Page 59 of Concluded
He waited, and after a minute or so Dee moaned.“It’s not working.I can’t do it.”
“You can.”
“I’m not strong enough.”
“You are.You’ve rescued me how many times already?You saved me just now.”Achilles put all his conviction into his words.Because sometimes if you believed in other people, then they believed in themselves.
Dee huffed, squeezing Achilles’ hand while trying again.
“Can’t!”Dee sobbed.
They were going to be stuck here forever.And without Dee, without Ish, with the battle lost, the war would be lost as well, and then?—
“She’ll be coming ’round the mountain!”Achilles bellowed.
“Um, what?”
Not bothering to explain, Achilles simply continued singing.Badly, but that hardly mattered.“She’ll be coming ’round the mountain, she’ll be coming ’round the mountain, she’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes.”
“She’ll be… driving six white horses?”
“Fuck yes!She’ll be driving six white horses!”
Together they yelled the stupid song, and as they did, a slight tingle began at their joined hands.It was weird but not unpleasant, and it grew as they continued through the verses.By the time they reached the final one—“We’ll be singin’ ‘Hallelujah’ when she comes”—Achilles’ entire body felt electrified.He was sweating, his cock hard and throbbing, his heart racing so quickly it was a wonder it was still in his rib cage.
And then Ish joined the song.He didn’t sing in English or any other language that Achilles had ever heard; his syllables sounded as wild and alien as the mushroom creatures’ music.But Ish kept to the same tune as Dee and Achilles, and now a current ranthroughAchilles, from Ish in one hand to Dee in the other.Achilles twitched with it, literally dancing with pleasure and pain, until they all reached the song’s final word.
“Got it!”Dee shouted triumphantly.
This time, all three of them laughed, and the darkness brightened as if dawn was on the verge of breaking.That lasted only a moment, which was long enough for Achilles to see Dee’s beautiful, almost ecstatic face.
Then Dee pressed the feather between their clasped hands, Achilles repeated his wish, and a supernova exploded.
CHAPTER24
Dee had been run over by a freight train.That’s what it felt like, anyway, and although he didn’t think anything was broken and he didn’t seem to be bleeding, he couldn’t move.Untangling his body from the other two nude bodies was far more than he could manage.He couldn’t even pry his eyes open.
But he could hear.
“Holyshit!”exclaimed a gravelly male voice.
Another male voice, smoother and more refined, responded.“What isthat?”
“I think… he’s an angel.”
The response from the smoother voice came in a Slavic-sounding language and had the cadence of a prayer.
Then Achilles, who was mostly underneath Dee, groaned.“Help Ish.Please.”
Dee managed to get his eyes open in time to see a familiar pair of vampires stepping toward them.The vampires were naked, which was a puzzle to be worked out later.Clay White, who was the bulkier of them, scooped Ish into his arms as if he were a child and carried him out of the room.Which was, Dee now realized, a tastefully decorated living room.
He’d managed to transport all three of them back to San Francisco, exactly as Achilles had wished.
“Oh, thank fuck,” he said.And then blacked out.
* * *
“You are goddamn amazing, Damnation Martell.”
