The Cleaver took out his scythe.

“Now what are you doing? There’s no one to guard me against now, you moron. Wait till our enemies show up before taking that thing out.”

Valkyrie’s hand closed round China’s wrist. “Wait.”

“Don’t worry about it, Valkyrie. He’s defective. Always has been.”

“No,” said Valkyrie. “What he’s always done is obey orders. A Necromancy technique brought him back to life, so he started off by obeying the Necromancers. But then Nye stitched him back together, so it stands to reason that now he’d obey Nye’s orders …”

“Yes? So?”

“So Nye was just broken out of prison.”

China stopped trying to pull her wrist free. “With suspicious ease. A prison run by a secret member of the Church of the Faceless.”

“And Eliza hasn’t exactly been happy with you, has she?”

China observed the Black Cleaver. “Have you been sent here to assassinate me, you treacherous little toad?”

The scythe whirled, and the Black Cleaver started forward.

Valkyrie and the others immediately began backing away.

“Billy-Ray,” Tanith said, her sword already in her hands, “take Val where she needs to go.”

“I ain’t leaving you,” Sanguine said, his hand reaching into his jacket.

Tanith’s eyes never left the Cleaver. “Yes you are, goddamn it.”

“But get back here immediately after,” said China.

Tanith nodded quickly. “Immediately.”

Sanguine’s face was a mass of conflicting emotions. Finally, he grabbed Valkyrie. “Fine,” he snarled. “But don’t die while I’m gone.”

The ground cracked and swallowed them.

85

The fear that gripped Tanith’s heart as she fought the Black Cleaver was not new. She had felt it before, in corridors very similar to this one, deep in the bowels of the old Sanctuary, back in Dublin. There she had faced this same man, back when he was clad in white, and a supposed pawn of Nefarian Serpine. Every move he had countered, every attack he had parried, and even when she thought she’d had him beaten, he had answered with a strike that very nearly ended her life.

And here she was again.

Tanith ducked the scythe and darted close, but the ever-spinning staff blocked her own sword swipe and sent her reeling. A snaith, the wooden handle was called. She’d learned that much since the last time they’d tangled, at least. She liked to know the name of things that hurt her. It was handy to have something upon which to focus her frustration.