Breaker (Ondine Quartet Book 4) (48 page)

Their bodies fell away, and in the space between them, perfectly framed like a portrait of a creepy undertaker was Scabbard.
 

Blank-faced, he waited for me, gripping a broken wooden chair leg in his hand. His skin appeared waxy under the bar’s blue and silver illumination.
 

I arched my back and vaulted onto my feet. Scabbard swung the leg like a bat.
 

I jumped, but not quite fast enough.

The leg hammered my right calf. Bone cracked. Pain jolted up my leg.

I lost balance and fell forward. My dagger and my father’s
kouperet
tumbled out of my hands with a clatter.

Damn it. I never dropped my blade.

The wooden stake whistled down again. I rolled to the left, pain stabbing my left arm.

Scabbard raised his arms for another strike.

I dove across the counter, grabbed the nearest object, leaped up and swung.

The vodka bottle smashed against his temple. Broken glass and alcohol rained down my arm, fumes searing through my nostrils.

Scabbard staggered back a few feet, pale, bony hand gripping his skull. Blood slowly seeped between his fingers, crimson and thick.
 

I sprung off the bar into the melee. My fist smashed into a lurching Aquidae. Bones crunched.
 

I picked up weapons and buried the
kouperet
into its Origin.

My eyes never left Scabbard.
 

I flicked the blood off my blade and advanced.

Disoriented, he continued stumbling back and smashed into a table.
 

Come on. Fight.
 

But he simply stared at me, face gaunt, eyes hollow, his visage like that of a corpse.

He wasn’t a demon.

He didn’t have Aquidae strength or abilities, didn’t have the magical ability to regenerate.

He was just a nix, hollowed out by the Shadow’s relentless torture.

Like Ian.

I whipped my dagger around and smashed his nose with the handle. My knee hammered his solar plexus.

Scabbard grunted and toppled to the ground.
 

I was on him in the next instant.

My blade pressed against his throat. “Why are you here? Why are you doing this?”

Blood flowed from his broken nose. His lips stretched back, exposing yellowed, rotting teeth. The stench of rot drifted from his mouth.

“I know the truth about you.”

Now I knew why he never spoke.

I’d heard the first hints of it in Ian and Rhonda’s voices.
 

But this was a voice born of countless years of wrenching hunger and tortuous despair.
 

Every part of who Scabbard once was had been scorched away until nothing remained but a husk of tissue and bone.

It was the voice of death.

“He gives you answers but you don’t see them.”

“Tell me what you know. Why here? Why the hospital?”

“The question is not what or why.” He lifted his head, pressing his throat into the blade. A thin trickle of blood emerged on his skin.
 

“Where are the blades?” Desperation surged through me. “Where are his blades, damn it!”

He gave a deranged grin. “They die with me.”

My hand trembled.

He’d hurt and tortured Ian. Hurt who knew how many others.
 

I wanted more from him before he died.

“Do it.” He pushed his throat against the blade. His voice rose to a wail. “Do it!”

I wondered if a tiny fragment of the nix who’d once been a farmer in Florida was still locked inside there somewhere.
 

And like those long, endless days in GrandView’s darkness, when I despaired of every finding my way out, maybe he also had been hoping for the day when someone would end it for him.

My blade swiped his neck, cleanly severing his artery. Warm blood sprayed my face.
 

He gurgled and looked at me. But nothing flickered through his eyes before they turned glassy.

He’d been empty all along.

Tristan touched my shoulder. “We need to get out of here.”

“Wait.”

I examined Scabbard’s body. He wore a long-sleeved button down shirt and long pants that covered him well.

They die with me.

It doesn’t do anything. It reveals.

Ian’s scab-ridden body flashed before me. Instinct flared.

I ripped open Scabbard’s shirt exposing an angry patchwork of raised scar tissue. Like Ian, these were self-inflicted wounds.

There were more than just picking wounds. There were knife wounds, burn scars, and other round and clearly inflicted by some kind of tool.
 

I leaned in and studied the scar lines carefully.
 

Above his left ribcage was a clean line, like a surgical incision.

Tristan’s voice. “Kendra!”

“Hang on.”

I thrust my dagger into Scabbard’s stomach and carved it open. A vile stench assaulted my nose and I turned aside, gagging.
 

His insides had putrefied into slick, red clumps. There, nestled in the cavity where his internal organs once were, was one turning blade.
 

The faint impression of another blade could be seen in the empty space beside it. That was what the Shadow was using to make his army.

Scabbard hadn’t just been a reference to the marks on his skin. He’d literally been a weapons holder, carrying the blades inside him.

I yanked out the blade, blood and flesh clinging to the ceremonial handle.
 

Empath cringed at the corrupt magic pouring off it in fumes.

I tucked the turning blade into a sheath and stood.
 

Bodies littered the floor in a fetid sea of black blood and debris. The countertop had shattered into glittering blue glass shards.

Todd reloaded his weapon near the back wall. Tristan had re-engaged, working with Blaise and Ethan to hold off three more Aquidae on my right.
 

Ahead, Brigette lay on the ground in a pool of broken glass. Nathaniel was buried against her chest, her arms wrapped tight around him, hands protecting his head.

I didn’t spot any injuries other than a few minor cuts, but she remained frozen by fear.
 

Beside her, an Aquidae was regenerating, the slices across its chest and arms knitting back together by magic.

It bent one knee, then the other, and slowly pulled itself off the ground.
 

Brigette remained frozen, her mouth slightly open and eyes wide with terror.

I moved.
 

Pumping my arms, I slid across the blood-slicked floor.

Faster, faster.

The Aquidae stood, the last of its wound closing. It raised its arm, ready to crush her and the baby.

A hot current of magic raced around the room, singeing the air with crisp, clear energy.

The remaining chunks of the bar’s base liquified. It curved and twisted across the floor like a stretchy, elongated piece of gum, and snapped around the Aquidae’s feet and legs.

Another flash of magic scorched the air and the plastic hardened, locking the demon in place.

It screeched, an inhuman sound of pure frustration and fury. It flailed its arms, desperately trying to break free.

Amber moved closer, her brow furrowed, face pale with concentration. I closed in and finished off the kill.

I looked at her. “Good.”

She lowered her hands, her expression slightly surprised.

“Kendra!” Tristan called out.

The main entrance’s locked doors shook, the rattle of metal on metal reverberated through the space.
 

Oh God. There were more.

Stabbing pain shot down my arm. A piece of shattered glass was embedded into my shoulder.

I gritted my teeth and yanked it out. Blood wept from the wound, but the cut wasn’t deep.
 

I’d live.

First priority was to get Brigette out. She trembled, her attention focused on the death behind me. She was in shock.

I carefully removed the baby from her arms. She didn’t resist.

I handed Nathaniel over to Amber. She held him securely against her chest and joined the others.

“Go! We’ll catch up!”

Todd led them down the hall. Tristan stayed behind, his body tensed, eyes locked on the entrance.

The door rattled harder, a vibration from the bowels of the earth.
 

I didn’t want to be here when it opened.

“Kendra…”
 

“I know.”

We had to go. Brigette’s eyes remained unfocused. She stared at a spot above the ground and wherever she was, it wasn’t here.

I needed her to snap out of it. Tristan could carry her but it’d slow all of us down and whatever - whoever - was behind that door was fast and strong.

I shook her arm.

Nothing.

The door shuddered, hinges screeching beneath weight and pressure.
 

I slapped her face hard. “Brigette!”

She blinked rapidly, her eyes turning lucid and re-focusing on me.

“We need to go!” I pulled her up and yanked her forward.

She stumbled, but regained her balance and kept up. “Nathaniel —“

“We’ve got him.”

The first hinge popped off the entrance with a loud crack.
 

“Run!”

Tristan led the way down the back corridor, followed by Brigette. I brought up the rear.

Behind us, dozens and dozens of footsteps scuttled into the bar. Monstrous oppressive magic pressed against my back.
 

There were so many. Too many.

Hurry
.
 

Ahead, Todd veered into an entrance on our right.

We followed.

“Close it!”

I whipped around. The stench of demonic blood wafted through the entrance a millisecond before I slammed the door shut.

On the other side, an overwhelming tidal wave of speed and power, smashed into the door.

Tristan leaned in and held it closed while I turned the locks. Two dead bolts slid home with a click.

We slowly backed away. The door trembled and groaned.

How many were there?
 

Ethan raced over to two metal shelves lining the wall. “Help me move these!”

Blaise, Ethan, and Todd slid the shelves over and leaned them against the door, creating an extra layer of protection.

But the thumps and pressure against the door continued to increase. The shelves shook, the vibrations sending a few dusty pamphlets to the floor.

The barricade wasn’t going to last long.

Amber passed Nathaniel over to Brigette. He gurgled at the sight of his mother, wide eyes brimming with the untainted innocence.

I couldn’t believe he wasn’t crying yet. Brigette tucked his head against her neck and closed her eyes in relief.

The only way in or out of this small, windowless office was that door.
 

Todd slid aside the desk, revealing a large square hatch in the ground.

“Bar owner is involved with some not very nice individuals,” he explained. “Gave himself a way out in case anything went down. It’s a short tunnel that runs beneath the street. Exit leads out to an alley beside the next building over.”

Blaise shook his head. “We don’t know what’s on the other side. What if there are more waiting outside the exit? If we go down there, we might be trapped on both sides.”

“It’s either down there or here,” Todd said sharply. “At least in the tunnels we’ll have room to move.”

The door shook harder and a tray clattered to the ground.
 

Tristan made the call. “Let’s go.”
 

He lifted the hatch, revealing a set of metal rungs leading down into the darkness. A dank, rotten smell drifted up, a combination of stale air, moisture, and dead rodents.

The tremor behind the door increased.
 

Todd removed a flashlight from one of the desk drawers and descended into the darkness. First came the soft plop as he landed at the bottom, followed by a beam of light cutting up toward us and his voice.

“Clear.”

Ethan first, then Blaise, and Tristan.

“Come on, Princess.” Todd called up.

Amber’s face pinched at the stench, but she hurried down the rungs.

The metal shelves shook harder.

I turned to Brigette. “Come on.”

She shook her head. “Go first so I can pass Nathaniel down to you.”

“Pass him down,” Blaise called up. “I can take him—“

“No!” Panic entered her eyes again. “Please, Kendra.”

Shit. We had no time for this.

I grabbed ahold of a rung and quickly shimmied down to the bottom. Tristan and Ethan had already left to secure the exit on the other end. If anything waited for us, they’d have to get through them first.

Todd, Amber, and Blaise waited for us, the flashlight casting a ghostly glow across their faces.

“Brigette,” I called up.

Her face appeared in the circular opening above me.

I reached up and she lowered Nathaniel into my arms. He stared at me, his body impossibly soft and warm. I shifted him to my left arm and reached up with my right.
 

“Come on.”

A loud crack resounded behind Brigette and she let out a small scream. One of the metal shelves had toppled over.

“Hurry!”

She grabbed my arm. “Listen to me! The last is found in the first.”

A current raced between us, light and quick. It almost felt like magic.

“What are you —”

The faint sound of a door clicking open echoed down the tunnel.
 

“We’re clear!” Ethan called out.

Relieved, I handed Nathaniel over to Blaise. “Go!”
 

He sprinted ahead, the baby nothing but a tiny form against his arms and chest. Todd and Amber followed.

I stepped up on the rung and raised my other hand to help Brigette down. The air shook with the suffocating energy of Aquidae blood and the thunder of splintering plaster and wood.
 

That door was going to give at any second.