“Death’s Wings and the Circle of the Eternal Void,” Selene said. “The Phonoi adopted the symbols and merged them. That spinning stone is an ombrikos—a shadow lodestone. Hung in the symbolic circle, it spins and opens a sort of hole between the realm of shadow and death, and the world of light and life. Call it a Void Portal.”
“That hasn’t showed up in any other ritual that I’ve seen traces of. Could that be how—or why—Damastes was pulled into me and trapped when I wasn’t killed?”
“Yes. And it might send him straight back into the void, too. But we need both parts.”
“Well, I have no idea where the whatsit—the shadow lodestone?—is, but we’ve got keys to both the Edwards house and Rafe’s place. I saw the pendant last in Charlotte’s desk drawer, but the Edwards house will be too full of FBI and cops waiting for a call from the ‘kidnapper’ for us to walk right in and take it—though I could go by myself.”
“I’d rather that we stay together for now. So, let’s start with Rafe Bogdani. He wasn’t at the original ritual—”
“I noticed.” Nora frowned. “But that means he may not know how it all went bad.”
“No, and that may help us if we’re forced to disrupt the new ritual rather than stop it before it happens. In addition, Rafe may not know about Charlotte having the Death’s Wings pendant. Though if he does, he may have taken it as well as the Edwards children.”
“I’m not sure about that. If he’s got them, he most likely took the kids from wherever Graham Edwards stashed them, not from their house. I’m finding it hard to believe that Graham would have willingly handed them over to Rafe. That man’s got a lot of dirty secrets, and I’m sure we can find something we could use against him at his place.”
Selene gave a wolfish smile. “With pleasure. It’ll give you something else to concentrate on before the demon pushes his way to the surface again.”
Nora’s momentary glee dampened. “I knew I couldn’t keep him down forever.”
“It won’t be as bad as before. Just hold on until we’re someplace where he won’t learn anything he can use against us. Then he can rage as much as you can stand.”
Nora ejected the cassette and put it into a file box labeled “Mount St. Helens Lava Dome 2005,” sure it was safe from prying eyes in the files of such a nonevent.
Nora locked the storage room and they headed for the elevators by way of the main office. Nora could hear her coworkers talking and working and the usual clack of keyboards and the whir of printers, but the sound was weirdly distant. As she stepped into the bullpen with Selene on her left, something flickered at the edge of her vision and she spun, crouching automatically to avoid a blow to the head as a frisson ran up her spine.
Selene whirled to place her back to Nora’s—to Indigo’s—as she drew her blades. Indigo whipped her head up.
Like Florence, only worse: the women in tunics blocked the aisle ahead and closed in from behind, blades drawn, while Nora’s coworkers chatted and typed on obliviously. One of the staffers tripped as an Androktasiai swept past her. Indigo reached for shadows to pull the woman aside before her head could strike the corner of a bulky old copier. But in the buzzing, pervasive fluorescent light of the office, the shadows huddled under furniture and drew forth as thin streams that barely shifted the woman, who stumbled and hit her shoulder. The woman’s shout of pain and surprise drew others, unsuspecting, toward the impending fight.
The slaughter nuns did not come gently in ones and twos, but launched forward, offering no quarter and giving no kind of a damn if the NYChronicle staff got in the way.
“It’s the influence of Caedis,” Selene muttered, poised for battle. “They no longer care about the collateral damage they may cause.”
“Shit.”
15
Indigo watched as the slaughter nuns fanned out. NYChronicle staffers started to rise in alarm, voices erupting in an anxious chatter. They couldn’t see Indigo, but the Androktasiai were visible now. They were stealthy, even mystical, but they could not fold shadows around themselves. They could not remain invisible forever.
No choice, Indigo thought, and she dropped the cloak of shadows she’d been hiding in. Kenny Ortega, part of the sports staff, swore as he shoved back so hard in his chair that he tipped over and slammed to the ground.
“Everybody, stay where you are!” Indigo snapped. She backed away, moving swiftly and skillfully across the tops of several desks, keeping the killers in sight even as they spread out through the office. “It’s not you they want!”
Doesn’t mean they won’t kill these people, she thought. This was a gamble. Caedis might be manipulating them, but if the slaughter nuns thought they were the good guys, Indigo hoped that meant they wouldn’t kill innocents at random.
“Selene? If you have a plan, now’s the time to speak up!”
Nora checked over her shoulder, and spotted an emergency-access stairwell sixty feet away, at the other end of the room. Its glowing red EXIT sign shone like a beacon. Only three of the sisters had managed to block the way so far. Selene had shifted into a combat stance, but if she had suggestions, she hadn’t volunteered them.
“Okay, first things first,” Indigo said. “We take this fight someplace else.”
They had to move the fray away from this bustling room full of people. The NYChronicle staffers were terrified, probably assuming the slaughter nuns were terrorists. Several stood up and tried to flee. Kenny Ortega climbed to his feet and barked at the nearest nun to back off. He took a fighter’s stance, and the nun smashed his nose in, then swept his legs out from under him. The sisters started shoving the journalists aside, pushing them over, knocking them out of the way.
Anything to reach Indigo. Anything to kill her, and ostensibly to kill the god within her, too.
“Damn it, Selene!” Indigo shouted, nodding toward the metal exit door.
Selene glanced that direction, saw the glowing sign, and understood. “Got it! Make a run for it—I’ve got your back!”
Indigo pivoted and dropped into the aisle. She faced the three warriors blocking her way and charged them headlong, leaving Selene to handle the rest.
They didn’t all have to die—not here, not now—but they all had to move.
From this position, most of the nuns were at Indigo’s back. She wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that way, but Selene was running point and the EXIT was calling her name. In the stairwell, there would be shadows. In the stairwell, Indigo would have options.
In the stairwell, nobody else had to get hurt.