Don’t let go. Just don’t let go, I told myself. As the thought ran through my mind I felt my hands, slick with sweat and blood, slip from around Bergman’s waist. Just before I lost my grip, I grabbed hold of the back of his belt and locked my fingers around it, wormed them under it until you couldn’t have separated me from it without cutting my hands off.
Vayl and Sterling gave one hard yank. I screamed, tears jerking from my eyes as my ankles twanged.
As an explosion rocked the other side.
And Yousef began to read from his little book of gateways.
I sat up, feeling like I’d been bludgeoned by a pair of construction cranes, and not caring. At. Al . Because Bergman was safe. Free of hel with Cole’s namestone in one hand. And the Rocenz in the other. While Kyphas’s severed hands stil gripped the handle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
We stood around Vayl’s bed. He’d taken down his sleeping tent so it should’ve looked normal. Pristine white coverlet that reminded me of how my skin had looked thirty minutes into my after-battle shower. Pil ows in the same color. Lamps on glass-topped tables beside the bed, both lit to reveal that which wasn’t right at al . Cole, tossing and turning, his eyes glowing like reflectors as he looked around the room aimlessly, like nothing interested him enough to capture his attention for more than a few seconds at a time.
Sterling stood at the head of the bed. He’d set us in specifical y appointed spots. Vayl and Bergman at each of Cole’s feet. Me at the side that hadn’t been bumped up against the wal . Even Astral had her place, sitting regal y on Cole’s bel y, riding the waves of his restlessness.
Sterling held his wand in his right hand. Cole’s namestone, rubbed clean to reveal its shining puce exterior, lay in his left palm. His words lilted off his tongue like a hymn as he said, “The demon completed three letters of the carving before she stopped. I can strip them off the stone, but they’ve been brought to a sort of life, you understand? I can’t completely undo them.”
“So what is it that you have arranged here?” asked Vayl, gesturing to the stone, to al of us, to the unlit candles he’d set in the windowsil s and to robokitty, surfing Cole’s unrest like an old pro.
“It’s a reclamation,” said Sterling. “Kyphas bound a part of Cole into each letter and tried to transform it into pure evil. When I pul the letters off, I’m going to put each one into you. Because you’re his closest friends. You know him. You love him. So you have to concentrate every thought on al your memories of him. And as your bit of him is cleansed by those, it wil return to him. Make him whole again.” I raised an eyebrow. “So we’re like, what, water filters?” Sterling smirked. “You could say that.”
We al heard the hesitation in his voice, but Bergman was the only one who could bring himself to ask, “Wil he be the same? After?”
Sterling turned his wand between his fingers. He sighed. “Of course not. We’re al changed, every day, by our experiences. Usual y in ways so minute that years wil pass before anyone notices. Sometimes it’s a little more radical.” His voice, lyrical y gentle, assured us Cole could survive what was to come even as he said, “Imagine nearly becoming a demon. Vayl, you’ve probably been closer than any of us. Can you predict what Cole wil be like after this?” From the way Vayl’s lips thinned I could tel he didn’t like the question. Because he didn’t want to go to the place in his head that would give him the memories he’d need to provide an honest answer. I also knew, even before his turning, he’d never been the type to back away.
He looked at each of us in turn. And then he said, “The nightmares wil be the worst part. Those, and the urge to come back to this place. To rip away the lid that is growing over Sterling’s net and find out what it could have been like to let the hel ion in him join with Kyphas forever. But as long as he has us to remind him of who he is, as long as we need him, he wil hold fast.”
We stared at our friend, skirting the edge of what Granny May used to cal Satan’s Playground, suffering unimaginable torments because the games they played there made everybody scream—and because right now he wanted to be on the team.
“Touch him,” said Sterling. “Make sure you have contact with his skin.”
I took his hand. Vayl and Bergman each wrapped their fingers around an ankle. Every candle in the room flared.
Vayl didn’t seem surprised, but Miles and I traded Wowsa eye blinks.
The warlock held the stone out over the center of Cole’s body, almost directly on top of Astral’s head if they’d been sitting perfectly stil . He nodded to me.
“Okay, kittybot,” I whispered. “Access everything you just downloaded on Cole Bemont.”
She jacked her jaws open and out came the Enkyklios spotlight, signaling the playback of a brand-new holofile, one the three of us had made together while Sterling had prepared the reclamation. The movie began with the first time I’d ever met Cole, in the ladies’ room at a party thrown by terrorists. Though only a few months had passed, we’d both changed. I looked thinner then, worn down, and so grim that it seemed like I’d forgotten how to smile. Cole looked… younger.
Astral’s job was to play every file we’d entered into the Enkyklios that had to do with Cole, what we knew about his family and his work. Sterling said it would help him to see who he’d been when he was ful y human. I wasn’t so sure.
He’d gotten the crap kicked out of him a few times while I’d known him. Maybe he’d see this transition as a way to protect himself from that ever happening again.
Raoul, I whispered. Where are you? We could really use—
Sterling began to speak, arcane words I recognized only by the buzz at the base of my brain and the goose bumps rising on my skin. As the rhythm of his spel fil ed the room, I knew without a doubt that if he real y wanted to become a Bard, nothing would stop him. Already his magic felt like music, making us sway slightly from one foot to the other as we held tightly to our friend.
Cole began to convulse. It hurt to watch him, arching his back so high I heard his bones pop in protest a couple of times. When he lay flat again his legs began to tremble, but Vayl and Bergman held on, watching with me as the letters Kyphas had rammed into her heartstone transformed into a black, tarry substance that dripped into Sterling’s hand.
I’m not drinking that. Don’t even ask. But Sterling had other plans. He took Cole’s essence to the candles. Little by little he let the liquid from the stone drip into each flickering flame, until he’d walked the whole course of the room. By the time he was done the place had fil ed with grayish blue smoke.
Why haven’t the detectors gone off? Granny May was back at her tapestry, looking curiously at the sky.
Seriously? I’m inhaling Cole-juice and all you can think about are fire-safety rules?
What’s he smell like? asked my Inner Bimbo with an avid look on her face.