Bitten in Two (40 page)

The worst part? Bergman, stil holding the rock, also flew upward, bringing me along for the ride. We slammed back down again so hard that I lost my grip and he began to slip through the gateway.

I lunged for his legs, yel ing, “Vayl! Something huge is pul ing us in!”

I caught Bergman’s calves just as his belt disappeared through the gateway.

Screaming. So many voices I couldn’t separate them anymore. Some in my mind. Some in hel . At least two in the world I was trying desperately to keep my best friend inside.

Bergman wedged his ankles under my armpits. “Ow!

Son of a—”

My own voice was drowned by the sound of Sterling chanting, but the spel that raised the hair on the back of my neck wasn’t helping me or Bergman. We kept inching forward. I risked a look, which was when I saw Vayl, outlined in a red glow, jump through the planar door.

“Holy shit! Sterling, what did you do?”

“Don’t talk to me,” he ordered. “I have to concentrate on him or he’s going to get stuck there.”

Speaking of which… I got a better grip on Bergman’s calves and twisted, trying to rol him out of the gate. We just went sideways. And then we rol ed the other way. Great moves if we ever wanted to transform ourselves into burritos. Kinda pointless for escaping a hel hatch.

“Don’t let go!” I cried. I wasn’t sure whether I was talking about the rock—or me—or hope. But the fear building in me gave me strength to pul even harder, especial y when Bergman began to shake. And then it turned into a ful -body shudder. He was dying, his soul unable to cope with the pain, the horror of lying poised over a pit whose contents—

for him—I could only imagine. He began to pray. I heard him say something about his parents. Was I supposed to contact them? Or leave that job to the Agency? I couldn’t understand his directions. And it pissed me off that he thought he needed to give them.

“Astral!” Vayl bel owed. “To me!” The cat, who’d spent the whole conflict singing “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by the Animals, ran across our backs and leaped into the abyss.

“My cat!” moaned Bergman.

“She’s helping!” I yel ed.

“She’s going to get decimated! We
all
are!”

“Are you seriously giving up when we’ve almost won?” I shouted. “You do realize if you let them get you that the Great Taker is going to find out every one of your secrets.” I felt his legs tighten. Aha! He’d heard! “He’l probably even put you to work inventing some savage torture device that you’l then have to try out first on yourself. Is that real y how you want to spend eternity?”

I felt his muscles bunch, and waited. Held my breath.

Vayl and Astral jumped back through the door. His sword dripped with blood and pus. Astral said, “Hel o?” Vayl said, “Now, Jasmine! Pul !”

Vayl said, “Now, Jasmine! Pul !”

A huge yank, Bergman backing himself out of the doorway though I could see how it tore at his shirt and gouged his skin. No doubt al his stitches would have to be redone. But it didn’t stop me. I put everything I had into tugging him free. Not just muscle but bone and blood and every drop of love I’d ever felt for him. My feet scrabbled against the cobblestones until I felt them grabbed by two different sets of hands.

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.

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.

How can I take anything you say seriously when your
lipstick is always smeared?
I replied.

I’d like to know too
, said Teen Me.

What, you’re all in this together now?

Granny May shrugged.
He’s the one who could’ve
been. So… we’re interested. Plus, we know who he ends
up with, romantically speaking. Which gives us even more
of a stake. So to speak.

We do? Who?

She waved her finger in front of her face and gave me that
tch
,
tch
noise that makes me want to throw pil ows.

Quit changing the subject. We want answers.

I sighed.
He’s like… those french fries you can only
get at the county fair. You know the ones I mean? Lick-your-lips salty with some sort of addictive secret flavoring
that you know isn’t good for you but you don’t care
because it’s so amazing.

They al nodded. Yup. That was Cole.

“Concentrate!” Sterling said, so sharply that I jumped and nearly lost my grip of Cole’s hand. I started to watch Astral’s projections but our warlock said, “Think of private conversations with Cole. Think of him at his most honest.

His most human.”

Almost at the same moment Vayl, Bergman, and I began to laugh. Sterling raised his eyebrows. “Real y?”

“He’s pretty funny,” said Miles.

“Good. Keep that in mind.” Sterling stepped away from the bed. I should’ve guessed what was about to come when he wrapped his arm around the bars that covered the windows. Three quick movements of his wand drew a sparkling white image in the smoke that faded as soon as it appeared. But it seemed to work as a catalyst, raising a wind inside the room that swirled the smoke in a circle, shoving more of it down our throats.

My curls began to dance in the air. Vayl’s shirt flapped against his broad chest. Bergman sneezed. Cole went perfectly stil as we remembered. His you-should-hug-me-now grin. The way his eyes lit when a woman, any woman, entered the room. And the love that spil ed out like concession-stand popcorn when he talked about his family, old girlfriends, the beach, bubblegum…

And then we could see it happening. The smoke clearing as our breath wafted out, looking winter-day frosty.

The cleansed air swirling into Cole, relaxing him more and more with each breath. The edges of his eyes fading to pink and then to white before closing. He began to snore.

Sterling left the window. “Astral can stop now,” he said.

I gave the cat her order and she closed the Enkyklios down, stepping off Cole’s stomach only to curl up beside him. “Good idea,” I told her. “Keep watch and let me know as soon as he wakes.”

We stil hadn’t let him go, though. It was like, having brought ourselves so close to the part of our team that brought us the most happiness, we couldn’t walk away.

Sterling said, “You did wel . I believe he’s been completely reclaimed.”

We nodded. Vayl stepped back. So did Bergman. I squeezed Cole’s hand. Then I placed it gently on the bed and began to turn away.
Wait. What did I—