Dying Is My Business

Twenty-nine

Bethany started down the stairs but didn’t make it far. Both shadowborn vanished from Melanthius’s side and reappeared at the bottom of the steps. They lunged. Bethany stopped short and fell backward, their blades passing over her. She pulled herself upright and scrambled back up the steps.

The shadowborn charged up the steps toward us, their katanas cutting the air so sharply the blades practically sang. Bethany leveled the handguns at them, double-fisted, and started squeezing off shots. The shadowborn disappeared, reappeared closer. She shot at them again, forcing them to vanish once more. As long as she kept them on the defensive they couldn’t launch an outright attack, but it was only a temporary fix. Eventually she would run out of bullets. As it was, the shadowborn were already adapting. They split up, one appearing above us on the landing between the first and second floors, the other appearing right in front of me.

I still had the iron spear in my hand, and brought it up to block the shadowborn’s katana. I lunged before it could swing again. The shadowborn vanished a split second before the spear pierced its chest.

Chaos raged around me. Bethany’s gunshots echoed in my ears. Isaac blasted fire from his hands. The shadowborn popped in and out of the material plane all up and down the stairs. And through it all, I watched Reve Azrael in Thornton’s body creep closer to Gabrielle down below. Gabrielle had finished off all the revenants but one, a skinny corpse with a mohawk and a leather vest. It backed away as Reve Azrael approached.

“You can put the sword down now, baby,” Reve Azrael said. Her approximation of Thornton’s speech pattern was eerily perfect.

“Don’t call me that,” Gabrielle said, shaking her head defiantly. “You’re not Thornton.”

Reve Azrael smiled. The red glow danced in her eyes. “No. Even you would not be so foolish as to fall for that. But the memories housed in this body, his thoughts of you are so sweet. So exposed. Did he ever tell you the nickname he had for the mole on your lower back?”

Gabrielle’s face hardened. She drew back her burning sword. “You leave him be!”

“Or what? You’ll strike me down? Do it, and you’ll destroy your lover’s body. All that remains of him. Are you prepared to do that?”

Gabrielle gritted her teeth, the muscles of her arms tensing.

“Your beloved, cleaved in two by your own hand,” Reve Azrael said. “Could you perpetrate such violence on him? Could you live with the memory of it for the rest of your life?”

The burning sword seemed to tremble in her hands, and her face registered a mix of emotions: confusion, outrage, revulsion, grief, and a paralyzing uncertainty.

Swing the damn sword, I thought, but I could tell she wasn’t going to. Reve Azrael had gotten to her. She couldn’t bring herself to destroy the body of the man she loved, the man she’d planned to marry. If we didn’t do something to help, she was going to get herself killed.

I hurried down the steps, but Philip sped past me. But as fast as he was, the shadowborn were faster. One materialized in Philip’s path and swung its katana in a wide, forceful arc. The blade caught Philip in the chest, knocking him backward onto the steps. His shirt had been sliced open to reveal an angry red gash across his chest.

It could have been a lot worse. Frankly, I was surprised it wasn’t. A blow like that from the shadowborn’s katana probably would have cut me in half, but Philip, who looked skinny enough to wriggle through a roll of paper towels, only seemed to have suffered a flesh wound. Just how hard was a vampire’s skin?

Bethany opened fire at the shadowborn again, covering Isaac as he bolted down the steps. He grabbed Philip under the arms and dragged him back up the stairs to the landing.

“If you’re going to strike me down, do it now,” Reve Azrael taunted Gabrielle. “Cut Thornton’s head from his shoulders.”

Gabrielle’s eyes glistened with tears. She slowly lowered the blazing sword. “I can’t.”

Shit. I started down the steps again, but this time both shadowborn appeared before me, blocking my way. Damn. The higher ground of the stairs had been perfect for fighting the revenants earlier, but now we’d inadvertently trapped ourselves. I backed away. Bethany came storming down the steps, pulling the triggers on both guns, but they were empty. She tossed them away and reached for her vest. The shadowborn stalked up the steps toward us.

I’d lost track of the mohawked revenant below, but now I saw it again. It was holding something in its hand. A gun. My gun. It must have picked it up from the floor. Now it was pointing it at Gabrielle’s back.

“Behind you!” I shouted.

Gabrielle spun around, lifting the burning sword again, but it was too late. The gun went off. She jerked back, a red splotch blossoming in the spot between her shoulder and chest. She spun from the shot, and the burning sword took off the mohawked revenant’s head. Gabrielle crumpled to the floor. The burning sword extinguished itself. She lay so still that I was worried she was dead. Then I saw her take a shallow breath and knew she was only unconscious. I felt a surprising amount of relief. Apparently, I was starting to care about these people. It was a new feeling.

Reve Azrael loomed over Gabrielle, a cruel smile twisting Thornton’s features. She picked up the gun, and aimed it squarely at Gabrielle’s head.

“No!” I shouted.

Reve Azrael pulled the trigger. The gun clicked, empty. I let out my breath. I’d never been so relieved to run out of bullets.

She tossed the gun aside. “No matter. She will be dead soon enough, just like the rest of this accursed city.” She looked at Thornton’s hands, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “Oh, but I like this body. Dead, yes, but whole. Strong. Thank you for making it so much better than the rotting carcasses I’m used to. I think I’ll keep it a while. It has so many useful memories to draw from. And one in particular that I am most thankful for.” She walked to the bookcase that hid Isaac’s vault, and pulled the small leather globe. The bookcase swung open. Isaac’s face remained defiant as he watched her punch in the combination on the keypad of the metal door behind the bookcase. Then the metal door swung open, too, and bright light spilled through the doorway from the vault, accompanied by the strange, deep hum I’d heard before.

“Ah, such marvels,” Reve Azrael said. She walked inside.

With the shadowborn between us and her, there was nothing we could do to stop her from helping herself to the contents of the vault. All we could do was retreat up the steps to the landing. The shadowborn stayed where they were at the bottom of the steps, keeping us penned in. Either they were awaiting further instructions, or they were just toying with us, knowing they’d won.

Isaac was crouching over Philip, keeping pressure on the vampire’s wound. “We can’t just let her take it,” I said, but Isaac didn’t answer me. Philip groaned in pain. “We can’t just let her win!” I insisted.

“Did you really think it would end any other way?” Melanthius asked, stepping forward. The rictus smile of his golden skull mask looked like a smirk.

Reve Azrael emerged from the vault, carrying the box. My heart sank. This was it, then. We’d lost. Reve Azrael had Stryge’s head.

“Picture it, mage,” she said as she joined Melanthius in the center of the room. “An entire city of the dead. It’s almost enough to make me want to spare your life, just so you can see it before you die. Almost.”

Isaac’s eyes were cold and hard. “There are ten million people in this city, Reve Azrael. Someone will stop you. If not us then others, but someone will stop you.”

Reve Azrael laughed. “Who? The Guardians? They do not care. They will sit on their hands and watch, as they always do. Or perhaps you think the wretched denizens of this city will rise up to stop me, these selfish, blind, and craven fools who swarm the sidewalks like mindless vermin, who cower in their homes in fear of each other? None of them will move against me. No one will risk their own lives. Even you never did, mage. Oh yes, I am aware of your clandestine activities, the thefts of artifacts from all over this city. I have been aware of you and your operation for some time now. Did you really think no one would notice? How foolish you are, how shortsighted. No wonder I defeated you so easily. Next, I expect you will beg for your life.”

Isaac remained quiet.

“No? Very well, mage.” Reve Azrael turned to the shadowborn. “Kill them. Then bring our buzzing little fly to me.”

The shadowborn climbed up the stairs toward us. I backed up a few steps, holding the spear in front of me. The shadowborn vanished. I spun one-eighty, desperate to see where they’d gone, clutching the spear so hard my knuckles looked like snow. Philip was still lying on the landing, half conscious, but Isaac was on his feet again, scanning the room intently.

The shadowborn appeared again, one on the landing right behind Isaac, and the other on the steps just above Bethany and me, cutting us off. Damn. Divide and conquer. There was a reason it was a classic strategy. It tended to work.

The first shadowborn was about to stab Isaac through the back when the mage spun, dropped, and rolled, sending a blast of fire from his palms. The shadowborn dematerialized before the flames hit it.

The second was already coming down the steps toward me and Bethany. I feinted at it with the spear, feeling about as intimidating as an extra in a Tarzan movie, but the shadowborn vanished. I guess if you’re able to phase out of the material plane whenever you want, you don’t have to be big on courage.

“Trent, give me the spear,” Bethany said. I tossed it to her. She caught it, took a small charm out of her vest, and threw it to me. “Take this. When they come back, do your thing.”

I looked at what she’d given me. It was the displacer charm. The bean-shaped burlap pod was still pierced through the middle by the rusty old nail she’d driven into it. “Do my thing? What does that mean?”

She didn’t have time to answer before the pair of shadowborn reappeared again a few steps below, storming up toward us. I pointed the charm at them and pressed the nail in its center. A dark red blast erupted from the charm’s tip, and the whole room tinted carmine like I was looking through stained glass. Both shadowborn recoiled, stumbling dizzily back down the stairs. They lost their grip on their katanas and put their hands to their heads. Good. I hoped it hurt.

Bethany didn’t waste a moment. Holding the spear out in front of her like the world’s shortest Amazon, she leapt off the stairs directly at the shadowborn. The spear pierced the chest of the nearest one and came out its back with a dry chuk, as if it had gone through a bag full of hay. The shadowborn lurched back, yanking the spear out of Bethany’s hands, still skewered through the middle like a cocktail olive.

“They can’t phase!” Bethany shouted.

From behind me, Isaac sent out a crackling beam of energy that made the hair on my neck stand on end. It struck the second shadowborn and blew it back across the room, where it crashed into one of the few display cases still standing, and landed in a shower of glass, metal, and small glowing crystal obelisks.

But it would take a lot more than that to put the shadowborn out of commission. I ran down the stairs, grabbed the spear handle sticking out of the first shadowborn with both hands, and pushed it backward. Stuck through with the spear, the shadowborn kicked and dragged its feet as I pushed it farther and farther, but momentum was on my side. With nothing in its leather jumpsuit but very old bones, it wasn’t strong enough to stop me. I kept running, kept pushing, and drove the tip of the spear into the second shadowborn, which had just gotten back on its feet. I kept moving, pushing with everything I had until they hit the wall. The spear went through them both and embedded itself in the wood, pinning them there like butterflies.

I stepped back, moving out of their reach as they clutched at me. Without the ability to phase, the shadowborn were stuck fast and not going anywhere. They looked absurd, pathetic even, but I had no sympathy for them. As far as I was concerned, if I ever saw another one of these undead ninja assholes, it would be too soon.

I turned around, expecting to see Reve Azrael and Melanthius, but they were gone. The polished wooden door that led out of Citadel was open. They’d run off, escaping into the same city they wanted so badly to destroy.