"The Darkest Edge of Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gay Kelly)3Liz went limp. I screamed at her to stay awake as Hank nudged me aside, attempting to pull Liz’s hand away from the corpse’s steel-like grip. The rest of Daya’s body remained bent over so far, her head touched her knees. Hair covered her face from view, but it was the raspy, guttural chanting that made me worried. I scrambled out of the way on my hands and knees as Hank leaned over, his strong arms wrapping around Liz’s tiny form. The smut cloud in the corner drew closer. Daya was drawing on negative energy to aid her cause. The hairs on my arms stood. My heartbeat thudded loud and heavy in my eardrums as I pulled my 9mm from the holster and fired at the corpse, thinking it might be enough to distract her while Hank pulled. Each bullet slammed into her torso with a thunk. Three shots and nothing happened. “Goddammit!” Hank pulled at Liz so hard he had her off the floor, his feet slipping in the dust and salt. Daya was not letting go. The only way to stop her was to break the link. I scanned the room, betting my ass the ITF seminar had never covered this. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed the corpse from behind, hands under both armpits, and pulled. She reeked of rotting flesh from the debris pile and her own decay. My stomach shriveled into a hard, tiny knot. Her tangled, matted hair stuck to my mouth. I spit the hair away from my lips and then gritted my teeth, pulling hard. Daya’s dead ass rose off the floor, but she refused to let go of Liz’s hand. One look at Hank’s widening eyes, and I knew the smut cloud was right behind me, drawn ever closer by the chanting. The newly designed nitro capsules sank into her flesh, the housing disintegrating as it went, releasing a shot of nitro into her body and instantly freezing the skin. The nitro spread, traveling up and down her arm lightning fast. Just before it reached her wrist, I stepped down with all my might, severing the frozen limb at the joint. Severing the bloodline. Hank and Liz fell back, the dead hand still gripping Liz’s. The corpse’s red mouth slowly dropped open, milky eyes trained on me, as a desperate, enraged scream pushed out of her mouth along with bits of blood and paper. The sound raised goose bumps over much of my skin. Despite the fact that my entire body was begging me to physically shake off the traces of her that clung to my skin, hair, and clothes, I stood my ground, breath coming out ragged, and kept my weapon trained. Daya turned in despair, her gaze seeking the energy that would’ve helped reanimate her. She groaned and reached out with her good hand, her look becoming heartbreaking as she realized her chance at rebirth was slipping away. Blood tears swam over her eyes as they turned opaque, and her body hardened, collapsing to the floor. For a long time no one moved or spoke. “Get this fucking thing off of me,” Liz muttered, weakly flinging at the severed hand latched to hers. Hank raised them both to a sitting position, his arms still wrapped tightly around her. Once they were up, he scooted out from behind her to pry the stiff fingers from Liz’s open hand. I holstered my weapon, hands shaking, and grabbed my phone to call paramedics, squinting at the numbers and the blurry display. “What are you doing?” Liz asked. “Calling the medics.” She shook her head, looking like I’d felt earlier after the hellhound jumped me. “No. No medics. Elliot will be here soon. I called him earlier …” A crack of bone made me jump. Hank’s skin went a shade paler and his throat worked with a hard swallow. He’d had to break the corpse’s finger bones. “Sorry,” he murmured, finally freeing the hand and tossing it toward the rest of Daya as though it was a hot potato. “Who the hell is Elliot?” “My new apprentice.” Liz made a slow fist, opening and closing several times to aid in circulation. “And I’m fine, okay? You don’t need to call the medics.” “You’re not fine. That … “Don’t tell me you’re gonna cry,” Liz joked, but her ragged breathing and pale skin told me she was putting up a brave front. “Ha ha.” Yeah. So the shock of nearly raising a zombie and losing my friend made my eyes a bit glossy. I didn’t feel like crying; more like decimating the damn wall with my bare hands. The thought manifested in a warm wave of humming energy through my veins. My fist closed around my phone. I heard a small plastic crack and eased up. Now was not the time for one of my accidental power surges. “Hell no, I’m not going to cry.” I shoved the phone into its holster on my hip. “Why? You still have that stupid bet with the cold cell nurse? Whoever sees Charlie cry first wins?” She gave a small laugh. “It wasn’t my idea. But, hey, odds I rolled my eyes. “You have enough eyewear to open your own LensCrafters.” The banging on the door made me jump. A voice shouted Liz’s name. Liz sighed. “That would be Elliot. Hank, would you let him in?” Once Hank unbolted the door, Elliot rushed in with a gallon jug of orange juice in hand. He looked wide-eyed and rumpled like a kid who’d just gotten out of bed, but ready and willing to take on the world, despite the fact that he also seemed scared shitless. Smart kid. I liked him already. It was the people who “Shoot,” he breathed, surveying the scene. “I missed everything.” He bent down to help Liz to her feet and I saw one corner on his shirt had been tucked into the edge of blue-striped boxers. “Man.” His wide eyes were locked on the corpse. “What happened to her hand? And why is she all wrinkly?” “How old are you?” I asked. He straightened, his hand on Liz’s elbow to keep her balanced, to a height just shy of six feet. “Eighteen.” “Don’t you raise your eyebrow at me,” Liz said at my pointed look. “The kid begged me for two Elliot grinned, revealing white teeth and a cute, boyish charm that probably got him into loads of girl trouble. “That’s really code for she loves me.” Liz snorted and swayed on her feet. Her fingernails dug into Elliot’s arm. “Okay. Wow. Seeing stars here.” “Come on, let’s get you out of this room and into some fresh air,” Elliot said. After they were gone, I stepped to the built-in shelving unit and snagged the video camera, leaning my hip against the counter and rewinding the tape, trying to concentrate on the task as the guilt formed in my gut. “I should’ve known she was a mage,” I said. “It’s a risk every necromancer takes. No one can see auras on dead people, Charlie. Not even you. And it’s not like we had time to find out who she was beforehand. If we’d done that, we wouldn’t have gotten any information from her at all.” Hank wasn’t looking at me. He was staring down at Daya’s corpse. I knew how he felt. Powerless. Daya wouldn’t have died in the first place if we’d been able to do our damn job and figured out who was kidnapping and killing Elysians. Seeing her wanting her life back, wanting what anyone would want … Yeah. Been there. Knew what that was like. “At least we got the call instead of the ITF,” I muttered. Score one for the new federal agents. Except for one “capture alive” case, the only other case we’d worked since taking on our new role two months ago had been a “kill or be killed” situation. Sounded harsh, but I—and obviously a lot of other people—believed that what we did was a necessary evil. There were things, even after thirteen years of integration, that posed too much of a threat to society, things that didn’t require capture or a trial, things that often preferred to fight to the death, things better left to … well, us. The tape stopped rewinding. I turned the power off to save the battery. “So now we know where our missing Adonai went. This”—Hank stared down at Daya—“is the seventh body in less than two weeks. Dumped in the trash … discarded.” His profile went grim and utterly determined, lips drawn into an angry line, the muscle in his jaw flexing beneath day-old stubble. He dragged his fingers through his hair and then propped both hands on his hips. The air became charged with rage for these victims. He stood there like some dark avenging angel. Like all sirens, Hank’s beauty bordered on fantasy, and he oozed masculinity like a sweet, beguiling perfume, but the last few months of being cut off from his siren power, had done something to him, had made him colder, harder, unpredictable, and, if I wanted to be honest with myself, scarier. My friend at Animal Control arrived as Hank and I were leaving the warehouse. After showing Tim the hellhound and making him swear on his entire collection of autographed Atlanta Braves baseball memorabilia to send the beast back to Charbydon, I joined Hank in the parking lot with Liz and Elliot. It was drizzling. I sensed it before I ducked under the lopsided door. Interesting phenomenon, the rain. It had to pass through the darkness, and each drop carried with it some gray, some primeval Charbydon power. When a drop hit the ground, it dispersed the darkness in a tiny puff, like smoke. The thing was, there were so many drops going on at once that it created a fog over the ground. And as long as it rained, those little whiffs of “smoke” kept being hit back down, or trapped once more into the rain. The more rain, the more “Charbydon Fog” as we’d begun calling it. I turned up the collar on my jacket and hunched my shoulders, not happy at the thought of darkness splatting on my head and shoulders, not happy that my body responded, got a little energized by the raw, arcane power around me. Part of me was Charbydon now. And there was nothing I could do about the near-constant tingle I got from the darkness overhead. Made me wonder how all the other local Charbydons were feeling. Probably pretty damn good. Atlanta had become a paradise for the Charbydon races; the forty-mile radius of darkness that spread from the grounds of Mott Technologies and outward made the city a dark replica of their home world. They’d tolerated the sunlight before, but this … this was like their own little hell on earth. My feet stirred the thin layer of fog on the ground as I made my way across the derelict parking lot toward the dark silhouette of Liz’s van and the small overhead light spilling out from the vehicle, leading me like a lighthouse beacon. I rolled my neck, trying to ease the anxious feeling the darkness spawned in me. All I wanted was to get out of this and somewhere I could think straight without this constant reminder that I was different, genetically altered to bring darkness to Atlanta. Yeah. City in crisis? That was me. Despite the press conferences and the constant assurances that the darkness had been the work of one power hungry Charbydon noble, many here held the entire Charbydon race responsible. And that idea was constantly fanned by those who’d been against the integration of our worlds from the beginning. The tension wasn’t as bad as it had been in the first few weeks, but two months wasn’t a long time; the tension was still here like a living current just below the surface. Recently the focus had turned to asking: how does a city survive without sunlight? And that question was being addressed by the world’s best and brightest—Titus Mott. Since most of our food sources came from other places anyway, we didn’t have to worry about produce and fresh foods; those continued to be trucked in as usual. But we did have to worry about sunlight deficiencies, the effect on sleep cycles, and the constant drain on electricity. The government was urging citizens to take frequent trips outside the forty-mile radius, and depending on where you were, that could happen almost daily or only on the weekends. The point officials tried to make was that it was doable. We And I refused to believe that Atlanta had become the new hell. The light would come back. My genetically altered blood had brought the darkness into this world, and it would be my job to take it out. I just wasn’t sure how to make that happen … yet. Liz sat in the passenger seat of her van, Elliot hovering nearby. Her white throat bobbed as she chugged the OJ, drinking like a person starved. A third of the gallon was gone before she stopped and noticed me standing there. “What? I need vitamin C.” A deficiency all natural necromancers were born with and one that got worse after a ritual. She seemed none the worse for wear except for the big elephant lurking over us that no one spoke about—how much of her life force this had cost her. “You get a picture of her death?” I asked, folding my arms in front of me and trying not to look like I was hugging myself against the drizzle. Liz angled in the seat to face us, took one more long drink, then: “Just flashes that corresponded to the things she said. Her life force was sucked out of her body. I felt that part. The ring Daya mentioned could be an object of power, the murder weapon possibly, a container for her life force.” Another long drink. “Didn’t get a face. I did get a halo of red. Fiery red. Power. Aura. Can’t say for sure.” “What about location?” Hank asked. “A terrace, definitely. Downtown view. Didn’t see the actual building, but the view was downtown. And I didn’t get a sense if it was her apartment or just the place where she was killed. That’s it. I wish it was more.” Another drink. “Oh, and guys? She wasn’t just a mage—she was a Magnus.” “Perfect,” I muttered. “So our killer is going after high-level mages.” “If he wants to keep on killing, yes,” Hank said thoughtfully. “Whoever is doing this must be after power. Think about it. The Adonai are the most powerful of all Elysian races, right? They’re top of the food chain. But most all of them have left the city or gone back to Elysia because they prefer light to darkness. So the killer’s pickings are slim.” I picked up his train of thought. “Right. And next up in the Elysian power chain are sirens and nymphs. Add an Elder or a Magnus-level crafter to their r#233;sum#233; and you’ve got the next best thing in power sources.” “Exactly. And he had to target a Magnus-level crafter because the Elders are virtually untouchable within the confines of the league.” “True,” Liz said. “The Elder crafters are like hermits; they never leave the safety of the Mordecai House.” “Okay,” I began, my thoughts turning. “Well, we have a workable theory. We’ve found our missing Adonai, and we’ve got one powerful nymph sucked dry. Let’s assume, for now, that the others in the warehouse met the same end. We’ve got a killer preying on power, but only Elysian power. He’s not targeting Charbydons, because if he was, he’d be going after the nobles next; they’re just as powerful as the Elysian Adonai.” “Which tells us one of two things: either the guy’s got something against Elysians of power, or Charbydon power is of no use to him.” Hank snorted. “Or both.” “Well, he can’t be feeding on all that power alone,” Liz said. “A body, no matter where it’s from, can’t hold that much.” “So who is powerful enough to kill a bunch of Adonai?” Elliot asked, getting into the spirit of our brainstorming. Good question. I glanced around the group, and saw the answer on their faces. Charbydon noble. In Elysia the Adonai were the most powerful, but in Charbydon, the nobles had that distinction. The two races also happened to be enemies since before Man walked this Earth. And most still were despite the peace pact they’d agreed upon when the two worlds had been discovered thirteen years earlier. “But anyone can rise to power, enough to rival an Adonai or a noble,” I said. “It’d take centuries of study and training, but there could be others in this city capable of taking down an Adonai.” Hank’s brow lifted in agreement. “And this might be the perfect setup for starting a war.” The Adonai had recently bowed to government pressure, agreeing to stay quiet about their missing members in the interest of public relations. But once they learned the missing had turned up dead, it was highly doubtful they’d remain quiet. They’d blame the Charbydons. Elysians versus Charbydons. Heaven and hell at war. Again. Only this time Atlanta would be the battleground. “Sure hope he’s not a Charbydon,” Liz broke the silence, saying what we were all thinking. “So we find him,” Hank said in a deep, determined tone. “And shut him down before he fucks up life as we know it.” “Elliot and I will take care of the bodies.” “And we’ll talk to the chief,” I said. “See if he can convince the ITF to keep this quiet for as long as they can.” Liz’s expression turned grave. “I guess you’ll be going to the Grove next.” I nodded. “We need to find that terrace.” “Well, good luck. He’s going to want her body. Tell him I’ll have it to him by tomorrow morning and not to storm my morgue.” |
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