Redeemed (House of Night #12)(22)

“Yeah, what about them? Wasn’t it you who brought in that fledgling who confessed to their killing? Hell, she could’ve killed LaFont, too!”

“Actually, sir, Neferet just confessed to the killing of the mayor and those two men. She bragged of it, as well as the massacre at the church.”

The chief blinked in surprise. “Well, then, what the hell was that fledgling doing giving herself up as a killer? Is she in league with Neferet?”

“I sincerely doubt it. Zoey Redbird and Neferet have a history of bad blood between them. It’s more likely that Zoey had a run-in with the men, she protected herself, and when she heard they were dead thought she must have killed them. She’s a good kid, Chief. I think she turned herself in because she was consumed by remorse. She didn’t even want any adult vampyre near her.”

The chief gave him a blank look. Marx stifled a sigh and explained. “If a fledgling isn’t around adult vampyres, there’s a one hundred percent chance her body will reject the Change and she’ll die. Zoey had tried and judged herself—and decided her sentence was death.”

“I forget how much you know about vampyres.” The chief shook his head in disgust. “Guess it doesn’t matter whether they’re human or fledgling—teenagers have no damn sense.”

Marx had opened his mouth to protest—respectfully—that he actually knew some teenagers who had some damn sense, and that would include Zoey Redbird, when the cry of a uniformed cop interrupted him.

“Oh my God! Look up!”

Marx’s head jerked and his gaze shot skyward in time to see creatures, grotesque black creatures that appeared to be snakelike, except they had no eyes—only gaping mouths framed with teeth that glistened wet and red—being hurled by some invisible force over the stone railing of the Mayo’s penthouse. The creatures carried with them an explosion of blood and guts, body fragments and gore. And as they fell, they expanded, changing from eyeless snakes to a dark, pulsing curtain, stained scarlet. The curtain clung to the stone façade of the Mayo, swathing it in darkness and blood as it unfurled downward.

“Fire! Kill them!” shouted the chief of police.

Marx tried to stop him. Tried to remind him that there were innocent citizens inside who could easily be wounded or even killed. Tried to tell him that the attack would only serve to antagonize the vampyre who held those citizens hostage and who was already so insane she believed she’d become immortal. But panicked gunfire erupted all around him, and his words were lost in the frenzy.

At first Marx didn’t want to look up. He didn’t want to see the gunfire-ravaged Mayo and start dealing with the aftermath of the chief’s rash command. But Marx wasn’t the kind of man who avoided the hard things in life; he’d made a career out of dealing with them. Resolutely, he looked up.

The snakes-turned-curtain had expanded so that it looked like the building had grown a crimson and black skin, a skin so tough that not even the Glocks the uniforms carried had penetrated it.

They all watched the darkness continue to spread down the building to street level and pool there with a rustling sound that reminded Marx of the time he’d visited New York City and stayed at the Plaza—and made the mistake of going out for a smoke at 3:00 A.M. Rats. He’d walked to a row of neatly trimmed hedges in front of the Plaza’s grand entrance and heard a rustling. He’d looked down, shocked to see dozens of fat rats scurrying among the hedges. That’s what the shroud of darkness Neferet had created sounded like as it settled where the building met the ground and washed, restlessly, against the 1920s stone.

“Fire on the doors. Break through that damn thing and get ready to rush inside!” the chief shouted.

“No!” Marx cried as the uniforms around them jumped to obey their chief.

Determined to survive to fight another day, Marx ducked down behind a squad car.

It was over in seconds. The officers ran toward the double doors, firing at the glass that now was covered in slick gore-stained black. His heart broke when the screams began. Marx was already calling into his radio, “Multiple officers down! We need more buses at the Mayo! And backup! More backup! Get every uniform in Tulsa here now!”

When the chief staggered back and fell heavily to the pavement, a friendly fire bullet causing a bloom of red in the middle of his forehead, eyes rolled back, milky, sightless, and undoubtedly dead, Marx did the only thing he knew to do—he took charge.

“Cease fire and fall back! Fall back!” he shouted, and the men responded with obvious relief.

A young uniformed cop crouched down next to him, breathing heavily, his hands trembling. Marx thought the kid couldn’t be much older than twenty-one.

“Mother of God, that black stuff didn’t even chip! It ricocheted the bullets back at us, like it was actually aiming. What the hell is that?” he said, voice shaking as hard as his hands.

“Magick,” Marx said. “Dark, evil magick.”

“How the hell do we fight it?”

Marx met the young man’s eyes. “We don’t. We need help. Thankfully, I know where to get it.”

Zoey

“I wish I knew what the hell was going on!” Stark paced back and forth in front of her cell.

“Go see if Grandma’s still in the waiting room. She can find out what’s happening. She brought cookies. No one can resist Grandma’s cookies,” I said.