Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(83)

“No, thanks, but Pinney and I will take care of it. It’ll help Pinney. He was sitting on Patrick. Just a precaution until we got back. Fell asleep—no reason not to. Nobody figured the fucker for suicidal. Woke up, went back to check the cell. Patrick’s hanging by his bed-sheet. Still warm, Pinney said. He cut him down, tried to bring him back. Still warm, but gone.”

“That’s not on Pinney, either.”

“No, Eddie, it’s not on him, or anybody. Patrick made his choice, took his side. Just get this stuff locked up. You don’t need to do a full inventory tonight. Just lock up, go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Will? I know it’s a problem, thinking about how we almost got ambushed, and how that came to be. But we all got home. We did what we set out to do, and we all got home. You shouldn’t forget that.”

“I won’t.”

Eddie sighed again when Will went out. “I’m sure as shit glad I never had to be in charge. It carries a lot of weight. You’re a soldier, that’s hard enough, but it’s a lot harder to be the one giving all the orders. So let’s be good soldiers and follow orders. We’ll lock up, go home. I want to tell Fred about Lana’s girl.”

As they stowed the rest for future inventory, Eddie elbow-poked Duncan. “Really pretty girl, huh?”

“Yeah, she was okay.”

“Okay my ass. That girl is smoking.”

“Jesus, Eddie, you’re old enough to be her father.”

Maybe it shocked a little to realize that was pure truth, but Eddie let it roll.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes. Smoking,” he repeated. “You’re not old enough to be her daddy, and you’ve got eyes.”

“I’ve sort of got a girl.”

“Yeah.” Eddie locked up, pocketed the keys, waited for Duncan to add a protective layer. “Which one is it this week?”

On a quick laugh, Duncan shrugged. He’d moved on Cassie, drifted to Fawn, and now …

“Plenty to be serious about without getting serious about a girl.”

“I hear that—at your age.”

“And okay, she was hot. I don’t know about smoking, but she hits the hot-o-meter.”

“Got her daddy’s eyes,” Eddie added. “It sure meant a lot to me to see them in Max’s girl. Get some sleep, dude, you earned it.”

“You, too.”

When he did sleep, finally slept hours later, Duncan dreamed of the girl with gray eyes, the girl on a white horse with silver wings. A girl who walked through a place so bright with light it hurt the eyes. And who took a sword, a shield from the fire that lit it like a thousand suns.

When she lifted them, she was the sun.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Fallon fought Mallick and his ghost warriors. She took some illusionary hits—and they hurt. As her training time compressed, he decreed she would fight with pain.

She wouldn’t bleed, but she would feel.

So when the sword of one of the ghosts laid a shallow groove on her left shoulder, she felt the hot flash of metal slicing flesh.

She fought on.

The first few times she’d fought with pain, the shock of a strike or slash had panicked her mind. And killed her. So she came to understand quickly why Mallick pushed for the progression.

A wound not only shocked, but weakened. He pushed her to train her mind and her body to fight through both.

Sweat ran down her face, and her right leg strained for balance against the pierce of Mallick’s sword. But she defeated two of the four opponents, and battled brutally against Mallick and the remaining ghost.

She sensed her endurance flagging—the adrenaline would only carry her so far, so long. To end it, she hurled a fireball at the last ghost, dropped into a roll, then swept her sword at Mallick’s legs.

When he dropped, she impaled him. And then she dropped down beside him.

“Everything hurts.”

His breath in tatters, he nodded. “Yes.”

Frowning, she looked over at him. His face, sweaty as her own, was considerably pale under the damp.

“You’re fighting with pain, too? Why? I’m the one in training.”

“When your sword strikes an opponent, they feel. So with this progress, I feel.”

She rose, went to the well, pumped water into the ladle.

“Drink. There’s no need for you to fight with pain, or to fight at all. Just use ghosts. And that way you can observe and evaluate.”

Eyeing her over the ladle, he drank. “I’m able to fight, and fight with pain.”

She had learned—and this had been an easy lesson—that her teacher had considerable pride.

“ ‘Able’ is one thing, and you’re plenty able. It’s that you don’t need to. In fact, if you watched instead of fighting, you’d be able to evaluate my skills, and my weaknesses, better.”

He sipped again. “Are you protecting the old man, girl?”

“The old man drilled a hole in my right thigh.” To prove her point, she rubbed at the throb. “I’m just being practical. We’ve gone up against each other day after day, so we know each other’s techniques, rhythms, weak spots. Sure, there’re some changeups, but mostly, if you feint left, I know to guard my right from a back sweep. And you lift your right shoulder, just a little, when you’re going to go for the impale.”