Chapter 54 Caruso
Caruso Dantes had one hell of a headache. After being shucked like a piece of corn by that bastard soul-eater, he lay, discarded in a pile of feathers, trying to remember how to use his hands.
So I can take that bastard’s shiny silver head and lob it into the Verne.
He had been winning too. Merrily beating that smarmy prick to within an inch of his life until the soul-eater managed to get his thieving hands on his neck. His magic had stormed Caruso like a tornado, unseating every inch of his power.
Apart from the obvious onslaught of pain, it was embarrassing.
As Ransom leaped on Andreas like a wild animal and Versini ran to Seraphine, Caruso tapped impatient fingers on the cobbles, willing his strength to return. He hated to miss out on a fight.
So too, it seemed, did his magic. It returned with a vengeance, the heat of his power like a hot poker to his spine. He arched to his feet and swiped up Fatebringer just as a Strix came like a bullet from the north and ploughed right through Ransom.
The Saint of Nightmares hit the arch like a sack of grain and crumpled to the ground.
All hell.
When the dust cleared, Caruso was still standing. The murder bird was still alive, if a little dazed. Its rider, Darius Mondragon, rose to his haunches to assess the damage.
Still pissed about his run-in with Versini, Caruso lifted his sword and levelled it at the Urnican prince. ‘You’ll do.’
Mondragon made a worthy foe. Strong as an ox and tall as two, with a whip and a sword and a belt full of throwing knives. But Caruso himself was a throwing blade honed by Oriel. A creature who moved at twice the speed of an ordinary warrior, and still found the time to enjoy it.
He tackled Mondragon in his saddle, binding his arms with his own riding whip before he ever landed a blow.
Caruso was so busy enjoying the ensuing litany of curses, he didn’t notice the Strix taking flight until the ground fell away with dizzying speed.
He looked down. ‘Fuck.’
Mondragon headbutted him.
He hinged backwards and blood spurted from his nose. A rare hit. First the soul-eater and now this prick. He was not having it. He returned the headbutt, cracking every bone in the Stargrazer’s face even through the hard metal of his helmet.
Mondragon howled.
Caruso laughed.
The Strix turned sharply and he lost his footing. He slid clean off the monster’s back. Grabbing the end of Mondragon’s whip, Caruso dangled like a fish on a hook.
The Stargrazer twisted in his saddle, trying to toss him off, but the whip bound them together. If he slipped, then they’d both fall.
Propelled by his own body weight, Caruso sheathed his sword and swung back and forth, reaching for a fistful of feathers. He used it to climb the Strix like a rock.
Mondragon clicked his teeth and the Strix listed again. This time, Caruso was quicker. He gripped the pommel of the saddle with one hand and the mane of the prince’s helmet with the other, pulling him close enough that he could see the grey of his kohl-smudged eyes.
The bastard clicked his teeth again, and the bird banked so sharply Caruso nearly tumbled clean over the Stargrazer. He hung by the gold mane of his helmet, digging his heels into the monster’s rump.
Another click, and the bird arched backwards, chasing its own tail.
Caruso spat a curse as he was thrown skywards, the monster’s beak slicing clean into his back.
For a sickening stretch, he hung on by the rungs of his own ribs.
He might have admitted defeat, then, let the sharp hiss of his pain overwhelm his baser survival instincts, if it wasn’t for the triumphant chuckle of the Stargrazer seated behind him.
Smug bastard.
Throwing both hands back behind his head, Caruso gripped the Strix by its ears.
He arched high and hoisted himself backwards, unsticking himself from that blade-like beak with nothing but the strength of his arms and the furnace of his power.
He kicked off the monster’s face and flipped, feet over hands, landing squarely on its shoulders.
The Stargrazer stopped laughing. Ignoring the blood spilling from the wound in his back, Caruso spun in his seat and yanked his sword free.
He pressed it to his neck. ‘Last words, Mondragon?’
The prince opened his mouth—
Caruso cut his throat, and shoved him off the Strix. ‘Don’t care,’ he said, watching him plummet like a stone.
The Strix howled as its rider fell.
Caruso climbed into the saddle, gripping the reins. ‘Play nice, birdie.’
Not a chance. Caruso could almost respect the monster’s wilfulness as it twisted in the sky, trying to shake him from the saddle. He dug in his knees and pitched forward, lowering his centre of gravity.
The Strix refused to give up, thrashing with a violence that swiftly renewed his headache. As he hung upside down by the loosening saddle, he looked for a place that might cushion his landing. The river was rising fast, a skim of black feathers riding the quickening current.
What the hell happened here?
He looked for the Bridge of Tears, knowing the others would be—
Where the fuck was the bridge?
The bird pitched again, completing a circle that made the contents of his breakfast climb up his throat. Flattening his body against its back, he peered over its wing.
The bridge was gone, and so were his friends. The city was in chaos. The cobbles along Merchant’s Way were stained with blood, and Rose-bearers were fighting in the streets, yelling with the kind of fervour that made him realize half of them were no longer enthralled.
The Strix jerked again. Caruso was dangled like a loose button, then hauled upright with such force a buckle snapped underneath him. The saddle slid to one side.
The bird arched, trying to snap the other one. Caruso shot forward, hooking an arm around its wide neck. ‘If I’m going down, you’re coming with me, feathers.’
This wasn’t just a battle of wills, it was a fight to the death, and Caruso Dantes was not about to lose his reputation to a damn bird.
The Strix banked low over the river, skating close to Merchant’s Way, where violet curls caught Caruso’s eye.
Valerie was so short and moving so quickly, it was a miracle he even spotted her at all.
But there was something about the mouthy little Saint of Truth that made his eyes follow her in every room, in every crowd.
Even here, in the heart of war.
She was heading north, shoving her way through a brawl of Rose-bearers three times her size.
They collared her as she attempted to slip past, dragging her back on her heels.
Fuck, no. Caruso’s heart climbed into his throat as the bird pitched upwards again, shaking the saddle loose.
One more minute on this bastard and he was going down harder than the Bridge of Tears.
Valerie’s scream reached him in the ether.
Time slowed.
Caruso Dantes was not acquainted with fear.
Not until the day an unnervingly beautiful Cloak brandished a corkscrew at him outside the Appoline University and threatened to stab him in the neck.
He learned fear then, quick and sharp as a jab in the gut.
Not for what she was threatening to do with that piddly little weapon, but fear of what he’d been missing out on all this time.
Her.
Valerie Doe and her withering scowl. Her mocking smirk. Her viper’s tongue.
As her scream cut through him like a wound, he felt that fear again.
Instinct took over. He gripped his sword and climbed the monster like a tree.
Rammed the blade straight into its skull.
The Strix surrendered its climb to the heavens and plunged, down, down, down, towards that fast grey river.
Gathering the reins, Caruso anchored his feet against its shoulder blades and hinged backwards with all his strength.
The Strix levelled out, its wings catching the rising wind as he guided its corpse down onto Merchant’s Way.
It hit the ground in an explosion of stone, driving fast and hard through the broken cobbles. Caruso was on his feet by then, riding the monster like a wave. It skidded to a stop a stone’s throw from where Valerie was struggling against a pair of Rose-bearers.
Removing his sword from the monster’s skull, Caruso leaped off the dead Strix and sauntered towards them. With a single strike, he took both their heads. They collapsed in a heap at his feet but he was already stepping over them, every last nerve in his body fixed entirely on her.
‘Hello, kitten,’ he said, breathless.
Her mouth fell open, those wide brown eyes flitting from the dead Strix at his back, to the puddle of corpses at his feet. She reeled. ‘Have you lost your damn mind?’
Caruso frowned. ‘Is that any way to say thank you?’
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ she snapped, making that face he loved. Brows low, nose wrinkled, temper venomous. ‘And lower your damn sword!’
Fatebringer clattered to the ground. ‘I forgot I was even—’
‘Shut up.’ She grabbed his collar, hauled him to her and kissed him.