Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(118)

He was awake. Some cataclysm had struck the city, and in the chaos he’d wormed free of the moon’s grip.

He sat up in the narrow bed. A tile floor lay cool beneath his bare feet. He looked down at himself. Twiggy limbs jutted from the hospital gown. How long had he been out? Days. His stomach turned when he remembered the Paupers’ Quarter market, remembered his fury at the world, at his daughters, remembered his hand raising the cane, remembered blood on Sandy’s face and Matt’s—

He doubled over, choking stiff, wet sobs the waves of silence made staccato. He clawed his sheets.

Anger filled him. Fury. At Matt for his betrayal. At Sandy Sforza. And above all towered his rage at the Stone Men and their wicked moon, the laughing white face, the cruel gentle hands that made him watch his own life mad and broken in a dark mirror.

He wanted to vomit, but there was nothing in his stomach to cast out.

He had to leave this place, these scraping sheets, this disinfectant stink.

Corbin stood, fell, stood again with his hand on the mattress for balance. His knees wiggled. A curtain hung beside his bed. If he clung to that, he could reach the wall, and then the door.

He gripped the curtain, trusted it with his weight—

And fell. Curtain rings tore free of the frame and he stumbled into the neighboring bed, occupied by a mountainous man, dark, bearded, with close-cropped hair.

A chair rested beside the bed, and a folded and sealed letter lay on the nightstand, addressed to Umar.

“Sorry, Umar,” Rafferty mumbled. Nurses must have heard him fall. If they found him, they wouldn’t let him go. Matt would have pressed charges, or Sandy. Or the girls. He couldn’t bear another minute here. The silence came again, and went. Lightning cracked the sky, without thunder to match.

Umar’s eyes were open.

Rafferty cried and lurched back. Blue wheels spun within Umar’s brown irises.

Umar sat up. His movements were inhumanly precise. His neck moved independent of his torso. Shoulders and jaw popped, but he did not seem to notice. He stared at Rafferty.

Corbin raised his hands, but Umar moved faster. One hand caught Corbin’s throat and squeezed. Corbin went kitten limp, but Umar kept squeezing, as if he didn’t plan to stop until his fingers reached bone.

Then the hand loosened—barely.

“She’s touched you.” If Umar’s movements were wrong, his voice was worse, deep and resonant with bass, with another voice underneath or inside, a woman’s if glass spoke like a woman. Transparent tendrils writhed between the man’s teeth. “I can taste her.”

Corbin could almost breathe. There was no doubt which she he meant. “Yes,” he said. “Seril.” The name stung his lips. Damn her moon that burned in his mind, damn her sea that rose to drown him, damn her stone that cased his arms and legs. “Cursed me. Turned my own against me.”

“Aid me,” Umar said. “I will give you vengeance. You will help slay her.”

Was vengeance even possible? “She’s a goddess. We can’t.” Babbling, humbled, terrified, Corbin felt strangely unashamed. Umar’s wrist was as thick as Corbin’s neck. Bantamweight Corbin Rafferty had fought men three times his size to prove he could, got the shit kicked out of him and laughed. It was—comfortable?—to face a man he could not fight.

Umar’s grip tightened again. Corbin pried at the man’s fingers without success.

Corbin might die here. Die here, at the hands of this man who had offered him revenge. “Yes,” he croaked. “Yes, dammit.”

Steel-clamp fingers released Corbin’s throat. He fell to his knees, panting, rubbing his neck. He’d have a bruise for a collar. Umar reviewed the room’s contents. He did not seem to notice the letter on the bedside table. “Let us go.”

“We can’t just go. We need—”

“I need nothing.”

“You need pants.”

“Follow.” Umar walked toward the door. Rafferty looked away from the open back of the man’s gown. Somehow he found his feet and balance and followed. Revenge. Was it possible, to kill a goddess? To break her hold on him, and on his girls? To cast off his own humiliation, to reclaim his life from the lies the moon-dreams spun?

Orderlies wheeled a convulsing patient down the hall. Umar turned in the opposite direction, toward the stairs. A gray-uniformed guard emerged from the stairwell door, saw Umar and Rafferty. “Get back in your rooms. There’s an emergency. We need—”

Umar did not let the guard finish. Corbin didn’t see what Umar did, but the guard fell and lay still; Umar knelt, pulled off the man’s shoes, and removed his pants. Then he shed his gown, pulled on the guard’s slacks, and buttoned them. “Pants,” Umar said.

“You just—” The guard groaned. “Hey!”

Umar turned back to Corbin; another guard ran out from the stair behind him. That guard’s mouth opened when he saw his fallen comrade; he reached for the truncheon at his belt, but Umar caught him by the neck and slammed him into the wall. A peal of silence ate the thud of the guard’s skull against plaster. The guard fell, and plaster flakes drifted down onto him. Umar knelt, placed his fingers precisely to either side of the guard’s jugular, and pressed. The man squirmed like a caught snake, kicked twice, then rag-dolled. Umar pointed to the body—still breathing—stood, and walked away.