A Different Kind of Deadly (20 page)

I felt sick, because I knew what he was about
to do.

"UHH, DODGE!"

But my golem could only respond fast enough to
see the open palm coming his way. Koronos slammed into his body so
hard that it flattened his side. My heart plummeted as I saw him
get thrown across the length of the platform, and nearly ten
additional feet into the air beyond.

"Oops," said the devil. "Now that might be a
problem."

Diana and Will, rather than give into their
rage, were too stunned to react. This was not the time to be
inactive.

Lava sputtered violently below us, and the
Salamander Nest rumbled to life.

I recalled the fossils I saw on the way up,
glanced at the Eyes in the palm of my hand, and prayed that I knew
what I was doing.

I linked hands with everyone in a flurry of
motion and ducked low to the ground. Runes spilled across my tongue
like a river of gibberish.

We didn't have time to escape the explosion
-but there was a chance we could survive it.

26: Loophole

I don't recall
much of my childhood, but I can guarantee that I
was never one to push certain boundaries -specifically those that
would spell injury if I were to cross them.

I never touched a burning stove. I shied away
from white-hot crucibles; my only experience dealing with the
excess of heat would be from the few times I fell asleep in the
attic and received a minor sunburn.

Like most denizens of Nethermount, I was of a
fair complexion, and from these little naps of mine I determined
that my skin was exceptionally sensitive.

Those burns would equate to angry
red welts wherever the light ended up falling. At the risk of
sounding crass: they stung like a bitch.

This feeling I had now wasn't so different
from back then... if one were to multiply it by a
thousand.

I looked like a freshly boiled lobster. Jiki's
armor cracked, leaving Purilo's enchantment in similar pieces. I
felt the last vestiges of magic leaving the metal like a gust of
arctic wind, and after that there was silence.

All around me were chunks of
steaming rock and bone -and oil, thanks to those brilliant fossils.
The Eyes granted me the power I needed to drag their organic matter
through the earth, shaping it in a protective bubble. The lava shot
up through the oculus as the fastest way to go up. We were already
so close to the cavern ceiling that I gambled on us getting shot to
the surface.

Judging by the moonlit dunes, it must be my
lucky night.

I tried to stand, but unleashed a pained
groan. I needed to find Diana, Leo, and Will. I needed to stay
alive. I needed to keep moving.

"
Aaargh!
"

"Marvin!" I couldn't muster the
strength to look behind me, but I felt Diana's porcelain fingers
touch my scalded back. "Marvin, don't move."

"Di-"

"I told you not to move!" she shouted. Her
voice sounded so far off in spite of her closeness. This finally
made enough of an impression for me to know that something was very
wrong. "LEO!" she called behind her. "Hurry!"

Diana turned me in her arms. Her
beautiful face was charred and covered in soot. Petal pink eyes
shone out from the darkened mask like the bright orbs of a panther.
Cracks littered her arms and shoulders. Pieces fell inside her
hollow shell, and I heard them rattle with every movement she
made.

"Marvin, you're going to be
alright."

"Keep him still." Leo sounded serious -a
reason for concern in and of itself. "Here, you know what to do
with this."

He handed Diana a damp cloth towel. She
pressed it over my nose and mouth.

"I need  you to breathe deeply, Marvin."
She imitated the motion I needed to make, and I laughed at how
ridiculous she looked doing it. Diana was human at heart, but her
body hadn't been for centuries. There were certain things a flesh
and blood person could do that she simply couldn't. Pretending to
take deep breaths was one of them.

But the laughter did its job. I felt so light
in the head that I barely detected the itching of healing magic at
work.

"Dia-" I tried to speak, but I couldn't hear
my voice, not even in my own head. Thankfully I didn't have
to.

While our friendship might have been a lie,
our empathy wasn't. Sensing my silent question, Diana set my hand
against her abdominal cavity. My numb fingers traced the angle her
body was cut -reached through until I could wriggle my fingers on
the other side.

Oh, I see.

I'd been pierced by something. Rock, probably.
I mentioned earlier the hazards of using Runes incorrectly -this
was definitely one of them. In my haste to shield us I must've
slurred somewhere.

Rationally speaking, I understood how close I
was to death by how blasé I was being about this whole
affair.

My fingers twitched towards Diana's face, and
she put them there to keep me from straining myself more than I
already was. I did my utmost to wipe the soot from her features,
but the damage was deeper. And it came as a grim realization that
my face must've been in a similar state -burnt into some hellish
caricature of a human male.

Her frown reflected my own, and there it
stayed until Leo, heaving with his laborious task, announced that
my life was no longer in danger.

Miraculously, I felt the space
where Diana had my palm earlier, but in place of a hole there were
only cracked pieces -tenuously being held together as though by
watery glue.

How is it that I am capable of
fainting in nearly every other situation, yet I'm able to remain
awake the entire time during life-saving surgery?

Or was I awake?

When the hell did it become
morning?

It seemed that in the space of
seconds the sun decided to glare at my broken body over the
horizon. I thought of Purilo and his golden middle finger, and felt
as though this was the world's equivalent of telling me to fuck off
and die already.

"Marvin?" Diana's fingers waved in front of my
face. I squinted at them. "Marvin, I need you to try and drink
this."

She held some foul smelling resin paste
beneath my nose, instantly waking me up with its putrid stench.
That was a healing concoction from House Soma all right; the awful
smell and bitter taste was proof of their absurd ideology that
nasty remedies worked better to improve health and stamina than
anything else.

Either this would save my life or give me that
little extra push to Hell's doorstep.

I grimaced and slurped the thick
mush, convinced I could feel it sliding down my throat and into my
stomach, punching my insides as it went. I shuddered violently once
it was all down.

"Urgh,
gross
."

"Would you rather be dead?" Will asked sourly.
I caught his cross-legged frame glaring at me from a spot on the
sand.

"Shove it," I coughed, not in the
mood, and too close to death to give a damn even if I was. "Are you
all alright?"

Everyone was caked in superficial
cuts, with Leo having a number of severe bruises. He waved off the
damage with a wince and a grin.

"We are thanks to you. Not bad... for a
failure."

The word that had caused me so much grief now
sounded like a joke, and I laughed before I could stop myself -Leo
joining in almost as soon as I started. I also felt Diana shaking
as the joyful sound bubbled from her lips. Only Will, who was left
out of the fold, remained quiet throughout. But, if the heat wasn't
deceiving me, I swore I saw the ghost of a smile.

"So... what now?" I asked.

The question sat there.

Diana looked to Leo. Leo looked to Will. Will
didn't look at anyone, so Leo looked back at me.

"I dunno, Marv. The Crone said to
get the Eyes and bring them back but... that's just the thing.
Nethermountain made you miserable. Do you really want to go back
there?"

My lips parted. Diana sat me up so I was
leaning on her shoulder and not on her lap.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "What are you
going to do, Leo?"

"Me?" He pulled out Leeroy's eye
patch, and I cracked a crooked smirk. "There's a fish I'm after.
And where I go, Will goes, so killing you is a no-go."

Will rolled his eyes.

"You and Diana are welcome to come with us,
you know," Leo offered.

I thought about it, but I didn't think I could
keep up with Leo and his exuberance. I also didn't want to risk
tempting Will, who clearly had an axe to grind where I was
concerned.

"While you boys figure that out I'll go and
grab us something fresh to eat," Diana announced, setting me back
down gently. Leo stepped forward and plopped a cloth over my eyes
to shield them from the sun.

"What are you going to find here in the
desert?" I asked.

"Some vultures are nearby. I need to break the
news that you're not dead yet -but they soon will be."

I got stuck on a cough. "Will, you aren't
going after her?"

"Because you two are in a state to
defend yourselves if shit happens?"

I released a sigh and blinked at the one male
friend who still liked me.

"What happened to Tully?"

"You squished him when you brought us
topside."

"Oh. Sorry."

Leo snorted. "We're alive, and I can bring
Tully back again. It's not a big deal."

We heard the mighty squawk of a vulture's
final death throes in the distance. Leo and I both shook our heads
at the impending meal.

"If Diana doesn't crush all the
bones I think you might get Tully back sooner than you
thought."

"Seems that way." He inspected my sliced up
legs. Just as Leo was about to wrap them I held a hand for pause.
He looked up at me. "What is it, Marv?"

"I think I found something that might
work."

"Work?" he asked. "Work for what?"

"Turning Diana back into a human."

"It's not possible," Will said darkly. "You
think I haven't looked into it myself?"

"You've looked into it. Purilo looked into it.
Inval's looked into it," I listed the names, tired of hearing the
same old response. "The only thing you looked into was how to
reverse the process."

"Marv, did all that heat get to your head?"
Leo wrapped on his skull. "That's what your whole deal with Koronos
was about."

"No," I said, remembering everything Purilo
had told me about loopholes. "My deal with Koronos was never about
finding a cure-all for Dolls who want to go back to their original
states -it was about returning Diana back to hers only."

Will came closer, intrigued by my
line of reasoning. "Alright, I'll bite. What's your
aim?"

"There's a Contract, a physical Contract
involved in creating a Doll. No Contract, no Doll," I emphasized to
a pair of nodding heads. "Contracts can be annulled, and in certain
cases, altered. So why can't it be transferred to someone
else?"

Leo and Will exchanged a
conversation with their eyes. There was the initial question on
whether or not it could work, the skim of the risks involved, and
finally, they turned back to me inquiring after my
resolution.

"Who are you planning on transferring it to?
Yourself?" Will wondered.

"May as well."

"Do you have any idea what
kind of nightmare it is to have a body like this? A
life
," Will spat, "like
this?

"No, but seeing how you made that point," I
countered, "If someone were to offer you a way out, would you take
it?"

Will shut his eyes.

That answered my question.

"Besides," I added. "Whoever said I was going
to live out my life as a Doll?"

I now had their highest level of attention.
Leo swiped the beads of sweat off his forehead with the back of his
hand.