Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (55 page)

Sharp p
ain
exploded
through
his body
. 
He felt the bullets shred through his organs
.  Something inside him broke.  He
fell,
stood up again
,
and
stumbled forward. 
Everything faded in and out. 
Kane’s arms failed him.  He couldn’t
feel anything, couldn’t
find
the strength to lift his weapons. 

He was
only
dimly aware of Ronan
shouting to
him.

Mike
, Danica’s voice said in his mind. 
Mike
…

He thought of Ekko.
  He saw her face,
and
felt her skin.  He
held
her in his arms,
touched
the
smooth
curve of her back,
felt
the soft touch of her lips on his neck.  He
was
warm
, warm in the way that only Ekko had ever made him
.

Everything bled to white
.  It was
like he’d fallen into a world of light and snow.  In his mind, Ekko was there, waiting in a
pale
field
and
wearing a blood red dress, the one she’d w
o
r
n
when they’d first met, when he’d be
en so simple and lost and she’
d taken him away from a dull life and given him something go
od, something worth living. 

S
he’d
given him
her love.  I
t was the greatest thing he’
d ever know
n
.

She
was what he saw,
and
why he smiled
,
even as Rake
shot him
in the face
and
killed him.

TWENTY
-ONE

FALLING

Do you?

She floats in
pale
seas, adrift in
the
void. 
There’
s n
o sound
and no feeling
: just her
and the
light. 

It isn’t real, and she knows it
, b
ut she no longer knows what is.  She hangs outside of time, held in
a
web.  Here
she is still whole
.
They’ve not yet
robbed
her
of her arm and
replaced
it
with some bastard arcane creation
that doubles as
a
prison for her spirit
.  Here she still exists as she once was,
not a
s some
monster,
a
fusion
of living and undead, flesh and steel. 

Here
,
she
’
s
not yet
become their
sacrifice
. 

Where am I?

This is not where she is.  This time, these events…they
’
ve already happened.  She
’
s a prisoner again.  Trapped to witness
her own collapse, to watch a
s a
life she once knew is brutally
erased.

Kane died, and
Danica screamed. 

Rake shot him in the face, then
shot
him
again as the body fell
soundlessly
to
the ground.
 
Mike’s
b
ody crumpled in
a bloody heap.

Her vision flashed white.  The vampire voices
in
the back of her mind silenced as her spirit howled with rage.
  Her vision focused.  The space between she and Rake seemed to close. 
Her hea
rt
beat filled her ears. 
Blood poured from her side.

“Raaaaaaaake!” she screamed. 

She felt nothing
in the
blood steel
appendage,
but as the soul flame leapt from her metal fingers the false arm
burned
the tender flesh
where it
had been
mounted
into
her scapula
. 
Heat painfully radiated
across
her upper body.  She cried tears of
hurt
.

Rake was too fast, and his spirit was too strong. 
B
lue fire
burned
around
his
shield.  He narrowed his eyes
and moved towards
Danica
.  H
is spirit shimmer
ed
like a moving glass cage. 

Ronan tackled
Rake
from behind. 
He
found
a hole
in the warlock’s shield
and rammed
his katana
through
the Revenger’s
shoulder.  Rake
cried out
and backhanded Ronan with a fist covered in
cold
fire, but the swordsman held on
and
twisted
his
blade
.

Danica
lumbered to her feet
.  H
er eyes caught on
Kane’s corpse
where it lay
on the ground
.

She
thought about
Cole. 

Sickness welled in the back of her throat.  She fought the whispers, the lunatic vampire
dirge
that lingered at the edge of her thoughts
.
 

Maur screamed
for
her
to
watch out. 

The Scarecrow came at her
with
its
c
laws. 
Danica
leapt back
, and h
er spirit pulled her into the air.  She
barely
felt hi
s presence
. 
Nothing seemed real
.  S
he
moved
as if
in a
dream. 

She
barely
dodged the Scarecrow’s attack. 
A cold arcane blade
grew
out of her
false
knuckles
and hacked
away a
giant limb.  Black puss oozed to the ground. 
The
Scarecrow
bit
at her with blunted teeth.  Its blackene
d skull rammed against her body and
knocked the wind
out of her
.

She felt nothing.  Without even realizing it, she was back on her feet. 
Her blade
severed
its
massive head
.  The
Scarecrow
sank to its knees
and
crashed to the
floor
.

Cross was tethered and tied
to its back
, unmoving. 

Maur ran
over to them
.  E
xplosions erupted
from
out of
the tunne
l
.
 
Dark fumes and shrapnel filled the
icy air
.

Danica looked at Cross, and she looked at Kane.

You don’t have to lose them both.

Ronan screamed.

Rake had
drawn a Bowie knife
and pushed it
clean
through
Ronan’s
forearm. 
Energy leapt from the Revenger’s
fingers and
poured
into Ronan, whose eyes filled with bloody light.
 

“No!” Danica shouted.

T
he ceiling exploded with a deafening blast. 
B
urning cinder
s
fell
like
red snow
. 
A
small airship
crashed outside
,
just
over their heads
.  Jets of fire seared down like blades.
 
She
saw red sky filled with fire and caustic fumes.

A
flaming
Black Scars tank
rolled across the hole in the roof and blocked out the world.  It hovered, impossibly, before it fell
down
through the crumbling
ceiling
. 
The groan of metal and stone
filled
the air. 
The steel juggernaut twisted
and
crashed to the floor with a deafening boom that shook the entire structure
.  Chunks of granite and rebar
fell
in its wake
.  Waves of dust and debris filled the chamber in a rolling cloud
.

Maur threw
his body
over Cross
to shield him as w
ar wights and kaithoren ripped through the walls
.  A
sickly mass of
soldiers made of
grave flesh and boiling rot
flooded the chamber
. 
Whirring blades and tentacles lashed
everywhere
. 

Ronan
somehow pushed through Rake’s arcane assault and head-butted
him,
brea
k
ing
the other man’s
nose.  He pulled away and
kick
ed
the Revenger
in the st
omach. 

Overhead, g
argoyles and vampires and Killraven
s
twisted and fired and tore at
one
another. 
Bullets and hexed fire
roared
back and forth.  The sky was filled with screams.

Danica blasted undead
soldiers
with streams of ghost fire and acid ice. 
She dodged through clouds of crackling flames
and blue-white explosions. 

A
massive
and
armored
Razorwing
twisted its way
through the gap
in the ceiling
.
Its barbed wings and hook
ed
claws scraped
against
stone
.  I
t opened its mouth
and released
a horrendous howl.
A
vampire armed with a double-blade
d axe
rode
in a massive saddle
on its back
. 

Danica
looked at Rake
.  H
e stared
right back
at her. 
His eyes burned white and gold. 

Rake
shaped
his spirit
into
a tendril of slithering light that
he lashed
around
Danica’s
ankle.  It burned through her boot and into her flesh
.  S
he
threw
a lash of razor ice
at Rake
,
but his spirit
deflected the
attack
,
and the
frozen shrapnel
flew
straight into the Razorwing
’s chest
. 
The beast
howled as obsidian
magic
pierced its dull heart and killed it instantly.
  It fell towards the tower of skulls.

“I’m
gonna
eat your fucking heart!”
Ronan howled
.  H
e
leapt forward
and tackled Rake.  They flew
over the pit and
into
the
pillar of
glass
. 
T
he Razorwing landed on it from above.