A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 43

I didn't wait for Nicca or Lucy to grab me, I just started running after Galen. My sandals weren't meant for running full out, and I threw them off as I rounded the corner. Kitto was at my heels, and Nicca, with Sage on his shoulder, wasn't far behind. Lucy and the last uniform had come with us, too.

But what we saw froze us all for a few seconds. The Nameless had no legs, yet it did. It was a writhing mass of a thing, and my eyes could not hold it. I felt a scream clawing at my throat, but I knew if I let that sound come out of me, I'd never stop — like the policeman still huddled by the wall. Sometimes the only thing that keeps you from going mad is stubbornness and need.

Rhys was still wrapped in its flesh, but he'd stopped moving. His arms hung pale and empty, and I knew that to have let all his weapons fall away, he was at best not conscious, at worst … I refused to finish the thought. There'd be time to think the unthinkable later.

The armored cops who had come in with the other guards lay scattered about the thing like discarded toys. The swimming pool lay just behind the thing, and its trail of destruction had taken out the pool house.

Frost's silver hair blew in a shining curtain. One arm hung limp at his side, but he'd won his way to the creature's base. He plunged Winter Kiss into one moving piece, and a tentacle came swinging out of the mass and smashed into him, tossing him back to bounce against the wall. He lay in a broken heap where he landed. Only Galen's hand on my arm kept me from running to him.

"Look," Galen said.

Where the sword still stood in the thing's flesh, a white spot was growing. When it was the size of a large table I realized it was frost and ice. Winter Kiss was exactly that. But the Nameless struck at the blade and sent it spinning off behind itself. The growing spot of cold remained, but ceased to grow.

I looked for Doyle, and found him like a pool of blackness beside the turquoise of the water. Blood spread like a drowning puddle from underneath him. He raised himself on one arm, and the thing hit him casually, knocking him into the water. He vanished from sight without so much as his hand surfacing. He just fell into the blue water and was gone.

Galen jerked me around to face him, hands grabbing my arms so hard that it hurt. "Swear to me that you won't go within its reach."

"Galen. ."

He shook me. "Swear to me, swear it!"

I'd never seen him so fierce, and I knew he wouldn't let me go to help them, and he wouldn't help them himself until I'd promised.

"I swear it."

He drew me in and gave me a fierce, almost bruising kiss, then handed me to Kitto. "Stay with her, keep her alive."

Then he and Nicca exchanged a look and drew their guns. Lucy and the officer did the same thing, and they fanned out in a line and started shooting. It was easy not to hit Rhys; there was so much monster to aim at.

They fired until their guns clicked empty. The creature waded into them, and Lucy managed to dodge for the house, but the older uniform was picked up by things that looked like giant taloned hands but were not quite that. Those huge claws ripped into him, sending blood through the air in a bright arch of crimson. The man's scream was sharp, pain filled, horror filled; then came silence, abrupt silence, and I swear I could hear the sound of tearing cloth, the thicker sound of tearing flesh, the wet pop of bone as the thing ripped the dead man in half and flung him in our direction.

Kitto flung himself on top of me and pressed me under his smaller bulk as the body parts flew overhead, spraying blood so that it pattered his clothes like rain.

When I could raise my head enough to see the fight again, Nicca and Galen had each drawn sword and dagger, one for each hand. They began to circle it, each to one side — but how do you circle something that has multiple eyes and multiple limbs?

I don't know if the other blades had hurt it badly enough that it didn't want to chance more, or if it was simply tired of being pricked, but it struck not with limbs, but with magic. Nicca was suddenly covered in a white mist. When the mist cleared he was motionless on the ground. I didn't have time to see if he was still breathing because the Nameless rushed Galen, who stood his ground. No one had ever accused Galen of cowardice.

I yelled his name, but he never turned, and I didn't want to distract him from the fight; I just wanted to keep him safe.

I started struggling to get up off the ground, and Kitto finally stopped hindering and started helping me. Galen didn't have a magic weapon of any kind; I had to do something. I walked forward and Kitto grabbed me back. I tried to jerk free, turning in my bare feet to order him to let me go, but I slipped on the bloody ground, falling butt first onto the slick grass. My hands came away covered in blood — fresh, crimson blood like rain on the grass that hadn't soaked in yet. My left palm began to itch, then to burn. It was the blood of the Nameless, and it was as poisonous as the rest of it.

I got to my feet, trying to scrape the blood off my hand with my dress, but it didn't help. The burning had sunk into my hand, my skin, and it was flowing through my veins, feeling as if all the blood in my body had turned to molten metal, solid and burning hot, as though my own blood was boiling its way out of my skin.

I shrieked in pain, and Kitto touched me, tried to help. He yelled and let go of me, staggered back. The front of his T-shirt bloomed red, fresh blood. He clawed at his shirt, raised enough for me to see the marks of my nails spilling blood everywhere, worse, so much worse than the original injury.

My cousin Cel was Prince of Old Blood. He could call any injury to life no matter how ancient. But it was only ever as bad as the original hurt. This was something different. Doyle had told me once that I would have a second hand of power, but there was no way of knowing when it would manifest or what it would be. The pain in my own body was receding as Kitto bled. But I didn't want Kitto to bleed. I wanted the Nameless to bleed.

If I had to touch the Nameless for this new hand of power to work, I was going to die, but I was going to try with magic like you'd try with a gun. Shoot from far away before you're forced to shoot up close. And as long as you have the ammunition, keep shooting.

I pointed my left hand toward the creature, palm out, and thought, not the word blood but of blood. I thought about the taste of it, salty, metallic; the feel of it fresh and almost scalding hot in large doses, the way it thickened when it cooled. I thought of the smell of blood — that neck-ruffling scent — and the way enough of it freshly spilled always smelled like meat, like raw hamburger.

I thought of blood and began to walk toward the Nameless.