Prison of Horrors (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 6)

by Sonya Bateman

  She looked at me, her mouth hanging open. And she laughed. The expression on her face said she’d startled herself into it. “You really are something else,” she said, hitching her way through the words. “You’re just fine with it? I mean, that thing with the needles—”

  “Yeah, let’s not talk about that.” I shuddered and pushed the still-vivid memory away. “We’ll battle those demons later. Right now, we have to go fight a real one.”

  I helped her up and sent a wordless goodbye to the body I had to leave behind. It felt wrong leaving her here. But even though she was lying dead on the floor, she was also here with me — body and soul. She was going to make it.

  And I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I might not.

  CHAPTER 26

  Winifred almost shot her.

  When I opened the door to the torture room, I saw the gun before Frost did. Mostly because I knew it was there. I pushed her out of the way, just in time to feel the wind of the bullet zipping past my head. “Yeah, good job,” I panted. “But she’s with us. You can stop shooting now.”

  “No, she’s not.” Winifred didn’t lower the gun. “Calla Frost is dead. Whatever she told you, she’s lying. Demons lie. Now get away from her.”

  Oh, man. How was I going to explain this one? I moved further into the room, keeping Frost behind me. “It’s all right,” I said. “She has a soul and everything. Look … she saw you guys in here, but she didn’t kill you. She just wanted to kill me.”

  “That’s not helping.”

  “It was for a good cause—”

  “Gideon.” Frost touched my shoulder. “Let me talk to her.”

  I really didn’t want to do that. I moved aside with reluctance, still ready to jump between them if I had to. At least I could take a regular bullet.

  “I’m sorry for what I did to you. And to him,” Frost said, meeting Winifred’s glare. “I was going to kill him. I thought I had to, so Malphas couldn’t possess him. I didn’t want to.” She glanced at me and shivered. “But Gideon said he can beat the bastard. I believe him.”

  Winifred said nothing, but she wavered a little. Further back in the room, Quentin and Pastor Lennox were paying close attention.

  “Listen. If you want to shoot me, go ahead,” Frost said. “I know I deserve it. But if you don’t … I can help you.”

  “How?”

  “You’re going back to the town, right? The real one,” she said. “I was just there. I know where everyone is, what they’re doing. Including Malphas.” Frost touched my arm and tried to smile. “He still thinks I’m on his side. I’m not sure what the plan is, but I can make sure you don’t get caught doing it.”

  Pastor Lennox spoke up. “I think she’s telling the truth, Winnie,” he said. “And she’s right. We can use her. We have to save the town.”

  Winnie? I tried not to stare at him too hard. Whatever was between those two, it was a lot more complicated than I thought.

  I could see Winifred’s resolve breaking down, so I decided to help it along if I could. “She’s not one of them anymore. She has a soul. Her soul,” I said. “I don’t want to get into details, because it sounds insane. But I’ll tell you this — when I’m talking to the dead, it’s not their bodies answering. It’s their souls.”

  Winifred’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m sure,” Frost said. “If there’s a way you can check, go for it.”

  “I can, when I have access to my magic again.” Winifred snorted and lowered the gun. “And believe me, I will.”

  “Really?” I said. “You can tell if a person has a soul?”

  “Of course I can. I’m—”

  “A witch. I get it.” Another important piece of information that I tucked away for later. At some point, we’d have to be able to tell the copies apart from the originals, and Winifred was probably the only way to do it. “Okay, so the first thing is to get over there and get somewhere safe, if there is anywhere safe, without being caught or killed,” I said. “So we should know what’s going on in Lightning Cove right now.”

  Frost nodded and drifted toward one of the walls, where there was a collection of restraints. “Malphas has just about all of the real people gathered in the town square, and some of the copies guarding them,” she said. “He’s … hurting people. And he’s making them all watch.”

  Winifred paled. “Nicholas?” she whispered.

  The answer came when Frost refused to meet her eyes.

  I was so furious, I could’ve punched through the stone walls in here. That son of a bitch. I didn’t just want to beat him … I wanted to make him suffer. And I could do it. I knew I could.

  Not even my human half would object.

  “He left four or five copies in the church to guard the gate.” Frost sent a speculative look at a string of chains and manacles. “If we get through, my car’s still in the parking lot. I’ll drive us … I don’t know. Somewhere else.”

  “I can handle the guards,” Winifred said. “We’ll go to my cottage. It’s outside the borders, so we’ll be safe.”

  Frost raised an eyebrow. “We might not have to handle them at all,” she said, fingering one of the manacles. “I have an idea. Gideon — Star Wars?”

  I got the reference right away and grinned. “It’s a classic.”

  “What about Star Wars?” Quentin said. “Don’t tell me you have space guns.”

  “No. It goes like this,” I said, and explained.

  Winifred wasn’t impressed. “I have it under control,” she said. “Once I get to the gate, I can use magic.”

  I looked at her. “To do what?”

  “To drop the building on them,” she said. “Well, most of it. The gate will be fine. It’s indestructible.”

  Pastor Lennox moved toward her. “Excuse me, but did you just say you’re going to destroy my church?”

  “No. Just most of it.”

  “Winifred Davenport, if you—”

  “Er,” I said quickly. “Maybe we should go with the plan that doesn’t bring Malphas’s army of clones running.”

  Winifred huffed. “Fine. But if it doesn’t work, I’m dropping the building.”

  Great. This was going to be interesting.

  CHAPTER 27

  We walked out of the prison in a single file. Frost in the lead, Quentin at the back. Me, Winifred, and the pastor in the middle—the three of us strung together with chains. We could slip them if we had to, but the goal was to convince anyone we ran into that Frost and the constable had recaptured us, and Malphas wanted us brought to him.

  Until we crossed to the other side, the biggest problem was Quentin. His copy was over here somewhere, coordinating the search for the escaped prisoners.

  There could be a few issues if we ran into him.

  No one was outside the main doors of the place, but a man and a woman were stationed just beyond the entrance to the cavern. The woman had a shotgun, the man an ancient-looking revolver. They both glanced at Frost, nodded. And then froze when they caught sight of the rest of us.

  The man raised a hand and approached Frost with cautious steps. “What’s going on here?” he said, deliberately not looking down the line. Especially at me. “You just went in there a minute ago. And they weren’t … nobody found them.”

  “We didn’t leave our posts,” the woman said quickly, scrambling over to join him. “We didn’t. Did we, Henry?”

  “No. We didn’t.” Suspicion and wariness marked his features. “So they couldn’t have got back inside.”

  Frost snarled. The sound was genuine enough to make me cringe. “That’s because they never left, you idiot,” she said. “Did you forget why he put me in charge? Because I know how this one works.” She gave the lead chain a sharp tug, and I stumbled forward. “He’s the one who let the rest of them out, and hid them all with magic. Tricky bastard. I knew where to look for him, though.”

  Henry stared at me, but not for long. “A bunch of us turned that place in
side out,” he said slowly.

  “Did you not hear the part about magic?” Frost snorted. “He told me to bring them to him, so that’s what I’m doing. You’re supposed to stay here. Now back off, before I shoot you.”

  “Yeah, with what?”

  Frost pulled the gun from her holster. “This.”

  It was a risk, considering both of them were armed too. But whoever they were copies of, Henry and the woman probably weren’t around guns much, judging from the way they handled the weapons. They backed off.

  Just then, the woman said, “Constable? I thought you were headed for the church. We just talked to you—”

  “I changed my mind, Dolores.” The gruff note in Quentin’s voice sounded a little forced. “You folks do what the boss said, and stay here. Understand?”

  “Fine. But we’re not standing around forever,” Henry said.

  “You’re right,” Frost said. “You won’t be.”

  With that, she shot him. Dolores almost had time to scream before Frost’s second bullet found its mark between her eyes.

  Quentin spluttered. “Why the hell’d you do that?”

  “Because they would’ve left here and looked for the other you, as soon as we were gone,” she said. “We can’t let any of them get to the other side and warn Malphas.” She replaced her gun calmly, but I noticed her hand trembled just a touch.

  “Well, you didn’t have to shoot them in cold blood—”

  “Yes. She did,” I said. And it wasn’t just that she was right about them running off to warn people. There was something else I hadn’t mentioned yet, something Sybil had told me about defeating the demon.

  We couldn’t leave any of the copies alive.

  Quentin didn’t bother responding to that. In fact, no one said anything until we were well out of earshot, at the edge of the town proper. That was when Pastor Lennox pointed out the obvious. “Close call,” he said. “What are we going to do about Quentin? Not you, Quentin. The other one.”

  “No idea,” I said. “I guess we’ll see if he’s at the church, and figure it out then.”

  “I could probably drop the building on him,” Winifred said. “The gate is right inside. Close enough for a little magic.”

  The pastor scowled. “No.”

  “Why not? This one’s fake.”

  “Let’s get there first,” Frost said. “And try to act like prisoners, okay?”

  Winifred grumbled something under her breath. It sounded … colorful.

  We headed into the streets and the muffled, heavy quiet of the copy-town. Even at ground level, the looming church was impossible to miss. It’d taken a little over an hour to get from the church to the prison when I could barely walk, so I figured we could do it in half that.

  It should’ve been comforting that we didn’t run into any more demon lackeys. But it wasn’t. An uneasy feeling settled into my bones, deepening its hold the closer we got to the black stone building. I found out why when we turned a corner with a straight shot to the church.

  The fake Constable Garber stood on the steps in front of the building, addressing a crowd of around thirty armed people gathered on the sidewalk.

  I didn’t have to be a witch to guess they were the ones without souls.

  CHAPTER 28

  Now would’ve been a great time to fall back and plan something. Unfortunately, the soulless constable had already seen us. He raised an arm and gestured angrily. “Get over here!” he shouted. “I said I wanted everyone paying attention, damn it!”

  Okay, so we were too far back for him to recognize us yet. That might work in our favor. Provided we could come up with something in the minute or so it’d take to cover the distance.

  Frost slowed the pace way down. The chain-gang ruse still might buy us a little more time near the crowd, at least until someone realized there were two Quentins. “Listen,” I said in a low voice. “I don’t have time for details, but we have to kill them. All the copies. It’s the only way to beat Malphas.”

  “What … here? Now?” Pastor Lennox breathed. “Are you insane?”

  “You’ll just have to trust me. We don’t have a choice. Every one of them.” I nodded toward the gathering. “And again, we can’t let anyone get away to warn people on the other side. So, Winifred, I guess you’ll have to drop the building after all. Just the part above the doors, so they can’t run inside,” I said firmly. “Any more than that is too risky. Can you do that?”

  “With pleasure,” she said. “I’m nearly close enough to do it now.”

  “Okay, great. Just hold off until — well, I think you’ll know when.”

  “There’s no other way?” Quentin murmured. “I guess you’re right. It’s just … don’t you think we’re a little outnumbered?”

  I did, actually. It looked like thirty guns against three, and whatever the pastor had for a weapon. But none of them, including Frost, knew how many I could take down myself. My spark wasn’t gone yet, and part of me still wanted to let my inner Fae off the leash. Maybe not quite as much as before — but enough that I wouldn’t hesitate.

  They weren’t people, and killing them would save lives. I just had to remember that.

  “We’ll make it,” I said. “Trust me.”

  Frost half-turned to look at me. I didn’t have a mirror handy, but I could see my reflection in the way her face drained and her eyes glittered with shock. “What’s wrong with you?” she whispered.

  “Nothing. Be ready.”

  No one argued with that.

  Not-Constable Garber stopped talking in mid-sentence when we reached the back of the crowd. People were already turning to look before he started back up, and there were a few gasps and curses. “Agent Frost,” Garber said in flat tones. “You found them.”

  “No thanks to you,” she called out. Now we had everyone’s attention. “All of you stand down, now,” she said. “He wants them brought to him.”

  For a few seconds, I actually thought we had a shot at getting through without resistance. Weapons eased down and people shuffled back.

  Which put us directly in Garber’s line of sight.

  “That’s not what I was told.” The fake constable glared down the line, one by one. “We’re supposed to put them back in — what the hell’s this? Why isn’t he locked down?”

  Oh, good. He’d noticed the real him.

  “Winifred,” I murmured. “The doors.”

  “On it.”

  Garber suddenly pulled his gun. “Kill them all, except the freak,” he said. “He’s the only one Malphas needs.”

  I’d already started slipping the chains when the original Quentin brandished his own gun and shouted, “Don’t listen to him! He’s not one of us — he snuck past while Frost and I were rounding up the rest. Shoot him!”

  Damn, that was smart. I made a mental note to thank him for that later.

  Momentary confusion washed over the crowd. A few pointed guns at Garber, a few more started for us. Most of them hesitated and looked around wildly, as if the right thing to do would fall from the sky.

  It did, in a manner of speaking. There was a tremendous, rumbling crack as the church doors and most of the stone around them imploded into a pile of rubble.

  “Not me, you morons!” Garber screamed, and drew a bead on Frost. “Them!”

  A lot of guns went off at once. I paid attention just long enough to see that none of us were hit, but someone had managed to put a bullet in Garber’s leg. I suspected it was Frost. Most of the copies were spitting out panic fire, as likely to hit themselves or each other as their actual targets.

  I let go of the leash.

  Cold power flowed through me as I launched myself at the nearest moving body. Enemy. The face in front of me blurred. Easiest to snap the neck and move on. I took out three or four like that, until I decided that breaking necks wasn’t as satisfying, as pleasurable as caving in skulls. Or ripping out hearts.

  I could do those things easily. I did them. By the time my spark started
to ebb and I returned to the power-saving efficiency of snapping necks like daisies, I was covered in blood that wasn’t mine.

  And I didn’t care.

  The gunfire was sporadic now. Not many left standing. I had to force myself to recognize faces, distinguish friend from enemy, and found one still breathing that shouldn’t be. Garber.

  He’d tried to kill one of mine.

  Every last bit of rage in me converged, and I unleashed it on him. I covered the distance between us in three strides, barely registering the gun at the end of his trembling arm or the bullet that grazed my side. I grabbed him with one hand and yanked him toward me. “Báas chuh namaihd,” I snarled in his face. Not a spell, but a promise.

  Death to the enemy.

  I broke his neck, and watched the light fade from his eyes before I let him fall.

  Silence dropped into the space around me, and I heard my own harsh breathing. Nothing more. My spark was just about gone, and the injuries that still hadn’t healed were waking up to haunt me. There was plenty of self-revulsion to go along with it.

  I put all my efforts into ignoring it and turned to face the others. They’d survived. No one else had.

  For now, I’d have to take comfort in the win. I wouldn’t find it with the people I’d just terrified speechless.

  I dragged myself toward the sidewalk, where they were gathered loosely away from the dead bodies strewn over the grounds. Quentin stood right next to Winifred, and Frost was a few feet away, still holding her gun in both hands.

  Pastor Lennox was off to the side, clutching a pewter candlestick in front of him like the world’s most pitiful shield. There was a smear of blood on the candlestick, and a middle-aged man sprawled on the ground at his feet.

  The man groaned and shifted.

  Damn. I went toward the pastor, extending a hand slowly. He looked from me to the not-quite-dead man. When he raised his head again, his eyes were pleading. “Patrick Rogers,” he said. “He’s in the choir. I … he tried to …”