Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Read Online Free Page A

and
when he looked up he found a fat index finger against his
face.
    “ Next time you help that
little bitch get the three Dragoons I throw you both into the sea,
together. With your ankles tied.” He laughed. “Oh yeah. It will be
a nice thing to see. From now on she must do it alone, otherwise
it’s useless she remains here with us! This district is full of
brothels and with her exotic beauty I won’t have trouble selling
her. You know she’s not your sister. Why do you help
her?”
    “ Because she’s my only hope
of Redemption ,”
Dagger said.
    Mama remained silent, struck
by that answer. Then he shook his head. “Oh, but there’s no
redemption in this world. Not for you. So this is your problem. You still need
to understand it, but don’t worry. Now I’m going to help you. I
always know what needs to be done for your own good.”
For a moment he looked at him seriously,
then burst out laughing. Dagger stood up and left the room without
another word. He reached Seeth, lying under a porthole, and
snuggled against her dirty back.
    “ Without you, I am nothing,”
he said, supposing she was asleep. “What happens to you, happens to
me.”
    She turned in her sleep,
pillowing her sprawled face on his arm and snorting. Dagger smiled
and closed his eyes. Fatigue got the better of him. In the land
between dream and reality he felt, as always, the wind in his hair.
That wind-borne sand was about to push him in the Antiworld , the world of
unconsciousness and dreams where even dead were given to
speech.
But he was drawn back to reality when he
heard the door to the Mama’s cabin open again. He listened to his
voice, barely a murmur to some Spiders nearby. Then he heard their
footsteps, slowly approaching, and put his hand to the knife,
getting ready. When it was the right time he jumped up, pointing
the blade toward them.
    “ What do you want?” he asked
but, looking in their eyes, he realized that those five were not
there to talk, and they were so high on magic that they didn’t fear even
death. They were there to obey an order of the Great Mama, and they
would at any cost. Dagger did not wait to attack. No one could
compete with him in there when it came to the blade. He fought back
all their attacks, far too weak and predictable, and came to cut
one of them in the face, thrusting the blade into the cheek and a
spray of blood hitting him. With pleasure, he heard his scream of
pain mixed with toxic panic. Before realizing he had fallen into
their trap with both feet, two of the Spiders grabbed Seeth, still
lay on the ground and dragged her by the hair toward the studio of
Mama, laughing crazily, their pupils dilated.
    “ Dag!” his sister cried,
waking with a start and grabbing her hair. “Dagger!”
    He looked at her getting
farther and farther away, helpless, as if in a nightmare, while the
other ones kept him busy with his knife, indifferent to hurt as
only someone under the effect of magic could be. They let him go only
once sure he would not make it; Dagger reached the door just in
time to have it slammed in his face. He tried to ram it down,
kicking it, but the Spiders lifted him up and pushed him away,
still laughing. He slammed his back against the wall and slid to
the ground, unarmed, taking his head in his hands as they continued
to beat him ferociously, with kicks and punches in the open face.
When they stopped, he heard the trapdoor being opened among the
hallucinated laughter.
    “ No! No!” he whimpered
helplessly, spitting out blood. Now he understood what Sannah had
meant with his last words. He would not punish him, he never would
have. Dagger heard the screams of Seeth throughout the night, as
well as all the Spiders, as she was administered suffering. At
every cry of pain he repeated to himself it was all his fault, of
his illusion, because there was no hope, no redemption in that
world, not for him. Gods didn’t listen to a street Spider’s
prayer.
He was learning his lesson.
He was no