Heaven's Spite

31

The closest freeway on-ramp took me north and slightly west, toward the fierce heart of the desert. Anya’s car was a newer Ford Escort, fire-engine red and with no pickup at all. A cheap plastic glow-in-the-dark rosary hung from the mirror, and she had four bobblehead hula girls stuck to the dash, one of them with cropped punk hair. They bobbed and swayed, their gentle vacuous smiles faintly creepy.

The thing barely went seventy. Still, it was wheels. I drove all afternoon, the windows down and sheer golden sunlight parting in shimmering veils. Past the city signs, out to where the road met the horizon. That’s the thing about America—you get to some places and there’s so much space. It’s amazing and faintly nauseating that people pack themselves into cities, living on top of each other like rats in a warren.

If it was summer the tar on the road would have been sticky. As it was, it was one of those rare winter days that’s almost balmy, a cloudless pale sky and the sun like a white coin. It’s the kind of weather snowbirds come down for, to bake all the aches out of their bones.

When the shadows started lengthening I checked the map, found a handy access road, and slowed down in time to catch it. The car bounced and juddered over washboard ruts, and it was a good thing Anya wasn’t expecting her car back. The suspension probably wouldn’t survive this.

I saw an outcropping I recognized, guesstimated the distance, and turned the wheel hard. There was no ditch, so the car immediately bounced and wallowed in sandy soil. I worked the accelerator—the brake will make you fishtail worse than anything in sand or snow. At least Anya understood about keeping her car in reasonably good condition. Leon Budge, out Ridgefield way, seemed to keep his truck going with spit and baling wire.

The rocks in the distance were a little farther away than I’d thought, and the sun was touching the horizon by the time I skidded to a stop, a roostertail of dust hanging in the evening air. This far out there was no breath of the river, just the smell of heat and the peculiar flat-iron tang of bone-dry air in winter. The desert smells of minerals, like dried blood without the rust.

My right arm hung limp. I made sure the windows were rolled up, got out of the car, and stretched.

I thought I’d remembered this place correctly, and of course I was right. The outcropping was marked on survey maps, at the edge of a lunar landscape dotted with other rocks, some bigger than houses, others bigger than skyscrapers. Other than that, it seems empty. There’s life everywhere in the desert if you know where to look, but in late afternoon it appears barren as an alien planet.

I stepped onto fine sand, into the mouth of a pile of black stone. The semicircle of stacked black rock was glossy, a type that didn’t belong in this area. Heaven alone knew what had dropped it here. Inside, the sand was fine and thick, blown in by a wind that somehow avoided sending trash or tumbleweeds along. It was sterile and clean, and I picked the edge farthest inside.

Thirst stung my throat. I hadn’t brought a drop of water, and my stupid stomach growled loudly, thinking it was time to get some chow since the bad part was past.

The flesh is always so weak, no matter how hard you train it. I didn’t have the heart to explain to my stupid body that the worst was coming.

Outside, the wind moaned against sharp glassy edges. I slid out my left-hand gun and settled down cross-legged, my back to the stone’s cup but not touching it, leaving me a good three or four feet of room. Etheric force hummed sleepily through this rock, and the air was a few degrees cooler than outside. I checked the ammo, a trick to do one-handed, and settled the gun in my lap.

I waited.

The sun sank by degrees. I had to pee. It was an urge just like hunger, and I ignored it. Drew the hunter’s cloak of silence over me. Peeled my right sleeve up a little, looked at the inside of my wrist.

The mark was hard and cancerous now, the skin swollen and hot. The thin unhealthy threads of corruption spreading were now hard and black as well, a shiny crackglaze on my skin. My entire arm felt numb up to the ball of my shoulder, occasional pins and needles jabbing and tingling.

Night falls quick out in the desert. I breathed deep, brought my pulse down. As soon as the sun touched the horizon, I concentrated on my left hand.

Not long now. Not long at all.

The banefire hurt. It burned. Blisters rose on my left hand, and silver shifted uneasily in my hair, rattling. The silver chain of my ruby necklace, the apprentice-ring on my third left finger, all warmed dangerously. But the twisting blue flames came, bubbling and boiling. I flicked my fingers, and the banefire leapt. It obeyed, snaking in a ragged circle from one curve of rock to the other. I was tucked safely inside here, and as soon as the circle of banefire closed there was a not-quite-physical snap.

My right arm cramped, curling up as if the triceps had been cut. The ball of my right fist struck my shoulder, and I made a small hurt sound.

“This won’t do any good.” Perry melded out of the shadows.

He was immaculate. White linen suit, wine-red tie, but snakeskin boots instead of the usual polished wingtips. His hair was longer, and messy. Instead of his usual blandness, his face had morphed into sharp, severe handsomeness. The bladed curves of his cheekbones could have gotten him a modeling contract, even if the photographer could have caught a glimpse of what lay below.

He took a mincing step forward, but the rock creaked and groaned. Banefire leapt and he froze, staring at me.

Thank you, God. My left-hand fingers found a knife hilt. I drew the blade free. Shifted a little bit, careful to keep the gun in my lap. “How long have you been working on this, Perry?”

“Longer than you can imagine.” He was utterly still, but his mouth twitched into a wide, mad, hungry grin. “One must be careful, don’t you find? When one has a plan, one must be very exquisitely careful. Everything must be just so.”

“You never intended to let Julius live, but he distracted everyone nicely. If Argoth would have come through, you would have bargained with me to send him back.” My chin dipped, I nodded wearily. “If he didn’t you were sure I’d damn myself with Belisa. Or, if not, I’d trade myself for Saul’s safety. Any way you sliced it, you won.”

“I traded some rather large favors to acquire the collar and chain. Then it was only a matter of finding the Sorrow to go into it. Simpler than I thought, too. She never managed to go very far from you, darling. You fascinated her.”

Not anymore. I tried forcing my right arm to uncurl. It didn’t want to. I struggled, sweating, and the banefire hissed. It cast weird leaping shadows all over the rock, turned Perry’s face into a caricature of handsomeness. He moved slightly, shifting his weight, and the banefire leapt again.

Mikhail had brought me out to these rocks once. It’s good to know where places of power are, even if they’re a day’s drive from your territory. You just never know. The humming force inside the stones fueled the banefire nicely, and as long as I concentrated…

He watched as I uncurled my arm, inch by inch. His lips parted slightly, avid, and the red flash of his scaled tongue flicked once, twice. “A deal’s a deal.”

I set the knifeblade against the meat of my right hand, drew it across with a butterfly kiss. It stung, and flesh parted. Red welled up.

I stared at it in the shifting light. The tracery of black at its edges mocked me.

I drove the knife into the sand next to me. Picked up the gun. Hefted it, and looked at him.

If his grin got any wider, the top of his head would flip open.

I pointed the gun at him and smiled. The expression sat oddly on my face. He hissed, Helletöng rumbling in the back of his throat.

I almost understood the words, too. A shiver raced down my spine.

“You can’t escape me.” The rock groaned as his voice lashed at it, little glassy bits flaking away. They plopped down on the sand with odd ringing sounds. “The fire won’t last forever, my darling. Then I’ll step over your line in the sand, and you’ll find out what it means to be mine.”

“Think again.” I bent my left arm. Fitted the gun’s barrel inside my mouth. My eyes were dry, my body tensing against the inevitable.

Comprehension hit. Perry snarled and lunged at the banefire. It roared up, a sheet of blue flame. Twisting faces writhed in its smokeless glow, their mouths open as they whisper-screamed.

I glanced down at the slice on my palm. Still bleeding. It was hard to tell if the black traceries were still there. For a moment, I wondered.

Then I brought myself back to the thing I had to do. Stupid body, getting all worked up. What the will demands, the body will do—but it also tries to wriggle, sometimes.

Not this time.

“Kiss!” he howled. “You’re mine! MINE! You cannot escape me!”

I saw Saul’s face, yellow and exhausted, against the white pillow. I smelled him, the musk and fur of a healthy cat Were. I saw Galina’s wide green eyes and marcel waves, Hutch’s shy smile, Gilberto’s fierce, glittering dark gaze. I saw them all, saw my city perched on the river’s edge, its skyscrapers throwing back dusk’s last light with a vengeance before the dark things crawled out of their holes. I saw Anya perched on Galina’s roof with her green bottle, staring down at the street and wondering if I had the strength to do this. Wondering if she would have to hunt me down, if I failed here.

And I heard Mikhail. There, little snake. Honest silver, on vein to heart. You are apprentice. Now it begins.

I love you, I thought. I love you all.

“You cannot escape!” Perry screamed, throwing himself at the banefire again. It sizzled and roared, and the rocks around me begin to ring like a crystal wineglass stroked just right. If this kept up they might shatter.

Wouldn’t that be a sight.

“Do you hear me, hunter? You cannot escape me!”

Watch me, I thought, and squeezed both eyes shut. The banefire roared as he tried again to get through, actually thrusting a hand through its wall, snatching it back with a shattering howl as the skin blackened and curled. It was now or never.

I pulled the trig—