Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(86)

Whirling, I fired, separating his leg at where I guessed the knee would be under the flowing imitation of coat. His enormous grin never faded. He snatched up the leg and disappeared. At least it seemed that way. I barely got an impression of the direction he'd gone—back the way I'd come.

"Promise," I warned as I ran.

She was ready for him, blocking the entrance with her sword. He gave an annoyed hiss, the first non-gleeful sound I'd heard from him, and sprang back to the ceiling and raced along it out of sight of my flashlight. I swore, spun on my heel, and headed after him. That's when I discovered it wasn't only human bodies hanging from the hooks. Leprous hands snatched at me as I ran. More rule-breaking revenants hung twisting on the metal. They clawed and snapped, maddened by their imprisonment…tortured by pain. Yeah, too damn bad for them. I didn't have any more pity than I had had for the one chained in the tunnel.

I pushed through them, ignoring the bloody stripes left across my face and neck. Sawney was the only thing on my mind now. "You're running, Sawney? You afraid your meal's going to kick your ass?"

I couldn't see Niko or Robin, but I knew they were hidden in the darkness waiting to make their move. Robin's job was the same as Promise's—keep Sawney in the cavern. Niko's was to take advantage the minute I got Sawney sufficiently distracted to hold still for a few seconds. All I had to do was make that happen. A couple of seconds … it had seemed a lot more doable when we were discussing it aboveground.

"Sawney," I started to yell again just as he came out of the darkness beside me and took me down. I twisted under him and fired again in his chest. There was a cracking, the sound of rotten pond ice splitting under a spring sun. Clear, cold glass peppered my shirt, fragments of whatever made up the core of the inner Sawney. They burned even through the cloth, like dry ice. I fired again, shoved him hard, and rolled beneath the swipe of the scythe. Not fast enough to save me a slice along my stomach, but quick enough to keep my guts inside where they belonged. I had to get distance between us or Nik would scrap the plan and move in, intent on saving my ass. I rolled again and pulled the trigger two more times, nailing him in the throat. Blood, with the clear purity of rain and the chemical bite of antifreeze, poured out like a wide-open faucet. I skittered backward from beneath it and moved up to a crouch. As for Sawney, chest and throat in ruins—Sawney seemed to be having the time of his life. I noticed his leg was back in place, which seemed to add to his good cheer.

"Traveler."

He was drifting closer, his feet not touching the ground. I'd seen it before with him, but I'd already had my view of the monster world soundly shaken with this bastard—and this would've been nice to do without. I raised my eyes in the joy of denial and tried for that head shot Niko had asked me for earlier.

Too late. Sawney was gone. Not so fast this time, but I wasn't sure if his wounds were slowing him down or he wanted me to keep up to play a little longer. If I had to pick, I'd pick the one that screwed me but good. I followed anyway as this cavern passed into another. The entrance was hidden by a curtain of hooks and corpses. I pushed through them with distaste to find an identical space. More blood, more bodies, and more Sawney. And this time he kicked up the play to high gear. He slashed the moment I passed through the cold flesh. My blood was on the scythe along with the blood of tonight's victim or victims. Not exactly sanitary and the very least of my concerns.

I threw myself to one side and emptied the clip in his direction. It was a lot of bullets and I wasn't sure a single one hit him. His scythe hit me, though, carving a thin slice in my shoulder. Flitting away, he disappeared, reappeared, and sliced the outside of my thigh. I backed away, ejecting the clip and sliding a new one home. The slashes were painful and bloody, but superficial…just for fun. So far. But they would get deeper. Nik wouldn't hold back any longer. As a distraction, I was great. As for getting Sawney to hold still, I might not survive that long. He was too goddamn fast.

But then … I could be fast too.

Time to see if practice made perfect.

Breaking promises. I'd done it a few times now. But sometimes you break them little, and sometimes you break them big. This was going to be f*cking huge.

"Traveler."

There. Slash. Gone again, but I heard the faintest rustle of bodies behind. Niko was coming, and I hadn't done my job. Not yet. But I would. I said I would, and I was keeping my word there even if I was breaking it somewhere else.

"Yeah, I'm a traveler." I could feel the sweat soaking my shirt and jeans. "One like you haven't seen before, *."

I saw him through the hanging bodies, the scythe duplicating his grin. "Travelers, they are all the same to Sawney Beane. Go here, go there. Horse, no horse." The smile, always with the damn crazed smile. "All the same."

"Not me." I gave a grin of my own—wild and savage. "Not this traveler."

So I traveled.

As before, I didn't build the gate before me; I built it around me, and I was gone. I reappeared behind him and nailed him in the back. Then he vanished and I vanished with him. I fired, missed, traveled, fired again. Sometimes I hit him, sometimes I didn't. But he couldn't shake me, no matter how he tried, because I was a nightmare. I was this monster's nightmare just as he'd been one to so many others.

I saw Nik from the corner of my eye now and again, and also occasionally saw Promise and Robin fighting off revenants. I wondered what I looked like to them, as I glowed with a sickly gray light and disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, reappeared…Maybe like a rapidly sped-up movie—a fast-forward of blood and metal.