The Geomancer (33 page)

Only now did Adele worry about how these three had found their way down. Not so much how they discovered the hidden passage; vampires were so sensitive to smells and air flow, it was likely simple for them to find the seam in the wall. Rather she was filled with the fear that the monks had been overwhelmed, and Gareth along with them.

One of the creatures jerked his gaze in Adele's direction as if he noticed her. She regained her calm and deepened the shadows around her. The vampire twisted his head in confusion, but then his attention went to the floor. He pointed at the Tear of Death, and hissed at his companions. They came forward in a spidery crawl, scenting with their mouths open, all of them staring at the phurba.

One of the vampires jerked his head up, glaring into the back corner where Anhalt stood in the darkness. The other two followed suit and mouths full of sharp teeth opened wide in brutal smiles at the sight of a lone human.

“No,” Adele said calmly and appeared before them.

The vampires barely had time to register shock at her appearance. The roar of a shotgun sent one careening across the floor. Adele's khukri swept up and sliced through a second, leaving a sizzling gash along his torso. The claws of the third grabbed her arm. Adele gutted him, then seized the vampire by the hair and drew her dagger across his throat. She kicked the body away and dropped to the floor as Anhalt leveled the shotgun over her and fired again. The first creature had been trying to rise with a chest full of Fahrenheit shot, but now it was smashed into the wall with half its head missing. The general dutifully reloaded and dispatched the other two.

“Thank you, General,” Adele said, and they dragged the bodies into a far corner.

Anhalt saluted and returned to his spot to resume his watch. Adele took a long, calming breath and settled back to the floor near the phurba. She sheathed the khukri and darkness returned. She pulled her gaze away from the dim outline of the cadavers and returned it to the phurba. What was happening in the cold far above? Adele wanted to run up the steps and find Gareth, be sure he was alive. However, she knew she could do little in such a swarm. She had to protect the Tear of Death, even with her life. Sadly, even with Gareth's life.

There was a faint breeze against Adele's cheek, no doubt from the open door above. If only Gareth would appear to tell her the fight was won, that these three vampires had slipped through, but no others. It was over. He would reach down to help her stand from the frozen floor. He would say—

“I can see you, Princess.”

Adele leapt to her feet. She spun around, seizing her khukri and pulling it with a hiss of steel. Wavering green light filled the chamber and cast garish shadows throughout the jungle of limbs and faces around her.

Against the far wall, an arm moved, dappled with shadows. A leg uncurled into the light. Sinewy arms stretched from inside the tangle of screaming stone faces and grasped the extended stone claws of demons. A female shape detached from the entangling statues and slipped soundlessly to the floor some twenty feet from Adele. She wore dark breeches and a robe of navy silk. Long black hair draped her shoulders. Her pale face lifted to reveal searing blue eyes. The demon who had come to life smiled.

Adele stared at the shape before her. Shadows quivered because her hand on the glowing khukri was shaking. She recognized the face. It was altered, but she knew it as clearly as she would know her own gravestone.

Adele breathed. “Flay.”

C
HAPTER 32

Adele plunged her essence into the Earth, seeking the power she needed. The heat was distant. Normally the fire would roar like a furnace and sing like quicksilver at her touch, but here it was so deep it seeped like tar. Her mind seared from the strain to drag it up into her trembling hands. She felt as if her muscles were tearing. There was no hesitation, no fear of the power. Terror controlled her as she filled the chamber with a silver cataclysm. The bodies of the three vampires across the room collapsed into dust.

Adele drove the Earth into a frenzy, stretching out her arms to their painful limits, dragging up ever more terrible fire to surge over the impassable flames already pounding the air. Tendrils of white flame swirled around her enemy. Adele screamed aloud with the brutal joy of incinerating Flay.

Bright spots exploded in Adele's eyes and a wave of vertigo swept over her. It seemed as though she had drained the Earth because she had certainly drained herself. She took a faltering step, then stumbled to her knees. The silver fire guttered. Collapsing onto her hands, Adele gasped for breath, but her lungs were raw. Sweat dropped wet to the floor beneath her. The room grew dark and quiet.

Adele heard the whisper of feet on stones. She glanced up through strands of damp hair.

Flay stood there in the ashes of her brothers. Unharmed. The vampire's expression was one of shock. She held out her hands and studied them, flexing her fingers. She looked around the room with the growing satisfaction that she was still standing. Then she stared at Adele with a mocking smile.

From the rear of the room came the sound of movement. Anhalt leveled the shotgun and an explosion of green reverberated. In that instant of brightness, Flay was no longer in the center of the room. Before the glow faded, she was already backhanding Anhalt to the floor.

“No!” Adele's hand gripped her khukri. In the emerald haze of the glowing blade, Flay's face was suddenly right in front of Adele. The khukri slashed, barely catching the flesh of the vampire. Adele tried to come around again, but Flay had already delivered a blow to her head that staggered her to her knees. A foot slammed onto Adele's back, crushing her against the cold floor.

Adele tried to push herself up against the incredible pressure. “Gareth killed you. You're dead.”

“He was confused, Princess.” Flay's nails dug into Adele's scalp, twisting her head so the empress had to look into the scarred visage of the vampire. Flay raised a clawed hand and whispered, “It's
you
who are dead.”

A shuddering impact drove Flay off her feet. She crashed into the stone carvings at the back of the room.

Gareth launched himself at Flay. She was incredibly fast, slipping under his powerful blow and latching onto his arms and back. He spun as she raked him with her claws and sank her teeth into his shoulder. He smashed back against the wall, causing her to grunt from the pressure, snapping stone arms and legs off the statues and making sharp stakes from the shattered limbs. Gareth grabbed Flay's wrist and wrenched her loose. He threw her over his head and slammed her onto the floor.

Flay surged up at him. Her sharp teeth clamped onto his thigh and claws dug into his midsection. She gouged his stomach, re-opening the gash that hadn't healed perfectly. Her hand plunged into his gut. Gareth cried out.

Adele forced herself to her feet and she lumbered across the room. She saw Flay's back. Her glowing khukri drove between Flay's shoulder blades. The chemicals hissed and wisps of smoke curled from the wound.

Flay's head spun around. She spit a chunk of Gareth's flesh into Adele's face and smashed her elbow into the woman's head. Adele fell to the side, tasting her own blood, with the chamber spinning around her.

Flay laughed and returned her attention to Gareth, lifting him off his feet with one hand still buried in his abdomen. He slashed at her, blood boiling from his mouth. With a furious roar, Flay thrust him into the wall and impaled him on the sharp, jagged arms of the wailing statues. His head turned up in a silent scream to match those frozen around him.

“There!” Flay stepped away. “Hang there in the arms of your beloved humans.” She reached awkwardly behind herself, taking hold of the khukri and yanking it from her back. She slumped with a grimace of pain, eyeing the blade's fading hue. She flung the dagger across the chamber.

With faltering arms, Adele crawled toward the dim green light of the khukri. She felt pressure around her ankle and she was dragged back through the grime. A heavy foot cracked her across the cheek and she thought her neck had broken from the impact.

Adele still reached out a hand. Fingertips dug into the seams in the floor. With aching effort, she pulled herself forward again.

“Just accept it, Princess.” Flay walked in front of her. “I only have to decide whether I'd rather have you see him die, or vice versa.” The vampire knelt. One of her blue eyes was nearly closed from the scarred flesh on one side of her face. Flay had once been beautiful in a cruel way, but now only the cruelty remained. “I've decided. I can no longer abide your stench in my nose.” Flay raised her hand and looked beyond Adele's still struggling form. “Gareth! If you can spare a moment. Watch.”

Gareth struggled. He tried to wrench himself off his bloody perch. His hands slapped the irregular surfaces around him, but he couldn't get leverage. The jagged limbs on which he was impaled were lodged tight between his bones. He roared and forced himself forward, feeling bones break within him, but still not enough to free himself. His eyes watched the horrible scene as if willing it not to be true.

“Flay! Stop!” A new figure came crunching into the room with the heavy tread of a human. Flay winced from the effort of withholding the blow to Adele. Her face contorted in rictus agony. Then she relented, spinning around, showing impossible resignation to the will of another, and to the will of a human at that.

Adele managed to turn her head so she could see an old man with white hair and a long beard. His greatcoat was unbuttoned and she saw a metal device that looked like a cross between a maritime sextant and an astrolabe hanging from his belt. Adele recognized it as the geomantic scryer that had belonged to Selkirk; she had seen it once on Selkirk's belt when the geomancer came to her in the Tower of London. Goronwy stood over the Tear of Death with the calm of a researcher studying random test tubes. He showed no joy of miraculous discovery, just the gratification of careful experimentation come to fruition. The old man went to one knee and scooped the phurba out of the dust.

Goronwy, the Witchfinder, held his prize in hand.

Adele tensed, unsure what to expect next. However, nothing happened. The man tested the weight before slipping the artifact into a deep pocket of his heavy fur coat.

Goronwy spared a quick glance at Gareth and smiled with casual politeness. “I remember you. Prince Cesare's brother. I'm surprised you survived Britain.” Then he regarded Adele with much more interest. “Well no, I'm not. Not with her by your side. So that is Adele of ­Equatoria?”

Flay growled, “Kill her now.”

“Pshaw.” The old man waved off the vampire. “She is a great geomancer, I'm told. I knew it was you when we heard another airship was in the area. How did you hear about the Tear of Death? From my old friend, Dr. Selkirk, I'd wager.”

Adele kept her eyes locked on Flay, but said to Goronwy, “You have no idea what that thing is. It will eat you alive if you try to use it. You're not prepared.”

“Oh, I think I am.” He patted the pocket where the phurba nestled. “I've already mastered the technique I need on a small scale. Now with this catalyst, I can extend the effect wherever I choose. I'm very excited by the potential of this artifact. Very excited.”

“I realize there are things you know that I don't. I can't understand what you did to create those talismans. But I can walk the rifts in a way that no other can. You can't understand the Earth on that level, and I'm telling you that geomancy on the scale you're contemplating has dangerous repercussions. What I did in Britain, and what you are doing in Europe, is doing damage to the Earth. Cracks are forming in the rifts.”

Goronwy just laughed. “It is you who don't understand. Nothing was ever accomplished by being afraid of knowledge. This artifact has much to teach me.”

“Come with me to Equatoria,” Adele said through clenched teeth. “I'll set you up with a research institute that you couldn't dream of in the north.”

“Oh, that's very generous, I'm sure.” Goronwy raised an affected eyebrow. “I have all the support I need in Paris. My patrons there are expanding their reach. Just on this mission, we've hammered out an alliance with Chengdu that could continue to bear fruit for both clans in the future. It certainly benefited me in the short run. Plus, I don't wish to work for imperialists.”

“You idiot. They're using you. Once they have what they want, they'll kill you.”

The Witchfinder shifted his gaze to Flay. “I don't think so. The vampires and I are completely on the same page.”

“You're on the wrong side of the war. We're fighting to free your own people.”

“The fabric of lies for all aggressors, my dear. You invaded clan territory without provocation. You destroyed the British clan, which was a very progressive and useful employer for me. Luckily I managed to find new patrons. But I have to put an end to your aggression first.”

Adele's skin crawled at the simplistic admission. “How?”

“This.” The Witchfinder touched his pocket again. “I don't particularly want to use it, but since I can, why not? You must be stopped.” A long horn sounded from outside. Goronwy shuddered with surprise. “Well, this has been pleasant, but we have to go. You could be very useful. Let's bring her back to Paris, Flay. I want to
consult
with her.”

Adele fought to her knees, ignoring the nausea that wracked her, searching for her khukri. She had to kill Goronwy, here and now.

Flay stalked to the Witchfinder's side. “She's right. You have no idea what you're doing. Kill her!”

The old man pressed his lips together in disapproval. “Stop it, Flay. I didn't save your life back in London so you could disobey me. We've been through it all before. Do as I say, please, or I can make it very unpleasant for you.” He shook one fist, creating the sound of crystals rattling inside his grip.