Unveiled (Etudes in C# Book 2)

by Jamie Wyman

  I let out a warbling yell, a shapeless sound of fury and pain. Its grip on me loosened, but only enough that it could adjust its hold and yank me toward it. I slid on my back along the marble floor. Then it was on top of me, its non-face split into a hook-toothed leer. It gurgled, fetid saliva bubbling over its forked tongue.

  I threw my arms up to protect my face even as my left arm throbbed. The creature dove for my throat, but it bounced off a shield of thick, glacial ice that had appeared between us. It shrieked, anger slithering up its throat. Rearing back, it primed a punch with that deformed mitt. My insides melted as I thought of the many ways it could tear me apart. An image of Polyhymnia’s ravaged corpse splayed across the interior of my mind. Only now, the corpse wore my face.

  I expelled a burst of power and tried to shove the thing off me. It rocked but just slightly. As it brought its horned fist down, black ichor exploded over my face. But no impact came. Instead, a shaft of silver skewered my peripheral vision. With a resonant clash of steel against stone, a shockwave went through my whole body.

  My teeth chattered. Then there was a pulse of green light.

  The thing was off me, flung away, and Marius growled as he loomed over me. Not inches from my left eye, his sword quivered, buried in the marble floor of the church.

  I blinked, stunned. All I could say was, “That was close.”

  “Get up,” he spat.

  The satyr wrenched his sword out of the ground with one hand and offered me the other in a graceful movement. The Faceless that had been about to pummel me lurched, dragging the stump formerly known as its right hand along the floor. Meanwhile, a fresh peal of terror drew my attention to the church wall in front of us. One of the creatures loped along, Father Calvert tight against its chest. The priest wailed for help.

  “Get him!” Karma called.

  The rune in my arm blazed with cold power. I envisioned myself sprinting across the backs of the pews. Emboldened and infused by Loki’s gift, I bounded forward to rescue the priest.

  And promptly fell to the marble floor again, thanks to my godforsaken ankle. Throbbing numbness crept into my foot.

  Pushing up to my hands and knees, I called out, “Marius, please! Don’t let them take the priest.”

  “I’m not leaving the veil,” he snapped at me.

  “I’ll stay with Karma. Go!” I made it to my feet and scooted toward Karma.

  Eyes alight, fierce, the satyr bared his teeth. “You have your job, and I have mine. I’m not leaving the relic.”

  “Veil!” Another of the Faceless launched itself toward us, shrieking and oozing black sludge. I dug my feet into the ground and took its crushing weight with both hands. My fingers wrapped around its throat, and unbidden, my other sense opened. Understanding pulsed in my head with a flash of white light.

  I could see this thing. And I knew it. Though I’d never heard the word before, I knew the Faceless to be an allu. Or so Eihwaz told me. Where once stood a bull-rushing berserker, I now held a bundle of power, threads all twined to create a machine. Not a robot, but still a construct.

  A golem.

  Instead of clockwork gears or circuits, magic and a sorcerer’s will powered this thing. I’d never experienced such innate knowledge, and a feral grin spread over my face and infused my body with renewed confidence. Monsters I’m not so good with, but machines?

  “Step aside, Frankenstein,” I jeered, “and watch me work.”

  The energy that gave the allu life pulsed through it, as brackish and gelatinous as raw sewage. I squeezed my fingers around its neck and sent my will into it. Sluggish at first, my pulse beat along in its veins. White light gushed into the thing, great beads of power wending through its network of spells. It struggled beneath my fingers, but I held fast, grip tightening over its throat. Threads of power fell from it as I slowly unwound the magic that made it live.

  Sweat stung my eyes, obscuring my vision. I clenched them shut, still able to see the way this golem worked, the energy flying around the room. In my mental periphery, Flynn shone like a star about to go supernova. Nate’s golden outline darted and blurred with a chorus of hard grunts, the sickening squelch of steel through flesh.

  The abominable thing in my grasp thrashed and gurgled, but above it all, I heard my own voice singing a wordless tune.

  “Cat!” Flynn’s voice pulled me back to reality. His eyes—wide, afire with amber horror—pleaded with me. “Stop!” he called. “Break the connection!”

  Why? I wondered. Why stop when I know so much now?

  But I couldn’t ask. My voice worked in tandem with the flow of the spell gushing through my hands. The golem before me ceased to exist in its putrid fleshy form, and now, I held blinding white energy.

  “Please!” Flynn cried. “Stop!”

  With a labored scream, I wrenched my hands apart, tearing asunder the last of what held the allu together. As I did, the air filled with glittering motes. They tumbled lazily to the ground like listless ash. I dropped to my knees, pain roaring through my sliced ankle. My muscles went limp as I tried to brace myself up on my hands. Though I’d stopped singing, the well of energy I’d tapped into still rang in my body. Everything seemed to move at hyper speed.

  The diamond head of Nate’s spear whirled soundlessly, painting the air with black blood. A ball of orange light, a flare of green. The marble rumbled. Another crash. I shuddered at the impact.

  Marius fell to the ground.

  Something shrieked.

  I heard my name and turned to find Karma’s dim eyes. Cat, she mouthed. Her hand stirred the air limply, beckoning me to her.

  Dragging my wounded leg behind me, I pulled myself along the floor. My limbs were heavy, and each movement felt as if I were trying to lift a bulldozer rather than my own slight frame. Inch by precious inch, I crawled to her, through the splinters and wreckage of shattered pews.

  My vision blurred with tears of pain as I nested myself alongside Karma. She was so cold. So weak. She held Polly’s veil across her lap. That sheer scrap of white had been the cause of so much blood. I loathed the thing. I didn’t know what it did, but the veil couldn’t be worth a life, let alone as many as it had already claimed. Muriel. Polyhymnia. Now Marius was down on the marble floor…and what of Father Calvert?

  I met Karma’s gaze and saw mischief there.

  “Must be pretty powerful,” she said quietly. “Want to find out what it does?”

  Another blood-chilling screech rang through the church. Glass shattered in harmony and rattled to the floor. Had Nate or Flynn beaten another golem, or was it a friend that went flying into the night, skewered by thick glass? All I could do was hope it was the former.

  “Got an idea of how to use it?” I asked.

  “Pump enough power into anything and it will turn on,” she growled.

  I shook my head, information still careening through my mind from using Loki’s gift. “I don’t think that’s how it works. Not a good idea.”

  “You’ve got a better one?”

  I set my jaw. “I’m not going to charge a relic with the last of my power, Karma.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said. Her dimples flashed, eyes twinkling with violet power and suicidal glee.

  She wrapped one end of the veil around her fist and dredged the very bottom of her own well for every last erg of power. The air around us began to warp, the deep inhale before a dive into the abyss.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Uprising”

  “Stop, Karma. You don’t know what it will do.”

  Masonry crumbled around us, Sheetrock meeting marble and wood in a cacophonous burst. My focus jerked from the magic to the sight of a bloody golem bounding from pews to pitched wall. Another loping stride and the thing vaulted itself to the ceiling. Hanging upside down, its fingertips finding impossible purchase on the slope, the allu prowled. Eyelessly taking in its foes to the front and back of the church, the allu’s head twitched.

  I hurled a bolt of white fire at the go
lem. Frost spread along the ceiling where my power had landed, inches from the allu. Snowflakes tumbled down, eerily peaceful, as the golem launched away with a shriek. It latched onto another portion of the ceiling and continued snarling at us from above.

  After the crashing, constant noises of battle, the peace was harsh, grating on my nerves. My ears rang in the jarring silence as I took in the last golem. One left.

  Beside me, Karma whimpered, sagging limply against the pew. The veil remained inert in her lap. Whatever magic she’d attempted had done nothing more than burn Karma’s wick to a useless nub.

  My gaze darted about the church, seeking my friends. Glimmering in the amber light from Flynn’s body, the stained tip of Nate’s spear was aimed at that single foe on the ceiling. He and Flynn were still up, still fighting.

  Marius. Where is Marius?

  “Now, now,” a smooth voice said, “let’s calm down.”

  I flinched, and my side flared with a hot pang as I craned my neck to peek over the pews.

  Francis Grey’s feet crunched through the rubble as he stepped into the church. Nate kept his focus on the spidery golem above while Flynn took up a defensive posture toward the ferromage.

  Where’s Marius?

  Panic bubbled in my stomach, and my throat burned. I tasted bile.

  “Miss Sharp,” Grey called, that slick voice echoing off the remaining walls of the cathedral. “I was told you were stubborn, but such needless destruction?” He clucked his tongue. “All this messy blood spilled. And for that little swath of fabric in your friend’s hand.”

  My right leg shook as I stood. Bracing myself against the pew, I stretched to my full height and looked around the ruin of the Guardian Angel Cathedral. Whole rows of pews had been reduced to little more than matchsticks. Cracks marred the marble floor and chunks of said floor had been taken up as if with jackhammers. A few windows had been destroyed. Considering the damage to the walls and ceiling, it was God’s own miracle that the building still stood.

  Father Calvert’s beautiful sanctuary…

  Guilt writhed in my chest for the ruin I’d helped make of it. And the priest was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t even hear his muffled sobbing. Was he dead, too?

  Through the tears in Flynn’s clothes I could see gashes and scrapes bleeding amber light. He shot me a stare loaded with questions. I gave a short nod to let him know that Karma and I were all right. Well, as close to it as we could expect to be, that was.

  Nate’s blond curls fell across his sweaty brow and down into his eyes. The angel’s wings flared out to his sides with the sound of a hundred doves flying into the sky. His feathers bristled with rage. From his hunched position, the spear angled up, ready for a lethal thrust. He never took his arctic stare off the creature circling the ceiling.

  “All of this could have been avoided,” Grey said, “if you’d simply left the quest for the veil to me.”

  “Pure dumb luck, man,” I called. “I didn’t want anything to do with your veil. Just happens that your quest is making a mess that involves my boss.”

  “I didn’t expect you to still have loyalty to Eris.”

  “I don’t,” I rasped.

  “Why else would you help her thief?” The mage shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway, Miss Sharp. The Muse is dead and no longer needs her veil. Give it to me.”

  “Why didn’t you just take it when you killed her?”

  Grey’s smile lacked any hint of amusement. “Who could know that Polyhymnia had such a fondness for scarves? My associates and I took the one she wore at the time. Then the fool of a satyr arrived,” he spat, eyes tracking to the pews to his left. “No matter. You, my dear, have the genuine article. I’ll take the veil now, Miss Sharp.”

  I stiffened my spine. “No.”

  “Give it to me, and you will all live. I swear that.”

  I flashed a glance to Nate. His gaze still trained on the ceiling, the angel shook his head.

  Grey droned on. “Are you really willing to sacrifice so much for something you cannot possibly understand? Let’s forget the property damage that would occur if I had to keep following you across the city. Are you willing to watch these people die just so you can maintain some imagined moral high ground?”

  “It doesn’t belong to you.” My voice was little more than a croak. In my head another voice, this one threadbare and terrified, screamed, Where is Marius? I wanted to search the rubble for his black hair, for that verdant glow, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Francis Grey.

  “Now that Polyhymnia is dead, does it belong to anyone?” he countered.

  “It sure as shit doesn’t belong to you.”

  “Miss Sharp, you don’t understand—”

  “The power of the dark side?” I interrupted.

  “The cost of your defiance,” he sniped through gritted teeth. “You’re a child telling me no because…what? Because you think I’m wrong and you’re right? I want something that does not belong to me, so I must be the bad guy?”

  “You stabbed me and tried to kill my landlady. That made you the bad guy from day one. Then you killed Polyhymnia. Not exactly the work of a big damn hero.”

  He spread his hands, but nothing about him was apologetic. “These things happen.”

  “And my sister?” Nate snarled. “I suppose that just happened, too.”

  Grey cocked his head and looked at Nate as if for the first time. No awe or humility across that bastard’s face. His smug smile spread to his eyes, and Grey let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, my boy,” he sang. “So naive for one so old.”

  A low, gurgling noise came from above. The remaining golem loomed directly over my head. The blank slate of its face tore open to show off its fishhook teeth. Black blood dripped from its many wounds, hissing as the liquid splattered on the pews.

  “Why do you want it?” I asked, reluctantly turning my attention back to the mage. “What’s so special about it?”

  His face wrinkled, contorted with incredulity. “Why do I want it?” Then Grey did the worst possible thing he could have. He laughed. He brought those thin, knobby fingers to his lips and laughed. “You don’t even know what you’re fighting for or against. That’s so precious! Headstrong and powerful, but so dim. A shame, Miss Sharp. You could be so much more.”

  “You’re not winning brownie points here, asshole. Why do you want the veil?”

  He paced back and forth. A silver coin winked across his knuckles as he chose his words. “Polyhymnia’s veil is not like any others. Instead of concealing certain mysteries, her veil will reveal all. And with that sniveling priest’s help, I shall become more powerful than even his god. No one can stay hidden forever.”

  Nate choked on his rage, a guttural sound much like thunder. His wings rustled, and his boots clicked over the floor as he stalked closer to the golem.

  “This is my final offer, Miss Sharp. Surrender the veil to me or die along with the rest of this miscreant band of yours.”

  I raised a middle finger in defiance. “Nope.”

  “Charming,” he sneered. The coin tumbling over Grey’s knuckles stopped. In a blink, he’d formed it into one of his sleek blades. His face went cold, as devoid of emotion as the golem’s. Without looking at his target, the mage chucked the knife to his side with an air of sharp finality. A pained scream rose from among the ruined pews.

  My heart flew up into my throat as I realized who it must’ve been. Marius!

  As I tumbled over the barricade of pews, I called out the satyr’s name, my voice a shivering warble pitched high with terror. My leg throbbed, and the numbness spread up to my knee. I staggered, but I had to get to him.

  Protect, the rune in my arm cried out.

  I couldn’t see. The world tunneled into that dark space between the pews, that one spot in the church where my friend lay. Was he dying?

  “No!” Flynn roared. The air hissed and popped as he sent out a surge of power.

  Orange light flared at my periphery.

/>   Protect.

  “Cat, look out!” Flynn called.

  Silver shot past my face, the noise like a swarm of angry bees. I launched myself off my good leg and leaped over the pew. The golem screeched, the sound boring into my skull and threatening to liquefy my brain.

  I dropped to the ground.

  Karma screamed.

  Gold light flared, and the patter of feathers filled the air.

  I couldn’t look at any of them, couldn’t pry my attention away from the ferromancer’s knife. It winked malevolently from Marius’s left hand, its blade slick with crimson blood. He lay prone, his olive skin blanched to match the scarred marble floor. Blood pumped out of the hollow of Marius’s right shoulder in time with his rapid pulse. The sight of his gaping wound stung me. Worse, however, were little things like the silver threads that were streaking through his black, glossy hair. The brittle, yellowing horns on his forehead. Through the tears in his pants I saw tufts of coarse gray fur. As his body fought the wounds, his glamour failed. The real Marius was beginning to show.

  “No,” I whispered as I tore off my jacket. I wadded it into a ball and shoved it against the hole in Marius’s arm.

  Shit! I thought to myself. I promised Polly I wouldn’t get any blood on it.

  Marius winced at my touch. The gasp, the choked bleat of pain, and the strain on his pallid face sent another wave of terror through me. I straddled his hips and pressed with all of my weight.

  “You can’t,” I growled through my teeth. “You’re supposed to be this immortal bastard sent to piss me off. You don’t get to check out now.”

  A hurricane of chaos whirred around me. Nate’s, Karma’s, and Flynn’s voices buffeted me, the sounds of unnatural screams and feathers. Spear against marble. Steel cutting the air. None of it mattered as much as the satyr writhing beneath me. I pushed every ounce of stubbornness into Marius’s shoulder.