control the etheric flow? Instead of a messy explosion of spirit and flesh, would he be able to control the flow in a tight beam through a pinhole of restraint?
'Maybe,' I tried, seeing if he bit. Seeing how much he knew.
A smile tugged at Antoine's lips, as if he saw through my bluff. He fell back a step and swung the sword experimentally. The one he had taken was the more simple of the two: just a long blade, burnished steel, with a hilt wrapped in gold thread. Layers and layers of gold thread. In the pommel, a single, flawless diamond, about the size of a walnut.
'They're nice blades. Where did you find them?'
'The Archives.'
Mine had a slight curve to it, an Arabian influence in its design, and the hilt was plain-black leather wraps worn with sweat and blood. The blade itself was mercurial, shifting in color as it cut the light in the chapel.
He pursed his lips. 'A gift from the daughters?'
'Loan, more likely. They expect them back.'
He caught me looking at his right hand. 'The way I see it, you owed me at least one.' He had cleaned up while I had been climbing out of the subbasement of Tour Montparnasse, and his suit was impeccable as ever. When he raised both hands and held them side by side, the difference between them was noticeable against the white cuffs of his shirt. 'Though, it is a bit worn,' he said. 'But it won't matter later.' He smiled. 'When I am Crowned.'
We were more than halfway to the front of the church now, and I let my gaze roam across the space beyond the low railing separating the nave from the sanctuary. The platform was low, only a few steps, and the altar was a simple marble block. Marielle and Husserl stood behind it, off to one side, watching us. The Grail sat on the altar in the middle, and it shimmered and wavered in the mirage-inducing heat. The gold chalice was bleeding energy off, acting as a release valve for the pressure building beneath the ground.
Antoine expected to be healed by the Grail.
When I received the Grail from the chapel in the Archives, I had been completely healed. Of course, since then I had been stabbed in the side and had my hand cut off by the Spear, but the wounds I had sustained earlier were gone. I suspected both of those wounds would be repaired by the magick of the Grail. I, too, had high expectations for the restorative power of the Cup.
'Yeah, about that,' I said. 'You realize Husserl is going to fuck you for it.'
'Of course,' Antoine said. 'He will try. I'd be disappointed if he didn't. But I have the Spear, and once I am done with you, I will deal with him. He will wait until the very last moment to touch the Weave. That's how he brings about the future he has Seen. Besides, he thinks, given the choice between Marielle and the Crown, we won't sacrifice her.'
'Really?'
He shook his head sadly. 'She really wound your thread tight, didn't she?'
'No,' I said, but it sounded false to my ears.
'She is her father's daughter, and I think he'd be proud at how she has manipulated all of us, but it only works-' He swung the sword back and forth a few times; the blade sang through the heavy air. '-if you let her in your heart.' The sword fell back to rest against his shoulder. 'I should thank you for that. Without you, I never would have realized how much I would have let her twist me.'
'Well, I'm glad I didn't spend too much time feeling guilty about fucking her, then.'
Antoine's first stroke would have split me from throat to stomach if I hadn't been ready for it. As it was, his blade skipped against mine with a clang of steel, and I felt the shock of his blow in my elbow. The fingers of the gauntlet tightened about the hilt of my sword, and I shoved his blade away.
'Never talk badly about a man's girl, even when he's protesting that he doesn't care about her anymore,' I said as I stepped back to a more comfortable distance. I smiled at Antoine. 'I learned that lesson the first time around.'
He had thought I would have been lulled by the fact that he was holding the sword in his left hand, but I knew, after all these years, it was now his dominant hand. The right held the Spear, and I had to watch out for that sharp point too, but the sword was going to be deadly in his left.
I was actually surprised he had waited as long as he had before taking a swing at me.
Antoine swung his blade-one-handed-in a butterfly pattern, clearing space more than trying to hit me, and we shuffled from side to side as we gauged the working space between the pews. Antoine had actually studied longsword techniques with a cousin a half-dozen steps removed who could trace his lineage back to fifteenth- century Doges. His cousin was a Fiore man, through and through, an old Renaissance throwback intent on bringing the old art of sword-fighting back into twenty-first-century vogue.
I learned my technique from too many black-and-white Hollywood films caught late at night at too many nondescript and insignificant hotels scattered around the globe. Basil Rathbone, Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, and even the ubiquitous
Antoine waited for me, his sword moving back and forth. He knew I didn't have time to wait him out. He knew we were fighting the clock. I had to finish this duel quickly.
The air was thick and humid, hothouse-style moist, and already the light was changing in the church. The sun had crested the eastern horizon. It wouldn't take long before the light hit the high windows in the cupola and streamed down on the altar. On the Grail.
It was even harder for the Chorus to tap the ley now. It was like scrabbling against a flat slab of stone. There was nothing to grab. No seams. No ripples. Just a solid stream of force.
I turned and sprinted for the front of the church. Antoine shouted in surprise, and I knew he wasn't far behind me. I pivoted on my right foot, and turned into one of the last few rows of pews. Three steps down the aisle, next step on the seat of the bench, and then a long leap over the rows of pews. I felt his sword whip through the air behind me. Closer than I expected. I was dwelling too much on how close I had come to getting my ass sliced open and nearly blew the landing two rows up. I danced along the seat of the pews, and finally managed to face the other direction.
There was a little more space between us now.
'Where are you going, little lamb?' Antoine asked. He kept to the aisle, moving toward the altar. His Will was rampant, tightly focused about his frame, and there was no sense that he was drawing energy from the ley. He was still more adept than I, but at least he wasn't tapping the entirety of the grid.
Back when we had faced off in Bechenaux, he had used the grid to slide through space, moving more quickly than I could track him. He could probably still do the same here, but it would be a much tougher trick. One I would hopefully be able to see coming. Ripples in the etheric patterns. Disturbances in the grid.
He flickered, his body outlined in light as if someone had switched on a strobe behind him, and I dropped between pews, ducking below the height of the bench backs. Antoine re-appeared, not more than three feet from me, one row over, and his sword whistled through the space where I had been a moment before.
He was close enough to thrust with the Spear, and I turned its point aside with my blade as I skipped along the row. 'I can see you coming,' I panted. 'You're leaving too much of a trail.' He was forcing himself through the dense morass of energy, moving against the current, and a body moving in opposition to the vector of force tends to leave a wake.
Snarling, he whipped his sword around, underhand, and connected with the pew. The blade flashed as he cut through the wood, and splinters-arcing with blue lightning-flew at me. The Chorus absorbed them, its peacock shield rippling with meteoric death of the tiny missiles. The spent energy of his missiles slithered along my shield, collapsing into a storm of force. The Chorus kissed this knot and I threw it back at him. Antoine caught the ball of energy on his sword, splitting it, and the energy dissipated as water vapor, a tiny rain shower dashing across his chest and arms.
The Spear quivered in his right hand, its point seeking a target. It was active, a hungry blade seeking sustenance. Our magick was drawing its attention.
Antoine vanished, and the Chorus filled my eyes with their spectral overlay. I could see Antoine now, moving through the ether-a ghostly image impossible to stare at, but definitely visible in my peripheral vision.
