CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The long, deep tendrils of fear slowly fell loose from my soul. The emptiness in my chest, like the prickly hollow heart of a geode, gradually filled with new blood, and new hope. Hope, and something more. With a ragged grin that split my face like a bloody wound, I stood and faced the Iron Lich.
“There’s something you should know about me,” I said. “Fear is nothing to me. Fear feeds me. Fear drives me.”
Lumiere whirled around, more surprised than afraid. He gave my shivering form a perfunctory glance, then checked the rest of Knight Watch. When he saw that the others remained in their fear-induced comas, the Iron Lich visibly relaxed.
“You would have been better off staying down,” he said. “There’s no shame in it. Your friends have the right idea.”
Paralysis stiffened my legs, but I dragged them forward, lurching toward the lich. He watched me for a couple halting steps, then finished with the vial. It clicked securely into place, but the pylon refused to lower into the floor. Bee must have broken something. Frustrated, Lumiere summoned his staff anew. The bolt of lightning that brought it to his hand wasn’t as bright, and the crack of thunder barely shattered my consciousness. Of course, that might have been the blood hammering in my head, or the staccato detonation of adrenaline turning my heart into a snare drum. I leaned down to pick up my sword, and nearly toppled forward. Was going to have to take this slow while my body recovered.
Besides, I needed to give my domain time to take effect. The hollow place in my bones, aching for magical energy, was slowly filling. But I wasn’t there yet.
“Aren’t you curious how I managed it?” I asked. “Your greatest power, an aura of supernatural fear, and I brushed it off like water off wax.”
“Ah, I’m sort of new to this undead wizard role. But I like it. All this time I spent tinkering with engines and poring through schematics. All the pointless math! When I could have just pointed and—” Lumiere swept his staff toward me. “Boom!”
A clap of thunder rolled out from Lumiere’s gnarled staff. The platform shook as a wave of power traveled toward me. I got the shield up just as it reached me. The force emptied my lungs and squeezed down on my head. It forced me back. I skidded backward, chain boots throwing sparks off the metal floor, but somehow I managed to stay upright. When I lowered the shield, Lumiere was still strolling toward me.
“I’m glad you’re finally seeing the appeal,” I said, spitting blood. “Let me show you some of my tricks.”
Rushing toward him, I gathered magic into my stride, drawing in the inertia of a battering ram. My boots shook the ground. Even his bleached bone face managed to register shock as I barreled into him with my shield.
The impact sent him flying. Staff and lich went in opposite directions. Lumiere landed in a heap at the base of the pylon. The staff skittered to the shaft at the center of the platform. I rushed toward it.
“I’m guessing this is pretty important to your whole Evil Mage motif,” I said, and kicked the staff into the open shaft. It spun twice, banged off the ladder, then got caught in the spinning jaws of the open gears and exploded. “Oh, man. That must suck for you.”
“Impudent fool! My power is greater than mere trinkets.” He stood. “I don’t know how you overcame my curse, but your parlor tricks will do you no good against the full strength of this tower!”
“I tried to explain it, but you were yammering on about how much you hated math.” I stalked toward him, sword and shield held carelessly at my side. “My domain is fear. It’s literally the thing that connects me to my mythic self.” To prove my point, I summoned the armor that was lying discarded at the bottom of the ladder. Helm and pauldrons, spaulders, gauntlets . . . the whole kit appeared, first as barely sketched lines of light, and then as steel and leather and brass. The armor settled comfortably on my shoulders. “You had to open the door. But once it was open, I was home.”
“It will take more than one brave knight to defeat me,” the lich growled. He pressed his palms together, then spoke a shattered word. Light flared between his fingers. As he pulled his hands apart, a blade of shadow and silver formed between them. Gripping the blade in his right hand, Lumiere waved at me dismissively. “Come and die, mortal!”
“I’m getting there, hang on.” The ache in my legs and heart was calming down. The armor trick, while impressive, drained a lot of my power. The mists beyond the railing were starting to clear again, and the shoreline flared into bright relief. Dark wings flashed through the corner of my vision. Even with the pylon disabled, the Tour d’Elysee was drawing the lich’s domain into the Gestalt. I had to hurry. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Lumiere lunged at me, chopping down with the mystical blade. The leading edge of his weapon was pale silvery blue, the color of the moon reflecting off a still pond. It was as sharp as a cold wind, though, despite its insubstantial form. I caught the swing with my buckler, but his edge bit into the steel, digging a gouge down the face of the boss. I stabbed from behind the safety of cover and was rewarded with a shriek of pain. But Lumiere’s sword was light, and he was fast. The pressure on my shield disappeared just as something bright and hard hit my forehead, dimpling steel and knocking my visor off its hinges. I stumbled back, and he pressed.
“Death is inevitable. It can be merciful, or it can be cruel,” Lumiere said, sending wide, slicing cuts arcing at me. “I have chosen cruelty for you.”
“Thanks,” I stammered. “But I’ll have to pass.”
I caught his next strike with the hilt of my sword. The eldritch blade cut into the brass of the guard, and I twisted. It wasn’t enough to disarm him, but Lumiere twisted awkwardly to maintain his grip. Setting my shield against his chest, I knocked him off balance. He managed to hook his free arm around my legs as he went down, taking me tumbling with him to the floor. We both sprawled, scrambling over each other to get up.
One icy hand closed around my ankle. I looked down to see that Lumiere was gathering power into his fingers, chanting some profane dirge under his breath. I put my knee into his chin, clapping his mouth shut, then stomped down once, twice, a third time. Bone cracked under my boot, and a satisfying green light poured out. Lumiere shrieked and let me go. I rolled to my feet. My shield was gone, but Chesa’s pair of sickle blades lay nearby. I picked them up and gave them a twirl.
The lich rose. A glimmering crack ran the length of his face, bisecting one eye and leaking a sickly, green glow. He held one hand to the side of his head. When he finally looked up at me, I laughed.
“Immortality ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?” I asked. “Get it? Cracked? Because your face is—”
With a scream that rattled the very steel of the tower, Claude Lumiere threw himself at me. I swung one sickle blade at him, while catching his fist in the curved belly of the other. He ignored both, letting the elven steel cut deep gouges in his unflesh as he barreled into my chest. My breastplate wrinkled, and I rolled back with the force of the blow. He clawed at my face and neck. Blood poured out of jagged cuts along my cheeks. I forced both blades between us, then poured a little bit of my shielding magic into them. It was enough to drive him back, but just as quickly as he retreated, the hulking mass of the Iron Lich rebounded. Pearlescent light danced off the face of my makeshift shield as he battered at me with both fists. Each blow drove me back, one step, three, until I was skidding and stumbling backward.
“You! Are an annoying! Little! Shit!” He punctuated each of these pronouncements with a double-fisted crash. My bones turned to jelly under the assault. Chesa’s blades shattered, and I was left grappling with the undead wizard with my bare hands and the desperation of the living when faced with certain death. Eventually he got past my defenses and landed an open-palm strike on my head. My helm flew off, and my skull rang like a bell. I spun around, dizzily fleeing, stumbling, weaving across the open platform like a drunk man. I eventually came down against the pylon. Using it to steady myself, I turned to face the Iron Lich.
“Have you considered a career in marketing?” I asked through blood-spattered teeth. “You make one helluva pitch.”
“Joking until the end,” Lumiere said. He stalked toward me, chest thrown forward, balled fists straining at his waist. “I would admire that, if I didn’t hate you so much.”
“I do what I can.” I dragged myself upright, resting my cheek against the cool glass of the soul vial. “Sorry, folks. Desperate times.”
Before the lich could move, I drew my dagger and slammed the heavy brass pommel into the vial. It took two strong blows, but finally a crack formed along the top. With a sharp hiss, souls began to escape the container.
The shriek came from behind me. I didn’t expect that. But there was a thunder of leathery wings, and then I was thrown roughly aside. I hit the deck and bounced, then rolled over to face the lich. There was someone else on the platform. Huddled over the still leaking pylon, the crimson-and-white form of Jakub Everlasting had his back turned to me. There was a flash of light as he pressed his hand against the glass. The hissing stopped. I was still working my way to my feet when the vampire whirled on me.
“Zoria was right. We never should have trusted you!” he yelled. “My kith are in there! I can hear them screaming, deep in the bowels of that glass. You could have destroyed them once and for all!”
“You’re a work of art, Sir John,” Lumiere purred. “Making enemies at every step of your path. What were you thinking?”
“That someone might want to have a word with you,” I said. “I think the three of you have some unfinished business.”
“Three of us?” Lumiere cocked his skull at me in confusion. “What—”
A section of metal girder tore free from the floor and flew across the platform. It smashed into Lumiere, throwing him backward. More bits of torquing metal bent up, wrapping themselves around Lumiere’s arms and legs. With each thrashing blow, more and more of the tower turned against their master.
“Hello, my dear.” Cecilia’s flickering green figure, clothed only in scraps of diaphanous cloth that stretched tight over her emaciated body, floated over her husband. “I have a few questions about where you think this relationship might be going.”
“Bitch!” Lumiere howled. He threw the snaring metal away, but each discarded panel or pipe was quickly replaced with two more. The tower groaned as the furious poltergeist tore it apart.
“You should be going.” It was Evelyn who spoke this time. In the afterlife, she was a young girl, small boned with gawky, outsized joints, and a face like a doll. She carried a bloody stake in one hand. “Our hold on this world is slipping. But we will finish this before we go.”
“I’ll take the assist.” The rest of Knight Watch was slowly coming to their senses, shaking off the paralyzing fear that had gripped them. “Couldn’t have done it without you. Though, to be fair, you’re kind of the cause of all this.”
“Your work is not done,” Evelyn whispered. Her figure was fading fast, and her voice was a bare tickle in the back of my brain. “Where we first met. Hidden. You must . . .” She disappeared, flickered back into view, then disappeared again. Only the voice remained. “Destroy it, or this means nothing.”
“What? What do you mean? Your house?” I racked my brains. “That place is ashes and dirt, lady. What are you talking about?”
“Among the clouds . . . quickly . . .” She cut off with a sharp gasp, then there was a ghostly whistle, high pitched, cutting through the air like lightning.
Red eyes appeared in the shadows. The hellhounds bounded out of cinder-curling gates, their scaly backs rippling with muscle as they ran at Lumiere, slavering jaws gaping wide. Lumiere saw them coming, and had the decency to scream in terror.
“I’ve got it!” I shouted. Jakub stared at me in confusion. I grabbed Tembo, pulling him upright. He was unsteady on his feet, but I shook him hard. “Tem! We need a portal!”
“Yes, it would appear that retreat is in order,” he said dreamily and began to cast. “I can get us back to shore, and then—”
“No,” I said, grabbing his hand. “We’re going somewhere else.”