attention. “Why do I feel like I’m the one who screwed up here?”
Amy laughed from the shadows. “Because you’re a man. Four thousand years of history say you either did or will so soon it doesn’t matter. Move. Take the host before it gets away.”
Get away, not bloody likely. I hefted the spikes I’d gotten from the armory, fresh yellow pine, sticky to the touch, sharpened to a point. The daggers would work better, but I didn’t want better. The shambling monster picked up speed, running toward me. Sprinting.
For one brief moment, it occurred to me just how bad of an idea this might have been. If the shamblers on the Sin Eater’s home turf sprinted, what would a body it cared for and spent time building up act like? I let it swing at me and rolled with the punch, not even trying to dodge.
And came up backhanding the spike into it.
It stumbled. Knelt, and rose, no longer moving like an Olympic sprinter.
“Hey, meat-skin. I carved a turkey in better shape than you.” I whipped out a blade and took off one finger.
It froze, head going slack. For the length of a heartbeat, I thought I might have killed it. Then the head snapped up, the eyes pitch-black. “Brynner Carson.”
“Say good night.” I slammed the dagger into its head, looking away as the Re-Animus exploded like the smoke from a carpet fire. The corpse fell to the ground, dead, and I let it. “I think I got his attention. Amy? You out there?”
She called from a side alley, where she stood among a pile of dead meat-skins. “Did you manage to kill that one yet? I found these and did not want to bother you.”
Sweet Jesus, if I could do that . . . No, I could never do that. “Like I said. I got his attention, I think.”
From around us came wails of rage and anger, unearthly voices with inhuman tongues.
“Yes, Brynner Carson.” Amy pointed to the shadows, where dozens of shapes converged. “I think you have.”
Thirty
GRACE
I sat in the car fuming over Brynner’s question. Did I feel bad? I didn’t feel bad. I felt awful. What a stupid question. If he weren’t on a mission to get himself killed, I’d be working on a way to make it up to him. Whatever it was, I wasn’t about to jump into bed with him just to say I was sorry. I had a perfectly good voice for that.
I’d pulled the car down the block and turned around, figuring Brynner could handle one little co-org by itself. I turned off the lights and cut the ignition, peering through the tinted glass. Under the streetlamp, Brynner had the co-org staked. Then he knifed the thing, killing it again.
Part of me hoped he got the message through to the Re- Animus. The rest of me hoped he didn’t. I rolled down the window to call him, but before I could speak, the night found its voice.
The cacophony of wails that rose around me sounded like someone had set a pet shop full of parrots on fire. The wailing grew louder, louder, and fell silent.
Which bothered me as much as the noise.
A whisper of cloth against the car sent a bolt of fear through me. And another one, from the other side. Then the car shook, and just outside my window, a corpse moved past.
I didn’t breathe. I didn’t blink. I couldn’t trigger the door locks, or they’d know the parked car wasn’t empty. Once I drew attention to myself, how long would it take the Re-Animus to ram a brick through the windshield? Or someone’s spare head?
And the crowd continued, ringing Brynner in. He stood in the middle, under a streetlight that cast his gray BSI uniform in purple and orange light.
“Brynner Carson.” The crowd of co-orgs spoke as one, that same guttural voice I’d heard back at the farm. “You come to my home. You kill a perfectly good body. You mock me.”
Brynner turned from side to side, a blade in each hand, and shouted back. “Of course I mock you. Your choice of any face, and these are the best you can come up with? You know, I didn’t come here to fight. I came here to gamble, but that one was so ugly I thought I’d do you a favor.”
As a group, the corpses howled in rage, then stumbled forward, crushing one another in a desperate attempt to get at him. Since the game was on, I opened