Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files-2 (37 page)

Da Vinci shakes his head once, then fixes me with a look that no longer seems uncertain. “That was impressive,” he says. “You might have been able to shut down my mind completely if not for one thing. I have the Balancer.”

I see now that the crystal he holds is emitting blue light from one end and red from the other. The Balancer gem, the one Stone took from Doctor Transe. Not entirely clear on what it does, but from its name I guess it’s counteracting the chaos I set off in da Vinci’s skull.

“Amazing,” he continues. “I never even suspected the existence of that spell, but now that it’s gone everything seems different.”

“Situation hasn’t changed,” I point out, the Ruger still aimed between his eyes.

“No,” he agrees. “But my priorities have.”

He throws a gauntleted arm in front of his face at the same second the armor bursts into brilliance. I squeeze off three fast shots as my vision flares into white pain, and hear three distinct ricochets off metal. The Ruger would punch through any ordinary kind of armor, but whatever the Centurion suit is made of isn’t ordinary.

I throw myself to the side and snap off two more shots, but it doesn’t sound like I hit anything but the wall. Then my wrist goes numb and I hear a heavy thump on the floor next to me.

I can’t feel my hand. Why can’t I feel my hand?

My vision clears slowly. Da Vinci is standing over me, the Midnight Sword pointed at my heart. I try to aim my gun at him, but I don’t have it anymore.

Or my right hand.

My arm just ends. There’s no pain, no blood. I bring it closer, trying to blink away the spots in my vision, and see what looks like a perfect transparent cutaway at the stump. I can see blood vessels, muscles, an artery—but I’m not bleeding.

“Get on your feet,” Da Vinci says. “Or I’ll send your head where your hand went.”

I glance down. The Ruger’s lying on the floor, but my hand’s nowhere to be seen.

I’d applaud, if I could.

He takes me to the basement. Access is through a hidden door in the study, but at least we don’t have to slide down Batpoles. I’d have a hard time doing that one-handed.

I’m feeling kind of shocky, which is to say light-headed, flushed, and short of breath. My heart’s pounding like I just ran a marathon. “What happened to my hand?” I say, trying to make it sound like a demand rather than a plea.

He motions me into the stairwell with the sword. “I sent it through time. It still exists—in fact, it’s still connected to you—but nerve impulses are more complicated than blood flow, so you can’t feel it. It’ll return in around an hour.”

Great. My hand is off having adventures while I’m the prisoner of Dr. Frankenshine. I wonder where the hell Eisfanger is—and then I get my answer.

He’s lying sprawled and unconscious in the middle of the large room at the base of the stairs. I know he’s unconscious and not dead because he’s still in were form. Half a dozen red-feathered darts jut from his back like an abortive attempt to sprout wings. His aluminum case is open, though—maybe he managed to accomplish something before he was brought down.

“I see you didn’t come alone after all,” da Vinci says. “Unfortunately for your partner, I have an excellent security system. He’s lucky he isn’t a pire; options for dealing with them are considerably more lethal.”

I look around, trying to focus through the shock, looking for options of my own. What I see is—

All the madness that da Vinci’s managed to hide.

It’s not the Batcave, it’s not the Fortress of Solitude. It’s a nest. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, everything’s been coated in layers of overlapping comic book pages, a crazy quilt of brightly colored images that cover every surface, firmly glued in place. It’s not just the walls, either—I can see the outline of a desk, several chairs, a large bookcase, and a globe. The whole room looks like it was attacked by some kind of mutant wallpaper virus, one that’s been festering and growing in the dark; the layers are so thick in places that the right angles where the walls meet the floor and ceiling are now gentle curves.

The only things in the room that have escaped the paper are a few pieces of equipment, including a workstation atop the covered desk. That, and the brass cowboy bolted to the far wall.

“Right,” I say. “The cavalry is already in custody. Outstanding.”

The Quicksilver Kid nods at me, which is about the only part of his body he seems able to move.

“Ma’am. Sorry you got dragged into this.”

“I’m used to it. Happens so often I’m thinking of getting scuff plates mounted on the backs of my shoes.”

“Have a seat, Bloodhound,” da Vinci says.

He motions to one of the encrusted chairs, and I reluctantly perch on it. “Boy, this day is just full of firsts. Never thought I’d be sitting on Superman’s face—”

He backhands me, almost casually. It knocks me right off the chair and makes my ears ring. I can taste blood in my mouth.

“Do not blaspheme in this place,” da Vinci says. “I will not allow it.”

I take my seat again, slowly. “Right. Exactly where are you going with all this, Shelley? You’ve got the Bravos’ weapons—well, four out of five, anyway—but your partner’s dead and you’ve completed the sequence you set out to. What’s supposed to happen now?”

“I would have thought that was obvious. The characters have gone through their paces, the plot has unfurled. Now it’s time for publication . . .”

He takes one of the silver throwing knives from his bandolier, crouches, and stabs it into the floor. It goes in all the way to the hilt without so much as a sound. He moves a few feet and does so again, talking as he works. “This is what gives the ritual
power
, you see. Unlike the first
Bravo Brigade
comic, the one that ended the industry here, this story line will be published on another Earth.
Your
Earth, Bloodhound. I will use the Sword of Midnight, boosted by the energies of the Balancer gem, to cut a hole not just in time but across dimensional boundaries. It will focus on a writer from your reality as a conduit, and my story will be read—not just by a few members of a secret society, but by thousands. And in reading it they will complete an occult circuit, conferring a great deal of occult power to
me
.”

He’s rammed five of the knives into the floor in a rough circle, and now he’s tying the end of a slender white rope threaded with silver around the haft and hilt of one of the knives. He runs the rope in a line to another of the knives, loops it around the haft, then across to another one. In a minute he’s formed a pentagram; he finishes by running the cord around the perimeter to form a circle, then tying it off where he began. Almost immediately, the silver wound through the rope starts to shine with an unearthly light.

“Lie down in the center of the circle, please,” he says. “You can do it willingly, or I can beat you into submission first.”

Neither choice holds much attraction. I consider attacking him—I still have my scythes—but I could only use one, and he’s got the speed, the reach, and the annoying tendency to take away my vision and my limbs. I grudgingly comply.

He adds me to the pattern, tying my ankles and my one wrist. “Looks like you’ve hit a snag,” I say as he pins my stump down with one hand. “You’re out of extremities to attach things to.”

“Yes,” he says, “but I have two more knives.”

He drives the blade through my wrist and into the floor. It hurts a lot worse than losing the hand did, and I scream—more out of anger than pain, believe it or not. “I am
through
with having sharp things rammed through my body,” I hiss.

“I don’t think so,” he says, his voice matter-of-fact. “I still have one more knife . . .”

He stands up. “But I was in middle of some rather delicate preparations when you arrived—the Balancer gem must be attached to the hilt of the Midnight Sword, and that requires tools from my studio. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t worry, you won’t bleed to death; I’m sure I missed the artery.”

He turns and heads up the stairs. I hear him lock the door behind him.

“If you’ve got a plan,” the Kid says, “now might be a good time to crank it up.”

I try my bonds, and am rewarded with a bolt of unbelievable pain and absolutely no movement. “My partner, snoozing on the floor,” I gasp. “Did he say or do anything before the darts got him?”

“Yeah. He tried to pry me off the wall first—that didn’t go so well, but he loosened my one arm up some. Then he pulled out a rattle and a pouch of some kinda dust, started shaking them around and muttering. He was over by the computer tapping away when the darts got him—came out of a slot in the wall, over by the bookcase.”

“What did he say?”

“Just one thing: Tell Jace they’re unlocked.”

“You’re sure? Unlocked?”

“Maybe not. I wasn’t really paying attention, seein’ as how the situation didn’t seem particularly dire.”

I was beginning to think “deadpan sarcasm” was a genetic trait among lems. “Why aren’t you dead, anyway?”

“Ain’t it plain? He needs someone to pin this all on. Two lems working together won’t be hard to sell, not when they’re both dead. You’re gonna wind up with one of my knives in your heart—prob’ly the same one they’ll find in my hand. Don’t figure I’ll be in any shape to say different.”

Unlocked. Did he mean the files on da Vinci’s computer? If so, I don’t see how that information is going to do me much good. What else could be unlocked—doors, windows? I try to think like Eisfanger, to see the world how he sees it. I’d sent him in to gather information, to find out anything that could give us an edge, and if he said something was unlocked that something has to be important.

And then, I have it.

“Kid. Tell me
everything
your knives can do, and make it fast.”

“They cut or penetrate damn near anything. Not time, the way the Midnight Sword does, but spells or magic or anything that’s been enchanted. Once they stab into something, they become part of it. Only one that can pull ’em free is me, so you’re pretty well stuck—”

“Maybe not. Tell me
how
you get them free.”

“Grab and pull, how else—”

“No, no! Tell me what goes on in your head when you’re doing that. Don’t you concentrate, or think in a certain way?”

“Hmm. ’Spose I do.” He’s quiet for a second, and I suppress the urge to scream at him to hurry up.

“It’s sorta like—thinking about opening my hand at the same time I’m actually closing it.”

I turn my head, stare intently at my impaled wrist, and try to feel my missing hand. Try to remember what it feels like to squeeze, to feel my fingers gripping something solid. Send that down my arm, to wherever my missing five digits currently reside—and then think about the opposite, relaxing my hold, spreading my fingers wide.

Nothing happens. But when I give an experimental tug, my arm lifts off the floor easily, leaving no hole behind in the papered floor. The knife drops from my forearm as I lift it, sliding from my flesh with no sensation at all and thumping to the floor. My wound immediately begins to seep blood at an alarming rate.

“How the hell did you do that?” the Kid asks.

“All the Brigade’s weapons were keyed to their respective owners. In order to use them, da Vinci had to
unlock
them—but that means anyone can use them.”

Okay. I’ve got one bleeding, handless arm free. Way to go. I’ll be out of here in no time
.

I fumble at the knife with my forearm, and manage to get it closer to me than before. Now what? I can’t pick it up with a nonexistent hand.

My hand does exist, though, just not at this moment. It’s still connected to me, like a long-lost daughter that’s moved to another state and never writes. I just have to find a way to get her to visit . . . and then, in a flash of counterintuition, I see the solution. I fumble with the knife, getting it onto my legs and then wedged between my thighs, blade up. I concentrate on the blade being as sharp as possible—and then I slide my stump past the cutting edge, repeating the motion that severed my hand in the first place.

My hand reappears. It’s a little dusty, but otherwise unharmed.

“Good thinking,” the Quicksilver Kid says. “You cut through the spell that sent it off in the first place—”

And then we both hear it. The door at the top of the stairs, unlocking.

I grab the knife and cut the rope holding my other wrist. The knife severs the cord like it was made of cheese, but doesn’t do so much as nick my skin; it’s like the blade knows what to cut and what not to.

The door opens. Golden light spills down the steps.

I lean down and free my feet with one quick slash. In another second he’s going to be able to see me. I jump to my feet and dash for the wall the Kid’s bolted to, hoping I can free him as quickly as I freed myself.

Footsteps on the stairs. A sharp inhalation of breath. Any second now a blast of concentrated sunlight is going to turn me into ash . . .

But what I hear instead is the solid
whump
of one body slamming into another, followed by the crash of both onto the floor at the foot of the stairs.

Da Vinci is facedown, with an angry thrope on top of him who’s doing his best to claw da Vinci’s head off. The armor is protecting him from the worst of it, but he’s dropped the Midnight Sword. It juts upright from the comic-paneled floor, the Balancer gem glowing where it’s mounted across the hilt.

For a second I think the thrope is half mummy, some kind of were version of a wrapper, but then I realize the bandages are more than just cosmetic.

It’s Dr. Pete.

I have no idea what he’s doing here or how he found me, and I don’t have time to worry about it. The knife shears through the bolts pinning the Kid to the wall as easily as they did my bonds, and in a few seconds I’ve got the lem down from the wall.

Light and heat flood the room, and suddenly the air is full of the stink of burning fur. Dr. Pete howls in pain, dives to the floor, and rolls to put out the flames. The Kid grabs his knife from my hand.

Dr. Pete has managed to put himself out, but now the floor itself has caught on fire. Da Vinci gets to his feet, looking around for his sword. I can’t let him get to it.