But it wasn’t a bullet. It was Ian. He’d knocked me down, covered my body completely with his own. And the scions were still firing.
Shot after shot rang out. Not all of them found a target, but I felt every bullet that ripped through Ian and sent him into jittering spasms. He didn’t even have time to scream. After five or six direct hits, he passed out, effectively jolting me from his head.
They kept shooting. His body jerked again, and again, mashing me farther into the ground. His blood drenched me. I clenched my jaw and resisted the urge to throw him off, to run at the bastards and tear them apart. Ian hadn’t saved me just so I could get my stupid ass blown away. I had to think, had to come up with something before Vaelyn managed to get back to her stubbornly not-captured self.
Through the sick pounding in my head, someone shouted a spell. I shuddered. Too late, damn it, she’s back and she hasn’t lost an ounce of power …
A series of dry clicks echoed in the air. Some of the scions snarled curses. The gunfire stopped.
“Get up, apprentice.” The strained voice belonged to Calvin.
I struggled out from under Ian’s inert form, cringing at the wet crunching sounds his body made when it moved. I deliberately avoided looking at him when I got clear. Couldn’t bear to see the damage just yet. I scanned everywhere except the place where Ian lay. From what I could tell, Tory and Mercy had gotten inside. Even Zephyr must’ve taken the hint and run off somewhere.
Calvin had both hands wrapped tight around the neck of a huge black-and-red snake. The rest of the thing coiled around his legs, and it looked like it was squeezing hard. Light pulsed around the snake. Calvin clenched his jaw, and the glow faded. Somehow, he was keeping her from transforming.
“I can’t hold her long,” he said. “But I’ll keep her busy. You take care of them.” He jerked his head to indicate the scions.
“Right. No problem.” Some of them were still trying to unjam their weapons, but a few had started toward us. They didn’t look like they wanted to pat me on the back either. I glanced at the blade still in my hand. “Isn’t this your tether?”
“It is.” The Vaelyn-snake glowed again, and Calvin let out a grunt of effort. “She must have transferred herself to another tether without telling me. I don’t know … what, or where.” He gasped, swayed a little. “Thank you for saving Mercy.”
I nodded. “Let’s hope she stays saved.” “Yes. She can be a bit—”
Faint light washed through the snake. This time, it kept getting stronger. Calvin uttered something that sounded an awful lot like shit. “Stop them,” he said. “Please.”
“I will.”
He managed to kick free of the glowing coils and started dragging Vaelyn away. I tried to stop paying attention to them, to trust that he’d keep her occupied for a while. I had bigger problems.
Like Lynus. Who’d ditched the useless speargun, and advanced anyway, with an expression that said he’d tear me apart with his bare hands if he got close enough.
I still had the Sig. But I didn’t know if it’d work. If the spell Calvin cast was like a snare, covering an area instead of specific objects, it would’ve shorted out all the weapons. I pulled it out, aimed at the ground in front of Lynus, and jerked the trigger. The answering thunder of the gun let me breathe again, and the clearing fell silent in its aftermath.
Lynus glared at me. “You gonna kill me now too, thief ? I ain’t armed, you know. Not that it matters to you. Cold-blooded murderin’ bastard.”
“No, I’m not.” I struggled not to show how cutting the remark had been, and raised my voice. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” I said. “Look, you guys have been lied to. All of you. I don’t know what they told you, but they’re full of shit.”
Shouts behind me drew my attention. Calvin and Vaelyn. I glanced around—just long enough for Lynus to lob a paralysis spell at me.
It didn’t take long to undo it, but Lynus had sprinted a good ten feet before I shook free. I raised the Sig level with his torso. “Don’t,” I said. “I won’t kill you, but I’ll injure you if I have to.”
He froze, and his eyes flared wide. “How the fuck—”
“Never mind that.” Beyond him, two figures were approaching fast. Kit and Billy. The rest of the scions seemed content to hang back and look either pissed off or terrified. “If you don’t believe they’re lying to you, ask Kit,” I said. “He knows they’re full of shit.”
“Don’t you even fuckin’ mention my brother! You already killed one of ’em.”
I went cold. It was true enough—I hadn’t technically killed Davie, but I sure as hell didn’t try to stop Ian from doing it. And I probably would’ve done the same if I’d had the chance.
Before I could formulate a response, twin groans rose from the ground. Luke and the guy Mercy knocked out were coming around. In a rare flash of logic, I realized that if my gun still worked, theirs did too. I knelt and frisked them one-handed, keeping the Sig trained on Lynus with the other. Luke had a Desert Eagle .44 Mag. Hell of a piece. The other guy turned out to have a custom Glock. I tucked them both in my waistband and stood.
More shouting behind me, farther away. A tremendous crack, like a tree snapping in half. I didn’t look around this time. Kit came up beside Lynus, looking grim, and Billy hung back a bit. Neither of them said a word. But at least they didn’t try to attack.
“I’m kind of at an impasse here,” I said. “How do we work this so nobody else dies?”
Luke sat up with a gasp and reached for the place his weapon used to be. When he didn’t find it, he fixed me with a wild-eyed stare. His jaw worked. A tiny snap of breaking glass sounded.
“No!” Kit dove for him and tried to wrench his mouth open. “Luke, don’t … Lynus, do somethin’! Please …”
“Ah, shit.” I dropped next to him and sought frantically for a healing point. By the time I found it, Luke was already convulsing. I tried anyway. But whatever poison they used in those things, it worked too damned fast. Foam bubbled from his lips, and his eyes drifted in two different directions and froze there.
Kit held the bigger man’s head until his body stopped twitching. When it ended, he sobbed once and raised reddened eyes to meet mine. “He weren’t bad,” he said hoarsely. “Just not all that smart, is all. He followed orders same as the rest of us, but he never hurt nobody.”
“I believe you. And I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just too fast. I couldn’t stop it.”
“Bullshit! You wasn’t—Kit, shut your damn mouth.” Lynus was practically spitting. “Don’t you talk to this piece of shit.”
Kit shot him a narrow-eyed glare. “This has to stop, Lynus,” he said. “He ain’t gonna kill us. Neither is the prince. It’s Val and Father who’s pickin’ us off, and pretty soon they ain’t gonna do it one by one no more. They don’t care fuck all about us.”
“He’s right,” Billy said quietly. “The thief let us go when he busted the prince out. He coulda killed us then.”
Lynus opened his mouth, snapped it shut. He looked from Kit to Billy, then back at me. His face was a blank.
“She said she was going to kill all of you,” I told him. Kit and Billy winced at that, but Lynus didn’t even twitch. “You’re batteries, powering up Nurien—the guy you call Father. She hates him, wants him dead, but she can’t destroy him unless you’re all gone.”
“Ricky,” Lynus whispered. “He did somethin’ to Val. It was a joke. But she was furious. She made him dig for three days straight, wouldn’t let him stop until he … just dropped dead.” A shudder went through him. “I heard Father screamin’ at her. Said she was gonna make him too weak to take the prince out. I didn’t get it, but …”
I shook my head. Couple of sick bastards, both of them. “They’re using you,” I said. “For their own reasons, they’re playing you all like chess pieces. And only the king’s supposed to stay standing.”
Lynus shook himself and frowned. He hesitated for a few seconds. “Can I take care of Jackson,
there?” he finally said, nodding at the injured man. “That coon woman knocked him a good one. I might be able to heal him some.”
“Go for it.”
I stepped back to give him some room, and scanned the clearing. Some of the scions had vanished. Since the snare was still in effect, I figured they must’ve just wandered back into the woods. The ones who stayed were the younger ones, the second generation. They were edging together, moving closer to our little gathering. Probably following Lynus’s lead.
A fresh, distant cry erupted just behind the lingering scions. Calvin tumbled out from between two trees, landed hard. He bounded to his feet almost instantly and rushed back into the woods, screaming a spell. There was a terrific crack, and a pine tree toppled over.
Nothing I could do out there. I’d have to hope he could handle it. When I looked back down at the injured scion, Lynus had a hand down Jackson’s boot. Not exactly a healing gesture. He pulled it out—and there was a gun in it.
Damn. I hadn’t thought to look for spares.
“You go to hell,” Lynus snarled, and swung the weapon up.
I’d dropped my guard enough so I couldn’t react in time. My brain couldn’t decide whether to cast a spell or shoot him. All I knew for sure was that I was about to take a bullet. I could only hope he didn’t hit me anywhere instantly fatal.
A blur of motion caught my eye. With sick clarity, I understood what it was and tried to shout a warning, tell him not to bother, I could handle this. Too late. Kit lunged at me and barreled me aside, just as Lynus fired.
I heard him hit the ground seconds after me. The silence that followed was painful.
Please don’t be dead. I could save him. I had to. Gagging on panic-induced bile, I righted myself and staggered toward Kit’s fallen form. He’d been gut shot. I had a few minutes at the most before he bled out.
“Kit!” The wild, pitched scream tore through the air. Lynus popped up like a demonic jack-in-the-box, still clutching the gun. “You,” he said through his teeth. “Fucking. Die.”
And he emptied the rest of the clip into me.
The pain was immediate, blinding. Beyond excruciating. I had time to marvel that anything could hurt worse than being set on fire from the inside. At least it wouldn’t last long. I’d be dead in a few seconds—he’d pierced my stomach, both lungs, my breastbone just under the hollow of my throat. I was over and out.
But there was no light at the end of the tunnel. No choirs of angels or lakes of fire. Not even nothingness. There was just the pain, and it kept getting worse.
Why wasn’t I dead?
I coughed. Blood and bone splinters bubbled from the wounds in my chest. I could barely see, and couldn’t draw in more than a sip of air with my ruined lungs. But I was definitely alive.
I really did have a tether, in every sense. I was just as immortal as Ian.
Kit. Maybe I could still save him. He wasn’t too far away. I flung an arm in his direction. A strengthless cry ripped from my throat as the motion spiked new levels of agony. Probably should try to heal myself first, but I didn’t know how much time Kit had left. And apparently I had all the time in the world … as long as I could stand the pain.
I dug my fingers into the ground and pulled myself toward him, sobbing with every tiny movement. Jesus fucking Christ. No one, human or djinn, should’ve been able to withstand this much hurt without at least passing out. I was less than thrilled with this ability.
“The fuck!” Lynus bellowed. “You dead, you cheap-shit sumbitch. Quit fuckin’ movin’ and be dead already!”
Shut up, I tried to say, but what came out of my mouth was a thin gurgling whistle and a river of blood. I’d reached the end of my hauling limit. I threw my arm up again, and my hand came to rest on Kit’s chest. Had to be close enough. I couldn’t move anymore.
Lynus threw the empty gun at me. It struck square in the gut wound. Dazzling white burst across my vision. I didn’t have enough breath to scream. “Get your goddamn filthy paw off my brother,” he snarled.
I had to get this going before Lynus physically removed me. With an effort that flash-boiled my blood, I pulled at the earth, demanding every drop of power my body could take in.
I closed my eyes and found the flickering red pinpoint that was Kit’s dying energy. The second I focused on it, it winked out.
Fuck threading a needle.
I pushed everything I had at the spot. Come back, goddamn it, don’t you dare die on me, kid. For a few seconds I got nothing—and then the light flared like a close-range camera flash. The backlash shattered my concentration.
But it was enough. Kit’s wound closed in on itself, a pond ripple in reverse. The slug oozed from the diminishing hole just before it knit completely shut, and rolled to the ground. Kit snapped back to consciousness with a shocked intake of breath.
And my shattered body still refused to let me pass out. Lucky me.
“Kit?” Lynus croaked. He took a shambling step forward. “Kit … how? You’re healed. I thought you were … Jesus, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …”
Kit sat up slowly. Looked over at me. “You killed him.” His voice was raw, shaking.
“No! I mean, a minute ago he wasn’t … shit, how’d you do that?”
“You asshole. You fucking shot me!” His tone gathered strength. “You know I ain’t got healin’ power. He did it.”
“No,” Lynus whispered. “He ain’t with us. He killed Davie. They’re evil, both of ’em.”
“Goddamn it, Lynus, you seen what happened!” Kit stood with clenched fists. “Val and Father’s the evil ones. We’re on the wrong side. And you just killed the right side.”
I tried to speak, to tell Kit I wasn’t dead. No sound came out. But I managed to lift one arm a few inches and execute a tiny wave. Hello, still alive. In a fuck ton of pain, but not dead.
“Christ.” Lynus staggered over and dropped next to me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry …”
He held a hand out. A small, tingling ripple spread through my chest. The congealed mess inside me started to separate and firm. Some of the pain evaporated, revealing new layers I hadn’t been able to feel before. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
I was a long way from healed when Lynus sagged back, panting and gray faced. “Can’t,” he gasped. “Billy. Get Payton over here. He c’n heal some.”
“It’s okay,” I tried to tell him. It sounded more like iz-ay, but at least I was making audible sounds. I didn’t want them wasting all their mojo. They might need it if Calvin didn’t win. I knew better than to hope the twins would take each other out of commission.
Speaking of the dynamic duo, where the hell were they?
Couldn’t worry about that just yet. I drew in what I could and worked at putting myself back together. After a few minutes, I managed to pull in a deep breath that didn’t feel like I was drinking molten steel. I let it out with a groan, flexed a hand. “Fuck,” I whispered. “Don’t think I like being shot.”
Kit loomed over me, then knelt down to stare. “Sweet Jesus. You healin’ yourself ? How’ve you even got any juice left?”
I almost smiled, but it hurt too much. “My power works … different. Be okay soon.”
“Shit, I hope so.” He looked up, and his face fell. “Don’t think your friend will be, though. He ain’t moved since … well, you know.”
“Ian can’t die.” I wasn’t ready to confirm that I couldn’t either. They’d probably figured that out. Still, I didn’t want it getting back to the wrong djinn, if I could help it. They might try to test that theory. “But he needs help,” I said. “I have to get to him.” I attempted to get up. And failed explosively. Had to heal some more first.
Lynus sent a miserable glance at Kit, then turned it on me. “Thank you,” he said. “For saving my brother. I didn’t know …”
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “This is all on your so-called leaders.”
“They ain’t leadin’ shit no more.” A fierce light came into Lynu
s’s eyes. “I’ll kill ’em both. Swear to God I will.”
“You can’t. Not alone.” The hole under my throat had almost closed. I sat up with a guttural snarl, caught my breath. “But we’re after the same thing now. If we work together, I think we can bring them down.”
“No, you can’t.” The flat statement came from Jackson. “You’re dead. We’re all dead. Dead men walkin’.” He laughed, but it was a hollow, hopeless sound. “And I ain’t gonna die their way.”
I knew what was coming. Knew I couldn’t stop it, even if I hadn’t been crippled. The muffled crunch of breaking glass might as well have been a gunshot. Twenty seconds, and Jackson’s twitching body stilled forever.
Lynus stood slowly and stared at the rest of them, who’d gathered in a tight knot around Billy. “We got any other chicken-shit cowards here?” he said quietly.
No one moved.
“Go on! Poison your fool selves like the elders if you want.” He thrust two fingers in his mouth and extracted his capsule. “I’m through servin’ this death sentence.” He let it fall to the ground.
Billy grinned and fished his out. One by one, the others followed suit.
Lynus nodded. “C’mon, Kit,” he said. “Let’s help the thief get to his friend.”
“My name’s Donatti,” I said.
“All right. Donatti.”
I let them help me up, and tried to steel myself for the sight of what was left of Ian. But I didn’t get much of a chance to look—because two figures emerged from the woods and demanded my immediate attention. One of them was dragging the other. And the one still standing had never read the Bible in her life, but I figured she was probably down with the whole eye-for-an-eye thing anyway.
Chapter 32
Lynus and Kit stiffened when they caught sight of Vaelyn. As tough as they tried to sound, they were still just kids. I couldn’t let her hurt them.
At least I knew she couldn’t kill them. But I doubted they did.
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