A drunk taxi driver? Just what we needed stumbling onto the scene when we were trying to stop a serial killer.
I hesitated. Should we go over and make sure the occupants were okay? Find a phone and call 911?
Before I could decide, the taxi’s front passenger door flew open, and a man—at least the silhouette looked like a man from where I crouched—jumped out and ran east on Back Street, away from us. Guess he wasn’t going to pay a drunk driver who crashed the cab.
I started to move from our hiding place, but Mab grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Wait,” she breathed in my ear.
Across from the taxi, a garage door opened. Four figures streamed out and silently surrounded the car. One pulled open the driver’s door, and then gestured in the direction of the garage. A fifth figure emerged.
Myrddin.
I pulled out my pistol, the one loaded with bronze bullets. Mab’s restraining hand weighed on my arm.
The demi-demon carried a lidded jar. He held it close to his chest, one hand beneath and one on top, keeping the lid in place. He moved swiftly but carefully, gliding across the street like he didn’t want to shake the jar’s contents.
He’d said something about a jar—told someone he didn’t need it—when he’d tried to kill me.
My God. We were witnessing another Reaper murder.
Beside me, Mab moved to stand up. About halfway to her feet, she gasped and pressed a hand to her back. She cursed softly in Welsh. She yanked out her pendant and grasped the bloodstone with her left hand, murmured some words I didn’t catch, and sprang to her feet. When she hurled a blast of energy at Myrddin, it was like Zeus throwing a thunderbolt.
Myrddin didn’t even turn. He clutched the jar to his chest with one hand and flung out the other toward us, palm out like a traffic cop. A pulsing rectangle of energy met the blast and held it back. Sparks skittered against it. The energy streaming from Mab’s hand sputtered, then failed. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed against the car behind us.
Myrddin made a pushing motion in our direction. The shield sped toward us, accelerating as it came. “Get down!” I yelled. I ducked and curled into a ball on the ground, covering my head with my arms and trying to shelter under the SUV. The energy shield blasted into that vehicle and tossed it into the air. The SUV somersaulted over half a dozen other cars and landed on its roof.
I looked behind me, checking for Mab. She motioned that she was all right. She clasped the bloodstone, preparing for another blast.
I leapt to my feet. The hell with tossing energy around. I had a gun.
Shielding myself behind a van, I popped off three bronze bullets in fast succession. All three struck the target, hitting Myrddin once in the shoulder and twice in the back. The jar dropped from his hands, but he swooped and caught it before it hit the ground. As he moved, he changed. His human flesh split open to reveal ash-gray scales. His features twisted into glowing yellow eyes above a tusked snout. Horns shot forth from his head, leathery wings from his back. And he grew in height—ten, fourteen, eighteen feet.
On Storrow Drive, brakes screeched and metal slammed metal.
Myrddin’s demon form still clutched the jar. It looked like a dollhouse toy in the thing’s monstrous hands. The lid had gone askew, and taloned fingers fumbled to straighten it. I fired again, aiming for the jar, but the demon twisted and the bullet gouged its arm instead. Melting demon flesh dripped from the wound.
Protecting the jar with one hand, the Myrddin-demon pointed toward us with the other and roared. The four figures that surrounded the car simultaneously turned our way. I tried to duck out of their sight, but I wasn’t quick enough. They knew where we were. A creature thumped onto the roof of the van directly in front of us. It crouched there, eyes glowing orange, drool hanging in strings from its fangs. Vampire.
One shot knocked him off the car roof. The bullet was bronze, so it wouldn’t slow him down for more than a minute, but it gave me time to draw my dagger and silver-loaded gun. Another vampire landed on the roof of the car behind us, and two more figures stood between us and Back Street. With a brick wall behind us, we were surrounded.
But I still had a gun.
The second vampire sprang at us. I shot him with silver in midair. His arms and legs pinwheeled, and he hit Mab square in the chest, knocking her onto her back. The vampire, squirming with pain, crumpled in a heap on top of her. Mab stabbed him with her silver dagger and strained to push him off her, but he didn’t budge. She was too weak. He reared back his head and sunk his fangs into Mab’s side. I buried my dagger in his neck, half-turning as I did to face the two who rushed us from the street. I nailed the first with a dead-on head shot. He fell, and his buddy tripped over him. I tracked the fall, aiming at his head. He looked up, terror in his eyes. “Please,” he said, “I’m human.”
I recognized this guy—he was one of the vampire junkies who’d grabbed me in the Zone. He’d shown no mercy then, handing me over to Myrddin and the Old Ones for torture and death. Why should I show any now? My gun didn’t waver.
A tremor shook the human and he vomited in the street.
Something hit me from the side, slamming me against a car so hard my head shattered the driver’s side window. Blood streamed into my eyes, blinding me. A hand grabbed my wrist and banged it, over and over, against the side of the car. Bones cracked. I dropped the gun.
A body leaned into me, pinning me against the car. Fingers tangled themselves in my hair and yanked my head forward. I blinked frantically, trying to clear the blood from my eyes. Fetid breath, rank with grave rot, washed over my face. A hand wiped my eyes, and the vampire I’d shot with bronze came into focus. He sniffed at my cheek. Fast as a snake’s, his tongue flicked out to taste my blood. He pulled back, nose wrinkling. “Shapeshifter,” he said with disgust. Vampires won’t drink the blood of weres or shapeshifters. It makes them lose control of their physical forms, turning them into hybrids of other creatures.
The orange eyes narrowed. “I can still rip out your throat.”
“Do not!” thundered a voice. The vampire’s head snapped to the right. Myrddin, again in his human form, stood over the two humans sprawled on the pavement, holding his jar and looking smug. Blood stained his clothes around several bullet holes, but he held himself as though uninjured. He glanced down at the human who’d pleaded for his life, then gave the prostrate form a vicious kick. “Get up,” he said. The human scrambled to his feet and scuttled behind Myrddin.
Myrddin turned back to the vampire who held me. “No throat-ripping. Not here. I want both of them in the safe house. We’ll use that one to complete the reawakening spell. For this one”—he jerked his chin toward Mab—“I have other plans.” The vampire snarled, but he pulled back.
I looked at Mab. The wounded vampire still pinned her down. She should have been able to lift him off and throw him across Storrow Drive into the Charles, but she struggled under him. She was so weak. I should have made her go home.
“Get me the pendant the old woman is wearing,” Myrddin said. Mab’s bloodstone lay on the ground by her shoulder.
The vampire holding me threw me onto the ground and pressed his foot on my neck to keep me there. I landed on something that dug painfully into my shoulder blade. Gravel pressed into my cheek. My broken wrist throbbed. The vampire bent over Mab.
My right hand was useless, and though I tried I couldn’t lever his boot off me one-handed. The lump under my shoulder blade, I thought, was my gun. I groped around on the asphalt for my dagger, but I couldn’t locate it.
The vampire straightened, Mab’s pendant dangling from his hand. He tossed the bloodstone to Myrddin; it sailed over me, chain trailing behind it like a comet.
Mab quit struggling and lay limp on the ground.
“Excellent.” Myrddin giggled behind me, where I couldn’t see him. “Now I wear the bloodstone. How does it look—does it suit me?” His lips made smacking noises. “It’s been a long time since I had a taste of that power. Very nice, old thing. I can even taste the old days.” More smacking. “But dilute. Funny, I thought your power would be richer. I expected vintage wine, but it’s more like small beer. I guess you had me fooled, old girl. Now . . .” His voice darkened. “Speaking of weakness.”
The whimpered response could only be from the terrified human who cringed behind him.
“You groveled before an enemy. You begged for mercy. You are not worthy to serve your masters.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Please—” The man’s words were cut off by an agonized scream. A second later the scream, too, was cut off.
“I cannot abide weaklings,” Myrddin said, as casually as if he were expressing a distaste for broccoli. “Now, you, vampire. I can never remember all these ridiculous vampire names. Pull that silver out of your friend and have him help you remove the two shapeshifters.” A siren sounded in the distance. “Do it quickly.”
The crushing pressure on my windpipe shifted as the vampire stretched to reach the silver knives that impaled his companion. I arched my back a little, just enough to allow some space where my pistol dug in. With my left hand, I reached behind me, feeling for the gun. I touched its grip. If I could move my shoulder a little more . . .
Pain sharpened as the vampire stepped harder on my neck. “Stay still,” he growled, “or I’ll—”
There was a grunt. The pressure on my neck let up as the vampire toppled over. I grabbed the gun and sat up, my finger on the trigger, praying I could aim left-handed.
“Don’t shoot!”
Juliet raised her hands, still holding a silver stake. On the ground beside her lay the vampire, writhing, the other stake protruding from his chest. Juliet pouted. “You started without me.”
I exhaled. Then I turned the gun on the fallen vampire and shot him four times. At such close range, left-handed didn’t matter. The vampire jumped and jerked and then lay still. Four silver bullets through his heart would make sure he never got up again. Already, he was disintegrating into dust.
