11 Poison Promise (25 page)

“Gin?” Bria asked, stopping beside me, her breath coming in soft gasps as she put her hands on her knees. “Where to now?”

That was the question—and the answer would determine whether we lived or died.

I glanced at first one end of the block, then the other. Going south would take us back toward the river, which was no good, since Benson could always order more of his vamps to guard the bridges. The police station was about
two miles north of here, but I doubted we could make it on foot without running into some of Benson’s men.

Killing my way through the vamp’s goons didn’t bother me. I could take care of myself. So could Bria. But blood was still oozing out of that gash on Catalina’s forehead, and her face was white with fear, adrenaline, and the strain of running so far so fast. I unzipped my duffel bag long enough to grab a tin of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment. The salve would take care of the ugly cut, but it wouldn’t be long before her body shut down completely and she went into shock, if she wasn’t already there.

“Here,” I said, shoving the tin into Catalina’s trembling hand. “Put that on your forehead.”

Catalina took the container, but instead of popping off the top, she hunched over between Bria and me, her hands on her knees, her breath coming in ragged puffs, her hazel gaze locked on a beer bottle sitting upright on the curb, one that wasn’t broken like all the others we’d waded through in the alleys.

Catalina stared and stared at that bottle, although I knew that she wasn’t really seeing it. I started to look away but found myself strangely hypnotized by the glint of the afternoon sun on the glass, making it flare with an inner amber fire. A faint breeze gusted down the street, tickling my nose with a hint of stale, sour beer.

The color, the smell, the fingers of wind tangling my sweaty hair . . . For a second, I was in another place, another time, another street where I was clutching a beer bottle, getting ready to cut that man to save Coral—

“Gin?” Bria asked again.

I snapped back to this place, this time, this street. I knew where to go now.

“This way.”

I hurried across the street, shoved through a gate in a chain-link fence, and jogged around the side of a house in the middle of the block. Classic jazz music purred out from behind the walls, and the whiff of fried meat seeped out of the cardboard-covered windows. I headed into the backyard, ducked under a clothesline filled with white undershirts and blue boxers that were snapping back and forth in the wind, and hopped over the waist-high fence at the edge of the yard.

Again and again, I repeated the process, cutting through yard after yard, taking a zigzag route, with Catalina and Bria behind me. Finally, we reached the last of the houses, but I didn’t slow my pace until we’d crossed another street and ducked into an alley. Even then, I kept going until I reached the apartment building in the center of the block.

I stopped in front of the back door of the building. It was still red, although the color had long ago faded from that bright, glossy crimson I remembered to a dull, flat rust. More memories rose up in my mind about all the terrible things that had happened the day I’d followed Coral through that door, but I forced them back into the bottom of my brain. More terrible things were going to happen if I didn’t get Bria and Catalina out of here.

“Gin?” Bria asked, her gun still clutched in her hand, her head swiveling back and forth from one end of the alley to the other. “Why are we stopping?”

Instead of answering her, I dropped my bag onto the
pavement and then crouched down in front of the door so that I was eye-level with the lock. Catalina slumped against the brick wall next to me, trying to get her breath back, her face even paler and bloodier than before. She still had that tin of Jo-Jo’s ointment clutched in her hands, and she started fumbling with the top, her bloody fingers slipping off the smooth surface.

“You still have your phone?” I asked Bria.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Text Xavier. See if he got away from Benson’s men and if his car is in one piece. Ask if he can pick you up at this address.” I rattled off a location.

Bria frowned, but she pulled out her phone and did as I asked. Meanwhile, I reached for my Ice magic, pulling the cool power up out of the deepest part of me and letting it flow out through my hand. A silver light flared in my right palm, centered in my spider rune scar. A second later, I was holding two slender Ice picks, which I inserted into the lock.

Bria’s phone beeped, and she read the message. “Yeah, Xavier’s fine. He’ll be at that location in five minutes.”

“Good.”

The tumblers clicked into place. I threw down my Ice picks, twisted the knob, and opened the door. The inside of the building was dim and murky, although I could see light spilling from the door at the far end of the hallway.

“Come on, Catalina,” I called out. “Just a little farther now. Go inside and wait for us. Bria will be there in a second.”

She’d quit trying to open the tin of salve, and she was
just standing there, swaying from side to side. Her hazel eyes were a bit unfocused, but she finally sighed and shuffled forward into the building with all the lifeless enthusiasm of a zombie. She stopped a few feet away and leaned against the interior wall.

I turned to Bria. “You need to go inside. Follow this hallway all the way to the end. It opens up into a courtyard. You can cut across there and into the building directly across from this one. Go straight through that building, and you’ll come out on the street where Xavier will be waiting.”

Bria nodded, then frowned. “How do you know all that?”

“Because I’ve been here before.”

She opened her mouth, but after a moment, she swallowed down her many questions and asked the only one that mattered. “What about you?”

“I’ll meet you there. I’m going to go down to the end of the alley and then jog around the block to make sure that none of Benson’s vamps come up on you from behind. We only have one chance to get out of here, and this is it.”

Bria nodded again. She bit her lip, looked up and down the alley to make sure that we were still alone, then reached out and hugged me tight with one arm.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “For everything. I just . . . I wanted to nail that bastard so damn
bad
.”

Even though a dozen shallow cuts dotted my hand, I reached up and smoothed down her hair, leaving streaks of blood behind in her tangled golden locks. “I know.”

Bria shuddered in a breath. I hugged her even tighter,
but when she dropped her arm and pulled back, her face was as calm and composed as mine.

“See you on the other side—”

The
screech-screech-screech
of tires cut her off. A black SUV stopped at the end of the alley. The doors opened, and vamps started pouring out, all with guns, all racing in our direction. They’d finally found us, and they were out for blood—ours.

Bria’s mouth flattened into a determined line, and she raised her gun to fire at them. But I grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and shoved her through the open door and into the building. She staggered forward, almost plowing into Catalina. While she struggled to right herself, I grabbed the duffel bag full of guns, ammo, and other supplies and tossed it inside too. Bria whipped around, but I reached through the opening, grabbed the door, and pulled it shut. Then I wrapped my hand around the knob and let loose with a burst of Ice magic. The intense silver light of my power pulsed for a moment, searing my eyes, before it faded away. By the time I blinked again, three inches of my elemental Ice coated the knob, the door, and a good chunk of the surrounding walls. A crude but effective lock. Nobody would be getting through that right now without an axe or some serious elemental Fire power.

“Gin!” I heard Bria’s muffled yell through the door. “What are you doing?”

She rattled the knob on her side, but she couldn’t get through the thick layer of Ice I’d caked on it.

“Go!” I shouted back to her. “Just go!”

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

The vamps raised their guns and started firing. I cursed, then grabbed hold of my Stone magic, using it to harden my skin. But instead of running away, I palmed one of the knives hidden up my sleeves and sprinted toward the gunmen. I still needed to buy Bria some time to get Catalina through the building and over to the street so Xavier could pick them up, and I couldn’t think of a better way to do that than by killing a whole passel of Benson’s men.

The vamps’ mouths gaped open, revealing their fangs. Apparently, my charge had surprised them, but they recovered quickly enough to empty their guns at me.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

Bullets
ping
ed off the walls, the trash cans, the Dumpsters, and even me, and the burn of gunpowder filled the air, overpowering the pungent scent of the garbage. But I kept running, and the vamps quickly ran out of bullets.

Aw, I just hated that for them.

Two of them cursed and stopped to reload, but it was too late, because I was already there. I grabbed the first man I reached, pulling him close and slicing my knife across his stomach one, two, three times, before shoving him away. He went down screaming.

I moved to the left side of the alley. This vamp was quicker than his friend, and he landed a quick one-two combo to my chest. But his blows didn’t hurt all that much, thanks to the protective shells of my silverstone vest and my Stone magic, and I buried my knife in his
throat before he could strike again. He died with a bloody wheeze.

A third man stepped up and grabbed my hand, trying to bend my wrist back to get me to drop my knife. So I slammed my Stone-hardened head into his, making his nose crunch like a potato chip. He let go of my hand and staggered back, but I reached out, latched onto his tie, and yanked him toward me, even as I shoved my knife into his heart. He yelped once like a wounded animal.

I stood there, eyes flicking back and forth, body tense, blood dripping off the end of my knife, but there were no more attackers to cut down, and the only sound was my harsh, raspy breaths—

Screech-screech-screech.

Three more SUVs pulled up at the end of the alley, and more vamps spewed out of the vehicles, close to a dozen this time, which was more than I could easily handle. Besides, I still needed to get to Bria and Catalina, so I turned and ran toward the far end of the alley.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

More bullets zipped in my direction, but I was booking it, and the vamps had to step over their dead buddies to take aim at me. I focused on the exit up ahead and forced myself to sprint even faster. Bria and Catalina should almost be to Xavier by now. I needed to get there too, so I put on an extra burst of speed and hurtled out of the alley—

Once again, I heard the
screech
of tires, but I didn’t see the vehicle until it was too late.

I whirled around to find a black SUV bearing down on me. The driver hit the gas, making the vehicle jump
the curb and careen up onto the sidewalk where I was standing. I had just enough time to reach for my Stone magic, trying to harden my skin even more, before the SUV slammed into me.

I rolled up and over the hood, cracking the windshield with my head just like the vamp I’d plowed into with my car at the bridge. The brutal impact made me lose my grip on my magic for one precious second. But that was all it took for me to fly off the side of the car and hit the pavement.

Lights out.

19

I wasn’t sure how long I was unconscious. Probably only a few seconds, since I woke up sprawled across the pavement, my arms trapped underneath my chest as though I’d tried to break the flying fall with my hands.

Every single bone in my body ached, and I could feel more blood trickling out of all my many cuts and scrapes, but I was still in one piece. I must have managed to grab hold of enough of my Stone magic to protect myself before I hit the asphalt and blacked out—

Squeak-squeak-squeak.

Squeak-squeak-squeak.