Thea Harrison - Serpent's Kiss

She had seen the power in his running launch, felt the power in his launch from both sea and land. This was something altogether different. This had the roar of a Harrier jet as it shot off the short deck of an aircraft carrier ship. Each of his long, powerful strides shoved them off the Earth, faster and faster, until he took a springboard jump off the wrought-iron balcony and leaped up into the air with his arms outstretched.

It was one of the most exhilarating things she had ever experienced, and possibly one of the most tragic, for even as he shimmered into the shapeshift, and she felt the flow of his body as he expanded underneath her, a massive nylon net unfurled over them, shot with devastating precision from the rooftop of the hotel. They tangled in it and fell.

Even as they plummeted several stories, Rune was unbelievably fast. They turned as they fell and he twisted in midair, keeping his body between hers and the pavement, but the restricting net made his landing horribly awkward. They slammed into the ground with such force they shattered the concrete underneath them. She could hear the massive bones in Rune’s front right leg and shoulder snap. The breath left him hard as he collapsed in an uncontrolled sprawl. Otherwise he remained silent. She was the one who screamed with rage and anguish at his suffering.

Her talons sprang out. The nylon net shredded like paper. Within seconds she had it ripped away and she leaped to her feet, standing protectively over Rune. But the net had accomplished what it had been intended to do; it had grounded them. With a muffled groan, Rune shapeshifted back into a man and lay curled on his side around his shattered arm.

She backed in a circle, looking around the open space. They had landed on a sidewalk beside the hotel’s large, well-kept grounds. There wasn’t any traffic on the nearby bordering street, and there were no passing pedestrians.

There were, however, plenty of creatures dotting the area around them. Julian had set the trap well. Four more trolls, and as many as fifty ghouls, with perhaps twice as many Vampyres, all standing silent, either watching to see what she would do or waiting for orders.

Even if she agreed to go with them, Rune would never accept it. Injured as he was, he would rise to his feet and fight to the death before he would let them get separated.

Her hands fisted. She called out, “You have been my people, and you’re just following orders. I understand that. As of this moment, you can all walk away. No harm, no foul, no damage done. But if you’re going to go, you need to do it right now.”

She was gratified to note that many slipped away in the night. On the ground at her feet, Rune sat and drew a gun. He was hunched over, cradling his arm against his abdomen. He asked hoarsely, “Can you freeze the rest?”

“There’s too many, spread over too large of an area.” She began to whisper the ancient spell that called all her souls together, gathering all her Power into one compressed weapon. I call my future selves to me. I call all my desires, all my fears to me. I call all my past selves to me. I call my divine self to me . . .

Then Julian called across the open space, in his rough, familiar battleground roar, “All you have to do to stop this is keep your promise and return to the island. You can spend your remaining days in peace.”

She looked down and met Rune’s blazing gaze. “I can’t do that, Julian.”

“You would really rather go to war? How could you kill your own people?”

“I gave them their chance,” she said. “And my give-a-shit button’s broken, baby.” She didn’t recognize her own voice.

Rune came up on one knee. Too many creatures chambered too many rounds. She glanced down, and he nodded to her. He gave her a small private smile. It had been so beautiful for too brief a time. She put a hand on Rune’s good shoulder and began to whisper the spell that would rain fire. She poured all her Power into the incantation.

Then the cyclone returned.

It blasted into the open area with such force, the Earth shook. Buildings rattled in a half-mile radius. Later the news channels would state the shockwave from the earthquake was felt three hundred miles away. Many of the Nightkind creatures cried out in fear and fell to the ground to cover their heads.

Rune stood and put his good arm around Carling as a prince of the Djinn formed in front of them. Khalil’s strange diamond eyes and elegant inhuman features held a fierce smile.

“Now you will be the one to owe me a favor,” said the Djinn to the Vampyre sorceress.

She released all her pent-up Power with a gasp. “Yes,” she said.

“Where?”

“The Oracle in Louisville,” she said rapidly.

Across the open square, Julian roared orders. His Nightkind forces began to fire. But none of their bullets hit their targets. The cyclone enveloped Rune and Carling and took them away.

The trip was as strange and as chaotic as anything Carling had experienced. She turned and put her arms around Rune to hold him tight as a howling wind surrounded them. In the center of the cyclone, Khalil gripped them to his lean, hard chest. Then the world materialized around them again, in the shape of a hot, humid Midwestern night.

As soon as Rune and Carling’s feet touched the ground, Khalil released them. Carling was slow to relax her clench on Rune’s waist, and she noticed his good arm was just as reluctant to loosen on her. The Djinn had not disappeared as he had the previous times he had come. Instead, he stood beside them and surveyed the scene with as much curiosity as they did.

They weren’t actually in the city of Louisville but instead were some distance out, because the night was dark and quiet, populated with the shadowed greenery of deciduous trees and grass, and filled with the sound of crickets and cicadas. Hundreds of fireflies blanketed the area, winking yellow lights. The scene felt saturated with a very old Power.

They stood in a long gravel driveway that led up to an old sprawling two-story farmhouse. They had to have left San Francisco sometime after midnight, so that meant it was after 3:00 a. m. in Kentucky. A light was on inside the house. They could all clearly hear the sound of a fussing baby. There was the smell of a nearby river. Carling sensed the cool, powerful rush of water.

“Is that the Ohio River?” she asked Khalil.

“Yes,” he said. The Djinn stood with his hands on his hips. His head was cocked as he regarded the house.

Even though the dark night outside was lit only by stars and dotted with electric lights off in the distance, Carling’s gaze was sensitive enough she could see the lines of pain on Rune’s face as he cradled his arm. “We need to get you inside,” she said. She walked up the front steps of the farmhouse to the wide covered porch, followed by Rune and Khalil. A motion-sensitive porch light came on as they approached the house. Carling knocked on the door.

Light rapid footsteps approached, then suddenly the door yanked open. A slim, young human woman stood in the doorway with a baby on her hip. The woman was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, with features that might be classified as more interesting than pretty, and she had short flyaway, strawberry blonde hair. She was disheveled and hollow-eyed, and dressed in shabby plaid flannel pants and an oversized gray T-shirt.

The baby was a boy, perhaps nine months old. He looked as disheveled and hollow-eyed as the woman, his small round face splotchy from crying. For a moment he regarded them with as much curiosity as they regarded him. Then he knuckled one of his ears, turned to plop his face into the woman’s neck, and emitted a ragged, miserable wail.

The woman looked at them with unfriendly eyes. “What the hell are you doing, knocking at someone’s door at three thirty in the morning?”