From the dungeon came the low, deep clang of swords and the first boom of the Judge reverberating. Time was catching up with me.
I knelt, pulled a vamp-killer, and reversed it. I brought the hilt down on the smoky crystal. It shattered slowly with tiny cracks and splits and a near-metallic clang. A black metallic claw emerged, followed by a shoulder and wing, all metal, and covered by spines. It occurred to me that, for the moment, the dungeon might be the best place for me. I backed away, back into the scion lair, as time in the Gray Between, and the bubble of time around the previously imprisoned arcenciel, synchronized into its own version of slo-mo.
The imprisoned arcenciel leaped from the crystal quartz into the air. In midflight, her wings beginning to spread, she changed from metallic to a rainbow of lights. Landed on the floor of the elevator shaft several floors above, next to Eli’s head, still looking down. Lights like a dozen rainbows shifted from her like pixie dust. She called, a ringing, silver tone, like the sound of a thousand bells and the warmth of sunlight. She looked back once and met my eyes. She called again, the sound like carillons ringing. With a leap, she flew out of sight, toward the outer door, which Eli had left open and unguarded for just this moment. I fell to my butt, the pain wrenching as if I were being cut in two. I had committed murder tonight, killed without combat, with sneak attack. An assassination. The death roiled in my stomach and burned there like acid. The Devil had needed to die, but her life and death sat on my soul like weights.
I understood why Joses had worn an arcenciel. I understood why vamps wanted them. Riding one let them do, in a limited way, what the arcenciels and Beast could do naturally—enter the Gray Between and move outside of time. But without the pain of the price placed on me/us by an angel.
For now, Joses was a prisoner, and the arcenciel was free. It might not be perfect, but it was good enough.
Now no one had access to folded time, to time bubbles, but me—if I was willing to nearly die—and my Beast. And the arcenciels.
And maybe the Anz?.
Crap. I sheathed my blade. Oh well. Nothing was perfect. Nothing.
I vomited blood one last time, falling forward onto the clay floor beside the scale left behind by the arcenciel and the shattered crystal prison. I bounced, my head turned to see into the battleground. My hand landed beside me, still holding the Judge. My skin was white-white-white, bluish, nearly purple, empty of blood and low on oxygen. And still my guts pulled and tore and the sick taste of blood and stomach acid coated my mouth.
Change, Beast thought at me. Now.
Reaching into the Gray Between, I sought her form. Time began to slide forward in blocks of action, quaking, trembling motions still too slow for reality. The explosion of the Judge still echoed. The screams of battle ripped across my eardrums, faster now. And again, faster still, as time began to unfold.
A light as bright as a phosphorescent torch lit the elevator shaft. Peregrinus danced back, and back, into the light, his feet moving around me where I lay. The fight followed him, his men firing, the sounds like a dozen bass drums beating all at once.
In the same instant, the Devil fell and Grégoire whirled and leaped to cut across Peregrinus’ torso. Brother fighting brother, the oldest tale of them all. Peregrinus’ knees buckled, but he wasn’t finished. The vamp was too strong, too old, too powerful for most weapons. He had, after all, brought the Devil back to life. Moving as if my hand weighed fifty pounds, I released the Judge and pulled the bag holding the sliver of the Blood Cross. Ripped the bag free from my neck. Slid the pointed end from the drawstring opening.
I gripped the sliver through the bag, careful not to touch it, my hand shaking as if I were dying. I thrust the splinter of wood forward, through the seam of his fighting leathers, into Peregrinus’ calf.
Still caught in the remnants of the time warp of the Gray Between, I saw a tiny explosion of fire at the point of impact. The progression of burn as the vampire began to burst into flame. A heated glow I could feel on the skin of my fingertips and my face. The power thrust through his body into his veins, into his arteries. Instantly, he blazed. His whole core lighting with power. With the heat of the sun. For a long while, I could see his bones, his ribs, the shape of his pelvis and shoulders.
Peregrinus slowly dropped to his knees. He wrenched back his head and screamed.
And he burned. And burned. Bright against my retinas. Lighting the darkness of the dungeon.
He fell. Landing beside me, too close, the heat like a phosphorous flare, scorching my skin. I closed my eyes as he burned into dust.