The Bone Clocks

“My psychovoltage is off the scale, is why!”

“You poor sap.” Фshima yawns. “I’ve eaten trays of dim sum with more psychosoteric potential than you.”

“I’m curious, Marinus,” says Immaculйe Constantin. “Your pet schizophrenic just sold you down the river. Will nothing make you despise a person?”

“Homicide and animacide work just fine. But I blame you for bending Sadaqat’s fear of dying into treachery. I’m sorry, Sadaqat. It’s the War. I had to let them believe you were their ace in the hole. Thank you for the garden, at least. This won’t change that.”

“I amthe Twelfth Anchorite. Tell them, Miss Constantin, what you told me. About my potential as a follower of the Shaded Way.”

“You have the potential to whinge people to death, Sadaqat.” When Constantin’s tone turns maternal I know time’s running out. “No. Psychosoterically speaking, you fire blanks. Worse, you’re a traitor. A talentless, chakraless, browntraitor.”

Sadaqat looks round at the tall white Anchorites disbelievingly. I can barely look at his changed expression, but I owe him this. Then, mercifully, he turns his back to us to take a few shaky steps towards the Umber Arch. Two of the rearguard block his way. Sadaqat flees for the exit but Pfenninger psycholassos him, reeling him in with mighty pulls, then kinetics him twenty feet high. I can’t intervene. The Second Mission depends on us preserving every volt for the coming duel. Constantin hand-symbols an Act of Violence, and Sadaqat’s head is twisted through 360 degrees. “There,” purrs Constantin. “We’re not such sadists, are we? Nice and quick. Chickens suffer more when you wring their necks, don’t they, Holly?”

Sadaqat’s broken body drops onto the ground, and a lesser Anchorite kinetics it through the east window, like a trash bag of household waste. His soul, at least, will find its way to the Last Sea, unlike those of other “guests,” who are brought here to be psychodecanted.

They’re about to attack,Unalaq subwarns me.

Feeling like a conductor raising his baton for the Orchestra of All Hell Breaks Loose, I say, “Now.”

UNALAQ INVOKES A shield from wall to wall, closing off the northern quarter of the Chapel. Even at thirty paces, its force shoves Pfenninger, Constantin, Hugo Lamb, and D’Arnoq back a few feet. The shield is rooted in Unalaq’s raised palms, and shimmers, a blue lens of Deep Stream force. Pfenninger and Constantin look on from the outer edge of the shield with condescension. Why? Elijah D’Arnoq makes a megaphone of his hands and shouts at us. His words take a few seconds to penetrate Unalaq’s shield, and arrive fragmented but discernible: “It’s behind you!”

I look behind us. Sickeningly, the charred icon of the Blind Cathar is restoring itself. The monk’s skin is emerging, and the gold halo is starting to shine. Worse, the black dot of the chakra-eye’s returning. Once it’s fully dilated, the Cathar will be able to decant us one by one.

Pfenninger taunts us: “See who you’ve locked yourself in with!”

“This one’s mine,” Фshima calls out. “Marinus, Arkady, keep the shield up. Goodbye Esther.” Esther’s soul egresses from Фshima, transversing to one side, pulsing with her evocation of the Last Act. Then the grizzled warrior turns, grips the edges of the icon, and holds his head one foot away from the Blind Cathar’s. He shuts his physical eyes and pours Deep Stream voltage from his own glowing chakra straight at the black pupil on the icon’s forehead. Фshima cannot win against this incorporeal generator of the Shaded Way, but he might win us a precious extra minute.

Pfenninger sees the stowaway soul, however, and barks an order. The Anchorites advance towards our shield, two rows of five on either side of the table, hands symboling furiously. Constantin’s voice reaches me: “Smash that shield and kill the stowaway first!” Arkady, Unalaq, Holly, and I are knocked back by a barrage of jagged emberfire, laser-whiplash, and sonic bullets. I feel Unalaq’s nervous system scream with every impact. Arkady and I fire back, our Deep Stream projectiles passing from our palm-chakras through Unalaq’s shield. Those that hit their targets will hiatus, sedate, or redact an Anchorite out of the battle, but Shaded Way psychoincendiaries will fry our flesh. The Anchorites have flamethrowers, while we have tranq darts and a riot shield, a riot shield beginning to crack. Through the oscillating blaze I see that Arkady and I have scored a couple of lucky strikes. Cammerer, the Eighth Anchorite, crumples and Osterby, the Sixth, is hiatused off-balance and topples over like a side of pork, but now Du Nord enacts a Shaded Way shield to prevent further losses.