Please. A little more and—
The Black Lion grunted, his knife turning the point of the young scion’s sword before it could skewer, then he skidded back onto one knee. The instant of the stumble, Enk heaved his blade about and roared. Then his blade was slicing through intervals, shimmering and shining, singing in glee at the opportunity to marry steel to skin.
The blade stopped, caught in an inhuman hand. A monstrous hand tipped with hellish claws, thrusting out of a human forearm, dripping inky pus where horror and the mundane became one.
Enk glanced from the alien hand to the Black Lion’s tattoos. They pulsed with the same radiance as a jar of amethyst-colored fireflies, each strange spiral and loop flashing at its own frequency.
“Warlock,” he murmured. The rumors were true, the Black Lion was a—
The sword was wrenched from Enk’s grasp, and the next thing he knew, he was tumbling across the ground, rotating sideways. He lurched to a stop, glanced up at the daemonic appendage reaching to cleave flesh from bone.
“Stop!” Suni shouted.
And the Black Lion did, halting his claws a hair’s span from Enk’s face. The young scion blinked, jerking his head to the side. The talons retreated.
Enk grabbed his chest, squelching a groan. Tizkar loomed above Suni’s kneeling form with the barrel of a cavalry pistol pressed to the man’s bald skull.
“I’m impressed,” Suni said, his eyes round and wide. “You’ve transformed defeat into . . . well, not victory exactly but—”
“You will release my friends,” Tizkar hissed, “or. . . .”
Suni snarled. “Or what?
“Or I will expose your brains to the elements.”
“No, Tizkar, I think not. If I die, your friends join me then you. Do you understand?”
Gagan lifted Enk into the air, as if to puncture Suni’s point. Feet dangling above the earth, the young scion found himself clutching a daemonic limb, trying to pry apart fingers thicker than his arm.
Tizkar’s eyes did not shift from Suni. “You mistake me for something I’m not. I will always choose death over slavery.”
“Is that so?” Suni snorted, his eyes scanning the first gallery.
Tizkar cocked the hammer of the handgun.
“Wait!”
“No. Release them or die. You choose.”
Enk gulped. His heart hammered his chest hard. Swinging his legs, he wrapped them around Gagan’s arm and wrenched, wheeling high and low as the Black Lion lost his balance.
“We can trade—” Suni began.
Enk’s back struck the earth, and what little air remained in his lungs escaped past his gaping maw. Gagan loomed above him, his face contorted into a snarl. The force at Enk’s neck tightened and lights dimmed in his vision.
“Choose now!” Tizkar yelled.
“Gagan, hold!” Suni reached out to the Black Lion with a hand, then turned back to Tizkar. “I know the Scarlet Apron’s identity.”
The easing of pressures gathered and knotted about a human throat.
A gasping, wheezing breath.
Air, sweeter than any earthly nectar.
“What?” came a voice as if from a great distance.
Enk peered at Tizkar through the slits of his eyes, watched surprise etch its way across the young man’s slightly flushed features. His grip slackened on the Clansman’s arm. Had Suni spoken true? Could he be trusted?
Suni nodded. “It’s true, and if you agree to help me with an operation that I have planned in two weeks, I’ll tell you.”
“A trade.” Tizkar took a step back, his weapon still raised and trained at Suni’s forehead. “I see. . . .”
“Do you?”
“Yes. You planned for failure. You waited until you had something I wanted before you lured me here.”
Suni grinned. “Like I said, your father taught me well. Now, do we have a trade?”
Tizkar lowered his weapon.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Abysmal Depths
Lightning and terrified expressions greeted Kalum as he dashed through curtains of wispy rain crouched above his charging steed. The hollow clatter of hooves boomed on wet cobblestones, and screams rose to permeate the gloomy heights in his wake. Only in death must an oath be broken. There was the neighing of panicked horses as carriage drivers yanked on reins to avoid slamming headlong into him and the soldiers that streamed behind him.
Out of the way, damn it. Out of the way!
In his thirst to catch the Mindripper, Kalum had raced from the Episcopal Palace ill prepared, with little more than the weapons on his back and a handful of the Guardians of the Flame to accompany him.
Worship Osei had leaped from her throne-like chair within the audience chamber, her gnarled finger pointing down at the map laid at her feet. “Here. It is here,” she had said, surprising all. There was always this spasm, a face-wide plucking of unseen strings, whenever a premonition caught her unawares. Her cataract eyes would widen, her lips would tremble, and she would turn to him—much as she had ten years ago. An old woman, draped in a religious habit almost identical to those worn by the Sophic Nuns.
“The Pit?” he had asked, following the arc of her finger. He knew the famed history of this place where men descended to become legend, knew, verbatim, the ancient scripture from which it stole its name without knowing, where Shaitan ventured down into the Fires Below to conquer the Daemonic Potentates after Mada tore out his heart.
She recoiled, collapsing back into her chair, her eyelids fluttering. Though near blind, her Sight pierced the Hidden Veil, saw flashes of what could be and sometimes what had been. But this time the seeing seemed to strike her particularly hard, to the point where tears spilled down her weathered cheeks.
“Yes . . . go quickly!” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “So much death and no way to. . . .”
Now, watching the domed roof of the Pit peak in the distance, Kalum’s stomach tightened with anticipation. Carriages continued to weave out of his way, some crashing into the sides of buildings, others tipping over and smashing into still others. The piercing howls of injured horses sent chills knifing up his back, so like Nightmare’s own—the stallion his father had once gifted him, the treasured companion he had once been forced to put down—but he did not slow. Nor did he glance back to see the carnage he knew grew in his wake.
The hunt demands this of me.
Yet . . . still his heart clutched his center, sliced with razor sharp threads of regret. He cared too much. Either that or old age had made a woman of him. His jaw throbbed. Only in death must an oath be broken. This was what was necessary to protect the lives of untold millions.
Suddenly, the animal beneath him screamed, and he felt its muscles knot through his thighs, but there was no time for panic. Its hooves slid on the rain-slicked street then one of its legs bent at an odd angle.
Kalum awkwardly leaped from the horse’s back, the hollow sound of breaking bones echoing in his head. He landed chest first and rolled across the street.
He came to a stop, gasping as hot coals pressed there way into his ribs, and pinpricks of light danced in his vision. The surrounding chorus receded, somehow muffled, as if he now lay at the bottom of an immense well, the wheezing of his spasming lungs the only true sound. An earthy reek rose to clog his nostrils: the smell of rock and dirt pounded smooth by countless hooves and wheels.
Kalum sprung upright, lifted by gentle hands. Distorted faces swam about him before settling into Lieutenant Bodua’s own. The man’s lips were moving, but, for an instant, Kalum struggled to make sense out of the muted gibberish. He tilted forward, and the lieutenant steadied him.
“Sir, are you. . . ?” Bodua was saying.
Kalum scrubbed the water from his face and gingerly touched at his chest. The hidden holster beneath his coat gave way beneath his fingers. A pang twisted his innards.
Empty.
His eyes fell to the street, where half a dozen bottles lay shattered, their glittering contents adding splashes o
f color to muddy pools of rainwater. He flung himself at the broken vials.
No. No!
He groped hopelessly through the sludge, cutting his hands on jagged pieces of glass. Gold and red and blue bands whirled into spirals that slipped through aching fingers. The pain was nothing compared to the sense of loss. How? How was he supposed to go on without the Dust?
“Sir?” Bodua said.
Kalum looked up at his men. Unlike Bodua, few peered at him directly, most were too busy placating the yelling citizens that crawled from the downed carriages. Yet, even so, he could feel the weight of their stares. His men, his responsibility.
White branches cut across the darkened sky.
The rumble of earth and sky repeated in Kalum’s chest, reverberated against his breastbone. It seemed unthinkable that he might fail, that evil might go unchecked. His eyes stung. He hoped it was merely the raindrops, hoped frailty had not revealed his weeping center to the world.
“Sir,” Bodua said, this time almost desperate.
Kalum studied his hands. They shimmered with something of the capriciousness of a desert mirage, smeared in blood and dazzling colors. Despite the procession of years, he was not an Imperial, nor was he merely a Clansman. He closed his hands into fists. He, Kalum Sane, was something much more.
“Establish a perimeter,” Kalum said, climbing to his feet.
Bodua’s eyebrows jumped then knitted into a frown. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t we retreat and regroup?”
Kalum’s attention shifted to his wailing steed. Eyes wild, it thrashed and writhed, splashing small pools with every twitch. The stupid horse had no name. Five years. For five years he had refused to give it one, knowing this moment would one day come.
Another death to add to my. . . .
Kalum drew his cavalry pistol and fired it into the animal’s skull. It jerk back, whimpered the way only a dying horse could then stilled forever. The world wobbled about him, and he swallowed. When had he gotten so weak? To long among the Imperials. Yes, that was it.
Too long. . . .
The weapon slipped from his numb fingers, but he barely noticed.
Bodua handed Kalum his own cavalry pistol. “What are you going to do?”
“What I do best, Lieutenant, kill then kill some more.” Despite the grin he flashed, the statement brought Kalum no joy, only sadness. Raindrops lashed him like embers from a golden forge.
He tucked the pistol into his holster, stole a musket from a nearby soldier, slung it over his shoulder and limped toward the Pit. There were no tears in his eyes—no, not tears. Men such as him did not weep. It had to be. . . . His jaw throbbed. His right leg ached.
As was natural, all parted before him. Even the curtains of rain seemed to hesitate once they reached his smiling aspect. Faces, hanging out of overturned carriages, watched his passing in mystic silence. This, too, was only fitting, he was death made manifest. The world had never known his like. He had murdered hundreds. Hundreds!
He spun the musket off of his shoulder and gripped it with both hands as his destination loomed. There were no peering faces here, just two large puddles stained with what might have been blood. Forsaking stealth, he ran the last few steps and dove through the Pit’s doorway.
The pounding of a human heart.
Kalum rolled to his feet, scanned left then right, his finger resting on the trigger of his musket. Empty. Other than discarded dice and a few odd coins, the main floor of the building was empty.
Down. I have to go down.
Some in the Church’s hierarchy worried what would happen if a Lord-Inquisitor ever became the thrall of a Mindripper. They feared the Empire’s secrets in the hands of an abomination. Yet, Kalum did not slow his steps as he crept down the stairwell. He differed from the others. He was more.
But what about my oath? I forswore all—
Low murmurs pricked his eardrums, rising from below him, and he paused, resting his forehead against the cool stone of the stairwell. Only in death must an oath be broken, but what if two oaths conflicted? What if the only way to fulfill one was to break another?
Always these fucking conundrums, and no one to guide him. Must life constantly heap complexities upon complexities?
Kalum snorted silently. Stupid question. Was this not answer enough? His heart thudded in his throat.
I don’t need to . . . not fully. Just enough for me to. . . .
He fumbled after the ethereal fragments in his mind, and, as he reached for them, his back and arms itched where the star inked tattoos had been seared into his skin. A cry rose from within him, a cry that made the surrounding dark seem darker despite the flashes of amethyst that now filled it.
Kalum gagged on the sweet stench of vomit, choked on the taste of fiery pus. Shadowy horrors shifted and danced on the walls about him, shadows with fangs and claws and eyes that glowed.
He gritted his teeth. No closer. If he brought the entity any closer, he would not be able to stop what happened next. Too much time had passed without him practicing his old talents.
The Lord-Inquisitor continued his journey downward, his mind pricked by otherworldly hungers, hungers that distorted. The Imperials had forbidden daemonology for good reason, yet it was protection of a sort from what waited below, though nowhere near as effective as the Dust.
It will be enough. It will!
“Went well, no?” a voice echoed through the stairwell.
A grunt.
Kalum slowed his steps further, inched onward with the carefulness of a caterpillar. Sweat matted his forehead, mixed with water and dripped into his eyes. He blinked. Lamplight swelled around the bend.
“The little girl. Taking her might—” first voice began.
“You fucking think?” another voice replied.
One shot, two at the most.
Kalum charged onto the first gallery, whirled this way and that, his musket seeking targets. Rows of benches ran the circle of the first gallery. He stopped at the railing and aimed down at the second gallery, then the sands.
Anything else and I’m—
Empty. Except for a corpse that sat at the center of the sands the Pit was empty.
A dark chuckle clattered at the base of Kalum’s skull.
He slammed the Hellkin back down into abysmal depths, and the horror’s amusement transformed into a knifing howl before fading into nothingness.
Kalum panted, staring at his trembling hands. It—the Lesser Name attached to his soul—had tricked him. But how. . . ? The voices had been real; he was sure of that much.
He slumped down, resting his back against the railing.
Never again.
No matter what happened!
He would never allow himself to do something that stupid again.
Daemonology was the doom of his past.
The Dust was enough.
Please, God, let it be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Escape
Enk held the bottom of the driver’s seat of the carriage, idly wondering if Lulu, who gripped the reins with the repose of someone bedeviled by unspoken concerns, meant to kill them both. The carriage lurched down the street under her not so gentle ministrations, and the four horses tethered to the front lengthen their strides, taking another sharp turn on the wet, city streets.
“Perhaps we should—” Enk began, only to shut his mouth as the carriage came precariously close to tipping onto its side. He tightened his hold and loosed an unmanly scream.
All four wheels returned to the earth, and a groan came from the carriage interior, where the injured driver now rested no more comfortably than Enk, it seemed.
“The reins, now.” Enk held out his hand.
She frowned at him, the outer edges of her back-length hair soaked through, yet no less golden in hue, a counterpoint to the all-consuming gloom. Enk held his breath. Extraordinary. Eyes, like moon lit stars.
Look how treacherous the human heart is. Look!
Lulu snorted and passed the rei
ns to him. The team neighed at the yank of their bridles, then they slowed, drawing the black carriage behind them at a much reduced pace. The lamps affixed to the driver’s seat rattled less annoyingly, and a deep breath was expelled from the unseen interior.
“You best shut it in there or,” Lulu began, turning to face the back.
Enk touched her arm, and she stopped. “We need to talk,” he said, answering the question in her eyes.
“Well, talk then,” she said, using her sleeve to wipe the mess the rain had made of her cosmetics.
Enk swallowed. He knew what he had to do, but had no idea how or where to begin. Choices had consequences. “I try to live my life by a strict code.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, speaking before he could continue. “I’m being difficult, I realize that. But I’m not angry with you. Unlike me, you at least put up a fight back there. If Cat wasn’t with me, I would have done better.”
“I have no doubt about that fact.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t try to appease me with niceties. I’m not like any girl you know, I prefer silence to false comfort and darkness to fictitious light.”
Enk brushed the rainwater from his forehead. “Silence is an under appreciated phenomena. Unrecognized. . . . I mean. . . .”
“What?” Lulu asked, her expression of one of perplexity.
Enk frowned down at numb hands wrapped about leather reins—his hands. What was wrong with him? Why was he avoiding this?
“Are you. . . ?” Lulu shook her head and smirked. “You have the look of a boy working up the courage to ask for his sweetheart’s hand in marriage. What’s wrong?”
“Do you think Suni spoke true?” he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. Coward.
“Now, that is a question of some significance.” Lulu paused with her head tilted up to face the sky, eyes closed. “I’m not sure. A part of me hopes his information proves false. Whatever task he needs Tizkar for won’t be to anyone’s benefit but his own.” Her upturned brow wrinkled. “And after all the work we’ve all done to uncover the Scarlet Apron’s identity, it just feels wrong to have it given to us.”
It was impossible to tell for sure, but Enk thought there were tears as well as rain streaming down her face.
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