Blood Debt (Judah Black Novels Book 2) (13 page)

The giant twitched one hand and a tree-trunk sized, spiked club swung into view. With one loud grunt, he brought it down on top of Brutus. With a sickening pop-thud-crack, it went through Brutus, collapsing the table. Then, the giant stepped forward and pointed his club at Creven.

“Step aside, elf,” it said in a booming voice. “My quarrel does not concern you.”

The elf lifted his pointed chin and tightened his grip on the staff. “Aye, but it don’t change the fact that I gave the lady me oath. No harm to her. Now, bugger off. You ain’t getting this one.”

“I am honor bound,” said the giant, narrowing his eyes. “The vampire is mine to slay. This is your last warning, elf. Step aside or suffer the same fate as these humans.” He gestured to the bodies around him.

“Hey, ugly…” I fought against the pain in my ankle, clawing my way up the wall. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

Dark laughter vibrated through the room. “You mock me, human. You assume I cannot breach your pathetic barrier and kill you.”

“Who are you?” I asked of the giant. “Are you what killed the vampire at Aisling?”

The giant smiled and stroked his beard. Icicles appeared wherever his hand passed over. “Why do you defend this one? You have nothing to gain. Step aside and let me kill it. What is one more dead vampire to you?”

“I wouldn’t draw its attention, love,” mumbled the elf. “Especially so soon after escaping it.”

I shifted my weight and braved a step forward. “Who summoned you?”

The giant growled and swung its club, embedding the spike in the wall. “I am sent to slay the evil you are protecting. If you intend to stand between me and my prey, then you will fall with it. But I am obligated to offer you escape once more. Human, elf, heed me. Stand aside. This is the last time I will offer you safe passage.”

The word obligated struck me. There was only one variety of creature I knew of that was required to make an offer three times before its actions were set in stone. And the giant’s talk of honor and slaying evil…This wasn’t a spirit. It was some kind of fae.

I tried to stand but toppled back down when I put weight on my leg. Creven heaved my arm up over his shoulder with a grunt. That was the only way I was getting anywhere. Whatever it was, I couldn’t let it go around killing people, honor bound or not. I had to stop it.

“I’m sorry but I can’t,” I said.

The giant turned his head aside. I swear, I heard his bones creak when he did. “You would lay your life down for this vampire?”

“No,” I answered. “I hate vampires. But I hate murderers even more.”

“Kiss my perfectly toned ass,” Kim said and pointed her revolver at the giant.

The gun barked as she filed a single round and struck him square in the forehead. The giant’s body jerked back slightly and he roared, pulling the spiked club from the wall. He swung it once, striking the barrier. A giant crack appeared in it, spreading from the impact point all the way to the floor.

“Time to go,” said the elf and lifted his staff to strike a plate in the wall.

Part of the wall slid aside and he rushed us through into a metallic hallway beyond. A single door waited at the end and he urged us toward it.

“Where are we going? You know we can’t just leave that thing,” I huffed. “It’ll tear this whole place down!”

“D’ya know how to kill it?” asked the elf.

“Not off hand.”

“We don’t have to kill it. We just have to escape.”

We reached the door and he threw it open on a large living space with Persian carpets, crystal chandeliers and gold, silver and other precious metals all around. There was also a squad of private security in there, each of them wearing the fleur-de-lis. They had on the equivalent of magickal riot gear, dressed head to toe in body armor warded to the teeth. The blue wards glowed and pulsed as they moved into position behind us, covering the door.

We skidded across the carpets, headed for another door on the other side. I couldn’t help but pause in the doorway and turn around at the sound of the spiked club scraping down the hallway. When the giant came charging into the room, it did so through a hole blown in the wall with its hammer-like fist and swinging its massive club. Two of the security guards fell underfoot and got crushed like roaches, gut splatter going everywhere. The giant swung its fists and crushed another, grabbing up a third and ripping him brutally in half. The rest of the squad opened fire but it was no use. The giant shrugged them off without them ever penetrating his skin.

“Come on!” the elf said and grabbed me by the shirt, dragging me through the door.

As we ran down yet another corridor, I shouted to Kim, “Your men are getting slaughtered. You should pull them back. Tell them to retreat!”

“And let that thing catch up to us?” she answered with an indignant laugh. “I think not. They’re serving their purpose.”

I looked at her, disgusted. “Those men had families, lives. You don’t feel an ounce of guilt over leaving them to die?”

She tossed her hair aside and shrugged one shoulder. “If you feel so strongly about it, go back and call the retreat yourself.”

We came to the end of the second hallway and spilled out into a garage full of cars. The elf darted for the closest car, a yellow Ferrari. Not one to linger in a situation out of her control, Kim slid into the driver’s seat, throwing open the passenger door for me. “Get in!”

Creven helped me into the front seat and then spun around at the sound of a crash. If the sounds coming through the door were any judge, the giant was working its way toward us. The only thing standing between our escape and us getting crushed like Harry, Brutus and the others was one little elf with a stick.

“I’m not leaving him alone to face that thing,” I told Kim.

She rolled her eyes. “What are you going to do? Investigate it to death? You don’t have the proper tools for dealing with it.”

“And he does?”

“Creven can handle himself,” she said.

“Aye,” said Creven, drawing his staff across the floor of the garage in a circle. “That I can.” By the sound of his voice, the crazy bastard wasn’t even nervous. In fact, I half expected him to break out into laughter.

“You’re no good to us dead,” Kim said. “Now close the damn door so we can go.”

I took a deep breath. As much as I hated to admit it, they were right. Without preparation, I was a declawed kitten in a dog fight. But left to fight alone, Creven would get himself killed. I wasn’t going to run away from a fight, especially if lives were on the line. If we didn’t stop the giant here and now, it would go on a rampage after Kim. It wasn’t going to stop.

I grunted as I pushed myself out of the car and stood, putting as much weight as I could on the uninjured leg. There was an old broom lying against a cement pole a few feet away. With a lot of effort, I managed to pull myself over to it, flip it upside down and use it as a sort of cane to go and stand beside Creven. He eyed me curiously. “You ready?” I asked him.

“Aye. And you?”

I tapped my broom against the cement and sent a pulse of magick into my injured leg, giving it the added strength I needed to stand. It wouldn’t last long and it would still hurt but it would get me through the fight...I hoped.

“Come on, punk,” I screamed. “Come get some!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The giant charged head first through the doorway, shoulders so wide the walls cracked. Before it was even fully in the parking garage, it brought down a hammer fist with a shout. I jumped to the right while Creven dove left. The arm came down between where we had been standing and sent a spray of broken concrete into the air.

Creven hit the ground and rolled, coming up with his staff pointed at the giant’s extended appendage. A brilliant blue light shot out of the end of his staff and bored into the giant’s arm, swirling like a drill. The giant screeched, the arm jerking away wildly and toward me. I lifted the broom and slammed it to the floor with a loud grunt.

My powers being what they are, what I did to the giant wasn’t nearly as impressive, but I was able to tap into my aura and send a concussive wave of kinetic energy down my arm, into the broomstick and against the floor. The cement wrinkled in a narrow line as if it were dirt and a mole was burrowing beneath it. When the wave of power hit the giant’s extended arm, all I managed to do was push it back.

Creven got off another shot, this time directed at the giant’s chest. The giant dodged, hopping aside and letting the blue magick bury itself in one of the thick support pillars of the underground garage. The pillar crumbled impressively, the ball of blue energy acting like a black hole, sucking in the matter. A section of the ceiling above tumbled down on top of the giant but it barely noticed, shaking the debris away with a slight jerk of its head.

An idea occurred to me and I turned my broomstick toward another support pillar, slamming it to the ground with another concussive wave of magick behind it. The giant jerked sideways as if to dodge but my shot was too far right to have hit it. Instead, the energy slammed into the support pillar, bringing down an even larger section of ceiling. The giant looked up just as a massive piece of cement six feet wide came down on top of it.

“Booyah!” I exclaimed pumping my fist. “Take that, ugly!”

But the blast worked better than I’d hoped and the ceiling just kept coming down. A big piece fell right in front of me, forcing me to jump back. When I came down, it was on my injured leg. I’d pumped it full of strength earlier, not pain relief, and the sudden impact reminded me a giant had ahold of it earlier. The leg folded underneath me and I went down.

Creven sprinted over and offered a hand.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”

The sound of cascading rocks drew our attention back to the small cave-in I’d caused. The giant pushed off the slab of fallen concrete with a mighty heave of its shoulders. It stood on and shook the rubble off its shoulders as if it were a dog shaking water from its fur. A growl rumbled through the garage on a frequency low enough it made my teeth vibrate.

Creven grabbed my arm and pulled me back a step. “I think you made it mad.”

The giant swung his club wide with a frustrated roar. Creven and I ducked but the club wasn’t aimed at us. Instead, the giant had targeted another set of support pillars behind us. Tires squealed as Kim hit the gas, moving the car out of the way of falling concrete and metal support fibers. I turned to try and get out of the way, but I already knew I wasn’t going to be fast enough, not with my leg the way it was.

Thankfully, Creven knew, too. He threw his arms wide. A blue bubble extended out from his fingers, stretching to cover a narrow three by three area. The tumbling cement bounced off the surface of the barrier he threw up, cascading down the side and leaving little white ripples in its wake. The giant swung his club in a rage, tearing at floors, ceilings, and furniture, pulling all of it down on top of us. Every once in a while, he’d stop and pound directly on the barrier.

Creven gave a grunt of effort and set another layer of protection on top of the barrier after just such an attack. Every time the giant struck it, huge cracks appeared and some debris from above got through. “I can’t hold it forever,” he said through gritted teeth.

If it’s fae
, I thought,
iron will work. But where am I going to get enough of it to make a difference?

“Whatever you think you’re going to do, you’d better bloody well do it!”

I turned my attention back to the giant, watching as its club tore apart the mansion above us and mentally scrolling through my options. I had cement a plenty and there were some bits of steel falling from above, but none of them were pieces I could pick up and stab a giant with. No, I was going to need something special for this, but I didn’t have anything with me. I needed another option and fast.

Okay
, I thought,
what else can I use?
I glanced around and found myself wondering what Chanter would do in this situation. If anyone would know what to do, it would be him.
He’d cut the giant down to size, stuff him into a box and throw the box in the ocean after setting it on fire,
I mused. Well, I couldn’t set the box on fire and toss it into the ocean, but I could put the giant in a box of sorts with Creven’s help.

“Creven, do you know what a Way is?”

He hesitated and glanced down at me before giving a definitive nod of his head.

“I need you to open one.”

“You’re insane,” he answered. “Those things are even more dangerous than a marauding giant. I’m not going in one.”

“It’s not for us.”

The elf gave me a quizzical look and held it for a moment before his eyes gleamed with understanding. “I don’t know if that’ll hold him long,” he said.

“But can you do it?” I shouted over the noise of hundreds of roof tiles coming down on top of the barrier. One made it halfway through before it stopped.

“Aye, but the barrier’ll have to come down. We’ll get crushed in the process.”

I readied my broomstick. “Do it.”

“Count of three,” he shouted. “Ace, deuce…Three!”

The barrier unfolded from the top down. Debris scattered on top of us. Broken roof tiles became missiles hurled with enough force to impale them into the cement. One grazed the inside of my arm as I turned and brought the broomstick down against the cement floor.

The concussive wave hit the giant and it slid back a few inches. For a moment, it hesitated, the massive club raised. His mouth spread into a Cheshire grin. “You’re strong, human. It will be a pity to extinguish such strength if you won’t fight me in earnest.”

“Thanks,” I said, stepping forward and spinning the stick. “But no thanks.” I brought it down with a loud THWACK! The extra energy I’d gathered by spinning the stick a few times lent itself to the spell. The concussive wave slammed into the giant and forced him back several feet. This time, though, instead of lifting the stick and ending the spell, I held it. The force stayed on the giant and he continued sliding back, albeit at a painfully slow pace.