Armageddon Rules (41 page)

I walked over and reached down into the pile, pulling her up. “Beth, I’m about to unleash a plague of these things. And you’re playing with them. How are you going to feel about marching a thousand of them off into the bay?”

“These little ones are my babies. Not like the nasty, bloody ones. I’ve given them baths, and Mikey bought them bows and let them nibble on him.” Beth took out her kazoo and hummed. The flock fell into a formation behind her. “I thought I had a few more weeks until the poodles came.”

“Change of plans. We’re going to unleash them, corral them, and send them all for a swim in the next hour.” I fiddled in my purse, finding the bag of plague sand. If Beth couldn’t control the poodles, we’d die. If we couldn’t contain them, they’d spread out like a, well, plague, devouring everyone in their path, and getting stronger as they did.

“Teams are ready,” said the terse voice on my radio. So the mercenary control line waited, twenty yards out.

“Anything white and fluffy that isn’t us, you shoot, unless I say otherwise.” I waved to Mikey, and he walked over, each step almost a waddle.

His face was nearly completely transformed, with a long muzzle and ears that twitched and perked as he listened. Close up, he towered almost three feet taller than me.

“Keep Beth safe. She’s the key to everything here.” I reached up and brushed the fur on his face. “Wow. That’s really soft.”

“Conditioner.” The word sounded gargled, spoken through wolf teeth and wolf tongue. He turned and loped back to Beth, running on hands and feet, almost like an ape.

“Ari?” I looked over to first base.

She’d retrieved a bat from the dugout. “Ready, M.”

“Blessing, curse? I need you two.” A slight brush of wind, and the shriek Ari let out told me my harakathin were with me. While I couldn’t control what they did, the last experience with the fae guards told me it wouldn’t be pretty.

Walking to the pitcher’s mound, I knelt and dug in the dirt. My previous plagues I scattered to the wind, so that they’d affect the whole city. I took a handful of plague sand and patted it into the hole I’d made, envisioning what must happen.

Then I ran like hell toward Ari, glancing back at the pitcher’s mound as I ran. Ari waited for me, her face scrunched in concentration as she prepared some spell.

Nothing moved. Overhead, a jet rumbled, reminding me that Liam’s flight would touch down any moment. If the poodle outbreak spread, he’d meet something nastier than a flower-selling freak at the baggage carousel.

One second. Two more. Ten.

The earth erupted.

Thirty-Six

AT FIRST, IT looked like a mole, nosing its way up from the ground. Then the entire mound fell in, as something clawed up through the earth. It shook itself, giving me a clear look at what I’d unleashed, and I gasped.

Burying the plague sand: really bad idea. The thing that scratched itself on centerfield was the size of a delivery truck. That’s plenty scary. The worst part, however, was the slurry of heads, tails, and limbs that jutted from it. Each grain of sand had grown into a poodle, and some of them grew at the same time, in the same place.

Tiny heads with glowing eyes snarled at me from the rib cage, like warts on a dog. Tails wagged under its chin where poodle rear ends jutted from the skin, and on its ears, several almost complete poodles hung, squirming, yipping, eager to devour us.

The poodle-puddle stood, shaking its head and growling like construction machinery. I’d killed worse. True, I’d had the army actually running the antitank weaponry at the time, but it could die, and I’d kill it. A flash of white under it stopped my plotting.

First one, then another, then a flood of tiny poodles streamed out of the pit, forming a swirling pool of white around the monster’s feet. Their bloodstained muzzles let out the yips of the damned, and their eyes blazed with fresh hellfire. Each dainty paw ended in claws that no doubt had shredded flesh a thousand times before.

“Beth, take the small ones,” I shouted, and the sound of my voice suddenly made me stand out. A few thousand tiny eyes turned toward me, and two huge ones that I’d rather have looking anywhere else. The large poodle took a step toward me, growling in a way that made my insides into jelly.

Then a wave of sound came from the stadium speakers. A hum that passed through me, pulling at me, almost commanding me to turn and look at Beth. She stood at home plate, with Mikey over her like some grotesque umpire, a microphone in hand.

Again, she hummed into the mic, and a short whine echoed through the pack of poodles. The white ones rushed forward like a flood, surrounding Beth like a lake, matching with rapt, glowing eyes. The monster, on the other hand, cocked his head to one side, and let out a growl that let me know my plan had a few shortcomings.

Beth tried again, and this time, I took a few steps involuntarily. My feet moved without my control, each step getting easier and easier as I walked her way. “Stop. You’re controlling us too.”

Beth took out her kazoo and looked at me, fear in her eyes. “I can’t control that thing without it.”

“Small ones. Get rid of them, we’ll handle the big dog,” Ari practically screamed, then unleashed a rope of lightning at the monster dog, as she moved toward outfield.

Without the microphone, the hum of Beth’s kazoo no longer ripped control of my feet from me. Small problem solved. The big problem, several thousand pounds of it, shrieked like a tiny puppy, then shook off Ari’s lightning, and headed for her, bounding across the green grass.

I shot it twice as it ran, my nine millimeter barking in my hand like a good doggy as it spat bullets. What I needed was a ninety millimeter, but those didn’t come in pistol sizes. It stopped short, turning to look at me.

“Here, boy!” I waved my arms. I never saw what hit me.

From where I stood, I’d swear the world swung up at me, tackling me at full speed. Then as fast as the weight hit me, it flew off. I looked up and found something ugly enough to reconsider my aversion to cats. The thing that hit me was a poodle. Sort of.

Your average poodle, even a hellfire-driven, bloodthirsty monster one, isn’t six feet high and seven hundred pounds. Worse yet, from the gaping maw in the pitcher’s mound, five more emerged. With a howl, Mikey bounded after them, tearing into one, then slamming it into another.

The one that hit me squealed as something took a bite out of it, severing a tendon. It snapped at the air, snarling and chasing nothing until it crashed into the ground, shaking. I glanced over at Ari and found her inches from the poodle-saur. Trying to charm it? No. She held up the bat, screaming at it. “Who wants the stick? You want the stick? Go get it.”

She hurled it in an arc, pushing it with a bolt of magic so that it sailed over the field, clattering to the ground a few inches from home plate.

Beth stopped humming for an instant. And the poodles converged on her, a storm of white fur and hellfire. I watched my life pass before my eyes twice as the thing loped over me, swallowed the bat, then turned to come after me.

Mikey sprinted past me, a ball of fur and blood, as he leaped on another midsize monster and sank his teeth into its spine.

I ran.

I’m no coward. It’s just that facing that thing wasn’t going to happen. My best weapon had bullets that were more like flies to it. Ari’s heaviest chain lightning only left a singed spot at the end of its nose. I sprinted for the outfield wall, knowing that in three bounds it could cover the distance.

My lungs burned from exertion. My arms shook, but I sprinted as if what was left of my life depended on it. Only when I reached Ari did I glance behind. Something the size of a small truck clung to the poodle-saur’s hind leg. Yeller.

Ari’s hellhound stood full size, three feet taller than the little ones Mikey fought, but looking like a toy Pomeranian attacking a Great Dane. As the poodle-saur spun, gnashing its teeth, huge slashes opened up on its sides as my harakathin attacked it.

With a crunch, the poodle-saur locked its jaws on Yeller and whipped him from side to side, throwing him off like a rat. Ari let out a soft scream. A cry of pain, shock, and sorrow.

The sky began to boil.

Oh, I’d seen her do magic before. Seen her toss a lightning bolt from time to time. This time, clouds boiled in the sky like a time-lapse video. The doorman had called her “Princess of Clouds.” I had a feeling why.

The poodle-saur focused on us, as Ari drew in magic in a way that made the air whistle around her. As if she’d become a storm herself.

It walked toward us, growling in a way that should have felt threatening, if it weren’t for the fact that my best friend currently looked like a tesla coil.

“Over here.” I screamed at the poodle-saur, leading it off to the side. “Ari, anytime now.”

She didn’t answer, continuing the spell, as the sky began to hail, first pea sized, then ice the size of cantaloupes. Time. All she needed was time to finish the spell.

So I ran right at it.

Straight for the poodle-saur, sprinting toward it.

It slammed its feet down, trying to adjust, and I slid, feet first, under it. You know those movies where the heroine does some midair move, shooting the bad guy several times in flight? This was exactly nothing like that.

I rolled onto my stomach as the hell beast turned to look at me, so close the stench of its breath washed over me.

The lightning struck it, raining down from the sky onto Ari, reflecting from her into it. The sheer voltage made my muscles convulse as the sizzling of monster flesh filled the air with a smell like a barbecue cook-off in Inferno.

The poodle-saur collapsed, falling halfway into the pit it emerged from. Smoke rose from a dozen cracks in it.

I managed to stagger onto my feet, my hair sticking out like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. Ari knelt by the outfield wall, and I jogged toward her.

“Can you heal him? Or take him to the vet?” I put one hand on her shoulder.

Her tears answered well enough.

I wanted to comfort her. Really, I did, but right then, it occurred to me that I was missing a wolf, a piper, and at least a thousand little hell spawn. I looked to home plate, expecting to see a crowd of poodles fighting over who got Beth’s ears.

The poodles were gone.

So was Beth.

Leaving Ari on the field, I ran across the field fast enough to score a grand slam, then dashed through the stands, and outside. My mercenary teams lay scattered across the parking lot. Dead. On second thought, asleep. All of them. I looked north, where Beth should have been sending all of them for a nice, long swim. The water’s edge lapped peacefully.

“She’s gone.”

I shot Mikey twice before I even realized it was him. He’d changed back to his normal self. Or maybe his abnormal self. I wasn’t really clear on which was which.

He waited until his body pushed out the bullets. “Really need to see that gunsmith.”

“Where?”

“I’m not telling you, Marissa. She’ll take good care of them. Control them. Train them.” Mikey put a hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me. I wasn’t terribly comforted.

“That’s not how we do this. She leads them off into the water, everyone gets to live another year.” Grimm. I could call Grimm, have him find Beth, and send in a flamethrower team to mop up.

“Grimm?” I looked around, finding a stainless steel railing. “I need you to find Beth. She ran off with more poodles than all of Paris.”

Grimm appeared, his brow creased. “You have worse problems, Marissa. The harbingers took the wrong bridge and encountered an extremely grumpy troll, but they will arrive at any moment. Also—”

“Handmaiden.” I recognized the stench of sulfur without looking behind me.

“Malodin. I gave you your third plague. Poodles.”

“Marissa, this guy bothering you? Want me to kill him?” Mikey gave Malodin the same smile Mikey gave a hot dog.

“Down, boy.” Malodin strode toward me, a look of rage on his face. “You cannot kill me on this plane. Destroy this form, my essence simply leaks away and reforms more determined. More angry.”

“He’s telling the truth for once.” Grimm spoke softly, trying to calm Mikey. “You cannot kill a demon without containing them.”

“I see no pools of blood, I hear no screams of terror. Where is my plague?” Malodin stopped in front of me, resembling a praying mantis in a bowler hat.

“Yeah, about the poodles. They’re gone. I summoned them using the plague sand. Unfortunately, they don’t build poodles the way they used to.” I took the plague sand from my purse and offered it to him.

“Handmaiden, you cannot mock me. The harbingers have arrived. It is time for them to destroy the city, and you to unleash my forces upon your world.” Malodin raised a claw, pointing off toward the parking lot.

There, four figures on bicycles raced toward us. I ran down the stairs and out the ticket gates to meet them.

Death looked like always, an elderly Chinese man with legs like a draft horse. War had reverted to his African skin. Pestilence looked like the image of health, having stripped his shirt off. He glistened like some male stripper.