infantryman.
They wil guard you while the Sniffer jumps you into Brude’s land. After that I feel sure the strategy you have outlined wil gain you entrance into his castle.” She pierced every one of us with a meaningful look. “Remember also that while you have your own agenda, you also fight for Queen Marie. My people fol ow me, and my laws, because their souls need structure in order to rest and mend and, perhaps someday, even move on. Be noble in this noble cause.” Wow. Al this time she’d been testing us. Suckage. And yet maybe a true leader needs to do those things if she’s going to ask her people to risk their lives on a venture as dangerous as the one we’d proposed. Which made me admire Marie al the more. As if I needed another reason to decimate Brude. But if I could destroy him, at least Marie’s little realm would become a place where lost souls could shelter, safe from torture and violence, until they found themselves again. What a cool concept.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dave felt like he’d spent hours kneeling between the graves of Vayl’s sons, bearing Astral’s weight like it wasn’t trying to cave his shoulder joint while he held tight to his spiritual divining rods and kept an eye on his “landmarks,” Cole and Cassandra, so that he’d be able to find his way back. He’d entered into serious chant mode now, barely pausing to breathe between lines that sounded so much alike that sometimes only the last vowel of the last word changed.
At least that was how it sounded to Cole and Cassandra. When they had three seconds to listen.
Which wasn’t often because they too were busy. Doing improv. For Bergman.
The one-liners had dried up fairly quickly, though they had al owed Bergman to peel back the wings that enfolded him. Which meant they could see his hand stil gripping Dave’s knife and his lips turned up in appreciation when he heard Cole say, “Cassandra, you know why I got into this business, right?”
“To meet women?”
“Nope. For the dental plan.” He opened wide and stuck his finger way back into his mouth so he kinda sounded like a sinus-infected cowboy with a speech impediment when he said, “See this gold fiwwing, heyah? I got fwom a mobster I offed back in New Yowack.”
“You did not!”
Cole pul ed out his finger and wiped it on his jeans. “Okay. Maybe he was the mobster’s dentist who I paid for some information and he was so grateful to get free of the guy he threw in the fil ing for free. But look at the dentures he gave me for when the fil ings fal out!” Cole opened up his other hand and his wind-up vampire fangs began their teeth-chattering, shoe-stomping dance.
Cassandra giggled as Bergman gasped, his chest heaving up and down with the effort of his fight with the Rider. But also, if his grin was any clue, with big gulps of muted laughter.
Their first sign that the atmosphere had changed was Jack, whose fur stood on end as he began to bark, pointing his nose at Dave, Astral, the grave markers, and occasional y Bergman’s Rider.
Cole tugged on his leash, reminding him that he had no business with the Rider, just as Dave’s chanting stopped. The spirit-rods, which had been thrumming in his hands like a couple of guitar strings, began to whine. He jumped to his feet and held them tight while Astral balanced on his shoulder, her ears twitching in circles as they always did when she was processing mounds of information.
Cassandra and Cole weren’t sure where to look. The muscles in Dave’s forearms, biceps, and back bunched with the effort it took to keep the rods from whipping so wildly that they sliced off an arm or leg, or even decapitated him. At the same time Bergman had dropped his chin nearly to his chest, his face twisted in an awful grin as he launched into a series of ful -body spasms.
Dave looked up, as if for help from the invisible Beings who sometimes decided it might be okay to intercede in the paltry affairs of men. But his Spirit Guide had already thrown in with his twin.
And nobody else seemed interested in picking up the slack. His jaw clenched, the veins in his neck cording with ultimate effort as the energy from the graves passed into his body and began to make him shiver.
Cassandra reached out to Cole, a worried wife in need of support. And, understanding she might See something that would make him miserable in the future, he stil took her hand, held it tight, so that she didn’t have to watch her husband’s struggle al alone. But it wasn’t just him. When Dave’s effort felt like too much to bear, they only had to turn their heads and there was Bergman, clenching the knife he’d been given and slowly turning it toward himself. Cassandra hugged her free arm around her unborn child as the knife crept closer to his heart. “No, Miles,” she whispered. “It’s not for you.”
Cole swayed, gripping Jack’s leash as the malamute growled their mutual frustration. But they couldn’t desert Dave, leave him lost in the spiritworld forever. “Hang on, dude,” he said. “Just a little longer, and I’l be there. I promise you, I’l be right there.”
“Hanziiiii!” Dave yel ed, his voice echoing through the forest like that of an ancient shaman summoning a spirit to purify one of his sick patients, as Astral crouched down as if preparing to leap on a mouse.
“Monique, where??? I can’t
“Miles!” Cole yel ed. “For Chrissake, Jaz is gonna be so pissed if you screw this up!” The stick to Dave’s left stopped moving. He held on to it a moment longer to be sure, and then he moved that hand to the remaining stick. Which began to wobble so hard it looked like Dave was causing the movement. Until you checked out his holding- on-fordear-life expression.
Cole asked, loudly and somewhat desperately, “Yo, Cassandra? What happens when that spirit-rod of Dave’s starts whipping him around in circles like an Olympic gymnast?”
“It should be al right,” Cassandra replied in a falsely cheerful voice. “I think he’s wearing his maximum-support tights tonight.”
Bergman laughed ful y, from the bel y. The knife retreated as he climbed to his feet.
Dave wasn’t amused, especial y when the rod final y won, jerking him off his feet and throwing him against the fence like a pissed-off stal ion. Astral jumped ship just before he hit, landing graceful y beside him as if she’d practiced the trick a thousand times. She stared at him as he lay stil , trying to decide whether or not he’d
