CHAPTER 25
Caleb stepped forward. Lazar’s finger tightened on the trigger, and London winced as he ground the point of the gun into the back of her head. She lay in the doorway naked and facedown, her hands gripping the floor with white knuckles. “I’d love to kill one of your friends right in front of you,
brother,
” Lazar said.
Caleb checked himself, and we all stood frozen in a strange tableau. Only November, perched on Siku’s shoulder, let loose a stream of ferocious shrieks.
“Didn’t he tell you?” Lazar smiled with blue-white, even teeth so like his father’s. “He’s my half brother. He lived with us. But he couldn’t hack it as an objurer and turned traitor.”
I could see the resemblance to Caleb now. He had the same tall, broad-shouldered frame and handsome, high-cheekboned face, with a voice like steel encased in velvet, bright blond day to Caleb’s night.
“Caleb.” It was Siku who spoke. “I hope you don’t mind if I tear your half brother to pieces.”
“Save some for me,” said Caleb, his eyes burning. “I can send the pieces to our dear father.”
“So you don’t care if she dies.” Lazar straightened, his pistol still aimed at London. “Did you feel the same way when you left your mother to die alone?”
Caleb lurched forward, an ominous, low note vibrating in his chest. I put my hand on his arm. “Not yet.” I could feel the effort it took him to stop moving.
Behind Lazar, another man came running up. “Sir! Your father requests you bring any survivors to the lab.”
“Good,” said Lazar. He motioned to London. “Cover up this demon’s shame and get her up. As long as we’ve got her, they’ll do as we say.”
“Yes, sir!” The objurer took off his jacket, threw it over London, wrapped his arms around her, and hauled her to her feet.
Her dull black hair half covered her face. Next to the ivory-colored coat enveloping her, her lean legs stood out pinkish white. But her glacial blue eyes were as fierce as ever. The objurer seemed to know he was holding a wild animal, leaning his head as far back as he could from her face, his mouth a grim line.
Lazar made sure his pistol never wavered from her head. “Now,” he said, backing up a step, with the objurer following his every move. “Follow us, otherkin.”
We moved forward. Siku rumbled something under his breath and advanced with November on his shoulder, followed by Caleb.
Lazar smiled, backing up outside so that we could follow. He would have been dazzlingly handsome if he hadn’t been such a self-satisfied ass. “How happy my father will be to see you all. We appreciate you walking right into our hands.”
As we stepped into the cold night air, a sweeping shadow fell across Lazar’s face, blocking the moonlight. He glanced up, and a fury of wings and talons fell upon him. Arnaldo descended, one wing thwacking the man holding London across the face as his claws grabbed at Lazar’s head and shoulders, drawing jagged lines of blood. Lazar cried out and threw his hands up to protect his face. The gun no longer pointed at London.
That’s all it took. In a blur of gray fur, London shifted. The white coat slipped to the ground. The man who had been holding her stepped back, pulling his gun from its holster in one smooth move. But she was on him. The gun flew from his hand as she pushed him to the ground and sank her jaws into his throat.
Near me, Siku roared, spreading his arms wide, and shifted into a grizzly bear the size of a truck. November scrambled to the floor as he shook out his thick brown coat of fur, dropped to all fours, and charged. Envy flashed through me. Would I ever be able to shift again?
Lazar screamed as he fell under the bear’s attack. Arnaldo winged up and away. Caleb moved ahead to protect me in case there was anyone else outside. I saw the woman he had bound with saltshaker glue, now goo-free and aiming a rifle at Siku. Lazar must have shoved the sticky stuff back into shadow and freed her. The man who’d been afflicted with insects was lying very still not far from her. There was no sign of the swarm. It, too, must have returned to Othersphere.
“Put the gun down or the bear kills Lazar!” Caleb shouted.
“Siku!” I hissed at the bear as he worried Lazar’s arm. Guttural sounds of pain leaked from Lazar, his white shirt streaked with blood. “Siku, don’t kill him! We can use him against Ximon.”
Siku placed one huge paw on Lazar’s chest and lifted his head, blood on his snout, growling deep. Next to him, London had made quick work of the man who had held her.
“Put the gun down!” Caleb ordered the female objurer again. Siku pressed his curved black claws against Lazar’s neck. The woman hesitated, then lowered the gun. I thought better of trying to shoot her myself and handed the gun to Caleb. He aimed and fired. She crumpled. Two darts left.
Arnaldo landed on the warehouse roof to overlook us as we all took a deep breath. Lazar lay gasping under Siku.
“Nice timing there, Arnaldo,” I said. He cackled. Nearby, November clambered up Siku as if he were a hairy mountain, standing on his shoulder again, her beady eyes glaring down at Lazar.
Caleb gave me back the air gun, then ran to the unconscious woman, grabbed her rifle, and came back, pointing it down at Lazar. “Let him up,” he said.
Siku backed off, and Lazar sucked in air, as if the bear’s weight had kept him from breathing much.
“Abominations!” Lazar spat blood. He bled from several gashes in his scalp and one long scrape down the cheek from Arnaldo’s talons. His arm, where Siku’s teeth had bitten down, was punctured, oozing, and hanging wrong, as if the bone was broken. He sat up, took another deep breath, then tottered to his feet. Pain wrote lines on his face, but he made it and stood, swaying. He was a murdering bastard, but he had guts. With his high cheekbones, broad shoulders, and tousled blond hair, he looked like a bloody, vengeful angel. Only his eyes gave away the poison inside.
“Where’s Amaris?” I asked.
He uttered a one-note laugh. “Did you wish to congratulate her? Enoch took her to wife tonight. The ceremony concluded not long before you arrived.”
“What?” Caleb looked around wildly. “Liar.”
Lazar shrugged painfully. “Father thought the ceremony could mark the beginning of her reindoctrination into the light. A way to detoxify her after so much contact with her half brother the demon.”
“Thanks to your father, she’s starting to realize who the real demons are,” I said. “Now where is she?”
One corner of Lazar’s mouth curved up in a smug smile. “I’ve lost too much blood to remember.” His voice deepened, softened. “You’re too lost to care. You all are. Too far away from your parents, too far in over your head, too certain to lose your friends, your families, and your lives.”
Despair washed over me. My limbs felt heavy. Siku hung his head and November’s whiskers trembled. A small whine escaped London. She wasn’t snarling at Lazar anymore. Why snarl? Nothing we said or did mattered anymore.
Caleb shoved his gun into Lazar’s face. “Stop that or I’ll stop it for you.” The sharp, light tone in his voice cut through the thick mantle of desolation surrounding me. I snapped back to myself, as did everyone else.
Thank the Moon for Caleb.
“Do you remember what I did to you the last time you tried your little voice trick on me?” I said, wishing I had claws to brandish. “One more word out of you, and it’ll be the last time you speak.”
He sneered, looking suddenly very young, like a boy who thought acting like a man meant behaving superior all the time. That must be what Ximon had taught him. Pity for him touched the edges of my wrath. With a father like that, he’d never stood a chance.
“In front,” Caleb said to Lazar. “Walk toward the lab. Amaris won’t be healing you this time,
bro
.”
Lazar’s jaw muscles tightened, but he said nothing. He paced toward the lab, Caleb right behind him, with me, Siku, November, and London trailing and Arnaldo overhead. I eyed the body of the man lying on the gravel nearby. We’d dealt with him and four other objurers so far. “How many do you think are left?” I said quietly into Caleb’s ear.
“Maybe five,” he replied. “Ximon, Enoch, Amaris, and probably two more.”
“There are six of us,” I said.
“Don’t underestimate Ximon,” Caleb said. “He’s equal to ten more.”
“The real question is,” I said, allowing my voice to become loud enough for Lazar to hear. “Does he really care about the son he raised? Will he give up all his ambitions to save Lazar?”
“My father does not surrender,” Lazar said through gritted teeth.
Caleb cuffed him lightly across the back of the head. “Quiet.”
The moon shone bright upon us. I thought I could feel its light touch my skin, like a cool hand telling me to keep my head, to stay sharp. The greatest challenges still lay ahead.
“The first room as you enter is a sort of reception area,” Caleb said as we neared the door to the lab. The cameras above it lay dormant without power. “The door to the right leads to a doctor’s office, so don’t bother with that. I haven’t been through the other door, but it’s larger and has an electronic lock. So that’s where we go. Without power we can’t open the lock, so Siku, you may need to bash it down.”
Siku grunted, sounding the same as he did in human form.
“It might be a good idea if November scouted ahead and made sure no one else surprises us,” I said, thinking how her small form could easily be missed in a melee. I looked over at her, crouched now on top of Siku’s broad head as he lumbered along on all fours. “That okay with you, ’Ember?”
She squeaked once and nodded.
“Arnaldo, stay back until we see how much room there is inside,” I went on, glancing up at him as he circled overhead. The eagle’s long wings might have difficulty beating through doorways or crowded laboratories. “I like having you as kind of our secret weapon. People don’t look up much, do they?”
He croaked at us, then landed on the roof of the lab. We halted in front of that building’s door. I could hear the pain in every breath Lazar took. His good hand held his broken arm gingerly at the elbow.
I said, “If you see a girl who looks like Lazar in there, don’t hurt her. Get her out of the building. And try to keep Ximon alive. I have questions for him.”
“The fuel barrels are right there.” Caleb tilted his head to the right. Siku swung his big head to look. Sure enough, a dozen large oil drums lay stacked to the side of the lab building. “Once everyone’s out, I’ll light them up.”
“Ready?” I hoisted my air gun. Siku grunted, November cheeped, London gave me a nod, and Arnaldo squawked.
“Ready, General Desdemona,” said Caleb, grinning at me. A few locks of dark hair had fallen over his forehead, and his black eyes glinted with those hints of gold, sharp and ready in the moonlight. Every channel in my body was open, every nerve alight. We just might pull this off.
“Look how far we’ve come,” I said. “Let’s finish it.” Around me, I felt muscles tense. “Open the door, Lazar.”
Caleb pushed him forward, and Lazar put his hand on the doorknob. I angled my gun to fire through the door as it cracked open. Moonlight revealed a small room with a reception desk, three waiting chairs, a door to the right, and a door straight ahead. Nothing moved inside.
Siku went in first and ran straight at the door. At the last second, he ducked his head and slammed into it with his shoulder. The walls trembled, and the door buckled but did not open. Siku shuffled backward, huffing his breath in and out indignantly, as if the door had dissed him. Then he smashed into it again at top speed.
It flew open, banging into the wall behind. Siku’s momentum rolled him forward through the doorway. Caleb hustled Lazar over, pistol at the back of his head, and I caught a glimpse of November’s tiny, pod-shaped body scurrying past Siku into the darkness.
A hallway stretched about twenty-five feet down, with a door on each side. November darted down it, paused, sniffing, then pointed one pink paw at the door on the right and squeaked.
“Ximon’s in there,” I said.
Caleb pushed Lazar into the hallway as Siku got to his feet. “Siku, the door on the right.”
As Siku moved up to obey, I drew the Shadow Blade and walked to the door on the left. “Here, ’Ember. Do reconnaissance.” I slid the dusky blade between the door and the wall, feeling the wood resist it on either side. But as I cut down near the lock, it bit through the metal there. No lockpicks necessary. I pulled it open just wide enough for November to slip through. I had time only to get the impression of a large, utterly dark room, filled with tables and empty cages.
Then Siku huffed and bashed the other door with one huge paw. It sprang open. I sheathed the blade and hoisted my gun. London trotted in to stand beside me, her teeth bared.
Light radiated from the room. As my eyes adjusted I saw a small battery-operated lamp next to a hospital bed surrounded by people. London shoved me sideways, and a bullet whined past my ear.
“Thanks,” I said breathlessly, spotting the man in white who had fired. I raised my air gun and fired at him. The first dart went wide, of course, but I stepped closer, aiming for his chest, and finally buried a dart in his thigh. A lucky shot, at last. He fell.