The Geomancer (43 page)

Beneath Adele, the Earth awakened and gazed on her. She shouted rapturously, her spreading senses aware again at last. Here in the center of the city, the rifts were sluggish but left alive, otherwise Goronwy himself would have been killed; he was only human, after all. She reached for them.

The creature above her howled in triumph. Fangs plunged into her shoulder again, but before the hunter could even taste her blood, Adele drew the power of the rift into her and let it sing. The feral flew upward, shoved toward the vaulted ceiling by the force of geomancy exuding from Adele. It screamed as its body burned in a torrent of fire. Its skin blackened and cracked as the flames sucked every bit of moisture from it. It shattered into ash as it hit the ceiling, falling slowly back to the floor like drifting snow.

Adele struggled to her hands and knees, looking for the other feral. There was no hesitation left in her to use the fire and it rose in her. The creature attacked with claws extended. Suddenly, Gareth rushed into the area, charging the remaining feral as it leapt for Adele. Gareth's face twisted in rage, baring his own fangs. He grabbed the snarling creature around the head and tried to snap its powerful neck. Adele couldn't stop the rush of energy pouring from her. It engulfed both of them. She looked on in horror.

The vampire in Gareth's hands burned with a raging fire and crumbled. Gareth however stood untouched by the rift's silver flames. Adele gasped in relief. His eyes met hers, and as he took in her blood-streaked form a flash of anger rose in him. He crushed the scorched skull in his hands. Adele spun around, looking for Goronwy. The Witchfinder stood gaping.

“So that's all you have, bastard?” Adele strode toward him, her knife glowing, ribbons of blood dripping down her arm. “Vampires at least have the decency to fight face to face. But you're a coward and a monster.”

“Tell that to the clan of Britain you slaughtered.”

Adele didn't stop moving forward, fighting dizziness, pulling the power under her feet closer, letting it fill her. Gareth was a dim shape beside her. She wasn't thinking about anything save stopping the horror that the Witchfinder had sent out.

Terror swept over Goronwy's face, giving ground before her fury. He clutched the Tear of Death to his chest like a child protecting a toy.

A stained glass window shattered. Flay dropped to the ground in a shower of colored shards. Immediately she sprang from her crouch to strike for Adele, and cursed in rage when the blow landed on Gareth's shoulder instead, as he streaked between them. Her claws ripped through him, spraying the holy place with more red. Gareth slashed at her face, forcing her to retreat.

Adele grabbed Goronwy by the throat. Unexpectedly, he dropped to his knees, dragging her with him. He stabbed the Tear of Death into the floor, directly through the heart of a rift. The stone slab underfoot shattered with a loud crack. Tendrils of inky smoke rose from the floor and encircled them. Adele reached down and took hold of the Tear of Death along with Goronwy. Abruptly her vision darkened as if the hands of night covered her eyes and ears. She fought to retain the world around her, but the great eye of the Earth had gone blind. Only darkness prevailed. Adele couldn't move; she barely felt the hard stone of the Tear beneath her fingers. The world melted away as the rifts dragged them into their embrace.

Adele's skin flushed hot and her stomach convulsed. The rifts should have been vivid and warm, but here the veins of the world were ice cold. She felt the sickening black aura of death oozing out of the Tear, spilling over itself in an endless torrent. The tarlike substance clung to Adele as she moved. It burned where it touched her skin.

Goronwy dragged his angry gaze from the Tear of Death up onto Adele. His eyes were wide with maniacal fervor, almost in rapture at the power rushing through him.

A corrupted rift at Adele's feet convulsed. She could exert no control over it. The thing was alien to her. It struck her side and searing pain blossomed.

With a trembling hand, Adele struggled to hold the phurba. The terrible power that pulsed through it like enflamed blood threatened to smother her. She wanted to let go, to cleanse herself from the corruption that wriggled over her. She craved distance from the horror and blackness. She needed time to breathe and think, to see the light again. If she stayed here, she would go mad.

A wave of pitch splashed over Adele's legs, chilling her to the bone. Agony seeped into her, coursing through her, eating away at her like a disease. Her body shuddered with a sickening flush. The black substance crept up to encase her like a growing cocoon, trapping her and swirling around her, higher and higher.

Still she held onto the Tear of Death.

C
HAPTER 42

Gareth sidestepped a furious strike by Flay. His arm slammed across her throat and he swiped behind her legs at the same time. She went down hard, but kicked out at him in an effort to keep him at bay. Her feet were bare, with sharp nails. They ripped through cloth and flesh.

Gareth shoved her leg aside and drove his fist at her face. She turned in time and his fist crushed the stone under her into dust. Her roll took her under the shattered windows. She crouched, spitting obscenities at him.

“You will not touch her,” Gareth hissed back. Neither Adele nor Goronwy had moved from their spot kneeling motionless on the floor with hands clutching the Tear of Death. Not knowing what was happening to her in there tore at him, but his focus remained on Flay.

“I'm already touching her. My pack is out there now mopping up what's left of her army, the pathetic few that the Witchfinder didn't already kill.” Flay's eyes darted about, seeking a path around Gareth to Adele. “I'll kill both of you before we're through here.”

“Yet you continually fail to make that promise a reality.” Gareth wanted to keep her attention on him. “I'm rather tired of killing you too.”

“Yes, you were close last time but, as usual, you were so concerned with
her
you didn't make sure I was dead. The Witchfinder found me and revived me with his blood, and then he protected me when the princess murdered your family and clan, with your approval. And he made me immune to her, so there's nothing in the world that can stop me now.”

“We're both slaves of humans it seems,” Gareth chided. “What an irony.”

“Except that I'll kill mine when I'm done with him.” Flay surged up. Gareth stood his ground in front of Adele, deflecting her attacks but at great cost. A weakness began in his muscles as every strike drew more blood. A smirk of triumph spread across Flay's face and she drove at him harder.

As her torn jacket shifted, the brutal scars along her torso caught Gareth's attention. He blocked a clawed hand that would have disemboweled him, then gouged his claws deep into a long scar on her chest. He touched something solid under her flesh, but it wasn't bone. He slammed a fist into her face, jerking her head brutally to the side. His fingers dug into her chest and took hold of a crystal.

Flay's eyes snapped wide and she became a wild animal in his grip. He bore her attacks as he pulled his arm back, ripping the crystal from her flesh. She screeched and retreated. Furious hatred rose in her, but Gareth also saw fear in her eyes for the first time.

This blue crystal was the same as the talismans the vampires in Bedlam had worn. This was what protected Flay from Adele's power. And judging from the many scars, Goronwy had sewn multiple crystals into Flay's body. Gareth tossed the bloody crystal aside and sprang toward her. If the loss of one stone didn't slow her down, perhaps more would serve.

Flay leapt aside, clinging to the wall of the cathedral. Gareth crawled after her. She spun back to him as he neared, propelling off the stones and colliding with him. They fell back to the floor. She smashed his head into the stones. His vision blurred.

Gareth grabbed her head and dug his claws into her face, his forefinger pressing at her eye. Flay snapped at his throat, her sharp teeth inches from tearing it to shreds. His other hand raked for a long scar on her abdomen. Her fear at his cunning returned and she thrust herself away, her foot shoving him across the floor.

Flay sprang for Adele, whose eyes were open and staring into dead space. Gareth raced to intercept her, reaching Flay just as her arm rose to strike the defenseless woman. He slammed into the war chief and shoved her through a teetering iron fence into a tomb beneath a towering cross. He bent her back over the reclining form of a dead man carved in cold marble. Gareth tore again into her stomach, burying his hand up to the wrist. Flay raged under him, kicking him away. He staggered back, his hand dripping red with her blood. In his palm, he held two crystals.

“Damn you,” she gasped. Her flesh smoldered with silver smoke. A crack emerged on her cheek. She wrenched a tall golden crucifix from the floor and slammed it into Gareth, who rushed forward again. The cross connected with his head. He smashed against a column and slumped to the floor. His vision of the church wavered.

Flay rained blows on him with the heavy crucifix. The metal splintered, Gareth's bones fractured. He couldn't get his feet under him. He blurrily saw her raise the crucifix again. His arm lifted to deflect the blow. Flay stabbed the jagged holy symbol through Gareth's shoulder like a lance, pinning him to the floor.

Flay's skin split in deep fissures down her limbs. She spun about and dropped heavily to one knee. Fighting her way back to her feet, she searched frantically across the littered floor. Her flesh continued to burn. Then Flay cried out and pounced on two of her missing crystals. She jammed the stones back into the raw gash in her stomach as she staggered toward Adele with a strangled laugh. The remnants of the silver smoke wreathing her face vanished.

Gareth braced himself against the crossbar of the crucifix and forced himself to his feet, wrenching it from the floor. He staggered to intercept Flay, leaving a trail of his own bright blood that streamed down the golden shaft protruding from his back.

“Flay!” he screamed to bring her focus back on him.

Movement caught his attention in the air. Several figures swept through the stained glass window that Flay had burst earlier and settled to the floor near Adele. Lothaire took in the situation with a grim study of the area and placed himself in Flay's path. Caterina stood beside him. Nadzia and another rebel spread out on their flanks.

More footsteps came from behind and Kasteel appeared with the remainder of his rebels, all torn from battle. He rushed for the wounded Gareth, who shook his head and directed them into position to surround Flay. The rebel chief hesitated, but joined the ring closing on the reeling war chief.

“All your packmates are gone,” Kasteel called to Flay. “They all rushed south to feed off the dying.”

Flay tried to straighten but couldn't. She eyed Gareth as he staggered to Adele. Kasteel steadied him on his feet. Gareth slowly pulled the golden crucifix from his shoulder hand over bloody hand, and threw it aside.

Flay clutched one hand against her open stomach. She stared at the vampires around her in confusion while blood dripped off her chin. “How are you all standing there? Why aren't you burning?”

Caterina held out her arm. When she opened her clenched fist, a blue crystal dangled on the end of a chain. Lothaire reached inside his shirt to reveal another one of the talismans. Likewise, the rebels all produced blue stones as well.

“Fanon,” Caterina said, “was very helpful to us.”

Flay gave a disgusted snort of laughter and turned slowly to Gareth. “You can't trust anyone. Well, I actually owe the princess a debt. Before she came along, I had no place in the clans because I was merely a commoner. Now, thanks to her, the only clan that matters is death. And I'm the one who can lead it. I will reshape our kind. We are born for war and I am born to be our empress. I'll have her one day.
You
can't stop me.”

“
I
don't have to stop you, Flay. I'm not alone anymore.”

Flay's eyes darted from Gareth to Kasteel to Adele and back to Gareth. “But I am the future.” She threw herself into the air and flew out the shattered windows.

A silent, black nest of snakes coiled about Adele. Her nausea flared again, but she focused elsewhere. Like dark flesh, the polluted rifts slid near her. She felt their wet touch as they probed her resistance.

She sensed Goronwy in the distance, visible through the cascading sickness. He stared at her with a horrible grin on his face. He raised his hands, as if conducting the motions of the black rifts. The putrid things struck her again, slapping her hard to one side. Adele tried to shove them away, frantic to maintain freedom of movement. The oily surface was sharp. It cut her hands like razors.

Adele sent a burst of energy into a dying rift stretching back to Goronwy. But before it could strike him, a black eel-like arm slammed down, smothering it.

Goronwy laughed and pointed at her. For a moment nothing happened and the Witchfinder looked confused. Adele tried once more to waken a rift from its drowning mire, jolt it into life to attack the Witchfinder. Sluggishly, it obeyed and heat flared bright and yellow in the swathe of darkness. Goronwy gestured again, desperate now. A wall of black lifted and protected him, snuffing out the light once more. More unctuous coils roared past him toward Adele, wrapping around her body.