"Seems familiar, doesn't it?" Antoine called.
"Like we never left," I offered as I put a hand on the back of a pew and vaulted over. One row closer. Only a handful remained. I risked a glance toward the sanctuary. Marielle and Husserl had shifted, drifting toward us, but they were still watching. Still waiting. Her expression was impossible to read at this distance, and I-
The Chorus shrieked, their colors darkening. Antoine-slipping into physical space again-on my left, and the Chorus caught the brunt of his sword strike, but they missed the Spear.
"Uh," was all I said.
I could see all the striations and tints in his irises, and there were dark rings under his eyes. So much strain. On both of us. You will always be mirrors of one another. We were both running on fumes. If I had been more prepared, if I had been better rested, this would have turned out differently.
As it was, I stood there, stupidly staring at the blade stuck in my gut. It seemed wrong, like it should have been coming from the other side, but this time I had seen him coming, and it hadn't made any difference.
A flicker of a smile crossed Antoine's face, and the muscles along his jaw tightened as he prepared to push the blade further in, but in the next second, we were both overwhelmed by a psychic wave of pressure. A scream that echoed throughout my head, scattering the Chorus, and making my teeth ache. Antoine staggered against me, and I sagged against the nearest pew, the wooden bench holding me up.
Distantly, I was aware of Marielle, Husserl reeling away as she shoved him back. She moved toward the railing of the sanctuary, the heavy weight of her magick rippling through the church. Light started to smear, and Antoine's form became a Technicolor blur.
I was still holding on to my sword, and when I raised it, Antoine knocked it from my metal hand with a sharp blow of his own blade. Blindly, I caught his wrist with my left hand, and we stood there, arms crossed, fighting over the remaining blade.
Dimly, I realized he was still holding on to the Spear, and I wondered why he hadn't let go. The Chorus, forcing their way through the haze of pain that overwhelmed my senses, forced me to focus on the sleeves of his suit coat. His arms were the same length, even though there was less of his right arm. He took your hand at the wrist, they shouted-a crackling, shrieking noise in my head. At Mont-Saint-Michel, he lost most of the arm. How is he controlling the hand?
My control of the metal hand wasn't very precise. I couldn't pick up pins, or pull the wings off flies. I could open and close the fingers. I could hold an object. I could crush an aluminum can. Or a sleeve filled with magick.
Antoine forced me back against the pew, pushing his blade closer to my face. His eyebrows pulled together as I closed my fingers about the right sleeve of his suit jacket, but he didn't realize what I was doing until I started to squeeze.
There was nothing in his sleeve but his realized Will, holding my severed hand in place. Much like the cuffs of the gauntlet around my shortened wrist, the fabric of his coat helped to anchor my hand. But because his arm ended just below the elbow, he had to re-create his missing forearm so as to anchor his new hand. The sleeve of his suit coat provided a framework through which he could bind his Will, and it worked well. To a point. Now I was putting pressure on it, pressure backed by the Chorus and my Will.
He struggled, trying to pull away from me, but I had his wrist still. And his coat. He tried to twist the Spear, and it moved slightly in my gut. Enough to send starbursts of pain into my intestines and stomach, but not enough to make me lose my focus. Not enough to make my grip slacken.
The fabric of his coat creased in my grip as he wrenched his left hand free. He brought his sword down in a heavy stroke, and I had no choice but to retreat. I couldn't block the blade, and I had no way to stop him. I squeezed with my right hand and stumbled back, twisting my upper torso to protect my head as best I could. The blade sliced across my shoulder, cutting deep into the deltoid. I took two more stumbling steps, bouncing off the pews and then tripped, banging my hip against a pew before collapsing in the central aisle.
"Stop!" Marielle was on this side of the railing now, running toward us. "Enough."
Antoine side-stepped through the ether into the space between Marielle and me, and forced her to stop with the point of his sword. "No," he said. "This is what he wanted." His right arm was crooked and bent, the forearm twisted. He still held on to the Spear, but his control of the arm below the elbow wasn't very good. As I struggled to get to my knees, he put his sword down and transferred the Spear to his left hand.
The floor was slippery with blood, and I fell again, pain shrieking in my back as I pulled my shoulders together. My vision was blurring again, and I focused on the blade resting on the bench two rows up. That was a goal I could still manage. Adducite gladium mihi. The Chorus slithered along the floor, ripples of magick nearly invisible against the heavy haze of etheric possibility.
There was a ringing in my ears, and at first, I thought it was an internal sound, but when Antoine and Marielle looked up, I realized they heard it too. The bells of Sacre-C?ur were ringing. It was dawn. Yellow light was shining through the square windows of the cupola, and a slow wave of gold was flowing down the western side of the dome.
I gathered myself together and got my feet under me. I was a clumsy missile, but I was in motion. The Chorus wrapped around the hilt of Antoine's sword, making a connection between my Will and the steel. Venite mihi. The blade moved, and my metal fingers closed tight.
Antoine turned as I lumbered toward him, a gored bull making one last charge toward the victorious matador, and his Will compressed into a shimmering blue fire along the edge of the Spear. He realized his mistake at the last second; he realized I wasn't even going to try to stop his stroke.
The Spear slid between two ribs, missed my heart, and punctured a lung. The blade was a cold icicle in my chest, stealing my heat and light, and a sob escaped from my lips. There was no pain; there was just an emptiness that opened in my chest, a gaping void like one I had felt before. But whatever despair I had felt earlier at its earlier touch was nothing compared to the bleakness that washed over me now. This was the cold touch of betrayal, the final moment of your life when you realize there is nothing left. Nihil est. This was the black vacuum when hope has fled; this was the bleak nihilism of knowing how empty the Universe truly was.
Antoine flinched. He could read all of this in my eyes, and the desire for victory, which he had been so flush with a moment prior, fled, leaving him aware of what he had done. Aware of the price paid for his chance at Coronation.
I tried to smile. "You have no idea," I Whispered.
He realized what I was holding in my metal hand, and he tried to pull the Spear out, but it was stuck in my chest. Caught on a rib. He let go, raising his hand to deflect the sword, and my first blow opened his hand to the bone. I caught him on the cheek with the pommel, and he finally stepped back. Enough for me to get a decent swing. He twisted away and the blade took him in the side of the neck instead of the front. Blood spurted in an arc, and for a second, my vision went black.
What is done is done.
I staggered forward, bringing the blade back for one last swing, one last cut across his spine. To stop him from crawling away from me.
But Marielle was in the way.
Everything froze, and I blinked again, trying to figure out how I had lost track of a few seconds. She stared at me, unflinching, her arms lifted in a pose that seemed too familiar. I tried to let go of the sword, but my metal hand was slow to respond. The intent was already in the blade. My Will had already engaged. She didn't blink or flinch as the sword struck her; she only mouthed two words before she closed her eyes and crumpled around the blade.