Chapter 16

16

GAbrIEL

T he pack of vampires charged into Evangeline's living room, snarling and hissing. I yanked Evangeline away from the door, shoving her behind me less gently than I would have liked. She let out a surprised huff but didn't actively insult me, so I considered it a win.

There were eight of them, mostly broad and bulky, but two of the vampires were small, wiry, and carried knives. I threw out a wave of my power, but their minds were closed to me—were they trained to stop vampiric mind control, or had they been warded? And if someone had had the foresight to ward them, did that mean they'd expected me to get involved?

Now wasn't the time to worry about things like that. One of the smaller vampires lunged for me, and I froze. If I dodged, it would leave Evangeline right in his path, and I barely had any room to launch an attack of my own. Before I could snap out of it, a thick book flung itself out of the bookcase, catching the vampire squarely in the head. I huffed out a laugh and patted Chanel's woodwork.

"Nice shot," I said.

Evangeline darted out from behind me and ran into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Good. Without her magic, she would be a liability, and getting somewhere defensible was an excellent step.

It did, however, leave me on my own against more than half a dozen assailants. Snarling, I threw myself at the biggest of the vampires, hoping to take him down first. As I charged, an alarming gurgle came from Evangeline's kitchen sink. The spray nozzle popped from its holder and began to blast boiling-hot water into the face of one of the other intruders. He hissed, scrambling to bring his hands up over his eyes.

Perhaps I wasn't on my own, after all.

I'd never seen a house fight before. Sure, most houses in the city absorbed magic, but they used it sparingly, mostly for small domestic things. Chanel, on the other hand, fought like a wild animal separated from its young. It pulled the floorboards apart beneath the vampires' feet, then snapped the boards back into place around their ankles, trapping them. Evangeline's kitchen knives—she only had three, but they were all extremely sharp—flew through the air. The largest, a massive chef's knife, went through one vampire's eye so hard that he was pinned to the wall. A serving fork buried itself in his chest, as if to add insult to injury.

It was shockingly easy to dodge and weave around Chanel's attacks because the house bent the space around me; where my opponents stepped on raised, vicious nails and had to fight off constricting drapery, my feet found even flooring that dipped slightly to cushion my steps, and pushed up under me to give me extra lift when I leaped forward.

If not for the pulse of worry between my ribs, it would have been quite enjoyable. It was the sort of synchronicity I rarely got to experience in a fight. But that wasn't quite true anymore, I realized. Evangeline and I had learned to anticipate each other's moves in much the same way.

Speaking of Evangeline… one of the smaller vampires—supernaturally agile and twitching in a way that told me that there was some sort of stimulant involved—had managed to sneak past Chanel's defenses, and my attacks, and reached Evangeline's bedroom door.

I let out a wordless cry of warning. Evangeline could handle herself in a magical fight, but if she slipped up and automatically made to cast a spell…

I tried to shake the image of the horrifying rictus her face had twisted into when the pain of the curse hit her earlier.

Evangeline's door burst open, smashing the vampire in the face, and flinging her back against the wall. Two impressions hit me at once, baffling me into stillness.

The first was a vegetal, wild smell, like a herb garden after heavy rain, mingled with the tingling sense of untamed magic. A hulking green shape burst from Evangeline's bedroom, the size of a grizzly, but shaped like some sort of massive wild cat. It had a mane of wild, thorny vines that whipped through the air and swatted away any vampire reckless enough to get close. The beast's massive claws swiped across a vampire's face, knocking him away and pinning him to the floor. It bent its huge head and snapped its jaws shut over the attacker's neck with a wet, meaty noise. Then it let out a deep, rumbling purr, raising its head, looking directly at me. I could have sworn that it—no, he ; it was unmistakably Evangeline's so-called cat—looked smug.

The second impression that hit me was Evangeline's bellowing war cry as she charged out of the room behind the transformed Pothos. She'd twisted her hair back up out of her face and was wielding a long black sword. She caught one of the vampires in the stomach with it, and he doubled over, wheezing and stumbling back toward me. I snapped his neck without taking my eyes off Evangeline.

So much for keeping her out of the fight.

She shot me a wild, triumphant grin, but it vanished when she looked behind me. Before I could react, searing pain cut through me as a knife dug into my side, scraping over my ribs. I let out a feral sound and spun, driving my fist into my attacker's chest. It was one of the smaller vampires. Blood streamed from his broken nose where the book had hit in the face earlier. He looked distantly surprised when he looked down and saw that I'd punched straight through his ribcage.

"Shit," he slurred, and then Chanel sent a cast iron skillet through his skull.

Pothos threw out two massive clusters of vines, grabbing two vampires out of the air and slamming them together again and again until they were unrecognizable masses of meat. The chaos of the fight seemed all-consuming, and between the four of us we made quick work of the remaining vampires.

The noise and frenzy of the fight died so suddenly it was almost startling. One moment we were fighting for our lives, the next the place was silent, aside from the dripping of blood hitting the floor, and the pleased, rumbling purrs of Pothos.

"Well," I said dumbly. "That was… unlike any fight I've ever been part of."

Evangeline was grinning again, her hair escaping her bun and curling against the sword resting on her shoulder. Its blade was just wood, I realized, although it had been lacquered to a glossy black.

"The sword was a surprise," I admitted. "I didn't know you knew how to fight without magic."

"I did kendo for, like, fifteen years," Evangeline told me with a modest shrug. "Plus, my parents were extremely into Errol Flynn movies when I was a kid. I picked up a couple things."

"I feel I owe you something of an apology," I told her with a small wry smile. "I seem to keep underestimating you, and you keep surprising me."

"Yeah, it's kind of—" Evangeline began, then doubled over with a sickening noise. It sounded as though she was screaming through clenched teeth.

I was by her side in an instant, bending to get a look at her face. She'd gone worryingly pale, and sweat beaded at her temples. There was a strange sound, like a head of lettuce being cut, and then the massive battle cat was, once again, the small tabby cat. Pothos wound around Evangeline's legs, looking up at her with big, worried eyes.

"Are you hurt?" I asked urgently. "Did one of them land a solid hit?"

She waved a hand dismissively, although it would have looked more convincing if she wasn't swaying. "Just cuts and bruises," she muttered. "It's the curse."

Her hair had fallen over the spot on her shoulder where the cursed blade had struck, and I brushed the chestnut curls aside gently. Her skin was warm beneath my fingertips—not the normal human warmth but a worrying, feverish heat. The wound had turned a blistered purple-gray, and the jagged runes had crawled halfway down her upper arm. More worryingly, they were starting to stretch out toward her spine.

Recognition jolted through me. It had been a long time since I'd seen the runes—so long that they'd almost slipped my mind.

"This isn't good," I muttered.

"Really?" Evangeline wheezed. "I never would have guessed."

I could hear the barely contained fear beneath the sarcasm. Gently, I eased her toward the sofa with one arm around her good shoulder, and my free hand in hers. Even once I got her seated, she held on to my hand. I squeezed her fingers gently in a way I hoped was reassuring, and she tightened her grip, as if I'd somehow granted her permission.

Pothos jumped up onto the sofa and curled into Evangeline's lap, licking blood from his grassy muzzle.

"I recognize this curse," I told her. "I haven't seen it in centuries. It's deeply illegal in Eldoria. The vampires signed an accord forbidding its use."

"What's it for?" Evangeline asked. I hoped that giving her an opportunity to gain new information might momentarily distract her from the pain of the curse.

"It was used back in the old days," I said grimly. "Before relations between vampires and humankind had settled out a bit. It was developed for thralls."

"So, for human cattle?" Evangeline said.

I nodded, wincing. "It's meant to make the subject easy to control, and also easy to track. It usually draws from ambient magic, but it must get supercharged when you try to use your own power. Even back when it was being used often, it was never used on witches. The results may be unpredictable."

"Great," Evangeline said through gritted teeth. "Super cool. How do I fix it?"

The living room seemed smaller somehow, as though Chanel was curving the walls around us for comfort. I didn't find it particularly relaxing.

"I can lift it," I said, tracing my finger lightly over one of the runes just under the wing of Evangeline's shoulder blade. She shuddered faintly at the touch, and I pulled back. "I'll need the proper supplies, though, and I don't think we should stay here. Your wards didn't block the tracker, so we need to get you somewhere more secure for the time being."

One of the bookcases let out an offended creak, and I raised a placating hand. "Chanel did an excellent job of protecting you, obviously." I sounded more tired than I'd expected, but the pain of the slash over my ribs was starting to get to me. Vampires healed quickly but not painlessly.

A faint gurgle came from the floor. One of the vampires—the one whose eyes the apartment had scalded—was stirring faintly. I stood, giving Evangeline's hand one last squeeze before dropping it and moving over to him.

The floor was slick with blood, but I knelt anyway. I pressed a hand to the vampire's throat and shoved my mind against his ruthlessly. Whatever protection had been on his mind was gone, and I broke through his defenses as if it had never been there at all. He was barely conscious, too groggy to hide anything from me, but also too groggy for his memories to make much sense.

I caught snippets of images and words flowing together in an overwhelming jumble. A map, someone barking orders, a chart of the sewer system, a knife, a chair… I struggled to make sense of it, but slowly, I began to fit the pieces together.

Evangeline let out another wheezing moan, and I straightened. There would be time to puzzle out our enemy's plan later, once she was safe.

"We should go," she said tensely. "This is getting worse. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to get around easily. There's a go-bag in the closet. Can you grab it?"

"I should make sure the intruders are?—"

"Chanel'll take care of it," Evangeline said.

I considered the wreckage that was the vampire whose head the apartment had obliterated with the cast iron skillet, then nodded.

I found the bag in her bedroom closet easily enough. When I walked back out into the living room, Evangeline had hauled herself to her feet and was using her sword as a makeshift cane. She looked incredibly unsteady on her feet.

"You're not walking anywhere," I told her firmly.

"What, do you have a secret vampire car stashed somewhere?" she asked, glaring half-heartedly at me.

"We can get a ride," I pointed out dryly, hefting her bag over my shoulder.

"Right," she said thinly. "Cabs and stuff." She whistled and patted her leg. Pothos, still streaked with gore, trotted over happily. He hunkered down, then leaped up onto her shoulders and flopped across them like a particularly murderous scarf.

I propped Evangeline up as we went down the stairs. For all her usual bluster, it was clear her reserves of strength were flagging. By the time we reached the front door, I was practically carrying her.

It was late enough that the cabs were few and far between, but as soon as I managed to get us into one, I snapped out my address and slid the partition closed.

"That was rude," Evangeline murmured.

"I'm not focused on politeness at the moment," I told her. "How do you feel?"

"I mean, pretty bad. But it's not like there's anything you can do until we get where we're going, right?"

"Unfortunately."

"Just… Can you talk to me? Distract me?" she asked, sounding painfully small. Pothos butted his firm little head against her jaw, and she petted his cheek absently.

"The vampire whose mind I examined knew the guards we dealt with when we were searching for the first piece of the ascendancy array," I told her, keeping my voice low and even. I had limited faith in the efficacy of the partition to stop the driver from eavesdropping, and it wasn't like Evangeline was in any state to doublecheck the soundproofing spell that should've been on it. "He was following orders, but I couldn't glean anything about the person in charge. There might be some sort of magical disguise at play, although I've never encountered anything like that."

"I have," Evangeline said grimly but didn't elaborate.

"I got a few glimpses of some sort of war room," I continued when it was clear that the injured witch at my side wasn't going to offer anything else. "I saw a table covered with blueprints, but not for any sort of building I recognized."

Evangeline frowned. She'd closed her eyes and was leaning her head back against the worn vinyl of the cab's headrest. "Were any of the blueprints labeled?"

I frowned, casting my mind back to the blurry images I'd managed to see. "Most of the words were too small for me to read from his angle," I said. "But one of the charts said Arcane Quarter Main ."

Next to me, Evangeline scrunched her nose up, frowning in thought. "Lots of long narrow shapes on the blueprints?" she asked.

"Yes. Almost exclusively. With a great deal of branching off."

She huffed out a quiet, humorless laugh. "One piece found in a foe's abode," she murmured to herself.

"You know where they were trying to look."

"Unfortunately, yeah," Evangeline said, opening her eyes and looking at me. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils dilated. The curse was progressing faster and faster. "They're blueprints for the Eldoria sewer system. There's an entity that lives down there. I've had to deal with her before, and it was fucking ugly."

"You know what we're going to be walking into, then," I said.

Evangeline looked down at her hands. On one forearm, a jagged scar was barely visible on her pale skin, bisecting several of her freckles. "Yeah, you could say that," she said. "I guess we're going to have to pay a visit to Nanny Murk."