Angel Falls (Cassandra Bick Chronicles Book 3) (26 page)

‘I think we need to change tack,’ I murmured, keeping my expression that of the smitten girl enjoying her boyfriend’s romantic gesture. Since I felt like I was in a supercut of every classical dance sequence you’ve ever seen from
The
King and I
to
Beauty and the Beast,
this was a surprisingly easy look to maintain. ‘We’ve been trying to figure out how we can get him out discreetly, smuggle him to safety. But what if we go the other way? You said you think they’re showing they’re not scared of exposure – what if we do the same? Instead of saying, “let’s try and forget this and get past Laclos’ indiscretions”, how about a massive fuck off to every vampire and hunter in the city – show them that Laclos
is
king, and they'd better just accept it? Their message is, nobody is too big to bring down. What if we prove them wrong?’

He made a sound of cautious approval. Cain might be the most experienced fighter here, but a good soldier knows you change your strategy to match the battle, and the best plan might not always be the one you came up with.

‘That could store up a lot of problems down the line.’

‘So we deal with them then. If we convince the vamps that Laclos as king just means they have to occasionally be nice to him at parties and he won’t interfere with their clans, why wouldn’t they go for it? Especially if they think the alternative is destruction. Look at him, Cain,’ I nodded towards the glass box. ‘He’s already so cocky they’re spooked.’

‘Christ. Laclos as benevolent dictator. I’m kinda pleased I won’t be here to see it.’

My throat caught at that, but I said nothing, and he nodded, leaning into me, his breath warm in my ear.

‘OK. So how do we do this?’ he asked.

‘We give them a show. Just not the one they expected.’

We glided to a halt in a ripple of applause that made me blush and duck my head against Cain’s chest, shyly, which also gave me a chance to open his jacket and sneakily check his phone, which I’d felt vibrate. Leon and Mariko: the snipers were out. I texted back, ‘Be ready’ then I leaned against Cain for a moment, closing my eyes, soaking up the heat of him, the feel of his arms around me, the strength and the solidity and the absolute certainty that here, in his embrace, was where I was meant to be. And for the second time in a week I offered the garbled prayer of the atheist to whatever god would have me, a desperate woman in need of a sliver of hope. Then I pulled back and smiled, game face on, and with the eyes of the room still on us, I held out my arms and I strode to the podium with warm welcome of one who owns the place and is happy to have you all here. I’ve learned a lot about vampires, and they rarely challenge confidence. So when I grabbed the mic and boomed out, ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlefolk!’ I got a few alarmed glances from Josephine’s vamps, but nobody moved to stop me. Ha, suck on it, bad guys, this is Dark Dates’ party now!

‘Thank you, my lovely partner, for that dance. No wonder they call him the Burner, with smoking hot moves like that!’ OK, well that put the cat among the pigeons – not least with Cain, who looked the opposite of thrilled – but it worked. There was an audible gasp among the vampires (not bad for creatures that don’t breathe) and the very walkway itself seemed to shudder as an awful lot of people took a step back at the same time. Realising he might as well play along, Cain moved to stand beside me at the foot of the steps to the mini-stage, his message clear: anyone wanting me to stop talking had to get through him. I glanced at Medea, and saw not only had she pulled out the chain she was wearing – a wooden pendant that, up close, was trimmed with silver and was very sharp indeed – but she was also edging towards the other drinks table, Jonesy beside her: because there lay the best bet at our weapons. Only vampires would allow snobbishness to override safety: there, empty until the waiters started using them, were the serving platters for drinks and canapés. A pile of silver trays.

‘You’ve been told to expect a magician’s trick at dawn – a disappearance, a burning man. But is that all, ladies and gentlefolk? Do you really want to stand around waiting for hours for something that’s over in minutes? Ladies, in particular – doesn’t that sound like the very definition of a bad date?’

I got some sniggers at that, and I focused on the crowd that liked me, not the vampires that were – albeit somewhat nervously – moving into a formation of attack.

‘We at Dark Dates know London!’ I exclaimed. (Well, I figured if this went well – free advertising. If not, it wouldn’t matter that they knew where to find us). ‘We know you have higher standards than that! You want action! Horror! You want tricks so realistic you won’t believe they can possibly be fake!’

Medea smiled at that, knowing what I was doing. Bait the audience, seed their scepticism so they’re primed not to panic. I leaned forward, not caring now if my smile was a tad manic, my knuckles were white on the podium. I heard a bird caw, loud and fierce, only metres above me, and I felt pressure like a storm weigh down on me as more power than I had ever experienced cohered into place. Cain turned, shocked, his olive skin as a pale as a vampire, but he knew that he was too late, as he realised he wasn’t the only one who could make a deal with the devil. Or, in fact, the opposite.

‘I suggest you all hold onto your drinks and find yourself a window, because things are about to get exciting,’ I announced. Then I closed my eyes and ducked my head, and whispered a silent thank you, that even the godless sometimes have their prayers answered.

***

Time seemed to compress, distort. For the second time in a week a lot of things happened in my life in a short space of time, and once again I missed many of them, as I was hiding behind a podium. Above my lowered head, the room descended into thrilled chaos.

There was a terrible, primal groan, as if the earth itself had torn open, then klaxons started to sound, and people gasped as they saw the bascules, unscheduled and unsupervised, slowly start to rise. The bridge was opening. Luckily, at this time of night, traffic was sparse, but I heard the squeal of brakes and angry car horns as drivers had to make emergency stops as the traffic barriers came crashing down, blocking their way as the tarmac rose up before them. I desperately hoped no one was hurt, but even powered by angels, there’s only so fast two tons of masonry can move, so hopefully people had time to stop. I’d stood on the bridge before when it opened, and it’s a magnificent but disconcerting sight, a giant wall of road rising up like a tidal wave, blocking out the sky. But it’s usually accompanied by the mundanities of London life: tourists taking pictures while a couple of guys in high-vis jackets try to stop time-poor office workers making a dash for it. Here, there was just a man and a woman, one stood at either side of the bridge, arms raised and faces set in concentration, power coming off them like heat.

In truth, I was almost as shocked as everyone else. I had begged Aeylith to help, to make up for what she had done to Cain even if she couldn’t rebel against what she had to do in the future, to at least do her best to ensure he lived through whatever the night brought, but I hadn’t been sure what that help would look like. Having refused to do anything that directly aided ‘the undead abomination’ that was Laclos, I had no idea what that left us. I’d half expected a fancy light show, or them distracting us with an impromptu teleportation trick. This was better. I guess if an angel’s love is eternal, their guilt is too, and if Baelam was just here under duress from his boss, I had no problem with that.

Cain looked less sanguine, but reacted faster than I did. He grabbed a tray from a waiter and smacked it into the face of one of the approaching vampires who reeled away, sizzling – silver trays, guys, rookie mistake. Then he rolled behind the drinks table, staff scattering before him, and though some people gasped at this unexpected violence, no one wanted to be the softie who ruined the floor show by taking it too seriously, so the human guests mainly just stepped out of the way, more worried about getting spilled drinks on their outfits than the fact a full-scale brawl was erupting. Because Jonesy, too, was making busy with the trays, and in moments had joined Cain, ducking behind the scant protection of the table, as the crowd of vampire heavies circled warily, trying to figure out how to attack without blowing the game.

It was then I made my gamble. I thumped the release button on the control box as hard as I could. There was a creak as the mechanism holding up the glass coffin opened, huge metal claws retracting from the rings that kept it in place. It was a risk, sure, but I thought Laclos would fare better in the water than splattered across stone, and it was this or sunlight. The glass box rocked, slightly, as first one clamp released, then another, and for a moment it seemed to hang, suspended, Wile-E-Coyote style, in mid-air. But just as it began to fall there was a massive explosion as a giant, glowing sword, thrown with absolute precision, sliced the top of the box clear off (Laclos ducked, alarmingly late, inches away from a very brutal haircut). He tumbled free, both parts of the severed coffin falling away from him as he plummeted towards the river.

People were pressed up against the windows, watching, gasping, ignoring the fact that Cain and Jonesy were now fending off vampires with champagne bottles. They wanted to believe it was a show, that it would be OK, and Medea rose to the occasion magnificently, steering them towards the windows – away from the fight – with repeated assurances they wouldn’t believe their eyes!

I could see Val, now. Freed from the threat of snipers, she’d scaled one of the towers, but she was too far away to do anything to prevent Laclos from falling, and we could do nothing but hope he survived the impact, and that the party guests believed a drowning man was part of the night’s entertainment. But then the biggest bird I had ever seen swooped in and grabbed Laclos by the shoulders, talons embedding into his flesh. There was a whoop of astonished delight as the bird – an albatross, maybe? – flapped fiercely, stalling his descent, and a moment later the broken halves of the coffin smashed off the raised bascules and plunged, in pieces, into the river, and I was suddenly very glad we hadn’t just let him fall.

Several of the vampires took advantage of the distraction to rush Cain, but he kicked over the drinks table with a colossal shattering of glass, turning it into an impromptu barrier from behind which he emerged a second later with a champagne bottle in one hand and a broken champagne flute in the other. One vampire fell backwards as the heavy bottle bounced off his head, the other reeled sideways in a crimson spray as the broken glass, thrown with superhuman strength, embedded itself in his throat. Someone screamed, and Medea laughed – albeit slightly hysterically.

‘Just a show!’ she assured the crowds. ‘No one could survive that for real, after all, could they?’

Which, since the vampire was still pretty sprightly for someone gushing arterial blood (even if he was crouched over and trying to stem the bleeding), seemed a convincing argument. Another vampire stumbled as he tried to pull Jonesy over the table into the crowd only to get a tray full of silver in the face for his trouble, and if the guests were hugging the windows and starting to sound worried, they were still British. They’d been told there would be a floorshow, a beautiful woman was assuring them everything was OK, and there was still a table full of drinks at the other side of the room – nobody wanted to be the spoilsport who suggested that, perhaps, things were getting a little out of hand. Then the vampires parted like the sea as a furious Alastair strode towards us with a snarl of anger, and decided to take the most literal route to disarming Jonesy: he grabbed his wrist with one hand, his shoulder with the other, and he tore his arm clear out of its socket.

This time, someone really did scream. OK, that would be me. Jonesy went white and collapsed backwards, spurting blood so dramatically it actually did seem fake, though my obvious fright looked set to start a chain reaction until Josephine leapt forward, wrenching the severed arm from Alastair – who looked stunned by her reaction – and throwing herself down onto Jonesy’s fallen body, shielding him from view.

‘Parts of this performance are not for the squeamish!’ she declared loudly, backhanding Alastair out of the way: revealing his strength like that in front of a human audience had been a cardinal sin. The Scotsman went to hit her back – so much for their alliance – but Cain was faster. Hurling a tray like a frisbee, he threw it at Alastair’s throat. It cut through flesh and bone like a butcher’s cleaver, and a severed head flew into the air. But just as I was thinking there was no way they’d buy this as fake, Alastair’s age did us a favour, and he disintegrated to dust before our very eyes.

‘You see! We promised you the vanishing man!’ I yelled, my voice shrill, but people were scared, and terror made them desperate to believe. I waved like a manic magician’s assistant, pleased to have pulled off this trick, before turning back to Jonesy. I wanted to wrench Josephine away from him, stop whatever desecration she was inflicting, but then I realised: hidden by the table, she had reattached his arm and was feeding him her blood, spilling it over the wound, even as she’d torn his shirt to bandage his injury. I had no idea if it would work – they could reattach limbs in surgery, right? So surely whatever magic voodoo juice was in vampire blood could do that? – but I didn’t have time to worry about that, because we had other problems.

***

Val had crawled along the top of the walkway, and was trying to reach – or, from what I could see, catch with some kind of cable – Laclos to pull him in, since it was clear the weight of a six-foot-something-man and the strain of keeping an unfamiliar form was making Katie struggle. She was maintaining height, but barely, unable seemingly to get to the walkway to set him down, or make a controlled descent. She was flapping wildly, dipping then trying to right herself: too weighed down to fly properly, but too stubborn to let Laclos drop and save herself. But while Laclos might survive a plummet into the river, I knew she couldn’t hold this form forever, and wearing herself out mid-air could be a fatal mistake.

‘Mey! Mey! She’s falling!’ I screamed, not caring what people thought now. I hammered on the window. ‘Katie! Let him drop! Let him go!’ But of course she couldn’t hear me, though she must have seen me, and instead of helping, it made her worse. Seeing the crowds and the carnage inside, she panicked, and like a drowning woman who lashes out at the lifeguard trying to save her, her body took over and reverted to her preferred form. For a moment, a leopard thrashed wildly in the air. It was only a moment, but it was enough. She and Laclos were more tangled than ever, and, her instincts compromised, the pair of them rocketed towards the water.

Then there was a surge of energy so fierce I thought it was the angels again, and I was literally knocked right on my arse as a wave of power surged past me. Fear for her fiancée had done what no amount of practising or hoping had managed, and whatever guilt or remorse had been crippling her magic was overwhelmed by the power of the love Medea felt and her drive to protect the woman who inspired it. Katie flapped, startled, as a gust of air swept her and Laclos upwards and then dumped them unceremoniously onto the roof of the walkway, almost on top of a startled Val.

There was a weighted pause, as the guests looked upwards, wondering what the hell would happen next. Then Val stood up and, looking every inch the goddess she was, pulled a sword from the scabbard behind her (another sword? The same one? How did a soul sword even work?) then plunged it into the panel of glass she was standing on. As it shattered to pieces beneath her feet, she put an arm almost casually around Laclos’ waist and jumped, lightly as a cat, into the room below her, as Katie flew to safety.