Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (41 page)

“Drop your weapons! Charleston Police!” The voice came out of the darkness, but I knew it had to be Monroe. Now she’d gone beyond annoying. She was likely to get us killed.

The three Nephilim coming toward me never slowed down. Bo went for the man in the center, sinking his teeth deep into the flesh of his shoulder. A shot fired, and went straight through Bo’s ghostly form, while his snarling spirit never loosened his grip.

Teag landed a hit to the skull of the Nephilim that had Anthony pinned, hard enough to score a home run. Instead, the bloodied fallen angel stood slowly, revealing the mere shell of a body, its chest blown away. Anthony scrambled to his feet, covered in blood, a gun still clutched in his right hand. Teag gave one flick of the
urumi
and the razor whip blade took the Nephilim’s head clean off its shoulders. It lurched toward Teag, arms outstretched and hands clutching, before it finally toppled to the ground and the body disintegrated.

“What the fuck is going on?” Monroe grated, and it was clear she was pissed off. Some choice – get shot by a cop or slashed to ribbons by a fallen angel.

The Nephilim I fire-blasted barely broke stride, although his clothing burned away and his skin charred to blisters. I sent a column of fire toward the center Nephilim, which wouldn’t hurt Bo but caught the fallen angel right in the face.

“I said drop your weapons!” Monroe snapped.

“Can’t,” I shouted. “Not unless you want to see these guys cut us up where we stand. I could use some help here!”

“Ask yourself why they’re still charging us after they’ve caught on fire,” Teag yelled as he cycled his staff overhead, keeping a wary eye on the Nephilim on the left. Although the collapsible staff was metal instead of wood, I saw that he had engraved runes into the surface that were glowing like embers.

He stepped forward and gave a shake of his wrist. The
urumi
snaked out with a
zing
and struck the Nephilim around the waist, tearing through his shirt and peeling off a strip of flesh with it.

With a roar, the Nephilim on the right began to shift. Blood-red leathery skin replaced the charred flesh, ripping through what was left of the burned clothing. Its claws scrabbled against the cobblestones as it began to run toward me, reaching for me with the sharp talons on its long, muscular arms.

This time, I blasted the fallen angel with my athame, which threw him into the air and sent him tumbling down the street. A dark figure stepped from the shadows, and I saw Monroe draw down on the Nephilim.

“Get the hell out of there!” Teag warned. “That thing isn’t human.”

Before Monroe could get more than a word of the Miranda warning out of her mouth, the Nephilim crawled to his feet and turned toward her beneath the streetlight, giving her a good look at just what we were fighting. The Nephilim backhanded Monroe and came after me at a run.

I’ll give Monroe credit. She rolled, came up in a crouch and got in four shots, all of which took the monster in the torso. He never slowed down, although the shots made a bloody mess of his back and would have killed a human. Her aim was good, but her bullets weren’t as effective as what Chuck Pettis and Daniel Hunter had used on the other Nephilim. Apparently, Chuck and Daniel favored larger caliber guns than standard police issue, and silver-holy water rounds that didn’t come with regulation gear.

Now that Monroe was shooting at the fallen angels instead of at us, I could focus on the real threat.

Anthony had figured out that his bullets weren’t going to stop the Nephilim, but getting shot distracted them just fine. So he took aim at the monsters one by one, setting them back on their heels long enough for Teag and me to strike. I was still in shock over Anthony even owning a gun let alone shooting one, but I wasn’t going to turn down help no matter how unexpected. The same went for Monroe, so long as she kept shooting
them
and wasn’t shooting
us
.

“Out of bullets,” Anthony said grimly.

“Get behind me – and stay there!” Teag ordered. We still had three Nephilim to go. Teag lashed the Nephilim closest to him with his
urumi
, and the steel blade was crimson with blood, flaying the fallen angel with every stroke of the razor-sharp lash. I wished I had my
chakram
or Josiah Winfield’s pistols – preferably both – and wondered whether or not what we had with us was going to be good enough.

Monroe followed Anthony’s lead, once she figured out she couldn’t drop the Nephilim, and her shots slowed our attackers. I alternated blasting fire with the walking stick and the white-cold force I could project from the athame, but I couldn’t keep it up forever. The bullets kept the Nephilim from transforming, but I doubted Monroe had a neverending supply. Bo’s ghost kept at the fallen angels, dodging after them with bared, bloodied teeth. He chomped down hard on the hamstring of Teag’s target. When the Nephilim went down onto one knee, Teag caved in the side of its skull with his staff and followed up with a full-power kick just for good measure. The fallen angel collapsed, and Teag jammed the end of his staff down on the base of the Nephilim’s neck, severing its spine. The corpse vanished.

Two down, two to go. Anthony was wounded and Nephilim claws carried taint, so he’d be in bad shape if we didn’t end this fight quickly. Teag and I were tiring fast. I was afraid that the gunshots would summon more police. That was likely to get Teag and me shot and civilians wounded when the Nephilim turned on the cops.

The Nephilim I battled was half-changed. I hit him in the chest with a column of fire and he roared with anger, but he kept on coming. His right hand slashed across my shoulder deep enough to destroy my jacket and draw blood from four parallel gashes. On sheer reflex, I sank my power down into the cobblestones and the earth beneath my feet, and to my surprise, something answered.

We were South of Broad Street. Much of this area was reclaimed from the water by dumping the rocky ballast of ships into the busy harbor. Unnatural ground and old ocean bed was a natural magnet for spirits. I felt my power fan out to the old homes along the street with their long-suffering ghostly residents, and I called out for help to the duelists and drunkards and vagabonds who had breathed their last along these gutters. I’m not a medium and I’m not a necromancer, but when I touch haunted objects, the ghosts respond. And tonight, I needed their help.

Bo’s spirit grew more solid, and hurled himself at the Nephilim closest to me. Monroe still looked bushwacked by what was going on, but the half-turned fallen angels were close enough to anyone’s definition of monster that she decided to strike first and ask questions later. She had emptied her clip into the Nephilim, and the fact that they kept on coming must have convinced her that they were the bad guys. We could hash it out later, if we were all alive to argue about it. Now, Monroe went after the Nephilim’s backs, pistol-whipping one and pulling a truncheon from somewhere to hammer away at their skulls.

Teag’s
urumi
had both of the Nephilim stripped nearly bare of skin. Deep cuts to the muscle and tendons should have stopped them, but they kept on coming. Anthony hurled rocks from the gutter, and he pitched like a major leaguer, but we just didn’t have the firepower to bring these suckers down.

I saw a blur, and one of the Nephilim flew through the air. He landed on the
chevaux de frise
atopthe wrought iron fence behind us and stuck like a gigged frog. Another blur, and the last Nephilim stopped in his tracks, with a steel sword protruding from his chest through his heart. A second later, his head was torn from his body. The corpse shuddered and convulsed, then crumbled to ash. Sorren stood behind him, a bloodied sword in his hands.

“I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life,” I said shakily, lowering my walking stick. Bo’s ghost rubbed against Sorren, gave me a tired doggy smile, and vanished.

“What… the hell… happened here?” Bloodied and bruised, Detective Monroe staggered toward us. I’ll give her props – she had to make a split-second judgment on whom to back, and she picked the right team.

“What do you think happened?” Sorren asked. I recognized the honeyed tone of compulsion.

“I have no idea,” Monroe replied, less forcefully than before. “Those men looked normal, but no one human can take that kind of damage –”

I wasn’t Detective Monroe’s biggest fan. We’d never be BFFs, or do a girls’ night out. But right now, I felt for her. She was used to a world where there wasn’t such a thing as monsters, where everything made sense, and where the simplest explanation was the best. And she had just tumbled into the Twilight Zone
.

“You fought bravely,” Sorren said in a voice that was almost impossible to resist. “Why did you follow Cassidy?”

“I know there’s more going on than what she’s saying,” Monroe said as if she were in a trance. “I figured I’d follow them, see where they went. Wondered what the lawyer has to do with it. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

I could tell that Monroe was fighting the compulsion, but her voice had taken on a dream-like quality. Anthony moved forward, and his expression was equally intrigued and repelled, but Teag vigorously motioned for him to be quiet.

“What did you see?” Sorren asked.

Monroe’s answer was halting. I’m sure for a by-the-book cop, fighting monsters strained every rational synapse in her brain. “I saw… monsters. Or people dressed up like monsters. Or terrorists that looked like… monsters.”

There’s a moment when people encounter the supernatural and it turns their world upside-down. Some people can deal with it. Most can’t. Monroe might be obnoxious, but she was a good cop. She just wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing. Neither were ninety-nine percent of the people on this planet.

“You saw an attempted drive-by shooting. The shooters were after Cassidy, Teag, and Anthony,” Sorren said quietly. “You ordered the attackers to disperse, and they did not heed your orders. Then as they drove away, you fired your weapon into the air as a warning and finally into their vehicle. There were no monsters. Nothing unusual happened. Just three people fighting off an attack. Do you understand?”

Numbly, Monroe nodded. She’d had the courage to stick around and help, even though she had no idea what was going on and didn’t actually like us. And now she could go back to her everyday existence, disbelieving in magic and monsters, secure in her very normal world. I envied her – just a little.

“You’re going to walk back to your car,” Sorren instructed. When you get there, you’ll remember helping to scare off the drive-by. That is the report you’ll make. And in the future, you’ll realize that you have more important things to do than to pay attention to what Cassidy, Teag, and Anthony are doing.” Sorren looked toward us and cocked an eyebrow with a sardonic smile.

“I understand.”

“Go now, and remember nothing else.”

We remained silent as Detective Monroe turned and walked away. When she was out of sight and out of earshot, we all gave a sigh of relief.

“How did you know we needed help?” I asked.

Sorren shrugged. “I was afraid there might be problems at the gala. That’s why I made sure the painting was gone early. Once it was dark, I thought I should check in. I’m glad I did. Circumstances delayed me, for which I apologize.”

“I think we might have broken about a dozen or so laws, at least.” Anthony sounded a little woozy. Teag turned toward him with concern just as Anthony’s knees gave way and he collapsed to the sidewalk. He was bleeding where the Nephilim had struck him, and he looked pale.

“Oh God,” Teag said. “We’ve got to get him inside and get help.”

“I’ve seen you fight in tournaments,” Anthony said, looking up at Teag unsteadily. “But not like this. You went Batman on their asses.”

“Guess that makes you Robin,” Teag said, worry pinching his features tight. “Where the hell did you get a gun? You hate guns.”

“But I love you,” Anthony mumbled. “And what you do is dangerous. I figured… it would come in handy.” His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell silent.

“Sorren, please,” Teag begged.

Sorren laid a hand on Teag’s shoulder. “We’re not far from your house. Let’s get him inside. It’s likely not as bad as it looks.” Sorren scooped Anthony into his arms as if he were lifting a small child, and we walked the last block to their house. I was holding my breath and when we crossed over Lucinda’s protective wards, I exhaled.

Sorren laid Anthony down on the couch. “Let’s take a look at those gashes.” Teag fetched the special first-aid kit, and Sorren cleaned and dressed Anthony’s wounds with practiced skill. “He’s had quite a shock, and he’s lost some blood, but he’ll be fine with rest,” he said after he finished. “I’ll send Dr. Zeigler over right away to have a look at him, in case those cuts are tainted.”

“Will he remember?” Teag asked.

Sorren nodded. “Yes. He bought that gun and learned to use it of his own free will. While he struggles with belief in the supernatural, he believes you. So, yes. He will remember. All of it.” That was going to make for an uncomfortable conversation later, but we were in too deep to worry about it now.

Sorren glanced from Teag to me and his eyes narrowed. “As for the two of you,” he said, “let me take care of those cuts.” Sorren’s injuries were already healing on their own.

Teag swore that he was all right with Anthony on his own, and Anthony was sleeping soundly, thanks to a root tea from Mrs. Teller and some help from Sorren. Sorren made a call, and promised that Dr. Zeigler would stop by in the morning. An hour later, Sorren and I left to walk to my house.