by Laken Cane
“There you are,” Rune whispered.
“What?” asked the berserker, frowning. “What do you see?”
They still couldn’t see it.
But that was okay. She and Lex would show them the way.
So she led them to the green mass, and Lex followed behind.
“Do exactly as I do,” Rune told them. “Step where I step. Lex will guide you from behind. You won’t lose your way between us.”
She could taste their awe, their fear.
It tasted like icing, and she wanted to turn to them and lick it from their bodies. Could the others see what waited in that hellish passage as they made their way to the lab?
She couldn’t be sure. There was nothing in her ears but the sounds of wind. Sometimes hot, sometimes freezing. It roared like the harshest blizzard, the strongest of tornadoes.
There was nothing to see before her, but in her peripheral vision she kept seeing flickers of images. Once, she saw a mist-covered mountain, on the peak of which sat a black mansion. Lightning flashed in brief, blue streaks, lighting up a midnight sky.
Then to her left, a hot, arid wasteland. The ground was cracked and thirsty, and unfamiliar trees grew in straight lines toward a red sky. She heard the harsh cry of crows and the echoing screams of some distant, tortured soul.
She thought she saw Cree Stark, a wide collar around her neck, chained to a castle wall.
She forced herself to take another step, the temptation to turn and run back to her world nearly overwhelming. But then, right in front of her, Damascus came rushing from the blackness.
“Where is my Nicolas?” she screamed.
And then, confused, “I know you. How did I forget?”
Rune fell to the path, to whatever it was she walked upon, and for one second she lost the will to continue.
There were things she did not want to know. Did not want to see.
But she was grabbed from behind and hauled to her feet. “I’m here,” the berserker murmured.
That was all.
And that was enough.
She wasn’t alone in her world or any other.
Was that, then, her biggest fear?
That she would be alone?
Maybe.
Maybe now that Nicolas was gone she no longer feared the threat of madness as violently as she once had.
Maybe she’d forgotten how to.
Whatever, when the berserker spoke to her, she stiffened her spine and walked on.
Strad had her back. The entire crew had her back.
And later when there was time and she was not afraid of falling off the path into the darkness beyond, then she would allow herself to think of Damascus.
The witch was not finished with her yet.
“Fuck you,” Rune muttered. “I’m ready when you are.”
Ahead and off to the right she saw a brightly lit room, full of tables and cabinets and stainless steel.
The path continued, but she didn’t want to walk into whatever lay beyond.
“This is our stop,” she said.
She stepped into the building and stood staring silently, trying to get her bearings.
They were no longer between worlds—they were in the lab.
The crew walked out of the green swirl of magic and stood beside her, big-eyed and pale-faced.
“Did that really happen?” Denim touched the scar on his face, panting slightly.
Beside him, Levi shuddered. “Was I the only one who saw the witch?”
Rune blinked. “You saw Damascus? And the castle on the hill?”
Raze nodded. “I did. And the wasteland.”
Strad squeezed her shoulder. “You weren’t in there alone, Rune.”
“No.” And she was relieved. The world—or worlds—they’d passed through hadn’t been just for her. Hadn’t been her imagination. Her crew had witnessed them as well.
Owen came through, followed by Lex.
Owen said nothing, but Lex was full of words. “The wasteland. It was familiar. I think my father came from there.” She rubbed her eyes, hard. “I could see. In the…tunnel, or whatever it was—the path. I could see in there.”
“Your demon sees, doesn’t it, Lex?”
Lex nodded a little too fast. “But my demon sees shapes and red and black. I saw. Like you see. With normal vision. Oh God.” The she bent forward and began to cry.
There was fear in her sobs, and that was normal.
But there was also joy in it. Yearning.
Exhilaration.
Rune knew right then something that even Lex probably did not. Lex would need, someday, to go to that world. It called to her.
It let her see.
And she would believe she belonged there.
Someday.
“But this is not that day,” Rune murmured. When her crew looked at her questioningly, she shrugged. “Let’s do what we came here to do, and get the fuck back home.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The room in which they stood was empty except for steel tables and cabinets. There were no people, no jars of monstrosities, no tank babies.
They pulled their weapons and walked toward the one door in the room, a long, thin door that listed slightly to the right.
And when she yanked open that door, beyond was…
Hell.
They stepped into a room massive in size and filled with such a cacophony of sounds and strange sights that it seemed almost impossible that they would ever be able to adjust to it.
It wasn’t a room, really, but more of a…a world. A piece of a world.
“What the fuck is this?” Rune pushed her hand against her stake wounds.
The lab appeared to be about the size of a football field, but then, in the far distance—surely miles—lightning lit up a black sky.
The air was thick and hot and burned her lungs when she tried to inhale. Her body didn’t like the magic there, didn’t want any part of it.
Steel tables, row after row after row of steel tables, covered the floor.
Lex shuddered. “Where are we?”
“Is it the lab?” Jack asked. “This whole…place?”
“Yeah.” And Rune had a bad, bad feeling.
She didn’t want to say the words aloud—speaking the name might somehow summon the evil witch—but the word lay heavy and mean upon her tongue.
Damascus.
“She’s here,” Lex whispered, and her voice was full of horror.
“No,” Levi said, as though he already knew. “Who is, Lex?”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“My mother,” Lex murmured. “My mother is here.”
Rune whipped her head around to stare at the little Other. “Karin is? Not…”
Not Damascus?
“Fuck,” Denim said, looking wildly around, blades in both hands.
Rune looked at Strad. She didn’t have to say anything. He understood that Lex and the twins were going to have some trouble.
“She’s only a human woman,” Jack said. “I know she put you three through some shit, but if she’s here, that ends tonight.”
Levi blew out a quiet breath and gathered Denim and Lex close to him. “We’re not children,” he told them.
“We’re not helpless,” Denim added.
But Lex wasn’t convinced. She hugged herself, her eyes moving sluggishly, her body almost still.
She was terrified out of her mind.
“Lex, are you sure she’s here?” Rune asked.
Lex shuddered. “No,” she said, finally. “Raze?”
“I’m right here,” he said, harshly.
He wasn’t angry at Lex. He was full of rage over what Karin had done to her.
He moved to stand behind her, and she backed up slowly until she was pressed against him.
When he looked at Rune, his strange gray eyes weren’t full of pride that she felt safe next to him. They were full of helpless, confused rage.
Inside his eyes were the questions they all wondered. What the fuck had
Karin Love and COS done to Lex and the twins?
Rune knew some of it.
She didn’t want to know the rest.
“You’re Shiv Crew,” the berserker told them. “Remember that.”
The twins nodded. “Shiv Crew,” they echoed.
“Rune,” Jack said.
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s go kick ass.”
And they stepped farther into the room.
Into the hell created, somehow, by Orson Blackthorne.
In that hell lived monsters. Monsters of every imaginable sort. Some of them were without faces, some without brains, some, surely, without hearts.
They were vocal, though, and in each voice was a slice of the hell from which they’d been created, in which they existed.
Their homes were cases sunk into black walls, fronted with glass. Side by side, they circled the room, staring out at the rows of tables. The monsters had no room to walk, or sit, or move in their upright glass coffins.
Rune saw four of them leaning hideously against the glass, eyes staring into whatever afterlife had awaited them.
The sadness was overwhelming.
The despair was suffocating.
“Rune,” Strad said, and pointed.
“Holy shit.” There were windows, all set deeply into the wall on the right side of the cases. “Holy shit,” she said again, when she stood staring out, Lex and Strad at her back.
“What do you see?” Lex whispered.
Rune swallowed. “Cages,” she said. “I see the cages on Spikemoss Mountain.”
“If we broke through the window,” Owen said, “would we be on the mountain?”
“Maybe,” Strad said. “But maybe not in our world.”
Rune drew away from the glass, shivering. “Let’s take care of Blackthorne, find the girl and baby, and get the fuck out of here.”
“Please, please let it be that easy,” Lex begged, but her voice was devoid of any belief that it would be.
Owen cleared his throat, then thumped his chest. He was damaged from the beating he’d taken, but Rune knew that wasn’t what was bothering him.
“How are you feeling?” Jack asked Owen.
“Like I’m covered with magic,” Owen said. “I’m feeling no pain. It’s just heavy in here.”
Yeah. Heavy and grim and red.
“You still look rough,” Raze said, then glanced at Strad. “Both of you do.”
“I’m sure when we go back home,” Rune said, “things will go back to normal.”
Owen gave Rune a long look. “Count on it,” he said.
They walked down the path between the tables, and the farther they walked, the louder the monsters became.
The tables were empty except for the occasional rusty smear of blood.
“What about the monsters?” Lex asked. “We can’t leave them here.”
“We’ll release them if we can,” Rune answered.
As they walked single file past the glass encased monsters, one of them, a tall, thin, armless male began to beat his forehead against the glass of his prison.
After only three thumps, his head exploded. Blood and green fog hit the glass like he’d been shot from behind, and he leaned against his wall, dead.
His death was surely a blessing.
“God,” Rune whispered. “Why? Why would he do this?”
“To raise an army,” Owen suggested, but he didn’t sound convinced.
“He did this because he could,” Strad said.
“This is his…fun. What he lives for.” Lex shuddered. “I can feel it, the desolation. We have to free them.”
“Free them to what?” Jack asked. “The best thing we can do for them is to kill the poor bastards.”
As they walked, the light went out in another one of the pitiful beings, and from his mouth floated a small green puff of magic.
Rune pushed her palm against her chest. “I can’t get any air in here.”
Lex nodded. “I know.”
“He only wants the monsters,” Levi said. “What does he do with the ones who aren’t monsters?”
None of them had the answer to that, and Rune didn’t want to think about it. It was too grim.
Thoughts of the baby haunted her.
She walked to one of the beings and pressed her palm against the glass.
He had no arms, no legs, no ears. He could see, though.
He watched her, tracking her movements, but there was no comprehension in his eyes. His expression didn’t change.
“Where the hell is Megan Smith?” Rune tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t. The room would not allow it. “And where is Blackthorne?”
Lex turned suddenly in a small circle, her hands to her throat. “He’s here. He’s going to hurt her.”
Rune flew to her. “Where, Lex?”
“Up there,” Levi said, and pointed.
Orson Blackthorne watched them from a room about twenty feet above them. He sat in a wheelchair, and at his feet was the werefox, Megan Smith.
The girl cried out in pain and clutched her huge belly, but didn’t look down at the crew. Rune wasn’t sure the girl was aware of anything other than her agony.
“What the fuck?” Rune whispered. The girl had been kidnapped three months earlier, yet she looked ready to deliver.
Eugene had been right. The fetuses’ growths were accelerated.
Orson Blackthorne patted her head. “This one is special.” He didn’t speak especially loudly, but his voice carried to them anyway. “What’s inside her,” he continued, lest they misunderstand him, “not the host.”
“I can be up there in five seconds,” Rune said. And she tensed to run.
“Wait,” Lex whispered.
And then, Karin Love stepped out from behind Orson Blackthorne’s chair.
“Mommy’s home,” she said.
Chapter Fifty-Three
And even though Lex had warned them that she was there—the presence of the evil COS founder shocked them all.
“Alexis,” she cooed. “Did you miss me?”
Lex’s legs gave out and she started to fall, but the berserker grabbed one arm and Raze took the other, and they held her up.
“Fuck you, bitch,” Rune snarled, and suddenly she was filled with a black hatred so sharp and thick she could taste it. She wanted to hurt Karin Love more than she’d ever wanted anything.
The twins leaned against each other, their faces drained of color.
Levi and Denim, warriors, fighters, Shiv Crew, brought to their knees by one human woman.
“Mother, don’t,” Lex begged.
Karin smiled. “I’ll deal with you later.” She looked at the twins. “Hello, Denim.”
He shuddered.
She walked closer, until she stood at the very edge of the floor.
Fall to me, bitch. Rune clenched her fists.
The werefox screamed again, then dug her nails into her belly, trying to dig out the pain.
Orson leaned forward in his chair and slapped at her shoulder. “Stop that, child.”
“What are we doing, Rune?” Jack asked, his voice quiet.
The others couldn’t get to the werefox, but Rune could. The twins and Lex were paralyzed by their terror of Karin Love, but Rune carried no such fear.
“You’re never getting out of here, you know,” Karin said. “None of you.”
“Lady,” Rune said, unable to remain silent another minute, “you’re a fucking useless human cunt. I’m not scared of any part of you.”
And finally, Karin turned her black eyes on Rune. “Rune Alexander.” She drew the words out, hissing them, making them seem almost alive in her mouth. “You should fear me.” She leaned forward. “I know your secrets.”
Orson laughed.
Rune’s monster came bursting out of her, and there was no caution, no worry, no more thoughts about the pregnant werefox.
She wanted to tear Karin Love into bloody bits, wanted it with a fierceness that startled even her.
“No,” Lex screamed, her cry long and agonized. She knew something they did not.
She knew her mother.
Rune was beyond listening.
She heard a sort of electronic humming and then a strange snapping sound that echoed through the room, the world, as Orson Blackthorne freed his monsters.
That explained why he and Karin had stationed themselves high up the wall—the monsters couldn’t get to them.
But they could get to the crew.
“Got popcorn?” Karin asked Orson, and they both laughed. They sounded almost…normal.
The wall was straight up and had no opposing wall from which she might push herself. It didn’t matter.
She shimmied up the wall like a spider, and she did it fast.
That room—that world—made her something more. The magic hurt her, made it hard for her to breathe, and filled her with dread. But somehow, it made her more.
Below was madness.
She heard screams and roars and cries as she went after Karin Love, whose eyes were too calm for someone about to get shredded by a fucking monster, but Rune wasn’t thinking.
She was reacting.
She was feeling.
Orson pushed himself back a little, dragging Megan with him, but Rune barely noticed. She lifted her hands and streaked toward Karin.
For one tiny second, Karin’s eyes lit with doubt.
With fear.
And that fed Rune’s monster.
Karin would die, and she’d die hard.
But then she glimpsed men gathered around the perimeter of the high room—not just men, but slayers.
As she aimed for Karin’s throat with her long, silver claws, those slayers converged upon her, and every single one of them held obsidian in his hand.
“I know your secrets.”
They didn’t just stake Rune. They decimated her.
One obsidian blade in her heart would have been enough—they stuck her with at least a dozen.
She wasn’t aware of falling, or screaming, or losing the ability to move—but suddenly she was once more on the floor, and at the slayers’ mercy.
God. No. Not again.
She couldn’t do it again.
The rest of her mind would go.
And her entire crew would watch it happen.
They’d be distracted by her attack, distracted enough to be torn to bits by the sad, uncontrollable monsters Orson Blackthorne had created.
