Ruby followed me and said, “No, there is a damn need.”
I stared at the dog, his eyes half-closed, every breath a struggle. “Water under the bridge.”
“If we both die out there, that leaves no one to stop Marrack. You understand?”
From my point of view, it seemed Isabella was the more dangerous one. She’d been out in the desert, ready to harvest my essence. This curse was clearly her work, as well.
In fact, I’d heard nothing from Marrack. No taunts, no sudden appearances. His presence merely loomed in the shadows, hinting at even shittier things to come.
“I understand.” Argos’s legs moved feebly, chasing invisible rabbits.
“He’s not going to make it,” Ruby said matter-of-factly.
This stirred a reaction—a quarter fear, but mostly anger. My eyes glowed within their sockets as I spun around to face her. “I won’t let that happen.”
From Argos, barely a whisper, came ominous words. “There’s no cure.”
“There’s always a cure.”
“We all die, Kalos,” Ruby said, her expression stern and resolute. “It’s the way of the world.”
“Not this time.” I fought hard to cling to that feeling—the one where I would drop everything, allow the world to burn if it meant my friend could survive. But it was difficult, like hunting ducks in thick fog. Every so often, indignation and passion ignited in the murk, only to disappear as quickly as they materialized.
“We need to think about next steps,” Ruby said.
“The next step is fixing him.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Did we say that to you?” I felt the essence ripple through my veins and pulsate in my temples. Ruby must’ve sensed it, because she backed away as I came forward.
“I didn’t emerge from that the same.”
“No one ever does,” I said. “There’s a way.”
Retreat blocked by the kitchen’s island, Ruby reached back for her shotgun. “You’re close to the edge, Kalos.”
“Try it.”
Whatever blackness she saw in the magical strands floating around me forced her hand away from the gun. My anger subsided to a boiling rage rather than an intense desire to burn everything in the vicinity to the ground.
The dog whined, and I released my tightly balled fists. Reality assaulted my senses—the crumbled destruction of the loft. The fear in Ruby’s slate-gray eyes, from this woman well-known for showing her marks no mercy.
I backed off, scratching my chin hard enough for my skin to hurt. After a few deep breaths, I launched into a summary explanation of my exploits during the past 36 hours. Namely some of the high points: how Blaise was meant to fetch her and Nadia for “vessel” testing. The Order’s intervention into affairs by kidnapping Nadia. I also revisited the subject of the Realmfarers stepping out from the Weald to retrieve her misbehaving ass.
I finished, waiting for her response. She remained expressionless. So I said, “We’re a little outnumbered.”
“I won’t leave again until we’ve stopped the Conclave,” Ruby said. “But you’re not going to make it in your current condition.”
This was stating the obvious, but it still pissed me off. I did a couple laps around the coffee table, patting the dog to calm myself down. The clumps of fur that clung to my fingers filled me with an intense, fleeting sadness.
“I’ll hold it together.”
“It’s not a matter of will or desire.” Her fingers traced through the air, following the strands I couldn’t see. “There’s simply not enough of you left.”
A sick, empty feeling filled my stomach, as if confirming her words. “Then we use the darkness.”
“There is one possibility.” Her tone was hesitant, like it might be worse than allowing the world to burn.
I waited for her to expand on that statement, but the words didn’t come. Instead, her mouth remained frozen in a half-open crescent of indecision. With no silver-tongued ideas of my own locked and loaded, I walked to the island and reached into my pocket.
The photocopied paper crinkled as I placed it on the granite surface.
As I grabbed a beer, I called to Argos. “You know that last page, buddy?”
“I heard.”
“Thought you were sleeping.”
He almost sounded excited when he said, “Can I see it?”
“It’s just a couple instructions on how to find the lady on the previous page.” I cracked open the beer. “Called ‘the vessel.’ Catchy, right?”
“Figures.” His excitement quickly transformed into disappointment. But if he was going to die, at least he’d go to his grave with that particular mystery solved.
I sipped the beer, watching as Ruby approached the sheet. Her lips turned up as she skimmed the margin notes. Yeah, I wasn’t lying. Blaise’s daystriders were coming after her ass. But maybe she’d known that already when she’d crashed through the roof yesterday.
“I didn’t write that, before you think I’m pulling some shit.”
“Then we have really no choice,” she said finally, still staring at the paper.
I waited for her to continue. When no explanation came, I said, “No choice but to what?”
“To visit the Weald.” Her gray eyes came up from the paper, focusing on me. “And fix you.”
“Fix me.”
“Let’s hope the cost is worth it.”
I should’ve been ecstatic. Maybe it was my tiny remaining shard of a soul, or the way she said it.
But I couldn’t help thinking that this sounded like a very bad trade indeed.
22
I first suspected that Ruby was at least partially trying to save her own ass. After all, there were at least two credible threats against her, from the denizens of the Weald and Blaise’s daystriders. Not to mention the fact that Marrack probably had every supernatural beast under his command ready to murder us.
But I soon realized that she didn’t really care about the Realmfarers. That was mostly an idle threat: those in the Weald were trapped there, destined to guard it forever. There was little chance of them retrieving her: a toothless rumor meant to rattle her cage.
I placed Argos in the backseat of the convertible, beside a couple boxes of spare .45 ammo. He didn’t wake up. I wasn’t sure what we’d do with him, but it was the only logistical move possible. The tabby cat refused to be in the same room as him.
Which meant the cat got to stay at the loft, and the dying dog got to come along to the scenic Weald.
“Hurry up,” I said.
“We’ll see if that’s your opinion in a few hours.” Without another word, Ruby entered the passenger seat. Her fingers still gripped the sheet. I wondered what it was about the Journal’s final page that had spurred her change of heart.
It seemed unlikely that she would be bothered by seeing her name on the list of vessel candidates. I’d found a wanted poster bearing her face back in 1882. Living under the threat of capture was merely a professional hazard for her.
Ruby tapped a set of coordinates into the GPS with a projected arrival time of more than four hours. We were heading into semi-uncharted territory. When the NSA couldn’t even keep tabs on you, you were definitely at the end of the Earth.
But I didn’t question her. I just drove. Realmfarers could pass freely through the nine worlds without special magic or a guide. Well, those who weren’t locked away within the Weald. Which, come to think of it, was most of them.
Maybe all, minus Ruby Callaway.
Argos whined periodically, the drive otherwise smothered in a funereal silence. We each dealt with separate torments, battling our problems alone despite the outer appearance of unity. Such was the way of the cruel world: one ultimately lived and died solo.
Cheery thoughts. No wonder Marrack, being full-on demon, was such a colossa
l prick.
I fiddled with the radio, but nothing of interest caught my ear. More Senate investigations. Oldies. Soft rock and hits that I’d heard a thousand times too many. They often say everything old is new again.
But, really, it’s all just old—reheated or repackaged or sliced and diced like a crappy mortgage to an unsuspecting buyer. I couldn’t help but harbor a dark suspicion that the world had breathed its last gasp many years before, and we had merely put its vegetative corpse on a ventilator and feeding tube.
Maybe it wasn’t worth saving.
My thoughts blurred out as I tried to focus on the road’s central yellow line. I imagined that it was true north, leading me to a better fate than the inevitable apocalypse. Call it cynicism or realism, but the ruse didn’t work.
Finally Ruby said, “Shit, Kalos, you’re going to choke us with that smog.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You’re not trying very hard.” Her feet were propped up on the dashboard, like this was a casual road trip. But her tone conveyed the opposite: that this was a last-ditch effort with little chance of success.
That would be sobering, normally. I knew it should have been.
But it washed over me, barely registering an emotional blip. “What’s got you spooked about that page?”
“Nothing.”
I tried to think up the right words, create a verbal crowbar to pry the answer out of her. Failing to arrive at anything clever, I let the silence simmer for another thirty miles. The desert, like our problems, refused to go anywhere, even as time and space marched onward. In the interim, Ruby made a hushed call, speaking in whispered fragments.
When it ended, I said, “Who’s your friend?”
“An escape plan.”
“You think we can’t make it on our own?” I asked.
“There really is no we.”
“You made that perfectly clear when you abandoned me in the bunker.”
“It’s not that.” Ruby adjusted the sleeves of her rolled-up oxford, stretching her shoulders. “We’re nomads. Wanderers.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“You feel the pull. The urge to move on, cut ties.”
“Haven’t felt that way for a long time.” If four years in Inonda qualified as a long time.
“Either way, you understand.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“There are partners, and there are individuals temporarily collaborating.”
“So you’re saying we have less of a chance than I thought.”
“I’m saying our survival depends on us both being of sound mind. And an individual is the only one capable of changing that. No man can force it upon him.”
“Thanks for the psychology lesson.” I adjusted the rearview, even though I hadn’t seen a car in miles. “And the bonus seminar in team dynamics. Great stuff.”
“See?”
“I see nothing but red soil.”
“The fulcrum is swinging toward a better place already.” She raised her eyebrow at me. “Perhaps there’s hope.”
Not a bad psychological trick. Baffle me with bullshit and esoteric philosophy until I had no choice but to respond in derisive kind. But sarcasm was decidedly human, lacking the mean bluntness of demonic anger.
A tiny weight lifted from my shoulders, and I took a deep breath. Maybe there was even some truth in what she said. If, as individuals, we handled our problems, the front we presented to the Crimson Conclave—and the world—could be strong enough to withstand the storm.
But victories, like skyscrapers, were built upon solid foundations. And ours was crumbling.
The car chewed up another hundred miles before I felt compelled to speak again.
“Just tell me what the list triggered.”
“Triggered is a strong word,” she said with a smirk.
“I’m gonna keep asking.”
With a sigh, Ruby said, “I realized I couldn’t do it alone. Not this time.”
So much for the army of one shit. But there was a certain yin-yang to the team-individual concept. Perhaps she saw it better than I, the perfect alchemical mixture between the two quixotic elements.
“And why’s that?”
“Because the list means they’ve spread. They’re organized. The Conclave won’t stop coming until they find their vessel or burn the world trying.”
“So?”
“So maybe together we have a chance. And if that means heading to a place I never wanted to visit again, then fuck it.”
“We’ll come back.”
“If we’re lucky.”
Argos coughed in the backseat, and I glanced in the mirror. His eyes were sunken further into his fur, looking like he’d dropped a quarter of his weight in the past day.
“And the dog?”
“There’s no cure, Kalos.”
I wrinkled my nose and scowled.
Fuck that.
If we were chasing after the tiniest slivers of hope, I wouldn’t give up on him.
I just had to hope that, in the meantime, my human soul wouldn’t give up on me.
23
The light of a new dawn greeted us as the convertible rattled over the mountainous terrain. A sheer drop on the narrow single-lane path forced the car to a crawl. Ruby, for her part, didn’t look concerned. Her eyes focused on the crevices, scanning for threats.
As we spiraled upward, the car’s GPS dropped in and out of signal range. After a few turns too many, the device gave up the ghost, settling into perpetual search mode.
I could commiserate. I was about to travel deep beneath the earth, to a place few ever returned from. All to search for…what, exactly?
“Stop.”
We were still a couple hundred feet from the summit. The car didn’t particularly appreciate stopping on the incline. It was built more for the open road than the off road. Still, we were here in one piece.
I opened the door, finding that I had only about two feet of space before the cliff plummeted into nothingness. Surrounding us was nothing but blueish-white sky and open plains. Like an image from a western, where the scout spots an enemy attack from a high ridge.
Dread settled into my gut as I stepped out. With care, I removed Argos from the backseat.
“Maybe we should’ve left him with Gunnar.” The dog didn’t wake as we walked up the dirt road.
“He would be dead by the time we returned.” Ruby took lead. “At least this way you can say your goodbyes.”
I scratched his ears, fur wafting into the air like dandelion fuzz. “Did he explain what spell it was?”
“The blackest magic, filled with hatred.” Her eyes told me that this was not his assessment, but what she could see surrounding him. “This Isabella woman must really dislike you both.”
She must have summoned every latent bit of hate in her darkened soul to curse him. Because the broken woman I’d seen in the bunker couldn’t even blow me over as an empty threat.
There was nothing left to say, so I just followed along in sullen silence up the twisting mountain. Toward the peak, the path began to narrow and tighten into a point. The summit required us to climb on to a shelf that reached my chest. I handed her Argos, the dog barely acknowledging the hand-off, then pushed myself up.
The view was really no different from the top, but the sensation was different. Power and possibility swirled all around me. Whether that was an illusion or truth didn’t matter: it was as if, for a brief moment, I had assumed the mantle of king of the universe.
The dark part of my soul appreciated that a lot.
Ruby mumbled to herself, pacing along the summit with her eyes focused on the rock-strewn ground. Seemingly flat from below, the peak was actually wavy and crooked, the kind of terrain where, if you took a wrong step, you’d trip and fall into nothingness.
<
br /> I patted Argos on the head and whispered, “Hey buddy, look at the view.”
Somewhat sleepily he said, “Unless it’s Origin of the Species, I don’t want to see it.”
“Still on about that?”
“Gold-leaf pages…” He fell asleep, his heart beating weakly against my forearm.
I turned my attention back to Ruby, finding that she’d begun an excavation project. In fact, all it took were a few kicks to brush away the dust covering a wooden trap door.
“You’re kidding.”
“Does it look like I’m kidding?” Her back arched as she flung the wood open. It slammed loudly against the soil, briefly disrupting the morning tranquility.
“This seriously goes to the other realms?”
“Look, asshole, it’s not like anyone can just fall in accidentally. There are magical controls preventing unauthorized visitors.”
“Well, when you put it that way.”
Ruby shook her head, long brown hair fluttering about her face. “Two things you need to know.”
“What?”
“We’re not going to the Weald.”
I stared at her.
“We’re going through it. To Agonia.”
Even in my demonic state, I didn’t like the sound of that. Agonia was about ten degrees worse than Hell, and filled with alligators. Amongst other, worse and more mythical enemies.
“And what’s point number two?”
“Stick close.” Ruby removed her shotgun from her back holster and racked the slide. “Because if we get separated, you’ll be stuck down there forever.”
“I’ll find my way out.”
“You’ll find your way out to nothing, then,” Ruby said. “Because each day in the Weald is a year of time on Earth.”
With that rousing motivational speech in the books, she headed down the wooden stairs, into a cellar leading to the bowels of the Earth.
And to whatever lay beyond.
24
I could regale you with details about the various worlds Ruby took me to. All eight of the others basically share one distinguishing trait: they’re shittier than Earth. But doing so would have required her to bring me to any of them.
Moon Burn (The Half-Demon Rogue Trilogy Book 3) Page 11
