The Undoing (29 page)

He cried out in pain. So, she might not be able to kill the Carrion with Crow weapons, but she could hurt him.

She could hurt him! She could hurt him! She could hurt him!

Jace held on, one arm around his neck, the other ramming that blade in again and again and again and again.

Even as she felt her skin burn where it touched the Carrion, she refused to release him, because she wanted him to hurt!

She kept going until hands gripped her waist and Jace was finally yanked from the Carrion.

 

“
Light him up!
” Kera bellowed.

On her knees, blood pouring from a wound on the side of her head, Erin flung her arm forward. A fireball exploded from her hand and slammed into the Carrion covering the eye Jace had fucked up. Flames covered him and he dropped to the ground, trying to put them out.

Tucking a struggling Jace under one arm, Kera reached down and grabbed Erin by the back of her T-shirt. Chloe and the others ran past them and out the front doors.

“Go!” Chloe ordered and Kera ran out, holding on to Jace, who was snarling and snapping like a wild animal, clawing at Kera's arm with her talons.

Once outside, Kera thought they were going to keep running, but Chloe and Tessa stopped about fifty feet away from the front door.

The men came out, the one who'd been on fire still smoking but seemingly unharmed. So Erin's flame could hurt these men, but not kill them.

Then again, Kera had the feeling these men weren't really alive enough to actually kill. Not in the normal, everyday sense of the word
alive
anyway.

“Why aren't we running?” Kera asked Erin.

“Because of the sun. They can walk around in it, but they're vulnerable. In the dark, they're at their strongest.”

“What are they?”

“They're warriors from Helheim. The gods call them Hel's Carrion.”

“Why?”

“For they feed on decaying flesh.”

“Oh . . . well, that's lovely.” Kera gripped a still-struggling Jace tighter. “And I thought the Crows never run from anything.”

“We're Crows, Kera. We're smart enough to know
when
to run. And if you ever face a Carrion alone, in the dark . . .” Erin looked at her and said in the most serious tone Kera had ever heard from her, “Then you fucking run.”

“Why are you here?” Chloe called out to the men. “Why aren't you in Helheim where you belong?”

The biggest of the men lowered his head and yanked double-edged blades from his belt, but before he had a chance to do anything, Jace started yelling in a language Kera didn't know.

Yelling and struggling and completely losing her goddamn mind. Her friend had gone over the edge.

And yet . . . the Carrion didn't move any closer. They didn't charge.

Then Jace did something Kera had never seen before. She raised her hand and began to chant. She was casting a spell.

At least . . . that's what Kera was guessing because the lead Carrion suddenly made a circling motion with his index finger and the group of nine unleashed their wings and took to the skies.

Once they were gone, Jace lowered her arm . . . and burst into hysterical tears.

“Great,” Erin sighed. “Now comes the crying.”

“Shut up!” Jace yelled . . . while crying.

“Back to the car,” Chloe ordered and they moved, dashing toward the two SUVs parked on the street.

Kera handed Jace off to Erin so she could drive, started the engine, and took off once everyone was inside and the doors closed.

“I don't know what you did,” Tessa said to Jace, “but it was amazing. You saved our asses back there.”

“I didn't do anything,” she sobbed out.

“What are you talking about? You used some spell, right?”

“It was something I read while working at the Protectors. But to be honest . . . I was just saying words.” And the “s” in
words
just seemed to go on forever as the crying became worse.

“Well,” Kera said while making a wild-ass turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard, “whatever you did was brilliant, Jace.”

They all fell silent, the only sounds in the SUV Jace's crying until Erin rested her arm on the back of the passenger seat and asked, “Anyone else feel like we've forgotten something?”

 

Ski reached down and grabbed the wrists attached to the hands wrapped around Bear's throat and yanked them off.

“What did I do?” Bear demanded.

“You keep talking!” Stieg Engstrom snarled back.

Ski glared over at Rundstöm. “Are you going to help me?”

Pressing his hands against the wall behind the couch in Brianna's apartment in downtown Los Angeles, trying to find any hidden rooms, Rundstöm glanced at Ski and replied, “No.”

Ski shoved a still-rampaging Engstrom back. “Can we just get through this, please?”

“Then tell him to shut up.” Engstrom headed toward one of the woman's many closets.

“I didn't do anything,” Bear complained.

“I know.” Ski patted Bear's big shoulder. “Don't sweat it. Let's just get this done and get away from them.”

“It hurts, Ski . . . so much stupid.”

“I know, Bear. I know.”

“I don't think there's anything here,” Siggy Kaspersen announced, dropping onto one of Brianna's gold couches. The furniture all looked very new, but Ski was surprised she hadn't gotten herself a new house. He couldn't imagine Gullveig staying in what, to her, would seem like such a small space. The living room and dining room weren't even separated.

“Anyone check that walk-in closet yet?” Engstrom called from the other room.

“No,” Rundstöm replied just as his phone began to buzz, the sound and vibration irritating Ski's ears. “But get on that so we can get out of . . .”

Rundstöm's words faded away as he gazed down at his cell phone.

Ski watched him a moment before asking, “What's wrong?”

Mouth slightly open, the Raven looked at him. “Hel's Carrion.”

At the same time, both of them spun and yelled to Engstrom, “Stieg! Don't go in that—”

Words of warning were cut off by a roar and the sight of Stieg Engstrom being shoved through several thick walls and back into the living room, with one of Hel's Carrion attached to him.

Kaspersen rolled off the couch seconds before his Raven brother and the Carrion slammed into it, knocking it backward.

More Carrion came through the doorway; sharp, jagged blades made from the finest metal of Helheim held in meaty fists.

Rundstöm immediately grabbed the thick, reclaimed-wood dining table and held it in both hands before charging forward.

Ski moved to the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered two walls, and pulled back the thick, light-blocking curtains. The sunlight poured in, but it didn't lessen the netherworld strength all Carrion had.

He pressed his hand against the glass. UV protection. “Bear! Break it!”

Bear, a former college linebacker during his Stanford days, lowered his shoulder and charged the window that led out onto a balcony. The first hit cracked it. He backed up and charged again, and the window shattered. Unfiltered sunlight poured in and the power of it allowed Engstrom to push away the Carrion who'd been on top of him. But where he'd been touched by the Carrion, his flesh appeared decayed.

Ski started to go over to help him, but he was tackled out onto the balcony. He gripped the Carrion by the neck and flipped him over. He rolled with him so he ended up on top and planted his foot against his chest, pinning him to the ground.

“Eriksen!” Ski looked up in time to snatch the Hel's blade tossed to him by a Raven.

Protectors didn't use weapons . . . but he knew of nothing else that could kill a Carrion.

With a twist of his wrist, he spun the blade around, grasped the grip with both hands, raised it high, and brought it down hard. He aimed right at the Carrion's head, slamming the blade between the eyes.

Ski twisted the blade around to make sure he'd ended the beast, but when he stood, he heard Engstrom yell out, “Eriksen,
move!
”

Ski looked up in time to see the remainder of the Carrion charging toward him. Before he could dash out of the way, they plowed into him like semis, forcing him into and over the balcony gate. As he tumbled backward, about to unleash his wings, a piece of the gate slammed into his head and—

 

Vig watched the Protector's head collide with that thick metal gate and knew he was out cold, free-falling from the twenty-third-story building. A fall even a Raven wouldn't survive without his wings, much less a much weaker Protector.

Growling—he really hated the Protectors—Vig dove off the edge of the balcony and directly at Eriksen. He caught him in both arms and held him close, unleashing his wings and letting the wind lift him up until he could fly back to Brianna's apartment.

Although now he was pretty sure that they were no longer dealing with Betty's poor, beleaguered assistant but Gullveig herself who wore Brianna's skin the way Vig's ancestors used to wear bear fur during brutal Swedish winters.

He landed on the balcony and immediately retracted his wings before heading inside the apartment.

“You unleashed your wings during the day,” Siggy reminded him.

“I know. I think Odin will forgive that, considering the situation.”

“Even though it was a Protector you saved?”

“Hey!” Bear snapped, shoving Siggy by the shoulder. “Shut up.”

“What about the Carrion?” Stieg asked.

“They're gone. Hit the ground and took off running. And we need to get out of here. That balcony gate dropped onto some dude's Bugatti and, trust me, he's going to be up here in a few minutes wanting someone to pay for it. And the mood I'm in, I'm liable to beat him to death. Let's avoid that. Kera will just get mad.”

 

They were singing a hymn that Yardley faintly remembered from her Protestant upbringing. All of them facing the—not surprisingly—closed casket of her director.

No matter what she'd felt about the man as a filmmaker, she couldn't deny that his family had loved him. Had she caused this? She hated to think she might have. She never would have said anything if she'd thought for a second that Brianna was actually Gullveig and would take her words so seriously.

Yardley was a Crow, not a monster.

Even when she was dealing with the worst scum on any plane of existence, she didn't fool around with torture or stringing out deaths. She and her team went in, did the job, and got out. That was how most of the Crows operated.

As Yardley sang, she felt her sister-Crows' eyes on her. She glanced over her shoulder. The signal to “get out” was more than clear.

With the hymnbook still in her hand, Yardley simply turned and walked out of the pew, never looking back. She handed off the book to one of the church workers near the doors and walked outside, her team surrounding her.

“What's going on?” she asked as paparazzi begged her to turn toward them, to pose . . . at a funeral.

“It's bad. The All-Clan meeting's been moved up to tonight. Chloe wants you there with Tessa's team. And Jace's Protector got hurt.”

“Eriksen?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.” One of her team opened the limo door for her. She was just stepping in when someone grasped her arm.

She turned, ready to punch the crap out of some paparazzo that she'd have to pay off later when the complaint went to court, but it was Brianna.

The woman's fingers were tight on Yardley's bare arm, her gold rings digging into her skin.

“Where you going, hon?” Brianna asked, all fake Hollywood smiles for the ever-watching cameras.

“Don't feel really well. Gotta get out of here. We'll talk later, okay?”

One of Yardley's team gently tried to separate the two, but Brianna caught hold of two fingers and snapped them back quickly, not only breaking them but leaving them awkwardly bent, so that if it had been anyone but a Crow, the screaming would have had the nearby police there in seconds.

Yardley's sister-Crow, however, simply whimpered and took a step back so that she could attempt to bend her fingers into place while another sister quickly replaced her.

“Now listen to me, slave,” Gullveig said, “if you get in my way, even your precious Skuld won't be able to save any of you. When I'm done, you'll be
begging
me to end your lives. So take it as a warning to all Crows, Ravens, and the other worthless human Clans. Don't fuck with me.” She took a step back and announced so the paparazzi could hear, “It was
so
good seeing you, sweetie. I'll call you later to check in, okay? Now, you go home and get some rest. Love you!”

Then the bitch winked and walked back to the church in her fifteen-hundred-dollar heels.

The Crows got into the limo and slammed the door. Once they'd pulled out into traffic, Yardley's sister released the cry of pain she'd been holding in.

“Hospital?” one sister asked.

“No,” Yardley immediately replied. “Let's get her home.” She pulled her wounded sister close and held her tight while another sister grabbed those two brutalized fingers and readied herself to put them back into place as a bottle of forty-year-old Scotch was passed around—especially to the “patient.”

“Because,” Yardley said softly, desperately trying not to hear the sound of bones being snapped back and the subsequent screams of her sister-Crow, “this is
really
bad.”