Curse the Dawn

Page 49

“Approaching death?!”
“Be silent!” He looked around and bit off a curse.“Where are they? In your body, I can’t see them properly.”
And didn’t I wish I had that problem, I decided hysterically as another half-perceived thing stopped in front of my face. It hovered in the air, only I had the impression that “air” wasn’t right. Whatever currents it was riding, they weren’t in this world.
And then I realized why I couldn’t see them too well either, even using Pritkin’s eyes. They weren’t in this world, at least not entirely. I watched, horrified and mesmerized, as the thing flickered in and out, like an image seen in running water. It didn’t make logical sense; it didn’t fit this world’s rules about things like three dimensions and proper light spectrums. It was as small as a hummingbird and as big as a house, with no discernable face.
It reached for me, somehow giving the impression of a grin anyway, and I shrieked and stumbled back. Pritkin cursed and threw something, and whether by following my line of sight or pure luck, he hit it head-on. The thing’s screech echoed inside my head, a deafening, unending roar that sent me stumbling to my knees, while it writhed and boiled and cursed.
And somehow I understood what it said, knew it was cursing me, cursing Pritkin in a dozen languages I shouldn’t know, furious that this body still lived, still breathed, still protected me from it. “Not for long,” a hundred voices purred, a low, hoarse sound that made my skin try to shudder off the bone.
And it winked out of existence.
I fell to all fours in shock, unable to breathe, and Pritkin knelt by my side. “Are there any more?” he demanded, but I couldn’t answer with my brain gibbering hysterically. “Cassie!”
I finally sucked in a breath and choked, trying to tell him about the gathering flashes in the treetops and the rainbow of alien colors circling above our heads. Like vultures, he’d said, and, oh, God, that couldn’t be good. But then there was a flash of light, and a stab of bright pain ripped into my injured arm.
I hurled myself sideways instinctively, my feet skidded out from under me and the forest erupted with crashes, curses and spells. A flock of birds hiding from the rain burst out of the treetops, Pritkin cursed, and things got ugly—fast. The mages had caught up with us.
They seemed to view me as the chief threat, because three of them concentrated on me while only one bothered with Pritkin. Which was probably one too many in his condition, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I’d returned fire even as I fell, crashing onto my right side and immediately rolling to one knee, trying to keep the gun up and aimed. A lot of my bullets connected—at point-blank range, even I’m a good shot—but they weren’t doing any damage. The mages had shields up and the bullets trampolined off or were absorbed.
I gritted my teeth and kept firing, scurrying backward like a crab to present a moving target, until my back hit a tree and my bullets gave out. I managed to pop out the spent clip but reloading was a problem with my left arm now useless, like a dead limb attached to my body. The mages realized that and grinned, watching me fumble one-handed in the coat’s many pockets, trying to find another clip.
It was obviously useless—even if I came up with one, they would kill me before I could slam it home—but I kept up the comedy routine anyway. I’d thought it might give Pritkin a chance to get away. Only that didn’t seem to be what he was doing.
He’d already dealt with the guy who’d jumped him—at least that’s who I assumed was sprawled on the forest floor, his head at a very unhealthy angle. Now he sprang forward and grabbed one of the mages in front of me, clamping a hand tight over his nose and mouth to prevent any sound escaping. One quick, hard twist and the mage jerked and went still. Pritkin went still, too, clutching the guy to his body. He waited until the mages dropped their shields in preparation for finishing me off. Then he reached around and lifted the man’s gun.
He killed two of our attackers before the third had even whirled around. But the mage got a gun up and his shots bit into the dead guy Pritkin was holding with meaty-sounding thuds—right before he was taken out with a shot to the head. But that took Pritkin’s last bullet, and a mage who had been smart enough to hold back, waiting in the shadow of the trees, stepped out and got him in a headlock he wasn’t strong enough to break.
My gun was still empty and I wasn’t likely to be much good in a fight one-handed. The only advantage I had was the fact that what I was doing was so stupid, no one would expect it. So I went with that, screaming and leaping onto the back of the mage trying to asphyxiate my partner.
“Don’t kill him,” Pritkin gasped as the mage backed me into a tree, slamming me against the trunk and sending a flare of agony up my injured arm. My gut twisted and I felt the edges of my vision go gray. It loosened my hold enough for him to get his hands around my arms and throw me over his head right into another tree.
“No problem,” I croaked, sliding down the trunk.
I heard a commotion but was too busy getting my limbs sorted out, most of which were over my head, to follow it. I looked up to see Pritkin kneeling in the leaves, looking tiny next to the mage draped over him. The man’s head rested against my chest, his body sprawled limp and warm over my thighs, his tangled hair wet with blood. His eyes were open.
There was an excited flutter in the treetops, and before I could move, a swarm of unearthly things dropped out of the sky. I realized what I’d seen from a distance earlier, when Pritkin had killed Adidas. Because this time, I had a front-row seat.
Wrong-colored things descended in a fluttering, clawing mass, dozens on each corpse. A creature on the body nearest me brushed a clawlike hand down its cheek softly, gently, almost like a lover’s caress, and a ghostly mirror of the dead man’s face emerged. The new ghost slowly sat up, dazed and blinking, detaching from its body in a shimmer of silver light.
My eyes focused on it thankfully, able to see it even in Pritkin’s body because of my clairvoyant abilities. Soft and hazy, still indistinct as all ghosts were at first, it rose to its knees—or what it was still probably thinking of as its knees—and then to its feet. The creatures rustled and jostled each other as the spirit stood there before them, naked and defenseless without its body.
I’d seen thousands of ghosts before, but never at their birth, so to speak. The ones I stumbled across had had time to learn the ropes, to decide how they wished to appear to others. And to figure out that the confines of their new home—their graveyard or house or whatever they were haunting—served as their new body, in a way. It energized them, protected them, allowed them a small measure of freedom. Because without it, they were like these spirits, columns of pure energy exposed and vulnerable with their former protective shells crumpled at their feet.
But these ghosts never had time to find their way home. The pack edged closer, flickering in and out of sight. Slick with sweat, I froze in the darkness, muscles locked and singing with strain as icy panic gnawed at my spine. I knew what was coming. It was in the silent, mesmerizing smiles that lit the not-faces, in the half-starved hands that reached out to pluck at the spirit’s form, at the naked want in alien eyes . . .
I watched, sickened, as the new ghosts managed to focus their senses on the approaching tide, as their faces changed and they opened their mouths to scream. And then the demons attacked. It was like a pack of vultures, I thought, horrified, as they tore into the ghosts with things my brain insisted on calling claws and beaks, although that wasn’t right.
The demons ripped into the beautiful, shining souls, biting and slashing, tearing them to shreds in a matter of moments. Each demon crouched low over its bit of soul protectively, almost lovingly, as the rendered spirits shrieked and wept and sent hopeless cries into the deaf night. Even as the things finished their meal and started, one by one, to wink out of sight, the terrified, butchered souls cried on.
The forest rang with their silent cries, the darkness shone with their reflected light for a moment longer, and then all was silence. It was like a door had slammed shut. Leaving us alone with a bunch of rapidly cooling corpses.
I scrambled to my feet and half ran, half stumbled to where Pritkin sat in the wet grass. “Are you hurt?” My voice rasped in my throat because of course he was, he had to be.
He lifted a hand red with blood. It mingled with the rain, dripping off his fingertips to the muddy ground. “It’s not mine,” he said, which would have been more reassuring if he hadn’t slurred his words.
“Would someone please tell me what is going on here?” The farmer’s voice came from over my shoulder.
“Some assholes jumped us; what does it look like?” I snapped, holding on to Pritkin with trembling hands. Damn it, now we had a norm to deal with, on top of everything else. My head was pounding and my eyes were still full of the carnage I had unwillingly witnessed. I didn’t need this, too. I looked down at Pritkin, who appeared a little woozy. “Can you put him under a memory charm or something?”
“No,” he said, struggling to stand up.
“They are a bit tricky with mages,” the farmer added helpfully.
I rounded on the man—the mage—furious. “Would it have hurt you to sling a spell or two? Or have you forgotten how?”
“I think I remember a few,” he said, looking amused. “But you seemed to be doing well enough on your own.” I stared at him, shocked and amazed at his careless tone, until I realized that he hadn’t seen that last part with the ghosts. His human eyes had been mercifully blind.
He switched that owl-eyed gaze from me to Pritkin. “Well, well. You do manage to get yourself into some interesting situations. Don’t you, John?”
I looked back and forth between the two of them. “You know each other?”
Pritkin sighed, running a hand through my filthy curls. “Cassie, meet Jonas Marsden.”
“Marsden? That sounds familiar.”
“It should. Until about a year ago, he led the Silver Circle.”