“I didn’t mean to imply anything by it,” Linh said after the pause.
“Let’s go see if Luther’s gotten back yet,” Blake said.
Of course, even after Luther returned, Nephelie and Aquila still refused to tell us anything. They stayed in that office plotting the whole day while we ran Sanctuary. Hunter’s head hurt too much for him to help. After dinner, Aquila asked Maleeka and I to clean up the kitchen. I gathered a few plates and silverware off the table into a small stack and placed it next to Maleeka while she rinsed them off in the sink.
“I’m sorry about, Penn,” I said. She didn’t say anything back. I got the impression Maleeka didn’t like showing vulnerability. Her dark eyes always flitted about, though, like she didn’t know how to stop thinking. “What do you think Aquila and Nephelie have been talking about with Luther?”
That question perked her interest. “I got a little bit out of Aquila before she left the kitchen. She and Nephelie are headed out in the morning to meet up with some Defectors, hopefully to pick up supplies.”
“Has the Institute ever waged this kind of attack against the Defectors?” She sponged a plate clean then kept wiping it like she forgot what she was doing. Water ran off the scars and scratches on her fingers. Those aged marks made her hands look like they belonged to someone older.
She shook her head.
“Are you scared?”
“We’re Defectors. This is just the way things are. You pray every day the Institute won’t take you, but if we’re being honest, I’d rather die than go back to that place. So, I guess no, I’m not scared, because I can’t afford to be scared. Because if I waste time being afraid, that’s one more minute the bad guys get to kill me.”
Fighting the Institute hardened children, made them into the young warriors the Defectors didn’t debate about weaponizing. That’s probably why Maleeka didn’t say much about Penn’s death. Somewhere in her soul, she had been expecting this day. This was no clean, ordinary fight. Our struggle positioned us against a system that sought no less than our total annihilation. Maleeka might’ve been only sixteen, but her battle scars—from her fingertips to somewhere deep in her soul—looked like they belonged to someone much older.
The following morning, Aquila got us all up as usual. Alison and Blake got ready and headed out, but Hunter didn’t move. I shook him to see how he felt, but he rolled over, shaking and convulsing, his arms limp as foam bubbled from his mouth.
“Hunter!” I said. Having heard me, Alison and Blake came back into the room. I scooped him into my arms, but his violent, jerky motions made him hard to hold. His body trembled and shook, then stopped. Blake helped me slide Hunter off the bed and onto the floor, where we rolled him onto his stomach so he wouldn’t choke. Blake picked him up and carted him out. We rushed to the small infirmary in the east wing, and Blake unloaded Hunter onto a bed.
“What’s wrong with him?” I said, crouching beside the bed.
Maleeka checked him with her wizard sight. “I don’t know, but his life force is fading.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t respond.
Linh said, “I’m going to go get Nephelie and the others,” and left the room. I held Hunter’s hand. Not knowing what ailed him filled my mind with the most frightening scenarios. I quickly drove away those thoughts to fend off panic. My survival thus far depended on me switching emotional gears when things got tough. The Defectors demanded their members keep a steely resolve—the same resolve Penn showed when he cast the fireball.
Nephelie, Aquila, and Luther all rushed in and approached Hunter’s bed. Reaching into the vivit apparatus, Luther fiddled with a small but very intricate machine hovering over Hunter’s head. Nestled deep in the clockwork underpinning Hunter’s mind, an inky blob stretched and recoiled, alive.
“What is that black thing?”
Luther backed away. “I’ll need to go into the study and do some research. The rest of you stay here.”
I stayed rooted at Hunter’s bedside while an unpredictable emotional panoply hit me in waves. Alison and Blake remained close, sitting on two metal chairs in a corner. Luther walked back in around seven and motioned for me to follow. Alison and Blake rose to join, but he only needed me. He led me downstairs, into Nephelie’s office. Nephelie and Aquila had gone out to wait for the local Defector faction. Luther asked me to explain everything leading up to our imprisonment in the Dreamhaven. I told him about the cintamani, about bringing Hunter back with Gaspar’s notes. I even mentioned Hunter’s strange, recurring headaches. Luther never betrayed his thoughts. He remained quiet as I spoke, a hand on his chin and his eyes to the floor, deep in contemplation.
“I’m going to be direct with you,” he said when I finished. “Once something goes into the Void, it can’t just come back. Surely, Gaspar must’ve mentioned that in his notes.”
My cheeks flushed. Even if Gaspar’s notes had warned against bringing people back from the Void, I wouldn’t have paid attention. Hunter had saved me from the Sandman, and I’d owed it to him.
“Hunter isn’t the first wizard to have conjured a cintamani. History is defined by wishes that changed things completely. I’ve found numerous entries about the cintamani and the ways that wizards have tried to cheat its cost. What you did ranks among them.”
“Someone’s done this before?”
“Over the years, the Defectors have come across quite a bit of literature we believe the Institute has tried to hide.” Luther opened a book on Nephelie’s desk with the name Hanno Scherrer scrawled across the top. Entries handwritten in German filled every page in the book. Luther turned to a page marked August 9, 1887 near the bottom.
“Hanno Scherrer,” Luther said, “belonged to a secret, dynastic wizard line known as the Knights of Lemuria, during a time known as the Third Magus War. I know they didn’t teach you about the Magus Wars at the Institute, and what information we have is fractured, but we know the Third Magus War involved two warring factions: the Knights of Lemuria, and another faction we have less information on called the Malebranche. Scherrer was studying alchemy in the Black Forest, obsessed on using a philosopher’s stone to end the war. He used his daughter’s soul to make one. He then used his wishes to change the tide of the war. From what we’ve pieced together, the Knights of Lemuria were able to defeat the Malebranche. Afterward, they established a great wizard assembly whose sole purpose it was to defend the world from such wickedness, should it ever crop up again.
“Scherrer was a hero to wizardkind, but no one knew that he had sacrificed his own daughter to save the world. Guilt-ridden, Scherrer began investigating how he might retrieve something from the Void.” Luther flipped through some pages, coming to a diagram that resembled the magic circle I drew to rescue Hunter from the Void. It was Gaspar’s Unwinding spell.
“Scherrer arranged a spell to fish his daughter out of the Void. He succeeded. Many joyous months passed. But the Void always reclaims what belongs to it”—Luther swiped through the book—“and the girl became ill. Scherrer described it as a darkness in her mind that slowly spread to her soul. The term Scherrer settled on was Void-touched. He said his daughter had become Void-touched, a sickness that rots the soul into nothingness. He learned that, in time, she would die and be returned to the Void. Slowly, her body crumbled while her mind wasted away. Scherrer was forced to watch every dreadful moment.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means there is no way to save the boy. His soul is being eaten by the Void, and it’s destroying his body too. In fact, the reason his memories were missing when you first encountered him in the Dreamhaven might be directly attributed to the Void-touch. That is why he’s been experiencing headaches: it’s destroying his mind. In time, he will die.”
“There’s got to be a way to help him!”
“What’re you going to do?” Luther asked, voice bubbling with ire.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. I’ll go somewhere. Do something!”
Luther closed the book. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” It was clear he blamed me for Hunter’s condition. The guilt he laid upon me weighed heavy as a boulder. He waited for me to ask questions, but I didn’t. “I’m leaving to continue my investigations in the City at the End of the World. I’ll be back later this evening.”
Luther pulled out his key and unlocked the cabinet. An empty hallway in a run-down apartment appeared on the other side. The same apartment we’d used to reach Sanctuary. He crawled inside and closed the door behind him. I opened the doors after him, but the cabinet had reverted to normal. Luther had vanished, leaving me alone in Nephelie’s office; he didn’t care to deal with my emotional outbursts.
My eagerness to rescue Hunter had brought him back cursed. It fell on me to fix this; it fell on me to undo the curse and save his soul once more. This time for good.
I opened Hanno Scherrer’s notes again and read. It didn’t take long to find a passage where Scherrer described visiting his daughter in Everywhen, shortly before she died. According to the notes, while she lay dying in the material world, her soul waited somewhere known as the Night City.
Scherrer performed a dream rave with his daughter and joined their minds, making it easier for him to visit her in the Night City. While there, he studied his surroundings. He said a powerful Mara called the Nightmare King ruled the Night City. The Nightmare King warned Scherrer that the city’s true ruler, though, was Death itself, and that if Scherrer didn’t stop coming to see his daughter, eventually Death would claim his soul too.
When Alison had trapped herself in Everywhen, Blake had taken us to the Night Market, a bazaar in Everywhen where Maras traded in peculiarities. There, Linh told me about the Night City—she said it existed like a border between Everywhen and the Void. If our souls returned to the Void after death, it made sense that a dying person’s soul waited in the Night City, on that border, until their final moment. If I ever wanted to see Hunter again, I needed to unite our minds through a dream rave and seek him in the Night City. Once I found him, I intended to bring him back. I’d reached into the Void once and pulled Hunter out, and I would do it again.
I hurried back to the infirmary and found Alison and Blake waiting for me. I told them everything Luther had said, but I didn’t bother mentioning Scherrer’s notes—I’d already forgotten most of them. They shared a concerned look.
“You’re not thinking of going in there after him, are you?” Blake said.
“It’s about noon. Aquila and Nephelie won’t be back for a while, and Luther’s gone too. If I’m going to do this, I need to do it now.”
“You don’t unite with people who are dying. It’ll kill you.”
I didn’t respond.
“Johnny, are you crazy?” Alison said. “Are you seriously thinking about uniting with Hunter so you can visit him in . . . the Night City? That sounds like a cheap ’80s porn.”
“I’m not just going to visit him. I’m going to get him out.”
Blake grew visibly frustrated. “If you go in there, you aren’t coming back.”
“Johnny,” Alison said, “you’re not going in there. Hunter’s going to die, and if you try to save him, you’re going to die too.” Alison’s voice grew shaky. “You’re not going in there. Do you hear me?”
Blake’s stare hardened. He knew my desire to save Hunter wouldn’t falter, no matter how much they pleaded. “Ali,” I said, “Hunter sacrificed himself to save me. I’m not leaving him in there. I fought the Sandman in Everywhen, and that monster in the Dreamhaven. I can save him. I know I can.”
Blake responded well to conviction—seeing the passion in my eyes stirred him. “Then I’m going with you,” he asserted. “You helped me save Maleeka. And Hunter’s my friend too.”
Alison glared at us. Anxiety made the air turgid. The legendary Night City was the only place in all Everywhen—possibly in all creation—that wizards outright avoided, for any journey into that cursed place promised sorrow, pain. It was the lone cliff overlooking the endless Void, the last stop on a ghost train to the abyss, and if the stories were true, none returned.
Alison, having lost the will to keep arguing, merely shrugged. “Whatever. Count me in.”
I nodded to Hunter. Blake picked up his legs and helped me lift him to the floor. Alison was already lying down. We joined her and formed a cross with our heads touching. No turning back. We closed our eyes and fell asleep.
Chapter 14
A doddery suspension bridge stretched over a yawning chasm, the cables connecting its adjoining towers covered in black rust—even its pillars were decrepit vestiges. At the bridge’s end, a shadowy city rose into the inky pall, an ianthine haze glowing behind it. The city’s crumbling towers leaned against one another, their foundations creaking loudly. A preternatural silence permeated all around me—ominous, like the hush before a coffin closes. Neither Alison nor Blake stood at my side. Getting separated happened all the time when traveling with others into Everywhen. Still, the fear this place inspired made the loneliness more unsettling. Behind me, even more darkness. I stepped toward the bleakness and caught myself nearly walking off a cliff and retreated from the edge. A few rocks skittered off the ledge and fell into the abyss below. I was on a round platform connected to the bridge, like a chunk of street torn off the Earth and launched into space.
Hunter cautiously ambled across the bridge, heading toward the city like he was lost. He looked off to the right, over the edge.
“Hey, Johnny,” he called out, voice shaky with fear.
“Hunter?” My voice echoed like I was shouting into a cavern, but he didn’t hear me.
Hunter cupped his hands around his mouth, his back still turned to me, and called, “Johnny, where are you?” His voice bounded off the darkness same as mine. The fear in his words climbed, his fevered search for me revealing nothing. “Johnny? Why’s it so dark? Where am I?” Hunter walked into the creeping gloom along the bridge, and it swallowed him. I ran onto the bridge and called for him, praying my voice reached him, but the mournful vale around the bridge engulfed me and plunged me into darkness. The ground under me became like mud, sticky and thick. I thought up a light ball, but nothing happened. I tried again, but the spell failed a second time. Magic should’ve been easier to use in Everywhen, not harder. Even though my spells didn’t work, my wizard senses detected Alison and Blake’s auras, so I headed toward them. A mucky, splashing noise resounded, like an alligator slapping its tail against the water, but it proved difficult to locate. Somewhere, out there in the darkness, something was moving. A few quick breaths helped me regain my focus, but my wizard senses grew weaker. Like a jamming signal scrambling a radio message, some great force was dampening my magic.
The sploshing noise came closer. It sounded big. Much bigger than me. Then something smooth and rubbery brushed against my leg. It didn’t feel like a snake because snakes don’t have joints. This felt more like a thin, spidery limb, but it measured much longer than an ordinary limb. I stilled my movements and silently begged for it to leave. No telling what horrible thing squelched around in the darkness out here. If I didn’t need to save Hunter, I would’ve woken myself up. The creature resumed moving, far enough away that I felt comfortable letting out a breath. I needed to hurry out of here before that thing came back. Too much noise threatened to draw it to me, so I stepped delicately. If I didn’t get through this supernatural darkness, I’d never see Hunter again. That thought was enough to keep me plodding forward until darkness lifted like a sheet and I found myself standing in an alley with a dead end at my back. Heavy raindrops pattered on every surface in the alley, and from the trash cans seeped a rank odor. If this was the Night City, and thereby just an extension of Everywhen, even though none of this was real, it still stoked the senses in all the same ways.
Dying
streetlamps lit the path ahead, their gleam illuminating the black walls. A wasting tabby cat hollered and leaped off a trash can, sending the lid crashing to the wet pavement. The alley curved into another, and that one morphed into yet another—a nightmarish twisting maze that led to a rainy street teeming with people swathed in black, rain-soaked capes. They walked close to one another, some heading north, others south, all oblivious to the raging storm. No telling where their journey ended, or if it ended at all. To match the weary denizens, I imagined myself wreathed in similar garb. Unlike my failed light ball, however, I managed the transformation. Whatever force weakened my magic here didn’t seem consistent. Sometimes it stopped my spells abruptly, other times it flailed, and my magic pushed through. I stepped into the crowd and weaved between the mysterious figures, heading toward Blake and Alison’s auras. The cloaked figures paid no heed to my presence; their march was unphased as I moved among them. If I stopped walking, they bumped into me and kept going. The buildings along the street climbed high into the darkness above like never-ending skyscrapers and bore no signage. Even the crowd congesting the thoroughfare ignored their existence, no one entering or leaving any one. The street functioned like a set for a strange scene, nothing else.
Blake and Alison’s auras grew near, so I sped up my pace, then everyone in the street stopped moving and looked at me. Their cowls didn’t hide the ghoulish creatures underneath. Inside their hoods, they looked like ordinary people. I didn’t know whether to continue or not, but soon their unflinching gazes turned black with chastisements. Without speaking, they whispered: “How dare you come here looking for him?” A hideous woman with long black hair and coarse, pocked skin laughed. She opened her mouth wide, and I spied a canary tied to her tooth, a few inches from her face. It flitted wildly, fighting to escape, but the string around its leg held tight. Slowly, the woman’s horrid tongue, riddled with pustules and meaty, throbbing veins, crawled out of the corner of her mouth and slithered toward the canary. I turned and ignored the spectacle. The Night City wanted to lure me into its hypnotic mind games, so I forced myself free. A sickening crunch echoed behind me, and the woman cackled again, hideously, her voice like a howl into the Void. I shoved past the robed figures and followed Blake and Alison’s auras to a dead-end alley with a flickering streetlamp spotlighting a hole in the wall. It looked like someone had made the opening with a blowtorch, its edges perfectly smoothed.
In the City of the Nightmare King Page 14
