Incorruptible

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Legionnaires were called, and so were the higher orders of unclean from whatever twisted place bereft of the Principle they spent their long lives twisting in the tortures of. A legionnaire could twist away from grace and become unclean, but there was no shortage of other types.

  No shortage at all.

  The sword—heavy golden pommel, clawed crossbars, straight pure length of Principle-blessed steel—was a solid silver arc twisting through a blurring figure-eight as Michael bent sliptime and a hot flood of grace to his will. Ichor sprayed afresh, and his shadow was an ink-black shape with razor edges.

  It was still in front of him, that shadow, and he wondered if Jenna had turned the lights on for a bare split second before the hazazel, grinning its fixed hideous grimace, lunged forward. Michael’s blade was tangled in a knot of unclean, their weight of numbers telling. There were so many, and their chief’s teeth dripped with scarlet and amber as one of its long extra-jointed hands filled with a short curving poisonsmoke blade.

  “Michael!” Jenna screamed again, and a hot draft streamed past him.

  She’s emitting. Well, she has the Breath.

  The point touched his chest, and Michael let out a hideous coughing cry. The hazazel’s blade bit deep, sliding between ribs, and twisted, searching for his heart.

  Pain. A river, a flood, a sea of agony, swallowing him whole. He pitched forward, meaning to spit the thing—maybe Jenna might escape them if he could kill the greatest unclean—and the consciousness of defeat was his nightmare again, all bad dreams a preparation for this single moment. The tip of the curved blade twisted once more, seeking for the engine of muscle, gristle, and grace that fueled his seemingly-mortal body.

  Kill it. Don’t worry about anything but killing this thing, even if— A great breathless calm descended, and his shadow became not ink but a black hole. He fell into it, and a warm draft touched his back with impersonal hands.

  “No.” Jenna’s voice echoed like a golden bell, smashing sliptime into fragments. The light paled, liquid gold heated to the point of fierce combustion, intensifying in a single, shattering pulse. An Incorruptible’s greatest weapon, kept only for extremis.

  The world grayed out under that assault, and the pain was everywhere.

  Michael fell.

  First Things First

  The light roared through her, spreading in concentric rings, and the first surprise was how warm it was. Jenna’s bare toes, the only part of her touching the ground, scraped carpet. Her arms were flung back, something in her chest dilating. An aperture like a camera’s, only much slower than a shutter-click.

  Then it stopped short and she was dropped in a jumble of arms and legs, her head bouncing against the floor with stunning force. She lay for a few moments, and it hurt, all over.

  Her head was a tender pumpkin balanced on a thin stem, her hands shook, and when she could hear over the roaring in her ears there were sirens threading through distant traffic-noise. Jenna scrambled up to hands and knees, bracing herself against torn carpet and gouged wooden underfloor; a cold wind teased her bare shoulders and ruffled her hair.

  What did I do? Whatever it was, it had worked. After all, she wasn’t dead. Was she?

  “Michael?” she whispered. The sound was very small after all the noise. Glass dropped from the window’s margins, tinkling-sweet, and the entire building swayed.

  She found him by touch amid the shattered corpses. Greasy ash lifted on the strengthening breeze. They were all dead, even the biggest one with its tangle of arms twisted into a rat’s nest. Once her vision cleared, looking at where alien musculature joined the torso in bony arm sockets made her stomach revolve so badly tiny black specks danced in front of her. “Michael. Michael.” His wasn’t burned to flinders, thank God.

  But he was so very, very still.

  It was hard work to roll him over. Her head throbbed, that strange warm light bleeding away. She felt it ebb, a sudden drop like blood sugar or air pressure falling before a storm, her body struggling to cope with a sudden loss. The smoke-fuming demon things were all dead, most of them with terribly scorched faces and chests. The light had all but cooked them, and the smell was eyewatering.

  It’s all true. All of it. Not that she’d doubted—well, she hadn’t doubted much—but there was nothing like seeing the unbelievable right in front of you twice.

  It was enough to make her wonder how many more times she’d see it.

  Michael sprawled amid the tangled bodies. A hilt protruded from his chest, a terrible, twisted bony thing. Her hands closed around it, and a sudden sickening jolt up her arms made her cry out with weak revulsion. Still, her body knew better than she did and pulled, working the blade free. It grated on bone; she turned her head aside, a hot flood of bile filling her throat, and spat-retched. The blade slid free of his chest with one last sickening sucking sound, and Michael twitched.

  He can’t be alive. He can’t be. Still, getting the nasty, twisted thing out of him seemed important. Jenna’s sobbing breaths were very loud. The curved blade smoked, that weird steam-curling vapor sliding free in heavy droplets that sizzled when they touched the carpet. She dropped it and backed away, scooting on her hands and bottom, her new boxers almost pulling free of her hips.

  Think, Jenna. Goddamn you, think about what you’re going to do.

  The noise. Someone would come, someone would call the police if they hadn’t already. Did she want to be found here with dead, scorched bodies after vanishing from home? Trying to explain this was a bad move. Who would believe her, even if all the evidence was right there?

  The things’ bodies were sagging, floods of strange amber fluid drenching the floor. They were rotting in fast-forward, like bad special effects. Dim electric light from the hallway—good God, the door was now a hole, the walls on either side torn away—showed the great cracks and runnels developing on their surfaces. There might not be much evidence left when the police got here, except Michael’s body. He was stabbed in the chest, and her fingerprints were probably on the knife now.

  Would the knife rot too? It still looked awfully, nastily solid, except for the smoky stuff pouring off the blade.

  Honey, listen to me. It was Mom’s voice echoing in her head now, soft but firm and utterly practical. Get your luggage, get the keys to the truck, and get out of here.

  Jenna let out a last soft, sobbing noise, swallowed the rest. Her legs shook so badly she had to use the bed to pull herself up. The truck keys. Michael’s wallet—she’d need cash. Her luggage, such as it was. All she had left in the world.

  The urge to simply crawl back into the bed, close her eyes, and pretend this was all a dream was overwhelming. Gooseflesh prickled along her legs and shoulders, crawled down her back. The big muscles in her thighs shook, and her arms were leaden. The bedside lamp was shattered; there was glass everywhere.

  Shoes. She needed shoes first. Everything else could follow.

  A slight rustling noise, a pained inhalation, and Michael rolled onto his side. He coughed, a deep, racking retch, and groaned. “Jenna…”

  Oh Jesus. He was alive. She couldn’t just leave him here.

  Still, the idea was awfully tempting.

  “Jennaaaaa…” He moved again, weakly. “Lumina.”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. No, she couldn’t leave him here. Damn her and her conscience, she just couldn’t do it. Even if it meant she’d go to jail for…whatever she’d go to jail for, even if he was only dying instead of dead. She tried to figure out what they’d charge her with, but it was, as Rach would say, academic.

  God, she missed Rach. And Sam. She even missed Bob, Amy and Sarah too.

  Cautiously, Jenna edged towards him on shaking legs. “Michael?” A dry, cracked whisper—she fell to her knees beside him again, the jolt echoing in her shoulders, clicking her teeth together painfully.

  “Jenna.” He coughed, curling up like a pillbug. He was covered in the stinking goop from the demon-creatures. “We…we have to move.” Hoarse, husky words.
Were they the last he’d ever speak? “Truck…leave.”

  Oh, I know. Believe me, I’m one step ahead of you there. “It s-stabbed you.” A scared little girl was using her voice, and a great pointless wash of anger boiled through her and away, barely recognized. Jesus, this is insane.

  “Fine. Just need time.” He coughed again, retched, and amazingly, he starfished instead of curling up, scrabbled weakly against the carpet and kicking the swiftly rotting things off his legs. Once he was free of their dead clutching, he rolled onto his side.

  How was he still moving? “You shouldn’t,” she managed, reaching for his shoulders. “You…it stabbed you.”

  “Fine. I’ll be fine.” He coughed again. Muscle stood out stone-hard under her palms, and feverish heat scorched her fingers through thin T-shirt material. “Just…weak. Need to move.”

  How the hell had she ended up in a high-rise hotel room full of dead demons and a stabbed man? The sheer unreality of the situation threatened to knock the breath right out of her once more, but Jenna held on, grimly. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.” Her hands glued themselves to his shoulders; she began trying to help.

  It took some doing to get him sitting up, but once he got his boots underneath him he surged upright and all but carried her along. He shook his head, swayed, and almost toppled; if he went down now she would land underneath him again. His boots crunched on glass and splinters; Jenna was suddenly aware she was half-naked in pajamas and it was cold.

  Very cold. The broken window was a hungry mouth, sucking heat into the night sky.

  “More.” Michael coughed again, almost doubling over. She strained to right him, her bare heel slipping against nylon and that reeking amber goop. It was a miracle her feet weren’t hamburger by now. “More soon. We have to move.”

  “All right.” I can handle this. It was no different than moving out of your apartment once your boyfriend was safely in jail and bail had been denied, Jenna realized.

  You just picked the first thing to do, then the next, then the next. Not easy, certainly, but very simple indeed.

  “All right,” she repeated. “I’m gonna get you to the bed. Then I’m going to get dressed.”

  The hardest thing was hefting his bigger black canvas duffel; thank God his smaller one was in the truck. Whatever he had in the big one—weapons, clothes, whatnot—weighed a goddamn ton. Worse, he wouldn’t let them take the elevator, so it was lugging both him and the duffel down twenty flights while praying nobody would be coming up. The hotel hadn’t wasted any aesthetic cash to soften the stairs, and their footsteps echoed loudly.

  On the bright side, he swayed and veered drunkenly but largely managed to keep on his feet, and he dragged her rolling suitcase behind him with several thumps and bumps. At least she wasn’t going to lose all her clothes this time. And if she hitched the duffel onto her back, it wasn’t too bad, just clumsy. Her legs trembled and her knees weren’t too steady, but she could manage.

  Barely.

  The brightest news of all was the stab wound on his chest closing up, its edges raw and pink. He still looked green under the stairway fluorescents, and Jenna’s head still ached, but nowhere near as badly. “How is it doing that?” She almost regretted wasting breath on the question; her arms and legs were burning.

  “Legion,” he said, clinging to the banister. His torn T-shirt flopped, crusted with who-knew how many kinds of drying ick. “Hard to…I’m hard to…kill. Plus…you. Grace.” Another deep breath, filling his lungs, and he straightened. “So much light,” he continued, wonderingly. “You saved us.”

  “Yeah, well.” I’m glad it worked, whatever it was. All the same, if it made her feel so weak and shaky she’d prefer to never do it again, thank you very much. “How did they find us?”

  “Don’t know. Yet.” He paused for a moment, hanging onto the metal banister covered with thick chipped paint. He was deadly sallow, two bright spots of color high on his cheekbones, and his blue gaze was a hawk’s fierce glare. “When I do…”

  You know, I’m pretty sure that should frighten me. “Let’s just get out of here first.” She hauled him back as he overcorrected, both of them almost tumbling down the concrete stairs in a heap. There was scurrying motion and banging doors above and below them, but they were left in a bubble of solitude—which was great, because she didn’t know what to do if someone saw them. “Okay, so I did something. What did I do?” And can I do it again, if they come back?

  “Light. In sliptime.” Michale coughed again, spat a wad of something tinged with bright crimson aside, and straightened as if he felt much better. “Beautiful.”

  I’m gonna count that as a good thing. “All right.” She told her legs they were just going to have to deal with the current situation and tugged at the duffel’s strap cutting her right shoulder. “Come on, only ten more floors.”

  By the time they spilled into the back end of the soaring, marble-sheathed lobby, Michael’s shirt crusted and sticking to his broad chest, he was walking more or less in a straight line. A flurry of activity at the front desk said someone had indeed noticed the ruckus twenty floors up, but all they had to do was get down a short hall to the parking-garage elevators.

  “Stairs,” Michael gasped. “Too easy to get trapped.”

  “Forget it.” Jenna was having none of that bullshit anymore, so help her God. She took a firmer grasp on his belt and the duffel’s strap. “Come on, someone will see us.” The security cameras would definitely see them, but she couldn’t do a single blessed thing about that, so she decided not to worry about it.

  It would ordinarily have been nice, she reflected grimly, to find something that wasn’t her problem to deal with.

  “Jenna…” For a man who had just been stabbed, he certainly seemed about to argue with her. So she ducked under his arm, aiming them both at the end of the hall. Her reflection in the silver elevator doors was a sight—mussed hair, her jeans hastily buttoned and her parka slipping sideways as Michael’s heavy arm dragged at the shoulders. He slumped as if after a long night spent drinking, blinking bloodshot blue eyes, and thank God there was nobody in this hall to see them.

  The elevator was mercifully empty as well. She pulled him inside, hit the P4 button, and almost dropped his duffel. The only thing keeping it on her back was the idea of having to heft the damn thing again once they reached their floor.

  “There could be more,” he said as the elevator slowed. He blinked rapidly, his eyes watering, and tiny bits of broken glass glittered in his hair. Thin tracks of clean skin on his stubbled face showed where tears had washed the guck free. “Let me go first.”

  “What, so they trip over you?” She should have been too terrified to risk using sarcasm on a man much bigger than her, but she was also tired, and that strange light—the clarity—still bloomed around them both. It was a warm comfort, and she figured she needed every scrap she could get. “What a great idea.”

  He glanced at her, his dirty jaw stubborn-set. “I can fight.”

  “I don’t think there are more of them.” She blinked, remembering the most important thing of all. “Keys. Give me the truck keys.”

  “Jenna—” Was it pleading in the single word? Wonders never ceased.

  “You just got stabbed, you’re not driving.” If he passed out or wavered, they could end up wrecked. Well, even more wrecked than they already were.

  He still wasn’t convinced. “I can—”

  “Michael.” Good God above, she was tired of pleading, especially with men. Jenna’s feet throbbed; she wondered if she could lean the duffel against the wall. “Give me the fucking keys. Please.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He hung his big blond head, swayed, and dug in his pocket. “But I’m telling you—”

  “I know how to drive.” She exhaled, shakily. At least he wasn’t like Eddie. He’d see reason, and she was fairly sure she wouldn’t pay for daring to disagree later. “You just, uh, get better.” Oh, my God, what a thing to say.

  But the stab wo
und was definitely closing up. It wasn’t even bleeding.

  “Easy.” Michael didn’t lift his head, but he did hand over the keys. “You’re so much grace, lumina.”

  “Uh, thanks.” Isn’t that nice. I wish I knew what the fuck he was talking about. She supposed she did—the light, that crazy-ass light. Where had it been every other time she needed it?

  The elevator dinged again; the doors opened. Michael tacked away, only a little unsteady, peering at concrete, empty parking spaces, a few cars desultorily waiting for their owners, and the faded red Dodge truck, a welcome sight.

  “Clear,” he said, and beckoned. He made it almost the entire way to the truck without staggering, and she hurried to grab his elbow.

  “See?” An I told you so lingered behind her lips; she swallowed it. ”You’re not driving.”

  “Yes, lumina.” His eyelids had fallen to half-mast, and he was still feverish-warm. The red blotches on his cheeks had faded, though. “Tired.”

  “I know,” she soothed, propping him against the side of the truck and unlocking the passenger door. Everything on the Dodge was manual except the transmission; he was an old-fashioned sort of guy. “I just need to know where the fuck we’re going now.”

  “Another hotel. Just not here.” He leaned his head back, his Adam’s-apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Sleep, then I’ll be all right.”

  “Great.” She wrenched the door open, almost overbalancing under the duffel. Getting the damn thing off her back would feel like a vacation. “Get in. Let’s go.”

  Luck and Grace

  Jenna drove cautiously, obeying every traffic law to the letter. She even halted twice at stop signs, and clearly considered the speed limit to be just that—an actual limit, not a minimum goal. It was like watching a mortal pick a scab, but Michael was exhausted enough to find it somewhat amusing, especially when she swore under her breath at a white Corolla riding the truck’s tailgate.