Darkness Undone: A Novel of the Marked Souls (37 page)

With unhurried thoughtfulness, he painted his cheekbones. The toxic ooze ate into his flesh, and he tasted salt as the deep furrows siphoned his tears downward.

Corvus died to reach his vision; there must be another way.

The white clouds had thickened all day to an ashen gray, condensing toward black like his poor boat. They bellied
down now to spit rain in his face, but nothing could extinguish the burning pain of the birnenston on his flesh.

The
Princess
was drowned. A cruel goddess was rising. And his innocent little Alyce … had never been his.

See, this was why a man was better off alone.

The talyan would come to curse the
symballein
lash, he had no doubt. But in the meantime, they’d triggered a torrent of changes that had yet to run its course. Who would be left standing and who would be swept away?

He’d bragged to Alyce, and to Carlo of the gaping chest hole, that he walked his own path. That was what he’d told himself while his grandmother dragged him down from the apartment roof one night short of his seven-night vigil. He would find his own way.

And look what a clusterfuck had ensued.

He’d been a slow student at the rez school, and worse when he’d been sent to his grandmother in the city. Maybe if his spirit guide had appeared. Maybe if the bomb hadn’t gone off, or—better yet—if he’d never twisted the wires together. Maybe if the radiance he’d seen in Alyce had held out any chance for him … But no. He was what he was.

Possessed by evil. But he would not allow anyone else to lead him by the nose. It was time he mastered the darkness in him, by himself, since the light had never been burning for him.

That last encounter with Alyce had shamed him. Held at bay by an Anglo toting his own gun … He needed to get back his edge.

War paint complete, his djinni roused to a fury, he crept past the Last Call Cleaning van.
SERVICES IN DECONTAMINATION AND STERILIZATION
, promised the lettering on the vehicle.

They’d need those services after he was done.

“Idiot!” Nim bounced hard on the mats.

“Who?” Gavril straightened his black T-shirt. Throwing Nim over his shoulder had left a wrinkle. “You or me?”

“You! Okay, me. Just … ouch.” She pulled herself to her feet with a grimace.

Alyce stepped forward. “I’ll try now.”

Nim limped off the mats to stand in the wan gray light filtering through the warehouse windows. Fretful rain spattered against the glass. “Did you see what I did wrong?”

“You let him catch you.”

Nim snorted. “My mistake.”

Gavril took a few circling steps to the side as Alyce walked into the empty corner amidst all the salvaged junk. He had bowed to Nim. He did not do the same to her, Alyce noticed.

She followed him along the circling path he’d set, their bare feet silent on the mats.

He studied her, eyes unreadable. “Jonah asked me to work with her, to streamline the reflexes her teshuva has given her. He worried—needlessly—that his missing hand makes him less of an instructor. He worried—rightly—that he would be too gentle with her.”

Nim snorted again. “His mistake.”

Gavril inclined his head, but his gaze did not leave Alyce. “You do not need such streamlining.”

Nim put her hand on the lush swell of her hip. “Did you just call me fat?”

They both ignored her. Alyce shrugged. “We have been together a long time, my demon and I. But we are weaker than we should be because I do not know what to give it. I don’t know how to be with it.”

Gavril’s gaze was still dark. “Your
symballein
mate should show you. He has no excuse not to.”

“He has many excuses,” Alyce said softly.

Nim sucked in a breath. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”

Gavril held up one hand. “I have no intention of pursuing this opening.” His smile at Alyce was cool and sharp. “No intention of pursuing you, other than here, around this attack.”

“I don’t intend to be caught. In either way.”

“Then let us begin.”

Gavril did not catch her long enough to throw her—although he laid hands on her twice and managed to trip her once—but the chase left her panting. In the end, she managed a leap that sucked the last of the energy from her legs. She planted both heels in Gavril’s chest with a mighty kick that drove him back to the windows. His elbow cracked a pane, and if she’d gone for the follow-up, she might have shoved him through the glass to a debilitating, if not fatal, fall.

She hit the mat and rolled backward, coming to a stop in a low crouch, one hand steepled before her. The demon arched through her, straining toward the fight. In the bottom of her vision, the rivet ring glinted with a twinge of violet.

Gavril waited against the windows. “You might not know all the demon needs, but your instincts haven’t failed you.” He gave her the bow he’d withheld before, as smooth as the raindrops rolling down the glass behind him.

Lounging on her belly at the edge of the fight, propped on her elbows, Nim pouted. “How come I didn’t get instincts?”

“You did,” Gavril said. “You talk over them.”

“True.” She coiled her legs around to sit. “Enough ass-kicking for today?”

“Until tonight,” Gavril said. “And then it will be for real.”

Despite the saucy tilt of her head, Nim’s eyes were serious as her gaze slid from Alyce to Gavril. “Speaking of talking … You won’t mention any little
symballein
spats, right? Just between us girls?”

Gavril grimaced. “Any of the others could have chosen to be up here to enjoy your indiscretions. They are not brave enough. So they will get no advantage from me.”

“Great.” Nim bounded to her feet. “Let’s have ice cream.”

Alyce looked over with interest. “What is ice cream?”

Nim hooked her arm through Alyce’s elbow. “Sweetie, let me show you heaven.”

Gavril shook his head and stalked away.

Down the stairs to the main floor, Nim was silent. But when they got to the kitchen, she paused before reaching into the freezer. “It’s not easy being
symballein
. I used to get stark naked in front of strangers, but nobody saw my soul.”

She spooned out a bowl of ice cream for herself, then solemnly handed Alyce the carton and the ladle. “Go for it.”

“I tried that. I said I loved him. He, the man of many words, said nothing.”

Nim winced. “I meant go for the ice cream.”

“Oh.” Alyce stared down into the chunky chocolate depths. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“To me or dumbfuck? Sweetie, you can tell a girlfriend anything. A man, not so much.” She shoved her spoon into the ice cream as if the frozen lump were a particularly unfeeling heart.

Alyce took a bite and waited while the confection melted across her tongue. The demon stretched one last time, tightening and relaxing every muscle in a long ripple; then it was quiet. “I frightened him. I saw it in his eyes.”

“I’m sure you did. They are easily scared that way.”

“Not Jonah,” Alyce said. “Not Liam or Archer.”

Nim laughed. “Not
now
. But before … As quick as they are to run
to
trouble, a talya male is twice as fast running
from
the
symballein
bond. Which is just silly, when the two are fairly synonymous.”

“But what should I do?”

“What do you want?”

Alyce contemplated the chocolate on her spoon. The sweet darkness made her hungry for more. “I want him.”

“Remember when I said it wasn’t easy?”

Alyce inverted the spoon over her tongue and nodded.

“Well, you won’t be, not anymore. Let him fight for it.”

“Fight?” Alyce swallowed, and the sugared cream raced through her system. “But we were talking about love.”

“The only thing
worth
fighting for,” Nim said. “Are you strong enough?”

“My teshuva—”

“Not the demon. You.”

Alyce hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“Fair enough. Maybe you don’t really want him.”

Denial reared up in an instant, the demon a heartbeat behind in solidarity. Alyce narrowed her eyes.

Nim smiled. “You’re strong enough. But it could get ugly. If he resisted that white satin underwear …”

“He didn’t.”

“But he managed to break free of the lace.” Nim tilted her head in thought. “Well, maybe
he
is stronger than I thought too. We’ll have to enthrall him well.”

“He likes puzzles. I’m too simple.”

Nim snorted. “No woman is simple. He was just blinded by those pretentiously nerdy glasses. You’ll show him. Tonight, when the league goes out. Come to my room at sundown. We’ll see who’s chasing whom.”

Alyce bit her lip. “But what if—” A jagged bolt of energy not her own seared across her awareness.

She found herself on her knees, Nim beside her, hand on her shoulder. “Alyce? How hard did Gavril hit you?”

“Didn’t you feel—?”

Nim stiffened. “Everybody’s suddenly on attack. The warehouse sinks aren’t dampening it all. Let’s go.”

The other woman really did think she’d be a help, Alyce marveled. And she would be, she swore to herself, if only she could stop clutching her temples.

The leashed uproar was worse in the foyer, etheric energy sparking like lightning in the cool, rain-scented air. The wall-to-wall black of the talyan split around one redheaded angelic-possessed.

“Nanette.” Nim hurried forward to join Sera in the
seething morass of motionless talyan. How they managed to do both—seethe and be still … Alyce crept up behind Ecco. His bulk seemed to absorb some of the furious energy.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Nanette was saying. “Help Cyril.”

The sphere warden lay sprawled on the floor, his face a disturbing shade somewhere between the concrete and the white of his pristine linen shirt—pristine except for the blooming crimson across his belly.

Sidney shouldered between the talyan. “Put pressure on that. Stop the bleeding. His angel isn’t like the teshuva; it won’t do the work for us.”

“Typical angel,” Ecco mumbled.

Alyce slipped out from behind him and went to Sidney’s side. He had flipped up Fane’s shirt, and she held back a gasp at the vivid, vicious wound surrounded by ichor scorch.

“What happened?” Nim had brought a towel to her workout. She tossed it to Sera, who made a thick pad and pressed it to the gaping red gash.

“A djinn-man,” Nanette said. Her shoulders shook until Nim wrapped an arm around her. “I was closing the church when Cyril came, bleeding. He said he’d been attacked and told me to bring him here.”

From the woman’s blank stare, unmindful of the way her red hair dripped rain around her cheeks, Alyce knew she was picturing the moment again, probably superimposed over her husband’s attack. Alyce wondered if she would ever go back to the church again.

Blood seeped through the towel between Sera’s fingers. “We need to get him to the hospital. Now.”

“No,” Fane rasped. “They’ll come for me there.”

Sidney half rolled the warden to check his back for an exit wound. “The djinn-men?”

Fane hissed like a curse: “The sphericanum.”

The talyan shot one another mystified glances.

“He lost his abrasax,” Nanette said. When they only
shrugged, one after the other, she added, “His blesséd weapon.”

Ecco’s eyes bugged. “He
lost
it?”

“Didn’t lose it,” Fane growled. “Djinni fuck took it.”

“That’s why the sphericanum will”—Nanette swallowed hard—“not be forgiving.”

Ecco scratched his close-shaved head with a sound like sandpaper. “Huh. I always thought the side of goodness and light automatically included forgiving. Like, ‘If you order now …’”

Sidney interrupted. “If we’re saving his life, we need to get him down to the lab. Ecco, help me carry him.”

As they trooped downstairs, Sera sent various talyan peeling off on other errands: to inform Liam, to recon the church, to patrol the warehouse roof in case a maddened army of angelic-possessed came to reclaim their fallen.

“They won’t care,” Nanette murmured as they positioned Fane on the exam table. “No one from the spheres came to Daniel’s funeral but Cyril.”

Nim and Ecco herded her to one side of the lab while Sidney and Sera washed their hands and consulted over Fane’s belly.

“Gut and bowel aren’t involved,” Sera said.

“This isn’t a full ER suite.” Sidney glanced over his shoulder, his brown eyes fierce as the seething talyan but in a different way, focused thought and brisk action welded together. “Alyce, my hands are clean. Can you push the crash cart over here? Thank you.”

“People die in ER suites all the time,” Sera countered.

“Hey,” Fane said. “Patient right here, listening.”

Alyce cleared her throat. “The bullets.”

The two talyan and the warden stared at her.

“That’s a little harsh even for us,” Sera said.

But Sidney nodded. “Good idea, Alyce.”

“Hey,” Fane repeated, more weakly this time.

Alyce hurried across the lab to the glass-fronted cabinet
with the cryptic pink note stuck to the front. Inside lay the shard from her leg—chipped away and smaller now from Sidney’s experiments—along with the bullets. How much would be enough?

“Nanette,” she called gently.

The woman joined her and sucked in a breath. Her hands went to the glass as if she could reach through without obstruction. Golden light from her hands, the shard, and the fragments of the shard stuffed into the tips of the bullets pulsed in rhythm.

Alyce popped open the cabinet, and Nanette reached in with slow reverence to cradle the shard in her palm. Streamers of radiance spilled between her fingers like water or sand that never ran out.

“It’s beautiful,” Alyce said. “And deadly to us.”

Nanette nodded. “And healing. With the right touch and a little luck. And help and time and—”

“Patient right here, dying,” Fane said.

“Hush.” Nanette faced the room. “As for the rest of you, I know this is rude—”

Fane plucked at the blood-soaked towel over his belly. “And hush wasn’t?”

“But can we have privacy? The laying on of hands is a sacred moment.”

“And we aren’t sacred,” Ecco finished. He stalked out the door without looking back.