Ecko Rising (49 page)

He’d
so
fallen for the oldest trick in the book –
Oh honey, you’re so hot!
He berated himself, vicious, silent, scornful.
What were you thinking?

All right, already. No prizes for gettin’ the answer to that question right.

In the shine of the stone, her reflection was distorted. Not just the monstrous white eyes and claws, but the shadow that stood with and over her – her guardian spectre. Lush, wanton, terrible.

Irrefusable.

Every schoolboy’s fantasy; the creature every comic-book teen had tacked to his bedroom wall. The ultimate, intimate vision, the dream made flesh...

Figment.

He heard Eliza laughing, heard Collator’s cool tones –
Chances of discovery at checkpoint four-two-niner: 87.12%.
He heard his sisters giggling as they needled him, endlessly needled him... they’d grown into corporate sell-out bitches, every one of them.

Unaware of the congealing of Ecko’s soul, Tarvi had thrown her arms about the axeman’s neck, catching him in an awkward and impulsively charming embrace.

“Thank you!” she said, breathless and wide-eyed. “Thank you – I don’t know what to say!”

Triqueta coughed. Redlock disentangled himself.

“Not a problem,” he said. His voice was gruff, he seemed to be reaching for “paternal”. He stepped back. “You’ve more than earned it.”

For a second, Ecko was poised, trembling – indecisive. He knew what he should do, but for chrissakes, how
good
had she felt?

How
real.

How much he wished it could be –

Fucking stop it! For the last fucking time. Mom told you – remember? – and you gave it up to be what you are. You gave it up!

“She’s not earned shit,” Ecko said. He threw the cloak back, crossed his arms over his chest. He’d been unable to fuel his flamer, his adrenals were precarious – for the moment, he left them untapped. “Unless she ’fesses up right the fuck now – what the hell is goin’ on?”

“Ecko?” Redlock turned, Tarvi half shrank behind him.

“She’s not human. And she’s playing us all for a bunch of assholes.” His eyes met hers. “Aren’t ya?”

“What?” Tarvi was shocked, hurt, open mouthed. “What do you mean? Ecko...!”

“Play me for a mug, you bitch.” Ecko eyed the axeman. “Get outta the way.”

“This has to be a jest.”

“Get outta the fucking way. She’s a rat, a spy, a creature. A
figment.
All of this – fucking bullshit. Pareus died saving your life, you little whore – did you set those critters on him? Did you know they were there? Did you murder nine members of your own patrol so I’d feel
sorry
for you?” His anger was returning now. “Didja?
Huh?
”

“What...? How could you...?” Tarvi was white faced and broken, she sank sobbing into Redlock’s torn shoulder. “Pareus... Oh Gods... Pareus was my
friend
...! Ecko, how could you even
think
...?”

Redlock’s mouth was a grim line. From her vantage, Triq watched, narrow eyed over arrow nocked.

The axeman said, “You sick bastard. I should pull your damned spine out.”

“The centaur mare – did you blow it up? Save my life? Why?”

He was in a low crouch, aware that his back was to the open edge of the tiny platform. His targeters tracked Redlock’s axe, eyes, chest, Triq’s bow.

“Who’s pulling your strings?” he demanded.

“No one’s pulling... that night after Pareus died... I was so afraid... and you...”

“Afraid my fucking ass. How dumb d’you think I am?” At Redlock. “Get outta the way.”

The axeman dropped into a half crouch, weapons glittering.

“I don’t know what the rhez you are – but I’ve run out of patience with your horseshit. Back off – now.”

“This is loco,” Triq said. “The first one of you two idiots that moves...”

“Bring it on.” Ecko’s adrenaline was kicked, he was already moving. He had one shot at this – if he didn’t take the axeman down with the first strike, he was fucked – he’d be shish kebab.

Redlock was fast, his reactions were shit-hot. Even as Ecko’s feet moved, the axe was dropping, down and around in a perfect, aggressive block.

But he wasn’t fast enough.

The axeman was human; Ecko was not.

Targeters flashed. The foot snapped high, impacted hard against Redlock’s sternum. Something cracked. The axeman fell into Tarvi and both of them sprawled into the wall.

He caught Triq’s arrow shaft out of the corner of his eye, but he was already in front of it – it spanked from the stone, terhnwood head shattering.

Then he stopped, really sick now, quivering. The low lights of the tunnel were sparking in his vision. He mustn’t black out... mustn’t fucking black out....

The Bogeyman’s luck was with him: he kept his feet – and his stomach.

Triq was shouting – what did they think they were doing? Tarvi was crying out at a sudden shock of pain in her back.

She’d hit the corner of the stone support, the axeman’s weight on top of her.
Deal with that, you fucking...

Redlock straightened up, fighting for breath. Ecko wondered what he’d broken. Not much. In the darkness, the white gleam of the axeman’s eyes was utterly unholy.

“You traitorous little bastard. I knew I couldn’t trust you. I’m going to –”

“What?”
Ecko savaged back. He was shaking, trying to hide it, struggling to find his anger in the midst of his vision spinning like he’d been dropping monkeydust all night. “You’ll do
what
? I’m faster than you, stronger than you, more than human, built to be a fucking
hero.
Mom made like this because I
wanted
her to. I
asked
for the fucking pain.” Was he telling himself or Redlock? Or was he telling Eliza? “You bring that axe near me, fuckwit, you’re getting a steel enema.”

“Try me.” On foot, Redlock had killed the centaur stallion. He came forwards, the axes spun, edges dancing with the dark light.

Ecko thought,
Yah, fuck it.

Kicked his boosting.

It failed.

No fucking way.

They were so intent on each other, on the edge of the platform, that Triq’s movement startled them. She was a swift, gold streak, down two steps, past Redlock’s back and lunging, swearing, through the lintel doorway.

“Men!”
she said. One hand in her collar, she hauled the fleeing Tarvi back on to the platform. “And where do you think you’re going, sunshine?”

Redlock started to cough. Sagging with relief, Ecko was almost on his knees.

“Fat lot of use you two are,” Triq said. “All that macho posing. Look at you both!” She shook the captured Tarvi like a squealing esphen. “Spill it, girlie, or I’ll show you what the Banned do to people who betray their
friends.
What are you?”

Redlock was trying to speak, but the cough was making him shudder. Blood flecked the inside of his palm. He grimaced, wiped it on his breeches.

“Is
everyone
damned crazed?” he said at last.

“No more than usual.” Ecko watched him, wary. “You ready to listen now? Or d’you wanna play some mo– ?”

Tarvi raised her gaze, met his black-on-black oculars.
Help me, Ecko. She’ll hurt me. Help me.

Like electrodes to his temples, his brain exploded.

Images detonated, an expanding writhe of top-quality late-night porn. She was under him, over him, round him, on her knees before him – not just Tarvi, but her real self, her immortal and impossible self.
Figment.
No lover – be she flesh, fantasy, flatscreen creation, body sculpt or brainrig – no lover, even in his dreams, could fulfil him like this.

Let me
, she said, her eyes still on his.
Let me show you.

In the basher, after the death of Pareus and his patrol. Only this time, his breath was lethal – he exhaled and she
burned.

Oh fucking hell.

She burned for him, with him. The ultimate forbidden fantasy, the fire lived in her flesh and he took her anyway. She loved him, saved him, wrapped herself around him and they burned together, the ultimate consummation and release.

They were consumed, a pyre. They burned away.

Ash, blowing forever across the decaying grass.

Let me show you.

Ecko found himself on his knees. The desire to take hold of her, to rip her from Triqueta’s grasp and bury himself in her, was overwhelming. Black teeth clenched, he forced himself to stand.

Aren’t there enough goddamn people in my head already? Damn suck-u-bitch, get out!

Dimly, he was aware of the axeman, still coughing. Redlock spat shards of his past through scarlet-flecked teeth.

“Shynane, please... You’re not... my wife any more...” He was doubled over from the pain in his chest. His vision was his own, and he was locked within it.

Tormented. But fighting.

Tarvi’s eyes narrowed.

Then she turned her hell-gaze on Triqueta.

Weapons forgotten, the horsewoman didn’t hesitate. Her hands grabbed the front of Tarvi’s shirt, pushed her back into the rock wall. Triq was desert blooded, she lived in the moment and had no thought of resistance – she kissed the creature with a passion that wrapped Tarvi’s hands and thighs round her, embracing her eagerly in return.

Redlock hauled himself upright, cried, “Triq!”

For a moment, Ecko thought he was doing the schoolboy-fantasy thing, then he realised something horrifying.

Triqueta was
darkening.

In the blackness, lit only by the deep-purple throb and spark of the wall, she was caught in the embrace of a monster – and she
shrivelled.

For a moment, all of Ecko’s ocular sensitivity couldn’t explain what he saw – but as the axeman surged forwards, coughing still, he realised what the creature was taking.

Time.

The gemstones flickered and flared – but the skin around them shrank, became lined and weather-beaten. In the space of a heartbeat, a silent scream, Triq went from thirty to forty, forty to forty-five –

The back of Redlock’s axe clipped Tarvi smartly round the side of the skull. She dropped the horsewoman to the platform, turned on him and hissed through her teeth. She was crouching now, her skin dark, her eyes as white as bone, her nails curved into hooks. Fingers splayed, seeking.

Triqueta hit the stone and lay like a dead thing.

Oh, fuck.

“Please,” Tarvi said. Her voice was a throaty mockery of her earlier innocence. “You wouldn’t
hurt
me, would you? Think what I can do.”

“Yeah, right.” Ecko laughed at her. “I got one more fantasy that’s all yours.”

“Oh don’t I know it.” She flicked her eyebrows at him, igniting fires in his belly.

“Why did Maugrim send you?” Even as they circled, shifting on the tiny platform, seeking advantage, Redlock was pure business.

She moved, trying to keep both of them in sight, keep their backs to the edge of the lake.

C’mon
, Ecko told his endocrine system,
c’mon let’s not wait ’til fucking Thanksgiving, shall we?

The axeman lunged, double slash. But she moved like a dancer – fluid, impossibly graceful.

“Maugrim?” she said.

As he pressed the advantage, pure focused aggression, she opened his face with one lightning claw-slash.

She was laughing. Ecko hadn’t even seen her move.

Holy shit. Okay,
unholy
shit.

“Fool boys, you have no idea.” She teased them, sucked blood from her fingertip.

Ecko, targeters wavering, snapped his foot sideways, a strike to break her elbow.

He missed. By about half a klick. She seemed to evaporate, recoalesce.

“Why do you fight?” she said. She flicked her claws at him. He snatched his head sideways. “It’s not Maugrim I’m answering to.”

“That’s helpful.” Low and wary, Redlock spluttered a cough.

The axeman lunged again, one blade, two. The platform was too small for this shit. He was trying to drive her back into Ecko, but she spun from between them.

“Maugrim is detailed to take Roviarath. I’m here to make sure he does.”

“I’m not playin’ twenty fucking questions here.” Ecko turned to keep her in sight.
Where were his adrenals?
A second kick, a snap of his foot at her shoulder – his targeters were off.

She blocked it, forearm as merciless as fucking scaff bar. Snatched it down and sideways, twisted her wrist to make a grab for his ankle, tried to tip him.

Fuck!

Her claws scored his reinforced skin. He snatched the foot back, kicked again, one, two, three, repeated piston-kicks at the side of her head – even unboosted he was fast as fuck. And now scared.

But she was faster.

She was simply gone, his foot contacted air and he almost staggered.

“Steady.” Redlock seemed to be enjoying this.

Ecko spun back, savage now – hating being this in-fucking-adequate. He had his trickery for a reason, felt suddenly like she was some school fucking bully – picking on the little guy. He and the axeman found themselves shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the platform edge.

“Think about it,” she told them. She came forwards, closing softly, like hands about their throats. She had them now; the heat and scent of her were rising around them both. “The Bard is gone, Rhan is defeated. Jade and Valiembor will fall. Maugrim will take the heart of the Varchinde, just as another will take its head.” She was smiling at them, warm curves and her claws receding. “And I want Khamsin.”

Ecko blinked. “Come-what?”

Redlock coughed, doubled over, hacking like an old man.

He managed, “If you don’t answer to Maugrim...?”

She shivered, delighted and anticipatory. “No, I am the eyes and ears and
touch
of another.” She was close now, any closer, she could touch them. “He
feeds
me.”

Ecko’s heels were over the edge of the stone.