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Shadowdance(124)

By:Kristen Callihan


Jack lurched up from where he’d been leaning. “Absolutely not.” He glared at Mary as she glared back in defiance.

“No other immortal has ever killed a fallen,” Augustus said. “They are too physically strong to destroy. Ironically, one needs the strength of a fallen, or Nephil, to do the deed.”

The weight of Augustus’s words sank like a stone.

Then why tell me that I have the answer?

Sometimes the answer is not in the physical, but in the spirit.

Beside her Jack suddenly flinched as if a realization had come fast upon him. “But if Amaros is already cursed, then…”

“He can destroy you,” Augustus finished. “Without doing himself further damage.”

His curse is soul-deep. You understand the soul, do you not, Miss Chase?

And suddenly Mary did. She knew precisely what needed to be done. It was risky. And Jack would never agree to it.

Mary looked at Augustus. This is why you haven’t spoken of this aloud, isn’t it?

Would you rather I had? Augustus’s response was wry, yet tinged with sadness. Because he too knew the risks. She could feel his concern for her like a warm hand upon her shoulder.

“Then I shall offer him free use of my blood,” Jack said.

His freedom.

“I see no other recourse,” Augustus answered sedately.

No! It was a shout in Mary’s mind. Never. She would not let Jack become Amaros’s blood whore. She would not see him go back to that dark place of hell and despair. Offering himself to the being who’d held and tortured him.

As if hearing her very thoughts, Augustus glanced at Mary. Then you know what must be done.

Jack ran a tired hand over his face and turned away to stare out over the city. “Then I shall do what I must.”

To protect those he loved, Jack would do anything. And so would Mary.

“Two squared is four. Three squared is nine. Four squared is sixteen.” Holly hugged herself tight, rocking slightly as she continued to count. The words burned against her throat. “Five squared is five-and-twenty…” Numbers. Sensible, reliable numbers. They would not harm her.

Her accommodations had changed. No more laboratory. Only the icy, dank hole of her cell. There were others here, rows of black cells that held the damned. She could not see them, but she could hear them. Moans, curses, weeping.

She could almost bear the sounds of their misery. But not those of the demon who occupied the cell with her.

A violent wave of nausea ran through her when she glanced to his side of the space. Lying upon a hard pallet and still strapped down by chains of gold, he shook along the whole of his lean body as he stared blankly up at the ceiling. His teeth were clenched and bared, and white fangs cut into his bottom lip until blood rolled along his chin and pooled at his neck. Holly doubted that he was aware. He simply shook as if nothing would ever again warm him.

His muscled torso shone pale, nearly luminous in the dimness, an uncomfortable contrast to the purple bruises mottling his chest and the ugly, ragged scar that ran down his sternum. Thick, awkward stitches held his skin closed, puckering his once-smooth flesh and sticking up like thorns in a briar patch.

The memory of witnessing his heart being ripped from his chest to be replaced with a clockwork one would haunt Holly for the rest of her days. She couldn’t stand to look at him now. Nor could she stand to look away. If she looked away he might die. Alone. She couldn’t allow that. Not when it was her invention clicking away in his chest.

Holly pressed her knees harder into her breast and let the numbers flow through her mind. Six squared is six-and-thirty. Seven squared is nine-and-forty.

A long, agonized groan tore from her cellmate’s lips, and his body bowed off of the pallet, restrained from falling by the chain across his shoulders and thighs. As if hit, he slammed back down and began to thrash and groan.

A childish urge to cover her ears had her arms twitching. But she crawled to his side.

“It’s…” She extended a hand to touch him, then stopped when he bucked again. “It’s all right.” Feeble words. He didn’t hear them anyway. Unfocused eyes stared wide. His mouth hung open as if locked in a scream, but no sound came. Sweat rolled down his temples and pebbled on his torso.

Would he die? Was his body rejecting the heart? She could not tell. But something was changing. From the edges of his wound, little rivers of shining platinum began to creep along his skin. No, not along, but through his skin.

“Oh, no.” Her platinum heart was a failure after all. Holly watched in horror as the gleaming metal rapidly spread outward like the root system of a tree. Up over his chest and down his side it went. And all the while he thrashed, as if it was agony.