Chapter 46 Ransom
Lark was here. Ransom could hear the echo of his laughter in the streets, taste the decay of his magic on the wind. This time, he would not get away. Ransom was going to rip him apart bone by bone.
Shadows cascaded across the cracked cobbles as he stalked into the heart of the Hollows, scanning every rooftop, every dark alley.
Dimly, he was aware of Caruso beside him.
He was swinging Fatebringer, the blade whistling as he struck down imaginary enemies.
‘When we find him, leave him to me,’ said Ransom.
‘I’m the one with the shiny sword.’
‘You can gut him when I’m done.’
The hurried click-clack of boot heels announced Nadia’s pursuit. Tossing a warning glare over his shoulder, Ransom said, ‘Don’t get in my way, Nadia.’
‘I’ll do whatever the hell I feel like,’ she snapped back. Stress pulled at the lines around her mouth, filled those steely brown eyes with dread.
‘You shouldn’t even be here,’ said Caruso. ‘You’re not going to enjoy it.’
But Nadia kept pace with them anyway. It almost felt like old times, the three Daggers stalking through the city with murder on their minds.
Ransom sensed the corpses before he saw them. As they neared the graveyard in the south of the Hollows, a new scent gathered on the wind – of rot and ash and wet dirt. Behind him, Nadia bent double, vomiting into a grate.
It harmed her, Lark’s magic. The power of death railed against her own: of life and bloom and springtime.
Ransom’s own magic stirred, shadows darting like adders under his skin. The beast in him wanted to be let out. To maim and kill and destroy. To make corpses of its own.
Skeletons loped onto the street, at least a dozen or so sprang from their decades-old graves, sent like soldiers to be killed again.
They came for Ransom as rags and bones. He fought the first three off with ease, only for more to gather.
Caruso dispatched them with glee, swinging his sword and scattering bones across the deserted street.
Unable to stomach their nearness, Nadia collapsed on a kerb to retch.
Sweat dripped down Ransom’s face as he fought his way through Lark’s macabre distraction, eager to get his hands on the Necromancer. But there was no sign of the Saint of Corpses in the graveyard or the surrounding trees.
Nadia trailed after them as they returned to the street, her arms pulled tight around her middle like she was trying to hold herself together. The minutes dragged, and still they were no closer to Lark.
‘Where’s that wily bastard hiding?’ snarled Caruso. ‘Should we start ransacking the taverns?’
Attuned to Nadia’s slowing footsteps, Ransom stopped walking. He turned on her with narrowing eyes.
Her answering glare was bright gold. ‘What?’
‘Where is he?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Bloom and decay are two sides of the same coin.’ Her magic was awake but there were no flowers in their midst. No trees or plants or crawling ivy. ‘I know you can feel him. His magic rankles yours.’
She pressed her lips together, swallowing the truth, but she couldn’t hide the shudder that ran through her as they walked on. Or how her teeth chattered in her mouth.
They were getting warmer.
Ransom said again. ‘Where?’
Caruso pointed his sword at her. ‘Start talking, Nadia.’
Ransom slapped it down. ‘What is wrong with you?’
‘Just trying to speed things along.’
Nadia kept her silence, but those gold eyes shot wide. Horror twisted her features, her lips forming the word no just as Caruso’s triumphant bark rang out.
‘Well, speak of the devil,’ he said. ‘And I do mean that literally.’
Ransom turned as Lark loped out of a laneway up ahead.
‘Hell’s teeth, Delano,’ called Caruso. ‘You look worse than the kid did.’
The Necromancer was a terror to behold, the enamel of his skull gleaming under pale grey skin. His legs and arms were reeds, his hair so thin now the last auburn wisps stood on end.
His eyes were wild and pinned on Nadia, as though she were an apparition. ‘I swore it was you. I felt it. Right here.’ His breastbone cracked as he slammed his fist against it. ‘You’re alive.’ The words sang of surprise and the last vestiges of his humanity. ‘How?’
‘Fate,’ said Nadia, grasping at her throat. She stumbled backwards, as though his mere presence was hurting her. ‘Seraphine.’
Lark blinked, shock twisting to betrayal. ‘And now you’re with them?’
Ransom pulled Saintkiller from his waistband. Nadia leaped at him, hooking her forearm around his neck and dragging him down to the ground.
To Lark, she screamed, ‘RUN!’
Lark ran.
Caruso chased him, while Ransom grappled with Nadia.
She pinned him to the cobbles, her hands flat against his shoulders, but even in her desperation her strength was no match for his.
He bucked her off and she hit the kerb with a curse.
By the time she was on her feet, Ransom was already gone, sprinting through the Hollows like a beast on the hunt.
The advantage was theirs. Lark’s muscles had wasted, and his rotting bones could only carry him so far. As his speed lagged, he dodged to the left, making for an alley between a bordello and a dilapidated tavern.
Caruso tracked him, sword in hand.
Ransom followed on his heels.
They converged on their former friend, herding Lark to the end of the lane, where a brick wall stopped him dead.
No chance for escape, but he tried it anyway, climbing the edge of a dumpster and leaping for a narrow window ledge.
Caruso flung his sword with such precise force that it pinned the Necromancer to the wall by his right hand.
Lark screamed as the blade went through him. There was no blood, just the splintering of bone as he swung away from the wall, hanging like a puppet by the blade. His feet scrabbled for purchase, finding the rim of a trash can.
He spat as he faced them. ‘Two self-righteous saints. What did you do to earn the Maker’s favour, Caruso? Stick your tongue down her throat like Ransom does?’
Ransom fired a brick at his face. Lark jerked, taking the brunt on the side of his head.
Caruso chuckled over the sound of his cracking skull. ‘Simple stuff, Lark. I don’t try to kill her every time I see her.’
‘You should have stayed with us,’ growled Lark.
‘Oh? Because it’s all going so well,’ said Caruso, dryly.
Lark rolled his head towards Ransom. ‘Here is your grand prize, dog. The head of your oldest friend. Perhaps your Maker will toss you a treat when you return with it.’
‘Sounds like someone wants another brick in his face,’ taunted Caruso.
Pinned like a moth before them, Lark made a sorry sight. It might have stirred a drop of empathy in Ransom if his skin wasn’t still cold from cradling Fabian’s corpse, if the memory of Lark casting Seraphine to the Strix at the Appoline wasn’t seared into his brain.
No, there would be no mercy for Lark Delano now.
Nor savage words and empty threats. Ransom was done talking.
Crossing the last sliver of space between them, he gripped Lark by the scruff of his collar.
Lark looked through Ransom and in the gold glaze of his eyes there was a shadow.
Not death but its reflection, as though it was both within Lark and looming over him.
They were not saints now but old friends battling on the cusp of destiny: one Death and one Dying.
Saintkiller warmed in Ransom’s grip, the killing blow so easy it almost felt like cheating. Lark was so weak now he could have snapped his neck like a twig and left him to die here in a puddle of refuse.
The Necromancer peeled his lips back, revealing the gaps in his rotten gums. ‘At least you didn’t kill Nadia.’
‘Friends don’t kill friends,’ said Ransom.
Lark canted his head. ‘What do you call this?’
‘Vengeance.’ Shadows swarmed them, blocking out the world… except for the desperate clatter of bootsteps.
Nadia’s scream rang out. ‘Ransom, wait!’
Ransom clenched his dagger as she leaped from the dark. This time, she didn’t put her hands on him. She did something much worse.
Nadia wept.
In all the years he’d known her, and with all those kills under her belt, Ransom had never seen her so undone.
‘I know it’s over,’ she said, looking between them. ‘I just want to say goodbye. Please, just let me say goodbye.’
Ransom hesitated, fighting that growing itch in his soul.
Rip him to shreds.
Take his head!
Caruso wavered. ‘What’s she going to do, scale the wall with that sorry sack of bones? She knows the odds.’ He shrugged. ‘Let her have her goodbye.’
‘Ransom.’ Nadia’s voice broke. ‘Please.’
The Necromancer began to tremble. Even at the end of his life, Lark was too proud to beg. Not that it mattered. This last whisper of kindness – this fleeting reprieve – was for Nadia.
Ransom released his collar and stood back. ‘Three minutes.’
‘And don’t you dare touch that sword,’ warned Caruso.
Nadia was past hearing them. She shoved in front of Ransom and pressed her hands to Lark’s cheeks.
He shuddered at her touch. ‘What is that?’
‘Magic,’ she whispered. ‘Bloom. Life.’
He curled his lip. To Lark it was poison.
She was poison.