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Shut it down.
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Other heads began to rise from the pool of light, panic-ridden faces that
screamed, "You can't shut it down," and light-formed hands that reached for
her and through her, trying to fend her off.
She was shielded, safe from them.
They'd planned for their own protection - shutting down the Mirror had been
designed to be difficult. But a way existed, in case something went wrong. And
one person could shut it down, because in an emergency, perhaps only one
person would be able to do what had to be done.
There were three buttons that had to be pushed in unison - three that required
the awkward stretching of one hand, the careful jab of the other. She pressed
the three, and the Dragons in the
Mirror of Souls erupted from the pool of light, clawing for her eyes and heart
with ghostly hands, lunging for her throat with insubstantial jaws agape and
teeth bared. Some screamed, some pled, some offered her anything if she would
just return them to their bodies, to their new lives. They promised to change
their ways, to do good things, to make Calimekka a better place.
The three buttons clicked.
She lifted both hands, and they stayed depressed. She knew that they would
only hold for an instant. She steeled herself and reached through the mass of
frantic ghosts to the other side of the bowl, and there found the button that
meant nothing. Almost hidden beneath the edge of the most distant petal,
unadorned, plain, it was a small onyx circle that anyone who didn't know
better would have overlooked entirely.
She pressed it, and the ghosts only had time to scream, "No!"
Then the light that danced its stately dance through the heart of the Mirror
of Souls flickered out.
And was gone.
The smell of honeysuckle and rot vanished as if it had never been. The
pressure of evil vanished, too. The weight of the presence of Dragons who had
dared to name a world their prey and dared to stalk it across a thousand years
fell into nothingness, without sound, without light, without spectacle.
"They're gone," she said, and realized that tears were pouring down her
cheeks. "It's over. And we've won."
Chapter 11
Crispin, again in human form, dressed in his bloody silks, stalked through the
crowd on Silk Street.
Men and women scattered before him - he wore his Family status like a
battering ram that none could ignore or overlook. When he reached the stairs
that led to the apartment he'd rented for
Ulwe, he took them three at a time.
He knew before he opened the door that she would not be inside; at the door
itself, he smelled the presence of his cousin Ry. He snarled, but slammed the
door open anyway; he might find something that would tell him where she was
headed.
She'd been there, safe. Had he woken earlier, had he run faster, he could have
reached her before his accursed cousin. She would have been with him, where
she belonged. Now . . . now she was a captive, a hostage. And Ry hated Crispin
as deeply and passionately as Crispin hated Ry. He might hurt the child,
torture her, even kill her, just because knowing that he could hurt Crispin
would give him power the bitchson had never had in his life.
Except, Crispin thought, that Ry had never had much stomach for the real
exercise of power. He'd avoided Family politics - he'd kept himself to the
sidelines while others jockeyed for position in the hierarchy of Wolves. He'd
tried to give the impression that he was above all that . . . but Crispin
thought Ry simply didn't have the balls to spill a little blood for his own
advancement.
Ulwe might be safe for a while.
Crispin paced through the apartment. No signs of violence, no smell of fear.
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The woman he'd hired to care for the girl - through intermediaries, damnall,
since that had seemed wisest at the time -
was gone, the place left neat and orderly. No note from Ry, no note from Ulwe.
Ulwe might believe
Ry was her father, and he might be willing to pretend to be Crispin in order
to keep her compliant.
Crispin hurried back outside, following Ry's scent and the smell of his
daughter. He sniffed the air, retraced his steps down the stairs, and turned
after them, moving through the crowd. They were staring at him, he realized -
men and women with cold eyes and hostile faces.
If he didn't catch up with her, he would come back and question them. They
might be able to tell him something useful.
The trail led well down Silk Street in the opposite direction from the one [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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