City of Secrets (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 5) Read online

  I had just enough time to think he really shouldn’t have said that before Taeral was on his feet. “Céa biahn!”

  He gestured sharply, and Ian flew across the room to smash against the far wall.

  Before Ian could so much as blink, Taeral was right in front of him. He slapped his metal hand flat against Ian’s chest. Blue-white fire traced runes along gleaming gold, and he leaned forward, baring his teeth in a snarl. “If you’d like me to prove it, I could tear your heart from your chest, immortal,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll survive long enough to apologize.”

  “Very well,” Ian said with a faint wheeze. “Your point is made.”

  Taeral backed off. Reluctantly. “We are in, all of us,” he said. “Now, explain how we defeat this Zee.”

  As Taeral returned to the table without waiting for Ian, Donatti gave him a high-five. “Thank you,” he said. “He deserved that.”

  “I suppose I did,” Ian said from just behind him.

  Donatti flinched. “You know, I hate it when you wolf-sneak me. Make some noise, jerk.”

  “I believe I will save that for the fight ahead.” He regarded everyone with a grim expression. “The Naimura has no tether,” he said. “Even with one, it would have been difficult. Now it will be nearly impossible.”

  “Still not djinn here,” I said. “What’s a tether?”

  “That hardly matters in the face of—”

  “Tethers are personal objects tied to the djinn realm,” Donatti said. Ian didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t object. “It’s the Council’s way of crippling any djinn who crosses over. The spell reduces the power they can use, which is why we run out of it. And if you destroy a tether, you destroy the djinn tied to it.”

  “At least you did not mention Aladdin’s lamp,” Ian said.

  “No, but you just did.”

  Great. Everything else I’d thought was made up actually existed, so why not Aladdin’s lamp, too? “I take it you have a tether, then,” I said to Ian.

  “Yes. I do not keep it with me, obviously,” he said.

  “What about Donatti?”

  Ian looked acutely uncomfortable. “We are not certain, but he may be tied to my tether as well.”

  “And that’s bad,” I said.

  “Yeah. Means if he dies, so do I, and vice versa.” Donatti patted Ian’s shoulder, like he was apologizing for something. Or forgiving him. “But there are some benefits. They’re kind of hard to explain.”

  “Okay, then.” That sounded like something I probably shouldn’t ask about. “So destroying his tether would be the slightly less impossible way, but he doesn’t have one. What’s the impossible way to beat him?”

  “We must weaken him, until he can be destroyed,” Ian said. “This means destroying his acolytes. They drink his blood, and so they enhance his power.”

  I really didn’t like that idea. “You’re saying we have to kill people.”

  “It is the only way. As long as they live, he cannot be stopped. And once we have done this … ” He looked away in thought. “In order to prepare an effective battle plan, we will need to know how djinn and Fae magic affect one another,” he finally said.

  “How will we determine that?” Taeral said.

  Ian actually grinned. “We will fight.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Sadie elected to sit this one out, after she muttered something about stupid and testosterone and how she didn’t need to test her fangs because they’d work just fine on any of us idiots. Taeral wisely decided not to argue with her.

  We managed to sleep a whole night’s worth, and then headed out for a suitable place to set off a bunch of magic. Ian had offered to send us all through mirrors, even though he’d never seen where we were going, but I trusted my van a lot more than the ‘look at a picture and hope we actually end up there’ method of travel.

  He only relented when Taeral suggested that he save his magic for the fight.

  I knew the perfect area. The not-really-NSA had already cleaned out the old, burned-out Milus Dei building, so they wouldn’t go back there. And it was in the middle of a few blocks of empty warehouses and shuttered businesses. Plenty of fight space to choose from.

  When we got there, Ian pointed to a long, flat building with a single row of windows facing the street and a big garage-style door at one end. “That will do,” he said. “We can drive this … vehicle inside, and we will not be seen.”

  “Works for me,” I said.

  Taeral climbed out to get the door open, and I looked around a bit. The building was between a three-story brownstone with boarded windows and an oversized shed at the corner of the block. Across the street was a structure faced entirely with black-framed chrome glass. A few sections still glinted in the winter sun, bright as mirrors, but most were cracked and smeared with grime.

  Ian probably could’ve used those for the mirror trick. But I was still glad he hadn’t.

  The garage door opened onto murky gloom, with only a few shafts of sunlight penetrating the small, filmed windows. Taeral walked in ahead, and I turned the headlights on as I drove through slowly. The inside was one big, open space with a polished cement floor, riddled with cracks and potholes. A few rusted hulks of machinery and an abandoned forklift stood against the left-hand wall, and the far right corner held a jumbled pile of fifty-gallon metal drums. Obviously, no one had been in here for years.

  I pulled to the right, parked the van and approached Taeral, who was inspecting the long-dark industrial lighting overhead. “Thinking about turning those on?”

  “Aye, we may as well.” He waved a hand. “De’ársahd.”

  Gloomy yellow light washed into the space. My pendant responded with a brief flash — and so did Taeral’s. I hadn’t even realized he was wearing the black stone Daoin gave him. Its light was a deep, rich purple.

  “What does yours do, anyway?” I said.

  He blinked and glanced down. “The lodestone?” he said. “It manipulates metal, as the master stone does with moonlight.”

  I recalled what Akila said last night. “So you can work the counter-element to blood magic.”

  “I can.”

  For the first time, I allowed myself a glimmer of hope. Maybe we had a shot at bringing down Zee. An infinitesimal, one-in-a-million shot that would take everything we could throw at him, and probably more.

  But I still couldn’t say I like the odds.

  “Well, this is cozy.” Donatti walked around the van with Ian straying slightly behind. He headed straight for the windows facing the street and looked through one a minute before giving it a push. It didn’t move. Not surprising, considering they were thick glass set into cinder block. “Huh,” he said. “Only two ways out.”

  I glanced back at the garage door. “I count one.”

  “There’s the other one.” He pointed down the length of the building, at a rust-dark emergency exit door I hadn’t noticed half-hidden behind the barrels. “I like to know how to get out of a place,” he said. “I mean, there’s usually a few magic ways too. But magic doesn’t solve everything.”

  “Indeed. Occasionally, a situation requires that something be punched.” Ian had joined the rest of us, looking like he hoped for one of those punching situations. “Perhaps you and Gideon would like to begin.”

  Donatti shrugged. “I guess. What are we supposed to do?”

  “Attempt to kill one another,” Ian said.

  “Oh, is that all?” Donatti smirked, shaking his head as he moved toward the center of the vast floor. He looked back and frowned when he realized I wasn’t following him. “Come on, man,” he called. “This’ll be fun.”

  “Fun,” I echoed. “You want me to kill you. That’s fun?”

  He smiled, and there was something almost taunting in it. “Try to kill me,” he said. “But I guarantee it won’t work, no matter what you do.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  I’d already decided I wasn’t going to try very hard. I walked toward him slowly, thinking ma
ybe I’d just throw a sleep spell at him and be done with it. If someone had to try killing each other, Taeral and Ian could do it.

  Before I reached him, Donatti dropped to one knee and slapped a palm on the floor.

  The cement beneath my feet cracked and buckled. Then it surged up like cold lava, encasing me from the ground up. Fast. A few more seconds and I’d be a cement cocoon.

  I spoke without thinking. “Thrucíar.”

  The cement around me shattered and fell away.

  “Nice,” Donatti said. “Now, handle this.” He reached out with an open hand and closed it, then gestured sharply aside.

  And I couldn’t speak.

  Damn. How was I supposed to cast spells without talking? Donatti was floating now, looking around the room. He dove down suddenly near the dead machines and picked up a thick metal bar.

  I glanced at Taeral. He raised an eyebrow and made an impatient, go-on gesture.

  So he wasn’t going to help.

  I remembered the word Taeral used to break the silence spell Daoin had cast on me, back when he was still crazy. But I couldn’t use it without talking. Come on, think. How was I going to undo this? I backed away slowly, watching as Donatti passed a hand over the bar — and turned it into some kind of club.

  Then he ran at me.

  Part of me still believed this was kind of a joke, and we weren’t really trying to kill each other. So I didn’t try that hard to get out of the way.

  And Donatti swung the club full force against my shoulder.

  I went down hard. Might’ve screamed if I had a voice. He’d actually hit me, and I suspected he’d broken something. And he was still coming.

  “You’d better start fighting back,” he said, raising the club in both hands.

  Oh, fuck.

  I rolled away fast, and the club smashed the floor hard enough to crack the concrete. That could’ve been my face. I really had to get my voice back, right now.

  The moonstone. I could think at that — I’d done it before.

  Araais, I thought as hard as I could.

  I felt the spell lift. But Donatti was still coming. “À dionadth,” I said, holding a hand out.

  He ran into the shield, shook himself. And started moving up.

  Okay. I needed a weapon, and fast. Daoin had somehow turned the master stone into a sword when we fought the Unseelie Queen, so maybe I could too. I grabbed it, slipped the cord from my neck, and repeated the words he’d used. “Calhaoim’nae solaas geahlí.”

  The stone obliged, glowing and lengthening into a blue-white light sword. It felt heavier than it looked. I just hoped I could use it.

  Donatti was over the top of the shield and coming down, club ready. I drew back and swung the moon-sword, a half-wild blow that somehow connected with his swing.

  White sparks erupted from the point where the weapons met. Donatti dropped the rest of the way, but landed on his feet and drew back to strike again.

  “Dei’ahmael,” I shouted.

  The club clattered to the floor. In the seconds while he was distracted, I lunged forward and stabbed the sword into his thigh.

  “Motherfucker,” he grunted through clenched teeth, falling to one knee. There was a faint hissing sound. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, until he grabbed the glowing blade with both hands — and the hissing got louder. Like water thrown on a hot grill. He cried out, yanking his hands away.

  Deep burns scored his palms and parts of his fingers. So concentrated moonlight was apparently bad for the djinn.

  I frowned and pulled the sword out. “Are we done now?”

  “Am I dead?” he gasped, pushing back to his feet.

  “No — ”

  “Ela rey’ahn.” He made a twisting motion with his arm, out and up.

  I flew up fast and smashed into the ceiling.

  The moon-sword fell from my fingers on impact. As I fell, I saw a flash of movement, and something wrapped itself around me. It felt like a metal cable. My breath whooshed out hard as I hit the floor, which crumbled away beneath me. And started closing over me.

  “Saohram iahd,” I managed to croak. The ropes crumbled and the floor spit me back out. I rolled again, away from the direction I sensed Donatti, and held out a hand. “Tuariis’caen.”

  The moonstone came to my hand. I shut it down and hung the pendant back around my neck. Have to try something else.

  Donatti’s running footsteps vibrated the floor. “Yiiksar-en,” he shouted.

  There was an alarming crack from the ceiling. And a huge section of industrial light fixture crashed down on me, spitting and sparking and shattering glass as it buried me in tangled wreckage.

  Okay, that really hurt. And now I was pissed.

  Something in me shut down. I pressed a hand to the mangled weight holding me down and snarled, “Ahmac àn beahlac.” Metal and glass exploded away from me, and I jumped to my feet to see Donatti coming for me.

  “Mahrú à dionadth!”

  The crushing shield smashed into him like a semi, driving him against the far wall. Spots of blood burst against the unseen barrier. But Donatti stood with his jaw clenched and arms crossed in front of him, straining against the spell.

  I had just enough time for horrifying regret before there was a shattering sound, and the shield vanished.

  Donatti shook his head and staggered forward, one hand held out in surrender. “Right. How do I tap out of this fight?” he said thickly.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” I rushed over to him, and managed to catch him before he collapsed. “Shit. I didn’t—”

  He cut me off with a smile and a weak wave. “That’s what you were supposed to do,” he said. “It’s all good. I’ll be fine. And unfortunately, that wouldn’t have killed me either … but I would’ve wished I was dead.” He grimaced and straightened, then limped toward the other two on his own. “Think we should let them play now.”

  I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and then went after him. “How did you stop that?”

  “Djinn magic works on need,” he said. “Basically, I really needed to not get crushed into pulp. But that took just about all I’ve got, for now.”

  Taeral watched me as we came back toward him and Ian. “Well done, brother,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s not something I want to be good at.” I sighed. “Don’t tell me I have no choice, okay? I know that. I just…”

  He nodded in silent understanding.

  “A good start,” Ian said as Donatti and I sat against the wall by the van, both too exhausted to watch on our feet. “And now, Unseelie, you and I will battle.”

  Taeral looked way too happy about that. “Aye. Good luck to you, immortal.”

  “And you as well.”

  As they headed for the center of the room, I looked around at the massive destruction Donatti and I had already caused. And I guessed it wasn’t nearly as much as two full-fledged magical warriors could generate.

  This building was going to be a pile of rubble by the time we got through with it.

  CHAPTER 33

  “The old guys are taking their time, huh?” Donatti said.

  Ian and Taeral still hadn’t gotten to the center of the building. They were both walking casually, looking around like they’d lost something. “Yeah. I’ll bet they don’t do anything,” I said. “They just wanted to see us bleed.”

  “Well, I’m doing plenty of that.” He grimaced and shifted the leg I’d put the moon-sword through. “I think the burning stopped this from bleeding, though,” he said. “Make sure you use that thing on Zee. Why’d you stab me in the leg, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “Because I didn’t want to kill you.”

  “You can’t. Trust me.” He gave a slight frown. “What about Zee?”

  “You mean do I want to kill him? Hell, yeah,” I said.

  “Good. Aim higher, then. Put that thing straight through his heart.”

  I didn’t foresee having a problem with that. The acolytes were another story, but
I’d keep that to myself, and hate the choice I didn’t have while I killed them anyway. “So how much is just about all for you, magically speaking?”

  “Some room for earth magic. Djinn-wise, I could probably cast a mirror bridge or two,” he said. “That’s about it. What’ve you got left?”

  “Not a whole lot. Plus the moonstone’s just about drained, and I can’t charge it back until moonrise. But I think my shoulder’s healing.” I looked out across the building to see Taeral and Ian just standing there, facing each other. “Are they gonna fight, or what?”

  Just then, Ian took a big step back and held a hand out. “Rohii lo’aistahz.”

  “Ian, what the hell are you doing!”

  They both looked over sharply at Donatti’s shout. Taeral staggered back, waving him down with one hand while the other went to his throat. “Na boegth,” he said in strangled tones.

  Then he bent double and retched. A gushing stream of dark blue liquid ejected from his mouth, splashing and puddling on the floor.

  Donatti was halfway to his feet — and to my own surprise, I grabbed him and pulled him back. “Taeral can handle … whatever that is,” I rasped. “What is that?”

  “It’s a soul drain.” He relaxed reluctantly. “You sure he’ll be okay?”

  “Yeah.” But now I wasn’t so convinced. Soul drain sounded horrible.

  Ian snarled something. He wasn’t moving, but his entire body shivered with effort. He was trying to break the lockdown spell Taeral had managed to get out before he started vomiting his soul.

  And it was working.

  Taeral retched again and straightened slightly, panting with his palms pressed to his knees. “Dhuunad sios’na draíotae,” he rasped through a mouthful of still-pouring, inky gunk.

  At the same time, Ian broke loose. “Ela na’ar!”

  Just as the awful dark stuff stopped bubbling from Taeral’s mouth, he burst into flames.

  It took every ounce of restraint I had not to rush over and help him. And only because I knew he’d be pissed if I did.

  Ian took to the air, pulling out his dagger. As Taeral dropped on the floor and rolled around, trying to put out the flames, the djinn passed a hand over the knife, like Donatti had done with the iron bar. His weapon lengthened to a broadsword.