The Devil's Daughter Complete Box Set, page 91
part #1 of The Devil's Daughter Series
Kendell continued to stare into Dooly’s eyes. “Not without tipping Marjory off to what you’re doing. Even talking to you now runs that risk.”
“Ask her how she got out.” The story of Kendell having her soul abducted by Baron Malveaux had always sounded more like a fable to Doodlebug than history, but at this point, she was willing to latch on to any straw of hope she could find.
“That was different. It was just my soul. Myles sent our dogs, Cheesecake and Doughnut Hole, down our connection.”
A group of birds made another pass at the building. Even with her sickle, Doodlebug was going to have a challenge knocking them all out of the sky. As they crossed the far railing, a burst of fire from Smoke turned them into blackbird flambé. Fighting helped Doodlebug think. “What if Sere and Jennifer are locked inside the vault the way you were? Jennifer might be comatose, but Sere hasn’t turned to dust. That means the two women’s souls aren’t lost to Guinee. I’m not talking about freeing anyone, just getting a message into the vault to shut down the pyrotechnics.”
“She might be onto something,” the professor said. “Bart is over at Fisher’s office right now, watching over Sere. His connection to our girl is just as strong as Myles’s was to Kendell when he sent the dogs in.”
Kendell was already on her phone before the professor finished his thought. “Bart, you’ll need one of Sere’s paranormal bandages. Tie one of your hands to Sere’s with it. She shares some of your blood. I’m hoping that connection will allow you to get her a message. She needs to shut down the lightning display. Doodlebug is right there. Do it quickly.” She got the message out seemingly without taking a breath.
A bolt of electricity passed so close over her ear that Doodlebug could smell the singed hair. “The sooner, the better.” Though getting the vault out of the Cormorant’s talons would free them from the World Trade Center, Doodlebug worried they would just be forever on the run without some idea of how to open it. “One problem at a time,” she said to herself before turning her attention back to the headband. “Once we’re out of here, where are we supposed to take the vault?”
Dooly watched the professor as he gnawed at the stem of his pipe. “If Doodlebug is right about Sere and Jennifer being inside the vault with Sanguine, there’s only one safe place in hell where the dimensions line up such that all three can leave the box safely. We don’t want Sere and Jennifer turning into untethered ghosts in hell.”
“Right.” Without him naming the place, Doodlebug knew he was doing what he could to keep Agnes’s swamp island a secret from anyone who might be listening in.
As with all the battles Doodlebug had fought, being on top of the World Trade Center took on a time dimension of its own. With her sickle, she cut down birds like she was playing a demented arcade game. No matter how many she sent tumbling over the edge, however, another flock was always on the horizon, ready to take up the fight. She found that as long as she stayed between the two ghastly looking wooden voodoo sculptures that peered out from the restaurant windows, the lightning bolts didn’t hit her.
Smoke was having a much tougher time of it. Having spent decades in hell, the Cormorant could fly circles around the newly formed dragon. He had fire-breathing skills on his side, but the big bird flew so tightly to the tower that if Smoke used his flame-throwing nostrils, he might incinerate Doodlebug with his fury. He too seemed to have noticed the power emitters and did what he could to avoid the blasts of electricity, though as he made banking turns to protect her, she could smell the burnt reptilian scales, which indicated he hadn’t been entirely successful in avoiding Sanguine’s rage.
A breakaway contingent of seagulls came at Doodlebug like she was an unwrapped loaf of bread. She cleaved two of them in half, but the third ripped a hole in her shoulder before smashing into the glass wall.
Smoke made a close pass. “No lightning.”
She looked around at the storm. He was right. The bolts had stopped. “Cover me.”
She ran back into the restaurant and searched wildly for anything strong enough to tie to the vault. In the center of the round room, a nautical-themed bar was separated from the restaurant by a thick, ornamental ship rope. “I hope that thing isn’t all show.” She yanked hard to get the nailed-down hemp free of the splintered posts.
She had to drag the heavy line to the iron vault. Though no longer glowing, the building energy inside the box made her skin tingle. Along the top edge, long runners that looked like drawer slides were left over from the vault’s original placement within the tower. “No good.” She held up the end of the rope as if it would call out to where it belonged. The locking wheel in the center of the door didn’t look sturdy enough to support the weight. She looked around the room, wishing there was someone to offer advice, but all she saw was the glowing fires of wraiths in the stairwell, waiting for her to return. “Screw it.” The heavy line barely fit between the spokes of the wheel, and with the line being as thick as her arm, there was no way to tie it off.
Outside, Smoke was still battling valiantly, but even he could only last for so long, and she needed him to perform one more heroic act of stamina and bravery. “I’m really sorry about having to handicap you even more.” She pulled hard at the end of the rope and walked backward toward the door. As she reached the wall, she picked up the other end of the rope and yanked the two sides out to the observation deck. “I couldn’t tie it off,” she yelled at his chin as he made another swooping pass.
Smoke’s two vice-like claws grabbed the two ends. “Get away from the glass and grab on to my tail,” he roared.
Doodlebug raced away from the wall as fast as she could. The great dragon only slowed slightly as the line went tight. Screeching and crashing, the vault destroyed more than slid along the floor of the restaurant. When it exploded out of the wall in a shower of shattered glass and metal, she jumped from the edge of the observation deck and clamped her arms around Smoke’s tail with all of her might. She hooked her feet onto the spade tip like she was using the foot pegs of her motorcycle, but she didn’t dare open her eyes.
You’re seriously not this much of a wuss. Though she hoped it was her thought and not Dooly’s, it came as Smoke’s voice in her mind. Even so, she pulled off the headband and stashed it back inside her shirt. “I certainly don’t need Dooly’s drunk ramblings at a time like this.”
The wind in her face increased even as the rain stopped pelting her. From her lightheadedness, she knew Smoke was performing another of his swan dives. She clamped her legs hard around his tail, pressed her cheek to his scaly flesh, and willed her eyes to open. Dangling under them, the vault hung over the water on the two twisting lines like a giant fish refusing to be reeled in.
The dragon leveled out and whipped his tail so fast she squealed in fear. A flock of pursuing blackbirds dove past where her body had been. “This is going to be a long flight.”
The vault bounced hard off the tiled promenade before Smoke was able to flap his wings and get them back over the water. “Any thoughts on where we’re going?” he roared.
She didn’t want to broadcast their destination for every bird to hear. “Head for home.”
“Got it.” He arched his head back toward the top of the building and the circling birds then let out a burst of fire sufficient to clear their path.
The hard thrusts of his wings, which sent his tail arcing up then down, made her dizzy, but the hard banking turns that indicated they were in the heart of the battle had ended. Between his flapping, flailing, and flaming, Doodlebug wondered how she was managing to hang on. When she finally pried her eyes open again, it was to look into the fury of the hurricane. She peered over her shoulder.
Far behind, but still keeping up her pursuit of the vault, the Cormorant beat her wings so hard and fast it was clear she was pissed. Her flocks of smaller birds were no more than dots along the city skyline.
Doodlebug patted Smoke’s tail. “Once you get clear of the Cormorant, we need to head to Sanguine’s island. Just fly north along the river that runs near Chloe’s cabin. And if you can manage it, you might try to avoid bashing the vault into the trees.”
“I just need a navigator, not a back-of-the-tail driver.”
84
Chapter 15
When Smoke finally landed, the hurricane no longer beat on Doodlebug’s face. The light of a full moon illuminated the tall grass around her.
“You can let go now,” Smoke said.
Her arms, legs, and body were so firmly planted against his tail, she wondered if he was losing feeling in the tip from lack of circulation. “I don’t think I can.”
He swished the end so fast, she ended up tumbling into the field. “You need to stay focused. We’re not finished. The Cormorant might not know the way out here, but with her aerial spies, she’s sure to home in eventually. She’s also not our only problem. Any thoughts on how to open that treasure chest?”
At the opposite side of the meadow, the iron box lay on its side. She stiffly got to her feet, walked over to it, and ran her hands over the cold metal. “At least it’s fully here. That’s a start.” She tugged at the locking wheel, but it refused to give. “It was worth a try.”
Smoke lay flat on the grass, facing the box. “What do we know about the vault?”
She walked around it, searching for some clue about how it worked. “Originally, it was part of the World Trade Center, meant to hold the devil’s personal possessions. When Baron Malveaux removed it from the building, he started the chain reaction that resulted in the runaway energy field.”
Smoke’s sky-blue eyes were as big as the locking wheel. “That old baron must have figured out how to open it.”
“Yep, and Marjory has his journals. I’ll bet anything that’s how Andy learned how to spring the trap locking Sanguine inside for the Cormorant.”
Flame drifted out of his snout. “Andy sounds like quite the turncoat. First he worked for the professor. Then he joined forces with Madam Laroque. And if we’re to believe that the Cormorant is responsible for tricking Sanguine inside that box, he must have been in cahoots with her too.” Smoke’s pronunciation of cahoots sent flames clear to the tree line.
Moral judgments weren’t something Doodlebug worried much about. “Andy was trying to survive the best way he knew how. But his part of the story is only the most recent chapter in the vault’s history. After the baron stole the box and figured out how to open it, he captured a doppelgänger girl, Jenna, and stashed her inside.”
“And then he pulled Sere’s soul from Guinee and put her in there as well. I’m familiar with the story.”
She frowned at the arrogant dragon. “I’m just trying to talk out the history in the hope of finding some clue. Once the baron had finished his little soul-exchange science experiment, the vault sat idle until Kendell and her gang came along. She got stuck in it once. I’ll bet you didn’t know that. It would seem a spirit is able to enter or leave—bypassing the door—via their connected energy to another spirit.”
“Why don’t you just say love?”
She kicked at the box, knowing love was an emotion that, as a marionette, she would likely never experience. “Love is only one form of connection.” As much as she didn’t want to, Doodlebug pulled out the headband. “Maybe someone on that side has come up with an idea. It’s not like they’ve had anything else to do.” She slipped it over her wind-and-rain-matted hair.
Sitting in the professor’s lounge chair, Dooly beat on the arm with two pencils while the others talked. “What’s up, buttercup?”
Doodlebug wondered how the girl couldn’t see what an annoyance she was to others. “I can’t figure out how to open the vault.”
“Did you try saying open sesame?”
Things got a bit hazy in Doodlebug’s sight. “Have you been drinking?”
“There’s not much else for me to do. It’s not like anyone listens to my suggestions anyway. Bart left a bottle of Jack Daniels in his leather jacket—sure beats beer.” She laughed at what only she thought was a joke.
Doodlebug wished Sere could be linked in to the conversation so she wouldn’t have to deal with the gutter punk’s snarky attitude on her own. She rubbed at the headband, trying to get some sense of the warrior. “Is Sere wearing our connection?”
“How would I know?”
Doodlebug put her hand on the door of the iron vault. “Tell Kendell to call Bart again. I’m assuming that once Sere and Jennifer joined their life forces and got trapped in the vault, the Cormorant pulled them into hell, similar to what she did when those two met over coffee. He needs to put the headband on her. Since this form or communication is more a melding of energies than talking over a cellular connection, if the vault detects that she’s both inside and outside the box, maybe it will short-circuit and open.”
“Since when did you get all thinkie?” Dooly asked.
“Since my existence depends on it. Now please do what I asked.”
Dooly conveyed the message to the others. “The professor says that’s kind of brilliant, but we both know he’s not the smartest of scientists.” As much as Doodlebug hated to do it, she had to agree with Dooly’s assessment, even if she didn’t say so.
With the girl being half sloshed and Sere only a distant phantom, Doodlebug had to lean against the door of the vault to keep from slumping to the ground as the connection split into thirds. Like shadows cast by different light sources on the same body, Doodlebug couldn’t be sure which phantom image represented Sere. Though she couldn’t communicate with the woman, she sensed that Sere mentally had her hand on the other side of the iron wall.
A solid click resounded from deep within the metal structure. As if they were being unlocked from the box, Sere and Jennifer’s spirits returned to their bodies among the living, leaving only one shadow behind.
“Good job, Doodlebug,” Sere said over their connection. “That was some quick thinking, hooking me up to Bart. His love was strong enough to see both me and Jennifer back to our bodies.”
Doodlebug wasn’t so sure that everything was hunky-dory. Now that Sere was fully in her body and she could identify the secondary presence as being that of Jennifer, the third member of the interconnected beings came into focus. The Cormorant was using Sere’s headband connection to home in on the vault’s location like a fisherman cautiously reeling in the line. “You’d better prepare yourself. Things are about to get ugly.” The soft grass of the meadow cushioned Doodlebug’s fall.
Doodlebug regained consciousness, opened her eyes, and marveled at the moonlight as it glowed through the diaphanous white feathers of the angel that stood over her. The woman held out the headband in her elegant hand. “I took this off of you.”
Doodlebug struggled to sit up against the vault. “You must be Sanguine.”
The wash of air from Smoke’s wings as he took flight ruffled Doodlebug’s hair. The angel looked to the horizon in the direction Smoke was headed. Images in the facets of the strange woman’s cut-crystal eyes displayed moments in the past and future. “Hopefully, we’ll have time for introductions later. The Cormorant is coming for you and the vault, and I’m not sure that dragon of yours is up for another round.” She took to the air and followed Smoke over the trees.
“Just like an angel not to stick around. Not even a thanks or anything.” Doodlebug grabbed the vault’s wheel to help steady her as she stood. The sound of wings flapping diminished as the angel and dragon headed out to do battle with the birdwoman.
When the two magical winged creatures were lost back in the storm, the peaceful sounds of insects playing in the dark were cut by a man’s voice. “I’ll have you step away from the vault and hand over that sickle if you don’t mind.”
She fell back to her knee as she turned toward the voice from the dark cypress forest. “You!”
The doppelgänger of Aloysius Laroque stepped out of the trees holding a hideous wooden totem under his arm. A horde of doppelgänger demons loomed in the shadows behind him. Doodlebug looked up at the flock of Marjory’s dragons as they took to the air from the branches, flapping and hissing. With only one sickle, drained from the psychic connection, and battered from the fight and flight, she was in no condition to deal with a potential devil backed up by demons and dragons. “What do you want with me?”
“I told you that you hadn’t seen the last of me. Now toss me your blade. I don’t want you getting injured this time.”
His concern for her welfare couldn’t be a good thing, but she pulled out the sickle anyway. Other than disseminating and reincarnating back on Esplanade, there wasn’t much point in doing battle against overwhelming odds. So long as I’m here, hopefully, I can be of some use in stopping this fool. She tossed the weapon halfway to him and moved away from the vault. “That box won’t do you any good. You need your real’s soul first, and we both know he’s stuck in the professor’s laboratory. Even with all of those scaly little bats you’ve got up there, you aren’t going to be able to budge this box let alone drag it back to New Orleans.”
He sauntered up to her with a smile that made her sick inside. “You really are behind, little girl. I’ve got everything I need right here in this field.”
She glanced down at the totem, which looked frighteningly familiar. “Nice purse, but did you really have your spies follow me up to the World Trade Center just so you could steal a souvenir?”
He held the wooden face with its sewn-shut leather eyes, nose, and mouth toward her. In its chest was a blue-glass spirit jar filled with black fluid. “With all of the Cormorant’s birds flapping their brains out at the tower—not to mention your dragon—you weren’t exactly hard to find. My real worry was how I was going to get into the building, but then you took care of that when you busted out of the restaurant. You’re right about one thing: my dragons are too small to fly with the vault, and I never would have been able to use it inside the World Trade Center—and of course there was the angel locked inside to deal with. Fortunately, because of you, I only needed my dragons to fly me up to the roof so I could retrieve one of the baron’s old spirit totems. As you must have guessed, my real—being inside the professor’s computer—was able to deactivate the security system.” He turned the sculpture toward his face. “I just had to grab this wooden head and fly back to the professor’s lab. Marjory’s transference of his essence into this container was one of the simpler instructions the baron left in his journal.”
