Death's Mistress
Page 70

My fingers were aching from gripping the flashlight so hard, and it wasn’t going to be much use anyway. I tucked it back in my belt and started crawling, before I could talk myself out of this. The gap at the top of the mountain was claustrophobically small, and the air was almost unbreathable. It also got smaller as I went along, to the point that my elbows were brushing it on either side, and my chin was carving through the dirt like a plough.
It was almost impossible to imagine dragging Anthony through this, even if there was an opening on the other side. The smart thing would be to turn around, to find another way out as fast as possible, and to send help back for him. He was as tough as nails, as he’d more than proven; maybe another hour or two wouldn’t make a—
My head popped out into open air on a little cloud of dust. It was so unexpected that it caught me off guard, and I didn’t stop my forward momentum fast enough. I found myself tumbling down another steep slope, head over heels into darkness.
I smashed into the pile of very hard debris at the bottom and just lay there for a moment, trying to breathe. It didn’t go so well, at first because the wind had been knocked out of me. And then what little breath I had caught at the sight of someone standing just inside the shadow of the main door.
He was sliced diagonally by bands of ruddy light from some source behind him. I vaguely recognized it as the graffiti marquee, its dim glow filtered through a haze of dust. I couldn’t make out much even with the light; there was too much crap in the air. But a monstrous shadow sprawled on the floor beside him.
I watched, out of breath and momentarily helpless, trying to get back to my feet. But my left foot was caught on something, and before I could figure out on what, the indistinct shape moved forward. Its hand lifted and the shadow appendage moved along with it, rippling, giant, and terrifying.
And reaching out for me.
Chapter Thirty-six
Panic caused me to jerked my trapped foot hard enough to crack the heavy old root it had become wedged under. I ignored a bright searing pain from my ankle and scrambled to my feet, gun in hand. Only to have it caught in an iron grip.
I twisted but couldn’t break the hold, so I did the next-best thing and threw my attacker against the wall. He hit with a thud that had more dirt dropping down on top of us, but he still didn’t let go. Instead, he spun me into his arms, and somehow got a grip on both wrists. So I stomped on his foot, trying to get enough leverage to—
“Please do not hit me below the belt again,” a man said, sounding heartfelt. “I have not yet recovered from the last time.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, relaxing back into Louis-Cesare’s arms.
“I followed Anthony. I wanted to know what was important enough to keep him away from the challenge of the century. Why are you here?”
“I followed you.” I twisted in his grasp, and he let me go, a little reluctantly, I thought. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. “Everyone is looking for you. The consul’s about to have a fit, Marlowe’s tearing his hair out and Mircea…”
“I know. I called him an hour ago, informing him that I will return for the trial. I never intended to do otherwise, but I had to be free to gather evidence, if such existed.”
“I think Marlowe is already doing that.”
“Yes, but there are places even he cannot go.”
“Such as?”
“Such as Anthony’s private rooms. I wished to search them for the stone—”
“You searched my rooms?” The outraged voice drifted faintly through the rubble.
Louis-Cesare’s head jerked up. “What was—”
“Anthony,” I said sourly. “I found him a little while ago.”
“You found—” He looked at me incredulously. “But he could drain you from here! If he is the killer—”
“I don’t think he is.” I wanted to ask how Louis-Cesare had managed to search Anthony’s rooms when Marlowe himself couldn’t do it. But I decided it could wait. “Did you find anything?”
“No.” He looked frustrated. “But he is dangerous nonetheless!”
“Not so much at the moment,” I said drily.
“He killed Geminus!”
“He says not.”
“I saw the body, Dorina. There are very few opponents who could have done that to a fighter of Geminus’s caliber.” It was the same thing I’d been thinking, but it still didn’t make sense.
“He was attacked, too.”
“By Geminus, no doubt attempting to defend himself.”
“I’d think the same, but those weren’t defensive wounds. Anthony said something killed Geminus and then attacked him.”
“Something?” Louis-Cesare’s expression spoke volumes.
“That’s what he said, but he isn’t completely coherent at the—”
The scream that tore the stillness caused us to jump as one, tensing against attack. But it wasn’t on our side of the fall. “Anthony!” Louis-Cesare called, as I scrambled back up the slope.
There was no answer, but an odd scent suddenly flooded the air, sweetness on the verge of putrefaction, hard and sharp-edged. I’d smelled it somewhere before, but I couldn’t place it. But there was something off about it, something wrong.
The tiny tunnel at the top of the landslide was even harder to get through quickly. By the time I’d managed it, I’d lost what skin remained on both my elbows and cracked my head on the ceiling a few more times. Which was why I just stared at the scene on the other side. For a moment, I thought maybe I’d hit my head a little too hard.
Anthony was slumped against the wall, staring upward with an expression of stark terror. Half a dozen stakes had been pulled out of his chest, and lay scattered on the floor, their bloody tips pointing at the creature stroking red hands over Anthony’s torso. The tiny, delicate fingers slid through slippery blood, teasing the edges of mortal wounds almost playfully.
But they were stronger than they looked. One of them suddenly backhanded Anthony, the manicured nails tearing into his cheek and snapping his head around, smashing his face into the rough wall. He forced his head back up, working his jaw absently. A trickle of blood made its way down his cheek before he began sluggishly to heal.
This seemed to enrage his tormenter, who gave another of those unearthly screams. Another slash of nails laid open his chest, but although he jerked against the pain, he kept his teeth clenched on a scream. With a digging twist the nails gouged deeper, until he twitched helplessly against their merciless grip, his head tossing back and cracking against the unforgiving bricks.
“Rotting carrion. How many times do I have to kill you?” his tormenter hissed.
“A few more, it would seem,” Anthony said, grimacing. And then he had to grit his teeth again as those knifelike nails started tearing downward in sharp, hard tugs.
The movement galvanized me out of my shock. A moment later, I was slip-sliding down the tumbled mass of dirt as Anthony’s nightmare looked up, snarling. I tensed, gun in one hand and heavy-duty flashlight in the other. But then the lips that had been pulled back in a rictus softened into a smile, and the glittering hate in the eyes melted away, as if it had never been there at all. If it hadn’t been for the blood smearing her pale blue gown, she would have looked completely normal.
“Christine?”
“Hello, Dory.” Her voice was calm, even, friendly. If I hadn’t been watching, I’d have never known that her fingers were still tracking the furrowed paths of Anthony’s wounds, slick with his blood.
I’d ended up teetering precariously on a pile of fallen bricks, so I stepped cautiously to the side. She didn’t noticeably react. “Uh. What are you doing?” I asked, equally carefully.
“What does it look like?” Anthony asked hoarsely.
I thought he might be wise to stop drawing her attention. The hate returned to her eyes as she looked at him, so focused that I could feel it pulsing between them. Then her hand tightened on the stake in his heart, and before I could stop her, she had jerked it out.
Anthony choked back a scream, while Christine crouched over him, holding the bloody spike. She held it up, examining it with a puzzled frown. “Why isn’t he dead?” she asked me.
I was wondering the same thing, until I saw his neck. There was a stuttering, puckered line where, until very recently, a gaping wound had been. He’d healed, I realized in disbelief. The stubborn son of a bitch had healed a mortal neck injury with a stake through his heart. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible without seeing it myself.
It was a damn impressive trick, but I didn’t think he had another one. The resignation on his face said that clearly enough. Anthony had given up; he thought this was it. And I had no clue why.
He should have been able to snap Christine like a twig, drain her, defend himself a hundred different ways from someone with little more power than a human. But he wasn’t. And that couldn’t be good.
“The wood is showing through,” Christine complained, before I could figure it out. She proffered the gory stake. “I don’t understand. It worked last time.”
“Last time being?”
“Elyas,” she said impatiently.
I walked over to take the stake, shedding dirt with every step and fighting to keep my breathing slow and steady. I didn’t understand what was going on here, and that was bad. But the unmistakable flicker of madness in Christine’s eyes was worse. If she wasn’t running on all cylinders, even a minor slipup could get me in trouble.
And Anthony dead.
I took the stake and examined it, crouching down beside Christine and her prey. I turned it over in my hands. “It looks okay to me,” I said. “Did you use the same type on Elyas?”
“Yes,” she said fretfully. “I had them made to my specifications in Zurich by a silversmith. The shaft is apple wood, but I had him inlay a little silver tip, you see?” She pointed out the razor-sharp end with a nicely manicured nail. It would have been pretty if it hadn’t had part of Anthony caught underneath it. “It makes it go in easier.”