The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [171]
“You can’t win, Salvatia,” Bari proclaimed, “no matter how you’re persuaded otherwise.”
The Magdalene fended against the driving weight of the table shield to no avail. She managed confidently, “What makes you so sure of that?”
“Here’s a question going back at you: why, of all places, did you choose this diner for our inevitable showdown?”
Salvatia toyed with the question. “I knew you’d eventually show here, all of you, and I felt no need to have left a clue. It was meant to be. More importantly, my fellow Magdalene whom I shall redeem by your Andrew’s death have drawn me to this place. But this diner is a prominent and curious locale within the pages of that exquisite mistake of a book Camelia’s Ralston wrote, which written therein were all of the clues you required. Clues for you and also priceless clues for me."
Bari replied with a sarcastic objection. “And to think for decades I assumed you to be a devious, formidable foe. You’re only an asshole disillusioned by a centuries-old obsession with power. Your obsession with power is worse than a man’s own obsession with his dick. And it’s made you naive.”
Salvatia’s physical makeup fragmented into an air-powder puff of cloudy mist which submerged into the table, through, and came together again to material form at its underside. She now faced Bari in an eye-to-eye invasion of Bari’s personal space. Having acquired the upper hand, Salvatia then said to Bari, “How naive....?”
Bari let go of the table before Salvatia could wrench it free from her grip and it toppled to the floor on its side. Salvatia’s hand immediately went for Bari’s throat, and Bari’s hand went for hers in turn. In a dual heartbeat they held one another’s throats, their opponent held high and clawed and poised to strike.
“You’re no match for me, Watchmaid!” Salvatia breathed. “Don’t you know from experience that even two of you are no match for me? I am a Magdalene, and I am the messiah of my kind. My victory was prophesied!”
It was true that one Watchmaid against a Magdalene wasn’t a fair match by far, and Bari knew this from the beginning. The strength and the ability to manipulate between dimensions and material objects didn’t quite cut it for a Watchmaid in situations like this, especially for a Watchmaid so relatively young compared to a Magdalene centuries old. If she was to defeat Salvatia, of all Magdalene, she’d have to rely on intuition and strategy and timing, on all the essential elements of a carefully devised plan.
And she wasn’t in this alone. She had not only her own Everborn to protect, whose life was at stake and revolved around every situation of the moment; she had Ralston also, whom she’d made a vow to protect and through years of intervention did a damn good job of doing so. She’d done so and then some, Ralston being the prick he’d always been and, thanks to her manipulation, a famous one.
Yet in some point in the aftermath of all that was meant to be of this, it was Ralston who would helm the writing of a book that would save them all.
Bari knew this now more than anything, and this gave her a confidence she was certain Salvatia did not have.
And a carefully devised plan.
At this point in time, it was all perfectly clear to her....
Ralston’s effort in transmitting a message back in time in the form of a final Ralston Cooper novel had not been directed towards Andrew or herself, had not been transmitted as a mere warning or insight for the good guys to get ahead of the game.
It had been directed towards Salvatia, in transmitted fragments picked up by her own Dreg who’d taken the ball like a God-sent omen and run with it.
It had also been directed towards the Watchers, or specifically towards the band of Watchers who had taken his own copy of the book from him and were the only ones with the advantage of having read through its entirety.
The book was responsible for Salvatia choosing this Carbon Canyon diner.
What Salvatia didn’t know, the Watchers knew.
Thanks