Heartland

myths about the Spear was that the broken tip was part of another relic (a crown of thorns that had been lost since the French Revolution).

Antoine must have made fingers to grasp the blade, but his magick had evidently started to slip and, as if he were trying to hang on desperately to a slick surface, his fingers had become a slurred mess of ridges and bumps.

The Spear radiated heat, like a hot stone pulled out of a fire, and when I looked at it with Chorus-sight, it was nothing more than a series of flickering shadows-the two edges sliding in and out of focus. As if it were constantly moving, always slicing the world around it. Never standing still. Always seeking a target. Always seeking to draw blood.

It wasn't an evil weapon-that would imply some consciousness residing in the blade-but it had one purpose, and it afforded that purpose to its wielder with all the force and energy it had at its disposal. It was a tool; a tool that, once you put your hand on it, made its intent known to you. Very clearly.

I wondered at the psychic cost of physically binding yourself to the blade. I noticed Marielle was careful to keep as far away from it as possible.

Cradling his face in her hands, she continued to whisper to him, calling him back from the Abyss. The Chorus felt a strong pulse in his body still; his soul was still anchored in his flesh. He was in there somewhere, and I had no doubt Marielle knew how to coax him out.

I walked to the edge of the pool and looked at the blank-faced statue. I didn't have any memory of it; there was nothing in Philippe's history of this sculpture and I couldn't place the style. There wasn't enough of it exposed to be really sure of the physiology, which made dating it difficult, but the work was too smooth-too precise-to be something from as far back as Greek antiquity. Even with a few thousand years of exposure, a statue wouldn't acquire the smooth surface that more modern tools provided. And yet, it still had that patina of age that typified the High Classical Period.

'I don't like this,' I said, the Chorus echoing in my voice. 'Why was the Spear here?'

This is where it is kept, Cristobel offered, his presence rising out of the squirming storm of the Chorus. The heart of the rock.

I looked at the hole in the statue's chest again. The little rivulet of fresh water fed the pool, and yet the water level remained constant, so there must be a drain somewhere. I crouched, and touched the rock. Still damp. My finger came away with a delicate rose color, a stain that wiped away easily enough. But a stain nonetheless.

Behind me, Antoine made a noise deep in his throat, and Marielle's whispering stopped. He moved slightly, pulled back to this world by her voice, and the tip of the Spear dragged across the rock. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard, and all the fine hairs on my neck stood up.

'Help me carry him,' she said, looking up at me.

'Why was the Spear here?' I repeated, not moving.

'We can talk about it later,' she said. 'We need to be out of here before the leys come back.'

'Why?'

'Michael-' She reconsidered her tone, and her voice softened. 'There isn't much time. Please.'

I considered arguing with her. Playing hardball and seeing what it got me, but I saw something in her eyes which made me reconsider. It wasn't fear-she had too much armor up for me to see that deeply-but it was something akin to affection. Hiding beneath the exhaustion that dimmed her eyes was a recognition of the pain we were all carrying. The heavy baggage that had brought us here, and that we were going to carry with us for some time yet. What stole a little more light from her face was the tired acknowledgement that it wasn't Antoine that we were going to carry out of here, but the weight of some decision as well.

We were already too late to stop whatever had been set in motion. Even if we wanted to. It was like our tumultuous ride on the RER-B train, only this time RATP wasn't pulling the plug. They were giving us more power to hurl ourselves along the track. We couldn't stop the train. Our only hope lay in riding it out and hoping we could get off before it crashed at the end of the line.

Nodding curtly, I helped her get Antoine upright. We did an awkward dance for a moment, trying to figure out how to carry him and keep the Spear away from our bodies, and I ended up dumping him over my shoulder like a sack of grain while she held his arm out. Staggering and slipping occasionally, I made my way back toward the hole.

Ascende. The Chorus formed a lattice beneath us, tightening into a disk of force that I could use to lift all three of us back up to the basement of the cathedral. Marielle stood close, wrapping an arm around my waist; and the Chorus struck sparks from the floor as they became solid and pushed away from the ground.

Antoine flinched and his legs kicked. I tightened my hold on him, and Marielle's hand disappeared from my waist. 'No,' he groaned, kicking again, and this time his foot caught me on the hip. My hold on the Chorus flickered, and the disk wavered. Antoine flailed in my arms, and I tucked my shoulder down and threw him off.

He sprawled on the ground, and the Spear cut across the rock with a high-pitched whine. A line of fire burned on my upper arm, right below the shoulder, and as I fell the short distance back to the grotto when the Chorus' elevator disk vanished, I noticed the thin slice through my jacket and shirt.

I put a finger in the hole and touched the cut. The Chorus sizzled in my fingertip as I felt blood.

Antoine struggled to sit up, and Marielle knelt beside him, keeping a wary eye on his right arm. 'No,' he muttered again, his eyes half-open. 'We need to leave it here.' He dragged the Spear across the ground again, the stone shrieking at the touch of the cold weapon.

I was about to point out the basic problem when the Chorus flooded my spine and skull, erupting into full defensive mode. 'Magi.' I looked up as if I could see something beyond the noisy haze of ward light. 'We've got company coming.'

She pushed her hair back. 'Can you deal with them?' she asked. 'They don't have access to the grid; you should be strong enough.' The commanding tone was back in her voice. That tenor of a woman who expected her words to be obeyed.

I hesitated. I am not your agent. 'What are you going to do about the Spear?' I asked. Her teeth were starting to chatter. She had used up too much of her reserves getting here, and this chamber was leaching her core temperature too fast. Mine too, for that matter, but I was better equipped to keep the suction at bay. Without the leys to bolster her resources, she was fading quickly.

'There isn't time to argue,' she said, biting off the end of her words. She grabbed Antoine's shoulders and sat him up. There isn't time. She was berating both of us. 'Go, wolf. Show no mercy.'

I was going to object, but the Chorus blossomed into a stalk of energy, lifting me away from the ground.

She Whispered one last command to me. In case I hadn't gotten the hint clearly enough. 'Kill them all.'

The Chorus sang in reply, and I shot up faster toward the chapel.

I had some vain hope that the Chorus had warned me early enough I could get back to the Chatelet as it was a nicely defensible position, but I wasn't going to get that lucky. I got as far as the large chamber known as the Ossuary before I met the Watchers.

There were five of them, clustered near the far end of the Ossuary, and for a moment, we froze, staring at one another. Familiar faces-some of them going back a few days, the rest going back a few years: Charles and Jerome, the two Watchers who had accompanied Henri at the airport; Charles looked pleased to have an opportunity to finish our tete-a-tete from the train car; Henri, of course; and the somewhat expected presence of his twin brother, Girard.

Prior to getting shot in the leg and gaining the limp, Henri and his brother had been nearly identical. Physically, they were mirror images of each other, and like most identical twins, the divergence lay in temperament and character. Henri was the more empathic of the two. I should have shot Girard as he had been the one who had done more of the bloody work back in Bechenaux. He had been the one who had really deserved a couple of steel- jacketed rounds, but as I had given him over to the enraged villagers as one of the architects of the werewolf plot against them, there hadn't been time or opportunity to put a bullet in him.

The last man wore a pair of wraparound sunglasses, and now that I got a good look at him, I knew him.

'Hello, Rene.' Rene Bataillard had been in Bechenaux too. I hadn't shot him, but I had put a shotgun round through the engine block of his car. He had loved that car, so it had almost been worse that putting a bullet in him. I hadn't recognized him earlier because he had been wearing less flashy clothing. As much a clothes horse as a