by Cate Tiernan
“Remember—they’re immortals up there.” Daisuke’s voice was pitched so low that a chipmunk five feet away couldn’t have heard it. “Obviously it would be easier if they were mortal—easier to kill and able to be killed at a distance.”
“We need that bowler-hat thingy from that James Bond movie,” I whispered. “We could just throw it from far away and cut off someone’s head.”
Both men looked at me silently, then Daisuke went on as if I hadn’t spoken. Fine. A girl tries to help.
“We’ll come up behind them, so stealth is imperative.”
Roberto nodded. I was like, Duh.
Nodding at my sword, Daisuke said, “Aim for the throat. Stick it in. Swing sideways as hard as you can. Have you ever cut off someone’s head?”
I shook my head, feeling a little sick. “I’ve seen it done.”
“It’s harder than you expect,” Roberto said softly. “Hitting bone is a shock. The trick is to slam all your power behind it.”
Okay, I was going to throw up. Grotesque memories of poor Katy peppered my brain like birdshot. I nodded, trying to breathe.
“I was glad to see that they look human and not like wraiths or evil spirits,” Roberto said in a low voice.
I stared at him. “Evil spirits was a possibility? I thought people were kidding!”
Again they looked at me. I gazed at my feet and tried not to burst into hysterical tears.
“Let’s go,” Daisuke said, and started to climb metal rungs set into the earth.
I followed Daisuke, and Roberto followed me. There was a trapdoor at the top. Daisuke turned a metal latch and then very, very slowly pushed up on it. For a few moments it didn’t budge, but then a small shower of dirt sprinkled down on us, interspersed with bits of leaves and twigs. Silently Daisuke slithered out through a narrow opening while I held the trapdoor open for him.
After thirty seconds of silence, his quiet voice floated down to us. “Okay. Come up.”
My heart in my throat, I held my sword to one side and climbed out. I was clammy with fear, my grip on my sword hilt tense and aching. Was it too late to run away?
Then I remembered that Reyn already thought I was a big coward.
Crap. Crappity crap crap.
As silently as possible, I climbed out and got to my feet fast. Out there it was as dark as the inside of a barrel—some distance away, past the chicken coop, I saw the house. It was already on fire. The flames made it easier to see the dark forms ringing it—some were on the porch, still trying to hack in the spelled front door; others were shouting harshly.
“Hey.” Roberto touched my shoulder, and I startled. “You okay?”
I blinked and whispered back, “Yeah. Just—four hundred years later, my village is still under attack.”
He nodded wryly. “Ever will men go to war, for all reasons or none.” It sounded like a quote.
Daisuke pointed to the right. I looked but didn’t see anything. Next to me, Roberto nodded, so I squinted again and peered through the trees. Still nothing. Then—a hint of a shadow moved from one tree to another. As I stared, it happened again.
Reyn. Coming toward the house from behind the big barn. Over by where we parked the cars, Joshua would be coming out with Amy.
Daisuke raised his eyebrows at us, and Roberto nodded somberly.
“These people corrupted your friend so that he would kill you.” Daisuke’s words were like feathers in the night air. “They have killed at least twenty immortals around the world, that we know about. They’re promoting dark magick, causing evil and destruction where they go. Now they’re here to destroy River’s Edge. If they can, they will kill you, and all of us besides.” His almond-shaped eyes looked into mine. “Nastasya—these people mailed you Incy’s head in a box.”
My blood turned to liquid nitrogen, and my breath stopped short. All I could see was the darkness of Daisuke’s eyes.
I breathed out and nodded. “Let’s go cut off their heads.”
CHAPTER 31
I wish I could tell you that I became a Valkyrie, striding soundlessly through the woods, blending with the shadows of night. That I fearlessly ran forward, sword held high, to smite evil and defend the good and the righteous.
And really—I should tell you that. You’d never know the difference. How would you check up? It’s not like “Weird Battle Takes Place in Small Massachusetts Town” was ever going to appear in the Herald, with interviews from locals and eyewitnesses.
But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t glorious; I didn’t feel righteous. It was horrible and terrifying, and I would have happily weaseled out of it at any moment if I could have gotten away with it.
Daisuke did move like a shadow, like a wraith, through the darkness of night. I followed him, matching my strides to his longer ones, stepping only where his feet had been because he could cross the woods without making a sound.
I couldn’t hear Roberto behind me, but when I glanced back, he was right there, his handsome face still and cold, barely outlined by a sliver of moon. I must have looked pinch-faced and petrified, because he suddenly smiled and breathed, “How about when this is over, you and me get a bottle of champagne, put on Jefferson Airplane, and see what kind of far-out vibes we make?”
My eyes narrowed, and I suddenly felt ready to kill things. Roberto laughed soundlessly. Daisuke touched my arm, and I followed him.
“Burn it all!”
The guttural voice went right through me. Right in front of us, the mob of attackers suddenly split off, some grabbing branches and lighting their ends from the house fire. Two of them ran toward the chicken coop, not six feet from where we stood. This close, their faces lit by fire, I didn’t recognize them. They weren’t from my past, and I felt relief.
Without speaking, Daisuke stepped out quickly and grabbed one. Before the man could scream, Daisuke pulled his saber and swung down with ferocious strength. The man’s head dropped to the ground like a bowling ball, spurting blood all over the tender, new spring grass under our feet. I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying not to shriek, jumping out of the way of the pulsing blood coming from his neck. The blood smelled hot and coppery in the chilly evening air, foul and disturbing among the fresh scents of the woods.
Oh God I can’t do this I can’t do this I really can’t….
Roberto had efficiently and silently taken care of the other one, and he was now kicking dirt over his torch to smother the flames. Like a zombie I did the same to the other torch while Daisuke wiped the blood off his sword. The men looked at each other.
“Two down,” said Daisuke, sounding very sad.
Roberto nodded.
Just get through, Nas. Get through, don’t get killed. It will all be over soon.
But not soon enough.
Daisuke took a deep breath, nodded at us, then tore out from behind the coop. His saber raised, he screamed a horrible, unintelligible war cry that sounded like an animal being gutted. As if pulled by a string, I followed him, my own sword raised. The only thing I could think of to yell was what my siblings and I had shouted at each other when we played war with wooden swords that my father’s captain had made for us. It was in Icelandic, and as my voice got carried forward, several men snapped their heads around to look.
They were taken unaware, and Daisuke beheaded two of them before some of the others even reacted. All around us were the soul-chilling sounds of battle: the unexpectedly loud clashing of blade upon blade; fighters grunting and hissing with effort; shouted swears and curses. The sudden indrawn breath of someone getting run through with a sword. Hate-filled invectives spewing from a mouth that went slack when its head left its body. The stomach-churning, heavy thud of a head hitting the ground, and the weighty, sack-of-potatoes slump of its body following it.
Someone ran at me, screeching, a sword swinging up. The hours of practice with Reyn took over, and I moved as if this were just another exercise, ducking and backing up so that the whistle of the blade missed my ear by inches. Spinning on on
e heel, I used both hands to swing my sword up as Reyn’s voice mocked me in my head. Use all your strength, you sissy! You’re not trying to tickle someone!
I slashed sideways as hard as I could and connected solidly with my attacker’s shoulder—my angle had been completely off. But it was enough to slice deeply into his shoulder, almost severing his arm, and that hand dropped his weapon. Rage filled me—that they were here to ruin our peaceful life, that they thought they had the right to destroy things and take what wasn’t theirs. With a roar I didn’t even recognize, I wedged my sword up out of his body, changed my angle, and slashed sideways with all my strength.
And cut off my first head.
Hot, bitter bile rose in the back of my throat, making me gag. But someone else was almost upon me. I raised my sword automatically, crying out as it connected so heavily with his blade that it stunned my arm up to my shoulder. My hand felt numb and tingly, but I ignored it and swung backward.
“You won’t have the height or strength to best your opponent,” Reyn had said. “Unless you’re attacked by a child, or a gnome.” I’d made a face at him. “You’ll have to rely on speed, accuracy, and surprise. So move around, try to be unpredictable. Never present a face-on target.”
In a ridiculous attempt to be unpredictable, I spun so my back was to him and raised my sword fast over my head. It connected again, and when I quickly turned, I saw blood streaming from my attacker’s skull. Rage filled his eyes, and he grabbed my arm because I’d made the mistake of getting too close. In an instant I’d kicked back and high with my left foot and got him hard in his package, which, immortal or no, was enough to make any man pause. Before I could even raise my sword, Roberto leaped over, chopped off his head, then returned to his own battle.
“You are nothing!” The woman’s hiss made me whirl in surprise. A tall, blond figure was rushing at me, and in a split second I recognized the creepy woman I had seen in town, at the drugstore and out on the street. Adrenaline reignited in my veins as she came at me with her short sword, barely more than a dagger, pointed right at my stomach. Without thinking I swung viciously out and to the left, hitting her neck and almost severing her head—right as she buried her dagger in my gut almost up to the hilt.
Her head lolled grotesquely to one side, held on by a sliver of skin, and her knees buckled. I looked down at my stomach in surprise, wondering why the hilt was sticking to me like that. Then a shocking wave of pain swept me from head to boot, making me gasp, turning my blood to ice water, making sweat pop out on my forehead.
The woman had slumped sideways on the ground, but she was blinking up at me and smiling even as blood began to run out of her mouth. “Þú ert ekkert,” she said in Icelandic. “You are nothing.” Her words were wheezy, barely comprehensible, her cut airways making blood bubble around her lips.
Daisuke was there immediately and finished the job by slicing neatly, almost delicately, through her remaining nerves and skin and edging her head away with his foot. It took many seconds for the light in her eyes to die, for her sardonic smile to go slack.
“Nastasya!” he said, one hand on my shoulder.
I blinked and slid my eyes sideways to his face, afraid that even that motion would hurt.
“The battle continues. You must fight,” he said. His face was traced with ribbons of spewed blood. His voice made little puffs of vapor in the air.
I looked at him, my ears full of a rushing sound.
“Nastasya! Listen: This will not kill you.” He motioned to the dagger sticking out of me. “I know it hurts, but pain is just a feeling, and feelings cannot hurt you. Do you understand?”
I was drawing in shallow breaths over teeth locked a quarter inch apart.
“Do you understand?”
I couldn’t nod.
“This will hurt,” he said, and with one smooth motion he pulled the dagger out and stuck it through his belt, my blood dripping off it.
A sickening tremble went through my body; my knees almost buckled, and I was shivering, colder than I had ever felt.
“Daisuke!”
Roberto’s loud cry made Daisuke turn, his sword already coming up. It met the person lunging at him, plunging right through his throat. With only one hand, Daisuke swung his sword to the left, then the right, and that was another immortal taken care of.
“Nastasya!” Daisuke almost shouted. “We need you! You must ignore your wound and fight! Or stand here and die.” His last words were quieter, and got through to the keening animal inside me. I managed to nod.
An enormous blast surprised us; the front door had been blown open. Several attackers flew through the air, off the porch, to land heavily on the ground. Somehow, Joshua and Amy were there, blades flashing with reflected fire. Amy looked ruthless and determined as she held someone down with her foot and slashed at his neck.
I didn’t die. I kept going. I followed Daisuke as he ran to the back of the house. Every step almost made me faint with searing pain and fear. I couldn’t help glancing down to see blood running down my front, soaking my sweatshirt and jeans.
The only time Daisuke paused was when we had to run past Solis’s body.
Attackers charged forward to meet us. Daisuke hacked at a smaller figure as she raced up, and when she faltered, I swung my sword. The pain of the movement made me retch, but I was scared to lean down and make myself an easier target. A tall, dark man surged past me, toward Roberto, screeching like a wounded jackal. It was the Indian man, the creepy blond woman’s companion.
My angle was off and I was a half step too far away, but I took a big stride forward and swung at him sideways, chopping into his side. It slowed him enough for Daisuke to turn and finish the job.
My face felt cold and wet. I hadn’t realized I was crying. All I wanted was to see Reyn and River okay, not hurt, not dead.
Fast footsteps seemed to come out of the night air. We turned but not quickly enough. Someone hacked at Roberto, giving a bellow of rage. Daisuke was already on the attacker and kicked him to the ground, then furiously sliced off his head. I heard the blade hit bone and winced, then turned to make sure Roberto was okay. He wasn’t there. He’d disappeared. Numbly I looked around, but it wasn’t until I saw Daisuke’s dismayed face that I thought to look down.
Roberto’s body lay at my feet, his head a few feet away. His handsome face was slack with death, expressionless. River’s youngest brother was dead.
I leaned over and threw up.
“We must help the others,” Daisuke said almost kindly. Taking my arm, he set off, towing me like a millstone behind him. With one arm I wiped my chin, but I kept on my feet. I pushed myself far beyond any limit I’d imagined, lightheaded, in shock, and in such pain that I couldn’t get two thoughts together.
There was no one alive on the far side of the house, so we continued to the front. It was so tempting to just fall face-first into the dirt and lie there crying, but if I did that, no doubt someone would come along and cut off my pathetic head.
The front of the house was quiet except for the hissing and creaking of the weatherboards as the house burned. Asher was on the porch heading toward the front door, but he turned to see us.
I was relieved to see Amy there, though she looked shocked and bloody, and one arm was hanging limply at her side. Brynne was swaying on her feet, her beautiful face laid bare along one cheekbone, blood coloring her shoulder and side. She saw me, my blood-soaked front, and her ruined face crumpled. She held out one hand, and I gripped it weakly, so glad to see her alive.
But where was Reyn? Where was River?
Asher saw Daisuke and looked behind him for Roberto. Daisuke shook his head. Asher paled, his skin white beneath the blood and dirt. Then he saw my stomach, my green face, my eyes like black wells.
“Where’s Anne?” Daisuke said.
“I don’t know,” Asher replied, his face grim. “Jess didn’t make it.”
“We saw Solis.” It took a few seconds to recognize the thin, reedy voice as mine.
“Oh no,” said Amy.
Of our number, Jess, Solis, and Roberto were dead. I was afraid to ask about the people dearest to my heart, the people I didn’t want to live without, in the literal sense of the words.
Where was Reyn? Oh my God, if I saw his body lying somewhere—the thought that he might be dead made me panic more than the horror I’d confronted so far. The question came to my lips, but I held it back—as long as I didn’t know, there was a chance he was alive. If someone confirmed he was dead, I didn’t know what I would do. Better not to know.
The front door was ablaze, the old wood burning easily. Paint curled off in strips, browning and then blackening from the flames. I started up the steps, determined to go inside with them.
A force welled from the fiery door, holding me in place and making Asher and Daisuke stagger. Then a tall, heavyset figure strode right through the fire, pulling a smaller person by one arm: River. Her face was bruised, blood trickled from her nose, and she seemed dazed. Asher lunged toward her, but the big man held out one hand and invisibly knocked him sideways. He scrambled to stay on his feet.
Behind them, a tall, thin woman came through the flames as if they were Halloween decorations. Anne followed her, seeming barely conscious, head down, stumbling as she crossed the threshold. Anne’s and River’s faces looked singed, but the others were untouched.
My hand gripped my sword hilt. Tension rose all around me: Joshua, Asher, Daisuke—their muscles were tightening and coiling.
When the man stepped forward, the slight spring moon shone on his face. I frowned. He was big and burly, like a warhorse, with close-cropped red gold hair and a fashionably short goatee. Some mote of thought struggled in my consciousness, like a firefly in a jar that was running out of oxygen.
That red gold hair…
Almost immediately his eyes lit on me, locked on me like lasers.
“Lilja af Úlfur.” The deep, bearlike voice went with his size.
The firefly in my brain flickered. I became aware of a growing warmth under my sweatshirt. I’d been icy and clammy since I’d gotten stabbed, but this warmth emanating from the center of my chest seemed to thaw the worst of the cold. The unbearable, shredding pain in my gut dimmed a tiny bit.
