Sam looked especially out of place in the same tank top, jeans, and sneakers I’d seen him wear every single time. He was curling and uncurling his fingers, his tattoos glowing faintly, maybe his way of preparing his magic, whatever that meant in angelic terms.
Well, okay. So I didn’t look any snazzier myself in a jacket, denims, and sneaks, and yeah, maybe I felt a little underdressed. But I had the magical flying murder-sword, okay? That’s worth at least a hundred style points.
This was like some sort of heist, I realized, like one of those movies where a motley bunch of specialists who have nothing at all in common get together to rob a casino, or a bank, except not at all. Our stakes were way higher, in the order of stopping someone from wiping out an entire city, if not the whole state. Hell, maybe the world.
The elevator dinged, and the four of us braced ourselves, with Sterling moving to the front of our line. The doors slid open, and I groaned. Carver grunted under his breath, and Sam said nothing.
See, while there weren’t any shrikes this time, I could argue that the angel’s troops would be just as challenging to fight, if not more so. They were people. Regular human beings, office workers, all of them, with blank, silver-white eyes, wielding a haphazard assortment of makeshift weapons.
I wished we were robbing a bank instead.
Chapter 26
The entire floor was silent, every cubicle empty, computer screens blue and hazy, facing out onto conspicuously vacant desks and chairs. This was Comstock’s shared newsroom, where newspaper reporters and online writers congregated in the same rat maze to tap out their stories and hand them in to grizzled night editors.
But those job titles and distinctions meant nothing that night. Under Adriel’s thrall, every man and woman in that office was just another grunt, an expendable sack of meat.
“What the fuck do we do?” Sterling murmured out of the corner of his mouth, a pointless attempt at subtlety since the entire newsroom could hear him anyway.
“We do our best, vampire,” Sam said, cracking his knuckles. “To fight, without killing.”
Sterling bared his teeth. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, angel,” he said, spitting the word out with all the harshness of an expletive. “But all I do is kill. Undead bloodsucker, remember?”
“This isn’t quite the time for arguing,” Carver hissed. He nodded at Sam, an odd, unexpected sort of understanding passing between them. “I quite agree with the angel. Sterling, you’ve restrained yourself in battle before. Remember our rule. You may bleed them, and break their bones. But take no lives.”
A disappointed whine built in the back of Sterling’s throat.
“Don’t be such a baby,” I said. “I’ve got pretty limited options, too.”
Fisticuffs, mainly, and one half of an enchanted sword. The scabbard, specifically. I say half because this would be akin to both me and Vanitas fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. Yes, I’m violently aware of the fact that Vanitas has neither hands nor a back, just stay with me here. I opened my backpack, channeling instructions to him as he floated out of the pocket dimension.
“Listen,” I thought. “These are innocents. Hold back, and don’t use your pointy end.”
Vanitas made a little whining sound that was too strikingly reminiscent of Sterling’s. The fact that they both enjoyed drawing blood, and in a weird way for Vanitas, savoring it, was not lost on me.
“Hush,” I thought. “You’ll get yours soon enough. I promise.”
“And good thing, too,” he said, his voice ringing in my mind. “I’ve been asleep so long. I’m thirsty.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Uh, for battle,” he added in a hurry. “Thirsty for battle. Yeah.”
Again it struck me that Vanitas’s reforging at Mammon’s hands might have changed him. For the moment I was at least thankful that he’d agreed not to cleave wholesale through – hmm, maybe forty members of the Comstock print and online staff. They watched with glassy eyes, as if waiting for us to make the first move.
Carver launched the first spell. A web of amber fire leapt from his fingers, flying across the room and cascading over the office workers.
“This should knock them out,” he said.
He must have cast sleeping magic, then, a spell he apparently liked to call the breath-stealer. The office-zombies followed the lattice of mystical energy with their eyes as it flew above them, landed on their heads – then sputtered and fizzled into nothing.
“Um – Carver?” My palms were sweaty. Well, okay, sweatier. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t believe this.” Carver’s face was a mix of fascination and annoyance. “They resisted the spell.” He gestured with his fingers again, preparing something that I prayed would do better than his opening gambit.
“My brother,” Sam said. “Adriel must have cast a protective mantle over them.” He frowned. “Simple disabling spells won’t work here. We can’t stun them or put them to sleep. We’ll have to fight.”
Almost as one, both from the outside and the inside of my head, I heard Sterling and Vanitas make low, amused cackles. I shook my head. Shouldn’t complain, I suppose. At least I knew that the bloodthirstiest things in the building, apart from Adriel, were fighting on our side.