I hadn’t planned that, either, but I damn sure kept the pressure on once it happened, knowing from personal experience exactly how sharp that gravel was. The chunks were big and there had never been any rain down here to wear off the knifelike edges. They were also coated with a layer of black grit or dirt or dust or whatever the hell—anyway, it was finer than sand, as it proved by flying up in a choking cloud all around us, leaving me gasping for air and the demigod cursing inventively beneath me.
But he still didn’t let go. Instead, he pushed off the ground, trying to use his extra weight to flip us, I guess to give me a taste of my own medicine. Which might have worked if we hadn’t hit a bend in the tunnel, which neither of us saw coming, thanks to the Underground’s idea of adequate illumination. I might not have seen it, but I felt it when we hit, and heard it when something of his went crunch.
It was alarmingly satisfying.
It was also useless, because the next moment, he flipped us anyway, using the wall for leverage, fighting and scratching and kicking as best as possible from two different sides of the case.
“Just fucking die,” he snarled, and I actually saw the expression through the diffuse light sifting in from somewhere up ahead.
I tilted my head back and saw the body of the train, which had either slowed to a crawl or was stationary. And either way would do.
“You first,” I snarled back, and flipped us one last time. Last, because a second later we slammed into the back of the train.
Or, to be more precise, he did.
Being on top, I sailed through the missing back window to experience the joys of rug burn on a whole new level. Which, all things considered, was better than smashing into a hunk of steel face-first. Although it wasn’t feeling so much that way at the moment.
I rolled to my knees after I rolled to a stop, almost to the door at the far end of the compartment. My body was crying out for rest, for oblivion, but my brain was telling it sternly to shut up. But it kind of looked like the body might win, because when I tried to stand, I staggered and wobbled and went back down. And not just because of pain and dizziness and a distinct desire to throw up.
There was something wrong with my feet.
I managed to focus bleary eyes on my filthy, bloody soles, and the glass, gravel and God knew what sticking out of them. Clearly, the Underground was not the place to go barefoot. I doubted I could walk, much less run, in this state.
And then the Spartoi’s head poked up over the serrated edge of the window. He would have looked like he was doing some kind of old vaudeville act, the kind that makes people wince these days at its deliberate racism. Except that blackface didn’t usually involve a ton of blood, a halfmissing scalp or a bunch of gravel embedded in the raw flesh all along one side of the face.
I screamed, and he grinned and flopped another arm over the ledge. And this one held a gun. And I discovered that—surprise—I could run after all, a scrambling, hobbling gait that got me through to the next compartment just before bullets started strafing this one. I stared at the back of the seat in front of me as it was quickly shredded and tried to think, only that wasn’t going so well. My brain was frozen in horror and seemed to be stuck on a loop screaming no, no, no, no over and over, which was less than useful.
I told it to get a grip, and it told me no, no, no, no, and I screamed again, because it was do that or lose my mind.
And for some reason, it seemed to help.
For one, the barrage stopped, maybe because the Spartoi thought he’d got me. And for another, I could sort of think again, only all that came to mind was that my knives weren’t likely to be a big help against a guy who could walk out of a burning inferno. Among other things.
But I couldn’t let him get past me. I couldn’t let him get to my mother. And there was only one way to ensure that he didn’t. I was going to have to grab him and shift him out of here, and then try to shift back before he could kill me. Which was not sounding like fun for so very, very many reasons, including the fact that I would have to touch him, and I thought that that might just send me the rest of the way to Crazytown and—
And then Mircea walked through the far door. He strolled down the aisle like a guy looking for a good seat, despite the fact that the barrage had started up again. Half a dozen bullets hit him in quick succession, blooming bright against the white of his shirt. But he didn’t seem to notice any more than the demigod had, just held out a hand like that would stop the hail of bullets.
And then it stopped the hail of bullets, or something did. I peered around the corner in time to see the Spartoi slump over the window ledge, the gun falling from his limp hand. “You killed him,” I said in disbelief. I’d started to think that wasn’t possible.
“For the moment,” Mircea said grimly.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that these things don’t stay dead,” he said, giving the Spartoi’s body a vicious kick. “I killed the creature I chased in here, but within thirty seconds he was alive again.”
“Alive. . . You mean he was a zombie?”
“No, I mean he was alive. I just now drained him for the second time. It is virtually the only thing that works with these things—and it doesn’t work for long.”
“Then . . . then however many times we kill them, they’re just going to continue chasing her?”
“Unless you can help.” The quiet voice came from behind me. I turned to find my mother in the doorway, the mage behind her.
“This is crazy,” he told her urgently. “I told you—”
“And I told you, did I not? We can use tricks to elude them, as we did before. But they’ll keep coming. Or we can end this, now, once and for all.”
“But you weren’t there! You don’t know—”
She took his hand. “Hush now.”
He stared at her, obviously frustrated. And then he transferred that stare to me. And if looks could kill—
“Right back at you,” I said dizzily.
My mother had turned to look at him, but now those lapis eyes swung back to me. “There is little time,” she said simply. “Will you help?”
“I . . . there’s . . .” I had about a million questions, but looking into her face, I couldn’t seem to remember a single one. And a glance at the dead demigod showed that he was already stirring, flesh flowing along his body like water, jagged wounds pulling together, raw red flesh retreating, the whole turning into a seamless garment of pale olive skin. Any minute now, his heart was going to start to beat and his eyelids were going to open and . . . and I really didn’t want to be here when that happened.
I looked back at her. “What do you want me to do?”
Thirty seconds later, we were still on the Underground, still rocketing through a dark tunnel, but things looked a little different. There were plush bench seats of padded leather, posh lights overhead and shiny wood panels on the walls. And the passengers all looked like they were going to the same fancy dress party as the people in the cab.
Or they would have, if they hadn’t been shrieking in shock at seeing a group of people pop out of thin air in front of them. Or maybe it was more the fact that one of those people was mostly naked and completely dead. Again. Mircea pried his hand away from the creature’s throat, and he hit the floor like a sack of rocks.
I stared down at the man’s sightless, staring eyes, shimmering in the gaslight. They were blue. I swallowed. “What the hell is he?”
“Spartoi,” my mother confirmed. “Ares mated with one of the dragon kin long ago, and they were the result.”
“That’s why they can transform into one?”
She nodded. “Yes, but not here. The tunnel is too small; it would trap them. And without that ability, much of their power is lost.”
“That’s why you came down here, isn’t it? You knew—”
“Yes.”