All I wanted was to give Father Lawrence and Killy time. All I needed was to clean up some of the mess Mr. King had created. There were too many, though—and their momentum was crushing. I staggered, slashing at anything that moved, blind to individual faces and bodies; just mouths, wet and red, and impossibly large. The boys screamed inside my mind. Teeth broke on my neck. I punched and clawed with my free hand, raking flesh to bone under my black nails. Breathing hurt. I could not breathe.
Until, suddenly, a space opened in front of me—and one of the sharp-toothed men barreled sideways into the others, snarling. A shadow clung to his shoulders, an aura like the ghost of a thunderstorm, concentrated into a flickering wisp. It was not alone, either. I saw other shadows appear inside the ice cavern, falling with inexorable promise upon the heads of those raging men. I watched demonic parasites take possession.
And I was glad of it.
Only a handful had come, but that was enough to confuse and push back the others. Bodies slammed, raging, and for a moment it was like watching sharks turn on one another, mouths spilling over with flesh and blood. One of the possessed broke free of the others, striding toward me—standing tall like a man, and not one of those speeding human torpedoes. His aura flickered wildly, and his eyes—I knew those eyes.
“Hunter,” he rasped, voice muffled by teeth, low and growling.
“Rex?” I muttered. “Why are you here?”
“Old skinner Jack. He told us about Grant.” He spat blood on the ice floor. “So we came to help, enemy of my enemy. Wrap your mind around that.”
I could not and backed away, watching as the zombies tore into the remaining men. “These are strong hosts. Who’s to say you won’t keep the bodies?”
Rex smiled mirthlessly, which looked ghastly given the unending rows of sharp teeth in his mouth. “We gave our word. So go, find Grant. We’ll take care of the rest.”
“I don’t trust you,” I snapped. “No matter how much you love Grant.”
The zombie’s eyes narrowed. “Get out of here.”
I did. When I reached the hall outside the room, Father Lawrence and Killy were gone. No sounds or signs of their escape. The ice floor was scratched, but it was like that everywhere, without one definitive track to follow.
Behind me, howls. My right hand tugged sharply.
You’re on your own, I told the priest and woman—and raced down the hall, back the way we had come, toward the cold-storage freezer of bodies and beyond, to where the boys were telling me that Grant was being held.
It was hard to move fast. My chest burned. Breathing was worse. After running for less than minute, I bent over, holding myself, trying not to be sick—struggling instead to imagine those skipping stones on still water: In, out, breathe.
I met no one in the hall, though I heard howls, sounds of combat: ice cracking, broken screams. I thought about Father Lawrence and Killy. Mary. Grant. Zee tugged harder against my chest, while the sword in my hand hummed with light. I felt as though I might be traveling in a circle—I passed many open archways cut into ice—but none inspired the right kind of reaction from the boys.
Until the hall ended, abruptly. I found myself inside a cavernous room. And in the heart of the room was a labyrinth.
As in the dance club, the lines had been engraved into the ice floor, embedded with silver. And, too, a woman waited on the ice, dressed in a long silk cloak the color of snow, with a furred white hood that shrouded a young, perfect face.
“He’s waiting,” said Nephele.
WE traveled the etched labyrinth, following the path around and around, twisting, and every time I looked up from my feet and the engraved silver lines, I found the room had altered, just slightly. Ice was becoming stone, and a peach glow stained the cold blue walls.
Getting to Mr. King did not need to be so complicated, I realized; but it was homage, a shrine and ritual, in the same way it had been for pilgrims at Chartres. The Avatar might fancy himself a god, but he still prayed, still revered something he found larger than himself.
The Labyrinth.
At the center of the maze, the room shifted one last time—blurring my vision, making me dizzy. When I could see again, I stood in the temple, the hall of Mr. King—the Erlking—with its stone and stalactites, and the vast columns that stood in mist upon an impossible distance. No dancers. No bells. I did not understand this place, how it could exist just beyond reality—how Mr. King could make it exist—and yet not be able to access the Labyrinth.
I saw him immediately. I had expected an army between us—guns and teeth and fire—but Mr. King stood alone. He wore a long crimson robe, loose hood draped just over his head, framing a breathtaking face too perfect to be human—but that was, strikingly so. Black hair, pale skin, blue eyes. A silver circlet rested upon his brow. Black wings arched magnificently behind his back—so vast and lovely, even my breath caught. Even I, knowing what he was, found myself momentarily lost to awe.
Gabriel. Antony Cribari had never stood a chance.
“My Lady,” he rumbled, and his voice filled the cavern like a slow, hot purr. “I felt your arrival. Despite your . . . grievous wounds.”
“Mr. King,” I greeted him. “You said you wanted me alive.”
“I decided that death would be safer. I was right. Somehow, even now, you are destroying all I have made. My soldiers are engaged.” His gaze fell upon the armor and sword. “Such trouble for a small thing.”
“Sometimes we make our own trouble.” I twisted my wrist until the sword blade rested against the back of my arm. “Grant. The others. I want them.”
“Or you will kill me.” Mr. King’s wings stiffened, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Only the Lightbringers and the demons were ever able to murder my kind. And now you. It was never thus with your bloodline. We were so careful when we made you not to cross certain lines.” His gaze ticked past me. “Weren’t we, Jack?”
My heart lurched. I stepped sideways, unwilling to turn my back on Mr. King, and angled my head just enough to see behind me.
Jack stood there. I had not heard him arrive. He was gaunt, pale, but with a fire in his eyes that was unholy and wild. I forgot to breathe, looking at him. Nephele was gone.
“We were careful,” said the old man, staring at Mr. King with so much fury I felt very small and young before him, hardly a tick in time. “But nothing stays the same. Not power, not majesty, not dreams. We, of all beings, should know that.”
Mr. King’s jaw tightened. “You played with her bloodline.”
“I loved,” Jack said simply. “I did nothing more than that.”
“Then how do you explain her?” His mask slipped, just a fraction, and I saw the terrible fear he was hiding, a glittering, visceral terror that was wet and sharp. “It lives inside her. I looked into its eyes, and was judged.”
“As we have judged others?” Jack took a step, and another, until he stood beside me, warm and tall. “We have played gods with worlds, and yet when faced with our deaths, we cannot swallow the bitterness of our own games?”
“Games of survival,” Mr. King whispered. “You remember what it was like to be lost in ourselves, without flesh to anchor our minds. You remember your insanity. You can feel it now, as I do, always waiting for us. None of us are safe. So if we have played at being gods, then so be it. I am sick of your judgments. You are no longer a High Lord of the Divine Organic. You gave up that right when you anchored yourself to this spit of mud and these skins. You gave up everything, and yet you punished Ahsen. You punished me, and others. For nothing more than staying sane.”
“Sanity is no excuse for cruelty.”
“Cruelty is a construct. It means nothing.” Mr. King looked at me. “You might understand that one day.”
“She has a heart,” said Jack coldly. “More than I can say for you.”
“Old Merlin Jack. Still defending your knights. Even the ones who will destroy you.” He stepped sideways, sweeping aside his robe with careful grace. The tips of hi
s enormous black wings dragged across the stone floor. “You want the Lightbringer, yes? And the old woman? Two of the same kind. But you knew that.”
“The Labyrinth brought them here,” Jack said, a note of urgency entering his voice. “You speak of judgment, and there is your proof. They are of the First People. Even you can see that. The Labyrinth saved them.”
“For us,” said Mr. King sharply. “We need their blood to help us survive when the demons break free. No other weapon is left to us.”
“And nothing will be left when you’re done with them. You cannot clone a soul,” Jack snapped in disgust. “You won’t breed anything but what we already have.”
I grabbed his arm. “Enough talking. Where are they?”
Mr. King looked at my hand on the old man’s arm and a tangled snarl altered his perfect face into something ghastly. “If I give the Lightbringer to you, what then? You want satisfaction. You are a wolf, and wolves care for nothing else. In the company of wolves, all that can be expected is blood. And Hunter, you dream of blood.”
I must have moved. I must have. Later, I could not remember. Only, the distance between us suddenly did not exist, and when I blinked, the sword was pressed against Mr. King’s throat, and my left hand twisted his right ear. Fear filled his eyes, but when he spoke, there was only a slight tremor in his voice.
“I will have them killed,” he said.
I made no reply. Simply tilted the sword so that it angled up, in front of his eyes. He took a good long look. He could not help himself. He stared, from the blade to the armor, and the desire in his eyes was as strong as a body gone years without touch, like he might stop breathing if he looked away.
“You are cruel,” he whispered, and leaned against the blade, closing his eyes as the steel bit into his flesh and made him bleed. A tremor raced through him, and he let out a sigh that was less pain than pleasure. I pulled the blade back, just enough to break contact, and he tried to follow—desperation haunting his face.
“No,” murmured Mr. King, shivering. “No, bring it back.”
“You want this,” I said, studying the terrible hunger burning through his eyes; and the aching loneliness, the despair, that twisted his beautiful stolen face.
“I want freedom,” he breathed. “I want you to free me from this prison.”
“You are free. Free as any of us.”
“Free to die.” Mr. King squeezed shut his eyes. “The Labyrinth has denied me. I have been turned back, again and again, though the doors once opened at a thought.”
“None of us can walk the old roads as we once did,” Jack said, behind me. “What you want—”
“—what I will have,” rasped Mr. King, grabbing the blade with his hand; squeezing until he bled. “What I will have is my dignity, and respect. I will be as I was, and not this . . . thing . . . trapped on a world already dead.”
He turned his gaze on me, and it was bright and glittering with hunger and disgust. “Give me what I want, Hunter. If for nothing else, then for mercy’s sake. I do not want to die here. I do not want to die at the hands of the demons, when they are loosed upon this world.”
“And Grant? Mary?” I trembled, the armor and sword growing hot in my hand. “Don’t bullshit me. Maybe you’ll promise to leave them here. Maybe you’ll tell me you won’t ever come back. But you said it yourself: You need them. Your kind needs them. You’ll destroy this world for them, just as you’ve put a dent into it with your games of flesh.” Each word made me angrier; each word felt like a hammer on my tongue. And the hunger that suddenly bloomed inside me was so tangled with my own rage I could not tell if the shadow stirred inside my heart. But I thought it did. I thought it stretched beneath my skin, coiling softly.
“I won’t do anything for you,” I whispered.
Desperation filled Mr. King’s face, and his wings flared wildly, with such strength that he managed to push me away. The moment I stopped touching him, he vanished.
Jack grabbed my right wrist, and without a word we fell into the abyss—spat out, moments later, in another stone room much like the one we had left. Small, dark space, cold as ice. I did not see Grant, but Mary sat on the floor, naked and sinewy, her wrists caught in chains bolted into the floor. Too short a leash to stand, and her knees were raw and bloody. Half her face was swollen purple, but there was a crazed clarity in her eyes that burned bright when she saw me.
A tattoo covered her chest. I had never seen the old woman naked, never wondered what she might have been hiding under her clothes. But over her sternum was a coiled circle of knotted lines that I recognized—golden and glittering as the pendant that suddenly swung from Mr. King’s pale hand.
“Look what I found,” whispered Mr. King, staring at Jack. “On the Lightbringer himself, I found this. On the old woman, growing from her bones. You know what that makes her, Wolf. You know what she is. And if she came with the Lightbringer, then you know what he is.”
Jack stared at the pendant, then at Mary. A shudder raced through him. “It does not matter.”
“It matters,” hissed Mr. King, wings flaring. “It matters for all the lives that family took, and for the army they led. It matters because you were the one sent to exterminate their bloodline. And you said you did.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “It was enough.”
Mr. King snarled, fingers tightening around the pendant. Mary’s chains rattled violently. I found her straining toward the Avatar, pulling so hard her wrists bled beneath the restraints.
“Grant’s woman!” Mary cried at me, her voice cutting straight to my heart. Her eyes glittered; and the golden tattoo shone between her wrinkled, sagging breasts like another kind of armor. The sword in my hands burned hot. Zee yanked on my body.
I ran to Mary. Mr. King shouted, but he was too late to stop me as I swung the blade and cut the chains binding the old woman. She threw back her head, baring her teeth in a snarl, and grabbed my arm. Behind her, Mr. King stretched out his hand, returning her stare. Eyes glowing. Jack shouted a single sharp word.
“Silent, in shadows,” Mary hissed. “Find his voice.”
I clutched the sword to my chest, staring into her wild eyes, and all the boys trembled in their dreams. Grant, I thought, burning up with his name. Grant.
I half expected to fall backward into the abyss, but the world remained. My vision blurred, though, and I saw inside my head a place of darkness, a cold tomb; and within, as though sleeping inside a coffin made of ice, a man. My man.
He felt close. Close, in the same way a person might feel sunlight warm on skin. Everywhere, all around me. I sank into that sensation. I turned in a slow circle, trying to feel its source, and on my left, I felt a tug, a disturbance and ripple, a tickle from the boys. Behind Mr. King.
I saw only stone, featureless and smooth like the inner wall of a mountain cave. I did not trust my eyes. Mr. King stared at us, rigid and trembling, his hand still outstretched. Jack watched him, and a low, rumbling growl, quiet as thunder, rolled straight from his chest, a sound like that of a wolf. It cut to the primal part of me that was human. He stared at the Erlking with so much hate, I feared for him. I had never seen the man who lived in Jack’s eyes, but I imagined him swelling, straining the confines of skin.
“Jack,” I whispered.
“I see it,” he said tightly. “A fold in space, like the one that hides this place.”
Mr. King narrowed his eyes. “You will not take him from me. I will change both the Lightbringer and his assassin before you do that. I will alter them so far beyond your reckoning, they will be monsters to you.”
“You lie,” Jack whispered, but Mr. King ignored him, staring into my eyes with pure, hard resolve. Bluffing or not, the fear that cut me was real enough. No matter how fast I moved, I had seen what he could do to Father Lawrence, in just moments. Grant would be an easy mark. So would Mary.
But that did not stop the old woman from lunging at Mr. King. She moved incredibly fast, swinging the ends of chains still attache
d to the ends of her wrists. Steel whistled through the air like short whips, and the edges of the broken links snapped hard against Mr. King’s eyes. He showed no pain—no nerves in his body to feel a thing—but he flinched. A small distraction. Jack said something sharp in a language I did not understand, and Mr. King jerked forward, clutching his stomach. His eyes widened in surprise.
Jack made a tearing motion with his right hand, and a shadow lifted against the wall, like a curtain. A stone platform appeared, covered in a slab of ice.
Mr. King groaned, wings arching backward. Sparks tumbled from his shoulders, followed by a single bright cloud of light—like the aura of a demon, only golden and pale. It hovered, straining, struggling against some bond I could not see. Jack’s hands remained outstretched, fingers arched like claws. Heat rose from his frail body, and his blue eyes were so bright they seemed to glow, as though moonstruck.
“I can’t hold him long,” hissed Jack, sweat beading against his brow. “Free Grant. He’s the only one who can kill him outside his flesh.”
I had already begun to move. His words chased me across the room as I sprinted past Mr. King toward the ice coffin, the boys surging against my skin. Mary was already there, beating at the ice with the ends of her chains.
My hands burned red-hot, and the sword vanished in a flash of light, back into the armor. I reached the slab in moments, and Mary stepped back as I slammed my palms down on the ice, with such force it cracked. Steam blinded me, but I raked my nails deep, clawing away massive chunks of ice. Mary reached in, as well, ripping and tearing with her bare hands, grunting with pain as her own nails tore.
We finally broke through. Grant lay very still, his eyes closed. I touched his face, but he did not stir. Like Killy’s, his sleep was too deep.
Jack went down on his knees, gasping. Mr. King’s aura shuddered. The armor on my hand flared white-hot—and I could see, in that moment, the future spread before me. I saw Mr. King free. I saw Jack dead, truly dead. And I saw Grant enslaved, skin grown over his mouth so that he could never make another sound.
Darkness Calls Page 27
