Kitty’s Big Trouble (24 page)

“Maybe it is,” he said. “They still came from him.”

The idea seemed chancy, but it also gave me a little hope. If Roman was still around then so was Henry, so was the pearl. All wasn’t lost, yet.

“We have to try,” I said, pulling the coin from my pocket and giving it to Cormac.

The vampire closed her eyes, and for a moment was so still she seemed truly dead. Her chest was still, her skin lacked color. I could push her and she’d fall over.

Finally, she opened her eyes and said, “I would love to see that devil gone. Forever, so he can never hurt anyone else.”

Xiwangmu said, “I agree that Gaius Albinus will look for a chance to destroy you. You can use that desire against him.”

Anastasia nodded. “Yes. Let’s catch Roman.”

We made a plan.

The problem was, we didn’t know anything about Roman’s guide. He or she was Chinese, most likely, to know the secrets, tricks, and magic of the tunnels. Sun Wukong and Xiwangmu seemed confident that he or she was a god. They also said there were hundreds of Chinese gods and goddesses. “Even we need books to keep track of them all,” Sun said, laughing. Still joking at a time like this.

Whoever it was, Roman had kept the guide hidden. We didn’t know what its powers were, or its weaknesses. Now, had Roman hidden the guide because he/she/it was weak? Or because he was a powerful ace in the hole that Roman would only use in an emergency? Like if, say, Sun Wukong showed up again?

Assuming we could draw them both out—assuming that Roman hadn’t decided to flee since he had the pearl and he didn’t need to bother with Anastasia—we had to hope we had enough firepower to get the pearl back and drive them both off, if not destroy them entirely.

It would be such a relief to drive that stake through Roman’s heart here and now, and never worry about him again.

We didn’t have much time to gather supplies and organize. Dawn was close—I was afraid that Roman had left Henry senseless on street level in full view of sunrise where he’d go up in flames at the first hint of daylight. Cormac made a whole list of items he wanted—a crossbow, wooden bolts, holy water, stakes, crosses. Sun Wukong found him a crossbow, and Cormac looked at it askance—it was old, the wood weathered, the mechanism stiff and unwieldly, as if it hadn’t been used in a century. I think he was hoping for something big and modern, made of plastic and steel.

Grace had a bag full of charms, spells, and unlikely weapons—sticks of incense, bells and rattles, firecrackers. “Noises drive off demons,” she explained.

“So I could just scream real loud?” I wasn’t helping very much. All I had were my convictions. And teeth and claws, if it came to that.

Xiwangmu was our ace in the hole, which meant she was staying here. It seemed somehow unfair. I was in awe of her, but also perplexed. I didn’t know how to act around her. Maybe she really was a god and not some powerful sorceress with delusions of grandeur. But she wasn’t
my
god. The world may have been stranger than even I ever imagined, but I wasn’t going to fall on my knees before every being who came along claiming to be divine. Seemed like a person could get in a lot of trouble doing that.

“My warrior days are behind me,” she said, seeing us off at the doorway to her garden.

“I thought gods were supposed to be eternal. Once a warrior, always a warrior,” I said.

Her smile was amused—and way too human. She didn’t match my idea of divinity—austere, distant, unknowable. Metaphor and literary invention. Obviously, I was going to have to think about this.

“We live our lives same as anyone else.”

I pursed my lips. “Does that mean you can die?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

She folded her hands before her, so they were hidden in the sleeves of her robe. “I will be here, if you need refuge.”

If this went badly, we’d have someplace to flee to. But if this went that badly, I wasn’t sure we’d have the opportunity.

Sun Wukong’s job was to deliver the Dragon’s Pearl to Xiwangmu. If our trap failed, if Roman turned it back on us, he would do everything he could to retrieve it and then flee. That was his priority. He would help us if he could, but we weren’t as important as the pearl. They hadn’t actually said that, but the implication was clear, and Anastasia and Grace had seemed to take the conclusion as a matter of course.

I wasn’t so sure that was the best strategy. I had my own plan, unspoken to the others: to protect my pack, Ben and Cormac, and get us out of there safe. If we could bring down Roman, fine. But I wouldn’t do that at the cost of my pack, and I wouldn’t defend the pearl at the cost of my pack. A wise wolf gave up a difficult hunt. You didn’t want to spend more calories than you’d get from the kill. Simple economics.

Six of us went into the tunnel, which closed us in darkness as soon as the door shut. Grace lit her lantern, and with her leading, we traveled down the tunnel to find our battleground. Cormac walked a step behind her, both Anastasia’s and the Dodge City coins in hand. Amelia had some kind of spell planned for them. We’d see.

Only Grace’s footsteps scraped on the stone floor. The rest of us were hunters, warriors. I watched, eyes and ears straining, for any hint of our enemy. Tipping my nose up, I breathed deep to take in as much of the air, as many scents, as I could. All I smelled was stone and incense.

Ben and Cormac stayed within reach; I always knew where they were.

The tunnel opened into a room, not terribly spacious—twenty by twenty, maybe. Large enough to move in, small enough to be defensible. The problem was, each of the four walls had an open doorway leading to another tunnel. This was a crossroads, and Roman could come from anywhere.

“I don’t like this,” I said. “Too many ways to sneak up on us.”

“No, we can use this,” Cormac said. He produced tools and items, the ones he’d used for the compass spell earlier. He drew the chalk circle and design on the floor, set the mangled coins—both Anastasia’s and the one from Dodge City—within the circle, then set a silver dagger in the middle.

Holding my breath, I watched.

The dagger scraped on the stone floor as it began to turn. It inched clockwise, then slipped counterclockwise, more confidently, turning until it stopped—pointing solidly at one of the doorways.

“So he’s there?” I said.

“Yes,” Anastasia said. “He’s coming.”

Oh. Well then.

“Let’s go, then,” Cormac said, scooping up the objects and scuffing out the chalk markings. He then went to one of the corners, set down his bundle of stakes, and worked to draw the crossbow.

Ben squeezed my hand. We stood in the center of the room, side by side, facing the doorway the dagger had marked. The tunnel beyond looked like a black throat.

Grace was laying strings of firecrackers around all four walls. If she had to set those things off, it was going to get real loud in here. My ears hurt just thinking about it.

Anastasia waited in the middle of the room, placing herself in the line of fire as bait. Sun Wukong stationed himself in the opposite corner as Cormac, where he smiled over the proceedings, leaning on his staff, which had reappeared as inexplicably as it had vanished. His otherworldly sense of amusement was starting to wear thin.

Finished with the firecrackers, Grace lit four sticks of incense and set them in each corner. After that, I couldn’t smell much from the tunnels, just the spicy-sweet reek of the burning sticks.

“Is that really necessary?” Ben said. She’d blinded us, scent-wise.

“Yes,” she snapped back.

My shoulders were bunched, my hackles raised. I had to wonder, had we set this trap for Roman, or had he set it for us?

“Keep it together,” Ben whispered, pressing his shoulder to mine. Funny, I’d been just about to tell him the same thing.

“He may not even come, this close to dawn,” Anastasia said. This had to be nerve racking for her—she wasn’t any safer this close to dawn than Roman was. Her last apprentice—a gorgeous woman, very young in terms of both her age and the length of time she’d been a vampire—died when she was exposed to sunlight. Anastasia had to be thinking about her. I certainly was—I’d watched it happen, and I never wanted to see that again.

“It’ll be all right,” I said to her. Somehow, it would. We were underground—she’d be safe, surely.

“Heads up,” Ben said, leaning toward the doorway, his head cocked, listening.

The room fell so quiet I could hear the muted fizzle of the smoldering incense sticks. From the doorway to Cormac’s right, a set of shuffling footsteps sounded—heavy, clumsy. Like someone big and drunk was dragging himself along the wall. It certainly wasn’t Roman. We’d never hear Roman coming, which was a big part of the problem with setting a manually operated trap for him.

Right then, Roman didn’t matter:
something
was coming toward us.

I kept my breathing steady and settled myself more firmly into my body, my legs, my muscles—ready to spring in any direction, to leap in an instant, and fight.

Henry stumbled through the doorway, as though the darkness had spat him out. Swaying for a moment, he blinked in confusion. He looked unhurt physically—only his expression was odd, dazed. He wore a bronze coin on a chain around his neck—one of Roman’s binding coins.

He looked at me, opened his hands, and scattered a few dozen small objects on the floor between us. They flashed in the light and tinkled like bells when they hit the stone. Then he collapsed on his side.

I started to run to him, but Ben held me back. “Kitty, look.”

The objects Henry had thrown looked like jacks, a children’s toy. Studying them revealed their sharpened points, like twisted knives—caltrops. And they were silver. If one of them even scratched us, we were done. Clinging to each other, we moved back. Roman had immobilized us without even touching us.

“I hate this!” I growled.

Grace went to check on Henry, touching his face, his arm. How did you tell if a vampire was okay? Feel for a pulse? Make sure he was breathing? No and no. He looked dead—pale and cold, unmoving. Of
course
he looked dead, he was a vampire.

“Grace?” I said. “How is he?”

Grace rolled him onto his back, smoothed the hair away from his face, and pulled back an eyelid to check his eye. He seemed to be sleeping—except for the not-breathing part. He had to be alive, or whatever the vampire equivalent of alive was. He was still here, he hadn’t disintegrated. So that was something. His clothes hadn’t been mussed or altered—even his shirt was still in place. He’d just appeared. Or rather, he’d been shoved in here as a distraction.

“I think he’s okay,” she said, but sounded uncertain.

“Anastasia, what’s wrong with him?”

“Incoming,” Cormac called before she could answer. He held the crossbow ready, aiming at the opposite doorway from where Henry had appeared. He had a clear shot through the middle of the room.

Grace pulled Henry into a corner, and I reflected on the irony of trying to protect an undead guy who was essentially immortal. If said undead guy was unconscious and possibly injured, how would we ever know? Was there a vampire doctor we could take him to?

I was constantly astonished by the absurdity of it all.

“What are we going to do about this?” Ben said, nodding at the silver knives scattered on the floor. We braced, wolflike and ready to pounce—but away from danger, away from the silver.

All I could smell was the stupid incense, and the hallway appeared darker than it should have—my wolf eyes should have been able to make out
something
. Something had caught Cormac’s attention. Movement flickered in the shadows, or in my own imagination.

The thing that crept in through the doorway made no sound. At first glance, he was a man, incredibly tall, as tall as the doorway, and bulky, stout and full of muscles. He wore nothing but worn trousers and went barefoot. At second glance, however, the details became uncertain and impossible. The figure moved hunched and low, like a wrestler approaching an opponent. As if he was sizing us up. Except his eyes were sewn shut. Two rows of vertical, swollen stitches marked where eyes should have been. Black stitches also marked his nostrils, mouth, and even his ears—he didn’t really have ears, just crusted stitches crisscrossing holes on the sides of his bald head.

I didn’t know how he could sense anything—I didn’t know how he could
breathe
. Yet he kept on, stepping carefully, flexing his hands as if preparing to strike.

If he didn’t breathe, could we stop him?

Grace gasped as if she recognized the creature, which would have been great, because then she knew what it was and would know how to stop it. But she didn’t say anything. Maybe he was mortal, human. Maybe we could just beat him up. But that didn’t explain the ruin of his face or how he could function without four of his five senses.

The crossbow fired and a bolt whistled past me, smacking into the monster’s neck. The shaft stuck out of sickly grayish skin, quivering. Behind me, Cormac cranked back the crossbow for reloading.

Not that it would help, because the monster didn’t much notice. He grunted, swiped at the bolt, pulled it out, and tossed it away. A bare trickle of blood ran from the wound. So, he was a near-invincible kind of otherworldly monster. Check.