His eyes froze in place then bulged, and his jaw fell in shock. His mouth moved open and closed several times, and I saw him gasp for air. A slow drip of something red fell on his shoulders, and it took me a moment to realize that it was blood. It flowed freely, turning into a drift that ran down his suit on either breast, dripping from the back of his head where something had appeared behind him, hazy, and only for a moment before it was gone again.
“NO!” Kat screamed and lunged at him from behind. She caught him in her arms as he folded at the knees and dropped. There was a gaping wound in the back of his skull, I saw, as he fell forward and I caught him. I took care not to touch his skin as he lay, supported by Kat and I, his face slack.
“You killed Eris,” came a voice from my left and I turned, in shock, to see Weissman sitting there with a knife in his hand the size of my forearm. He shrugged lightly. “Saved me some time.” I tore my gaze off of him to look to Aphrodite. Her throat was slit, her eyes glassy and lifeless. Hephaestus was dead too, similarly cut, his head nearly off from the savagery of the attack. I tossed a look back to Bastet, but she, too, was lying in a pool of her own blood, dead, as was Heimdall where I had left him in a broken heap. I looked to Hera for any guidance, but she, too, was finished, the last of her kind. Her empty eyes rested on me, her blood ran red across the tile floor, and I could see by the angle of her neck that there was no hope for her, either.
“I heard Heimdall say that he’d only been beaten by two people in his whole life,” Weissman said, looking down at the edge of his knife. “You were number three, huh?” He smiled, and looked at me over the edge of the blade, which dripped dark red on the white tile. “I guess this made me number four.”
Chapter 30
I made a move toward him and he pointed the knife at me. “Ah, ah, ah,” he said as he wagged the blade. “I’m running short on time, but don’t think I won’t gut you and leave you in a pile to heal while I kill every last one of your friends.” His eyes flashed, and I could see he wasn’t lying. “Don’t test me right now, because if I have to push the bounds and use my powers more, I will make you—and them—suffer.” He waved the blade over the gory mess that was the courtyard floor, the marble floors slick with blood. “My part here is done, as far as I’m concerned. I spoiled your sweet revelation scene,” he waved the blade toward the body of Janus, “killed anyone else who might tell you the truth—” He grinned. “It’s a shame. If they’d just been honest with you earlier, you know? We’d all be screwed. Trust the powerful to protect that power at all costs, even if it means their own lives.” His smile was so heartfelt I could tell he was enjoying the hell out of himself. “Good thing I was here to stop them from screwing everything up.”
“How did you get here just in time?” Breandan asked the question that was on my mind.
“It’s easy when you’ve got a spy reporting everything back to you,” Weissman said with a casual shrug, as though it were no big thing. “Isn’t that right, Eleanor?”
I turned my head to see Madigan pulling herself up from the ground. Reed’s eyes met mine. He was a little bloody, but otherwise all right, standing not far from Eleanor, where he’d been standing off with Bast. I saw a hint of frustration from him, and I shook my head subtly. Not yet.
“So,” Weissman said, looking around at the carnage before us, “it looks like this is it for now.” He gave me a salute with his knife blade. “Don’t try and follow us,” he said with a voice of amused warning. “Because … blah blah blah, gutting, pain, intestines used as party streamers.” He waved the blade at us. “You know. Just don’t. I’ll get creative in ways to make you suffer but not die.” He shrugged. “Til we meet again, Miss Nealon. You keep running, though. You’re like a little hamster on a wheel, trying to stop us. It’s kind of fun to watch—til it gets boring.” He grinned. “Good thing I’m not in charge of deciding your fate, because I think you know what would happen when you got boring.” He turned, and Eleanor followed him, casting nervous looks behind her on their way out, watching to see if any of us followed.
She needn’t have worried.
“Dammit,” Reed said as he sagged to the ground, resting on his haunches. He lay back, and I watched him close his eyes as he stared up at the dome above us, the wire-frame ceiling that was holding back the sky from falling on us.
There was only a moment of silence before Breandan spoke. “I don’t mean to be the downer—not that we need any more of those—but we need to be getting out of here, and fast.” He waved a hand about. There were a few humans left cowering behind displays. I saw one girl quaking as she watched us from behind an overturned table. “I don’t fancy explaining to Scotland Yard how I came to be acquainted and associated with all these bloody corpses.”