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We broke as if at a prearranged signal, and I looked up at Japhrimel. "Be careful, okay?" I rubbed my katana's hilt with my thumb.
His face was as grim and murderous as I'd ever seen it. The eerie green glow from the instruments bathed him in a radioactive aura. "Do not worry over me, Dante. I have fought many battles in my time."
I looked down at the printouts, my mouth dry. The place was massive, and I had no clue where Santino would be hiding.
Jace opened the side hatch as the hover drifted. "Dat-bands?" he yelled over the sudden roar of wind, water, and pressurized airseals. The commlinks in everyone's ears crackled into life. I shook my head—I hated commlinks, but I couldn't spare the concentration keeping a telepathic five-way link open would cost me.
I held mine up, Gabe and Eddie copying me. We were all three keyed into the hover's intranet, which meant we could track each other with our datbands. Gabe extracted a long NeoSho slicboard from a crate in the pile of supplies. I checked my plasgun for the fiftieth time. Eddie took the NeoSho and Jace pulled out his Chervoyg. The hum of powering-up antigrav filled the air.
Gabe gri
He nodded curtly, his coat begi
I didn't wait for more, simply ran for the hatch and launched myself into the night. Before I could lose my nerve.
CHAPTER 49
We certainly made an entrance.
We were too-small targets for the antiaircraft battery, and by the time I found myself yanked up in Japhrimel's hands, the first golem'ai had Manifested. It was seven feet tall, built out of what looked like sentient humanoid mud, with glowing yellow spotlight eyes. It landed on the battlements with a thud, and screams drifted up over the sound of the waves and the punishing icy wind.
Cold. It was brutally cold. The wind sliced through me. Jace bobbed and wove underneath us, skating his slicboard fast through a collage of plasgun bolts—where are those coming from, I thought, and tossed a firestarter into the wind. A breath of Power made it arrow off toward the outcropping where human guards crouched, raking us with plasgun fire. The resultant explosion briefly turned the night a lurid orange, and I saw Gabe and Eddie had already reached the south side. Gabe wove among plasbolts with incredible grace, as if she was tagging slow hovers back in Saint City; I heard her voice raised sharply as Japhrimel glided, angling to keep us out of the way of the plasbolt crossfire. One gun emplacement exploded; I caught a whiff of Gabe's Power. She'd used a firestarter.
Picture this, then: the whole battle happening in seconds. Jace's share of the flrestarters crackled, he was sowing them in a criss-cross pattern, taking out a whole tower. Stone crumbled, I heard his whoop of bloodthirsty joy. Then he went streaking over the battlements, sword in one hand, plasgun in the other, almost losing his slic as a plasca
We were on the north side, Japhrimel and I, about to make the sharp banking turn that would bring us back around and drop us into position to run for the spot in the castle where I'd felt Doreen's kid. There was a bank of guns here, too, begi
I hit hard, rolling, and he was right behind me. I took the first two almost before I knew what was happening, my body moving with instinctive speed and precision. I leapt, catching the iron bar that the gu
"Heavy fire," Eddie gasped.
"I'm on it," I snapped, shimmying up, hearing the clatter of gunfire while Japhrimel dealt with the other human guard. My conscience would prick me later—but they signed up with Santino, they took their chances. I swung the plasca
Prayers answered. The bolts raked the other end of the wall, exploding ca
Japhrimel coasted around, ducking under a stray bit of debris. "Let's get this over with," he yelled. I glanced down—we were losing altitude fast.
"Direct me, Da
I was happy I could. "Two windows up, straight in front of you, that's where the kid is. Pull up and watch your left, there's a bunch of plasgun coming your way."
"Got it," Eddie snarled, and flame bloomed again. A concussive boom! raked the night, stone and glass shattering. I heard thin human cries; another klaxon started to blare. More lights started to blaze in the massive pile of rock. Holy fuck, I thought, we're doing a full-scale frontal assault on a demon's hideaway and getting away with it.
Then things started to get interesting.
I didn't want to see how Japhrimel was flying—or gliding, actually, since we seemed to be falling pretty rapidly. He aimed for the kid's window and I spent a few moments with my eyes closed, feeling for her, letting him take care of it. The flare of her presence was close, so close—
"Dante?" Japhrimel's voice in the commlink.
"We're in," Gabe said. "What the—"
"Da
"Burn the entire fucking place down, Japhrimel!" I screamed, and the entire world went soundless white as Japhrimel pulled on all the Power he could reach. A thin white-ski
If it's him, that won't kill him, I thought. Not even a drop like that will kill him, he's a demon even if he's a weak one he's too strong, too slow, we're moving too slow—
Jace nipped neatly inside the hole torn in the south side of the castle. Japhrimel let go of me and I tumbled through empty frozen air, faster-than-human reflexes saving me as I slammed into the stone wall. The boom! of another explosion rattled the wall; I jackknifed into the hole, my fingernails plowing stone and cold air plucking at my hair, landed on a wooden floor littered with shards of glass, broken stone, and wooden splinters.
The room was a nursery, again, stone floors holding pastel hangings in a faint attempt to make it less grim. Toys scattered, burning, across the floor. A huge ornate mahogany bedstead crouched in one corner, and I saw a stray gleam of light from the emerald in the child's forehead as it gave one amazing flash of light. My own emerald rang, answering it.
"Oh, no—"
Eddie screamed. The smell—ice and cold blood, maggots and wet rat fur—triggered my gorge. If I'd had anything in my stomach I would have spewed. I didn't know demons could throw up. Santino. It was his smell, he'd been here, I knew he'd been here. So it had been him falling from the room.