Ruby Fever

Chapter 7

The elevator doors shut, and the cabin carried us down.

“Let’s not do that again,” Mom murmured.

“Agreed,” Cornelius said.

“I thought you’d stay in the lobby,” I murmured back.

“I tried. The Keeper came and got me in person.”

An audience with the Keeper wasn’t difficult to get, but I couldn’t think of any occasion where he’d come down and personally invited someone up to his office.

Those of us who understand that fact hold our duties sacred.

Like the Office of Records, the Office of the Warden guarded the current social order. Both institutions had to be incorruptible, because we protected the foundations of our society. As twisted and dysfunctional as it was, it was better than the free-for-all where the strongest ruled without limitations. We’d tried that during the Time of Horrors, and it’d almost ended humanity.

The Keeper saw me as a colleague of sorts, someone who, like him, placed themselves between order and chaos. He treated me and my mother with courtesy. Sadly, courtesy didn’t mean assistance. If we were attacked in the parking lot in front of the building, the Keeper and his creepy sidekick wouldn’t lift a finger to help us.

We reached the lobby and collected our weapons and Gus. I handed the Rattler to Mom. She checked it, and we walked to the glass entrance together.

It was past eight. The sun was beginning to set, and the world turned dimmer. Twilight dripped into the parking lot. Twenty-foot-tall lamps, four per metal pole, had come on, flooding the parking lot with bright electric light.

“Stay here,” I told her. “I’ll get the car and pick you up.”

I could see the calculation in Mom’s eyes. I would make it faster to the protection of the armored car on my own. She would only slow me down and Cornelius and Gus would present extra targets.

“Go,” she said. “I’ll cover you.”

I exited the doors and jogged across the parking lot. Mom and Cornelius stepped out of the lobby, close enough to duck back in, and waited.

The lane stretched in front of me. I kept moving, taking a quick inventory of the other cars. Seven or eight SUVs, several trucks, a few sedans, no doubt some of them armored. A lot of vehicles despite the hour. In the distance, a good hundred yards away from Rhino, someone had parked a food truck painted a ghastly lime green with orange letters promising “flaming tacos.” A bad place to leave a food truck. If they didn’t move it, it would be gone by morning.

Rhino loomed in front of me. I grabbed the door handle, swung it open, and climbed into the driver’s seat. I shut the door, putting B7 ballistic armor between me and the world outside, and braced myself.

Nothing.

I started the engine. It roared, reassuringly steady. I reversed and drove toward the entrance. Mom and Cornelius started toward me.

I pulled up just outside the red line that marked the kill zone around the building. A moment and the doors swung open, and then Mom, Cornelius, and Gus were in the car. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and turned left, into the next row, heading down through a corridor of parked cars toward Stadium Drive. I would only be on it for a minute. Once I made a left onto Old Spanish Trail, I could blend in with traffic.

The taco truck went airborne.

My brain refused to process what my eyes were seeing.

The truck hurtled toward us as if someone had hit it with a giant bat. It was like a movie.

Food truck. Propane. Fire.

We were trapped between two rows of cars.

I wrenched the wheel to my left. Rhino plowed into a red Honda. The impact yanked us forward. The taco truck flew past.

“Out!” Mom barked.

We moved. I landed on my side of Rhino. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the taco truck stop as if it had hit an invisible wall. It turned, spinning on its axis in midair.

I sprinted down the row of cars, ducking behind them as I ran.

The taco truck smashed into Rhino. The world exploded. The blast wave picked me up and tossed me to the right, straight into a white pickup. Thunder punched my ears. My head swam. I spun around, trying to clear the transparent swirls in front of my eyes.

An orange fireball engulfed Rhino. Grandma Frida wasn’t going to like that. Not one bit.

My ears stopped ringing.

The truck in front of me slid, pulled out of the way. I dashed left, across the row, ducked behind a black car and kept moving, back toward Rhino and the burning wreck.

It had to be Xavier. His talent relied on sight. He must’ve been hiding behind the taco truck and now he was digging through the cars, shoving them out of the way trying to find me.

I jumped to my feet, ran back toward the entrance, and ducked behind another white truck. I pressed myself against it, edged toward the row, and peeked around the bed.

At the far end of the row, Xavier stood, his arms raised in a mage pose, elbows bent, palms cradling invisible basketballs. The ground around his feet glowed with white. He had set up an arcane circle. A pair of over-the-ear headphones shielded his ears. He’d come prepared.

Connor with a simple amplification could throw a city bus around like a frisbee. Xavier had less control but almost as much power, and my siren call would do nothing. He wouldn’t be able to hear me.

I chanced a second look. Another man stood next to Xavier, tall, lanky, with pale blond hair dripping onto his forehead, identical headphones protecting him from my magic. Dag Gunderson.

How was he here? Where was Alessandro? Was he dead?

A second circle, a deep magenta, ignited at Gunderson’s feet. The glow flared, illuminating a wooden crate behind them, and settled into a steady glimmer.

Alessandro couldn’t be dead. It would take a lot more than Gunderson to kill him. I grabbed onto that thought and used it like a life preserver to keep myself from being dragged down into panic.

Gunderson thrust his arms forward and strained, as if trying to lift an enormous weight.

My magic spiraled to them. Without my voice, my wings were my next best bet. But mesmerizing with wings alone took time. Xavier would snipe me the moment he saw me. Not to mention that they were too far away, and distance was a factor.

Gunderson snarled, the veins in his neck bulging. The arcane circle slid off the ground, tilted on its side, and hung in the empty air twenty feet above the asphalt like a curtain of magic.

What the hell . . .

Wood cracked. The crate behind Xavier snapped open, and a cloud of projectiles rose in the air.

Oh great, Xavier brought his toys.

I opened my mouth and sang. My magic snaked across the parking lot and wound around their minds, but I had no way in. I sang out, pouring power into my voice.

No effect. It was like trying to grasp a cannonball dipped in oil. It was heavy and slick, and the tendrils of my magic kept sliding off.

The projectiles shot forward, slicing through Gunderson’s arcane screen, and turned into glowing magenta sparks. The shower of magic rained onto the cars like an arrow storm launched by an ancient army.

A spark punctured the truck bed next to me. I glimpsed an eight-inch nail coated in a magenta glow and dove to the side. The nail detonated with a shriek. Magic crackled above my head. I glanced back. The truck bed was a mess of twisted metal, like an aluminum can that had exploded from the inside out. All around me holes gaped in cars. Metal debris littered the parking lot.

Moving cars back and forth trying to find us would have taken too much juice. Instead, they would turn them into shrapnel bombs.

I pushed harder with my power, straining with everything I had. The shoots of my magic had wrapped so tightly around both Gunderson and Xavier that I could barely see their glow in my mind. It did nothing. I had no way in.

I’d never felt so useless.

A sad sound rose to the sky behind me, a song without words sung by a beautiful male voice. It reached into my chest, took my heart in its fist, and squeezed. The world went white in a daze. I choked on empty air.

Cornelius was singing. Oh dear God.

The song reached its crescendo and died.

My magic was still wrapped around the two attackers. I sank into it, pushing as hard as I could. The world faded, its sounds dulling, as all of my energy went into invading the two minds.

A second barrage of nails tore into the cars. Magic crackled all around me, magenta lightning dancing over the trucks and SUVs. Explosions popped like crazy firecrackers. Something hot smashed into my head, and a chunk of a side-view mirror rolled off me to the ground.

I barely noticed. My magic vines pulsed and pulsed, without any way in. If I didn’t succeed, we’d die in this parking lot.

Third barrage. Something stung my legs.

I had to do something, or we wouldn’t make it out of here alive. I had to chance the wings.

I hauled myself forward and looked around the rear tire. Xavier was aiming another set of nails at Gunderson’s screen.

The rapid staccato of the Rattler split the night. Mom returning fire.

Gunderson jerked and stumbled to the right, clutching his shoulder. The arcane screen melted into the air.

I squeezed their minds with everything I had. I never wished for Tremaine powers, but right now I’d trade ten years of my life for just one burst of my grandmother’s brain cracking magic.

Xavier bared his teeth. The vehicles in front of him slid, knocked back like Matchbox cars kicked by an angry child. A huge Tahoe at the opposite end of the row screeched and rolled to the right. Mom jumped to her feet, firing. A flaming tire shot across the lot and smashed into her. Mom flew back and crashed into a blue SUV.

Mom!

I dropped my hold on their minds, and the world reeled, my mind unable to adjust.

My mother was right there, in the open, against the car. Spikes hammered into the metal around her. She screamed, a short guttural sound.

I dashed into the open.

A cloud of bats dropped from the sky swarming between us and Xavier. Magic sputtered and nails sank into the swarm. Little furry bodies dropped to the ground.

I sprinted to Mom. She sagged against the SUV and grunted. I slid on broken glass, caught myself on a car, and landed by her. “We’ve got to move . . .”

A two-foot spike protruded from Mom’s right thigh, pinning her to the SUV. Blood drenched her leg, soaking through her jeans. Her hands were red.

I gripped the spike and pulled. It didn’t move.

“Leave me,” Mom snarled.

My hands slid on my mother’s blood. I grabbed my shirt, wrapped it around the spike, and pulled with everything I had.

“I said leave!”

Cornelius charged around the car. He saw the spike.

“I can’t!” I told him.

He tossed the shotgun to me and gripped the spike. The muscles on his forearms bulged. Mom gasped, sucking in air.

The swarm of bats had thinned and through the gaps, I saw the glow of another magenta circle sliding upright.

Cornelius planted his foot onto the car and pulled, his back swelling, the muscles in his neck cording.

“Leave me! Go!”

Cornelius growled like an animal. Gus dashed next to me and bared his teeth.

I had a shotgun and a dog. We were too far to do any damage. The moment Xavier saw Mom, she would die, and Cornelius would die with her.

Magenta magic crackled.

The bat swarm scattered. Xavier grinned in the glow of his circle, Gunderson next to him, gripping his arm with a bloody hand. His face was a mask of pain. A car hung suspended in midair above them, poised to fly through Gunderson’s magic screen.

It would land on top of Mom and Cornelius, and it would explode like a bomb. They would die. In an instant, I saw my mom’s lifeless body fall to the ground, Cornelius crumpled next to her, his blue eyes glassy and blind.

No. No!

I lunged into the row. Xavier saw me, his grin turning brighter.

All of my frustration and fear exploded inside me, burning into fury. Black wings burst from my back, their edges burning with red and I screeched. It wasn’t a song. It wasn’t a scream. It was a screech, a terrible, awful shriek that cut like broken glass. Magic tore out of me in a dark torrent, guided by my voice like a laser and smashed into the two men. The circle around Xavier went out like a candle snuffed out by a hurricane. Gunderson’s eyes rolled back into his head. He dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face. The magenta screen vanished.

Xavier stumbled back, his face bloodless, and cried out. The car in midair wobbled, dancing back and forth.

The circle around Xavier reignited. It had protected him against most of my shriek. He stumbled inside it and straightened slowly.

The tower of the Office of Records was right behind me.

Xavier was a coward, and nothing scared him more than me gripping his mind.

A surprised telekinetic throws in a catenary curve.

I sucked in a deep breath and spread my wings, my black feathers erect, their tips glowing with red like hellish coals. I thrust my arm at him and opened my mouth.

Look at me! I’m about to scream again. Look!

Xavier howled. The car dipped, swooped down, and flew at me at an insane speed. He’d swatted at me like I was a flying cockroach about to land on his face. He’d barely even aimed, and the car was coming way too fast and way too high.

I dropped to the ground. It hurtled over my head, across the parking lot, swooping up in an arc, and smashed into the Keeper’s tower, three stories up. Dark glass exploded. The car vanished into the building, leaving a ragged black hole.

Thank you, Connor.

Darkness boiled out of the hole, like the tentacles of some great nightmarish beast. Michael emerged from its center and halted at the edge of the gap. Blue lightning, too dark to be natural, forked behind him.

Xavier took a step back. Gunderson remained on his knees, oblivious. The glow of his mind was gone, its light diffused.

The darkness splayed out of the hole, streaking across the parking lot in black twisting currents. The streetlamps flickered and went out one by one.

The currents surged above us, and I felt their magic. It was horrible and ravenous. It wanted, it needed, it sought its prey. Gus whined next to me, cringing. I wrapped my arms around the dog, trying to shield him. If the darkness wanted us, it would take us. There was nothing I could do against it. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how to fight it.

Michael stared at Xavier. The currents twisted toward the telekinetic.

The circle around Xavier died. He spun and sprinted away, running for his life.

The currents bit at Gunderson like striking snakes. He made no move to evade. There wasn’t enough left of him to recognize the danger. They whipped around him and streaked upward.

A man-shaped sculpture made of grey dust knelt where Gunderson used to be. It collapsed and scattered into nothing.

The darkness turned toward Xavier. He was almost to the end of the parking lot. The currents shot toward him, pursuing him like a living thing, indifferent and hungry.

Xavier jumped onto a motorcycle at the edge of the parking lot.

The darkness was almost to him. The last set of lamps died.

The engine roared, and Xavier tore out of the parking lot at a reckless speed.

The darkness swirled at the edge of the lot, impacting into an invisible boundary, and streaked back to the building, withdrawn as if sucked back in. It churned around Michael and slipped behind him.

Michael looked at me. The power in his stare gripped me. I didn’t know if it was a warning, irritation, or a “you’re welcome.” I just couldn’t move.

He turned around and disappeared back into the building.

I sat in a small private waiting room just inside the ER. Gus lay by my feet. Cornelius had taken a chunk of shrapnel in his back while he was pulling the spike out, and the ER personnel adamantly refused to allow the Doberman into the room with him.

As soon as Michael had left, we pulled the spike out. Cornelius picked up my mother, and we hurried across the street to the Woman’s Hospital. They took Mom first, then Cornelius a few seconds later. I called home from Arabella’s emergency cell phone. The call connected and I gave them a thirty-second summary. That was all I had time for because the medical staff grabbed me and nearly dragged me into the room in the back. I didn’t even get to ask about Alessandro.

At some point during the fight, broken glass had punctured my legs. My pants hung in shreds and my legs had been drenched with blood. A few fractions of an inch deeper or to the side, and I would have bled out in that parking lot. I lay there as they cleaned and irrigated my wounds and prayed that Alessandro had survived.

I couldn’t lose him. I just . . .

I had this fear. It lived deep inside me like a small animal with sharp claws that had burrowed into my soul ever since I saw the recording of Arkan killing Alessandro’s father. I had been afraid before, I’d been anxious before, but this fear was a whole new beast. Whenever Arkan’s name was mentioned, it woke up from its hibernation and scraped me with its sharp hot claws.

Once they removed the glass and patched me up, I left the room in my hospital gown and underwear. I couldn’t stay in there. The walls were closing in. The brief brush of Michael’s magic kept reverberating through me, as if I had been stained by it, and that stain was now slowly fading. I needed to be somewhere in the open, where I could see people, so I’d come back to the private waiting room and found it empty except for Gus.

We’d almost died. Xavier could have killed us. Mom was hurt. Cornelius was hurt. It was a miracle that all three of us survived. A ghostly echo of Michael’s magic swirled around me. I hugged myself, trying to banish it. I was at my limit, and I’d been gripping all my emotions in a tight fist of my will for so long, they were choking me.

Gus rose to his feet and put his head on my thigh. I looked into his brown eyes and almost cried.

Not yet. We weren’t safe yet.

The door swung open, and Alessandro marched into the room. His expression was terrible. He looked like he would murder anyone who got in his way and not even notice.

I hugged Gus. If this was an illusion mage, Gus would know.

Alessandro saw me and stopped.

Our eyes met. There were so many things in his eyes: fear, fury, relief, and love. Not an imposter. Alessandro. My Alessandro.

He cleared the distance between us in half a second, dropped by me, and gripped my shoulders. “How bad are you hurt?”

I put my arms around him and stuck my face into the bend of his neck. His skin felt scalding. I was a Prime and the Head of a House. I should have maintained composure, but I had nothing left.

He hugged me to him, his arms strong, but his hold careful.

“Catalina, talk to me.”

I couldn’t. I didn’t have the words to explain it. I’d thought he’d died. I almost saw my mom die. I had felt everything, Xavier’s volatile power, driven by pure hatred; Gunderson’s deranged glee; Cornelius’ desperate song that made me want to throw myself on the ground and cry until my eyes ran dry; and, worst of all, Michael’s indescribable darkness that still clung to me.

He kissed me, his lips hot on mine, and pulled me closer. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now. Sono qui con te, I’m here . . .”

I squeezed myself against him and held on.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay, love, it’s okay . . .”

My mouth finally worked. “I thought you were dead. I thought Gunderson and Xavier killed you.”

“Not in a million years. I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you.”

The fear clawed me.

“It’s okay. I’m here . . .”

“We need to go home. We all need to go home.”

“We will, angelo mio.”

My mind finally started, like a rusted water mill forced to turn by the current. “Konstantin set us up.”

“I know.”

“There is a mess in front of the Office of Records.”

“Leon is handling it.”

“Mom’s security detail . . .”

“We found them. They are alive and being treated.”

He kissed me again and cradled me in his arms until Cornelius returned and the nurses wheeled my mother out in a chair.