Still Not Dead Enough , Book 2 of The Dead Among Us (33 page)

Simuth was truly enjoying himself, fondling the breasts of the woman lying beside him, both of them enjoying the floor show. Their eyes met, and in Simuth’s Paul saw victory, contempt, cruelty. He focused his thoughts on Suzanna and Cloe, realizing now there was no way he could fight such a powerful spell-crafting. But if he couldn’t fight it, could he turn it against them? If it amplified his desires a thousand fold, then need it only amplify his desire for Katherine? Looking into Simuth’s cold, cruel, triumphant eyes, perhaps it would amplify other desires. Yes, he desired Katherine. She was beautiful and intelligent and sexy, and a little bit vulnerable. But he had many desires, like his desire for vengeance on the man who’d murdered his wife and child, his desire for Simuth’s death, his desire to break the circle, his desire for revenge on the entire Unseelie Court.
Desire that
, he thought.
Focus on that desire,
he told himself,
and only that desire, and let them amplify that.

It was so incredibly difficult to put Katherine aside, especially with her writhing in his arms, a willing partner. But she wasn’t willing, for they were both just victims of Simuth’s rape. And with that thought, no other desire existed for him but his wish for revenge. He focused on that, focused on the power the Sidhe mages fed into the spell, and he gave them that desire to amplify. His own passion waned, and he saw his new desire grow into an ugly, angry cloud of hatred. He drew even more power, drew it without regard to McGowan’s warnings, without regard for himself, and fed it into the Sidhe spell.

A deafening explosion rocked the hall, and the mad, uncontrollable desire they both felt disappeared. He lay there for a moment on top of her, savoring the freedom of the now broken spell, stunned by the explosion and bleeding from several cuts, some rather serious.

He pulled himself off her and she curled up into a fetal ball, trying to cover herself with her torn clothing. She too bled from cuts and scrapes and bites. He wanted to help Katherine, to console her, to help them both pretend they’d never gone through what had just happened. But he had to act now, while he had an advantage, if he had an advantage. He struggled to his feet, she clutching at her torn clothing, he clutching at his. “I’m sorry,” he said, turned and staggered toward Simuth.

The explosion had blown outward from the circle and had stunned everyone, left a few unconscious. Paul half crawled, half walked toward Simuth, who was slowly climbing to his feet. But just as Paul reached him he stood upright, turned, faced Paul, laughed insanely and growled, “Fool mortal. You think you can best me in combat?” He backhanded Paul.

Paul hit the floor hard skidding on his back, had no idea how far he’d been thrown by the blow, lay there with his head spinning, little motes of unconsciousness sparkling in front of his eyes, hoping his jaw wasn’t broken. Simuth marched across the room, picked Paul up by the front of his shirt and threw him like a broken toy doll. Paul slammed into a wall, crumpled to the floor. His left shoulder sent fiery waves of agony through him, and he was certain he had several cracked ribs. He tried to struggle to his feet but his right knee gave out in a lance of agony. The banquet was in chaos, but Simuth stood over Paul and announced to them all as if he was the ringleader of a circus, “My guests, ladies and gentlemen. It’s time to end this foolish game.”

Paul’s head spun sickeningly, and he was too stunned to do anything but watch the Sidhe kill him.

“You pathetic animal,” Simuth said, but as he bent to reach for Paul, Katherine, screaming maniacally, hit him like a linebacker. They tumbled past Paul in a tangle of arms and legs.

Paul scrambled to his feet, kept most of his weight on his left leg, staggered toward them like a drunkard. Katherine groaned and rolled over, but Simuth recovered immediately, stood, looked down at her and kicked her in the ribs. As he drew his foot back to kick her again Paul charged, but with lances of pain spearing through his knee it was an ineffectual charge. Simuth heard him, turned and slapped him to the floor. He turned back to Katherine, kicked her one last time, turned back to Paul and reached down, grabbed him by the throat with one hand and lifted him to his feet, lifted him off his feet, held him dangling in front of him like a small child, choking and gasping for air. “It’s time to end this, mortal.”

Hefting Paul by the throat with one hand, his feet dangling a few inches off the floor, Simuth used his other hand to pull his shiny, silver rapier. He drew the rapier back, preparing for a long sweeping stroke. He clearly intended to hit Paul in mid-torso, and from what he’d heard of the power of a Sidhe silver rapier, in Faerie it would cut him in two, easily severing his body. Simuth didn’t want him to have a quick or easy death.

Paul had no defenses left. Here in Faerie Simuth was just too powerful. But Anogh’s words echoed in his mind, . . .
walk the halls of Sidhe all the way back to the Mortal Plane.

Paul didn’t know if he could do it, had no confidence in his ability and no trust for Anogh’s words. But he had nothing to lose, so just as Simuth started the stroke that would cut him in two, he lifted one hand, placed it on the hand Simuth had wrapped about his throat, thought carefully of that spiral shift in reality between their two worlds, pictured his own small living room and mentally stepped into it.

~~~

Katherine rolled over, was certain Simuth had broken a couple of ribs. She rolled over just in time to see him swing his blade, knew there was no hope for Paul. And none for her either. And then Simuth and Paul disappeared, just blinked out of existence.

The explosion had filled the hall with chaos, wounded Sidhe slowly staggering to their feet and taking stock of the situation. Katherine somehow managed to get to her feet, though she wasn’t sure she could remain standing for long, especially holding the weight of the heavy long-sword.

Sword!

She looked at her hands, both curled about the sheathed blade, its long hilt protruding from one end.

~~~

Paul was getting better at it because they were only about five feet off the floor when they materialized, but horizontal, with Paul on top of Simuth. They hit the floor with a heavy thud; Paul’s weight slammed into Simuth, reminding him painfully of his cracked ribs, but giving Simuth an even better lesson in the physics of gravity. And while Paul had been prepared for the transition, it caught Simuth completely off guard. He groaned and gasped for breath as Paul rolled off him.

Nursing broken ribs Paul scrambled to his feet and staggered toward the kitchen, limping painfully on his damaged knee. Behind him he heard Simuth struggling to his feet. Paul had two thoughts in mind: they were no longer in Faerie so Simuth was no longer all-powerful, and cold iron. He needed cold iron.

He made it to the kitchen barely an instant ahead of Simuth, knew he didn’t have time to go for the drawer with the knives, spotted a dirty cast-iron skillet in the sink, grabbed it and turned to face the Sidhe. Simuth looked at the skillet in Paul’s hand and laughed, then swung his rapier.

An iron skillet against a three-foot rapier, ordinarily there would have been no chance. But Paul remembered, and Simuth forgot, that his rapier was pure silver, harder than the hardest steel in Faerie, but soft and compliant in the Mortal Plane.

The rapier caught Paul in a slashing blow across the ribs, and had they been in Faerie it would have sliced him in two, cutting through bone and flesh and organs. But here, while it cut him, it didn’t have the hardness to slice through bone and it bent into a misshaped arc around his ribs. Simuth hesitated, lifted the bent rapier and frowned at it stupidly. Paul swung the skillet, put everything he had behind a two-handed blow and hit Simuth in the side of the head. The skillet made a surprisingly pleasant clang as it crashed into his skull, and the Winter Knight went down like a sack of potatoes. He groaned, didn’t attempt to rise.

Paul staggered, leaned against the kitchen counter, nausea threatening to empty his stomach as a wave of agony from his shoulder lanced through him. But he gritted his teeth and waved the skillet at Simuth like a sword. “Touché, you sack of shit.”

Blood oozed from the slash across his ribs, ran down his face from more than one cut on his forehead, but he didn’t have time to worry about that if he hoped to get Katherine back before the chaos in the Unseelie Court cleared. He pulled open a drawer in which he kept a mix of all sorts of knives. The smaller ones like paring knives and steak knives weren’t terribly sharp, but he didn’t need sharp so he stuffed three of them into his pocket. There was a small box of two-inch nails, and on a whim he stuffed a couple of handfuls into the other pocket. Behind him Simuth groaned, attempted to get to his feet. Paul turned back to him, gave him a two-handed swing with the skillet to the side of his head and the asshole went down a second time.

There was one big butcher knife he kept sharp, good steel that held a good edge, and another one that didn’t have a sharp edge, did have a good, sharp point. In some unknown memory he recalled someone saying, . . .
decapitate them, separate the head from the heart. Then impale both the head and the heart on cold iron, and hold the iron fast until their struggles cease
. He staggered back to Simuth. . . .
 you must show no hesitation, no mercy, no compassion . . .

Simuth struggled to his feet in the middle of the living room, stood there for a moment dazed and unsteady. Paul approached him from behind and grabbed his hair, kicked the back of his legs and he dropped to his knees . . .
show no hesitation, no mercy, no compassion . . .
Standing behind Simuth, Paul raised the butcher knife with the sharp point, said, “This is for Suzanna, you shithead,” then plunged the knife into Simuth’s chest.

The Sidhe screamed; the skin around the knife hissing and spitting and smoldering. Simuth screamed again, tried to grab it, but as his fingers touched the hilt they too burned and sizzled and sputtered. He threw his hands out away from the knife in his chest, looked at it and screamed frantically. “No, no, no, no, no!”

Paul said, “All right, asshole, let’s go back and teach everyone a lesson.” He clutched the other butcher knife in his right hand, grabbed the hair on the back of Simuth’s head in his left hand, concentrated on that spiral twist of reality and the Unseelie banquet hall, and he and Simuth appeared amidst the chaos he’d left only a few moments earlier.

They were back in Faerie, Katherine standing a few feet away holding that god-awful, giant, sheathed sword, a stunned look of awe on her face. She saw Paul, and extended the hilt toward him.

Simuth flinched, clearly realizing he’d be more powerful now. But before he could react, Paul said, “This is for Cloe,” and without hesitating he cut Simuth’s throat with a broad slash, then pressed the blade of the big butcher knife in the open wound. As Simuth’s throat sizzled and spit a greasy smoke, filling the air with the smell of burning flesh, he screamed a long wailing cry of dread and fear. Paul held the knife steady, put a knee in the small of Simuth’s back, pulled on his hair, arching his neck upward, then stabbed the knife into one of Simuth’s eyes. Simuth wailed like a strange beast

. . . show no hesitation, no mercy, no compassion . . .

“Paul, look out.”

Paul looked up at the sound of Katherine’s voice. Two Sidhe warriors were running toward him. Paul reached into his pocket, pulled out two of the small knives, pulled all the power he could hold, tossed the knives in the air and fed the power into them. They took the two Sidhe by surprise, dropped them both to the floor screaming at the cold iron in their chests. He reached over and past Simuth to the sheathed sword Katherine had extended toward him, gripped the hilt in his right hand and pulled it free. The blade glowed with a strange hoary light.

With his left he hand reached into his other pocket and pulled out a hand-full of nails. Katherine stood there unsteadily clutching at her torn clothing and holding the sheath. Paul shouted, “Katherine, down.” Her eyes widened and she dropped to the floor without hesitation. He pulled power again, threw the nails in the air, dumped the power into them and they streaked in all directions, buried themselves in random Sidhe targets like shrapnel on a battlefield.

Simuth still knelt with his back toward Paul shrieking like a wounded cat, one knife protruding from an eye, the other from his chest, both crackling and spitting a greasy black smoke. Paul gripped the hilt of the great sword in both hands. It had the weight of a heavy baseball bat, so he pulled it back, screamed, “And this if for Katherine,” then swung it like a Louisville slugger in a long flat arc.

It chopped into Simuth’s neck, and his head literally popped up a few inches before tumbling down, bouncing off his now headless shoulders and dropping to the floor. Simuth’s body knelt there for a moment, his head still shrieking, the two knives still sputtering and crackling. Then his torso toppled forward and collapsed about the knife in his chest.

Simuth’s severed head screamed again, a long wailing cry of despair. Paul saw more Sidhe coming toward him purposefully. He grabbed the last of the nails, shouted, “Stay down, Katherine,” trusted she would, pulled dangerous amounts of power, tossed the nails in the air and fed the power into them. They pinged and zinged as they ricocheted off stone, popped and hissed as they punched holes in Sidhe flesh, brought on more chaos and pain.

Paul turned back to the screaming severed head and the thrashing body. He rolled Simuth over and put a knee in his chest, and with one hand on the butcher knife in Simuth’s eye, the other on the knife in his chest, Paul poured power into them both. Simuth’s head screamed louder, and his body thrashed powerfully beneath Paul, but he held on, refused to let go, continued channeling power into the two blades. Slowly, bit by bit, Simuth’s cries died away and his body stilled. Paul held on, pulled more and more power, watched as the two pieces of the Summer Knight smoldered and sizzled, finally dissipating into a pile of gray ash. Into the silence Paul whispered, “And that was for me, shithead.”