No Deadly Thing

by Tiger Gray

  The ice did its work. The dragon's jaws closed on an overturned car rather than biting him in two. For the moment he felt none of the pain he lived with on a daily basis. The divine banished those demons whenever it coursed through him, gave him the strength to turn and face the beast rather than running. Soon he would tire and it would catch up to him anyway. Better to make a stand. He clambered atop the nearest car and waited for it to come, his soul blade reflected in its eyes as it thundered towards him.

  He saw Daniel pump his shotgun and take aim at the thing's back leg. The shell hit home, but still the dragon didn't stop. It turned to the side, looking for its attacker. It focused on Gerolt, the man's M-14 disgorging bullets as fast as he could fire. Ashrinn shouted a denial. The snake on his spirit blade hissed and roared, and he poured all the magic he could spare in to his next command.

  "Dragon! You will fight me and only me!"

  With so little dogma to give the divine shape it roared in him unfettered, a mindless force that nonetheless elevated him beyond his mortal flesh. It elevated the words, too, and this time they acted as chains, yanking the dragon around. Sonth wrapped its eyes in shadow, disorienting it, and aimed for the open wounds on its back with all the cool accuracy of a seasoned sniper.

  His blade shone now with the force of his soul and fought back the dragon's bite. The dragon's back leg crumpled under Daniel's assault. Still the beast came at him, flailing, the cars at its feet flying as though they weighed nothing.

  A bolt of holy energy coiled in his body and exploded through his outstretched palm, lancing the raw patch Jericho had left on its neck. A tail swipe caught Daniel across the chest, slamming him to the ground. Ashrinn felt a shadow of the rage he'd felt that day in Tikrit, a righteous damning anger.

  He stabbed at the dragon's muzzle, driving the blade through scales with strength his mortal body never could have summoned on its own. Its snout bled in a great torrent and Ashrinn kept his hold, golden blood pouring over his forearms. The thing pulled back and only the attacks on its flanks kept the plume of flame from hitting Ashrinn dead on.

  This time the dragon's scream lanced into him like a stiletto. Pain and fear rose up in him and the divine sputtered and died, panic welling up in its place. Fatigue settled into every limb, and the agony in his bad leg was unbearable. The burn scars on his forearms felt fresh.

  Ironic then that it was water that was in his memories, the second part of what the shadowmancer had unearthed bubbling up in his thoughts.

  The water felt good at first, poured over the rag Kir had jammed in his mouth. Then he choked, panicked, threw himself into the bonds with a strength he'd thought he no longer had. The delicate bones in his wrist scraped, crushed together. His lungs froze in his chest and howling agony chased him into that suffocating place between life and death.

  His soul blade fell from his hands and clattered to the pavement.

  Great rivers of blood flowed down the dragon's heaving sides. Its feathered crest, still magnificent despite the battle, rose as it sensed his weakness. Its nostrils flamed and Ashrinn's knee gave out from under him. He knelt as if waiting for the priest's knife in some primitive sacrificial ritual, unable to save himself.

  He saw Daniel's crumpled body, Jericho just now coming to consciousness, framed by what remained of the storefront. His shield flickered, showed him Gerolt's stunned expression. And above it all, the stars and the full face of the impartial moon.

  Then the dragon vented its fury once more, immense heat and pressure, the last of his shield crumpling. The terrible knowledge of his armor turning to slag followed him into blessed nothingness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The stench of green-black water, so thick Mal could taste it on the roof of his mouth every time he breathed in. Worse than the day he and his guys had busted down a suspect's door only to find the guy spread out stone dead, half rotted into the carpet.

  The stuff bubbled up through the cracks in the pavement, rifts widening until the snipers and lookouts on top of the Queen Anne Healthcare building behind him had themselves a moat down below. He was sure glad the Cult infection couldn't spread without being swallowed. If it had been airborne, they'd all be screwed before fighting could even start. He was extra grateful for the inherent paladin resistance to corruption.

  He knew the fight was loud as a lion's roar but he couldn't hear anything, making it all seem distant and surreal. He'd gone damn near deaf, what with Randolph standing beside him and bellowing orders, the clash of swords and the rattle of guns. He moved in a daze, magic so thick in the sky he couldn't tell if it was night or day just by looking. Undead and the infected alike pressed in on all sides, forcing a choke point at the southernmost entrance to the Aurora Bridge. It was such a tactical disadvantage it made him itch with frustration. Not for the first time he aimed a healthy dose of resentment at the Wolfen too cowardly to come help. Shock troops like that would have changed the game right away.

  His heart clanged in his chest, scraped and jarred like a hammer on stone. He could feel the shadow of the God somewhere in his bones, knew that the Cultists had made it to the center of the bridge.

  He and Randolph, along with the forces they'd managed to get this far, were surrounded and there was no clear way forward. The scent of embalming fluid added a particularly nasty note to the shit already hanging heavy in the air, worse somehow than if all those geists had smelled like rot. Fire too, mages burning fallen comrades before they could be chopped up by the enemy for spare parts. The ash stuck in his hair and coated his hands.

  He waved his arm to signal to his men and waded into the next group of undead, the divine like a blizzard swirling around him. His own soul blade dazzled him, cold white-blue. He and Randolph moved together, their banner carriers close behind. Mal didn't like having such a fuss made over him that he needed a damn standard, but in situations like this he was happy about it; let the Cultists gun for him if they were so brave.

  The wave of flesh and scales rolled forward, a press of bodies that clawed at him until he forced them back with the edge of his blade. He'd give anything to know where the hell the Cult had found a necromancer willing to help them, and even more to wring the guy's neck. The bridge flashed with spells, his blue-white meeting Randolph's pale gold.

  Thank god for Randolph's signature power, or Mal didn't know if the men could have held on to their morale. The men needed someone to believe in, and Randolph was the picture of a beleaguered general still fighting on despite the odds. Randolph didn't look much like a mafia don now, not in his battered plate armor. Mal knew they were fucked anyhow despite Randolph's inspiration, if they didn't do something. They needed the Storm, needed a team who could break through the line and take a hit out on whoever was doing the summoning.

  He could almost see those summoners, two long haired figures in a sea of white, green, and gold, Cultist colors. They had their hands held high like pictures of the Ascension. One of them climbed up on to the guardrail as he watched, as if she was going to jump like so many people did. The bridge groaned under their feet and the water boiled, and if he hadn't gone temporarily deaf already he would have from the wailing that started then.

  He reduced a stitched-together abomination to ash with a blast of magic, the concrete under him so cold it had started to spider web. He looked around for one of Natalie's couriers, someone, anyone, with the silver feather on their sleeve.

  "Give me the reports from Everett!" He said, resisting the urge to grab at the courier he did find, a boy who couldn't have been older than fifteen. "Are we holding Lynnwood?"

  "Sir." The kid saluted, the silver-white feather stitched on the sleeve of his blue jacket glimmering despite a coating of filth. Mal tried to focus on the courier's voice; the overflow of power from the Waygate beside him addled him worse than anything. "We've lost Battlefield, Wenatchee, and Chelan. The line held in Lynnwood and Everett as of this afternoon."

  Mal stifled a groan, though if they kept Olympia they'd come out all
right. He hoped. He was glad he didn't have time to ask about Oregon and California; as screwed as they were right here and now, he didn't want to know. Randolph stepped up to handle things and at least keep the horde at bay. It gave Mal a few precious seconds to deliver his orders. Seconds were everything here, with so few support troops able to cram on to the bridge with them, while geists kept coming and coming. Whoever the necromancer was, he was good.

  "I need the Storm --- " Mal started.

  "Sir, I've been sent to find you --- " The courier spoke up at the same time. Mal ducked as gunfire ricocheted off of one of the signs urging him not to commit suicide.

  If this keeps up, I won't have to.

  "Spit it out then!" Mal yelled, the flow of battle forcing him a couple steps forward. He hung on to the courier's wrist for dear life, dragging the kid along as the Order men forced their way that much closer to the center, to where he could almost see the women and the ghostly hydra they'd stirred up in the corrupted water.

  "The Storm." Mal picked out the words from the otherwise unintelligible sentence, and for a moment he thought he was having a fit. His breath wouldn't come and even Randolph, right in front of him and shining like a star, seemed very far away.

  He'd sent a bird when he'd found out about Lake Washington and the shadow that had been summoned there, but there'd been no time to track the Storm down personally. What the hell had happened? There should have been White Eagle people downtown to help extract them from their exercise, though not even he knew the full details of what they'd been up to.

  It took Mal a moment to realize he'd grabbed the courier by the upper arms and was shaking him. "You tell me!" He said, heedless of anything else. Too easy to see that day in Tikrit. Wasn't fair, that Ashrinn always took the hit while he came out as easy as anything. He clung to the hope that it wasn't anything like that. "What happened?"

  "A dragon! They fought it."

  A dragon came armored and armed, bigger than a barn and mean as a wildcat. "And?"

  "Ashrinn Pinecroft and Daniel Cartwright caught the worst of it. Natalie Stark asked me to tell you personally."

  "How bad?"

  "Cartwright is conscious." Mal didn't have to be a rocket scientist to catch the fact the courier had left Ashrinn's condition off the list. Mal could guess at his own expression, especially because the kid gave him an ashen look and said, "Go as soon as you can."

  Mal knew the courier was still shouting at him, but he perceived the words as a whisper, as if the kid had murmured them into his ear in an otherwise silent room. He let go of the courier only because he couldn't really feel his fingers anymore. It was a damned miracle he'd held on to his sword. He turned back towards the fight, knowing there was nothing he could do, knowing he couldn't possibly have found his way out of this clusterfuck even if he was willing to desert his men.

  Hand to god, he could smell sand. Out of nowhere he felt that punishing desert heat. He fought to hang on to the reality of lowering sky and cold mist, the hydra as it rose from the water and opened its many mouths, the Cultist who had climbed the railing, long blond hair whipped by the wind. He could smell blood now too, right up in his nostrils, not like the stink of this fight. He reached for Randolph's shoulder, hoping to steady himself, maybe, or ask for help, but closing the distance felt impossible.

  He couldn't say what made him force his way through his men and into the fray once more, or where the blast of energy that left his outstretched hand came from.

  Ashrinn's heartbeat under his crossed palms, slowing until he could barely feel it.

  It took him a while to get that he was angry. He'd managed to obliterate enough geists that he'd cleared himself a little circle of relative peace, the stones scarred with the force of his magic. Damn, but he'd never used that much of the divine at once. Not since the first time.

  He'd opened Ashrinn's combat vest, though he couldn't remember doing it. Couldn't remember if that was the right thing to do or not, either, as stupid and slow as a new recruit all of a sudden. Something about putting pressure near the wound. A bunch of thoughts about what he ought to do for a chest injury, each of them incomplete enough that none of those tidbits of info did him any good. He might as well been working on a corpse as it was. Ashrinn had already gone blue around the edges, and each breath got shorter and more desperate. Mal felt for the knife wound and blood burbled up over his hands.

  He was close enough to take a shot at the summoner and reached for the Colt he had riding in his belt holster. He knew the snipers had been trying, but so far they hadn't been able to get a hit. He wondered why the hell not, when she'd set herself up like that. She should have been an easy target. He saw the shield around her immediately after he'd finished the thought, a wash of green-gold magic that coated her in protective corruption. She'd taken on some aspects of her god, too, the way the Revelators did, like they were their own kind of shapeshifter. Her scales made her look especially inhuman.

  Maybe that was why it had taken so long to recognize her. She turned towards him and he felt just like he had that time when he'd taken Liu hunting and she'd nearly been attacked by a cougar. Except this time, Liu was the cougar and he was the one standing dumbstruck, waiting to get his throat ripped open.

  Liu. She saw him staring and lowered her arms.

  "Dad?"

  He'd never felt such revulsion, having this monster talk to him like that. He recoiled and it must have been enough that she picked up on it, because he could have sworn she looked crestfallen. He groped after words but he couldn't find any. He didn't know what the hell he would have said even if he could. What kind of talking would make this all right?

  "Dad! You can join us." She furrowed her brows and twisted up the corner of her mouth, the same way she had when she was a toddler and had been trying to work out a problem. "That's why you came, isn't it?"

  His mind rushed like a waterfall as he sorted through past memories, looking for something, anything that he'd missed that would have lead Liu to this. The woman standing on his daughter's other side turned to look at him too, but if she was anything but a stranger he couldn't tell. Their control over the God's shadow must have slipped, because its blurry outline retreated into the water.

  He'd always had the ability to be a cold motherfucker when he needed to be. Ashrinn had woken up screaming more than once, but he himself had always slept like a baby. Never questioned a single bullet he'd fired or action he'd taken beyond shouldering his share of responsibility in the hot wash run-down after every mission. He knew he'd been doing the moral thing. He needed that remoteness now, but it wouldn't come.

  "Liu."

  No time. Response team would take a good twenty minutes, at best. Mal had to admit for all he was a preacher's son, he'd given up on praying a long time ago. It wasn't prayer or God that made him do well on missions, or God that kept him from harm. Resentment for all the hellfire talk welled up in the back of his throat. He wished like hell Ashrinn could at least say something to him. He would have settled for the fucking grocery list, the first page of the phonebook, anything that might have told him it wasn't as bad as he knew it was. Ashrinn's eyes fluttered closed. For the first time in a long time, Mal prayed.

  "Dad. You have to listen!" Liu didn't sound any different than she always had and that made it worse. "The God can do anything, even heal Rosi completely!"

  "Shut your mouth." He finally found his voice, even though it was more like a snarl than words. The woman beside Liu, blond like she was, raised her hand. Liu grabbed her wrist.

  "Stop!" Liu demanded. "He'll listen. You have to, Dad. We can all be happy if you listen. You can even bring Mother. We're --- "

  "Is that what this is about?" He noticed that the circle he'd cleared himself before had remained, no geists or infected trying to kill him. Had Liu done that? Could she control them? He tightened his grip on his sword, thinking maybe the blade would have a chance of cutting through her shields where bullets had failed.

  He
lunged.

  The power came to him just like in stories, just like them that believe who were so full of the Spirit even the Devil had to stay away. He'd never felt so still and quiet in all his life. Ashrinn took a full breath.

  The divine raced down his arm and into his blade, as strong as it had been that morning in Tikrit, coating the weapon with hoar frost that sparked and shone. He wondered if he could cut down his own daughter but he'd mostly convinced himself it wasn't her at all, just something the Cult had done to trick him. Just a devil to tempt him. The bridge swayed under his feet. The structure groaned, then shrieked.

  The woman's spell hit him hard. She was good to move so fast. His soul blade spun from his hands as he bore the brunt of her efforts, but he'd already made his move. He hit Liu at speed and they went over the railing together.

  * * *

  The fall took a long time. Longer than it should have. Liu screamed the whole way down. He couldn't let himself hear it like a parent would, couldn't let himself think his baby girl needed his help, couldn't let himself give in to the instinct that told him he had to put an immediate stop to whatever it was that was upsetting her so.

  They hit the water and it was like hitting a brick wall. She slipped free of his grip as he made the damn fool mistake of trying to breathe and got a lungful of dirty water for his troubles. He'd had to pass a swimming test or two back in his selection days, but he'd never enjoyed it. He couldn't sort out where the surface was for far too long to stay comfortable.

  He came up. Liu was moving her lips like she was talking at him, but he couldn't hear her over everything else. Another hit of rage burned through him, that the Cult had done up one of its own to look like his eldest. Suddenly he wanted to drown that fake copy so bad it made his shoulders knot up, like he was already holding her underwater.

  He didn't let the voice telling him it really was his eldest get very far.

  He dove, hoping to find a path to her that he could use. He found the squirming body of the God instead, its shadow solid enough that it frothed the water around it when it moved. It thrashed and he felt displaced water hit him in the chest like a cannonball, sending him deep under. Even through his rising panic he could see it lift its heads again, flayed and rotted, and break the surface.