An incongruous thought made me look away from him, to the thick-shouldered rider in the host. He lifted his bearded chin, a trace of amusement in his face, and then he nodded, a single drop of his chin. Something familiar glittered in his eyes as Cernunnos’s sword came free of the stone with a scrape. Then there was no more time to contemplate the riders while I looked for a way to get free of Cernunnos’s bonds.
The god rose up and drove his sword into my belly, and I stopped thinking at all.
CHAPTER 26
One thing I’d learned in the last few days was that a body gets used to different degrees of pain. For example, my head still throbbed, but I’d more or less forgotten about it while concentrating on the return to Babylon. The very bad popping in my knee was excruciating, but letting it distract me from the matter at hand was suicidal, so I didn’t.
Getting a sword in the gut for the second or third time in a week was not something you could get used to. I was too surprised to scream; instead I opened my mouth and a pathetic little bloody cough came out. Above me, smiling brilliantly, Cernunnos asked, “Do you yield?”
Interesting question to ask a shish-kabob. He leaned on the sword a little more, turning it slightly. I opened my mouth to scream again and didn’t even manage the pathetic cough that time. “Do you yield?” Cernunnos asked again. Pleasantly, even.
My vision faded out, into blood, and back in again with the peripheries stained red. The rest of the Hunt was gathered around us when I could see again. I felt like a particularly novel and newly discovered bug, skewered on an examining table.
“I…” I croaked. Cernunnos, still smiling brilliantly, leaned closer to hear me.
“I’ll see you in hell first,” I whispered, and did the most amazingly stupid thing I could think of. I released the coil of energy inside me.
It blasted out in every direction, most of its force screaming in a multicolored ball up the sword to smash into Cernunnos. There was one delightful moment of complete surprise on his face before he flew back, ass over teakettle. I heard a dull thud as he crashed into one of the Joshua Spires, and another one as he hit the earth a moment later. His sword made a dull tink against the stones as it landed somewhere between us.
Unexpectedly, all my pain went away. I stood up slowly, my vision turning to swirls of red and blue: infrared and ultraviolet. Detail faded to impressions, splotches of heat and cool. Energy still boiled out of me. It felt exhilarating, utter freedom from constraint, self-imposed or otherwise. I felt as if nothing could possibly stop me. A tiny part of me knew it was a false high, but for the moment I hung on and looked around.
Babylon, behind the mist of obscurity I’d put up around it, was healing. I could see within the Joshua Spires, like I’d been able to see through the city buildings. Men and women formed circles around and inside the spires. I could see power rising from them, flowing out over the mythical city. Where their power touched damage, it healed. Only the bodies the Hunt had left behind remained still and unliving as the shamans worked together to heal their gathering place.
They dared focus on the healing because they trusted me to deal with the Hunt. I could feel that, too. Not supreme confidence, but quiet expectation, the belief that it was safe to pay attention to other tasks. Only the line of soldiers whom I’d seen first still stood linked across the street, watching me. I lifted a hand toward them, meaning to smile, but the sight of my own hand drove all other thought from my mind.
There was no hand, nor wrist or elbow or, as I looked down at myself, any of the other usual flesh and blood extremities that came with being human. I was human-shaped, with fingers and breasts and hips and feet, but it was like someone had taken all the coverings off and left me with nothing more than the spirit that filled those parts. No wonder I’d stopped hurting. There wasn’t anything physical left to hurt.
Color swam over what wasn’t my skin, like oil held in by surface tension. Rainbows gleamed and swirled and mixed and were reborn. It was ridiculously beautiful. For a second or two I just stared down at myself, lost in the random patterns of spirit unbound by flesh.
A small sound roused me, and I looked up, toward Cernunnos. Other than the groan, he hadn’t moved since I threw him into the spire. I discovered I was holding him down, just as he’d held me earlier, with the force of my power. The green of his strength met the silver rainbow of mine, pushing against it enough to prevent him from being crushed, but not enough to let him escape. I cocked my head and walked forward.
The host moved back from me, not precisely a retreat, but certainly a respectful and cautious distance. Their features were lost in the reddish haze as they looked away from me to their captured leader. I crouched beside Cernunnos, watching his power push against mine. It wasn’t, maybe, fair. I still felt the good will of my friends reaching out to me, pouring in to me, and he had only his own power.
Then again, he was a god. “Do you yield?” I asked, nearly as politely as he had. It seemed like a good protocol, although I knew he’d say no, just like I had.
The problem was, neither of us would ever yield. We could keep fighting until together we destroyed Babylon. At some distant point one of us would destroy the other. The only thing I had on my side was that if Cernunnos actually killed me, he’d have no one to take the Rider’s place. Suzanne Quinley’s place. Of course, it would leave him free to terrorize Babylon. I had fewer constraints, except I didn’t know if the Hunt could be led back into my world, or their own, if Cernunnos himself was dead. I preferred not to find out.
Cernunnos growled, feral eyes full of rage. “I do not yield,” he snarled.
“No,” I said, “I didn’t think you would.”
I tested the depth of the power I was tapped in to, not taking my eyes off the god. The power ran deep, but not deep enough: I could feel the bottom of it, like I was reaching through a stream-bed when I needed a river. I mumbled a prayer and reached for the rest of the people surrounding my physical body, the ones who didn’t know how to offer, but who hadn’t left the room when I’d explained what I needed.
And my hold on Cernunnos slipped. He roared and sprang forward, knocking me down. My damaged and too-solid flesh came back as I crashed into the cobblestones, the god’s taloned nails at my throat. My head hit the stones, and for another moment the gray veil around us wavered again, Babylon visible during that breath. Pain did bad things to my vision, narrowing it down to pinpricks. Cernunnos lifted one hand from my throat, extending it beyond where I could see. Then silver glittered, as he drew the broadsword into my line of vision. For one exciting moment I comprehended just how very long I was going to be dead. I brought my hands up to stop the sword, a futile gesture.
Then I remembered what else Gary had brought to the station.
The surprise on Cernunnos’s face was almost worth the near-death experience, as his broadsword bore down and clanged into the flat of my rapier. I held it extended at an awkward angle that barely prevented him from slicing my throat open, but it was all I needed. I gathered my strength with a shout and shoved him off me, rolling to my feet.
That’s when I found out, for the second time in two days, how much it hurt to stand up with a two inch hole sliced through your insides. I nearly fell over again right there, content to have done with it, but Cernunnos smiled, a bright flash of triumph. The idea of letting him win pissed me off enough to keep me on my feet. Bleeding and swaying, with an arm wrapped around my abdomen, but on my feet. It’s the small victories, I tell you.
It didn’t seem fair that he wasn’t actually hurt, while I was bleeding and staggering all over the place. He came at me carelessly, an easy overhead stroke that expected nothing in response. Without any particular conscious intent on my own part, the rapier came up, catching the broadsword a second time. Metal rang out again, pure clean tone of a bell, and the god once more looked surprised. Hell, I was surprised, too. I wouldn’t have bet on being able to parry a toothpick, much less the heavy blade Cernunnos carried. I could feel the rapier, though, as if it came from the same source the coil of energy within me did. The slender sword’s strength was from more than just the metal it was forged with. It was filled with my will and the power lent to me by my friends, and its very presence was a response to my need.
Since I didn’t have any world-class fencing skills, I kicked Cernunnos in the nuts again. I didn’t have to know how to use a sword to do that, and he was standing there like he was asking for it, so it seemed justified. Shock and rage filled his green eyes all over again as he doubled. I guess there must be rules that people fighting gods usually followed. Next time, maybe somebody would give me a primer. Since nobody had this time, though, I
