Heartland-The Second Book of the Codex of Souls (32 page)

The last man wore a pair of wraparound sunglasses, and now that I got a good look at him, I knew him.

"Hello, René." René Bataillard had been in Béchenaux too. I hadn't shot him, but I had put a shotgun round through the engine block of his car. He had loved that car, so it had almost been worse that putting a bullet in him. I hadn't recognized him earlier because he had been wearing less flashy clothing. As much a clothes horse as a whore for his car, the best disguise he could wear was simply generic clothing—nondescript grays and black. Not only had I spotted him on Batofar, where he had been the man I had mistaken for a centurion, but he had been at the airport too. He'd been Watching, like a true brother. At least, until he'd tried to warn Henri on the bridge. "You their hunting dog?" I asked.

Trying to charm your way out of trouble again, aren't you?
Lafoutain noted dryly as the Chorus rippled through my skin, rising to the willful challenges evident in their auras. There was another tension in the air too as if each inhalation drew in a denser atmosphere.

The leys, coming back.

René ignored my jibe. "They're back there," he said, pointing with his chin. "In the next chapel."

Girard cracked his knuckles, an ugly smile splitting his face. "Henri said you were back," he said. "I'm glad he didn't kill you. I wanted that pleasure for myself."

There was some new scar tissue around his right eye, and the iris canted inward. I caught myself wondering if he had gotten that from the mob at Béchenaux. I had gone to ground for some time after Béchenaux, staying away from the old haunts, so I wouldn't
accidentally
run into the Vaschax brothers. Of the five who stood against me that night, Bento had been the only one willing to let it all go. I had said my piece on the bluff, calling Antoine to task for winding
all
of our threads, and that had been enough for me. But for Henri and Girard—and to a lesser extent, René—the matter hadn't been satisfactorily resolved.

Nor for Antoine, really. But, then, I had been specifically targeting him. The rest got caught in the middle of our pissing match.

"You sure you boys want to do this?" I asked. The Chorus danced on my fingertips, energy angels ready to strike. "Here. Now. You think you have enough strength?"

Jerome and Charles had come prepared. They side-stepped around the brothers, pulling guns from beneath their coats.

The Ossuary wasn't laid out like a regular chapel space. Not so much as an afterthought, but more from the long period over which most of the buildings on the mount were raised, the Ossuary became a hodge-podge of pillars and vaults. Nothing really matched, and other than the space along the inside wall, there weren't very good sightlines. Which made it easier for me to raise the Chorus' peacock shield and get behind a pillar without taking a bullet.

The report of their firearms was close thunder in the room, and the bullets whined as they ricocheted off the walls.

Karma,
I thought,
the circle always closes
. Last time, I had been the one with the gun.

The Chorus had already put together an overlay of the Ossuary, marking each of the Watchers for me. The Vaschax brothers, for all their bluster, knew I was a distraction, and under the cover of the Travelers' guns, were making a move toward the Chapelle Notre-Dame-sous-Terre. René wasn't hanging back like I expected him to; he was creeping along the eastern wall, trying to surprise me from the other side. I couldn't really afford to play cat and mouse among the bays and niches of the Ossuary. There were too many of them. I needed to take the fight to them, and quickly. Jerome and Charles had the only guns—so far—and they were semi-automatic hand cannons from the sound, but the others would be able to do some magick. Nothing big and dramatic. Just the quick and dirty sort of spells that had been my bailiwick for years.

I went to my right, toward René, and nearly took a barrage of gunfire in the face. The rounds left floating star marks in my etheric shield, exploding nimbuses wreathing the hot metal. I ducked behind another pillar, spitting out dust and rock chips as more bullets chewed the column near my head.
In illo tempore.
I squeezed time for a brief instant, and the Chorus traced the trajectory of three bullets as they splintered through the stone. I retreated to the west wall as the Chorus scooped up the tumbling shells and brought them to my outstretched hand.

Hot and misshapen, they sizzled in my palm when I spit on them, and the Chorus outlined each bullet with violet light. Steam rose between my fingers as I squeezed them tight, marking them with saliva and flesh.
Videte nostros hostes,
I whispered to the Chorus, and noting the phantasmal positions of the souls in the room on my psychic overlay, I darted to my right.

René was closer than I expected him to be, and I didn't get my fist primed soon enough. He blocked the jab easily and countered, forcing me to react and step back. One of the bullets slipped from my fist, and without the proper motivation of my energized Will, it tumbled slowly through the air, turning end over end like a fat and lazy bumblebee. René ignored it, knocking aside my arm with a sweep of his own, before landing a solid blow against my stomach.

There was power in his fist, and I had to divert energy or he would have pulped my intestines. It was like getting kicked by a horse, and I was still recovering when Girard came at me from my left. Head down, arms wide. The Chorus folded over me, and I tucked my chin against my chest and tried to cover my head as Girard slammed into me. The Chorus groaned as the magus' Will slammed into me too, and I blinked . . .

 . . . on the ground, Girard on top of me, his fists banging against my arm and shoulder.
Where had the last few seconds gone?
There was nothing there but a wall of white noise. Chorus noise. Girard was grinning, enjoying himself; René was not—why did I think he had been smiling?—I caught sight of him beyond Girard's wild face, trying to pull the Vaschax brother off me. Almost as if he knew what was going to happen in the next few seconds.

For a moment, the impact of Girard's hands vanished, and I felt nothing. Floating in a zone outside the flesh, outside time. I stared at René, and he stopped pulling at Girard. I couldn't see his eyes behind the glasses, but I knew he was staring at me.

He did know what I was about to do. Those damn sunglasses.

He let go of the other man as I spiked Girard with the Chorus. Right through the chest. All the blazing fury of his soul suddenly laid out before me. The Chorus slammed into his center, and he jerked back, as if I had suddenly become electrified. He wanted to hit me again, the fierce intent was still in his eyes, but his hand wouldn't move. He tried to open his mouth, but it wasn't his anymore. He had no control over his flesh, and as the Chorus lit up his spine to sever the connection between the soul and the flesh, the light in his eyes changed. He knew, too.

René reached across the nave with his Will and grabbed the wooden bench near the wall. He jerked it toward us with magick and the bench slammed into Girard, knocking him off me. The physical connection between us was broken, and the Chorus snapped hungrily at the tender core of Girard's soul, but they couldn't break it open. They had their hooks in him, but without physical contact, it was going to take them a moment to take him apart. A moment he was going to spend fighting back.

One of the pair with a gun came around the edge of a column, and René was already half-turned toward him when I rolled over, whipping my arm around. Even though I had lost track of time, I hadn't stopped protecting what lay in my hand, and as I moved, I transferred the energy in the two bullets. Potential becomes kinetic, and the bullets burned in my hand as I let them go.

Girard was on one knee, shaking and spitting as his soul found purchase in his flesh again. He was aware of what flew out of my hand, and he flinched. It was all he could do.

Not that it mattered. He wasn't the target.

The gunman gurgled—it was Jerome—and his head went back, a new hole opening in his neck. René caught the gun as it fell from his hand—having Seen that future—but he paused as something else clattered to the floor of the chapel. He stared at the black shape on the floor, the broken shard of an object that seemed out of place, and it took him too long to realize that it was a piece of his sunglasses.

Watch our enemies.
The Chorus had been more accurate than I had anticipated.

René turned his head in my direction and his sunglasses, the right lens shattered and broken, hung crookedly on his face. "No," he whimpered. There was blood on his cheek from where the bullet had grazed him.

The Chorus blew through him as they dove for Jerome's soul, and he shuddered at their touch, knowing it was his turn next. They hit the coruscating column of light coming off the fallen gunman, and René shielded his naked eye from the sudden flare of psychic light as the Chorus devoured the rising soul. I felt it almost immediately, the cells of my body singing with all the energy coming back through the perpetual contact I had with the spirits.

Girard started shouting a spell, his mouth wide. I didn't even listen to his words. They didn't matter. He wasn't going to finish.

Fire nipped at my heels.

I vibrated with the energy of the three Watchers, and I was bright, a burning light. So enlightened, so engorged with the fresh influx of their souls, I could feel the approaching edge of the psychic storm with ease. The leys were filling in again, and the tsunami wave was coming fast. The stone of the mount was starting to howl with its eagerness to be made whole again. There was so little time left before the wave hit.

In the Chapelle Notre-Dame-sous-Terre, Marielle and Antoine had gotten out of the grotto, but had run afoul of Henri and Charles. As I strode into the room, my psychic senses fully extended, a blade of raw power spitting from my stiff fingers, the Chorus read the situation. Marielle was face-down, Charles kneeling on her back, his gun pressed against her head; Antoine and Henri wrestled for the Spear. It was still attached to Antoine's silver arm, but Henri was stripping the silver away, scattering sizzling globs of liquid metal across the floor. The wards of the hole were blindingly white; they, too, were reacting to the approaching thunderclap of energy.

Charles sensed me coming—I would have been surprised if he hadn't, I was so incredibly bright—and he looked over his shoulder. His grip on his weapon tightened, as if threatening to blow Marielle's head off would stop me, and she shifted beneath him. He glanced back at her, reestablishing his grip on her neck, and his gaze fell upon her face. She had turned her head enough that she could see his face. That he could see at least one of her eyes.

She hypnotized him, spearing him with the eyeball glamour like she had done to Jerome at the airport, and I kept my gaze locked on Charles' head. Veins stood out on his neck as he tried to break free of her suggestion to hold still, but he couldn't tear himself away.

As I came abreast of them, I ripped my hand forward. The blade of force projecting from my fingers sliced through the base of his skull, severing the top of his spinal column and sheering off the back side of his head. I didn't even slow down as he made a funny noise in the back of his throat and collapsed on Marielle.

Henri registered my approach, and he raised his right hand in a gesture of protection—three fingers up, thumb and pinkie touching. His intent was strong, but it wasn't focused. His attention was split between stopping me and reducing Antoine's arm into globs of hot metal. Antoine—ever quick to take advantage of an opponent's distraction—jerked his right arm back, and Henri found himself caught. Silver flowed over his left hand, coating his knuckles, binding him to Antoine.

I hit Henri's shield hard, pouring a great deal of the energy I had taken from his brother into my fist, and the Viator's knees buckled. Henri caught himself before he stepped off the edge of the pit, but barely. Antoine shifted his weight and brought his arm—and the mess of silver, Spear, and flesh—down. Sweeping around, he pulled Henri off-balance and the Viator's only option was to fall to his knees. Antoine kept pulling, crashing to the floor as well, and both men found themselves too close to the rim of the pit.

Antoine tried to pull Henri in with him; Henri struggled to find some way to anchor himself, some way to get some leverage against Antoine.

"The key," Antoine Whispered, his voice ringing in my ears.

I was already on my way. I leaped over the struggling men, clearing the pit and landing next to the altar. On the floor, the mandala and starburst pattern of script glowed heavily in the thick air. At the center of the pattern was the twisted knob of the key, and I pulled at it, but nothing happened. The key was stuck; it wouldn't come out.

The air in the chapel gusted suddenly, a wave of pressure sweeping into the room. The stone wall behind the altar wept fat tears, beads of clear jelly that welled up from the cracks between the stones.

"You need the ring," Antoine Whispered. "The ring commands the key."

Henri snapped his head forward, smacking Antoine on the forehead. Antoine's focus wavered, and Henri pulled himself halfway free of the silver snare. The metal stretched between them, and I could see Henri's fingers straining for the shaft of the Spear. Antoine snarled and the strands of silver twisted into strands of barbed thorns, tearing at Henri's jacket and arm.

Behind them, the hall started to fill with a radiant glow as the walls reacted to the flood of energy coming back. Marielle was standing next to Charles' sprawled corpse, and she became outlined in light.

Steam rose off Henri's frame as he tried to find energy in the surrounding stone. Antoine held on, his left hand grasping for Henri's face. The light glittered off the band on his ring finger.

There wasn't any time. Not to separate them enough to get the ring from Antoine.

The Chorus filled my hand as I made a fist, and I slammed them against the stone floor. I couldn't get the key out, but maybe I didn't need to. Maybe I didn't need to worry about opening this hole ever again. If I could disrupt the magick of the key, then perhaps its purpose could be co-opted. If the key was acting as a shim that broke the integrity of the ward, then if I could shift it, the ward would seal again. I didn't need to command the key; I only needed to break it.