Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) (23 page)

“My shirt,” I said, suddenly getting why he tore the room
apart. “That lady put something on my shirt back at the shops when she slapped
me on the back.”

Dad nodded. “A tiny pentagram was stuck just inside the
collar. I have no idea what it was made of. If felt metallic, but it was
flexible, like thread. Anyway, thank God you took that beer bath, otherwise you
might not have taken off the shirt and they’d be tracking us now.”

“But you left the shirt in the room.” Smart. “They won’t
know we left.”

“Exactly.” He flashed me a cocky smile. “You’d think I’d
done this spy thing before.”

I smiled, too, but I’m sure it looked grim. “You’d think,
but if you really want to impress me, find a way to stay a step ahead of these
people.”

“That’s the plan,” Dad said, then focused on the road.

We arrived in Amsterdam around ten. Dad took us to a hotel
on the west side of the city, the Remco. We parked the car on the street
instead of letting the valet park it and slipped inside via a side door.

At the front desk, Dad asked the night manager to ring
“Carol Quigley’s” room. “My wife,” he said in an Aussie accent, smiling,
handing the manager his passport.

“Oh, yes! She said you were on your way and told me to send
you up.” The night manager handed him a key. “Room two-oh-seven.”

“Thank you.” He motioned for me to follow. “Come along,
Jonathan. Mum’s waiting.”

“Mum? Carrie’s, what, five minutes older than I am?” I
whispered, as we headed for the stairwell.

“Just roll with it.” We climbed to the second floor and Dad
stopped on the landing. “Stay close, okay?”

Did he think there were witches waiting in the hall for us?
I stuck to his side as we edged out of the stairwell and crept down to room
207.

Dad didn’t bother knocking; he unlocked the door and let
himself in. “Jesus!”

I started after him, but Tink cried out,
He’s been here!

I didn’t have to ask who.

“Matt, inside! Quick!”

I stepped into the room and locked the door behind me, then
took a deep breath and turned around. “Oh, my God.”

The room had been torn apart. The little nightstand was
flipped on its side, the mattress was askew and the TV had a hole punched
through the middle of the screen.

Then there was Carrie.

Dad knelt beside her body, a hand over his face. She lay
sprawled on the floor, her eyes wide open in death, staring in terror at
something she no longer saw. Dried blood had caked at the corner of her mouth
and nostrils. Other than that, there wasn’t a mark on her.

Because the marks were on the walls.

Symbols, like the ones that had been burned into Dr.
Burton-Hughes’s skin and carved into the altar in Australia, had been finger
painted in blood over the pale wallpaper. All around the room, those symbols
loomed over us, haunting and ugly.

Behind you!
Tink barked.

I whirled around to find…what was that? Ink stains? Shadows
come to life? Whatever they were, the black splotches crawled up the wall,
coming together in a hideous form. With horns on its bulbous head and a bloated
body, the thing rolled from the wall to become solid and oozed across the
floor, straight at Dad and me.

“Back!” I snapped, shoving him into the corner. The thing
had blocked the door, and the window was too small to climb through. “Time to
earn my paycheck.”

Dad snorted. “I’m starting to hate it when you say that.”

I drew my knife. The creature had no distinguishable
features—it was just a roiling mass of utter blackness. The little bit of light
coming from the lamp didn’t even reflect off its surface.

It was Dark, made solid.

I stood ready, waiting for it to attack. But instead of
rushing me, it dissolved into a puddle that became tendrils that slithered
around my feet. It moved so fast; one second it had been looming over me. The
next, it had wrapped my leg in a strand of pure, cold hate that made me shiver
like I’d run outside naked during a blizzard.

Other tendrils oozed toward Dad. I tried to slash at them,
but two more wrapped around my other leg to fix me in place, and a third shot
up to grip my right wrist, preventing me from using the knife.

“What the hell is this thing?” Dad gasped, as coils of the
Dark monster wound around his hips. “It’s…so cold. G-g-get it off!”

“T-trying.” Working my fingers around the knife handle, even
as the thing sent more strands of black up and around my body, I turned the
blade to give me some leverage.

But I had trouble moving my hand any more than that. I was literally
freezing where I stood. My fingers and toes had gone numb, and a deep ache
wracked my torso as cold seeped into my bones. Behind me, Dad’s teeth began to
chatter audibly. The monster tied my left arm to the side of my body, and more
tentacles slithered up to wrap around my neck.

I couldn’t breathe. Not because it was choking me, but
because I’d become so tired. It wasn’t worth fighting—how could I win when I
was freezing to death?

Dad moaned softly behind me and I heard him thump to the
floor. That seemed like a good idea. I could lie down, rest. Then maybe my
strength would come back. I relaxed my knees, ready to fall.

Oh, that’s enough of that!
Tink’s voice burned its
way through my frozen brain.

A pain flared up on my wrist, then the black ooze began to
glow. While I watched, the strands crackled and melted away. Underneath, the
star pentagram on my arm blazed with a brilliant silver light.

“Tink? What—”

Hush! Not time for questions. It’s time to fight!

Slowly, the blade I’d so carefully turned around earlier
started to creep toward the strand stretched between my right arm and the
floor. With an angry howl, Tink forced my hand to push the blade into the black
mass. As it cut through, all the others tightened, including the one around my
neck.

But my hand was free, and that gave me just enough leverage
to slice through the other bands holding me. The one on my neck was a little
dicey, but true to its purpose, the blade didn’t so much as nick my skin as it
sliced neatly through the final tendril.

I turned to find Dad nearly covered in the stuff, crouched
on the floor. One blue eye met mine through a mask of black. I went to work,
carefully freeing him, until all that remained of the Dark monster were slashed
bits of string littering the floor and stuck to our skin.

Allow me,
Tink snapped, forcing my knife hand down so
that the blade stabbed into the thickest pile of goo left. There was a flash of
green from the blade, a blaze of white from the star on my wrist, and the goo
sizzled before vaporizing into a cloud of green-tinged smoke.

“To ask my question again, what the hell was that thing?”
Dad asked, picking strings of tar out of his hair. “And where did it come
from?”

“No idea,” I said, “But I think you were right—the witches
knew exactly where we’ve been and where we were going. I think they left that
little present for us.”

Tink let out growl.
We have to stop her. She doesn’t know
what she’s doing!

“Who? Ann?”

Yes.

“What
is
she doing?” I asked, examining the symbols
on the wall…anything to avoid looking at the dead girl on the floor or the raw,
red skin on my wrists and arms.

Bringing him to life, Matthew. That was the Shadow’s
remnant.
Tink’s voice was hollow.
They’re trying to bring him here.

* * *

Dad and I searched the room, looking for some clue as to
what happened. I rubbed my right wrist. The blast of light from the tattoo
hadn’t burned me, but there was a raw mark where the black strands had dug in.
I thought about what Tink said. Could they do it? Could they bring the Shadow
Man out of my dreams and into the world?

Well, the Dark monster I just fought off was a pretty good
clue that yeah, they probably could. Still, it was too horrible to even
consider. I’d always thought of him like the spirits—needing a human as arms
and legs, but if that wasn’t true…

“I found something,” Dad said. He was halfway under the bed.
“You have my laptop?”

“Yeah.” I hurried to unpack it as Dad climbed out from under
the mattress and handed me a small flash drive.

“Is it hers?” I asked, booting up his machine.

“We’ll find out,” he said.

He’d carried Carrie into the bathroom, wrapped in the
bedspread, and gently laid her in the bathtub. I was both sad and horrified by
the idea of a poor murdered girl tucked away in a tub, but it was like Dad had
switched off his emotions. He’d approached the removal of the body the same way
he’d approached the search—with clinical precision. It was a little unnerving,
to be honest.

The laptop finished booting and I inserted the flash drive.
“There’s only one file.” I turned to Dad, eyes wide. “It’s called Dragons.”

“Open it,” he said.

I did and a text window popped up. It said only one thing.

“Gotcha.”

* * *

Dad and I ran from the Remco like the Shadow Man was after
us, and maybe he was. We left the body where it was…we couldn’t do anything for
her, but it still troubled me. I didn’t like to leave a man behind. Not even a
witch.

“What was that about?” I asked. “Did Carrie leave that
note?”

“No,” he said, looking over his shoulder before unlocking
the car. “I think Ann took whatever was there and left the note for us. She
knows we’re here.”

We climbed into the car and I asked, “Where do we go now?”

“The airport,” Dad said, sounding far too calm as he
navigated through a few alleys before pulling onto a major street. He sped the
car up, taking us past shadowed, deserted buildings. “We’re blown for sure. We
need to get out of here before—”

The Volvo’s engine coughed and the car jerked once before it
died entirely. We coasted to a stop at the corner of a dark intersection.
Nothing stirred outside.

“This isn’t good,” I muttered. “Perfectly good cars don’t
just crap out like that.”

“No, they don’t,” Dad said, checking the rearview mirror.
“We have company, too.”

The words had barely left his mouth before the hairs on the
back of my neck rose. The air crackled around us and something like a bolt of
lightning struck the hood of the car.

“Out, out!” Dad snapped, throwing his door open. “Stay low,
head for the alley.”

Crouching, I rolled out of the car and hurried after him. A
low, throaty chuckle floated out of the darkness as we took cover behind the
nearest building.

A woman’s laugh.

“I think Ann’s here,” I whispered.

Dad held a finger to his lips and a snub-barreled pistol
appeared in his other hand. Creeping forward, silent as a panther, he peeked
his head around the corner of the building.

White light shot out of the darkness. The gun flew out of
his hand and sailed across the street. Dad cursed and scuttled back to me.
“Looks like conventional tactics are a ‘no.’ Got anything up your sleeve?

Considering this was my first witch attack, I wasn’t exactly
prepared. “Uh, Tink? Any ideas?”

Hi..st..must…ink…

“What?” I asked. She sounded like she was underwater.

Ca…er…ocked

“Blocked? Is that what you said?”

No answer.

Damn it. That had to be it. She was blocked, and we were
stuck. “It’s a trap.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Dad breathed. “I bet this
whole intersection is covered in pentagrams. Ann drew us here and put us right
where she wanted us.”

A chill ran down my back. To think she’d sabotaged the car
so that we’d stall precisely here was freaky. “And Carrie couldn’t escape being
a sacrifice this time, could she?”

“No.”

We crouched in the shadows, me wondering when she’d close in
on us. I had my hand on the knife’s handle. Maybe Tink was blocked, but the
blade would do enough damage on its own. Assuming I’d be able to get close
enough to throw it without being fricasseed by the light show.

Or that she didn’t have shields.

Dad shifted closer to the wall and looked up. He caught my
eye and mimed climbing. I examined the side of the building and saw what he
meant to do. The façade was an old style, with decorative bricks sticking out
at regular intervals—perfect handholds.

How do you avoid a street war? Get out of the street.

Dad went first, testing the stones first with his hands,
then easing the rest of his weight up with his feet. After he made it up half a
story, I followed. It was slow work, made more nerve wracking because the
building was four stories and I had no idea how many witches were out there,
waiting for us to come out…just Ann, or did she have an army with her? Were
they already in the alley, aiming a shot at our backs? I didn’t dare look down to
find out.

We were about halfway up, when the same throaty female voice
called out, “Erik, darling, why don’t you stop this silly game and come out?”

Aussie accent, well educated. Condescending—like a
professor. Yeah, this had to be Ann.

“Keep climbing,” Dad whispered. “Don’t stop, no matter
what.”

“She cried for you when she died,” Ann said, sounding smug.
“Poor Carrie, she thought you were a white knight. That you actually
cared
.
You and I know better, eh?”

I didn’t miss Dad’s low growl. Hitting him where it hurt?
Had he been involved with Carrie in some way?

“Come on out now, dear, and bring that remarkable boy of
yours.” Ann’s laugh was cold and ugly. “We’ll stow him somewhere and you can
show me what you did to win Carrie over so thoroughly. I bet I’ll enjoy it.”

Dad stopped climbing and when I drew even I saw cracks in
his cold, controlled mask. His eyes burned with rage…whatever Carrie had been
to him—a mole into Nocturna Maura or a lover—he wanted vengeance.

“I doubt it,” I called out to Ann before Dad could do
something stupid—that was
my
department. “Neither of us is feeling all
that chivalrous at the moment. Chances are good you’ll get hurt, lady.”

“Hmmm, brave words from a wielder without a knife-spirit.
Oh, yes, I’ve got your vindictive little sprite all tied up and at my
disposal.”

My breath hitched. How’d she know I called Tink a vindictive
little sprite? Because there’s no way she pulled that out of thin air. What
kind of voodoo was this woman working?

“Climb,” Dad whispered. “We need the high ground.”

I passed him, scurrying up that wall out of pure anxiety.
Once I gained the roof, I leaned down to give him a hand up.