For a horrible moment she thought the creature would move before the gunpowder caught, but then the pistol kicked in her hands and the devourer flew backwards off the wall as if punched. Coby blinked through the smoke, her ears ringing. Was it dead?
She laid the first pistol at her feet then drew the second. Not a moment too soon. The devourer reappeared on top of the wall. She cocked the pistol and fired. A thump and rattle of claws as the creature hit the cobbles – then it sprang up and bounded across the square, its neck snaking as it sought her out. She forced herself to stare at the ground. It won't attack unless you look at it. She didn't know how she knew this, but it felt right and true. Sweat prickled in her armpits and her heart beat so hard she thought it would burst from her ribs. Slowly she put the pistol on the ground next to its mate and reached for her dagger.
A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, almost too fast to see. Unable to help herself she looked up. The devourer swiped at her with claws the size of meathooks. She rolled sideways, crying out with pain as a lock of hair was torn from her scalp, but came up in a fighting crouch, dagger in hand. The devourer gathered itself for a pounce. Too late. Ned ran up behind it and hacked at its neck with his sword. The heavy blade caught in the creature's flesh and the two figures struggled for a moment.
Ned tore his blade free and struck again, severing the devourer's head this time. Dark blood splashed across the cobbles and disappeared with a hiss like water on hot iron. The creature collapsed in a heap only inches from Coby and began to dissolve. She scuttled backwards up the steps as the pool of black fluid spread towards her, but it seeped away through the stones and was gone. Ned helped her to her feet.
"Thank you!" she gasped.
Ned inclined his head in acknowledgement and retreated up the steps to command the high ground. Coby went back to pick up her pistols, shaking her head in despair. If bullets were so little use against the devourers, what was she to defend herself with next time?
Mal spitted another devourer on his rapier and withdrew the blade as the creature collapsed into a tarry heap on the floor. He was breathing heavily now, and the sword felt like lead in his hand – no, that was just the illusion the devourers were trying to force upon him. He closed his eyes for a moment and brought to mind the hollow in the hills, the way Olivia had taught him, but the image would not come. Had the devourers destroyed it when they had come through? He opened his eyes again. If magic would not avail him, he must force his flesh to obey his own will and not theirs.
There was no time to put his earring back in. Blood and iron, that would break the spell just as easily. Gritting his teeth he swiped his left little finger down the rapier's blade, feeling metal grate on bone. The pain brought him wide awake. With an incoherent shout of fury he charged the thickest knot of shadows and the devourers fled from the cold light and colder steel. One, trapped between a crate and the far wall, folded in on itself until it was no bigger than a cat. Mal advanced on it, grinning, but as he prepared to lunge the creature flew up, claws slashing at his face. Mal raised the lantern, splashing them both with the glowing fluid, but the devourer was already gone. Blood streamed down into his left eye where one of its claws had opened a gash from eyebrow to scalp. Cursing, Mal wiped the blood away and turned to pursue his attacker.
A cry rent the air. Charles had dropped his sword and was now grappling with something that looked like an emaciated horse with the spiny carapace and eyestalks of a crab. Mal sprinted across the storeroom – too late. The creature's jaws snapped around Charles' throat and blood fountained over them both.
"No!"
Mal slid his rapier under the carapace, twisting the blade as he went. The creature squealed like a boiling lobster and released its prey, then dissolved into acrid smoke. Coughing, Mal knelt and tried to stem the blood flowing from his brother's neck.
Charles' eyes fluttered open, and his lips moved silently. Mal hushed him, swallowing past the lump in his own throat, but he knew it was hopeless. His hands were already slick with warm blood, and if he stayed here, another devourer might finish them both off.
"I have to go," he said. "Sleep well, brother."
Charles nodded and closed his eyes again. Mal wiped his bloody hands on his doublet, picked up his sword and lantern and got to his feet.
"Come on then, you craven skulking night-spawn! What are you waiting for?"
Only silence greeted him. After a moment he realised that the oppressive miasma was gone too. Four dead, but at least one had slipped past them in the chaos, probably more. He backed around towards the archway leading to the staircase. A clear trail now led through the debris, revealing cracked and worn treads, but the stairs looked sound enough. Well, there was only one way to find out. With a prayer to Saint Michael he made his way cautiously up to the piano nobile.
? ? ? ?
Ned stood at the top of the bridge steps, watching for Mal to come out of the palazzo. He had to come out. They hadn't come all this way to die at the hands of some foreign witch's hell-spawn. He edged a little closer to Gabriel, wishing his lover had stayed behind at the embassy and yet glad he had not.
A scream, faint but all too human. Hendricks leapt to her feet and ran across the square to the palazzo gate.
"Come back, you stupid wench!" Ned shouted after her.
"Let her be," Gabriel said softly. "Would you hold back if it was me in there?"
"No, but – Christ's balls!"
Another devourer leapt over the wall, landing light as a cat halfway across the square. A second followed, and they flowed around one another in an eye-deceiving blur of smoky black, snaking across the open space towards the bridge.
Ned advanced down the steps, hefting his sword. "Come on then. Which of you's first, eh?"
"Don't be an idiot, Ned! Get back up here!"
Ned descended the last step into the square. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gabriel leap down to stand beside him.
"What are you doing? Get behind me."
Instead Gabriel stepped forward, his cudgel held to one side as if about to discard it.
"Leave him alone," Gabriel said softly. "It's me you want."
"No!"
He dashed forward, putting himself between Gabriel and the devourers. The dark shapes swerved in opposite directions, curving round to try and slip past them and over the bridge. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his lover, Ned braced himself to stop the nearest one. The creature dodged his blade, claws scrabbling for purchase on the canal bank.
"Can't swim, eh?" Ned kicked it in the side of the jaw and followed up his attack with a roundhouse swing of the sword. More by luck than skill he severed a leg and it toppled into the water, squawking.
He turned to see if Gabriel need help with his own attacker, and something hit him square in the chest. A devourer. Ned fell backwards, winded. Teeth like daggers of ice closed around his right wrist and he dropped the sword with a scream.
"Ned!"
Gabriel's iron-shod cudgel smashed into the creature's eyeball, through its skull and out the other side. The cruel teeth withdrew as the devourer faded into nothingness, but Ned's arm still burned as if branded. Gabriel's pale face loomed over him.
"Ned? Ned? Don't die on me…"
Then he was falling into blissful oblivion, far from all pain.
Coby huddled against the palazzo wall, trying not to puke at the memory of that… thing crunching Ned's wrist like a dog with a new bone. She had failed to stop the demons and now her friends were suffering. Lead bullets were useless – but what about iron ones? She put down her guns and reached behind her neck, managing to unfasten the necklace on the third attempt. If lodestone protected against evil spirits, perhaps it would also kill them.
She swabbed out the still-warm barrel of each pistol and gingerly poured in a measure of black powder, then cut the waxed thread of the necklace and slid off two of the beads. The dark metal spheres were a bit smaller than her usual shot, but they had to be better than nothing. She shoved the rest of the necklace into her pocket and finished loading and priming the pistols. The next devourer to emerge from the palazzo would not be so lucky as the last.
? ? ? ?
Mal ran through the main chambers of the piano nobile, but there was no sign of the devourers. Had they really killed them all? He leaned out of the window, hoping to get a good view of the square, and stopped, heart in mouth. Someone lay by the bridge steps, a pale-haired figure crouching over him… Blessed Lady, one down already? He ran back down the stairs and out into the garden.
"Master Catlyn, look out! Above you!"
Mal looked up, just in time to see a dark shape launch itself from the uppermost floor. It floated to the ground as if underwater, landing light as thistledown about halfway between Mal and the garden wall.
"Duck!" Coby shouted at him.
A moment later a pistol snapped and a bullet whistled overhead, far too close for comfort. The creature, undaunted, loped towards the wall. Mal ran after it, but as it leapt onto the coping a second pistol shot rang out around the square and the creature screamed and dissolved into smoke.
"Got it!"
Coby grinned at him through the gate. Her face was pale and smeared with grime, but she had never looked so beautiful to him.
"You're hurt," she said as he clambered awkwardly up the gate and dropped down beside her.
"Just a scratch. Looks worse than it is. At least I got out alive."
"Charles?"
Mal shook his head. "What about the… Sweet Jesu! Ned!"
Parrish was helping a white-faced Ned to his feet. Blood dripped onto the cobbles from Ned's mangled right arm, splinters of bones poking out of the raw mess. Mal had seen a few injuries like that on the battlefield, and there was only one treatment.
"Get him out of here," Mal called out to Gabriel. "Find Cinquedea, find a surgeon to–"
"I know," Parrish said quietly. He turned back to Ned, murmuring to him like a mother with her child, and together they limped up the steps of the bridge.
"Is that all of them?" Coby asked, looking up from reloading her pistols.
"We killed four inside, and yours makes five."
"Eight, then. Ned accounted for two, then Gabriel finished the one that…" She grimaced.
"We don't know for sure how many there were to begin with, though," he said, scanning the building. "There could still be some left, hiding in the shadows. The only way to be certain is to wait. If none emerge between now and dawn…"
"There is another way," a voice said behind them.
Mal looked round. "Sandy!"
"We came as fast as we could," his brother said.
"We?"
"Kiiren is here as well. He is fetching a sleeping draught for Ned."
"Lucky Ned." Mal pulled a face. "You said something about there being another way. You know how to destroy these creatures?"
"You already know that part. No, I meant that I can find out if there are any left here."
"How?"
"They cast shadows in the dreamworld, just as we cast light."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Assuming I still can.
Sandy sat down with his back to the wall. "I need you to protect my earthly body; I cannot see into both places at once."
"Nothing will get past me, I swear."
Sandy closed his eyes, and within a few moments his eyelids began to twitch as if he were asleep and dreaming. Mal peered through the gate, trying to ignore the returning ache in his shoulders. As soon as this was over, he would press Kiiren for another draught of that foul-tasting potion. Or get drunk. He hefted his rapier, and hissed through clenched teeth at the sudden movement. Perhaps both.
All was still within at first, then he heard a dry rattle, as of clawed feet on stone. Shadows pooled in the doorway. At least two of the beasts, perhaps three, it was impossible to tell. Mal hefted his rapier and stepped closer to Sandy. Coby cocked her pistol.
Two of the creatures rushed them in a smoky blur. One was felled by a pistol shot halfway across the garden, but the other reached the wall before Coby could fire again. Out of the corner of his eye Mal saw the third leap the wall in a single bound, heading for the bridge, but he had no time to pay it any further mind. A triangular head snaked down at him, jaws clashing, too close for blade-work. Mal turned his wrist and slammed the pommel of his rapier into the creature's snout. It hissed and snapped at him, dead-white eyes rolling in their sockets. He drew his dagger and thrust upwards into its soft under-jaw until the steel blade grated on the inside of its brainpan. The creature gave an inhuman scream and was gone. But the scream continued.
"Amayiii!"
Sandy pushed past him, heading for the bridge.
"Sandy, no!" Mal dashed after him. "Sandy!"
Two figures staggered from the street onto the bridge, locked in a deadly embrace: Kiiren with fists raised as though wielding a garrotte, and a nightmare beast, writhing in agony and clawing at its prey-turned-killer. Before anyone could reach them it had slashed open Kiiren's belly, even as it breathed its last and was gone. Kiiren's spiritguard snapped between his hands, scattering jade and lodestone beads down the steps into the square.
Mal stumbled to a halt, all will seeming to drain from his limbs. Sandy ran up the steps and held his dying lover in his arms, crooning in the ancient tongue of the skraylings.
"Amayi'o anosennowe, amayi'o anodirowe, ded?hami anolessowe, acorro, accoro!"
Mal's hand went to his left shoulder, to the hawthorn tattoo Kiiren had given him when they first met. These were the same words Erishen spoke when he said farewell to Kiiren the last time the last time he died, in the hawthorn grove sacred to their clan. For remembering, Kiiren had said. And only now did he remember.
His own lips moved in time with the words. It was either that or scream Erishen's grief to the uncaring marble walls around them.