by C. E. Murphy
Hank moved well when he wanted to, for a man with a bad leg. She could see the limp in his gait as he ran, but it hardly slowed him, and he vaulted into the sparring ring like the athlete he must have once been. He had something in his mouth, something short and blunt that he'd taken out while running, but Rosie couldn't see what it was. Doherty turned toward him, hissing with laughter, and Harrison Vaughn threw a punch that would have flattened any mortal man. It staggered Doherty, whose gaze snapped back to the older Vaughn with all laughter wiped away. Even Rosie, who had never seen a killing blow she hadn't herself dealt, could tell from the way Doherty raised his fist that Harrison wouldn't be getting up from the next hit. She shot into a run, far too late now, but hadn't made it more than a handful of steps when Hank jumped on Doherty's back and slapped a palm-sized piece of canvas against Doherty's forehead. Doherty screamed, and underneath it, Hank shouted incomprehensible words. The thing he'd held in his mouth fell. Harrison scrambled for it and came up with a pen and a befuddled expression. Hank, riding Doherty's back like a child playing horse, flailed for the pen. Harrison slapped it into Hank's palm and balled up a fist for another hit as Hank scrawled something on the canvas. Doherty's screams turned panic-stricken, pain-filled, and then silent.
He shriveled. Rosie skidded to a halt, staring in fascinated horror. She couldn't tell where it started, at his head or his feet or both, but Doherty collapsed in on himself, sucked upward toward the canvas smeared across his forehead. The disintegration looked like it should have sound, but Rosie couldn't hear anything over her own breathing, over the Vaughns' breathing, over the wind that moaned through open spaces at the top of the building. Still, it looked like joints should pop audibly, like bones should crack and skin tear with awful clarity. She couldn't tell how fast it happened, either: a blink of an eye and a drawn-out eternity all at once. Hank hung there in the air like he still clung to Doherty's back, even when Doherty seemed mostly gone. Then it ended with a noise like a small explosion, and Hank crashed to the boxing ring's floor. He coiled up, the bit of canvas crushed against his right knee as he clutched it with both hands. Rosie could hear his breathing now, strained with pain, and Harrison Vaughn dropped to the floor beside his son to gather him close.
A staccato clap echoed across the room, sending Rosie in a spin to see where it came from. Senator Haas's smooth politician's voice came out of the dark before he did, amusement thickening it. "What a show, Hank. What a performance. Very heroic, rushing in to save your father. We're all very impressed."
Hank, muffled against Harrison's leg, growled, "We?" and Valentine Vaughn emerged from the shadows.
✪ ✪ ✪
She had a little army with her. Senator Haas, whose oily good looks were greasier than ever, fell in one step behind her, and one step behind him came two others. One was a small, strong-jawed, red-headed woman whose eyes were so flat and calculating that despite her small size, Rosie tightened her grip on the sword and thought she would go for her first. The other, a man, looked just as threatening except that he was more expected and therefore less scary. Behind them was another pair of demons, both men, whose thick necks and dull gazes suggested they were there just for the fight. Finally, behind them came a third pair, the ones Rosie had come for in the first place.
Valentine Vaughn smiled, and at the same time, to the same degree, an uncanny likeness, so did Irene and Rich. She turned her head, taking in her adversaries—all two of them, Rosie thought, since Harrison Vaughn didn't seem likely to be much help, and given the way Hank held his own knee, it might just be Rosie herself against seven demons—and when her head turned, so did Rich and Irene's. Valentine waggled her fingers at Rosie in a coy greeting, with Irene and Rich echoing her. More than echoing, though. They moved in tandem, no visible hesitation between her actions and theirs.
Cold drained through Rosie, turning her knuckles white around the sword hilt. "What did you do to them?"
"Well." Valentine sighed enormously, as though about to relate a complex story that Rich and Irene were obliged to parrot. "I'm sure Hank told you about Redoubling, didn't he, dear? He should have. It takes so much effort, but it can be so very worth it." Her tone changed, flattening. "They're my safety net, Miss Ransom. Part of my essence is in them. You cannot kill me without killing them. You cannot kill them and kill me. If I feel in genuine danger, with the link already established, I can pour myself entirely into one or either of them, leaving this vessel behind. In a few minutes, they'll regain enough autonomy that they'll be able to act on their own, no longer echoing me, but influenced by my will, and then you'll have to go through them to reach me. They were almost embarrassingly easy," she said, undisturbed by Rich and Irene murmuring the words along with her. "So caught up in high emotion, in attraction, in guilt, oh, my, the guilt. It's always easier when there's guilt.
"Ah-ah-ah," she scolded as Rosie edged a step forward. "Remember: kill me and your friends die too, little Redeemer. Really, I insist you allow me to enjoy this. Watch her." She spoke to Haas and the others that time, her voice flattening again. The four of them spread out in a close half-circle, facing Rosie, while Valentine, flanked by Rich and Irene, sauntered to the boxing ring. Rich, especially, moved unnaturally, his every step mimicking Valentine's perfectly. His hips swayed as hers did, and his stride was no longer than hers. Irene's walk wasn't her own, but it didn't look so strange. Watching her step through the ring ropes in perfect synchronicity with Valentine only looked rehearsed, not alien. All three of them crouched together in front of Harrison and Hank, and all three of them reached for Hank's chin, the gesture tipping his head up, although only Valentine herself actually touched him. Hank recoiled.
"My poor darling," Valentine said with a sigh. "You tried so hard. I want you to know it wasn't your fault, Hank. My goodness, what a surprise it was to have you come home from war with so much power. If I'd suspected, really suspected, I'd have done something to press your talent into fruition when you were much younger and more malleable. As it was, I had to work, really work, a few times, to keep you from realizing. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had to work at anything?"
"No." Hank spat the word from a raw throat. "How long? How old are you? Were you ever really my mother?"
Absolute astonishment shifted Valentine's shoulders. "Of course I'm your mother, Harrison Alexander Vaughn! I've always been your mother! What a thing to say!" Her head tilted and her voice changed as she looked at the older Vaughn man. "I wasn't always his wife, mind you. I found her at almost the same time he did. Oh, she was splendid, just splendid. A nurse. A war nurse, no less. So empathetic. I'd been looking for a vessel like her for decades. Centuries! Really, though, Harry. I know I wasn't quite the woman you expected to marry, but you oughtn't have stepped out on me so much. Oh, truly, I'm very disappointed in Doherty. I did expect him to finish you off before the Redeemer got here." She transferred a fond smile to Hank. "Or until Hank did, I suppose. I didn't expect the heroics, darling. Save yourself some trouble, and don't bother with them again."
She rose and kicked Harrison Vaughn in the side of the head so smoothly and swiftly, as such a single motion, that Rosie didn't know it was happening until Vaughn toppled sideways. Rich and Irene echoed the action, an actual echo this time, just a bit slower than Valentine moved, like a line of chorus girls who had gotten their timing off. Hank flinched badly, as if he'd expected to take that kick himself, then twisted in distress, checking his father's fallen form. Apparently Vaughn wasn't dead, because Hank looked up at his mother with anger and confusion, but not rage and grief, contorting his features. "Why did you even marry him, then?"
Valentine's eyes widened. "Oh, he was very rich, sweetheart. Ambitious, intelligent, even handsome, but mostly rich. One war, oh my, that was dreadful, but anyone could see a second war was building. There was just so much opportunity, Hank. Not just making money—although I assure you, at my age, you learn to appreciate a solid nest egg—but all the chaos, the social upheaval? Goodn
ess, who could resist? War is just a wonderful chance to make a power grab, trounce other demons, and blame it all on the humans."
"What?" Rosie's voice cracked on the single word.
Valentine swung to face her, Rich and Irene awkward marionettes in her wake. All three of them smiled brilliantly. "What did you expect, Miss Ransom? That my goal in life was to be one of thousands, eking out a pathetic existence beneath mortal attention? Ten years ago, I was hardly more than that, but in that blink of an eye, Detroit is mine and the rest of the American kings recognize me as a rival for the mid-west's dominion. Your silly war has opened avenues never before available. I wish it would go on forever, but I suppose all good things must come to an end. Imagine, though." She shivered delicately, with her doubles shuddering and twitching along. "Imagine if that odious Hitler had succeeded in destroying all that art. All those old demons released. All that rivalry reintroduced. How utterly appalling. Really, I vastly prefer your little heroes struggling to save the monuments of the world and leaving the playing field clear for the ambitious."
"You kept talking about how awful ambition was," Rosie said faintly. "All that stuff about staying at home with your soldier, like you'd done?"
"Well, for goodness' sakes, Miss Ransom, you could hardly expect me to encourage you to go out demon hunting, could you? You'll get yourself killed and be no use to me at all."
Rosie said, "What?" still faintly, but the four demons between herself and Valentine took their attention from her for the first time, staring instead at Mrs Vaughn. Senator Haas broke their silence, asking the same question Rosie had: "What?"
"Honestly," Valentine said to Rosie, "I thought I'd chosen better with him. He's useful in Washington, but for a creature who's supposed to show some initiative …" She shook her head disdainfully. Rich echoed the gesture, then shook his head harder, like he was trying to rid himself of the impulse to act as Valentine did. A few seconds later, he twitched his shoulders, settling into a stance very like, but not identical, to Valentine's, and smiled at Rosie, Valentine's smile, on his face. The expression fell away as he looked toward Haas, though, and spoke with Valentine's inflections, but no longer at the same time she did. "Of course I knew Miss Ransom was the Redeemer. That kind of awakening leaves a mark, and although I think poor Hank lost the ability to see it within an hour or two, I could still see it when I met her, and when was that? A day after? Two days? She'd done such a splendid job taking care of that odious little vampire that I thought the mouthy ochim should encounter her next. And that Montgomery woman."
Rich transferred his gaze to Harrison Vaughn, then pursed his lips with disappointment. "I should have mentioned she was dead before I kicked you," he said with a sniff. "I suppose I can wait until you wake up."
Rosie whispered, "Oh my God, Rich. Stop it," as, with a shudder of her own, Irene threw off Valentine's echo and turned a similarly disturbing smile toward her.
"I expect he'd like to, but he can't. I can almost hear him, screaming at the back of my mind." Her eyes rolled up and her head tilted, like she was listening, and her smile broadened. "It's lovely, really. Not quite music, but still, music to my ears. Now." Irene sashayed toward Rosie, crooking a finger like they were still confidantes. "I have a proposition for you, Redeemer. You can have these four. Haas and his darling team of useless Enforcers. In exchange, you forget all about little old me, and I promise I'll hardly ever bother you by sending useless demons your way for Redemption."
All four of Valentine's Enforcers exploded into action before Irene had finished speaking. Rosie thought they might just go after Valentine, in revenge for her offering them to Rosie. But the deadly-looking redhead went for Irene, and Rosie paled. Going after Irene was going after Valentine, at least as long as Hank's mother was Redoubled. The Enforcer moved faster than Rosie could, tackling Irene, and the two red-haired women went down in a tumbling heap. Rosie shrieked, flinging herself toward the fray, and hit the floor with a cry as one of the thick-necked fighters tackled her. Her sword bounced out of her hand, skidding across the floor and coming to rest dangerously near where Irene and the other redhead wrestled. Rosie felt the Enforcer's breath on her neck and smashed her head back, connecting with his nose. A crunch and a howl mingled just long enough for her to roll beneath his weight. She boxed his ears, bellowing with rage, and the demonic corruption separated from his soul so quickly that Rosie became dizzy with an influx of dark magic. The demon, or its body, at least, collapsed on top of her. She squirmed out from beneath it, trying not to scream, and scrambled for her lost sword.
A booted foot met her ribs, lifted her, and sent her rolling across the concrete floor. Rosie shoved to her hands and knees, breathing past the pain and almost feeling the muscle and bone reknit in her torso. Knives were flying by the time she got to her feet, the second bulky demon smart enough not to touch her. Rosie flung herself on the floor again, chasing after the blades, and looked frantically for Hank. She could Redeem a soul by killing or touching the host, but the library man had never said whether she could do it without a killing blow, from a distance. Finding out she couldn't, in the middle of a fight, seemed like a bad idea. A knife struck her in the shoulder, driving her to the floor as white-hot pain filled her back. She fumbled for the knife, trying to pull it free. Trying to convince herself it would stop hurting, that it would heal, if she could get the blade out. She would also have something to throw back at the monster, which might be even more important than healing. Every motion sent more waves of nauseating agony down her spine, and she cut her own fingers, dragging the knife out of her shoulder. She rolled onto her back almost blind with pain. A demon stood above her somewhere, and she couldn't see well enough to find and kill it. A laugh wanted to escape, but even the idea hurt. Rosie set her teeth together and shoved herself to sitting, then threw the knife blindly in the direction it had come from.
"Jesus, Rosie!" Hank's shout echoed across the room half a second before metal clanked against concrete. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"Sorry." The pain faded and her vision cleared enough that she saw Hank on his feet beside the boxing ring, lifting one of his guns. Its report thundered through the hard-walled room, as offensive as her throbbing shoulder in its own way, but the thick-necked demon she'd been fighting fell to the floor. Hank kicked the knife she'd thrown back toward her, although it didn't come nearly far enough, and shouted, "Get up! Redeem him before he gets up!"
Rosie lurched to her feet, snatched the knife up, and ran to shove it into the demon's chest without letting herself think about the action. The dance of light and power had barely begun when she turned away, but she felt it rush to completion as she searched for her sword again.
Irene had it in one hand, and the red-haired demon woman in the other. She held the redhead in the air, fingers clenched around the woman's jaw. Even in the bad light, Rosie could see that the other demon's face deforming from the pressure and strength of Irene's grip. Instead of crushing the other woman's face, though, Irene shoved the sword through her ribs and dropped her, letting her own weight gut her. Rosie swallowed a sound of horror as Irene smiled Valentine's smile, shook the demon free of the sword, and looked around as if hoping for another victim.
Rosie looked too, and went cold to discover that in the few seconds she'd been watching Irene, Rich had seized Hank, knotting an arm around his throat. Hank's face was pale, not red: Rich hadn't begun choking him yet, but despite wrenching at Rich's arm and kicking at his knees, Hank obviously couldn't break free. Valentine Vaughn stood in the boxing ring, looking down at them with an expression of curiosity, as if, although her own Redoubled spirit moved Rich, she wasn't entirely sure what he would do with her son. Rich looked as incapable of making a decision, holding Hank immobilized. Rosie, chilled, wondered which of them, Rich or Valentine, wanted Hank dead, and which of them was stopping it from happening. Her hands ached, wanting a weapon or a Redemption, and she didn't even know where to start. Three of Valentine's Enforcers were dead. Irene kept smil
ing, holding the blood-wet sword, and Rich stood locked in paralysis. The fight hadn't even lasted two minutes, Rosie thought, and almost everyone was dead.
"Haas." Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. "Where did Haas go?"
He appeared as if she'd summoned him, dropping from above. Not on her, but on Valentine Vaughn, whose startled scream sounded as human as Rosie's own. Haas's weight bore her to the boxing ring mat, and Rich, shaken free of his paralysis, threw Hank away and leapt up to haul Haas off Valentine. Irene joined him, fluidly, and together they flung Haas halfway across the room, into the shadows. He twisted in the air and landed on three points, facing the fight, but skidded back a distance before catching enough traction to launch himself forward in a run.
Rich jumped the ring ropes to meet Haas's charge. Rosie broke into a run, hoping to catch him, and saw, in glimpses, the chaos unfolding in the boxing ring. Valentine leapt the ropes, bolting for the door that Rosie had been close to. Hank came to his feet, expression grim, and sighted with his pistol, plainly intending to shoot his own mother down. Rosie couldn't even catch enough breath for a scream of protest, but Irene stepped between Hank and his mother, her face a mask of terrified innocence. Rosie's stomach knotted, but Hank faltered. The fear drained from Irene's expression as she backhanded him hard enough to lift him from his feet. He landed in a lump on top of Harrison Vaughn, and Irene turned a toothy grin at Rosie.
Rosie slammed into Rich, tackling him at the knees, the way she'd seen football players do, and heard his head bounce off the concrete like a melon. Haas overshot, missing a killing blow and tumbling head over heels to spin and slide again before getting himself moving toward Rosie again. Rosie leapt to her feet, feeling frantically for weapons, any weapon that would keep the demon from getting his hands on her, then braced for an impact that never came.
