Bound Together (22 page)

I tasted blood in my mouth. I must've bit my tongue as I fell. I was on my back, the burning in my lungs a sure sign that I'd been blasted off my feet with enough force to knock the wind out of me. Realizing I lost my grip on the revolver, I tried to move, to get the weapon back, but it was more than two meters away and I couldn't reach it, couldn't crawl toward it.

With a flash of brilliant red, Misaki's dive dropped her from the sky and she placed herself between me and Isao. The specters circled around her, dodging her hastily-aimed motes of spell-flame with contemptuous ease. They ignored her, knowing full well that she could not banish them before it was too late. Their eyes all focused on me as they closed in for the kill.

“Fire now!” Misaki shouted.

The distant thunderclap report of a pair of 7.62mm sniper rifles rolled over me. I willed my eyes open and watched, elated, as the hideous eye-covered heads of each specter exploded in a shower of gore. The headless bodies began to rapidly dissolve into miasma clouds as their corporeal projections were destroyed, severing the power that anchored them to our world. Isao's sneer melted into an expression of incredulity, but he quickly put two and two together. His eyes narrowed as he glared at me.

“AEGIS,” he hissed in frustration. “It appears my son was careless. No matter; their presence will not change the outcome of this battle.”

I opened my mouth to offer an angry retort, but all that came out of my mouth was a groan and a trickle of blood. I'd apparently bitten my tongue at some point, but I could barely distinguish one injury from another. The pain in my broken leg was
beyond
fucking excruciating. I could feel the darkness of unconsciousness start to nibble around the edges of my vision.

No. I wouldn't pass out. Fuck that! We
weren't
going to die here today.

Isao let out a derisive sound that was somewhere between a snort and a wheeze. “The torment you have experienced is only the beginning, mongrel bitch! You will
beg
for release when I am through with—”

Flames erupted around his body, absorbed by the whirling barrier of miasma. Isao halted mid-sentence and glared at Misaki. She sidestepped and traced an intricate runic pattern in the air. A torrent of enchanted iron needles, each over ten centimeters in length, streaked down from the sky and slammed into the ancient lord's body. The projectiles' pale glow faded as they struck their target.

Isao roared in pain but maintained razor-sharp focus as he traced a series of runes in the air. The conjured needles dispersed into fading motes of mana. Isao's withered fingers inscribed another spell, but Misaki's magic was faster. A defensive barrier materialized between Isao and Misaki. The shimmering gold field of light intercepted the spinning blade of coalesced miasma and dispersed it into nothingness.

I knew he wouldn't try to summon any more specters. Even for someone as powerful as he, summoning took considerable amounts of energy. The MQ slug was still lodged in his shoulder and despite all of his bluster, the wound
was
slowing him down, causing him pain every time he cast a spell. If I could just get to the revolver—

Misaki traced blazing lines in the air. A sweeping burst of vitality began to flow into my body, soothing the pain and bringing back control over my muscles. I groaned in pain as I started trying to move again. There wasn't much that could be done about my broken leg, but at least I could crawl again. I managed to make it just over a meter before an explosion of pain went off in my mangled left leg.

Fuck. The revolver was
just
out of reach!

“Fire now!” Misaki cried.

Malcolm and Renne responded with another pair of shots, this time aimed at Lord Isao directly. The sheer knockdown power of the 7.62mm rounds should have blasted a man of Isao's condition off his feet, but the magic and miasma that flowed through his body strengthened him far beyond mortal limits.

Changing tactics on the fly, Misaki channeled a new spell, bringing out her own blade in the form of a frozen plume of fire. Intense heat radiated from the blade and yet it seemed to be made of red-gold tinted ice or crystal. She had the right idea—even with the gains we'd made, Isao would inevitably win if we allowed the battle to be a duel of spells.

“You will
not
enslave me again,” Misaki snarled as she darted forward, still riding on the last vestiges of her flight spell. She slashed again and again at Isao, but the lord summoner parried and blocked with miasmic currents shaped into blades.

“You are a
thing
, a
weapon
, and you belong to me!” Isao roared as he conjured up a ball of tainted green-black sludge. The sphere burst and spewed vitriolic foulness evenly across a two-meter radius. I was outside of the spell's blast, but Misaki was not.

The sludge clung to her and began to smoke and fizzle as it ate away at her body. She shrieked in pain and nearly dropped her conjured sword, but managed to maintain her charge and slashed at him repeatedly. The blade struck flesh and bone and melted through it, but Isao only cackled at her as the strikes triggered a potent magical defense.

Black-purple energy detonated around him. The dark power enveloped Misaki's body, shattered her blade of frozen fire and sending her flying through the air to crash heavily no more than a meter away. Despite the intensity of the blast, Misaki managed to get to her feet and retaliate, a huge jet of spell-flame shooting from her right hand and striking Isao directly in the chest.

The lord of the Tsukimura grunted in pain and backpedaled, quickly inscribing a spell into the air as he struggled to rebuild his defenses. Malcolm and Renne, safely hidden more than fifty meters away, began to open fire freely, taking shot after shot as quickly as their weapons would allow.

Isao's crazed laughter seemed to grow unnaturally loud as he managed to deflect the shots over and over, simply re-materializing his miasma barrier each time the MQ bullets destabilized it. I could tell that the two AEGIS hunters were staggering their shots to try and slip a round through his defenses, but it was no use. The lord of Tsukimura only drew deeper and more rapidly upon his miasma.

“Misaki,” I gasped, “the gun. Throw me the gun.”

She nodded and scrambled to retrieve the weapon, but Isao was perfectly capable of multitasking. I cursed the circumstances and our planning. The original tactical plan assumed the worst-case scenario: that Lord Isao would abstain from direct involvement and would repeatedly summon specters to do his fighting for him.

Well.
That
misconception was well and thoroughly fucking shattered. It could have been a lot worse, sure, if dozens of specters were running around the battlefield, but this was definitely bad. The Tsukimura head shrugged off the high-powered rounds, the slow cycle of the bolt-action sniper rifles ensuring they only ever struck his shield. I was starting to wonder if there was a limit to how many times he could bring the damn thing back, desperately wishing the AEGIS hunters were equipped with something that could fire in full-auto.

The sickening smell of burned flesh filled the air as more smoke poured from the wound in Isao's shoulder. The MQ bullet still stuck in his shoulder was doing its job, acting as a resistor, reducing his power output and converting that excess energy into heat. Isao roared in rage and pain and his fingers inscribed the rune for a terrible offensive magic, an annihilating sphere of pure miasma that would simply disintegrate anything it touched.

“Karin! Catch!”

The revolver spun end-over-end as Misaki threw it to me. I contorted my body and managed to get my good leg under me long enough to—well, not quite
catch
the gun, but I got close enough to it to get my hands back on it.

I aimed and pulled the trigger.

ouroboros

The gun bucked in my hands and I almost dropped it. My grip was weak and shaky; the healing magic Misaki used was not very strong and I was still in a lot of pain. The endorphins were starting to flow right along with the adrenaline, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep up the fight too much longer.

Isao cackled, his voice thick with contempt. “Your injuries seem to have worsened your aim for you to miss at such close range!” That horrible laughter came again, filled with ancient, haughty contempt. He brandished the disintegrating sphere that hovered above his right hand.

“I wasn't aiming at you, asshole,” I growled.

I think he realized his error only a split-second before all hell broke loose.

The annihilation sphere started to vibrate, oscillating and pulsing erratically. Isao's sneer of contempt melted away as his eyes widened in astonishment. The sphere's outer boundaries began to destabilize, creeping outward, slowly at first, but much more rapidly as the malformed quintessence began to distort the mana sustaining the sphere and fed it back into itself.

Isao screamed in wordless horror as the sinister magic shattered and blew apart. Isao's body was caught in the shock wave as it expanded out, blasting his body back with the force of a bomb. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself for the pain that I knew was about to come.

It never did.

I opened my eyes and realized that Misaki was standing next to me. A shimmering protective dome of golden light shielded the both of us from the botched spell. I blinked my eyes, trying to clear the sweat and blood from them. Apparently I had a pretty bad cut on my forehead, probably from some flying piece of debris.

At this point I'm sure I had far more wounds than I could actually feel. Misaki bent down next to me and wrapped my left arm over her neck and shoulders, dragging me to my feet. Bright flashes of agony burst behind my eyes as I inevitably put some weight on my broken leg.

“Hang on, Karin,” she implored. “We're not out of danger yet. Isao still lives.”

Misaki and I managed to limp to where Isao's body lay. She was right; he was still alive, but only just barely. The MQ bullet I'd fired caused the sphere of annihilation to fail before it had completely formed. All of the energy he'd poured into the magic could no longer be contained and had exploded.

His clothes were torn to shreds—no, it was much worse than that. His skin had split and cracked in multiple places. Miasma-tainted blood, oily and black, oozed from fissures and lacerations. His right arm had been completely destroyed. The flesh hung in gruesome ribbons smeared with dark blood, jagged shards of white bone visible beneath.

Isao's eyes flew open.

“You... do you... realize what you've... done...”

“Yeah, I do,” I snapped. I held the revolver in my right hand, gripping it tightly enough that my knuckles went completely white. Misaki helped me stagger closer until the both of us were less than a meter from the mortally wounded Isao. I kept the revolver aimed at his forehead, ready to blow his brains out if he so much as breathed too hard.

For the first time, Isao turned a gaze on Misaki that didn't hold complete and utter contempt for her. Instead, his eyes were wide with bafflement.

“Why...”

Misaki glared at him. “Why what?”

“Why... would you fight to protect this dog,” Isao wheezed. He was looking at me now, steadily, but beneath the pain in his face, his expression was one of confusion. He coughed wetly and black blood dripped from lips contorted in agonizing pain.

“Why... would you risk so much... oppose me, the Tsukimura... for a weapon... for the Relic? Why... why risk... family?”

I dropped the revolver on the ground and materialized the sword in my right hand. The weight felt reassuring, somehow comforting. The edge of the Relic's blade activated as it sensed the miasmic core of a specter within Isao's broken body. The fine razor line of the sword's steel edge heated steadily until it glowed white-hot.

“I didn't,” I replied.

“I... don't—don't understand—” The rest of his sentence was lost to a series of rattling coughs. Misaki and I looked at each other for a moment, then back at the fallen lord of the House Tsukimura.

“Of course you don't understand,” Misaki said, her voice calm and cool. “You lost what little remained of your humanity when you took in the essence of a specter. You gave up your soul in exchange for power.”

Isao stared at Misaki with wide eyes, but said nothing.

“I didn't risk my life for the damn sword,” I explained, trying as best I could to keep my voice as even as possible despite the pain I was in. “I risked my life for Misaki—because I love her. Because she's family, too.”

The lord of House Tsukimura cackled, despite the fact that he was only mere minutes away from death's door. There was contempt in his laugh, an ancient haughtiness toward those he believed his lessers. It was filled with hate and bitterness.

Misaki stared down at the dying man. “She risked her life so that I could be free, so that I can be a person like any other. Karin risked her life so that
we
could be free. Free to live, and free to love each other.”

“So... you risked... everything... for a dog,” Isao wheezed, the venom in his voice fading as quickly as his strength. He started to laugh again, but each laugh brought him more pain. Even I could tell that his injuries were beyond repair. There was no way the regenerative properties of the miasma he controlled could save him.

“Finish... it,” he gasped. “Take your... victory.”

I turned my head toward Misaki and gazed into her eyes. Her ears flicked and she nodded. I turned back to Lord Isao, the sword gripped tightly in my right hand and swung downward with as much strength as my injuries would allow. The Relic's superheated edge cut through bone and flesh as if it were tissue paper.

There was a hiss and a flash of black corruption. The stench of burned flesh reached my nostrils as I watched the two halves of the implanted miasmic core emerge and split apart, slowly fading away into a dull gray ash.

Isao's serene expression was gone, replaced by one of horror as he realized that I was
not
going to grant his final wish. I whipped the sword around in a flourish and released it with my will. The blessed longsword vanished as if it had never been.

“
NO!
” Isao gasped, a wide rivulet of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
“Finish your strike... I have been defeated.”

I glared at the ruined almost-corpse, half-shrouded and obscured by the grass of the shrine clearing. The blood running from his body was no longer oily and black, no longer tainted by the presence of miasma. For the first time in almost two centuries, Isao Tsukimura was fully human... and mortal.

My answer was short and to the point.

“No.”

“Kill me!” Isao raged, his weakening voice tinged with a rising note of terror. “You defeated me in battle. Don't... don't... the pain!”

I gave him a look of intense disgust that I usually reserve for use on politicians, date rapists and con artists who bilk old ladies out of their life savings. Misaki seemed to agree with me, her ears laying flat and back, tail lashing, her small fangs visible as she bared them in a fierce snarl.

“You don't get the easy way out,” I ground out, fighting a fresh wave of pain and nausea that threatened to send me into unconsciousness.

Misaki shifted, struggling to keep me upright, and turned to face me. I ignored the coughs and wheezes of the dying Tsukimura, my attention fully and completely captivated by large, liquid green eyes. My body was at its limit; I could feel my mind start to slip away into darkness.

Then she kissed me.

Motes of shimmering light gathered around Misaki's body as she strengthened the bond between us. Through the kiss, she drew in a tremendous amount of loose mana liberated by Isao's repeated invocations. I felt a tingle that built into a high-current shock, but I felt no pain. Misaki's invocation continued to build in power as she drew more mana through me, using my body to amplify the cleansing magic. I could feel no pain; Misaki's invocation shielded me from the burning mana as the kiss went endlessly on.

I couldn't keep my eyes open. Misaki's lips pressed against mine, fierce and wild. She supported my battered body with her gentle strength. I had no energy left, but I borrowed hers. I let my eyes close, allowing myself to be drawn in deeper. The kiss we shared was woven into the invocation that began to flow outward from our bodies. The motes of light and magic flared like miniature stars as a brilliant white glow bloomed and encompassed the Tsukimura ancestral shrine.

With my eyes closed I couldn't see, but I knew what was happening. I felt the magic unraveling around us through Misaki's power. In my mind I watched as golden light burst forth and enveloped the shrine itself. The fell magic that created this place was unwoven, deconstructed, sublimating from physical manifestation directly to raw and unformed mana that Misaki drew in through the Relic and through me.

Some time later, Misaki drew away and I opened my eyes. She wore her usual faint and dangerous smile. I couldn't help but smile back—at least until I forgot myself for a moment and tried putting weight on my broken leg. Bad, bad idea.

“I'm sorry I couldn't do more.” Misaki's voice was apologetic.

I didn't respond to her. I was too busy simultaneously being amazed and in a great deal of pain. I did my best to shove the pain into a box inside my mind, because there were far more interesting things going on than my broken leg. I couldn't even see the tiniest trace that the Tsukimura ancestral shrine had ever existed. We stood in the same empty field we found when we arrived.

“The shrine?”

Misaki's ears twitched. “The entire area was formed from miasma manifesting into a sort of magical emulation of physical matter. The cleansing invocation unbound the miasma and the constructs formed of it ceased to exist.”

I hobbled over to where Isao's body lay and was astonished for a second time.

“He's still alive,” I marveled.

Misaki shook her head. “His body lives, but his mind was lost when you destroyed the miasmic core within his body. The invocation he performed to augment his own mind with the specter he summoned bound them together, just as you are bound to the Relic. When you destroyed the core, his mind began to deteriorate rapidly.”

I turned away. I didn't want to look at him any longer. I was starting to feel sick as I looked at the mangled body knowing it was still alive without a mind, the heart still beating, the organs damaged but still functioning.

“We'll take it from here, Karin, Misaki.”

I turned toward the familiar voice. Star walked through the clearing, outfitted for battle in tactical black nylon. She looked exhausted and worn. A deep gash on her forehead was hastily stitched together, blood seeping into the cotton gauze underneath the tape. Her left arm was covered in tacky half-dried blood.

Star took one look at my leg, which was currently bent at a rather unnatural angle, and immediately reached into one of her pouches and withdrew a small hypodermic needle. She pulled the cap with her teeth and bent down, jabbing the needle into my leg and depressing the plunger.

“What are you—
fucking hell
!” I gasped in pain as the drug was injected, my heart leaping into my throat, but then I felt the most wonderful numbness start to settle over my broken leg. The pain was already dulling, mere seconds after administration.

“That should take care of the pain until you can get treatment,” Star informed me. I glared at her with more anger than I actually felt.

“Next time you're going to shove a needle into my bleeding, bruised and, oh yeah,
fractured leg
, please give me ample warning ahead of time.”

My boss's lips spread into an evil grin. “I
can
bring the pain back, if you'd like.”

“No, no, that's okay!” I replied, waving my hands in surrender. I leaned more of my weight on Misaki as the whatever opioid Star injected me with started to really get working. I must've been making a weird face because both Misaki and Star were trying their best to hold back laughter.

“Where are Isao Tsukimura's remains?” Star asked.

Misaki motioned behind us. “Over there. The body is still alive, but Karin destroyed his fused miasmic core with the Relic. The mind that once inhabited the body is dead.”

Star's eyebrows shot up, intrigued. “That may prove to be useful. I'll have my people evacuate the body and arrange for it to be returned to headquarters.”

“What are you going to do?” I wondered, though I wasn't exactly sure I really wanted to know the answer.

“Research.” Star reached into one of her other pouches and pulled out a pack of my usual brand of cigarettes. She fished one out and handed it to me. “Studying the physical and biological effects the merging invocation had on his body will help us fight others who may have done the same as Isao Tsukimura.”

I managed to chase away the uneasy feeling by reminding myself that the body over there no longer had anyone behind the wheel, so to speak. Not to mention that its previous occupant also tried to torture me to death, enslave my lover and threatened to murder my remaining family members.