Page 99 of Bitter Burn
“And who will give you a clement death when it’s your time, Veronica Ramos?” I ask softly. “Who will look after the mother in Quezon City? The little sister in California?”
She goes very still.
Control is like peeling off a sticker: you pick and pick and pick at a corner until it’s bruised and ruffled and split, and then it peels back all at once, faster than you think.
“You,” she says in a trembling voice, “should stop talking.”
Shadows move along the ceiling, but I’m careful not to look up. “I find a common problem with saints is that you spend too much time in your own realm, permanently baroque as it is, and you forget about the earthly kingdoms, the modern ones. You’ve come to take me. You know my name. Do you actually know who I am and what I do?”
More shadows in the rafters.
The crucifix swings wider and spins too, like a hypnotist’s pendulum gone frantic.
“You’re starting to see it now, that thing you tried so hard not to look at. How there are no old saints, how the saints are never allowed to trust each other. How far you’ve come from the little Veronica who wore a scapular because she loved the Virgin Mary more than anything else. You killed that little Veronica, didn’t you? You killed her willingly because you thought you were keeping her safe, and now there’s a part of you that knows, late at night, that when they turn on you, there will be nothing left to die.”
Veronica, shaking, reaches for the gun at her hip right as I let the rosary fall. Right as I move my thumb from the middle of my palm to run across my fingertips, something that in Lyonesse means good, but here with our lives suspended under the slow decay of hammer beam ceilings and nesting bats, I’m hoping Isolde will realize means now.
She does.
And it happens all at once:
The rosary tumbles onto the pile of organ pipes and slides frenetically into the jumbled tubes, sending up a jangling, discordant cacophony that flushes at least a hundred bats from the rafters in an explosion of erratic flight, right down into the sanctuary. The three of us move, almost as one, as the unprepared saints flinch and duck—Tristan dropping to one knee and slicing an elbow upward as he turns, Isolde a blur of blond hair and agile hands, myself ducking, turning, trapping my would-be captor’s arm and stealing the gun.
The other saints are recovering now, and a shot goes off, sending more bats panicking for the door. I shoot the saint closest to me in the head, make for Isolde and Tristan, and then I’m tackled from behind, the gun skittering out of my hands as my head hits the floor and the world becomes a queasy shimmer.
Fuck.
I bite back the stabbing pain in my head, and I roll and roll again as a bullet comes from somewhere and ricochets off stone. And then I find myself next to the organ pipes once more. I grab one the size of a metal baseball bat and come up swinging, catching a saint in the knee and then again in the chest. They stagger back as Tristan next to me finally wrests control of a gun, and more bullets pop off. Isolde hisses as a line of blood appears like magic on her upper arm—a graze.
I can’t take the time to reach for the gun I’m wearing under my arm—I can’t give this saint even an instant’s reprieve to reach for his lost pistol. I come down again and again with the pipe, dodging the strikes that I can, enduring the ones I can’t, hunting him relentlessly backward. The other saints are taking cover from Tristan’s fire now while Isolde is fighting Veronica for her gun.
With a series of hard, thudding clangs, I knock the saint sideways and then down to one knee. I bring the pipe against his temple before he can find his balance, and the minute he topples over, I drop the pipe and go for his gun, right as Isolde wrests Veronica’s away. Veronica, though, is quick and clever, and she darts behind the stone pulpit before Isolde can get her finger on the trigger.
But the three of us are armed now, and without communicating, we move closer and angle outward, shooting and moving as if we share the same mind, the same nervous system, the same pulse. Another saint falls, but there are still five or six of them left, with more ammunition than we have and the convenient cover of the pews on their side.
Like the bats, we need to make for the door and hope to God that Jago is out there somewhere, and the car is nearby.
I run out of bullets and pull my own gun from my holster and start shooting again. “The door,” I shout to Tristan and Isolde, who both nod.
Which is when the front doors open again, and this time, I can’t count the number of saints who pour through.
Thirty-Three
Mark
It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
I shove Tristan and Isolde both behind the pulpit—Veronica long gone—and press my gun into Tristan’s free hand.
“Go,” I say hoarsely.
“Absolutely the fuck not,” Isolde hisses.
“Sir” is all Tristan says. Hearing that one word right now feels like having my chest bludgeoned in with an organ pipe. I can’t stand it. I don’t deserve it.
“I have help coming if they succeed in getting me to Rome,” I say, which is technically true. “Cashel wants me alive. I have a chance. Tristan doesn’t, and I won’t risk you, Isolde. Please.”
Stone chips spray as a bullet hits the side of the pulpit, and I feel my cheek open up. Hot blood trickles down.
