“First I will break your body, then your mind, then I will stand you before the Mirror of Time and tear the black soul from that vessel and–”
Abruptly, the demon gagged on his words.
There was a sharp flicker, a second’s pause, and all at once his body exploded into ribbons. Behind stood a tall figure in a charcoal suit, the shining katana resting on his shoulder.
“You demons never learn,” said Ransom. “No one abuses my clients but me.”
Brandishing swords and guns, a dozen agents spun to face him, but not nearly fast enough. Ransom’s movements were a blur. Corwin’s eyes could barely follow what was going on as limbs went flying and bodies crashed into the surrounding cars. Reckless gunfire perforated the tour bus, cut off as the shooter’s arms were both hewn in a single stroke. Ransom turned and vanished from sight, appearing behind another foe, his blade liberating the man’s head from his shoulders.
The angel dealt death without a hint of hesitation or remorse.
“And I thought the demons were scary,” Corwin murmured as he yanked the ebony sword loose, freeing his hand.
Briskly halting, a blood-spattered Ransom reached to pull him up.
“Defense attorney, remember? Protecting my client is part of the job description.”
“You’re no Guardian,” hissed one of the few agents still on his feet. “I remember you!”
“It’s him!” cried another. “The White-Eyed Shadow!”
“It’s been a while since I’ve heard that name,” said Ransom.
He grinned dangerously and his eyes flared with molten light. For an instant his form darkened, save for those eyes and a pearl strip of teeth. The demons shrank back, swords quivering in their hands.
“Our business is not with you, Hunter,” stammered one of them. “That man is our rightful prey!”
“As you are mine.”
In the blink of an eye, Ransom closed the distance, cleaving the cowardly demon in two. He shifted his stance fluidly and plunged his katana through the chest of another, but this last one refused to die. Abandoning his weapon, he clasped the raw edge of the blade. Holy flames leapt forth, immolating his hands, yet he held his grip.
“You may slay these bodies, you may banish our souls, but you will not leave this place,” he grimly promised. “Our master . . . He is already here.”
A violent blaze enveloped his entire body as Ransom kicked him loose and into the battered tour bus. Gasoline leaked from where the spray of bullets had ruptured its tank, the fire spreading in seconds. One last passenger jumped from the upper deck, and then the air shook with a tremendous blast.
Corwin buried his face in his elbow as a wall of heat singed his skin, but Ransom didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. The angel’s attention was focused vigilantly on the terrible presence that he sensed before him.
A shadowy figure strode through the burning wreckage.
“Isley!” growled Ransom.
Not waiting for an invitation, he coiled his legs and bolted towards the threat. His sword streaked in a diving arc. And stopped. Barehanded, and by the strength of but a single arm, the demon held the fell blade at bay.
“Is that any way to greet a fellow attorney?” spoke the bald, wrinkled mask of the Prosecutor, a visage that had haunted Corwin more than once along his journey.
“I was just introducing myself to your staff.”
“Yet several still cling to their mortal vessels.” Isley blinked and his soulless eyes inverted—the whites of his eyes darkening, framing pale, pupilless retinas. “You might once have been the White-Eyed Shadow, but your blade has grown dull.”
“Even a dull blade can cut.”
Ransom leaned his weight into the sword and its edge sparked as though the demon’s hand were forged of steel. A thin trickle of tar-black blood ran down Isley’s forearm. With a flick of his wrist, he flung the angel back. Ransom managed to hold his stance as he landed some ten feet away, shoes skidding atop the fire-strewn road.
Unconcerned, Isley glanced down at his palm.
“Do you intend to scratch me to death?” The flames that wreathed his hand expired and the shallow cut sealed. “I am not so weak as to be hunted by a wolf without fangs.”
“Then you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold back,” said Ransom.
Again his eyes seared. The air rippled with pressure and his body became a solid shadow, the katana shimmering, eager to slice bone and spirit alike. Isley blanched, but before Ransom could raise the sword, a hissing brand scorched the back of his hand. A circular glyph had appeared there. Enclosed within was the triangular mark of the all-seeing eye. As he clutched the burning scar, the gleam in his eyes dimmed.
“I see, so your power was sealed!” Isley cackled with disdain. “It would seem that you’ve lost your Father’s favor.”
“A temporary handicap, otherwise this just wouldn’t be fair.”
Despite his boast, Ransom held no illusions. He faced a demon archlord. Even if he were at his best, to take Isley lightly would be to invite peril.
Not good. If he targets Corwin . . .
Breathing heavily, Corwin wobbled on his feet. Undead or not, his body had lost a lot of blood. At least the pain from the gunshot wound was beginning to dull. In fact, everything was beginning to dull. The chaotic battle unfolding in the street felt vague and unreal, an echo of a dream that he had only just awoken from. In a lightheaded daze, he gazed at his hands and they blurred into double-vision. However, his new hands moved differently from the originals. As Corwin stared, admiring this curious new pair of transparent limbs, the strength fled his legs and he collapsed to one knee.
Ransom shot him an alarmed look.
“Corwin!”
Instantly the angel was by his side, bracing him against a fall, but Corwin’s unfocused vision was going dark. And Isley had no intention of waiting.
The Prosecutor took a step and then disappeared, moving with such speed that he seemed to teleport. A clawed hand tore the air. But Corwin and Ransom were no longer there. Sensing his prey, his head swiveled towards the bus. Ransom stood atop the corner of the smoking ruin with his client slung over his shoulder. Steaks of crimson scarred the side of his face where Isley’s claw had grazed him.
The angel and the demon locked eyes.
“His soul calls out to us,” Isley said, blood dripping from his fingertips. “You cannot protect him from himself.”
As Ransom turned, the wind gusted. Smoke and drifting embers swirled around him, leaving only emptiness in their wake.
19
Yesterday’s Sins
“My head is killing me,” grumbled Corwin, opening his eyes.
Branches sighed as a gentle breeze blew through the forest, revealing patches of sky high above. Birds chirped and insects buzzed, that is, if the tiny, luminous creatures that flitted about could be called insects. Corwin lifted his head, but stopped short of sitting up. The firm green bed swayed beneath him. He realized that his resting place was a giant leaf, and not a low-hanging one. Stranger still, strands of light encircled his arms and legs.
One of the glowing bugs hovered above his left shin, fastening the slender thread with a knot. Corwin reflexively jerked his knee. Buzzing crossly, the creature darted at his face, stopping inches in front of his nose. Up close, there was no mistaking the pixie. She pursed her lips in a pout and waved a scolding finger.
“Sorry!” he declared. “By all means, go right ahead and continue tying me up.”
Promptly returning to her work, she tightened the knot so that the thread hugged his leg. As the pixie finished, the light strands faded until they became imperceptible. She zipped off to rejoin her friends and disappeared among the hundreds of her people that danced amidst the glade.
Corwin’s leaf hung in the center of a ring of trees, their tall trunks almost perfectly flush, not that he could really see them. Thick vines covered nearly every inch of bark. Misty waterfalls poured between the lower yawnings and the air was choked wit
h humidity. Corwin crept towards the edge of his leaf to get a better view, and as he leaned out, the leaf leaned with him.
“Oops!”
He tried to scramble back, but it was too late.
“I’m not afraid!” Corwin shouted defiantly, his voice rising to the treetops as he plummeted towards the turquoise pool below.
The fall’s momentum plunged him a dozen fathoms beneath the surface. A rush of water roared and a hurricane of bubbles whirled about him. Despite the pool’s deceptively small diameter, as the bubbles lifted, it revealed itself to be unimaginably deep. The surrounding walls of roots and stone descended a far way, narrowing to an undersea tunnel, its dark passage just broad enough to swim through. Staring into it, Corwin glimpsed a golden light. Not one light, he realized, but a cluster of lights, a remote galaxy burning in the ocean depths.
The strangling pressure in his chest reminded him that he wasn’t a fish, and while drowning seemed a silly cause for worry in the afterlife, he decided not to chance it. The water grew warmer, the soft prism above brightening as he kicked towards it. Breaking the surface, he gulped air and took a quick survey of the glade.
“Glad to see you’ve overcome your fear of heights,” said Ransom.
The angel lounged against a viny tree trunk, sitting atop a root that ran just a foot or so under the water. He was naked as far as his client could tell, but that wasn’t what made Corwin stare. From the neck down, his body was crisscrossed with scars. A horrific history of slashes, scrapes and gouges tattooed his skin—enough wounds to kill an ordinary man ten times over. Ransom bore the scars with blasé indifference. Reclining, he puffed leisurely on a cigarette, the smoke mingling with the steam that rose off the spring’s burbling ripples.
“You look like a tiger’s scratching post,” Corwin said as he pulled himself onto the submerged bench. “What happened back there?”
“You began to desynchronize. Basically, your soul decided that your body was no longer fit for duty. I had to call in a favor to get you sewn back into one piece.”
“I didn’t know there was a limit to how much damage this body could take.”
“It’s not about the amount of damage, but the type,” explained Ransom. “You were stabbed by a soulrender. Forged in the heat of the First Flame, the blades wielded by angels and demons don’t just cut flesh. They sever the bond between body and spirit.”
“So that’s what those strands of light are for? To keep my soul from coming loose?”
“Luckily for you, the tear was a minor one, but such wounds tend to leave a mark.”
Corwin glanced at his right hand, discovering a scar of his own.
“Under the circumstances, maybe leaving my body behind would have been for the best.”
“No, humans aren’t meant to be bodiless. Your soul would have jumped into the next available container, likely one of Isley’s choosing, and then I’d have a hell of a time tracking you down, which reminds me . . .” He opened a hand and there in his palm was the cross. “Try not to drop it next time.”
“I’m hoping that there won’t be a next time, although you seemed to be enjoying yourself. What did they mean when they called you the White-Eyed Shadow?”
“That’s ancient history,” Ransom said tersely. “Nothing that concerns your case.”
“Don’t give me that!” Corwin brazenly grabbed the cigarette out of Ransom’s mouth and proceeded to take a drag. “My whole life is an open book to you! The least you could do is shed a little light on your past career.”
“You really want to know?”
“I think I deserve to.”
The angel gazed contemplatively into the flickering mirror of the pool.
“Alright,” he decided, snatching back his cig and shooting upright with a splash. “Follow me.”
Behind one of the waterfalls, the roots forked to form the entranceway to a partially-sunken cave. Ransom stooped and delved within.
“You’re going to catch a cold, walking around like that,” muttered Corwin as he waded after his stark-naked attorney.
The cave’s elevation gradually climbed, the floor rising above water-level and the shadowy ceiling stretching to an unknown height. A cool draft swept away the mugginess. Corwin’s clothes were completely dry by the time he spotted the dim, violet-blue glow of the exit.
“Long before I was a defense attorney, I was a Hunter,” spoke Ransom, who again donned his suit. “My duty was simple: to seek out and vanquish demons that prowled the mortal plane.”
They strode beneath the arch of two trees that leaned until their trunks met. The woodland on the other side was mysterious but not unearthly. Ivy clung to the beech trees, covering their bark with waxy, dark-green leaves. Owls hooted and a lonesome wolf bayed from some deep corner of the forest.
“With the skills I’d honed during the Betrayer’s War, the job came naturally to me, and over the years I earned a bit of a reputation. Those I hunted came to call me the White-Eyed Shadow. My strength was formidable in those days, but even when fighting demons, there are rules to our battles, rules that must never be broken.”
Night had only just fallen and a string of windows was aglow beyond the tree line. Smoke rose off the chimneys of the village’s stone huts.
“It was the thirteenth century and I was in England on the trail of a demon named Strega. He and his followers had taken up residence in a band of outlaws.”
As they neared one of the humble dwellings, Corwin heard the thunder of galloping hooves. At the sound, a woman who had been toting a bucket of water let it drop to the ground. Grabbing a pitchfork, she dashed home and hastily shooed her young son inside. Doors slammed and windows were shuttered from one house to the next.
“With most of the men off to war, villages like this one were easy prey for bandits. They roamed the countryside, raping and pillaging and generally creating their own little slice of Hell on Earth.”
The marauders that charged over the hill were no less than thirty men strong. Suited in hides and leather armor, they hollered war cries, their blades rattling the shutters as they galloped by.
With the villagers sufficiently terrified, the band’s grizzled leader dismounted his steed. He hefted a battleaxe and hacked at the door of the nearest home. One stroke and a forceful kick splintered the weathered boards.
As he stepped inside, the woman thrust valiantly with her pitchfork, but the brigand was a seasoned warrior. The haft of his axe caught the fork between its prongs, and with a quick twist, he wrenched the weapon from her grip. A burly hand reached out, ripping her blouse. He threw her down violently and loosened his belt as more men stomped into the home.
“Mama!” a boy cried, and suddenly one of the bandits howled in pain.
Frightened though he was, the woman’s son had found a dirk and driven it into the outlaw’s leg. His companions roared with laughter.
“That brat’s not too bad!” proclaimed their leader.
Yanking the bloody knife from his thigh, the bandit cast it aside with a murderous glare.
“You’ve got guts, boy. Maybe I should show them to you!”
“Please, not my son!” the woman pleaded.
Leering, he raised his axe. The mother shrieked and Corwin turned his gaze away.
When at last the bandits departed, they did so in a blaze, lobbing torches onto the thatched roofs. The horrid nightmare would not be complete until naught but ashes was left of the once-peaceful village and all who had called it home.
“I caught up with them just after a raid,” resumed Ransom, “and having seen their handiwork, I wasn’t feeling particularly merciful.”
Though the bandits couldn't see him, their horses felt Ransom’s presence keenly. They were half a mile down the trail when their leader's destrier reared back on its hind legs, nearly throwing him from his saddle. Its nostrils flared and it tossed its mane with a loud whinny.
Hooves stamped the trodden dirt. Numbered among the steeds were war horses that had braved the chao
s of battle, but the fear that gripped them now was something deeper, an instinct no trainer could breed out. There wasn't any beast on Earth that would willingly cross the path of a wrathful angel.
Ransom stood in the middle of the trail with his soulrender piercing the soil, both hands resting atop its pommel. Like a curling black mist, the demons left their hosts and materialized before him. They were twisted copies of the men they had indwelt, onyx swords, axes and cudgels held at the ready. Their grim circle slowly constricted.
With an icy stare that never left Strega, Ransom waited. Fear ruled the hearts of demons, and as he expected, those at his back swung first. Corwin saw him change his grip on the katana, but he couldn’t well follow what happened next. The circle broke and screams were cut short by gurgling coughs. Ransom was everywhere at once. Obsidian blades snapped and axe hafts shattered against the edge of his sword. Within seconds, the demonic legion lay slaughtered, all except for their leader.
“Strega had gorged himself on evil.”
Stepping over the corpses of his fallen brethren, the strapping arch demon crossed his arms and drew twin battleaxes. He bore a jagged scar through his glass right eye and his beard fell in thick braids.
“He’d forgotten which one of us was the hunter and which one the prey.”
Ransom whipped the tainted blood from his blade.
“I reminded him.”
As Strega unleashed a mighty war cry, flocks of birds fled from their roosts. Both axes sliced towards Ransom’s neck. Sidestepping adroitly, he slipped the blades by a hair’s breadth. His mind was clear, focused. The flames of vengeance burned hot, but he knew better than to let himself get careless. Even when Strega missed, the force of his swings sent shudders through the earth and split trees like chopsticks.
Stunned and bewildered, the bandits began to share the fear of their mounts, but no matter how much they urged them on, the horses refused to obey.
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