Chapter 29
Micky Pierson paced circles around his study, working a cigar whose price point would have made an average working man feel faint. He puffed like a steam engine and muttered under his breath — profanity, mostly, at a volume too low to make out.
The Last Yachtsman, as his colleagues in the dangerous business called him, was barely containing the urge to start destroying the expensive furnishings around him. Restraint and the lessons his father had drilled into him held the impulse back.
"Bitch. Filth. Infernal garbage—" Though with the father long dead, those lessons were slowly washing away. "I hate this—"
He grabbed the twenty-thousand-dollar ashtray from his desk and hurled it at the wall. The clocks followed, then the pen set, then the whiskey decanter and the glasses.
"I'm sick of it — sick of it — sick of it—" With each throw, the obsessive anger dissipated slightly. He stood eventually in the wreckage of his own office, the air thick with expensive tobacco and alcohol. Flushed and disheveled, the Last Yachtsman pressed both palms over his face and rubbed until it hurt, then dropped without looking into the nearest chair, tilted his head to the ceiling, and released a long, building howl that cracked into a full scream.
Another failure. Another delay to resolving the conflict that had now outlasted three generations of his family. Three generations of the Yachtsmen crime family, from the founders to this last remaining Pierson, surrounded by newcomers and opportunists, small snakes trying to curl up on the warmth of his chest.
And at the root of all of it — her. The cursed demoness, the creature from the deep that his great-grandfather had done business with and his grandfather had somehow wronged. None of the once-numerous Yachtsmen, even when they'd been alive and well, had known exactly what had happened between Micky's grandfather and Malevola. Some hadn't known anything was wrong at all — not until the curse had started operating, slowly and systematically removing them one by one.
Three generations of families who had merged into one criminal clan in the previous century. All of them dead, by the most varied, idiotic, implausible causes. Diseases with excellent doctors standing by. Drug overdoses. Car accidents. Falls down staircases. Dozens of events that might look random in isolation, but taken together—
The brothers and cousins. The uncles in his father's time. The grandfather's generation before that.
Only in the main Pierson line did one member always survive, to continue the bloodline — after which the previous head died in some stupid, unnatural way.
"What now? Another decade building strength? Money, training supers from birth?" Micky was cataloguing his options without noticing he was no longer alone. "And those cultist idiots want their money for services rendered—"
A tall man with unkempt short hair had walked in without greeting and positioned himself against the one undamaged wall, waiting patiently for his employer to notice him.
He adjusted his broken, aging glasses down his nose and scratched his chin, displaying a week's worth of stubble. An old, beaten jacket clung to his shoulders and appeared to be considering giving up.
"Maybe try again? Sell the house and — attack the SDS office? That creature is almost certainly there. I'm certain she's there—"
"Ahem." The sharp, easy cough pulled Pierson out of his thoughts and made him jump — not in fear for his life, he'd made peace with the curse long ago, simply from surprise. "Are you finished? I got tired of waiting downstairs for the Second Coming, so I—"
"What are you doing here? I already paid you this month." He reached for a new cigar. An invisible force bisected the case neatly, leaving a clean, perfect cut on the desk surface. "What the hell—"
"Look, Micky. No offense." The hired man took a seat on the desk and kicked his legs, a kitchen knife appearing from nowhere in his hand and beginning to rotate through his fingers. "But your money doesn't mean anything to me. You promised I'd get to open a real demon from navel to throat. But here you are, looking miserable and embarrassed, like a small child on their first airplane — and there's no demoness anywhere nearby—"
"As if that's my fault. Everything was going perfectly until those idiots failed. Only two survived—"
"They didn't."
The atmosphere in the room changed the moment those words landed casually in the air. Still spinning the knife with the same cheerful ease, the hired man produced another one from his pocket. Then another. He laid them on the desk in a row.
"I disposed of the garbage that couldn't complete a simple task." A quiet, insinuating whisper that cut through the air differently than regular speech. "This one — I used to remove eyelids. This one, finger joints. This one I kept for a specific anatomical purpose. And this one—"
Knowing his associate's habits and inclinations well, Micky had no difficulty believing every word — and couldn't hold it. The alcohol on his empty stomach requested an urgent return. On his hands and knees on the floor of his own study, the Last Yachtsman let it come back, while the smile on his companion's face grew warm and solicitous.
"Hey, Micky — you doing okay, buddy? You look exhausted—"
"My people — what happened to my people—"
"Mm? Those? Well, let's say you don't need to worry about payroll this month." He put another knife on the desk, then collected the whole set in one sweep and laughed out loud. "Joking! Only joking. Your guys are fine — what would be the point of cutting them? They'll die on their own soon enough."
"What? Then why all of this? Why are you—"
"Don't you feel it?" He drew a slow, deep breath through his nose and spread the manufactured smile wide, savoring what he clearly knew was coming. "There's blood in the air. It'll be here shortly, and we both know why—"
"The demoness—"
"Correct—"
The conversation was cut short by an explosion near the estate gates.
---
The water hit from both palms simultaneously, taking the door off entirely. The gates — decorative more than functional — went across the courtyard with a crash and landed on a pair of guards who had been standing in exactly the wrong place.
Behind me, a portal deposited a full water tank that burst open on contact, spreading across the grounds and freeing me from having to conserve.
I covered my body in a layer of water and walked in — shirt off, letting it flow from every surface, wet grass squelching immediately underfoot, the night wind briefly raising goosebumps before the water wrapped around me three times thicker than anything I'd managed before. It absorbed the first incoming fire without difficulty. Small caliber, some automatic bursts — everything reached the water and stopped.
Down to one knee, I merged my water with what Malevola had portal-ported in, wrapped both arms in water whips, and stood.
"The hell are you?" The familiar mob faces from the port were coming at me from both sides. On the most theatrical balcony imaginable — the kind that would have been at home in a Brazilian or Turkish soap opera — he appeared. The main antagonist. Though compared to the grinning man at his shoulder, Pierson himself produced no particular fear. That other one made something in my spine want to find a safer address. "What do you want?"
"Just a lovesick idiot." No preamble. I sent both whips into the right-side group — a sharp crack, and the front two went airborne with very clear bone-related sound effects, taking several more down when they landed.
The left side opened up automatic fire. The water layer expanded, taking the rounds — one meter, two, three — bullets dropping away, the force gone by the time anything reached my skin.
Then the dome I'd been building detonated outward under pressure, sending heavy water masses forward in a wide cone.
Balcony railings, decorative statues, glass, ornamental plants — everything that the water reached came apart.
The disoriented gunmen on the left didn't get time to recover before a high-pressure stream went through their formation, doing serious work on the first three and putting several more down.
Somewhere on the balcony, Pierson was screaming orders to kill me. Guards were groaning. Roof tiles were detaching. And one person stood absolutely still through all of it, smiling like he was watching a sporting event.
"Go on in, Micky. I'll take it from here." He pushed his employer off the balcony with mild interest, hopped down to the grass, and stopped directly in front of me with a look of complete anticipation. "He won't be walking out of this house alive anyway, right?"
"Probably not." I needed time. The aura on this one was wrong in a way that made me want more water before closing the distance.
"Pity." Not even attempting sincerity. He removed his broken glasses, pocketed them, shrugged off the jacket, folded it with care, and hung it on what remained of the staircase railing.
I raised my right hand and sent a thin stream toward him—
A knife moved, and the water simply split. Like a parting of the seas, he stood untouched, watching the liquid fail to reach him with an expanding smile. Whatever his power was, it was keeping water off him.
Then my left shoulder went hot.
Before the water shield had fully reformed, I felt the sting — and his second hand held a second knife. He swung them in mad conductor arcs, shredding the stream, and made a thrust that traveled twenty meters to reach my shoulder.
I pressed the wound, watched the blood slow, shook drops from my other palm, and swung again—
This time a redirect rather than a direct attack — shifting the pools into something that would complicate his footing, while from inside the house came panicked gunfire and the sound of a familiar portal and Mal's voice doing what Mal's voice did.
"Sounds lively in there." He threw a pair of knives at me, produced new ones, and started swinging, each motion leaving another clean surgical line across the ground, the cuts approaching steadily. "Ha-ha-ha—"
He didn't stop. Machine-like, filling the air with telekinetic waves — that was the only explanation I had for it. A few fingertip bursts caught him — he spat blood without slowing, promising repayment in volume.
I moved, skidding low on the thinning water, breaking pattern mid-stride and coming in close via a freshly laid track while he was still following my previous line—
But he was already smiling wider when I arrived.
He knew kung-fu, and it was better than mine. The cuts opened faster. The energy to hold back blood was going to the effort of not catching any more knives.
"Go on — come on—" We exchanged blows, fists and kicks mixed with powers, and at some point made a genuine trade. The knife opened my left arm from wrist to elbow, nearly to the bone. In exchange, every liquid I had on my right arm compressed into a concentrated mass and fired point-blank — punching through him.
"Damn it—" He spit. "Your blood got in my mouth—"
I was already reaching. My good hand found his face while I tracked the drops of myself inside him. Concentrate.
My own blood responded differently than water — clearly, distinctly, but fading fast as it diluted. The window was narrow. The moment I felt the connection starting to slip—
My fingers tightened on his jaw. Something in his stomach let go with a sound like a struck bell.
He looked at me for a few seconds with completely blank eyes, then dropped in a heap. Blood came from his mouth in a steady flow. His shirt was soaked dark at the abdomen and the body shook for a few more seconds before it didn't.
"God. Blood magic. The Templars were right about that one."
Just seeing it was enough to need to sit down. My legs found the broken staircase before I consciously decided to lie down, which was convenient because the aches and cuts and everything else had decided to compare notes all at once—
I don't know how long it was. But when I closed my eyes, something began getting better. A hand moved through my hair. Soft thighs under the back of my head.
"Hey, Ryan Gosling. You finally awake?"
One heartbeat. Then a flood.
"Mal—"
"Good work, Herm." She turned away to cough, and then I heard her properly and realized she was not coughing. A soft groan, controlled, then the sound she actually made. "God — ah—"
Every fallen woman in history could have taken notes. Arching, pressing my face further into her chest, shivering through her whole body, wrapping her legs around me with a movement of the hips that was very explicitly not first aid—
"Mal—" Shame. Delight. Bewilderment. All of the above simultaneously. "Are you — seriously?"
"Hang on, hang on, hang on—" She patted my head, released the grip, visibly flushed even through her natural color — aroused and impossibly beautiful after whatever had just happened — and ran her hands slowly down the length of me. Then the last breath left her. "That was incredible—"
"Great. I'd love some context." Trying very hard not to lose composure, suppressing a smile, ignoring what my body was doing, I waited for an explanation.
"I didn't tell you, but—" Her gaze went sideways. Malevola experiencing something resembling embarrassment was a new discovery. Worth remembering. "I can take on other people's wounds. Pain, damage, exhaustion — any negative physical state. Transfer it to myself."
"Okay, that part I follow." She was recovering quickly, the familiar sharp smile returning with its usual confidence, her hold on my back tightening — claws and tail both. "And the other part—"
"I simply enjoy pain a little." The word little did not survive the next few seconds. An emphatic kiss interrupted any follow-up — tasting of ash and blood — and when it ended she was already smiling against my mouth. "And what you said. Everything came together beautifully."
She grinned, clearly enjoying my expression, and drew me back in, into a second kiss — in the middle of the wreckage and the fire and everything that remained of the battle that had just ended.
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