Shadows of Amn

She stepped closer to him and said, "You've come to kill me."

Abdel saw her glance at the wooden stake in his belt, and he met her gray eyes. They seemed calm and confident. Abdel knew she was sure he wasn't going to kill her, but of course he was.

"Everyone has been lying to you, Abdel," Bodhi said, her voice as sincere as any voice Abdel had ever heard. "I've lied to you. . over and over. . but I'm not the only one. What did they tell you?"

"Who?" Abdel asked.

"The elves," she said, stepping closer still. Abdel's hand went to the stake, but he didn't pull it out. "They told you, what? That I was an elf once? That I did something terrible to them or one of the sacred thises or holy whatses?"

"They told me—"

"A giant crock of horsesh—"

"Enough!" Abdel roared, yanking the stake from his belt but stepping back one stride.

"Abdel. ." she said, and he looked her in the eyes again. "I'm sorry. I had to do all these things. I had no choice and neither did you."

"I had—"

"No choice," she said again. "Name one thing in the last month you decided to do on your own."

Abdel sighed, and Bodhi's eyes softened. Her pupils seemed to widen, and Abdel felt his jaw relax, felt his grip on the stake relax, then a yellow fog passed over his vision.

"Abdel," Bodhi whispered, "be with me.."

Irenicus had warned her that this might happen, and Bodhi had very casually brushed it off, saying she'd seen monsters before. In more ways than one, she was a sort of monster herself, wasn't she?

But what she saw Abdel transform into, she really wasn't ready for.

The stake in his hand snapped in half first, then the link she'd established with him broke all at once, and his body contorted and transformed.

Bodhi was fast, fast enough to stay away from the Abdel-Bhaal thing—the raving, murderous beast. It smashed the bar to splinters and sent stools and chairs hurtling through the air so fast and so hard they shattered the plaster when they hit the walls. White dust was in the air, and the room was full of deafening sounds: roars, the footfalls of something heavier than an elephant, shattering glass, splintering wood, crumbling brick, and disintegrating plaster.

At first the thing was just breaking up the place, lashing out at everything close enough to smash. Bodhi wasn't sure exactly what to do. This was as close to an avatar of the dead God of Murder that anyone alive had ever been, and she admitted to herself that she was well out of her depth.

She knew she couldn't turn and run … or could she?

She didn't have a chance to decide before the thing that used to be Abdel turned and fixed its blazing yellow eyes on her.

Chapter Twenty-One

Jaheira was practically panting, and Yoshimo's hand was still on her shoulder for a very long time after Imoen had collapsed back into a deep but fitful sleep.

"She might kill us all before she dies," Yoshimo said.

Jaheira spun out of his grip and spat, "That's enough!"

The Kozakuran bowed his head, his eyes fixed on Jaheira's, and took one deliberate step back.

"She is possessed," he said pointedly.

Jaheira closed her eyes, calmed herself a little, and said, "I wish it was that easy, Yoshimo."

She opened her eyes and saw that Yoshimo was looking down at Imoen, his right hand resting uneasily on his sword hilt. She needed to get the Kozakuran away from Imoen before he tried to do something either cowardly or heroic. She stepped to him and put a firm hand on his chest.

"Let's let her rest," she said.

Yoshimo glanced at her, then back at Imoen, and said, "Wouldn't it be the safest thing?"

"Her soul is being drawn away from her and into the part of her blood that carries the essence of the God of Murder," Jaheira explained. "You haven't seen what she's capable of. A burst of temper and an unsettling change in the tone of her voice … you have no idea, Yoshimo."

"All the more reason," he said, looking Jaheira in the eye. "There may not be another chance."

Jaheira pushed him gently and said, "Let's talk about this outside."

Yoshimo looked down and nodded reluctantly. "You have a few moments, but if she moves again…"

Jaheira sighed, happy to feel Yoshimo step back, happier to see him turn and duck out of the lean-to.

"If I have to," she said to his receding back, "I'll kill her myself."

She followed him out, and they walked a short distance in silence before Yoshimo turned to her and said, "What will convince you that you have to?"

"All hope exhausted," she answered flatly.

"Spoken like a true priestess," was his curt reply.

"Druid, actually," she joked, though her heart wasn't in the banter.

"There's a chance Abdel has already failed," Yoshimo said. "I understand your confidence in him, but Bodhi is no ordinary woman and more than a match for your strong young friend, blood of a god or no."

"I'll have to tell you again that you have no idea what this god's blood can do."

Bodhi's whole body exploded in pain—a kind of burning agony she hadn't experienced since before she'd become a vampire. Things had pierced her flesh before, but weapons of steel or claw never hurt her. A blade had to be enchanted to make her bleed. No fist could bruise her, and no claw could rend her, but here she was, being torn apart by this thing's bare hands.

She'd tried to speak to him, to hypnotize him, to run from him, but nothing worked. The roof had been ripped off the Copper Coronet, revealing the dark, moonless sky. The thing that was once Abdel Adrian had destroyed the tavern, then turned its full attention on Bodhi. She'd even tried to tell him where to find the pieces of the Ry

It took her leg off, and the pain was literally blinding. It ripped her arm off, and she almost passed out. She could feel cool blood drying all over her.

The creature bit into her chest, and she could feel her heart burst, and more blood exploded out everywhere. One of her breasts came off in its mouth, and she screamed. The sound was as alien in her ears as it was in her throat.

"Abdel!" she screamed, the blood that had filled her throat fountaining out with the name. "I love you … I loved you, Abdel…."

The inhuman, wild eyes that had been burning a solid, hot yellow flickered, and the huge, misshapen head tilted to one side.

"Abdel," Bodhi said, and for the first time in more years than most humans could count, she started to cry.

He started coming back all at once, and watching his transformation actually succeeded in distracting Bodhi from the fact that she'd been ripped to pieces. There were few enough ways to kill a vampire, but that was one of them. Her head was still attached to her shoulders though, and at least some part of her heart still quivered spasmodically in her chest. Bodhi came to the nightmare realization that she could live for hours, no days, years, even centuries just exactly like this—in agony.

"Bodhi," he said, in a voice that almost sounded like Abdel's.

"Abdel, please …" she said.

His hand came back to normal in the time it took for him to reach for, grab hold of, and lift the sharp half of the broken wooden stake. The yellow faded from his eyes.

"Where?" he asked, his all too human face covered, dripping in blood.

She coughed out another gout of cool red blood and said, "My casket… under the soil. In the dirt."

A tear slipped out of one of Abdel's eyes, and Bodhi hoped it would fall on her. It might have, but she couldn't see or feel it.

"Careful," she whispered, shifting her blood-drenched shoulders to turn her open chest to him. The movement sent wave after wave of burning agony through her, but she had to do it. It would be hard enough.