Scar Night Page 0,164

pummelling the god’s face to a bloody mess. The archon nearest drew back its sword to cut him down.

Rachel threw the burner.

It struck the angel square in the forehead and exploded. A ball of flame engulfed the creature. It screamed, stumbled backwards into the archons behind in a cloud of burning feathers.

Mr. Nettle had rolled free; his robes were on fire, but he came up on his hands and knees with the syringe in one huge fist.

“Mine!” Carnival leapt to her feet, her face creased with rage and pain.

The scarred angel flew at the scrounger, lashed an elbow down on his skull. The blow connected with bone-crunching force.

Mr. Nettle grunted, shook his head once, then surged upright in an eruption of rags and muscle. One arm thrown around her neck, the other across her shoulder, he struggled to push her away. Caught in his awkward embrace, she scrabbled for the syringe, reached it, fumbled.

The glass tube of angelwine fell to the ground, rolled clear in a wide circle. Rachel snatched it up, then ducked as steel sliced the air above her head. Ulcis’s lieutenants had closed the gap, and the tall, battle-scarred archon had just taken a swipe at her. With her own sword. Bastard.

“Give it to me, bitch!” Carnival shrieked. She had now disentangled herself from the scrounger and stood a few paces beyond him. “That belongs to me!”

Still on fire, Mr. Nettle wheeled, ran straight at Rachel.

The assassin sidestepped the big man easily, extended a foot. He tumbled headfirst into the archon who had attacked her. Both sprawled to the ground, armour and ribs crumpling under the scrounger’s weight. Pinned, the archon grunted, and tried to swing its sword.

Her sword.

Rachel ripped it from the angel’s grip, then snatched the bamboo tube from the sword belt. And then she was running towards Carnival. “Follow me! The chain! We’re still chained!”

But Carnival’s face was nothing but a snarling mask, eyes black with insatiable hunger.

Shit, not now.

As Carnival came at her, Rachel veered sharply, barely managed to duck under the angel’s outstretched arms. She punched her assailant twice—once in the neck, the second blow in the shoulder. Carnival collapsed, hissing and spitting like a wildcat.

Too bright for you in here?

“Get up!” Rachel cried. “The chain.”

A sword thrust to her side. The assassin twisted away. The blade sliced empty air an inch from her belly. Another weapon stabbed at her face. She caught the flat of its blade with the back of her hand, smacked it up, and sank her own sword into the archon’s armpit. A yank and her blade was free, then arcing down to intercept the first assailant’s rising stroke. Steel clashed, rasped. She spun, kicking the archon full in the face. The blow should have broken its neck. But it grinned, and bore down on her again.

Shit!

Behind it, the rest were closing in.

Rachel grabbed a fistful of Carnival’s hair, dragging her upright as she ran past. She glanced back to see Ulcis rise and rip the crossbow bolt free of his brow. Blood poured from the wound and from his broken nose, huge chains of indeterminate darkness swirling behind him. Mr. Nettle was still wrestling with the battle-scarred archon. He delivered one rock-crushing blow into the creature’s face, before it struck him savagely on one temple and managed to throw him off. The scrounger slumped to the floor, unconscious or dead.

Carnival wrenched herself away from Rachel, furious, seemingly mindless of the chain that bound them together or the archons at her back, mindless of anything now but ripping the assassin apart.

“The chain!”

“Give me the syringe!”

Rachel slipped through the chains surrounding the platform, and reached the bridge with the angelwine still in her grip. The prisoners in their cages were howling, rattling the bars. The whole palace shook as Ulcis’s voice thundered after her.

“Kill them.”

Suddenly Rachel was jerked to a halt.

Carnival had found a different path through the complexities of Ulcis’s palace. The chain between them was snagged, looped round another chain supporting the palace. Neither angel nor assassin could move forward. Carnival clawed at her, but couldn’t reach. Behind her, Ulcis’s archons were gaining on them. The fat god himself had joined the pursuit. His palace trembled under his footsteps. Cages creaked and swung all around him.

“Back,” Rachel cried. “We’re caught!”

For the first time, Carnival seemed to notice her manacled ankle. Her eyes traced the links back to where they had become snagged. “I’ve got you now, bitch.”

“They’ll cut us both down.”

“Not before I rip your heart out.