Even The Vampires Get The Blues

Pilar swung around, his arm raised to block Paen's attack.

It was too late for Paen to stop the downswing, but he didn't even ask why I wanted mercy for the man who was currently choking the life out of me—he threw his body weight to the side so the sword struck Pilar at a different, less deadly angle.

'What is it about you and arms?' I asked, gasping in great lungsful of air as the stranglehold Pilar held on my throat was released by dint of Paen lopping off his arm. I rubbed my throat, wondering if I'd ever be able to swallow again.

Paen and Pilar stared at the gruesome member lying at their feet.

'Er…' Paen said, then looked at me. 'Why didn't you want me to kill him?'

'You took my arm off!' Pilar said, his face filled with amazement.

'Because he's a good guy,' I answered Paen hoarsely, wincing at the sound of my voice. Paen's eyes narrowed on my throat.

'Good guys don't try to throttle innocent women,' he said, swinging the sword back up so the tip pointed at Pilar's jugular.

'You cut it right off. My arm, you cut my arm off.' His nostrils flared as he raised his head to glare at Paen. 'Do you have any idea how long I've had this human form? Six hundred and twenty-seven years. I liked it! And now you've had my arm off.'

'You were strangling my Beloved,' Paen said, his eyes flashing quicksilver.

'She was trying to stop me from destroying Yan Luowang,' Pilar replied, raising the statue over his head.

Caspar roared out something I didn't understand, charging straight at us, extras falling off him like confetti.

'Please, please don't destroy it,' I begged. 'We need it to fulfill a debt. Couldn't we have it just long enough to do that, and then you can use it to destroy Caspar?'

'No,' Pilar said simply, and slammed the statue to the ground.

Existence hesitated for a moment. Everything, every living being, every inanimate object, every elf and demon and imp, even the earth itself paused for a moment as if to understand the implications of Pilar's action, then continued on as if nothing momentous had just happened.

But something did happen. The ugly, squat statue of a monkey hit the granite and mica and all the other minerals that went into forming the rocks and earth of the lodestone, and shattered into four pieces.

Caspar screamed and threw himself at us. I screamed (hoarsely), and stared with eyes filled with tears at the pieces of the statue. Paen lunged forward to stop Pilar, but the monkey god was too fast for him, leaping off the rock with a jubilant laugh.

Paen's beautiful silver eyes met mine, and I fell to my knees with the anguish I saw in them.

No. There has to be another way. This isn't the end.

It is, sweetheart. The debt can only be repaid by the statue, he answered, and grief so deep it seemed endless welled up inside him and spilled out onto me.

Caspar, in his twisted, horrific state, screamed in Chinese as he scrabbled at the remains of the statue. I grabbed one of the pieces, intending to brain him with it—not that I knew it would do anything to permanently harm him—when a thought struck.

'Here,' I snarled, snatching up a piece of the statue and throwing it at him before reaching for another piece. 'Here. And here, and here. You now have all the pieces of the Jilin God. The debt Paen's father incurred with you is now fulfilled! I demand acknowledgement of receipt of the statue before deep night!'

'You!' The twisted face of Caspar was a truly sickening sight to behold, but it was made almost unviewable by the hatred that filled it as his eyes raised to mine. Paen wrapped an arm around me and pulled me up so I was held tight to his body, his wonderful warmth soaking into me. 'You think you have won, but you have not. For I have this!'

From the head of the monkey statue Caspar withdrew a small, rolled-up bit of parchment. 'Behold, the Simia Gestor Coda! Into it Sun Wukong wrote all the knowledge of the ancients, all of my knowledge that he stole from me!'

Paen sucked in his breath, releasing me to lunge for Caspar, but the god of death leaped aside, holding the manuscript tightly. Behind him, Finn slashed through a couple of demons obviously intent on reaching Caspar, but it was no good.

'Now you will suffer as you have made me suffer,' Caspar gloated, his body stretching into a thin, ribbony suggestion of a human. 'You too will spend an eternity in torment, and when at last you decide to end your own agony, I will be waiting for you!'

'No!' Paen shouted, throwing himself onto Caspar.

Eerie, high-pitched, evil laughter was all that remained as Caspar succumbed to the inevitable and was pulled back into his domain in hell, taking the manuscript with him. The demons suddenly vanished, leaving the ghosts and extras fighting nothing more substantial than air. They all froze, and for a moment, there wasn't a sound.

'Dude!' a voice said in awestruck amazement.

'Did you get that?' a second voice asked.

'Er… get the big guy in the ugly costume and all those little brown guys disappearing?'

'Yeah.'

'I got it, but no one is going to believe it.'

Paen helped me to my feet, being careful to avoid jarring my arm. Sweetheart?

The howling wind inside me seemed a horrible parody of Caspar's mocking laughter. Pain twisted deep within, pain and despair and hopelessness.

Sam? Paen's fingers were warm on my chin as he tipped my head back so he could see into my eyes. Don't cry, love. We'll find another way.

'He's gone?' Finn asked, covered in black demon blood, panting as he stopped to help Clare over a gore- splattered stone.

'Ew,' she said, prodding Pilar's detached arm. 'That's just gross. So, we won?'

Two fat tears rolled down my cheeks. Paen pulled me up to his chest, but not even the lovely glow of his soul could warm me now. 'I'm cold,' I told him.

'I know, sweetheart. We'll get it back. If I have to go to hell myself, we'll get it back.'

'Get what back?' Clare asked, her brow furrowed. 'I thought we won.'

I wrapped my good arm around Paen and held him tight, allowing him to pour into me all his love and warmth and everything that he was, but it wasn't enough. Sharp fingers of despair kept me tight in their icy grip.

'The Coda was lost,' Paen said to Clare, but he never took his eyes off mine.

'Oh, the manuscript that's supposed to tell Sam how to get her soul back? But I thought that wasn't a sure thing?'

'It isn't…' Paen said, stopping before he could complete the sentence, his arms tightening around me.

I did the job for him. 'But it was the only chance we had.'

'Non-deities have such linear thinking,' Pilar said, leaping over a few rocks to land a few feet away, Beppo clinging to his shoulder.

I wondered for a moment why I wasn't surprised to see Pilar wasn't affected in the least by losing an arm— then I realized I didn't feel anything inside that wasn't an all-consuming hopelessness.

'He does not have the Coda. There is no Coda. There never was. The manuscript he has is nothing more than a few scribblings I made centuries ago. It was intended to draw Yan Luowang out of hiding. And it succeeded.'

Paen lifted his head from mine to look at Pilar, his beautiful eyes stark with loathing. 'I will destroy you. I don't know how, but this I swear—I will destroy you for what you've put us through… for what you've done to Sam.'

Not even the fact that Paen would undertake such an impossible task warmed me. I shivered, wondering if I would ever be warm again, and leaned into Paen, too exhausted even to think.