Heaven's Spite

17

The altar went up in a gout of brilliant blue, screaming faces in the twisting flames. Grasping fingers of fire caressed the cage.

Metal screamed, deafening, as if it were a living thing being tortured. The concussion knocked me back, and I had time enough for a split-second, hopeful thought—maybe the Chaldean sorcery on the bars would be spent now?

If it hadn’t, I was looking at being the ball in a giant game of tennis between razor-studded rackets.

Impact. Red-black pain jolted through me. I lost consciousness briefly, stars whirling through my skull, and I wondered if I’d been too smart for my own good.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Shutterclicks of red and bright blazing blue. The banefire had a good purchase now, and was roaring. Regular orange flame was twisting, too, a clean and normal light under the black belch of smoke. The iron was curling like paper. So that was what it did to Chaldean sorcery impregnating orichalc-tainted steel. I should have Hutch write that down—

Get up, milaya. Mikhail’s voice. Get up now. Or I will hit you again.

When he said that, he always meant it. It made me move when nothing else could.

I scrambled, my body not obeying me quite right. My left arm felt like it had broken again and I was swimming through molasses. I knew the pain would be right behind me, and I just had to move fast enough for it to stay behind me and not catch up.

Moving, though, would be the problem. Great chunks of burning stuff fell from the ceiling, orange and blue flame mixing in long banners. My feet went out from under me, slipping on a wash of something bubbling and foul, and it was a good thing, too. If I hadn’t slipped, going heavily to my knees and almost biting a chunk out of my tongue, Rutger would have collided with me. As it was, every inch of silver on me fluoresced with blue sparks, banefire howled, and the edge of one of his sharp little shoes clocked me on the back of the head. I rolled, tucking everything in.

The pain caught up with me. Every joint, muscle, and bone in my body screamed, the scar a dumb lump of burning meat on my right wrist, and I fumbled for a gun.

The inside of the warehouse was alive with leaping blue flame. Banefire squealed and cried, the children’s voices rising in a glassine chorus. And other sounds, ones I couldn’t quite make out because my ears were full of something warm, trickles of fluid sliding down my neck. Even that touch of moisture couldn’t cool the heat. The Eye on my chest throbbed, and it took effort I couldn’t afford to quiet the thing.

Howls. Cries. Gunfire. Someone yelling my name—a human voice, young, breaking in the upper registers.

What the hell?

I floundered on the floor. Get up. Jill, get UP. I made it to hands and knees, coughed. An amazing jet of bright-red blood splashed on the floor. No trace or taint of black in it.

Every time I bled red it was a relief. Except there was so much of it.

Why was the entire warehouse burning? The banefire should have just busted the cage. It must have reacted with the Chaldean. I really needed to get Hutch on that to figure it out.

I should have been healing. The scar should have been pumping etheric energy through me. Instead, my arms almost failed, slipping on the blood and the bubbling mix of foulness coating the floor. Smoke roiled, coating the inside of my throat. A hellbreed screamed, the cry rising up to earshattering volume before it was cut short on a gurgle.

I hoped it was Rutger. But who would kill him? Belisa? Why?

Worry about getting up first, Jill.

Good advice. Except something dark appeared in the corner of my peripheral vision, and I threw myself back and rolled, hands going for my guns and the barrels coming up, but slow, too slow. Something was badly wrong inside my torso, darkness beating at the edges of my vision. Even my smart eye was clouding up.

The masked ’breed hung in the air over me, banefire bleaching each edge, fold, and crease of his ninja pajamas. I knew, with a sudden sickening thump, that I wasn’t going to get the guns up fast enough. I knew he would come down and there would be a wet final crunch, and if I survived it I would have to go for my knives, but there was nothing in the world that would save me now. The scar was dead, not even a trickle of etheric power working up the nerve channels of my arm. He was descending from the apex of his leap, and the slow motion was not my speed working overtime but from the dragging slowness of a nightmare. One I wouldn’t ever wake up from.

CRUNCH. A pale blur hit him from the side. They tumbled, and another flash of black filled up the world. The snap-crackle of flame turned into a roar, and if the fire didn’t get me I was probably going to bleed to death.

The scar had finally failed me. Had Perry planned this all along? None of it made any sense. Nothing did.

That’s what you always think before a case starts to jell. The thought rolled under a breaker of agony as my entire body seized up. The dumb meat thought it could get away from the pain by flopping around uselessly. I’d been relying on the scar too much. Just like any Trader, using up the bargain and spending what made me human.

Oh, Mikhail, they’re lying about you. They have to be.

“Chingada!” someone yelled, and more gunfire spattered. Growls and yowls, almost swallowed in the fire.

“Found her!” A familiar voice, very close. Hands on me. I struck out weakly. “Holy shi—”

“We’re trying to help!” Another voice, female, with a snarl running under the words. It was a clean sound, not the twisted groan of a hellbreed.

Weres? Here? What?

Lifted. Body bumping. Broken bones ground together. I cried out.

“Bad shape!” Theron yelled. “Move move move!”

What the hell is he doing here? But I couldn’t get a breath in. Something was pressing on my chest. A heavy weight, hard to dislodge enough to get a breath in.

I fell back into darkness. My last thought, crystal-clear and oddly calm, danced for what seemed a very long time before unknowing swallowed it.

If the Weres came down here they’re in danger. I’m going to just kill Theron.