The Silenced Tale, стр. 100
“I’d like to learn that,” Bevel says, approvingly. They are just a few steps away from Ichiro now, everyone feeling loose-limbed and confident that they are in the eye of the hurricane.
“Sure, man, we can roll up a character for—hurk!”
Something wet and hot splashes across Elgar’s face so quickly that he doesn’t get a chance to see what it is before he stumbles back, hands up. He reels, eyes screwed shut, spitting it out of his mouth. It tastes like pennies.
“Fuck,” Elgar hears Bevel snarl, and then there are hands on his shoulders, drawing Elgar back, and away again. He’s pushed down amid a jumble of chairs and tables, with no care for bashing his limbs.
“Ow!” Elgar says, indignant.
“Shh!” Bevel hisses back.
“What happened? Why are we . . . ?” he trails off when he finally gets his eyes clear. It takes a second to focus them, to really see what he’s looking at. Red-and-black splatters on a blue field resolve themselves into . . . dear god, blood on a headless torso.
Chapter 14 Forsyth
I have watched people die many times.
I stood over my father as the light flickered and snuffed in his eyes. I grasped my mother’s hand as she struggled to breathe against the chest infection, and ultimately failed; when she went still and let out a rattling sigh, and I prayed for the inhale that never came. And I was there when Lanaea was struck down by the Deal-Maker Spirit, though I did not see the precise moment her Book was Shelved.
I’ve never seen decapitation, though; never gone to the execution grounds in Kingskeep; never even watched a chicken being beheaded for dinner. It’s quicker than I thought it would be, and I will call that a blessing only because it means that Ichiro didn’t suffer.
Pip gasps, sucking in a deep breath, immediately turning her face into my chest. Wrapping my arms around her, I watch the body crumple like paper. The head spins once in the air, and I squint against catching the expression on the face. I do not want to see. I do not want it to feature in my nightmares.
“Holy fucking fuck!” Elgar yelps. His voice echoes in the vast hall and covers the sound of the head hitting the floor. Thank the Writer, for if I had heard it, I don’t think I would ever be able to get that out of my nightmares, either.
“What . . . how . . . ?” Kintyre says, Foesmiter up, scanning the room for what has done this horrible thing. A puff of ash and sparks, directly behind Ichiro, is the only clue. Some monster that I had missed, that I had failed to see, had struck the young warlock from behind. And then burned.
This is my fault. Again.
“Fuck, is this Station Five?” Pip whimpers against my jerkin, her face pressed against the lump that is the Shadow’s Mask.
“I thought we agreed that the Stations didn’t apply?” I ask her.
“I didn’t think so, but now I . . . Forsyth, what do we do now?”
“Retreat and regroup,” Bevel answers, herding Elgar back toward the ballroom.
“No!” comes a scream.
At first, I think it’s one of the ashen-faced, silent, horrified cosplayers around us, but then the scream happens again: “No! Let go! Let me go!”
The voice is shrill and panicked, and it is not coming from the people around us. A grunt of physical struggle catches my ear, and Pip and I both turn to look over at a pile of unremarkable, overturned tables at the same moment. We are just in time, too, for through what appears to be a tear in a veiling spell, an elbow emerges—an elbow clad in mint green. It is followed by the rest of the arm: wrist and hand, shoulder and neck; long dark hair, loosed from its braids; a violently pink scarf.
“Ahbni!” Pip shouts, and takes a few running steps toward the young woman before Kintyre blocks her path. “What the hell, Kin? Get out of the way!”
“Wait,” Kintyre says, and remains blocking Pip. “If she’s pulled back in, you’re not going with her.”
“Yeah, that’s not something I need to do a third time,” Pip says, her fingernails biting into Kintyre’s arm. “But we can’t just . . . someone, help her!”
Something has hold of Ahbni’s other arm, dragging her back, and she skids and slides on the cement and ash as she struggles to escape. Bevel leaps forward and grabs her around the waist, yanking her out of the tear in nothingness.
When she is free, he tosses her aside, and she trips and falls hard to the ground. Bevel wasn’t rescuing her, I realize; he was getting her out of his way. Bevel aims the ray-gun into the tear and fires, but whoever was there is gone already, lost to sight once more.
“Damn you to all seven of the hells!” Bevel snarls at the open air.
“Gee, fucking thanks!” Ahbni says, wincing as she struggles to flip onto her hands and knees. Bevel grunts and helps her to her feet.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, perfunctorily. Something about his abruptness niggles at me. Something about her shirt, and her phone, and the timing of her escape from the Viceroy. The fact that she is a guest liaison, and yet isn’t. Something that—
“No,” Ahbni says, and that’s all she manages before my wife is barreling into her, wrapping her in a hug and simultaneously patting her down, looking for blood or bruises.
“Jesus Christ, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ahbni says, pushing Pip off and blushing. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”
“Tell us what he has planned,” Kintyre says, stepping up now. “Tell us how to get at him.”
“Give her a few minutes, Kin—” Pip starts, pushing past me, but my brother cuts her off.
“We don’t have a few minutes. There, on the floor, lies our first casualty of this war”—he points to Ichiro’s remains with Foesmiter—“and the longer we stand