Page 128 of Heart of Iron
No fear.There was no fear in her, even as her vision narrowed, darkness threatening to loom.Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his knife, discarded on the rug.Groping for it, she caught the handle in her fingertips as Colchester put all his pressure on her throat.
The room darkened.Numbness spread through her until all she could feel was the knife handle.Clenching her fingers around it, she drove it up, straight into his chest.
He screamed, his hands springing from her throat, the short handle of the blade sticking from his chest.Rearing over her, coughing bluish blood, he met her gaze.“Take you…with me.”His fingers closed over the knife and he wrenched it from his chest in a surge of fresh blood.
Lena screamed as the blade rose.
The knife never fell.Instead, an explosive sound ripped through the room, fresh blood spattering her.
Colchester roared in pain, his left arm missing from the elbow down.Black flooded into his eyes, a sign that the demon in him had taken control.He’d feel no pain now, barely even notice the blood that poured from the stump of his ruined arm.She must not have hit his heart.
Looking past him, Lena stared at her rescuer in shock.
Smoke curled from the muzzle of a pistol and Rosalind stared at her grimly.She wore black leather from head to toe, men’s clothes that somehow suited her, covered over with a long black coat that flared at her hips.A neat little cap covered her distinctive hair and a mask hid the lower half of her face.
Turning, Colchester grabbed the knife from the floor—from the ruined fingers that lay on the carpet—and flung it.
“Look out!”Lena screamed.
Rosalind staggered backward, clutching at the blade in her side.“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered, the pistol dropping from nerveless fingers.“We found out, only this morning, what they’d planned.The transformational was gone and so was…so was my younger brother, Jeremy.”
Colchester staggered toward her.“You’re a humanist,” he snarled.
Lena rolled to her feet as Rosalind’s knees gave out.“No!”She darted forward, driving her body against Colchester.They both went down.
Colchester grabbed her hair with his remaining hand and yanked her head back.Lena clawed at his face, catching a glimpse of the black soulless misery of his eyes and his shining white teeth as he went for her throat.
“NO!”
The bellow shook the air.Blunt teeth sank into her throat, biting hard enough to tear the flesh.Lena screamed.
Then suddenly rough hands tore Colchester away from her.Will towered over him in all his fury then turned and flung the duke into the wall.
Colchester dropped to his feet.He met Will halfway, staggering from blood loss but no less dangerous.Lena saw a flash of silver as he tugged a knife from his boot with his remaining hand.
“Will!”she screamed.“He’s got a knife!”
Will blocked the swing, his fist straining as he forced the duke’s arm back.Slamming him into the wall, he drove the blade toward Colchester’s face.
“Let’s see how you like the taste of the blade,” he snarled and drove it into the duke’s throat.
Lena turned away as Colchester made a gurgling groan.The bright scent of hot, fresh blood filled the air and the rasp of the blade as it cut through his windpipe.
The body hit the ground with a meaty thud, the head almost decapitated.Lena looked around, her chest rising with her harsh breath.Will’s fist was bloody, the knife clenched in his fingers.A dark, violent expression rode his face and he turned slowly to look at Rosalind’s slumped form.
Lena darted between them, holding her hands out.“Will.No.”
Bright copper burned in his eyes.He stared at her, lip curled.
“She saved my life,” Lena told him.“She shot him.”
“She’s the person behind the bomb.”He took a menacing step forward.
“I came to stop it,” Rosalind corrected.With a deep breath, she yanked the blade out of her side and winced.Blood bubbled against her waistcoat.“I was too late.We never wanted this.After the smoke clears, the Echelon will comb the city hunting for whoever did this.We can’t afford the scrutiny.Not yet.We’re not strong enough.”
“Did you find your brother?”Lena asked, helping her to her feet.
“There’s no sign of his body upstairs.He must have escaped.”Rosalind’s voice was flat.“I knew he was fond of Mendici.I allowed it.I should have realized the mechs had poisoned his mind, filled him full of glorious stories.They sent him to deliver the transformational.The bastards sent him to die.”
