Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(37)
But by then Ro was dead. Not dead as in lifeless, but as in flat on her back, Gee’s staves at her throat, crossed for a scissors move that would have sliced her head off had the staves been blades and the fight been real. One of his feet was on her abdomen; the other pinned her right hand. She was immobilized. And Gee was ticked off.
“Who taught you this move, human?” Gee demanded.
“An old man named Clementine. A cage fighter who thought I showed promise.”
Gee backed away, crossed his staves in front of him, and bowed. “You have done well. Next time follow it up with a strike to the jaw and one to the heart. Go ice your knee. Drink from your mistress this evening. You will need healing, as will I.”
Ro rolled to her feet and backed away, far enough for Gee to miss if he was planning a sneak attack. She crossed her hands as if she still held staves and gave him a deeper bow, but without taking her eyes from him. Smart woman.
Gee was about to call the next student when I pulled my magics close to try to keep them steady and said, “A moment of the Mercy Blade’s time for the Enforcer?”
It was a formal request. I was getting good at using the ceremonial speech of vamps, which worked better than, “Hey you, Bird Brain. Got a minute?” My invitation was all proper and curly, like calligraphy of the mouth.
Gee scooped up Ro’s staves in addition to his own and headed my way. He was dressed in skintight black, his dark hair tied in a short queue, and he sauntered across the floor as the gathered humans dispersed into small groups. Gee was fine, despite the blow to his knee. Whatever Ro had kicked, it hadn’t been his real knee, but some other bird body part hidden by glamour. A lot of people now knew he was bird-shaped in his natural form, but he didn’t show that off unnecessarily.
Oddly, Troll, Katie’s primo, helped Ro out the back door, which claimed Ro for Katherine Fonteneau, aka Katherine Louisa Dupris, Katherine Pearl Duplantis, Katherine Vuillemont. Katie was Leo’s heir, owned the oldest continuously operating whorehouse in New Orleans, and never showed any interest in her blood-servants or scions learning swordplay.
I was watching the pair so tightly that I missed the toss and caught the staves only inches from my face. Barely blocked the Mercy Blade’s strikes, three clacks of wood against wood. Parry and block were often considered cheating in the vamp version of La Destreza, though the archaic rules were confusing. I blocked three more strikes and caught my balance. Attacked, circling my staves, still heated from Ro’s hands, circling, thrusting, moving forward, drawing on Beast’s speed in addition to my own skinwalker speed.
Fun, Beast growled deep inside. Play with mouse.
Lightning struck, a crash-smash-bang of thunder that shook the building. HQ, struck by lightning. The Gray Between ripped open and the world went still and silent. Gee’s face was frozen in a look of intensity. His lips were slightly parted so he could breathe steadily, his feet were planted securely on the wood gym floor, and his black hair was a solid glisten where the light hit it. His glamours were an interlocking, underlying patchwork of power-reds from scarlet to crimson to cerise. Lots of blanketing shades of lavender and grape and periwinkle and amethyst. And all glowing with magic to Beast-vision. I stepped back from Gee’s staves to keep from drawing him into the time bubble with me.
In the room beyond I could see the blood-servants and -slaves, watching us with a sense of expectation and excitement. All but Ro, whose eyes were narrowed and cataloging the scene that Gee and I made. I walked toward her and took in Troll’s expression and the protective hand on her arm. Interestinger and interestinger.
Back at Gee, I realized that I wasn’t cramping. My stomach wasn’t constricting; I wasn’t throwing up blood; I wasn’t nauseated. I looked at myself in the Gray Between. My body was a shadow of matter. My souls were golden wisps of light, swirled around one another, intermixed. Beast moved up into the forefront of my brain and panted, watching what I was watching, understanding what I was understanding. Maybe better than I did. My magic was in a pentagram, a star geometry, stable motes of power moving like the new normal in the slice of time around me. But the scarlet motes always seemed to be moving just ahead of my skinwalker magic. Leading instead of being herded? That was a scary thought. The one perfect thing about my magic was the empty place against my heart where the shadow of murder had been. Now there was a feathery light there, bright and sweeping. Light. That was unexpected.
Either the storm was doing something to my magic, or being taken to water had done something to my magic, or the new Vitruvian Man motes had done something to my magic, or some combo of the three. The star shape, or pentagram, had proven to provide the best geometric and mathematical stability for magical workings, and was best when five magic users came together to work energy to a purpose, what laymen called a spell. I had five of the little red motes zipping through me and around me, in a working that appeared to be part of me. Either it had fixed the problem with my skinwalker magic or it was about to try to kill me.
Beast. Talk to me. What’s happening here?
Angel Hayyel happens. Purpose of light. Like purpose of Beast is to hunt.
That isn’t overly helpful. Got anything more?
The angel Hayyel had appeared in my presence once, and his hand had changed me and everyone in the room with me. No surprise that the celestial being was an ongoing problem. Beast?
Beast didn’t answer. I knew she had talked to the angel who had appeared in my life for all of maybe four seconds. And I knew that the angel’s time with Beast was longer than his time with me. And whatever he had done had created this ability to bubble time. It had given others certain skills and certain gifts and certain punishments. I wasn’t sure what bubbling and bending time was—a gift or a penalty. Maybe both.