He vomited convulsively, choking on bile and screams.
A rat squirmed up his throat into his mouth. It was too much.
His body bowed backward with only his head and heels on the floor. Every muscle knotted and strained, and the rat crawled out of the rictus of his mouth. Then blessed darkness swept a protective hand over him and he knew nothing else.
7
ALEXANDER DID NOT KNOW HOW LONG HE HAD been unconscious, but it could not have been long. Adrenaline still raced through his body, and his heart pounded rapid-fire. He still lay inside the circle.
The rats were gone.
Relief as profound as anything he had ever felt filled him. Tears burned in his eyes. He blinked them away, clamping his mouth shut. The memory of the rodents wriggling and clawing through him sent his mind spinning with horror. Blood ran from his nose and mouth, and more leaked from the wounds in his chest and back, and his ears rang oddly.
Over his head and from a distance that seemed very far away, Alexander heard Selange speak.
“You have won the challenge.” The cold rage in her voice could have shattered diamonds. “Open the circle.”
He had lost. That meant something’something terrible. But his mind was too scattered to allow him to understand. Instead it flittered away, twisting up with the chants of the witches. A flare of light blinded him and he squeezed his eyes together. He heard the quiet sound of Selange’s feet as she approached. He struggled to sit up, but pain pulsed down his body like dull-hitting sledgehammers. His muscles felt wasted. He collapsed. Selange set her hand on the crown of his head. Her perfume washed over him, cloying and smothering. He blinked, clearing the blurriness of his vision. Her jaw was shaking.
“You failed,” she snarled, her red lips twisting. “I always knew you’d break when I needed you most. Good riddance.”
It was not until that moment that he understood what she was doing. Her hand tightened on his scalp as if she clutched a handful of loose yarn. Her nails dug furrows in his forehead. She twisted and yanked as she stood erect. For a split second it seemed as if nothing had happened. Then Alexander felt it. It was like she had pulled a thread to unbind his soul, and it continued to unravel his entire being. He felt himself coming apart, his mind splintering, his skin flaking away. Then fire erupted, scorching him from within. He convulsed, his body bucking and flopping. A cascade of violent seizures racked him. He bit his tongue and lips and cheeks. His head and hands beat wildly against the blond wood floor as he screamed.
It went on for minutes or perhaps hours. Finally his body settled, his fingers and legs twitching. He gasped, tasting blood.
Above him Selange waited. She watched him with angry triumph’he had failed her and she had taken her revenge. Clutched in her hand was a tentacled thing. It looked like a jellyfish made of neon blue witchlight. Its quivering tentacles hung unevenly, some worming along the ground beside his head as if searching for him. Alexander went still as death. He could not tear his eyes from it. It was a spell’the one that bound him to Selange. Or had.
Horror crashed into him. He could not breathe. It was like watching the display of his own severed leg or arm. Except this wound would not heal. He opened his mouth’to beg, to scream’he did not know. Nothing came out. He tried to breathe, struggling against the sudden ice filling his chest. No! No! Selange was his life! He was nothing without her!
She walked away, her heels clicking sharply. She did not look back.
He closed his eyes, slumping, his mouth opening in a silent howl. Loss was too small a word for what he felt. A hungry, black maw of unspeakable grief sucked at him. He wanted to let go and disappear inside. Only the mind-blinding aches of his body kept him anchored to reality.
Hands gripped him under the shoulders and lifted him.
“C’mon. We have to get out of here before we can’t anymore.”
Max’s voice was hoarse. She got him on his feet and pulled his arm over her shoulders, while bracing him around the waist. He sagged, his head lolling forward. He felt blood still seeping from the open holes in his side. His healing spells were sluggish, made more so by Selange removing her binding.
Alexander heard himself moan softly and clamped his mouth shut, trying to pull away from Max. Her arm did not loosen. He staggered and swore softly and let her pull him along. Her breathing was labored and he could smell a stench of burnt hair and flesh. He tried to raise his head, but it was too heavy. Murky darkness filled his head, and the remembered horror of the rats crawling through him made him vomit again.
“Easy,” someone else said in a tight voice. It took him a moment to sort out who it was. Giselle. Max’s witch’his witch now, too, though that would not last long. Shadowblades did not change covens. They could not be trusted. She would pry out of him everything he had to tell about Selange and then she would kill him.
Again that vast black emptiness opened up and he felt himself starting to slide in. But no. He would not take the easy way out. He had failed. There was a price to pay. He made a furious sound, trying to pull himself back from the precipice.
He lost track of everything but his battle, coming back to himself outside on the amethyst path. He was slumped heavily against Max. She had both arms around him. His cheek was pressed against her collarbone. He could feel her ribs bellowing noisily as she panted.
“Get out of here. Go to Akemi,” Max ordered, her voice thin and weary. It sounded like she spoke through clenched teeth.
“Like hell,” was Giselle’s angry response.
“If you don’t, you’ll get us all killed,” Max ground out. “My compulsion spells are eating me alive and I’m already half-dead. As soon as she can get to the veil to pass her Shadowblades through, Selange will send them after him. She can’t afford to let you have him. If you’re safe, I might be able to get him out alive. But the longer you stand here being a target for any witch who wants a piece of you, the worse my compulsions get. In a minute I’m going to pass out.”
“Then leave him. Keeping him alive isn’t worth risking you.”
Alexander nearly collapsed at Max’s adamant “No.” He thought he must be hallucinating.
“I command it.”
“Fuck you. He’s yours now. I paid dearly for him and I’ll not waste my pain.” She paused, her teeth grinding. Her body jerked and shook with a palsy. “I’m his Prime and I don’t leave any of mine behind,” she wheezed.
The silence that followed crackled with nuclear fury. Alexander’s astonishment was complete when he heard Giselle’s quiet “Very well. I’ll go. But if you get yourself killed’”
“Then you’re screwed and I win.” Max’s voice twisted and frayed. Her fingers dug hard into Alexander’s flesh as a cascade of shudders ran through her. “Better go or I won’t be able to walk out of here.”
He heard the slap of feet as Giselle dashed away. Max’s chest rose and fell as she drew a deep breath. The tremors eased from her body and her grip firmed.
“C’mon.”
Alexander’s mind whirled. His Prime. She’d defied her witch for him. Waste of skin. It made no sense. But it drove him to draw on the last reserves of his strength’he would not let her die for him. He straightened his spine and forced his legs to move. He still leaned heavily on her, but he no longer slumped like a bag of dirty laundry.
Feeling the change, she pushed him into a staggering jog. When she reached the edge of the perimeter path, she crossed into the undergrowth. Bushes scraped at Alexander’s bare chest and arms, and the rocky ground tore at his feet. Twigs and branches snapped and crackled loudly. No one following could miss their trail.
Max held him up as they scrabbled down the short drop to where the path returned from its circuit around the hill. On smooth ground again, she increased their speed to a slow lope. Alexander kicked his feet, but remained clumsy and awkward, doing more to hinder than help. She paid no attention, neither chastising nor encouraging him.
They had gone about three-quarters of the way ba
ck to the parking area when she stopped. “This is where we get off.”
Alexander was panting and could not speak. His body was still trying to deal with his wounds, and his mind quaked beneath the memory of the rats crawling inside him.
She dragged him off through the trees and brush along the swell of the butte. The ground was steep and uneven. She stumbled and grabbed a branch to keep herself from falling. Her breathing sounded loud and harsh. She did not pause to rest, and Alexander fought with all the strength he had left to keep up.
They came to a sheer-sided ravine that entirely blocked their path. The pines growing up from the bottom filled the cleft in an impenetrable thicket, and a dense screen of scrub bushes shrouded the sides. Max stopped, dropping him awkwardly down on a boulder.
“Wait here.”
He raised his head, getting his first good look at her since the challenge had begun. For a moment all he could do was stare. The leather of her pants up to the middle of her thighs was burned away except where ragged bits clung to the seeping black char of her flesh. A thick hatch of bloody stripes showed through the laced-up gaps of her vest, down her arms, and across her face. He could see white bone through the shredded tops of her feet.
A strange relief slid through him like rusty razors. A part of him had wondered if Selange had taken advantage of the challenge to be rid of him. But seeing the damage to Max, he knew Selange had pulled no punches. Max had simply won.
“I’ll be back,” she said. “Wait here.”
“Where’” He broke off, coughing.
“Just rest.”
He struggled to get to his feet. “I’ll come with you.”
She pushed him back down hard. “I have one rule. Don’t get anybody’even your own idiot self’killed. And that means doing what I say when I say. Stay put.”
With that, she turned, pushing into the bushes. A moment later he heard the scrabble of rocks and a sliding sound as she went over the edge of the ravine and down into the trees. After a moment of silence, Alexander heard the crunch of twigs and leaves. Silence fell again, broken only by the rustling of the wind and the faint sounds of departing witches.
He sat on the boulder, waiting as ordered. He did not have much choice. He could do nothing else. Besides, she was his Prime. For now, anyhow. He looked down at himself. The rat wounds had closed, but a pressure was growing inside. He was bleeding internally. His stomach felt swollen and hot, and his organs felt as if someone were squeezing them. He could not get a deep breath. Cramps radiated around his abdomen and dug burning fingers up into his chest.
He coughed and spat blood.
What was going to happen now? Would Giselle accept him into her covenstead or would she tear him apart to learn what secrets he knew about Selange? He wondered what Max would have to say about that. She had called him a waste of skin, and then she had claimed him, defying her witch and protecting him with her life. Would Max do all that just to let Giselle kill him? As little as he knew her, he did not think so. Not that she could stop the witch. All the same, it made no sense. He would not have done the same.
Why did that disgust him so?
He strained to hear her or any sounds of pursuit. Max was right. Selange had left the rest of her Shadowblades waiting just outside the veil near the end of Burlingame Drive. It would not take her long to get there once she retrieved her Hummer from the parking lot. She would bring a kill squad in to finish him, and without Giselle to free them from the veil, he and Max would be trapped.
But Max had a plan. He had to trust her.
He spat again, brushing a fly away from the blood drying on his stomach. The minutes ticked past. The pressure in his gut was getting worse. His head was starting to spin and his body throbbed with damage caused by his convulsions. He had definitely pulled muscles and tendons and maybe separated some ribs. He needed sleep and food and a lot of both. He did not think he was going to get either soon.
A crackling from behind his right shoulder made him drop down beside the boulder, twisting around as he did. He swallowed the cry of pain that followed. His fingers curled around a stone and he hefted it, ready. Adrenaline surged through him, and he forced himself to breathe slowly and steadily, despite the pressure against his lungs.
Then Max appeared out of the trees. She jogged fluidly along the edge of the gully. A backpack was slung over her shoulders and she had changed her clothes. She wore loose black jeans and a close-fitting, long-sleeved, black T-shirt. A baseball cap turned backward covered her short blond hair. Her feet remained bare, her wounds still seeping and raw and black with char. In her right hand she carried a .45.
She had been prepared for trouble. Alexander’s eyes narrowed as he let go of the rock he held and pushed himself upright to sit back on the boulder. She was good’savvy and tough. Maybe they would get out of this alive after all.
“Here.”
She shoved the gun behind her into her waistband and dug a couple of powerbars from her pack. He tore the first one open and gobbled it in two bites, and quickly did the same with the second.
She crouched beside him, pressing her fingers against his distended belly. Pain flared. A long, twitching shudder rolled through him. His hands clamped into fists.
“Your exterior wounds have stopped bleeding, but you’re still leaking inside. It usually helps to cut a hole or two to drain things, but that will have to wait. Probably should have waited on the food. It’ll boost your healing, but it’s going to make it hurt worse.”
She sounded apologetic, surprising him again. Then he caught the meaning of her words.
“Usually?”
She nodded, not looking at him as she stood. “I told you before, I’m a very good victim, and Giselle likes to practice. Let’s go.”
Alexander gaped. “She ...You ...I do not understand.”
“You don’t have to. Probably better if you don’t.”
She did not give him the chance to say anything else. She pulled him up, putting her arm around his waist and hurrying him along the top of the ravine, pushing him faster than before. His gut was screaming. The power-bars seemed to have set off a bomb in his stomach. He kept moving, focusing entirely on his feet, letting her guide them. It was the best he could do.
They followed a deer track along a ridge, slowing at last as they came to the edge of a canyon wall, its steep slope pocked with bushes and clumps of grass.
“Careful,” she said, and pulled him over the edge.
They skidded downward, using the grass and bushes to slow their descent. They crabbed sideways to keep from sliding straight down, but at the last fifteen feet, Alexander lost his footing and went down hard, dragging Max with him. They slid down on their backs, rocks grating through their clothes and skin.
A cloud of dust puffed up around them, rising on the slow drift of wind. Max looked up at it, then sneezed. “Hurry. They won’t miss that.”
Her face and hat were dusty, and blood seeped from the scrapes on her left cheek as she reached down to grasp Alexander’s hand and haul him to his feet. He staggered and his knees started to buckle. Max caught him around the waist before he hit the ground. Another forty steps and she stopped, turning him around her hip and propping him on the fender of a black SUV.
She dropped her backpack to the ground and braced herself against the rear window a moment, her head dangling as she panted raggedly. She had lost her hat. Alexander could see the strain in her face, the set of her jaw and the thin slash of her mouth. Her arms trembled. Despite her exhaustion, she did not let herself rest long. She left Alexander sitting there, retreating back into the trees, pulling her gun from her waistband as she did. She reached up into the crook of an oak tree and fished out the keys to the car. She limped back, unlocking the doors with the electronic key fob.
She bent and picked up the backpack and tossed it on the front seat before returning to stand over him.
“Are you going to live?”
“I think so.” But he doubted it.
“Better be sure. Seems pointless to go through all this for a corpse.”
A waste of skin. Why did it bother him so much? “Then I will not die.”
“See that you don’t,” she said.
She gripped him under the arm and levered him up, pushing him to the front of the car. She opened the door and pushed him inside, before going back around to the driver’s side. She put her pack in the backseat and slid behind the wheel and buckled her seat belt. She glanced at Alexander, then reached across and did the same for him. He gave her an amused look.
“Bad driver?”
“The ride looks like it’s going to be bumpy.” She turned to look out the windshield. “Lucky for us, they left it too late.”
Alexander twisted his head to follow her gaze. A semicircle of Selange’s Shadowblades closed around the front of the car. There were eight of them. The rest must have stayed with Selange.
Bitter Night Page 12