My Immortal Assassin (16 page)
D
urian reached the living room ahead of Iskander and Gray. Within seconds magehelds swarmed through the broken window frames on the left side of the room. The sound of breaking wood and glass falling to the floor filled the air, along with the grunts and shouts of the invaders fighting for entry. Kynan was already here, having come down from another part of the house. He was fighting magehelds near a bank of windows by an entrance that led to a back hallway.
Information clicked into Durian’s mind, flowing in from Kynan, Iskander, and Gray. These magehelds were mindless brutes, just like the ones who’d attacked Gray and him at Muir Woods. Time slowed. So much happened all at once, stimuli hit all his senses; sight, smell, sound, touch, taste, and magic. Iskander moved past him to take on the magehelds flooding in at the windows. Kynan continued his battle. Gray tucked in beside him, a welcome presence.
A mass of squirming, seething bodies pressed against the broken windows, the individuals behind so frantic to get in they crushed the ones in front. What kept them out so far was the remnants of the proofing, and that had to be near to breaking point. The faces contained in the medallions along the molding contorted in silent screams of rage. Above the shattered windows, the medallions were charred black.
The proofing around the windows near Kynan gave way with a nerve-shivering buzz. A single mageheld vaulted in as the other two windows gave out. He died as the forces constrained in the medallions broke free. Behind him, more magehelds came.
None of the free kin could sense a mageheld’s magic, and fighting magic you couldn’t feel was dangerous. It wasn’t easy to defend against what you didn’t know was coming at you. Not when you were used to the advantage of knowing.
Durian had enough time to realize that the frenzy and the number of magehelds trying to get in had probably saved their lives. They fought each other for ingress rather than attacking. Had the magehelds been more coordinated, Kynan would have been overwhelmed before they made it down from the do-jang. Enough low-ranking fiends could take down even a warlord. More magehelds made it inside, many with wounds from the broken glass and wood. With Gray at his side, Durian prepared to meet the ones who made it past Iskander and Kynan.
As he and Gray moved to intercept the first wave, he knew this didn’t make sense. Magehelds were compelled to do as ordered, but they were rarely stupid about it. A mageheld fiend was a cunning and dangerous creature, and none of these monsters demonstrated the slightest awareness of their surroundings. As far as Durian could tell there was no leader. No one coordinating and directing the attack. No mageheld leader anyway.
Now that they’d lost the edge the ambush had given them, they weren’t retreating. No regrouping. There was just this mindless press for destruction of whatever stood in their way.
Durian pulled more magic than was safe. Iskander and Kynan were already doing the same. So was Gray. He opened himself to her, locking in on her, and she flowed along his senses. They worked well together. They gave each other opportunities and created openings.
Kynan’s magic flashed through the room and the vanguard swarming from the windows fell to the ground before they got a quarter of the way inside. Those who didn’t die were either fully or partially immobilized. Few of the survivors maintained their human forms. More pushed through the windows, stepping on the bodies of their fallen comrades, tripping, stumbling forward without apparent thought or plan.
Perhaps a minute had passed since they’d come downstairs, but it felt like forever. His sense of wrongness increased. Driven by compulsion and whatever else was wrong with them, the creatures who’d been outside the limits of Kynan’s magic and thus survived his attack, swarmed forward, crawling until they could lurch upright. They paid no heed to the glass that sliced into them. Blood dripped from their gaping cuts yet they kept coming on. Kynan let loose with a cry that echoed off the walls. He showed no mercy. As was fit.
Despite the disparity in numbers, the magehelds were so disorganized and bunched up that from time to time Iskander shoved a knot of them to the ground and moments later a red mist danced around them. By the time the mist cleared, the magehelds were dead.
Durian killed the first three magehelds to come within his reach. Quickly. Without reflection or preparation. His chest ached and before long he was sure his ribs would crack apart. He didn’t stop. This was about survival, not the elegance of his kill.
On the far side of the room, Kynan shifted to one of his alternate forms. The warlord planted himself between the magehelds and the side of the room where Iskander had more magehelds backed up against the wall. The two of them trapped the magehelds behind a magical wall. Passing through that barrier ought to have been too painful to bear, but they were trying, and it was a horrific sight. A grinning Kynan killed the ones who came through alive.
Durian and Gray had their hands full with the interior of the room. She plucked a leg from the ruins of a table and used it as a cudgel. She was faster than a normal human, but not faster than a mageheld. She was stronger, too, but he didn’t know if, like other kin, Gray would heal from wounds that would kill a vanilla human. There wasn’t time to think about what was going on with her because there were more magehelds to deal with. She was capable of keeping herself alive. Chances were high that her oath would keep her near him.
The first time magehelds ended up between them, he killed them and any others who’d made it past Iskander and Kynan. The second time, he understood the magehelds were trying to separate them. The one and only glimmer of intelligence from them. Durian circled back to her but was cut off again. Once more he regained her side and twice more magehelds separated them.
Again, they were after Gray.
The moment he had an opening he shot toward her. He came at her sideways, in low and from her left, taking down as many of the magehelds around her as he could touch.
She clubbed one and it reeled back, tripping another one, which fell face down on Durian. The thing clawed at Durian’s belly with extended talons. Before he could shatter the mageheld’s heart, though, Gray killed it with a two-handed swing of the table leg and followed up with magic to ensure it was dead. She shoved the body away with her foot. She whirled to face another mageheld and dispatched it, too.
He rolled to his feet. So much was happening at the same time: Kynan Aijan fighting, Iskander’s defense, Durian’s own trajectory toward Gray, and her deliberate stride toward the door. More of them worked their way toward her.
Durian’s heart banged against his ribs when he saw her surrounded. She maintained a bent-kneed posture, gripping her weapon with white-knuckled hands. The stance was not a defensive one, and outnumbered as she was, it should be. He didn’t know how long Kynan and Iskander would be able to continue with magic that struck so broadly. It was draining and dangerous. A miscalculation might easily injure or kill any one of them by mistake.
He opened himself to Kynan and Iskander, bringing them into his link with Gray, knowing it was dangerous but risking it just the same. Kynan was a warlord, Iskander practically so. They could deal with unblocked exposure to Durian’s magic. Psychically, all four of them locked in on each other. If they didn’t work together they weren’t going to come out of this alive.
Durian bulled his way through to Gray, touching magehelds when he could—they had no instinct for self-preservation. The challenge lay in the frenzy that made them fast and unpredictable. The smell of bodies and magic choked the air. Somewhere out there, a mage was controlling this.
He watched her swing her table leg at three magehelds. The first went down, the other two lunged, and she got her touch, one, two. Then others went down. She was using the edge her ability to sense magehelds gave her, anticipating where they would be before she struck.
More magehelds swarmed through the side door like they were going over a hurdle. One peeled off and went for him, clawed hands outstretched. Durian killed it with a touch and as the others passed him, he spun and more died. While he was engaged, she killed two more. One of the bodies bounced unnaturally as it landed and hit Gray a glancing blow to her side that knocked her on her back.
This level of carnage and sustained attack was insanity, yet the surviving magehelds were trying harder. All of them worked toward Gray. She moved faster than he anticipated given the limitations of her physical form. So quick on her feet. He was seeing—because he recognized it—a near perfect imitation of his technique augmented by the magic she had taken from Christophe.
God, he could love a woman like her, he really could. She caught his eye for a moment and he grinned at her. She smiled back, and they both went back to work.
A hole appeared in the space between the double main door and the jamb. The wood collapsed against itself as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand. And she kept moving toward whatever was on the other side. The living room door disintegrated from its midpoint outward.
“Get down, get down!” Durian threw himself at her, covering her with his body as the sound of the door vaporizing boomed in his ears. Her table leg went flying. She fought to crawl from underneath him and nearly did. He tightened his hold and pushed her head to the floor. The disintegration of the proofing that protected the house from magical intruders carried a lethal blowback. By design. “Head down, fiend.”
Uttered like that, she had no choice. He’d given her a command both verbal and psychic. The last of the proofing gave way. His ears popped and then, every mageheld he could see between here and the door died. When it was over, he rolled off her, keeping low to the ground as he cast about for status.
The room fell silent. For a moment, Gray was utterly still in a position that reminded him more than a little of himself. She looked at him with eyes that did not focus as they ought. “Is it over?”
Durian looked around and saw Kynan Aijan at the far side of the room and Iskander, who, as Durian watched, released the mageheld he’d just killed. Blood dripped from his other hand. The body tumbled to the floor.
Iskander shook his arms; they were bloody up to his elbows. Crimson droplets flew through the air. He backed away from the dead around him, stepping over bodies as necessary. He looked as sick as Durian felt. “There’s nothing there,” he said. His eyes were wide, his pupils black discs amid the surrounding blue. “Not for any of them.” He touched a finger to his temple. “Gone.”
Kynan made an inhuman sound. His eyes blazed gold. His fingernails were too sharp to be normal. Though he was human in appearance, he was not human in fact. The warlord teetered at the edge of his control. Gray shivered in reaction to the warlord’s magical state. Durian saw the ripple of goose bumps down her arms. He held his breath. If Kynan lost control, they were all in trouble.
“My friend.” Iskander spoke softly. He headed for Kynan, which was either suicidal or courageous. “My friend.”
For a moment Kynan stood with his taloned hands raised to the ceiling, head back while he brought himself under control. He shifted back to his human form but there wasn’t any mistaking him for a twenty-something human male. Not any more. His magic burned through the room. The warlord’s attention fixed on Gray.
Iskander caught Durian’s eye and motioned to Gray. “Get her out of here, Assassin.”
G
ray held her breath. The way Kynan was looking at her, with his magic boiling hot, she was surprised he didn’t come after her. She knew he wanted to because he was letting her see what was in his head. And it wasn’t pretty. He had a link to her. They all had during the fighting. Kynan was the only one who hadn’t released. She tried to dislodge him but nothing worked.
It was the magic she’d taken from Christophe that triggered his reaction to her. In a room full of magehelds that magic had flared to life, and she’d used what she could in anyway she could.
Having Kynan in her head was like getting hit by a train. In no time he found her memories of Tigran, all those images and conflicting emotions about what had happened to her. She’d made a bargain with the devil where Tigran was concerned. Kynan Aijan had been through something similar, which she knew not because he let her see but because she recognized his emotions.
“I did what I had to.” She nodded to the warlord. “I think you probably did the same thing.” He was still super nova, but he wasn’t after her. Not anymore. “Fuck the mages, warlord. All of them who do shit like that.”
Kynan stayed locked up in her head, burning with a crackle of electricity that robbed her of the ability to tell whether she was standing or flat on the ground. Impossible as it seemed, what she got from Kynan wasn’t pity or blame, but a profound shock of recognition.
She snapped back to the room feeling like the inside of her head had been set on fire. She couldn’t see normally, just the blazing presence of Durian. Kynan was across from her, staring at her with eyes that shone brilliant gold.
The warlord took a step toward her and the other two fiends interpreted his actions completely wrong. Iskander hauled him back while Durian got a broad shoulder between her and Kynan. He wasn’t going to attack her. She knew that. He was just shocked as hell to find out they had a lot in common. So was she. She held Kynan’s gaze. “It’s cool,” she said, waving a hand. “Let him go.”
Awkwardly, because Iskander still held him up, Kynan pressed three fingers to his forehead and bowed his head to her. That was big. Warlords didn’t acknowledge a fiend of lower rank first. Ever. Unless something extraordinary had happened. Their eyes stayed locked, and even though he was hyped up from the fighting, she knew he meant it. He nodded at her again. “You’re on the other side now, human.”
He let her see something of himself. Enough for her to understand that he’d been mageheld once and had done things that had killed something in him. She said, “Does it get any easier?”
Kynan didn’t answer right away. “Yeah,” he said at last. “If you have the right people around you, it does.”
“Thank you.” She replicated his bow as best she could.
“Take her upstairs, Assassin,” Kynan said. “Make sure she’s all right.”
“Warlord.” Durian tightened his arm around her, and she allowed herself to relax against him. With Kynan’s magic tugging at her like a riptide, he walked her out of the room. They headed for the back of the house. She was rapidly feeling better after that electric contact with Kynan Aijan, but the lights made her eyes water. Whenever they passed a switch, she turned the lights off. He stopped in a now dim hallway. “How are you feeling?”
She blinked a few times. A burnt stench floated on the air, particularly pungent here, for some reason. “Better.”
They reached a side door with a frosted glass window at the top and a mesh curtain stretched over it. Even with the lights off, she could make out the lumpy shapes of the recycling and garbage through the curtain. Durian stayed close to her.
“Why are we here?” She could make out the outline of his face, the shape of his lower lip, the dark shadow of his hair.
His hands stayed on her, and she didn’t move. “There is a mage out there.” His eyes glowed faintly purple.
“That means there’ll be more magehelds out there.”
“We cannot accuse Christophe without proof.” He lowered his head. Not to kiss her, but so she could hear his soft words. His hands settled around her waist. Her heart skipped a few beats. “If he is behind this attack, I intend to get that proof. Tonight.”
She grinned at him. “Excellent.” Durian ran a hand through her hair, and she tipped her head back. “Sorry. Still red.”
“I’m starting to like it.”
“Yeah?”
He smiled. “Whoever is out there needs magehelds with their minds intact. We can find the mage easily enough, but his magehelds are another matter.” His fingers tightened around her. “With your particular gift, you could find them easily. They can be disabled before the mage understands what’s happened.”
“Got it.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “This is not without risk,” he said softly.
“What?” She pretended to be shocked. “You mean we’ll be in danger?”
Durian’s hand slid to the nape of her neck. “Point made.”
“Let’s go.”
“A little planning is in order.” He gestured. “The goal is to find and neutralize the magehelds without the mage knowing something has happened.”
“I take care of the magehelds while you go after the mage.” She lifted her hands, palm up. “See? I get it.”
“No. We should approach the mage together.” Durian gave a smile so fierce she got chills. “When he understands that his magehelds have been removed without his knowing what happened to them, he will feel motivated to speak frankly with us.”
“How’s that going to work?” She frowned, trying to think this through. “The magehelds aren’t going to feel yours or Tigran’s magic, but the mage will. And what about my other magic? Magehelds will feel that, won’t they?”
“I’ll dampen us.”
“What does that mean?”
He brushed a hand across her cheek. “It means I can hide us both for a time. Long enough to do what we need to once you’ve located the magehelds for us.”
She looked around the little anteroom and snatched a dark hooded sweatshirt off a hook by the door. Her skin was too pale for the stealth they needed. Any mageheld halfway paying attention would see her. The sweatshirt was several sizes too large and hung past her butt. She rolled up the sleeves enough to keep them from interfering with her hands. To do this right, she needed gloves, but there wasn’t time.
She held up a hand and started counting off on her fingers. “First task: locate the magehelds. Second task: we figure out which order to take them in. Third task: scare the living hell out of a mage.”
“Sounds about right,” he said.
“Ready when you are.”
He nodded. Her skin prickled when Durian’s magic flared. Jesus, he was heinously strong. They got a link going, strong enough that they wouldn’t need to talk much. She took a few deep breaths, then she opened the door and the two of them slipped into the night. The pull of Kynan’s and Iskander’s magic on her eased, which was a relief. She was glad to be away from the stench of death, too.
The back of the house was clear. From Durian, she got the distinct idea that he would have been surprised to find anything different. Kynan and Iskander were in the living room. This close to the two, Gray could feel their magic. She rubbed her arms as she and Durian moved on.
The house and grounds were alarmed both electronically and magically. Out back, the perimeter proofing remained intact. The house’s wired alarm had been disabled. Durian demonstrated for her how it had been done and how to undo the effect. “Neat,” she whispered as the unit glowed back to life and Durian re-entered the arming codes.
Several charred and blackened medallions were scattered on the ground along the side of the house. Following the trail of destroyed medallions was easy enough. Even with her mediocre tracking skills, she could tell that one set of magehelds had gone through the garage outlet to the house while the bulk of them had poured in through the now shattered windows after having come from the front of the house.
Just as Durian said, locating the mage was easy. Even before they were around the front of the house, she felt his magic. In the back of her head she felt a tickle of awareness. Oh, yes. There were magehelds around. With Durian behind her, she inched forward, keeping to the shadows.
The mage was leaning against the side of a dark Mercedes sedan, watching the house from across the street and about twenty feet down the block. Four magehelds loitered by the open driveway gate, not even trying to hide. She didn’t need magic to find them. They’d been placed where they would be most likely to be of assistance to the other magehelds—back before their brethren were decimated. Across the street, two more stood with the mage. They weren’t trying to hide either, and at any rate, she wasn’t worried about those two.
Five others were spread out at various locations up and down the block. These guys were taking pains not to be seen. Without the way they resonated in her head, she’d probably never have found them.
Getting past the four at the gate was easier than she thought. The dampening Durian was doing worked. Another neat trick, she thought. When this was over, she was going to have to try that on her own. With silent agreement, they moved past these four. If they went down, the mage would see they were no longer there. Their quarry were the five who were still hiding, starting with the nearest of the five, and working their way out.
As she moved within striking distance of the first two mages they were to take down, her nerves vanished. The world narrowed to just the details she needed to accomplish her task. Her hearing was acute enough to take in distant sounds, but she filtered them out as soon as she knew they were not relevant. Traffic on other streets. A far away siren. The only noises that mattered were the ones contained in the perimeter around her targets.
She crept close and made her two touches; not killing touches, but enough to make their eyes roll back in their heads. Durian caught each mageheld as it fell, senseless, to the ground. She went on to the next two. She knew with Durian dampening them they wouldn’t sense her magically, but they also never heard her coming. Done. Five minutes later, they were done again.
There were more, but they were far enough away not to be a threat to her and Durian getting to the mage. If it had been necessary, though, she would have taken them down, too.
Easy.
She and Durian, with him continuing to dampen them, walked down the middle of the street. They headed straight for the mage who didn’t have any idea what had happened to his magehelds.