The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [166]
Secondly, in turn from above and suddenly from where Jessica fell, Salvatia herself released her invisible grasp of the ceiling and the unseen wooden beam between the space of ceiling and roof, descending in a deliberate pomp and circumstance to a position behind the counter. She faced the three of them in all her Messiah Complex self-glory, arms outstretched and like a voluptuous woman crucified over the breadth of Jessica’s remains. Her skin tone was of her typically exquisite shade of silver but far more lustrous, as if in result of a Tar-nex bath, as if she’d recently shed her skin. Orange-blazen eyes scowled down upon a Ralston insignificant in size to her.
Ralston stood where he was, alarmed by the rapidity of the situation transpiring before him, too mindful and earnest nonetheless to cower in fear.
Yet he knew enough to be afraid....
“Ralston, my darling,” Salvatia proclaimed in recognition of him. “Do you have any idea how all I’ve been longing for these past...oh, these past centuries...could have been accomplished years ago if only I’d known about you sooner? Why, I would have already won my right to freely become a physical entity in your world by now, if not for you and that surprise cameo of your wretched Watchmaid Camelia! But alas and all said and done, you’ll find your precious book is about to be rewritten by me....”
One broad backhanded swipe of her glossy black fingernailed talons was adequate for Salvatia to behead William Behn. His body slid and fell limply off the stool in a plop onto the tile floor with the impact of a water balloon splash of liquid crimson from his headless neck, his head toppling afterwards upon a blood-seeped cloud of thermal jacket fluff.
This act shook Ralston off guard enough for Salvatia to take him to his dismay, and she seized him within the grip of her unoccupied hand, his entire throat and neck engulfed the next instant by a fleshy silver palm. She lifted him upwards, up, over the counter, his limbs dangling in subjugated impotence, until their faces were within the odor of the other’s breath, their gazes locked.
Scratch, feeling a bit overcrowded, pulled out of the way and assumed Behn’s bar stool, stumbling amidst his own thermal threads.
“But like your agent just now,” Salvatia continued to Ralston, “your Watchmaid Camelia had gone the way of eternity and at my hands. Your little endeavor with the book, however and to my delight, has now become your fallacy. You see, I win in the end. The Magdalene await my advent, and I have an Everborn to kill. Let’s see if you will do....”
And the Magdalene Salvatia raised her talons to take his life. Ralston was hoping for a little intervention at this point.
“My God, Scratch, I’ve got him!” Uncle Maxy asserted a second time. “Come on and get him before the prick gets away!”
This time an all-too-eager Scratch hopped off his bar stool and scurried across the diner, confident that Salvatia had things under control. After all, it was really Andrew he wanted, also. His master’s beige minion monstrosity held Andrew captive as planned, like an unwrapped Christmas present of glory days.
Scratch had only to scurry past the WAIT sign at the diner’s vestibule for him to be out of range for Salvatia to remain materialized. She’d invested many a season tutoring Simon BoLeve towards her persuasions, yet he was always thinking about his