As if on cue, the door to the studio swung wide, and a man was violently tossed from the entryway onto the floor. The Grigori, Armaros in the lead, followed.
“What is the meaning of this?” Stearns demanded.
“This is our very special friend, Remy Chandler,” Armaros said.
The man, bloodied and beaten, moaned as he struggled to regain consciousness.
“And we thought it only fair that he have a front-row seat to the events that are about to transpire.”
“You…you can’t do this,” the man called Remy Chandler mumbled through swollen lips as blood dribbled from his injured mouth.
“And that is where you are wrong,” Armaros said as he and the other Grigori gathered around the little girl’s bed.
“We can, and we are.”
Francis sipped his Starbucks coffee and waited.
The call from Remy had come fifteen minutes ago, but so far nothing had happened.
“What, exactly, are we waiting for?” Angus asked, nervously watching the traffic and people going by. “Maybe we’re just missing it.”
“Hasn’t happened yet,” Francis said between sips of his scalding drink.
“What should we do?”
Francis didn’t answer the sorcerer, choosing instead to think this through. He wasn’t the most patient of beings. There was a part of him, one that really didn’t get to come out all that often, that wanted to be patient-to do exactly what Remy had asked of him. But there was another side of him, one that often seemed to get its way, that thought they should be doing something right now.
“Maybe he took care of the situation himself,” he said finally, turning to look at the sorcerer sitting beside him. “Maybe the problem wasn’t all that big and he didn’t need to call in the big guns.”
“Big guns?” Angus asked, confusion written all over his fat face. “Who…?”
“Us,” Francis explained. “The big guns…the heavy hitters. Maybe there wasn’t any need to-”
The sound like an angry swarm of hornets filled the backseat of their borrowed vehicle, tickling the insides of their brains.
Francis spun around in his seat, pistol pointed and ready to fire, without spilling a single drop of his coffee. He recognized the shape of an angelic portal opening and guessed that this was the sign Remy had told him was coming. The pinprick hole grew, and with a rush of air unleashed its contents into the backseat.
A fallen angel’s body spilled out, pitching forward, crimson gore spewing from an angry neck wound.
“Holy fuck,” Francis screamed, tossing aside his coffee and jumping into the backseat, forcing his hand against the bleeding gash in the traveler’s throat.
“Get me something to stop the bleeding,” he yelled at Angus.
The angel thrashed wildly as warm blood flowed out from between Francis’ fingers. Angus handed him a small stack of napkins, and he jammed them against the gushing wound, hoping it would be enough but knowing otherwise.
Francis noticed that the blood was being quickly absorbed by the upholstery of the car’s backseat, not even leaving a stain. Leona may have been fed earlier, but she obviously wasn’t above having an unexpected snack.
“Remy,” Francis said, leaning down to look into the dying Grigori’s eyes. “Where is he? Is he inside?”
The angel’s eyes were growing dimmer, but he struggled to respond.
“Yes…,” he gurgled. “Taken…”
“He was taken,” Francis repeated. “Taken by Stearns? Your boss…Who took him?”
“Maybe a spell of healing?” Angus suggested, and the tips of his fingers started to grow a fiery red.
“Too late for that,” Francis replied.
“Stop…them…,” the fallen angel managed, reaching up to take hold of Francis’ shoulder in a weakening grip.
“Yeah,” Francis said, watching as the life went out of the angel’s eyes. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”
The part of Francis that liked to act first and think later was in full control now as he climbed back into the driver’s seat.
“What are we going to do now?” Angus asked, movement in the backseat capturing his attention. Now it wasn’t only blood that was being absorbed by the upholstery.
“We’re getting inside,” Francis said, turning over the engine.
“But there are wards in place and golem guards…”
“And they’ll be dealt with.” Francis put the car in drive and leaned closer to the steering wheel. “Leona, I know Richard said you’d only give us a ride, but I was wondering-especially since I just gave you that nifty angel snack-if you’d be willing to get us inside that building across the street.”
The car didn’t respond, as if considering his request.
“I happen to know that there are magickal wards in place to keep people like us from entering and there are probably armed guards, but a really good friend of mine is trapped inside, and a lot of people are going to die if we don’t help him.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re reasoning with a car?” Angus asked, horrified.
Francis held up a finger, signaling for him to be quiet.
“What do you say, Leona? Can you get us inside?”
The radio that had been playing softly in the background went to static, before Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries was suddenly blaring from the speakers.
“Oh, God,” Angus screamed, fumbling to get his seat belt on.
“That a girl,” Francis said, grabbing hold of the wooden steering wheel. He let the car do what it did best, what it had been created to do.
Drive.
Effortlessly and with great speed, Leona freed herself from the parking space, driving down Boylston Street, accelerating by the second. Just as she was about to pass the building, she slammed on her brakes, spinning around so that she faced the sidewalk in front of Hermes Plaza.
“Dear God in Heaven!” Angus wailed, grabbing for anything that might give him purchase.
“Hold on,” Francis cried, as the Lincoln jumped the curb, barely missing gaggles of screaming pedestrians, and sped toward the front entrance of the building.
Leona’s engine roared like some great jungle cat about to take down its prey.
Something was wrong with the shadow path.
Squire could feel it deep in his rounded gut, the quill-like hair on the back of his thick neck standing at attention.
The first rule any hobgoblin learned about traveling the paths was to pay attention to location and the stability of the path. That very rule suddenly came to mind when he felt the darkness beneath his feet grow soft, and watched as Ashley stumbled in front of him, falling to her knees.
“Get up,” Squire ordered, fearing the worst. “Get up, get up…”
A gunshot rang out from behind them.
They had to get to the other end, and fast.
There were more gunshots, but the bullets were absorbed into the substance of shadow, likely coming out in some other dark place. Squire pictured some poor schmuck getting in some quality porn time when a bullet found its way out from a patch of black behind the La-Z-Boy. Could seriously ruin a guy’s evening.
The passage was breaking down, and that could mean only one thing was happening: The environment in which the path had originally existed was now different.
Squire came up close to Ashley, who was still struggling to regain her footing in the mudlike substance that was now the floor of the tunnel. He wrapped his arms around her tiny waist and hauled her back onto her feet, practically dragging her through the sucking surface.
The passage was closing in on them, growing smaller, narrower. If they didn’t find an exit soon, it would collapse in on itself and they would drown in this shit. Not a bad fate for the jerk-offs that were chasing them, but it wasn’t something that Squire was looking forward to.
More gunshots rang out, and he felt a bullet whiz past his face. The assholes were getting closer.
“We gotta move faster,” he urged Ashley. He did have to hand it to the kid: She was hanging in there pretty well. Most couldn’t handle five minutes in a shadow path, never mind being in one on the verge of collapse.