Bethany was already on the stairs, standing near the landing halfway between the first and second floors. Philip was there, too, pulling a revenant’s head away from its shoulder and sinking his teeth into its neck. He bit out a big chunk of rotting flesh, pulled the revenant’s head free of its body, and tossed both down the stairs. He spat again, his features twisting in disgust. “Ugh, I’m going to need a breath mint after this.” His mirrored sunglasses were spattered with dark blood. Even now, he still wore the damn things.
I hurried over to Bethany. “Are you okay?”
She was holding the guns she’d confiscated from Tomo and Big Joe, one in each hand. “I’ve had better days,” she said.
Isaac came bounding up the stairs next. Below, the room looked like a slaughterhouse, the floor littered with chunks of skull, bone, and severed body parts. But there were still far too many revenants still on their feet for us to get comfortable. Over by the bookcase, Gabrielle hacked away at them with her burning sword.
“You cut that one much too close, Isaac,” Philip said. “I thought they were going to kill you with that damn amulet.”
Isaac nodded, catching his breath. “Sorry about that. I had to get her talking, find out what she was planning and how she got through the wards. Now we know.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You wanted to know what I was going to do. You were testing me.”
“Maybe some of that, too,” he said. “You could have told her where the box is and spared yourself a world of trouble, but you didn’t. I’m sorry I misjudged you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry I thought you were crazy and trying to kill everyone,” I said.
Below, four revenants lurched toward the staircase, their glowing eyes fixed on us. Bethany lifted her guns and fired them both repeatedly. The revenants’ foreheads blew apart, and they fell to the floor.
“Not bad,” I said. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
“The Saint Aurelius Home for Orphaned Girls.” She raised the guns again and blew the heads off two more approaching revenants.
I looked across the room at the polished wooden door that led outside. It was the only exit I knew of, but it was too far away to do us any good. Even if we managed to destroy all the remaining revenants, we wouldn’t even get close before the shadowborn stopped us. I scanned the room, searching for another way out. When my gaze fell on the couch near the door, my blood went cold.
Thornton’s body sat up slowly. The white sheet slid off him as he stood up. His clothes were still wet from the Methusal spring, dripping onto the carpet and leaving a trail behind him as he crossed the room toward Gabrielle. She didn’t see him. Her back was to him as she chopped and swung her blazing sword at the other revenants, sending heads, arms, and hands flying. They were no match for her, but they kept coming like cannon fodder, keeping her distracted.
“Gabrielle, behind you!” I shouted.
She spun around, raising the burning sword in her hands, expecting to see just another revenant. She froze the moment she saw it was Thornton.
“Hello, baby,” he said. “Did you miss me?” Pinpoints of red light burned in his eyes.
Twenty-nine
Bethany started down the stairs but didn’t make it far. Both shadowborn vanished from Melanthius’s side and reappeared at the bottom of the steps. They lunged. Bethany stopped short and fell backward, their blades passing over her. She pulled herself upright and scrambled back up the steps.
The shadowborn charged up the steps toward us, their katanas cutting the air so sharply the blades practically sang. Bethany leveled the handguns at them, double-fisted, and started squeezing off shots. The shadowborn disappeared, reappeared closer. She shot at them again, forcing them to vanish once more. As long as she kept them on the defensive they couldn’t launch an outright attack, but it was only a temporary fix. Eventually she would run out of bullets. As it was, the shadowborn were already adapting. They split up, one appearing above us on the landing between the first and second floors, the other appearing right in front of me.
I still had the iron spear in my hand, and brought it up to block the shadowborn’s katana. I lunged before it could swing again. The shadowborn vanished a split second before the spear pierced its chest.
Chaos raged around me. Bethany’s gunshots echoed in my ears. Isaac blasted fire from his hands. The shadowborn popped in and out of the material plane all up and down the stairs. And through it all, I watched Reve Azrael in Thornton’s body creep closer to Gabrielle down below. Gabrielle had finished off all the revenants but one, a skinny corpse with a mohawk and a leather vest. It backed away as Reve Azrael approached.
“You can put the sword down now, baby,” Reve Azrael said. Her approximation of Thornton’s speech pattern was eerily perfect.
“Don’t call me that,” Gabrielle said, shaking her head defiantly. “You’re not Thornton.”
Reve Azrael smiled. The red glow danced in her eyes. “No. Even you would not be so foolish as to fall for that. But the memories housed in this body, his thoughts of you are so sweet. So exposed. Did he ever tell you the nickname he had for the mole on your lower back?”
Gabrielle’s face hardened. She drew back her burning sword. “You leave him be!”
“Or what? You’ll strike me down? Do it, and you’ll destroy your lover’s body. All that remains of him. Are you prepared to do that?”
Gabrielle gritted her teeth, the muscles of her arms tensing.
“Your beloved, cleaved in two by your own hand,” Reve Azrael said. “Could you perpetrate such violence on him? Could you live with the memory of it for the rest of your life?”
The burning sword seemed to tremble in her hands, and her face registered a mix of emotions: confusion, outrage, revulsion, grief, and a paralyzing uncertainty.
Swing the damn sword, I thought, but I could tell she wasn’t going to. Reve Azrael had gotten to her. She couldn’t bring herself to destroy the body of the man she loved, the man she’d planned to marry. If we didn’t do something to help, she was going to get herself killed.
I hurried down the steps, but Philip sped past me. But as fast as he was, the shadowborn were faster. One materialized in Philip’s path and swung its katana in a wide, forceful arc. The blade caught Philip in the chest, knocking him backward onto the steps. His shirt had been sliced open to reveal an angry red gash across his chest.
It could have been a lot worse. Frankly, I was surprised it wasn’t. A blow like that from the shadowborn’s katana probably would have cut me in half, but Philip, who looked skinny enough to wriggle through a roll of paper towels, only seemed to have suffered a flesh wound. Just how hard was a vampire’s skin?
Bethany opened fire at the shadowborn again, covering Isaac as he bolted down the steps. He grabbed Philip under the arms and dragged him back up the stairs to the landing.
“If you’re going to strike me down, do it now,” Reve Azrael taunted Gabrielle. “Cut Thornton’s head from his shoulders.”
Gabrielle’s eyes glistened with tears. She slowly lowered the blazing sword. “I can’t.”
Shit. I started down the steps again, but this time both shadowborn appeared before me, blocking my way. Damn. The higher ground of the stairs had been perfect for fighting the revenants earlier, but now we’d inadvertently trapped ourselves. I backed away. Bethany came storming down the steps, pulling the triggers on both guns, but they were empty. She tossed them away and reached for her vest. The shadowborn stalked up the steps toward us.
I’d lost track of the mohawked revenant below, but now I saw it again. It was holding something in its hand. A gun.
“Behind you!” I shouted.
Gabrielle spun around, lifting the burning sword again, but it was too late. The gun went off. She jerked back, a red splotch blossoming in the spot between her shoulder and chest. She spun from the shot, and the burning sword took off the mohawked revenant’s head. Gabrielle crumpled to the floor. The burning sword
