Killing Rites

side.

The Akaname was becoming less human with every second. Slime bubbled out of Tomás’s skin. His hands and face lengthened, his mouth pressing out from his face and growing round as an O. Its tongue whipped out faster than I could dodge, wrapping around my ankle and pulling. There was no way to stay standing, so I didn’t try, dropping to the ground instead and rolling away.

“In the name of Christ, I bind you! In the name of God, I bind you!”

The voice was Ex’s, but the power in it felt strange. I looked over for a quarter second. At the side of the room Ex was kneeling, Miguel and Tamblen at his sides, their heads bowed, their hands in his. The force in his words was the three of them, joining together. The Akaname turned toward them, and I kicked the back of its knee, staggering it.

“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I bind you, demon! You have no power here.”

The words carried their collected will like hammers falling on an anvil. I’d felt something like it before: the relentless, punishing assault of the rite of exorcism. It wasn’t the most powerful magic I’d seen. Calling upon God to help didn’t seem to give them any more power than three disciplined, trained, practiced minds joined together might give.

It was plenty enough for my purposes. I rolled up to my feet, using rque to drive my elbow up into the bottom of its jaw. I felt the jawbones come together hard as pincers, and the three feet of reeking, corrupt tongue fell to the floor, writhing. The rider pressed both hands to its mouth, black, clotted blood gouting between its fingers. I willed myself to attack again, to beat its skull concave and end it, but my body wasn’t my own. Instead, my hands lifted the severed tongue. It shifted against my palms, pulsing and alive. It was about the texture of liver, but rougher. I held it over my head.

“I am Sonnenrad, who you denied. I am the Voice of the Desert. I am the Black Sun and the Black Sun’s daughter!”

What Chapin and his men had gnawed and beaten and pried to get came out now like a flood. I felt its will burning, rising up from the base of my spine, through my belly, my heart, my throat, and I screamed it out. For a flickering moment, we weren’t in the snowbound sanctuary but the desert. My desert. The tongue in my hands tugged and whipped itself in the heat and dryness and vastness.

When I spoke again, I could feel the words tearing at my throat like I was screaming them, but they sounded barely louder than a whisper.

“In my own name and the name of my mother, I bind you. You are ended. Go.”

My will detonated, the wave front running out in all directions, as I stood at the center, the Akaname’s tongue lifeless and dry as ash in my hands. A profound silence took the room as I lowered my hands. Tomás lay on the brick floor, curled in a fetal position. Blood poured out of his mouth. His eyes were glazed and empty, but he was breathing. Chogyi Jake came to my side, his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I said as I turned and almost fell to the floor. “Okay. I’m not.”

Carsey helped Chapin to sit on the table. There was blood sheeting down the old priest’s belly and leg. Wide red streaks marked his face and neck. But the tough old bastard was smiling.

“Well done,” he said. “Oh, well done, well done.”

I leaned forward, resting on my elbows. I couldn’t catch my breath.

“That was a good day, I’d hate to see your bad ones,” I said. “Ex!”

“I’m right here,” Ex said. He was maybe six inches to my right and I hadn’t seen him. I was distantly aware of the others moving in the room. Tamblen walked by. He was weeping, but he still looked bored. Something about the shape of his face, I guessed. Chapin’s blood smelled hot and coppery, and I realized the stink of the Akaname was gone. Also, I’d been going to say something, but I couldn’t think what it had been. I let my head sink down for a second, resting my forehead on the table between my wrists.

Beating the wind demon hadn’t done this to me. To us. I wondered how much damage the exorcism had done to my rider, and how—if—she would ever recover.

“Mark of Taiqing?” I said. “Where’d that come from?”

“Actually, it was just a quarter,” Ex said. “Figured the bluff was worth trying.”

“We’re going to get the car ready,” Carsey he stroked Father Chapin’s hair. “Tamblen can drive and I’ll apply pressure. We’ll have you to the medics before you can finish doing penance.”

“No,” Chapin said. “We cannot leave. Our work is not done. It must be bound. We cannot leave the beast free.”

“It’s more than bound,” I said. “Seriously, we kicked its ass.”

Chapin looked at me, and then grasped at his wounded gut, hissing in pain. His face was pale as paper, but he shook his head.

“We do not take sides in the wars of Hell,” he said. “We do not have alliances against the will of God.”

“He’s delirious,” Miguel said. He had a massive bruise forming on his cheek. It actually looked kind of good on him. Rakish.

“He isn’t,” Carsey said grimly.

“I will not leave while the beast is free,” Chapin said, his jaw tight. His eyes were bright and fierce. They bored into me like a message I was supposed to understand but didn’t.

And then I did.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean me?”

Chapter Twenty-three

The room went silent. I fought to clear my mind, but the effort of the battle made clarity hard. Miguel and Carsey stood on the opposite side of the table. Ex stood to my right, Chogyi Jake to my left. Father Chapin lay on the table between us. Alexander and Tamblen had almost lifted the blasted shell of Tomás up to a sitting position. Carsey and Miguel looked at me, the relief and exhaustion and fear on their faces shifting. They looked hardened. Resigned. They looked like sailors who’d just figured out that the calm wasn’t the end of the storm but the eye of the hurricane. I figured I probably did too.

“There is a demon inside of her,” Chapin said. “It is the reason that you brought her here, Xavier.”

“You have got to be kidding,” I said. “Did you just miss the part where you’ve had a ringer in your group for … I don’t know. Years? Or that I just got rid of it?”

Chapin’s lips went tight and he shook his head.

“I have many failures,” he said. “Many, many failures. I will not be turned from my calling. The beast is here. It is within you, Miss Jayné. You have done us all a great service, and I will not leave you in the claws of Hell.”

I stepped back from the table, my legs still unsteady. Chapin tried to sit up. Blood poured out of his wounded side.

“Don’t be frightened,” Chapin said. “We will save you. Even if we are saving you from yourself.”

“Well,” Carsey said. “This is less convenient than I’d hoped.”

“Has to be done,” Tamblen said from behind me. I turned toward him as wide, strong arms wrapped around me, lifting me off the floor I kicked back, but it was only my own strength. Even when I hit something soft, the only response I got was a grunt. The grip didn’t go slack.

“No,” Ex said. “Stop. This is a mistake.”

“There can be no mistake, Xavier,” Chapin said. “Nor any room for compromise. It is through exceptions and weakness of will that Satan wins the world, and so—“

Chapin winced, clutching at his wound.

“Put me down,” I shrieked, twisting my weight. Tamblen turned, and someone—Miguel—grabbed my ankles. Lifted in the air, I turned toward Ex.

Over the years I had known him, I’d seen him in a hundred different moods. I had seen him in the depths of rage and joyous, exhausted past the point of illness and sleeping with the sunlight in his hair. I had felt the passion and guilt and longing that he kept bottled up in his soul, and I had wondered what he was thinking when he closed