Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [116]
“She’s bluffing,” I said aloud for the soldiers’ benefit. “She would have to drag me from the car to work magic, and she won’t touch me.”
“Why not?” Gregorio asked.
“She fears the hand of flesh.”
“What is that, the hand of flesh?”
I didn’t bother to explain, because in moments, if all went well, it would explain itself.
Siobhan started to close the few yards that separated us. She would come closer, just not too close, so whatever she had planned needed less space between us. The others came at her back, gleaming in their armors of many colors and many shapes like an evil rainbow, combined with your brightest dream and worst nightmare. We were the Unseelie, terrible and wonderous.
“Whatever you’re going to do,” Gregorio said, “you better do it fast.”
I opened the invisible mark on my hand that held the hand of flesh. That mark now touched the hilt of Aben-dul. It is an enchanted weapon, but when it finds its rightful wielder, there is no learning curve. There is only a sense of rightness, and knowledge, as if the use of the weapon were like breathing, or the beating of my heart. I did not have to think how to focus the hand of flesh down that blade. I simply had to will it.
Siobhan reached behind her and lifted a pack off her shoulder. She opened the flap, and began to fiddle with something.
Gregorio screamed, “Bomb!”
“It can’t take out this vehicle,” the driver said.
“What happens if she gets it through a window?” I asked in a careful voice, because if even my voice wavered, it would hurt my control. I had never used Aben-dul before, and it was like trying to walk up a steep flight of steps with something hot and dangerous in your hands. Careful, or it spills.
“No one can throw through this glass,” the driver said, thumping her window with a knuckle, “so just roll up the window, Princess.”
“You have no idea how strong Siobhan is,” I said. “She could throw anything through any glass.”
The driver turned in her seat and looked at Gregorio. “Are the sidhe that strong?”
“Intelligence says yes.”
“Shit,” the driver said, and she started scrabbling for something on the floorboards.
I kept my attention on Siobhan and her package. I’d meant to simply unleash the power, but now, suddenly, I had to focus it. I aimed the sword at the hand that held that innocent-looking pack. If a soldier told me it was a bomb, I believed her.
Siobhan stood and reared her arm back to throw. Then the arm wasn’t quite as long as it had been. I thought, flow, twist, become…. The flesh of her hand flowed over the strap of the pack. I’d seen my father do this, concentrate on the part of the body he wanted to damage. He’d had to touch the body to do it, but the principle was the same. He’d been able to flow flesh to a degree, and stop it if he wished. I didn’t have that control yet. No, being honest, at least to myself, I had a plan for the bomb, and it didn’t include stopping short of the worst that the hand of flesh could do. The plan relied on doing my worst to Siobhan.
She screamed and shrieked. The darkly glittering throng at her back stepped away. She stood there with the pack melding to her body. But she moved in a circle of empty space. None of them would chance touching her. They knew the story of what had happened to Pascoe and Rozenwyn; no one would risk such a fate.
She began to run toward our Humvee. Even as I prepared to destroy her, I admired her bravery. She knew what I was going to do, and she would, with her last effort, try to take me with her. Her determination was flawless.
A rifle shot rang out, so close I was deafened by it. Our driver, Corporal Lance, was shooting out her window, and had taken out one of Siobhan’s legs at the knee. I hadn’t even been aware that Lance had rolled her window down. But I had to focus, had to keep the spell where I needed it. Had to…Siobhan’s flesh rolled, her face going under a wall of her own internal organs as if water were drowning her. But she was sidhe,