The Library at Mount Char (34 page)

David stank of rotting meat and sour sweat. She raised her hand into the fluffs of fabric and probed, gently, until she touched the shaft of his penis. “There,” she said, “there.” She traced the tips of her fingernails down it to his scrotum and cradled it in her palm. David tilted his head back, shivering with pleasure.

“There.”
She snarled, simultaneously digging in with the long, lacquered nails of her left hand, twisting, and yanking down as hard as she could. She didn't get both of his testicles, but one of them came away in her hand. His training would be up to the task—after what he had suffered in the bull, it would be up to almost anything imaginable—but it would take him a moment to marshal it. She had bought seconds.

David roared. He struck out blindly, trying to backhand her, but Carolyn ducked under it. She was not so quick as he, but she had been practicing this moment every day for ten years. She let go of his crotch. Reflexively, he jumped back a step.

“You nasty bitch,” David growled, not without admiration.

Father's notes were clear on this topic as well—there were several ways to incapacitate men instantly, but striking them in the crotch was not one of them. It would take a second or two before the real pain hit.

“Wait,” she said slowly, “I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong? I thought you liked it rough.” David stared at her with increasing disbelief as she said this…but he listened to the whole sentence. It took about four seconds.

By the time she finished speaking, he was near the true depth of his pain. David groaned.

Carolyn, smiling, flicked the blood off her claws. “Oh well. My mistake.”

David roared again. He balled his hands into fists and stepped toward her, one hand held protectively over his groin, bent over almost double.

Carolyn rolled over backward, sprang to her feet, and took off running toward the gates. David was faster than anyone…usually.
Right now, though, not so much
.

But she couldn't outrun him for long. He would be on her as soon as he had the pain under control. She sprinted toward the entrance to Garrison Oaks. In a dozen steps she was inside the gate…and inside the perimeter of the
reissak
. She stopped then, and turned.

Snow was just beginning to accumulate on the ground. The tracks of her bare feet stretched back to where David stood, now bent over double with pain. She was gratified to see a few drops of blood staining the snow below.

David blew out a hot breath, vapor cloud white under the streetlight. He drew himself up to his full height. Margaret handed him his spear and faded back, as from a fire that burned too hot.

David looked down at the footprints in the snow, then out into the shadows. His eyes blazed with murder, ancient and savage, the malevolent glare of a death god's black idol.

“I'm coming for you, Carolyn.”

W
ith the expression of a man diving into ice water, David waded into the
reissak
. She watched him closely. His face betrayed no pain with the first step, nor the second, nor the third. But on the fourth he grunted—very softly.

Carolyn, still standing alone in the dark, heard his pain and smiled.

“Over here!” she said, cheerful and mocking. She took a single, measured step away from him, closer to the Library. “This way!”

David thudded after her, heavy and relentless.

David would be capable of going much deeper into the
reissak
than any of the others, much deeper than he had thus far chosen to go. She knew he would have tricks for controlling pain, minimizing internal damage. There would be techniques.

Even so, seeing his strength with her own eyes, she was in awe of it, the raw, brute will of him. She had caught him off guard with the testicle shot. Probably he had been toying with her as well. But there was no play in what he did now. The tendons of his neck stood out like cables. Sweat
ran off him in a literal stream, trickling down his arms and dribbling off the end of his spear to steam in the snow.

She braced herself for what came next. “Had enough? You really should turn around before it's—aaagh.” The cry was startled out of her, as much surprise as pain. He was so very
quick
. She looked down to see the barbed point of his spear sticking out of her left leg and felt real fear.
He drew back, threw, and skewered me
literally
so fast that I couldn't see it
.

Grinning, David yanked the chain. Carolyn's legs failed her. Suddenly she was on her back on the asphalt.

He began reeling her in. The pain was immense. Carolyn alternated between straining against the chain and crab-walking with it to avoid having her back grated off by the road.

“Oh, David, no…” she said, injecting a tremble in her voice, knowing that it would excite him further. Inside, though, she was like ice. When she judged the moment was right she reached down and broke off the spear point.

She allowed a single, measured moan to bubble out, then turned over and began crawling away.

“Raah, you
bitch
.” David changed spearheads. A moment later she was pierced again, this time through the foot. This pain dwarfed anything she had previously felt, ever, in all her life. As she clawed at the asphalt her fingernails peeled back, and this was like candles measured next to the sun. David yanked her back toward him. She barely noticed.

His hand clamped down on her ankle. His grip was like iron pincers, his fingers thick with calluses. He flipped her onto her back. She scrabbled at the rough asphalt of the road, desperate, clawing at it with her fingertips. Tiny pebbles shredded her shoulder blades. They were so very deep in the
reissak ayrial
that she thought even a few more
inches
would be enough to kill him.

But she could not move. He was too strong.

David was reeling her in. He reached up and took her knee. Small bones creaked in his grip. She knew what he would reach for—
nonononono
—and he did. He dug his index finger into the hole his spear had left in her leg. He pushed.

She felt another scream bubbling up under his hands, just as she had
so many times before. She pushed it back down. She kicked at the asphalt with her bare heels, struggling to move deeper into the
reissak
. He tortured her wound for another moment, then reached up to her collarbone. He did something terrible and it snapped, the sound of it muffled by her skin.

She let a scream slip loose—just one. It was necessary, it was the bait she needed to draw him in that one final inch, but it cost her, too, in a way she hadn't expected. There was a note of truth in that scream.

Now his hand was at her throat. He dug his pinkie finger into a pressure point below her jaw while using the rest of his hand to cut off her air.
This is how he murdered me the first time
, she thought.
Auld lang syne
.

Her mind, scrabbling and frantic, flipped through her mental grimoire for anything that might help. She pounded him with her small hands, scratched him, poked at his eyes.

David was implacable. David was a stone.

Now there was a cloud around the edges of her vision.
It didn't work
, she thought.
David is going to win. He's murdering me one final time
. She thought of Steve as he had been at age twelve, tall and lanky, grinning in the summer sun. Behind her eyes, black flowers bloomed.

“This is just the beginning,” David whispered. “When I've mastered the other catalogs I'll call you back. We'll do this over and over again. We'll do this every night forever.”

Far behind her, out in the night, she heard a soft metallic tap, the sound of the final cog clicking into place. Hearing this she ceased drifting, coalesced, came back to herself.

Now
.

Carolyn opened her eyes. Hypoxia occluded her vision almost completely…but she saw well enough. She composed herself, stopped struggling. She smiled up at him, reached up and stroked his dimple gently with the remains of one ragged, bloody nail.

David's smile withered at her touch. His voice came to her as from a great distance. “What?” he demanded.
“What?
Stop!
Why are you smiling at me?”

Her lips moved, soundless.

“What?!” David said, screaming now. “
What is it, you crazy, horrible
bitch?!
” The question wasn't rhetorical. As he asked it he took his hands away from her throat.

Carolyn felt the urge to gasp and cough, but mastered it. She sipped a single, cool breath of night air, drew it into her lungs slowly, savoring the first breath of the rest of her life. When she was perfectly ready she spoke.

“And
then
…”—she spat, blood spattering on his face in a fine spray—“from the
east
…” The words hissed out of her ragged, shattered throat as she took her finger away from his cheek. “Thunder.”

David's face exploded.

T
ime was short now. The bullet had caught David a little bit high of perfect, half an inch or so too far up the cheekbone—a small miscalculation. The left half of his face was mostly gone. She could see his brains. Even taking his training into account, David would die quickly, one or two more heartbeats at most.

But both of his eyes worked, and he still had an ear. Any one of those would have been enough. Carolyn wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and pulled herself up. She examined the gaping hole in his head, reached up with the tip of one finger, and touched him, very gently, in a deep part of his brain. A small spark flashed at her touch. Then, in the second heartbeat, she leaned in close and whispered in David's ear, speaking the word that Father whispered to Mithraganhi so very long ago when he called up the dawn of the fourth age.

For David, hearing this…

…time…

…stopped.

Carolyn slumped back onto the asphalt. Her breath puffed white under the streetlamp. She smiled a little, but couldn't bring herself to do much more.
I did it
, she thought.
I really did
. She felt no real triumph, not even relief. She was numb.

It was a pleasant species of numbness, though.

As a side effect of being outside of time, David was now weightless. She pushed him off her with the barest touch. He hung frozen in the night air, bobbing slightly, like a deflating balloon.

Carolyn heard footsteps behind her. “Hello, Erwin.” Her voice was very hoarse. She sat up, coughing, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Can you help me up?”

“Err…” Erwin said, speaking through lips that were split and swollen, “I ain't for sure. I'll try.” He limped toward her a little quicker. He was holding his left hand over a bleeding hole in his leg. In his right was the HK with which he had shot David. Smoke curled up out of the barrel.

Erwin reached down with one thick hand. Carolyn took it. He lifted her easily.

“What's wrong with him?” He poked David with a finger. He spun easily, a foot or two off the ground.

“Don't do that,” she said. “Let me in there for a second, would you?”

Erwin looked at her, then shrugged and stepped back.

She stopped David's spinning, then turned him so she could examine the wound. It would certainly have been fatal, even for one such as David. The left side of his head was missing. “Good shot,” she said, “almost perfect, really.” She flicked her eyes at Erwin. “The angle was a little off, but that was my fault. We were supposed to be at a seven degree angle to you, but it was more like nine. It was tough to focus with that darn spear hole in my leg.”

“Yeah,” Erwin said slowly. “I 'spect it was. How'd you know I'd—”

“Command Sergeant Major Erwin Charles Leffington, US Army, retired. Born April 8, 1965, late of the Eighty-Second Airborne. Before that, two years in US Army Marksmanship Unit. When was the last time you missed a shot, Erwin?”

“Before tonight, you mean?” David had allowed Erwin to empty the pistol at him before they arrived, for sport. “I don't remember exactly,” he said. “It's been a while.”

“Don't beat yourself up about it. You couldn't have hit him earlier. No one could. Come over here; let me take a look at that leg.” She squatted down to examine the cut in Erwin's thigh. “You're OK. No arterial bleeding. He was going to play with you for a while.” She lay back on the
street. “I'm sorry about that. I had to wait until you were pretty beaten down. That way he wouldn't consider you a threat.”

“ 'Saright. Don't mind takin' some licks in a good cause.” Erwin spat. “And that guy was a real asshole.”

“You have no idea.” Carolyn closed her eyes, collecting herself.
I did it
, she thought again.
I really, actually did
.

“So…what did I miss?” Steve asked. He and Naga were walking down the road from the direction of the Library. “What happened here?”

“
Dammit
, Steve!” Carolyn said. “I told you to wait in the Library. Don't you
ever
listen?”

“You're not the boss of me.”

Erwin looked over his shoulder. “Hey, kid. How ya doin'?”

Steve gave him a little wave. “C'mon, don't keep me in suspense. What happened?”

“Well,” Erwin said, “basically that asshole there was all strangling her, so I kinda shot him a little. In the face, like.”

“Thanks, by the way,” Carolyn said.

Steve furrowed his brow, confused. “How'd you manage that? When we rolled up you had just run out of bullets.”

“I wondered about that myself,” Erwin said. “It was the damnedest thing. So, like, when you guys showed up the big dude just dropped me. I was too punchy to fight. I was gonna fall back to that house over there”—he pointed at the only house on the street with lights on—“and call for backup. In training, they drilled it into us never to leave a weapon on the field—I used to beat the shit out of guys for that—so on the way I grabbed my pistol, even though it was empty. Kind of by reflex, like.