by Kelly Creagh
Rushing past the statues, Varen took the stairs fast, rattling down them with Isobel in tow.
Glancing back at the angels, Isobel saw them turn their heads to watch them go as bleeding slits opened in unison on their cheeks.
Varen swung around the curve of the staircase, then halted, causing Isobel to collide with him.
Below, she saw what had made him stop.
A plain flight of steps descended to a cramped and familiar landing, one encased by tightly set walls.
Dead ahead, dark-paned windows showed Isobel and Varen’s reflections, their images pale and filthy, only just recognizable.
They were at school, at Trenton, in the exact stairwell where Reynolds had first appeared to Isobel that morning. In fact, they stood in the precise spot where he had stood, their forms now as disheveled and ash-dusted as his had been.
Isobel checked over her shoulder and saw only the door leading into the deserted third-floor hallway.
And yet, though the darkened windows reflected her and Varen, the stairway they showed was the grand and Gothic one they’d just left.
Then, through the dim glass, Isobel saw Lilith’s streaked form turn the corner to loom at their backs.
But she knew Lilith couldn’t have a reflection. And suddenly the truth hit her.
The windows, like the mirrors in the hall, were showing what lay on the other side, on the plane parallel to whichever world they currently occupied.
That meant that they really were in school, just as they’d really been in Isobel’s room moments ago. Somehow she and Varen had re-entered reality.
The worlds were blending. The merging that had nearly taken place on Halloween night, the collision Reynolds had warned her about from the beginning—it was happening now.
Or had it already?
No, Isobel thought. It couldn’t have. Otherwise, Lilith wouldn’t still need Varen. She wouldn’t have commanded him to remove the hamsa. The demon’s work wasn’t finished.
And that meant they still had time.
Taking the lead, Isobel tugged Varen after her as she charged down the stairs, past the window through which she saw Lilith pivot away from them.
Isobel didn’t stop to question why the demon would not try to follow them but tore around the next corner and down again, retracing with Varen the path she’d already taken once that day.
When their feet parted from the bottom step, though, the scene before them shifted once more. They halted to find themselves at another bottom step, one belonging to an ascending staircase, its steps wide and marble.
At the top of the landing, the twin angels they had passed before watched them still, their heads craned in the same positions as if they had known the whole time that Isobel and Varen would reappear soon enough.
But if they had run in a loop, ending up on the landing they’d just departed from, wouldn’t that mean . . . ?
Suddenly it dawned on Isobel why she’d seen Lilith revolve in place. Varen, it seemed, must have reached the same conclusion as well, because, yanking her forward, he started pell-mell up the steps.
Unable to keep herself from looking back, Isobel glimpsed the eerie pale light of the demon’s aureole in her periphery. Then, as Varen dragged her over the last step, beyond the angels, who swiveled their heads to keep the two of them in sight, she saw through the strands of her own straggly hair the demon climbing the stairs after them, seeming to float.
They backed away, and Isobel wanted to run again. But if all the stairways were similarly looped, threaded through the fabric of reality, then what route wouldn’t take them straight back to this point?
To her.
Looking left, Isobel saw the gold-framed arch and the hall of mirrors. Except now the hall no longer terminated in the woodlands, the place where she’d first thought to retreat. Rather, the walls faded into those of Trenton’s north hall.
When Isobel looked right, she scowled to see the familiar set of blue double doors that led to the gym.
Before she could change direction and start toward them, however, Isobel’s back met with something solid.
With a low and scraping sssssskkkkrrrrrr, she felt that something move.
Whirling, Isobel found herself trapped in Reynolds’s bleak and steady black stare, his dark form uncloaked, his sharp face unmasked.
His twin swords unsheathed.
35
Deadlocked
Reynolds elbowed Isobel, hard, and sent her sprawling.
She yelped and, skidding backward on the polished floor, slid to a halt in time to see metal flash.
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One curved cutlass sparked violet-silver in the candles’ glow as it whipped toward Varen, its sharpened tip halting just short of his throat.
“I could end this all right here,” Reynolds said, speaking quickly as he glared at Varen down the length of the blade. “And I know that if I pledged to you the girl’s safe return to her world, you would not try to stop me by bending this realm against me. ”
Isobel’s mouth dropped open. She sat stock-still, shocked by Reynolds’s sudden appearance, even more stunned by his words, their meaning only halfway soaking in before Lilith interrupted.
“Gordon,” came the demon’s voice, sharp and full of warning. “You know what will happen should you dare. ”
“A variation of the same events that transpired the last time I severed your ties to their reality,” Reynolds replied. “The two realms separate. Useless to you, the boy awakens as one of us, another Lost Soul for your collection. You, in the meantime, return to lying in wait, infiltrating dreams, searching out new prey through which to create a new link. ”
“There would be one difference this time,” Lilith said, the talons of her feet clicking against the marble as she stepped onto the landing between the angels. “I would know the face of my enemy. And what to do with him. ”
Though Reynolds’s blade remained at Varen’s throat, his dark eyes flicked toward Lilith. “You have taken pains to make the price of my treachery quite clear, and while the threat of spending an eternity entombed holds all the horror you intend it to, you forget one thing. For some time, I have watched you from the deepest shadows of this world—those cast by your own hubris. Mired with the deceit you inflict upon yourself and others, they have hidden me well. It would not take a wise man, who has witnessed what I have, to conclude that your plans for me will change little depending on what action I take next. ”
“Thank goodness for your sake, then, dear Gordon,” Lilith said with a laugh, a demure smile curling her lips, “that you are no more wise than you are a man. ”
Though Isobel couldn’t be certain, she thought she saw Reynolds flinch. When he tore his gaze away, looking sharply back to Varen, she had to wonder if he did so in an effort to hide the momentary slip in his impervious demeanor.
Isobel could never tell when it came to Reynolds. But she was done with guessing, where he was concerned. She could no longer afford to wait and find out what it was that made him tick.
Taking her chance, the only one she thought she might have, Isobel pushed to her feet just as Reynolds dipped the tip of his blade beneath Varen’s collar, nicking flesh as he hooked the chain of the hamsa.
In two fluid strides, Reynolds positioned himself behind Varen, guiding the sword up so that its blade looped the necklace and rested against Varen’s bare, bleeding throat.
Isobel’s hands rose of their own accord, knotting themselves into a single, useless ball. She held them close to her chest, where she could feel the rapid thrum of her heart.
“Your choices, limited though they are, do appear rather clear-cut, do they not?” Lilith asked Reynolds. “Yet you hesitate. And that is what betrays you as being the one lost to self-deception. For, despite what you have convinced yourself of, you have not truly decided at all in whose corner you will stand . . . have you?”
There it was again
. Isobel saw it. The smallest twitch on those hawkish features.
“Whether you have been consciously aware of it or not,” Lilith continued, “you have been waiting. Playing sides while biding your time to see whether the girl might achieve the upper hand, might defy your estimation of her once again and, somehow, against all odds, best me. The prospect of your release, I am certain, holds enough allure for you to indulge in such an ambitious gambit. I almost don’t blame you. She is tenacious. But now we’ve arrived at the moment of truth. You stand to lose your wager, as she has yet to live up to your lofty expectations. What will you do?”
Isobel’s gaze found Varen’s. He watched her through the mussed strands of his ashy hair, and like so many times before, he needed only his calm jade eyes to communicate a warning to her.
Hold off, he seemed to be telling her, and it took every ounce of self-control Isobel possessed to remain planted. To do nothing. To merely watch and endure.
“What a predicament indeed,” Lilith went on. “For if you kill the boy and destroy the link, it will prove quite difficult for you to honor your vow to return our dearest Isobel to her so thoughtfully preserved world. Especially since, despite your unique and enviable ability to traverse the realms, which you have managed to keep hidden from me for so long, you would not be able to do so from the place where I would send you. Even if you did manage the feat, you would still have me to contend with upon your inevitable return. But . . . should you do me the kind favor of removing the boy’s talisman and eliminating the small barrier currently standing between me and what is rightfully mine, you would then have something to grant you immunity, wouldn’t you? To purchase a small sliver of the time you have perhaps not had quite enough of. ” As if to illustrate her point, Lilith took a single step forward, her increasing nearness to Varen and the hamsa causing her already sunken features to tighten on her skull. Fresh strands of ink leaked from her eyes and mouth, retracing old paths.
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“At the very least,” Lilith continued, “procuring such a trinket could facilitate another friendly chat between us. Another heart-to-heart to determine whether or not you do still have any value to me, and if I am quite as transparently devious as you proclaim me to be. Kill him, though, and you ensure a sentence served in vain, since we seem to agree I will only begin again. This time without the hassle of your obstruction. ”
Isobel burned to move. Thinking on Lilith’s words, she had to wonder why Varen continued to stand idle. Hadn’t Reynolds himself admitted that Varen could turn the dreamworld against him? That he had the ability to change what was happening? So why didn’t he try?
More important, Isobel thought, wavering where she stood . . . why didn’t she?
“While it is truly fascinating,” Lilith said, her crooked smile twisting into a sneer, “how you would all unanimously stake the fates of your souls upon one another in this manner, without even realizing you are doing so, your shared delusion that there is a way out, amusing as it is, tries my patience. We have reached an impasse, and one of you must now make your move so that I may know mine. ”
“I could kill him,” Reynolds said, “and still take possession of the charm. ”
“No!” Isobel cried, starting forward.
Without looking away from Lilith, Reynolds pressed the blade closer to Varen’s neck, and Isobel halted, sneakers squeaking.
Varen kept his eyes locked on hers, asking her again through that pointed glare to stand down. But why? He couldn’t truly believe Reynolds was telling the truth about taking her home, could he? And even if he did, how could he allow Reynolds to end his life, to enslave him eternally to the demon Isobel had fought so hard to save him from? Hadn’t he believed her when she’d promised him they would find another way?
“You would rather start an unnecessary war between us,” Lilith asked, her voice softening, “one that you know you cannot win, than accept my offer of peace?”
“Can peace be made with a demon?” scoffed Reynolds.
“Oh, Gordon. ” Lilith sighed. “Creature of few words that you are, I doubt you would bother to ask if you thought you knew the answer. So I will respond with a question of my own. Can a weak, puerile, lovesick girl offer you better?”
When Reynolds glanced in Isobel’s direction, she sent him an entreating stare.
“Reynolds, please,” Isobel said, her voice small and shaking. “You told me there was a way. If that’s true, if there is a way to free Varen, then there has to be a way for you—”
“Enough,” Reynolds barked, and, hardening his expression, he returned his gaze to Lilith.
Several moments passed in which no one moved. Then . . . click.
The snapping of the hamsa’s chain echoed loudly through the silent foyer when Reynolds jerked his sword forward, freeing the charm from Varen’s neck.
Lilith laughed, her mouth stretching into a too-wide smile as, with one unceremonious shove, Reynolds sent Varen to the floor at the demon’s clawed feet.
Released from her self-inflicted paralysis, Isobel scrambled to Varen’s side and dropped to her knees.
Wrong, she thought as she threw her arms around him, glancing back at Reynolds to catch sight of his captured prize—the hamsa—its chain now hopelessly wrapped about the hilt of his cutlass.
Varen had been wrong to hold off. To ask her to do the same.
She’d been wrong too. Wrong ever to have believed Reynolds again. Wrong not to have acted when she’d had the chance. And wrong, especially, not to have heeded Pinfeathers’s warning about him when the Noc had been right about so much else.
“Predictable, Gordon,” cooed Lilith as she drifted to stand a mere foot from Isobel and Varen, those black eyes turning down on them both, “but a commendable decision, all the same. ”
A flash of bright white sparked from overhead. Isobel looked up to see Reynolds raise his arm.
The opal embedded in the hamsa glinted again as Reynolds reared back with his blade as if preparing to—
“Get down,” Isobel heard Varen snap the second before he yanked her to the floor with him.
Singing high, Reynolds’s sword sailed over their heads, spinning handle over tip as it spiraled straight toward—and then into—the center of Lilith’s chest.
36
Out All
Impaled, the demon arched her back.
A beat of silence pulsed.
Then, with head thrown back, Lilith emitted a low and grating croak.
The demon grabbed for the blade, trying to wrench free the sword sunk deep in her chest. Upon contact with the metal, however, her hands shriveled and crumbled, flaking to nothing.
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The croaking became a choked wail as ink bubbled up from her mouth. Spilling over in streams, dark liquid fell to splatter the floor.
Isobel flinched when she felt droplets sprinkle her face. Transfixed by the horror unfolding in front of her, though, she could not tear her gaze away. Not even as Lilith’s head lolled forward, sending forth more of the black bile to pool at her taloned feet.
Isobel felt Varen shift at her side. Edging backward, he pulled her with him, away from the expanding bath of blackness.
Lifting her streaming chin, Lilith glared after them through the wild mesh of her hair, focusing her bleeding black eye sockets on Isobel.
“You,” Lilith gurgled, taking one jerky step after them, then another. “Yooouuuu. ”
Varen tugged harder, sliding them both along the smooth marble.
Though Isobel heard him say her name, she couldn’t shake herself from the trance induced by the depth of those two empty hollows. Her mind remained fixed on the demon, who, faltering with her next step, collapsed to the floor, soaked veils slapping the marble.
“I will fiiinnd you,” rasped the demon, her haggard voice dropping low, going guttural. “Rot your heart before your own eyes. ”
Still Lilith continued to advance on
them, using elbows to drag herself forward. The sound of the sword hilt scraping stone sent spikes of terror through Isobel’s gut, but still she could not snap herself out of her spellbound stare. Not until a pair of white-spattered boots stepped in front of her, blocking her view.
“Go,” came Reynolds’s voice. “Through the blue doors. For now, the worlds blend and part at your whim. Use it to your advantage. Go somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden. ”
Isobel blinked up at the tall figure standing over them.
But Reynolds’s piercing stare was not aimed at her. And neither was his command.
Rising, Varen brought Isobel to her feet.
“W-wait,” Isobel murmured through numb lips, but Reynolds had already turned toward Lilith.
Taking Isobel’s hand, Varen tugged her in the opposite direction.
“Wait,” Isobel repeated, louder this time, and she wondered why neither of them seemed to have heard her. Or were they choosing not to listen?
Before Varen could drag her any farther away, Isobel snagged Reynolds’s sleeve.
“Come with us,” she managed to blurt when his head snapped toward her.
Reynolds glared sternly at Varen, ignoring Isobel altogether. “Keep her safe,” he said. “I have bought us only time. And precious little at that. ”
“I said,” Isobel snapped, pulling harder on his sleeve, her anger at being snubbed helping to jolt her back to her senses, “come with us. ”
Reynolds scowled, but when he glanced to where Isobel gripped him, the knit in his brow softened.
“I’ll not be far behind,” he assured her, this time meeting her gaze full on.
Isobel hesitated. Then, deciding to believe him, to trust him . . . she let go.
“GOOORRRRDOOOOOON,” Isobel heard the demon howl.
Isobel looked to where Lilith lay like a spider in tar, all limbs and joints. Her body, reduced to bones, crackled as she moved, her sword-pierced rib cage dripping sludge.
“Gordon is dead,” Isobel heard Reynolds say in a monotone, his words echoing through the corridor as he placed the tip of his other sword beneath Lilith’s putrefied chin, drawing her hollow eyes to his. “As I shall continue to wager you very soon shall be. ”
Isobel kept her gaze on the two figures as Varen drew her toward the blue double doors Reynolds had told them to take.
CLUNK came the sound of the push bar, loud in Isobel’s ears as Varen collided with it.
