The Bone Palace - Amanda Downum [56]
The tunnel had been a dead end once, but now a ragged hole opened in the wall. The pendulum tugged sharply toward the blackness. A faint draft breathed through, cold and stale and dry. Its touch conjured ghostlight in the depths of Isyllt’s diamond.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Spider murmured. His nearness made the pendulum twitch. “You’re in no condition for a fight.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“I need you alive if you’re to be of any use.” He squeezed her elbow as he said it. It would have reassured her, had his fingers not been cold and vising.
“You haven’t earned your use of me yet.”
She pulled her arm free, shoving the pendulum into her pocket and drawing her kukri. Opalescent light licked up the blade as she gave Khelséa a nod. Isyllt sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then stepped forward.
The echoes of their footsteps changed as they stepped from the narrow tunnel into a wider space. Lantern-and ghostlight brushed the curves of a high vaulted ceiling and the shadows of coffined alcoves in the walls—a great crypt. Doors led into darkness in all directions. Isyllt opened her mouth to question Spider when Azarné hissed, jerking her face upward.
She had an instant’s glimpse of pale shapes clinging to the stones like insects before the vampires fell on them. Spellfire cut the air in the wake of her blade, throwing shadows wild across the walls, but the vrykolos was already out of the way. Pain blazed in her shoulder, and she knew she faced the one who’d bitten her.
She swung again, too slow and clumsy. He moved faster than she could follow, sliding under her guard and shoving her against a wall. Only dumb luck kept her from striking her head again. He cracked her hand against the stones—once, twice, and on the third blow her kukri fell from useless fingers, its light fading as it clattered to the floor. Her ring still glowed, bathing half his face in eerie blue. She heard shouts and struggles around them, but only had eyes for the demon in front of her.
“Was it you?” he hissed, fangs shining. The light lined a knife-edged nose and hollow cheeks, reflected in the depths of eyes pale and crystalline as ice and agates. Grey skin glittered dully, like flecks in unpolished stone. He smelled of snakes and earth and sweet poison. Isyllt squirmed in his grasp and kicked him in the groin, but he only snorted angrily and shook her.
“Was it you?” he demanded again, dragging her up by her collar. “Did you kill her?” Her toes scraped the floor and she could barely breathe, let alone think. His eyes distracted her, flecks of yellow floating in striated irises—her own confusion, or a predator’s enchantment?
“Kill who?” she gasped.
“Forsythia!”
She clawed at his hand and annoyance cut through her fear. “Of course not. I’m trying to find her killer.”
His fangs snapped inches from her face. “Liar. Liars and schemers all of you. She was the warmest thing I ever knew, and you slit her throat and wasted it!”
“I did not!” The conversation was making her headache worse, and lack of air wasn’t helping. “I’m a Crown Investigator—I find the people who slit women’s throats in alleys. And I find idiot tomb-robbing vrykoloi too.” She clenched her throbbing right hand, letting the different pain and the press of her ring ground her.
The vampire’s grip loosened, and the balls of her feet met the floor. “If you didn’t kill her, who did?”
She kicked him again out of pique, beyond caring if she antagonized him. “That is what I’m trying to find out. Why did you rob a royal tomb?”
Confusion narrowed his strange depthless eyes. “Because—”
A sound like thunder shattered the air, pierced her ears like hot steel, and Isyllt yelped. The vampire flinched, letting her fall as he clapped his hands over the sides of his head. She felt the second gunshot, but was already deafened.
Through a haze of tears she saw Spider seize the other vampire by the neck and drag him away. She read Spider’s name on his lips. Then a bone-white blur, and cold black blood sprayed across