A body leaned into me, pinning me against the car. Fingers tangled themselves in my hair and yanked my head forward. I blinked frantically, trying to clear the blood from my eyes. Fetid breath, rank with grave rot, washed over my face. A hand wiped my eyes, and the vampire I’d shot with bronze came into focus. He sniffed at my cheek. Fast as a snake’s, his tongue flicked out to taste my blood. He pulled back, nose wrinkling. “Shapeshifter,” he said with disgust. Vampires won’t drink the blood of weres or shapeshifters. It makes them lose control of their physical forms, turning them into hybrids of other creatures.
The orange eyes narrowed. “I can still rip out your throat.”
“Do not!” thundered a voice. The vampire’s head snapped to the right. Myrddin, again in his human form, stood over the two humans sprawled on the pavement, holding his jar and looking smug. Blood stained his clothes around several bullet holes, but he held himself as though uninjured. He glanced down at the human who’d pleaded for his life, then gave the prostrate form a vicious kick. “Get up,” he said. The human scrambled to his feet and scuttled behind Myrddin.
Myrddin turned back to the vampire who held me. “No throat-ripping. Not here. I want both of them in the safe house. We’ll use that one to complete the reawakening spell. For this one”—he jerked his chin toward Mab—“I have other plans.” The vampire snarled, but he pulled back.
I looked at Mab. The wounded vampire still pinned her down. She should have been able to lift him off and throw him across Storrow Drive into the Charles, but she struggled under him. She was so weak. I should have made her go home.
“Get me the pendant the old woman is wearing,” Myrddin said. Mab’s bloodstone lay on the ground by her shoulder.
The vampire holding me threw me onto the ground and pressed his foot on my neck to keep me there. I landed on something that dug painfully into my shoulder blade. Gravel pressed into my cheek. My broken wrist throbbed. The vampire bent over Mab.
My right hand was useless, and though I tried I couldn’t lever his boot off me one-handed. The lump under my shoulder blade, I thought, was my gun. I groped around on the asphalt for my dagger, but I couldn’t locate it.
The vampire straightened, Mab’s pendant dangling from his hand. He tossed the bloodstone to Myrddin; it sailed over me, chain trailing behind it like a comet.
Mab quit struggling and lay limp on the ground.
“Excellent.” Myrddin giggled behind me, where I couldn’t see him. “Now I wear the bloodstone. How does it look—does it suit me?” His lips made smacking noises. “It’s been a long time since I had a taste of that power. Very nice, old thing. I can even taste the old days.” More smacking. “But dilute. Funny, I thought your power would be richer. I expected vintage wine, but it’s more like small beer. I guess you had me fooled, old girl. Now . . .” His voice darkened. “Speaking of weakness.”
The whimpered response could only be from the terrified human who cringed behind him.
“You groveled before an enemy. You begged for mercy. You are not worthy to serve your masters.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Please—” The man’s words were cut off by an agonized scream. A second later the scream, too, was cut off.
“I cannot abide weaklings,” Myrddin said, as casually as if he were expressing a distaste for broccoli. “Now, you, vampire. I can never remember all these ridiculous vampire names. Pull that silver out of your friend and have him help you remove the two shapeshifters.” A siren sounded in the distance. “Do it quickly.”
The crushing pressure on my windpipe shifted as the vampire stretched to reach the silver knives that impaled his companion. I arched my back a little, just enough to allow some space where my pistol dug in. With my left hand, I reached behind me, feeling for the gun. I touched its grip. If I could move my shoulder a little more . . .
Pain sharpened as the vampire stepped harder on my neck. “Stay still,” he growled, “or I’ll—”
There was a grunt. The pressure on my neck let up as the vampire toppled over. I grabbed the gun and sat up, my finger on the trigger, praying I could aim left-handed.
“Don’t shoot!”
Juliet raised her hands, still holding a silver stake. On the ground beside her lay the vampire, writhing, the other stake protruding from his chest. Juliet pouted. “You started without me.”
I exhaled. Then I turned the gun on the fallen vampire and shot him four times. At such close range, left-handed didn’t matter. The vampire jumped and jerked and then lay still. Four silver bullets through his heart would make sure he never got up again. Already, he was disintegrating into dust.
The siren was on top of us. Flashing lights splashed the landscape as a police car pulled onto the shoulder of Storrow Drive. Cops had arrived to assist the crashed cars on Storrow Drive, but it wouldn’t be long before they came over to check out Back Street.
“Where’s Myrddin?” I asked Juliet. “Is he still here?”
“That fellow with the jar? Is he the wizard? He’s gone. Disappeared. He moves fast for someone who’s not a vampire.”
“He went into the demon plane.” Mab’s voice issued from beneath the vampire who pinned her. I couldn’t shoot this vampire with the cops right on Storrow Drive, but I yanked him off her and tossed him over a couple of cars. Mab sat up, rubbing her forehead.
She looked terrible. Worse than before, like someone had stolen my aunt and replaced her with an ailing centenarian. Drooping eyelids and puffy bags turned her eyes into slits. Age spots mottled her skin, and wrinkles creased every inch of her face. Her head shook with palsied trembling.
She touched her chest where her pendant had hung. “Myrddin took the bloodstone with him. We must get it back.”
“We will. We know where to find him.” At the fifth and final point to complete the rune.
“There’s little time.” Mab’s voice was a mere croak.
More sirens were headed our way. Not a good idea to be found at a murder scene. I kicked the decomposing vampire at my feet. Let his friend take the blame. It would send human-paranormal relations back to the Dark Ages—and wouldn’t the Old Ones love that? But there was nothing I could do about that now. I needed to get Mab home.
I got Mab’s arm around my shoulders and helped her to her feet. She seemed a couple of inches shorter, as though she’d shrunken. She leaned heavily on my arm as we made our way out of the parking lot to Back Street. I lifted her over the body of the human who lay at the entrance. “I thought he was a vampire,” I said. If I’d realized he was human, I wouldn’t have shot him in the head.
The other human servant—what was left of him—lay on the pavement. Myrddin’s magical attack had blasted his head from his body. Fragments of skull, teeth, and brains littered the ground and stuck to cars and trees.
The sirens were getting closer.
“Juliet,” I said. “Take Mab’s other arm.”
“Ah, Queen Mab,” Juliet said. “‘Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out.’”
“‘No strength to climb without thy help,’” Mab wheezed, taking her arm.
“Now’s not the time for your Shakespeare game,” I snapped at Juliet. “We have to go.”
“Take me to the taxi,” Mab said. “I need to look inside.”
The sirens sounded like they were a block away.
“Mab, there’s no time.”
“Don’t argue with me, child. Do as I say.”
Juliet and I carried her to the taxi between us.
Mab pulled open the driver’s side door. A body spilled out sideways and lay half in the cab and half on the ground. I stared into the blank eyes of Mack, the taxi driver who’d wanted to bomb Deadtown out of existence. His favorite talkshow ranter shouted from the radio.
I recalled a man hailing the cab down the block from us, when I’d tried to send Mab home. Had that passenger been the
Reaper? When the taxi crashed, I’d assumed the driver was drunk. I was wrong. He wasn’t drunk—he was under attack. The Reaper had done his work and run off, allowing Myrddin to trap the dead man’s departing life force.
I shivered, feeling like a cold gust had blown in from the river. Juliet gasped and stepped back. The sight of human death didn’t usually bother vampires, but I could see why this one might.
A crescent-shaped slash grinned across Mack’s throat. Symbols had been carved into his face and hands. Blood soaked the front of his sweatshirt. Mab lifted his shirt to reveal another symbol scored deep in his chest, over his heart: the eihwaz rune.
My own chest burned.
She nodded, as though she’d seen what she’d expected, and pulled Mack’s shirt back down. She straightened—as much as she could in her aged state.
I took her arm and turned to ask Juliet to take the other. She wasn’t there.
She wasn’t anywhere on Back Street.
Juliet’s gasp. That sudden cold. A chill lingered in the air, along with the stale smell of ancient grave dust. The Old Ones had snatched Juliet away, and I hadn’t even noticed.
The sirens were almost on top of us, and flashing lights splashed across the Berkeley Street intersection. I lifted Mab into my arms, ignoring the pain that gripped my wrist, and ran.
24
AT THE CHECKPOINT BACK INTO DEADTOWN, THE ZOMBIE guard eyed Mab’s ID. He flicked a glance toward her face, then blinked and stared hard. He looked at the ID then back to Mab. ID, Mab. ID, Mab. He typed into his computer and squinted at the screen. He waited, tapping his fingers on his desk, until the computer beeped. He squinted at the screen again. Once more, he compared Mab’s picture with her actual face. Finally, he shrugged. “You should update your photo, ma’am.” His polite voice held a warning. “It will prevent future delays at the checkpoint.” He handed both IDs back to me.
The photo on the card in my hand, taken yesterday, showed someone who could be the daughter of the woman at my side. With each minute that passed, Mab was aging almost visibly. A dowager’s hump had sprouted between her shoulders, and her spine curved like a shepherd’s crook. She clutched my arm with ropy, liver-spotted hands. She could barely walk; I picked her up again so I could carry her through the streets of Deadtown. She turned her face to my shoulder and let me.
At the door to my building, though, she insisted I put her down. “I’ll walk across the lobby myself,” she insisted. Even her voice had aged, to a thin, tremulous, almost-whine.
Clyde came over to assist us. “Another relative, Ms. Vaughn?” he asked, offering Mab his arm.
“No,” said Mab, all dignity. “We met yesterday. I’m Vicky’s aunt, Mab.”
Poor Clyde nearly choked on his mortification. “I . . .” He coughed, swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it, then coughed again. “I do apologize.”
Mab harrumphed and accepted his proffered arm.
“She’s had a rough night,” I said. “She’ll be better tomorrow.” I sent up a silent prayer to whatever gods might be listening that it would be so.
Mab harrumphed again. She shuffled across the lobby, leaning her whole weight on Clyde and me.
“Would you like me to accompany you upstairs?” he asked, pressing the elevator button.
“No, thank you, Clyde. We’ll be fine,” I said.
“Very good.” When the elevator door opened, he helped Mab inside, then stepped back out into the lobby. The doors closed on his puzzled face.
“Almost home.” I patted Mab’s arm, hoping the gesture gave more assurance than I felt.
Mab sighed. The sound seemed to hold all the weariness of the ages. “This place, child, is very, very far from home.”
IN MY APARTMENT, KANE CIRCLED MAB, SNIFFING, GIVING me inquiring looks. I told him I had to get Mab to bed, and he backed off as I helped her into my bedroom. Once she was settled under the covers, Kane came in and sat on his haunches, staring at my aunt. She lay back with her eyes closed.
There’s little time,
she’d said. Right now, she looked like someone with no more than a few grains of sand left in her hourglass. Kane lifted his muzzle. His nostrils flared, as though he were trying to catch the scent of what had happened.
Two people I cared about, both so drastically altered. Tears pressed at my eyes, and I pinched myself to make them stop. I couldn’t afford to cry. I had to figure out what to do.
“Myrddin stole Mab’s bloodstone,” I told Kane. He cocked his head, asking what exactly that meant. I wanted to know more, myself, but now wasn’t the time to exhaust Mab further.
I laid a gentle hand on my aunt’s arm. “Mab?” Her eyes fluttered open. They were cloudy with cataracts. “What can I do to help you? Are there herbs I can get? Roxana—the witch—should I bring her back?”
“No, child. None of that would help.”
“Can you shift? Would that bring back your strength?” But even as I asked, I knew that the feeble old woman lying in my bed could never summon the energy for a shift. Mab merely shook her head.
“Well, maybe you’ll feel better after you get some rest.” It was the lamest thing I’d ever said in my entire life, but I couldn’t admit there was nothing we could do.
“I taught you better than that, child,” Mab’s thin voice admonished. “Wishful thinking means nothing. Unless you can retrieve the bloodstone, I’m finished. I will continue to age until my body gives out.”
“I’ll get it back.” But how? I didn’t know where Myrddin’s safe house was, and I didn’t know if I could face Myrddin—and his army of Old Ones, vampires, and human servants—alone. Saying I’d get the bloodstone back felt like more wishful thinking. But I needed to try to comfort Mab. “I won’t let Myrddin . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Won’t let him what, child? Kill me? If only that were all he had in mind.” Her rheumy eyes closed, and her voice, barely audible, trembled with weariness. “Myrddin won’t kill me. He’ll bring me to the very end of life, to the point where death is the only thing still desired. And then he’ll use the bloodstone to imprison me, as I did to him fifteen hundred years ago.”