“Not yet.”
He maneuvered back under the sword in Grégoire’s spine and did the same thing to Le Batard’s head. Then he went to Grégoire. With the smaller blade he cut into the flesh around Grégoire’s thumb, the one holding the switchblade against his stomach, the weapon Grégoire intended to kill himself with. “Maybe he’ll feel it and know he isn’t alone,” Eli said.
He looked back at me. “You’re pale. Sweating.” He touched my face. “Clammy. Bleeding?”
I shook my head, the motion jerky. “You’re cold. You okay?” I asked.
“Not really. The GB is a onetime deal. But let’s finish it. We need to free the twins and the caged witch.”
CHAPTER 19
Hung in the Sleet like a Sad Sack of Potatoes
I looked at my own hand to make sure it was empty. I vaguely remembered drawing a weapon. Or three. I had no idea where the weapons were. I patted my rigs and discovered I’d replaced them without even noticing my own actions. Muscle memory was a good thing. I was feeling woozy and put an arm around Eli to hold us together. “Okay. Let’s do this.” In our three-legged walk, we moved back into the larger room and up to Brandon and Brian. “We have a herringbone magical pattern. I don’t remember seeing that before, but at the moment my memory isn’t so great. Can you see magic?” I asked. “Can you see the pattern?”
“Babe. Human here.”
“Yeah. Right. I’ve seen a lot of funky magic.” I lifted my eyes to the wires that originated at the lightning rod. “This is all geometric. I think I need to . . .” I looked at Eli. He was so close it was hard to focus. “I think we need to cut the wires to the lightning rod.”
He looked up. “We have multiple wires. Which ones do we cut?”
“All. Why not.”
Eli was holding my vamp-killer. I wasn’t sure when I’d given it to him. I was losing bits of time. Not good. “Hang on, Babe.” He positioned his feet for a stable balance, took two test swings like a batter at the plate. And swung at the wires. Unlike vamp tendons, the copper wires parted. And nothing happened. “Hunh,” Eli grunted. “Babe, you strong enough to take the twins into GB with us?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” I shrugged and the gesture hurt, a sick muscle ache, like after a major beating. “We could die.”
“That would suck. You got a better idea?”
“We need them away from the pole.”
We inspected the wires Eli had sliced through. As we talked, the wires separated a quarter of an inch, leaving a stationary light connecting the space between the ends. The herringbone pattern on the boys had begun to thin. “Wait,” I said. I dropped to one knee and eased the blade of a vamp-killer through a space in the magical mesh pattern. The blade sparked on the working, throwing light even Eli could see. I sawed through the straps holding the boys to the pole. It took a bit of no-time, but the blade eventually worked through.
“Plan B,” Eli said. “They get away by themselves.”
We three-legged it over to the silvered cage. In the Gray Between I could see how the magical lock worked. It was tied to the security of the cage, the twins’ bindings, and the lightning rod. It was slightly out of sequence with both real time and Gray Between time, making it fuzzy and hard to see. “It’s slightly out of sync with real time.” I looked at the crystal inside the geode.
“Brilliant security measure,” Eli said, sounding fascinated.
“Unh.” I pulled the former blood diamond out of my gobag. Hefted it in my fist. Reached over and tapped the lock. Nothing happened. “I figured that would be too easy.” I took the tip of the vamp-killer. Pricked my left little finger. A single drop of blood welled. Skinwalker blood. Blood capable of bending, bubbling time. I smeared the tip of the gem into the blood and tapped the lock.
The lock fell open. Which said something about my blood. Something else to think about later. On that tropical vacation, while sipping a drink with an umbrella in it.
I used the tip of the vamp-killer to lift the lock away and tossed it to the side. It hit real time and dangled, suspended in the air. Eli opened the door. We eased inside. Adan was a skeletal mess of sallow skin over bone, lank hair that was lifting into the air with static electricity, and fangs that looked brittle. Power was wrapped around his hands, thick as taffy, coating his arms and his upper body. He was vamped out, but the sclera of his eyes was pale pink, not red, proving that he hadn’t been fed recently. The vamp was starving. Starving meant insane and uncontrolled. I wasn’t real excited at the thought of freeing him or drawing his attention.
I bent and looked into the geode. The rainbow dragon, the arcenciel trapped in the large central crystal, tilted up her head. She spread her brilliant blue frill and hissed at me. “Well. That’s a surprise. But I guess you can see bubbled arcenciel time even when you’re being ridden.”
The arcenciel drew her head in, arching her neck. I might interpret the motion as surprise. Or not. Dragon body language was unfamiliar to me. “Yes, I see you,” I said to her. “And I know you’re being ridden. If I set you free, will you promise not to bite me?”
The dragon hissed and darted toward me as if she were free, biting inside the crystal quartz with her pearled fangs. She had a lot of teeth. Dozens. All of them finely serrated on the inside edges and curved in for tearing flesh. I rubbed my stomach. “Okay. So much for trust.” And I couldn’t risk setting her free while Eli was with me, couldn’t risk him being bitten. I said to Eli, “Back to the hallway. Just in case our damage to Louis’s and Batard’s necks heal too fast, you take position with guns ready and I’ll get back here and take care of the dragon. And we’ll hope for the best.”
“This Gray Between, bending-time stuff sounded like a superpower until I got inside it,” he said, his voice too soft, his breathing fast and unsteady. “I have to say, it’s got a lot of kryptonite.”