by Rhys Ford
I just couldn’t move.
“Fuck this,” I muttered in Singlish, feeling the coarseness of the language on my tongue. It was tart and sharp, drowning in human flavors, as pungent and layered as the world I lived in. “And fuck you, brother.”
The knife in my other hand shook as I brought it up, and my shoulder screamed with the effort of lifting the blade. Maybe it was years of living with Dempsey, or maybe my hatred for what they’d done to me, but the momentum of my arm falling back down had adequate thrust to drive the knife into the space above Valin’s collarbone. It didn’t go in deep. I didn’t have enough strength to do more than let it sink under the weight of the weapon and my hand, but the tip buried deep enough to catch the flesh.
It was all my knife needed.
The keen edge I put on my blades to skin ainmhi dubh and the knife’s weight did its job as my movement slid the weapon in. It slid easily through his skin, cutting through everything in its way until the guard nearly touched his chest. Gasping in pain, Valin grabbed at the hilt and pulled it free of his flesh, anger carving his face into our father’s features.
Raising my knife up over his head, he growled, “I’ll be taking your eyes out for that, little brother.”
A bullet tearing through his shoulder took care of Valin for me, punching him forward in a splash of hot blood and shrill screaming, pulling Valin’s weight off of me while he scrambled for cover.
There was too much blood for the ainmhi dubh to stand, firing its hunger. It raged above us, acidic spittle raining down on us in a shower of sparkling pain. Valin kicked at Kenny’s belly, rolling him forward and sending me sprawling, my swollen, iron-filled hand flopping uselessly over the Glock. I heard something hard and metal hit the ground, my knife falling from Valin’s hand. It bounced or rolled, I couldn’t tell which, but either way, it landed next to my right thigh, well within reach.
“Kai! Tell me that wasn’t you I shot!” Cari called out. I nearly couldn’t hear her over the ainmhi dubh’s hissing. “Because if it was, I’m really fucking sorry! You guys look alike in the dark. From behind. Shit, that sounds really crappy.”
Twisting about to get at Valin was painful. My hand was too heavy to move, and each nudge I made rocked the swollen tissues, sending the iron slush in my blood into a swirling wash of agony. Fighting through the pain, I rolled over and cursed up a blue streak when I found the crevice behind me empty except for Kenny’s flailing body. Valin was gone, leaving behind only his blood, a lot of pain, and a giant warped centipede bent on snapping my head off.
If I didn’t have a head-munching bug and a bloated, unconscious Kenny to deal with, I’d have chased after him and beaten the shit out of him for what he’d done to me.
“Always running away, you damned bastard. You’re going to have to face the music some time, brother. Can’t run forever.” I stared down at my useless hand with its forged-together fingers, purpled swollen skin, and an ocean of iron floating in it. “I’m good! Kenny’s not. I’ve got to get this thing off of him so you can take a look at him. Just don’t—”
She plugged another couple of shots at the ainmhi dubh, dimpling its weaving head, but its chiton deflected them, sending the bullets bouncing about the rocks around me. Swearing under my breath, I huffed through another wave of pain.
“Don’t shoot at it!” I finished, shaking my head. “We need a cannon or something!”
“Let me see if I can draw it away,” she shouted over the creature’s babble. “I’ve got some cover. Maybe if both of us can hit it, we can take it down.”
I didn’t have a lot of hope for that plan, but I was willing to give anything a try. Healing from the acid was going to take some time. My skin crackled where the splashes hit me, inconsequential stings compared to my hand. My heart was settling down from its overclocked pace, but the iron lingered where Valin had put it. Moving my fingers only made the pain worse, and each time I shifted my hand, my nerves took shots of hot electricity, thickening my saliva and creeping tingles across my skin.
“Hey! Bug!” Cari’s shouts ricocheted around the cavern about as much as her bullets did against the ainmhi dubh’s head, but either way, the damned thing didn’t seem like it was going to budge. “Getting closer. Maybe it’s deaf and needs to smell me or something.”
“Don’t get your head bitten off, because not like I can superglue it back on and tell your mom it’s fine.” I did a quick check on Kenny. He was still struggling about, but the small slice I’d been able to put in the skin covering his mouth seemed to have helped him at least get some better air flow. If Cari didn’t get over to him soon, no amount of hedge-witch healing would be able to help him. My link was unresponsive, too far underground to get any signal, and we’d need to head up top to call for a medic. “Because I sure as shit can’t drag you up those rocks. Not with my hand like this.”
He didn’t look good. The ainmhi dubh’s saliva hadn’t hit him as much as it had me, but where it had, the flesh was black and still smoking about the edges as the acid continued to eat away at his skin. I spit at some of the larger spots, rubbing at them with my hand in the hopes it would at least dilute the corrosive fluids.
“You’d crap yourself if you knew I was doing this to you,” I muttered, examining my work. I couldn’t stay in the dubious shelter I’d found, not if we were going to stop the chittering menace. And since its attention seemed to be all on me, I was going to have to be the one to draw it away from Kenny. “Well, that’s just going to have to do, because right now, I’ve got a damned giant botched termite to kill. Stay here, asshole. And if you see Valin, bite him for me.”
My hand hurt like hell. It throbbed and danced about while I struggled to get up onto my feet. The loss of blood made me woozy, uncertain about where things were. With my depth perception a bit fuzzy, I turned and slammed my knitted-together fingers against the boulder closest to me, splitting the skin open even further, and my tortured cry was enough to spark the ainmhi dubh’s interest in me once again.
Throwing up wasn’t an option, but my stomach didn’t seem to have been notified, because it twisted, screaming its intent up my throat. The taste of bile on my tongue overwhelmed the insect’s musty odor, but only for a split second. Biting down on my reflexes, I staggered out, blood dripping from my useless hand, its dull maroon color now beginning to stretch back up my wrist in long streaks. I was too warm—hot beneath my leather jacket—but I couldn’t risk shedding it. It was the only protection I had against the creature, and considering it fed itself by scooping out chunks of flesh into quivering scallops it could fit into its mouth, I wasn’t going to take the chance that I’d be able to outrun it.
“Come on, you screwed-up thing,” I choked out, leaning against the boulder with my shoulder to steady myself. I had another gun and a couple more knives on me, including a Ka-Bar for up-close work if I needed it, and right about now, I needed it. Drawing the blade took more out of me than I wanted to confess to, but eventually I got it free from its sheath. Taking a deep breath, I tossed out, “Okay, Odin. If you end up pulling me in after this, can you please make sure Ryder takes care of Newt? Sure, he’s no raven, but he’s all I’ve got. Pele, just… a fire spout wouldn’t go unappreciated either, but I understand if you can’t. Not exactly your neighborhood.”
Lunging forward, I screamed at the top of my lungs at the ainmhi dubh, hoping to startle it into rearing back. I could fit what I knew about giant mutated centipedes on an eyelash, but we’d reached a do-or-die moment. Spotting Cari across the cavern, I wove forward, stumbling over rocks with my unresponsive feet, my sliced boot heel making my already screwed-up progress even worse.
My dripping blood left splotches over the rocks and ground, mimicking the kind of painting stupid people paid stupid money for. The churning gore in my belly threatened to add to the palette, but I had to get the ainmhi dubh clear of Cari and Kenny first. I had one thing to do before I could collapse, and if I were lucky, I could make it to the tight cluster of columns befor
e the damned insect snapped me in two.
I didn’t have high hopes for that. It wasn’t the fastest black dog I’d ever faced, but it skittered and moved in jerky quick leaps. Even as partially blind and deaf as it appeared, it could still scent me out. How could it not? I was chumming the air like a severed swordfish head being dragged behind a speedboat hoping to draw out a sea serpent. Only the rocks couldn’t smell me coming.
Keeping one eye on the ainmhi dubh and another on the ground was difficult—impossible really. I hit more rocks than I avoided, mostly small ones, but a good-sized boulder caught me in the knee, and the cursed bug probably felt the swear words pouring past my gritted teeth. It turned slowly, its head bobbing up and down, then stepped tentatively toward me, one of its many wiggling pointy legs landing smack dab in the middle of a blood pool.
Its scream shook the cavern, startling a cloud of sunrise bats, their translucent wings singing out waves of cut-glass discordance as they swarmed through the long space, sweeping up toward the hole in the ceiling. The fireflies fled before the burnt orange and dusk yellow airborne mammals, the pixies swirling outward, ignoring the giant weaving centipede to cling to the ivy-covered jagged crevices at the outer areas of the caves. If I’d not been bleeding out iron and blood, I’d have stopped to soak in the sight of their flashing bodies tucked into the darker blue illuminated plants—a seascape sculpted from light and sweeping shapes—but I had a death to attend.
I just wasn’t sure if it was going to be me or the ainmhi dubh.
The centipede began thrashing, its leg smoking where it touched my blood. It tipped to the side, sliding through more drops, and then tumbled forward when it slid over a larger pool, the first joint of its segmented front leg buckling under. The leg’s chiton cracked along the tip, spiderwebbing up over the initial bend, then continuing up to the pale stretch of its tibia.
Unable to find this new threat, the ainmhi dubh stumbled about, snapping its powerful mandibles in the air, hoping to strike out at whatever was breaking it apart.
“Got to be the iron.” Bracing myself for what I was about to do, I took a long hard breath, glad Dempsey had pounded into my head the importance of keeping my knives and brain sharp. “Okay, you demented foul bastard, here’s hoping this works.”
I took my blade and sliced open my hand, going as deep as I dared, and sent a prayer to every god I laid down tribute to that my wild idea would work.
Already swollen to the point of splitting my skin, my hand didn’t take too kindly to being carved apart like a Thanksgiving turkey. I dropped down to one knee, taking the rocky hit to my joint with a graceless tumble. Another slice down and the flesh gave, soaking my skin and threading down my wrist when I raised my hand up.
“Okay, time to play tag, asshole,” I growled at the ainmhi dubh. “Just like your daddy did to me.”
Its belly was low enough for me to smear a wide swath of my blood across its carapace. A few missteps forward brought me right up against the damned thing, and from there, I painted whatever I could reach. Some of it was splatters from my throbbing hand, while most of it was long smudges of poisoned blood across anything I could reach. I’d dropped my knife as I went, but at the moment, it didn’t matter. The creature convulsed and shook, trying to fight off the acidic reaction of its creation and the iron-infused blood I was using to break down its hard armor.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Cari kneeling over Kenny, her back to me and the ainmhi dubh. Some small part of my Stalker training reminded me to kick her ass for turning away from the greater threat in the area, but mostly, I was focused on getting as much blood on the creature as I could. It was smoking and crackling with each pass I made, unable to back away from me as its limbs slipped through my blood, compromising its already breaking legs.
Oddly enough, my hand was feeling better and some of the pain eased off, or at least the iron-fueled bits. I was suddenly very aware of the slices I’d made into my own flesh, and the too-sharp-edged agony was practically a relief. My stomach no longer felt like I was about to have it crawl up over my tongue, and the ainmhi dubh was beginning to smolder, its belly and chest starting to show thick black cracks through its chiton. It smelled, probably worse than any black dog I’d ever encountered, but nothing a good shot of whiskey couldn’t take care of.
“Let’s do this.” I fumbled at my shoulder holster to get my other Glock out, still unsteady but stronger than I’d felt when Valin left me on top of Kenny. Raising my gun, I sighted on the widest smear I’d left on the creature’s body and pulled the trigger, sending a hot screaming round right into its chest.
It fought its death in a pitched fit, pieces of its chiton falling off in crumbling chunks. I had to stumble to avoid the small sea of acid gushing out of its widening wounds, but I kept firing, taking advantage of its shattered defenses. It seemed to hiss and writhe for an eternity. Then Cari grabbed my waist, pulling me away from the damned thing before I could empty another magazine into it.
“Come on, we’ve got to get clear of this thing.” She shoved at my side, ignoring my hiss of pain. “Kenny’s dead. Probably was dead as soon as Valin touched him. The bastard turned his blood into something corrosive. No way anyone but an elfin could have survived that. Sure as hell not him. Let’s go.”
“Got to make sure that thing’s dead first,” I argued, ejecting the empty mag and reaching for another tucked into my rig. Slamming in the new magazine, I balanced myself against Cari. “Can’t let it go. It’s an ainmhi dubh in the middle of the city. It survives this and lots of people are going to die. Do the job, Cari. Do it until we die.”
She left me to stand on my own and pulled out her weapon. The little girl with her curly hair in pigtails hardened away until only the hibiki-Stalker remained. Sighting on the ainmhi dubh, she braced herself into a shooting stance. “You go high, Gracen. I’ll go low.”
“Watch your feet. Blood’s going to eat you just like the rest,” I warned her and began firing, aiming for the lengthening cracks.
I couldn’t think about Kenny, or even what Dempsey might or might not have sent him. Whatever he knew about the original contract to extract me from Tanic was lost, and the only thing that mattered at the moment was killing the monster my brother left behind.
The ainmhi dubh’s mandibles fell, severed from its head by a few of my shots. Its head reared back, and I took the opening it offered, sending the last of my magazine into the gaping empty mouth and straight into its fevered, rotten brain—or whatever was left of it after Valin corrupted it. Thrashing, it went down hard, and it nearly wiped Cari and me out as it fell. Its carapace began to fall off the soft bits hidden beneath it. There wasn’t much there, mostly goo and acid, but there was enough to make us run.
Firing again, I hit something vital, because without warning, its head exploded and we were pelted by a hail of searing heat and insect shards. The sounds it began making were frightening, the anger and magic fueling its existence slowly unraveling, leaving behind only the creature Valin warped. Its color bled out from under its fragmented exoskeleton, turning it ashen as it began to empty its fluids over where we stood.
“Go on,” I scolded her when she hitched her arm around my waist. “That hits me, I’ll survive it. You won’t.”
“Can you just shut up and run?” She pulled at my torso, finding each bruise and welt along my side. “That thing’s going to bring the roof down on our heads. Let me help you, damn it.”
Its final scream was horrific, startling even the pixies from their hiding place. They swarmed around us, battering our heads as the creature sang its death keen. We fought over the rocks to get to where we’d come in, leaving my brother’s creation behind. The bats left a trail of guano for us to follow, making it slippery to climb the rocks leading up to the building, and more than once, I caught Cari before she tumbled back over me, her flailing feet scoring a few hits against my cheek.
The fresh air was nice, and I collapsed on the building’s rotten floor, gratefu
l to be clear of the centipede’s foul odor even as wafts of acrid smoke drifted up from the hole, its death filling the chamber below with its gassy stench. I hurt everywhere, and I didn’t want to even guess what disgusting thing I was lying in, but the pain was good, cleansing in a way. Or at least it was until I tried to move. Then all of the torturous agony flooded back into my body, and I had to rethink my decision to survive the ainmhi dubh instead of simply letting its gushing fluids take me down and leaving me to die in its stink.
Cari poking at my still-swollen-and-tender hand brought me back to reason.
“Get any of that thing’s blood or spit on you?” I groaned, pulling my hand up.
“Nope. Not a drop. Come on, we’ve got to get that taken care of.” Always a bossy thing, she poked again, frowning at me when I told her to drop dead in Cantonese. “Listen to me. I looked. At Kenny.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I sent you to do,” I said, sitting up, and was relieved to discover a dirty tarp beneath me instead of anything organic and growing. “You told me he was dead, but I swear to all the gods, it looked like he was breathing. I thought he was alive.”
“Probably the chemicals changing in his system. Moving his guts and lungs about.” She shook her head. “But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m telling you I did a quick look. A hibiki look.”
I tried to wrap my mind around what she was saying, and maybe the pain was making it hard for me to think, because I couldn’t understand a damned thing. “What are you talking about? That takes forever. And peyote. Not to mention me or someone else stupid enough to do it chewing it all up and spitting it into your mouth with some worm-rotted tequila.”