Nightfall: Caulborn 5 Read online

  Holy shit, those weren’t knives; they were talons.

  Mrs. Rita’s hands ended in three-inch long claws the color of steel. She slashed through the vamp as if he were made of paper, his body turning to bloody ash. She caught sight of us then, her eyes glowing a brilliant green. One of the vamps took advantage of her distraction and leapt atop her back. Mrs. Rita is maybe five-foot-four and is a bit overweight. The vamp had a foot of height and probably ninety pounds on her, easy. Instead of driving Mrs. Rita to the ground or even staggering her, Mrs. Rita just stood there, the vamp clinging to her like a child getting a piggy back ride. Mrs. Rita snarled, reached behind her, and drove her claws through the vamp’s chest. It collapsed to ash a second later.

  Pandemonium broke out on the rooftop. My holy light mixed with Galahad’s as we drove the vampires back, giving Doc and Gears a chance to shoot them. Leslie buffeted them back with torrents of wind and bolts of lightning, sending them right into the path of Mrs. Rita’s claws. The vamps weren’t going down without a fight, though, and several of them had sawed-off shotguns. They opened fire on Mrs. Rita. The elderly medicine woman took close to twenty rounds at close range and stood there, like Supergirl, the bullets bouncing off her as she moved toward them.

  During the Ashgate riot, I’d encountered a prisoner who’d been scared of Mrs. Rita. He’d looked at me and said, “You have no idea what she is, do you?” And now I realized I really didn’t. All this time, I’d thought Mrs. Rita was a doting grandmother, a medicine woman, a talented enchantress, but now, now I saw that she was something much, much more.

  I still had no idea what, though.

  A vampire came toward me, and on reflex, I redirected it with a portal, dropping it over the edge of the building. The wards blocking my portals only function inside the building, so out here in the open night air, I could go to town. I ripped Open a portal to the Bright Side, letting the light of the twin suns burn the vampire into charred cinders. I may not be a god there anymore, but this was one trick I could still do.

  The handful of vamps who’d been at the edge of the sunlight smoldered, assumed bat form, and flew away before I could do any more. I snapped the portal shut, and we spent a moment letting our eyes readjust to the darkness of night.

  Galahad had his hand to his earpiece. “Dave, can you hear me?” I heard static through the boss’s earpiece. “Drat.”

  “Hang on, Galahad,” Gears said, as Billy deftly plucked the earpiece from Galahad’s ear. He fidgeted with it and then handed it back to the boss. “Try now.”

  “Dave, do you copy?” Galahad asked. “Thank God,” he said after a moment.

  “What’d you do?” I asked Gears.

  “I guessed the upyr were jamming our normal frequencies,” Gearstripper replied. “I adjusted the transmitter to an older one we used back in the sixties. I figured Dave would still be monitoring it.”

  As we’d been talking, Galahad had been informing Uncle Dave of the situation. “There was a significant disturbance here at headquarters. We’re still handling it. Citizens may have seen or heard gunfire. Contact the police department and tell them someone was setting fireworks off illegally from the roof of a building.” The boss took his hand away and turned to us. “Is everyone all right?” There were nods all around. “To Minus Three, then,” Galahad said, and sword blazing in front of him, he led us down the stairwell.

  Chapter 10

  I’d only recently learned of Minus Three. It was a level that Jake had turned into an apartment suite for himself and Cynthia, a being known as the Electric Infant. When I’d come here earlier this week, the corridor leading to Jake’s home had seemed serene, like a hallway in a library. Now, the place looked like a scene in a Michael Bay movie.

  The walls were pocked with enormous holes, some of them big enough to walk through. Chunks of sheetrock littered the floor, and plaster dust hung in the air. The tasteful sconces that had illuminated the hall were shattered, and the only light came from Galahad’s sword. The door to Jake’s place was nothing more than a handful of splinters still clinging to hinges.

  “Jake?” Galahad called. “Cynthia?” No response. “Gearstripper, can your robot detect Jake?”

  “I don’t see any signs of life or undeath, Galahad,” Gears said. “Then again, Billy here isn’t exactly calibrated for life forms like Jake.” And by that, Gears meant that he hadn’t designed his mech with the intent of detecting artificial life forms that were built by renaissance men.

  The group of us picked our way through the room, and we found Jake’s body sprawled behind one of the couches. Billy’s chest plate popped open, and Gears scrambled down, placing his hands on what was left of Jake’s face. His skin had been torn off in sheets, revealing his mechanical innards. One of his arms ended in a stump sprouting wires, and a hole the size of my fist had been punched through his stomach.

  “Can you repair him?” Galahad asked softly.

  “I can fix the physical damage, sure,” Gears said quietly. “But Jake was animated by an alchemical force called the Breath of Life. I can’t make that, and the only person I know who can is Santa.”

  “Cynthia can make it too,” I said. “Let’s see if we can find her.” I ducked into Jake’s study, a room where he kept a map with pins showing all the places he’d been in the world. The map was ripped to shreds, only a couple of pins remaining in the otherwise bare wall. I found Cynthia’s body pinned underneath a collapsed bookshelf. Her glowing blue eyes flickered open, their light dim.

  “Baw,” she said. “Baw.”

  Shit.

  “I found Cynthia,” I called. “Need some help in here.” Mrs. Rita hustled into the room, stepped over the bookshelf, and lifted it up with one hand. I gently eased Cynthia out, trying not to jostle her too much. She’s made of celestial metal, an extremely durable substance, the same stuff the Rosario’s made from, but she looked like someone had taken a can opener to her torso and head.

  “Baw,” she repeated.

  I cradled her to my chest, and Mrs. Rita released the shelf. We went back into the living room, where Leslie had created a glowing platform of green energy. Mrs. Rita effortlessly picked Jake up and placed him on the platform, which Leslie levitated. I carried Cynthia back up the stairs, Leslie towing Jake on the magical stretcher, the others behind her.

  We made it back to Medical without further incident, and we rendezvoused in Herb’s consecrated room. Cynthia and Jake were placed on beds of their own, and Gears examined the damage to Jake and Cynthia. Leslie slumped down in a chair and put her head in her hands, Mrs. Rita stood at her side, and the two of them spoke in low tones. Doc Ryan moved purposefully from person to person, checking their vitals, tending any wounds they had. Galahad was quietly speaking to Megan. The lot of us looked beat.

  I ran a hand over my face, exhausted. I opened my mind to the kobolds, hoping to hear some drinking song prayers, but I couldn’t focus. Something about this whole attack was off. Sure, the upyr hadn’t anticipated Mrs. Rita or Leslie, but they’d fled too easily after the rooftop battle.

  “Baw,” Cynthia chirped from the table. “Baw.”

  “Vinnie,” Gears called when he saw me looking at her. “She keeps saying that. I thought her speech processing centers might be stuck in a loop, but I think she’s trying to tell us something.”

  I nodded and focused my Glimpse.

  Cynthia and Jake were sitting in Minus Three. Jake was playing the violin, and Cynthia was reading The Hobbit. The front door exploded open, and Marcilla stood there, a wicked grin on her face. “So, you must be Jake,” she said. “I’ve heard lots about you; it’s nice to meet you at long last.” She moved in a blur, now standing on the other side of the room. “Do you remember me? You hunted my clan nearly to extinction back in 1570.” Jake’s eyes went wide, and he lunged for the closest weapon, an old spear that was hanging on the wa
ll. He spun the weapon with familiarity, leaped across the room with an agility that belied his size, and planted himself between Cynthia and Marcilla.

  Marcilla’s lips quirked as she regarded the weapon, and she raised her eyebrows expectantly. After a moment, she shook her head. “It is disappointing when there is no banter. Banter makes this all the more enjoyable. I haven’t had any truly pleasurable conversation since Van Helsing. Ah, but I digress. You’re the strong, silent type, aren’t you? A man who rarely speaks a word.”

  “Jacob?” Cynthia asked. Her voice had a tinge of fear in it, but much less than I’d expected. “Who is this person? Why is she here?”

  “Oh, child,” Marcilla said with a predatory grin, “I am going to kill every living thing in this building.” To Jake, she said, “I wonder, can you keep quiet when your toy child is in danger?”

  Marcilla blurred across the room, dodged under Jake’s spear, and somersaulted past him. As she came up, she grabbed Cynthia by the dress and spun, hurling the Electric Infant across the room, where she slammed into a bookshelf and crumpled to the floor. “No!” Jake screamed, and the force of his speech blew a hole in the wall. It would’ve vaporized Marcilla, but the girl was already behind Jake. She had one of Kristin’s collapsible batons in her hand, and hit Jake four times so fast that my eyes barely registered the strikes. The big security guard dropped to one knee as Marcilla regarded the now broken baton.

  “You are durable,” she mused.

  Jake’s hand shot out and caught Marcilla by the throat. There was an animosity in the big man’s eyes that I’d never seen before, a hatred that made me take a step back. Over five hundred years ago, a clan of upyr had massacred the family Jake had been staying with. Jake had hunted all but one of them down, and now, it turned out that was Marcilla. There was none of the usual gentleness in Jake’s eyes as he regarded her. He wanted revenge. He squeezed Marcilla’s throat. Her eyes bulged dramatically, her hands ineffectually scratching at his forearms. Then she winked at him and turned to mist.

  Jake, who had been balancing with Marcilla’s weight, stumbled, and Marcilla had more than enough time to reform and hit him three times in the back of the head with the butt end of the broken baton. Jake staggered around, awkwardly stabbing at Marcilla with the spear. She moved like a dancer, dodging and twisting impossibly fast. Jake thrust the butt of his spear out, and Marcilla caught it with one hand, right before it could connect with her temple, stopping the strike cold.

  Jake strained, but the slip of the girl just stood there, holding him back. Then she grabbed the spear with both hands and spun, hurling Jake into Cynthia’s armchair and sending the big man sprawling. In a flash, Marcilla’s form shifted from a fourteen-year-old girl to a sleek, black panther. The deadly cat lunged forward and began tearing into Jake’s torso with its teeth and claws. Jake brought an arm up to block, and the Marcilla-panther’s jaws crunched into it, her head violently thrashing from side to side until she finally ripped it off at the elbow.

  She assumed human form again, kneeling atop Jake. Her eyes were bright orbs of joy as she pummeled Jake’s face with her fists, then she snatched up her baton and made two quick downward thrusts, punching through Jake’s chest and stomach. Jake let out a scream of rage, which should’ve turned Marcilla into a puff of red mist, but she rolled to the side and Jake’s scream punched another hole in the ceiling. It continued like that for a few minutes, Marcilla baiting Jake, beating him with various implements, causing Jake to deplete his limited supply of Breath.

  When Jake finally stopped moving, Marcilla clucked her tongue. “Such a waste,” she sighed. Then she ripped a bookcase from the wall and dropped it on Cynthia.

  Another upyr came into the room. “My lady, our troops are engaged with the doctor and the secretary upstairs, and the healer is on the roof. They are giving us more resistance than expected.”

  “This is why we are thorough in our research,” Marcilla said, “and why we leave nothing to chance. You have no doubt heard Vasylna accuse me of overkill, yet now you see the wisdom, yes?”

  The upyr bowed. “Yes, my lady.”

  “Excellent. Finish planting the bombs, and we will take our leave.”

  I sped the Glimpse up, dimly aware of how fast my heart was beating. I followed the upyr around, watching him plant explosives at various points around the office. The clock by Leslie’s desk said that this was just a few minutes ago. The detonators were going to go off in just a few seconds. I couldn’t portal us out, and there was no way we’d be able to evacuate the building.

  I released the Glimpse. I had maybe four seconds to do something. If I could see all the bombs, I might be able to slow time down around them with tachyon, but I didn’t know for sure that the ones I’d watched that upyr plant were the only ones in the building. So I improvised.

  My portals don’t work inside HQ, but my ability to manipulate extradimensional energy goes beyond just making gateways. I can also compress extradimensional space, creating my own little pocket dimensions. This was how I’d cut Sakave off from the rest of his forces when I’d faced him. I reached out and pulled the entire room into an extradimensional pocket. The walls glowed with a faint green light, and the rest of the room’s occupants gave yelps of surprise.

  Except for Mrs. Rita, who merely whirled on me and stared. “Vincent,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “There are bombs in HQ, Mrs. Rita,” I said. The edges of my pocket dimension began to ripple and shudder as if being struck by giant fists. I ground my teeth to hold onto the energy. “That’s what Cynthia’s been trying to tell us.” The shuddering intensified, and the whole pocket began to shake as if we were in an earthquake. Cynthia was shaken from her bed, and the table next to Herb’s bed fell over. Megan threw herself over Herb to keep him from falling, too.

  The shaking got worse. I couldn’t tell if the explosions were lasting that long or if there was something more, but I knew that I couldn’t hold onto this pocket much longer. The shaking intensified, and I felt something shift around me, a breaking of extradimensional energy. Instinctively, I knew that the wards that normally prevented me from portaling inside HQ had just been destroyed. My mind raced. With the wards down, I could get us out of here. I needed to get us someplace safe, someplace secure, someplace where we could regroup. And more importantly, it needed to be someplace that Treggen wouldn’t have told Marcilla and her pals about.

  One place sprang to mind, and as the pocket shuddered even more violently than ever before, I shifted the left side of the pocket, turning it into a portal. “Everyone hang on,” I hollered. I didn’t have time to wait for everyone to run out of the pocket; I was going to lose my hold on it in seconds. Instead, I tilted the pocket slightly, so everyone on wheels slid down a gentle slope, and everything that had been in the room with us spilled out, as well. I released the pocket dimension as we collapsed on the floor of a huge room filled with pinball machines.

  “Is everyone okay?” I called as I pulled myself up to my feet. There were a handful of assents; Gears was back in the Billy-Mech helping Leslie up. Galahad gave Doc a hand. Mrs. Rita lifted Cynthia onto her bed.

  “Dave, what’s the status of the office building?” Galahad asked, hand to his ear. “Dave, do you copy?”

  “He won’t, boss,” I said, leaning against a Medieval Madness pinball machine. “We’re out of range of the transmitters.”

  “Where are we, then?” he asked.

  “Mount Olympus.”

  Chapter 11

  During various interviews throughout his career, Mitt often said that Señor Fear’s Miedo amulet was more powerful than Commander Courageous’s own Anisa amulet, and that the only reason Courageous was able to defeat Señor Fear was because Courageous was cleverer than his adversary. As dementia claimed more of his mind, Mitt would often grab a doctor, nurse, or whoever was closest, and warn them th
at the only way to win was to be clever. Indeed, during the sole interview I was granted for this biography, Mitt latched on to me with surprising strength and looked me directly in the eye. As he did so, there was no sign of madness, no sign of a man who had lost his grip on reality. He seemed to stare straight into my soul as he said, “You have to outthink him, son. You have to think of what it is that a man who can control fear is afraid of.”

  — From The Man Who Made Commander Courageous: The Biography of Mitt Nollen

  There was a moment of stunned silence. “You’re joking,” Galahad said. “We’re on Olympus?”

  “I’m not joking, and yes. My father left me this house. I figured that it was as safe a place as we could get.” I was grateful that I’d taken to carrying the key to the house in my pocket. It wouldn’t have done for my friends and me to be eviscerated by the security wards that were in place.

  “Vincent,” Mrs. Rita called. “We need medical supplies, food, and other terrestrial necessities. Can you get those for us here?”

  “I’ll work on it, Mrs. Rita,” I said. In truth, I had no idea. I knew this place would be safe from upyr, but I hadn’t thought much further than that. “There are some bedrooms upstairs. You can take Jake and the others up there. The kitchen’s down the hall. Take whatever you need.” I figured I could tap Uncle Heph for some help, if nothing else.

  The doorbell rang. This was a surprise for two reasons. First, and most obvious, I hadn’t told anyone I was here, or that I was coming here. And second, I didn’t realize the place had a doorbell. I went down the hall to the front door and found Forculus standing on my doorstep.

  The other god of doors was about my height, and sported a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He was dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, and looked like he could have just come from the golf course. A hint of fear flicked in his gray eyes. “Is everything all right?” he asked.