Soulkeeper Page 51

  Devin wanted no part of that, and he doubted his sister did, either. He cast his torch to the ground and readied his weapons. Jacaranda twirled her daggers, and Puffy reluctantly hopped off the torch and glared with his beady black eyes. Devin could not interpret the strange man’s look. Was he disgusted by them, or was it merely pity?

  “Let her go,” Devin said. “I won’t ask you again.”

  “Indeed, you won’t,” Janus said. “I gave you a chance, which should be enough for Viciss to find me faultless in what I do next. Let statues of gold and silver bear witness to the coming miracle. We have no need of a living audience.”

  Janus’s right hand elongated into a sharpened blade. He smiled, eager for battle. In return, Devin shot him in the face with his pistol. It should have been lethal, but his lead bullet was a weapon for a different world, not this land of magic and power. Janus’s face and neck molded from flesh to steel the instant his finger pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off his cheek, leaving not a dent.

  “Come now,” he said. “I offer swordplay and you betray me with a cowardly shot? I thought Soulkeepers were to be the most honorable of humans.”

  “You kidnapped my sister,” Devin said as he readied his sword. “Forgive me for thinking you’d prefer anything resembling a fair fight.”

  “Keep him surrounded,” Jacaranda said softly as she stepped up beside him. “Our only hope is the magic of the others.”

  “Understood,” Devin said, as much as he hated the feeling of uselessness.

  The two rushed the madman. Janus tilted his head to one side, as if amused by their teamwork. His other arm twisted into a second blade, just as brilliantly sharp as the first. The next thirty seconds passed in a blur. Devin cut and slashed wholly on the offensive. Janus made no attempts to counter or seize initiative. He merely parried and blocked, feeling out their speed, each individual arm moving as if they were of separate minds. Twice Devin thought he could shatter those thin sword arms with the weight and power of his sword. Neither time did those powerful downward chops even dent the fine edge of the blade.

  Jacaranda feinted a dual thrust, sidestepped, and then slashed for his shoulder. Janus rotated his upper body underneath, twisted so his hip slammed into Devin’s hip, and came out of the turn slashing. Devin barely blocked in time, otherwise his head would have gone rolling across the floor. Jacaranda pressed again, thinking herself at an advantage with Janus’s back to her. It was a lie. Janus pulled his hair off his head as if it were a wig, and three more eyes sprouted from his smooth, bald skull.

  Jacaranda was so taken aback that she faltered in her footsteps, sapping her thrust of power. Janus trapped her extended arm between his elbow and his side.

  “Your design limits you,” Janus said. “I share no such weakness.”

  Devin swung his heavy sword in a chop at the opposite angle. Janus blocked it, twisted his sword arm so the sword slid along the bladed edge, and then kicked Devin in the chest. Jacaranda jammed the dagger of her free arm at Janus’s spine. It pierced the jacket but not the set of silver scales that emerged from underneath the tearing skin. Janus released her arm, spun to face her, and slashed with both arms. She moved to block, but suddenly the swords were not swords but whips. The leather cords easily bypassed her meager block. Tongs lashed her skin, and she screamed at the pain.

  “Glaeis astam,” Tommy shouted. An ice spear formed above his head and shot straight for Janus’s chest. Janus’s whips reverted back to pink flesh, and he caught the spear on its travel. It melted into water in an instant, the spear doing little harm besides wetting his jacket.

  “Was hoping for better than that,” Tommy said. He started to cast another spell but Janus was ready for him now. Devin and Jacaranda converged from either side, attempting to be a distraction. It didn’t matter. Janus was faster. He was the one fully in charge of the battle. Before Tommy could even finish another syllable Janus had crossed the distance between them.

  “You steal power that is not yours to wield,” Janus said as he rammed a fist into Tommy’s gut. His other hand clutched Tommy’s face, his fingers digging into skin. Little streaks of yellow lightning arched across where they touched, but Janus seemed not to notice the same power that had flung Devin across the room back in Crynn’s tower. “Your words are treacherous leeches. Choke on them.”

  Tommy’s entire body shuddered. His eyes widened, and suddenly he began to gag.

  “You-you-you-let-him-go!” Tesmarie screamed, her moonlight blade a constant swirl of light carving rings across Janus’s arm from wrist to elbow. His jacket exploded into fragments. Pale blood trickled from the wounds that quickly resealed. It was enough to cause Janus to release poor Tommy, who collapsed to his knees and violently hacked and coughed. Blood trickled down his lips. He hitched, his face turned blue, and then he vomited. Black lumps squirmed amid the mess.

  Leeches. Tommy was vomiting leeches.

  “Learn your place, fae,” Janus said. He caught Tesmarie by the ankles, struck her against his wrist to daze her, and then flung her across the room. She hit the soft ground and rolled, her pathetic whimper enough to spur Devin back to his feet.

  “Get away from him,” he said. “You’re nothing but a monster.”

  “A monster?” Janus asked. He laughed at the insult. His fingers passed over his opal teeth, sharpening them into jagged points that would look more at home within the mouth of a lion. “Must you insult what you do not understand, human, or should I act the part to spare you the trouble?”

  Jacaranda sprinted toward Tommy’s choking form, but Janus spun her way and wagged a clawed finger.

  “His fate is sealed,” Janus said. “Worry for your own.”

  He leapt at them, his bare chest now a wall of muscled fur. His hands bore claws thicker than a bear’s. Devin slashed and cut with his sword, his cuts barely drawing blood. Janus countered with a painful slash across Devin’s arm. Blood poured down the interior of his jacket. That’d definitely need stitches, assuming he lived long enough to treat his wounds. Devin scored a cut on Janus’s arm, earning him a brief reprieve, and Jacaranda dove in to take advantage.

  It seemed Janus was merely toying with them. What Jacaranda thought was an opening was merely a trap. His knee found her stomach, his meaty fists her chest. She staggered back, her breath momentarily sapped from her lungs. Devin swung another high chop at Janus’s neck, knowing he had to distract the madman lest he slaughter Jacaranda where she stood.

  “Persistent, aren’t you?” Janus asked as he caught Devin’s sword arm at the wrist. His other hand latched onto Devin by the scruff of his shirt. Devin’s free hand grabbed him in kind and he tried to yank himself free, but it felt like wrestling with a mountain. He kicked and kneed to no avail. This frightening relic of a forgotten past did not care in the slightest. The fabric of Devin’s shirt stiffened. Changing. Becoming fur.

  “Monsters,” Janus said. His own face elongated like a wolf’s. “Shall I make you what you believe I am, Soulkeeper?”

  Puffy leapt atop Janus’s back, scurried to his neck, and then flared with heat. Flesh burned but a moment before Janus twisted and reached for the firekin. His hand turned to ice, his burning shoulder immutable stone. Puffy struggled to keep a hold, but its size visibly dwindled in proximity to the ice. Blue fingers closed about its shrinking body.

  “I always heard you firekin were the most reckless of Aethos’s children,” Janus said. “Why risk death to protect these meager beasts?”

  Janus had released Devin’s sword hand to swipe at Puffy. Was that how little he feared the steel blade? Perhaps so, but Devin would not waste the chance. He pulled his sword back and thrust, not for any vitals, but that blue hand. Devin might not be able to pierce steel, but he sure as the stars above could crack some ice.

  His sword pierced through one of Janus’s fingers and split his thumb in half. Puffy wiggled free as Janus cried out in pain. He flailed his arm, the ice turning to bark just before making contact with Devin’s
face. The impact sent Devin rolling across the ground, blood spilling from his scraped cheek. Goddesses above, Janus hit with the strength of a dozen men. He dragged himself up to his knees and sucked in a ragged breath. This fight couldn’t last much longer. He had to end it now. He slipped his fingers into a pouch on his belt and palmed the special flamestone Tommy had given him.

  This better work, he thought as he slid the vibrant ball into the chamber and fully cocked the hammer.

  “More bullets?” Janus asked as he approached. His face and neck shimmered as they hardened back into steel. His missing fingers regrew from the base of his hand. “I thought you’d learned.”

  “Forgive a stubborn human,” Devin said. “I thought I’d try something new.”

  The hammer dropped, its sharp spike splitting the flamestone in half. It erupted inside the barrel as normal, but this time its kick was like a mule’s against his arm and shoulder. A tiny shimmering red orb shot from the barrel and crossed the distance between him and Janus in the blink of an eye. The moment it touched his black coat it erupted into a tremendous plume of fire, charring the entire upper half of Janus’s body as if he had bathed in oil. An explosive force immediately followed, ripping off pieces of flesh and flinging Janus several feet through the air. The vicious man hobbled to his feet upon landing and fled toward one of the side tunnels, his shoulder and neck still aflame.

  Jacaranda rushed to Tommy’s side and pried open his mouth now that Janus no longer stood guard over him. She dipped her fingers into his throat, grimaced, and then yanked out three more leeches. Tommy immediately sucked in air, and the color returned to his face.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Tommy said, his voice weak and flimsy. “Just a little traumatized, but otherwise I’m good.”

  Devin staggered to his feet. Half of him thought to chase after Janus. The other half wanted to return to his sister. In the end, Janus made the decision for him. Once within a side tunnel Janus grabbed a side of the wall and pulled a layer of stone off as if it were as malleable as a cloth curtain. He stretched it from one side of the tunnel to the other, and then it solidified into a barrier of pure steel, safely locking him on the other side.

  “Forget him,” Jacaranda said. She pulled on Devin’s arm. “We have to get your sister out of there.”

  They ran back to the flesh-and-metal heart. Smoky water had enveloped the entire inner chamber, yet somehow Adria continued to draw breath.

  “How do we open it?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she shouted. “Janus was the one who closed it around me.”

  “A spell,” Devin said, whirling on Tommy. “Surely you can use a spell?”

  “But… but… but nothing’s safe,” Tommy insisted. “What should I do? Melt her inside that tube thing while trying to burn her out? Lightning will conduct, and any blunt object could easily crush her if strong enough to break the outer membrane.”

  Devin felt his rage growing with his helplessness.

  “Um, maybe I can try this?” Tesmarie said. She ran a loop around the heart, her moonlight sword carving into the metal. It only showered the area with sparks and barely left a dent. Swords did nothing. Magic put Adria more at risk than not. No door. No opening. What in Anwyn’s name were they to do to get her out?

  Whatever process Janus had begun reached critical mass. The floor shook with a tremendous beat, and then again a few seconds later. Then again. And again. A true heartbeat. Veins throughout the dome pulsed with electricity. The beams pulsing through the nine tunnels expanded with a tremendous roar of power, each one as large as a man’s arm. Lightning streaked through the air above, erupting without any visible source or destination.

  Adria pressed her forehead to the membrane so he might hear her better.

  “Leave me,” she said. “You have to go. It’s too dangerous.”

  Devin would not move. It did not matter that his hair lifted toward the ceiling. It did not matter he tasted copper on his tongue and smelled a powerful stench of ozone and blood.

  “I’m not abandoning you,” he swore.

  “Listen to me,” she shouted. “Devin, listen.”

  Thin strands of electricity sparked off the metal of his sword and pistol. He paid them no mind. Adria’s gaze was as powerful as the storm above.

  “Do not die here with me, do you understand? Do not die here. Go. Run.”

  “Come on, Devin,” Tommy said, pulling on his arm. “Do as she says.”

  The others had already fled, and his brother-in-law did not even wait to see if he followed when he released his coat and joined them. Devin put his forehead to the translucent flesh and spoke above the din.

  “I love you, Adria,” he told her. “You’ll live through this, you hear me? You’ll live.”

  Adria smiled at him despite her fear.

  “Run, you damn fool.”

  Devin fled to the tunnel they’d entered from. The others waited for him there, and once he exited the chamber he turned to watch the culmination of all that had been put in motion. The interior chamber steadily brightened, the blue replaced with sparkling white light. It swelled with power. It pulsed with magic. The cavernous dome trembled, and all at once a beam of light ripped from the ground to the ceiling. The steel heart ruptured into pieces. Adria lifted to the air, the swirling beam of starlight tearing through her physical body. That beam splashed across the massive dome and swirled into a tremendous vortex of light. Higher and higher she rose, her head flung back, her arms out at either side, a long, singular scream pouring out of her throat.

  Beat, beat, beat. It came not just from the floor, but from the chamber’s domed ceiling. Its walls. Air sucked in with the beams from the other tunnels. Devin had never before felt so small and worthless. He was a parasite inside a massive heart. He was an ignorant savage watching the cosmic substance of eternity. The noise and light and wind reached a crescendo, and the beam holding his sister aloft flared so bright he had to turn and look away lest he go blind.

  The light faded. The heartbeat ceased. The chamber plummeted back into darkness, then lit once more with the light of stars pulsing through shrinking veins in the ceiling. Adria slowly floated back to the ground, and she lay atop the broken steel and bloody membrane that had been her cage like a butterfly returning to its cocoon. All was still, and the silence was as deafening as the tempest that preceded it.

  Devin raced to her side and flung his arms around her. Little shocks of electricity leapt from her body to his, but he didn’t care. The pain meant nothing. What meant everything was the slow and steady inhalations of his sister’s chest.

  “She lived,” Devin whispered. Tears of relief fell from his eyes. The others joined them, and they quietly shared in his happiness.

  “What did it do?” Jacaranda asked.

  “This chamber, the tunnel… surely they were constructed with a goal in mind,” Tommy said. “As to what… I can’t even guess.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Devin said, and he kissed his sister’s forehead. Theories could wait. Fear for the future did not matter to him in the present. No matter what had happened, it was a far cry from the terror his imagination had unleashed upon his mind over the past day. “Adria’s alive. All else can come later. For now, we take her home.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Devin heard a soft rustle behind him, and he knew it was a courtesy. If Jacaranda desired so, he’d have never heard her climb to the roof of his house.

  “Come to join me?” he asked. The woman crossed the snow-covered rooftop to sit beside him.

  “If you wanted solitude, I figure your room is more convenient than a rooftop,” she said.

  Devin laughed halfheartedly. His mind felt raw. Too many emotions. Too much confusion. If he slept for the next twenty-four hours he doubted it’d be enough to fully recover.

  “You’ll only mock me if I tell you why,” he said.

  “Give me some credit, Devin. I’m a better person than that.”
/>
  He sighed. Fine.

  “Remember when I said I didn’t take it well when Brittany died? Well, in the midst of that depression I climbed to the roof and screamed at the Sisters at the top of my lungs. The addled logic was that by being higher up, I was closer to the stars, so maybe there’d be a fractionally better chance they’d hear…”

  Jacaranda smiled, and Devin jabbed a finger toward her.

  “See? I told you that you’d mock me.”

  “I’m not mocking,” she said. “I’m only smiling.”

  “Smiling counts.”

  She threw up her hands.

  “If smiling is mockery, then I mock you daily.”

  “Good thing I’m used to it.”

  Jacaranda elbowed him in his side. The motion drew her closer to him, and he noticed she scooted herself so that their thighs and shoulders touched.

  “Anyway,” Devin said. “Ever since that night I’ve come up here when I need to be alone. It might be only symbolic, but I do feel closer to the Sisters, and the troubles below me feel the tiniest bit farther away.”

  Jacaranda’s head settled against his breast. Her right hand slowly traced along his neck and chest with her fingertips, as if tentatively exploring the touch of his coat, his shirt, and his skin.

  “Would you like me to leave so you may be alone, then?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  Some time passed as they huddled together against the cold. Devin stared at the sharp, angular rooftops, but his mind was always on Jacaranda’s presence beside him. Her warmth against his chest was a ray of sunlight during the spring thaw. Devin tried to remember his life before the black water washed over Dunwerth. It was simpler, certainly, but in hindsight he didn’t know how he endured those months, no, those years of traveling the roads alone. No one to confide his troubles in. No one to be strong when he was weak.