Страница 28 из 38
Belle was very much a self-made woman.
Most strikingly, the two halves of her face didn't match. The left half was a distinctly darker shade than the rest of her body. One victim had got close enough to rip half of Belle's face away. So after she was dead, Belle took half the victim's face as a replacement. The new skin was younger, tighter, and a perfect fit.
Belle would go anywhere, and do anyone, as long as the check cleared. Or as long as the enemy was a challenge, or had something Belle wanted.
I clutched Suzie to me, cradling her shaking body in my arms. She was trembling violently now, as shock took hold. Blood ran in sudden spurts from her slack mouth, and dripped off her chin. I could almost feel the life going out of her. Part of me wanted to throw myself at Belle and tear her throat out, make her pay for what she'd done. But I couldn't do that. I had to be smarter, sharper, than that. Belle was armored against all attacks, physical or magical. Or so she thought. My only hope was to keep cool and talk calmly with Belle. Keep her mind occupied, distracted, while I slowly and very surreptitiously focused my gift on her. Do it right, and she'd never even notice. As long as I narrowed my concentration right down, into a single cold needle, I should be able to slip my gift past her mental and magical defenses just long enough to do what I had to do. It was dangerous. If Belle even suspected what I was pla
Luckily, I was good at that.
"Been a long time, Belle," I said, in something very like a normal voice. "What is it, six, seven years since we worked together on that Hellstorm business? I thought we made a good team."
"Don't try to appeal to my better nature, darling," Belle said in her marvelously cool and smoky voice. "You know very well I don't have one. We made good partners, John, but we were never more than that."
"I heard the Walking Man got you, stalking you through the catacombs under Paris."
"Oh he very nearly did, darling, but I'm so very hard to kill. Unlike your little sweetie there. Poor Suzie. Never did know what you saw in her."
"You're a lot faster than you used to be, Belle. Been taking vitamins?"
"See these new boots, darling? Aren't they simply super? I ski
"Give it up, John," said Walker. "Come with me now, and I promise you I'll see Suzie gets help. No-one has to die here. Don't let your pride get in the way. I'm the good guy, this time. I'm saving the Nightside from destruction."
"I've been told," I said, still looking at Belle, "that if either set of angels gets their hands on the Unholy Grail, Armageddon could come early."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Walker. "The dark chalice doesn't belong among people, John. It's always been trouble. Let it pass to others more suited to control it."
"Ah, Walker," I said. "Always ready with an inappropriate homily." I smiled sadly at Belle. "You must know you can't trust him, or the Authorities."
"I don't trust anyone, darling. But Walker paid in advance, so I'm all his, for as long as the money lasts. And after this unfortunate business is over, and they're finished with you, I've been promised that can root through your living brains until I find the source of your special gift. Then I'll rip it out and stick it in my own head. And your gift will become mine. Isn't that sweet? It means you'll always be with me. Now put Suzie down, dear, and come with me. Or do you want to dance a little first?"
I put Suzie carefully to one side, laying her tenderly on the bloody floor. Her eyes stayed locked on mine. I stood up and faced Belle. The whole front of my coat was soaked in Suzie's blood. More of it dripped from my clenched hands. I gri
She laughed in my face. "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?"
"Sure," I said. "Know any?"
And while she was still laughing, I hit her with my sharply focused gift, driving it right past all her defenses. I can find anything, with my gift. This time, I found the single small magic that Belle used to hold all her acquisitions together, that made it possible for her to access all their various attributes. And it was the easiest thing in the world for me to tear that magic away from her and crush it with my mind. Belle screamed once as the magic vanished, and her control over her various armors disappeared with it. The werewolf pelt fell away from her back and head, revealing only bare meat showing, red and glistening, with no skin left to cover it any more. The long gloves and boots cracked and rotted and fell apart,
leaving bare muscles and tendons showing on her arms and legs. And half her face, the younger half, slipped away from her head, disintegrating into dust. Belle shrieked horribly, half her face a horror show.
I stepped forward and hit her once, breaking her neck. She was dead before she hit the floor.
I leaned over her and grabbed the werewolf pelt. It started to come apart in my hands, but I thought it would hold together long enough for what I had in mind. I looked around for Walker, but he was gone. Presumably in search of reinforcements. I knelt down beside Suzie. She was lying ominously still, scarcely even breathing. I pushed her guts back into the tear in her stomach, then held the werewolf pelt over the gaping wound. I crushed the pelt with both hands, wringing the last of its blood out of the pelt so that it dripped into the open wound. Werewolf blood, with all its regenerative properties. For a moment I couldn't breathe, then the edges of Suzie's wound slowly crept together, and vanished, as though it had never been there at all.
The pelt crumbled and fell apart, and I threw it away. It had done its job. I sat Suzie up again and cradled her in my arms, rocking her slowly back and forth. Her breathing became stronger, and more regular, and suddenly her eyes snapped open, wide and questioning. For a moment she just breathed steadily, as though it was a new thing and not to be trusted, and then her bloody hands went to her stomach, where the wound had been. Finding nothing, she looked at the unmarked flesh for a while. Then she smiled tremulously and turned her head back to look at me. I nodded and smiled, and she smiled back.
She slowly raised one hand and touched my face with her fingertips. I sat very still, afraid to do anything that might break the moment. Her fingertips moved slowly, hesitantly, across my cheek, my lips, delicate as the breath of a butterfly's wing. And then she pushed herself away from me, almost throwing me away. She knelt on all fours, with her back to me, breathing heavily and shaking her head back and forth.
"Suzie..." I said.
"No. I can't do this!" she said, in a voice so harsh it must have hurt her throat. "I can't. Not even with you."
"It's all right," I said.
"No it isn't! It'll never be all right. No matter how many times I kill him."
She rose unsteadily to her feet, looked around for her shotgun, and snatched it up from the floor. And then she shot Belle in the face three times, until there was hardly anything left above the neck.
"Just in case," said Suzie. "Besides, look what the bitch did to my best jacket."
I got to my feet and looked at her resolutely turned back, and for once in my life I didn't have a damned clue what to say. There was the sound of hurrying fee outside in the corridor, and Suzie and I both turned quickly to face the door. I think right then both of us would have been happy to see Walker with reinforcements. We could have used something to hit. But it was only Razor Eddie, appearing abruptly in the open doorway with his pearl-handled straight razor in his hand. He saw Belle's body, and relaxed a little.