Bloodsong

CHAPTER 3: CATCH AND CONQUER

"No," Nick said, flatly. "No. Fuck off,

no.

"

Valerie had naively presumed that revving back and rolling down the window to show off the unconscious heap draped over the adjoining seat would enlighten the henchman cohort on how matters stood. However, she had failed to account for the fact that in Jack's absence, the person to whom command defaulted was, for some reason that frankly boggled the mind, Nick. Nick, who lay flat on his back with a hand over his eyes in the manner of romance heroines having the vapors. The others would not disperse without his avail, even if it would be far more sensible. Wonderful. It was like someone

wanted

to make everything as difficult as possible.

Valerie stopped the jeep, keeping the engine fired up, and threw the door open on her side of the vehicle. One of her hands was on the wheel, the other on the pommel of the askara sword, the blade of the same against Jack's neck — a split second development brought on by him getting shaken out of the seat by her abrupt braking and landing like a dead weight over her lap.

"Alright, this is how it'll go," she said, pointing at herself, the road, Jack, the sword and enunciating, with mordant slowness: "I'm leaving. I'm taking him. Don't follow."

Thankfully, everyone except Axis, who looked like he wanted to wring her head off her neck and drink from it as from a wine bottle, appeared ready to let her do just that and call it a day. Still, it all hinged on Nick, who'd finally moved, turning on his side in the dust to look at her.

He moved his hand to his hair, gripping his scalp in a familiar nervous tic, swore, as per his habit, and invoked Astara's name in vain twice. Then, making sure no parts of him moved that didn't need to, he lifted his torso until he lounged semi seated, one hand propping himself up and the other still picking at the frayed, crispy edges of his hair.

"

Notice you're fucking outnumbered?

" Nick barked. He wore a muted, less expressive variant of his customary rancorous grimace, as though being purposefully conservative in moving his face. Valerie recalled that when dunking him in gasoline, she'd emptied the container over his head before anything else, making it likely that the fire had taken to it with ease. Now that she noticed it, there was an unusual redness to his face. One too deep and raw looking to be explained away by him being congested with ire.

"Notice the hostage?" She wriggled her foot against the pedals, lamenting the time she didn't have to waste holding a standoff that, unless she'd read the room backwards, wasn't desired by either party. "I wasn't planning on spelling it out because I'd think it goes without saying, but I'm not asking

your excellency

for permission. You're going to stand down, and you won't follow me, or . . . well. You of all people should know how the rest of this sentence goes."

"You rabid fucking bitch!" Nick had better reflexes than one might think, given his performance during fights. Tragically, or perhaps fortunately, the ability was restricted to whipping out crass gestures. His right hand mimicked a K'peri death curse at her. The left one flipped her off in a more down to Earth fashion. Neither impressed nor amused, Valerie reached for the blaster stuck in the cup holder. She deliberately didn't hit the moron, but he definitely hurt himself twisting out of the way.

"

FUCK YOU!

"

"Kindly stop wishing the hand of rot on all my offspring, or whatever it is you are doing. I'd like to know whether you're letting up, or if we have an issue that

your

friend here will pay for in blood." Valerie moved the tip of the sword away from Jack's neck and to his nose. One slice. Just a little pressure. More slices, enough slices, and she'd be forever free from the ache the sight of his face induced. A cut along his throat — she needn't even cut widely or deeply, only strike true — and his voice wouldn't haunt her anymore either, gone or mangled beyond healing.

She could make him a silent stranger, someone she didn't have the false feeling of knowing.

Yet even if she did that, his song would remain.

"Like you would. I mean, who the fuck do you think you're kidding here, you're both loony bin escapees who can't get your shit together on your lonesome, let alone around each other. You think I haven't watched you do the '

oooh, this is a battle only one of us will survive!

' song and dance before? Only for something contrived to come up, every single time, at the last minute, so you just

have

to spare him? Come the fuck on with that bullshit!"

"Cicerny, did you see the psycho face she was pulling just now? She may be for real this time." Axis's support earned him a smile from Valerie herself, although he failed to appreciate it and drew back as though she'd bared her teeth. "Seriously, she was looking at him like she'd eat him alive, I wouldn't put it past—"

"I'd be a lot more worried if I didn't suspect he'd be into it, you know?"

"

That's enough

." Byron stepped in, sighing heavily as he knocked Axis, who'd been about to make another snarling remark, out of the way. He gave the askara sword a look more cursory than concerned before facing her. Valerie pegged him as a member of team '

She Wouldn't, Not Really'

. Funny how they were all making calls when she herself remained both unaffiliated and undecided.

"Redmont, Cicerny is technically in charge if you follow the chain of command, but since Lady Maz didn't plan on ever dying, the chain of command is based on favoritism rather than knowing one's head from one's ass. We can't have that right now, so I'm taking over from him. Problem, man?" Nick shook his head quickly and with all too transparent relief. Looking like he hadn't expected anything different, Byron returned his attention to her. "What are your terms?"

"Are you sure you are more competent than he is, if you failed to notice that I've already named them?" Valerie affected a sigh and moved the sword back to Jack's neck so as to tempt herself less. "Fuck off and don't follow. That'll be all."

"On one condition."

This is not a negotiation

, she wanted to snap back, but nevertheless jutted out her chin to signal her willingness to at least listen. The less time she wasted arguing the better, and the condition might be something that wouldn't encumber her much. She'd rather set a bad precedent than make more work for herself for the sake of not giving an inch.

With Jack, she would not have relented. He needed a firm hand, couldn't be allowed to gain ground, couldn't be yielded to, would always make her regret any point she let him score. Byron, in contrast, was some guy who'd made a cursed career choice and wanted to see this stalemate end even more ardently than she did.

"Yeah?"

"Whatever else you end up doing," his expression telegraphed a conviction that 'whatever' meant 'endeavoring to be an endless nuisance', and Valerie couldn't say he was wrong there — "Don't kill Aramis. I don't think you will either way, but just so we have that settled, don't. Dump him in the desert once you're out of town, whatever, whichever."

"You don't think I will," Valerie bit out, frostily and with no small amount of irritation. With the glaring — literally, figuratively — exception of Axis, that appeared to be a shared assumption. A fact that, beyond being irksome, didn't sit well with her in ways she could not name. "Well, far be it from me to disappoint. He'll live. Now buzz off."

She pulled the door closed with a slam that made at least one of them jump. Then, fast, expecting them to haul themselves out of the way, she reversed out of the alley and onto the main road, pivoting the vehicle so it spun a perfect quarter circle to the left.

The tires would be irredeemably shot, but she'd blown her chances of getting back her deposit either way, with what she'd done to the driver's seat. It swiveled drunkenly every time she changed direction, forcing her to hold on tight so she wouldn't be spat backwards.

Jack's nose bumped against her midsection. Valerie started, stared, and pushed him off.

The next stretch of street was straightforward enough that she could take her hands off the wheel and prop him back up in the passenger's seat. She didn't bother belting him in.

Without a fight in progress streamlining her focus towards issues of greater consequence, Jack's lack of a shirt was a source of discomfort. She quickly dug through his pockets, unable to picture a less suitable or more uncomfortable time to do so, took his phone, called a random number with a Texas area code and tossed it out the window. Unlike Nick's brick, Jack's phone was sleek and modern. Still, Valerie was only mildly surprised when it took out half the street.

Interesting. The destruction was not in proportion to the mass that triggered it, but increasing irrespective of other factors. Valerie could have sworn, too, that as asphalt got blown sky high, it screamed, belting out in voiceless, black and blazing rage.

Mrs. Drakma, who was knowledgeable about magic despite not using it herself, had once explained to her that after the death of the caster, spells were as flowers in a jar. They would last only a while, after which they became wilted and unsightly and fit for the trash bin. Yet sometimes, very rarely, a spell of enough complexity, by virtue of its components or its design, might keep existing beyond the life that had powered it. Like spider plants and geraniums and philodendrons and all plants capable of rooting in water, it would develop the means to thrive.

Those, according to Mrs. Drakma, were the

second

most dangerous pieces of magic, for the sheer difficulty of disarming them. The number one spot belonged to spells that, besides lasting and lasting, grew a will of their own. Those were formidable because, like all living things with self-awareness, they wished to keep on living. Left alone long enough, they might even develop something like a personality. Usually not a pleasant one.

The Ring of Tescara — aptly but ironically named after a deity whose purveys were memory and legacy — had at least enough of a proto-character to make it known that it wanted to hand in its notice, and that her refusal to let it do so had been noted and was in no way appreciated.

Valerie thought through her options as she swerved off the main road. It had been good for creating distance between herself and her pursuers, but would take her straight out of town if she kept on. Jack's men presumed that leaving to call for backup would be her next move, so they'd expect her to head desertwards — Byron's parting words suggested so. Whether they intended to honor their loosely struck agreement or station teams at Westmont's outskirts to intercept her was immaterial, since she had no intention of leaving.

She had considered it, but only at first and never at length. The nearest town was a two-hour drive, dozens of tumbleweeds and many piles of roadkill away. On her way to Westmont, she'd made a short stop there to refill on water and snacks, and had noticed nothing amiss. With her inability to place calls within the confines of the Ring, and considering the dearth of resources at her disposal, she could see why they would assume that to be the plan.

However.

The time it would take for the drugs to burn through Jack's system remained a question mark. He was a dangerous souvenir to take along when he could wake underway, and she had no means of subduing him other than bashing his head in continuously. Furthermore, there was no knowing what effects even a crumbling, labor averse Ring of Tescara would have over her if she tried leaving. It was maybe sapient and perhaps unreliable and

definitely

pissed off. If it struck, at best she'd have her awareness of the situation in Westmont removed from her head. At worst, she'd have her head removed from her shoulders.

Tackling the rescue of Westmont alone was madness.

It was also the only move available.

In any case, she couldn't keep driving around eternally. The Liberation Front had headquarters nearby, but those were a gamble on all levels. If much of the Westmont section had been captured, chances were that the place had been compromised and stripped of anything she could use. Whatever building would serve for squatting in and buying herself time to plan, but having Jack to lug around like an unwelcome, cumbersome and shirt-challenged travel case, made her first consider places where she might find the means to restrain him.

There weren't many that jumped to mind. Byron's suggestion of dropping him off, if not in the desert, then down the first manhole she came across, started looking tempting. However, Jack running loose meant that his men would be egged on in hunting her by someone pathologically invested in their success, rather than be unenthusiastically doing their jobs.

Keep your enemies close, and all that malarkey that sadly, Valerie did see the sense of.

She could also kill him and be done with him. He abundantly deserved it, and most of the big reasons didn't even relate to her. Still — darkness and damnation, Nick

wasn't

wrong. Every time she told herself that now was the time for the too personal, overlong game they played to be over, something within her would stutter —

but, but, but!

— beleaguered by rays of hope. Hope. Hubris. Valerie knew them diseases. She nevertheless balked at the price of the cure.

Her driving mapped a deranged pattern before she settled on a location. The Rivers siblings, with whom she'd gotten on well during her tenure with the Westmont section, had moved into her old place after her transfer. They would have used up the fifty gallons of paxpernia she'd left behind — it was a substance hard to come by, and expensive, so she'd told them to help themselves — but Valerie would be astonished if Johanna didn't have enough explosives stashed in the basement to send half the town flying up in the air.

Her brother would be of more use, though, if he was around. Jonathan was a magic user, and one of those bookish, scholarly types. She didn't dare hope that she'd find them at the house, unless it was to find their bodies, but making a stop there would let her access Jonathan's craft library. It was her best bet at improving her knowledge of what she was working against in some meager measure. So decided, she veered away from the commercial sector.

The window was still rolled down, so the smell hit her promptly, at once acrid and fetid and —

Familiar.

Going against every instinct that begged her to do otherwise, Valerie made a detour, chasing in the direction from which the scent came. Smoke and rot dominated, switching which was more overpowering with the flow and ebb of the wind, but a hint of ozone was perceptible underneath. She was well into the suburbs, the part of Westmont which least resembled the way it had been in the first half of the past century. Also, one she hadn't often visited while she lived there, for the urge it gave her to go stand in front of the manicured fences and yell at the names on the mailboxes to please, for everything they held dear, move to a town less cursed.

Valerie slowed the jeep to a roll. Her gut twisted as she drove past the mounted-up bodies, making her glad that she'd last eaten hours ago and that there was nothing left to hack up.

The fire had gone out days ago. It hadn't been kept burning long enough to char the dead beyond recognition, let alone carbonize them, so they'd decomposed and filled up the street with a reek so pungent it made her eyes water. The whiff of magic past made Valerie suspect that Marabeth had been the one to light the pyre, and that it had fizzled out prematurely with her death. Jack hadn't sent anyone to finish the job by more mundane means. It wouldn't be something that occurred to him.

Jack. Who right now looked disarmingly, disturbingly innocent, slumped beside her with his eyes and mouth shut and his hair curling messily in all directions.

Valerie drummed her fingers against the blaster, tempted, so tempted, yet still not enough.

She parked the car and spent a silent minute watching. She'd seen — not worse. It was impossible to measure grievousness when it came to these scenarios. It felt offensive to even suggest it might be a competition. Still, she had seen comparable, in the war. In the war

s.

She'd seen it too, albeit more rarely, in what she'd once conceived of as peacetime, before learning that the lulls between the end of one war and the start of the next were best called ceasefires. Before knowing that in the end, life itself was one great war in which every formally declared dispute wound up absorbed, until the lines blurred and one forgot whether one stood saluting a pile of corpses in Belgium, Earth, or Osun, Cynihe, or in a too quiet neighborhood in a small to middling North American town.

Eventually, Valerie tore her eyes away and drove onwards, images of the dead chasing her long after they'd left her line of sight. Most if not all too old, or unfit. The Mayfly staff had gone through Westmont as reapers, separating the wheat from the chaff and rounding up the latter for burning. There were, she was certain, guidelines for how to go about it. Criteria people like Byron, like Axis,

like Jack

, stuck to when making a call on whether this or that human was good enough to get a lifetime of rape slash getting worked like a dog instead of a broken neck.

Valerie couldn't help but think, as she turned the corner and relegated what she'd seen to the overstuffed basement of her subconscious, that although the Faith of the Awoken made no mention of hell, some among her kind were capable of building bespoke hellscapes that would make any god seethe with envy. Eager to do so, too, as long as they could make other people be the ones put through them.

Socking an unconscious man in the jaw was pointless, but it made her feel marginally better.

Her old house was well camouflaged, squeezed between the backs of a grocery store and an auto repair shop and subtly cannibalizing their premises. From the street it was invisible. If one were to walk into the narrow alley that formed an upside-down L shape around the grocery store, they'd arrive at what looked like a filler wall between the two businesses, four feet wide and partially blocked by a trash container.

Jack didn't know this address, Valerie was positive. Fifteen times she'd had to move over the course of her stay in Westmont, as he kept ferreting out where she lived. However, there had been no impromptu house calls from him in the three years she'd occupied this address.

She heard — nothing, with her ears or without, once she killed the engine. Nothing aside from Jack's song, intrusive even with the owner out cold. Silence didn't guarantee that she hadn't been followed, or that she wasn't watched, so she remained on alert while hauling Jack out of the jeep. The Mayfly didn't employ only Tsikalayans. Ki laars made up the brunt of Marabeth's — what had been Marabeth's — workforce, and though those weren't worth anything in a fight, they excelled at sneaking around. Sykes had brought Sorals with him, which might pose a true problem if there were more hanging around. They were, shitty healing aside, horrifically fast.

Jack made a yawning sound as she moved him. It had most likely been a liminal response to the change in position, but Valerie was unwilling to take chances, and whacked him over the head with a tire iron half a dozen times. Rather than awkwardly pulling him along, she slung him over her back and dragged herself to the trash container.

She pushed it to the side, revealing an iron door one yard wide. Her key still worked, but the lock had always been capricious, and it took a while for her to remember the trick to get it to spring open. She pushed Jack in head first before coming through herself, paused to pull the trash bin in place and locked the door.