Marsden and I slipped through the Grey and into the cemetery.
The first thing to come at us was neither Alice nor her pet sorcerer, but the kreanou, the black streak of fury that had pursued us from the start. We turned back to look from our vantage near the Soanes’ tomb and saw it throw itself against the fence. It stopped when the gates didn’t budge, revealing the silver-eyed man-thing that had attacked Glick and escorted me toward death and doom. It let out a shriek that sent an icy frisson up my spine.
“Holy hell,” Marsden murmured. “At least it’s alone. ”
The kreanou found an angle it liked, stepped back, and vaulted the churchyard wall beside the gate as if it were no more challenging than a beginner’s long-jump competition. Then it charged at us.
We dodged in two directions, Marsden toward the tomb, I toward the Hardy tree and its well of void. The kreanou swerved to track me. I cut behind the tree, hoping the monster was stupid enough to run in a straight line. It jinked right, trying to intercept my path on the other side of the tree. I dodged back, feeling hopeless as it corrected and closed.
“Stop!”
Alice stepped delicately down from the nearest wall, assisted by Simeon and holding one hand up to stay the kreanou. Her black wrappings fluttered and trailed around her like wisps of smoke. She dropped down to the grass near the parade of gravestones in the corner south of Mr. Hardy’s tree. Simeon followed her, but otherwise they were alone. My heart leapt with hope that we might survive after all.
“I want to kill her myself,” Alice continued, stalking closer. Simeon seemed to glide over the grass behind her.
The kreanou growled but held still. In the Grey I could see the magical leash between the three as well as if it were a rope in the sun, holding the kreanou equidistant from both Alice and Simeon. I wondered what would happen if I could break that leash.
“I thought you were going to hand me over to the Pharaohn,” I replied. “Oh, but you let me get away, didn’t you? After the way you screwed up in Seattle, too, I guess you don’t get to be Primate of all London after all. And Wygan’s so very unforgiving. ” I edged as close to the tree as I dared. I hated the proximity, but my discomfort wasn’t important; Alice’s was. I wanted her angry enough to kill and not think what it would mean.
“To hell with him!” she screamed. I’d struck the right nerve. “You’ve been the ruin of my plans too often! I should have torn out your throat in Seattle. I should have gutted you when I had a chance. I should have tortured you and feasted on your blood while your lover and the shivering shade of your father watched. But now I’m just going to kill you and let the kreanou scatter your bones like sticks!” She caught her breath and what passed for sanity. “But you can rest assured that once you’re gone, I’ll get my hands on your dear William again and everything I’d like to do to you will be served up to him.” She smirked.
“Talk, talk,” I taunted. “I don’t see you doing anything about it.” Marsden had been circling wide from the tomb and I could make out the white gleam of his trousers among the tombstones far to the street side.
Alice launched herself at me while her companions stood and watched—the kreanou straining with desire for carnage and blood. She wasn’t as fast as the kreanou, but she was fast enough, and only a very quick spin aside kept me out of her clutches. She still managed to rake my face and arm with her nails as she passed and turned. The wind of her passage stunk of rot. Simeon’s spell to knit her back together might not be working quite as well as she thought.
I’d never seriously faced off against a vampire in a fight before and I’d had no idea what to expect. Mostly they intimidated and charmed and manipulated. Now this one was coming on like a street fighter, eyes gleaming red and her hands hooked into claws as she crouched. I didn’t like having Simeon and the kreanou at my back, so I circled, making an arc that forced Alice to counter. She drew downhill a bit, toward Simeon and away from the Hardy tree. I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to bring the fight to her. She wanted me dead; she’d have to come get me.
Behind her I saw a flash of white as Marsden jumped to ambush the sorcerer. Simeon whirled, jumping away—more spry than I’d have expected—and made a gesture with his hands that sank a bright field of green light into the turf. The ground shook and the kreanou darted toward him. But Simeon made a fist and twisted it, and the kreanou came to a quivering halt, poised like an attack dog waiting for the command.
The ground near the fence heaved and a phalanx of the dead struggled up from their graves. Whole or part, they rose and lurched toward Marsden, throwing themselves onto him.
Alice snatched at me and spun me toward the ground. I dropped my shoulder and rolled back up to my feet, reaching behind my back for the knife Marsden had given me in the sewer. I pivoted. I was a little clumsy on the moist lawn of the cemetery; my body ached from the shocks of the guards’ deaths and my legs burned from the infected cuts Jakob had inflicted, so I bobbled to the right. Alice jumped and missed me by inches as I ducked to recapture my balance.
In the distance, Marsden struggled under the weight of the lyches, plunging his hands into them and tearing out the burning threads that animated them. They fell down but only one at a time, and he was badly outnumbered. The kreanou watched with avid eyes, waiting for an opportunity to slip its leash, its head turning back and forth as it watched Marsden and then Simeon, whose hands were burning with the gather of power.
I rushed at Alice and she hesitated a moment as I got close. Then she reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders, trying to wrestle me down to her shorter height. Her mouth gaped and her fangs seemed to grow longer, glinting with saliva. I put my weight into her, bowling her under me as her teeth scraped against my collarbone.
The fangs felt like knives and seemed to pierce deeper into my flesh than was possible, cutting past the bone and diving for the arteries that sprang from my heart. I pushed my left arm between us as we tumbled and gripped her jaw, shoving her head up with a wrenching thrust. The agony of her bite eased as her head snapped back and the fangs slid out of my skin. Blood coursed down the front of my shirt.
Marsden yelled and I jerked my knees up, separating Alice from me with a hard thrust of my legs. I raised my head a moment and saw Marsden vanish under a pile of dirt and bodies as the angry dead pulled him down into their mass grave.
The smoke black line that connected the kreanou to Simeon lay less than a body length from me and I lunged for it, throwing myself through the air and snatching at it as I arced into its path.
The kreanou screamed a hunting cry of bloodlust and frustration and Simeon yelled as the magic tugged on them both. Alice scrambled across the churned earth like a deadly crab as I gripped the power link with both hands.
The burn of the energy forced a scream from my throat as I tore the binding apart. The hot fragments of control whipped like fractured guy wires, and half of the kreanou’s leash dissolved.
The silver-eyed monstrosity howled bloody anticipation and rushed at Simeon. It looked like a thin streak of red against the darkness as it pounced.
Simeon screamed as it hit him and he spun, trying to fight off the embodiment of rage, but it tore at him and blood flew. The grid of the Grey trembled and warped to suck in the hastening flow of magic that poured out with his life. The kreanou made bestial sounds of delight as it gorged on him, tearing him to shreds.
The death-shock doubled me over as Alice shrieked in rage and lashed at me, catching her hands in my clothes and dragging me close. She gripped me tight a moment, grinning with a sick parody of a lover’s desire. “You cannot stop me this time,” she whispered, trying to capture my gaze in hers, to hold my will and force me to submit to death.