The broken connection only lasted a few moments, but it was long enough for Gabrielle and Bethany to squirm free of their guards. As Reve Azrael’s consciousness slowly took control of the revenants again, the two women didn’t waste any time. Bethany ran toward me, while Gabrielle picked up a small, tubular object that had fallen out of one of the smashed display cases. She clasped her hands together around the artifact and chanted a few words in that same weird magical language Bethany had used. A bright glow seeped out from between her fingers, then grew longer, until finally she was holding what looked like a sword in her hands, only its blade was made of fire instead of metal. One swing sliced the head clean off the first of her revenant guards, and another finished off the second.
Bethany stopped suddenly, her gaze moving past my shoulder. “Behind you!”
I turned to see Half-Face coming at me again. “Come to me, little fly,” it said. Reve Azrael had found a new host body.
I swung my gun around, aiming for the head, but Reve Azrael swatted the weapon from my hand so hard my fingers stung. The gun landed on the carpet a few feet away. I backed away, and bumped into another revenant. It tried to grab me in a bear hug, but I ducked out of its reach and ran. Unfortunately, the only direction I could run in was away from my gun.
I sprinted across the room, narrowly avoiding the cold, grasping hands of revenants. Each dead thing whispered to me as I passed, Reve Azrael’s consciousness following me through the room, jumping from one corpse to the next. “I know you. I know the power you possess,” one said. “I would not be so foolish as to try to kill you,” another said. “Yet you amuse me so,” said a third. I ran past each of them, twisting and jumping to evade their clutches. I searched the crowd, but I couldn’t see Bethany anywhere. I’d lost her in the chaos. I caught a glimpse of Isaac. His flaming dervish spell had only reduced six revenants to ash so far, and was starting to peter out. More walking corpses crowded toward him.
Distracted, I didn’t see a revenant come up on me until it was too late. It grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me toward it. “Perhaps I will keep you as a pet,” Reve Azrael said through its crumbling mouth. “Have you kneel before me in the blood of your companions.”
Something flashed in the corner of my eye. The revenant’s hand released my shoulder and fell to the floor, severed cleanly from its arm. Gabrielle stood beside me, the burning sword in her hands. She swung it again and lopped off the revenant’s head.
“Where’s Bethany?” I asked.
“Just keep moving,” she told me. “Get to higher ground. The stairs.”
Then she was gone, running back into the fray. I charged for the staircase, but I only made it to the base of the steps before another revenant blocked my path. This one was a dead woman in a pantsuit, wisps of thin white hair floating above its bloated and discolored face. One eye was nothing but a dark, empty hole. The other fixed me with an unyielding gaze, the red glow of Reve Azrael’s magic burning in its pupil. Its bony, clawlike hands stretched toward me.
I jumped back, out of its reach, and accidentally knocked into the sculpture of the centaur that stood by the staircase banister. The iron spear rattled loosely in its marble hand. Loose enough to give me an idea.
I grabbed the top half of the spear and pulled it toward me. It slid easily free from the statue. It was awkward and heavy but well balanced, a good enough weapon for now. The revenant lunged at me again. I swung the spear. The tip caught the side of its head, tearing a chunk of flesh from its cheek.
“You should be thanking me,” Reve Azrael said through the dead woman’s cracked lips. “It is not everyone who knows what the future holds for them. The full measure of their destiny. Yours is to be in chains and crawl at my heels.”
“Lady, I’m done being anyone’s pet.” I stabbed the sharp tip of the spear through the revenant’s forehead and into its brain. It fell to the floor. The red light in its eye went out. I pulled the spear out of its head, stepped over the body, and ran up the stairs.
Bethany was already on the stairs, standing near the landing halfway between the first and second floors. Philip was there, too, pulling a revenant’s head away from its shoulder and sinking his teeth into its neck. He bit out a big chunk of rotting flesh, pulled the revenant’s head free of its body, and tossed both down the stairs. He spat again, his features twisting in disgust. “Ugh, I’m going to need a breath mint after this.” His mirrored sunglasses were spattered with dark blood. Even now, he still wore the damn things.
I hurried over to Bethany. “Are you okay?”
She was holding the guns she’d confiscated from Tomo and Big Joe, one in each hand. “I’ve had better days,” she said.
Isaac came bounding up the stairs next. Below, the room looked like a slaughterhouse, the floor littered with chunks of skull, bone, and severed body parts. But there were still far too many revenants still on their feet for us to get comfortable. Over by the bookcase, Gabrielle hacked away at them with her burning sword.
“You cut that one much too close, Isaac,” Philip said. “I thought they were going to kill you with that damn amulet.”
Isaac nodded, catching his breath. “Sorry about that. I had to get her talking, find out what she was planning and how she got through the wards. Now we know.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You wanted to know what I was going to do. You were testing me.”
“Maybe some of that, too,” he said. “You could have told her where the box is and spared yourself a world of trouble, but you didn’t. I’m sorry I misjudged you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry I thought you were crazy and trying to kill everyone,” I said.
Below, four revenants lurched toward the staircase, their glowing eyes fixed on us. Bethany lifted her guns and fired them both repeatedly. The revenants’ foreheads blew apart, and they fell to the floor.
“Not bad,” I said. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
“The Saint Aurelius Home for Orphaned Girls.” She raised the guns again and blew the heads off two more approaching revenants.
I looked across the room at the polished wooden door that led outside. It was the only exit I knew of, but it was too far away to do us any good. Even if we managed to destroy all the remaining revenants, we wouldn’t even get close before the shadowborn stopped us. I scanned the room, searching for another way out. When my gaze fell on the couch near the door, my blood went cold.
Thornton’s body sat up slowly. The white sheet slid off him as he stood up. His clothes were still wet from the Methusal spring, dripping onto the carpet and leaving a trail behind him as he crossed the room toward Gabrielle. She didn’t see him. Her back was to him as she chopped and swung her blazing sword at the other revenants, sending heads, arms, and hands flying. They were no match for her, but they kept coming like cannon fodder, keeping her distracted.
“Gabrielle, behind you!” I shouted.
She spun around, raising the burning sword in her hands, expecting to see just another revenant. She froze the moment she saw it was Thornton.
“Hello, baby,” he said. “Did you miss me?” Pinpoints of red light burned in his eyes.
Twenty-nine
Bethany started down the stairs but didn’t make it far. Both shadowborn vanished from Melanthius’s side and reappeared at the bottom of the steps. They lunged. Bethany stopped short and fell backward, their blades passing over her. She pulled herself upright and scrambled back up the steps.
The shadowborn charged up the steps toward us, their katanas cutting the air so sharply the blades practically sang. Bethany leveled the handguns at them, double-fisted, and started squeezing off shots. The shadowborn disappeared, reappeared closer. She shot at them again, forcing them to vanish once more. As long as she kept them on the defensive they couldn’t launch an outright attack, but it was only a temporary fix. Eventually she would run out of bullets. As it was, the shadowborn were already adapting. They split up, one appearing above us on the landing between the first and second floors, the other appearing right in front of me.