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The Mother accepted those dead, rotten things. Just like She accepted human bodies buried in a cemetery. A fallen tree slowly crumbling into the rich loam of the forest. A deer dragged down by wolves. Death was always used for rebirth, fueling the new growth in the spring. She created—and She destroyed.
Maybe I need to destroy him—before I heal him.
The idea made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like the idea of deliberately hurting him when he was already suffering so much. Wouldn’t it be better to put him out of his misery? Allow him to continue his journey to Esetta? Didn’t he deserve an easy end after all that he’d suffered already?
I opened my eyes and met Lew’s hard, unswerving gaze. “Do you have any memory of my mother with Thierry that might help me decide?”
He shook his head. “Nothing specific with her, though if you question whether he’d rather die now and join her, or stay and fight with you, then I know his answer would be to stay.”
Thierry made those horrible, desperate sounds again, made even worse by Lew’s grip inside him.
“Even if I fail?” I whispered, blinking back tears.
Thierry nodded, not caring it destroyed his throat even more.
“Even if I have to kill you to save you?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he met my gaze again, I saw the same steely reserve I always saw reflected in Guillaume’s eyes. Lew’s. Rik’s.
Use me. As you will.
No matter the fucking cost.
27
SHARA
“I need to drain all the taint out of his body.”
I waited for my Bloods’ reactions. Their shock or horror at what lengths I was prepared to go. Even to save one of them.
Lew started to raise his arm, trying to lift Thierry off the floor, but he grimaced and lowered him back to his knees. “If I apply any more pressure to what’s left of his throat, he’ll lose his head. I’m assuming that would take you longer to heal unless you can use the knight’s ability to regenerate and fuse his spine back together.”
Behind me, Rik suggested, “Someone could hold him up by his ankles.”
Sekh looked around the room and up at the ceiling. “I think I’ll fit.”
The sphinx swelled up out of him. Giant haunches, his rear legs tucked underneath him. His mighty paws folded up rather than stretched out before him. He kept his ram head low, almost on the floor. With a careless toss of his mighty head, he’d take out the whole ceiling. :Someone grab a rope and string him up. I’m not putting my teeth in him.:
Daire ran out of the room. “I saw an electric cord in the utility room.”
In a few minutes, he ran back in and tossed the thick orange cord to Guillaume.
G said, “Stand him up if you can.”
Lurching upright, Thierry heaved to his feet with Lew’s help. My knight looped the cord around his ankles several times, whipped a quick knot, and then tossed the remainder up to the sphinx, who easily snatched it in his mouth.
Slowly, Sekh began to lift his head, taking up the slack, testing how much room he had between the ceiling. :Ready?:
Lew gave a nod. “I’ll help you flip him around but then I’m getting out of the fallout zone.”
“Everybody else back,” Rik said. “There’s no sense in any of us risking contamination.”
Hopefully the shadows would catch most of the taint. I thickened the blanket of darkness around Thierry, layer upon layer of shadow to capture the bulk of whatever came out of him.
Guillaume and Daire backed up toward me, and Rik wrapped his arms around me, ready to pull me out of the way if something worse than sludge crawled out.
With a silent coordinated countdown, Lew jerked Thierry backward off his feet at the same time as Sekh lifted his head up to the ceiling. Black rain splattered the floor beneath Thierry, quickly absorbed by the darkness flowing around him. Toward me—and the hole.
