Wrath and Bones (52 page)

“I’m not having furface fight my battles for me,” I said, mildly insulted. “I don’t need a man to help me get vamp-murdered. I can do that all on my own.”

Declan blinked rapidly and then puckered his entire face in thought. “Was that some sort of attempt at sexual equality?”

“I am woman, hear me roar?” I grabbed my forearm wound and hoped I wouldn’t be roaring and furry come the next full moon.

“If by ‘roar’ you mean ‘stubbornly choke on your own blood,’ yeah, I’ll give ya that. Well done, you.”

“I’m not very good at being a feminist, but I’m trying.”

“Now’s probably not the time, Dr. B.”

I wasn’t so sure. I was feeling fantastic, and that new vigor was quickly overpowering the fear and tiredness of our jetlag and stress. Probably this was the best time for me to be all Girl Power. I felt like I could bench press the taxi. We’d left plenty of evidence of our being here, and there was no point in a cover-up. “Hand me my notebook,” I said.

Declan rummaged and gave me my Moleskine and pencil. I scribbled down a brief explanation of what happened here for Cairo police, debated about adding my contact information or leaving it anonymously. I went ahead and was completely honest; I figured by the time anyone tried to extradite me to face Egyptian authorities, I could probably retreat to Skulesdottir if I needed to dig my heels in. I knew very few things about the way the world worked, but I did know this: the revenant high court would never consider handing over one of its DaySitters to a human court of law. Revenants dealt with their own; not necessarily
well,
but they were super-stubborn about their independence like that.

I tucked the note under the driver’s hand, saying a soft apology to the man whose name I didn’t even know. I searched his pockets until I found his wallet and flipped it open. Rasul. I wrote that in my Moleskine with the date, time, his description and address, and then took quick pictures with my phone of his fang wounds, in case I needed to show Batten or Harry. Then I slid into the driver’s seat to take a picture of the dash, in case I needed any of the information in the car.

I saw her in the rear view mirror; every horror movie I’d ever seen reared up in my memory to prove me a moron, because who doesn’t check the back seat? I ducked, and she snatched at me with the piano wire, getting my hair, which slipped harmlessly away with the rest of my head. I dumped myself out of the car onto my shoulder then log-rolled to put distance between us. I hopped to my feet, noticed that my actions had thrown my gun in the sand by the car door, saw she’d seen it. I wondered if I could dive for it.

“That wasn’t so good,” I told the stranger who got out of the back seat. “I’ve seen better murder attempts. I give it two stars.”

She looked familiar; a lean, young black woman with pencil-thin legs clad in pink ballet leggings complete with tutu, strappy sandals, and strong-looking gloved hands. She whipped the wire to the ground and took a cute purple .22 from the waistband of her tutu and pointed it at my chest.

“That’s not going to do you any good, either,” I said mock-sadly. “I ate magic mummy jerky. Probably gave me bullet-proof boobs.”

Her sneer wavered for a second and the Blue Sense flared: her
hatred
was not aimed at me. I rocked into motion, shifting my shoulder back, turning aside so I was out of line with the shot if it came. She tried to retrain on me. I kicked her inside the left knee to shift her balance. Grabbing the gun’s muzzle, I redirected it, twisting her wrist back until, at the last second, the gun was pointed right back at her own face before she was forced to let go. Power throbbed in my arms, even the injured one. I threw the gun to the ground and kicked it back in Declan’s direction. She rushed me and I gave her forehead a chiding slap. It stopped her just long enough for me to dive for my gun and put her in my sights. It was only then that I recognized her.

“Where is he, Umayma?” I asked her, returning to my feet and keeping my gun trained on her. “I don’t feel him, but he’s here. He wouldn’t pass this up.”

She flapped her hand at the taxi and pointed at herself, then at her throat.
Mute?
She indicated the taxi again.

I shook my head. “You didn’t do this by yourself. I know you’re Jeremiah Prost’s DaySitter. I have to admit, you’re older than I thought you’d be. What are you, twenty? Twenty-three, maybe?” Maybe she just looked older. Maybe being Prost’s ‘Sitter had aged her prematurely. Just
thinking
about him made me feel old.

She seemed like she was going to deny who she was; the Blue Sense reported that she wasn’t nearly as ballsy as she was pretending. This girl was terrified, though she hid it beautifully. I thought this might not have been her first murder, but maybe she wasn’t used to facing people without her immortal nutcase at her side. Where the fuck was he?

Declan was at my side, now holding Umayma’s gun. “We need to step back into the tomb,” he advised. “Kinship of the Departed may keep a revenant from venturing inside.”

Or drive him crazy if we got him close enough to an angry spirit.
I didn’t take my eyes off Umayma. “And risk running into Folkenflik? Or the tomb guardian?”

“We need to—“

Declan’s words were cut off by a flurry of activity as something black and glossy darted from behind the stela slabs, flashing past us without pause. It dove and took down Umayma, and both of them squeaked with the impact. Declan ducked, but I felt my body rock into forward motion the second I saw Sayomi’s arm raise and the glint of cold steel in the desert starlight.

Hood would not have been impressed with my clumsy attempt at a spin-kick, but my legs were still adjusting to the new force of the mellified man in my system. My Ked heel did land squarely on Sayomi’s raised elbow, and I heard the distinct wet snap of bone breaking. The knife went flying. Umayma squirmed under the other DaySitter.

I had grabbed Sayomi by her latex collar when the vampire finally showed.  When he did, it was an eye-confusing blur, a swirl of dark hair long enough to rival my own untrimmed ghost locks. I’m no dummy; I let go of Sayomi and ran for the tomb’s entrance with Declan hot on my heels. Let Prost deal with her.

Deal with her he did. Prost dragged Sayomi off of his DaySitter with ease and sent her sailing into the dark night; I dove into the imagined shelter of the tomb’s mouth, looking back over my shoulder as Umayma scrambled to her feet. Declan disappeared into the tomb, Folkenflik be damned, but I stalled where I was.

Prost was not chasing me. He squared his shoulders at me and waited for me to come back out.

That was not going to happen. If he didn’t want to come closer, I was safe from him, at least. The shuffle behind me was just Declan coming back.

“What’s he doing, Dr. B?”

“I only know what he’s not doing,” I said. “Maybe you were right about Kinship of the Departed.” Together, we watched him step over Rasul’s body and sit on the hood of the car, crossing his legs in a full lotus and making himself comfortable. I noticed he was wearing boot-cut jeans over old Nike Marathon shoes from the seventies, and it struck me as a ridiculous in the moment. I was going to be killed by a vampire in bad shoes? Not acceptable. I didn’t dare look too closely at his face, not above the chin, but his mouth curled smugly. His DaySitter moved to sit nearby in the sand to await his instructions, but for now, he seemed pleased to see us effectively trapped in the tomb’s entrance.

“Where’s Folkenflik?” I asked, not bothering to whisper.

“I don’t hear him. When I went a bit deeper, I heard a thud and another weird sound, like a primate-canine mix.”

“
Wah-hunh
or
roop roop
?” I asked.

“It was really more of a
ree-unf
, Dr. B.”

“Do I want to know why do you sound so disappointed about that?”

Declan dropped our go-bags and shuffled through them, presumably in a futile check that someone might have slipped a rowan wood stake in there in the last five minutes and he just didn’t see it happen. “Remember when Folkenflik bit you?”

“No, I forgot the moment I may have become infected with the were-virus,” I said dryly.

“He knocked over more than one canopic jar. The tomb guardian is one thing. He may have stirred up another. We may be hearing more than one protection god in there. This
ree-unf
was a totally different sound.”

“As long as it stays the fuck away from me, I guess that’s Folkenflik’s problem, not mine,” I said.

 I looked for Sayomi, wondered if she was okay.
Do I care? A little
. Now that Prost was here, I only had one goal: get Declan and our loot out of here without us dying. I didn’t want anyone else to die, either. Rasul’s blood was coursing through Prost’s veins, flushing him with hot life, causing his lungs to rattle to life and his heart to pound; he was more dangerous right now than he would have been unfed. He was content to watch me struggle; a cat with a mouse, he cocked his head and smiled at me without saying a word. He didn’t really need to. We both knew I was screwed.

In a move of balls-out bravery and stunning disloyalty that I would remember for the rest of my life, Prost’s DaySitter made a gesture at me: Umayma slapped her cheek lightly, a gentle version of the slap I’d given her earlier, and nodded meaningfully at me. Was she trying to give me a helpful hint? Some way to break this standoff? Or was I misreading her? Could I risk acting on it if I was uncertain as to her meaning?

Umayma did it again, and this time her eyes insisted. I knew what I had to do.

“Declan…” I eyeballed the go-bags, turning my back on the vampire. Mindful of Prost’s preternatural hearing, I switched to hand signals. I pointed at my bag, cut my fingers like scissors, and mimed putting my hat on. Then I made a gagging face, and showed him two fingers dipping and scooping then popped those into my mouth. His head darted back in horror and he grimaced.

I tried again. We moved around the first corner, because sinking into shadow wouldn’t shield us from Prost’s preternatural eyes. Digging out my silver scissors and the knit hat Schenk had made me, I started sawing away at my waist-length ghost hair, very close to my head, not letting any slip through my fingers but bundling it in one gloved fist. Declan watched me with round eyes. I slapped the hair on my head and Declan helped me hold it down like a slippery wig while I tied my knit hat on top tightly to hold the hairs on my head. When I was finished, the length of my hair wasn’t noticeably different. Declan swiped a few loose, giveaway hairs off my t-shirt. I indicated to my belly with my thumb, winked, tilted my head subtly in the direction of the vampire, made a motion like I was dragging him into the tomb, and flexed my bicep like a strongman showing off his muscles.

Declan mouthed silently,
Are you nuts?

I nodded and touched my nose. Pointedly, I shot that finger over his shoulder in the direction of the room with the sarcophagus and, presumably, the angry tomb guardians. I walked my fingers and then made them flick quickly like my gloved hand was running, then mimed tossing something, and made witchy fingers at him.

Declan shook his head at me like I was beyond hope and removed the canopic jar from my go-bag, lifting the three-headed lid. Stuffing my gun in my pants at my front hip and my silver scissors in my left pants pocket, I removed my right glove, dug two fingers into the honey, and held my nose with my left hand before plunging my sticky fingers in my mouth. I licked the fingers clear, far more afraid of Prost than of the taste of funky mummy. Presumably fortified by the elixir, I took my other glove off, laid both across my palm, took a deep, cleansing breath, and marched out into the dessert.

My Keds slipped in the sand, making my stride less than the confident strut I wanted it to be. Umayma scrambled to her feet, her eyes widening, as I approached them. She checked in with her companion, studying the side of his face for clues. He ignored her. Prost let me come, looking at my gloves in my hand, my high chin, the dog whistle bouncing at my chest, the determination on my face; he tasted my fear and deception, heard the knocking of my heart, and my warm pulse called to him. Did he remember me the way I remembered him? He’d always seemed such a giant, looming terror from my past. Was that recognition in the curl of his lips? His mocking smile widened to show full, glistening fang.

Our last meeting had seen him blurring both my and Batten’s mind before he shot me twice and escaped from an alley. He wasn’t going to hurt me this time. I had black market honey juju running in my veins and a telekinetic
dhampir
at my back. If I timed this just right, and if Umayma behaved, neither one of us would have to worry about Jeremiah Prost again.

I suffered only a second of doubt: maybe the FBI had him all wrong? Maybe he wasn’t a child killer. Maybe--

 Prost tasted my doubt and his smile twisted into a cruel answer, wiping away my hesitation for good. I drew up close enough to smell the burnt molasses stink of him, calmed the sudden quiver of doubt in my belly, and used my gloves to swat him across his smirking face.

Prost’s jaw dropped open in surprise.

“You, sir, are a coward!” I announced. “Killing children and unarmed weaklings? You are incompetent, powerless... fangless. That’s right, I said it.”

Umayma took a step away from us. The Blue Sense announced her secret delight mixed with the certainty that I was about to die.

Prost was stunned immobile for a moment, and I stole my chance to slap him across the face with my bare palm and backhand him just as sharply. For good measure, I poked him in the left eye before bolting back toward the tomb.

As I pelted toward Declan, the look on his face told me that Prost was coming. Wind stirred behind me and I thought
must go faster, must go faster
as I pumped my little legs and brought the whistle to my mouth. Certainly Prost knew there was danger inside the tomb but his pride demanded he finish me and finish me quickly.

He grabbed me by the hair as I knew he would; it fell away uselessly in his hand. I got a bit further before he grabbed me again, this time pounding into my back full force, a hundred eighty pounds of preternatural strength. He turned my body as we hit the sand so he could get a nice, juicy shot at my jugular. I wriggled with him, using my left hand to get my gun out of my pants and shove it up under his ribs. I fired twice in rapid succession,
pop pop
, once for each time he’d shot me. Prost raged and spiraled up off me into the air, an eye-blurring streak of dark hair and pale hands and bared fangs against the shiny globe of the full moon. A mist of icy blue revenant nectar sprayed me in the face and my skin began to tingle. I lunged to my feet, feeling Prost right behind me. My gun slipped from my fingers and I thought
he’s going to use that
. The Blue Sense blasted me with his outrage and need to dominate this impudent mortal. At the same time, it reported the updraft of Declan’s power swelling, the crackle of telekinesis at the ready.