Chapter 57 My Favorite Son
My Favorite Son
The world narrowed to a knife hanging above her, its claw-sharp point swelling with a pregnant drop of tarry black. The slice on Liv’s hip burned, poison eating at silk and flesh; the metal cuff clasping her ankle hurt too, a deep drilling pain.
They’d managed to get at least one chain on her, yes.
But she had Ignatius pinned too, and a lifetime of stubbornness rose inside her, holding the invisible force steady.
He strained against it, the thing in his flesh shoving at her control with clumsy, flaccid fingers, the touch sending hot spears of loathing through her.
The other monsters were muttering, a rising growl, and if they all decided to walk up the steps and help themselves buffet-style she was looking at a very short, very messy end to her entire existence.
Liv didn’t think these guys only ate the meat, so to speak.
Especially since she could see, in some strange way, how the god had cored Ignatius like a fruit, pouring into the empty places and yanking at muscle-strings to move a puppet.
Seen with that strange inner vision, Liv was a smear of rainbow flame guttering but not yet doused, the monsters a swirling mural with occasional sickening fungus-flashes showing under a punky, rancid glow—
Corpselight, that’s what they call it, and that’s why.
—and Ignatius was a creaking, swelling tumor of vile, violent yellow, a single crimson eye at its crest as he strained against thin, pulsing ropes of light.
Was that what the ancient Dreamers had done? Chained a god in some forgotten hole or just banished him from the physical world? Either way, no wonder he was pissed.
How much longer can I keep this up? Liv’s hold slipped another fraction; the knife jerked, dipping downward. Once it plunged into her chest, she suspected she’d lose the ability to hold him off—but she didn’t think she’d die right away.
No, she was wretchedly certain it might take a very long while, and she’d scream through the whole process. The thing, this mad god, would eat her screams.
Several things happened at once.
A high metallic ringing and a crunching noise like a stack of potato chips smashed all at once, the sound run through huge speakers until it could break bones.
The monsters, their famished cries halted for a brief moment, spun madly inside in a bubble hollowed out under a human city, the tangled passages around it meant to confuse any pursuit or penetration but well known to things creeping in darkness, hiding from the sun’s glare.
The knife quivered again and sank a handspan; Liv’s throat burned because she was making a low guttural noise of effort as well, her gaze locked with Ignatius’s.
Or maybe it wasn’t Ignatius anymore. The thing inside him had swallowed any remaining vestiges of humanity, and it leered at her, its lips moving rubbery as more foam dripped.
I killed your mother, little bitch. I ate her right… the fuck… UP.
The attack came out of nowhere, filthy unseen claws burrowing into her own head despite the hot smoking pain it caused the god, touching something inimical.
Immune didn’t mean invulnerable, after all.
It leered, it gibbered, it whispered, it keened, and Liv Stellack almost, almost lost her hold, her mental fingers growing clumsy.
Kidnapped, dragged around like a sack of produce, sedated, dumped in a hole, terrorized beyond belief, she stared at the thing that wanted so badly to kill her, and a strange peace folded through her bones.
You think you’re so bad. It was laughable, how scared everyone was of this… this thing. It was strong, yes.
But only if you gave it an opening. Temperament, genetics, or simply blind chance—and the deep soft warmth of the earth’s very heartbeat—denied it a hold on Liv.
I’m not dead yet, she realized.
The thing howled. Fresh strength poured into her, and there was a popping clatter she realized was gunfire. Another familiar sound, someone yelling her name over and over as the monsters realized they were not about to have a leisurely picnic.
A dripping point protruded from Ignatius’s chest. A razor-edged, crystalline blade, its tip gleaming starlike as thick, blackened blood welled.
The Father’s head turned, an eerie, lizardlike movement. “My Son,” he crooned, lips writhing harshly. “You were ever my favorite. Help me now. He will forgive us.”
Erik’s bloody, haggard face rose over his Father’s shoulder, almost close enough to kiss. His eyes blazed, the blue sparkle-points in his pupils gathering strength. Tiny cracks and veins of black began at the corners of Ignatius’s eyelids, spreading in horrifying fast-forward.
“There is,” Erik murmured softly, “no forgiveness for us, Father.” He shoved the knife deeper, and Ignatius’s body stiffened. The older man’s arm jerked, still trying to drive a black blade down through stiff, resisting air.
Liv willed Erik to look at her, willed the invisible force inside her to fill him, to close the shredded flesh on the left half of his face, the other injuries she could feel burning in him.
There was something sharp stuck in his back, and for a dizzying moment, she was occupying her own familiar body and somehow inside his at the same time, marveling at the pain he apparently didn’t notice as it crashed through nerve endings, sliced and twisted muscles in his back twitching as a blue-eyed nightmare monster drove a slender spear in deeper.
The thing stabbing him howled as warm invisible power rayed out from a lirai, and the splitting of her focus gave Ignatius the opening he needed.
The curved, tarry-bladed knife flashed down.