by DD Barant
Cassius is chanting now in a low, sonorous voice. The Gallowsman gestures with his other hand, and I hear something ripping itself free under the hood of the car. A multicolored rope made of fan belts, electrical harness wiring, and brake cables snakes its way from beneath the vehicle and slithers toward Cassius. I shoot at it, but it’s hard to hit.
The African Queen is ripping free of her own pelt in a frenzy, spattering blood everywhere. I shield my mouth and eyes; a previous thrope experience may have left me with an immunity to the virus that lives on werewolf claws, but I still have to watch out for other modes of infection.
The fur that’s no longer attached to the Queen isn’t just dropping to the ground—it’s weaving itself into a long, thick black rope in midair. At the same moment that it loops around the thrope’s neck, the autoconda wriggles up Cassius’s body and around his throat. Both yank tight; Cassius’s incantation stops.
“You fight a war for no purpose,” the Gallowsman intones. “He who summoned me is gone. I care not for his plans. You may go.”
He flicks his wrist. The African Queen, her body now covered in more blood than fur, falls to earth. The black rope begins to haul her toward the edge of the pit; she fights it every step of the way.
I can’t worry about her, though, not when Cassius is being throttled. I know a sharp blade can sever a pire’s head from his body, but I’m unclear on the rules about garroting. Cassius doesn’t need air to breathe, only to speak—but a cord can cut through a neck, too, given the application of a strong enough force, and the Gallowsman seems to have plenty of that.
I snap a scythe open as I sprint. Cassius isn’t even trying to free himself, just focusing on the spell book and the graphic novel; he’s got one open in each hand, and his lips are still moving.
I get the point of a scythe between the cable and his neck and cut through the strands. They immediately reweave themselves, and I have to cut through them again—this time, I yank the cable free and pull it as far as I can from Cassius’s neck; it wriggles and squirms, trying to get back to its objective. It’s like wrestling satanic kudzu.
I hear a howl of anger and desperation behind me, one that quickly fades away to silence. I look back. The African Queen is gone.
I chop at the cable-snake. It reforms again and again, but I’m buying Cassius time. Charlie fires the shotgun, putting round after round into the Gallowsman’s chest. Cassius resumes chanting, but I can’t hear him over the roar of ordnance.
Which doesn’t seem to be affecting its target at all. More crimson lighting arcs and crackles down the rope that leads from the Gallowsman to the storm, and I realize what’s going on: Ahaseurus turned the Gallowsman into a battery for mystic energy, but with the sorcerer gone he’s started tapping into that energy for himself. He may not have the kind of world-conquering ambition the Big A had, but he’s now just as powerful … and he’s plugged into a dimensional nexus that will let him travel to any number of alternate worlds.
Where he’ll do what? Why, the same thing he’s always done, but on a bigger scale. He thrives on bad luck and despair, so the more there is the more powerful he becomes. I have a brief, intense vision of the President of the United States, weeping in suicidal remorse as he enters the nuclear activation codes.…
“You,” the Gallowsman says, turning his attention to Charlie. “Puppet man. I see the strings that run from you, that stretch across the dimensional divide. They are here.” He reaches out, makes a grasping motion in the air—then yanks.
Charlie lurches forward like he was pushed—no, more like he was pulled. He drops the shotgun. He staggers, catches himself, then shakes his head. “What? What’s—what’s going on?” He looks around in utter confusion, and I realize that my partner just got kicked off this dimensional plane.
Down to me. I’ve got to keep Mr. Dangly there busy long enough for Cassius to finish the spell, or it’s all over. There’s only one thing I can think of to do, and it didn’t work out so well for the African Queen.
But I have an advantage that she didn’t. My pelt comes off a whole lot easier.
I skin out of my clothes as fast as I can and throw them as far away as I can manage. They don’t come to life and try to return, for which I’m thankful; either the Gallowsman hasn’t figured out what I’m up to or he doesn’t care.
Then I grab a scythe, clamp the handle between my teeth, and sprint for the edge of the precipice.
Everything seems to slow down as I run. My mind is perfectly clear, perfectly focused. Yes, I’m about to throw myself off a cliff, one that seems to be perched over a dimensional gulf. Yes, the being I’m aiming at has plenty of time to prepare and is vastly more powerful than I.
I launch myself into space, wondering if this is how I’m going to finally die: naked in midair, a silver-bladed, monster-killing weapon between my teeth.…
Nah. Not bizarre enough.
It’s a long jump, but I’ve got momentum, adrenaline, and desperation on my side; it looks like I’ll be able to reach him, barely—
My head comes to an abrupt halt. He’s mystically latched on to my hair, yanking it back the way he did the African Queen’s fur. But the rest of my body keeps going, just like I knew it would; my legs swing up, on either side of the Gallowsman’s body, and wrap around his torso. It feels like clamping my legs onto a cold, damp burlap sack filled with bones.
I reach up and grab the handle of my scythe. My eyes are no more than a foot from the Gallowsman’s, which are very dark and very dead. This isn’t a person; this is an elemental force given human form. It can’t be reasoned with, it has no pity or mercy or compassion. It just is. The reason it was summoned was simple: to collect despair, and dump it into me. To make me suffer.
But not to kill me.
I see a look of consternation cross his face as the scythe begins its arc, not toward his neck but toward the rope above his head. He wants to strangle me, or maybe drop me into the pit the way he did the Queen, but something’s stopping him. The rope around his neck isn’t just a noose; it’s a leash, one Ahaseurus placed there to ensure his attack dog didn’t go too far. Killing me was a pleasure the wizard had reserved for himself.
It’s also the conduit the Gallowsman’s using to channel energy from the storm.
Sorry, baby. Time to cut the cord.
The blade bites into and through the strands. There’s a brilliant flash of crimson, but I was expecting that. With my other hand, I lunge for the end of the rope I just severed.
My hand closes on it. Cut off from the mystic maelstrom that was feeding him, the Gallowsman drops straight down without a sound. In a second he’s vanished into the darkness of the pit beneath us.
I put the scythe back in my mouth and grab the rope with my other hand. Twenty feet away, Cassius has stopped chanting and is now studying me quizzically.
“Libble helb?” I manage.
* * *
Rescuing me turns out to be easy; the storm, and the portal beneath it, are now under Cassius’s control. He directs the dangling rope to move, and it deposits me on the edge of the cliff before zipping up into the clouds and disappearing. Whichever reality the Gallowsman disappeared into, he’s no longer connected to a storehouse of mystic energy.
Charlie Allen looks the other way as I get dressed. Cassius doesn’t.
“Okay,” I say. “Now what?”
Cassius doesn’t reply for a moment. When he does answer me, he sounds hesitant. “That’s up to you, Jace.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“When he brought you here, Ahaseurus eliminated the condition that would have prematurely aged you if you tried to return to your own reality. You’ve captured Stoker, fulfilling the terms of your contract. There’s nothing to stop you from going home—and I can send you there from here.”
I blink. The evil witch is dead, I’ve reached the end of the Yellow Brick Road, and I can finally get the hell out of Oz—or in this case, Kansas.
But do I want to?
I glance over at Charlie Allen. He stares back at me with a guarded expression I know too well. He’s not worrying about himself, he’s worrying about me. I know he’s not my Charlie, but …
But he could be.
I look back at Cassius. His face, by contrast, isn’t guarded at all; it’s just sad. He thinks he knows what I’m going to choose, and he’s getting ready to say goodbye.
I think about home—the one I was born and raised on, the one without thropes or pires or golems. The one that has butterscotch ice cream and shooting ranges and the house I grew up in.
I take a deep, deep breath.
And then I tell them what I’m going to do.
Don’t miss the other novels in the spectacular Bloodhound Files series by
DD BARANT
BACK FROM THE UNDEAD
BETTER OFF UNDEAD
KILLING ROCKS
DEATH BLOWS
DYING BITES
Available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Also by DD Barant
Back from the Undead
Better Off Undead
Killing Rocks
Death Blows
Dying Bites
Praise for DD Barant and THE BLOODHOUND FILES
“Snappy writing, a page-turning story, and fresh world-building make Dying Bites a satisfying meal of a book.”
—Kelley Armstrong, New York Times bestselling author of Men of the Otherworld and The Awakening
“Dying Bites is wacky, unpredictable, fresh, and amazing. I would kill to write as well as DD Barant. Seriously.”
—Nancy Holder, author of Pretty Little Devils
“This engrossing debut adds another captivating protagonist to the urban fantasy ranks … Barant’s well-developed world offers intriguing enhancements to mythology and history. Jace is remarkable, strong-willed, and smart, and she sets an unstoppable pace. Look for the Bloodhound Files to go far.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A heroine with plenty of guts, moxie, and a sense of the absurd. [A] fresh and original take on urban fantasy … Huge kudos to Barant for spicing things up with a story that expertly integrates detective work, kick-butt action and a wacky sense of humor. Make sure you get in early on the outstanding new Bloodhound Files series.”
—RT Book Reviews
“DD Barant builds a strong world and fills it with fascinating characters that will delight and entertain. Dying Bites is a well-written urban fantasy with a gripping plot and a heroine who is quite believable with her very human flaws. I’m looking forward to seeing more in this captivating world.”
—Darque Reviews (starred read)
“Five stars. An exciting new series. It has humor, mystery, and adventure. A great book!”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Barant does an excellent job introducing a whole new world where vampires make up the majority of the population … quick and engrossing … a great new series.”
—Romance Reader
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DD Barant lives in Vancouver, BC, and loves monsters, chocolate, animals, reading, comics and lying naked on the beach, while hating bullies, narrow-minded people, Sea Urchin Sushi and gluten. Awful, terrible gluten.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
UNDEAD TO THE WORLD
Copyright © 2012 by DD Barant.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
www.stmartins.com
eISBN: 9781466814936
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / December 2012
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.