Death's Mistress (10 page)

She fell to her knees, obviously unable to breathe, her ax protruding from the mass but only the wooden handle touching the creature. I started back down the stairs, but the puddle in front of me began to coagulate, drops running together as if magnetized. It was half formed before I could blink, so I threw the poker, aiming for the head of the thing that had trapped Gessa.

I saw it hit, saw the creature collapse around her, saw her gasp in a desperate breath, and then I was scrambling up the stairs, my own problem right on my heels.

My foot hit a stair on the edge of a hole. It had been covered over by a thin layer of ice, which crunched and then gave way under my weight. My foot fell through, dragging my body along with it. And, thanks to the destruction wreaked by the storm, I just kept on falling.

I crashed through what remained of the floor below the stairs and on into the basement. I landed on one of the smelly piles of rags my roommates preferred to a bed, stumbled and fell against the wall—just in time to see a stream of water trickle down the puke green paint and re-form into an arm. It caught me around the throat in a solid choke hold.

I grabbed for it, trying to keep it from crushing my neck, and the substance under my hands felt nothing like flesh. The closest I could come was the slippery, staticky feel of the surface of a ward. And that was exactly what it was, I realized, as its grip constricted like a band.

The fey were using their power to construct a ward around an element, in this case water. It gave them the body they needed to attack and ensured that their power was too disguised for our wards to read it. Normally, that would have been very bad news, as wards—particularly fey ones—are damn hard to break. Unless, of course, there happens to be a powerful projective null on the premises.

Claire’s job at the auction house had been quieting the often-volatile objects up for sale, ensuring that they didn’t explode and take out half the prospective purchasers. It had been an easy gig for her as she was a null witch—someone born with the ability to absorb magical energy and disperse it harmlessly. With a little effort, she could bring down any ward ever made.

But not if she didn’t know about them.

A wash of light- headedness assaulted me, the room spinning dangerously. I had to get out of this, had to get upstairs to tell her. But my vision was already going dark, and beating at the glasslike arm was doing no good at all.

I let go of it with one hand to fumble around on my belt, a flicker of panic sizzling through me as my throat constricted further. Knives, guns, potions—all useless against a thing like this. I had enough weapons to kill a platoon, and not a single damn thing to so much as hurt a Manlíkan—which was fair, as I’d never even heard of the things before tonight.

And I was running out of time. Multicolored spots were swimming in front of the darkness, and none of my struggles moved that damn arm one iota. I needed iron or I was dead—something, anything—and then I spied a linen-wrapped handle sticking out from under the rag pile.

I couldn’t tell what it was attached to, but I pulled at it with my foot anyway. A huge medieval-looking mace slipped out onto the floor, a couple of its spikes caught on a grimy pair of socks. I slid a toe under the small space between the handle and the heavy iron ball and gave a jerk, catching it just before it turned my face into hamburger.

My strength was almost gone and my angle was lousy and I was as likely to hit myself as anything else. And I didn’t care. All I could think about was air, and dragging in even a single breath. I slammed the club against the heavy arm trapping me, again and again, feeling a sharp spike of pain from a glancing blow. But then came the sound of cracking ice, and I was abruptly released, falling to my damaged knees with a thud.

Dizzy and gasping, I tried to clamber to my feet, but my useless flailing nearly cracked my head open on the edge of a nearby trunk. So I settled for crawling instead, moving away from the wall and the puddle beneath it as fast as possible over the frost-slick concrete floor. I’d made it about halfway up the stairs when something grabbed me.

My body was jerked back down so fast I didn’t even hit any steps on the way. I kicked out, even as it dragged me to my feet—and slammed me back into the wall hard enough to daze me. And then again, this time with the pressure concentrated on my right wrist. I felt the stabbing pain and heard the snap as my wrist broke, and then the mace clattered away over the floor.

Both hands were pinned over my head as the creature slowly drew closer, in a flowing, serpentine movement unlike anything flesh could mimic. Pale, colorless eyes looked directly into my own. They reflected the lightning outside the cellar’s high, narrow windows, flashing silver bright for an instant. But that wasn’t what had my skin crawling up my body.

The face had been fairly amorphous, just vague indentations for eyes, a lump for a nose, a slash for a mouth. But the features slowly coalescing in front of me were more distinct. And more familiar.

“You’re supposed to be in prison,” I said, staring at a coldly beautiful face I’d hoped never to see again.

“And you are supposed to be dead.” The “mouth” of
subrand’s doppelgänger hadn’t moved, but the words shimmered in the air around me. A projection of his power, much like the body. “It seems that neither of us is very good at following others’ plans.”

“How did you get out?”

There was no answer. Instead, both of my hands were transferred to one of his, grinding the bones of my wrist together, making me bite my lip to hold back a scream. The move seemed to make no difference in the power holding me in place. I struggled, but I doubt he even noticed; my limbs were suddenly as wooden and unresponsive as a mannequin’s.

A translucent hand, watery bright, pushed up my tank top. The move bared my chest and the thin ridge of too-sensitive skin that ran from breastbone to belly button. His mark, which had never entirely faded.

A single finger traced the impression, leaving a chill, watery outline behind. It highlighted the difference between the slightly slicker, redder tones of the old burn and my unmarked skin. “Do you know what this is, dhampir? Have any of your Dark Fey friends dared to tell you?”

“A scar,” I spat, remembering clearly the excruciating pain that had created it. I’d thought I was dying, that my very flesh was being burned from my bones. But he’d wanted information from me, and letting me die would have been counterproductive.

So he’d just made me wish I could.

“It’s more than that. An animal that gives particularly good sport is marked by us and released, to be hunted again. It is a sign to others of my kind that you are my prey alone.”

“I’m honored,” I said, refusing to give in to the panic that was leeching up my spine.

“You should be.” The finger moved across my chest to circle a nipple, its icy-cold peaking the tender flesh.

“Give me what I want, and perhaps we will hunt again someday.”

“Go to hell!”

He smiled, fingers grasping my breast, suddenly so cold they burned. “You first.”

His head lowered the last few inches, and I froze at the first touch of his mouth, soft, cold and wet. A clammy tongue ran deliberately over my lower lip before nudging for entrance I was too shocked to deny him. And a frozen thickness slid past my lips.

It was inhumanly cold and impossibly long, freezing my tongue as it coiled around it in a parody of affection. I twisted my head, my gut roiling with revulsion, but the hand on my breast moved up to my jaw, jerking me back to face him. Fingers dug into my flesh as that terrible face paused, mere millimeters from mine.

“Last chance.”

I stared into those strange inhuman eyes and knew he wasn’t bluffing.
subrand had never pretended anything but contempt for humans, or for most of the fey. He hadn’t been joking with the animal comment. I was no more than that to him, and he would kill me with no more conscience than he’d slay a deer.

I was suddenly profoundly grateful that I didn’t know where Aiden was.

“Nothing to say?” he mocked.

“I hope Caedmon kills you slowly.”

He laughed. “Do you know, I am almost sorry to have to end your life?”

But apparently not sorry enough to stop. The pressure on either side of my jaw increased, forcing my mouth open. And, immediately, that terrible protrusion was back.

It was slimy, cold and spongy, totally unlike any human flesh as it pushed into my mouth. And everywhere he touched froze. My breast where his hand had rested was hard and cold, like a mound of ice, my lips were numb and my tongue felt thick in my mouth, too heavy to talk, too heavy to scream.

I thrashed, but he pressed against me, grinding our hips together as that icy snake of a tongue coiled into me. It widened as he poured more of himself into it, distending my throat, threatening to choke me. Starbursts of bloody violet flared behind my eyes as a fury rose up in me, my body aching for motion, to
act
and to
strike
. . . .

But I couldn’t move as that frozen mass worked its way downward, like an icy stake headed for my heart. But the heart wasn’t the target, I realized dully, when it suddenly liquefied. Granite wetness filled my mouth, my nose, and gushed into my lungs, until I could see nothing, hear nothing, except my own frantic heartbeat.

I felt him suddenly explode around me, the rest of his form drenching me in icy water as his hold released. I felt myself falling, felt my half- frozen body hitting the hard concrete of the floor and splashing in the icy puddle of his doppelgänger. Then nothing but darkness.

I came back to consciousness with someone whacking me on the back hard enough to expel my lungs. Or at least what was in them. I rolled to the side, ripping myself free of the ice I lay on, coughing and retching a pink-tinged flood.

It went on for a while, me trying to draw in a breath in between eruptions and only making it half the time. Then my stomach decided to get in on the act. A hand held my hair back from my face, as I gagged and retched and choked.

I finally looked up to see Claire haloed in the wash of light spilling down the cellar stairs. Her red hair was everywhere, curled untidily against her neck and stuck to her skin. Her right hand and arm were still armored with iridescent scales as if she’d simply forgotten to change it back. Her left hand gripped mine hard enough to threaten the bones.

My lips moved, but for a moment, no sound came out. It felt like there was a rubber band inside my throat, pressing. Or a hand.

“Dory!” Claire leaned over me, her curls tumbling into my face. “Dory, say something!”

I cleared my throat. “Don’t slap me,” I told her, worried about the talons at the end of that paw. And then I threw up some more.

She dragged me against her, holding me almost too tight for me to breathe, sobbing out things I couldn’t quite understand. Gessa was there, a slash across her forehead drizzling black blood into her eyes. She smeared a line of it onto my face, grinning, before heading off upstairs.

“I take it we won?” I croaked.

“They’re gone,” Claire said viciously, wiping a hand across her eyes. “I think creating the storm drained a lot of their power, and when they couldn’t get in—” Her arms tightened.

“Please don’t squeeze,” I said thickly.

She let me go, and I sagged back against the concrete for a moment, waiting to see if my stomach planned an encore. It was cold but reassuringly solid, a nice, hard surface against my back that damn well stayed that way. There was no horrible shifting and sliding into something completely—

“I guess there’s a reason we’re not all dead?” I asked, to cut off my own thoughts.

“Manlíkans are just wards encasing an element,” Claire told me distractedly. “They were used for war games back in Faerie, like practice dummies, and—” She waved frantic hands. “Why am I even talking about this? I disrupted them.”

I rolled my eyes up at her. “Not to sound ungrateful, but you couldn’t have done that earlier?”

“I thought if I started attacking them, the house wards might fall, too. And then it would take minutes for them to cycle back on and the Svarestri would get in—”