Vintage soul

NINETEEN

Donovan reached the glass outer-wall of the elevator quickly. He leaned around the corner and caught the terrified stares of Vein and his companions, but he didn’t have time to worry about their state of mind. The sunrise was only moments away, and if he didn’t get them out and under cover soon, fright would be the least of their troubles.

He examined the intricate silver mesh worked into the glass, which was thick, maybe three inches and very solid. Donovan had to lean out from the wall to see this, and the wind buffeted him each time he did, threatening to blow him from his perch. The Thunderbird spirit lightened him, but every blessing has its curse. Each motion threatened to send him flying away in the grip of some errant breeze, and it was difficult to move because in his lightened state, every twitch caused a seemingly disproportionate reaction.

He’d come prepared for a lot of things, and though blasting through an outer wall wasn’t something he’d anticipated, he didn’t hesitate. He had several smaller pouches tucked deep in his pockets, and after only a few moments searching he pulled out a small, blue leather bag. It was filled with a white paste. He took this, being very careful not to touch the paste itself with his fingers, and spread it in a large, two foot circle by squeezing it out the top of the bag. He would have made it larger, but there wasn’t much paste in the bag, and his reach was severely limited by the need to clutch a jutting brick ridge with his other hand. When he had completed the circle, he pulled back and gripped the wall with both hands. There wasn’t much time left.

He glanced into the interior of the elevator. Just at that instant one of the vampires rushed the glass and crashed into it with all the force he could muster. Startled, Donovan drew back. He lost hold with one hand and cried out. If his full body weight had come down unexpectedly like that on the one hand still gripping the wall, he’d have plummeted to the ground below. Cursing, he swung out from the building, wishing he’d been able to check the violence with which he’d kicked off. He needed to get back to that glass, to touch the circle he’d created and to finish what he’d started, but it was all he could do to hold on.

Inside the elevator, Bruno, who had panicked, was dragged from the glass by Vein and Kali, and held, kicking and screaming for release, as they all watched Donovan’s fight for purchase. He didn’t think he could drag himself back to the wall. His fingers were slipping. He felt his nails crumbling and his fingertips scraping painfully. His knuckles and wrist throbbed with the effort of maintaining his grip.

Everything slowed in that moment. He saw the faces of those trapped in the elevator clearly, the terror-stricken rage of the one, and the anxious attention of the others. He saw the circle he’d created on the glass, and knew he had to reach it.

A cry rose from above and behind him, and he cursed. He thought, just for a second, that it was another dragon, and his effort to whip about and verify this fear nearly dragged him from the wall. Then something heavy hit him in the back, and he spun toward the wall, gripping, clinging, finding purchase and hugging the brick. The second time the cry rose, he knew it for what it was.

“Three times, Asmodeus,” he breathed. “I owe you.”

He couldn’t see the bird, but he knew it had risen to circle far above. Donovan didn’t hesitate. It was now, or never. He reached out, pressed the tip of his nail to the outer edge of the circle of paste, turned his head from the elevator and pressed his cheek to the brick. He willed the heat down the length of his arm, commanding it to pick up speed at his elbow and flash through his fingers, where it erupted in a spark.

The paste didn’t light. Instead, a reddish glow circled the ring slowly, starting at the point he’d touched the paste and working around until the entire ring turned rosy red, blue, and then white. The brilliance of it was unbearable; Donovan averted his eyes, and the vampires shrank back in fear. The sun might have dropped from the sky to pay a close, personal visit it was so hot. Donovan was bathed in sweat, and he felt the skin on the back of his neck searing. Then, with an odd, wet sound, the center dropped out of the circle and fell away. It tumbled through the air, its edges molten and dripping, and crashed into the alley below with a tinkle of shattered glass and a hiss of steam.

The vampires didn’t hesitate. Though it was small, barely large enough to accommodate their shoulders, they were out that hole in seconds, ignoring the heat, paying no attention when their clothing, hair, and skin touched the molten glass and burned. They hit the wall like scurrying insects and crawled downward with incredible speed, hurrying toward the shadows, sewers, or whatever protection they could find from the rising sun. All but Vein.

The young vampire stood inside, stared out at Donovan, then reached through the hole and held out his hand. Donovan hesitated only a second then took the offered grip. He released his hold on the wall and swung out, and the moment he was directly in front of the molten hole in the elevator wall, Vein drew him through.

“You don’t eat much, do you?” Vein asked.

“It will wear off. Get out. I can handle this from here. You only have a few minutes.”

Vein hesitated, staring at the hole in the outer wall longingly.

“Go,” Donovan said, pushing lightly on Vein’s shoulder. “There’s nothing more you can do here. Either I can stop this, or I can’t, but you need to get out. The sun is rising.”

It was true. Vein nodded, dove through the hole, and was gone. Wisps of smoke marked his passage, and Donovan wondered briefly if it was already too late. He hoped the vampire would reach the ground and safety, but there was no more time to waste on it. He stepped to the inner door, pressed his amulet to it and spoke the command sharply. He felt resistance; there were charms and wards on that door, but they weren’t strong enough. There was a mechanical whir, the sound of heavy locks disengaging, and the glass slid aside. Beyond it the sliding metal doors opened onto an empty passageway, and Donovan dove through.

He sensed Amethyst’s presence, though he didn’t know where. He should have been able to locate her, but all he felt was the circle. It was huge, powerful, and no matter what the cost, he knew he had to stop it. He found the elevator shaft. The door was open, as Amethyst had left it. He glanced over the rim and saw that the car rested a ways below him. He reached out, gripped the ladder inside, and then dropped. He didn’t bother to climb down because he was still light. He floated the two floors to the elevator’s roof, scanned it, and found the maintenance hatch. He opened it and dropped through. Moments later he was in the passage, facing the large, ornate doors of Ezzel’s inner sanctum.

He started forward, and then froze. A blood-curdling scream rose, and he recognized it. Amethyst!

Donovan dove through the door, rolled to the side, and stared at the huge, smoke-curtained circle across the room. A cry erupted behind him, but this time he knew it instantly, and he called the bird, Asmodeus, to his shoulder. It landed heavily, nearly knocking him sprawling. The Thunderbird bag was wearing off, but he was still only about half his full weight.

Amethyst lay limp squeezed in a long, dark tentacle of shadow. She struggled feebly, but there wasn’t much fight left in her. Donovan turned away with an effort and concentrated on the circle. He knew he had to stop what was happening. He pulled a flat, clear crystal from his pocket and concentrated on it. He couldn’t break the protections, even for a quick glimpse of what was happening on the far side. He could drag bits and pieces of images from the recent past of the surrounding room, however, and piece some of it together.

The crystal fogged; stayed that way for what seemed forever, and was likely about two seconds, and then an image shimmered to life. It was a vial, the vial that held Vanessa’s blood. It rested on a long table, but that was all he could make out. He dropped the crystal back into his pocket and quickly walked the perimeter of the circle, as Amethyst had done. He found the crystals, felt their near resonance, and cursed sharply. His time was nearly gone.

Drawing a long, thin wand from a leather case on his hip, he held it before him with both hands. He dropped his head between his arms and concentrated, willing his essence up through his slender frame and into his arms. He sent it in waves down toward the thin strip of yarrow wood and the even thinner crystal tip. The stone was bound to the wand with a detailed weave of copper, bronze, gold and silver wire. As he drove his will down the length of the instrument, the crystal glittered, and then glowed brightly. The light was white and very bright, like that of the heat he’d used to melt the elevator wall, but somehow different. There was no heat, and though an aura of energy stretched up and out from that center, encasing him in a sheath of energy, there was no sound.

The old crow, Asmodeus, clutched his shoulder tightly, and Donovan reached out to it. He pictured what he wanted in his mind and pressed that image into the bird’s thoughts, forcing aside the few barriers remaining between them. Their bond, which had strengthened slowly since their first encounter in the old church, solidified in that moment. The bird knew his thoughts and acted.

Donovan pressed his mind to the outer circle, wove through tendrils of smoke and the whispered voices of demons to the crystals, and the portal. It was nearly complete, and instead of trying to disrupt that harmony, Donovan hastened it. In the same second that the timeline stones resonated as one, Asmodeus launched off of Donovan’s shoulder. The bird shot through that portal like an arrow, bursting through outer and inner circles without leaving a ripple, and disappeared from sight.

A heavy thump to his left told Donovan that the guardians of the protective ring had ceased their attack on Amethyst. Either she was dead, or they were coming after him. He couldn’t afford to think about it. If he allowed the fear to seep in and taint his thoughts, the portal would fail, and they would all die. He stood very still, concentrated, and waited, keeping that slim hole in the fabric of smoke and dreams open.

The portal hummed to life with sudden intensity, and Ezzel very nearly lost control. He sensed it before he heard the sound, and that moment’s warning saved him from total disaster. Something burst through into the circle, screeched like a banshee, and dove for the table. It was too late.

He had one final step to complete, and immortality would be his. None of the rest of it would matter. He didn’t even believe that he would be destroyed if the circle’s protections crumbled if the ritual was completed first. The building might cease to exist, but he would go on.

He heard his raven launch from its perch, and he braced himself against the pull of its mind on his own. The bird had been with him for nearly a decade, and their minds were linked very closely. He wanted badly to glance through the bird’s eyes and see what had entered the circle, but he didn’t’ dare turn from the ritual. He poured the ashes of the priest’s bone marrow carefully into a bowl in the center of the altar. He’d already added the other ingredients, one by one, stirring, mulching, pummeling some of it to paste and straining out imperfections. When the ashes were beaten in, only blood remained. The vial that held all that remained of Vanessa rested on a silver stand beside the bowl.

Something dark shot across in front of him, but he didn’t feel the familiar lurch — it was not the raven. He continued to mix the ingredients, fighting the urge to watch, to look and see what it was. There was so little left to do. Then the shadow returned, closer, and with lightning precision, Asmodeus plucked the vial from its stand.

Ezzel cried out. As he did so, he reached for the speeding bird, missed it, and his hand collided with the raven, diving in pursuit. The bird’s beak slashed Ezzel’s wrist, and he drew back. Blood poured from the wound in his wrist, and he held it up instinctively. The blood splashed down into the bowl, and the mixture sizzled. Ezzel clutched his wounded wrist and stared at the bubbling formula in horror. He backed away from the table, but it was too late.

His bird, stunned, wobbled to its feet. It recovered fast and made a lunge for the portal, where Asmodeus had disappeared from the ring. Ezzel turned, watching in horror. He was afraid the bird would break the ring — then as he realized what had just happened, he hoped it would break — mercifully — and blast them all to oblivion.

The raven shot into the opening, and it seemed it would burst through to the other side, but something stopped it. Ezzel stumbled toward the circle, watching the rear end of his familiar twitch in the grip of something and feeling the dark tendrils of that something reaching into his mind through the bird’s thoughts. It felt like ice.

On the altar, the bowl cracked, and he whirled, crying out a charm to prevent the mixture from spilling. It was only partially effective, and he saw the thick, viscous fluid leaking into jelly-like puddles on the altar. He started toward it, stopped, and dropped to his knees as pain shot through his limbs and stopped his heart.

Asmodeus shot back through the portal, past Donovan, and out of sight, clutching the vial of blood tightly. Donovan maintained the portal, shaking with the effort. If he released it suddenly, it would snap. The crystals would shatter, and all of them would cease to exist. He fought the hammering of his heart, watched the portal, and allowed it to close of its own accord. The crystals remained in resonance, but without the catalyst of his will, the portal was unfinished and incomplete.

As it closed, a dark head snapped through and Donovan gasped. He dropped his hold on the crystals too suddenly, but something prevented the portal from snapping. Something dark and sleek. Its head protruded from the mist and it glared at him in wild-eyed anger and hatred, unable to move. Donovan watched in dark fascination as the portal, unable to remain open, slowly forced its way through the creature’s flesh. The raven let out a pained squawk, but the sound died almost the second it was born. The bird hung loosely from the smoke, as Amethyst had dangled from the shadow tentacle moments before, and then it let go.

The bird’s body, severed cleanly, slid down to the floor against a surface that Donovan could not see, but only sense. There was no blood. It appeared that whatever force had dropped half the animal on the outside of the circle had separated it completely — turned the one animal into two separate, lifeless lumps of flesh, bone, and feathers.

Donovan spared it no more attention. The portal was closed. He whirled and saw that Amethyst had managed to roll over and push herself groggily up on her knees. He ran to her side and lifted her carefully.

“Nothing broken,” she said. Her breathing was pained, and she clutched her ribs tightly. “Might have cracked some ribs, but I’ll live.”

“We have to get out of here,” Donovan said. He glanced toward the door. Asmodeus had landed on a small table just inside the door and stood beside a large, clear crystal globe, watching them intently.

“Ezzel?” Amethyst asked, glancing back at the circle.

“He’s in there,” Donovan replied, “But the ritual will never be complete. He’s going to have to offer something to whatever he summoned, and I’m guess that nothing short of everything is going to do the trick. He won’t break the circle unless he’s certain there’s no other way out. I’m guessing that buys us time to get the hell out of the way.”

She nodded, shuddered, and he led her toward the door. When they reached Asmodeus, Donovan reached out and took the vial carefully from the old bird’s claw.

“Good work,” he said solemnly.

The bird ruffled its feathers, preened one wing, and stared back at him. There was no emotion to read in those dark, predatory eyes, but Donovan had no need to see. He felt the bond, and he smiled.

“Looks like your new friend is here to stay,” Amethyst said.

Donovan shrugged. Asmodeus hopped to his shoulder, and the three of them hobbled out of the room. The elevator still stood where Donovan had left it, and they stepped inside. It operated with a set of only four buttons, and he punched the lowest of these. The doors closed silently, and they began to descend.

Amethyst leaned heavily against him, and he knew that she was hurt more badly than she was letting on.

“Just a little more,” he said. “We’ll get out of here and to my place. I can help you with those ribs once we’re safe.”

She glanced up at the roof of the elevator, as if looking through the walls and floors to the room far above, and the circle. She knew as well as he did that if Ezzel chose to try and break the circle and escape, they were not far enough away to escape the damage. If he did that, the building would collapse around them and bury them in a mountain of steel and dust, and there was no spell, charm, or wards that either could call on to prevent such a thing.

The elevator reached the ground floor, and they stepped into a dark room. Donovan whispered a word, and the buttons on his jacket illuminated. They saw the outline of a door directly ahead, and made for it as quickly as they could.

“Neat trick” Amethyst whispered hoarsely. “You’ll have to show me how you made that work one day.”

“It’s a promise,” he answered. When they slipped out the door and closed it behind them, it disappeared into a perfectly white stone wall. They stood in the outer lobby of the Tefft complex. The five regular elevator doors were lined up down that wall. They walked to the front of the building, exited quickly, and with Asmodeus flying high over head, started down the street as quickly as Amethyst’s injured ribs would allow.

A few blocks away, Donovan led her into an alley, and after seven quick turns, they descended a short, dingy stair that opened onto the street across from Donovan’s home.

In the circle, Ezzel worked frantically at the altar. He tried charm after charm, but he was frightened, and the fear caused him to slip words in where they didn’t belong. He didn’t have much with him, because he hadn’t expected to need it. The bowl threatened to explode and plaster him with the imperfect formula, but he held it in check, barely, with a continually more complex web of containment spells.

At some point, his wrist began to throb where the raven had cut it. He ignored the pain and concentrated. He wished that Le Duc had been a better magician. There might have been more in the journal on controlling this ritual, or an escape if things went badly. There was nothing.

The throbbing grew more intense, and he glanced down impatiently. When he saw his wrist, he screamed. He clamped his other hand over the wound, but it was too late. The cut had opened wider, and blood seeped down his arm to soak his robes. He turned and lurched toward the portal, determined to try and break through at that one weak spot. He took a step, then another, and then was lifted from his feet violently. The wound in his wrist erupted in a geyser of blood. The blood gathered in the air, whirled, and drained down to the bowl through an invisible tube of energy. He struggled. He tried to speak, but something gripped his throat and prevented it, and eventually the struggles weakened.

When the last of his blood drained away, he dropped headlong, breaking the bowl and shattering the stands and vials. The wand he’d stolen from Alistair Cornwell cracked as it struck the stone floor, and the murky, sticky fluid in the bowl dripped slowly to the floor, forming a puddle that clotted, and then grew still.

The mist snapped from the circle as though inhaled by a god. It was there, and then it was not. There was no breeze, and no flame burned in candle or brazier. Cold and dead as its owner, the room stilled. Broken on the altar, the desiccated carcass that had been Lance Ezzel crumbled to dust.