Rogue Angel 54: Day of Atonement (29 page)

He nodded, thinking she still meant to kill him.

She dragged back on the grip of the sword, just as he closed his eyes, unable to look death in the face. The pommel cracked against the side of his skull and he toppled over. His muscles relaxed in the same instant, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Annja released the grip on her sword with one hand and half caught him to slow his fall.

“Sorry,” she said, even though he couldn’t hear her. She meant it.

The other gunman swung a boot at Garin, who scrambled at his feet for his own gun.

She felt his pain as the blow lifted him off the ground. He came back down on his knees, hard, gasping and shaking his head. Another forceful kick left him motionless on the floor.

The thug kicked Garin’s gun out of reach, then turned to face Annja.

She was ready for him.

The man swung his Uzi in her direction, finger already on the trigger.

This man was not like the boy she’d dealt with. This was a man who lived for violence and knew nothing else.

Which was bad news for him.

“Drop it,” he said. “Last chance.”

“I think that should be the other way around,” Annja said. “But don’t worry. I won’t hold the mistake against you.”

Her sword was already moving as he unleashed the first stream of bullets, the shrieks of the hot lead breaking the silence of the mountains. Each one missed its target as Annja drove the steel of her sword into the joint where his arm met his shoulder. He ripped out another round, wildly, while he staggered backward, reacting to the serious wound she’d inflicted. Annja, a dancer on the edge of life, absolutely at one with the weapon in her hand, prepared herself again as the man screamed his rage and frustration into her face.

She closed in on him.

She had to end this and she had to end it quickly.

Everyone inside the farmhouse would know they were coming now. They’d be ready to face them, either as they came through the door, or they’d come out to meet them, armed to the teeth.

Wisps of smoke curled away from the blade as the sparks flew, each bullet that struck the sword turned back on the shooter.

Some became embedded in the wall of the house; others missed even that and struck the layers of ice and snow that clung to the side of the mountain.

The blade moved faster and faster, a silver barrier that stopped everything the man fired at her.

Annja faced him down, invincible. Mighty. Terrifying. Every bit the demon his master feared she was. But so much more than that, too.

Before she took the final three strides to close the distance between them, the firing stopped.

He stared down at the weapon, horrified.

He’d burned through his ammo, all seventy rounds from the Vector Arms high-capacity magazine. She didn’t give him the chance to replace it.

Annja turned sideways, swinging the flat side of the blade toward him. He looked up from the traitorous gun in his hand to see the metal slam hard into his skull. He sank at the knees, dropping the gun.

Annja stepped in, driving the point of her elbow into the side of his head. He reeled, reaching out with his broken arm instinctively to stop himself from falling, only to scream as it buckled under him unable to take his weight. He fumbled for the gun as he fell.

Annja delivered a punishing blow, hammering her foot into his gut.

She backed away, content that he was done.

A single shot rang out.

The snow and ice around the thug began to turn red.

Garin stood beside her with a gun in his hand.

“Don’t go all bleeding heart on me,” he grunted. “He would have killed us both given half the chance. Let’s just go in there and get this over with. I’m tired and I want to go home.”

Not even the sound of the firefight on the doorstep was enough to distract Cauchon from the words.

The words were everything.

They spilled off his tongue. He was sure he could feel it. Sure he could feel the air as it began to crackle with energy. It was harder to breathe.

The two guards had left, abandoning him at his moment of triumph. He would hunt them down later, make them see the miracle they’d been too frightened to witness firsthand. The door that led to the main room remained closed.

“Should I go and see what’s happening?” his sister asked. He wasn’t about to break the incantation to answer her, not as it was so close to completion. She was smart enough to know what to do. He trusted her.

“We’ve got company,” Roux said. Was the old man struggling to breathe? He seemed to be. There was a rasp to his words.

Cauchon peered down at the breastplate. This was it.

This was what he’d worked so incredibly hard for.

This moment.

The words came easily. He knew what each meant, even if the tongue was strange. He had studied them obsessively. He knew with absolute certainty which beats in the recitation would rip the essence from Annja Creed’s flesh and instill it into his own.

He looked at Roux. Did the man know what would happen? Surely he did? Surely he had been the one who had first drawn the essence of the saint out of the burning girl back on the fields of Rouen? So then he had to know that he was doomed, that the saint’s demon would restore him, that he would rise, a new man, capable of everything she was—the speed, the lethal grace, the agility and sheer athletic prowess. Would the sword answer his call? It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. All that mattered was that he would be able to walk again.

His sister ignored the old man’s taunts and walked toward the door.

Cauchon wanted to warn her; they were trapped in here now, the room sealed until the ritual was complete. He willed her to understand. To snatch her hand away quickly before it burned her, the metal searing her skin.

She cried out.

He said nothing. Couldn’t. He needed to focus on the words. A single misplaced vowel, a missed conjugation, a trip of the tongue, and maybe everything would be lost. Everything he’d worked so hard for. Their lives depended on him not making a mistake.

He closed his eyes.

The words were all.

Everything.

He heard something: a sharp crack. He knew what it was. It was the ritual. Every piece of metal in the place
was responding to him, anything that would conduct power was resonating to the frequency of souls.

He heard the laptop, still open on the table close to him, begin to hum, the speakers inside the plastic unit vibrating in their casing. The hum twisted, a baleful counterpoint to Cauchon’s chant in his own mind, then whip-cracked as the plastic shell could no longer hold the raw power surging through it. That sound, he knew without opening his eyes, was the rush of surging power. The sound was followed by a series of
pops
. Lightbulbs shattered. He felt the glass against his face as he threw his head back, still not opening his eyes. What was the point? There was nothing to see. He was absolutely focused on the words. The words were everything.

As Cauchon felt the changes happening in the room, every muscle tensed, taut, thrilling to the raw heat and strength of the universe, the words bringing him back to life. He bucked in his seat, back arching, and screamed out the penultimate syllables of the ritual.

* * *

R
OUX SAW NOTHING
, but a sick man becoming sicker.

As the man’s wild ranting continued, Roux could no longer decipher the words. They were masked in screams as Cauchon’s body bucked and writhed, contorting in paroxysms of agony.

“What is wrong with him?” Monique demanded. “You have to help him.”

“It’s too late,” Roux said. “You should have listened to me sooner.”

“Listen to you?”

“This can’t work. This is in his head. All of it. There are no demons. Only the ones haunting him.”

“You’ve got to help him,” she repeated. “He’s dying.”

“A fit,” Roux said coldly. “Let him ride it out. He thinks
he’s summoning all the available power around him, I believe.”

“You did this to him!” she screamed at Roux. “You did this!”

Roux refused the charge. “No. You did. You fed his sickness. He needs help.”

“Then help him!”

* * *

C
AUCHON OPENED HIS
eyes to stare at his enemy. He liked what he saw. Roux’s chest burned with the same electric blue flame as Joan’s armor. The sparks danced across his chest. Yes, Cauchon thought, willing it to burn brighter, faster, more. Willing his skin to blister and brown and blacken as the flames quickened. Willing the old man to cry out for help.

He saw the metal crucifix the old man wore. The blue lines of elemental energy snaked toward the crucifix, which offered the magic a focal point. No. No. No! This couldn’t be happening. The crucifix acted as a form of protection, like the breastplate, drawing the magical forces to it, absorbing them.

Cauchon was frightened then, realizing that the old man had come protected, prepared. Surely this was Joan’s crucifix, Saint Joan’s guardian, and then Cauchon’s downfall?

They should have met in Pau as he’d wanted. Allowing him to come here was a mistake.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the crucifix.

He almost lost it then, the complex run of syllables almost escaping him at the last.

The words were everything.

He couldn’t allow panic to set in. Fear was the enemy. He would complete the ritual. He would draw the demonic spirit into his own flesh. He would walk again. He would
rise. He would have his revenge on Roux, finally paying him back for the ruin of his life, and then he would turn on Garin Braden and end him. There was only room for one victor in Cauchon’s world.

He thrashed in the chair, hands clawing into the armrests, head thrown back again as another wave of spiritual energy lanced into his soul, drawn to the breastplate. It worked like a magnet for the essence of the dead saint.

This was his moment.

It was always going to come down to this, the old man and him, and only one of them was going to walk away from the farmhouse.

The study door strained against its wooden frame, buckling inward.

Someone on the other side hammered against it.

“Roux!” the voice from the other side called.

Annja Creed.

The spell had worked; it had drawn her here.

Cauchon cried out the last few words gleefully, welcoming the devil woman to throw open the door and enter.

Everything was as it was meant to be.

He raised his arms wide above him, welcoming the ecstatic convulsions of possession, opening himself for the spirit.

“Come into me!” he cried. “Come, spirit! I am yours!”

The door flew open. Beside him, he felt his sister’s hand on his shoulder, trying to restrain him, but he would not be restrained. He thrashed in the chair, trying to force his body to stand, willing himself up, even as he opened his mouth wide, knowing the essence would need a way into him.

Annja Creed stood backlit in the doorway.

Smoke swirled around her. He saw black tendrils spilling from between her lips. The demon spirit.

“Come in,” he said softly, meaning Annja, meaning the long-dead Joan, meaning the spirit that would save his soul and give him back his life.

Annja stepped into the room.

Garin Braden was one step behind her, an Uzi was in his hand, aimed straight at him.

“Annja!” Roux shouted at the top of his lungs, the devil trying to warn his apprentice. An instant later his dear sister slammed the butt of her gun against the side of the old man’s skull and the room came alive to the sound of gunfire.

She hadn’t realized until that moment, standing in the doorway, just how afraid she was that he could die.

Roux wasn’t impervious to bullets, and he wouldn’t live on if his head was separated from his shoulders. Or at least she assumed he wouldn’t. They’d never tested it.

She heard his cry almost too late to step out of the way.

Despite the bright day outside, the house was shrouded in stifling near-darkness.

Monique unleashed a rain of bullets, emptying the magazine into the doorway.

Annja threw herself to her right just as the first bullet splintered the door.

Splinters of wood filled the air as more shots tore into the wood, shredding it, and continued on, biting a line like a manic grin through the stone wall beside it.

On her knees, Annja knew she was vulnerable.

A long sliding silence filled the house after the final shell left the magazine.

She rose fast, her sword held out as a shield.

The automatic fire changed to single shots as Monique slammed a second magazine into the submachine gun.

The shots were enough to hold her back.

Then she saw him.

He was down.

Monique stood over him.

A bullet split the rough wood beside her, then another and another. Annja instinctively took in the madness of the room she’d stepped into. Cauchon was in his chair, dressed in an absurd piece of armor, head thrown back as if in the throes of a seizure as he moaned and shuddered and kept crying out, “Enter me! Come into me!” He looked utterly out of it. And that made him dangerous. Another burst of gunfire filled the air.

Monique backed away.

One step, then another, reluctantly putting distance between herself and her brother.

Annja closed the gap between them. “Put down the weapon,” she urged. “It doesn’t have to end this way. We can all walk away from this.”

“No,” Monique said.

“You’ll only be able to get one of us, before we get you. This won’t end well. Not for you or your brother. Be sensible.” Annja held her sword at the ready, though she hoped her words would mean she wouldn’t have to use it.

Monique made a last, desperate charge.

The magazine spent, she was no match for a real swordswoman. Annja stepped up to her, driving her elbow into the woman’s face and, as her head snapped back, stepped in close and slammed her against the nearest wall. It was every bit as brutal as it was fast. She swept the legs out from under the woman, leaving her sprawling on the bare floorboards.

Annja stood over her as she tried to get up.