Lash's chest was going up and down, his skinless throat flexing while he drew his breath and blew it back out. As light dawned on him and he got a picture of what was coming, lidless eyes stretched in their sockets and his lipless mouth pulled off his teeth in a smile that was the stuff of horror movies.
He tried to say something, but he couldn't quite get it out.
Which was good. He'd already said too much, done too much, hurt too much.
Time had come for his reckoning.
In his arms, John felt Xhex gathering her strength and he watched as she took her other hand from her wound to aid in gripping his weapon. Her stare burned with hatred as she took over from there, a sudden surge of power in her body lifting her arms to form an arch above Lash's sternum.
The bastard knew what was coming, though, and blocked the blow by covering his chest.
Oh, hell, no. John shot out and grabbed both of the guy's biceps, forcing the ass**le flat onto the ground, exposing the expanse she needed to hit, giving her the clearest and best shot.
As her eyes rose to John's, there was a telltale sheen of red across them, her tears making her irises glow: All the pain she'd borne in her heart was as exposed as Lash's ugliness, all the burden on her and in her made manifest in her stare.
When John nodded at her, his dagger in her hands swept down and hit Lash directly in the heart....
The evil's scream echoed in between the buildings, ricocheting back and forth, gathering in volume until it became the great Pop! that accompanied a vivid flash of light.
Which took Lash back to his unholy sire.
As the sound and illumination faded, all that was left was a faint scorched circle on the asphalt and the stench of burned sugar.
Xhex's shoulders went limp and the dagger blade squeaked across the pavement as she fell backward, her strength gone. John caught her before she hit the ground, and she stared up at him, her tears mixing with the blood on her face and running down her neck, past the vital beating pulse that was her life force.
John held her tight against him, her head fitting perfectly under his chin.
"He's dead," she sobbed. "Oh, God, John... he's dead...."
With his hands occupied, all he could do was nod so that she knew that he was agreeing with her.
End of an era, he thought, looking over at Blay and Qhuinn, who were fighting side by side with Zsadist and Tohrment against the slayers who had shown up.
God, he had the oddest sense of continuity. He and Xhex might have briefly stepped out of the way of the war, taking this momentary respite at the side of the struggle trail. But the fight in the shadows of the alleys in Caldwell was going to continue without...
Her.
John closed his eyes and buried his face in Xhex's curling hair.
This was the end game she'd wanted, he thought. Get Lash... and get out of life.
She had exactly what she'd wanted.
"Thank you," he heard her say roughly. "Thank you..."
Against the tide of sadness that overtook him, he realized that those two words were better than I love you. They actually meant more to him than anything else she could have uttered.
He had given her what she wanted. When it had really mattered, he had done right by her.
And now he was going to hold her as her body grew colder and she drifted away from where he was going to stay.
The separation was going to last longer than the number of days he knew her.
Taking her slick palm, he flattened it once more. And then with his free hand, he signed against her skin in slow, precise positions:
L. O. V. E. U. 4. E. V. E. R.
Chapter Sixty-eight
Death was messy and painful and largely predictable... except when it didn't feel like behaving and decided to exercise its bizarre sense of humor.
An hour later, as Xhex opened her eyes a crack, she realized she was in fact not in the foggy folds of the Fade... but in the clinic at the Brotherhood's mansion.
A tube was being pulled out of her throat. And her side felt like someone had parked a rusty spear in it. And somewhere over on the left, gloves were being snapped off.
Doc Jane's voice was low. "She coded twice, John. I got the bleeder in her gut... but I don't know--"
"I think she's awake," Ehlena said. "Are you coming back to us, Xhex?"
Well, apparently she was. She felt like hell, and after having sliced open a variety of stomachs over the years, she couldn't believe she still had a heartbeat... but yeah, she was alive.
Hanging by a thread, but alive.
John's pasty white face entered her line of vision, and in contrast to the ill cast of his skin, his blue eyes were like fire.
She opened her mouth... but all that came out was the air in her lungs. She didn't have the strength to speak.
Sorry, she mouthed.
He frowned. Shaking his head, he took her hand and smoothed it....
She must have passed out, because when she woke up, John was walking beside her. What the hell--oh, she was being moved into the other room... because they were bringing someone else in--someone strapped down to a gurney. A female, given the long, black braid that swung off the side.
The word pain came to mind.
"Pain is in here," Xhex murmured.
John's head whipped around. What? he mouthed.
"Whoever's there... is pain."
She passed out again... and came to feeding from John's wrist. And passed out again.
In her dreams, she saw parts of her life going all the way back to a time she didn't consciously remember. And as in- flight movies went, the drama was pretty depressing. There were too many crossroads to count where things should have been different, where fate had been more of a grind than a gift. Destiny was like the passage of time, however, immutable and unforgiving and uninterested in the personal opinion of those who breathed.
And yet... as her mind churned beneath the leaden weight and still surface of her unconscious body, she had the sense that everything had worked out as it was supposed to, that the path she had been set upon had taken her precisely where she was supposed to go:
Back to John.
Even though that made no sense whatsoever.
After all, she'd met him only a year or so ago. Which hardly justified the sprawl of history that seemed to unite them.
But then, maybe that did make sense. While you were unconscious on morphine and teetering on the brink of the Fade... things looked different. And time, like priorities, shifted.
On the other side of the door to Xhex's recovery room, Payne blinked hard and tried to ascertain where she had been moved to. There was naught to inform her, however. The chamber's walls were tiled in a pale green and gleaming fixtures and storage casings abounded. But she hadn't a clue what it all meant.
At least the transport had been slow, careful, and relatively comfortable. But then something had been put into her veins to calm her and ease her--and verily, she was grateful for whatever potion it was.
Indeed, the specter of her dead was more agitating than her discomfort or whether she had a future on this side. Had the good doctor truly spoken the name of her twin? Or had that been a figment of her scattered, muddled mind?
She knew not. But cared a great deal.
In the periphery of her vision, she saw many attending upon her arrival herein, including the doctor and the Blind King. There was also a blond female of comely visage... and a dark-haired warrior who people were calling by the name Tohrment.
Exhausted, Payne closed her eyes, the patter of voices carrying her off into a drifting sleep. She did not how long she was out... but what brought her back was the sudden awareness of a new arrival within the hushed space.
The personage was one whom she knew so very well, and the appearance was a greater source of shock than the reality that she was away from her mother.
As Payne opened her eyes, No'One approached her, her limp shifting her across the smooth flooring, the hood of her robe shielding her face from view. The Blind King loomed behind the female, arms crossed over his chest, his beautiful blond dog and his beautiful brunette queen on either side of him.
"Whatever... are you here?" Payne said hoarsely, aware she was making more sense on the inside of her head than her words would suggest.
The fallen Chosen seemed very nervous, although how that was exactly evident, Payne wasn't sure. It was something sensed but not seen, given that the Chosen's black robes were covering all of her.
"Taketh my hand," Payne said. "I should want to ease you."
No'One shook her head beneath her hood. "It is I who have come to ease you." As Payne frowned, the Chosen glanced back at Wrath. "The king has permitted me to tarry in his household for to serve as your maid."