Page 23
Chapter 23
Whims of Fate
Cian
T hey reached the casino on the heels of the group, and Cian and Fenric paused at the main entrance to the casino, taking stock of the situation. Whatever plan Angel and Simeon may have had when they went down there was out the window.
Chaos greeted them.
Patrons and employees were shouting in alarm, running in every direction, spells catching a few and dropping them to the ground. Security guards, mostly human due to the time of day, were either trying to get the people out of the casino or were heading for the people tossing spells into the fleeing crowd.
Several practitioners, dressed to blend in with the casino crowd, were standing throughout the tables and slot machines, nothing about them standing out except for their demeanor—cold and hard, and they weren’t running. They had orders and didn’t care about hurting innocents.
The three Salvatores were under shields and engaging with a handful of enforcers. That left another handful to run amok in the casino. The enforcers were under shields, and the human guards and a few vampires old enough to be awake at the height of the day couldn’t get through. Simeon, Miguel and Ellora were harrying several practitioners through the Salvatore shields, trying to distract them as the Salvatores attacked.
Eroch was under the shield Angel held, Angel resolutely ordering his young dragon to stay by his side and not run amok in the casino—which was a good call, given that dragonfire in the building would be a horrible idea.
Rory was in the mix as well, hunkered down behind a table knocked on its side, healing an injured human who was bleeding from multiple injuries. A Tower guard carried another injured person to Rory, who directed them to put the person down next to him.
Rory was too busy saving lives to stop the enforcers.
Without speaking, Cian and Fenric charged into the crowd, dodging Tower employees and casino patrons, people screaming and trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go that wasn’t in the line of fire. A large group of people were huddled behind a few overturned tables and chairs, crouching low, ducking and screaming as spells went over their heads.
Fenric snarled and transformed mid-leap over the huddled group, landing on their far side and sprinting toward one of the enforcers, a woman in a dark-blue dress and heels, red hair twisted up in a bun, white spells spinning around her hands as she prepared to throw them. Claws tore up the carpet and flooring, and with a powerful leap, Fenric jumped through her shield and his great paws landed on her chest, choking off her scream of surprised rage. They crashed to the floor, blood spraying in a fountain as Fenric ripped out her throat.
Her shield collapsed as she died.
Cian charged toward his own target, a man in an ill-fitting black suit, fire sparking around his shoulders. He was preparing to shoot another spell at the people huddled behind the tables when Cian reached him. He summoned a dagger to his hand just as he slipped through the practitioner’s shield, and buried the blade to the hilt in the man’s chest. A gush of blood welled past his lips, and he gasped when Cian twisted the blade, the man going limp as he died, falling. His bodyweight pulled him off the blade, and Cian looked for his next target as the shield burst into nothingness, gone as the man died.
“Run!” Cian shouted to the huddled mass, pointing to the door behind them. “Go now!”
Most of them took the chance and ran for the exit, managing to escape. Cian was about to shoo out the remainder when a spell flew past his face, the heat uncomfortably close, nearly singeing his eyebrows. He spun, looking for his attacker, and saw the stocky man dressed in a white track suit that was torn at the shoulder, revealing a hidden enforcer’s badge pinned to his undershirt.
Cian called his other dagger, both now in his hands, and spun them as he stalked toward the enforcer, ready to end it. The enforcer shot another fireball at his face, and Cian dodged it with liquid grace, the enforcer snarling in rage as it missed, readying another spell. His shield was a thick sphere of orange-red, swirling with veins of crimson. He was powerful—Cian felt him tap the veil and pour more strength into the shield. A sorcerer, then, and Cian grinned in fierce challenge, dodging another spell, the floor catching fire immediately as the spell exploded on contact.
There was no time left for the enforcer to cast another spell—Cian was on him, striding through the shield like it was nothing. And it was, to him—absolutely nothing. He felt the tingle of veil-drawn energy coursing through the shield as he crossed it, but that was it. The sorcerer shouted a curse at him, and unbelievably swung a punch right for Cian’s face. He stopped the blow with a dagger, stabbing right through the man’s closed fist, skewering his hand. The human screamed, wailing in shock and pain, eyes wide in sudden terror. Cian grinned, blood running down the blade to splatter on the floor, and he flipped the other dagger in his hand, slicing across the man’s throat, cutting off his scream in a choked gurgle. A thick spray of hot blood hit Cian.
Cian pulled both daggers free, covered in blood from head to toe. He sighed, shaking his hands a bit, not wanting blood to sabotage his grip on his blades.
There was a ripple of power in the casino, and Cian looked over his shoulder to see Angel overpower his opponent, blasting through the paltry remains of a shield and raining down a thick volley of spells. Daniel crowed in victory as he did the same, and Isaac sent a small fire tornado at Daniel’s opponent, consuming them in a controlled inferno.
Cian checked in mentally with Rory, but his brother was busy healing several injured people, and he was not going to bother him unless Rory was in danger. Miguel was standing over Rory as he worked, fangs and claws out, keeping Rory safe.
Fenric was there suddenly beside him, growling and hissing, jaws dripping blood. “Kitten?”
“They’re running,” Fenric answered, voice a deep growl. He pointed with his front paw, lifting it off the floor in the direction of a side hallway, Cian turning to see three enforcers making a run for it. They exited the casino and disappeared from sight, but Cian and Fenric were fast enough to catch up.
“Let’s go,” Cian replied, giving chase, Fenric at his side.
Fenric
Cian kept pace with him as they tore across the casino floor, jumping and dodging around overthrown tables, broken chairs, fallen patrons, and a mess of chips and cards strewn across the carpet.
He almost slipped and fell when he ran over a river of spilled cards, but he dug in his claws and surged ahead, determined to reach the fleeing enforcers.
They reached the exit and paused briefly in the doorway, looking down a long service hall full of doors, tablecloth-covered rolling carts, and bags full of dirty linens. There wasn’t a direct path, and the enforcers were only halfway down the hall. The far end of the hall had a large exit sign hanging above it, for the service bays and employee parking lots.
“Why are they running this way and not the way they came in?” Cian asked.
“Too much security there?” Fenric guessed. “Maybe there’s a getaway car out in the employee lot.”
“I don’t like this,” Cian groused, but he began jogging down the hall, Fenric following.
The three enforcers saw them coming, shouting at each other to hurry, and Fenric was too low to the ground to see them clearly past all the stuff lining the hallway. He heard them running, though, and their scent trail was strong, stinking of ozone and sweat. There was a hint of magic as well that had a peculiar scent to it—like lightning hitting a boulder, heat and power and melting rock.
They were forced to go single-file through a section of the hallway jammed with janitors’ carts and large linen sacks, Cian ahead of him.
They ran, but Fenric fell back so he didn’t accidentally claw at Cian’s heels, not wanting to hurt his lover. The peculiar scent of magic was strong in his nose, almost scent-blinding him, and Cian swore and ducked behind a janitorial cart, a red spell twisting and spinning past where his head had been, catching the cart behind him on fire.
Fenric lurched away from the fire, backing up several feet, and Cian grabbed a wooden mop handle from the cart he hid behind, snapping off the mop head into a sharp point, and he stood and threw in one smooth motion. The mop-turned-spear found its target, a solid thunk and a jagged scream telling Fenric that Cian took out a mage.
The scent of lightning and magic was stifling, and Fenric sneezed, shaking his head, thinking he might need to transform to his sidhe shape when he finally saw a glimmer on the floor, under the cart Cian stood behind.
“Cian!” he yowled, and his lover turned, Fenric transforming to sidhe even as he pointed to the odd lump under the cart, the atmosphere heavily charged and the tension building.
Cian spun and knelt, looking for a split second before he lurched to his feet and screamed. “Run!”
They were too far apart.
Their eyes met for a nanosecond before they both ran, Cian farther down the hall, Fenric back the way they had come. One heartbeat passed, then two, and with the third beat came the blast, which lifted Fenric off his feet, throwing him through the air.
Cian
He was too close.
Simultaneous with the explosion, Cian knelt down and pushed outward with his own power with all his might. He changed the air pressure around him, shoving it back down the hallway in the direction of the blast, pushing back against the shockwave.
The blast was a mixture of fury, fire, and supersonic debris flying through the confines of the hallway. The walls buckled and collapsed behind him, the entire structure shaking, ceiling tiles falling to the ground not far from where he crouched. He dropped his daggers and covered his ears, fueling the rapid changes in pressure in a narrow field around him, negating as much of the shockwave of the explosion as possible.
It created a vacuum of air around him, the fire dying around him in a tight oval shape, flickering over him in a wave of heat that threatened to consume him, but he held tight and poured more power into his efforts.
It ended as quickly as it began.
His ears were ringing, he felt a bit crisped on the edges, and he was sore all along his back and sides from debris making it through the air void.
He shook his head, ears popping, and he got to his feet and moved away from the growing fire at his back.
Fenric.
Cian turned back in the direction they came from—the hallway had collapsed, the walls and the ceiling crumpled and piled high, blocking it entirely. Fire burned among the rumble, smoke rising, clouding the air.
“Fenric!” he screamed, terrified. “Fenric!”
Brother! Rory shouted in his head. What happened?
Enforcers set off a kinetic bomb in the service hallway as we were chasing them. Fenric and I are separated—I do not know if he’s alive or hurt.
Rory knew he was all right—he could feel it through their bond—so he wasn’t frantic, but his worry came through strong and clear, compounded by his concern for Fenric.
The bloodclan vampires are coming to help you and Fenric.
“Fenric!” Cian got as close as he could to the rubble, lifting a hand and guiding the suffocating effect of his air void to extinguish the flames. “Can you hear me?”
He was about to start tearing apart the pile of rubble with his bare hands when a shift in the ambient magic fields had him throwing himself to the side. A spell went over him, crashing into the rubble, igniting new fires, sparks hissing on concrete and wall panels. Cian crouched behind an overturned dining cart and looked down the hall to see two of the three enforcers he had been chasing slowly advancing on him.
Cian growled under his breath, too aggravated for caution, slapping his hand to the tile floor and calling the stone to answer. Whispers filled the air, and the tiles underneath the enforcers shattered upwards in a wave, blasting the humans off their feet. The hall was full of dust and smoke, obscuring his view, and he left the safety of the cart and sprinted down the hallway toward his opponents.
One was on his feet, stumbling away, covered in cuts, blood, and dust. Another was trying to get to his feet, struggling, a shard of stone tile embedded in his thigh, copious amounts of blood pouring to the floor. Cian shoved mentally at the shard and the stone went deeper, dropping the man to the floor where he bled out almost instantly.
The third was dead, speared by the wooden handle Cian threw before the explosion, blood pooling on the floor around the body.
Brother! Rory called to him, and Cian stopped in his pursuit of the last enforcer, who was running away down the hall to the exit.
Is Fenric well? Cian asked, breathing hard. He held out his hands and called to his daggers, which flew to him out of the scattered debris in the hall, neatly flipping into his hands.
He’s alive. They are digging him out and bringing him to me. Simeon is here, and he says there is another service hall you can use to double-back to the casino and this side of the collapse. It’s in the shipping bay at the end of the hall—turn left and the doors are about forty feet farther down.
Cian almost went to his knees in relief. Not knowing if Fenric was alive or dead had been as bad as Rory being stuck in limbo—he pushed down his fear and breathed in and out, counting to four as he did, settling his heart rate. The doors at the end of the hall were still swinging from the passage of the lone surviving enforcer.
He jogged down the hall, neatly avoiding the blood and dust all over the floor, heading for the doors. Ahead of him was all concrete and steel, little natural stone to work with, but he still got a faint echo of information from the structure as he went. The concrete was stone aggregate so if he got desperate he would call to it.
The enforcer was in the shipping bay, and Cian saw the human just as he cleared the doors, which swung behind him as he went past.
The enforcer was attempting to jump down from one of the loading platforms, and Cian flipped one of his daggers and then threw it, hard, across the large open space and into the man’s back between his shoulder blades. A squawk of pain and the man collapsed to his knees, then fell on his face.
He heard a motor revving in the parking lot. The sun had set, twilight turning the sky a riot of orange and purples past the skyscrapers. Cian moved to the dead man while looking for the source of the noise. A black SUV was idling in the lot, headlights coming on, Cian squinting in the brightness. He yanked his dagger out of the dead man and waited to see what would happen next.
With a squeal of tires the SUV peeled out of the lot, heading for the street. Cian had no intention of following—he had a cat-sidhe to see. Fenric needed him. Rory sent him an image of Fenric being carried to him, awake and complaining but injured. Cian wanted to be with Fenric.
He was turning back to the shipping bay when he saw the lone figure standing not far from where the SUV had been parked. Dressed in black from top to bottom, Cian thought this one was another enforcer until he got a good look at them.
A pair of dueling daggers were strapped to a lean waist, and shiny white talons matched the pair of fangs that were dropped in a cold smile. Eyes glowing red, the vampire stared intently at Cian, as a hunter would watch his prey. Thick brown hair was tied back in a long braid out of the way, and the vampire was dressed in padded leather meant for combat, all of it making his already washed-out complexion appear deathly pale.
Cian was no one’s prey. Not this vampire’s, certainly.
Please tell Fenric I love him and that I’ll be with him shortly, Cian sent to Rory. He let his brother see through his eyes for a second—the vampire assassin standing in the parking lot, waiting for Cian. I have an assassin to sort out.
Be careful, Rory cautioned. Fenric is waiting for you.
Fenric
Fenric coughed, spitting blood to the floor. He rolled onto his back, gasping for air. Numerous hands grabbed at his shoulders and arms, cold to the touch—vampires. Even with his wits scrambled, he knew they were trying to help, and he didn’t resist even when they yanked on him, pulling him from beneath a large piece of the ceiling. It hurt, concrete and rebar scratching him through his clothes.
At some point he must have transformed, but he had no memory of it. His head hurt. Everything hurt.
“We’ve got him!”
“Support his head!”
“Cian? Fuck,” Fenric spat out another glob of blood, squinting around for his lover as he was carried away from the site of the explosion. There was dust and grit in his eyes, in his mouth and nose. “Cian!”
“Fenric!” Rory pushed through the growing crowd and carefully took Fenric from his rescuers, kneeling on the floor with him. “I have you, hold still; let me see what’s wrong.”
“Cian, is Cian…”
“He’s alive,” Rory said, amber eyes intense, gently cradling Fenric on his lap. “He’s a bit busy right now fighting some enforcers but he’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I’ll be okay, let me up, he needs help…” Fenric tried sitting up but he screamed in agony, falling back into Rory’s arms.
“You’re not okay, Fenric,” Rory scolded, and then a warm hand on his forehead forestalled any more outbursts, making him relax and easing some of the pain coursing through his body. “I’ve got you, now be still while I heal you.”
Angel and Simeon suddenly appeared, standing over him and Rory, and Fenric relaxed even more, brain fuzzy, body no longer hurting as badly. He heard them talking back and forth and heard Rory say Cian’s name, but he wasn’t able to make out anything else. At least the pain was gone, but he wanted to see Cian, needed to see him.
He needed Cian.