Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) (26 page)

Vee came down beside me, sweating. She didn’t like the confined space any more than I had. She wiped off her face on her sleeve.

That the space had the semblance of a regular-sized room, with squared walls and a vaulted ceiling, calmed me. I could pretend I wasn’t a story beneath the ground.

“Holy shit,” Vee said, staring.

The first room was all books, most of them modern. A large
bank of them had nineteenth- or maybe eighteenth-century covers, leather covers—the kind of things you see in old reference
sections
or town records. A desk with an outlet and an unconnected power supply suggested that a computer, probably locked up somewhere, was used for more modern material.

“Could you look around for a computer? There might be a safe, or something, where they store it—”

“No problem.” She found a hammer near the remains of an old crate. She shoved the claw end into the locked drawer and levered it up with a hideous screech of resisting metal. That worked, prying the door out a bit, but not enough. I put my hands over my ears, praying no one would hear us. She took a pair of scissors from the desk, laid them over the lock that was still caught on the frame of the desk, and bashed that with the hammer until she was able to wrench the drawer free.

“Got it.” She held up a notebook computer she’d pulled out from the drawer.

“Okay, uh, good. If you can get into it, see if you can’t find a catalog, an index, or something. I’m going to start looking through the storage for the artifact.”

She started it up and began typing immediately. “How long you think we got here?”

“Curators might not show up until an hour before opening, at nine. The guards arrive a half hour before that.” I glanced at my watch. It was nine o’clock now. “I’d like to be gone long, long before then, because—”

“Because the day after tomorrow.”

We shared a look. Even if we found everything we needed here, the attack on Boston loomed.

“Right. So let’s say we’ll spend no more than three hours.” It would have taken me months to go through the archive, doing it properly, but this wasn’t about process and methodology. It was about survival.

I needed to find the artifact Dmitri promised was here. We might get lucky and find something of the plans about the coming attack. A bonus would be to find my history or something more complete about the Fangborn. I’d take what I could get.

I started by moving down the connected rooms, noting where everything was. I tried to figure out which volumes were in
languages
I couldn’t read or were one-off volumes, so I could avoid those. Three chambers back, I hit my first pay dirt.

Storage cabinets, locked up, quite unlike the shelving for books. This is what I wanted.

The Fangborn artifacts collected by the Order of Nicomedia.

Excitement began to build in me, even overwhelming the nerves that accompanied breaking into a museum at night. Didn’t matter that I had a key card; I didn’t belong here. But I also began to get a sense that if Dmitri’s promised artifact wasn’t here, something else of value—and power—would be.

Something on the periphery of awareness nudged me to the last cabinet. The bracelet radiated; I saw light flashing from my shoulder through my shirt, Christmas lights dimly reflected on the surface of the white cabinets.

Taking a cue from Vee, I skipped trying to pick the lock. I summoned the half-Change and pulled the handle and locking mechanism out entirely. Fireproof, perhaps, but not werewolf-proof. A rushing in my ears, and it was as though I could see through into the contents of the boxes. I identified a small pile of copper beads; a fragment of clockwork gear without a case; an exquisite headpiece of silver, turquoise, and carnelians; a chunk of quartz core for making stone blades. All of these glowed with various colors of light, but they weren’t what Dmitri had told me to look for …

There it was.

By any standards, it was an exquisite piece. A lidded bowl, both halves together. Nearly intact, the carving was deep and fine, a buff brown, darker where the patina had built up. There were images of crowned creatures with human heads and torsos and bodies of fish. On one side, a giant snake consumed another figure.

A talent to move between worlds,
I thought,
a leader who has earthly and supernatural powers, perhaps control over the elements. I thought it was Central American, at first sight, but Dmitri had said it was from Nigeria, from the Yoruba kingdoms, maybe
seventeenth
century. Beautifully made, full of meaning and—

I reached in and … called it. Offered myself, as if I were a falconer raising my arm to lure a hawk in to perch. Energy began to build, a haze of static surrounded the objects and me, creating a distance from the world. I know we needed isolation for communion. I heard a rush of stars …

Distantly, I heard noises from down the hallway. Vee.

Powerless to investigate, I reached for the bowl. It jumped into my fingers, began to dissolve, and found its way to my other wrist, where it started to settle in and the pain began.

The problem was that as the bowl found its way, others began to come as well, unbidden. Suddenly, the pain vanished, but the intensity of the information I was being bombarded with did not. The pieces rushed over my body, slamming into place, bringing a new anguish of their own. Adaptation wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t physical, but mental. Rather than being given one particular experience, I got them all at once. It was like being in a maze of mirrors, where I didn’t know where to turn or what to look at. A thousand images blurred past me, tens of millions of
numbers
, letters, characters.

There was no focusing. I just let it happen, let it wash over me. If I were lucky, it would be a permanent part of me. Maybe I even could sort it out, given several thousand lifetimes.

And again distantly, a scream, not mine.

A part of me reached out, and I sensed Vee struggling with someone.

Jacob Buell. He owed me for two hours of torture and two
fingertips
. He owed Toshi a fiancé and a team. He was worth the interruption.

But maybe I didn’t have to break my mind from the artifacts. Fury fed my power.

I raised a hand—my hand raised itself. The remaining
artifacts
, the ones I hadn’t expected to find, flew faster and faster to join me before I moved too far away. All the power shifted to my right hand; all the power shifted to my intent until I thought I would burst.

Then I let Buell have it.

Chapter Nineteen

I wasn’t sure what
it
would be until I saw an explosion down the hall, a blast of blue light. Vee fell to the ground. Buell smashed against the ladder behind him.

I had aimed too high. He’d only been caught by the edge of the blast and was still moving.

I raised my hand again, but the increasing rush of information distracted me. I began walking back to the first room, artifacts and fragments trailing in my wake like a comet’s tail as they hurtled into my flesh.

A burst of alien pain, the noise of gunfire. The pain repeated four more times. The noise echoed in the small cavern, mixing with the torrent of data I was absorbing.

Buell had shot me.

Like a bad dream, I tried to grasp onto the memories of what I’d seen, only to have them slip away like minnows through my fingers.

Worse, he’d damaged some of the artifacts, even as they’d protected me. The bracelet reacted, arcing lightning over him. I heard an impact as he fell, screams and sizzling as it hit him.

But it still wasn’t enough to kill him; I had no control over how to marshal the energy I’d found. After absorbing the blow of the bullets and deflecting them, I now felt myself running low.

Too bad he fell,
I thought sluggishly.
If only he’d held onto the ladder, he might have been electrocuted.

A mental slap in the head as the stream of information and artifacts cut itself off. I collapsed face forward as the last materials swam across the floor and over my skin and took their places, melding, interlocking across my back. I stared at the dusty floor, feeling triumph at having found the artifacts but wild anger and misery as I waited for my body to heal itself and my limbs to find a connection to my brain. I had to kill Buell.

Once I could move again, I crawled back down to Vee. She was breathing—out cold, but I saw no blood. The pistol Buell had been using was on the floor, glowing red-hot. The smell of burning paper hung in the air, and I saw that there were small, smoldering fires around us.

I turned to Buell and snarled. He was panting, weak, and blue smoke curled from his jacket. He’d backed away from the ladder and was limping toward the back of the storage area, heading to where I had been. I got up, wobbly and unsure what abilities, if any, I had left after he’d so disastrously disrupted my interactions with the artifacts. My right leg was dragging; something had happened to my knee when I fell.

“Wow, you don’t stop, do you?” Blood streamed from his nose, and one of his ears was hanging raggedly. I could smell his breath, feel how much it cost him to breathe. A broken rib, perhaps. A good start, but not enough to satisfy me. “You’re going to be so much help to our cause, once I get you strapped down to the examination table …” he said.

I lunged.

He twisted out of my hands, stabbing a knife at me. I jumped to the side, deflecting the blow, feeling the blade slash the air
inches
from me. I put more distance between us.

Which was exactly what he wanted. He took the opportunity to get past me, heading to the back.

When I followed, he reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and matte black. He held up the detonator so I could see it.

I backed away, my hands raised.

“We’re always prepared for your kind.” He continued to back away, speaking louder as he moved toward the back of the storage area. “Your tricks, your treachery, your violence. The only good Fangborn is a smear of cells on a slide.”

He opened one of the cabinet doors I hadn’t investigated. It concealed the other exit. Instead of trays of artifacts, there was a heavy, locked door with a small window. He opened it, backed in. He kept his eyes on me even as he shut it, the detonator held up like a talisman.

We were going to be okay. He wasn’t going to blow us up—

Through the window, Buell smiled, blood running down the side of his head. He hit the switch on the detonator.

He hesitated.

I threw my hands over my head.

No explosion. It must have been a dud, out of batteries.

I heard a moan behind me. Recognized a peculiar sponginess to my movements, and I knew.

I turned. Vee had raised herself up, one hand outstretched. She was bleeding now, steady streams from both nostrils and from under her fingernails. I looked back at where Buell had been fiddling, and saw a brilliant flash of light. Constant, contained, controlled.

Vee had frozen time the instant he hit the detonator.

“Did you get it?” she gasped. “What you came here for?”

I nodded, though I didn’t know for sure what had happened, there was a major success: I got Dmitri’s Yoruba (
Owo court,
a voice clarified) bowl and a number of fragments. I’d been able to defend myself while the pieces found their way onto me. “You said it was too soon to—”

“It is,” she whispered hoarsely. Sucking in a ragged breath, she said, “I can handle bruises and blood and exhaustion and
anemia
. I’m not sure I can handle death.” She held up a hand, and I took it, lifting her up, hauling her arm over my shoulder.

“How long do we have?” I asked. “Before the blast?”

“Maybe a minute, maybe less.”

No time to ransack the archives then. “Can you climb?”

“Gotta try.”

I hauled her up; I could feel the fever temperature of her skin, feel her shaking under me. She said, “No, wait!”

“Vee, we don’t have time!”

She reached down toward the computer where she’d been working, for … I didn’t know how long. “The flash drive! Get it, we can—”

“I’m on it.” I gave her a shove up the ladder and then ducked back to the desk.

It wasn’t done loading the files. Still at 75 percent, frozen there.

“It’s not done yet!” I called up the ladder.

“Just grab it and get up here!” Vee’s voice echoed faintly.

I snatched the flash drive from the computer and buttoned it into my pocket.

I scurried up the ladder, like a rat up a pipe, until I came to Vee, who had regained her purchase but had wrapped her arms around the rungs, unable to go on. Panic or adrenaline or hidden reserves had moved Vee up the ladder, but not far enough. The narrow space was working for us now: Her hand slipped, and instead of falling, she leaned to one side, the wall propping her up.

“Vee!”

“Can’t do it,” she muttered. She was shaking even harder now, a feverish sweat soaking her.

We had maybe thirty seconds left. I didn’t think that if Buell
was going to threaten to blow up a priceless collection of
artifacts
—
and the museum over them—he’d take half measures. We had to get clear.

I put my hand on her leg.

“You’re gonna haul ass. Plenty of time to bleed later.”

The vampire imperative got Vee started moving again, faster than before. I scrambled to keep up with her.

She cleared the top of the ladder and rolled away from the opening, more from fatigue than tactics. I paused; Buell was still down there, frozen in the act of running away.

I didn’t have time to save him
and
Vee.

I barely wasted time on the thought.

I scooped Vee up over my shoulder, in a fireman’s carry I’d never before been capable of mastering. I ran for all I was worth. Fear + werewolf = very fast.

The ground shook, and I stumbled. I caught myself and put Vee down before I dropped her. She was coming around, a serious bruise developing on her cheek. “If you’ve got anything left, use it to move,” I said.

She nodded, and gasped. “The driver’s waiting on the other side of the Common.”

We ran as fast as we could, but were pursued by a louder
volcanic
roar. The ground heaved and split.

A manhole cover shot up in front of us, flames seeming to
propel
it. Several more followed suit, and I knew we were seeing the effects of the explosion of the gas lines under the city.

We were cut off from the Common.

The car found us, pulling up with a screech. We tumbled in and no sooner shut the doors than we were off. We pulled past the Museum in time to see flames shooting out of it, and with another seismic rumble, watch the roof collapse into the inferno. The flames were beautiful as long as I could pretend I was watching a movie and deny what was really happening. The heat, the racket, told me otherwise. The fire leapt like a salamander from the
Museum
to several old houses. Guilt settled over me like a heavy cloak.

Buell did that,
I thought, furiously, defiantly.
Not me. I did nothing but survive.

But it seemed too much like another convenient
rationalization
.

“Stop moving,” the vampire in back said to Vee. “I can’t work on you if you keep wiggling. And we need everyone now.”

Vee’s face was stricken. She’d twisted to watch the
conflagration
.
“That’s … all those books, those things … that’s …”

I nodded. “Just like we saw the Library of Alexandria being destroyed.”

And that’s what was coming, I realized. This was the start of me ending the world as we knew it.

We heard the wail of sirens and more explosions as we left chaos in our wake.