Страница 66 из 71
"I don't fucking care," I hissed, and my own voice tore more stone from the ceiling and sent it pattering down in a drift of dust. "I've come to kill you, you scavenger son of a bitch, for what you did to Doreen. And every other woman you murdered."
And then there was no more time for talk, because he moved in with that spooky invisible speed of demons.
I parried his claws, my katana ringing and blazing with blue fire. He screamed, a horrible drilling sound of awful agony, the plasgun tore out of my hands but I hooked my fingers and swiped at him, hot black demon blood spraying and freezing in the too-cold air. Something had happened when he'd thrown that thing at Japhrimel. It was too cold even for Antarctica.
He leapt on me, his compact weight knocking me off my feet. We tumbled, and his claws tore at me, a horribly familiar gush of pain. I screamed, forgetting I was no longer human, and did the only thing I could.
I jackknifed my body, using his momentum as well as my own, and flung us both out into the night as I buried my katana in his chest, shoving with every ounce of preternatural strength Japhrimel had given me. The blade rammed through a shell of magick, through muscle and the carbolic acid of demon blood, and the agony of the blade's shattering tore all the way through me.
One of the shards pierced his heart. I flailed at him with my claws, his throat giving in one heated gush that coated my face and hands and instantly froze, almost sealing my nostrils. If I hadn't been screaming, I might have suffocated.
I was still hacking at him with my claws when we hit the water, his slack lifeless body exploding out in noxious burning fragments. The shock of that hit drove all breath and consciousness from me, and I fell unresisting into the embrace of the ocean, waves crackling and freezing closed over my head.
CHAPTER 50
I floated. Face-down.
Stinging. Cold so intense it burned. Lassitude creeping up my arms and legs.
No. A familiar voice. Familiar fingers on my cheek, tipping my head up. No, don't, Da
I didn't promise! I wailed silently. Let me go! Let me go, let me die—
You have work to do. Doreen's voice, gentle, inexorable. Please, Da
Floated. Sinking. Even a share of a fallen demon's Power couldn't keep me alive for long in this. Something had happened—Santino had done something, that small glittering thing had hit Japhrimel—
Santino. I'd killed him. I'd watched his body dissolve under my fingernails, I'd torn through his throat. He was, indisputably, dead and scattered on the freezing ocean. No little bit of him would be left.
I killed him, I pleaded. I did it. I got revenge for you. Isn't that enough?
No, she replied, solemn. Live, Da
It hurts too much, I keened to her.
Blue crystal glow, the bridge under my feet. For one dizzying moment I was between two worlds—the Hall of Death, its blue directionless light pouring through me, Anubis standing tall and grim on the other side of the bridge; and the real world, where I floated face-down under a sheet of broken ice. For one infinite moment I was locked under the pitiless, infinitely forgiving gaze of the Lord of Death, weighing, evaluating, His black eyes fixed on mine. It hurts too much, I told him. Please don't make me go back.
He shook His sleek black head, once, twice. I struggled—no! Let me stay! Let me stay!
Then He spoke.
The Word boomed through me. It was not His name, or any Word of Power. It wasn't the secret name I held for Him, my key to the door of Death.
No.
It was my name—only more. It was my Word, spoken by the god, the sound that expressed me, the sound that could not be spoken aloud. My soul leapt inside me, responding to His touch. The god took the weight from me, briefly, let me feel the freedom, the incredible freedom, rising out of my body, leaving the world behind, the clear blue light becoming golden, the clear rational light of What Comes Next.
Then it dwindled to a single point in the darkness, and I rammed back into my body, fingers clamped in my hair, yanking. I was torn from the water's embrace, glazed with ice, choking, coughing, the landing lights of the garbage scow named Baby exploding through the darkness. Jace, his lips blue, tangling the plasnet around us both and we were yanked up together, his arms and legs wrapped around me. We broke through the airseals and into the warm interior of the hover, and the hatch slammed closed as the peculiar weightless pressure of a hover quickly ascending pressed down on me.
I coughed and choked, spluttering.
"Breathe, you stubborn little bitch—" Jace shivered and cursed, raging at me. Water washed the decking, rapidly melting ice shrinking under the assault of climate control.
"Is she alive?" Eddie said from the front. After the deafening noise, the quiet of the hover's interior and someone speaking normally was a muffled shock.
"She's alive," Jace said, and flung his arms around me again. Water dripped. My fingers and toes tingled and prickled. "Gods damn you, Da
"G-G-Gabe—"
"She'll live. Your demon friend patched her intestines back together up there in that room, damndest thing I ever saw. She's lost a lot of blood, but she's stable and the medunit's monitoring her." Jace kissed my cheek, pushed sodden strands of dark hair back from my face. "Don't ever do that to me again, Da
"The k-k-k-k—" I began.
"The kid's fine. Curled up in a seat with a spaceblanket. She's asleep." Jace coughed. "Look, Da
"Japhrimel?" I whispered.
Jace shook his head. "There was a hover—another hover. It might have scooped him up, I don't know. We looked for him, Da
"I killed him," I whispered. "I killed Santino. He threw's-s-something at J-J-aph…"
"We couldn't find him," Jace said. "I'm sorry, Da
I clapped my fists over my ears, huddled under the spaceblanket, and started to cry. I'd earned it, after all.
CHAPTER 51
Twelve hours later we floated over an oddly quiet Nuevo Rio. Dry and finally warm again, I sat in the seat next to Doreen's daughter (I couldn't think of what else to call her), watching out the window as morning lay over the city. Jace had moved up front next to Eddie, and the comms up there were crackling with messages. Gabe lay across a table, strapped down and deep in a sedative-induced slumber, the medunit purring as it monitored her and dripped synthetic plasma and antibiotics through a hypo into her veins. She'd wake up with a headache and a sore gut and spend a week or so recuperating, but she'd live.
The Corvin Family was gone. Just… gone. They hadn't even put up a real fight. Jace was now the owner of a hell of a lot of Family assets.
When I looked back at Doreen's daughter, I saw she was awake. In the light, her eyes were wide and clear, and dark blue. Like Doreen's.
Exactly like Doreen's.
She watched me gravely, a small child with frighteningly adult eyes, far too much Power and knowledge swimming in their depths. For a few moments, we sat like that, one tired, sobbed-out half-demon Necromance and one small demon Androgyne child.