Not a box thing. A Roland thing.
“He is God. He is life. He is holy. You’re an abomination.”
Only one group of people thought Roland was holy and their path to heaven. The dust belonged to a sahanu.
I rifled through my mental roster of sahanu Adora had told me about. This didn’t match anyone in particular, but she’d said that sahanu kept their powers hidden.
“My father is a liar.” The spot between my shoulder blades itched. The sahanu had to be right behind me.
“Blasphemy!”
Religious fanatics. Reasonable and understanding people, easily persuaded by facts and logical arguments.
“There is no heaven waiting for you. He fed you lies and you gobbled it up. My father is too smart to ever become a god. When you accept godhood, your thoughts and your actions are no longer your own. You would know this if you weren’t blind and deaf. Thinking for yourself, try it. It will help.”
Using power words against my father’s assassins was risky. Some of them had the benefit of my father’s blood, which made a blowback likely. A lot of them used power words themselves. With Luther infected, there was a good chance that any power word I used would hit him as well.
Luther leaned forward, baring his teeth. “I’ll kill you. I’ll eat your flesh and then I’ll eat your baby. I’ll swallow his soft flesh and then I too will be a god.”
Cold rage burst through me. The world turned crystal clear. “And what will my father do when he finds out you tried to devour his grandson?”
“He will praise me. He ordered your death. He wants your son brought to him, but I’ll eat him instead.”
When I finally got through to my father, we would have words.
“I’ll suck the marrow out of your baby’s bones and consume his magic. Then I will be even more powerful.”
No, you won’t. I sneered at Luther. I’d had a great role model when it came to sneering. Nobody did put-downs like Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris.
“You and what army, sirrah? I’m the Princess of Shinar, the Blood Blade of Atlanta. My line stretches thousands of years into the past. My family was building palaces while your ancestors cringed inside their mud huts. You’re weak, stupid, and less. What threat could you possibly be? You dream of power I already have. A tiger doesn’t notice a worm she crushes under her paw. Slither, little worm. Slither away as fast as you can.”
I felt the precise moment she charged out of the fog into the circle. I dropped Conlan and stepped back, twisting out of the way. My brain registered the attack in a fraction-of-a-second burst: lean blond woman, my size, my height, young, a dagger in each hand.
The right dagger stabbed the air an eighth of an inch from my chest. I grabbed her wrist with my right hand, aiming to smash her elbow with my left palm. She dropped into a crouch and slashed across my right bicep with her other dagger. A hot line of pain tore my arm, like a heated rubber band slapping against my skin. I swung into a kick. She raised her arms, covering up at the last moment, and rolled back. My foot barely tapped her. She rolled to her feet and leaped back into the green mist.
I stepped back to Conlan. He’d stayed exactly where I’d dropped him, hugging the floor. Thank you, whoever you are upstairs, for the miracle. Thank you.
Conlan sat at my feet. I stood still. My right arm burned with pain. She was damn fast, and her daggers were razor-sharp. The bleeding wasn’t heavy. I could seal it, but it wouldn’t last. The moment I used the arm, I would bleed. That was fine. I could use the blood.
The fog flowed back and forth, shifting in shimmering patterns. I waited, every sense straining for a hint of movement, a whisper of sound. Something.
Moments crawled by.
Conlan turned his head slightly to the left. I kept my gaze on the mist, watching him with my peripheral vision. He turned more. A little more.
My son was a shapeshifter and a predator. With supernatural hearing.
I kept looking to the right, toward Luther.
A moment.
Another.
Another . . .
She charged out of the mist to my left, leaping. I took a quick step with my right foot to pick up momentum and hammered a sidekick into her. My foot connected with her ribs. Bone crunched. The impact knocked her back into the haze.
I waited. Conlan was turning to the right now. That had to hurt. She’d try to cover up that side now.
A low, animalistic grunt came from Luther. It sounded half-bestial, half-obscene. The grunts kept coming. Noise screen. She was trying to muffle her footsteps.
“I can still hear you, worm.” I raised my hand and beckoned, loading every drop of arrogance I had into my voice. “Come to me. Accept your death with grace.”
Luther fell silent, but the sahanu stayed hidden. Damn. For some reason the jeering worked for my aunt much better than it did for me. I needed more practice.
Conlan turned right. I had no idea how I knew the strike would come low. I didn’t see it or hear it, but something told me he was the target. I dropped into a crouch, clutching him to me, shielding him with my body. The dagger shot out of the dust and sank into my left shoulder, barely an inch in.
Moron. Throwing only worked in movies.
I jerked the blade out and spun to my feet barely in time to block her slash as she came charging into the circle. She stabbed, and I sliced across her arm. Blood wet my dagger. Thank you for the knife, asshole.
The sahanu erupted into a flurry of slashes and stabs. I closed the distance, working her, fast and fluid.
The colors, the noises, her movements, her blue eyes; everything became so clear and sharp, it almost hurt.
When I was eight, Voron took me to a man called Nimuel. His name meant “peace” in his native Tagalog, and that was exactly what his opponents found when they came at him with a knife. As I worked her, blocking her arms with my own, wrapping my fingers around her wrists, using my wrists to channel her strikes, cutting her forearms, I heard his calm voice in my head. Under the bridge, on top of the bridge, over the bridge, inside, outside . . .
She would not touch a hair on my son’s head.
The sahanu snarled, stabbing and stabbing, and finding only air. I nicked her a dozen times, but she was so fucking fast.
Over the bridge . . . Open the window.
I countered a moment too slow. Her dagger painted a bright red line on my left arm. While she was busy cutting, I drove my dagger into her side.
She tore away from me, taking the dagger with her.
I clamped my arm on my wound and hurled my blood at her, the drops turning into needles midflight. They sank into her face.
She dashed to the mist. I charged after her, but she dove into the green. Shit.
Behind me, magic shifted.
“Not in my house!” Luther roared.
Magic exploded out of him and tore through the room, freezing the green smoke screen. The dust exploded, each emerald dot blooming into a tiny white flower. They floated down in a shockingly beautiful rain, stirred by the slightest draft, and I saw the sahanu ten feet from me, her face stunned, her mouth with sharp inhuman teeth gaping open.
Teeth.
I charged, swiping a heavy microscope off the lab counter.
It’s very hard to stop someone charging at you full force, especially when your back is against the wall.
She slashed at me, and I smashed the microscope against her dagger. The blade clattered to the floor. I reversed my swing and drove the microscope at her jaw. Blood flew. The blow knocked her back. She reeled, clawing at me. I hammered the microscope into her face. That one dropped her. I landed on her before she had a chance to roll to her feet and brought the microscope down like a hammer. Blood flew, thick and red.
Eat this, you bitch.
I hit her again and again, with methodical precision, driving the weight in my hand into the strike zone between her eyes. Her face was a mush of bone and blood, but I had to make sure she was really dead.
“Kate!”
Another blow. The red spray of her blood stained the tiny white flowers swirling around us.