Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(70)

His eyes flicked downward, toward my gun hand. “What are you gonna do, shoot him? He’s a ghost, man. He’ll just jump into somebody else’s body.”

“I’ve got something a little more effective in mind. Now you’ve got a choice to make. You gonna try to stop me, or are you gonna go and get yourself a late dinner so you can be far, far away when this goes down?”

“I promised Sullivan I wouldn’t leave my post. I promised.”

I jabbed him with the gun barrel, hard enough to make my point.

“You can walk away, or I can shoot you dead,” I told him. “Either way, same ultimate outcome. Only difference is whether or not you’ll be alive when the sun comes up. You think Sullivan would want you to die for nothing?”

He shook his head, as much as he dared to. “N-no.”

“Then make the smart play. Take a walk.”

I eased off enough to let him slowly slip to one side, backing away from me. He paused for a heartbeat, and I could see him working up the courage to go for the gun. Then the moment passed. He took a couple of long steps backward.

“Keep walking,” I said. “In about five minutes, you are not gonna want to be here. Trust me on this.”

I watched him go, long enough to make sure he wasn’t thinking about doubling back and becoming a dead hero. Then I went and listened at the door of room seven. A light was on, I could see it through the water-stained curtains, but Gilles’s room was silent as the grave.

Shock and awe was working well for me tonight. I decided to double down and try the same trick twice. I knocked firmly on the door, then put my thumb over the peephole. The Judge rested in my opposite hand, aimed at gut level. I heard shuffling feet, a long pause, and the rattle of the security chain.

I planned to jump Gilles the second the door opened, rushing in and forcing him to the floor at gunpoint. Funny thing about plans is how they fall apart without warning. The door swung inward, and the next thing I saw was the blur of Gilles’s hand clamping down on my wrist. He hauled me in, twisting as he used my momentum against me, and I went flying over the huge Norwegian’s shoulder. The motel room floor wasn’t much more than a quarter-inch of cigarette-burned carpet over cement and I hit the ground hard, landing on my back and elbow.

Lars’s possessed body loomed over me with an amused smirk on his lips. He tossed my gun onto the bedspread. I clambered to my feet, trying to scramble backward, and he responded by lashing out with the sole of his boot. I went down again, gasping for breath and clutching my stomach.

“I fought in the Hundred Years War, stripling!” he said with a giddy laugh. “I’ve sliced and squeezed the lifeblood from men of ten times your valor, and I didn’t have a body like this to do it with. When you dare to face a Knight of Hell, you’d best have an army at your back.”

I tried to speak, but it burst out in a gasping wheeze. My breath came back slowly, escorted by a flood of black spots in my vision. Gilles drew his own pistol from his shoulder holster, studying it curiously.

“War has become the province of peasants in this day,” he said with a tinge of regret. “The sword, the lance, those are a real man’s weapons. Weapons of skill and courage. Now you forge portable cannons and allow any fool to carry one in his pocket. Is it any wonder that the right of kings is a distant memory?”

“We like our violence democratic these days,” I said. “It’s fairer to everybody that way.”

He tossed his gun to the mattress, joining mine. Still on the floor, propping myself up with my arms behind me, I knew I didn’t have a chance of getting past him to grab either piece. He knew it too. Gilles pulled a stick of polished bone from his back pocket, unfolding it to reveal the blade of a serrated hunting knife.

“In Baron Naavarasi’s hell I learned new appreciation for the blade,” he said. “Do you know that it’s possible to dress a man like a deer? And that in skilled hands, the entire process can be accomplished in less than ten minutes?”

“Didn’t know that. Then again, didn’t want to.”

He tested his thumb against the blade’s edge, gently running skin across the steel. He nodded approvingly.

“The true mark of a master, though, is the ability to skin a man while keeping him alive, awake and screaming. Blood loss kills quickly, you see, and the victim’s thrashing can mar or ruin the pelt. It’s a technique I’ve always wanted to try, and now that I’m back in the land of the flesh…”

I thought fast, grasping at straws.

“I know Naavarasi,” I said. “We’re on good terms. She’ll be cross if you kill me.”

He shrugged. “She’s not my mistress anymore. My contract is in Sullivan’s hands. I don’t answer to the rakshasi.”

“Pretty sure Sullivan wanted to kill me himself. He’s gonna be pretty unhappy with you.”

“And yet he gave no orders on the matter.” Gilles took a step closer and brandished the knife. “And without a direct order, I am free to do as I please. You should be honored, you know. You will be my first mortal victim in centuries. You may be a filthy peasant, but you will die at the hands of a true nobleman. There is honor in that.”

My ears perked. A sound in the distance, rising with the pounding of my pulse. Just in the nick of time.

“One last thing,” I said.