Sebastian ran up beside me.
We stood together, watching a furious moment of legs bucking and throat grasping and gurgling. Then nothing.
Just stillness.
My eyes went to the fat ring on the guard’s finger. Class ring? Too far to tell. Then the piece of lettuce stuck to the bottom of his shoe. From the pretend market, or was it real?
This was real. This had seemed like a joke in so many ways, but it was real.
The guard was dead.
When I looked back at Samrael, he had another pale knife in his hand. It looked like bone. A knife entirely made of bone.
“Where is she, Gideon?” he asked.
“Come on!” I yelled. Inside, I’d caught fire. “You have to deal with me now!”
Samrael launched the knife. Years behind home plate kicked in. I saw its trajectory and reacted, tackling Sebastian to the ground. The disks slipped out of my hand as we hit the asphalt. The blade flew past us and went skimming along the street like a rock skipping over a lake.
“Stay down!” I yelled to Sebastian. I scrambled for the disks and came up throwing, launching the weapon well. It traveled with the same speed as Samrael’s blade, the scales leaving a dark streak as they whirled through the air.
My aim was off. I’d gone for Samrael but the weapon sailed wide and low, toward Pyro. He lunged away, but not fast enough. The chain caught one of his shins and the disks twisted, lassoing his other leg. He hit the street, calf-roped.
Samrael looked at his fallen Kindred, clearly surprised. I was too, but I didn’t stick around. I grabbed the back of Sebastian’s shirt and hauled him up, and then behind the cab. “You okay?”
He was shaking pretty badly but he didn’t look hurt.
“My life just danced before my eyes!”
I glanced over my shoulder. Samrael was still coming. Pyro had untangled himself. Ronwae was doing that shimmering thing I’d seen a few moments ago, like seeing in 3D without the glasses.
“Call your horse, Gideon!” Sebastian grabbed my arm. “That’s our only chance!”
“Call my—what did you just say?”
“I’ll do it.” Sebastian’s eyes closed for a beat; then right in the middle of the street, the horses appeared.
First his. Then mine.
They charged right up to the Kindred and stood there like complete badasses, providing the best equine overwatch you’ve ever seen in your life. That gave me and Sebastian the window we needed to get the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 20
“Gideon, slow down,” Cordero says, her hand coming up. “You’re rushing.”
I trudge up out of the swamp. Clear my throat. “Am I?”
The radiator’s going again. Tink tink tink. We must be somewhere cold. Why didn’t I think about that before? Wait. Did I?
“That’s okay,” Cordero says. Her smile is as warm as a bag of rocks. She’s been intent from the beginning, but now she’s intense. Getting nervous, maybe. If I’m telling the truth, what does it mean? What will it mean to her reality, her beliefs? Her understanding of the world? She’s getting a taste of what I’ve been through.
She looks at her folder. “You said the horses ‘appeared’?”
“That’s right.”
“What did that look like?”
“I knew that would get you.”
“The horses, Gideon.”
“How about this. You give me more water and I tell you about the horses.”
Cordero approves the water request and Texas is on the job. Water’s good. Helps my throat, my head. Drugs are starting to pull back. Chemical taste is going away. Clouds in muscles thinning. Stomach’s doing okay. Brain’s getting sharper. I still have a ways to go before I’m back to normal again. Maybe another hour or so. But I’ll get there.
I finish the water and thank Texas, who nods and posts up again. Then I dive right in. I never liked this, but now I’m starting to hate it. This clown show of a debriefing needs to be over. “Bastian’s horse was—”
“Bastian is Sebastian?”
“That’s him. Sebastian. Bas. Famine. I know he’s right next door.”
“You were saying about his horse?” Cordero says. No pause. No reaction.
“Right. I was saying. His horse came up in the middle of the street like black smoke. First just a thread, twisting up from the ground, then a flurry of whirling, rising darkness that gradually formed into the blackest horse you can imagine. Blacker than soot. Blacker than the deepest cave. Smoke, then solid. Then horse. Like that.
“The mare was long and spindly in build. Leggy, like a racehorse. She moved like she was spring-loaded, totally weightless. When she did, lines of muscle caught the light. Blue, like moonbeams. Like the flash of moonbeams on that midnight coat. When she moved fast, she’d leave the same trails of smoky light I’d seen when I’d thrown the disks. They’d come off her legs, her mane and tail, and … I don’t know what else to tell you. She was incredible. Fragile. Insect-thin. Haunting. But damn if she wasn’t beautiful.”