Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (51 page)

“I am so done with this shit.” Daniel Hunter was holding something that looked like a cricket bat studded with obsidian blades. A
maquahuitl
, the weapon ancient Aztecs used when they were severely pissed at someone. He swung the
maquahuitl
with all his might, and it took the Watcher One’s head right off his neck, smashing in one side of it for good measure. The severed head stuck to the blades, as if Daniel were batting a gory home run. The fallen angel’s body collapsed to the blood-soaked ground.

Sorren, Lucinda, and Caliel still battled Sariel, while Donnelly made sure the fifth Watcher didn’t come through the portal. Sorren had a sword in each hand, bloodied to the elbows and spattered with gore. His shirt and jeans were soaked with his own blood from deep gashes. Sariel had Marinette’s strength to bolster him, and I wondered if the Loa was the only reason the nephilmancer was still on his feet.The Angel Oak’s roots twined around his ankles, as if the old tree knew it was Sariel who had lit the bonfire. Sariel was bleeding heavily from deep gashes on his arms and thighs, and the belly wound alone would have put a regular fighter on the ground. Mad resistance glittered in Sariel’s eyes, and I knew neither he nor Sorren would yield short of destruction.

We didn’t have that kind of time.

I grabbed the
chakram
from the ground and made a Hail Mary throw, aiming at Sariel. The razor disk missed his neck but lodged in his shoulder. It was the distraction Sorren needed. One sword split the nephilmancer from shoulder to hip, while the other severed his head, just for good measure. Sariel wasn’t getting back up from that, even with a Loa possessing him.

Marinette’s spirit shrieked in rage as Sariel’s body failed. She tore loose from the corpse, rising like a destroying angel above the blood-soaked ground. Lucinda blasted her with the green-lit power of her staff, and Caliel struck with his blessed swords, but the malicious Loa wheeled on them, a frenzy of teeth and claws.

The Angel Oak was still against my back, and my hands gripped its rough bark. I listened to the images that my touch magic unlocked, and I knew that the Angel Oak was not happy at having its long slumber disturbed. It despised the death and blood; it feared the fire.

The reading I got from the Loas was different. Lucinda’s power had called them, and they came, observing before they decided whether or not to intervene. Marinette’s involvement troubled them, but I feared they would see the struggle as mortal business, and thus beneath their interest to intervene.

If I could sense the tree’s perceptions because I was touching the Angel Oak, maybe the tree and the Loas could hear me, too. I tightened my grip on the tree and opened my mind to the Oak, feeding it images more than words. The stairway disappearances. Reapers. So many deaths. Sariel’s desire for vengeance – and what he intended for Charleston. The information passed out of me at a breathtaking speed, and I felt drained when it ended, but I had the definite feeling that I had been heard.

We can’t defeat Marinette by ourselves. Please, please help,
I begged.

I felt the ancient power of Gran Bwa and Damballah Wedo rouse. Marinette Bois Sech was one of their own, and she had overstepped.

Gran Bwa’s spirit sank into the Angel Oak, and the branches shook as the tree’s limbs began to move. One huge limb lay on the ground. Now, animated by the Loa, it swept the bonfire aside, scattering the brands and obliterating Sariel’s warded circle. Abruptly, the portal winked shut, trapping the fifth Watcher in the Netherworld where he belonged.

The spirit of Damballah Wedo, the great white snake, slipped down the Angel Oak’s many branches, spreading out over the limbs and twigs, out into the leaves. The breeze stirred and the Angel Oak bent as if from a hurricane’s force. As its limbs came close to where Marinette’s spirit raged, I saw the snake’s thick coils reach out from among the leaves and wrap themselves around Marinette like an anaconda. Marinette bucked and fought, but Damballah Wedo was stronger. When the snake engulfed Marinette, the vision blinked out, and so did the presence of the Loas.

The Angel Oak looked as it always did. The glow had faded, the limbs and branches were in the positions they had held for centuries, roots beneath the soil once more. Beautiful and ancient, nothing suggested that it had been a participant in a battle for the soul of the Holy City.

Caliel and Lucinda stood at the base of the Angel Oak where the offerings lay, thanking Gran Bwa and Damballah Wedo for their help. Father Anne, Chuck, and Daniel limped around stomping out embers and kicking dirt over the burning remains of the bonfire. Donnelly remained staring warily at the empty space where the portal had been. Only now did he lower his churchwarden’s pipe athame, sure that the threat was over.

The bodies of the Watchers vanished, returning to the Netherworld. That left Sariel’s remains. When Marinette’s spirit left him, the true extent of the damage was apparent. Sariel looked as if he had aged decades, and his body was nearly as dried-out and bony as Marinette’s. Sorren retrieved Sariel’s severed head, then picked up the body. He looked at Father Anne and Lucinda. “This time, I need to be sure he doesn’t come back,” he said. They nodded, and left with him toward the dark trees at the back of the park.

Daniel and Chuck scoured the grounds to gather up weapons, spent shells and any other evidence of our work. Except for the scorch mark where the bonfire had been, and the torn-out metal parking sign, our battle left few physical traces. The offerings beneath the tree stayed. There was no harm in leaving them as tribute.

Mrs. Teller and Niella joined us once they were certain the fighting was over. I didn’t blame them. Mrs. Teller was up in years, and Niella wasn’t a trained fighter. Still, that hardly meant they were defenseless, and I had seen Mrs. Teller hold her own in more than one tough situation.

“Wow,” Niella said, surveying the scene. “That was really something.”

“We knew we couldn’t help with the fighting, so we did what we do,” Mrs. Teller chimed in. “We found a doorway and set a protection spell over all of you, against the forces of darkness.”

“I’d say it worked,” I replied. I had been in enough battles to know that the smallest things can affect the outcome, one way or another. We had squeaked out a victory, and it had taken all of us to do it.

Niella gave me an appraising look. “Girl, we need to get all of you back home where we can doctor you up before those cuts go sour. You look like a hundred miles of bad road.”

Her comment reminded me of how many places on my body hurt like hell. Bo’s ghost lingered next to me, making sure I was all right. Out of old habit, my left hand reached for his head to ruffle his golden fur and tousle those soft ears. Though my hand slipped right through his apparition, Bo gave me that goofy grin I loved and desperately missed and then, vanished.

We had saved the city, prevented tens of thousands of deaths, and no one would ever know.

“I don’t know about you, but I could use a beer, a shower and a pint of blood, not necessarily in that order,” I quipped tiredly. Then I sobered quickly as I got a look at Teag.

Teag limped toward me. He had been gashed across the chest and left shoulder, and his shirt was soaked with blood. A deep cut slashed one thigh as well. He was dangerously pale, and swayed on his feet. I ran to him just as his eyes rolled back in his head as he dropped to the ground like a rock.

“Archie! Over here!” Sorren appeared next to Teag in a blur. He dropped to his knees next to Teag and pressed his bloody arm against Teag’s lips, forcing some of the fluid into Teag’s mouth though it looked like Sorren had little blood to spare. “He’s fading.” Donnelly hurried over and knelt on the other side.

“Hold onto him,” Sorren commanded, withdrawing his arm. “I can’t give him enough blood to heal him. I’ll have a doctor waiting for us.”

“I don’t have any supplies –” I started.

“Leave that to me,” Donnelly said. He laid his hand over Teag’s forehead and spoke a few words of power. That’s when it hit me. Teag was dying. Sorren wanted Donnelly to bind soul to body long enough for us to try to save him.

S
ORREN’S PRIVATE DOCTOR,
Dr. Zeigler, met us at my house.

“There are enough supplies in the dining room for a hospital,” Maggie said when we arrived. “A man named Higgins brought them by not long ago.” I glanced into the dining room and saw sufficient medical supplies for a mobile surgical unit. “I’ve got hot tea ready, chicken soup and my grandmother’s homemade poultice,” she added, bustling around the kitchen despite her crutches. Mrs. Teller and Niella went to help, since they had managed to escape the battle unscathed.

“Let mama add some of her powders to that poultice,” Niella suggested. “It’ll cure that demon claw taint.” All of us had deep cuts from the Nephilim and Watchers. Those wounds would turn bad quickly if they weren’t tended, and it seemed a waste to survive the battle only to die of blood poisoning. Dr. Zeigler conferred with Mrs. Teller, debating what ingredients to add to the poultice. After a few minutes of discussion, they came to an agreement, and Mrs. Teller adjusted the mixture, working it into a green paste with an odd botanical smell.

Donnelly carried Teag into the living room, and the rest of us limped behind him. Maggie must have had an inkling of what we were going to be in for, because she had thrown plastic tarps and bed sheets over the couches, to keep the blood off the upholstery.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” I said, as Dr. Zeigler went to work on Teag. I didn’t like how pale he looked or how shallowly he was breathing. Donnelly remained at one end of the couch, his hand never leaving Teag’s forehead.

Maggie took one look at Teag, blanched, and then regained her presence of mind, guiding me to a chair before I fell over. “Sit,” she commanded. “Before you do more damage to yourself.”

Sorren’s injuries would have killed a mortal. I could see from his face that he was in pain. He was already healing, but that meant he needed to feed. Sometimes, in an emergency, he fed from Teag, but tonight Teag was not in any shape to spare the blood. Caliel had taken only light damage, so he offered his arm to Sorren, whose pallor improved after a few swallows.

Our ‘knife-proof’ shirts had deflected some injuries, but they were never meant to stand up to the kind of fighting we had done. Taint from the claws wouldn’t hurt Sorren because his ability to heal was supernatural, but the rest of us mortals needed serious patching up. Mrs. Teller fell in naturally beside Dr. Zeigler, adding her magic to his medical skills as they cleaned and treated Teag’s wounds, some of which needed stitches and butterfly bandages in addition to magic. Higgins’s supplies included IV packs, fluids, and pints of blood. Dr. Zeigler checked for a compatible blood type and got Teag hooked up.

A bad bruise purpled Teag’s cheek, and one eye was swollen almost shut. He had a split lip, and enough cuts on his arms and shoulders that it looked like he had gone through the windshield of a car. I wondered how I would ever explain his condition to Anthony, and knew that if Dr. Zeigler and Donnelly couldn’t save him, I would never be able to face Anthony again.

We all sat in silence, watching them work, fingering charms or murmuring prayers under our breath. Blood and tears mingled on my cheeks, and Baxter laid a tentative paw on my leg, offering comfort. I swept him into my lap, tears wetting his silky fur.

Finally, Dr. Zeigler stood. “He’ll live,” he said, with a nod toward Donnelly. Donnelly looked haggard and bleary-eyed, as though the strain of sustaining Teag’s life had taxed his already hard-used reserves.

“He’s not going to be a happy camper for a few days,” Dr. Zeigler observed, peeling away what remained of Teag’s blood-soaked shirt. “But the poultice should reduce the fever, and the cuts should heal cleanly, especially with the blood Sorren was able to give him. The injuries would be bad enough if the damage wasn’t supernatural, but the dark magic makes it worse.” He rose. “He needs to rest for a few days, and that means in bed with no activity. I don’t want anything putting a strain on his system or pulling at those stitches.”

Teag’s color had already improved, and his breathing was steady. Now that he was out of danger, I realized just how awful I felt. “So,” Dr. Zeigler said, “let me take a look at your shoulder.”

I didn’t argue. It felt as if the work of the evening had come crashing down on me all at once, and now that the adrenaline of the fight had faded, I was bone-weary and ached all over. I glanced around at my comrades in arms. Daniel Hunter stood by himself watching out the window, and although he was bloodied like the rest of us, he refused Dr. Zeigler’s treatment. I had already figured out that Hunter was something more than mortal. Chuck put up with being stitched and bandaged with the reserve of an old soldier. Lucinda’s injuries were minimal, since she had been largely out of the hand-to-hand combat. She looked utterly spent from the magic she had channeled, and dug ravenously into the food Maggie set out. We were too tired to eat, and too spent not to replenish ourselves. Everyone hailed Maggie’s cooking, and she beamed. Donnelly found a chair on the other side of the room and sat down, then leaned back and fell asleep almost immediately.