Down the hall, Frank stood from his desk. “Forget somethin’?” he asked.
Moving with practiced skill and unnatural speed, Unferth drew one of the thin throwing axes from his belt and hurled it down the hall. With a sickening crunch, the blade of the axe landed inches deep in Frank’s forehead.
Keeley watched him fall dead at his station as the vampires pushed past. His mind cried out an objection that his voice couldn’t carry. Strong, familiar hands hoisted him up from beside the doorstep. “Come on, Paul,” said Rosario, “keep it together. We might still need you.”
“No,” he whispered. She didn’t hear him, which let him escape punishment. It also gave him the courage to say it again: “No.”
* * *
It wasn’t all about magic. Sometimes it was simply about body language and paying attention to who stood with whom. The magic certainly helped, though. Without it, Onyx could never have kept track of so many naturally stealthy creatures in a dark, rainy parkland.
The rain, though, had more to do with Molly. Working the weather like this was only a pipe dream a month ago. Now if Molly wanted fog, she brought it up from the lake. She wanted rain, and so she convinced the clouds to let go. Magic like that took serious concentration, though, so everything else fell to Onyx.
She had to maintain their spells of stealth, holding that power in the raven’s feathers and opals wrapped in bay leaves clenched in her left hand. She served as the pair’s eyes and ears. Molly’s preoccupation also left Onyx relying on her own judgment as the vampires and werewolves came to the exterior of the building, spread out and then sent some of their own inside.
The pair remained hidden by virtue of the tree and the unnaturally large rhododendron bush. Onyx watched and learned, noticing the way the wolves and those who walked with them shied away from the vampires. They seemed impatient to Onyx, too, but animals were Molly’s thing. Werewolves were far from natural, but that still meant that Onyx was no expert.
Yet she could read people just fine. Sometimes she could read small groups. The group of vampires clustered at the edge of the parking lot returned to the spot close to the witches’ hiding place as several others guided their apparent captive to the side entrance and then inside.
Onyx wished desperately that she could do something for that poor guy the vampires had grabbed, but had to let it go. He was simply out of her reach. Any overt display of magic would only get her killed, and none of her subtler tricks seemed likely to work, either.
Given a few moments to hide, watch and think, Onyx hit on something practical. She fumbled in her pocket for a small plastic bag of ground black pepper and poppy seed. She murmured words in Greek, opening the bag to insert the tip of her ebony wand and then twisted it thrice. Onyx pulled her wand out and pointed it at the vampire in the suit and hat.
He looked around strangely, his head turning as if unsure of his surroundings or perhaps hearing things that weren’t there. The vampire scratched his head and stepped back from his spot, looking to those around him with a questioning posture. He soon recovered-at least, outwardly-for he took on a confident posture and met those who came to him with strength and poise.
Onyx took what she could get. A leader with a clouded mind had to count against the group somehow. She watched the group for more opportunities, listened for trouble coming her way, and hoped she and all her friends would live to see the sunrise.
* * *
“Carlisle is in the janitor storage closet on the… third floor on the… on the corner.” The words came from Keeley’s mouth slowly and painfully. He tried to keep them in, but his mouth wouldn’t do what he wanted. Thinking became harder and harder.
Unferth snatched the keys from Keeley’s hands. “Which ones?” he hissed.
“Marked them,” Keeley mumbled. “Red for the vampire. Green for… for the kid. No.” The last word fell out so softly that no one heard it, even pressed together in the dark hallway. “No.”
“Stay here,” Unferth told the others, keeping his voice low. “I’ll be faster and quieter alone.”
“Wait, Unferth,” Rosario urged. “We’re just supposed to scout and report back, and only grab your brother if it looks easy.”
“And I shall do that,” he said, pushing past.
“Then why did you ask about-dammit!” she fumed as he rushed down the hallway. She turned her eyes to the other vampires in the hallway intersection. “He’s gonna fuck up everything, ain’t he?”
“Would you like to tell him no?” asked one of her companions. Francois had been one of Cornelius’s favorites. Rosario had no clue why. He seemed like a reject from some Goth-wannabe version of the Three Musketeers, complete with frilly and lacy poet’s shirt and black cloak. At least he didn’t have a stupid hat.
“A little late now,” shrugged another vampire. His English accent, pencil-thin mustache and beret did little to impress her, but his World War II fatigues and his old-fashioned machinegun denoted a certain level of competence. At least he seemed to understand how to work in a team.
Rosario let out a little sigh. Every one of these fucks was much older than her, but Wentworth decided she was in charge. Some shit about being the last scion of Cornelius or something. She could never tell if he was actually trying to show respect or if he just wanted to passive-aggressively bust her ass.
She shook her head and tried to take control of the situation again. “Okay, we gotta wait Unferth out a bit an’ see if he can find his bro on his own, I guess. Maybe we need to get out of sight?”
“No one has appeared so far,” noted Francois.
“We shouldn’t be too worried. They have the demon locked up. How many of these blokes are there?” asked the soldier. He nudged the dead guard on the floor.
“Yeah, I guess,” Rosario frowned. “I mean, you said there’s the four guys, the demon an’ your five FBI guys, right?” she asked Keeley. “So how many does that leave with this asshole dead? Four more pigs?”
“No,” said the trembling man nearby. He winced as if he’d said something he didn’t mean to say. “I… can’t… no.”
Rosario’s brow knit as she caught on. “Wait, are you tryin’ to hide somethin’ from me?” she asked, stepping forward. She saw his fear as she drew close. “Four other agents, right? Is that all? Who else is there?”
“T… tac… no…”
“C’mon,” she said, tracing her sharp nails against his neck as a warning. “Who else? Tac what?”
“Tactical… s-s-squad for sup… support. Security.”
Rosario’s eyes widened. “Oh, what the fuck? Seriously?” she asked. Her hand tightened around his neck. “How many of those? Are they like this guy? They’re well-armed, right? How fucking many, puto?”
“S-s-suh six,” Keeley mumbled. A tear welled up in his eye. “Six. Five now,” he added, gesturing weakly to Frank on the floor.
“Aw, shit,” Rosario winced. “We should warn the others.”
“Should I go?” asked Francois.
“No,” she said, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. “I got it.” She called up the screen and her messaging program.
Keeley looked down at her, and her phone, and his gun sticking out of her waistband just in reach. She didn’t seem to notice him anymore. Standing still so as to be left ignored, his eyes went from her to Frank. Keeley barely knew more about him than his name. Now he was dead.
Keeley would be dead soon, too. Dead, like all his friends, because he couldn’t think. Couldn’t say no in anything more than a whisper. Couldn’t fight back.
His eyes turned back to Rosario, and her phone, and his gun in her waistband.
His trembling hand reached up, slowly, to the gun. His muscles felt weak. Just moving like this took such effort, as if fighting against some invisible resistance that he knew was actually his own body and his own mind-