than a croak, and besides, his friends were already a bit busy. His eyes fell on the cord that trailed in from the broken window, the cord that was attached to the killer’s waist. He leapt on it, pulling the assassin back and away from its prey.
The Bone Master turned with a look upon its grotesque face that said it all. If the Bone Masters could kill with their eyes, Mulvehill would have died at least ten times over from the intensity of that gaze.
The assassin sliced at the cord as Mulvehill threw himself at it. The two collided head-on, flying backward onto the bed, where Remy lay. Mulvehill wildly threw punches, desperate to gain the upper hand, but the assassin ducked its head, then surged up, sending Mulvehill flying backward to the foot of the bed.
Mulvehill watched in horror as the assassin climbed upon Remy’s prone figure and raised the dagger high, about to finally silence Remy’s heart. Reacting totally on instinct, Mulvehill reached for Remy’s legs, pulling his still form from underneath the Bone Master just as the blade stabbed into the mattress.
Screaming something unintelligible, the demon turned, but Mulvehill was already throwing himself upon the assassin and attempting to wrestle the blade from its hand. As far as he was concerned, the only place that knife was going was up the Bone Master’s ass.
The killer managed to wriggle out from beneath him, and as Mulvehill reached to grab for it again, he was stabbed. The blade was sharp, and he really didn’t even realize that it had gone in until he saw the Bone Master smile and felt the warm rush of blood as it cascaded from the wound in his side.
“Aw, shit,” Mulvehill managed, his hand immediately going to the wound to try to stop the bleeding.
The assassin chuckled, then stabbed him again in the stomach.
Mulvehill tried to grab hold of the monster’s neck in a last-ditch effort—in a show of preternatural strength—but his gore-covered hand just brushed against the killer’s pale skin, leaving bloody streaks like war paint on one side of its face.
The Bone Master simply pushed Mulvehill’s body aside, making a show of licking the blade clean of his blood. “All for naught,” the assassin said, holding up the knife as it returned its attention to the unconscious Remy.
Steven Mulvehill wasn’t sure where he found the strength—an unknown reserve stored away in the human body for just such an occasion. And he didn’t really know what he was doing or why, but he managed to fling his bloody body across the bed, landing atop his friend, looking down upon his gray face.
“If there’s any chance of you waking up,” he said, blood dripping from his mouth, “I strongly suggest you do it now.”
• • •
Lost in the creation of a universe, Remy Chandler smiled, for he saw how it all fit together, and the part he would play in maintaining its order.
He was in control now.
He was the Creator, and this belonged to Him.
There was so much He had to do, so many details that had to be just right in order for . . .
He felt it at His back, a gentle caress of a cosmic wind. It captured His attention, distracting Him from His prodigious chores, and the being that had once been Remy Chandler turned away from the reality He was shaping to see something that reminded Him of what he was—who he was—and it drew him back from the brink of Godhood.
He saw a world that had been his home, a world that had provided him with so much.
A world that made him who he was and showed him the unlimited wealth of true humanity.
Remy closed his eyes, letting the remembrances of his time there and those who had helped him become . . .
His eyes opened wide, a raw, ragged vision of an ungodly act he did not understand slicing its way into his view of the world he’d been taken from.
“Steven,” Remy said, feeling the spatter of warm rain upon his face.
Something was wrong; he could feel it—a disturbing tremor in the ether. And feeling only a hint of guilt, he turned his back upon Godhood and all that it entailed.
To begin his journey home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The strangers appeared like a swarm.
Squire had no idea who they were, why they were there, or where they’d come from, but he did not like what he saw.
They’d come loaded for bear, and shotguns and pistols blasted at the demon Bone