“Seems like a small price to pay, if there’s any chance they’ll succeed,” said Claudia.
“Which there isn’t,” Zombie Man said.
Phineas ignored him and looked at Claudia. “Will he know? If you don’t bring us to him right away? Will he know we’re here?”
“I don’t think so,” said Claudia.
“Not unless somebody tells him.” I didn’t recognize the man who said it, but Phineas seemed to.
“Harlan?” Phineas asked. “I didn’t realize he’d gotten you.”
Harlan—who was in comparatively good shape, with only one cheek eaten away—nodded, but stuck to the subject at hand. “He won’t know you’re here. If he saw and knew everything that happened here, there would have been no reason to tell us to look out for you two. But he did. Much as he might wish otherwise, he’s not a god. Not even here. At least not yet.”
“Well, then.” Phineas looked out over the crowd and repeated his question. “A little time? Please?”
“It’s a test,” Morgan said again. “Don’t believe anything they say. It’s some kind of trick, and when we don’t bring them to him, he’ll punish us.”
There were a few murmurs of agreement from the crowd.
I reached again for the dagger, but I put my hand in the wrong pocket, and my fingers closed around something else instead: the poppet I’d made at Martha’s.
It wouldn’t do me much good in this situation, but it did give me an idea.
“Most of you are witches,” I said. “You have ways of telling whether you can trust us or not, don’t you?” I looked at Morgan. “So test us.”
She did. I did my best not to panic as Morgan and several others closed in around me. They touched me with their bitten fingers, stared at me with their bloody eyes. One was trying to whisper some sort of spell, but she had no tongue left to speak with.
I came pretty close to blowing the whole thing by screaming and running. But I managed to stay still until finally—after several incantations were said over me, and I was required to offer up several drops of blood and one lock of hair—I was declared a friend.
It was Phineas’s turn next. I breathed deeply as they left me and surrounded him instead.
“Bet that was fun.”
It was Claudia, standing beside me now. At a respectful distance. It was an effort not to break down sobbing, looking at her empty eye socket.
“I’m so sorry, Claudia. So sorry I wasn’t there.”
She looked momentarily startled, then burst out laughing. “You feel guilty for not being there?”
I blinked at her. “Um. Yes?”
“Get over yourself!”
“What?”
“Do you honestly think you would have succeeded where a house full of witches failed? You couldn’t have stopped this.”
Well, when she put it that way. “Oh. What happened, exactly?”
“We were prepared for the birds, as you know,” said Claudia. “But he sent poison gas into the house. Then blew it up. Then he brought out the birds.”
“But he shouldn’t even have been able to get to the house,” I said. “Rebecca betrayed you, then?”
Claudia shook her head. “Henrietta Traven was with him. And it was her house, too. She got past the enchantments no problem.”
“Guess now we know for sure where Henrietta stands,” I said. If she had gotten cold feet when Bella died, she’d found a way to warm them up again. Or Amias had warmed them up for her.
“Are you kidding me? She’s like Amias’s Queen of the Underworld,” Claudia said. “Or maybe more like his terrifying housekeeper.”
“What happened to Rebecca?” I asked.
“She’s one of the ones he took alive. He keeps her with him.” Claudia sighed. “She didn’t betray us, but she wasn’t a hundred percent honest with us, either. She failed to tell us that the Traven sisters had a falling out not long before all this happened. It started with some unpleasantness over a man, I believe. Things blew up, people took sides, they all said the kinds of things that can’t be unsaid.” Claudia waved a hand. “I don’t know, some family bullshit. The point is, they weren’t speaking.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Wish I was. It was only when Amias delivered his threat that Rebecca managed to get them to come home again. I guess she figured they’d be loyal to each other no matter what, when the chips were really down. That was a nice thought.”
“But not an accurate one.”
“Not by a long shot.” Claudia sighed. “I guess resentment must have been brewing a while, for them to betray her on this kind of scale. But people never cease to amaze me. Especially how cruel they can be.”
“And who knows what Amias might have offered Bella and Henrietta,” I said.
Claudia watched an eyeless woman—at least I thought it was a woman—stumbling by, then touched her own ruined face. For a second her front of strength dropped. “I can’t imagine what would be worth this.”
They found no falseness in Phineas, either. After some arguing, they all—even Morgan—agreed to give us until morning before taking us to Amias.
We retreated a short distance from the fire to make a plan in earnest. A few of Amias’s bolder victims joined us, to offer what help they could. Claudia agreed to try to get Amias’s true name out of Alice. But even if she succeeded, it would do us no good if we didn’t know how to use it.
“So who knows a spell for destroying someone with their true name?” I asked.
Phineas shook his head. “I would think you’d need a phantasm for that. It’s not the kind of magic humans usually get into.”
“Not that our kind does it much either,” said Harlan. “That’s pretty old-fashioned stuff. It’s more quaint tradition these days than anything else, keeping our true names secret.” He scratched his face, maybe a habit he’d had in life, but it was ghastly now as he dug into the pits the shadow eaters had made. I tried not to be too obvious about looking away.
“Was that Tristan I saw earlier?” Phineas asked.
Harlan pointed at him, the way a teacher points at a student who’s gotten the right answer. “Now there’s a thought. Let me go and talk to him.”
“You and Claudia should go,” I said to Phineas as Harlan walked away. “We don’t have time to waste. You go see what you can do with Alice, and I’ll stay here and see if I can find a spell. If this Tristan person knows it, great. If not, I’ll keep asking around.”
Phineas frowned. “I don’t like leaving you with them. Some of them are a little unstable.”
“And who can blame them, after what they’ve been through?” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
“She’s right.” Claudia stood. “The nights go fast here. And it’s a long walk, on top of the swim. We should go.”
Phineas didn’t love the idea, but eventually he agreed to split up. He and Claudia left, and I went in search of Harlan.
I found him on the other side of the bonfire, talking to a bent old man who looked almost completely unharmed. I wondered if he was alive.
He must have noticed my curious stare, because he gave me a gummy smile and said, “Shadow eaters didn’t get much of a chance to come after me. I had a heart attack and dropped dead at the sight of them.”
I laughed, then realizing that was probably wildly inappropriate, covered my mouth. But the old man’s smile only got wider.
“It’s okay, don’t feel bad. I’m probably the least worthy of pity of anyone here. I lived through ages in your world. I knew the man you came to call King Arthur in your legends. You can call me Tristan.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Tristan,” I said. “Although I wish it was under better circumstances. Phineas and Harlan thought you might be able to help us with a spell.”
“The true name,” Tristan said. “Haven’t been asked about that in years. There are a lot of ways you can use it. Which way might you be looking for?”
“Whichever one results in the quickest and surest death.�
�� I didn’t bother waffling about it. I almost added the most painful to that list of criteria while I was at it.
“Fair enough. But I won’t do it. By which I mean, I won’t go with you. I’m not as afraid of him as some of the folks here, but I’ve no interest in doing battle with him, either. I had enough pain in my life. I’d like to keep my suffering in death to a minimum.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “You can teach it to me. If you would.”
“I will,” he said.
But he never got the chance.
Without warning the fire roared up and expanded, growing outward at an alarming speed. A few people who were too slow to get out of the way went up in flames. Of course they couldn’t die, so they just kept burning. And screaming.
Everyone was running. Someone knocked Tristan down, and Harlan and I hurried to pull him up before he was trampled. We carried him between us as we scrambled down the hill.
We were almost at the bottom when we found ourselves at the edge of black water. The lake had risen to meet the fire, swallowing most of the island. The choice between the two was obvious, even to people who didn’t hate fire as much as I did. Harlan pulled Tristan in. All around us, people were jumping.
I jumped too, but I didn’t make it. Instead something picked me up and lifted me into the air. Something big, and clawed. I heard the flapping of wings and wondered, as I twisted to see, whether it was a giant bat.
But you can’t conjure animals…
My scream was lost in those of the people below me.
But for them, it was already getting better. The fire and water were both receding.
I, on the other hand, was being carried off by the now demonic Mark Underwood.
I’m not even kidding you, I spent at least five minutes of that flight trying to decide whether or not to engage the monster that had once been Mark Underwood in conversation. I kept opening my mouth to say something to him—to bargain, maybe, or at least ask where we were going—then closing it again.
It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of what he would say, as that I was afraid to hear what his voice might sound like. I can’t even tell you why. I just had some instinct that if he spoke, it would be a kind of turning point. There would be no going back, and I wouldn’t recover.
I never did find out whether I was right. I never heard Mark Underwood speak.
When we landed in front of an enormous black marble tower, Mark threw me to the ground, and I got a better look at him as he loomed over me. Black clothes, charred skin, big old bat wings. Glowing orange eyes. Your basic demon. He even carried a whip at his waist. I wondered if, unlike the other unfortunate denizens of Amias’s underworld, Mark had gotten to choose his own appearance. This seemed like the kind of cliché a little man like him would consider badass.
But underneath it all, he was still that same little man. Thin and pinched, like Madeline, and wearing a sullen sort of expression that undermined the terrifying authority he seemed to be going for. There was definitely a bit of a petulant-child-playing-dress-up vibe going on.
Which should have made him less intimidating, but when he opened his mouth, I very nearly clapped my hands over my ears so I wouldn’t have to hear him. I was glad when we were interrupted before he got to speak, by the heavy tower door swinging open and banging into my hip.
“Thank you, Mark,” a feminine, and vaguely familiar, voice said.
The woman who stepped out to help me up had to be Henrietta Traven. The resemblance to both sisters, but especially to the Bella who had smiled at me from photos on the news, was clear.
She was dressed in black, like Mark, but the similarities stopped there. She was lovely and poised. Under other circumstances, her smile would have made her immediately likable.
“Lydia, how nice to see you,” she said. “You can call me Hettie. Come in, please.”
I shook off her hand and stood up by myself, then took a step back from her.
Henrietta’s brows went up. “I hope you won’t resist and force me to call in reinforcements? You did intend to come to see Norbert anyway, didn’t you?”
“I’ll come in,” I said.
“Good.” She turned to Mark. “Find the other, then.”
He returned her nod and flew away.
I followed Henrietta (I wasn’t feeling so chummy with her that I could think of her as Hettie) inside. I steeled myself for something awful, a lair befitting Satan himself, but the tower was downright cozy. The walls were covered in richly colored fabrics, the floors clean, the air scented with citrus. And each level had a fireplace, something the towers in Phineas’s world had lacked. Despite my general unhappiness to be there, the cheerful warmth was welcome after the cold outside.
We went up to the third floor, a sitting room furnished with armchairs big enough to sleep in.
Rebecca Traven sat in one of these. The sight of stern, competent Rebecca with her eyes vacant, her face pale and sagging, and her normally neat short hair standing up at all angles was chilling.
Gwen sat beside her, seemingly sound asleep. And in the chair across from her…
“Norbert!”
I rushed forward to hug him, so happy to see him that I didn’t really stop to look at his face. Had I noticed his expression, I might have hesitated.
He screeched and recoiled from me.
I backed off and knelt in front of the chair instead. Norbert’s eyes were wide and bloodshot, his breathing heavy.
“Norbert? It’s Lydia. Don’t you recognize me?”
Rebecca started to laugh. I turned to her and saw that she didn’t look afraid, like Norbert did. She just looked batshit fucking crazy. I was pretty sure she was drooling.
“He recognizes you, all right.” Rebecca’s voice was hoarse, as if it had been destroyed by shouting. “That’s why he’s afraid.”
I found myself glancing at Henrietta. Sure, she was my enemy, but she was also apparently the only other rational person in the room. Unfortunately, she was zero help. She just smiled and said, “I’ll just leave you to catch up, then. Amias will be with you shortly.”
With that, Henrietta went up the stairs. I turned back to Norbert.
“Why are you afraid of me?” I asked in my most soothing voice. Without thinking, I reached out to touch his knee, but pulled back when I saw him tense. “Did he tell you I would hurt you?”
“He’ll hurt me,” Norbert hissed. “He’ll hurt me when you come.”
I shook my head. “I won’t let him hurt you. I came to get you out of here. I’m going to take you home. To Charlie, and Warren. You remember them, don’t you?”
Rebecca started laughing again. She laughed so long and hard that she threw up, right there on Amias’s lovely hardwood floor.
Norbert curled into a ball, arms over his head.
Now I could see why Henrietta had left me alone and unguarded. Trying to walk out of that tower with Norbert and Rebecca would be like trying to herd cats. And Gwen might be the same way, assuming I could even wake her.
“Okay.” I looked around, trying to think. “Okay.”
“What is that stench?” Amias himself descended the stairs. His curly hair was slightly mussed, his sweater worn and comfortable. Just a guy hanging out at home. His smile was warm and relaxed.
“Lydia. Happy to see you. Not much of a welcome though, is it?” He glared at Rebecca, his face changing in an instant. “Did you throw up again?”
She didn’t answer, only cowered into the corner of her chair.
Amias waved his hand over the floor, and the pile of vomit immediately disappeared, along with its odor. My stomach unclenched, and I breathed a little easier, almost like my situation had just actually improved. What can I say? Vomit is hard for me to handle.
“Shall we sit?”
I considered the offer and then, deciding that there was no harm in it, took the chair nearest to Norbert’s. Might as well conserve my energy. Especially since I had no fucking idea how I was going to manage to get us all out o
f there alive.
Where was Phineas?
Find the other, Henrietta had said to Mark. I assumed that meant Phineas, but I was encouraged by the use of other, singular, rather than others. That meant they didn’t know who he was with, or why. There was still a chance for our plan to succeed without me.
If they could find someone to do the spell. And if the hypnosis even worked.
Okay, so not much of a chance. Certainly not enough to count on. I needed another plan.
“So, what do you think of my new sanctuary?” Amias had taken a seat himself, and had conjured a steaming mug in his hand while I’d been lost in my thoughts. “Coffee?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Is this the part where you gloat for a while, tell me your whole evil plan?”
Amias made a face and shook his head. “I don’t see the point in that. Isn’t that always where things start to fall apart for the villain? And I suppose you already know my evil plan, at least the broad strokes of it. It’s pretty straightforward.”
“Then why the cozy chair and the offer of coffee?” I asked.
“I just figured we’d hang out a little while we wait for Phin.” Amias clearly thought his smile was charming, but even if I’d known nothing about him, I would have found it skeevy. “I want to kill you in front of him, see,” he went on. “And anyway, you and I have never had a chance to chat. How is your house, by the way? And the Warner baby? Daphne, was it?”
“Diana.” I said it automatically, my mind going in too many directions to think about it first. I bit down on my lip, mentally cursing myself. Why did he want to know her name? Could he use it to hurt her? I promised myself I wouldn’t answer any more of his questions, no matter how innocent they seemed. If he really had been Lucifer himself, I would not have trusted him any less.
“Right, Diana,” Amias said. “Cute little thing.”
I didn’t answer. I put on my stoniest face, while inside I was still trying to figure out what to do.
The dagger. Can I not just stab him, like I stabbed Jeffrey?
He’s right there. This is your chance.
It’s too easy. There has to be a catch.
Only one way to find out.
Crook of the Dead (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 3) Page 20
