Courts and Cabals Omnibus: Books 1-3, page 19
“That’s fine,” she replied with a grin.
The grin was . . . wrong, and something behind her caught my attention. The door was slowly swinging closed, but not fast enough that I missed the shifter lying in a slowly spreading pool of his own blood. His eyes found mine, and they were full of fear and pain. My eyes darted to not-Dani, who was only an arm’s length away and still wearing that foreign grin.
“You’re . . .” was as far as I got.
I didn’t even see her move. A dagger appeared in her hand, and it flashed toward my stomach. The pendant I’d been wearing nonstop since Sunday finally flared to life; hot against my flesh. The dagger shattered on the invisible barrier, but the kinetic force of the blow still knocked me into the wall. I saw stars as the back of my head cracked against the tile; then I slipped in the puddle of water and ended up on my ass.
“You lucky son-of-a-bitch,” non-Dani snarled, and lashed out with a kick. It caught me right in the ribs as I tried to get up.
The pendent flared again; this time like lava, and I smelled burned flesh. I was pretty sure the trinket was spent as the kick launched me into the ceiling, and gravity smacked me back into the floor. The hit knocked the wind from my lungs, and several tiles rained down on my head to add insult to injury. I struggled to get oxygen in my lungs and my feet under me, but to no avail. Non-Dani was standing over me again, and another dagger materialized in her hand. Now that it hovered over me, ready to strike, I noticed the design.
“Chloe,” I coughed.
“Bingo,” she dropped the glamour, but not the sadistic smile. “It took me four days, but now your ass is mine.”
She hadn’t even started her downward swing when the bathroom door exploded inward, and a brown blur hit her in the back of the head. It barely registered, but it caused her to turn and face the threat. Dani stood in the doorway, a cold iron sword in her hand, and pointed directly at Chloe.
The two women didn’t say anything. They just stood there radiating impending violence. Then they moved. I couldn’t keep up, but my body felt the shockwaves of their blows. As a completely useless mortal, I did the only thing I could think of. I ripped the spent pendant off my chest, got to my feet, and grabbed my cold iron dagger. I tried to make it to the door. If I could escape, I could get help.
I’d be surprised if Lilith didn’t feel my terror through the mark and was summoning reinforcements. “She'd better bring a tank battalion,” I gulped.
I caught glimpses of the fight. Dani’s sword cut clean through the wall separating the shitters from the showers. A half second later, her body went flying through it headfirst. She landed in a combat roll and came up with her blade ready. Chloe tore through the destroyed wall, flung a detached urinal at her, and followed it up with glamour blades.
Dani sliced the urinal in two and was quick enough to bat away the first blade. The second took her in the shoulder and knocked her back into another shower stall. I dove out of the way before Chloe turned. I knew she’d take advantage of the moment to try to end me. Even with a head start, her blade missed me by inches and embedded itself hilt-deep in the wall. With a gesture, the nymph gathered the puddle of water left over from my shower and flung it at my head. The blast hit me in the face, and the water forced its way up my nose and through my clenched lips. My hands clawed at my nose and mouth to prevent her from drowning me . . . again.
She might have succeeded, but she was out of time. Dani came flying out of the wreckage, her sword aimed at the Fae’s head. Chloe ducked and avoided decapitation, but missed the follow-up haymaker. Getting punched into the hallway broke her concentration, and the water went lifeless in my throat.
I threw up all over the bathroom floor, but my instincts screamed at me to keep moving. My sluggish limbs struggled to obey my brain’s commands, but I got to my feet and tried to escape. The two women were dueling in the hall now. Deep furrows had been cut in the walls and floor by Dani, while holes from dissolved daggers littered the area.
Chloe roared in frustration as Dani drove her away from me with a skill I’d never seen from the dwarf. It made sense she’d never gone all out during our training sessions.
Chloe knew she couldn’t get the job done and stopped with the daggers. From one heartbeat to the next, she summoned a sword to match Dani’s. The first time the swords met, the concussion nearly knocked me off my feet, and cracks spread across the walls.
“They’re going to take down the whole fucking floor,” I gasped. That was the type of power supernaturals brought to the table, and while Chloe and Dani were tough, they were nowhere near the top of the food chain.
I scrambled for my room and my own sword. Conflicting emotions warred inside me. My survival instincts told me to get the fuck out of there. My dick – which might have been influenced a tad by my heart – wanted to help Dani. I figured I could make up my mind when I had the means to protect myself.
I missed what happened, but I heard a familiar scream. I grabbed my sword off the bed and darted back into the hallway. Dani was bent over, her own sword on the ground. Chloe was grinning like the cat that just ate the canary with her sword sticking through Dani’s back. The glamour blade tinted scarlet with blood.
I was stunned. Dani had kicked my ass up and down my room for the last few nights. She was great with a blade, even Lilith had praised her, but it wasn’t good enough. Chloe pulled her blade out. From fifteen feet away, I heard the sickening slurp of the sword coming free. Dani fell to her knees as blood flowed freely from the hole in her torso. The Fae grabbed the dwarf around the neck and lifted her off the ground. Dani didn’t even try to resist, and I was pretty sure she was dead.
“Hey, bitch!” My mouth moved before my brain caught up. Chloe’s eyes snapped from Dani to me.
“Yeah, you,” I pointed my sword at her exactly the same way Dani had. “You’re a lousy fuck, and an even lousier assassin. Who lets their target escape twice in a row?” I stuck my tongue out at her for good measure.
“What the fuck are you doing?” my rational brain yelled. “Run!”
By the sneer on Chloe’s face, I’d accomplished my mission. The nymph didn’t care about Dani anymore, and she chucked her through a closed door into some poor bastard’s room. If Dani was still alive, she might survive long enough for the paramedics to arrive. It was the best I could do, so I took my own advice and got the hell out of there.
My towel fell away as I ran for it, but my modesty took a back seat to staying alive. I nearly slipped and fell down the stairs – almost breaking my neck and doing Chloe’s job for her – as I tried to round the first landing. I clutched the railing, slid around the tight corner, and kept on going. A pair of sophomores on the floor below screamed as a naked guy ran past them carrying a sword. If campus security wasn’t on their way yet, they sure as shit were now. Not that they could do much against a rogue Fae.
I didn’t look back. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and getting out of there as fast as I could. As I hit the landing on the third floor, I chanced a look behind me. I didn’t see anything, but I kept moving. By the time I hit the second-floor landing, I wondered where the hell my killer was. As I whipped around the turn, I found out.
So far, I knew Chloe was strong, fast, and could use glamour to create the instruments of my demise out of pure will and power. That in and of itself was more than most supernaturals could claim. What I’d forgotten about the Fae was her ability to teleport.
I whipped around the second-floor landing and found Chloe waiting for me. She grinned as she thrust her sword straight at my center of mass. You had to do a lot of damage to kill a supernatural, but a stomach wound would spill my all-too-human guts all over the floor and end the blood feud once and for all.
Creepy Kev and the laws of physics saved my life.
I twisted as I whipped around the bend, throwing my whole body away from the blade. My gathered momentum was enough to throw the sword off target. The second pendant I got from Kev did the rest. Pain seared through me as the pendent tried to absorb the full force of Chloe’s thrust. It failed, and the sword sliced into my quad. More pain ravaged my mind, but adrenaline muted it as much as humanly possible.
Blood splashed against the wall while I spun out of control, but I’d bought myself a few more seconds. I tried to get my own sword up, but I moved like molasses compared to a Fae. Chloe rushed forward and shoulder-checked me, completely arresting my forward momentum, giving me the worst case of whiplash in the history of mankind, and nearly breaking my neck. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Every landing had a large window overlooking the rest of the campus, and Chloe’s hit sent me rocketing through the glass panes. I plummeted down two floors to the ground below.
I don’t remember landing, but when I regained consciousness, the last of the glass was still raining down around me. Everything hurt. My ribs, spine, shoulders, toes, even my fucking teeth. I wiggled everything experimentally and was surprised to see nothing was broken. If I lived, I’d be nothing but a blob of black and blue for weeks, but I was ok, and more importantly, ready to fight.
Chloe jumped through the busted window and landed as nimbly as a cat. People were screaming now. They could take their pick of the Fae soaked in blood, or the naked guy who just fell out the window. It didn’t really matter. A lot was going on at the moment.
“Still think I was a bad fuck,” she advanced on me, sparks shooting from where her sword dragged against the concrete.
“Dani gave much better head than you,” I coughed, delirious with pain as blood splattered the concrete in front of me.
She paused, standing over me. “I never sucked your dick,” she spat in my face. “Like I’d degrade myself by . . .”
I interrupted her by rolling over and punching her in the leg. She didn’t even try to dodge it. To her, it was the last attempt of the desperate man she was about to kill. Unfortunately, for the overconfident nymph, Creepy Kev struck again.
All the power from the last charm bracelet was directed into the ring, and therefore my fist. The big, ugly, gold band full of enchanted stones and diamonds looked like something Liberace would wear. I’d been called all kinds of names for wearing it over the past few days, but every putdown was worth it as it smashed into Chloe’s knee and shattered it.
She screamed but didn’t go down. She hopped a few steps to the side and looked at me with murder written all over her face. I took a swipe at her with my cold-iron blade, using the last of my strength, but I missed by a mile. I coughed up more blood and rolled onto my back.
“Is it weird it’s a perfect day?” I looked up at the sunny, cloudless sky.
I heard Chloe’s sword scraping against the concrete as she came to stand over me again. She kicked my sword away from me, so I couldn’t threaten her. “Fucking mortal,” she spat in my face for the second time. “I can’t wait to get the fuck out of this backwater shithole.”
I could tell she wasn’t limping as bad, her supernatural healing already taking care of the only blow I’d been able to inflict on her.
“Well . . . shit,” my vision was already starting to narrow as my adrenaline wore off, and the knowledge I was going to die settled over me. This was how it ended; here, with my dick hanging out, killed by a Fae bitch who I failed to fuck to completion in a pizza joint bathroom. There were worse ways to go, but not many.
She didn’t even ask me if I had any last words. She just raised her sword for the killing blow. Pure joy radiated from her face, and I felt a sliver of satisfaction that I’d proven so hard to kill.
“Not bad for a human.” Those were my last thoughts.
The smirk vanished as a flaming whip wrapped around her throat, and a matching sword burst through her chest. Her glamour sword still plunged toward my heart, but disintegrated into flecks of light as she lost her concentration. Her skin started to bubble and char as the flames consumed her flesh. I was so out of it; I couldn’t even hear her scream.
What I did know was this was my last chance. There was no way in hell the universe was going to give me another. I still had my cold-iron dagger. My fingers felt numb, but I was able to get them around the hilt. With a jerk, I pulled it out of its scabbard, and with my last vestiges of energy, I rolled over and stabbed her in the foot. It was about the weakest blow I could deliver, but the cold-iron parted flesh that would stop 7.62mm rounds with ease.
Now I heard her scream. It was a bloodcurdling shriek of pain and despair. She jerked her leg free of my grip, but the blade stayed embedded. She kicked her leg like crazy, still fighting the whip choking her and the sword sticking out of her chest, but none of those held her attention like my little knife.
I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating, but I swore black veins started to spread up her leg. Soon, everything below her shorts was covered in them. It continued to spread under her clothes. It crawled up her neck and onto her face. Her scream abruptly cut off, and her whole body seized. The flaming sword and whip vanished, revealing charred skin covered in the same black veins.
Chloe’s body gave several more spasms, and then gravity took her. She toppled backward, and when she hit the ground, her body shattered into hundreds of pieces. I turned my head and saw what remained of the woman who tried to kill me . . . and the woman who’d saved my life. Lilith stood beyond Chloe’s remains, her eyes darting between the dead Fae and me.
I might have been imagining things, but she looked afraid. “What have you done?” she asked.
I didn’t get a chance to answer. I passed the fuck out. I’d had a long day, and it wasn’t even seven-thirty.
Chapter 17
“Breach . . . breach . . . breach . . .” the county’s SWAT commander yelled over the communications net they’d set up for the operation.
Vernon did exactly as he’d been trained. He pinched his eyes shut as hard as he could, and prayed the tactical helmet’s sound dampeners were up to snuff. Shifters, due to their enhanced senses, were more vulnerable to flash-bangs – and explosions in general – than humans. They recovered a lot faster, but for a second or two, it was completely debilitating.
Vernon was stacked with one of the many assault elements against the brick wall of the target building at the center of Lincoln’s warehouse district. He’d double-checked all his weapons before getting here and made sure each of the wards and runes etched into his clothing were powered up and ready for action.
The det-chord was set twenty feet away, where its crack-boom turned the brick, wood, and drywall behind it into a gaping hole. Blind and deaf, Vernon was pushed forward with the rest of the SWAT team as they moved into the breach. By the time he’d taken two steps, his senses were starting to clear. By the time he hit the hole, he was as good as new.
The six-person element spread out around the room, each taking a sector of fire, and making sure not to shoot any of their own people. Even with the debris of the explosion still clouding the air, he could tell the room was empty.
“Team Two has made entry. First room clear,” he sent the status report as the team stacked up again at the door leading to their next objective.
In the distance, he heard gunshots. Screams echoed through the building and over the radio. “Let’s go,” he prompted, and a SWAT officer used a shotgun to shoot the hinges off the locked, metal door. Vernon kicked the heavy barrier twenty feet into the next room and led the charge.
In the operations order, it was detailed that the warehouse the wendigos were using as a nest was a storage space for a nearby slaughterhouse. The meat would come here to wait for refrigerated trucks to ship it across the country. It was ironic that the supernatural criminals took up residence around a bunch of meat they couldn’t eat.
As the team moved into a large open section of the building, they were hit with a blast of frigid air. Their exterior entry point had been the foreman’s office, and they’d just emerged onto the refrigerated floor where hunks of hundred-pound meat hung on hooks.
“This is creepy,” Vernon gulped, and the team spread out into a firing line. They were spaced about ten feet from each other. That looked good on paper, but with racks of meat separating them, the reality was much different.
“Switch to thermal,” one of the other officers in the element ordered.
Even though Vernon was technically in command, he was still an outsider and needed to tread carefully. “Negative,” he cut the other man off. “Targets are cold-blooded. Stick with your eyes, or you won’t even see them coming.
There was some grumbling, but no pushback. The locals could tell a good idea when they heard it. Vernon was the supernatural expert for a reason.
Along with being cold-blooded, wendigos were a form of bastardized shifter. No self-respecting shifter – like Vernon or Sheriff Wood – would ever put themselves in the same class as a wendigo. It didn’t matter if they fit into the same scientific family. While Vernon was pure wolf, and proud of it, the wendigos looked like a moose fucked a deer and then didn’t eat for six months. Their fur ranged from brown to black and covered a gaunt body with a moose’s snout and deer antlers. Two, too-long arms ended in four claws that nearly scraped against the ground, but would rip a human’s guts out with a single swipe. The antlers themselves were deadly, and the species was strong enough to walk around with an impaled police officer’s body on its head with little trouble. They were nowhere near as tough as a pure shifter and didn’t have rapid healing abilities, but it would still take a dozen rounds to the chest to take one down. Better to blow their brains out. Judging by the gunfire echoing through the building, the locals were finding this out the hard way.
“Move,” Vernon waved his hand forward as he kept his rifle scanning his sector of fire.
In a rough line, the six officers stalked forward; their weapons twitching at the slightest sound. They were more than halfway across the room when the wendigos hit them on the flanks. Like wolves, wendigos were pack hunters and acted as such. The fresh-faced kid on the end got off a burst of 5.56mm rounds before the wendigo hit him low, taking off his leg just below the knee. He went down screaming as blood spurted across the floor.
