Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2) (22 page)

I caught Josh’s eyes.  “For someone who doesn’t want to be the Master of the City, you sure are racking up brownie points with the fey.”

“You can take the shape-shifter out of law-enforcement,” he said, “but you can’t take the law-enforcement out of the shape-shifter.  Too many years as a PRT agent I guess.  There’s just something about monsters threatening the common good that makes me want to kill them.”  He reached out and snagged the necklace box, closing it, putting it in his pocket.  “Do you think these fey deaths have anything to do with the wolves’ slaughterhouse?”

I shrugged.  “I don’t know, but when you go for your river walk in the morning, I’ll be with you.”

“And me,” Vivian said.

“No,” I told her.  “I have another job for you.  I want you to bury your dislike of Mason Mason, and see if you can ingratiate yourself with him.  If you talk bad about me, he might put you on the payroll as a double agent.  I want to know if he represents a splinter group among the dhampyr, and if he’s being watched.”

“That tracker on his car,” Vivian said.

I nodded.  “Right.  If the wolves weren’t trying to get a handle on us, then I want to know who’s trying to get a handle on the dhampyr.  Besides, there’s that mysterious force feeding his magic.  We can’t rule out he has the dream stone we’re looking for.”  I fell silent, seeing the waitress approaching with our food.  She dropped off the dishes and moved away. 

That’s when I reached for my glass and found it replaced by the obsidian bottle.  I sniffed the bottle;
Still Crown and Coke
.  The red pearl that hung around my neck pulsed with gentle warmth.  The Red Lady lived in another dimension, in a non-linear flow of time.  She claimed to know—and love—the future me. 

Yeah, right, like I can forget you’re out there with designs on my body, waiting for me to get desperate enough to call on you.  Not going to happen.

Her soft, mocking laughter echoed in my head, saying otherwise. 

FIFTEEN

In for a penny, in for a pounding.

                                             
—
Caine Deathwalker

Our waitress slipped me her phone number along with the check.  The number went in my pocket, an option for later tonight.  After paying the ticket, I led my troops upstairs to the boardwalk.  As I opened the black metal gate—Vivian a step behind, Josh bringing up the rear—my magic barrier activated, a shield of shimmering red blurring the air.  Fire splashed my barrier.  Like a living thing, it clung and writhed tenaciously, obscuring my view of our attacker.  My shield obscured some of the flame’s color, but I thought it a dark, muddy shade of green.

T
he assassin
. 

Caught inside my shield at its formation, Vivian shoved me down behind a black Jetta parked alongside the boardwalk.  The shield moved with us.  Lying on the boardwalk, I heard the
whump
of fireballs pounding on the other side of the vehicle.  Whoever owned the Jetta was going to have a hell of a time explaining this to their insurance company.

As if I didn’t have magical protection, Vivian pressed herself over me, a living shield against anything lobbed over the car.  Pinned down, I was touched in more ways than one.  The growing monster in my pants all but whistled a happy tune. 

Vivian looked back to see what had become of Josh in all the confusion.  With his background in the PRT, I wasn’t too worried.  As her stare returned to my face, her look of disgust was shattered by one of disbelief.  Something compelled her to rock to the side and grab my crotch.  I hissed, wincing.  She’d not been as gentle as I’d have liked.

She said, “That’s not natural.  No one gets
that
big who’s not a shape-shifter.”

I gave her a cocky grin.  “Now you know what you’ve been missing out on.”

A reddish-orange explosion washed across my shield along with muted thunder.  Metal pieces rained off my barrier and went back out into the street.  The concussive blast set off car alarms.  And a flaming tire slammed the restaurant fence and bounced back, heading away.  The car we’d sheltered behind was gone.

Vivian’s body peeled away.  Her hand jerked off my crotch, not in a good way.  She dragged me up with dhampyr strength and slung me over behind another car.  I flopped to the boardwalk, my shield moving with me.  She followed, now outside my shield, ducking behind its dome for cover.

I got to my knees and peered through the car’s side windows, scanning for the green flame assassin, for Josh, and for more fire coming my way.  I had a shield, true, but I’d noticed that during my last exposure, her mystic fire had started eating through my barrier.  If she were to corner me and pour on the attack, my shield might eventually break.  Besides, constant defense limited my ability to counterattack.  I needed to capture the momentum of the fight from my adversary.

The incoming fireballs were fewer and spaced out more.  Wherever Josh was, he was drawing fire away from Viv and me.  The angle of the green fire changed.  Balls splattered the vehicle’s backside. 

“She’s heading for the river!” I yelled.

Staying low, Vivian ran past the end of the street, into the grassy rectangle which was posted as
Old Sacramento State Historical Park.  I followed, drawing a PPK from my shoulder rig.  I didn’t see Josh, but I heard the liger’s bellow of rage coming from the direction of the old Pacific Rail Road Depot.  He and the assassin were already half a block away.

  With Vivian dogging my steps, I followed the boardwalk, trying to catch up to the running battle.  I ran across an alley mouth on the left, and passed one of the few streetlights burning in the vicinity.  The black lamp caught a green fireball that melted its middle, sagging the pole so it resembled a modern sculpture.  The concrete under foot, along the edge of the grassy field, was rough and worn, dusted with loose gravel on top.  I slowed slightly so I wouldn’t slip and turn an ankle.

Vivian barely seemed to even touch the ground.  She pulled away from me like I was standing still.  Ahead of both of us, the liger’s roar cut off.  He’d probably been forced to drastically change his angle of attack, dodging fire close up.

He oughta leave this to me.  All that fur is flammable.  And if I lose the liger, I lose a key piece to fixing this city. 

Vivian swung away from an island in the middle of unused railroad tracks where maple and oak grew.  She headed for a structure where old trains were housed for display, along with hand carts, and an antique luggage crane.  These were visible through the black grille of what looked to be a twelve foot iron fence.  Part of the fence was gone, turned into pooling slag.  The lady assassin had retreated into the locked area for cover.  Flashes of green light told me that Josh was keeping her busy inside.

Vivian shot in
after them, leaving me as the only one playing catch up.  I could have used the tats on my legs to give myself vampire speed, but I was saving that.  This piece of magic came with a time-delayed penalty of debilitating cramps, so I used it sparingly.   

I followed the rail tracks to the half-melted fence and went in, keeping low, dodging to the right to get at least one line of railroad cars between me and the assassin.  I wanted to be on her without her seeing me coming.  The area was gloomy with little green fires putting out a dull sort of light.  Shadows jerked, matching the dance of flames.  The air thickened with the stink of smoke.  Coming up on an engine, I paused and muffled a cough.

From some distance away, I heard the assassin calling, “Don’t think I’m going to make your death easy, Caine.  You’re going to see all you love and cherish destroyed before your turn comes.”

Okay, a killer and a bitch
, but the gods will weep for you if you touch my gold. 

A wall of green fire chased Vivian around the engine, forcing her to take shelter a few feet from me.  She glared my way, slapping green fire on the edge of her sleeve.  “I just knew all this was your fault.”  The fire resisted smothering.  She shed the coat before the flame got to her arm.  “Damn, I liked that duster.”

“Where is she,” I hissed.

“On top of the next train over.”

“Where’s Josh?”

“Got no idea.  He asked me to buy him a little time.  Said he had a plan.”

I focused my senses.  They were better than human now; I’d make them work for me.  Vivian started to say something else.  I held up a hand to stop her.  For all we knew, the assassin might have preternatural senses as well.  I heard my pulse in my ears.  Tuning out the sound, I heard Vivian’s heartbeat, slow and strong.  The crackle of flames came from a dozen places.  Green light made the smoke a miasma of evil, defying vision.  A scrape of sound made me look up into the rafters, where a false ceiling of steel mesh prevented bats from nesting.  I saw a huge shadow-shape clinging to the mesh, tearing at it.

I’d fished with a net on numerous occasions, so it wasn’t much of a leap to figure out what the liger was doing up there.  Unfortunately, the ripping steel was betraying his intentions.  A blast of fire shot up around him.  Josh dropped and slammed to the floor with an explosive grunt.

Figuring the assassin was distracted with him, I bolted past Vivian, grabbing her arm, tugging her along as I rounded the plow-like cow-catcher on the locomotive.  I saw the assassin on top of the other train, a stocky female shape wreathed in green fire.  I snapped off a full clip into her back and ass.  She jerked, crying out softly, biting off a curse.  Instead of penetrating, my slugs splashed over her, and dripped down her body like quicksilver.