Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) (20 page)

Jaw tightening, she grabbed Lily’s hand and headed for the door.

*****

With a groan, Elias opened his eyes.

Memory rushed back and he drew a sharp breath, trying to sit up, only to feel something stab excruciatingly at his side. A choked sound escaped him as he collapsed back to the ground, and instinctively, his magic coursed around the wound, slowly making the air easier to breathe.

He was under something large and, from the feel of it, recently on fire. Smoke was thick in the air and, in the distance, sirens wailed.

But he couldn’t hear the queen, her sister, or anything resembling a fight still going on.

Swallowing against the residual pain, he reached up and shoved the sheet of metal, bolstering the effort magically. The sheet bent back, though the piles of debris behind it still fought to hold the metal down. Grudgingly, the covering moved out of the way, letting the smoke-laden air hit him in full force.

Coughing, he struggled to his feet.

The hangar was gone, as was the plane in front of it and most of the other buildings. The fence guarding the field had been shredded into chain-link tatters, and several of the trees were smoldering. Small fires still burned in the piles of decimated metal siding, and smoke had turned the sky gray.

His heart was pounding harder, but he didn’t pay any attention. From a safe distance, fire crews were raining water down on the building’s remains, while in the airfield, medical teams were helping the wounded.

And neither of the Merlin’s Children were among them.

They could have escaped. Nathaniel may have been able to reach them, or the queen might have managed to create a portal to get herself and her sister away.

The thoughts were background noise while he scanned the wreckage and, as his gaze caught on a boot protruding from beneath a wing of the plane, one of the optimistic theories summarily died. Bracing himself on a piece of metal sheeting, he climbed out from the debris and negotiated his way across the unsteady piles.

Metal struts and shards of siding covered the plane wing. Quickly, he pulled them away, his magic sending the remnants tumbling onto the other mounds of debris. The plane wing was harder, its size ungainly to begin with, but as it finally scraped to one side, he paused.

Blood covered Nathaniel’s head and marred his face in half-dried streaks. The man’s arms were a mess, and his legs hadn’t fared much better. Bending swiftly, Elias felt through the sticky blood for a pulse.

A breath escaped him. Hurriedly, he shifted around and put a hand to the man’s chest. Light burned hot beneath his palm, racing to strengthen the faint heartbeat. He pressed his other hand to Nathaniel’s head, his eyes darting across the injuries covering every inch of the man that he could see.

Bone knit and skin followed, and slowly the wounds faded away.

Nathaniel drew a sharp breath, his eyes opening wide.

“The queen,” he said immediately.

“I don’t know,” Elias answered.

A dazedly intense look on his face, the wizard moved to push himself upright. Elias rose and stepped away, scanning the ruins as he gave the man room.

“They have her?” Nathaniel growled, his voice turning the words into a bizarre mix of question and promise of violent retribution should they prove true.

“We don’t know that,” Elias replied, but his attention wasn’t on the response.

Across the field, two bodies lay. Too large to be the queen and her sister, they were also too nicely dressed to be airport personnel, and they were surrounded by emergency technicians who seemed to be trying to figure out how the pair came to be there.

But tire tracks carved a path through the grass between them, leading from the broken fence to the tarmac, while others traced lines alongside.

Possibilities flickered through his mind, each as unverifiable as the last.

“Councilman?”

“Try her phone,” he ordered.

As the large man drew out his cell, Elias pulled his gaze from the tire tracks and then paused. The fire surrounding the plane had been mostly extinguished, but beyond the ruin of the aircraft, the edge of a familiar trench coat could be seen.

Behind him, Nathaniel made an infuriated noise and sent the cell clattering into the debris. Eyes still on the trench coat, Elias pulled out his own phone and handed it back before starting across the wreckage. The jets of water from the fire hoses moved away as he passed, and when he left the hangar debris, the emergency crews flowed around him without noticing he was there.

“She’s not answering,” Nathaniel growled.

“Keep trying.”

Circling the remains of the plane, he paused at the sight of Cornelius and then crouched down and carefully pulled away the man’s bloodied coat. The wizard’s shirt was sodden red, but past the torn fabric, a faint glimmer of magic crawled around the edge of the bullet hole while, incrementally, the man’s chest rose and fell.

Elias shook his head dryly and then glanced up at Nathaniel.

“Still nothing.”

His mouth tightened and his gaze returned to the airfield. Even if she’d made it away, that still left the queen and her sister out there alone, with only the hope that the Merlin would find them before the Blood.

And they had such a good track record in that regard.

Pushing aside the old frustration, he looked back to Nathaniel and extended a hand for the phone. “Can you?” he asked with a nod toward Cornelius.

Nathaniel gave him the cell and then bent down at Cornelius’ side. As the large wizard’s magic spread over the man’s wound, Elias hit the speed dial, his eyes on the city skyline barely visible beyond the trees.

“Kat?” he said as his wife picked up the other end. “We’re at the Banston airport. We’ve got wounded and we’ve got a problem. Contact everyone and get them here quick.”

He grimaced. “We’re going to need them.”

Apartment doors opened in the halls above them and shouted questions filled the air. Adrenaline pounding through him at the sounds, Cole raced down the steps after Ashe and Lily.

“What’re we going to do?” Lily asked, her voice low and scared.

Ashe didn’t answer. One hand clutching her sister’s, she left the stairs and rushed for the door, pausing only to cast a swift look down the street.

“Ashley?”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Ashe said.

Without another word, she shoved open the door and hurried into the sunlight.

Cole grimaced. The bloody queen of Merlin was lying through her teeth and he knew it. After what Lily did to that portal, every wizard for a mile around was probably coming here.

Tires screeched behind them as they reached the sidewalk, confirming his thoughts. He looked back, catching sight of a white truck rushing around the corner a block away, and then the migraine from hell shot through his head.

The truck flew backward and broadsided a tree.

Gasping with pain, he glanced back, but Ashe was already running with Lily in tow. He muttered a curse, taking off after them.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting today, but this wasn’t it. Saving Ashe’s life at the airport, running from his father’s people with her… that hadn’t been part of any plan. Back in the apartment, he’d thought for a moment he’d been able to reason with her. That, for one second, she’d been willing to let the girl go. But she’d gone right back to being what the Merlin had made her, and pretty much confirmed that she'd rather let the kid die with her than give Lily a chance to survive.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Following them around another turn, he scowled, his jaw still aching from her punch and the gun pressing uselessly against his back. He couldn’t take Lily from her, and he couldn’t convince the girl to leave either. For better or worse, Lily had given no sign she knew what her sister had done, and thus she’d never believe him if he told her. Simply forcing her to go was out as well. When he’d tried to pull her away after her magic nearly put Ashe through the wall, the little girl’s snarled threat had been more than clear.

For the moment, wherever her sister went, Lily was going too.

He winced as magic rushed from Ashe and struck a black sedan coming around the corner, propelling it into the vehicle directly behind. Without pausing,
A
she turned, yanking Lily along as she bolted between a couple of nearby homes.

Grimacing, he ran after her, hoping that’d been a wizard and not just some human who’d happened to glance her way.

The neighborhood vanished between one block and the next, becoming a commercial district that deteriorated the farther the three of them ran. Chic cafés gave way to seedy-looking bars, and trendy stores surrendered to pawnshops. The buildings grew older, their sides marred by graffiti and water stains, and For Sale signs began to appear in every window he could see. Weathered cars crawled along, and if any of the people wandering down the sidewalk ever looked up, they never seemed to care about the three of them running by.

Ashe made a choked noise and stumbled to a stop, her eyes locked on the massive building occupying the entire block across the street.

Coming up beside her, he scanned the building for threats, seeing nothing except boarded-up windows and doors, both covered in tape that warned that the five stories of carved stone were condemned. Baffled, he looked over, and alarm shot through him at the emotions racing across her face.

Shock. Disbelief. And then something so lost between hurt and hope, he couldn’t have untangled it if he’d had a year.

Without a word, she took off running.

Brow drawing down, he glanced around and then followed. Darting across the road, she circled the side of the building and sped past three identically boarded windows before skidding to a stop. Swiftly, she reached for the plywood, only to freeze mid-motion.

Her eyes twitched to Lily. Worry flickered through her gaze.

“Stay behind Cole,” she ordered the girl tightly, and then she tugged the plywood aside. The board swung out as though on a hinge.

“What is this?” he asked, his alarm growing.

“Get inside.”

“I’m not–”

“Now.”

Her voice was a growl and at the sound, he hesitated. The options weren’t good. Arguing in the open like this was stupid, and they really did need to hide, but doing so in a place where Lily could be in danger should have been out of the question.

The look in her eyes was as uncompromising as stone.

His jaw tightened and he reached up, hoisting himself onto the ledge. The old wrought iron window frame was already open to the inside. Quickly, he swung over the stonework and dropped into the room beyond.

Room wasn’t quite the right word, he realized. Cathedral would have been closer, though the thing wasn’t a church. Marble floors stretched away in front of him, their patterns barely discernible in the thin, gray light filtering through the dusty windows fifty feet above. Graffiti-covered columns lined the left side of the space, the tall pillars surrounded in shadow and supporting the cobwebbed arches of a gallery with stone balustrades on the second floor.

He blinked, reading the tarnished brass letters above the cubicles on the distant wall. Departures. Arrivals. The place had been a train station.

Lily whimpered behind him and he spun to help her over the windowsill. Shielding her from the empty space, he waited as Ashe climbed up and then dropped down inside. As her feet hit the ground, she looked instantly to the shadows in the galleries, watching them as though daring them to move. Not taking her eyes from the darkness, she left the plywood cover open, the sun backlighting her as she carefully walked away from the window.

“What–” he hissed.

She made an urgent sound, the noise barely audible. Still eyeing the shadows, she came up next to him, ignoring the wary look on his face at her proximity. Her shoulder pressed against his, further blocking Lily from view. He tried not to move instinctively away.

“Hello,” she called to the emptiness, almost as if she believed someone was there.

Gun barrels appeared in every window of the gallery.

His hand went for the weapon tucked in the back of his jeans.

Ashe made a choked noise. “Don’t,” she whispered.

His eyes slid toward her. She was motionless. He couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. And then the truth hit him.

He couldn’t feel any magic coming off her. In the face of all these guns, she wasn’t using a hint of defense.

His gaze snapped over as skittering sounded in the shadows on the far side of the room. Twin shapes bolted from the darkness, resolving into a pair of enormous dogs.

Ashe gave a tiny gasp. Anxiously, he glanced between her, the guns, and the animals.

The girl never moved.

Bounding over the distance, the dogs rushed up and around her, bumping her legs. Their tongues flashed over Ashe’s immobile hands and then the animals continued on. Lily squeaked with surprise as they sniffed her curiously.

Two men stepped from the shadows, shotguns in their hands.

He glanced back to Ashe, hoping desperately there was a plan involved in this, and then paused at the sight of her face.

The wizard impassivity was returning, shielding the fleeting trace of anguish in her eyes.

“Seems they recognize ya,” one of the men called, his thick Southern accent making the words drawl.

Ashe said nothing.

Twenty feet away, the man came to a stop, his burly companion doing the same. “Want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

“Saw the sign,” Ashe said neutrally.

Confusion moved through Cole and he fought not to let it show. At the words, however, the man’s expression didn’t change.

“Y’all look like hell,” he commented flatly.

“Wizards,” Ashe replied in the same tone.

The man’s brow shrugged. “What’s your name?”

From the corner of his eye, Cole saw her gaze flick to the gallery and the plethora of weapons there.

“Summer,” she answered.

None of the weapons moved. He felt a breath leave her.