost throwing her to
her knees. Razor hissed beside her.

Blinking her
vision clear, she saw the Magus on her knees, digging her fingers
into the ground. Shit, Gabi had seen this before; this was Mariska
drawing energy from the very earth itself, energy she could unleash
on all of them.

“
Gabi.” Kyle’s voice reached her numb ears over the howling
wind. She spared a glance at him, but she was already tugging the
crossbow from her shoulder with one hand while the other reached
for a bolt. This time there was no one and no reason to stop her.
But Kyle was pointing at something, his eyes wide, his athletic
body flowing into fighting stance. Gabi’s eyes followed his hand
and the breath left her lungs. On the other side of the sycamore,
thick fog was pouring from an invisible source. The stench reached
her nostrils just as her brain caught up with her
senses.

“
Holy mother of…” She notched the bolt she was holding before
quickly drawing another handful, redirecting the crosshairs away
from the Dark Magus and towards the mass of vaguely humanoid shapes
lumbering out of the portal. She glanced across at Lance again,
throwing him an unspoken question. He returned her look with regret
in his eyes. He shook his head; he couldn’t do the one thing they
truly needed, he couldn’t close the portal. They were in deep
trouble. They’d fought demons before, more times than she’d care to
remember, but they’d never had to take them on with a wide-open
portal, not when they didn’t have a Magus to close the damn
thing.

She tapped her
earpiece; she had to alert the others, had to hope there was a
Magus in Alicante who could help them. If not, some of them had to
get out and alert the supernaturals in Spain to what was coming
their way.

“
Julius? Fergus?” she called. But there was no answer, only a
static buzzing noise. “No, no, no,” she muttered, pulling out the
credit-card-sized receiver from a pocket and tapping it. Still
nothing; the lightning strike must have fried the comm units. This
was just getting better and better. Phones were useless, they’d all
turned them to silent, and there were no surveillance cameras in
the graveyard, so Trish and Murphy wouldn’t know what was happening
until the demons were running in the streets. Desperate, she tried
to reach Julius through their mental link, bashing down her walls
and seeking the warm presence of his mind. All she found was a
cold, impenetrable fortress locked up so tightly that it was
impervious to her pounding. A warm body rubbed against her leg, and
she knew there was only one option left.

“
Go,” she told Razor, looking down and throwing a cruelly
strong thought in his direction. “Run, find Julius or Fergus.
Now.”

The cat
growled, glaring up at her, defiant, not wanting to leave her in
danger. She poured more into the command, tempering her thoughts,
showing him how he would be helping, trying not to let him sense
her hopelessness. “Go,” she said again.

Razor’s paws
began to carry him backwards until he finally turned and dashed
away.

********************

Julius didn’t
approach the clinic quietly or discreetly. He allowed his ethereal
presence to pour from him, saturating the atmosphere, engulfing
anyone sensitive to it. Caspian knew he was coming, would be able
to read his death in the air. Julius was close enough to sense the
other Vampire now. Caspian had sworn an oath of fealty; that oath
bound them, whether Caspian liked it or not. Fergus was a silent,
powerful presence beside him.

He felt it when
Caspian decided to run, just as they reached the front door of the
clinic.

Run, rabbit, run
, he thought with
vicious pleasure.

Fergus spoke very occasionally of the
beast
, the force inside him that
represented the raw, untamed Vampire boiling beneath the controlled
facade. Julius understood exactly what he was referring to. With
Gabrielle safely pursuing the Maleficus, he released the chains on
his own beast. The creature stretched for a moment, then lifted its
head and sniffed.

Run, rabbit,
run.

He sensed
Caspian leave via the rear exit, and he leapt onto the roof of the
clinic, running a critical eye over the streets and homes,
committing the area to memory, earmarking the dark, deserted spots.
Even the beast knew it was best to keep away from inquisitive eyes.
He watched from the roof as his target flitted down the road, a cap
pulled low over his face. Julius let him run for a few more seconds
and then dropped to the ground. Fergus began to follow, but one
warning snarl made him fall back, leaving Julius and his beast to
the chase.

********************

The man in the
stolen coat watched as the two blood-suckers approached the door to
the clinic. He recognised them both. “Now, we have to go now,” his
twin insisted, battering the inside of his head in anger.

“
Wait, wait. The time isn’t right.” He fought the headache
threatening to consume him.

And then it
happened, the Vampires leapt onto the top of the building, stalked
across it silently and dropped off the other side.