“Would you like me to stop?” Shale asked. Jewel facets glinted beneath his imitation human eyes.
“Try me.” The skeleton sounded bored. “Get this over with. I’ve killed so many of you before, in very many ways.” His voice went singsong for that last bit, then lost all humor. “I tore your goddess open and ripped her heart and lungs from the ruin of her chest. Break yourself on me, if you like. You’re not the hundredth or even the thousandth to try. And when I’m done with you, I’ll go back to my drink.”
He took another sip. Translucent giraffes danced with sun.
“Shale!”
There was no Craft in Tara’s cry, but Shale stopped anyway, halfway to the King in Red. He’d begun to change. His skin was veined with gray and hatched with gleaming gaps, his back a wreckage of wings. The human seeming reasserted itself; the jaw cracked to fit shrinking teeth together. He knelt, gasping, on the sand. His shirt hung tattered from his shoulders. Scars crossed his back where the wounds had been.
The King in Red sat up and turned to face them both, elbows on knee bones, ridged spine rising between his shoulder blades. Cocktail sweat darkened his fingers. Of their own accord, the sunglasses slipped down to reveal the dead-star sparks in his eye sockets. “Interesting. It listens to you.”
“He,” Tara said, “is an envoy of my client, Seril Undying of Alt Coulumb. Who is still alive.”
“As I learned yesterday.”
“News travels fast.”
“Fast as fear.”
“Ramp approached you.”
He shrugged. “I own a good deal of Kosite debt in my own name. Red King Consolidated holds more. She’s approached everyone with a substantial stake. Some of us have better things to do at the moment than fight a war, even a limited one.” He waved toward the waves. “As you see. So you needn’t worry about me participating in her coup.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Why did you listen to her?” he asked Shale. The gargoyle had recovered, mostly. Sweat slipped down curves of muscle. “Here I am. You’ve hated me for decades. I killed your lady, or close to it, and I liked it. I’ll even give you first crack. No shields, or wards, or tricks.”
Shale stood. Tara prepared to bind him, in case her voice would not suffice this time. Given how hurt he’d seemed in that momentary shift, her restraint might break him. He wasn’t in shape for a fight.
He might still try.
“Tara asked me not to fight you.”
“And you listened,” the skeleton said.
“Yes.”
Crimson sparks turned on her. “You’ve inspired a divine monster’s loyalty. Nice trick. It earns you my time.” He glanced at the sky. “In five minutes the sun will turn the waves to gold and mark a path straight out over the bay to my favorite island. The air and sea are perfect, and the world sings. You’ll be gone by then, one way or another. Speak quickly.”
“When you killed Seril in the God Wars, you stole Alt Coulumb’s skies from her.”
“They were spoils of war.”
“Alt Coulumb’s liturgy holds that Kos owns Alt Coulumb’s skies in the event of Seril’s death.”
“Which is why I’ve never been able to use the rights I won, outside of as collateral.” He finished his cocktail, ate the fruit, removed umbrellas and straw and jadeite giraffes and arranged them on the sand. “I claim ownership, Kos resists. I almost got my way when he died, but it turns out he was faking.”
“Neither of you rightfully owns that sky. It belongs to Seril.”
“Who we both thought was dead. When you hurt someone like I hurt her, she tends to die, goddess or not.” He tightened his grip. The glass cracked, grimed and gritted, and slid as sand from his fingers to the beach.
“You pledged Seril’s sky as collateral for loans to develop Red King Consolidated.”
“I pledged everything to support the Concern. My soul. Others’. If not for that, this city would be a desert now.” He raised his hand. Another drink floated over from the clubhouse.
“Do you think your partners would be happy to learn you used stolen property as collateral?”
“I paid off those loans long ago—not that I accept your characterization of the property as stolen. If you want to argue that point in court, send my people a date, and I’ll schedule my countersuit of libel for the same day so we can get all this over with at once. Is this the best you can do, Ms. Abernathy?”
She felt the same anger she’d seen in Shale, and squelched it. “A fight wouldn’t be good for either of us. I have a thousand years of documentary evidence on my side. And you’re—you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Where does it end? You’ve killed my client, and your own gods, and your own people. You just tried to goad Shale into suicide by Craftsman. How long can you keep this up?”
The glass settled in his hand. “I’m a Deathless King. I can keep this up forever. Sort of in the job description.”