by Anna Windsor
The Bengals were moving fast and quietly, sticking to less traveled routes to avoid the population. Most people who saw them would assume they were actors, models, reenactors, or just freaks in costumes. If John’s head exploded, though, even disinterested passersby might get that something was up.
“Ben,” he growled as they reached one of the secret entrances to the Old Croton Aqueduct, a small stone house, ten feet by ten feet at most, well hidden by evergreens and hearty shrubs even in early winter.
John more or less fell into the stone house and hit his knees. He didn’t even feel the pain. At least it wasn’t too dark inside, because sunlight crowded in from holes at the top of the walls. In the dark, he might just have passed out dead to the world.
Ben turned, saw John, and signaled his fighters to wait outside. Then Ben drew his broadsword. John didn’t blame him.
“I think—I think he’s taking me.” John was fighting like hell to even talk. His vision had gone blurry, and Ben’s heartbeat seemed too loud in the small stone space.
“How is that possible?” Ben circled John, holding his blade at the ready. “Why don’t you fight?”
“Am.” John threw his will into it. Tried to pretend Camille was right here with him, that he had to keep the demon bastard away from her. It bought him an inch. Maybe. His mind had to be on fire. His head had to be smoking. “He’s been quiet for so long. He lulled me. He laid traps in my mind. Something—”
God, the pain between his eyes was unbelievable. Like the smell of Ben’s blood. “Something set him off. Gave him strength.”
“Aarif,” Ben said. “Strada was always closest to his youngest true brother.”
At the sound of Aarif’s name, John felt a massive lurch in the center of his being and he almost blacked out. Falling forward, he put his hands on the ground, and saw the claws growing out of his fingertips. They looked like alien life-forms, long and curved and sharp.
Ben had to be right. Aarif was Strada’s silver bullet like Camille was John’s.
Ah, Christ. If John had watched Camille die, there would be no stopping him from going after whoever hurt her—and it was Camille who’d killed Aarif. No way could he let Strada get away with this. The Rakshasa would be on Camille in one second flat.
John tried to pick out the demon essence, tried to isolate it to push back, but it was everywhere. His heart thudded, dull and distant, but Ben’s heartbeat got downright deafening. The blood in Ben’s veins was starting to sing to John.
“No,” he snarled, hearing Strada in his voice even as he fought. He looked up at Ben, desperate. “Sneaky this time. Got … got into my thoughts instead of just … jumping forward.”
Ben kept circling, staying out of reach. John’s arms itched. White fur rippled out near his left elbow.
Ben’s voice drifted down to him from a hundred miles away. “Fight harder. I don’t want to kill you, John.”
“If … get up furry … do it.” John stayed down, shaking his head back and forth like a rabid dog. He felt like a bunch of dogs or maybe a mule had stomped his brain.
Camille …
John held her image in his mind. What the fuck had he said to her at the townhouse? It had seemed so real and huge and important at the moment. Grain of truth, but Strada—Strada had already been there, and he’d built on John’s emotions to take him away from his human talisman.
Camille …
Pain knifed into his joints, all the way to bone. His body was changing.
Camille …
And she was there, somehow just there in the stone house, standing beside him in her leathers, reaching down to take his arm and pull him to his feet.
Joy—then rage. Then—nothing.
( 37 )
“Do not touch him!”
Ben’s shout was the first thing Camille heard after she came through the channels to John, because she didn’t know where else to go, where else to start to save Elana.
It was almost the last thing she ever heard.
John burst off the ground, flinging her off him like some disgusting insect. She slammed against the nearest stone wall so hard she lost her wind and came up gasping, clawing at the stone, trying to get to her feet. At the same moment, John dodged Ben’s sword and smashed his fist into Ben’s face.
Ben stumbled and went down. The Bengals outside howled and started forward, but Ben waved them off. “Tidas. Take command. Retrieve Elana.” He grabbed for his dropped sword. “Close that door. Lock us in. Now. Now!”
“Murdering bitch.” John’s low voice—but it wasn’t really John’s anymore.
Camille heard the door bang shut, heard the sound of debris being thrown against it to keep it fastened.
When she managed to lift her head, John was standing over her, fists doubled, eyes blazing.
Black eyes. Blacker than night itself.
Everything inside her froze over. She didn’t feel pain or fatigue or even fear. Just vast, cold nothingness.
“Strada,” she said, and the Rakshasa roared at her. He charged, and she launched herself to the other side of the house to stand beside Ben. A second later she had her scimitar drawn, but Goddess, how could she use it? This was John. This was the man she loved, trapped in that body somewhere behind a raging demon.
The ice inside Camille cracked an inch, then another. Everything in her body started to hurt and drag, most of all her heart. The tears came sudden and fast, half blinding her, and she swiped them out of her eyes with the back of one hand.
“Not this,” she said out loud, though she didn’t really know whom she was talking to. Her heart was beating so hard she wondered if she was about to go down face-first on the rock floor and feed herself to the Rakshasa like John had once accused her of trying to do.
Strada came at her again, shifting more, shifting more, but still not enough for the dinar to repel him. Camille and Ben dodged away from him, split to opposite sides, catching the demon between them.
Both had position. Both had blades ready.
Neither could swing.
Strada laughed at them. “Weak fools.”
The voice was definitely not John’s now. Not even a hint of him seemed to be battling with Strada.
As for the demon, he was deciding between targets. He lunged for Ben first, but Ben knocked his huge claws aside with the broadsword and joined up with Camille again.
If she didn’t cut him, she risked being killed—or turned herself. A Created with sentient talents—that couldn’t happen.
Camille drew in what power she could, keeping her protections carefully in place, and fed that power into her scimitar.
“John,” she said, trying one more time because her heart gave her no choice. “Don’t go. Don’t run away from me. I’m here. I’m staying right here.”
Strada roared so loud Camille’s ears buzzed.
He jumped for her, more demon than human now—and the dinar’s energy cracked like gunfire, hurling him hard against the far stone wall.
Strada struck the rock like he’d been fired out of a cannon, and Camille covered him with projective energy. She knew she was dooming John, stripping Strada down to nothing but demon, but it was either that or cut his head off. This would be terrible, but easier than that.
Strada thrashed, and the fur fell away from half his body.
Camille saw the ridged scar on John’s side, made by Maggie’s terrible sword.
“Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop,” Ben told her, approaching the downed demon more closely, blade in front of him.
Camille could see more of John now, coming back into focus under Strada’s essence. He was naked, sweating, kicking and thrashing, though his arms and head seemed to be pinned to the ground.
She glanced down at the dinar. Maybe her black-and-white thinking had been wrong. Maybe if two distinct energies occupied the same body, projective energy functioned as a phase changer instead of just stripping away all human aspects.
Or maybe that depended on the entities in
the bodies.
“Camille.” John groaned, and it was John, without claws now, without white fur—though he still had black eyes and didn’t seem to be able to move from the waist up.
She got a little closer to him and didn’t feel the shove of the dinar’s energy trying to move her back.
“Take care,” Ben warned, holding his sword tip at John’s chest as Camille knelt beside John, just out of reach of his seemingly frozen right arm and hand.
“No … fool,” John gasped.
Confused, Camille glanced up at Ben.
“I believe he means don’t let Strada fool you,” Ben said. “This attack was motivated by the death of Aarif, and Strada was cunning and devious in his approach.”
Aarif’s name seemed to cause John physical pain, and for a moment Camille saw the shadow of fur and felt the nudge of the dinar. Seconds later it disappeared, and John turned his head toward her.
Green eyes. Beautiful green eyes.
“Love … you.” He was struggling, trying to get his words out all at once. “In the townhouse—didn’t mean it.”
Camille wanted to touch him so badly she almost risked it, but the eyes shifted to black and the dinar held her away from John.
“Love you,” John’s voice said, a little more clearly this time, and the dinar’s repelling ebbed.
“Can’t live … like this.” He clenched his jaw. His teeth. “Too strong for me now.”
“He’s asking us to kill him,” Ben said, keeping his sword touching John’s chest right above his beating heart.
John shook his head once, hard. Kept Camille’s gaze. His green eyes flicked to the dinar. “Do it … fast.”
And Camille understood.
He wanted her to kill him like he was Rakshasa—pierce his heart with elementally treated metal, behead him, then use the dinar to magnify her pyrogenesis and burn him to ashes.
The thought of that made her sick, then furious. “Not happening. I’m not losing you, and Strada’s not going to win.”
She grabbed the dinar, remembering the moment of golden light when she’d first seen John, the real John, free of his prison in Duncan Sharp’s mind. That had been impossible, amazing—and they had done it together.
How could such a miracle come down to this—help a man regain his life, then kill him again?
No.
Her fingers tingled against the metal as blood thumped in her ears. She studied John’s face, his beautiful eyes searching hers even as his chest started to jerk with each breath. Getting weaker.
He’s losing the battle.
No!
She’d used the coin to help him once before. Maybe she could use it again. Camille tightened her grip on the metal as her rational mind argued with her heart. Too dangerous. Too insane.
But it was a chance.
As much as she didn’t want to spend a second away from John, she turned and explained her idea to Ben as fast and simply as she could, adding, “It will probably kill him.”
“Or you,” Ben said. “The risk is too much.”
“Greater than leaving him like this?” Camille settled the dinar into her left hand and closed her fingers around it. “I can take care of myself, but right now, Ben, you need to back away.”
The man moved immediately, withdrawing his sword tip from John’s chest and retreating to the barred door of the stone house.
John looked confused, then angry.
It was just Camille and John now. “I’ll do it another way,” she said, then felt his trusting look like a knife straight into her essence.
A darkness danced in the back of John’s eyes now, an evil alien presence Camille knew she had to face, and right away. With the dinar in her hand, Strada couldn’t touch her in his demon form, and she couldn’t touch him either—though if he got a good amount of control over John, no doubt the bastard could still beat her to death or eat her.
“Not today,” she whispered to that wicked gleam threatening to overtake the gentle care in John’s expression.
She tapped into her pyrosentience and reached out to pockets of nearby fire energy, finding a strong source not too far away. Yes. Just right. Enough without being too much. She opened herself to the fire, keeping her gaze fixed on John’s, and she let the power build, let it build more, as she tried to remember every nuance of a year ago in that alley when she first saw John.
That night she had only moved a soul, just helped it transition from one place to another.
Now she was about to attack and try to destroy a soul.
Totally different. Maybe not even possible.
She let her right hand creep toward John’s, and when they made contact, Camille felt it like an embrace, everywhere, all over her at the same time. “I love you,” she told John.
“I love you,” he said, obviously believing she was granting his request and preparing to tear him apart in some new, awful way he didn’t even understand—but that was okay with him. He was just fine with believing she was about to kill him.
Goddess, she hoped he wasn’t right.
Camille squeezed the dinar, squeezed John’s hand, closed her eyes, and let the fire energy flow through her into him. She tried to find his channels, his body’s tunnels, and her awareness flew through them just like she had flown through the pockets of energy under New York City.
This was John. And here was John. And all this energy was John. But that energy—she slowed her exploration, touching the perverted darkness, finding it, rooting it out, and going straight for it with everything she could bring to bear.
Die, she thought, willing her fire into Strada’s darkness, opening herself into a conduit, sending the energy with no flames, but heat. So much heat!
John started to scream.
She smelled smoke. Burning flesh. The dinar sizzled against her hand, so hot, too hot, but she made herself hold tight, squeeze the coin tighter as the demon fought for its life.
“Die,” she said aloud, then reverted to John’s word. “Burn. Burn, you bastard, burn!”
She was burning. Her left arm had to be on fire. She tried to channel her power to relieve it, but she couldn’t. The pain made her scream along with John, but she kept after the darkness inside him, lighting it up, lighting him up.
From deep beneath her, the world seemed to be talking to her, whispering at first, then growling at her, with her, as she imagined Strada turned to ashes and blowing away. Strada. Strada’s energy. The demon’s darkness. She imagined John whole and demon-free, green-eyed and healthy.
The ground shook as the fire below came closer. Closer.
Somebody was praying. Ben. A language Camille didn’t even know.
So much smoke. So much heat. The sweet tang of liquid gold filled her senses, and she rushed on through John’s essence, finding him, finding John, finding light and no darkness.
With a cry of triumph, Camille pulled back her fire power and let him go, collapsing backward. Sleep came so hard, so fast, she couldn’t fight it.
My arm, she thought, wishing she could ease the agony.
Then, John. I have to see him. I have to know.
And—
( 38 )
Somebody was weeping.
Camille came slowly back to herself and opened her eyes.
Smoke drifted across her field of vision.
Her left arm felt too strange for words, stiff and kind of crusty, but at least it wasn’t burning anymore. She squinted at the angle of the light in the small space, coming through chinks in the rock high above her head. She’d been out, definitely, but not for long.
“John.” She sat straight up, her battle leathers pulling at her shoulders from the sudden movement.
John was lying a little ways away from her, naked and pale and very, very still. Tiny tendrils of smoke rose from his elbows and knees, like his insides had been cooked to well done. His arms were folded unnaturally on his chest, and Camille realized Ben had done this.
Ben was on one knee beside John, tears on his s
mooth brown cheeks. He had his hand on John’s hands, and his head was bowed.
Camille got dizzy, and numbness moved all through her body.
She stared at John.
He was breathing. He was breathing. She could see it.
She pushed herself to her hands and knees, and instantly realized the different sensation in her left hand. She looked down, and her mouth came open.
The dinar—it was gone. Melted. Poured into her skin in a pattern like the world’s most intricate lace. The gold filigree wrapped from the tip of her middle finger across her palm, moving to the back of her hand to her wrist and all the way to her elbow. No human could have created lines so delicate and fragile, yet there they were, marking her forever just like the tattoo of the Dark Crescent Sisterhood on her right forearm.
Favoring her metal-infused arm, Camille crawled over to John. Yes, he was definitely breathing.
“Strada took his weapons in the change,” Ben whispered. “A warrior should meet his maker with his sword, but that dung heap of a demon robbed him of that chance.”
“He’s still alive, Ben.”
“This body is breathing. This body’s heart is beating.” Ben shook his head and more tears appeared on his face. “But there is nothing inside.” His dark eyes found Camille’s. “Check for yourself. Perhaps you’re more sensitive than me.”
Camille looked down at John, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She reached out with her awareness, tried to sense his human energy, his signature—something.
Anything.
She found nothing.
Her lips parted.
She tried again, going a little deeper, but the body seemed to have no life beyond its basic functions.
“Maybe he just needs time,” she whispered to Ben, hoping to make that real just by saying it. She needed to believe that. She had to believe that instead of the other possibility—that she had burned John’s soul away along with Strada’s, sending both of them back to the universe in one brilliant, flaming burst of energy.