by E. A. Copen
Guy stopped walking a few feet ahead of me and turned around, frowning, eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter, Mask? Don’t like to hear the truth, eh?”
“If I’m an errand boy, what does that make you? You’re not even a proper Voidwalker anymore, are you?”
I slapped myself hard enough that I was left blinking away stars. “I’m sorry,” I said, finally myself again. “I couldn’t stop him.” The closer we got to the Nightlands, the more difficult it became to keep him under wraps. I’d been feeling him inside me, pacing restlessly, ever since we left Tartarus.
Guy shrugged it off. “He’s not saying anything I haven’t heard before, but that means we’d better hurry. If you’re not able to shut him down, there’s no telling what he’ll do. Come on.”
We picked up the pace.
“What did he mean, you’re not a proper Voidwalker?” I asked after a short while.
“Remember that ice cream analogy from before? It’s like that. I can still move between different planes of reality, but not as easily as before. I had to leave some of my power behind. The mook’s mind, he can’t take it.” Guy gestured to his head.
I studied him. “Who was he? I mean, before you?”
“He was a soldier,” Guy said slowly. “He hit Normandy in June of ’44 and pushed on through to one of the camps. They pinned a medal on his chest and called him a hero, you know? But after all the shit he’d seen, he just couldn’t function in regular society. First, he found the drink, and it was enough to quiet the ghosts. But then it didn’t work so well. I found him the day after he shot himself. Bam, right in the kisser.”
“He didn’t die?”
“Not all of them do.” Guy gestured to his face. “His face was just gone. Awful to look at. No one thought he’d pull through. But you want to know the dumbest thing? The worst part of it all? The poor mook wanted so badly to live. I guess there’s nothing like staring death in the face to remind you life’s worth living. Anyway, we struck a deal, him and me. I would fix his face and keep him alive as long as he wanted. In return, he’d keep me alive.”
I stopped walking. The rocky path sloped up the hill beside me. “What happens if you leave?”
Guy sighed and gave the road a longing glance. “I healed more than his face. His mind was a jumbled maze of madness and pain, and fixing that cost me. It was like plugging holes in the Titanic, except I was the putty. I don’t get those parts of me back without killing him. Most Voidwalkers wouldn’t care, but we’ve been together so long, we’re partners, me and the mook.”
I nodded. “I know what you mean.”
“After you.” He gestured up the slope.
Rocks slid beneath our shoes as we made our way up the hill. True to Charon’s word, the elephant-shaped rock was just a short way off. We found the gate behind it, made of burning bone. The flame parted as I came near, and I slid the bloody end of my staff into the open keyhole. The ground shuddered, and the gates parted just wide enough to allow us to pass.
The moment I stepped through, everything changed. No longer was I in the dark and bleak atmosphere of the underworld, but in the welcoming arms of a familiar Irish pub. A small string and woodwind band played on the stage while old-timers huddled in small tables, drinking beers and laughing at raucous jokes. Gray stone walls, dark wooden beams, flickering gas lamps, and frosted glass. It looked like a scene out of a storybook or a period film.
I glanced around, expecting Guy to appear beside me, but he was nowhere to be found.
“Well, look who decided to join the party!” The gap-toothed, curly-haired, and buxom Loa that was Maman Brigette grinned at me from the nearest table. She took a long puff from her cigar and blew out a perfect series of rings before kicking out the chair across from her. “Come an’ sit, boy. Been some time since our last chat.”
“I don’t… I mean, I wasn’t…”
Her smile faded. “Sit.”
I scampered to the chair and planted my ass. When a death Loa tells you to sit, you sit, and you like it. “I was with someone.”
“Was you now?” She grinned. “That ol’ fool won’t be missin’ you. Not for long, anyway. It’s time we caught up, I think. Tell Brigette what you’ve been up to. Bartender!” She slammed her fist on the table. “Bring us rum!”
“Oh, no. I don’t think…”
“I didn’t ask you to think, boy. I asked you to tell me what you’ve been up to.”
I bit my tongue to keep myself from blurting anything out. For whatever reason, whenever she spoke to me, I felt compelled to answer. “Brigette, it is good to see you, and I appreciate all the help and advice you gave me last time I was here, but the truth is I can’t stay.”
All amusement faded from her face. She folded her arms on the tabletop and leaned forward. “Where would you be off to in such a hurry, then?”
“To the Nightlands. An entity known as Mask has attached himself to my soul somehow, and—”
“Mask?” She gasped and sat up.
The music halted, and every face in the pub turned to focus on me. Fear prickled on the back of my neck, the first sign that something here wasn’t right.
Maman Brigette’s lips spread into an impossibly wide grin. Sharp fangs sprouted from her gums, and her eyes darkened to a deep black. The skin began to melt from her face, revealing a writhing, black tentacle head underneath. “You don’t say?”
I stumbled out of my chair and turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. He was everywhere. Every face was melting, changing, shifting into Mask’s. Black, shadowy tentacles shot out of Brigette’s body and buried themselves in my gut. White, hot pain flooded my body, and I went to my knees. I could feel them inside me, twitching, churning, tearing my insides apart.
Brigette in Mask’s body rose to her feet and stepped around the table to tower over me.
I looked up at her, trembling, in too much pain to move or speak.
A bloody tongue lashed out of her mouth and slapped me across the face, leaving a deep cut behind. One of her tentacles caressed the side of my face before grabbing my chin. “You think you’re going to win, don’t you? Poor dear. You have no idea how much trouble you’re really in. But look at you! You’re pale as can be, poor boy. Are you feeling unwell?”
Black faces without eyes crowded in, a chorus of voices laughing. The world tilted and I found myself doubled over, palms flat on the polished wood floor, vomiting a black, tarry liquid until my throat burned and my stomach ached.
Mask’s tentacles retracted. The lights faded, and suddenly I found myself alone in the darkness, surrounded by silence. All the pain that had been there a moment before was gone. I’d been tripping before, but this was pretty out there.
Something twitched inside me, and I jumped. What the hell? I peeled my shirt up and touched a clammy hand to my stomach. I had the strange sensation again and then watched in horror as something moved under my skin, pushing the skin outward from within.
I screamed and fell to my back as whatever was inside me pushed harder, trying to punch its way through.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I woke up restrained in a bathtub full of melting ice with what felt like a block of wood shoved in my mouth. The room was freezing and foreign but still somehow strangely familiar. I turned my head and tried to pull my wrists, but found they were solidly chained to something out of view. The second I tried to move, though, a terrible ache spread through my stomach, and I tipped my head back, blinking away tears. The only thing that kept me from screaming in agony was the strange gag.
I couldn’t be dead and in this much pain. This had to be one of Mask’s tricks.
Something loud boomed outside, rattling the walls. The tub reverberated from the sound, making my aching insides tremble.
Familiar feminine voices came muffled through the door. Was that Remy?
The bathroom door swung open. Emma and Remy charged in, splattered with blood. Remy was in full armor, and Emma was wearing a set of police riot gear. Or Mask was.
After what had just happened, I couldn’t be sure who was who anymore.
“I’m sorry, Lazarus,” Emma said and came to one side of the tub. “We didn’t have a choice.”
I flinched away and yelled at her to stay the fuck away from me as she reached for whatever held my hands. She hesitated and glanced at Remy, who stood on the other side. Remy rolled her eyes and grabbed whatever restraint held my wrists in place.
No, she was Mask. It was there in the unusual way her eyes reflected my image back at me. Emma and Remy would never tie me up and put me in a bathtub full of ice.
The minute my arm was free, I decked her across the face as hard as I could, turned, and worked to undo the strange clasp on my other wrist.
“Lazarus, stop!” Emma shouted.
But she wasn’t Emma any more than Remy was Remy. I freed my arms and fought to pull myself to my feet while Emma tried to reach for me. I shoved her into the wall. Remy grabbed me from behind. I turned, fist balled, and punched her straight in the nose. She fell back as blood spouted from her broken nose. Fake blood. We both knew Mask wouldn’t really bleed.
“Stop!” Emma pleaded again.
I turned, saw a pair of scissors resting on the bathroom sink, and grabbed them. When she reached for me, I slashed at her with the scissors to keep her back. She raised her hands and slunk back to the wall.
The world tilted as I tried to lift my leg to climb out of the tub. I looked down. Why was I covered in blood? Another trick? It didn’t make sense. I shook the cobwebs from my head and stumbled out of the bathtub for the door, waving the scissors at both Emma and Remy with one hand while fumbling with my gag with the other. I finally found the knot and pulled it. Just as I suspected, my gag had been a combination of a handkerchief and a narrow block of wood inserted between my teeth. I pulled it out and threw it to the floor.
“You think you’ve got me fooled, huh, Mask?” I spat, feeling behind me for the door.
Remy found her feet. “Dad, put down the scissors. Let’s talk through this. I know you’re disoriented.”
I turned the scissors on her. “Remy never calls me Dad!”
She stopped advancing and raised her hands in surrender. “You’re hurt. Confused. I know it’s hard, but I need you to trust me right now.”
“So you can convince me to let you take over?” I started to laugh, but my stomach hurt so bad I had to stop and put my free hand over the aching muscle. “Not a chance, asshole.”
Emma took a step closer. “Lazarus, you’re not dead. You’re at the North Pole.”
“Why would I be there? No one was supposed to wake me up until Guy told them to, were they? I wasn’t done. No, you’re him. I know you are.”
Remy lunged at me. I tried to turn, but she was too fast, and I was too uncoordinated. Something was making me dizzy, and my stomach hurt so bad. She grabbed the scissors from my hand and tossed them to Emma, who opened a window and shoved them through. I wanted to dive after them, but just breathing was too much effort now. I couldn’t even stay on my feet. I sank to my ass, holding my aching stomach.
Remy and Emma closed on me.
“Why?” I pleaded. “Why them? Please, not them. Don’t use them. They’re all I have left.”
“Lazarus!”
I flinched as Emma cupped my cheek. Her fingers were warm. Familiar. The illusion was so good, I almost believed in it.
She gripped my face with both hands and pressed her lips to mine. I wanted so badly to believe she was real, that I was back, even if I hadn’t finished my work. I missed her so much.
“It’s me,” she whispered and hugged me so tight it hurt. “I swear, it’s me.”
“Prove it.” My words were a desperate whisper. I could feel consciousness slipping away from me, the world growing dimmer by the second.
“Emma, we have to move him now,” Remy insisted. “The lines are collapsing. We have to evacuate.”
She ignored her and touched a thumb to my lips. “As you wish.”
A lightning bolt of recognition struck my spine and my eyes opened, finally seeing. “Emma?” I grabbed her face even though my arms were weak. “It’s you?”
She smiled and nodded.
Whatever pain I was in faded to nothing when her lips touched mine. At least, that’s what I’d say if I was a total sap. But give me a little respect. I was bleeding to death. I winced and drew in a sharp gasp of pain. “Gently!”
Remy grabbed Emma and pulled her back before slapping a towel against my stomach. “Here. Hold this. It’ll have to do until we can get you somewhere safe to fix the stitches you tore out like an idiot. Emma, help me get him up.”
It hurt too bad to speak while they were lifting me, holding me under each arm. It wasn’t until they’d dragged me halfway down the hallway I had enough strength to ask what’d happened to me.
“We’ve been under attack since dawn,” Remy said. “We thought we could hold them off, but they broke through our lines. Nate had to pump you full of Guy’s blood faster than he would’ve liked to clear out the poison.”
“Why does my stomach hurt? Did he do surgery or something?”
“You came to during the procedure,” Emma said. “Only it wasn’t you. Mask tried to attack Nate. He managed to get hold of something sharp, but something…weird happened.”
Remy grunted and helped me over some debris. “You got the upper hand suddenly and started screaming ‘get it out of me.’”
“I did this to myself?” I pulled the towel away from my chest briefly and felt nauseous. The strange dream I’d had about Brigette, if you could call it a dream, had ended with Mask digging his tentacles into my stomach. Maybe I was half-conscious during that. Could be why I tried to disembowel myself.
Emma pushed the towel back against my stomach. “Yes, you did. Nate insisted on bringing you back slowly to keep from shocking your system, which was why you were in the tub. Sorry about the restraints. We were worried you’d wake up and hurt yourself again or try to bite your tongue. No telling what Mask would do to you.”
“We were almost there.” I glanced over at Remy. Blood coated the whole bottom half of her face. “Sorry about your nose.”
She winced as if she were just remembering it was broken. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But I shouldn’t have…” My voice trailed off because Emma and Remy dragged me out of the house and into a war zone. Bodies lay everywhere. Fae, elves, Maws, unidentified chunks of something dark and bloody. For the most part, I couldn’t tell who was who, nor did I want to. The snow looked like a giant cherry snow cone. Smoke rose from the workshop, which was in flames.
A Krampus stomped on something that must’ve been living once. When he lifted his boot, I thought I saw little reindeer antlers stuck to the bottom. Jack was busy fighting alongside Klaus, holding back a whole flood of those black monsters. A Yule cat swiped at an abominable snowman. I couldn’t tell who was on what side, only that one side was losing, badly.
The biting cold finally snapped me out of the shock. I was dressed, but soaking wet from being in the ice tub. Another minute or two in the cold, and I’d be hypothermic. I needed to get somewhere warm. Now. Yet all I could say as Emma and Remy pulled me along the side of the house was, “They’re wrecking C-C-Christmas!”
“Christmas is over,” Emma said and shuffled faster through the snow.
“But what about next Christmas? Where will they make the toys? What happens if Santa dies?”
“Look out!” Remy cried.
An explosion of dark magic went off overhead, raining down smoking bits of debris. Something organic that might’ve been an arm spiraled through the air and smacked into the wall above my head. If Remy hadn’t pulled me to the ground, it would’ve hit me. Judging by the hole it left in the side of the house, it probably would’ve taken off my head too.
They helped me up and we started forward again, my teeth chattering.
“H-how are we g-g-getting out of here?”
“It’s just a few m
ore feet to the sled,” Remy promised.
“He’s freezing, Remy. Can’t you do something?”
Remy nodded and shifted my weight so she had a better grip on me. “Whatever happens, keep moving. We’re dead if we stay here, Emma.”
We were dead anyway, but I didn’t know how to tell her that. It was like Klaus said before. If the North Pole fell, there was nothing to stop Mask’s forces from flooding the Earth. It wouldn’t be a question of if he would come back, but when. The only way to stop him was to get me to the Nightlands. They meant well, pulling me back so they could evacuate me, but all they’d done was make things worse.
Warmth suddenly flooded my skin. It was like standing in the sun on a sunny May day. It was enough to give me some feeling back in my fingers, toes, and the end of my nose, but my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. Remy’s Summer magic just wasn’t enough to fight back the bite of the cold.
We inched around the back of the house and toward the landing strip for Klaus’ sleigh. More Maws surrounded the sleigh, although Finn was working tirelessly to chop them to pieces with an ax and hit them with a flaming shadow whip.
Nate and Guy were busy readying the sleigh for takeoff. I didn’t know if it would fly with only three reindeer, but they were going to try. Nate saw me coming and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout something, but the sounds of battle were so loud I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Finn’s whip snapped out, wrapping around the last of the Maws. With a flick of his wrist, the whip cut it in half. It caught fire and fell in two pieces, melting the snow around it into a puddle.
Mask’s squirming tendrils woke inside me, moving, spinning slowly like a mixing blade. I dug my feet into the snow and cried out as the disgusting pain renewed itself. He was digging his claws in deeper. I could feel him trying to hack into my brain. My muscles twitched with the effort of resisting whatever he was trying to tell my limbs to do.
“Lazarus?” Emma stepped in front of me.
I shook my head. “Mask is still in here, and he’s getting stronger. I can’t… I don’t know if I can stop him.”
