More vampires appeared in the shattered stained glass windows. They crawled inside and launched themselves. Three slammed into Gareth, smashing him against the wall. One turned to Adele, but Gareth pushed free and laid a hand on him, yanking him back. “Keep going!”
Adele didn’t hesitate, racing for the choir. She had no idea where Goronwy was, but the church was surprisingly small, and he had to be in contact with the ground. That left only the eastern end of the church. Racing past the painted figures of holy men, Adele prayed she was in time. All she could think about were the men dying on the battlefield. Were any alive to save?
She rounded the altar sanctuary and had to shield her eyes from sudden brightness. The Witchfinder knelt in the midst of a vast field of crystals. He was adjusting his scrying sextant. Needles of light shot through each of the crystals, sending color slicing through the dusty air. As the web sparkled, Adele saw that the crystals were not just on the floor but were set into the walls too, like vibrant stars. The intense glare sent spikes of vertigo through Adele and she had to clutch the wall, gasping to catch her breath.
Goronwy looked up at her. His lips held a smile. In his right hand, he clutched the Tear of Death.
“Ah, Empress. I’m glad you got to see this.” Goronwy let the scryer fall on its long strap around his neck. He casually reached into his pocket and pulled out two crystals. He tightened his fingers around them so there was a brief flash of light and then he carelessly tossed them aside. He stepped over a small array of blue crystals set near the center of his sprawling indecipherable quincunx. “Flay assured me you’d come. She was quite worried about it. That’s why I had to block you from the Earth, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. She was worried you would just slaughter all of Paris as you did in Britain. She claims that’s your catch-all for solving problems. No matter now.” He held up a finger. “Do you hear that? Nothing. The gunfire has stopped. Your army is dead. I’ve already won the Battle of Paris.”
Adele fought down nausea, focusing on the figure of the old man before her. The deathly quiet from outside chilled her. She summoned her courage again. “I’ll kill you.”
Goronwy frowned in disappointment. “That’s all you can say with this miracle around you? Flay was right. Look at this. I was somewhat limited in space so I anchored crystals on the walls and on the ceiling. As long as they’re tied to lodestones fused to the rift, they function admirably.” He pointed with the phurba to several stones on a column. “I believe those stones correspond to the rifts through Alexandria. The Tear of Death is remarkable. I can feel it working through me even now. I thought I had exercised power before, but I was wrong. I’m not absolutely sure how fast it will move, but its influence is already traveling down the rifts I’ve mapped, southward through the territory your armies have occupied. It will cover the Rhone Valley, through Marseilles, and into the Mediterranean. It should reach North Africa by tonight. When the people in your empire wake up to find everyone in the capital dead, well, it should give them pause before continuing this war.”
Adele stopped studying the crystal alignments all around her and shifted as if to come toward him. From an alcove behind the Witchfinder, red eyes stabbed through the shadows. Adele’s gut plummeted. Snarls and the rattle of chains reached her ears. Something lurched forward until a chain snapped taut. The limited light showed an inhuman face, bleached near white and hairless. A feral vampire. No, two of them. Savage throwbacks that even vampires feared. Flay had always used them as hunting hounds. Swallowing bile, Adele rushed forward.
Goronwy stumbled away, scrambling to the alcove holding the ferals. Adele paid him no heed and ran to the edge of the map. She kicked out to dislodge the crystals, but they didn’t move. The stones were not simply lying on the floor; they had been fused to the Earth.
Adele heard a sharp click. Goronwy pulled a large iron pin from a bracket on the wall where chains were secured. The chains crashed limp to the floor.
“Kill her!” the Witchfinder shouted.
The lithe muscular forms of the ferals sprang for Adele. The naked creatures moved like lightning. She barely dodged the first, slicing the second with her khukri as it went by, eliciting a satisfying screech of pain. Nails scraped stones and the creatures both slid to a stop beyond her, their claws and fangs elongated more so than normal vampires. These hunters knew nothing but slaughter. She dove for the small arrangement of blue crystals just like the ones in the vampires’ talismans. They had to be what was silencing the Earth around her.
A bony long-fingered hand clutched her leg and dragged her back, claws digging into her calves like needles. She spun around, her blade flashing for the creature’s throat. It anticipated her move and ducked its head. She flipped the khukri in her hand and stabbed downward, striking its exposed chest. The feral howled and released her.
The other creature clamped down behind Adele, its teeth latching onto her shoulder. She felt its mouth begin to drain her blood. She flung herself backward, looping a leg behind its knee, hoping to drive it to the ground under her. The starving creature was so focused on its meal that it didn’t realize what she was doing. It stumbled and fell back onto the crystal map on the floor, but it still didn’t relinquish its hold.
Adele struggled to free herself, but the clawed hands held her tight. A scream left her throat as her flesh tore and more blood gushed into the vampire’s mouth. It would not end like this! Across the room, the other creature rose to its splayed feet, blood dripping from the wound in its chest that glowed with residue from the Fahrenheit chemical.
The feral under Adele made horrible, contented noises as if suckling at its mother’s breast. This only goaded Adele more. She stabbed downward and behind her. The angle was awkward, but she was desperate. The thing bellowed as the blade seared through its flesh. Its mouth ripped from her shoulder in a spray of blood.
With a cry of her own, a mix of pain and rage, she rolled off it. Slipping on the slick floor, Adele struggled to get back to the blue crystal pattern only inches away. A feral leapt onto her, sending them both skidding. One of the sparkling blue crystals was torn from the floor by furious claws struggling to recover from their slide.
Beneath Adele, the Earth awakened and gazed on her. She shouted rapturously, her spreading senses aware again at last. Here in the center of the city, the rifts were sluggish but left alive, otherwise Goronwy himself would have been killed; he was only human, after all. She reached for them.
The creature above her howled in triumph. Fangs plunged into her shoulder again, but before the hunter could even taste her blood, Adele drew the power of the rift into her and let it sing. The feral flew upward, shoved toward the vaulted ceiling by the force of geomancy exuding from Adele. It screamed as its body burned in a torrent of fire. Its skin blackened and cracked as the flames sucked every bit of moisture from it. It shattered into ash as it hit the ceiling, falling slowly back to the floor like drifting snow.
Adele struggled to her hands and knees, looking for the other feral. There was no hesitation left in her to use the fire and it rose in her. The creature attacked with claws extended. Suddenly, Gareth rushed into the area, charging the remaining feral as it leapt for Adele. Gareth’s face twisted in rage, baring his own fangs. He grabbed the snarling creature around the head and tried to snap its powerful neck. Adele couldn’t stop the rush of energy pouring from her. It engulfed both of them. She looked on in horror.
The vampire in Gareth’s hands burned with a raging fire and crumbled. Gareth however stood untouched by the rift’s silver flames. Adele gasped in relief. His eyes met hers, and as he took in her blood-streaked form a flash of anger rose in him. He crushed the scorched skull in his hands. Adele spun around, looking for Goronwy. The Witchfinder stood gaping.
“So that’s all you have, bastard?” Adele strode toward him, her knife glowing, ribbons of blood dripping down her arm. “Vampires at least have the decency to fight face to face. But you’re a coward and a monster.”
“Tell th
at to the clan of Britain you slaughtered.”
Adele didn’t stop moving forward, fighting dizziness, pulling the power under her feet closer, letting it fill her. Gareth was a dim shape beside her. She wasn’t thinking about anything save stopping the horror that the Witchfinder had sent out.
Terror swept over Goronwy’s face, giving ground before her fury. He clutched the Tear of Death to his chest like a child protecting a toy.
A stained glass window shattered. Flay dropped to the ground in a shower of colored shards. Immediately she sprang from her crouch to strike for Adele, and cursed in rage when the blow landed on Gareth’s shoulder instead, as he streaked between them. Her claws ripped through him, spraying the holy place with more red. Gareth slashed at her face, forcing her to retreat.
Adele grabbed Goronwy by the throat. Unexpectedly, he dropped to his knees, dragging her with him. He stabbed the Tear of Death into the floor, directly through the heart of a rift. The stone slab underfoot shattered with a loud crack. Tendrils of inky smoke rose from the floor and encircled them. Adele reached down and took hold of the Tear of Death along with Goronwy. Abruptly her vision darkened as if the hands of night covered her eyes and ears. She fought to retain the world around her, but the great eye of the Earth had gone blind. Only darkness prevailed. Adele couldn’t move; she barely felt the hard stone of the Tear beneath her fingers. The world melted away as the rifts dragged them into their embrace.
Adele’s skin flushed hot and her stomach convulsed. The rifts should have been vivid and warm, but here the veins of the world were ice cold. She felt the sickening black aura of death oozing out of the Tear, spilling over itself in an endless torrent. The tarlike substance clung to Adele as she moved. It burned where it touched her skin.
Goronwy dragged his angry gaze from the Tear of Death up onto Adele. His eyes were wide with maniacal fervor, almost in rapture at the power rushing through him.
A corrupted rift at Adele’s feet convulsed. She could exert no control over it. The thing was alien to her. It struck her side and searing pain blossomed.
With a trembling hand, Adele struggled to hold the phurba. The terrible power that pulsed through it like enflamed blood threatened to smother her. She wanted to let go, to cleanse herself from the corruption that wriggled over her. She craved distance from the horror and blackness. She needed time to breathe and think, to see the light again. If she stayed here, she would go mad.
A wave of pitch splashed over Adele’s legs, chilling her to the bone. Agony seeped into her, coursing through her, eating away at her like a disease. Her body shuddered with a sickening flush. The black substance crept up to encase her like a growing cocoon, trapping her and swirling around her, higher and higher.
Still she held onto the Tear of Death.
CHAPTER 42
Gareth sidestepped a furious strike by Flay. His arm slammed across her throat and he swiped behind her legs at the same time. She went down hard, but kicked out at him in an effort to keep him at bay. Her feet were bare, with sharp nails. They ripped through cloth and flesh.
Gareth shoved her leg aside and drove his fist at her face. She turned in time and his fist crushed the stone under her into dust. Her roll took her under the shattered windows. She crouched, spitting obscenities at him.
“You will not touch her,” Gareth hissed back. Neither Adele nor Goronwy had moved from their spot kneeling motionless on the floor with hands clutching the Tear of Death. Not knowing what was happening to her in there tore at him, but his focus remained on Flay.
“I’m already touching her. My pack is out there now mopping up what’s left of her army, the pathetic few that the Witchfinder didn’t already kill.” Flay’s eyes darted about, seeking a path around Gareth to Adele. “I’ll kill both of you before we’re through here.”
“Yet you continually fail to make that promise a reality.” Gareth wanted to keep her attention on him. “I’m rather tired of killing you too.”
“Yes, you were close last time but, as usual, you were so concerned with her you didn’t make sure I was dead. The Witchfinder found me and revived me with his blood, and then he protected me when the princess murdered your family and clan, with your approval. And he made me immune to her, so there’s nothing in the world that can stop me now.”
“We’re both slaves of humans it seems,” Gareth chided. “What an irony.”
“Except that I’ll kill mine when I’m done with him.” Flay surged up. Gareth stood his ground in front of Adele, deflecting her attacks but at great cost. A weakness began in his muscles as every strike drew more blood. A smirk of triumph spread across Flay’s face and she drove at him harder.
As her torn jacket shifted, the brutal scars along her torso caught Gareth’s attention. He blocked a clawed hand that would have disemboweled him, then gouged his claws deep into a long scar on her chest. He touched something solid under her flesh, but it wasn’t bone. He slammed a fist into her face, jerking her head brutally to the side. His fingers dug into her chest and took hold of a crystal.
Flay’s eyes snapped wide and she became a wild animal in his grip. He bore her attacks as he pulled his arm back, ripping the crystal from her flesh. She screeched and retreated. Furious hatred rose in her, but Gareth also saw fear in her eyes for the first time.
This blue crystal was the same as the talismans the vampires in Bedlam had worn. This was what protected Flay from Adele’s power. And judging from the many scars, Goronwy had sewn multiple crystals into Flay’s body. Gareth tossed the bloody crystal aside and sprang toward her. If the loss of one stone didn’t slow her down, perhaps more would serve.
Flay leapt aside, clinging to the wall of the cathedral. Gareth crawled after her. She spun back to him as he neared, propelling off the stones and colliding with him. They fell back to the floor. She smashed his head into the stones. His vision blurred.
Gareth grabbed her head and dug his claws into her face, his forefinger pressing at her eye. Flay snapped at his throat, her sharp teeth inches from tearing it to shreds. His other hand raked for a long scar on her abdomen. Her fear at his cunning returned and she thrust herself away, her foot shoving him across the floor.
Flay sprang for Adele, whose eyes were open and staring into dead space. Gareth raced to intercept her, reaching Flay just as her arm rose to strike the defenseless woman. He slammed into the war chief and shoved her through a teetering iron fence into a tomb beneath a towering cross. He bent her back over the reclining form of a dead man carved in cold marble. Gareth tore again into her stomach, burying his hand up to the wrist. Flay raged under him, kicking him away. He staggered back, his hand dripping red with her blood. In his palm, he held two crystals.
“Damn you,” she gasped. Her flesh smoldered with silver smoke. A crack emerged on her cheek. She wrenched a tall golden crucifix from the floor and slammed it into Gareth, who rushed forward again. The cross connected with his head. He smashed against a column and slumped to the floor. His vision of the church wavered.
Flay rained blows on him with the heavy crucifix. The metal splintered, Gareth’s bones fractured. He couldn’t get his feet under him. He blurrily saw her raise the crucifix again. His arm lifted to deflect the blow. Flay stabbed the jagged holy symbol through Gareth’s shoulder like a lance, pinning him to the floor.
Flay’s skin split in deep fissures down her limbs. She spun about and dropped heavily to one knee. Fighting her way back to her feet, she searched frantically across the littered floor. Her flesh continued to burn. Then Flay cried out and pounced on two of her missing crystals. She jammed the stones back into the raw gash in her stomach as she staggered toward Adele with a strangled laugh. The remnants of the silver smoke wreathing her face vanished.
Gareth braced himself against the crossbar of the crucifix and forced himself to his feet, wrenching it from the floor. He staggered to intercept Flay, leaving a trail of his own bright blood that streamed down the golden shaft protruding from his back.
“Flay!�
�� he screamed to bring her focus back on him.
Movement caught his attention in the air. Several figures swept through the stained glass window that Flay had burst earlier and settled to the floor near Adele. Lothaire took in the situation with a grim study of the area and placed himself in Flay’s path. Caterina stood beside him. Nadzia and another rebel spread out on their flanks.
More footsteps came from behind and Kasteel appeared with the remainder of his rebels, all torn from battle. He rushed for the wounded Gareth, who shook his head and directed them into position to surround Flay. The rebel chief hesitated, but joined the ring closing on the reeling war chief.
“All your packmates are gone,” Kasteel called to Flay. “They all rushed south to feed off the dying.”
Flay tried to straighten but couldn’t. She eyed Gareth as he staggered to Adele. Kasteel steadied him on his feet. Gareth slowly pulled the golden crucifix from his shoulder hand over bloody hand, and threw it aside.
Flay clutched one hand against her open stomach. She stared at the vampires around her in confusion while blood dripped off her chin. “How are you all standing there? Why aren’t you burning?”
Caterina held out her arm. When she opened her clenched fist, a blue crystal dangled on the end of a chain. Lothaire reached inside his shirt to reveal another one of the talismans. Likewise, the rebels all produced blue stones as well.
“Fanon,” Caterina said, “was very helpful to us.”
Flay gave a disgusted snort of laughter and turned slowly to Gareth. “You can’t trust anyone. Well, I actually owe the princess a debt. Before she came along, I had no place in the clans because I was merely a commoner. Now, thanks to her, the only clan that matters is death. And I’m the one who can lead it. I will reshape our kind. We are born for war and I am born to be our empress. I’ll have her one day. You can’t stop me.”
“I don’t have to stop you, Flay. I’m not alone anymore.”
Flay’s eyes darted from Gareth to Kasteel to Adele and back to Gareth. “But I am the future.” She threw herself into the air and flew out the shattered windows.
The Geomancer Page 32