Vicious Grace

“Help me,” Ex said, but not to me.



Aubrey rose to his knees, and together he and Ex lifted the black plank of the coffin lid. Gingerly, they positioned it over the silent, screaming man.



It almost worked.



I couldn’t tell which of them slipped, only that the lid twisted, and Ex bent hard, trying to catch it. Kim leaned forward, putting out her hand to steady him. Her leg went out behind, balancing her and scraping a break in the thin line of dirt. I felt the connection to the others vanish. With a shriek, David’s spirit-ridden body boiled up out of the coffin, wide, meaty hands batting Ex away like they were slapping a fly. Kim screamed and Aubrey dropped the coffin lid.



The circle was broken, and the beast was loose.



TWENTY-FOUR



I didn’t think, didn’t consider. I dropped back a few inches behind my eyes, and my body leaped forward, shoulder hitting the rider’s side. It was like trying to tackle a wall, but the haugsvarmr stumbled. I swung around, driving my elbow in toward the small of its back, but the rider had already moved. It wore David’s body like a shawl. I could see the force of its will making the air shimmer, heat waves off a highway, and I noticed again that David was really a very large man. Ex scrambled backward, cursing furiously. Kim and Aubrey stood caught between fleeing and fighting. The rider’s hand shot out, grabbing me by the head, lifting me, and tossing me across the room like I weighed about a pound. I landed on my back, the wind knocked out of me.



While I tried to sit up, the rider turned its head, slowly taking each of us in. David’s flesh was changing under its influence: the skin taking on a starlit glow, the mouth starting to protrude. I’d seen riders transform their mounts before, the spirit’s nature curdling skin and blood and bone. This was no different. When it spoke, its voice was soft, friendly, and genteel. It made my skin crawl.



“So close, daughter-thing,” it said. “You were so close. Do you know what I thought? That you’d wrap yourself in the Mark of Forcas and hide until I slipped my leash.”



It laughed, a low and rueful sound. Its eyes shifted across the room where it had thrown me, its gaze skittering off me without quite managing to connect. I felt a stab of profound cold at the small of my back. It still couldn’t see me. I tried not to move, afraid that any sound would give me away.



“I looked through every pair of eyes I could find in this piss-pot Carcer, and then I turned away. I thought you were my second problem. And you were doing this. It was good. Oh, it was very good. I am all admiration and fear. Trembling,” it said, laughter in its voice. It pulled one leg up from the grave hole and onto the shattered floor. David’s jeans shredded when the rider bent its knee. It was getting bigger.



Ex crouched, and the rider turned to fix him with its gaze. It moved so quickly, it seemed like a jump cut made real.



“I know what you’ve got on those nails, boy,” it said. “Come close to me with them, and I’ll put them through your eyes.”



“Leave him alone,” I said. The rider’s attention snapped back to me, homing in on the sound of my voice.



“You care about the meat? She did too.” It stepped up, the concrete crumbling under its weight. “We don’t have to do this, little one. You’ve fought bravely and well. I respect you. But it’s over now. You can see it’s over.”



It took a step toward me, and my body moved, curling over until I was on toes and fingertips, tight as a spring. Aubrey and Kim were on the far side of the grave. He had a length of pipe in his hand: Ex’s improvised hammer. Don’t be stupid, I thought, trying to press the words through the air and into his brain.



“There are only two ways this ends,” it went on. “You enter into a pact with me, or I bind you. Ally or slave, daughter-thing. It makes no difference to me.”



It was lying. The difference between pact and binding was the difference between contract law and slavery. If it was offering up a pact with me, it wasn’t sure of the fight’s outcome. I grabbed onto the thought that there might be some hope, something I could do that would defeat the beast. I didn’t know what that was.



The rider took another step toward me. Aubrey handed the pipe to Kim and drew in a deep breath. The rider’s head snapped up a degree, and then back toward Aubrey. The glowing eyes went round, and Aubrey’s mouth opened wider than I thought possible.



The Oath of the Abyss rang out, Aubrey’s soul forged into a weapon and shaking loose from his flesh. The only other time I’d heard it, he’d been saving my life. The rider stumbled, glowing fragments of its flesh skirling out from it like fireflies. It bared its teeth and screamed back, the roar of its voice drowning out even the most powerful magic any of us knew. The walls shook and dust swirled down from the ceiling. In the lamplight, it looked almost like snow.



Aubrey hadn’t knocked the rider out, but he had knocked it back. This was my opportunity. Maybe my only one.



I felt myself jump, landing hard on the rider’s back. It staggered forward as I wrapped my arm around its huge neck and squeezed. With my ears still ringing, I felt its chuckle more than I heard it. My legs locked onto the thing’s back, holding it as close as a lover. Its skin shifted and bumped against me. I tightened my grip and hauled, fighting to cut off its air. If it needed air. My shoulders ached with the effort, and I felt something in me begin to weaken.



This, I thought, was the moment. Chogyi Jake had warned me, it seemed like a lifetime ago, that my protections would fail. And now I thought I felt them starting to go. It felt like despair. Desperately, the small part of me that watched the fighting tried to pull my qi up from my belly and press it out into my arms. It seemed weak and distant, a voice shouting in a windstorm. I closed my eyes, trying again. Not to control my body. The last thing I wanted now was Jayné-the-white-belt to start driving. I only pushed to feed the thing that was happening to me, support the spells and wards.



And the weakness and despair began to fade.



The rider lifted a huge hand. Its skin was black as the void and swimming with points of nauseating light. Its impossible fingers dug into my back.



“You’re weak,” I said. “Your days are gone.”



It tugged at me, trying to rip me free, but I was immovable. Something in its throat made a repulsive crunching sound under my arm, and it started to choke. The rider pulsed, its multiple soul gathering itself to break out of David’s body and flow back into the hospital and out of reach. I wrapped myself around it, making a net with my will. A prison. I was doing alone and on the fly what the four of us had struggled to do together.



I had the feeling it would work.



“I bind you, Daevanam Daeva. I bind you to the blood which you betrayed,” I shouted.



It swung me around, beating me against the walls. I felt the stab of a breaking rib like it was happening to someone else. Something like battle rage had flowed into me, lifting me up, widening me out past the confines of my body. The room around us seemed brighter now, even though there was no light. The rider spun, clawing at my arms and drawing blood. Ex and Kim were there too, beating at it with fists and pipe. Aubrey lay at the graveside, exhausted from his efforts. The rider swung hard, bending at the waist and knocking my head against the wall so hard my vision narrowed. For a moment, I was choking the man from my dream. I could smell the Brylcreem in his hair. He stumbled, falling to one knee. My feet hit the floor, and I took him by his collar and the waistband of his pants, lifting him over my head. Ex and Kim stepped back, their eyes wide and frightened. I took two steps to the edge of the grave and swung the body down hard enough that I was afraid I’d broken the casket. The dark wood held. I raised the lid up in one hand, keeping the other on the rider’s chest.



And it was David Souder again. I could feel the rider within him; it hadn’t gotten free. It had thrown its horse toward me like a shield. Human eyes looked up at me in horror.



“Wait!” he shouted.



I slammed the lid down.



“The nails,” I said. “Give me the nails.”



Ex didn’t hesitate. Seven long, silvery nails. The coffin lid thumped, David trying to push it open, but with his arms pinned to his sides, he had no leverage. I put the heads of the nails in my mouth like a carpenter.



“Kim!” Ex said. “The pipe? Where’s the pipe?”



I didn’t have time. I knelt on the coffin, my weight keeping it in place, and put the first nail at the lid’s dark corner. There was a rough hole where the previous one had been. I moved half an inch to the left, set the sharp point down. I gathered my will, drawing the power into my hand until I felt like I was about to catch fire. I screamed and drove my open palm onto the nail head. The metal slid home with a single blow. My palm was bleeding and bright with pain. I didn’t care.



“Oh my God,” Kim said. I ignored her. I drove the second nail home. I could feel the coffin grabbing onto the metal and its cantrips, weaving a seal between box and lid that was more than the simple physical connection. After the third nail, David’s struggles couldn’t even make the coffin shudder.



“Stop,” Ex said. I looked at him, almost understanding the word. It was like something with a cognate in my language. “Stop it, Jayné. We can drive the rest of them with a hammer. Just stop.”



Like a switch being turned off, the strength left me. Every muscle in my body trembled, and I looked around the room. It was like I was just waking from a nightmare, or just falling into one. I tried to say something, but there were still four nails in my mouth. I took them out, amazed by the blood soaking my hand and sleeve. My right palm looked like hamburger. I began to feel the pain, something huge and far away, but coming close quickly.



Had I done that? Driven nails with my bare hands?



“You beat it,” Kim said, awe in her voice. “You really beat it. How the hell did you—”



“We’ll finish it,” Ex said.



“Give me the pipe,” I said.



“We can—”



“Rider’s trapped. In there. Get a gurney. Chogyi Jake. ER.”