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imagine his own dear Rosalind. Somehow Dreamsinger had swapped herself with
Jode, replacing one false Rosalind with another.
That raised the question of where Jode was now. If we were lucky, Dreamsinger
had vaporized the accursed Lucifer; but I doubted even a Sorcery-Lord could
have pulled that off without Sebastian noticing. Whatever she'd done, it would
have to be quick and quiet while the boy's attention was elsewhere perhaps
when he was slaughtering the Keepers behind their gun-slits. During those few
seconds, Dreamsinger had somehow removed Jode and put herself in the alien's
place.
Once again, I remembered our chancellor's story about the Lucifer in the
tobacco field. Opal said Vanessa of Spark had tapped the alien's severed parts
with a small rod that glittered red and green; the pieces had vanished ,
as if ejected from our plane of existence. If Dreamsinger possessed a similar
-rod and used it on Jode when Sebastian wasn't looking... could it be
the alien was gone, gone, gone? Dispatched to a different somewhere, removed
from our lives forever?
No. I didn't believe it. Nothing was ever that easy. The alien would return;
I could feel it in my bones. For now though, we had only Sebastian and the
Sorcery-Lord to worry about... which was plenty enough.
The Caryatid and Impervia didn't hesitate after sighting the boy and
Dreamsinger. My friends continued boldly forward, striding within five paces
of the lovey-dovey couple and planting themselves side-by-side where they
couldn't possibly be missed.
"Sebastian," said Impervia.
"Dear sister-in-sorcery," said the Caryatid.
The boy and the Spark Lord turned, their heads almost touching. Dreamsinger's
face was dark with warning: her fierce glare suggested she wanted to rip us
into component atoms. Lucky for us, the Sorcery-Lord couldn't behave so
un-Rosalind-like.
Sebastian's expression was no more friendly than Dreamsinger's. "Didn't I
tell you to stay away? I know you aren't who you look like."
I sighed with relief: he hadn't murdered us instantly. The boy's conscience
allowed him to slay Keepers people armed to the teeth, shooting at him and his
beloved but he balked at destroying someone who looked like one of his
teachers, especially when she offered no threat. Better still, the Rosalind in
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his arms wasn't Jode... who would have been screaming, "Kill them!" to keep us
from giving away the truth.
"Weare who we look like," Impervia said. "We discovered you were missing a
few hours after you left. In Dover, we found you'd chartered a boat
namedHoosegow and sailed in this direction. We realized you were headed to
Niagara Falls to this building here. So we followed."
"I don't believe it," Sebastian said. "Rosalind says you're just
doppelgängers created by her mother's sorcerers. Bags of skin filled with
pus." He paused as if he was beginning to doubt his own words; then his face
cleared. "It's true. That copy of Sir Pelinor was all gucky."
"No," said Impervia. "He was flesh and blood. So am I."
She lifted her hand: the one holding the small knife. I understood now why
she'd taken it out. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled back her sleeve and
placed the blade to her flesh, halfway between wrist and elbow. She had to
press hard; the knife's edge was adequate for cutting T-bone steak, but not
for slicing Impervia's hard-toned muscle. When she broke through the skin,
blood oozed in a thick trickle.
The dim glow of the laser cage didn't cast enough light to show the blood's
harsh scarlet... but suddenly a dozen small white suns materialized in the
air. They were obviously Sebastian's work illuminating the room with his
psionics so he could see clearly. At last.
"Sister Impervia?" he said with horror in his voice.
"Yes," she answered. "It's me."
"No, it isn't," said a new voice. And Impervia erupted in flames.
23: FIRE IN THE HOLE
Another Rosalind had appeared Jode, escaped from wherever one went when
tapped with a red and green -rod. The Lucifer had sneaked around the far
side of the laser cage. While the rest of us were watching Impervia cut her
arm, Jode had moved into position just beyond the cube's airlock shack. The
Lucifer had obtained an Element gun from one of the fallen Keepers; and the
gun was set to shoot flames.
Impervia's clothes ignited. Beside her, the Caryatid was also engulfed in
fire... but the Caryatid waved the blaze away before it could singe a single
hair. She turned and grabbed the flames surrounding Impervia as if they were
solid matter; then the Caryatid yanked backward, pulling the fire with her,
like tugging a crackling red cloak off Impervia's body. A quick flick of the
Caryatid's wrists, and the flames winked out in mid-air. Curls of smoke
wreathed Impervia from head to foot, but the woman beneath seemed unharmed.
Jode, alas, was a fast learner. The Lucifer must have tried flames to begin
with because they'd cause the most agonizing death... but when fire proved
ineffective, Jode switched immediately to bullets.
A burst of high-velocity slugs rattled toward Impervia and the Caryatid, some
rounds striking home while others zinged past to ricochet off the rock walls.
Annah threw herself to the ground; I joined her, but in the instant before I
dropped, I saw the Caryatid point toward Jode and shout a single
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incomprehensible word. Her pet fireball shot across the room toward the alien,
the ball's blazing heat augmented by fire from Jode's own flamethrower... and
I prayed the inferno would hit its target with enough energy to incinerate
Jode on the spot.
It didn't. Head down, I heard a clatter and a heavy whoof of air. When I
looked up, the Element gun had been knocked from Jode's grip and all fires in
the room were snuffed... including the flameball the Caryatid had sent toward
the alien. Sebastian had obviously told his nanite friends to stop the
violence until he could sort everything out.
Therefore Jode was still intact. The Caryatid had slumped to the ground, her
face ashen; one arm hung limply, while the other hand pressed hard against her
opposite shoulder. Blood seeped between her fingers from a deep wound just
below her collarbone. There was another mess of blood near her waist where a
second bullet had plowed its way through the plump rolls of flesh she called
love handles... but the Caryatid didn't have a free hand to stop the bleeding [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]