The Pact, page 24
part #1 of The Dark Roads Series
"I bet you thought me some wet-behind-the-ears law dog when you saw me in the bar, didn't you?" she purred, passing very close to him, close enough to nearly touch him. "Just some little tin-star looking to make a name for herself with your ugly mug behind bars."
He spun and fired again. She ducked along with him, moving as he moved, easily out of the way of his gun.
"But you would've been wrong," she whispered. "I am not a law dog...and I am not some silly little girl looking for glory."
She stepped up, taking the barrel of his gun and pressing it against the scar beneath her shirt.
"My name is thurisaz, shit-rat," she hissed. "And I'm right here."
He fired, but she'd already moved. D'aej slipped them through the darkness, and now her hand pressed against the outlaw's back, between his shoulders. Her other hand came up, and she raked her nails across her palm. Blood sprung out over the lifelines.
She forked the sign in a single, swift, hateful motion.
"Uruz."
Barely a whisper.
The man's body jerked under her touch, and a spray of blood fanned out over the sand in front of him. He threw his head back and screamed, the weight of her silence rune lifted so she could hear his pain, echoing up into the bruised purple sky, then quickly lost in the sound of the rain as it broke loose and showered down on them. Lightning caught the twisted horror in his eyes, like an accusatory slap. She perceived his energy, his life, twisting and writhing in the flesh of his body and the heat of his organs. In a strange, discomfiting way, it struck her as the exact reverse of the bond connecting her and D'aej. This spell split something inside the victim, tore something away from its very spiritual core.
Convulsing, Jack's murderer collapsed to his knees, still screaming uselessly into the sky as his body wracked itself to pieces.
Serenity hardly registered that her palms had grown cold. Wet with the blood of her curse, and the blood of her victim. At her fingertips glowed a small, dim spark of gray, dingy light.
She'd done it. She let out a slow breath, turning her hand to watch the mote of energy creep and crawl along her fingertips. She'd torn out his soul—what pitiful bit of it he possessed—and now she held it, literally, in the palm of her hands.
She snapped her fingers, and the little spark burst into nothing.
She stared, for long, long moments, at the place where it had been. Unmoving, her lungs heaving, heavy and struggling in the humid air, she watched long and hard, at the nothingness hovering—empty, silent space—just where the man who'd killed Jack writhed only a heartbeat before.
Finally, she turned and walked away.
***
The storm pitched into a rage overhead. Sour, muggy rain pelted her as she walked and walked, miles into the desert with no destination. Her mind...empty. No thought, no feeling, no D'aej, even in this place. She put one foot down in front of the other, not knowing, not seeing, where she headed.
Shot six times, like a dog in the street—
Like a dog in the street—
Trembling, because the rumbling cough of thunder sounded so much like the cold, husky chuckle of grinning, long-legged death.
Because there ain't no home for you but mine, Serenity Walker.
Ain't no home for you but mine.
Once upon a time, her darkling asked her what she would do, once this, her greatest hunt, came to an end. She'd had an answer then...but she didn't remember it now. Head down in the darkness, the echo of her runic chain humming in her veins...
She did not know where to go.
After some time—though she'd never know how much—she stopped. The rain stung where it hit her skin. The fever escalated, driving her up into a state of delirium.
Serenity threw her head back, opening herself to the elements, to the spirits of the otherworld dancing gleefully all around her. The wind snatched off her hat and carried it away into the night. She spread out her arms and surrendered.
It was over.
Everything was over.
She opened her mouth and let loose the cry that had been wailing inside her forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jonah listened to her story with a grimace, preparing their dinner over the tiny cooking fire. She'd convinced him to build one after all, as far as possible from the perimeter of the drooping branches around them, and he conceded to let her use runes to do away with the smoke. Serenity had judged correctly—the tree proved huge, big enough to build a whole camp beneath and still have elbow room for all three of them. The horses and Nathara's hinny didn't fit, of course, but they'd tied up fine behind the old willow, left to graze on the tall grass without being spied from the road. The comfortable, salty smell of bacon hung throughout their little shelter, and Serenity put out the cigarette she'd been smoking while she told her tale, eagerly anticipating the meal.
"Impressive," Jonah muttered, though by the tone of his voice she could tell he wasn't so much impressed as repulsed.
"It's what I had to do," she said as he loaded up a plate of food for her. "It's the reason I sought out the Sons of D'Shaye and offered myself to a darkling. To let Jack be at peace."
"Sure, and did you ever stop to think what kind of peace it would bring your hero mentor to know his student turned to destroying men's souls in her vengeance? Did he raise you to be judge, jury and executioner, then?"
He said it without any harshness. His voice was calm, even, as he served Nathara her dinner next. Serenity didn't respond right away. She picked out a strange, nostalgic familiarity in the words he said, as if she'd gone over the whole thought before. At the same time, she couldn't wrap understanding around it. Something, some answer, evaded her as she picked at the food on her plate.
Jack would understand. He'd know she'd acted out of justice. Out of necessity.
"And I don't regret it," she told him.
"Don't you?" he asked.
"I don't."
The look in her eyes must have been enough to assure him, because he nodded and returned his attention to his food.
"Well, weaver of Eclipse," he murmured. "Don't you think you should?"
She blinked, hand half-raised to shovel the first forkful of dinner into her mouth. She eyed him, and finally let the fork drop back down onto her tin plate. "Why? Why should a man like that be allowed to live when a hero like Jack dies so...so unremarkably?"
"Why should you be the one who decides?" he countered.
"Jack brought in murderers like that piece of trash all the time!" she said.
"Sure, but he put them in prison. You executed your man at your own discretion, and denied him a place in this world or any other, just because you could."
"Not because I could," she corrected. "Because he deserved to suffer."
Jonah raised his eyebrow and took a long drink from his canteen.
"Truth be told, Serenity Walker, what makes you any more noble than the killers your mentor brought in every day?
She glared, taking a petulant bite of her food.
"I had to do it," she repeated.
Silence took over for several moments, as all three campers attended their meals. Apparently, Jonah meant to treat her like a criminal, despite what she'd done for him. The conversation ruined the satisfaction of good food for Serenity, and she tried not to dwell on how much better the bacon might taste if she didn't have such a bitter sense of unfairness dwelling in her gut.
"So how did you finally end up here, then?" Jonah asked her, striking up the conversation anew. "You made your journey, you found your man, and killed him. You accomplished everything you set out to do, didn't you?"
"I did," she replied.
"Then why are you here?"
She mulled it over. Not the answer to the question. She knew the answer. But she didn't understand his reasons for asking the question.
"Did you think that was all I meant to do with this power?" she asked.
"Sure," he replied. "Your darkling let you have your fun with the outlaw. But afterwards, you had no more purpose, did you? Your body belongs to a demon. I would have expected the demon would take the chance to collect."
She snorted. "For a man who thinks he's got the Black Guild figured out, you have very little understanding of how a demon pact actually works. I'm stronger than the men who become lost souls and abominations. I won my duel with the demon. So he can't just collect and make me a slave."
"I understand you think so." He set down his plate of food, and Nathara sneaked a forkful of eggs. He pretended not to notice and continued. "One day, you're going to wake up and see what the pact really is. You're nothing more than a puppet who can't see its own strings."
She straightened, lifting her chin. She wanted to like Jonah, she truly did, but he had such an insufferable sense of superiority. "And what do you know about it?" she shot. "A man who can't even use magic anymore, who tried to be like us and then backed out? You're everything the Sons of D'Shaye revile, Jonah. A coward and a weakling."
"Rest assured, Serenity, you have very little understanding of what I've faced." His voice, still calm and even, betrayed not the slightest hint of annoyance at her.
Jonah took up his plate again, offering no sign he noticed half his eggs and one of his bacon strips had disappeared. D'aej whirred quietly in her head, calculating Jonah's words with venomous resentment, but Serenity watched the old cripple's tired, well-lined faced.
"My demon is my partner," she said finally. "Not my master. He's called D'aej."
"Call them by name, and you give them strength they don't deserve. They aren't people."
She sighed. "Of course not, but he is my partner."
"Damnit, are you just willfully obtuse?" Jonah slammed down his plate in disgust. "It is using you to cull power in the human world. It isn't a partner, it isn't a friend, it isn't even a he. It's a demon. Demons are liars and deceivers, Serenity, from the lowest dregs of the diablos to the Reaper himself! Every one of them looking for a human gullible and proud enough for them to manipulate to their ends!"
Despite his agitation, Serenity smiled. "I know the rhetoric, Jonah. But demons are only shadows and spirits. Humans—the right humans—can be stronger."
"That is a fool's pretext, weaver. You're afraid to hear what I have to say because you're afraid it will make you weak. You're afraid to lose your power and all the right it gives you to steal and ravage and murder the people who are weaker than you are. Because every time you say ‘I had to do it', you're just excusing yourself from the responsibility to obey the laws your teacher died to uphold. You think you're above right and wrong, because you happen to be more talented than most."
"I wish you would stop trying to disgrace me," she snapped. "I did this to honor Jack's memory and to become the kind of hero he was."
"You're no kind of hero, Serenity Walker. You're a tool."
"I am more powerful than D'aej is—"
"You're an arrogant tool. You will never be powerful enough to tame a darkling. None of us are. None of us ever will be." He looked away from her, to where Nathara, having finished her meal, now smoothed out a place in the fallen leaves to spread her bedroll.
The young girl was painfully methodic in her work. Picking up a leaf, she studied it, before calmly putting it aside, separating the lot of them into piles.
"I'm giving you a chance," Jonah said, "because you said you wanted to help Nathara. But look at yourself, Serenity. Are you even close to the kind of person Jack wanted you to be? Are you the woman you wanted to be? Is this really the life you sought when you decided you absolutely had to have a demon by your side?"
He offered her a final, exhausted look, before rising to his feet. "You're a prisoner, Serenity, as much as she is. And these darklings—all the spirits of the otherworld—they're not just going to be content to play with us forever. Soon they're going to get really nasty. I'm telling you, you need to break free from it all, before that happens."
Without waiting for a reply, he left the shelter of the boughs to tend to the horses alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
D'aej woke her several hours later. The darkling had stayed angry with her most of the night, but now, at last, his anger seemed to have dissipated. He woke her, turning her mind on from within like lighting a series of lamps, spreading a message of warning to her as he did.
He's here, Serenity. He's very close.
Her eyes came open quickly, but she remained still in her bedroll, listening. D'aej paired himself with her, and together their ears took in the sound of the whole valley. Sure enough, less than a mile away from their camp, just coming down the road, she caught the beat of tired horse's hooves.
"You're sure?" she whispered.
Positive, fleshling. You've got your man.
Exhilaration swept over her, swift and sudden, like an arrow through the heart. The secret thrill that came with the face of the man she had come to strike down. The demon purred within her again, prowling restlessly in her human body and ready to pounce.
Jonah's quiet snores and Nathara's soft, sleeping breaths faded from notice, and Serenity found herself sitting across the fire from the flickering, dancing form of her darkling, set on the hunt again.
"Does he know we're here?" she asked.
D'aej sent her a slow ripple of doubt, a shrug in his strange language of colors and sense. I can't tell. His mind is masked from me, for now. He has a clever grasp on the tricks of my kind.
"Yes, he would," she agreed. Already, her hands played through the signs, practicing the spell, the unforgotten chain of uruz and thurisaz, the chain she had come to think of as her chain. "But can you take me to him?"
We can walk through the darkness, as we always do. Darkness is the cloak under which we all travel, sooner or later, Serenity... even him.
She slid out of her bedroll and climbed to her feet, dispelling the trick vision D'aej spun around her, and she left the little, sheltered camp on silent, stealthy feet. The horse waited for her as if he, too, knew the time had finally come. She patted his muzzle, but she left the saddle and bridle untouched. She only dug through her saddlebags, coming up with her cards. Jack's cards.
Those would be all she needed.
The valley stretched wide, and the tall grasses basked in the light of the stars. The moon had sunk below the horizon some time ago... dawn would be approaching soon. But the darkness still hung over them, like a grandmother's cool quilt. Serenity and D'aej scanned out over the fields, their eyes and mind as one, searching for the quarry who wandered so willingly across their path.
Soon enough, he appeared. A single rider, walking his chestnut mare slowly along the old dirt road, as if he had no fear or worry in the world. They watched him pass beneath the branches of a skinny tree just down the road, and her hand dropped the sign to walk through the shadows. D'aej whisked her there.
The instant she landed safely, the rider came to a resolute stop.
"Hello, Serenity."
She stood from her crouch, gracefully coming to her feet. Already Jack's cards shuffled through her fingers, the familiar old habit, and she grinned. His horse stood very still, and the rider didn't turn to look at her. He'd known, alright, just like he'd known years ago, back in Eclipse. He wore his traveling cloak wrapped closely around him, his hood pulled low over his face.
She shuffled the cards into one hand, her voice low and even a little friendly as she made the weaver's sign of greeting before her. "Hello, Rook."
"When did you learn how to slink through the darkness like a thief?"
"Back home," she replied. "I had to. They locked me in the prison, and it was the only way to escape."
"They say weavers who use that spell are hiding something."
"I hide nothing from you, teacher."
He didn't reply. For a moment, there was only silence between them, as if, after all this time, neither of them knew how to proceed. D'aej prowled, watching, waiting, assessing their prey with eager curiosity.
"You're here to kill me?" Rook asked, dismounting. "To tear my soul from my heart and feed it to your demon?"
So he'd been keeping tabs on her somehow. Flattering. "Are you afraid?"
He sighed, and clucked his tongue for the horse. He spoke to it very quietly, stroking its muzzle, and it retreated from them, leaving them alone in the shadow of the dogwood.
"I'm sorry to say that, in your current state, you would never understand my fears," he replied. "But suffice it to say, dying at your hands is not among them."
"From the moment we met, you knew I would grow to be stronger than you," she said, taking a step out from the shadow to meet him on the road. Inside, D'aej glowed with pride, and filled her head with his pleasure. "For so long, I watched you burn with it, your secret jealousy. Such a covetous gleam in your eyes when I threw the cards and they played just right, every time. When the best readings fell from my hands instead of yours. And then, M'rath'a left you, for just one moment, to come to me, and I saw how angry, how frightened it made you. She was your darkling, and yet she couldn't resist a peek into my mind, to see what a real prodigy looked like."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," he muttered in reply. "You've grown far too big for your britches, Serenity Walker. Burning down taverns and churches, murdering men at a whim and using the runes to take whatever it is you please. I wonder, do you even see what it is you've become? What that heinous little creature has turned you into?"
How did he know any of this? Of course, what did it matter if he did?
"I've become strong, teacher. Stronger than you. Stronger than you ever wanted to know."
"And so why is it you've come after me?" he asked. "There's no price on my head. And I never did you wrong."
"Then you are afraid, aren't you?" She paced back and forth in front of him, watching his face, waiting for him to show proper concern.
Even with the hood up, covering his face, she sensed his familiar, chiding smirk. Irritating.
