No, that wasn’t the worst.The worst was that high keening screech again, trying to dig its way into her brain.Into hermind, and Liv’s right hand flattened over the lump of theoneiros, fingers curling and pressing carved iron into her palm hard enough to bruise.
It helped.The stone’s scorch intensified; sudden deep silence folded around her with soft heartbeat wings.
She had time to study Erik’s profile, mouth drawn tight and dark eyes lit with a cloud of pale specks in the very center of the pupils.It wasn’t like Ignatius’s gaze with its terrible blue pinpricks; the gleams in Erik’s reminded her of stars.
He looks worried, she thought, and the windshield showed a long straight shot up Rochester’s Cameron Hill, great sledding this time of year if you didn’t mind the prospect of being run overorcracking your head open at the bottom.Her hair fell in her face—she was motionless, but the rest of the world was moving forward, albeit at a snail’s pace.The dangling curls swayed as the SUV began its lurching for the hill, and she knew exactly what was going to happen.
Paradoxically, there was no time to brace herself.A stunning impact hit the back passenger door, and the vehicle slewed wildly.A stinging snap like a rubber band against an unsuspecting wrist in grade school, weightlessness like the one time she and Mika had done bungee-jumping at the county fair and Jada had chickened out, and the thing that had hit them was scrabbling through silver crumbles of falling safety glass while Erik, in calm, complete defiance of rationality, kept his left hand on the wheel.His right, now full of a very businesslike gun with a squarish barrel and a dull black finish, snaked between the front seats.
A deafening roar, a gush of foulness, and Liv’s stomach was a bubble trapped in a splashing stream as the SUV lifted on its two left tires, wavered for a moment, then fell, skidding like a trapped beetle on a greased plate.
The jolt tossed her out of that strange, floating stasis.Iron sky, snowy air, and dirty stained slush all changed places; now she knew what the ball felt like when spun along a roulette wheel.
Another strange sensation, a temporary skip like a song stuttering through headphones, and the car came to rest on all four tires, canted to the right because both rubber donuts on that side were popped.Erik freed himself of his seatbelt with a quick motion, and freezing, iron-scented air filled the interior.
Well, that’s my second car accident in the last twenty-four hours.These guys sure are exciting.Liv found herself clutching the necklace to her chest, afraid to let go, and staring through the cracked windshield as snow fell down in a heavy curtain, Erik a moving shadow sliding across the hood Dukes-of-Hazzard style.
“Look out!”The cry burst from her mouth without any conscious volition just as a hideous, misshapen shadow-shape hit him with a devastating crunch she felt in her own chest.
Kill It Twice
A blastof untutored power from inside the car was, at least, a sign that she was still alive and conscious; Erik’s boots slid through a mix of ice and greasy slush, finding purchase as the rage took him.If there was ever any doubt that someone had betrayed them, it was now gone—and with it, the need to keep things quiet.
If the Mad God’s bastards would attack during daylight, Erik was more than happy to teach them the folly of that tactic.
Theibling, toadlike and armored against what weak sunshine could penetrate driving snow and heavy cloud, leapt not for him but for the green SUV and its precious, vulnerable inhabitant.He caught it at apogee, driving down with a jolt, his right-hand knife slipping through leathery skin, probing for the nerve-juncture at the back of the heavy, ungainly head.It hiss-screeched as he popped a single shot into it, jolt of recoil slamming his left wrist.That was just to distract the thing; the real weapon was the force along his curved crystalline knife blade, burrowing in, seeking, the hot businesslike joy of a fight filling him with silty red wine.
You could just take her, you know.Find a quiet corner, seal her up?—
The tip of his blade found a gap and he shoved it home, withdrawing as theiblingwent limp, limbs twitching with nerve-death corruption racing through its tissues.He unfolded in a leap, colliding with the half-seen clot of nightmare shadow scratching at the shivering, shattering front passenger window, and Liv’s scream was a spur to an already maddened beast.
The snow thickened, a knife-sharp wind aiming the blast in his direction; Erik’s eyes, half-closed against sandblast-scour and the bonesnapping impact, told him the thing couldn’t be anothersarnaki.It wasn’t aniblingeither, and he was frantically trying to figure out what would be out during daylight and capable of this much coherence when the knife, wiser than he was, plunged deep, rose dripping, and plunged again.
Training forced him into a crouch as the thing howled, and training helped him again, pushing the gun to the correct angle and squeezing off another single shot, a thundercrack muffled by driving snow and a subtle, slow, creeping illusion-poison.
Well, that answered the question of what he was facing.Erik stabbed again, the blade sinking into half-real resistance like warming gelatin.Thekthulhowled, more snow gusting and spinning—it was using the weather as a cover; the Mad God’s troops had been given plenty of time to prepare this little set-piece battle.
Maybe they hadn’t counted on Jake warning him.Or maybe Jake had been a distraction and the real danger was out there, lurking amid veils of falling white.
Kthulcould stand weak sunlight, especially if weakened still further by their illusion-veils.They were nasty, slip-shifting things, more suited to feeding on unsuspecting and halfway gifted mortals than facing a wary, angry Son.
It tried to retreat as stubby vestigial wings worked frantically, blundering along the side of the still-rocking vehicle; the SUV’s engine was making a high whining sound and there was a sharp stink of gasoline.Liv hadn’t stopped screaming; she probably hadn’t even run out of breath yet.Things were happening far too quickly for a civilian to comprehend.
Just hold on, beautiful.I’m working.
The only problem was,kthulnever hunted alone.He stabbed again, the blade finding one of its blood-bladders deep below the skin; the smell was colossal, titanic.An unclean thing shuddered into death under him; Erik rose, eyes still half-closed, the gun blurring for its holster.He had to turn, putting his back to the car, and at least the reek of gas was better than the smell of dead, fish-rottingkthul.
“Liv,” he said, sharp and low to cut through the moan of the wind and the engine’s ratcheting.It didn’t sound good under that hood, no sir.“Liv, sweetheart, talk to me.”
She gasped, a deep terrible coughing sound.Was she hurt?Had the goddamn thing managed to lay a finger on her?
If it did, I’ll kill it twice,he decided, and the relief of having a clear course of action was just as dangerous as the whispering.
The door moved, hitting his hip; he took a half-step aside and kept watch on the shifting snow.More gunfire, but he couldn’t tell from exactly where.
Jake, for the love of the Dreamers, don’t do anything stupid.Erik’s priority now was the woman who slithered out of the broken-backed car, clutching at his left elbow with both her soft, pretty hands—and if he had to move to meet another fuckingkthul, he’d be handicapped.
“Oh, God.”A broken almost-sob.“Erik?”
