by Nazri Noor
The full roster of the Boneyard, Asher included, escorted me out to the forest beyond Latham’s Cross. That meant Vanitas, too, held close in my backpack. Rosa had declined to join us, explaining that she had to catch up on a whole bunch of recorded Filipino telenovelas. That was as good an excuse as any, I thought. Carver had removed his false eye and sent it soaring into the sky to search for the clearing that Nyx had indicated. It didn’t take very long to find it.
Herald had made me promise to take him along, and he showed up, just as he said. Prudence came along as well. Basically everyone I knew had turned up. It was weird. Really, really weird, as if this wasn’t some bizarre ritual meant to signal my total devotion to a goddess of the night, but something more like a birthday party.
Or a funeral.
Either way I was glad to have them around, just in case something went awry. You never know when it comes to entities.
The others stood close to the trees, watching, waiting for the minutes to tick down to the time that Nyx had proclaimed was right. Midnight. Someone’s watch went off, and a hand pressed on the middle of my back, nudging me towards the center of the clearing.
“It is time,” Carver said.
“Right,” I said, my mouth dry. “Right. Here I go.”
I shrugged off my backpack, pushing it into Asher’s hands, but not before I retrieved a dagger, something I’d borrowed from Carver. Just as I expected, the dedication ritual involved a little bit of blood-letting. I stepped into the glade, my feet on autopilot, my hands lifting the hem of my shirt up over my head. The cold of night ran its fingers across my bare skin. Somewhere behind me, someone wolf-whistled.
“Shut up, Sterling,” Gil hissed. Sterling grunted, probably from being elbowed in the gut. I wasn’t mad about the interruption, if I’m honest. It helped lighten the mood a little. I mean, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I still had reservations about surrendering my soul to the gods.
But hey, Romira seemed to be living a pretty normal life. It didn’t look all that terrible from the outside. But you can say that about anything, really. Getting your head chopped off at the guillotine is pretty effortless, too. No one ever complains about it.
I got on my knees, the damp of dewy grass and earth seeping through my jeans, and held my head up to the sky, watching for my next step. It didn’t take very long. The full moon blinked at me, as if it was a single, enormous eye. And just as Scrimshaw described, as Nyx herself had explained to him, a beam of brilliant moonlight descended from the heavens, making its way slowly down to earth.
It was time, then. I glanced down at my chest, at the whitish, ragged tissue of the scar over my heart. With the cold tip of the dagger in my hand, I sliced myself open, a shallow gash that ran parallel to the scar. As long as it was close to my heart. That was Nyx’s demand. And as small as the incision was, the blood fell freely from the wound, running warm down my chest and my torso. It almost felt comforting.
I looked up into the sky again, my hand squeezing the hilt of my dagger with crushing force. Could have been nerves, excitement, or outright fear, but I should have known then that there was no stopping the ritual. I clenched my teeth and set my jaw, watching as the shaft of moonlight flew closer and closer to the forest –
Yet it never came for me. It struck the ground a fair distance away, a soundless collision that bathed the tree line in an ominous, radiant silver. I looked down at my hands, then up at the moon again. Was I in the wrong place? Had I performed the ritual incorrectly? Had the beam struck nothing after all?
But there was a scream, a man’s voice, emanating from the exact location where the shaft of moonlight was still focused. The light held there for some horrible seconds as the screams went on. Nocturnal birds fled from the trees, fluttering and squawking in their panic. Then the moonbeam vanished. The forest went silent.
Who the hell was that?
I got to my feet. “Something’s wrong,” I breathed.
Carver was already stalking past me. “That is very much an understatement, Dustin. Come.”
I was swept up in the crowd, my friends headed unerringly, determinedly for the source of the screaming. Sterling and Gil ran ahead of the pack, the hunter instincts thrumming in their bodies jolting them forward. I sprinted to keep up, the blood on my chest cooling as it met the night air. I shivered and gasped as I ran. I wasn’t cold before.
We burst into another clearing, a short distance away from where we’d started, this one smaller. The grass here was luminous somehow, as were the leaves on the trees, as if the touch of the moon had left smears of lunar essence across nature itself, the traces of Nyx’s power. Standing in the clearing was a lone figure.
His shirt was missing, just as mine was. He bled from a wound over his heart, the way I did, slick crimson trailing in a glistening, dark pattern down his chest, down the ridges of his stomach. In his hand he grasped a verdigris dagger – a blade made out of the Eldest’s star-metal.
As the man approached, I realized why I couldn’t see his face. He was wearing a strange mask, or a kind of headdress that twinkled and glimmered in the darkness. It covered his head and his face with a veil that moved slowly with the breeze, its cloth black as night.
No. It wasn’t possible.
The man was wearing the Crown of Stars.
Chapter 30
The bile rose in my throat. How could this have happened? Had Nyx crowned the wrong person? I searched the skies, looking for any sign of the goddess, but nothing. The moon stared coldly down on the forest, silent, uncaring.
“Halt,” Carver shouted. “Come no closer. Who are you?”
The man in the mask said nothing, but walked towards us. Something about his body, something about his gait was terribly familiar.
“No more warnings,” Carver said.
A harsh string of phrases ejected from his mouth, and pale fire lanced from his fingers, exploding into a wall of fire at the man’s feet. That should give us time to think, I figured, to strategize. But the man stepped through the flames, unburned and unfazed, his bare feet padding in the grass.
Sterling snarled and rushed forward, a streak of silver and leather, his new sword still sheathed at his waist. Without pausing, without missing a step, the man hurled a ball of flame directly at Sterling’s chest. Sterling twisted and dodged just in time.
Asher started fumbling with my backpack. “Who the hell – what the hell is going on?”
Gil went next, his wolf talons erupting from the tips of his fingers as he charged the man with a horrible, inhuman growl. From the opposite direction, swift and deathly silent, Sterling swooped in as well, this time with his katana upraised. They had the man flanked, and it should have been a sure bet –
But he melted into his own shadow, vanishing. Sterling and Gil stopped just short of slashing and stabbing each other, katana and claws held perfectly still.
The man reappeared just before me, his body reforming rapidly out of the shadows at my feet. I staggered backwards, fearing for the worst.
Bursts of orange and green light filled the clearing as Carver and Asher each launched a spell at the man, but his body only wavered, the bolts of magical energy passing harmlessly through his torso. The man waved his hand, and shapes of shadow made solid surged from the ground, slamming Carver and Asher with so much force that they were blown completely off their feet.
I held my hand upward, a globe of fire at the ready, my mind already reaching towards the Dark Room, ready to conjure the blades of night. “Who are you?” I demanded.
The man stepped even closer, so close that I could recognize the jagged pattern of white tissue under the blood that coated his chest, the scar over his heart that matched mine. He tilted his head.
“Don’t you recognize me, brother?” He reached for his mask, lifting the Crown of Stars off his head. The twinkling light and the midnight veil of the headdress vanished – and I saw my own face staring back at me with a horrible, grotesque leer.
A homunculu
s. No. It couldn’t be. One of Thea’s creations, made through blasphemy and profane alchemy from my own blood. One of them had survived.
“We killed all of you,” I said, the night suddenly so much colder. “None of you should have been left alive.”
Other Dustin raised his eyebrow. “Truly? None of us? Did you scour every inch of the city? Did you check every mausoleum in the graveyard?”
This one could speak, too, not just in parroted phrases the way Thea’s other homunculi had done, but perfectly, in my voice, conveying its own thoughts. My skin was crawling, knowing that this thing was better than the others, stronger. It even had access to my powers. The same body, the same voice, the same face. And it had its own soul, one that Nyx had claimed in exchange for the Crown. This wasn’t just another homunculus, but something almost human – a thing perfected. The only difference: its eyes, black as pits of night.
“You shouldn’t be wearing the Crown,” I said. “That belongs to me. I need it, to stop the Eldest.”
Other Dustin smiled. “Oh, but I need the Crown’s power too, brother. Some of our goals are not so different as you think.”
He held out one hand, and my heart leapt up my throat when something metal clanged against his palm. It was Vanitas, and Other Dustin had caught him cleanly by the hilt.
“What the hell is going on, Dust?” V thought into my mind.
“I wish I could tell you,” I said, noting that even my telepathic voice was trembling.
Another blur of green and gold streaked through the night – Vanitas’s scabbard – but Other Dustin was ready for it. He swung Vanitas’s blade in an arc, batting the scabbard away, then hurling the sword after it. Trees shuddered and shattered into splinters as both sword and scabbard sped through the forest, propelled by Other Dustin’s demonic strength. Was this the Crown’s gift?
Then he turned his attention on me. Instinctively I rushed to leap into my own shadow – but nothing. The Dark Room wasn’t budging. The homunculus smiled out of the corner of his mouth.
“Mine,” he said. “I need the Dark Room’s power. Lend it to me for a moment.”
“Never,” I said, triggering the ball of fire in my hand to encase my entire fist in flames, then bringing it down like a hammer on the homunculus’s face. His body wavered again, and he reappeared a foot away, unharmed, shadowstepping even faster than I ever could.
I bared my teeth at him, hoping that talking would buy time for the others to regain their bearings and launch another assault. “How did you know about the Crown of Stars? Who told you?”
Other Dustin chuckled, his soft laughter so awfully reminiscent of mine. “How I found out about the Crown’s power is irrelevant, brother.” He raised both his hands, fingers upturned like claws, and I watched as he rose above the canopy of the forest, lifted by a tide of shadows that formed into a geyser at his feet. “What matters is what I intend to do with it.”
Those shadows, the very same ones from the Dark Room, propelled him into the sky in a torrent – but more remained on the ground, lashing and whipping at us like swords.
“Control them, Dust,” Sterling shouted, fending off the blades with his sword, leaping back into the trees.
“I can’t,” I cried out. “He’s hijacked my power. I can’t.” We retreated as the pit of shadows widened, flailing and scything at everything within reach, ripping up trees and widening the glade into a meadow of splintered wood and crushed vegetation.
Roaring with fury, I threw another fireball at the homunculus, but it only tore through the shadow of his body. More flashes of arcane energy lit up the flattened clearing, spells from Carver, Herald, and Asher, but they too barely touched the homunculus.
Other Dustin gestured, and the Crown of Stars reappeared on his head, shrouding his face with its darkness and its light. “The worshippers of the Eldest don’t truly understand what they’re doing, expending the power of the Old Ones in little bursts, wasting it on opening little gaps. On tiny, worthless doorways.” Other Dustin raised his hands to the sky, his face turned up to the stars. “They must die. As many as I can slaughter. They must all die.”
As if in answer, just as Hecate and Nyx had described, the stars across the midnight sky shone harder, brighter. I watched as they seemed to swivel – like eyes, searching the earth for the homunculus’s victims. And I watched as they fell, as faint flickers of light trailed to earth from the heavens, like shooting stars.
But for each star that streaked from the sky, I knew that the homunculus was claiming one life. I thought that I’d been prepared to do the same, to use the Crown’s power in the same way, but I strained my neck and looked on in rapt, helpless horror as the stars fell slowly, at first – then in the dozens. The sky filled with horrible starlight, a spectacle of slaughter set to an awful, familiar alien music that played from somewhere in space, a distant, discordant flute.
Maybe this wasn’t so terrible after all. Other Dustin had destroyed the cultists, snuffed out anyone who had access to the prayers and black rituals that could open doorways for the Eldest. But he lifted his hands again, and shimmering little motes rushed at him from out of the darkness, from far across the forest, far across the city. They glistened, like tiny beetles, like little drops of black water. No. Not water.
Blood.
Chapter 31
The homunculus had initiated his own communion, cast his own circle in blood from the corpses of so many dead cultists, siphoning from far beyond the bounds of the city – hell, maybe the country. This was what he meant: the worshippers of the Eldest weren’t looking at the bigger picture.
The blood gathered into a globe, encasing Other Dustin’s body in an immense sphere of gleaming, living crimson. I gagged as I watched, as the blood stretched into a pillar that shot into the night sky, disappearing into the heavens – claimed as an offering by the Eldest.
As if to clarify my theory, a voice spoke out of the night itself, thundering across the earth with words I had never heard before, that had never been uttered by mortal tongue. A hand clutched at my arm, fingers digging into my skin. It was Carver.
“Something is coming,” he said, his voice trembling.
As if in answer, as if in response to the tremendous blood sacrifice, a white rift tore open in reality, glowing and swirling amidst the flailing meadow of blades and tentacles still gathered at Other Dustin’s feet. The Eldest had answered his prayer.
“We have to shut that thing down,” Gil shouted.
Carver and Asher were way ahead, already chanting and weaving their hands in unison. But another flicker of light illuminated the clearing. I reared back, already dreading what the night had in store for us next – but it wasn’t a threat. It was Royce. He clutched at his hair, staring open-mouthed at the surrounding devastation.
“This is a fucking nightmare,” he said. “A total fucking nightmare.”
“Heads up,” I shouted, “but we’ve got other problems.”
He shook his head, balling his fists. “Fine. Priorities. Fine. I brought backup.”
They stepped out of the shadows behind him. It was Odessa, as it turned out, as well as Romira, who was dressed in something black, sleek, and chic, like she had been in the middle of dancing at a club – a theory supported by the pink cocktail she held in one hand. At their rear followed a very groggy and very confused Bastion, who appeared with wildly tousled hair, a pair of boxers, and very little else.
“Odessa and I came as fast as we could,” Royce said. “I pulled these two along for the ride.”
“Ladies’ night at the Amphora,” Romira said, casually tossing back the rest of her drink, then setting the glass down on a stump.
“I was asleep,” Bastion cried out in frustration, his hands trying to cover his body. “What the hell is so damn important that you people had to drag me out of bed and – ”
“That,” Odessa cut in. “That right there.” We followed her finger.
“Are you joking?” I shouted. “On top of everything else.
Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
A beam of brilliant crimson energy was falling from the sky.
The Heart.
A rift hadn’t opened in days, but the Heart’s response told me that the Scions had been watching and waiting for another to appear. And this one promised to be huge. The budding oval portal lit up what was left of the clearing, its size and the blinding clarity of its emanation filling me with dread.
This looked way more intense than the rifts that allowed the shrikes to cross over. Bad news indeed. And the forest was already thick with that familiar humming, the buzz and keen that heralded the arrival of the shrikes.
“Scorched earth,” Odessa said, her face made even paler by the light of the opening rift. “That’s the plan. Royce and I received word that the other Scions were channeling their power through the Heart. A disturbance was sensed in this location, so they launched a strike immediately.”
“But we need to shut that thing down,” Gil shouted, thrusting his finger at the rift. “Is the Heart even sure it can destroy it?”
Odessa cast her glance over the rift. “It worked once before, but this rift is different. Larger, stronger. The collateral damage would be immense, and even then there would be no guarantee of success. Carver. In case the rift survives, I strongly suggest you prepare to seal it.”
Carver nodded, already muttering, and he nudged Asher, who began to echo the same incantations.
“I have other concerns just now.” Odessa raised her head to the reddening sky. “Ensuring our survival, for example. Bastion. With me.”
It was almost comical, seeing Bastion barefoot in just his boxers rushing to the side of the ageless sorceress who called herself Odessa. For a moment I nearly forgot that he was considered one of the Lorica’s strongest Hands for a reason. The two of them raised their arms, palms out, against the red beam of the Heart. White light pulsed from somewhere between them, like a circuit had been completed, and from Hand and Scion blossomed the largest force field I’d ever seen in my life.
