Dying Is My Business (33 page)

Philip appeared suddenly between us. “Back off,” he snarled.

“It’s all right, Philip, relax,” Isaac said. He turned back to his laptop. Only then did I see how ashen his face was. He’d been as surprised by the explosion as I was.

“What happened?” I asked again.

Isaac shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m seeing if there’s a way to rewind the feeds so we can find out. If the files are stored digitally on the same server, we might have a shot at it.” His fingers danced across the keyboards. A moment later the images on the monitors reversed themselves. Flames and smoke retreated back into the building, the walls closing around them and sealing themselves whole again. The signpost lifted itself back up. Rain rose off the sidewalks into the sky, and cars sped backward along Empire Boulevard.

“Wait, there!” Bethany exclaimed. Isaac froze the images. She pointed at one of the monitors, where two shapes could be seen walking through the gas station parking lot. “Those are the men from the auto body shop,” she said.

“Tomo and Big Joe,” Gabrielle said before I had a chance to. It was eerie how much she knew about my life now.

Isaac began the playback again. Onscreen, Tomo and Big Joe walked with an aggressive gait, angry after their humiliation at the auto body shop. They weren’t used to losing. The bravado and posturing also masked how worried they likely were about how Underwood would react once he learned the box had slipped through their fingers. Underwood didn’t take kindly to failure. They entered the fallout shelter through the storm doors at the back of the station. Then all was quiet. No one else approached the gas station before it exploded.

“Whatever caused this, it must have happened inside the building,” Isaac said.

We watched the feed unfold again. This time we could see that the blast didn’t come from inside the abandoned gas station itself, but beneath it, from the fallout shelter.

There was no way anyone could have survived the explosion. I wondered if Underwood had been there, too. It was a possibility. After driving away from the auto body shop, he probably would have gone straight back to the fallout shelter to plan his next move.

Did that mean they were
all
dead?

“Wait, hold it,” Gabrielle said suddenly. She’d been poring over the images on the monitors for clues, and now she pointed to one of the screens. The picture was angled from across Empire Boulevard, catercorner to the gas station and high above street level. A traffic camera. “Isaac, go back. Go back on this one.”

The feed rewound as Isaac tapped the keyboard. The playback began again. This time I saw what had caught her eye. It was just barely visible behind the inferno, but it was there. It was unmistakable.

A flock of big, black birds taking off into the sky.

“Are those crows?” Bethany asked.

Isaac said, “The Black Knight.”

I watched the birds fly into the sky until they were nothing but tiny digital dots. “What the hell was the Black Knight doing there?”

“Looking for you,” Bethany said.

“Me? Why?”

“You’re the only one who’s ever taken him on and lived,” she pointed out. “It’s like Ingrid said, you got his attention. He must have traced your footsteps back to the gas station.”

I looked at the raging fire on all six monitors. “So this was meant for
me
?”

Isaac shook his head, squinting at the screens. “Something’s not right. This kind of flagrant, wholesale destruction doesn’t seem like the Black Knight’s style at all—”

Philip interrupted, tensing suddenly. “Someone’s here. Citadel’s ward has been breached.”

“What? That’s impossible,” Isaac said, standing out of his chair.

“Just like at the safe house,” Bethany said. “It’s happening again.”

“What the hell is going on? Are wards just giving out all over the damn city?” Isaac demanded. “Philip, how many of them are there?”

Philip looked up at the ceiling, his lips pulling back from his sharp teeth. “I can hear them on the roof, but I can’t see them. They’re not giving off any body heat at all.” He inhaled sharply through his nose, then cringed. “Ugh, they smell stale and dry, like dust.”

A bright flash of lightning illuminated the stained-glass windows. Two silhouettes appeared in the light, one in each window, swinging down from the roof on long ropes. Just before they hit, the shapes vanished and the ropes thumped, empty, against the glass.

A second later, the two figures reappeared just inside the windows, somersaulting through the air above us. I caught a glimpse of lithe bodies clad head to toe in black leather. They landed together in the middle of the room in a graceful, wide-legged stance, turned their steel-masked faces toward us, and drew katanas from the scabbards on their backs.

Shadowborn.

Twenty-seven

Instinct had me reaching for my gun before I remembered I didn’t have it anymore. Philip had taken it from me at the auto body shop, and he still had it. Not that it would do any good against the shadowborn anyway, but I felt naked without it.

Isaac acted quickly, not waiting for the shadowborn to attack first. Something bright and crackling burst from his outstretched hands and raced toward them. The shadowborn brought up their katanas, using the polished steel blades to deflect the blasts into the walls. They left seared, smoking holes in the wood.

Then the shadowborn vanished. Before we could react, they reappeared right in front of us. They pulled back their katanas, ready to strike. Philip moved like a bullet, his supernatural speed allowing him to get his arms around one for a moment before it dematerialized. He skidded to a stop halfway across the room, empty-handed. He turned, ready to go after the second shadowborn, but it chose that moment to vanish, too.

Gabrielle scanned the room nervously. “Where did they go?” Her voice wavered. She was terrified.

“How the hell did they find us?” Isaac demanded.

I turned to Bethany. “I thought we killed these assholes back at the safe house.”

“There are a lot more than three shadowborn in the world,” she replied. “Whoever summoned the others must have summoned more.”

“Great,” I said. “Maybe they got a bulk discount.”

A shadowborn materialized behind Bethany. Before I could shout a warning, it grabbed her.

“Let her go!” I started toward the shadowborn on blind, furious instinct. It raised its katana blade to Bethany’s throat. She flinched, sucking in her breath. The shadowborn shook the sword slightly, but didn’t cut her. I stopped and put up my hands. “Okay, okay, I get it. Nobody moves.”

Across the room, something banged on the closed door that led to the hallway outside, strong enough to rattle the door in its frame.

All I cared about was getting Bethany away from the shadowborn. I didn’t take my eyes off its sword. The edge pressed against her neck, where a film of nervous sweat glistened with each panicked breath she took, but it made no move to slit her throat. For now, at least, the shadowborn was waiting for something.

Another bang shook the door, and another. The second shadowborn materialized in front of the door, and opened it.

A crowd of people spilled into the room like floodwater bursting through a dam. Amid the confusion I smelled the stench of rancid meat. Then I noticed their torn, dirt-smeared clothes and rot-mottled skin. They were dead, all of them. Dead but moving, crowding into the room like an angry mob. A sharp red light glowed inside their pupils. A light I’d seen before.

They were revenants, and there were dozens of them. They smashed the display cases, pulled paintings and artifacts off the walls, knocked over a few of the statues, and sifted through the wreckage. They were looking for something. The box, I figured. Everyone was after that damn thing.

Two revenants came forward and grabbed Isaac. They held his arms behind his back and slipped a heavy chain over his neck. A large iron medallion dangled from it, old and round and carved with weird sigils. Another pair of revenants grabbed Bethany, and the shadowborn who’d been holding her blinked out of sight. Philip and Gabrielle were restrained as well. Everyone had been brought under control but me. For some reason they’d left me alone. Why?

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around.

Bennett stood behind me, a toothy grin on his pale, dead face. “Surprise.”

A pair of revenants came forward and took me by the arms. They were in bad shape, these two, half-faced corpses that looked like they’d died in a meat grinder. But they were unbelievably strong. I couldn’t move in their grip at all. Up close, the odor of rotting flesh wet from the rain was so strong it made my eyes water.

The red glow in Bennett’s pupils flashed. “And so the captor becomes the captive. We’ve come a long way since you had me tied up in the back of your car, haven’t we, errand boy?”

“You can stop calling me that,” I said. “I know you’re not really Bennett. You’re just pulling his strings, making his dead body dance for you. It’s sick.”

The thing with Bennett’s face stopped smiling.

“So why the charade?” I asked. “Why come to me at the safe house in Bennett’s body?”

When the revenant answered, it was still Bennett’s vocal cords at work, still his voice, but the speech patterns were all wrong. Whoever was controlling his corpse had stopped pretending to be Bennett and was now speaking freely. “I chose this body precisely because it was known to you. It was a face you would respond to.”

A chill fell over me. “How did you know that?”

“I know much about you.”

“How?”

“It helped that Bennett’s body was freshly dead,” the revenant continued, ignoring my question. “His brain hasn’t deteriorated yet. It made impersonating him that much easier, drawing upon the memories and information locked in his head. This body was the perfect shill. But every good con needs a mark. So tell me, what does that make you?”

“I don’t understand, what does any of this have to do with
me
?”

With a grin, Bennett’s corpse walked away, joining the throng of revenants.

I struggled to free myself from my two half-faced guards, but their grip was like iron, and just as cold.

The crowd of revenants parted like the Red Sea, leaving an aisle down the center of the room. There, standing at the far end, was the red-robed figure I’d seen outside the safe house. His hood shaded the golden skull mask over his face. He was flanked by the two shadowborn, their swords back in their sheaths. They walked with him as he crossed toward us. I studied the mask over his face, but I couldn’t see any of the person behind it. There were no eyes in the empty black sockets of the skull mask, no mouth visible behind its leering grin.

Isaac lifted his head, struggling against the weight of the heavy chain around his neck. “Melanthius.”

“You know of me?” Melanthius said. His voice seeped out from behind the mask like poison gas. “Good. Then you know I am not to be trifled with. A point of interest: The amulet around your neck is called the Hangman’s Damper. Can you guess why?”

Isaac scowled. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me. You seem the type who enjoys the sound of his own voice.”

The revenants guarding Isaac dug their sharp finger bones into his shoulders and arms. He winced in pain and gritted his teeth.

“Watch your tongue, mage, or I will see it cut from your mouth.” Behind Melanthius, the shadowborn’s featureless steel masks turned toward Isaac. “The Hangman’s Damper was a favorite tool of the magician hunters of the Spanish Inquisition. It earned its name for two reasons. First, it keeps the wearer’s magic safely in check. So long as it is around your neck, mage, you can neither cast nor summon.”

Isaac glared at him, his face reddening and twitching with exertion as he tried to cast a spell, presumably one that would flatten Melanthius to a smear on the carpet. Then he let out his breath and slumped forward, panting. “Get this thing off me and let’s see how tough you really are.”

“I prefer it this way,” Melanthius replied. “The second reason for the name is that the Hangman’s Damper had a side effect the Inquisitors found most useful. The spell tightens around the wearer’s neck with each lie he tells. One lie and you feel as if all the air has left the room. Two lies and you feel you’re being strangled. Three lies and you’re dead. I would caution you not to put that to the test. But I know you’re no fool. You know what we have come for as certainly as we know that you have it. It’s somewhere in the building. Remember what I’ve told you about the amulet, and answer our questions truthfully.”

“
Our
questions?” Isaac said. “I take it you’re not alone?”

Bennett stepped out of the crowd to stand with Melanthius.

“Ah.” Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “Reve Azrael, I presume.”

Shit. The entity Isaac had mentioned earlier, the necromancer Melanthius served, was controlling Bennett’s body. And she
knew
me somehow.

“Enough talking, mage. Where is Stryge’s head?” Reve Azrael demanded through Bennett’s mouth.

“Why don’t you show yourself, instead of hiding behind the dead like a coward?” Isaac taunted. “Or do you not have a body of your own? Is that it? Are you a floater, just some random consciousness without a form to call home? It must be so lonely, not being able to touch anyone except with the cold, numb hand of a corpse.”

“Stryge’s head,” she repeated.

“Never heard of it,” Isaac said. He choked suddenly and gasped for air. Red-faced, he slumped forward in the grip of his revenant guards. I could hear his desperate breathing as he fought for air.

Reve Azrael smiled down at him as he choked. “You know how the Hangman’s Damper works, mage. Even you would not be so foolish as to risk the consequences of another lie, would you? Now, tell me where it is.”

Between his coughs and gags, Isaac managed to squeeze out the words, “I’d sooner die.”

“To what end? If you did, I would simply take your body for myself and find the answer within your tiny, pitiful brain,” Reve Azrael said. “I will not be denied, not even by death. Not when a weapon of this magnitude is so close at hand. Not when it assures me limitless power, and limitless control.”