Ravenous (37 page)

Holly felt cold, cold energy streak up her arm, as if the demon were drawing life away by mere touch. "Back off!"

She threw a blast of power, twisting away as Geneva staggered. Mac caught the demon as she fell. Holly fell back, her flesh dead white where the demon's touch had been. Golden power flooded her limbs, healing the wound, healing the throbbing ghoul bites, but there was nothing left to defend herself.

Alessandro rushed in, fangs bared and sword raised high for a sweeping blow.

Oh, Goddess
, thought Holly, seeing the wound in his side.
He's bleeding
!

Mac lunged to block him, but too late. The blade arced in a moonlit crescent of deadly grace, Alessandro's charge lending force to the stroke. The slice went from Geneva's shoulder to her opposite hip in what should have been a catastrophic wound. Instead she flickered for an instant, letting the sword pass through thin air. The sudden absence of resistance made Alessandro stagger with the impetus, driving him close to the portal.

Wheeling, he dropped the blade and crouched, changing tactics. He flexed his hands like claws, ready to spring. With a sound like rushing flames, Geneva hissed with rage.

Holly shook herself, feeling her magic click back on track. Alessandro was on his feet again, too. He sprang forward, but Mac jumped to meet him, wrestling Alessandro with a strength he had never before possessed.

The portal flickered, throwing lurid green waves of light over the scene. Glancing up, Holly could see it was growing, like a tear in the sky unraveling as she watched. Soon they would be able to get a good look at what lay on the other side.

Including, apparently, the main changeling army. They started swarming out of the rift like an infestation of ants.
Oh, Goddess, there're hundreds of them. Not even the guardsmen could stop all these
!

From where she stood next to the portal, Geneva grinned. The shifting green light made the spots on her camo gear shift and swirl. "Just wait."

The words were clear inside Holly's head, as if the demon were standing next to her.
I think I liked her better as a mouse
.

Geneva's eyes shone. "I'm already inside you. The vampires have you now, but when they're gone, the taste of your soul will be mine."

"Will you people stop trying to eat me?" Holly yelled. "It's pissing me off!" Earth power flowed into her, rising like sweet wine to her head. Wild with primal anger, she took in more and more. The earth yielded it up willingly, lovingly. "
I can't take one more goddess-damned thing trying to chew on me
!"

The blast blew Geneva backward through the rift with a satisfying
ka-foom
. The emerging changeling army just happened to be in the way, bugs smashed on the windshield.

Holly tried to broaden the focus of her stream of power, leaving the demon nowhere to move. The flow juddered, sucking more energy, wobbling like a car with a flat tire. Holly panted, desperate for a means of control. What was it Grandma had suggested? Aurelia's matrix? The Caer Gwydion reduction? Holly could barely think.
I have to do this. I have to hang on
.

Holly's perceptions expanded, gorged on power. Every detail was clear, movements graceful as a film in slow motion. Mac slipped Alessandro's grip and ran toward Geneva. Alessandro fell to one knee, grabbing his sword and sweeping it up to cleave a changeling in two.

Holly could still see Geneva undulating in the blast of power, a rag in the wind.

Mac skidded to a halt next to the rift, the whirling light of the portal painting his features like a ritual mask. Geneva reached toward him, her hair blown wild, hiding her face.

Mac's eyes sought Holly's like a drowning sailor sought a floating plank of wood. He found her gaze and clung fast. His expression was pained, mad, exhilarated, horrified—but Holly was slipping away, gulping down the rush of magic, letting it burst from her in an improvised weapon. She felt as if she were turning inside out.

Geneva began to resist, slamming back against Holly's force.

Thud.

Holly jerked, her feet sliding on the grass.
Oh, crap
.

Thud.

Tears sprang to her eyes, sharp pangs of tension fingering the space between her shoulder blades. She could feel her heart pounding, the urgent rhythm matching the pulse in the energy flow.

Thud.

Holly stumbled, her concentration broken. The flow sputtered. Panic grabbed her.
No, no, no
! She opened the stream full throttle, a desperate negation of terror. Energy reamed through her, hollowing her core. She gave herself up to it completely, surrendering herself the way Elaine Carver had done.
I'm going to die
.

It was hard to tell what was happening. Holly could feel the portal spinning wider and wider, but Geneva no longer struggled beneath her magic.

This is weird.

Holly wasn't even sure whether she was touching the ground. She rode the pressure of the golden fire, her eyes wide-open, seeing but not seeing the physical world. She floated in a geyser of light. The flow blasted away the Dark Larceny, whatever traces remained of Alessandro's vampire mark, anything that was not truly hers. In fact, there wasn't much left at all. Her body was the thinnest shell, everything within and without filled with energy from deep in the primordial earth.

She probed the portal. The tear in reality was out of control—but if Holly slammed it shut the blast would kill her. No point in repeating Elaine's mistake.

Lore had given her an idea. Not all denizens of the Castle should stay there. Others should. Why not have a door and keep the key? Let the portal stay open, but create a means to control it?

Arts and crafts were never her thing, but Holly set to work. She cauterized the rift, burning the wound in the ether until it scarred over, folding the universe over and over until the tear in its fabric was reshaped and made useful. Holly worked quickly, but the golden light gushed forth faster than she could direct it. The effect was like swallowing water while she was swimming—except this hit her like one too many drinks. The earth was giving her undiluted power, and it was strong stuff.

The golden hum of Holly's magic amplified, the volume creeping up the way a teenager cranked up her headphones. Her perception went wild, everything she was doing suddenly lost in a firestorm of bliss. She threw her head back, feeling the tingle of energy on her throat, down her breasts. This was the kind of magic that made a witch immortal, renewed in the crucible of her own power. She was pumped, jazzed, stoked on the sheer strength of it.

Until she lost control and it all exploded like a Roman candle.

Alessandro stared at the empty air where the portal had been. Geneva was gone. So were the guardsmen, the changelings, and Macmillan.

And so was Holly. A long moment of disconnection passed.
This can't be real
. "What the hell just happened?" he asked Omara.

"Your little witch defeated the demon and closed the portal," Omara replied, her voice softened with amazement. "I would not have believed it, but she was stronger than her ancestor. In the end there was no need for
The Book of Lies
."

Alessandro was barely listening. Panic and loss finally caught up. He couldn't sense Holly anywhere. He clutched his side, as if the changeling's knife wound were the same as the one draining his heart. "But where did she go?"

"I don't know. Where did any of them go?" The queen sounded exhausted. She looked around, her shoulders uncharacteristically slumped. "Where did the book go? I want it back."

Alessandro's eyes automatically sought out the wolves. Perry was there, patches of fur torn from his coat, but he was safe. Others of his pack lay still and cold on the grass, returned to their human form in death. A strange hush permeated the field.

His own loss dulled the scene. It felt like a newscast, something happening to someone else far away.
So tired. I wish I could just lie down
.

The eerie silence made the rumble of a high-end ignition in the nearest parking lot all the more audible. A dozen heads turned in that direction.

"It's Pierce," said Alessandro. He knew the purr of that high-end motor.

"Pierce?" Omara looked at him, her eyes wide.

Tires squealed as the car sped toward the lot entrance.

She doesn't know. Unbelievable
. "He opened the portal. He had the book. I would lay good money he was your thief. If he shared your bed, he had access to your home."

Omara recoiled, that blow the hardest of the night. "
John
!"

Hands fisted, clenched tight to her breast, she spun in a circle, a gesture of agony and rage. The rags of her dress swirled in her wake, exclamations of all the bitter hurt Alessandro knew she throttled inside.

"Traitor," she said, quietly this time. "Traitor. I protected him. I refused to hear ill of him!"

Pierce turned onto the exit road, the big motor thrumming its acceleration. There were others watching the scene, hounds and vampires, weary but game for one more kill.

"Get him," she cried. "
Bring him down
!" She exploded into the air, silks trailing like broken feathers. Hounds, wolves, vampires boiled after her, a dark, angry river of retribution.

Alessandro stayed where he was. He was hurt. There was no way he could catch up to that car. Neither could Omara. She landed a little way off, crumpling to the grass, spent. The hounds and wolves streamed past her. This hunt didn't need a leader. They had caught the scent of blind vengeance and could follow it well enough on their own.

Someone would pay for their losses that night. Pierce would do.

Alessandro flew to where the queen huddled, her head in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking, but he had no urge to comfort her. In so many ways she had caused it all.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, stopping the tears by force. Queens didn't cry. "Why?"

Because you toyed with him when he wasn't strong enough to fight back. Because you showed him his weakness and then rubbed his face in it. Because when he thought all was lost, you gave him a treat and started the game over. I know, because for centuries that was me
—
except I never gave in
.

But Alessandro said nothing. If he tried to answer her question, he wouldn't know where to begin, and he was too tired. Instead he told her what she wanted to hear. "Don't worry; they'll get him."

Omara sniffed. Her face was dry, only the brightness in her eyes betraying emotion. "We have to clean up and get out of here. The fey can't hold the humans off forever."

Alessandro helped her to her feet. "Your throne is safe. Do what you must. I have to find Holly."

The queen opened her mouth to reply, but her cell rang. She flipped it open. "Omara."

Alessandro watched as new interest filled her eyes. "What is it?"

She closed the phone, gave him a look that was at once hard and yet full of pity. "That was the hellhound Lore. There's hope. We may have a clue to what became of your witch."

As the fey relaxed their cordon, police swarmed to the area, responding to reports of lights and noise. Cop cars flashed like blue and red beacons. Their search would find nothing, but, for Alessandro and Omara, avoiding the roadblocks made progress frustratingly slow.

Eventually they parked at the mouth of a narrow, grimy alley that ran behind the abandoned Empire Hotel. It was downtown, close to the university and not far from Alessandro's apartment. Much of the paranormal community lived and worked in the area, earning the neighborhood the reputation of a ghetto in the making.

The alley had wrought-iron gates, but the padlock was broken. A few feet inside the entry Lore was waiting, leaning against the brick wall. Impassive, he gave Omara a polite nod of greeting. Hellhounds did not bow.

The narrow passage looked as old as Fairview, paved with sagging blocks of cedar. Tiny windows punched through the blackened brick walls, but none were lit. The back door of a Chinese restaurant stood open far down the passageway. Alessandro could smell it, heavy with the stench of human food. Lore beckoned, leading them into the alley.

"The witch made this."

The hellhound stopped before an arched wooden door that was reinforced with black iron straps. The center of the arch was perhaps nine feet high, thick planks of weathered oak arranged vertically. A heavy bolt secured it from the outside. It looked like something out of a children's illustrated fairy tale.

"She made a doorway to the Castle." Lore's voice was full of reverence. "She made freedom possible."

Alessandro closed his eyes, his wound pulsing with new pain as his heart pounded with love and fear.
What did it cost her to do this? What happened to her
?

"What's the door doing here in the alley? How do you know it leads to the Castle?" Omara asked.

Lore gestured to two of his men, who were waiting farther down the alley. "My hounds were chasing the ghouls. They saw a terrible flash of light over this alleyway and felt the rush of power in the air. The hounds came here, with the fey, to investigate and to keep the humans from walking into danger. All they found was this door. The fey knew it for what it was. They said spells like this settle where they please. The door found this place to its liking."

Lore touched the wood. "I can feel the Castle behind it. It calls like old, bad dreams." He dropped his hand, stepping away as if repulsed. "I have nightmares enough."

"We thank you for your aid," Omara said after a long moment. "You have done more than enough. Go tend to your wounded."

Lore nodded and left, the other hounds at his heels.

Alessandro crossed to the door, putting one hand flat against the wood. Loss of blood slowed his limbs, adding weight to every step he took, but he ignored the weakness. He had kept going so far. He could go on awhile longer.