Ruby Fever EPB, page 30
“Sample 2.”
A slightly different intonation. “You’re going to die. This is your last warning. Leave, and we will not pursue you. Save yourself.”
“Sample 3 . . .”
Apparently, my sister could sound remarkably menacing when the occasion called for it.
“The third one is the scariest,” I said.
“The first one,” Alessandro said. “She sounds like a younger sister guilt-tripping you.”
“Our vote is for the first one as well,” Bern said.
“It’s your concert,” I told him. “First it is.”
He hung up.
I kept drawing. The glyph pattern wasn’t difficult to understand. It was just hellishly complicated to draw.
“Konstantin was in your office for a while today,” Alessandro said.
“Mhm.”
“What did he say to you?” he asked.
“He thinks you will die tomorrow.”
“I won’t.”
Damn right, you won’t. That’s why we were doing this.
“Anything else?”
He wasn’t going to let it go. I knew that tone. “He thinks Princessa Catalina Jamesovna Berezina has a nice ring to it.”
The muscle under my fingers went rock hard. My marker slipped.
“Damn it.” I reached for a cosmetic wipe and scrubbed the ruined glyph from his skin. “Do you want to be here all evening?”
“Yes and no. I had plans for tonight.”
Ah ha. “Were you naked in those plans?”
“Yes.”
“Well, see, they came true.”
I redrew the glyph and knelt to get better access to his side and hip.
“In my plans, we were both naked.”
I glanced up at him. “Would you like me to take my clothes off?”
His eyes flashed with orange. “No, it might not be safe.”
“You’re doing your seductive voice again.”
“I’m so sorry,” he purred. “Is it distracting you?”
“A little bit.”
“Clearly, I need to try harder.”
“You need to hold still so we can finish this. Don’t talk.”
I redrew the glyph and kept going.
“Konstantin does bring a lot to the table,” Alessandro said, as if thinking out loud. “He can look like anyone, which provides endless variety in bed. He is wealthy, powerful, and witty. Able to hold a stimulating conversation. And then of course, the perks of being a royal. The bowing, the rituals, the status. The family would benefit by association.”
I stopped and looked at him.
He gave me that sharp and funny Alessandro smile, the one that made me stare at him like a lovesick idiot every time he did it.
“But to get all of that, you would have to put up with Konstantin every day. And that would be a fate worse than death itself.”
“Are you done?” I asked him.
“Possibly.”
“I’m so glad. Please stop talking.”
“I love you, Catalina.”
I growled at him.
“You are so smart and beautiful.”
“Alessandro, shut up.”
“Your wings are breathtaking.”
I would punch him.
“You cook like a goddess . . .”
“Damn it!” I threw the marker on the floor.
He grabbed my hands and pulled me upright. His eyes were like molten amber. “Every time I wake up next to you, I feel like the luckiest man ever born. I can’t believe you chose me. You have all of me forever. In this whole world, there is no one like you.”
He touched my cheek with his fingertips and kissed me. There was so much tenderness in that kiss. It was made of love and hope, and it broke me. I had been trying to keep it together for so long, but no defense could’ve stood up to that.
He wiped the tears from my face with his fingers and touched my forehead with his. We stood an inch apart, the glyphs still drying on his skin.
“Don’t die tomorrow,” I told him.
“I won’t. I promise.”
Chapter 18
The northwest corner of the wall widened into a patio originally designed to offer a scenic backdrop for wedding photos. The patio was crowned by a pavilion we’d dubbed the Wedding Cake because it was ornate and ridiculous. After buying the Compound, the Wedding Cake was converted into an observation post complete with reinforced walls and massive bulletproof windows. We still called it the Wedding Cake, despite all the renovations and the fact that its charming table and chairs had been replaced by a utilitarian counter offering a variety of cameras and binoculars.
I stood inside it now, drinking coffee from a white mug with golden lettering on it. The letters said, “You got this.”
Dawn was breaking outside the ballistic window, the sky slowly flooding with red and orange. It promised to be one of those unforgettable Texas sunrises.
On the patio behind us, shielded from view by the Wedding Cake, Alessandro was drawing a complex arcane circle. I had a clear view of him through the open doors of the pavilion. He was dressed in black and my null blade rested in the sheath on his back.
Leon whistled a spaghetti western tune next to me.
“Shouldn’t you be in your tower?”
“All in good time, ma’am. I’m taking in the sights and getting the lay of the land. A man only gets one Alamo in his lifetime. If he’s lucky. I’m committing it to memory.”
He was wearing one of the Scorpion ballistic vests and a helmet, just like me. Running in that getup to the tower wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world.
We had split our forces. We had two gates to protect, this one and the one in the south that faced Grandma Frida’s motor pool. Arkan would be a fool not to attack from both points, so Grandma Frida, half of our guards, Runa, and Grandma Victoria took the south side. After some discussion, we all collectively decided that Arabella would join them. Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but both grandmothers had celebrated their seventieth birthdays some time ago, and while their magic was as strong as ever, everyone felt better knowing my sister guarded their backs.
Leon, Alessandro, Cornelius, and I took the north gate. Konstantin insisted on joining us, because, according to him, when Arkan finally knocked on our front door, he wanted to open it and say hello. We hadn’t seen him since last night. We may have seen him and didn’t know it was him, or he may have left. In any case, I couldn’t spare any time to worry about it. Babysitting Russian princes was not on the agenda for today.
Mom positioned herself in her crow’s nest at the main house. From there she had an opportunity to support both sides. Lilian went with her. My mother and Alessandro’s seemed to have found some common ground. Lilian and I hadn’t had an opportunity to really sit and talk, but she told me that her son was lucky, so I hoped it would go well.
Linus insisted on getting his mech out. We’d stored one of them in Grandma Frida’s motor pool since we moved in. None of us could pilot it, and he shouldn’t have piloted it either, not in his current condition. But we couldn’t ignore the possibility that once the fights at the gates broke out, Arkan could sneak some of his people over the walls in random spots. The mech was light and mobile, designed for rapid response, and Linus was hell-bent on using it.
The distant rumble of artillery fire rolled through the morning air. Too quiet to have come from the south gate.
“The PAC is at Connor’s house asking to borrow a cup of sugar,” Bern said into my earpiece.
“Shouldn’t you be drawing?” Leon asked me, mimicking my earlier tone exactly.
I looked at his feet. He glanced down. We were standing in an arcane circle. It would take me seconds to finish it. Grandmother Victoria and I worked on the design until almost midnight. It had to require a bare minimum of power. Neither one of us was happy with the power drain it would take to maintain it, but then we wouldn’t have to keep it up for long.
“Touché,” Leon said.
Cornelius strode into the pavilion. For some reason, the helmet and the vest made him look slightly ridiculous. It just didn’t suit him.
“Something is coming,” he said.
“Define ‘something,’” Leon said.
“Something large.”
“Summoner portal,” Bern said. “Nine hundred meters out from the north gate.”
They were just outside Alessandro’s blast area. As if they knew his range. Hmm.
“The portal has closed. Something is moving through the trees.”
“Something large?” Leon raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. Go to your tower.”
The stone floor under our feet reverberated. Cornelius turned and ran out.
A colossal shape burst from under the trees at the foot of the hill. It was the size of an elephant, its thick lavender hide streaked with purple splotches. No, not splotches, armor, heavy bony plates stretching into spikes. Bony shields covered its broad head, bearing two large horns. It was shaped like a rhino, armored like an ankylosaurus, and it was charging toward us like a bull.
The floor shook.
“Time to mosey.” Leon ran outside.
The beast thundered toward us, three pairs of small eyes gleaming in the skinfolds between the plates on its head.
“Brace!” I yelled and crouched down. I had no idea why I’d done that. It just felt right.
The arcane beast smashed into our gate with a deafening clang. The impact shuddered through the wall. Metal screeched.
I jumped to my feet and ran out onto the patio.
The creature slid to a stop in the parking lot, the wrecked gate stuck on its horns. It shook its head side to side. The gate went flying.
With one hit, it reduced our wall to nothing.
The beast bellowed and tore down the driveway toward the main house.
A short figure walked out from under the oaks and directly into the monster’s path.
The beast bounded forward.
Cornelius raised his hand. His voice snapped in my earpiece. “Stop.”
The dino-rhino braked with all six paws. He slid forward, comically landing on his butt, picked himself up, and trotted toward Cornelius.
“Significant, my foot,” Grandmother Victoria said.
The rhino monster bumped its head against Cornelius’ hand. Its skull was as big as Cornelius himself. Its long, spiked tail wagged.
“Incoming,” Bern said.
I turned around and ran back into the Wedding Cake. Figures were emerging from the trees, running for the gap the beast had created. The four attackers in the front line shimmered behind the aegis shields.
“Good boy,” Cornelius said. “Go get the bad people.”
Arkan’s people were almost on us. I could see them clearly now, dressed in identical tactical grey fatigues, odd helmets on their heads, covering the skull and the ears. Arkan had taken precautions against my siren song.
The creature bellowed.
“Go,” Cornelius repeated.
A sniper rifle shot took a man down in the third row. The aegises stretched their magic shields, angling them up.
The floor under my feet shook again. The walls trembled, and the rhino beast hurtled through the gap it had made at full speed. The line of advancing soldiers scattered. Bodies flew, one of them desperately trying to adjust his shield against the impact.
The beast rampaged on the slope, running back and forth, stomping and goring anything in its way. It rammed one of the car wrecks we hadn’t had time to clear and headbutted it like it was a toy.
“Psychological warfare in three, two . . .” Bern said.
Arabella’s voice blared through my earpiece. “You’re going to die. This is your last warning. Leave, and we will not pursue you. Save yourself.”
“Bern?”
“Sorry. Had the speaker on.”
Arabella’s voice vanished.
On the field, one of the soldiers yanked his helmet off. Noise-cancelling helmets were fine and good, but you still had to transmit the orders to your soldiers. Bern had hacked into their communication channel. Right now, their ears were full of my sister’s voice telling them they were about to die.
Loud booms of artillery bombardment came from the south.
“We have visitors,” Runa announced.
On the hill, the attackers reformed into a column, the aegis mages in the lead, and charged the gap. A portal snapped open in front of the beast. It was galloping down the hill as fast as its legs could carry it and it had no time to turn. The creature vanished into the portal and the ragged dark hole collapsed on itself.
“Krause is in range,” I called out.
“Good.” Alessandro straightened in his circle.
The flood of Arkan’s soldiers spilled inside the wall.
A rapid staccato of gunfire tore from Leon’s tower. People dropped like flies.
The last woman through the gap stabbed the man in front of her with surgical precision, spun, sliced another attacker’s throat, blurred into the man she just killed, and sank her knife into the third soldier’s kidneys. Konstantin.
He was cutting them down like they were weeds, jumping from shape to shape as he went.
“Stop it,” Leon growled. “I almost shot you twice!”
“Any sign of them?” Alessandro asked.
“No,” Bern reported.
The real fight hadn’t even started. These were the preliminaries. Neither Arkan nor any of his two remaining Primes and six Significants were on the field.
Arkan would have to provoke Alessandro. It was just a question of who he would use.
Konstantin and Leon were mopping up the intruders. If Arkan was going to push the go button, it would be now.
A woman strode into the opening at the bottom of the hill and jerked her hands up.
“It’s Krause,” I called out to Alessandro, covering my mike. “He’s using her as bait.”
“I wonder what she did to get on his shit list.”
“Do you want to go for it?”
“She’s not going to give us much choice.”
I took my hand off my mike. “Please go to your designated circles.”
A cascade of explosions came from the south.
I grabbed the tablet off the counter and pulled up the feed from the motor pool. The southern end of the property looked like hell on earth. Here and there asphalt burned with crimson magic. An oak crashed to the ground and caught on fire. The motor pool’s roof in front of the camera looked like Swiss cheese.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Across the wall, something exploded sending a geyser of dirt and fire into the air. A person howled in pain. Grandma Frida must have scored a direct hit.
Another mortar answered, splashing crimson fire against the motor pool. The front wall curved outward, bulged, and fell.
Magic cracked above my head.
“Bern?”
“She opened the portal directly above you.”
On the tablet’s screen, a tankette rolled out from behind the motor pool to face the southern wall. It was barely larger than the average full-size SUV. A 40-barrel stacked projectile volley gun rose from the tankette’s roof. Unlike normal guns, stacked projectile batteries had no moving parts. Each of the barrels was stacked with bullets that had no casing and no primer. The bullets were fired electronically when a pulse was sent through the barrel. The rate of fire was insane.
The tankette brayed like a donkey, burping its entire arsenal in a fraction of a second.
This was the closest I had ever come to an actual war zone.
“Linus?” Grandmother Victoria said.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m a little busy at the moment.”
Cornelius ran into the Wedding Cake and came to stand next to me. Konstantin was close behind. I pulled the chalk out of my pocket.
At the foot of the hill, Krause was straining. I could see her arms shaking from where I stood. She had already opened two portals today and whatever she was pulling out of the third one was draining every last bit of her magic.
“I have the kids, Zeus and Sgt. Teddy,” Runa reported. “I’m activating.”
Magic flared in the distance, somewhere in the main house, a bright smudge across my mind that shone and vanished.
Leon jogged into the pavilion like he didn’t have a care in the world. He hopped over the chalk boundary and landed by Cornelius. I crouched and finished the circle in two quick lines.
“We have lightning,” Bern reported. Whatever she was summoning was about to come through.
“Today,” Grandmother Victoria ground out.
“On my way,” Linus said.
Something drummed on the Wedding Cake’s roof like hail. Creatures fell into the Compound in a monstrous waterfall.
“If he isn’t here in thirty seconds, go ahead and do it,” Victoria said.
An acrid stench spread through the air. The roof to the right of me broke, and a creature fell into the pavilion. The size of a medium dog, it had no head or neck. Its body resembled a leathery sack, fish-belly pale, splattered with whorls of neon orange and turned on the side, so the opening served as its mouth. Four pairs of spindly long legs supported the sack, while two smaller limbs thrust from its belly, armed with three clawed fingers.
Leon shot it. It jerked and died.
“Arrived,” Linus announced.
An explosion of blinding white burst in my mind’s eye. Grandmother Victoria, unleashing her power like a sun going supernova. She blazed and vanished.
I sank a punch of power into the circle. The chalk lines flared white and then all sound vanished. Another creature fell into the Wedding Cake through the hole and bounced off the invisible boundary of the circle. The four of us were cut off from reality by null space.
On the patio Alessandro’s circle ignited with orange. A tornado of amber sparks spun around him. He jumped and hung suspended, the current of magic whipping around him. It suffused him, setting his skin aglow. He shone like a star.
This was the second time I’d seen it, and it took my breath away again.
Alessandro’s eyes blazed with power. He looked like a god about to unleash his righteous wrath.
