Leo needed a good lesson in manners, but I had to survive this situation first.
I returned my attention to the bricked-up room. Sabina was slumped in a chair in the corner, her habit slashed, her olive skin exposed. She was chained with silver. Bites were everywhere, as if they had blood-drained her and then left her body wrapped in chains, silver chains tight and burning against her flesh. Sabina didn’t drink often, holding to a lifestyle of self-restraint and iron discipline, the epitome of the Mithran vampire. Her age gave her a natural resistance to silver, but she had been drained, left weak; the silver had inflamed and blacked her skin. Some of the fang marks were tiny. At some point, they had turned the long-chained loose on her, and the vamps had attacked her. The outclan priestess had also been burned, her torso, neck, and face. Hundreds of tiny pinpoint burns were weeping vampire blood or were burned black.
Her glove was missing, her burned hand exposed. The hand she had nearly lost handling the Blood Cross to save lives. So much history in this woman. So much pain and promise. Yet even so weakened, Sabina was protecting another. Behind her, in the corner against the wall, was Amy Lynn Brown. The young vampire was crouched, her face full of terror, tears streaking her cheeks. She was under a hedge of thorns working. Somehow, Sabina had put Amy under a ward, protecting her.
I had to break Sabina’s chains. If she was free, Sabina could drink from the still-crazy long-chained and find her strength. Get away. And take Amy with her. But the chains would be much stronger, harder to break in bubbled time. I bent over and examined them, following the largest chain around to the back. It was held in place with a lock, the old-fashioned version of a keyed padlock, the outer case corroded green metal, the hasp steel. It had a keyhole in the middle.
Le Bâtard’s necklace had been strung with a key. I spun back into the hallway and lifted the necklace off over the vamp’s head without touching him. Carried it back to the bricked room and opened the old lock. “Et voilà!” I said. And stopped. I didn’t speak French, but I understood a lot more than I had once upon a time. I’d even picked up a few phrases, it seemed.
It took effort to peel the chains off Sabina, and they moved with a hollow, dull clanking noise, the sound waves slowed and deep. I dropped them and they hung in midair. I put the necklace from her tormenter in her lap. Maybe she could make good use of the other trinkets on it.
I went back into the main room and got a feel for where everyone was, all the combatants, even Gee, whom I had ignored while outside of real time. He looked as he always did, except his magics were more pronounced, his glamour less effective. I could see feathers on his arms, which was freaky.
I got into position, drew two vamp-killers, and dropped time.
Clamor and screams battered my ears. Blood spurted across the walls and into the main room. Gunshots sounded from the hallway—Eli shooting the vamps. Grégoire stumbled through the doorway. A steel foil swinging in the air behind him. The silver-plated point of the sword was buried in Blondie’s back. No one was holding it. But at least he hadn’t stuck himself with the switchblade.
He whipped his head back, saw whatever was happening in the hallway, and tripped. Caught his fall. Pushed off the floor with one hand, took three steps and reached back. He ripped the sword out of his body. Blood flew. Grégoire saw me and vamped out, a snarl on his mouth. “Putain t’étais où, bordel!”
That one I hadn’t heard before. Pretty sure it was cussing in some form. Before I could reply, lightning hit the building.
The flash was massive. So bright I went blind. Was thrown across the room, my skin burning as if it were being flayed off me. Time bubbled, bubbled, bubbled. Lightning shocked through me in a colossal thrust of energy.
And then it was gone. I landed hard. Skidded. Rolled. The pain vanished. My sight returned. I heaved breaths. Heat burned through my pocket. The pocket where I’d stashed the weapon made from my flesh. The Glob had protected me from lightning and magic. The weapon was branding my skin and burning my pelt, but I’d take that over a lightning strike.
Grégoire, however, was down, as was Gee, both blinded by the light. I raced to the hallway to see two vamps with partially severed heads, evidence of multiple gunshots, and my partner blinking against the booming brilliance. Lightning blind and probably temporarily deaf. “You okay, my brother?” I shouted in New Orleans’ lingo.
Blinking hard, he turned in my general direction and shouted back. “Yeah. Are they down?”
“Yes. Excellent work!”
I spun back to the room. Gee was getting up off the floor, half his glamour gone, iridescent feathers visible, in shades of sapphire and scarlet, the stink of singed feathers hot and acrid on the air. He looked punch-drunk, blinking against the too-bright light.
Grégoire crawled upright in one of those not-human movements the fangheads do when they’re hurt or not aping human, elbows and hips high, body low, hands splayed on the concrete, a sword in one, a switchblade in the other.
I heard a hum from the side. From the cage. Where the lightning had been drawn by the rod. Right. Red motes of power were buzzing around the geode. The magic looked wrong, out of sequence, just zapping here and there, like sparklers in the hands of a three-year-old child. Adan was out cold on the floor by the geode. His hands were scorched to the bone.
Soul walked in through the open garage door. Behind her was a woman in blue. Or a blue woman wearing blue. Both were staring at the geode in the cage. “All arcenciels are in your debt,” Soul said. “You are accumulating a large repository of boons and debt favors that gift you with much power.”
“Whatever. This is not a good time,” I said, sheathing vamp-killers and pulling weapons of more modern heritage, working both slides as I did. “Grégoire.” I pointed both barrels at him. “Stop. I’ll fill you with silver if you don’t.”
“Putain de merde, t’étais où, bordel?” he snarled at me. “On attendaient que tu arrives, pendant qu’ils nous torturaient!”
I wasn’t sure what I had done, but it sounded awful. The blue woman spun to him, insubstantial gauzy skirts billowing out. “No! Not her!” She pointed to me. “The message you received was not from this one! It was a ruse.”
Soul held up a hand and Grégoire stopped. Blue Girl took Soul’s gauzy skirts in her hands and slipped close, wrapping the skirts around her legs, as if sliding under a wing. Her bright blue eyes were on me. Soul said, “Cerulean tells me that you are betrayed. By one you do not expect.”
Grégoire stopped his crawl. Got to his feet. “Put away your weapons,” he said to me, as if they were toys not to be bothered with. To Soul he said, “Who has betrayed us?”
Soul turned to me instead of answering him. “You have a problem that we might solve.”
“Yeah?” I challenged.
“That”—she pointed at the cage and the sparkling geode—“is a time trap. It calls to us. If it takes us in, broken as it is now, it becomes a weapon. If it detonates, the explosion will wipe out most of New Orleans. You can deactivate it while in a bubble of time.”
“What?” I said. “How? It comes with an instruction manual?”
Soul didn’t even smile. “It isn’t difficult. It is vibrational, a drumming magic.”
Which I had never heard of. Drumming magic? “Why not you? Or him?” I pointed at Gee, who dropped to a knee at the side of Louis.
“All other time-benders will be imprisoned,” she said. “Only you have the skills and the ability to move through time that is neither arcenciel time nor Anzu time. But you must hurry.”
“Well, crap. Of course I have to deactivate a bomb that’s going to wipe out the city. Why not?” I leaned to her and snarled, “I don’t believe you. I think you just want me to destroy a trap that scares you silly.” Soul didn’t blink, but Little Girl Blue twitched. Gotcha.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” I said. “There’s problems at HQ. I’ll deactivate your bomb. But in return, the arcenciels, all of you, will agree to support Leo and the city against the rest of the European vampires. You will make a fast parley, agree to terms within one hour of the onset of negotiations, to begin at dawn, and you will support him and us against them.”