“My risk. Not yours.” Then he sighed and pulled off his jacket and sat down cross-legged beside the corpse. He rolled up his left sleeve and drew his fingers around the bands tattooed to his arm, whispering his ritual as his eyes lost their focus.
Brigid’s hand twitched.
CHAPTER 27
Brigid struggled against her bindings and Billi, not knowing what else to do, whipped out her knife and sliced the straps open.
Okay, this wasn’t what she’d expected.
The spirit was still in the body. It hadn’t fled at the moment of death. Billi looked up at the rocks above, and saw the bloody marks on the various corners and jagged faces. She knew exactly what had happened to Brigid. She’d been thrown and hit various ledges on the way down, breaking her bones but reducing the speed of her descent, but the last few metres had been freefall, and onto her face. Nevertheless Billi reckoned Brigid hadn’t died instantly. No one fall had been far enough to be fatal. So she must have lain here, counting out her last seconds, maybe even minutes, broken and betrayed and utterly alone. She must have known there was no hope.
Faustus was oblivious to the horror happening in front of him. Brigid’s back had broken, yet by some awful, unearthly will she tried to get herself back up. Her dress was bloody and torn, bones jutted from her white, bloodless skin and her limbs were askew, her left arm dangled by some sinew and skin.
Billi resisted the urge to draw her sword, but backed away, not that there was anywhere to go. Brigid glared at her, and mashed her shattered jaw, her tongue flapping as she tried to speak. She stepped closer.
Faustus raised his hand. “No.”
Brigid stopped and turned to him. His eyes were open and he was fully aware. He met her gaze and returned it, though he stiffened momentarily, but lifted his right hand in the shape of the Abhaya Mudra, the sign of fearlessness. “Three questions, as is the old pact between the two worlds.”
His voice came up from some abysmal place, carrying with it a force that made Billi’s blood run cold. Billi had fought fallen angels and faced the Devil himself, but Faustus talked with the surety of a man who knows deep and terrible things. What price had he paid to learn them?
“How far is Reggie along in his ritual?”
Brigid groaned and the bones scraped against each other as she tried to straighten her neck. Her words came out as a wordless gargle.
“What did she say?” Billi asked.
Faustus shot her an irritated look, annoyed at her interruption, but then he glanced up towards the night sky. “He’s waiting for the constellation of Erishkegal to reach its right place. She’s the goddess of the underworld and there are seven gates between here and there. Brigid was the key to the fourth gate. It all depends on how quickly Reggie opens the remaining three.”
“That’s not so helpful. When will that be?”
“We’ll know when it happens.” He faced Brigid again. “Who else do we face?”
Brigid spoke again, there were no words Billi could understand, but Faustus winced. “Shit. The asakku.”
“Again?”
“They are heralds to the Anunnaki. The Old Ones wouldn’t enter our universe without sending a few minions to scout ahead. Reggie’s an occultist and they act as the go-betweens.”
Billi put her hand on her sword hilt. “But now I’ve got this. How many?”
“That’s a third question.” His fingers had made their way from shoulder down to the final band on his wrist. “I’m not going to waste it.”
“Then what?”
Faustus changed his hand gesture into the Karana Mudra, the symbol of release, or expulsion. “What can I do to free you, Brigid?”
So that was it. There was more she would have wanted to know about what lay ahead, but this was Faustus’s show… and fair enough. Brigid couldn’t stay like this. She deserved to be free and go… wherever there was to go when life was over.
But Brigid, or whatever remained of her, wasn’t done. She turned toward Billi and there was nothing but hate.
“Don’t go there, Brigid,” warned Billi.
They’d been enemies in life, but it had been a banal hatred, petty. Brigid had resented Billi’s intrusion into her clique and wanted Erin all to herself. But look how that had turned out…
“No!” yelled Faustus.
Brigid hissed as she threw herself at Billi. Her brokenness didn’t stop her. She reached out with fractured and broken fingers and stumbled toward Billi her body unnaturally re-angled with bones piercing her flesh.
Billi thought she could just sweep Brigid’s arms aside but it was like hitting wood. Then the ragged, bone-splintered fingers were around her throat.
Brigid slammed her against the rock. Billi stabbed with her knife but there was nothing worth damaging. The organs, what remained, were dead and the heart had long stopped pumping. Other, darker energies infested Brigid and mere steel wasn’t going to do it.
“Let her go!” Faustus clamped his arm across Brigid and tried to pull her off. But she was immovable, it was as if she was part of the rock itself.
Black spots invaded Billi’s vision. Her chest ached as it couldn’t grab any air but worse was the look in Brigid’s accusing eyes. Everything had been fine until she’d come along. Billi was the foul thing that had poisoned Erin against her. Billi was the catalyst.
Brigid’s spirit, with only a loose hold upon her body, began to invade Billi. She was trying to possess her, as spirits did. They wanted life, wanted to hang on any which way they could.
Billi glimpsed the last of Brigid’s life.
She’d giggled when the others had painted her with the symbols and patterns. She could feel the brushes tickling her even now. She’d stood barefoot and in nothing but her underwear while Erin had directed the other two. She remembered how Erin had looked at her, with the barely repressed excitement, and desire. They’d skirted
