Indigo(93)

Then the stone hit him.

It struck with the force of a bullet, propelled by such ferocious velocity that it punched a big, wet red hole above Miguel’s right eye and then exploded out through the back of his skull, splashing the elm with blood and lumps of gray. The impact snapped the man’s head back much too far, and he fell without any attempt to cry out or break his fall. It was all immediate and messy.

But it was quiet.

There was a wet splut and then the soft thump of the man falling to the ground.

Everyone froze.

Everyone listened.

Everyone watched the cemetery.

Absolutely nothing moved.

Then the murder golem pushed past them all and vaulted the wall. “This is war,” growled Damastes. “Act like it.”

After only a moment’s hesitation the four women surged over the wall in the monster’s wake. For Nora this was a crucial moment because she wanted to be Nora, but Nora was a civilized woman without power or training. Nora was not Indigo. Nora was not a practiced and powerful killer. She wished she could retain all of Indigo’s powers while still being Nora—and maybe there was some path unknown to her to that goal—but now was not the time for self-discovery. The murder golem was correct, damn it.

So as she landed on the far side of the stone wall, it was Indigo’s feet that touched down. She conjured her cloak of shadows and the weapons that had already spilled so much blood.

This is who I am, too, she thought. For better or worse, this is who I am. God save my soul, this is who I am.

They went hunting through the trees and gravestones, through the forest of monuments and the neighborhood of mausoleums.

The other two Garcia brothers were there. Esteban and Diego. And nearly a dozen other men and women. Phonoi of different clans. Slavic faces, Asian faces, African faces, Arab faces, Germanic and Nordic faces.

They all bled the same color.

The slaughter nuns went in quick and low, their blades flashing into sight only at the last moment, too late for the flicker of light on polished steel to offer any warning. The murder golem moved on silent cat feet, using fists and elbows and rocks, a smile burned onto the borrowed face, mad delight in its eyes.

Indigo embraced her own nature, diving into shadows and emerging behind, beside, above, below. Appearing like the nightmare thing she was, her fighting sticks crunching through bone and pulping flesh and ending lives.

A few days ago this would have been an even fight. But things had changed and Indigo knew it. She felt it.

A dark and ugly joy was in her own soul as she fought, and with Damastes embodied in the Heykeli she could not truly blame him for that emotion. She felt it. Her. No one else.

That terrified her.

And it thrilled her.

The last of the Phonoi guards died, his throat smashed almost flat from a blow across the windpipe. He dropped to his knees and Indigo stepped aside, lowering her sticks as the man became dead meat and flopped bonelessly onto the dirt.

Selene snapped her fingers, and everyone turned to see her crouching by the door to one of the mausoleums. The faintest glow of light came from around the edges of the door. They all hurried over. Two dead Phonoi lay nearby; clearly they had been guarding this door.

Indigo knelt beside Selene and peered through the crack. Inside was a small chamber like a vestibule with a Coleman lantern, its light turned high. The room was empty except for a bench, which was piled high with coats and personal belongings. A second door was at the end of a short corridor, and as Indigo strained to listen, she could hear something. Strange music and the sound of voices speaking together in a cadence like a church litany.

“The ritual’s already started,” said Selene urgently.

“Shit,” growled Indigo. The door, though ajar, was enormously heavy and had no handle, and Indigo figured it had a hidden catch or lever, but she had no time to look for it. Instead she extruded shadow into the narrow gap and then flexed it like a muscle. The door did not want to open, but its resistance was nothing compared to her desperate will.

With a rasp of stone and a protest of ancient iron hinges, it moved. An inch. Then two. The nuns all reached out to grab the edge and pull. Even the golem gripped a corner of it, and still the door resisted them. Then, with a muffled snap, some restraint broke. The door suddenly swung easily, and they moved inside. Xanthe paused long enough to turn down the lantern flame, plunging the vestibule into blackness.

They stopped at the second door, which had been secured by a stout padlock on a heavy chain, but the chain now lay coiled to one side. Indigo carefully opened the door, and the sound of the ongoing ritual became louder. They bent to look, and to Indigo it was like viewing a scene from Hieronymus Bosch, a scene from hell itself.

Beyond the door, a long set of stairs widened as it swept down to a huge chamber that must have run the entire length of the cemetery. Fat stone columns supported the ponderous weight of the ceiling, and every exposed inch of floor, walls, and columns was covered with hieroglyphs and pictograms from scores of ancient languages, most of which Indigo could not even place. She saw some cuneiform and some Egyptian symbols, and there was Hebrew and Greek, but the rest were unknown to her. All of the symbols seemed to glow as if lit from within, as if the very granite into which they were carved had come alive with some kind of unnatural and luminous vitality.

There were at least a dozen Phonoi. No, more. Many more. Too many to count because their numbers were confused by flickering torchlight. She could see groups that clustered together, each marked by different-colored robes or arcane symbols embroidered on their garments. Many were naked, their bodies elaborately tattooed. Despite their differences in race, nationality, and clan affiliation, they were united in the chant they all uttered. The inhuman language hurt Indigo’s ears to hear, as if the human parts of her could not bear the sounds of those words and what they meant.