The Eldritch Conspiracy (33 page)

“Are you okay?” Adriana asked.

“As much I can be,” I assured her. “You?”

“The same. Is it wrong to say I just want this over with?”

“No. I think that’s pretty typical of most brides at this stage of the game, and they don’t have to deal with terrorists. But hey, remember, this time tomorrow, you’ll be Mrs. Dahlmar, Queen of Rusland, and off on your honeymoon.”

She beamed at the thought, reaffirming my belief that this marriage wasn’t about politics; it was true love on both sides.

Baker opened the door, revealing a small room filled to bursting with clothing and people. One rack held the bridesmaids’ dresses; another, the exquisite cream and pearl confection that was Adriana’s wedding dress. Holding court in the center of the room, it drew the eye, and I found myself gaping at it as my cousin and I crossed the threshold. Only as the door swung closed and I felt the rush of magic did I realize that something was terribly wrong.

No one was moving. Isaac, on his knees on the floor, was frozen rigid, one hand reaching up to smooth the fabric of Adriana’s gown. Gilda was a statue, caught in midstep, her mouth open as if to speak.

Instinct took over. I shoved Adriana behind me and shouted for Baker. We needed out of here, now! Reaching behind me, I grabbed for the doorknob. The instant my skin touched the cold metal I felt the familiar lurch and the room and everything in it disappeared.

33

I
landed
in the center of a silver casting circle next to a bloody, lump of battered flesh that I could barely identify as female. She had been impaled with a lance of bone, pinned to the concrete floor like a butterfly pinned to a card.

Carved over every inch of the lance’s surface were words written in burning red script. I recognized some of the names and phrases from my classes back in college. My gorge rose as I realized this was the spear of the chief demon in charge of Satan’s legions. The writing seemed to flow and writhe before my eyes, making me dizzy and nauseous.

The woman made a sound, too weak to be a gasp or even a moan. I dropped to my knees, crawling across the floor to examine her. I was desperately careful to avoid the spear. I didn’t know what touching it might do to me and I so didn’t want to find out.

It was only when I reached her side that I realized her right arm was missing, the shoulder socket a burned, cauterized mess. I began to weep as recognition hit.

“Oh, dear God, no.” The moment I uttered what amounted to a prayer, a gong sounded, loud enough that my ears bled. Reality shuddered and wavered as the substance of our dimension began to part. The spear began radiating soaring heat. I smelled burning flesh, like meat cooking on the grill, and Okalani’s body arched. Her mouth opened, but only a raw whisper of sound came out.

My stomach heaved and I lost everything I’d ever even thought about eating, turning away so I wouldn’t spew on Okalani. Despite the surge of power, the demon didn’t arrive. He couldn’t until a human summoner called him.

When I recovered, I checked on Okalani. Under most circumstances, she would be dead—no human or siren body was capable of withstanding the damage that had been inflicted on her. But the demon’s spear pinned her soul to her body just as tightly as it held her body to the ground. She would live until the demon removed the weapon and allowed her to die. They had wanted her alive to use her talent to bring Adriana and me here. They wanted her suffering, both alive and dead at the same time. Pain, suffering, and despair are what they feed on. If her soul was tainted enough, she’d be theirs in Hell. If not, she’d be free.

I stood, steeling myself to touch that foul thing and pull it from her. Human strength wouldn’t be enough to remove it. Vampire and siren strength might.

My movement didn’t go unnoticed. I had been so focused on Okalani I hadn’t realized anyone else was in the room, but now I spun around as Jan Mortensen stepped close to the circle, close enough to get a good look at me, but careful not to cross the line.

“You!”
he spat. “Where is your cousin? Olga promised she’d deliver you both. Stupid, incompetent bitch.”

So Olga was the traitor. I wasn’t surprised. Here’s hoping I’d live to accuse her, though it wasn’t looking likely.

“Still”—Jan smiled, and it was pure evil that lit his face with delight—“of the two of you, you’re the one I wanted most, after what you did to my brother. I will enjoy every minute of what happens to you even more than I’ve enjoyed punishing your little friend.”

He turned and walked out of the room through an open door. I could hear him giving orders to people I couldn’t see. “The sacrifice has arrived. Make sure the cameras and the computer are ready. We want to make sure this goes out live.”

I didn’t just hear heavy footfalls then, I felt them. The ground shuddered beneath my knees with each invisible step. The smell of sulfur filled the air, thick enough to choke on, searing my lungs each time I drew breath.

I’ve faced greater demons before. But I’d always been outside the safety of a protection ring. Now I was
inside
. I tried to think, tried to plan, but my mind refused.

I could sense something huge and hideous waiting, poised to pounce. All that stood between it and me was a tissue-paper-thin film of reality. He could not cross that last barrier without human invitation. Even having come so far, and having been here so often, he could not cross. Even with his greatest tool on this side of the veil, the demon could not appear until someone uttered the words to bring him forth.

Jan stepped back into the room, wearing a black robe of thick velvet. He pulled up a hood, obscuring his face, then drew a hooked silver knife from a pocket hidden in the thick folds of ebony cloth. He rolled back his left sleeve, exposing a pale length of heavily scarred flesh. With a triumphant cry, he drew a long, deep cut down the length of his forearm. Then he shook the blade, sending splatters of blood onto the silver casting ring as he began chanting the summoning.

I fought to control my terror, tried to think clearly enough to do something, anything to buy the time it would take for a rescue.

The casting had to have blood. But it also needed the words. If I could stop Jan from speaking, I could stop the demon.

Reaching beneath my jacket, I drew my gun. Dropping to one knee, I steadied myself, then fired twice, aiming at the center mass of his body. But the bullets were caught in the spell barrier, frozen in midair as if suspended in clear gelatin. He was almost finished. Just a few more seconds … I had an idea, a desperate, crazy idea. I grabbed one of my One Shot squirt guns filled with holy water. I raised the tiny water pistol with my left hand and my Colt with my right. I squeezed the trigger with my left index finger. I actually saw the water hit, burning away the shield for a few seconds, barely long enough for me to aim the Colt and fire.

Jan’s body jerked backward as the bullet hit him square in the chest; blood and cloth sprayed the wall behind him, more blood bubbled from his lips. He dropped to his knees and I knew I’d killed him. But it didn’t matter, because with his last whisper of breath, he finished the summoning. The way was clear.

I closed my eyes. If I looked, if I saw him, I would panic and wouldn’t be able to think. I needed to think. Odin Allfather had said I could defeat this. I struggled, trying to remember his words even as hideous, obscene laughter made my skin try to crawl off my body while at the same time my loins tightened with desire.

The message: what was it? The words came to me then.
Have faith. The right weapon can overcome what will come against you.

I had holy water, but only another One Shot, certainly not enough to harm something like this.

The demon laughed again and began moving toward me. I found myself weeping, praying for the courage and strength; praying to the god my grandmother had taught me of, who I’d wanted to believe in and never could. But as I knelt on the hot concrete, the words of the first prayer she ever taught me came to my mind, remembered from back when I was small enough to be afraid of the dark, before my sister had even been born.

Angel of God, my guardian dear.

The demon let out a basso bellow that shattered my eardrums, deafening me more thoroughly than a gunshot at close range.

To whom God’s love commits me here.

I opened my eyes to see a huge, black dragon, like a living shadow, towering at least forty feet above me, razor-sharp claws raised to strike. When I didn’t stop praying, he turned toward Okalani.

I screamed, “No,” and threw myself down on top of her, protecting her body with mine. I wrapped myself around the spear that bound her to this world. I closed my eyes and waited for the blow that would end my life.

Fire flared around me, I could smell it, feel it. But it did not burn. The dragon shrieked in impotent rage. I couldn’t hear it, but I could feel it, an actual physical pressure beating against me. I opened my eyes wondering what could possibly be stopping him and saw light, bright searing light, illuminating everything, making the demonic monster hold back. Words echoed in my mind, and though they were in a language I did not know, I knew full well what they were saying.

They are mine.
The demon’s voice, filled with honey and putrefaction.

The other voice held power and love stronger than anything I’d ever felt.
Were that so, I could not be here, and well we both know it. Begone.

A dark laugh bubbling with evil pleasure filled my ears and made me cringe. I wanted to look again but that was the way to madness. True evil would corrupt my eyes, blind me.
One is a traitor, the other a tainted thing. They are mine!

The sound of steel on steel filled the air, like a blade being unsheathed.
No. The betrayer has repented and is forgiven. And while the other has yet to choose her final path, it is she who called me forth. Again I say, begone.

I felt the power surging and risked a peek. The dragon shimmered, changing shape, becoming something more humanlike, but huge, and somehow both hideous and soul-searingly beautiful. He reached forward and grabbed the spear that I was wrapped around. I relaxed fractionally just in time as he pulled it free with no visible effort. Blood and flesh sprayed across me. But still I protected Okalani’s ravaged body.

A flurry of sound and motion outside the circle drew my attention. Through a wall of flames I saw Bruno, Creede, Igor, and a priest in full regalia pouring through the doorway into the room.

I couldn’t hear the priest speak, but I saw his lips move. He was performing the ritual banishment. He looked so terrified—they all did—and I realized with a shock that they thought I was alone and unprotected.

As I should have been.

My faith, while real, is shaky at best. And the demon had been right about my being tainted. It wasn’t just that I was part vampire; I’d been marked by a demon once before.

The voice in my mind was patient, kind, and loud.
No one is perfect. But you do have faith. You hold truth dear. You hold loyalty sacred. And some days, that is enough.

The demon snarled and paced around the parts of the circle he could reach, eyes blazing with hate every time he reached the invisible boundary line created by the light. I began to think I might survive.

As I watched, the priest dipped the sprinkler into the bucket of holy water and flung a spray of liquid into the air above the circle. The drops passed through the barrier as if it weren’t there. The demon howled his defiance even while he dodged frantically, trying to avoid being hit. Drops splattered to the ground. When the water hit the being of white fire, the flames soared, turning it whole and perfect. Nearly too perfect to look at.

Again and again the priest repeated his actions, until the floor of the casting circle was covered in water and there was nowhere left for the minion of hell to hide.

As the priest raised the sprinkler one last time, the fallen angel called out. Jan’s corpse levitated up from the floor and flew into his clawed hand.

He turned to me with a chilling smile.
I will see you in your dreams, dear one. We are linked, you and I. For all eternity.

Then he was gone.

34

“I
would
like a private word with the princess.” Igor stood just inside the door to my private hospital room. It was 4:00
A.M.
but he looked as fresh as if it was the beginning of his day. He’d showered and changed clothes in the hours since I’d last seen him. Looking at him now, you’d have no clue that he’d been up all night dealing with the fallout of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. His black suit was immaculate, the crease in his pants sharp enough to shave with. The white dress shirt he wore almost gleamed under the fluorescent lights.

Bruno, on the other hand, was a wreck. Slumped in the chair at my bedside, he wore the same clothes he’d thrown on in a hurry yesterday morning; his hair was rumpled and he had more than a shadow of a beard. Still, he was alert and wary as he sat up straighter in his seat. The look he gave me said as clearly as words that he didn’t think I was up to this.

He might have been right.

I am a fairly tough cookie, but everybody has a limit, and I was coming perilously close to mine. It wasn’t the violence, or even the demon—although I wondered if I’d ever relax enough to sleep soundly again. No, it was the memories. The things I’d seen in Mexico had cracked the protective magical shield that had blunted my memories of Ivy’s death and my torture. Seeing what had happened to Okalani had shattered that barrier entirely.

I remembered every cigarette burn, every cut, the threats and the terror. But most of all, I remembered my sheer helplessness as I watched my sister die a hideously gruesome death because she couldn’t control the ghouls her talent had raised. Each memory was as vivid, as raw, as the day it had happened.

I looked at Igor, who was standing silent and patient, then took a deep breath and shoved the memories into a box in my mind. I slammed down the lid and hoped it would hold. “I’ll be fine,” I said to Bruno. “Let us talk.”