"She shielded you, too?" Astarte asked.
The wizened ibambo nodded. "All of us, apparently, on both sides of the Shroud at once. We only lost three warriors. It's a miracle."
Astarte hesitated. "Is she going to die?"
"I hope not," Titus said. "I'll try to revitalize her as I did before."
"Dunn," Bellamy said grimly. "He's still around here somewhere, most likely in that house directly opposite us. I'm going to slip back into the Underworld and fix my ankle, and then I'm going to find him."
He allowed death to pull him back into the Shadowlands. Antoine and Queen Marie's other soldiers popped into view. In the country of the dead, a second, greenish fire danced and crackled, superimposed on the one consuming the remains of the octagonal house. To Bellamy's surprise, the freezing chill of the one didn't cancel out the fierce heat of the other. Rather, he felt both simultaneously, a sensation so peculiar that it took him a moment to interpret it.
He sent a current of psychic energy flowing into his ankle. It throbbed once, and then the bone knit. Meanwhile, Titus gently took Marilyn's face between his hands.
His scaly hide mottled with pale burns, Antoine rushed up to Bellamy. "Tripwire?" he asked. "Or was somebody waiting and watching with a remote control?"
"Remote control," Bellamy said. "Let's go get him." He rose and pointed at a cluster of Queen Marie's soldiers in their zebra-striped capes. "You men, come with us. The rest, stay here and look after Astarte, Titus, and Marilyn." Wishing he hadn't left his rifle behind when he made his desperate dive through the window, he pulled his Browning from its holster and trotted toward the derelict home across the street. His squad followed.
As soon as he flowed through the door into the foyer, he caught Dunn's scent. Antoine turned his head this way and that, then oriented on the stairs. "Up there," the gator whispered.
"I figured as much," Bellamy said. "If you wanted to keep an eye on the room where he stashed Astarte, that would give you the best vantage point." He led his companions skulking up the stairs.
But when they reached the site from which Dunn had kept watch, they found that the werewolf and his accomplices, if any, had already departed. Bellamy felt his shadowself squirming in the depths of his mind, mocking his frustration. He had to fight an urge to scream and kick the wall.
He turned to Antoine. "Can you track him?"
The reptile led Bellamy and the human warriors back downstairs, then crawled around the ground floor for a while. "Sorry," he rasped at last. "I guess the Big Bad Wolf s got a talent for covering a trail that offsets my knack for following one."
Bellamy's muscles clenched in frustration. How was he supposed to derail the coming disaster when none of his allies was competent? An instant later, he realized just how unfair and ungrateful that thought was, and his impatience gave way to shame. What was wrong with him, anyway? Granted, fear for the kidnapped Astarte and the events of the last few minutes had rubbed his nerves raw, but even that wouldn't ordinarily make him disparage his friends. Something else had awakened his Shadow, and now the psychic parasite was slipping garbage into his mind.
Abruptly he noticed the hot, slimy feeling clotting in the air. "There's another Maelstrom coming." He hesitated. The warning sensation was indefinably, disquietingly different this time, albeit Titus had told him that no two shadow storms were exactly alike. "At least I think there is."
"Peachy," Antoine said. "That'll make the evening just about perfect. What do you want to do now?"
"Rejoin the others. Marilyn and Astarte need to get away from here before the police show up. And we abambo should move to a safe place to ride out the storm."
The companions they'd left behind had moved down the street, putting distance between themselves and the fires. Jaw clenched, Astarte strained to support Marilyn's weight. The Arcanist looked, at best, semiconscious. Evidently Titus had done everything he could for her, because he'd allowed himself to slip back to the dark side of the Shroud.
"No luck?" the shaman asked.
Bellamy shook his head. "Dunn pushed the button and ran. Let's get out of here." He projected himself into the Skinlands, and the other ghosts disappeared. Startled, Astarte jumped and nearly lost her hold on Marilyn.
"Here," he said, "let me take her." He lifted the mage in his arms. "We're moving out." He headed back toward Union Street. A raw ligature mark still striping her neck, Astarte fell into step beside him.
"Are we taking Marilyn to a hospital?" she asked, raspingly.
"She wouldn't want that," Bellamy said, "any more than you or I want to answer questions about what happened to her. On the other hand, we can't let her die. Let's see how she does over the course of the next few minutes."
"I hurt her again," Astarte said somberly.
"No," he said. "This is Dunn's fault, not yours."
Titus shimmered into view in front of them as she started to reply.
"What is it?" Bellamy asked.
"I'm afraid that our mission has run out of time," the old man said grimly. "Something is happening in the Shadowlands, something that leads me to believe that the Spectres are beginning their ritual. You'd better slip back across the Shroud and take a look."
When Gayoso turned, he saw Valentine standing just inside the door aiming a small pistol at him. He considered simply rushing the gun, but the sacrificial table was in the way, and even a pathetic little freak like Valentine might conceivably get off a lucky shot before the Anacreon reached him. He snatched up one of the larger darksteel knives and poised it over the unconscious child's chest.
"Stop!" Valentine yelped.
"No, you stop," Gayoso replied. "Have you ever even fired a pistol before, Valentine? Hitting the mark isn't easy, particularly if the weapon's too large and heavy for you to handle comfortably. I sincerely doubt that you could stop me from destroying the girl. But I promise that if you'll lay the gun down and step away from it, I won't harm either one of you."
"No way."
The Doppelganger sighed. "Then I suppose we have a standoff." Valentine crept a step closer, no doubt to improve his chances of hitting his target. "No! Stay right where you are. Otherwise I'll gut her this instant."
His homely face twisted with anguish, Valentine froze. The automatic quivered in his hands. Now fairly certain that the dwarf would hold his fire for the time being, Gayoso began sending a silent call for help into the gaping Nihil in the center of the floor. Prudence had only barely commenced teaching him how to exploit the psychic bond that all doomshades supposedly shared, but with luck, something would respond to his summons eventually. Meanwhile, he merely needed to stall for time.
"Tell me about Daphne," said Valentine.
"I have her in a sort of makeshift oubliette. She's uncomfortable, but essentially unharmed. If we can come to an understanding, I'll give her back to you."
Valentine bared his teeth like a wild animal. "You're lying! You destroyed her! You destroyed all of them! I could tell you were hiding something, but I thought I knew you. I never dreamed...this.'" He aimed the gun anew.
Gayoso could tell that the little man was on the verge of going berserk. In a moment he was likely to start blasting away, the threat to the girl on the table notwithstanding. And as best the Anacreon could judge, peeking from the corner of his eye, there was still nothing rising from the seething depths of the Nihil.
"There's so much you never dreamed," Gayoso said. "My personal fall from grace is the least of it. And if you shoot me, you never will know."
Valentine's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying?"
"Isn't it obvious? Our late friend Montrose suspected that a sinister conspiracy was plotting against everyone else in the province, loyal Hierarchs, Heretics, and even mortals alike. It turns out he was absolutely correct. If you'll promise to let me go free, I'll tell you all about it. Imagine what a hero you'll be when you run and tattle to Shellabarger and Mrs. Duquesne."
The dwarf hesitated. "How do I know you'll tell me the truth?"<
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Because I know you'll never have a chance to tell anyone else, Gayoso thought. If help doesn't arrive soon, I'll go ahead and pounce on you myself. Meanwhile, it might actually be fun to share the secret with someone besides his allies, to savor the look of growing dismay on Valentine's lumpish face.
"You can trust your instincts. You didn't have any trouble recognizing that I was lying about sweet little Daphne."
Valentine's mouth tightened, and the pistol quivered. For a moment, Gayoso thought it had been a critical mistake to mention the child whore again. Then the jester said, "Okay. Talk." His voice had roughened, as if he was imitating a tough detective in a TV show.
Repressing a sneer, Gayoso began to explain how the coming of the Aztec Spectres dovetailed with his desire to establish his own kingdom. As he neared the end, he finally sensed something approaching the other side of the Nihil. The hissing of the dimensional rift grew marginally louder, and a faint odor like the smell of hot wires tinged the air. He hoped Valentine was too wrapped up in the story to notice.
"It will never work," the little man said, sounding as if he was trying to reassure himself.
"On the contrary, it's quite feasible," Gayoso said. "Thanks to the pollution of the spiritual atmosphere, a very special Maelstrom should erupt from the Tempest within the next few days. Prudence and the other false Pardoners will tap its power to cast a spell which will complete our domination of the troops under my command, along with the many other Legionnaires who have seen fit to seek absolution.
Together, they'll launch a preemptive strike against my fellow Anacreons. The storm will also furnish the energy for the confessors to conjure up their own special citadel. It's a wonderful scheme, if I do say so myself. Even those busybodies from New Orleans wouldn't have been able to stop it." "Who?"
"Oh, that's right, they steamed into town after you dropped out of sight. Some of Queen Marie's officers stumbled onto a smattering of information about the conspiracy, and came to help the good people of Natchez defend themselves. Alas, they arrived too late to be of any real use.
"Ah, but you didn't, did you, Senor Jester? Such a beautiful, intricate scheme, and now one meddlesome little homunculus is going to wreck the entire thing. It really is a pity."
Valentine glared. "You're damn right I'm going to wreck it. Okay, you kept your part of the deal, and now I'll keep mine. Move away from the girl, and I'll let you walk out of here."
"Never mind about that," Gayoso said.
The dwarf cocked his head. "What?"
"I've decided I'm not in a hurry to leave after all. You know how it is when you fail to satisfy a craving. If I don't stay and offer the child to the Malfeans, I'll be nervous and irritable all night."
"You're out of your mind," Valentine said, "and that's fine by me. I gave you your chance, and I'm glad you didn't take it."
Clearly, the dwarf was about to shoot. Gayoso poised himself to dodge, and then another Spectre finally reared up from the Nihil.
The servant of the Void had such a jumbled, chaotic shape that for an instant Gayoso couldn't quite discern what it was. Then he made out the scores of thrashing arms—small as the limbs of newborn infants-—projecting from a central cylindrical mass about seven feet tall. At the top of the thing, an organ resembling a tattered, rotting orchid drooled yellow slime.
Sensing the doomshade, Valentine whirled. A dozen of the puny-looking arms attacked him, some grabbing, others snagging and tearing his skin with curved, delicate, feline claws. The dwarf tried to hurl himself backward, but failed to break free.
"Oh, dear," drawled Gayoso. "Suddenly it appears that you won't be confounding my wicked designs after all. Certainly not if I stab you in the back while my friend has you immobilized." Valentine fired three shots at the many-armed doomshade, and then it knocked the pistol from his hand. Gayoso started around the makeshift altar.
Something pierced his abdomen. For a split second, the sensation was one of simple pressure, and then agony ripped through him. As he doubled over, the sacrifice jerked her weapon out of his belly for another thrust. Obviously she'd regained consciousness some time ago, but had bided her time, playing possum. She'd even managed to take possession of one of the ritual daggers.
If only Valentine had burst into the room a moment later, Gayoso would have had the little bitch shackled. The unfairness of the situation enraged him as much as his pain.
He slashed with his own knife. The girl recoiled to avoid the attack, and tumbled off the far side of the table. Doubled over, he hobbled after her. He felt the black fires of Oblivion seething through him, rippling outward from his belly, maddening him further. Not that he feared the ecstatic consummation of annihilation in the Void. But it was intolerable that his enemies should survive him.
To his astonishment, the sacrifice dropped her knife and fumbled a flintlock pistol out from inside her shirt. Given another moment, Gayoso would have discovered that, too. She pulled the hammer back, involuntarily squinched her eyes shut, and pulled the trigger. The Anacreon sidestepped. The gun barked, and the ball sang past his head.
He lunged at the girl, stabbing, and she cringed backward. A second advance should have carried his blade to the target, but when he stepped, a fresh burst of pain made him falter. She scrambled on backward into the corner where he'd stowed his regular clothing, armor, and weapons.
The child backed right into his cuirass, overturning it with a clatter. She looked around wildly, spotted his automatic, yanked it from its holster, and pointed it at him.
But unfortunately for her, she'd neither chambered a round nor released the safety. Gayoso grinned, and, in no hurry now, stalked on toward her.
The gun clicked. Her brown eyes wide and her face white as milk, the child threw it.
The desperation tactic took Gayoso by surprise. The pistol hit him in the stomach, squarely on top of the dagger wound. He yelped in pain and fury and staggered forward, off balance, stabbing madly. The black blade gashed the child's scalp and sheared away a lock of hair, which dissolved instantly.
But it wasn't a mortal or even a crippling stroke, and as he raised the knife to attack again, the child somehow squirmed past him, out of the corner. When he blundered back around, he saw that she'd carried his rapier with her.
The long, straight sword was still in its scabbard. Small as the sacrifice was, she'd have an awkward time trying to get it out. Determined to deny her the opportunity, he lunged at her.
She swung the rapier like a club, cracking him on the knee. He gasped at the jolt of pain, stumbled, and she struck at him again. Reflexively he caught hold of her weapon and tried to wrest it away from her. She clung to the hilt, and the rapier hissed from the scabbard, leaving him with a useless leather tube and the girl with a naked blade.
Still gripping the sword with both hands, she ran at him. He tried to step backward and parry the point with his dagger, but he was an instant too slow. The thin, black blade punched into his belly just to the right of the knife wound.
Gayoso passed out for a second. When he came to, he was on his knees, and, her face contorted with glee, the sacrifice was aiming the rapier for another thrust. He tried to raise the knife into a guard position, but his arm rose slowly, shaking, too weak and spastic to be of any real use.
He was both a king in the making and the vessel of the only true power in the universe, and yet, through sheer luck, these two tiny, meaningless phantasms of the vast lie called Creation were about to vanquish him. He hated them, hated them, hated them!
Valentine screamed.
The sacrifice jerked around. Still all but paralyzed by the punctures in his belly, Gayoso couldn't take advantage of her distraction. He perforce contented himself with looking where she was looking.
The thing from the Nihil was gripping Valentine with at least twenty of its hands. The dwarf squirmed helplessly. The Spectre had bent its upper body into a curve like the crook of a walking stick, and now the tattered orchid vomited slime onto Valentine's head
. His skin steamed, blistered, and charred.
The skinny, brown-haired child pivoted back toward Gayoso. Her sharp-nosed face still wore a snarl, and for an instant he was certain she wanted to slay him so badly that she was willing to let Valentine perish to do it. Then she wheeled and ran toward the many-armed doomshade.
When Gayoso had first occupied this room, it had contained no psychic residue. Since then, however, his own sacrifices and satanic rituals had charged it with the memory of agony, terror, cruelty, and hate. He reached out for the energy. It wouldn't heal darksteel wounds completely, not very quickly, anyway. But if the Nihil monster would only keep his enemies for half a minute or so, the infusion of power ought to suffice to put him back on his feet.
The sacrifice stabbed the cylindrical Spectre in the side. An expanding ring of shadow washed outward from the puncture. Still clutching Valentine, the flesh at its base bulging and rippling and its little arms pawing, the monster surged at the child.
It nearly caught her, too. Perhaps she hadn't expected a creature with no feet to cover ground so quickly. But she backpedaled just in time, then jabbed it again.
Gayoso managed to draw himself to one knee.
The little girl retreated around the room, wounding her pursuer with a series of stop thrusts. The monster began a high-pitched keening, then faltered and rocked unsteadily back and forth. Had it possessed legs, one might have said it was staggering. The girl stalked toward it. Suddenly as agile as before, the doomshade bent and thrust its crown of petals at her. Slime sprayed out and splashed her in the face.
Shaking, clutching the sacrificial table for support, Gayoso dragged himself to his feet.
Reeling back against the wall, the girl dropped the rapier to claw at the corrosive goo clinging to her face. The monster scuttled toward her. "Seize her, but don't slay her!" Gayoso said. He still wanted to attend to that particular chore himself. Indeed, considering the indignities she'd inflicted on him, he meant to make her suffer as none of his victims before her.
His skin crisscrossed with fine white gashes, Valentine wrenched himself free. Apparently the Spectre's wounds had weakened its grip, or else it had simply been unable to focus on the girl and the dwarf at the same time. Valentine scurried across the floor, grabbed the pistol he'd dropped, spun around, and started firing at the creature.
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