Dying Is My Business

Twenty-eight

A moment after the Hangman’s Damper hit the floor, a blazing fire erupted in the far corner of the room. Its flames whirled like a funnel cloud, and through the conflagration I caught a glimpse of Isaac in the corner where Philip had deposited him, fire bursting wildly from the mage’s hands. The spinning cone of fire barreled forward and engulfed the nearest revenant, transforming it instantly to smoldering ash. This had to be the flaming dervish spell he’d mentioned earlier, I thought. Then the fire, like a living thing, moved on to engulf the next revenant.

I ducked as my two half-faced guards came up behind me and tried to grab me again. I bolted for cover behind a nearby marble statue of a woman wearing a toga and some kind of battle helmet. From behind the statue, I looked at Bethany and Gabrielle still held fast by their revenant guards, and wondered how the hell I was going to get them free without my gun.

On the other side of the room, Melanthius and Reve Azrael shrank away from the raging flames, retreating to the wall. The shadowborn went with them, their blades drawn, covering their retreat.

I didn’t see Philip anywhere, but I hoped he was still close by. With Isaac busy on the other side of the room, Gabrielle and Bethany still being held prisoner, and me stuck behind a statue without a weapon, our odds of making it out of this mess without the vampire’s help were slim to none.

A group of revenants rushed Isaac, too many for the flaming dervish to take out at once. A pale, emaciated corpse slipped past the fire and came up behind him. Philip appeared out of nowhere, dropping down from above like a spider, and tackled the revenant to the floor. He sank his sharp teeth into the revenant’s throat and tore out a chunk so large that its head flopped off its neck at a peculiar angle. The revenant stopped moving. The red lights inside its eyes snuffed out. Then Philip was gone again, nothing but a dark blur moving through the chaos.

A split second later, he was standing in front of me. He wiped something dark and oily from his mouth with the back of his hand, and spat on the floor. “For the record, revenants taste like shit. Here, catch.” He pulled my gun out of the back of his pants and tossed it to me. He was gone again before I even snatched it out of the air.

With my Bersa semiautomatic in hand, I jumped out from behind the statue and ran toward Bethany and Gabrielle, lining up a shot to start blasting their revenant guards. I hardly made it half a dozen steps before I was clotheslined by a thick, meaty arm. I fell on my back. Above, one of my old pals, the half-faced revenants, reached to grab me. I rolled away and came up on one knee, squeezing the trigger and putting a bullet in Half-Face’s shoulder. The revenant didn’t stop, but it did slow down. I spun around and saw that from this angle I had a clear line of sight to Melanthius and Reve Azrael, sandwiched between the shadowborn and the wall. There would only be time for a single shot before Half-Face was on me again. I had to make it count. Reve Azrael was the one calling the shots from inside Bennett’s body. I drew a bead on Bennett’s head and squeezed the trigger.

Bennett’s skull was already fragile from decay. It burst like a melon from the bullet’s impact. His body crumpled to the floor.

Throughout the room, the revenants jolted and spasmed like they’d been hit with ten thousand volts, then went still as statues. They were blank, empty, like radios that had lost their reception. My shot must have broken Reve Azrael’s connection to them. Putting a bullet in Bennett’s brain while her consciousness had occupied it must have shattered her hold, stunning her, weakening her control over the other revenants. That was the key. Destroy a revenant’s brain, or sever its head from its body like Philip had done, and Reve Azrael couldn’t control it anymore.

The shadowborn drew back to create a tight, protective circle around Melanthius. He didn’t move, didn’t attack or cast any spells. I wondered if he had any magic of his own.

The broken connection only lasted a few moments, but it was long enough for Gabrielle and Bethany to squirm free of their guards. As Reve Azrael’s consciousness slowly took control of the revenants again, the two women didn’t waste any time. Bethany ran toward me, while Gabrielle picked up a small, tubular object that had fallen out of one of the smashed display cases. She clasped her hands together around the artifact and chanted a few words in that same weird magical language Bethany had used. A bright glow seeped out from between her fingers, then grew longer, until finally she was holding what looked like a sword in her hands, only its blade was made of fire instead of metal. One swing sliced the head clean off the first of her revenant guards, and another finished off the second.

Bethany stopped suddenly, her gaze moving past my shoulder. “Behind you!”

I turned to see Half-Face coming at me again. “Come to me, little fly,” it said. Reve Azrael had found a new host body.

I swung my gun around, aiming for the head, but Reve Azrael swatted the weapon from my hand so hard my fingers stung. The gun landed on the carpet a few feet away. I backed away, and bumped into another revenant. It tried to grab me in a bear hug, but I ducked out of its reach and ran. Unfortunately, the only direction I could run in was away from my gun.

I sprinted across the room, narrowly avoiding the cold, grasping hands of revenants. Each dead thing whispered to me as I passed, Reve Azrael’s consciousness following me through the room, jumping from one corpse to the next. “I know you. I know the power you possess,” one said. “I would not be so foolish as to try to kill you,” another said. “Yet you amuse me so,” said a third. I ran past each of them, twisting and jumping to evade their clutches. I searched the crowd, but I couldn’t see Bethany anywhere. I’d lost her in the chaos. I caught a glimpse of Isaac. His flaming dervish spell had only reduced six revenants to ash so far, and was starting to peter out. More walking corpses crowded toward him.

Distracted, I didn’t see a revenant come up on me until it was too late. It grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me toward it. “Perhaps I will keep you as a pet,” Reve Azrael said through its crumbling mouth. “Have you kneel before me in the blood of your companions.”

Something flashed in the corner of my eye. The revenant’s hand released my shoulder and fell to the floor, severed cleanly from its arm. Gabrielle stood beside me, the burning sword in her hands. She swung it again and lopped off the revenant’s head.

“Where’s Bethany?” I asked.

“Just keep moving,” she told me. “Get to higher ground. The stairs.”

Then she was gone, running back into the fray. I charged for the staircase, but I only made it to the base of the steps before another revenant blocked my path. This one was a dead woman in a pantsuit, wisps of thin white hair floating above its bloated and discolored face. One eye was nothing but a dark, empty hole. The other fixed me with an unyielding gaze, the red glow of Reve Azrael’s magic burning in its pupil. Its bony, clawlike hands stretched toward me.

I jumped back, out of its reach, and accidentally knocked into the sculpture of the centaur that stood by the staircase banister. The iron spear rattled loosely in its marble hand. Loose enough to give me an idea.

I grabbed the top half of the spear and pulled it toward me. It slid easily free from the statue. It was awkward and heavy but well balanced, a good enough weapon for now. The revenant lunged at me again. I swung the spear. The tip caught the side of its head, tearing a chunk of flesh from its cheek.

“You should be thanking me,” Reve Azrael said through the dead woman’s cracked lips. “It is not everyone who knows what the future holds for them. The full measure of their destiny. Yours is to be in chains and crawl at my heels.”

“Lady, I’m done being anyone’s pet.” I stabbed the sharp tip of the spear through the revenant’s forehead and into its brain. It fell to the floor. The red light in its eye went out. I pulled the spear out of its head, stepped over the body, and ran up the stairs.

Bethany was already on the stairs, standing near the landing halfway between the first and second floors. Philip was there, too, pulling a revenant’s head away from its shoulder and sinking his teeth into its neck. He bit out a big chunk of rotting flesh, pulled the revenant’s head free of its body, and tossed both down the stairs. He spat again, his features twisting in disgust. “Ugh, I’m going to need a breath mint after this.” His mirrored sunglasses were spattered with dark blood. Even now, he still wore the damn things.

I hurried over to Bethany. “Are you okay?”

She was holding the guns she’d confiscated from Tomo and Big Joe, one in each hand. “I’ve had better days,” she said.

Isaac came bounding up the stairs next. Below, the room looked like a slaughterhouse, the floor littered with chunks of skull, bone, and severed body parts. But there were still far too many revenants still on their feet for us to get comfortable. Over by the bookcase, Gabrielle hacked away at them with her burning sword.

“You cut that one much too close, Isaac,” Philip said. “I thought they were going to kill you with that damn amulet.”

Isaac nodded, catching his breath. “Sorry about that. I had to get her talking, find out what she was planning and how she got through the wards. Now we know.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You wanted to know what I was going to do. You were testing me.”

“Maybe some of that, too,” he said. “You could have told her where the box is and spared yourself a world of trouble, but you didn’t. I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry I thought you were crazy and trying to kill everyone,” I said.

Below, four revenants lurched toward the staircase, their glowing eyes fixed on us. Bethany lifted her guns and fired them both repeatedly. The revenants’ foreheads blew apart, and they fell to the floor.

“Not bad,” I said. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“The Saint Aurelius Home for Orphaned Girls.” She raised the guns again and blew the heads off two more approaching revenants.

I looked across the room at the polished wooden door that led outside. It was the only exit I knew of, but it was too far away to do us any good. Even if we managed to destroy all the remaining revenants, we wouldn’t even get close before the shadowborn stopped us. I scanned the room, searching for another way out. When my gaze fell on the couch near the door, my blood went cold.

Thornton’s body sat up slowly. The white sheet slid off him as he stood up. His clothes were still wet from the Methusal spring, dripping onto the carpet and leaving a trail behind him as he crossed the room toward Gabrielle. She didn’t see him. Her back was to him as she chopped and swung her blazing sword at the other revenants, sending heads, arms, and hands flying. They were no match for her, but they kept coming like cannon fodder, keeping her distracted.

“Gabrielle, behind you!” I shouted.

She spun around, raising the burning sword in her hands, expecting to see just another revenant. She froze the moment she saw it was Thornton.

“Hello, baby,” he said. “Did you miss me?” Pinpoints of red light burned in his eyes.