City of Souls Page 15

  Okay, I thought, first things first. I returned my attention to the men who worked for the house.

  The last dealer was right to be unconcerned, of course. Even fresh, it would have been a challenge, but as it was, I’d expire from dehydration and exhaustion long before reaching him. So I held up my hands in surrender. The first dealer, severely pock-faced with odd silvery eyes, shot a smile at the guy behind him, and I hit the floor, yanking the lighter from Boyd’s shirt pocket. Then I grabbed Bill’s ever-brimming liquor bottle and prayed the liquid that extinguished the will to fight would ignite like gas in the pretty green bottle.

  It flared like a torch gun, and for the briefest of moments I considered throwing it in the direction of the beautiful, carefree laughter still raining from above, but the dealers were closer, faster, and rightly alarmed. I hurtled it forward, my body swinging with the movement.

  I am a great fighter, but my pitching arm has always been shit, and the improvised bomb landed to the right of where I’d intended, directly between the lined dealers and huddled players…and atop one of the poker tables.

  Felt and cards went up in a searing conflagration, the dry air hungry for fuel. Fire uncoiled across the table like a whip, and within seconds a handful of men guarding the wall started screaming, breaking rank in the tight formation. For once they moved at a normal speed, yanking at their clothes, clenching their throats, and scraping at their chest and necks.

  Every eye gaped at that table and at the flaming little disks sparking with color, tiny tabletop fireworks of vibrant blues and yellows, greens, golds, and violet. Those men’s powers popped and sizzled like Roman candles and stunted sparklers, but the air wasn’t scented with sulfur or barium or black powder. Even the dealers leaned toward the inferno, inhaling deeply of toasted cinnamon and warmed coconut. The women upstairs started crying out, some weeping, some running their hands along their bodies in pleasure as power floated up to them.

  As horrified as I was by what I’d inadvertently done, I couldn’t help inhaling the tiny bits of lost power wafting my way. They whetted my tongue, revived my energy, but also stirred the unconscious men at my feet. Before they could rise, or the dealers stopped getting off on someone else’s destroyed power, I sprang toward the wall of men, focusing on the holes left by those I’d inadvertently attacked.

  I plowed through the remaining agents like they were bowling pins. Indeed, pushing them aside wasn’t much different than a gym workout; they did nothing to resist me, because they couldn’t. Their sole purpose was to form a wall of flesh, and my job was to dismantle it…body by body.

  I took the most direct approach, because even with the added distraction of the flaming chips, my limbs were growing heavy and weak. I wanted to drop to my knees, put my cheek to the splintered floor and cry. But I was almost there. One last big bastard to plow through, a sandy-haired man with empty button eyes and outstretched hands, and then I could yank the cover off that second lantern and go home.

  The thought spurred my strength. I barreled into him and delivered an elbow that caught him in the larynx, a little extreme, but I’d feel guilty over it later. Hell, I’d go to confession if it meant returning to a patriarchal society.

  Not everybody felt the same. At the end of the line, while the dealers were still leaning over the burning poker table like kids beneath a broken piñata, and the rogue agents littered the floor like discarded toy soldiers, there was one man left standing. He had a dusty bowler hat on his head and a knife in his hand.

  It was Mackie, the piano player. He stood erect, like he’d been pulled straight by levers and strings. Twisting the knife like a butcher would, I saw that he moved as quickly as I did, but my attention was on his face as he lifted his chin, his leather skin rearranging itself over his frame. Creepy when still, he was terrifying when animate. His eyes were missing altogether, black sockets empty as craters. His teeth were rotted away, mouth caught in an eternal grimace.

  “Sleepy Mack,” I said slowly, licking my lips as I kept an eye on that deadly blade. The only indication he heard me was a wide-lipped snarl. Great. I took a step back. “That chip thing was an accident. I wasn’t really aiming for the table.”

  Obviously a man who cared about results, not intentions, his arm arced through the air in a full-forced swing. Training took over as I stood beneath that falling blade, and I defended and countered at the same time. I thrust my left arm up to connect with his wrist, shifting my weight with it despite my instinct to recoil. At the same time, I burst forward, delivering a straight punch to his jaw, which I envisioned disappearing through the back of his head.

  The blade allegedly holding the last of Mackie’s soul flew from his hands. There was a collective gasp, and the look on his face was more like I’d severed a limb than disarmed a weapon. I kept moving forward, knowing but ignoring that he’d nicked my left forearm, and attacked with everything I had left. My goal was to imprint his final expression of bereft surprise upon my knuckles.

  The next few seconds were so fast I’d remember them forever. Mackie was stronger than the others, as dense and tough as jerky, almost petrified from living so long in a room that was also a kiln. No wonder he had no conscience. His brain was probably as rotted as the meat of a walnut. So I was guilt-free as I hit him again on the button. As good a shot as it was, it only popped his head straight back. He was reaching for me even as it snapped forward again.

  And now the fucker was starting to growl, a high-pitched whining that intensified as he returned to offense. I sprang, my knee exploding into his temple, into his ribs so he’d buckle, again and again, and still he didn’t go down. I kept pummeling him, but it wasn’t until I picked up his piano stool and whipped it across his face that he fell to the ground and stayed there.

  Mackie was down. Bill was up. And Boyd was charging.

  But it was too late. I still had breath in my body, and with two steps and an overhead stretch, I also had the lantern off its hook and in my hand. A stunned cry drowned out even the rushing feet, and as my gaze met Diana’s shocked one above, I took an extra moment to smile and blow her a kiss.

  In doing so, I extinguished the flame.

  Smoke carried me. I was familiar with the sensation now, the weightlessness accompanying the obscured sight, the gritty vapor so paralyzing it was almost heavy. The cries and yells and voices I left behind blurred like streaming colors outside a speeding vehicle, and after I’d outrun them, there was a moment of supreme silence in which I was flipped vertically and diagonally and horizontally all at the same time. It was a whipping motion, strange because I never even moved, but this, I now understood, was a worlds-crossing. There both was and wasn’t ground beneath my feet, and though breathing, I hadn’t taken in air since extinguishing that lantern. And while nothing and everything changed, I had enough consciousness to recognize the shift when it occurred, like tectonic plates were grinding against one another. The sound made my teeth ache at their roots, though I eventually realized I was grating my lower jaw against the upper. I stopped, the aching ceased, and the smoke gradually cleared.

  Don’t fight it, I thought, taking my first real breath of cool winter air. Yet that was like telling a driver not to tense before a car accident. My knee-jerk reaction was to try to control the situation, but it was release that I needed. Remember, I told myself, in a head-on collision it was the careless ones, those already out of control, who came out fine.

  Then a sphere began to take shape in front of me. It grew larger, flipping over itself and expanding to the size of my head, doubling again on the next rotation to become a large mirror.

  Catching my reflection, it froze. Cleopatra eyes, ruby lips, leather halter, cuffs and hoops, winking silver. I had a single moment to take it all in.

  Then the mirror began ripping away the powers I’d lost in a game of chance.

  I’d once been cold-cocked in a sparring match with a guy who didn’t take well to being beaten by a girl. It had been a controlled situation—in a dojo, on
a mat—but none of that meant a thing once the blow met my jaw. Tingling launched through my limbs to pool in my fingertips, while my eyes rolled into my head. Numbness had me crumpling like a wad of paper instead of catching myself, and I felt that now, except it was concentrated on the inside of my skull, shot like novocaine upward through my spinal cord.

  My eyes remained unblinking upon the reflection that locked me immobile against my wishes. My scream was silent, rebounding off the vacated places in my mind where three powers were methodically ripped away. I tried to protest, but my mouth wouldn’t move. The mirrored eyes shot to silver and then black, like they were catching light from a dark sun. Numbness ran through my mind like maggots over meat. Bitterness drained down my throat as infection was introduced, then cauterized.

  And for one last, brief moment my bartered power was reflected back at me, beauty being torn away like pages from a book. And without them, I suddenly realized, the rest of the story wouldn’t make sense.

  You can’t have it! I thought, staring back into eyes that were and were not mine. But those black eyes only winked to silver.

  You have to leave me something.

  The silver began to fade.

  No, I thought. I’ll keep it for myself.

  I fought then. I didn’t need to move to will every nerve and neuron into fighting for the information. Don’t you know who I am, what I’ve done? I’m the Kairos, I’ve survived attack before, I’ve adapted to other bodies and worlds. I’ve always fought for what’s mine. And…

  And I didn’t know who I was without my power. I didn’t want to be incomplete. I wanted to run with my troop, battle the Shadows and defeat the Tulpa. I needed these powers because they were the foundation for so much more! Returning home without them would be like standing on pockets of air. Without them, I’d be less than Kimber, or even Chandra—relegated to an auxiliary role. If Warren even allowed that, I thought, panicked. I wouldn’t be permitted, or even able, to fight. Not for myself, and not for people as injured as I’d once been.

  And who was I, if I wasn’t a fighter?

  So I used all my strength of will to mentally hold onto the powers that had been taken from me. Suddenly I knew these losses would shape my future happiness more than any other.

  No, I stated again, still holding tight.

  And I continued to hold tight until their last precious tendrils slipped away.

  My reflection winked. The mirror began spiraling back into the mist, shrinking in size as it went, until it was no larger than a mere gaming chip. I blinked and it snapped from sight, and I was again alone in the dark.

  13

  Taking a shaky step forward to be sure my legs were working properly, I realized too late that I was back where I’d started before entering Midheaven. The candle was burning again, but behind me, so it didn’t light the gaping hole directly before me…one that I dropped through with an amazing lack of grace.

  My left ankle twisted over on itself as I dropped, but the short fall—and my pained grunt—was quickly followed by a joyous squeal. I’d escaped! Olivia’s curves now burst from the halter and chaps that had been merely snug on my athletic frame, another physical sign my return to Vegas had been successful. Checking for injury, I was dismayed to find a small new scar on my left forearm from Mackie’s knife, and though healed over, the fact that it’d scarred at all told me that blade was the equivalent of a conduit. I’d been lucky not to suffer a direct hit. Of course, there was also…

  “The friggin’ belly ring,” I muttered, touching the stupid thing, voice resonating softly through the tunnel.

  A surprised grunt echoed back at me. I froze. There was a charred growl, like something awakened from slumber, and a heavy exhalation…and a scent I immediately recognized over the stink of the tunnel. I froze like a doe, but instead of headlights, found myself staring down the concrete corridor of inked-out darkness. The serpentine tunnel system, so spacious moments ago, shrunk in on itself. It was only perception, not an adjustment of time or space the way the passage to Midheaven had been, but I suddenly felt small, and all too vulnerable. I even thought of vaulting back up into that vertical shaft, grabbing that candle by the base and giving it another good puff.

  After all, I thought, what was worse? A fight against the Tulpa or a return to Mackie and his soul-infused knife? A gamble with my life or with my soul?

  Damned. Hard. Call.

  And in a few more moments, I thought as the scuffling sounds drew nearer, the decision wouldn’t be mine to make.

  “Who’s there?” The breath was gurgled, labored and pained.

  My glyph began to pulse with heat, and the drip-drip of the drain’s befouled water joined it in syncopation, as if marking off seconds of my life.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  Instinct screamed to retreat, but I forced myself to inch forward instead. It was the first rule of combat, one my trainer, Asaf, had drilled into me. Always move forward. Through. Advance. Attack. It lent physical momentum, mental courage, and took your opponent off guard. Unless, I thought swallowing hard, your opponent was never off guard. In that case, the rule meant advance, attack, and if you were going to die, do it on your feet.

  I could see, via my glyph, another three hundred feet of drain before it trended right. The shuffling sounds had ceased, which gave me hope as I inched past a lateral pipe, the source of that sulfuric dripping. That’s when I spotted rungs. I tested them, looking straight up into a concave hollow. If I hid there, the Tulpa might pass right beneath me. Then my path to Vegas would be open, and I’d be free. It was preferable to the head-on collision I was currently facing, Asaf’s instructions be damned. So I climbed. Once there, I used shaking hands to yank on my identity-shielding mask, then wrapped my shoulder bag around the highest rung. The chips inside clinked softly, like tiny cymbals.

  I sank into the concrete pocket and widened my stance. Though tight, my costuming allowed for movement as I stretched for the other side of the drop inlet. Rock climbers stemmed from improbable places all the time; all I had to do was calm myself enough that I didn’t fall on the Tulpa as he passed beneath me.

  That could give me away, I thought, and extinguished my glyph.

  Even in the void, I knew when he’d gained the corner. The air was instantly harder to breathe, infused with a carbon burn and a soured hook. Stinging at my tear ducts through my mask, at my mouth, even my ears, it was as if a poisonous cloud wafted from the man, infecting and defiling anything within range. The darkness, nuanced before, was now absolute in its opaqueness. I couldn’t see the titan he became when no one was looking, or his sheer bulk, but I felt it. It was like an airplane slipping into a private hangar. Too late, I wondered if the tunnel was large enough for both of us, or if I’d soon feel the osseous scrape of horns across my naked belly.

  I pushed the thought from my mind before it bloomed into emotion.

  “Show yourself now…or I might just get angry.” Heat accompanied the warning, one that burned rather than warmed.

  I considered revealing myself—I’d fought toe-to-claw with him before—and I itched with the need for action. I opened my mouth, but another voice startled us both.

  “I’m over here.” An audible swallow. “Sir.”

  A swishing, the Tulpa’s tail whipping around in the dark, and then, “You…”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to see me. I thought you’d want to repair…alone.” The words ran together in a half-swallowed hiss, even without the sibilant sounds. Oh, shit.

  “Regan.”

  The source of her speech impediment? Fractured vocal cords and a sliced tongue, courtesy of the Tulpa. Those things, combined with her banishment and what amounted to a paranormal fatwa on her head, were supposed to keep this situation—her talking to him now—from ever happening.

  “Sir. I don’t mean to intrude. I’ll wait. Until you’re more fully recovered.”

  A growl. “I’m not—”

  “It’s okay.” The
re was a slap and slide as she stepped closer, and the briny scent of her nervousness covered my own growing panic. “You need to regenerate. It was a hell of a battle.”

  “The biggest yet.” I’d never heard the Tulpa sound fatigued. And I didn’t understand what they were talking about. The last battle between the Tulpa and Skamar had left razored clouds in the sky, but that wasn’t unusual. Not anymore, anyway.

  “Your senses are blunted…otherwise you’d have discerned me before. I’ve been down here since my…banishment.”

  Of course.

  It made perfect sense. Regan hadn’t been seen since her exile, and as she’d disappeared with my conduit, I’d looked. The general stench and decay of things washed into the tunnels would help cover Regan’s stench, if anyone bothered coming in this far, which made it the perfect place for her to hide…though it couldn’t be doing much for her open wounds. I was so busy thinking of her languishing for weeks in the fetid underground that it was another moment before I realized the Tulpa hadn’t contradicted her about what he was doing here.

  Oh, my God. He came here to reform, to regenerate.

  And that made sense too. Skamar had taken on her own identity and features when given a name. But the Tulpa lacked a name and thus that power, so his features regularly shifted, mutated, wobbled on his face. It had always appeared to be a strength. He could evade reach, elongate his limbs, disappear altogether…but that took power. Which, right now, he apparently didn’t have.

  But he also hadn’t slain Regan on the spot, as he’d promised he would if he ever saw her again. Panic joined the awe that’d wedged its way into my belly. The two beings that hated me most were blocking my exit. I had no doubt that together they could cobble together a very creative lesson in payback. I strengthened my hold.