The Talon & the Blade

by Jasmine Silvera

  The necromancer settled his hands on his hips with a smug grin. He cocked his head, scanning in that way Gregor associated with Ana using her sight. “No vow binds you here. Not of ours at least.”

  He didn’t like the way Barnabas’s eyes skimmed Ana. So far the necromancer had been adept at manipulating connections to his advantage—first Laughing Girl and Raymond, the wolves, and now he seemed to sense the thing growing between him and Ana. Something even Gregor himself hadn’t yet named. Barnabas seemed to like feeling as if he pulled the strings behind the scenes. That he had the upper hand.

  “Perhaps you would consider mine?” Barnabas said. “Join with me now and I will spare her when this is over. The others will not be so lucky.”

  Behind Gregor, Raymond swore. Gregor had to agree with the sentiment.

  He’s sloppy, Laughing Girl’s words. And if he was sloppy with his words, what else might he be lax about? Azrael once told him power was easy to gain, the challenge was in the control. It was one reason emotion could be so dangerous. That was where most necromancers failed. Losing control could unleash their powers in unpredictable ways, was a weakness that could do as much damage to themselves as others.

  Gregor took a chance, vanishing his sword. Ana sucked in a breath beside him. He didn’t dare look at her. Come on, Ana. I need you now.

  He stepped down off the porch, and Barnabas’s smug expression blossomed into a grin. But instead of joining him, Gregor slipped his hands into his pockets and frowned. “That’s interesting. Before tonight, no one seemed to know you existed. Ana?” He glanced over his shoulder.

  Her eyes darted from him to Barnabas. Then she smiled. “Not even a blip. And I know all the necromancers worth anything on this continent.”

  Barnabas flushed a deep red and his grin faltered. “That won’t be a problem after tonight.”

  “Perhaps,” Gregor said. The waves battered the seaward side of the island, and even the beast stirred uneasily. “Think he’s got it in him?”

  Ana sheathed her sword, cocking her head with an assessing glare. “He’s not much to look at, is he?”

  Gregor tsked. “That’s unkind. But I have seen more flattering suits.”

  “Maybe give him the number for your tailor.”

  Barnabas’s face grew increasingly red and blustery. Power crackled around him, red flares snapping off the rocks and singeing the edges of his cape. “You dare mock me on the night your master falls, bitch?”

  “That’s optimistic of you.” Ana raised her brows at Gregor in disbelief.

  Gregor shrugged. “No deal.”

  Barnabas’s composure began to slide. “You’d have these animals over me? You stupid fool. This territory will be mine and you will die.”

  “I have known a great many necromancers in my years, but you are the most repugnant.” Gregor turned his back to Barnabas as the necromancer surrendered into a howling rage.

  Gregor kept his pace steady and his gaze on Ana’s face, as though he didn’t consider Huxley enough threat to worry. Her gaze never left the necromancer, and though her expression remained impassive, he counted on the first hint of an attack from Huxley coming from her face.

  “You’re insane, Sticks,” she hissed when he joined her. Even Raymond’s eyes settled on him with new regard.

  “It seems likely,” Gregor breathed as the sweat cooled on his back. “But if his ego is that fragile, it won’t take more to push him past control. Raymond—”

  “You’re lucky to have him.” Barnabas’s voice cut through his warning. Gregor turned to see Barnabas watching Ana, a little smile playing over his face. “Not everyone here honors their word.”

  Beside him Ana stiffened and sucked in a hard breath. She muttered something to Auger, and the other members of Raymond’s Aegis closed ranks.

  A moment later, Laughing Girl emerged from the waves, staggering to Barnabas’s feet. Her head bowed, the mighty tentacles limp around her. The monster on the cliff howled and she shuddered.

  “Go to your mate,” Barnabas commanded.

  Gregor met Ana’s eyes and drew his sword. He read his thoughts in her face and they went something like, Oh, fuck.

  Raymond broke ranks with a terrible roar, his hands in fists at his side and the swirling ochre sparks of his power clustering around him. “I challenge you, Barnabas Huxley, usurper.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Your soul or mine,” Raymond roared, striding down the path as the wind whipped anything not nailed down into the air around him. “One leaves tonight.”

  Ana’s chest clenched.

  “Accepted, Raymond Nightfeather.” Barnabas smiled. “This territory is mine after tonight.”

  Barnabas dropped into the In Between and Raymond followed, their bodies frozen in place. Their battle would be fought on the plane between life and death, where power flowed free of physical constraints.

  “Plan?” Auger shouted, sharpening her focus.

  The giants waited instruction. Whatever animosity they held, when they fought for Raymond, they fought together. They couldn’t interfere in the challenge once issued and accepted. It bound the combatants until one emerged victorious. They could do nothing for Raymond now.

  But, like a demon, the monster had been summoned, which meant it in some part relied on the necromancer for power.

  “We weaken the thing, we weaken him,” Ana said. “Give Raymond better odds.”

  “And Laughing Girl?” Gregor said.

  Ana frowned. Laughing Girl was trapped in this. More than any of them, she needed Raymond to succeed.

  “We focus on the demon for now,” she said. “That ought to free her up as well.”

  Auger grunted assent. He and the giants charged toward the monster, fanning out to divide its focus.

  Gregor tipped an imaginary cap. “After you.”

  In spite of everything, Ana wanted to laugh. They charged into the fray together. Even if Raymond fell tonight, she would be glad they had this battle. She made a silent vow of her own.

  You’ll survive this, Gregor Schwarz. I promise you. She was no necromancer—there was no power in the words but her will.

  Gregor hadn’t lied about making himself useful. He took hits they wouldn’t have recovered from, and so he dared more direct attacks. As she watched him scale the monster for the third time, severing the tendons at the shoulder and leaving one arm limp and useless, she admired Azrael’s strategy for his Aegis more than ever.

  Petr and Mitko proved creative and destructive, tearing off tentacles and using them to beat the monster back. Until the demon got ahold of Petr and shoved him in its massive tooth-lined maw.

  She would hear the screams the man made as he was mashed and shredded until the day she died. Blood darkened the ropes of flesh on the demon’s chest and neck. Reinvigorated, it made a grab for Auger. The street fighter managed to keep his arms free, and he ripped fingers off the demon’s remaining hand before he was flung away. Auger crashed through the south wall of the old keeper’s house, disappearing in a shower of broken wood and dust. He didn’t rise.

  Ana regrouped beside Gregor, her breath coming hard. He looked as cool as ever, but the slight downward twist of his mouth betrayed his concern.

  Raymond sank to one knee, groaning. Wounds appeared all over his body at once, damage inflicted in the In Between catching up to the physical plane. His hand clutched his throat as dark lines poured from between his fingers, almost black in the failing light. His eyes fluttered open. Why hadn’t Barnabas finished him?

  “Nəmá skʷáči.” He staggered toward Laughing Girl, his heart on his face.

  The monster came first, lunging even farther from the water than ever before. Its waist disappeared into slim hips and a scaled tail lined with curved spines. A horizontal slit below its sternum gaped, exposing vulnerable flesh. Gills?

  It stretched out its remaining fingers, grasping for Raymond.

  Laughing Girl reached it first. With more strength than Ana anticipated,
Laughing Girl flung herself at the demon, her tentacles grasping and clawing at his, intertwining. The monster ripped them away, one by one, but they returned, tearing at its face.

  Raymond dropped to one knee, howling at the sight of her being decimated before him. Her hands plunged toward its eye, and the sharp, wicked fingers found their mark. Lidless, the giant eye had no protection from her talons. It roared in pain and snatched her away, flinging her to the ground. She lay still.

  Behind Raymond, Barnabas staggered from the In Between, crippled with injury but his eyes on the other necromancer. Get up, Ana willed Raymond. Fight, godsdamn you.

  Gregor spoke, breaking Ana’s focus from the horror of the scene. “The opening under the breastbone, into the heart, if that thing has one.”

  “I’ll distract it,” Ana said, leaving Raymond to his fate. She had no idea what would become of her if he fell, but it would do no good to fear that now. “Make that sword into something capable of doing some damage.”

  Gregor flashed his teeth. When she charged, he moved as an extension of her body. She grabbed a dagger from the small of her back, Imouto still in hand.

  She whistled three sharp blasts for Mitko and prayed he remembered the signal from the circus days. He glanced over his shoulder with a nod, dropping to one knee. He laced his fingers to form a stirrup, hunching his shoulders in anticipation. She tucked her blades against her chest and planted one foot in his cupped palms. He launched her through the air like a missile.

  She twisted as she flew and landed somewhere around the beast’s neck, forced to cling to slippery tentacles.

  Even without the eye, the beast had some sense of the attack. It careened around, and she caught a glimpse of Gregor racing toward the thing with a long blade that looked to be out of a medieval handbook of war. She’d seen his speed before, but never like this—he blurred in her sight, vaulting over fallen tentacles and skating across the rocky ground as surefooted and indefatigable as a hunting animal. He didn’t bother to hide his charge, or dissemble, cutting a path directly for the glistening line of vulnerable flesh they had spotted from below. His faith in her ability to distract it seemed to be absolute.

  Time to go to work.

  Ana clambered up its face, so close the meat-and-seawater reek of its churning maw made her gag. She caught hold of a barnacle’s edge and kicked away from the offal and brine, letting momentum carry her to the side of its head. The rough edge of the barnacle shell opened the skin of her palm, but she ignored the pain. She plunged Imouto into the dark hole she hoped was an ear.

  The beast roared, forgetting Gregor to swing its hand up against its head. She let go of Imouto to avoid being crushed, and lost her footing. The surf crashed on the rock-strewn beach below her as she tumbled loose, and she had a glimpse of herself shattered on the rocks below, battered by the tide and dragged out to sea. No coming back from that. But she wasn’t ready to die. She twisted in the air, digging the dagger into the flesh of the beast’s shoulder as her other hand sought out the short knives at the small of her back. Momentum dragged her down until she buried the second blade in flesh. Her grip on the dagger slipped. She gave it up in favor of freeing the short blade holstered at her thigh and burying it deep. The beast howled and arched away, but one knife, then another, snagged on the clumps of barnacle, stopping her fall.

  She clung to the rough surface for a long moment, amazed that she wasn’t dashed on the rocks, that one breath still followed another. The razor-sharp shells sliced her clothes and skin as viscous blood poured over her. She didn’t notice. She’d seized her own life back from death.

  The demon shrieked and its entire body shuddered. A grin stretched her face, savage and victorious. Alive.

  A rope of muscle snatched her away, suckers like needles along her skin. Ana struck out with a dagger, and another thick rope of muscle closed on her wrist, holding her fast. The blade tumbled free. The last exhale left her straining for air but she could not open her ribs to draw a breath.

  The tentacle on her wrist snapped tight as the first wrapped around her body from shoulders to knees. The tension yanked her shoulder out of the socket. The bones began to snap beneath her skin, one at a time and then in chorus. She would have screamed if there had been air left in her lungs.

  Agony rose in a tide, dragging her beyond consciousness. And then, nothing.

  Gregor made his charge as soon as Ana was airborne, summoning a glaive like ones favored against cavalry and armored infantry alike centuries ago. Perhaps more polearm than sword, it was bladed in any case, so it fell under his command according to his bargain with Azrael. The glittering black blade solidified as he ran, the razor edge curving toward a wicked point, a second edge curving away from the spine so it would do as much damage going as coming. A little creativity went a long way.

  Dim awareness of Raymond rising to face Barnabas for one final confrontation reached him. If Barnabas won, the vows between Raymond and his Aegis would shatter. Barnabas had no Aegis of his own—perhaps the others would bend to him as their new master if offered the chance. Not Ana. And if she refused to serve, he doubted Barnabas would let her live—with her skill, she would make a powerful undead servant.

  Gregor had been careful not to damage the boat when he’d landed on the island. He’d left the Audi charging at the dock. If he could end the creature and get to Ana before Barnabas turned his attention to them, they might have a chance to escape. If they could make it to the southern border, the Suramérican necromancer would grant them sanctuary. Gus owed him that much. Boat. Car. Border. It was a good plan.

  But first, to kill a monster.

  The massive torso rose above him, showering him in icy seawater and slicking the path before him. The glistening inner edge of the long gill below its sternum made a target only a fool could miss. Gregor summoned all his strength and leaped, driving the blade up and into the beast’s rib cage.

  Dark, viscus liquid rushed over him. Heart blood. He let go with one hand to grip the beast’s open gills, using what little leverage he had to drive the weapon home. The apex of the heart surrendered, and the blade tip appeared through its ribs, an obsidian black gleam amid raw flesh. A heart blow might not kill it, but it would at least slow it down.

  A tentacle whipped around his arms. It slammed him into packed earth once, then swung him skyward with dizzying speed. A flash of swords tangled up in another tentacle caught his attention. He summoned the sword again, this time between his feet. When the demon spun him again, he jackknifed his body, kicking the blade through the tentacle and freeing himself.

  He hit the ground hard, rolling free. He called the glaive to his hand again as he got his feet underneath him.

  The sound the beast made battered his eardrums. It sank to the ground. The battle was done, but not over. There was one way he knew to make certain a grace-blooded creature was dead.

  Gregor ran forward and the glaive became a battle-axe. The beast flopped and shuddered on the rocky ground. Gregor found the neck and started at the spine. Three swings, powered by all the strength of his gift, and the head rolled free. The body went slack, sliding backward over the cliff.

  He’d lost sight of Ana. The memory of dim light of swords gripped him. Was she tangled up in the beast? He had to get to her before she was dragged into the sea.

  He hacked at tentacles, kicking them aside and calling her name.

  A blast of energy behind him knocked him forward. He didn’t look over his shoulder, didn’t want to see Barnabas coming for him, empowered by Raymond’s destruction. He kept hacking, calling her name. There were too many tentacles, all clutching and still tight.

  Ana. Boat. Car. Border.

  Raymond’s voice rose over his head, a command and a release. The last of the strength went out of the beast in one great exhalation of power, and all the remaining tentacles softened at once. The paired swords glittered in the moonlight. Ana. He lurched to his feet.

  She lay bleeding in a puddle of seawater and beast i
chor. Her breath rattled in her chest, catching and hesitating before catching again. Too weak to cough up the liquid collecting in her throat, she gagged. Gregor dropped to her side, weighing the damage moving her might do before shifting her so the blood trickled out of her mouth instead of choking her.

  “Stay alive, Ana Gozen,” he commanded. “You’ll be working off my dry cleaning bill for the next hundred years.”

  A sound from deep within her chest—a laugh? He thought more likely it was a groan, but he would take whatever he could get. If she could hear him, understand him, she couldn’t be too far gone. He glanced back. Raymond bent over the crumpled form of Laughing Girl. She had shrunken, pebbled skin going gray. His hands on her glowed, the words a litany of undoing.

  Ana breathed as much of his name as she could manage. “Send Ray your fucking bill.”

  The tightness in his chest cracked, spilling terror through him.

  “You don’t get to die here,” he snarled. “I forbid it. Do you understand?”

  Ana’s gift was not strong enough to save her. Not against this.

  Ana and Laughing Girl stopped breathing at the same time.

  Gregor closed his eyes. He focused on every bit of magic Azrael had ever granted him, scraping the edges for anything he could use to help her. He wrapped it around her and dragged her back from the edge. Her will knit to his effort. He gasped when he opened his eyes, rocking backward. He understood the expression to feel one’s age. Ana’s chest rose and fell again in irregular rhythm.

  He looked up. “Nightfeather!”

  Raymond looked more vital than ever, his skin alight with Barnabas’s power as the wind whipped his hair into a frenzy of black strands. The necromancer laid a hand on Ana’s forehead, sweeping away hair matted with blood. He met Gregor’s eyes as he crouched beside them, lowering his mouth to her ear. He whispered and her eyelids fluttered.

  “Death claims her.” Raymond nodded once. “She is not long for this world.”