Wrong Side of Hell (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 1)

by Sonya Bateman

  Wait. Tell me how.

  I frowned. “How what?”

  How are you holding me!

  “In my hands?” I said.

  You are weak. You have mortal blood. This is not possible.

  “Yeah. Whatever you say, lady.” Christ, my head throbbed. This talking-to-the-dead thing was going to suck, if it hurt this much every time. I put the urn back on the pedestal before she could drive any more nails into my brain.

  So much for not being the DeathSpeaker.

  But I couldn’t worry about a couple of voices in my head right now. I had to find Taeral, hope he had some ideas about rescuing Sadie—and if he did, that he’d bother to share them with me.

  As much as it hurt, it seemed easier talking to dead people than to him.

  CHAPTER 17

  Lady Valera’s directions brought me right to the black void that hid the corridor to the market. That was when I remembered I couldn’t go any further, because I was human.

  Last time, Sadie went through first and got Frankenstein’s monster to lift the anti-human spell. I had no way to contact the gatekeeper, and no idea what the spell was or what it’d do to me. I also had no reason to doubt there was a spell. After all, I’d seen more real magic in the past few days than I ever wanted to in my life.

  It probably wouldn’t work out too well if I just stood here and shouted.

  Well, I had to try and get through. Hoping the spell wouldn’t turn me into a frog or something, I raised a tentative hand, held it up to the blackness, and pushed forward a bit. The air seemed almost thick, the way heavy clouds look like they should feel. I moved my arm further in and saw the thread-like blue lines I’d glimpsed when Sadie went through without me. I could feel them, too—an electric crackle that made my hairs stand on end.

  Great. I was going to be electrocuted.

  I took a deep breath and walked into the dark.

  Just like last time, the air seemed to be pushing at me. There were more blue threads moving around me, striking me like pint-sized lightning. Every touch produced a burst of static shock. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable. I kept going, thinking at any moment there’d be a big shock, something that would paralyze me or knock me out.

  Then I was through.

  I stood there in the out-of-place corridor, half-stunned and staring at nothing in particular. That shouldn’t have worked. I was human.

  Wasn’t I?

  Voices drifted from the far end of the corridor, driving away the thoughts I didn’t want to have. Whoever the voices belonged to, I probably shouldn’t talk to them. I still knew nothing about this world. And so far, my lifelong policy of assuming danger from the unknown had kept me alive.

  I walked down the corridor and tried to look like I belonged here. I was five feet from the entrance to the market when two figures walked through from the other side—a black-haired woman in a dark green leather bodysuit, and a man with a shock of dreadlocks and a skull tattooed over his face.

  Avoiding eye contact was impossible, with the woman staring at me like I was dinner.

  “Hello, handsome.” She flashed a dazzling smile. Her voice was honey-drenched Creole, and her amber eyes, the same color as the man’s, held a predatory gleam. “Haven’t seen you before. What flavor are you?”

  Somehow I knew what she meant—and I decided human wasn’t the best thing to say right now. “I’m busy,” I said. “Excuse me.”

  “Don’t be rude, now. I do love rolling out the welcome wagon,” she said. “I’m Denei. This is my brother, Zoba. Say hello, Zoba.”

  Zoba glowered and made a noise. It didn’t sound like hello.

  “Yeah. Er, nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m really—”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me your name, handsome?”

  I sighed. “Gideon.”

  “Mmm. I like that. A good, strong name.” Denei moved toward me. “All right, Gideon. You look like you’re here to find something, so maybe we can help you out,” she said. “My clan, we know our way around. What’s your business in the Hive?”

  I almost told her my business was none of hers. But I remembered how many twists and turns through the market there’d been to get to Taeral’s place, and realized I’d probably never find it alone. “I need to see Taeral,” I said.

  “Do you, now?” She glanced at her brother. “We can take you to him. Right, Zoba?”

  The sound Zoba made wasn’t very agreeable.

  She laughed. “Come on, handsome. Come and follow Denei.”

  Something told me I really didn’t want to do that. But I couldn’t think of another option just yet, so I followed her. At least I still had the cop’s gun for protection.

  Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to use it.

  It wasn’t long before my suspicions were confirmed. I was in a whole lot of trouble.

  At least twice as we moved through the maze of ragtag buildings, I saw something detach from the shadows and follow our little party. Denei made the occasional innocent-sounding remark, and I said as little as possible. Zoba mostly glared.

  Finally, there was a clearing ahead. But I didn’t hold out much hope that I’d find Taeral’s tent there. When we entered the dimly lit, empty space and proved me right, I decided to run for it.

  But before I could, Zoba grabbed my arm with powerful strength—hard enough that I knew he could break it if he wanted to.

  “Don’t leave, handsome. The fun’s just starting.” Denei grinned, and it wasn’t so dazzling this time. “I want you to meet the family.”

  As she spoke, more figures drifted into the empty clearing. All of them tattooed and pierced, decked out in various combinations of leather and denim and swagger. Six pairs of amber eyes fastened on me with wicked intent.

  I pulled the gun and pointed it at Denei. “Tell your brother to let go.”

  She gave a cackling laugh. “Put that away, honey. It’s no good here,” she said. “This doesn’t have to be messy. All we want is whatever you were planning to trade with the Fae.” She winked at me. “He always demands the good stuff.”

  Even if I had the body, there was no way I’d give it to these assholes. That left me with only one choice.

  So I tried to shoot her.

  I didn’t miss entirely. The bullet punched through her arm, a shot that would’ve at least slow down a human—which she wasn’t. All it did was piss her off.

  “Zoba,” she snarled. “Teach that naughty man a lesson.”

  His skull face grinned, revealing teeth filed into sharp points.

  I shoved the gun into his shoulder and fired at point-blank range, knowing it wouldn’t kill him. But there wasn’t much else I could do. He made a deep, guttural noise and twisted my wrist sharply, forcing the gun from my hand. He kicked it away, and one of the others ran to grab it.

  Great. Now they had a gun.

  Still holding my arm and wrist, Zoba pushed me backwards. I managed to keep my footing, only to drop to my knees when his wrecking ball of a fist rammed into my gut. Before I could get a breath, another fist cracked my jaw.

  Then they were all on me.

  I was kicked and punched, knocked down and dragged up and thrown into oncoming blows. Two of them caught my arms and hauled me across the ground, the others kicking as I passed. Eventually they held me up so Zoba could pound me into paste for a while.

  When they let go, I dropped to the ground, yanked my knife out—and stabbed it into the nearest booted foot. Which happened to be Zoba’s.

  He made the first sound I enjoyed coming from his mouth. One with pain in it.

  Someone grabbed a fistful of my hair and forced me to my knees. The gang fell silent as Denei came to stand in front of me. At least she’d stopped smiling. “Now we’re gonna take everything you got, handsome,” she said. “And then some.”

  “Yeah?” I spat blood at her. “Go for it, sister.”

  “Don’t you call me sister—”

  “Get away from him, you swamp-sucking hellions!”

&nb
sp; They all froze at the sound of the rumbling, half-broken voice. The tall figure that stepped into the clearing blazed with fury, so much that he actually seemed to be throwing off flickering light.

  I never thought I’d be this glad to see Taeral.

  CHAPTER 18

  Most of the amber-eyed freaks scattered, but Denei and Zoba held their ground. I did too—mostly because I wouldn’t get very far if I tried. Moving was not going to feel good.

  “Taeral.” Denei was back in fake-charm mode, all flashy smiles and batting eyelashes. “Is this yours? I had no idea.”

  Everything started to dim. For a second I thought I was passing out, but then I realized Taeral really had been glowing. The light around him faded like a guttering candle. “Touch him again, and I’ll skin every last one of you alive,” he said. “Does that give you an idea?”

  “Oh, all right.” She pouted and looked at Zoba, who was working my knife out of his foot. “Why you want this scrub, anyway?” she said. “I mean, he’s kinda cute, but he ain’t exactly your type.”

  “One more word, Duchene.”

  “Watch yourself, Fae. You wanna remember whose protection we’re under.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “And I don’t care.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Zoba,” she said. “Say goodbye.”

  Zoba once again declined to form words, but the noise he made didn’t need them.

  “Hold on, caveman.” I struggled to my feet, gritting my teeth to hold back a scream. At least I’d had plenty of practice taking a beating—not that I was particularly thrilled about that. “My blade,” I said, holding a hand out.

  He raised an eyebrow, and then grinned. That expression was a hundred times worse than his glare. But he put the knife in my hand without a fight.

  My skin crawled with his not-quite-laughter as the pair of them walked away.

  I hitched a breath and wiped the blade on my pants. Damn it, even that hurt. “Thanks for the intervention,” I said to Taeral.

  “Don’t thank me,” he snapped. “Where is Sadie? You shouldn’t wander this place without her, boy. In fact, I’d rather you never came here at all.”

  “Stop calling me that.” I was avoiding the question, but I preferred getting angry over admitting what happened. “You know my name. Use it.”

  “Where is she?”

  I sighed and put the knife away slowly. “We got ambushed,” I said. “They took her.”

  “Milus Dei?”

  “The cops, actually. But I’m pretty sure it was on Milus Dei’s behalf.”

  Taeral closed his eyes and muttered something in a language I didn’t know. “And you came here alone,” he said.

  “Yeah, and I’m kind of in a lot of pain right now,” I said. “So can we take this conversation somewhere safer, maybe with chairs or something?”

  “Safe!” he spat, glaring fire at me. “You’ve lost any safety you had, from the moment you set foot in this place. You should consider yourself fortunate…Gideon.” He said my name with extreme reluctance. “There are darker things than the Duchene brood down here.”

  “Let me guess. You’re one of them.”

  His jaw firmed. “I am.”

  Somehow, I didn’t doubt that assertion.

  “Come on, then.” He stalked across the clearing, then paused and turned. “I’ll assume you haven’t fetched the body?”

  “Yeah, about that,” I said. “Long story. Short version, it isn’t there anymore.”

  “What? Explain!”

  “I will. Soon as we’re not standing around here, because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not in the best shape,” I said. “I won’t be upright much longer. So unless you want to carry me—which, by the way, I definitely don’t want—I vote for going. Now.”

  He grunted. “Fine.”

  As he walked away, I followed and let myself relax just a little. I wouldn’t thank those yellow-eyed bastards for it, but at least the pain distracted me from everything I had to ask Taeral—and the answers I still didn’t want to hear.

  I explained as best I could about the Redcap and all the other weird crap that went down at the park. By the time we reached Taeral’s tent, he was practically spitting nails.

  “We need that body!” He’d gone no further than the front room, and now he shoved at a pile of yellowed newspapers and assorted junk, revealing a faded and sad-looking, footstool-ish lump beneath. “Sit down.”

  I couldn’t help eying the footstool and wondering if it would disintegrate beneath me. The thing looked ancient. But I sat, and it only creaked a little under my weight. “So,” I said. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “If you’re going to ask questions, try making sense.”

  “Easy for you to say. None of this makes any damned sense to me,” I shot back. “You said ‘we’ need the body. I thought you did. Why the hell would I need some dead woman I don’t even know?”

  He stared at me. “Why would you say that?” he said slowly. “I never mentioned the corpse was a woman.”

  “The Redcap did. But he could’ve been lying. That’s about the only thing I do know.” I met his steady gaze with a burning one of my own. “The Fae lie. That’s you, right? You’re lying, or at least leaving a lot of shit out. And I’m damned sick of it. So start telling me the truth, asshole.”

  His brow went up, and he flashed a bitter smile. “Well. You’ve not lost all of your heritage, I see,” he said. “You’re right. The Fae can and do lie, when it suits our purposes. But we also speak truth, without hesitation or concern for the consequences—as you have. And as humans do not.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I said. “What heritage? You have no idea where I came from, and if you did, you wouldn’t call it heritage. Personally, I call it hell. And I’m starting to feel like I got out on the wrong side of it.”

  “I’m afraid it’s you with no idea where you came from, Gideon.” He leaned heavily against a shapeless mass covered with stained canvas and stared at the floor. “You speak truth so readily because you are Fae. Well, half-Fae. A changeling. And you need the body, because it’s the only way you can connect with who you truly are.”

  My throat clenched hard. “Whose body is it? Tell me.”

  He raised his head, and his eyes glittered with pain. “She was your mother.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Not human.

  The last thing I wanted to do was accept all this, but I didn’t have a choice. I could feel the truth of it. The market gateway, the talking dead people, Sadie’s reactions to me, the moonstone…the veil, and Arcadia. The Fae realm. It almost made sense. I wasn’t human.

  I wasn’t a Valentine.

  “My mother.” A splintered whisper was the best I could manage. The only mother I’d known was a woman who’d never so much as hugged me, who’d beat me just as hard and often as the men. Who took great delight in telling me that I was weak and pathetic, and that she’d almost drowned me like an unwanted kitten when I was born, because I was sickly and not worth her time. I couldn’t even count how many times she’d said she should have done it.

  Then a different question occurred to me, and I was furious all over again.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?” I growled. “You knew I wasn’t human. You knew where this woman who’s supposedly my mother was buried, in a goddamned unmarked grave in Central Park. And you didn’t bother mentioning any of this before. Why?”

  “Because you were never supposed to know!” Taeral straightened suddenly, his blue eyes flashing. “You were safe with those humans. Ignorant, and safe.”

  “Safe.” The word tasted bitter in my mouth. I stood slowly, ignoring the pain as I eased out of my jacket and dropped it on the floor. “Let me show you how safe I was.”

  I took off my shirt.

  The Duchene bastards had given me plenty of new bruises, but they didn’t do anything to hide the scars. Belts and sticks, burns and blades and bullets—an endless parade, all of them leaving their m
arks. “Those humans hated me,” I said. “Don’t you dare tell me I was safe with them.”

  Taeral shuddered. His normal hand went to his metal arm and lingered there a moment. Finally, he rasped, “For that, I am truly sorry…my brother.”

  “Your what?”

  “My brother,” he repeated. “You are my brother, the halfling child of my father and his human mistress. And I’m sworn to protect you at any cost.”

  This was way too big to process. I dropped back onto the footstool, grabbed my shirt and put it back on. “So…my mother was human,” I said. “And the Valentines. That was you protecting me.”

  “Yes.” He frowned. “Your family name is Valentine?”

  “They’re not my family, and I changed it,” I said. “It’s Black now.”

  “Of course. Ciar’ Ansghar…it means dark warrior.” His eyes closed briefly. “That is your true family name.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ll stick with Black. Not sure I can pronounce that.” I drew a deep, unsteady breath. “How did this happen?” I said. “I mean, how did I end up with them?”

  Taeral shook his head. “I’d no choice at the time,” he said. “I’d escaped Milus Dei, and they were actively hunting me. Your mother as well…they knew she carried my father’s child. Even then, they sought you above all others. But I found her too late.” A muscle jumped along his jaw. “She’d died giving birth to you. I buried her there, to keep Milus Dei from defiling her remains.”

  “Wait. You’re saying I was born in Central Park?”

  He nodded. “The hunters, the Valentines—I’d met them in passing while I was searching for your mother. There was an infant among them, a boy who was not thriving, and they were preparing to leave the city. So I exchanged you for the child.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered. That explained the drowned-kitten thing, at least. “What happened to him? The other baby, I mean.”

  “He did not last the night.”

  “Oh.” I wondered briefly if Taeral had helped the sickly kid along in the process of leaving this world, but decided I didn’t want to know that yet. “Is that all of it?”