The room erupted with noise loud enough to make me wince, and I took that as my cue to leave. Talya and Zane remained, while Angkor and I went to the bunkroom.
Josie was no longer there, spirited away by Ayashe now that the coast was clear. We lay out tools and sundry, and took opposite ends of the same lower bunk to clean our weapons in the humid stillness of the room. Angkor had borrowed jeans and a leather jacket from Jenner, and he was disassembling, cleaning and loading a rifle with the kind of expertise that spoke of protracted military training. The bedroom still smelled faintly of corruption, the rotten flesh smell I’d dragged in here from Moris’s house. While noticeable, Angkor’s floral scent was not as intense as it had been when we’d first found him. He’d been burning the magical wick at both ends since he woke up.
Watching him, I tried to imagine leaving New York and going to Berlin, hanging up the knives and the pistols, living a life without violence. It was easy enough to visualize – the trappings, at least. The lean European buildings, the university office. Myself, ascetic and professional in a turtleneck and suit jacket. A doctor, preparing lessons, writing thesis after thesis, or a surgeon. But I couldn’t imagine it as a reality. Vassily and me had been bred to this life. He and I were picked and reared as carefully as dogs for the blind.
I could take my degree to Germany, turn it into a Masters, then a PhD. And then what? Pretend I’d never killed anyone as I listened to men complain about their overbearing father or bossy wife? Pretend to empathize with women’s relationship problems? Sure thing: me, the angry virgin from America who felt crippling pain with every unintended erection. What could I advise them? To find closure by swinging a sledgehammer into the back of their abusive father’s head?
Pride had gotten me here. I was proud to have contacted my Neshamah and attained power, and proud enough to ignore his advice. I’d been proud enough to resort to homelessness instead of finding someone to ask for help. I fought pride as I struggled with my words, trying to frame the question I wanted to ask of Angkor.
“What?” He spoke first. “You look like you’re about to choke on something.”
“You… mentioned something before,” I said, finally. “Something about a HookWyrm.”
Angkor didn’t look up from his rifle. “Yeah.”
“I don’t know anything about it except that it chokes my magic.” I had to force each word out. This was not how I wanted anyone to find out about my magical emasculation. “I haven’t been able to work the Art since the start of September.”
“I know what they are, but I only know one way to get rid of them without killing you. You need Gift Horse blood.” Angkor grimaced, shaking his head. He didn’t look up at me, focusing on the gun. “You said it was put into your body by an old vampire?”
I paused in my work as nausea panged deep in my belly. “Yes.”
“Okay. There’s a kind of creature that is commonly known as a Wrath’ree.” Angkor rubbed his face, leaning back against the wall. “They’re basically GOD’s white blood cells, okay? Their purpose is to eat Morphorde, and they’re really good at it. They seek out and consume corruption. Evil magic or anything that’s made of dirty Phi.”
“Right.”
Angkor gestured with a hand. “Feeders have a special relationship with Wrath’ree. That’s way too much to try and describe right now, but the short version is that some really old, really powerful vampires can enslave a Wrath’ree and turn them into things they use to fuck up your day with. That’s what this little guy is. He’s an enslaved Wrath’ree, and his native Phi-eating ability has been turned into a kind of magical trap that blocks you from the rest of GOD.”
“So that’s it? We can’t get rid of it without a Gift Horse?” I had no earthly idea where to find one. The only one I’d met was dead, and I couldn’t even remember her face properly.
Angkor sighed, and tipped his head back against the wall. It was a gesture that bared the long brown line of his throat and the depression at the base of his sternum. “Pulling it out will kill you both. The Wrath’ree doesn’t want to die, and they don’t really know how to… de-escalate a conflict or listen to reason under the best of circumstances. I’m sorry.”
I turned my face, So, that was it. Three tries, and the best I’d been able to do was unwrap the lousy thing from my organs. Until we had the resources, I wasn’t a mage. I wasn’t anything.
No. That was sissy-talk. Even without magic, I was still something. I had beaten my way through a GOD-damned wall. I’d survived the Tigers’ Den. I’d pulled Angkor out of the fire. Zane and Talya were out there, waiting for me.
I drew a deep breath, clapped my hands to my knees, and stood. “Then that is how it is. You did your best. If we can find a Gift Horse, we can remove it?”
His head snapped up, eyes dark and fierce. “If we can find my Horse, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. But the Feeder who did this – Sergei? – must be extremely old to be able to create one of these. If it’s anything, I know for a fact that this Wrath’ree isn’t any happier about this than you are.”
“I find it hard to have sympathy for something that’s cutting me off from my soul.” I tested my limbs, rolled my shoulders, cracked my neck. Everything worked, though I was still achy. My body was probably at about seventy-five percent. It would have to be enough.
“The HookWyrm is cut off from its hive mind, which is basically the soul of its kind.” Angkor shrugged. “Neither of you are in a great place right now.”
“My heart bleeds,” I said. “How do you know all this, anyway? I never found it in grimoires, and not for lack of trying.”
“That’s because it can’t be written down. It gets taught orally, person to person,” Angkor replied. “How do you feel?”
“A bit better,” I grunted. “I still hurt, but I hurt less now.”
“Healing is never comfortable.” Angkor leaned in towards me, his eyes hooding to dark crescent-shaped slits. He had very thick lashes. Before I knew it, he was close enough to kiss. “Anyone who pretends healing doesn’t hurt has never had to heal anything, right?”
The skin of my chest prickled with gooseflesh. “For a pretty-boy, you certainly do talk like an old man.”
“Funny you say that. I’m older than I look.” He licked his top lip with a short, sultry laugh, and sat back with a smile. I cleared my throat and stood.
“Well, let’s go and get Jenner and the others. We have to make our plan of action.” I caught up my shoulder holster and slung it on, settling it in place while I went to the closet. I pulled a clip on tie, hooked it over my collar, and straightened it until it looked tied and not clipped on. Angkor got to his feet, slung the rifle strap over his shoulder, and turned to his own preparations.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said. “For helping me.”
“My pleasure.” He winked at me sidelong, arched his eyebrows, and wound sinuously out of the room. “Come on, grasshopper. Let’s go kill some monsters.”
I snorted, shook my head, and followed him out. Pretty as he was, Angkor’s posture, his confidence and steady hands and gaze all spoke of the same thing. He was a ruthless killer with a side of chutzpah. As Jenner had said of me, I could say of him – I liked him despite myself, but I couldn’t trust him.
Chapter 38
We tore up the nearly-empty highway from Brooklyn to Ossining, chewing up forty miles in under an hour. We quickly passed the city, leaving Manhattan far behind as we entered the wealthy forest suburbs north of Yonkers. The cabin of the car was tense and mostly silent, everyone preparing in their own way for what we might find at John Spotted Elk’s country home. Angkor was meditating over his rifle-and-ax combination in the front passenger seat; Zane was intent on the road, mouth grim whenever he looked into the rearview mirror and I glanced his face. Talya chewed her nails, popping the already short ends of them under her teeth.