“Call me …” her eyes didn’t flutter, her voice was barely a whisper, “Miss Kindler.”
She’d survive. The goddess either loved or loathed the salty ones. In either case, she never rushed to collect them.
Something cracked. I was momentarily weightless, then skidded on my back a dozen feet up the aisle from Kindler, all before I even felt the impact. The force of the blow left me gasping. I struggled to get my elbows beneath me, gulping to recover my air. My chest felt somehow loose. I could feel the bruise radiating out, slow and warm.
Rivascis’s bent over Miss Kindler, his grip sinking into her sleeves. Yanking her from the floor, he spun her to face the stage. There Larsa gave ground before a quartet of corpses. The hanging portraits were idealized reflections of the sagging flesh and moldering clothes below.
“Do you see them? I found them all. The ones you called family. The ones who died for you—because of you. Do you see? Do you remember?” Rivascis’s every word sounded like an accusation.
The old woman could barely struggle in the vampire’s grip but turned her head away as best she could.
“This is your doing! You spent each of their lives chasing me, and now what? Do you even recognize them? Are they even worth a memory?” He shook her, his voice fierce. “Do you even remember me?”
He twisted her to face him, leaning closer with every word. “I knew you’d never love me, not after you learned the truth, but I made do with your hatred. All those years, I accepted every failure and sting knowing they were ours to share. But what you’ve done … locking it away, discarding all those years. Everything it meant! Everything we were!”
He pressed a bloodless cheek to hers, forcing their shared gaze to the haunted stage. “I won’t let you forget. All of them, they’re here to make you remember. I’ve restored the only friends you ever had, found the daughter you never knew. I’ve brought it all for you.” His growl balanced on the edge of tears. “And by every dark space between the stars, I swear, you will remember, you will be that relentless angel once more, or I will scatter whatever embers you’ve left behind and mourn the ashes.”
Miss Kindler stared blankly back at him, her eyes wet, her hair falling in dusty ribbons. She showed no fear, but also no recognition.
The vampire read the same and sneered into her stranger’s face, his thin lips pulling back from vicious fangs.
I tried to shout for the goddess, but the words caught in a fit of violent coughing.
Rivascis leaned for Miss Kindler’s throat, a lion intent on helpless prey. I could barely breathe, much less move.
But Miss Kindler’s salvation was far closer at hand.
45
REVENANTS
LARSA
Oralo Viacarri’s jaws chattered for my hand as it drove into her shoulder. Stretched flesh tore beneath my fingers. I shoved, narrowly avoiding the claws scrabbling to dig into my skin. She flailed, still grasping, as she toppled from atop her bier. Her engorged tongue—easily as long as my forearm—lashed amid a dust storm of flaking, dead skin.
Falling, she became entangled with the creeping corpse of Jaivin Whilwren. Not being particular, the other corpse sank teeth like broken glass into her shoulder. She didn’t scream.
It would take a moment for them to untangle themselves. I spun, bringing my dagger up defensively. Steel and bone rattled as the skeleton of Aleidamor Graydon lowered herself from her bier. With a deliberate, fleshless hand the armored bones reached back into her coffin, lifting from it a fire-scarred sword seemingly made to cleave foes in half. With a strength freed from sinew, she hefted it with one bony claw.
The dead knight had to wait, though, as I realized why Duristan Barlhein had lingered in his coffin. I knew the man only from his portrait and Kindler’s wistful comments on his charm, tight bottom, and skill as a marksman. The former two had most certainly rotted away, but some hint of the latter remained. His tongue, like a half-swallowed garden snake, slid salaciously up the quarrel he aimed from his dirty rosewood crossbow.
I dove behind the unoccupied central bier, landing amid a rain of splinters. Just behind me, a bolt slick with corpse juices embedded itself in the neighboring coffin. Beyond that, the hissing ghouls still wrestled to untangle themselves.
Iron-shod bone marched closer. My cover wouldn’t matter for long, and there were too many to take down one by one. I cursed myself for having seen the corpses and assumed that was all they were—one moment was all it would have taken to sense the undeath in them. Self-condemnation would have to wait if I was going to survive to bully myself.
Dispatching the two ghouls as they struggled apart was sure to earn me a quarrel in the back, as was attempting to retreat offstage. Chasing down the crossbowman would win me the same, and I’d have to avoid the knight’s mountain-cleaver. This would have to be fast.
I snatched one of the hollow stakes from inside my cloak, snapped off the tip, and stoppered the cavity with my thumb. A bolt whispered through the air, sailing above my cover. Another, louder whoosh followed. The gigantic blade screeched as it struck, spraying the stage with sparks. As I flung myself away, my hat caught on something. I looked back to see Graydon’s sword embedded in the marble bier, pinching my hat’s brim between stone and steel. She hadn’t bothered with the slow march around the marble slab, but had tried to go through it. Over the split stone lip, her skull’s sockets bore their darkness into me.
I kept low against Viacarri’s bier, but in rounding it came within full view of the thrashing ghouls. Their tongues noticed me first, bloated worms blindly sensing my pulse. Their sunken eyes caught me and their struggling took on renewed vigor as they fought to extricate limbs, claws, and mismatched teeth from one another.
I dared a quick glimpse over the stone. Fortunately, flighty Desna, goddess of bad plans, smiled down on me. I’d guessed my position closely enough. The armored corpse fought to reclaim her weapon from the marble. With no muscle to flex or breath to grunt, she froze, straining in one unrelenting tug. Behind her, the deathless marksman frothed, his view—and more importantly, his aim—blocked by the knight’s rust-pitted frame.
Momentarily shielded, I let the other corpses come. Possessed by jealous hunger, they scrambled one over the other, their claws etching furrows in dry skin, jaws tearing loose clothing and hair. My stake swept through the space between us, and I slipped my thumb from its tip. The arc of holy water sparkled in the footlights.
It caught Viacarri full in the face and chest. Where it struck, the blessed water meted out years of denied decay. Dead flesh sizzled and fell away in curling flakes. The nightmare thing’s seared tongue recoiled behind her shattered teeth, stifling the hiss-shriek escaping her withered lungs. Frantic claws bailed the water from the pits of her eyes, destroying whatever lingered inside. She crashed backward.
Still teeth came. The holy water had barely spattered Whilwren. He leapt his former companion’s convulsions, nails and tongue outstretched. I fell back toward the stage’s rear curtains, remembering my narrow band of cover and the dead marksman too late. Cursing myself, I grabbed the hungry corpse’s wrists and spun. Almost immediately my grip slipped, his flesh sliding like a loose sleeve. Whilwren’s anxious tongue slapped my neck, teeth chasing after. Before they could tear away my throat, the ghoul jerked, a spray of bone fragments dusting my face. Limp, he crashed against me, and I heaved him back. The corpse fell upon Viacarri, a quarrel jutting from the back of his head. Blind and thrashing, Viacarri furiously attacked the corpse, indulging her hunger on dead flesh.
With a rumble like the opening of temple doors, Graydon’s titanic sword slid from its stone prison, dropping my hat to the ground. Though far less nimble than the fleshy dead, the skeleton took a rattling step back from the marble, then toward me.
I slipped the silver dagger in and out of Viacarri’s neck with neither effort nor sound. The dead woman gurgled and her torment ended.
Obviously some memory infused the skeleton’s bones, her sword rising in the st
ance of a veteran soldier. Keeping distance from her and out of sight of Barlhein’s crossbow forced me back out from between the biers. Nothing separated Graydon and me now. With her every step, bones clattered against steel, sounding like the tramping of an entire legion. It made her sound invulnerable. I could easily out maneuver her … if I wanted to catch a quarrel like Whilwren.
She came on. I backed to the edge of the stage.
I darted forward with my blade, little more than a dinner knife compared to her head-taker. With surprising speed, her sword arced. I dropped to me knees to avoid it. The slab of steel shattered one of the footlights, sending brass and sparks exploding across the stage. With a bound, my feet were back under me. I rose fast, bringing my dagger up at the same time. It scored Graydon’s breastplate and, skipping over her gorget’s lip, slid across her utterly exposed skull. Silver hissed on bone, but left nothing more than a fine white line on chin, teeth, and cheek.
Limned in sparks, her sword rose, but her bony claw came up faster. I leapt back too late, and she caught the front of my cloak. The leather stretched between us, too tough to tear or twist out of. Gritting teeth at the gamble, I spun to the side, letting the leather fan between us. The skeleton’s skull, claw, and sword followed as I darted from behind her.
Barlhein’s crossbow snapped. The quarrel hissed. A coin-sized hole appeared in the stretched flap, hardly a breath from my chest.
With only a moment, I slammed my dagger into the thin bones of Graydon’s hand. Whatever foul power gave them motion didn’t give them unnatural durability. Finger bones shattered and I was away. The air stirred with the passage of her gigantic blade even as I raced across the stage.
Barlhein was already reloading his weapon, his clawed fingers twitching as they worked, his tongue pointing like a stray digit that didn’t know how to contribute. I launched myself into his coffin just as he brought his weapon and attention back to bear. I slammed my dagger into the bow. He fired. The taut string released, but caught on my blade. The loaded quarrel sprang from its track, toppling into the coffin.
The undead thing hardly seemed to notice, his nails already grasping for my throat. One set of broken claws clamped onto my shoulder. They dug through my thick cloak, into my skin. The corpse’s touch was death itself. Instantly I was aware of every vein in my body, every current of warmth beneath my skin infected with a gripping cold. My joints stiffened.
I was back in Kavapesta. Back in that cell. Back in the prison that was as much my own body as a thing of stone and burning light. I tasted blood in my mouth.
Barlhein’s tongue—just as bloated and wild as the other ghouls’—lashed my cheek as he leaned in, his jaws opening over my face.
Not again. My growl sounded through my teeth, resisting from somewhere deep. I wouldn’t be a prisoner again.
Shaking with deathly cold, my hands shot up. My left snatched the ghoul’s wriggling tongue. My right gripped my dagger.
The ghoul tumbled back, out of the coffin, trailing clumps of congealed gore. His severed tongue thrashed in my grip like a decapitated snake. Tossing the disgusting thing away, I followed the hissing corpse. He had landed awkwardly on his back and twisted to right himself. Black spatters flew as he hissed.
Rivascis said this man had wanted to be my father.
My boot came down on the neck of Kindler’s onetime lover with the sound of a rotted branch snapping. I ground my heel through the former hero’s wormy spine.
Far too late for all that.
I’d been aware of tromping bone and steel, but I started as the next clang landed so close. I spun. Graydon was there, her skeleton jaw lowered in a soundless battle cry. Her sword was already falling.
The light was blinding.
46
PENITENCE
JADAIN
A length of twisted yew slipped from Miss Kindler’s sleeve and angled toward Rivascis’s face. She spoke a word, clear and strong.
The wand erupted with a geyser of light. Radiance, harsh and dawn white, exploded between the woman and the vampire. Rivascis’s face glowed in a moment of stark under-lighting, his gigantic shadow splashing across the ceiling. Just as quickly, his sharp features seared like parchment over flame.
Only the first syllable of a scream echoed through the hall, the rest cut short as the vampire vanished into a plume of pyre smoke. As if propelled back by his own scream, Rivascis’s smoky cloud toppled down the aisle in a shadowy avalanche.
The light from Miss Kindler’s wand faded, but still she tracked the smoke’s densest part, aiming another blast of smuggled sunlight. Faster than any natural smoke, the vapor tumbled into the orchestra pit.
Turning her aim to the stage, the supposedly retired monster hunter commanded her wand once more. Another brilliant beam cut through the dismal theater. On stage, its sharp swath illuminated a single battered coffin, a pair of gleaming footlights, and a fleshless figure in antique armor. The skeletal knight froze, its gigantic sword hefted like a headsman’s axe. Some caliginous stain tore loose from the corpse, burning away in the harsh light. Bones and armored plates shuddered, then crashed to the stage in a battlefield hail. The massive blade was the last to fall, striking the decapitated helm with a defeated clatter.
A step from where the swath of light faded, Larsa removed her elbow from her eyes. Her cloak was ripped, but she kept her feet and collected her hat from across the stage.
“Are you all right?” I asked at Miss Kindler’s side. She took my arm before I’d offered it, pulling herself to her feet with a creaking sigh.
“I’ll pull through.” She was already descending the aisle, white wand still at the ready.
Larsa perched on the stage, overlooking the orchestra pit opposite us. Trim chairs, music stands, a conductor’s podium, and the like collected in the recess. It was dim, but there wasn’t so much as a wisp of smoke.
Miss Kindler frowned.
“He could be anywhere.” Larsa checked about her, dagger still in hand. I did the same. Every seat, box, and balcony was filled with shadows.
“Yes, but he won’t be back here. You’ve spoiled his performance.” Miss Kindler nodded past Larsa. Flowers, broken lighting, coffin splinters, and old corpses littered the stage. “He’s a perfectionist. He won’t try again until everything’s in order.”
Her nonchalant commentary surprised me. “I thought you didn’t know Rivascis.”
“Your friend helped me remember.”
“He’s retreating.” Larsa ignored my curious look. “This wasn’t his plan. If we’re going to finish him, now’s our chance.”
“He’s wounded and it’s almost dawn,” Kindler said. “He’ll retreat to his sanctuary.”
“I found him holed up in another theater in White Corner. It might be there.”
“Maybe, but he would have been taking a risk meeting you there. He’s smart enough to know you’d think to look there, so I doubt it.”
Larsa rose, ready to move. “I’m not losing this chance. If we hurry, maybe we can spot him leaving.”
“He won’t just run through the streets, either as a man or mist. It’s too near dawn and too obvious.”
“Then what, that’s it? It almost sounds like you want him to—”
“Under the theater,” I interrupted. “There’s a coffin down there. A grate underneath leads to the sewer.”
A touch of surprise lifted Miss Kindler’s brow, followed by the barest hint of a smile.
“Show us.” Larsa vaulted off the stage. I was already rushing back up the aisle, Larsa only steps behind.
“I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same to you.” Miss Kindler took a seat in the front row.
I halted. “I don’t think that’s wise, ma’am. He could be back. And there’s a mob of his servants outside.”
“All the more reason not to leave.” She didn’t look back. “Unless you expect me to crawl through some sewer with you?”
Larsa passed me. “She can handle herself. Come on.”
&nbs
p; I hesitated, but didn’t argue, following Larsa. I spared one more look as we dashed from the theater. Miss Kindler sat still in the front row, staring at the portraits still hanging over the stage.
The coffin in the cramped basement storage space hadn’t been disturbed—a tangle of limbs wrapped in a somber gown overflowed the lip, just as I’d left them. Larsa kicked the coffin. “This is it?”
Slow black blood dribbled through the metal mesh at the casket’s bottom, each drop echoing in some hidden cistern. The grate was even smaller than I remembered.
Through her transparent skin, the dead urdefhan clenched her teeth, grinning wickedly.
I didn’t bother to answer.
Larsa nodded at my amulet. “Can your goddess get us through, or track him, or …?” She made a frustrated gesture.
I shook my head.
She cursed loud enough for it to echo.
“Such a lady.” Considine’s voice preceded him into our lantern light.
My hand was already around the goddess’s symbol, but Larsa was faster. She bounded across the coffin, following her silver blade.
“Careful! Careful, now!” He straightened, practically levitating as Larsa’s knifepoint edged beneath his chin.
“Why?” she shouted into his face. “Why tell me where he was? Why give me these—” her blade jerked, “if you were working for him?”
He grimaced against the razor hissing at his neck. “He told me to fetch you and bring the old woman. He didn’t say anything about giving you an arsenal and setting her loose when it was most opportune.”
I shook my head. “He only dropped Miss Kindler after I burned him.”
He shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on Larsa. “Just keeping up appearances. Plausible deniability and whatnot, in case things went sour.”
“You’re trying to play both sides. Like always.” The winged blade hissed louder, etching Considine’s chin.
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