Fire Water (Black Magic Outlaw Book 5) Page 18

  As soon as I let the pain fall out of focus, my mindscape widened. I noticed more insidious threads weaving their way into my subconscious. This was a multifaceted attack. The pain was just a distraction.

  The darkness thrummed around me. I beckoned Opiyel to answer and cracked open the floodgates. The physical remnants of shadow outside my body faded. I soaked it inward, fortifying my mind. Bolstering the very idea of my individuality.

  A wave of bone-colored magic beset me. It seemed to light up the room, but I knew it was in my mind. My darkness battered it away as the sheets grew stronger. Thicker. The longer I held them off, the more outnumbered I became.

  I almost panicked. Instead, I realized I could fortify my magic as well. As I did so, I drilled down and studied his attack.

  The ivory threads snaking into me were numerous. They worked together and advanced as one. Woven together and reinforced they were daunting but, just like physical string, they were weak on their own. I fixated deep into their recesses and attacked their roots, ripping away wave after wave. More kept coming. With every success, two more threads struck elsewhere.

  This was the wraith's power. He was a master of mind control and manipulation. Yet, despite the horrors I'd witnessed, I'd seen his limitations as well. Animists had a measure of defense against him. I'd even seen a particularly willful Columbian street soldier fend him off. If all it required to beat the wraith was a stubborn personality, I'd win this battle of wills hands down. No contest.

  But there was a creeping worry I hadn't accounted for yet. The Spaniard, specifically, held some kind of dominion over necromancers. He could turn them into wights. Bring them to heel. This was a power I had never seen in action until Jean-Louis Chevalier cornered me in the alley.

  I turned to the bokor. He sat on the couch and watched with a troubled expression. Whatever this power was, it wasn't immediate. Hell, if Chevalier could fight it off for a few days then there was no way in hell I was gonna let him show me up. I gritted my teeth and doubled down against the Spaniard's assault.

  The slow success I'd had thus far bolstered my confidence. It was like a trick. Flipping a water bottle and having it land standing up. You might mess up the first few times but it really isn't that hard. Once you get it, it's easy to look like a seasoned expert. Admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, bottle flipping is a ridiculously useless skill. You can't make the same criticism about fending off mind control.

  Each passing moment, with every strike and counterstrike, I grew more efficient. It was a learning process but not particularly complex. What felt like minutes were really seconds, more instinct and willpower than book-smarts. I snipped those threads faster and faster. I learned how to snap those threads from a distance and en masse. Thousands of tiny slivers of darkness working independently in unison, like the Spaniard's own magic.

  "I'm not a zombie," I grunted.

  Entire sheets of bone collapsed on themselves.

  "I'm not a wight."

  Multiple fronts of the assault fell away.

  I thought of what Malik had said. The defining trait of our kind. Freedom.

  "I'm a human being, damn it!"

  With the next crashing wave of power, I completely banished the wraith from my head.

  His ivory skull snapped back. His red eyes pulsed. In shock, in surprise. In respect. I had so cleanly obliterated his hooks from my mind that he must've wondered if a year's effort could do any better.

  The room went dark again. Quiet. We stood for a moment before a heavy, raspy sigh escaped the Spaniard's lips.

  "It must be another way then."

  I narrowed my eyes. Now I pulled my spellcraft to my physical body. The darkness gloved my fist.

  The Spaniard scoffed.

  Jean-Louis Chevalier rose from the sofa, both his silver eyes fully glazed over. He wore a sneer and followed my retreating steps with pure hatred.

  "No," I said. "Jean-Louis, you can still fight this. You can still break his control."

  The bokor raised his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. Boots stomped up the concrete steps outside.

  "What did you do to him?" I demanded.

  Several more men stormed in. Not zombies. These were living, breathing men, also under the spell of the wraith. I was surrounded by wights.

  Jean-Louis Chevalier had once warned me of the dangers of the Horn. Of the power of the Spaniard. He had told me the magic wouldn't just control them, it would eat them. Absorb them. It was a corrupting force that would slowly leech at their existence until they became something worse than death. Now I was experiencing those consequences firsthand.

  The last person up the exterior staircase took his time. He had a light step, without the flurry and alarm that ran through the wights. These were the steps of a man in patient control.

  Connor Hatch stepped inside the apartment and laughed.

  Chapter 35

  "My favorite necromancer," said Connor with a dry smile. "Still alive and kicking. You're like a cockroach."

  "I could say the same thing about you, except it looks like the potshots are taking their toll on you."

  The jinn stroked his red beard in amusement. His mane was thick, but not thick enough to hide the purple bruise on his cheek where I'd socked him or the lump on his forehead. He favored his side where I'd tenderized him a bit. The most notable change about him, however, was the leather strap over his shoulder. The Horn of Subjugation hung at his side.

  "You do keep me on my toes. I'll give you that much." Connor turned to Chevalier. "Get the preparations underway. I want to be gone in five minutes."

  The bokor nodded and marched from the room. I was hoping his four flunkies would follow but they stayed behind, all eyes on me.

  I snorted. "You can't pencil me in for more than five minutes? After everything we've been through?"

  "It's not you, Cisco. It's me. I've grown, and you're still the same sorry excuse for a human as when I first found you."

  "You've grown? Is that what you call being exiled from your home?"

  He grinned devilishly and addressed the Spaniard. "I think it's time you gave our pathetic friend an attitude adjustment."

  The wraith lowered his head. "I can't."

  "You will do as I say," demanded the jinn.

  "Master, I am... unable."

  Connor blinked plainly before taking it in. He turned to me and sucked his teeth.

  I tightened my jaw. "Not quite as pathetic as you imagined, huh?"

  "But still human."

  "That's a point of pride for me. How's it working for you? You've lost your power to blink. You can't return to the Aether. You're more human than ever, I'd say."

  Connor Hatch grinned. He wouldn't be outdone. He strolled to the sofa and took a load off, resting an arm over the back. "I admit it, Cisco, I didn't see it at first." He sighed and kicked his feet on the table. "We all take our limitations for granted. Those who grow up without the ability of flight can watch the birds all day without a fretful thought. But if you happen to be, say, an angel stripped of his wings, you can bet your bottom dollar you miss the skies every day."

  My eyes narrowed. Besides making sure none of the wights or the Spaniard moved on me, I had to be ready for any tricks Connor had up his sleeve. He'd already mentioned leaving in a few minutes—it was entirely possible he was stalling me. His mention of the Celestials, though, was more than allegorical. What was he getting at?

  "So there I was," he continued, "like a mouse on a wheel. I tried bringing the Taíno shamans to me, to join them into my power over the dead." He waved a careless hand in the air. "You were at the library. You saw how that ended up." Connor's eyes flicked to the Spaniard. "Even with the grand power of my loyal servant, that pursuit ended in nothing but failure. After all that public spectacle it was, quite frankly, embarrassing."

  Connor's shoes hit the floor and he leaned forward, elbows on knees, steepled fingers. "But I was blind to my limitations, Cisco. I'd taken them in stride. I
'd assumed things couldn't be any different. But your little show in the Aether changed everything. Now I can proceed full steam ahead."

  His teeth came out again. He was savoring this. I circled the wraith carefully and pulled the blind away from the window. The pickup trucks I'd seen at the Hallandale house were lined up with several others. Scores of Haitians were loading up. Not just wights, but the undead too. They hadn't been guarding the grounds because they'd been corralled, ready for deployment. It was crazy. The entire gang must've been down there.

  "What's going on?" I asked. "What are you talking about?"

  "We're talking about the grand tragedy that you've played out from the beginning. The life of Cisco Suarez. Acts one and two are over, I'm afraid. This is the part where you realize your pivotal role in my rise."

  "You're gonna feel my pivotal foot up your ass."

  "Stop it," he chided. "Now you're the one embarrassing yourself. Don't you see that you've done nothing but help me get where I am? I used you to find the Horn. You personally handed it to me. The destruction of the Covey, the hits against my drug empire, even restraining me from access to your family—those were all setbacks, but purely temporal. Don't you see that? If my overriding goal was to raise your little Fran for myself, then I would have lost, yes. But my overriding goal was always to be a master of death." He leaned back.

  "Even with the Horn, it has been a humbling few months," he confessed. "Turns out, necromancy takes quite a bit of skill and passion. In all this time, I hadn't been able to take the leap forward that I needed. That eureka moment, that breakthrough, eluded me. That's because I didn't know to question what I didn't see: my own limitations."

  He smiled. "And then you wander into the Aether and stumble onto a solution for me."

  My face darkened.

  Connor's voice took a grating tinge. "You didn't just strip me of my power, Cisco. You stripped me of my limits. I'm no longer bound by jinn law."

  Holy crap did that sound bad. "The Celestials..." I protested weakly.

  Connor sprung to his feet. "I defy the Celestials! They're as bound to their archaic dictates as I was. I don't need to deal with them because they don't dare interfere. They don't dare break the rules." He looked inward. "Even more pathetic than you, honestly. At least you put yourself out there. Boots on the ground. You might not realize it, but I admire that."

  A car outside honked several times in sequence.

  The jinn raised his hands in a shrug. "I guess that's my cue." He turned for the door.

  I stepped forward. The Spaniard moved in but I shifted through the shadow past him. When I materialized, the wights were already converging on me. I elbowed one in the side and spun past the other. I dove into the darkness again and closed on Connor. He spun to find me already on him. I cracked him in the temple and he fell over. I'd split that purple lump open again.

  He swept his leg weakly. I absorbed the blow and held my ground, only to notice at the last second it was a feint. His real attack came in a flash of fire, aimed at my chest. I dove under the blast and pounded him with a few body blows. I struck his sore side and he cried in pain. We rolled on the floor until I started taking some blows of my own.

  The wights. They piled over us, punching and kicking, beating their way at me. Sometimes hitting each other in the process. It was relentless and brutal. I couldn't retreat into the shadow because there were too many hands on me. I had no choice to but spin around and face them. Their strikes glanced off my Nordic tattoo, but they came from too many angles.

  The jinn scrambled away in the chaos. I didn't bother reaching for him. I had bigger problems. My bloodlust had blinded me to the weaker opponents in the room. Still bokors. Still formidable. As if to punctuate my mistake, Connor flipped on the light switch and sucked away most of my shadow.

  The mind-controlled Bone Saints didn't stop at holding me down. They thrashed with fists and feet.

  "Time to turn the potshots on you," snarled Connor.

  They beat me some more before pulling me to my knees and holding me down. I was dizzy and tender and tired.

  Connor stood over me, bleeding and laughing deliriously. He really wasn't taking this mortality thing well.

  "You must be wondering," he said, getting control of himself. "I now have influence over all the necromancers in Miami. You, Cisco, are my enemy, but you're also a necromancer. And although you do channel the voodoo High Baron, your primary patron is Opiyel, the Taíno guide dog." He waggled his finger in the air. "And the Taíno are the ones who bound the Spaniard to the Horn in the first place. Their gold wraps him tight. You might think it protects you from his influence."

  I spat blood on the floor. I didn't feel protected.

  "It was kind of you to find Dr. Trinidad for me," he said. "Just like you, I've been researching the pictographs etched in the Horn. The copper alloy tumbaga, 'stiff but malleable' as the good doctor would say. I've been experimenting with altering the pictographs, attempting to remove the built-in protections. Fear not, Cisco, because when that happens you'll be underhand once again. Instead of being Tunji Malu's pet, you'll be mine."

  "Over my dead body," I muttered.

  "That," he said, "can be arranged." He headed outside and growled, "Take him."

  The wights pulled me to my feet.

  Chapter 36

  For the record, I wasn't really worried. (I mean, a guy has a reputation to maintain, am I right?) Yes, several stronger-than-they-looked gang members who were slowly being sucked dry of their magic escorted me downstairs, but I'd been in worse binds.

  The wights were abominations, but they weren't all-powerful. They weren't Aether officiates, for one. In a straight fight I'd kicked their asses before, so I didn't feel especially threatened even if I was kinda technically their captive.

  The problem was that the wights were people. Or they had been. I had to believe they could still be returned to their normal selves if I could steal the Horn from Connor Hatch. So the last thing I wanted to do was start blowing holes in the Bone Saints.

  The main gate to the compound was open and the trucks were revving their engines. So many wights and zombies and boxes were loaded into each vehicle that their suspensions sat low. Connor took the lead truck. The Spaniard drifted past me.

  "Put him in chains," he ordered.

  They shoved me face down in the dirt and pulled my arms behind my back. I grimaced and watched the wraith join Connor in the lead truck before they rolled out. One by one the other trucks followed.

  Chevalier's eyes flashed as he hopped into the back of the pickup in front of us. His cold eyes watched me. I wondered if he remembered me. If there was any humanity left in him.

  "Take the knife," he said.

  Crap. He remembered that.

  The zip tie clamped around my wrists. The wights rolled me over and pulled the blade from my belt. I didn't have any spell tokens but they found the shotgun shells in my pockets and tossed them on the ground. Once disarmed, the wights picked me up and threw me in the bed of the last truck. Then the pickup shifted into gear and rumbled over the gravel road until we hit the street. The gate to the Bone Saints' compound hung wide open. No one was left inside.

  I pushed up to my knees to check the road. The convoy of trucks snaked around the block. Ahead, the lead truck turned east onto 54th Street. Connor had to be going to the water. He'd come from the sub and he was loading it up again. No question about it. And the bad guys were taking me along for the ride.

  I was just getting ready to relax when my parked pickup started by itself and rolled into the street just ahead of us. It was a sudden lurch that took our driver by surprise. The two trucks collided. Everybody in the bed heaved forward. The wights who'd been standing up launched onto the asphalt.

  What the? My truck was empty. The weak poltergeist that had taken up residence in the engine compartment must've finally decided to go rogue. Maybe it had gathered power over the months. Maybe it was given life in the deathly presence of the wights an
d the wraith. I wasn't sure, but I knew it wasn't trying to help me.

  My rusty pickup flew into reverse and backed up just enough to pick up speed and hit us again. I braced against the impact.

  Normally I'd applaud the little haunt for saving me, but in this case I'd actually wanted the bad guys to take me to their secret lair. Connor had made a career out of slipping from my grasp—this was the one time I was actually guaranteed to stick with him.

  The wight who was driving tried to circle around the obstruction but my truck crashed into us again. Our radiator cracked and spewed steam. I watched Chevalier's truck disappear down 54th Street and growled. If you wanted something done right...

  In the confusion, the wights had understandably lost track of me. I used the opportunity to hop out of the back of the pickup. The zip tie binding my hands was no problem, either. The brainless wights hadn't taken the Spaniard's word "chains" literally, but they should have. Iron can keep me rooted in this world. Living hands, too. Plastic? Not so much. In midair, I shifted into the shadows and displaced my position by a foot, leaving the tie behind. Then I phased back to solid as my alligator boots clunked onto the street.

  The rest of the getaway was bound to be more difficult.

  For starters, I was surrounded by a truck full of wights. No zombies, though. And no serious players. Since our truck was the last in line, it was mostly composed of the leftovers and rejects. Like Connor Hatch had been picking his all-star football team and we were riding the bench. (What did that say about me?)

  This was good and bad. It was no trouble to knock these guys around 'cause they were just kids. The driver was the only one of the bunch who could pass for twenty. The last thing I wanted to do was cut their lives tragically short.