One of Hugo’s bodyguards moved toward Belamy, but Hugo put up a hand to stop him. He was watching with his wide eyes, never blinking, that same ghost of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. The guard returned to his respectful position behind Hugo.
Belamy spoke, his voice a monstrous growl. “You slime, you worm.” Kite was kicking and sputtering, his face becoming a deeper shade of red, edging toward purple. “You would threaten a child—a child under my protection? Cowardly filth.” He brought his hand down sharply, slamming Kite into the ground.
Kite grunted but could do nothing else with the unseen hand choking him. His eyes were bulging as he struggled in vain to escape the grasp of the wizard’s magic.
“Unfit to live,” Belamy growled.
“Stop!” Skate cried. Kite’s eyes were bulging with effort, but she saw the silent plea in the wild stare. “Mr. Belamy, stop!”
Belamy fixed his glare on her, and she found herself clutching Rattle’s legs for support. He looked monstrous.
“Why? This loathsome rat would gut you at first opportunity. I’ve seen how he acts; I’ve seen the way his mind works. He’s a waste of space who is only now, for the first time in his selfish, wretched life, contemplating the concept of mercy because he’ll benefit from it.” Belamy turned his snarling face back toward Kite. “The world’s better without him in it.”
A particularly nasty voice (one made all the worse because Skate knew it to be her own thinking and no one else’s) was screaming in her head: He’s right! Think of the knife at your throat! The people he’s hurt and probably killed, the way he looks when he’s threatening you. He’ll never stop coming for you, he— She shook her head and the thoughts evaporated. “You said you weren’t going to get anybody hurt if you could help it. With the lightning, you were just fighting back. This is murder. Can’t you help this?”
When Belamy snapped his gaze back to her this time, Skate didn’t recoil—partly because she’d steeled her nerves for it and partly because his face was not still a mask of hatred. Instead, he looked shocked at her question. “I can…help it. Yes. Yes, of course.”
Belamy shook his hand loosely, and Kite sucked in a desperate and stuttering gulp of air. He coughed and retched as he crawled away from the lich. He didn’t crawl toward the vampire either, but toward a nearby tree. He rolled against it and continued coughing into the slushy snow. When Belamy spoke again, she recognized the voice. “I’m not a monster. You’re right.”
Hugo’s airy laughter caught their attention. He stood with a hand on his chest, as if struggling to contain himself. “My, how disappointing. I thought I’d be meeting the Iron Wind again. But no,” he said with a deep sigh that ended any echoes of his laugh, “I see I was mistaken. You’re only a burned-out husk who tells stories to himself. You won’t embrace what you’ve become. It makes you weak.” Hugo waved at the bodyguard who’d moved earlier. The man stalked toward Kite. “I don’t tolerate weakness. You’ll learn that while you work for me.”
The bodyguard was halfway to Kite already, a thin and wicked-looking blade produced from somewhere in the sleeve of his coat.
“Wait,” Belamy said, holding up a hand to stop his progress.
The bodyguard stopped as if he’d run into an invisible wall. He turned toward Belamy and growled, opening a mouth with elongated canines. Belamy’s hand gripped again and tossed violently, throwing the subservient vampire backward.
Hugo stepped aside and let him crash into his other bodyguard. Belamy kept pushing, and both of the bodyguards smashed through the wall of the fancy bakery.
Hugo stood looking at the lich with disgust. “Where was all this mercy of yours sixty years ago? What made me less deserving of receiving it than him?” He gestured toward Kite and put his hand on his hip. “Is it just a refusal to do what’s necessary anymore? It doesn’t matter,” he said, not waiting for an answer. He put both of his hands behind his back and stood at a military-style rest position. “I’ve decided to destroy your body for now. We’ll find whatever you tied your soul to and trap you when you re-form. It’ll be easier to deal with you that way.”
Hugo made no move, and Belamy was likewise still. The latter spoke. “I’m sorry, Hugo. You did not deserve to die.”
“Empty words that cost you nothing. Spare me your false sympathy, your meaningless platitudes, they—” Hugo cut off his words a split second before Skate noticed the reason why: Belamy was waggling fingers and muttering quietly.
Faster than Skate could follow, Hugo crossed the two dozen feet between him and Belamy and stood directly in front of the wizard. He struck Belamy hard across the face, on the side where the lightning had done its damage.
Belamy staggered, and Skate gagged; the blow had torn the blackened skin completely from the wizard’s face, leaving the ghastly white skull to shine in the midday sun.
Belamy turned with the blow, his half-face frozen in concentration as he continued muttering. He finished his spell, and a glittering sphere of translucent white enclosed both him and Hugo together, with only two feet or so on either side of them to move around in.
Skate was distracted for a moment as Rattle’s legs moved, and footsteps approached. Twitch had come to stand beside her. He was clutching his nose, which was bleeding. There were blotches of red across his gray rags where blood had either splattered or he’d tried to stop it up. He said nothing but watched the confrontation.
“Foolish,” Hugo said, his voice perfectly audible through the sphere. “Now you’ve nowhere to go. And we both know I’m the stronger by far.” He accentuated this last word with another blow across the face. The crack of bone was audible as he kneed the old man in the stomach and delivered a third blow. With each hit, Belamy made no move to block anything, but brought his hands around him as if trying to curl into a ball and avoid the worst. The jewels of the robe glinted in the sun with every shifting movement.
The bodyguards had extracted themselves from the shop and were walking at a leisurely pace to the other side of the sphere, content to watch their master at work. Hugo was holding Belamy up with one hand, the old man’s legs dangling loose below him. Hugo brought the wizard in close and said, just loudly enough to be heard by the onlookers, “I’m going to enjoy working with you, Barrison.” He pulled back and delivered a terrible blow to the forehead, denting it in and sending the Iron Wind to the ground in a heap. The rubies glinted all over his robes.
Belamy had landed in such a way that he was looking at Skate. The side of his face with skin on it smiled, and his mouth moved. She heard his voice in her ear: “Rattle will show the way.”
“Speak up, Barry; it’s the last time we’ll get to talk for a while.” Hugo bent over him and snarled.
Belamy did not turn to look at him, but did resume speaking in an audible tone. “Do you know what one of my most successful tricks was during the war?”
“Do tell; I’m sure it’s very interesting.” Hugo delivered a kick that sent Belamy flying into the side of the sphere, which reacted not one iota to the force of it.
“If we were ever outmaneuvered and found ourselves retreating, I’d lay a very particular trap along our path that invariably caught any pursuers unawares. It—” A punch into—literally into, Skate realized—Belamy’s chest cut him off, but only momentarily. The damage had not prevented him from speaking, somehow. “It was a very simple spell that only took a few words and a single object. I could set the trap to detonate for any time I chose, as long as I knew about how far away my enemies were—and I always knew, you understand; I made sure, every time. When it went off, they’d suffer losses and eventually give up the chase. Do you know what the object was the spell called for?”