Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King (4 page)

Then swept her to the side, violently pushing her to the floor.

She opened her mouth to protest.

I held a finger against my lips, a hushing gesture.

She went still, staying quiet.  William had trained her well. 

I mentally linked to my armory and summoned a pair of semi-automatics Berettas.  My heightened senses picked up a presence on the porch, something waiting for me to come out.  The bell hadn’t rung.  I heard the soft scrape of a foot on the porch.  I smelled ozone.  I figured it this was another assassin from the Storm Court.  The killer had been smart not to try to breach the stronger wards of the house, but stupid taking on a hit against me.

Everyone figures they can succeed where others fail.  The last dozen assassins I’d taken out had all thought so.  I hoped this one might entertain me better.

FOUR

“It’s good I like killing, so much is needed.”

                                   —Caine Deathwalker

The door shattered.  Wooden shrapnel exploded inward, riding a hard blast of wind.  At the core of the wind, a thick, forking vein of blue fire stabbed into the living room.  The jags writhed, scorched the air, and faded. 

Catching the edge of the attack, I was shoved away, thrown off balance.  I hit the carpet and rolled up against the couch.  From where I sprawled, I could see Sarah lying flat, trying to avoid attention.  Her eyes were turned my way, wide and dark with fear.

A tall, thin figure appeared on the threshold, casually batting away the broken trim edging the doorway.  He wore purplish-black leathers.  The odd-shaped buttons on his torso were actually tiny bird skulls with empty, shadowed eyes, maybe crows.  A pale-violet scarf wrapped his lower face, a contrast to his flaxen hair.  The assassin had the long pointy ears of the fey.  His eyes pulsed with electric-blue as if lightning coiled around his brain, seeking escape, bleeding out along his optic nerves.

I was up on one knee, my guns pointing his way.  I fired repeatedly, driving him back.  There were little sparks where the bullets were stopped on impact.  Noticing the stiffness of his coat, I figured he’d charged and hardened it in some way with fey magic, the mystic equivalent of body armor.  I aimed higher, trying to puncture the scarf around his lower face. 

He flung himself back out of the house, not liking my weapon fire a bit.

I yelled at Sarah, “Call Izumi.  If she’s home, she can help out.”  Izumi was Winter Court fey, and my neighbor on the opposite side from the wolves.  She also wanted to be co-regent of my domain in Fairy.  She had a vested interest in keeping me alive.  The sex wasn’t bad either.

I went onto the porch, both guns firing blindly because the assassin seemed to have vanish. 

I didn’t trust appearances.  Most fey have some degree of glamour they can use to magically hide their presence.  Wind roared across the yard, sweeping in to crash across the porch.  I was slammed aside, going off my porch, through the side railing on the far left.  I fell and rolled on the lawn.  A fist of wind picked me up and heaved me into the sky, holding me there.

The world became an insane carousel.  Everything blurred.  Once he dropped me, the assassin had every reason to believe my balance would be shot to hell.  The guy was good, sticking to wind.  I’d faced lightning from most of the others.  My enemies had finally realized that—as a golden dragon, even in human form—lightning only made me stronger.  Tapping into my inner dragon let me throw lightning around of my own, my heritage from my mother, a dragon princess.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to spare for a prolonged change. 

A length of silver chain rode the wind to me, wrapping me, binding my arms at my sides.  I sent my guns away to the armory since I couldn’t shoot at the moment, and when I summoned them back, the magazines would be full.  I’d already come close to emptying my clips. 

The release came that I’d expected; I dropped like a lead weight, crashing into the grass.  Stunned, my thought raced faster than my body’s responses.  I knew I needed to move, but my muscles just didn’t get it, so I poured raw magic into my
Dragon Flame
tattoo.  The ink warmed.  A fire blast fanned out.  I hoped I’d get lucky and hit the assassin.  At worst, the counter-attack might drove him off a little, and buy me recovery time. 

The chain was reinforced with fey magic because silver isn’t one of the stronger metals.  The fey might well have underestimated my power.  I’d see if the chain could take real punishment.  My body rallied, arms flexing with dragon strength.  Several links slowly opened, stretching, melting where touched by my dragon flame.
  Hah!  The reinforcing spell is crap
. 

The winds came again, attacking my flame more than me.  Whirling funnels attempted to scoop up my fire and save the chain.  It broke, falling away.  And then Izumi was there, wearing an ice-blue, silk jumpsuit, white-gold earrings, and silver studded ankle boots with silver–capped toes.  She wore a white leather vest with fringes.  With her fey glamour, she looked like a Japanese cowgirl, or maybe a really expensive whore.  As if she could read my thoughts, she smiled and dumped tons of snow on me as the air temperature plummeted below zero. 

Smothering snow and superhot dragon fire annihilated each other, producing a heavy bank of damp steam.   The cloud coiled around the storm fey’s cones of wind, getting ripping away as it was funneled elsewhere, but in the moments the shroud lasted, we saw the pocket of nothingness hiding the fey.  His snaking wind cones all originated from that point.

Izumi ducked low, crouching, hands hitting the ground.

I jumped high, passing a twelve-foot mark, and opened fire on the magic-cloaked fey.  I still couldn’t see him, but my slugs flattened against something unseen, and fell to the grass.  A coil of wind wrapped around my torso.  My ribs were compressed.  I couldn’t breathe. 
Fuck!

But my distraction worked.  I’d given Izumi time to complete her attack.  The grass between her and the other fey warrior had flashed from frost to thick ice sheeting.  The ice had tunnels where it enclosed the lower legs of the invisible Storm fey.  He was trapped, pinned, and dropped his glamour as a waste of energy that no longer did him any good.  Popping into view, he looked the same as I’d seen before with the addition of a few grass stains, and a little singing on the end of his scarf.  The face covering had slipped, showing the usual beauty you’d expect from his kind.

The coil of wind crushing me died, as he pointed palms down at the ice around his lower legs.  Blue lightning flashed, fanned, and bit.  The ice exploded and hailed everywhere.   I fell into a snow bank, mentally thanking Izumi for cushioning my fall.  Rolling free, I summoned my reloaded semi-automatics.  This time I had exploding ammo.  I was done messing around.

Forked branches of lightning stabbed at Izumi as the storm fey changed target.  She conjured thick sheets of ice for a shield, but also threw herself aside.  She hit and rolled as the lightning broke the ice. 

The storm fey moved his hands, sweeping the electrical fire after her. 

I ran toward her, slamming one of my guns into her hands.  I spoke loud enough for the assassin to notice I’d given her a gun, “Shoot him!” 

The lightning caught me, which is to say I caught
it
with raw magic, pulling the fire into my body, letting my inner dragon swallow it.  The storm fey tried to drag the lightning off me, and toward Izumi, but I wouldn’t let it go, drinking greedily.  The assassin’s face displayed astonishment and I commandeered his control.

A shot sounded.  The assassin’s head jerked, and exploded into a frothy red mist.

Love those exploding rounds. 

Anything else was overkill, but I’d already flicked his lightning back at him.  It danced over him, burning him heavily, filling the air with the stink of blackened meat.  The lightning vanished.  The dead fey toppled and lay still, smoke wagging away, thinning. 

“We’re not getting anything out of him now,” Izumi said.  “You could have told me the gun had explosive rounds.  I’d have aimed for his leg.”

“There was no guarantee the rest of his clothes weren’t charmed the same way as his long coat.  My regular bullets weren’t even getting his attention.  Besides, I’ve put down enough of these guys to know exactly what they want.  Me, Dead.” 

I lifted my hand in the air.

Izumi tossed the borrowed gun back to me.  It had a heavy coat of frost on it from her hand, explaining how she’d managed to fire it despite fey being highly allergic to steel.  I’d really only expected her to yelp at the bite of the gun, dropping it like a good distraction while I turned the lightning back on its user.  I hadn’t counted on Izumi being so imaginative.  She could still surprise me.

“Can you cover this mess with a glamour,” I asked, “and call a cleanup crew to come out and dispose of the remains?”

“Sure, but you’ll owe me.”

“What else is new?”  I sent my guns back to the armory.

Sarah called out from the mansion’s broken doorway.  “Caine, is it over?”

“When is anything over?”  I walked to my garage, lifted the sliding door, and went in.  I’d had to have the garage widened because of my habit of buying Mustangs.  I didn’t bother getting a building permit for this; I’d had a high-level magic-user attach a pocket of disjointed space instead.  This made my footsteps on the concrete seem to echo into infinity. 

Leaning against one of my rides, I pulled out my phone and placed a call.  The connection went through.  The Old Man’s deep tones greeted me.  “Hello, Caine.  What have you fucked up now?”

“Why does everything always have to be my fault?”

“Caine, I know you, remember?”

“Even you can be wrong, Old Man.  Storm Court hit again.  This time they sent a wind mage.  He was strong.  They’re starting to learn from their mistakes.”

“Next time it will be a mass attack.  I understand you went off this morning without your personal security.  That’s not wise.  I’m sending them out to hook-up with you.”

“Look, Old One, chances are very low of another ambush right away.  I don’t—”

“No argument.  I’m overriding you.  Where are you now?”

“Malibu, but I’m about to hit the road.  I need to find Vivian.  She’s off the grid a little.  I’ll drive to the clan house after that.”

“Have your car call me when you find Vivian.”

“Sure.”  I hung up and put my phone away.  Pushing off my car, I turned to face the side driver’s window.  My handsome, well-dressed image was reflected back at me from the midnight-blue Mustang, the one with pale-blue lightning striping the sides and adorning the hood.  This vehicle had the most magically-assisted security devices, and its own artificial intelligence. 

“It’s me.  Disengage security defenses.”

I felt a tingle as a sweep of magic licked past, seeing if my reality matched my voice.  The door lock popped up.  I pulled the handle, opened the door, and slid in.  Had I been someone else, a hundred thousand volts would have bitched slapped the hell out of me, making me a deeply-hurtin’ crispy critter.  The lightning paint job was my way of giving fair notice. 
Why don’t people understand what a great humanitarian I am?

I buckled up and used the thumb scanner to further identify myself.  Embedded in the steering wheel hub, a red crystal bead glowed to life.  It projected a horizontal beam that fanned down across my eyes.  With retinal confirmation, the engine turned itself on.  I backed out and rolled down to the street where I wheeled about and roared away.  My finger stabbed the radio player.  The crunch of hard rock guitars and throbbing drums filled the air.  A painfully coarse voice screamed something mostly indecipherable.

And so the hunt begins.

Heading for downtown L.A. where most of my contacts were, I had time to kill.  I decided to take care of a little matter so it didn’t grow into a monster.  I searched my phone’s contact list for a number I seldom used.  In moments, the call was going through.  I transferred the call to my dash system and put my phone away so I wouldn’t have to kill a cop who might try to give me a ticket for driving while on the phone.

A deep voice came out of a speaker.  “Yeah?” 

“Josh, Caine here.”  Joshua Kent was the were-liger I’d run into in Sacramento, during the affair with the Green Flame Assassin.  He owed me a favor for heading off a preternatural war in his city.  “I need to talk to Kat if she’s there.”

His voice was edged with suspicion.  “About what?”

“I need a favor.  I need her to come up to Malibu for a while.  She can bring a surfboard if she wants.”

There was a long silence. 
Time to push some buttons
.  “Are you going to make the decision for her?” I asked.  “She won’t like that.”

Josh said, “A lot of bad things happen around you, Caine.  I have doubts that you’re a good person.”

Time to lay it on thicker.  These people have good hearts.  It makes them easy to manipulate them.
  “The favor’s not really for me.  There’s this young were-wolf girl who lives next door, who’s responsibility for a bunch of new wolves.  She was raped and tortured and raped some more…” I pretended to choke up just a little.   “Anyway, she needs a maternal figure, someone wise to talk to, someone to help her hold it together in case another shifter clan decides to move in and take advantage of … damaged goods.”

“So you need muscle too, and aren’t bothering to ask because you know I won’t let Kat go without me.”

“Kat is one of the most caring people I know.” 
Simple truth
.  “I just thought this might be something she’d
want
to do.  I know how well she takes care of her own were-kitties.  And I do know that things have been quiet down there since she took over as Mistress of the City.  Vamps haven’t been back, right?” 

“Yeah, but we have a really busy schedule with … what?  No, Kat, don’t…”