"Thought you didn't believe in magic," I said, trying to buy some time while I thought what to do.
Kae smiled briefly. "Needs must, when the devil drives. I will damn my soul, if that's what it takes to buy me justice. Now stand aside or die with him."
He stalked forward, raising his spiked mace, and Suzie gave him both barrels right in the face. Or at least, she tried to. The shotgun wouldn't work. She tried again, uselessly, and threw the gun aside as Kae loomed up before her. She whipped a long knife from her other boot top, and slashed at his bare throat. Kae flinched back instinctively, and I hit him from the side with my shoulder, hoping my speed and impact would knock him off balance. Instead, he hardly moved an inch, and threw me aside with one sweep of his mailed arm. I crashed into a bunch of chairs and hit the ground hard. The impact knocked all the breath out of me and hurt my head. I fought to get back onto my knees, while Suzie and Kae went head to head with knife and mace, grunting and snarling at each other. He was bigger, but she was faster.
Tommy had grabbed up the cloth-wrapped heart, and was clutching it protectively to his chest, watching the fight with wide, shocked eyes. The witch Nimue had left her chalk circle and was bending over Merlin.
"Something's wrong!" she shouted. "Whatever charm Kae brought into this room, it's interfering with the magic keeping him alive! You have to get Kae out of here, or Merlin will die!"
"I'm doing my best," Suzie snarled.
She bobbed and weaved as Kae swung his mace. The weapon must have weighed a ton, but Kae wielded it like a toy, the wind whistling through the vicious spikes on its head. Suzie ducked and jabbed at him with her long knife, but mostly the blade jarred harmlessly off his chain mail. Kae had spent most of his life on one battlefield or another, and it showed in his every economical, murderous move.
But Suzie Shooter was a child of the Nightside, and her rage was every bit a match for his. She went for his face and his throat, his elbows and his groin, but always his mace was there just in time to block her. Suzie was a bounty hunter, a fighter, and a practised killer; but Kae was one of Arthur's knights, bloodied in a thousand wars and border skirmishes. He pressed her back, step by step, his arm rising and falling with terrible force, remorseless as a machine.
Somehow I got back onto my feet again and staggered over to Merlin's table. Suzie could look after herself. I had to see what was happening with Merlin. His breathing was ragged, and his colour wasn't good. I'd hit my head on something, and it ached unmercifully. Blood was running thickly down my face. I couldn't seem to think straight. Tommy was hovering helplessly at Nimue's side as she chanted spells over Merlin. From the growing despair on her face, I gathered they weren't helping much. Tommy grabbed my arm to get my attention, then realised the state I was in and helped hold me up. Nimue looked round frantically.
"You've got to do something! Merlin's dying! I'm having to use my own life force to keep him going!"
Tommy pushed his face close to mine, to make sure I heard him. "We have to put Merlin's defences back into place!"
"Right," I said. "Of course. Just jam the heart back in, and his own magics should heal him. Right. Come on, give me the heart. He's no use to me dead."
"It wouldn't work," said Nimue. She'd given up on chanting and waving her hands, and was crouching beside Merlin, holding one of his hands in both of hers. "Kae's charm will prevent his defences returning ... You have to get him out of here. I'm giving Merlin ... everything I've got; but I don't think it's going to enough. I'm only human ... and he isn't."
"We have to think of something, Taylor!" said Tommy, glaring into my face. "Taylor! John! Can you hear me?"
His words came to me, but from far away, as though we were both underwater. I put a hand to my aching head, and it came away slick with blood. Whatever had hit me in that crash, it had really done a job on me. I gazed stupidly at my bloody hand for a moment, then looked back at Suzie and Kae.
Kae swung his mace around in a viciously fast sweep, but Suzie ducked under it and slammed her knife deep into his side, the blade punching right through the chain mail and the leather armour beneath. Kae roared with rage as much as pain, and his mace came sweeping back round impossibly fast. The spiked steel head slammed into Suzie's face and ripped half of it away. She screamed, and fell backwards onto the floor. Kae grunted once, like a satisfied animal, and turned to look at Merlin, ignoring the knife hilt protruding from his side.
I moved forward to block his way. Tommy wasn't a fighter, and Nimue was busy. It had to be me. I forced the pain and confusion out of my head for a moment, through sheer force of will, and tried to raise my gift. If I could only find the charm Kae had brought with him ... but my head hurt too bad. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't See. Kae was still coming, headed straight for me. I jammed my hands into my coat pockets, searching for something I could use against him.
And then Suzie reared up from the floor, with a terrible cry. Half her face was a mask of blood, with only an empty socket where her left eye had been, but still she came roaring up off that bloody floor like the fighter she was. She ripped the knife out of Kae's side, and he stopped in his tracks, halted for a moment by the sudden blaze of pain. And while he hesitated, Suzie jammed her long knife all the way into his unprotected groin. Her triumphant laughter drowned out his cry of pain. She yanked the knife out, and thick dark blood coursed down both his legs. He staggered, and almost fell. She lashed out with the knife, and almost effortlessly cut open the wrist of the hand holding the mace. It fell to the floor as the feeling left his fingers, and he looked stupidly after it for a moment.
Suzie rose up onto her feet to give him the last, killing blow, and he roared like a bear and grabbed her to him, crushing her against his chain-mail breast with huge, muscular arms. She cried out as her ribs cracked audibly, then savagely head-butted Kae in the face. He roared again and dropped her. Suzie grinned fiercely at him through the bloody mask of her face, and went for him with her knife. And Kae grabbed a flaring torch from its iron wall holder and thrust it right into her ravaged face.
There was smoke, and spitting fat, and the stench of burning meat, but she didn't scream. She fell, but she didn't scream.
I screamed. And while they were both distracted, I surged forward, grabbed up the steel mace from the floor, and hit Kae across the head with all the strength I had. The force of the blow whipped his head round, and blood flew across the air, but he didn't fall. I hit him again, and again, and again, putting all my rage and horror and guilt into every blow, and finally he fell, measuring his length on the bloody floor like a slaughtered sacrificial beast. I dropped the mace, and went over to kneel beside Suzie, and take her in my arms.
She clung to me like she was drowning, burying her ruined bloody face in my shoulder. I held on to her, and all I could say was I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, over and over again. After a while she pushed me away, and I let go of her immediately. It was hard for Suzie to let anyone touch her, even a friend. Even then. Poor little broken bird. I made myself look at what remained of her face. The whole left side was gone, a ragged torn-up mess only held together by charred and blackened flesh. And then, as I watched, the terrible wounds began to heal. The torn flesh crawled together, slowly closing over and drawing itself together into old scar tissue. Even the empty eye-socket closed, the lids sealed together. Until at the end it was the awful, familiar, disfigured face I'd seen once before-on the Suzie Shooter from the future.
I had brought Suzie here, to this place and time, and made that face, that Suzie possible.
She smiled at me, but only half her mouth moved. She gingerly touched at the scarred half of her face with her fingertips, then took her hand away again. "Don't look so shocked, Taylor. You put werewolf blood into me to save my life, remember, back during the angel war? The blood wasn't strong enough or pure enough to make me into a were, but it did give me one hell of a healing factor. Very useful, in the bounty-hunting business. My face... will never be the same again, I know that. My healing factor has very definite limits. But I can live with this. It's not like I ever cared about looking pretty ... John? What's the matter, John?"