He ignored the question as he looked me up and down, but Robin, behind him, answered. "We saw a few wet footprints and a piece of linen. Wahanket, eh? Crafty corpse. But I suppose that explains how Sawney found a place so perfectly suited for him."
"And for that, perhaps we will deal with him later." Niko indicated where the material of my jeans was ripped over my thigh. "Revenant?"
As much as I hated to admit it, I had to. "Yeah."
"One?"
"Two," I said defensively, "and I was trying not to drown at the time. It's not my fault."
"It's amazing. The person who shows up at our sparring session looks so very much like you too." He said it as if he hadn't felt my hand slide through his in the water as I disappeared to God knows where. As if he hadn't run from one hall to another only to be blocked by concrete walls. We all had ways of dealing. When the situation had been reversed, I dealt the same, with sharp-edged sarcasm— once I'd killed everything that had gotten in my way.
"I'd say bite me, but I've been bitten already. Besides, Goodfellow might jump over you and take advantage of it," I grumbled, but curved my lips again. "And there was nothing over there but revenants and Wahanket. No Sawney."
"Then let's go find him," Nik said, waiting until I preceded him. Watching my back.
"By the way, you have absolutely nothing I want to bite," Robin snorted as he moved through the door. "Egomaniac."
Promise swallowed that one in silence, but it would make a reappearance later. I had faith. We exited the dead end of the room and started back down the tunnel. We walked a hundred feet before we saw it. At first, I saw only a glimpse. Pale, it flashed, disappeared, reappeared, and then vanished again.
"Travelers." There was the low hiss of several voices in unison. "Trespassers."
Great, a new refrain.
"They've learned a new word," I drawled. "How goddamn clever is that?"
"Several rungs below a brainless parrot," Nik responded with arctic bite, "and an utter waste of our time." More damn revenants and no Sawney. We were all disappointed. I knew I was tired of hacking at their stubborn, disgusting flesh. There was no honor in battle, no honor in killing. There was only necessity. Niko had taught me that. But if there had been honor, revenants wouldn't have entered that picture anywhere.
"Trespassers." What had been glimpses became a long look and then a close-up of one of the most freakish things I'd ever seen. "Trespasserstrespasserstrespassers." They boiled into the light, arms flailing.
They were wearing straitjackets, every last one of them—left over from the good old madhouse days. No longer white, the grubby cloth was rotting and ripped. The overly long sleeves weren't fastened behind. Instead they flapped like the wings of maddened birds or wove through the air like a striking snake as the revenants ran. It was oddly hypnotic and not-so-oddly horrific. It wasn't enough that revenants looked like zombies; now they looked like zombies of the insane. Sawney wasn't happy just being mad himself or seeking it out; he had to dress up his goddamn pets that way as well. Talk about your hobbies we all could've done without.
"I've lived a long, long time and I've seen many, many things," Robin said, awed, at my back, "and I can confidently say that I have never seen anything quite like that." I didn't have time to respond. They were almost on us and I raised the Eagle and fired several shots.
Explosive rounds, they might not have much effect on Sawney, but they worked like a fucking charm on his boys. We didn't end up fighting them, but we did end up wearing them. I wiped a hand across my face, clearing it of pulverized flesh and thin, watery blood. I didn't wait for Robin's outraged comment about his wardrobe that had to be fast on its way. "Yeah, sorry about that," I said automatically as I heard his disbelieving gurgle behind me.
We moved on without further discussion. All in all, the best thing for me. We stepped over the bodies of straitjacketed revenants and dodged the two slow-moving ones that had craters in their heads. The spoonful of brains they had left kept them moving around, but not too aware.
Which is exactly how I felt when the ground disappeared beneath me.
21
This just wasn't my day.
I used to hate the sensation of falling, same as anyone else. But since I'd made a few gates and traveled through them … a traveler just as Sawney said…that had changed. I still didn't like it, don't get me wrong, but I sort of recognized the feeling. Walking through those gates was like falling, only not just down. It felt like falling down, up, and sideways— all at once. Hard to imagine, but that's how it felt.
So when the floor caved in under me and I fell, for a second I was confused. Had I opened a gate and not even realized it? One moment of confusion, but it was long enough to hit and hit hard.