From the far side, Bruiser leaped at him. The Flayer dropped the blade, whirled, and lifted a defensive claw. In one smooth motion, he ripped out Bruiser’s throat.
Bruiser fell to the crevasse floor beside me, his hand near my face. His blood pulsed hard and fast. There wasnothing left but vertebrae. No creature except a vampire could survive that. I’d had friends die from this kind of wound. His eyes met mine. His fingers curled once and went flaccid. His pupils went wide, spreading like the night. Bruiser was dying. Beast was dying. I was dying.This sucks,I thought.
Bruiser’s mouth opened. There was no way he could speak. He had no breath and no larynx. Yet he spoke. In the cadence of the Flayer of Mithrans, he said, “Tribal woman. You will give unto me three things: the iron spike of Golgotha, the crown of the arcenciels, and the heart of my brother. If you do this, your man will live. And so shall you.”
I considered it for all of half a second. Considered giving the Flayer the key to time and to control of the arcenciels. The key that might give him back his shadow. Might take him back in time to his own origination, and... fix the broken spell that had failed to bring his father’s mind back when his body rose from the dead. Suddenly I understood.That.That was what the Sons of Darkness had always wanted. Not only to bring back their father’s body but also to bring back his mind. With the exception of the Sons of Darkness, all vamps were insane when they rose, even Judas Iscariot. The long-chained were just insane longer. Had Judas been a long-chained? If they had known how to help him, would their father still be alive? Had they killed their father too soon, when he rose as a killing machine that ate his human victims?
If the Sons of Darkness found a way back, they might give vampires the ability to timewalk from the beginning. Might be able to eliminate the ten years of the devoveo altogether.
That was what the arcenciels wanted to avoid at all costs, even to the utter destruction of human civilization.
No.My mouth moved, soundless.No way. We’ll all die first.
Brute collided with the Flayer. Roaring. Werewolf fangs ripped into him. They went down, snarling, shouting. The smell of blood was strong on the air.
Instantly I was back in my soul home. The Gray Betweenwas open all around us. And I was inside Beast’s body. “Don’t go,” I whispered again. “Don’t go.”
“Beast is best hunter,” she said aloud to me. “Beast is better thanPuma concolorand Jane.” In the deeps of our soul home, her body healed. Mine did not.
***
I came to, slowly, smelling Edmund’s blood.
I was lying on the ground, eyes open. A heavy mist filled the air, rising and condensing and falling, dripping, dropping water sounding all around us—splatting on fallen trees, plopping on stone, plinking into water. A symphony of nature. A roar sounded, so loud it hurt my ears. The light changed, so brilliant that pain rammed through my eyes.
Beast?
Beast is here. Jane must shift. Jane is dying. Beast will die with Jane.
Yeah, yeah. Sure.I attempted to shift. Nothing happened. I got a feeble breath. A faint hint of air moved in my throat, explained by the scent of Edmund’s blood. He had gotten some into or onto me, healing me enough to be able to breathe.Go, Ed.
I remembered the sight of Dudley hanging out of me. Remembered the talons left inside me by the shadow. Remembered the popping sounds as my neck broke. I was so screwed. But I did get a second slow breath. There was that.
Beast and I were lying near the rift. Blue water glowed in the night. In the drips of its moisture, I saw the future and the past. Options. Possibilities. Some not so horrible, some... dreadful. And none of the possibilities I could see would prevent this. This moment. This death. Time, that wonderful weapon, was useless.
Around our body, the Gray Between glimmered. Waiting.
To my side Edmund worked to save Bruiser. But Bruiser was pale, too pale, too white with blood loss. I watched as the man I loved was dying for trying to protect me from the Flayer of Mithrans. He had come to save me and I was already dead or close enough not to matter. So we both died for... nothing?
Beside him was a skinned vampire, Tex, with a stake inhis belly, waiting for another master vamp to come heal him. Beyond Tex was the female vamp, the one from the cave. And Stacey, the little witch. Also skinned. Dying. Two vampires, a witch, a white werewolf with a grindylow clinging to his back, an Onorio, and a skinwalker on the floor of a crevasse, dying, lying beside the exoskeleton of a Son of Darkness, the Flayer of Mithrans. He was headless, limbless. At his side were his arms and legs, twitching.
This time, the shadow wasn’t here to carry his parts back to him. The shadow was dead. Brute had Shimon’s head, his jaws clamping down and spreading the crack I had started in the exoskeleton skull.
Eli knelt and put a cervical collar onto my neck, then half lifted me in his arms. I felt the stricture of bandages and sticky tape, and my middle burned. Eli had tried to put me back together. I wanted to chuckle but could only make the feeblest of breaths. But I caught the smell of more vampire blood. Of Kojo and Thema. Tasted them on my cracked, dry lips. They had made me drink their blood. If I had been human, I’d be bound to them and to every other vamp who had fed me to heal me over the last few years. And so would my people.
Leo had bound me and Beast had bound him. But my people, they had never been bound by the blood of the MOC. More important, Beast and I had broken Leo’s binding.
Only a master vamp could break a binding, could keep her people from being bound by a strong vampire. Only death or a master vamp could shatter bonds. Or me.
Understanding bloomed, another layer, as if I finally understood all the questions of my existence in this moment of imminent death. I understood that I was the Dark Queen, hadalwaysbeen the Dark Queen, from the very beginning, from the moment I first touchedle breloqueand it recognized me as its own. But the words didn’t make it past my lips, falling away into silence without enough breath to speak.
Was the Dark Queen the sacrifice that led to a safe future for all the paranormals in the world? Is that what I had always been? A body to die?
“Babe,” Eli said gently. “You still with us?”
I grunted, too soft to hear, yet he did. Ranger ears.
“Helo is on the way, but the cleft is too narrow for it to land. Thema and Kojo went to get the helo’s rescue litter and scoop stretcher and more climbing gear. We’re going to have to haul you out.” He hesitated. “It’s going to be bad.”
