Magic Bleeds kd-4 Page 22

Solomon laughed in Erra’s voice.

  Usually I saved my magic as a last resort, but this was the old power and now wasn’t a good time to screw around. I had to hit him now and hit him hard.

  I took a deep breath and barked a power word. “Ossanda.” Kneel.

  The world reeled in a haze of pain. Like grabbing a handful of my own flesh and ripping it out. I reeled, but didn’t go down.

  Solomon’s mouth gaped open. A dull roar like the sound of a rockslide spilled from his lips. His knees hit the dirt. Who’s laughing now?

  The holes in the ground closed. I ran.

  The power word had drained too much of my magic, and every step turned into a battle of will. Like dragging lead chains. I kept running.

  Snow flew under my feet. Solomon shuddered. Thick cords of muscle bulged on his thighs.

  Ten feet.

  Six.

  Three.

  I struck in a classic overhead blow designed to cleave through his neck. As I swung, dirt thrust between us. The saber’s blade sliced through soil and came away clean. Missed. Shit.

  A thick mound jutted where Solomon had knelt. Trying to thrust through it would break the blade and accomplish nothing.

  “First, you kneel, then you hide. So far I’m not impressed.”

  The mound exploded. Chunks of dirt pelted the snow. Solomon lunged at me, laughing.

  I dodged and carved at his side. Slayer sliced a narrow line just under Solomon’s ribs. Red gushed. Solomon whipped about and backhanded me. The punch smashed into my chest. I flew, slid through the snow, and crashed against something. Cold sliced my right side, as if someone had thrust an icicle into my kidney. My lungs burned. Colored circles swam before my eyes. I must’ve hit my head.

  I squinted—the body of a broken golem. Warm sticky liquid wet my side. I wanted a shower to wash it off . . . Yep, definitely hit my head.

  “Shake it off,” Erra said. “Come on. Up you go.”

  I jerked myself free. The golem’s spear jutted out, propped by its corpse, and its spearhead was red with my blood. Just what I need.

  “Have your eyes cleared yet?”

  “Hold your horses. I’m coming.” Yeah, not so much.

  “From where I stand, you’re just breathing laboriously.”

  The snow swam in and out of focus. “Breathing hard. Are you coming or just breathing hard. You’ve got to get your one-liners straight.”

  “Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

  The blurry haze cleared and I saw Solomon charging at me on all fours.

  No time. I braced my back against the golem and gripped Slayer with both hands.

  Solomon loomed over me. “Time to pray.”

  I kicked my leg up, catching him in the gut, and thrust into his chest. Slayer slid into the flesh between his ribs. The point met resistance and it vanished.

  Solomon’s huge hands tried to grip at me, but my foot on his stomach held him back. Pressure ground at my bones. God, he was a heavy bastard. I twisted the blade, trying to rupture the heart.

  “Give it up,” I squeezed out. “I hit the heart.”

  Erra snorted. “I know. Do you have any idea how many bodies I had to go through to get him?”

  The light shrank. Earth piled around us. A few moments and we’d be buried.

  The wound gnawed at my side. My saber was caught, and sinking silver needles into the undead would be like poking him with toothpicks—slightly painful but ultimately futile.

  Solomon dug his feet in. His fingers scratched my neck.

  There wasn’t enough air. “Would you just let him die already?”

  “He doesn’t have much left, don’t worry. You do talk a lot. Like a little squirrel in a tree, chirp-chirp-chirp.”

  I barely saw the light above us. If the earth built up any more, Solomon would collapse on me when he died for the second time. I would suffocate, buried alive. “Your animal impressions are stunning.”

  Solomon jerked right. His hand grasped my arm, he ducked his head, and pain clenched my forearm.

  She made her undead bite me. “What the hell?”

  Solomon grinned. “Little squirrel! You taste like family.”

  Oh, shit.

  A shaggy shape hit Solomon, snarling and snapping teeth. Solomon jerked and extra weight pressed on me as the dog tore into Solomon’s back. I cried out. Solomon swiped with his arm, knocking the poodle aside. His weight shifted, and I grabbed my throwing knife.

  “Don’t touch my dog.”

  Solomon laughed. “How curious. Hugh’s been keeping secrets. No wonder. That’s the trouble with hired help: without ambition, they are useless, with ambition—”

  I stabbed my throwing knife into Solomon’s throat. “Severed carotid. Enjoy.”

  Blood gushed from Solomon’s mouth, drenching my face. “See you soon,” he gurgled.

  Solomon’s eyes went blank. He shuddered once and crashed on top of me.

  Erra had bailed.

  I strained and pushed Solomon’s corpse to the side, into the dirt.

  A moment later a smelly tongue licked my face, covering my skin with the fine perfume of day-old roadkill.

  I hugged the furry neck. “Okay, okay. Let me up now.”

  The poodle leaped away, excited. I got to my feet. The cut in my side screeched in protest. An earthen wall rose up to my waist. I clutched on to it, so I wouldn’t tip over.

  Solomon lay facedown. I kicked him. It didn’t make me feel that much better. I kicked him again, just in case, and realized I was looking at a spear sticking out of his back.

  The ward went down. People rushed from the Temple, heading toward me.

  Where the hell had the spear come from?

  A man reached me. “Are you hurt?”

  “Who threw the spear?”

  He shrank back. “I’m a medic. I can help you.”

  I tried to speak slowly in my nonthreatening voice. “Where did the spear come from?”

  He blinked. “I don’t know, I didn’t see.”

  I grabbed the spear and strained. Sonovabitch, really in there. I put my foot on the body, crushing a few black needles, and pulled hard. The spear came free. It used to belong to one of the golems. Someone had picked it up and hurled it. Someone with great strength.

  Someone had reported my crawling around the pole with Joshua’s body on it. Someone had watched me from the ruins. And now someone had skewered Solomon and vanished. I was really getting tired of all the secrecy.

  Little squirrel. You taste like family. See you later.

  She recognized the blood, but she didn’t know who I was. If I were her, I’d track me down. I’d get into my house, learn anything I could about me, and look for anything I could use as leverage. I knew this would eventually happen and it finally did. All my friends had just acquired a huge bull’s-eye on their backs.

  Julie. I had Julie’s pictures in the house.

  I had to get home.

  I had to warn the Pack.

  I spun around and saw Marigold lying on her side in red snow.

  Oh, God. I stumbled toward her and broke into a run.

  “Wait!” the medmage chased me.

  Marigold lay unmoving, her head jerked high. The twisted wreck of a golem’s spear jutted from her neck. She must’ve been hit when Erra was throwing shit around.

  I dropped into the snow and grabbed her head. Her eyes stayed dark. Her long eyelashes didn’t move.

  “Can you fix her?”

  “She is dead,” the medmage said.

  She killed my Marigold. The bitch killed my Marigold. I’d used this mule for a year. I’d brought her carrots, brushed her out, and relied on her to carry me into a brawl or storm. Now she was dead, killed as an afterthought.

  I staggered to my feet. I had to get to the phone.

  People jumped out of my way. I marched up the steps and grabbed the first warm body. “Phone?”

  “Inside, to the right.”

  I ran inside, made a right into a small room, and gr
abbed the phone. Work. Work, damn you, work, work.

  Dial tone. Yes!

  I dialed the Keep. A man picked up. I barked, “Curran. Now.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Kate Daniels. I’m the agent of—”

  The phone clicked and Curran’s voice filled the phone. “Leave a message.”

  “The Steel Mary’s name is Erra. If any of your people fight her, she will make you go mad. It’s her specialty. She served Roland, which means she came here to kill the Pack. Be careful. Don’t fight her directly if you can—”

  The call cut out. I’d reached the message limit.

  I dialed the Order. Maxine came on the line.

  “I need a pickup at the Temple.”

  “I’m sorry, dear, but everyone is out.”

  “Andrea?”

  “She’s out helping Mauro.”

  I hung up and punched in Jim’s number. He picked up on the second ring.

  “I need help.”

  “You just now figured this out?”

  I tried to speak calmly. “I’m at the Temple. I just ran into the Steel Mary and I need to get home before she makes it there.”

  “I’ll have a car there in twenty minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  I went outside. Three rabbis approached me. The older woman, Weiss, and a man who had to be in his seventies. With long pure white hair and an equally white beard, he looked positively ancient and he walked with a limp, leaning on an ornate staff.

  “You’ve brought this to the Temple.” He indicated the golem graveyard with the sweep of his hand. “You are no longer welcome here. Leave.”

  Oh, that’s just peachy. I pointed to Solomon. “Burn the body. Don’t touch the blood. If you experience any symptoms of illness, immediately contact Biohazard.” I pointed at the medic. “You! Patch me up.”

  “Did you not hear?” The woman stared at me, incredulous.

  “I have a Mary with pandemic potential who pilots undead mages and who is fixing to raid my house. Everyone I’ve ever known is about to become a target. Being banned by the Temple is the least of my worries.”

  EVERY STEP I TOOK JABBED A DULL, COLD PAIN INTO my side. My skin felt wet under the dressing. The wound had come open. The Temple medic was very good, but the cut simply hadn’t had enough time to heal. At least the dressing had been well applied, so the blood should stay put.

  I made it to the bridge and slumped into the snowdrift. Grendel licked me and ran away to paint the snow yellow.

  I had to get home.

  A car shot across the bridge way too fast. Metallic black, it had the body of a hot rod that had somehow sprouted Indyracer-style front wheels. Painted red flames stretched from its front over the hood, licking a bizarre horned skull with the words DEMON LIGHTNING painted above it. Its backside bubbled up, struggling to contain a monster of an enchanted water engine.

  The car hurtled past me, braked in a spray of snow, and stopped two feet away. The driver side window slid down, revealing a tiny Indonesian woman. I’d met her before. She was the Pack’s resident mythology expert. She was also a vegetarian, and when she turned into her animal, which happened to be a cross-eyed white tiger, she refused to bite anything that would bleed into her mouth.

  She was also blind as a bat.

  Dali peered at me through her glasses and nodded at the car. “Get in!”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

  “Get in, Kate!”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “That’s a 1999 Plymouth Prowler. Also known as Pooki.” I bet Jim thought he was funny. “Dali, you can barely see. You can’t drive.”

  Dali stuck her nose in the air. “Watch me.”

  No choice. I screamed for Grendel, stuffed him into the car, got in, and buckled my seat belt.

  Dali floored it. Snow burst on both sides of the car and we shot forward. The wooden planks thudded under the Prowler’s weight. The bridge curved ahead. Dali showed no indication of slowing down.

  “Dali, there is a turn.”

  The turn rushed at us.

  “Dali . . .”

  The Prowler sped up, straight as an arrow.

  “Turn! Turn left!”

  The wooden rail loomed before us. The Prowler veered left, turning so sharply it almost careened. I held my breath. For a second we were weightless, and then all four wheels landed on solid ground.

  “I saw it.” Dali pushed her Coke-bottle glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I’m not blind, you know. Hold on to your seat, there is another turn coming up.”

  If I survived this, I’d kill Jim with my bare hands.

  The car squealed and missed the rail by a hair.

  Dali’s happy face swung into my view. “I know your kryptonite.”

  “What?”

  “Kryptonite. It’s the rock that could take down Superman?”

  I stared at her.

  Dali grinned. “You’re scared of my driving.”

  It wasn’t driving. It was suicide by car. “I need to tell you about Erra.” I clenched my fists as the car fishtailed. “So you can tell Jim.”

  Dali made a face. “Why do I get the privilege?”

  “Because you’re a Pack expert with a proven record and you can back up what I say with your own research. He’ll listen to you and I don’t have time to explain things to him myself right this second.”

  She looked at me. “Kate? Is this something really, really bad? Because you have that clenched-teeth look . . .”

  “Watch the road!”

  She swerved, avoiding an overturned wreck of a truck. “I have it under control.”

  “What do you know about Babylon?”

  “Not much. My expertise is in the Asian region. It was a Mesopotamian city-state that sprung up around the third millennium BCE and eventually grew into an empire. Sargon of Akkad claimed to have built it. Mesopotamia is considered to be the cradle of civilization and Babylon is mostly famous for the Code of Hammurabi, which was the first written code of laws, and the Hanging Gardens, which was the first time a man had to restructure the city to get laid. I think the name means ‘Gateway of the Gods,’ although nobody quite knows why.”

  Her definition of “not much” needed work. “It was called Gateway because it was the first city built after Eden.”

  She turned back to the windshield. “Babylon dates back to three thousand years before the Common Era. It’s too recent.”

  “That’s the new Babylon. The old Babylon was almost completely built with magic, and when the tech came, it crumbled to the ground, just like that.” I pointed at Downtown’s architectural graveyard through the window. “The old Babylon was over twelve thousand years old when the Common Era rolled around.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Not important. Have you ever read the poem of Erra?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a poem that acts as an amulet against diseases in general and a god called Erra in particular. It was found chiseled on stone tablets all over Babylon. More copies of it exist than there are copies of the Gilgamesh epic.”

  Dali whistled. “Gilgamesh was their big daddy.”

  “Yes, but they weren’t that scared of him. They were very scared of Erra, so scared, they cut the poem into every available stone surface. According to the story, Erra was the god of plagues, fear, and madness. He had seven warriors at his disposal: Torch, Tremor, Deluge, Gale, Beast, Venom, and Darkness. The first four had elemental powers.”

  “Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind.” Dali nodded.

  “Beast was a monster. Venom is self-explanatory.”

  “And Darkness?”

  I shook my head. “Nobody knows.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you just love when that happens?”

  “The poem goes on about how Erra and his advisor called Ishum came to Babylon and destroyed it. The poem is also wrong. Erra wasn’t the one in charge, Ishum was. The Babylonians were so terrified of Erra, they put him i
n charge just to be on the safe side. They also made him male.”

  “Wait, Erra was a girl?”

  “Yes. Erra is a woman and Ishum is Roland.”

  Dali said nothing. She clenched the wheel tighter—her knuckles turned white.

  I kept going. “About 6200 BC, Roland and Erra were running around and conquering Mesopotamia. They were young and this was their first big war. They came across Babylon, which was ruled by Marduk, who was unimaginably ancient by this point. He used to be monstrously powerful, but he had grown old and senile. The world moved on. Marduk didn’t and he knew it. He was content to rule Babylon, his last city, the gem of the ancient world. It was a large thriving metropolis, built almost entirely with deep magic, and he was very proud of it.

  I knew this story very well. Voron had told it to me long ago, except in his version Erra was a man. Even Roland’s War-lords didn’t know everything about him.

  “Roland decided they didn’t have the troops to hold the city. Marduk was greatly revered, so they’d have to put up with a lot of native resistance and the infrastructure was too complex to easily take it over. Roland makes war to acquire, not to subjugate. He wants to take cities with minimal damage, install his own government, and build them up to make them better. He moved on. But Erra dug her heels in. Something about Marduk must’ve rubbed her the wrong way.

  “Erra took a chunk of Roland’s army, and along with her seven, they invaded Babylon. She took the city and ran Marduk out, but the Babylonians refused to bend over and take it. Erra decided to break Babylon. She bombarded them with plagues and let the seven run amok in the city. Halved the population, wrecked the holy places, engaged in unbelievable atrocities. It was hell on earth. When there was nothing left to hold, she left. Marduk later came back to the city and rebuilt it, but it took centuries for it to rise to prominence again. What we know now as Babylon from archaeological records is a pale imitation of what once was.” I looked at Dali to make sure she understood. “They had magic defenses that we can’t even dream of. And Erra crushed them and walked away laughing. I need you to tell this story to Jim.”

  Dali swallowed. “Why?”

  “Because Erra is here. Curran killed Deluge and I just took out Tremor.”

  “Is she after us?”

  “I think so. She has her seven warriors with her. They are undead. She pilots them like vampires.”