Chapter 18 #2
Declan laughs. ‘Kisser’s already on the way. You think I don’t know that? I’ve been fighting wars like this longer than you’ve been alive.’
For a second, Slickwalker seems genuinely irritated. He spins, arms wide. ‘You think we want this? Do you? Do you think we enjoy blood? Enjoy killing? Do you know what the Volante sounded like when it went down?’
He sinks a weary head into his hands. ‘The world changed, Fallon, and you forgot to move with it. Don’t hate us for that. We’re the same people we were before.’
Declan takes a step towards Slickwalker, a cold smile on his face. ‘If only I’d known. I would have killed you sooner.’
He spreads his arms mockingly, mirroring Slickwalker’s loose-limbed style.
‘Still, seeing as that’s apparently not on the cards, how do I get you out of my fucking house?’
Slickwalker raises his head and considers him levelly. For a moment, Declan feels like nothing more than the shadow of a mouse before a very big, very old cat.
‘Hand them over,’ Slickwalker says, his voice numb and empty. ‘Hand them over. If they’re not here already, they’ll be coming to you soon, and if you let them in, all the gods they could ever build will not be enough to save this city.’
Slickwalker stretches out shadowed arms pleadingly.
‘Two people. Two people against a whole city. Against your family.’
Declan studies the face in front of him. The first beginnings of crow’s feet, the shadows of sleepless nights. More familiar than he’d like to admit. He glances down at the bed and feels the name of his wife slip off his tongue, oily and flat.
It takes a while for him to get the words out. ‘Family is important.’
He stretches a hand tentatively out to Slickwalker, who clasps it firmly. The relief on the younger man’s face is palpable.
‘Family is so important,’ Declan repeats, and he watches Slickwalker nod slowly in response.
‘The only problem,’ he continues, ‘is that you godkilling fucks have no idea what the word even means.’
He watches Slickwalker’s eyes widen even as he pulls tight on his clasped hand, bringing the man’s startled face down and in to meet his rising left palm.
Slickwalker’s face breaks with a comforting, wet sound, only matched by his hiss of pain as Declan flattens out his right hand and chops into his throat.
The tall man staggers back gasping, and Declan sees the shadows reach out for him, pulling him to safety.
A heartbeat quicker, his shoulder hits Slickwalker square in the chest and throws them both against the wall. Ribs break like commemorative gunshots.
Fallon throws in a headbutt out of sheer pleasure, his teeth wide and bloody with delight. Wrapping a thick hand around Slickwalker’s struggling neck, he whispers fiercely into his ear, flecking him with spit and rage.
‘You were right, Slick, I am fast. Always have been. And maybe, maybe the only good thing about having your life ripped out from under you is that it gives you plenty of time to practice getting faster.’
Slickwalker’s eyes widen, and laughter lurches up out of his broken throat, bubbling and wet.
Fallon’s fingers tighten as the laughter slides down and down, into a damp, shuddering rhythm that flows through Slickwalker’s twitching body.
He squeezes harder, his thumbs closing around the last scraps of air, close enough that he can watch Slickwalker’s wide pupils suddenly split and sunder, sending tendrils of black spidering through the whites of his eyes.
Then there’s nothing beneath his fingers except a few drifting wisps of darkness.
When Slickwalker speaks, his voice slides from every shadow, doubled and repeated, looped and layered, and angry. ‘Not fast enough, Declan. Never fast enough.’
Declan thinks about turning even as he feels the barrel of the gun kiss his neck. His skin smoulders.
Slickwalker’s voice is a low curl of heat in the still room.
‘I wasn’t lying, you know. I don’t know where your son is …
’ The pause stretches, lengthens, fills the room with indrawn breath.
‘… but I can find out. Think about it, Declan. Two of them. Just the two of them. Against a family. Against a city.’ His voice lowers.
‘Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Please.’
Declan lets his shoulders slump, feels the pressure on his neck slacken ever so slightly.
He can hear his wife’s breath sliding in and out, hear the slow wicking of the lamp as it fills the room with light. Between the breaths, in the light, there is space.
His arm moves with the inhalation. When his fingers grab the gun barrel it burns, but he’s expecting that. He pulls before the next exhalation and feels Slickwalker stagger forwards, stumbling over her body as his knees hit the edge of the bed.
The gun goes off with a noise like a cat burning.
Declan feels the heat of the bullet pass along his palm as he pulls and lifts.
Slickwalker isn’t stupid. He lets go, but the momentum is enough.
Declan spins, and the stock of the gun hits the reeling man across the temple with enough force to knock him to the floor.
His blood scatters across the shadowed walls.
Declan lets the gun fall from his blistering fingers and steps backwards. The arms that enfold him are barely there, thin things of shadow and blood. And in his ear, Slickwalker hisses. ‘Never fast enough.’
Declan feels the air driven out of his lungs. The world darkens with shocking speed and there’s a red thunder in his head, like an insistent tide, a thick, fading drumbeat.
He struggles, but the arms around him are strong as steel. As the darkness wraps itself around him, he looks across at his dreaming wife, and for the briefest of seconds, he feels nothing but relief.
The last thing he experiences before he loses consciousness is a wash of golden light, a wind hung with spices and a voice like bellows-brass.