“Bloody hell, Aronson. You’ve killed him.”
“He can’t be that easy to kill.” My cousin stepped in front of me, holding a blood-smeared iron candlestick. “Or someone would have done it a long time ago.”
Might’s presence was still there, but it had shifted to preservation mode, keeping its host alive. My head spun as reality fell into splinters around me.
“Well, get that fucking sword away from him, then, while he can’t fight back.”
“Like hell I can’t fight.” My hand was clamped over the wound, holding the flesh in place. Might would seal it. “Don’t test me.” I saw blood and a pale hand curled in death. “Don’t test me!”
“General Droit — let them take it!”
I put a hand on the ground to steady myself and squinted up at Cardinal Croix, who glowed crimson in the candlelight. The rays of the sun burst around behind him, and for a dizzy moment I expected them to embrace him and pull him backward into some alien void. But the cardinal stood fast, anchored to the cathedral floor with living tissue.
Might throbbed by my side. I tried to stand and stumbled as the world tilted. For a moment I panicked, wondering where I’d land, but my knees hit the floor, of course. Darkness blurred the edges of my vision like a cloud of Yzyrchye’s probing limbs.
“You have to choose.” Croix voice was barely audible over the rushing in my ears.
“C’mon, let’s get it,” Lorencz urged.
“I’ll kill you,” I hissed. Then I flinched. “I’ll kill you! Take it now!”
No! Might hammered its outraged objection against my broken skull. Lorencz’s hand grabbed my wrist as I touched the sword’s hilt. Her other hand locked my free arm behind my back.
“Let go!” I growled. All I had to do was reach around, grab her hair —
No. I didn’t want to do that. Might struggled and I dry-heaved.
“You must get rid of the sword,” Croix insisted.
“Come and get it yourself,” I choked, tasting bile. I wasn’t sure if I was talking to Croix or Kyrchye’s sun or the empty space that hovered between them pregnant with possibility.
“I can’t make your choice for you,” Croix said. “I’m sorry.”
Michael knelt in front of me. I lunged, snapping my teeth at his face, but Lorencz jerked me backward. My cousin’s hands were wet with my blood as he used both hands to pry my fingers off Might’s hilt.
Bale bulged and tore around us.
“Yzyrchye!” I shouted, half in welcome, half in fear.
Croix turned and stepped into the void, opening his arms. I stared, aghast. The cardinal was trying to anchor the bale in place with his own body. Capillaries tore and whipped from side to side, spraying blood, as the gap in the bale-reality tore wider, but more vessels sprang from Croix’s hands and face until he looked like a globe of crimson, knitting the bale back together with his own blood and flesh.
Michael tore Might from its scabbard, turned, and hurled it at the barrier before the sanctuary.
The balesword swept through the invisible wall as if it weren’t there. I lunged for it at the same time as Michael, and we both hit the barrier. Lorencz tackled us both, grabbing the backs of our coats and slamming us to the floor.
“Leave it!” she snapped, holding us down.
The sword clattered to the ground next to Croix, cutting through the cardinal’s anchoring tissue and sending more blood spraying across the room. Croix reached down, his hand a writhing mass of scarlet capillaries, grabbed the sword, and thrust it into the gap.
Might was jerked out of Croix’s hand as if something on the other side of the bale had grabbed it and yanked it away.
And then, released, the bale flowed around the rips in the cathedral-construct and sealed them shut again.
I drew my first free breath in sixteen years.
“That sword….” Michael whispered, rolling over on his back. “That sword was in my head. I could feel it. It was —”
“It was desperate.” I reached out with a shaking hand and patted his leg. “You should have kept it, cuz. We could have passed it back and forth like the family cake dish.”
He looked at me, and I saw in his haunted eyes how easy it would have been for him to succumb to that temptation. If Might had stayed in his hands just a few moments longer, he would have become its next slave.
“Are you two safe now?” Lorencz rolled to her feet with a groan. I mustered a weak laugh, dragging my fingers from Michael’s calf.
“Safer, anyway.”
Lorencz grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. I staggered, steadying myself against her. Fresh blood trickled down my face.
“That looks bad. Don’t touch it.” She turned and helped Michael up.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but…” my cousin shrugged, pretending not to care as he studied my wounds.
“We’re even for that dead kitten,” I warned him.
“I don’t know about that. I liked Misty more than I ever liked you.”
I did my best to grin, even though my stomach was lurching and my eyes struggling to focus. “Funny. I’m starting to like you more and more, cuz.”
“Is that a thank-you?”
“Just an observation.” I staggered to a pew, brushed off the motionless transients, and sat down. “Well, Cardinal…”
“Another demon defeated, General Droit.” Croix’s broken veins and capillaries had sunk back into the floor and walls around him, making him look once more as though he were wearing a red robe and fan-shaped wings. If wings were the color of flayed flesh, anyway. “But you didn’t defeat it alone. Don’t forget that. Your friends had to help you.”
“Does that mean I have to weave them bracelets now?” I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“I’ll settle for a pint and a thank-you,” Lorencz demurred.
“I wouldn’t drink any of the beer here.” I opened my eyes and looked at them. I wanted to go to sleep until my headache went away, but I knew how dangerous that would be. “Thank you.”
Lorencz raised an eyebrow.
“Huh. I didn’t think you were really going to say it.”
“Unlike you, I don’t equate good manners with weakness.”
“Fuck you, pal.”
“Now go away and rescue Axton.” I didn’t feel like talking anymore.
“Axton is in the asylum,” Croix reported. “I can sense him there.”
“What about Far and Milka?” Lorencz inquired.
“They’re looking for the lost children.”
“So Far’s still playing guardian.”
“He’s very protective of children. Kyrchye approves.”
“He murders for them,” Michael muttered, his expression troubled. “And Kyrchye approves?”
“I think it’s sweet,” I said, just to taunt him.
Lorencz snorted.
“There’s another word I never expected to hear out of your mouth.”
“That’s because you don’t know me nearly as well as you think.”
Lorencz pulled out a cigar, looking into her case, and frowned. She put the cigar back again.
“You’re staying here, Cardinal?”
“I have no choice.”
Lorencz played with the case, turning it over and over in her hands as she thought.
“All right,” she said at last, sliding the case back into her coat pocket. Her voice dropped to a mutter. “Then I guess we have to leave you. But I don’t like it.”
“Kyrchye will protect me,” Croix said, voice filled with confidence.
“I hope so.” My partner hesitated. “Last time we fought together, you asked if I’d take your blessing. I didn’t want it then, but it seems like a better idea now. I mean, if the offer’s still open.”
Croix smiled.
“Come here, Captain.”
Lorencz straightened her shoulders and stepped forward, passing through the invisible barrier. Michael reached out, touched the wall, and turned to glance at me. I shrugged. So, it kept out the rabble. Big deal. I touched my head again and winced. I was already starting to miss Might. If it were still with me, my wound would have been a fading memory already.
Lorencz walked up the shallow stairs and glanced over her shoulder. I forced a mocking grin, knowing it would annoy her. She gave me a hard look and knelt.
Croix leaned over her and touched her shoulder. I couldn’t tell if Lorencz shuddered when capillaries brushed her like fabric, but I guessed she would, although she’d try not to show it. Always trying to prove she was tougher than anyone else.
The cardinal murmured, then gestured over her head.
“Another good sentinel lost to superstition,” Michael said heavily, turning his back on the process. “Damn.”
“I think you care too much about religion to be a real nonbeliever.” I tried to focus on him. “Let Lorencz cope with her distress any way she wants. People don’t act rationally when they’re upset. I know a nobilis who gets violent over dead pets.”
“Fuck you, Tegeus.”
“Not now. I have a headache.”
“Getting rid of that sword hasn’t made you any more bearable.”
“I was like this long before I got Might, remember?”
Lorencz was back on her feet, and she and the cardinal shook hands.
“You’re bleeding again.” Michael pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the side of my head. I winced and took it from him, pressing it against the wound.
“You can be a real bastard when you get angry,” I said.
“Must be a family tradition.” Michael looked away. “Maybe this is all an illusion and you’ll be unscathed when we get back across the Line. And I’ll be blind again.”
“Maybe. But right now, I’ve got blood dripping down my neck. Call me some bandages.”
Michael handed me a bale-constructed roll and I did my best to cover the hole in my head. Lorencz returned, a defiant glint in her eyes that dared us to say anything. I was too busy trying to keep from toppling over to needle her.
“Gimme those, you asshole.” She finished the bandaging and let the rest of bale-bandages vanish. A streak of my blood smeared her hand between her thumb and first finger. Reality gave a sudden lurch and I saw her body sprawled on the floor.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“Just this headache.” I stood, touching the empty scabbard to reassure myself that Might was gone. “We’ll come back for you later, Cardinal.”
“Godspeed, General Droit,” Croix replied.