Page 196

‘No,’ Arcturus said. ‘Paige must not overuse her gift, Errai.’

‘I’ll try,’ I rasped, even though my head was in agony. ‘Just keep … the Buzzers away.’

Errai nearly threw me into the second coffin. The Reph in this one had pale hair. Even though it was cut to his chin, he looked so much like Suhail that I forgot how to breathe. Before I could have second thoughts, Errai slammed the lid down.

Pollux was lifeless. He couldn’t hurt me. I closed my eyes. Once again, I pushed out my spirit, overcoming the pain barrier, and my body fell limp in the coffin beside him, though my heart was still beating. I searched the darkness of his dreamscape, and I somehow found his spirit. Once again, no matter how hard I shook Pollux, he refused to wake.

‘Come on,’ I urged. ‘Pollux Chertan, the Ranthen need you. Come back, now.’ My temper frayed. ‘Look, you’ve got a human in your dreamscape. Get up and throw me out!’

Pollux Chertan did not answer.

There was no more time for this. We needed to behead the bodies and get out of dodge. I turned on my heel and sprintedaway, taking a running jump into the æther, then gasped back to myself. Arcturus spaded me out and set me on the floor, and I heaved for breath, leaning hard on the coffin. Errai looked inside it, then at me, his expression thunderous.

‘He isn’t waking up, either.’ I clamped a hand over my thumping heart. ‘I’m sorry, Errai.’

‘Liar.’ He pinned me to the coffin. ‘Why could you only resurrect Arcturus?’

‘I don’t—’

‘Are you favouring the Mesarthim?’

‘Errai, peace.’ Arcturus grasped his wrist, trying to break his grip on me. ‘Paige has—’

‘Whatever you’re doing,’ Jaxon snarled, ‘do it quickly, you rabble of undying blockheads.’ He was back in a tug of war with a Buzzer. Sukie floundered between them, her panic sending flickers through the æther. ‘Or perhaps I should get you someteawhile you hold a debate?’

Mistry was fighting to control his poltergeist, speaking to it in Italian, chanting its name between instructions. Caterina was none too happy, but her apport covered the entrance, a thin curtain of rancour that barely held the Buzzers back. It wouldn’t be long before they overwhelmed us. Errai tightened his grip on my arms, hard enough to bruise.

‘I will conceal your filthy secret,’ he said to Arcturus, too low for anyone but us to hear, ‘but not if you reserve the dreamwalker for your own use.’

‘I’m not his to use,’ I said hotly. ‘Or yours.’

‘Then save our warriors!’

‘Enough,’ Terebell said. ‘She has made two attempts, Errai. No more.’

Pleione towed Hatysa out of the coffin, speaking a few words in Gloss before Terebell decapitated her cousin in one blow. The head dropped like a chunk of stone.

Errai released me, a cascade of anguished Gloss escaping him. Arcturus put himself between us, but Errai only cared about Hatysa now. Terebell sequestered Pollux.

When his skull hit the floor, it was as if a bell had tolled. The heavy force in the æther lifted. Three of the poltergeists huddledclose to Jaxon, while Caterina Sforza took her leave, knocking a candlestick down as she went. The Buzzers slowed, their white eyes roaming.

‘They are locating the next grave,’ Terebell said. ‘We do not have long.’

She took the opportunity to behead the distracted Buzzers. I watched her without flinching. Either I had developed a cast-iron stomach, or the sheer amount of carnage I had witnessed had numbed me in less than an hour.

‘The exit is this way.’ Mistry broke into a weary run. ‘We can take the Passetto di Borgo, a corridor above street level. The College of Cardinals will have used it to leave the Vatican.’

‘Right.’ I swallowed a little blood, skirting around another headless Reph. ‘Pleione, where next?’

‘We must leave the vicinity,’ Pleione said. ‘Every Emite that came to this grave is about to move towards the next. We can follow them.’

Mistry led us out of the Cripta dei Monarchi and through the silent Papal Tombs, which lay undisturbed. I narrowed my eyes against the sudden flood of daylight, reaching for the amaranth in my pocket.

This still wasn’t over.

29

CALL OF THE VOID