I was let go, abruptly. Stood, heart hammering, and glimpsed sharp teeth shining red under the disco ball—snatches of impossibly long fingers lost amongst moving limbs—cat eyes blinking lazily from the faces of men who wrapped themselves around women whose tattoos suddenly looked like iridescent scales. The dancers never stopped, but they watched me, smiling, covering their mouths as they laughed and whispered in one another’s ears.
I tasted blood. I had bitten my tongue. I spat on the floor at their feet, and my blond guide reappeared. Her face was serene. She stepped in my bloody spit, and said, “Come. We’re almost there.”
I said nothing. Just stared at her until she finally looked away and turned. I hesitated before following her, but I had come too far. I needed to do this.
Again, the dancers made room for us. I kept expecting to be attacked. The anticipation was almost worse than the act. Off to my right, I glimpsed again the man in black who had been led off by one of the female guides. I could not see his face—hardly any part of him was visible—but he stood very still amongst the dancers, and I had a sense he was confused, and afraid.
I glanced at my guide, whose back was turned. Remembered those nails and knives. And then shoved my way through the dancers, toward the man.
I could no longer see him, but I headed in the direction where I thought he might be. The man had not seemed far away, but there were a lot of people in my way. Fingers trailed over my arms and through my hair, mouths breathing against my ear. A woman leaned in to lick my cheek. I pushed her away, and kept going—music battering against me, the beat mirroring my heart. Lights dimmed, the red glow spreading like the air was made of blood. Ahead, faint beneath the pulse of drums, I heard a distressed shout.
I tried to move faster, but a wall of bodies surrounded me, dancers gathered so thick it was like trying to move through a bramble bush made of leather and flesh. I could not breathe. Felt like they were crushing me, and the claustrophobia of that moment was too much—too much like the Wasteland, buried and alone. I was so alone.
A woman stood in front of me, a long braid hanging over her shoulder. I grabbed her hair, kicked sharply at the backs of her legs, and forced her down to her knees. I was too quick, and she was too surprised to fight back. I placed my foot on her shoulder, grabbed the top of another man’s head, and stepped up. I snatched at clothing to pull myself along. I grabbed at anything I could, feeling like I was climbing free of a sweaty hole.
Seconds later I teetered on someone’s shoulders, arms pinwheeling—and for one moment I had a clear view of the room. Close in front of me I saw the man in black, being dragged to the floor. Pounced on. Pummeled. I got a good look at his face.
Hands grabbed at my ankles. I jumped away, landing awkwardly on some woman’s head. My heel slipped—she stumbled—and I took another clumsy leap, my knee ramming a naked shoulder. I slipped again, but the man being attacked was right in front of me, and I angled my body forward so that I tumbled right in the middle of the action.
I felt nothing when I hit the floor, but the boys were rumbling hard in their dreams and there were stars in my eyes from all the blood rushing to my head. I tried to stand—glimpsed sharp teeth, nails shaped like daggers—and was dragged down. Fingers raked through my clothes to slash my skin, and though I felt nothing, the strength of those hands was immense, drowning.
I stopped holding back. My own nails were like claws, and I drove them into flesh, stabbing and twisting, filleting arms to the bone. Women screamed, voices breaking like glass, but they did not let go, did not stop ripping at me. I felt as though I were being eaten alive without death or pain, slobbered and spat on, covered in blood not my own. The boys drank it up. The boys fought in their dreams. I heard them howling in my mind like baby banshees.
And then, nothing. The attacks stopped. I stood, blinking heavily, staring at the red-lit faces that watched me warily. No one danced anymore. I watched as bodies were dragged away, disappearing into the crowd, which heaved and breathed as the music thundered on.
Someone stepped close: a short, round man, dressed in black. Blood trickled from deep cuts in his brown cheek, and he wiped at them with a hand that shook so badly he ended up rubbing his eyes instead.
“Hunter,” he muttered, and swayed unsteadily. I wrapped my arm around his waist, holding him up. My own knees felt like shit.
“Father Lawrence,” I said hoarsely. “Good to see you.”
NO one touched us after that.
Dancers kept their distance—and from a distance they looked human. I stopped looking too close. The blond woman led Father Lawrence and me onward, swaying along that curving, sinuous path through a room I could have crossed in less than a minute had it been empty of the dancers around us—who continued jamming to music that pulsed through my chest like a second heartbeat.
I tapped the blonde on her shoulder. “What’s your name?”
“Name?” She had to think about it. “My name is . . . Nephele.”
“Nephele, what is this place?”
She glanced over her shoulder, as though she had never seen anyone quite so stupid. “It is the Hall of the Erlking, my Lady.”
Not Mr. King. Not Erl King. But the Erlking, as though it was a title.
Father Lawrence frowned. “I know that. From Goethe.”
“The poet?”
“Dost see not the Erlking, with crown and with train?” recited the priest, wincing as he dabbed at his bloody cheek with his sleeve. “Erlking. Erlkönig. The Elf King. Originally found in Scandinavian folklore, but the creature later ended up in Germanic mythology. Both versions malevolent, petty, and cruel.”
Perfect. Although, if Mr. King was the kind of supernatural, feylike creature that legends were built on, then those elves were scary motherfuckers. I rubbed my right hand, fingers sliding over the smooth armor—and glanced sideways at Father Lawrence. Still doing his best to mop up his face, with a concentration that seemed bent more on staying calm than cleaning up the blood.
Get him out of here. Do it now.
I edged closer to the man, but did not touch him. I had a bad feeling about leaving. Had a bad feeling about staying, too, but I was here, with an opportunity to end this. Maybe for nothing. Could be this was a waste.
Survival, though, was a daily process. One more day was all a person needed. Get enough of those, and you might have a lifetime.
“How did you end up here from China?” I asked Father Lawrence, raising my voice to be heard over the music.
He gave me an odd look. “I thought we were still in China.”
“I was told Toronto.”
Father Lawrence briefly closed his eyes. “Maybe we’re both right. I don’t know how I arrived. All I know is that I was brought here to die.”
He spoke without grief or pity. I tore my gaze from his injured face, searching the crowd—for nothing, anything—until the words clawing up my throat could no longer be swallowed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is my fault.”
Father Lawrence stumbled. I reached for his arm, but he met me halfway, taking my hand. I was surprised at the strength of his grip, and the intensity of his gaze.
“You’re wrong,” he said; and then, after brief pause: “You’re not what I expected.”
“You shouldn’t know enough to expect anything,” I muttered, thinking about that tattoo on his arm. I rubbed my jaw and the edge of the concealed scar. “Who did you think I would be?”
“Someone colder,” he said, searching my face. “Ruthless.”
“I’m not exactly Mother Teresa.”
“Even Mother Teresa wasn’t Mother Teresa. Some legends precede the truth. Like you, Hunter Kiss.”
I pulled my hand away, gently. Nephele had turned, watching us, head tilted—and though her eyes were placid and dull, I could not help but think it was a mask hiding a creature just as a feral and sharp as the dancers who continued unabated—as if to stop moving would kill them. Their energy was dizzying, relentless, the ro
ck music so loud my teeth hurt. Zee stirred restlessly, aching to be free.
Too many questions in my head. Not enough time for the answers I wanted. I glanced at Father Lawrence, then stared again at Nephele. “How did you get involved in my life? Pick the short end of the priest stick?”
Father Lawrence examined his hands, which trembled briefly. “I was possessed once.”
I looked sharply at him. Nephele swayed toward us, silk gliding over her body, perfect face cool and empty. She stopped, just out of reach.
“You should watch your step,” she said.
“Bite me,” I replied, still listening to Father Lawrence’s words echo in my head.
A faint smile touched her mouth, which suddenly seemed painted in the air, merely floating over skin and bone and muscle. Nephele shimmered like a heat mirage, and another bout of dizziness assailed me. My vision blacked out, streaming with pokes of starlight.
When my eyesight cleared, everything was different.
It was quiet, for one thing. No music. The crowd was gone. Men and women still danced, but in silence: scattered, restrained, bodies tall and pale, cut at odd angles that seemed disjointed—as though legs moved in isolation from hips, and hands from arms. Movements, slow and careful: like watching clockwork dancers in a dark ballet. More silk, less leather. Fabric similar to what the blond woman wore. Each one, in a mask.
Chills rocked me. It was as though we had passed through a looking glass—from Gothic rumble to a Venetian masquerade—where eyes were shadows behind slits of cloth and bone, and bodies labored under glittering jewels and delicate precious metals. Scents of smoke and sandalwood filled the warm air. No disco ball in the ceiling. Just a glow in the shape of a half sun, red as rubies, jutting from stalactites that were no longer plastic or painted, but true stone, long and sharp as daggers. Far away, an impossible distance away, stood massive columns of carved white marble thick around as smokestacks, receding into mist-riddled shadows.
The hall of the Erlking. Or Mount Olympus, Asgard, any temple from legend. This was magic; this was the wild, creepy unknown. And if I had been anyone else, I would have been burdened by awe. I would have twisted like a chime, knotted in wonder.
“Hunter.” Father Lawrence touched my elbow, pointing at the stone floor. Faint lines of light snaked and curved; a border, or marked trail, resembling slivers of diamonds and ice. We stood between those lines, which were part of something larger. Franco’s tattoo came to mind: the labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral. I was also on that road, a pilgrimage to terrible, violent enlightenment.
“You know this imagery,” I said quietly, aware of Nephele listening. “What does it mean to you?”
“What it means to me isn’t the same as the truth, and all the truths I thought I knew have become lies.” He looked at me, and I found him transformed again—from the gun-toting, swearing man of China—to the quiet, thoughtful priest who had watched me so carefully in the cathedral. “This isn’t the first time my order has tried to exterminate your bloodline.”
Cut throat. Woman in a grave. Baby, wailing. Visceral memories. I stared at him, and he added, “I’m surprised you weren’t aware of this. Aware of us, before now.”
“Imagine that,” I said coldly.
Zee tugged, as did Raw and Aaz. Dek and Mal rolled warm against my scalp and face, and I almost touched my cheeks, remembering suddenly that they still covered me. Father Lawrence had not batted an eye at my changed visage. No one had in this place.
Zee pulled at me again, like a vacuum hose sucking on my skin. I turned. One of the dancers had broken away. Like the others, he wore a mask, but only across his upper face: a simple sheet of pale wood carved with veins of silver; and from its edges spiraled naked ice-tipped branches and bloodred thorns. A crimson cloak covered his body. His skin was snowy white, and his eyes matched the color of the thorns, irises nothing but slits rimmed in amber.
His gaze was hungry, and alien in ways that had nothing to do with color and shape: I recognized those eyes. Everything else might be different, but the way he looked at me remained the same.
Nephele fell on her knees and pressed her brow to the stone. The man ignored both her and Father Lawrence, and smiled only for me, tight-lipped.
“My Lady,” he said.
“Mr. King,” I replied, unimpressed. I could not look at his new body without seeing, superimposed, a short fat man in a wrinkled suit, stuffing hot dogs and bloody pretzels in his mouth. Far more disturbing than this otherworldly shape, which was too ridiculous, too odd, to be anything but merely curious.
False. Contrived. Costumes and lies. He is nothing but thought and energy. He is nothing.
“Dance with me,” he whispered, eyes glinting. “We have words to share.”
I flexed my hands, trying to muster the darkness within my heart—wondering, briefly, what it took to get a girl in the mood for murder. Nothing happened. Nothing stirred beneath my ribs. But my gloves were off, and the boys were already dancing death in their dreams.
“Nephele,” said Mr. King, still watching me. “Take our other guest for a spin.”
“No. I’ll wait here,” replied Father Lawrence, giving me a warning look. I met his gaze, but nothing else needed to be said. We both knew we were fucked. Him, more than me. He was nothing but a skin in this place.
Mr. King reached for me. I held still, fighting my instincts, but when he touched me for the first time, it was he who flinched. Shuddering, when his fingers wrapped around my right hand. Pain flexed behind his mask, some terrible hunger.
But then his mouth tightened into that cold, thin smile, and he led me backward into a waltz that floated us amongst the clockwork dancers, who watched behind their masks. Another game, I told myself. Part of the old dark game. Only this was not a demon in front of me but something else.
I was not an easy dancer. I had no rhythm. But in this place my feet floated, and I moved as I might fight—without thinking about it. Mr. King did not hold me tightly, but his grip was cool and firm. Not relaxed, but not entirely afraid, either. Cautious, maybe. He had wanted me to come here. Wheels were turning. He had a plan. And I realized that what Jack had said was true: whomever Mr. King held responsible for Ahsen’s murder, it was not me.
“So we are here, again,” he murmured. “Dancing around each other with death on our minds.”
“You’re not scared of me,” I said. “No matter what I’m thinking.”
His smile tightened. “I helped make you. All of us, who were masters of the Divine Organic, had a hand in the creation of your lineage. You were first, my Lady. The oldest of the Wardens. The oldest, and the most trouble. Of course I’m not frightened of you.”
But you’re frightened of something, I thought, as his eyes ticked down to look at the armor on my right hand. For a moment I thought he might try to bite it off. The sensation was so strong I half imagined my arm disappearing down his throat. I almost hoped he would try. The boys loved cracking teeth.
But Mr. King did not attack me. He licked his lips, jaw flexing as though going through the motions of chewing. Again, I remembered him as that wrinkled little man. Eating, cramming pizza into his face. As though he had gone a thousand years without the pleasure of food and could not get enough of it: that visceral human satisfaction.
I tore my gaze from his mouth and found him studying my face.
“You are like her,” he said, softly. “I saw it in your eyes when you killed my other skin. Something in you is the same. Five thousand years dulls nothing for my memories. I remember your ancestor, before she disappeared from this world. Before she fell into the Labyrinth, and she returned with that.” He looked down again at the armor on my hand. “It would be better if you did not keep it long, my Lady. Objects born from the Labyrinth cannot be controlled by mortal minds. Such things have their own minds.”
“You’re mortal,” I said. “I think you’re goddamn ready to die, in fact.”
“There is sunlight younger than my kind,” replied Mr
. King, “even if those dark years have been forgotten to save our sanity. I think dying now would be premature.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” I leaned in so close we could have kissed. He smelled like a corpse: a new one, cold and empty. “You’re scared. You’re scared of Grant, and you’re scared of being here when the prison veil comes down. You know what those demons did to Ahsen while she was locked up with them.” I smiled coldly. “Afraid of the same abuse? You go weak in the knees thinking about sucking some demon’s cock for the next ten thousand years? Or maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you want it.”
I was goading him. I wanted him to lose it. I needed it, because inside me I still felt nothing of that dark entity, not even the tiniest riddle of movement behind my ribs. I had come here with a mission, and so far, I was wasting every second of opportunity.
Mr. King stopped dancing, such raw, naked loathing in his eyes, I almost forgot that he could not hurt me. I wanted to get away from him, desperately. I wanted to flee, and the instinct was so strong I stumbled backward. He did not let go. I had never seen such pain.
But it was not for me. He looked past me, as though gazing into some terrible memory, and whispered, “If you are not a whore, you are a warrior, and if you are not a warrior, you are a queen—but there is nothing else between within the army of the demon Lords and Kings.”
Zee went very still against my skin. All the boys did. As though hearing that rhyme struck them hard, made them dream things they had forgotten. I wanted to rub my arms, but my right hand was still held—and my left rested against Mr. King’s stolen arm. His gaze flicked back to me—and in that split second he seemed to remember where he was, whom he was with, and the hate in his eyes subsided into a cold curiosity that I found utterly discomfiting.
“Old Jack,” he said slowly, “has done something quite unexpected, with you.”
Darkness Calls Page 19
