Ghost Soldiers (39 page)

“Holy shit!” Bailey said. “The Bat-Signal!”

Her wolf threw its head back and howled. The werewolves howled in answer, and the harbor sounded more like the American West before the wolf packs had been decimated than a city shipyard. The howling trailed off.

Karl looked at Xiesha. She stared back innocently. Finally, he said, “I was wrong about you and irony.”

“It seemed like a great idea,” she said, a touch defensive.

He didn't bother to reply. A flare fired with magic, their camouflaging shielding down and howling wolves. His grip tightened on the wood handle of the flintlock. Now to see if Cojocaru would come sniffing after the bait.

 

Maria lifted the BAR rifle to her shoulder and leaned into it a little. She blinked the last afterimage of the blazing column of light with its bat wings out of her eyes.
Nice one, Xie
. She'd have to give her compliments later, when everybody looked back on this, safe and laughing about it. The BAR's barrel wavered. She locked it tighter against her shoulder and kicked her fear until it scurried back into the shadows of her mind.

They stood in a staggered line across the width of the access road, at the intersection between warehouse walls. Karl in the center, Maria on his right near the cinderblock wall, Xiesha on his left, Bailey farthest on the left near the opposite wall, with her spirit wolf. Waiting as the minutes ticked by. Feeling the high-octane tension mixed with impatience and constant low-level dread. The night sounds struck her as maddening in their banality—the cranes, distant traffic, forklifts, a plane soaring overhead. She wondered how many passengers had seen Xiesha's light bat and what excuse they made for it. Fireworks? Sleep deprivation? Hallucination? Didn't matter. She had to keep focused.

Waiting…and then Xiesha whipped her head to the right, staring at an empty spot near the intersection, her eyes blazing with shimmering blue light. “Watchers. The Order of the Thorn is here.”

Fuck.

Maria could see nothing, but that meant little since Watchers were astral walkers, unseeable by vampire eyes. A werewolf howled, followed by another, and another, a mournful chorus of warning.

“Pull back,” Karl said. “We're scrapping the attack.” He yanked his cell phone out and lifted it to his ear. “Tyrell. Get your people out—”

“Thorn knights!” Xiesha swung her shotgun.

Empty air shimmered and distorted, light rays snapping back to true as if they'd been bent around an object by a gravitational force that suddenly vanished. Lady Kimberly MacKenzie stood in full body armor with a bared blade in her gauntlet-shrouded fist.

Next to her stood six Thorn knights, three on each side, men and women in the same heavy-duty body armor and chain mail, most of them wielding exotic-looking assault rifles, and at least one armed with a shotgun, some kind of Benelli autoloader. All of them carried secondary weapons slung at their sides—swords and war hammers. The holy symbols on their armor and necklaces shimmered with a harsh blue-white light. In the center, behind MacKenzie and to her right, stood a breed of Thorn knight she'd never seen before. He held a long wooden pole or staff with the end wrapped in what appeared to be glowing thread, like fiber-optic cable. He wore armor, same as the others, but also a huge cloak and cowl that hid his face. She sighted in on him with the rifle. Always kill the ones with magic first.

No one moved. Karl had the SIG out in his left hand, the flintlock up and aimed in his right. Two of the Knights had rifles pointed in Maria's direction, but she kept the Browning's sights on the mage's head. She could probably get off one good shot, and the first round in her clip was incendiary. After that…

Less than sixty feet between them. The night grew strangely hushed, the sounds of traffic and airplanes and ships now distant. Disconnected. Irrelevant.

Lady MacKenzie stepped forward and pushed her helmet's headset mike away from her mouth. “Karl Vance. A moment of parlay.”

“I accept.” He lowered his guns and slid them back into their holsters.

Maria's thoughts beat and flailed in her mind, the wings of a bird in a snare, panic fighting to break loose at the thought of him walking toward all the silver. She fought it back, tried to find that icy pool of calm and concentrate on keeping its surface from rippling, but it was too easy to imagine one of those silver sword blades shoved through Karl's heart.

“Will you allow Bailey Fletcher to join us?” Lady MacKenzie asked. The cross at her throat blazed like a star, making it painful to stare at her for long. Maria stole glances at her face, but she kept the BAR aimed at the mage.

“Very well,” Karl answered.

Bailey moved to his side, her spirit wolf trailing along at her hip, and together they walked toward the knights. Lady MacKenzie approached alone to meet them. They stopped fifteen feet from one another near the center of the intersection, just beyond the place where Xiesha had set her final spell sculpture. Maria could hear the humans breathing, could hear the ocean shifting like a restless beast.

Lady MacKenzie broke the silence first. “You have one of my people.”

“She's with me now.”

“You don't understand, vampire. She can't leave the Thorn. Her soul is bound to us, through oaths and blood.”

“Her soul died with her body.”

“It's not that simple. She must be judged.”

Karl scanned the warehouse roofs around them. “Where's your pet vampire hunter? He showed just what you held in store for her.” He looked at MacKenzie again. “She's better off with me now.”

MacKenzie looked at Bailey. “Child, no one blames you for being corrupted by this creature. I demanded a full tactical team to watch him in Europe. My misgivings were ignored.”

“Don't blame him,” Bailey said. “I made him change me.”

Shock flitted across MacKenzie's face before she steadied herself again. “But…why?”

“Cojocaru killed me. I was dying, but I knew I could help Karl complete the mission. It was my duty.”

A long pause, then MacKenzie said, “There was more.”

“I can still keep my vows and walk with honor. Nothing's changed except my body.” Bailey drew in a ragged breath. “I didn't want to die. I wanted to
live
.”

“Better to have died. Come. Face a trial by your peers. Even if you're found guilty, I'll make certain your name still makes it on the Lists with the others who've served and fallen. There's no shame in death, only in dishonor.”

“Karl?” Bailey's voice was little more than a whisper.

“You have a place with us, Bailey, remember that,” he said. “But the choice is yours. It always was.”

Bailey hesitated. Her spirit wolf sat back on its haunches and licked her hand. Lady MacKenzie stared at the wolf, her face unreadable, but her expression sent a chill through Maria.

Dammit all to hell.
She couldn't sit here and watch this and keep quiet. “Bailey, stay with us. You belong here.”

Bailey looked over her shoulder. A smile, some bastard hybrid of sorrow and joy, tore at her lips. Maria's lingering doubts about whether she'd regret speaking vanished when she saw the smile. She understood that smile.

Lady MacKenzie turned to Maria. “This isn't your business, vampire.”

“Everything's my business,” Maria snapped. “And when'd you turn into such a bitch?”

Lady MacKenzie frowned and glanced back to Karl, who stood silent, every inch of him the tensed predator, the firing pin cocked above the cartridge primer. “So you'll defy us? Once we had an understanding.”

“I can't turn my back on someone who needs me.”

“She belongs to the Thorn.”

He shook his head. “Sorin Cojocaru holds slaves. Creatures he believes
belong
to him. How are you any different?”

MacKenzie stared at him for a long time without answering. The tension in the air twisted tighter, tighter, barbwire-tight until Maria thought she'd start screaming and shooting just to end the goddamn tension.

“You set these traps for Cojocaru,” MacKenzie said. “You sent the signal, dropped your shielding to lure him.”

“I mean to kill him.”

She hesitated again. “The vampire hunter Erik Deor doesn't report to me. He belongs to a different branch of the Thorn. I can't countermand his orders or divert his mission.”

“I understand.”

“Perhaps…perhaps we could join together against Cojocaru—”

At the end of the street, Sorin Cojocaru walked into view, surrounded by his acolytes, slaves and shadowlings, his fire cat stalking alongside with black-green flames dancing from its back. His Romanian military uniform was perfectly pressed, the insignia gleaming. He opened his arms wide, as if ready to be nailed to his cross.

“And here I am,” Cojocaru called. He smiled.

Chapter Forty-One: End Game

Karl lifted the black flintlock pistol, feeling the weapon's strange sense of malice and satisfaction in the back of his mind like an echo, and aimed along the barrel, center of mass, directly at Cojocaru's chest. He'd had only the slightest warning—a twinge across his senses—before Cojocaru had stepped into view at the far end of the street. No time to hesitate. He thumbed back the hammer and pulled the trigger.

The pistol kicked, bellowing and coughing gray smoke that swirled lava-red at the edges. The pistol ball shot across the asphalt. Cojocaru threw out a hand, flexing his power, and the pistol ball stopped three feet from his chest, halting in midair where it glowed like a tiny red sun. Cojocaru's smile vanished, bleeding into sudden fear. The pistol ball swelled, inflating like a balloon, expanding in a perfect sphere of energy. Purple-white lightning arced from its surface, lashing in all directions. One bolt struck an acolyte, and the man flailed and jerked and dropped to the ground, his skin smoking. Another bolt cut across a Nassid, scorching its face. Then the arcing bolts of electricity seemed to sense Cojocaru and all snaked toward him at once, as if he'd set his hand on a plasma lamp.

Cojocaru screamed, but the Incendiu Pisica leapt and blazed with dark fire, throwing itself in front of its master. The lightning struck the fire cat instead. The fire cat shrieked in a piercing, escalating cry and exploded. Unnatural black fire whipped everywhere as the fire cat burst into disconnected tongues of flame. Another acolyte was caught in the wash of fire and fell to the ground, burning and shrieking. The glowing shot from the flintlock pistol imploded into nothing with a sound like metal groaning under great stress. The arcing electricity vanished. Shadows filled the void of light.

Cojocaru's uniform writhed with tongues of black fire. He swept his hand downward, and all the flames went out at once. He met Karl's gaze with purest hatred in his eyes.

“Put them down,” Cojocaru said, speaking so softly Karl barely caught it. His followers surged forward with a roaring battle cry that shook the ground beneath their feet.

“Weapons free!” Lady MacKenzie screamed into her mike, running back to her knights. “Engage all hostiles!”

Karl spun, snatched Bailey in his arms and leapt toward Xiesha and Maria, clearing the edge of Xiesha's spell matrix. The spirit wolf jumped with him. “Xie! The barrier—
now
!”

Gunfire erupted. Two rounds cut so close to his skin he felt the pulse of the silver aura brush against him. Xiesha thrust her free hand out, her fingers contorted, and a wall of energy lifted from the arc streams in the cement. Sparks flew in every direction as bullets tore into the shield.

The werewolves began to howl like mad. Maria opened fire with her Browning down her line of sight, free of Xie's shielding, but protected from the Thorn knights because of the angle. He caught a glimpse of her, rifle locked to her shoulder and her face set in fierce concentration, painted in muzzle flash. His heart, had it beat, might well have skipped at the sight.

The gunfire was deafening, interspersed with the screams of the oncoming creatures. Karl half-set, half-threw Bailey down. She landed on her feet, caught her balance and spun back to the fight. He tossed aside the empty flintlock pistol, happy to get the cursed thing out of his hands, and drew his SIG.

The Thorn knights held in a tight circle. Four of them opened fire at the oncoming horde with SCAR rifles and the Benelli 12 gauge. The left side of the charge crumpled under the assault. The Thorn mage's staff glowed with a white-hot fire like burning magnesium, and a section of the asphalt exploded into dagger shards that ripped through the enemy. The two other knights sighted in on Karl and his crew, but Xiesha's spell matrix deflected their fire. Sparks rained down in waterfalls of embers, and Xiesha's shield hummed and screeched as if ready to collapse. Xie's lips had skinned back from her teeth as she held one hand out, the other still clutching her shotgun, and tried to hold the shield steady against the onslaught.

Lady MacKenzie reached her troops and spun back, her cloak whipping around her. She looked Karl straight in the eyes, her sword in hand, holy symbols blazing with their own pure brilliance, hurting his eyes, but he didn't look away.

Bailey jumped to Xiesha's side, snatched the incendiary grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it toward the pallets and scrap metal piled around the propane tanks. The grenade bounced, once, twice, and rolled into the pile. Both Karl and Lady MacKenzie turned to watch the grenade hit. Their eyes met once more, just for an instant, before all the sound crashed in atop them again like a tidal wave.

Gunfire roaring, cracking rifle shots, the musical
tink tink tink
of spent shell casings bouncing on the cement. Screams. Bellows. The hum and screech of Xiesha's shield. Cojocaru was nowhere to be seen, but his charging horde filled the street from wall to wall. They leapt over the pallets, their feet and claws slapping on the asphalt, in the oil…

Lady MacKenzie grabbed the female shotgunner and dragged her away. “Get back—”