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Before they could cinch up on her arms, Brigid managed to plant both feet flat
on the floor. When they jerked her upright, she straightened her legs like
springs, kicking herself off the concrete, using the faceless men as braces.
With a whiplash motion of her body, Brigid turned in midair, her feet slamming
against the poker-wielding Fury's torso, literally walking up his body
horizontally.
The toe of her right boot knocked the poker aside, and her left foot connected
hard against the underside of the Fury's jaw, lifting him up on his toes and
sending him staggering backward. The poker described a smoking eddy as it fell
from his hand and clanged loudly on the floor. Arms windmilling as he tried to
regain his balance, the man fell against a black statue. The impact caused the
body to topple to the floor. The limbs splintered and fragmented, and a cloud
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of black oily smoke poured from the cracks in the petrified flesh.
Brigid's body continued turning. A year ago, the very suggestion she could
have performed such a stunt without a serious physical consequence would have
made her laugh. Now she performed the back flip like a veteran acrobat,
somersaulting between the two Furies and wriggling out of their grasps in the
same motion.
She landed a little clumsily, but she turned her misstep into a forward lunge,
tucking and rolling, shouldering aside the faceless men. Her path was blocked
by the Fury whose bodysuit bore the muddy imprints of her boot treads from
lower belly to clav-
icle. Stooping, he tried to snatch up the smoldering poker before she dodged
around him.
Brigid came out of her roll and her right arm scythed down, the edge of her
hand striking the neural center where the back of the Fury's neck joined his
shoulders. The blow hammered him to the floor, and
Brigid continued her forward bound toward the elevated platform.
Megaera stepped back, but not quickly enough. Brigid grabbed her by the hem of
her robe and yanked.
With a crowlike squawk of alarm, the old woman fell from the platform into
Brigid's arms. Her golden mask clattered to the floor. Brigid swung the old
woman around with enough violence to lift her from her feet and placed her
between the approaching Furies and herself. They continued moving.
Grasping Megaera by the right wrist, her hand completely encircling it, Brigid
forced her brittle left arm behind her back. She said, "Tell them to stop, you
demented old bitch, or I'll break every bone in your
body."
Megaera writhed like an animated skeleton in her grasp, and Brigid tightened
her hold. "Monster!
Blasphemer!" Megaera hissed.
"Send your Furies away or I'll show you how much of a monster I am." Brigid's
tone was hard with conviction. "I'll start with breaking your fin-
gers, one at a time. At your age, it takes a long time for bones to knit."
Megaera spit out a clucking, nasal stream of vituperation. When she was done,
the Furies lurched to a halt. Brigid's fingers briefly explored the woman's
wristband, careful not to exert too much pressure on the opals.
' 'Why didn't you carbonize me when you had the chance?" she asked quietly.
Megaera didn't answer, and Brigid squeezed her pipe-stem arm. The old woman
cried out in angry pain.' 'The sentence for your sin had yet to be meted out.
It was still inside you. I would be guilty of murdering a soul had I done as
you say."
Despite the situation, Brigid couldn't help but smile sourly. Mad the old
witch might be, but she was just as bound by protocol and procedure as the
most officious archivists Brigid had known in the Historical
Division.
"Which one of these buttons removes the spider?" she demanded.
"Spider?" the woman echoed.
"The oubolus."
Megaera shook her head. "That I will not say. Do not expect to escape my
justice."
"Yeah, and nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition, either. Answer my
question."
Lifting her chin at a prideful angle, Megaera declared pompously, "That I will
not do."
Gritting her teeth in frustrated anger, Brigid wrenched the woman's right arm
backward and found the catch on the wristband. She opened it and pulled it
off, evoking another spitting snarl of "Blasphemer!"
from Megaera.
Brigid started to retort, then suddenly realized the brazen tones of the bell
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she had almost tuned out were not a series of random clangs. Megaera shifted
position and said petulantly, "There is no escape "
"Shut the hell up," Brigid commanded. She listened intently for a moment, then
relief washed through her, so intense her knees went momentarily weak. The
chiming of the bell sounded more like a smith banging on an anvil, but when
she recognized the dot and dashes of Morse code, it was the sweetest music she
had ever heard. The message was simple but profoundly comforting: "Grant is
here. Come to the church.
Grant is here."
Brigid began slowly backing toward the double doors, dragging Megaera with
her. She resisted and shrilled, "I cannot leave here with you!"
"And why is that?" Brigid asked distractedly, her eyes darting from the Furies
to the statues.
"Your sin is still with you. If I accompany you, I will be judged for allowing
a sinner to escape justice."
Brigid knew the old woman was terrified by the concept of sharing a sinner's
fate. Three Furies were circling warily, sliding among the statues, their
oub-olus rods in plain sight, their masked faces opaque.
"Tell them to back off," Brigid snapped.
' 'I cannot, for they will not,'' Megaera stammered in a high, wild voice.
"They will fulfill their duty."
Brigid jerked the old woman to a stop. The Furies froze almost at the same
instant. Glancing to her left, she saw the statue of the woman whose nose had
been cut off. Although it caused her a pang of guilt, as if she were
desecrating the dead, she launched a stab-kick at it. The body shattered into
fragments and acrid plumes of thick, sulfurous smoke boiled out.
Brigid took quick advantage of the distraction. She thrust Megaera into the
arms of the nearest Fury and heeled around in the direction opposite the exit.
She was certain at least two of the black-clad faceless men had skulked behind
her to cut off her retreat.
With the furious shrieks of the old woman ringing in her ears, Brigid dodged
among the petrified people, zagging one way and then zigging the other.
Knowing that Megaera couldn't trigger the spider on her neck made her feel a
little more confident, but not so much she became careless.
She sprinted into a long corridor and reached a flight of steps that slanted
downward into complete, impenetrable blackness. Brigid paused, heart racing,
staring into the well of darkness and listening to the scuff of running feet
behind her. From somewhere outside the building came the sharp report of an
explosion.
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