Death's Mistress

Page 11

And then Gessa jumped, screeching, right through the hole, her little ax raised. It hit the creature at the top of the head and sliced straight downward, the “body” disintegrating behind it in a wave. Claire whirled, one hand forming a huge paw that, fortunately, slashed through the air above Gessa’s diminutive height.
I jumped down beside her, and barely avoided getting sideswiped myself. “Claire! It’s me!”
She grabbed me—with the hand still covered in scales like battle armor. It felt like it could rip through my bones with a flick of the wrist, causing me to go very still. Until those talons clasped onto my arm and she shook me. “Tell me you have them!”
“Have who?” I asked, my stomach falling.
“The children!” she said frantically. “I lost them in the storm, and they aren’t in the living room or the library or the basement—” She stopped, looking at something out the window. A single glance showed me what I’d expected—a dozen or more fey standing in the front yard, pale smudges against the night.
I’d assumed they’d have to be close to work a spell like that, but standing right out there in the open was unexpected. And not good. It spoke of an utter confidence that I really didn’t like.
Claire started for them, her face livid, but I jerked her back. “They don’t have them, Claire! They wouldn’t still be attacking if they did!”
“They can’t attack!” she snarled. “The storm didn’t bring the wards down, and they can’t get in. And they don’t have the power, even combined, to pull that stunt twice. But if the storm chased the kids out of the house—”
She flinched and looked down at the puddle on the floor left from the Manlíkan’s demise. A crystal clear hand had formed out of the rainwater and latched onto her ankle. “What is that?” she screeched, shaking her foot.
I drove the fire iron through the wrist, and it collapsed. For the moment. “Gessa called it a Manlíkan; I don’t know—”
The puddle suddenly erupted, flowing upward this time, like a waterfall in reverse. The thing was only half formed, but one of its powerful legs reached out and kicked me hard enough to send me flying back into what remained of the stairs. A splintered railing stabbed my thigh, a bright, sharp pain that was worse when I tore it out.
It was bad—I needed to bind it up—but there was no time. Two more of the things came through the door, one making straight for me. I slashed at it with the poker, but it dodged and I barely managed to take off an arm. And when it righted itself, what grew back in place of the missing appendage was a long, icy shard as sharp as a spear that it used to stab at me.
I dodged as Gessa hacked at the first creature’s legs, cutting them off whenever they tried to re-form. Claire slammed and locked the front door, before disappearing into the kitchen. She was back a moment later, a cast-iron skillet in one hand and a large lid from a stew pot in the other. She sent the latter Frisbee-style at another creature, which had just slid in under the door. It sliced cleanly through the middle of him, causing a wave to splash against the wall as he disintegrated.
The icy spear trying to skewer me slammed into the wall, punching all the way through to the living room before pulling back out and shattering on the step where I’d just been standing. It re-formed almost at once, the snow piled around providing plenty of new material, and it was wickedly fast. I parried several dozen blows, a glittering savagery that drove me slowly back up the potholed staircase. I’m better than good with a blade weapon or a reasonable facsimile, but I could barely even see the thing.
That wasn’t helped by the light situation—or the lack of it. The dim glow from moonlight sifting down through the wreckage, the pale wash from the streetlight out front and a golden beam from some lantern left burning in the living room weren’t enough. The transparent quality of everything but the frozen arm combined with the low light to make it almost impossible to track when in motion. And it was rarely in anything else.
I hacked and slashed at it, dodging quicksilver strikes, and managed to connect here and there—more by luck than anything else. But every time one of my blows sheared off a piece, it grew right back. And coming into direct contact, I soon found, was not a good idea.
The foot I planted in that strange chest, trying to shove the creature back down the stairs, just kept on going. My leg plunged into the icy interior up to the knee, causing a slight splash of droplets out the other side. And then the body solidified around it, trapping me and slinging me into the wall.
I hit with a bone-shattering thump that almost jarred the poker from my hand. I somehow kept a grip and slashed out with it, and I must have gotten lucky and hit the head this time, because when I managed to focus my eyes again, there was nothing there but a cascade down the steps, making rivulets through the muddy sludge. Gessa, however, wasn’t so lucky.
She was directly beneath me, battling a creature three times her size, which had latched onto her fist. It flowed up and around her like a watery shroud, completely enveloping her small body. Within seconds, it had covered her face, leaving me staring at her through rippling bands of water.
She fell to her knees, obviously unable to breathe, her ax protruding from the mass but only the wooden handle touching the creature. I started back down the stairs, but the puddle in front of me began to coagulate, drops running together as if magnetized. It was half formed before I could blink, so I threw the poker, aiming for the head of the thing that had trapped Gessa.
I saw it hit, saw the creature collapse around her, saw her gasp in a desperate breath, and then I was scrambling up the stairs, my own problem right on my heels.
My foot hit a stair on the edge of a hole. It had been covered over by a thin layer of ice, which crunched and then gave way under my weight. My foot fell through, dragging my body along with it. And, thanks to the destruction wreaked by the storm, I just kept on falling.
I crashed through what remained of the floor below the stairs and on into the basement. I landed on one of the smelly piles of rags my roommates preferred to a bed, stumbled and fell against the wall—just in time to see a stream of water trickle down the puke green paint and re-form into an arm. It caught me around the throat in a solid choke hold.
I grabbed for it, trying to keep it from crushing my neck, and the substance under my hands felt nothing like flesh. The closest I could come was the slippery, staticky feel of the surface of a ward. And that was exactly what it was, I realized, as its grip constricted like a band.
The fey were using their power to construct a ward around an element, in this case water. It gave them the body they needed to attack and ensured that their power was too disguised for our wards to read it. Normally, that would have been very bad news, as wards—particularly fey ones—are damn hard to break. Unless, of course, there happens to be a powerful projective null on the premises.
Claire’s job at the auction house had been quieting the often-volatile objects up for sale, ensuring that they didn’t explode and take out half the prospective purchasers. It had been an easy gig for her as she was a null witch—someone born with the ability to absorb magical energy and disperse it harmlessly. With a little effort, she could bring down any ward ever made.
But not if she didn’t know about them.
A wash of light-headedness assaulted me, the room spinning dangerously. I had to get out of this, had to get upstairs to tell her. But my vision was already going dark, and beating at the glasslike arm was doing no good at all.
I let go of it with one hand to fumble around on my belt, a flicker of panic sizzling through me as my throat constricted further. Knives, guns, potions—all useless against a thing like this. I had enough weapons to kill a platoon, and not a single damn thing to so much as hurt a Manlíkan—which was fair, as I’d never even heard of the things before tonight.
And I was running out of time. Multicolored spots were swimming in front of the darkness, and none of my struggles moved that damn arm one iota. I needed iron or I was dead—something, anything—and then I spied a linen-wrapped handle sticking out from under the rag pile.
I couldn’t tell what it was attached to, but I pulled at it with my foot anyway. A huge medieval-looking mace slipped out onto the floor, a couple of its spikes caught on a grimy pair of socks. I slid a toe under the small space between the handle and the heavy iron ball and gave a jerk, catching it just before it turned my face into hamburger.
My strength was almost gone and my angle was lousy and I was as likely to hit myself as anything else. And I didn’t care. All I could think about was air, and dragging in even a single breath. I slammed the club against the heavy arm trapping me, again and again, feeling a sharp spike of pain from a glancing blow. But then came the sound of cracking ice, and I was abruptly released, falling to my damaged knees with a thud.
Dizzy and gasping, I tried to clamber to my feet, but my useless flailing nearly cracked my head open on the edge of a nearby trunk. So I settled for crawling instead, moving away from the wall and the puddle beneath it as fast as possible over the frost-slick concrete floor. I’d made it about halfway up the stairs when something grabbed me.
My body was jerked back down so fast I didn’t even hit any steps on the way. I kicked out, even as it dragged me to my feet—and slammed me back into the wall hard enough to daze me. And then again, this time with the pressure concentrated on my right wrist. I felt the stabbing pain and heard the snap as my wrist broke, and then the mace clattered away over the floor.
Both hands were pinned over my head as the creature slowly drew closer, in a flowing, serpentine movement unlike anything flesh could mimic. Pale, colorless eyes looked directly into my own. They reflected the lightning outside the cellar’s high, narrow windows, flashing silver bright for an instant. But that wasn’t what had my skin crawling up my body.
The face had been fairly amorphous, just vague indentations for eyes, a lump for a nose, a slash for a mouth. But the features slowly coalescing in front of me were more distinct. And more familiar.
“You’re supposed to be in prison,” I said, staring at a coldly beautiful face I’d hoped never to see again.