Out of the Black - Lee Doty [72]
The disturbance in the currents of the Underworld gives Ivo enough warning to divert the onslaught of the first Savant. Ivo recognizes her weave-work. Her craft is the sloppy work they teach in Asado. Her Casts are as elegant and subtle as a stone axe.
Before he can counterattack, he has to dra the machine pistol a few degrees to the right. The man holding the weapon, if you can call him that, stands perhaps three meters away. His twisted face seems to be made of black, oily leather. Black, oily leather now shifting from fierce to frightened, touching surprise lightly on the journey. He perhaps senses what's next.
Ivo pushes outward and down, grinding, grating the low-order demon across the pavement. Before the end of the first meter, he's leaving a dark wet mark. At about meter five the scream terminates, the chipped bones stop at ten meters.
The Savant's next assault is already in progress. Time compresses, the speed of the Loom begins to depart as she attempts to force Ivo back into the Overworld. Ivo bores into her Cast and travels back toward her, hidden in the outward flow of her power. He arrives at her interface to the Loom. Unnoticed, he inserts a graft of his own weaving into the template she is activating.
With an interrupted scream, she explodes outward, splattering the creatures around her. Startled by the unexpected shower, they scatter. An instant later, they scatter again, bisected by lines of force wielded by their intended target.
Strengthening the weave of Vision, he pushes his perception outward, looking for what he knows must come. There! At the edges of his Vision, the disturbances in the flow of the Underworld's power indicate about fifteen of the puppets converging on him. He can't see them because of the interference they cause, but he knows what he would see all too well. Fifteen this time. Their master is getting stronger.
The shells tear into the concrete wall behind him, his blood seems to rush inward, collecting in his abdomen. When he looks down, he sees the hole. Shock has been all used up, so all Ivo is left with is a hole in the stomach. No emotional implications, no feelings of fear, outrage, or violated frustration. Hope keeps him moving. It's not too late.
The shooter ends in a pile at the base of the wall on the other side of the underpass, a spent dot under the red dripping exclamation point of his demise.
The blood stops flowing onto Ivo's shirt. No time to fix the damage, but maybe a little direct pressure will buy him enough time to get Roy out of here before...
No.
His eyes move to the front seat; the dam bursts- no father should outlive his son.
There amid the blood and shattered bone lie the remains of his bright boy's stolen potential.
His hand still grips the twisted steering wheel now embedded in the safety glass of the windshield. He must have ripped it off in a spasm as he died; his strength, speed, lightning mind, sense of humor, hellish persistence- all useless now.
Ivo slips back into the Overworld, lost in a tornado of what might be grief or guilt. Blood again flows from the ragged hole in his gut. He doesn't care. He is thinking of the small hand on his face as he worked the light into Roy's mind so long ago, the trusting smile that is no longer attached to that hand.
He doesn't have the few minutes it would take for him to care about the world again. He has the heart to fight for family, for survival, but not revenge. Before he can again care about the black wave that he knows is washing over the world- long before he reacquires the desire to fight, or even survive, the army of the Outsider is upon him.
***
Dek is downtown at Ivo's lab when Roy's side of the conversation ends in gunfire and the clock