Twenty Palaces: A Prequel

by Harry Connolly

  "What about those scorch marks back there?" I asked.

  Her silhouette stiffened as if she was surprised by the question. After a pause, she said: "Once they meant everything to me. Now they're just wasted meat."

  I tried to keep my voice calm. "Macy, it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to kill anymore. I think I can cut that thing out of you." Christ. How was I supposed to convince her if I didn't sound like I believed myself?

  She lunged at me again. She was fast. Terrifyingly fast. The leash on her ankle jerked at the bench machine and toppled it onto its side.

  She leaped again, yanking the machine several inches across the carpet. Then she did it again, dragging the machine behind her. Her mouth gaped wide--wider than any human mouth should be able to open.

  I backed away, cocking my arm to throw the ghost knife. As long as I didn't hit her head, she should survive it, just like Jon. The spell would take some of the fight out of her, letting me close in and immobilize her with Irena's glove. It wasn't a great plan, but it was all I had.

  Macy saw what I was doing and crouched down like a catcher. She clapped her hands then held them out, as though encouraging a child to throw a ball.

  "Throw it here, Ray. Please. A nice slow-motion throw from a slow-motion human being. I know what you have there--I can smell it--and you know what?" She tugged at her bound ankle. I saw that she was tied with a metal cable. "I could use a good cutting edge."

  My guts felt watery for just a moment. If she took the spell from me the way Callin had, she'd be all over me in an instant. How was I going to get close enough to help her?

  I tried to sound reasonable and confident. "Macy--"

  She leaped again and hissed. "Your voice is driving the cousin inside me wild." She grabbed her tether and pulled at it, dragging the machine over Irena's body.

  I ran to my right and ducked among the machines. Macy tried to follow, but the bench machine wedged between two other pieces of equipment. She grabbed the machine and tried to pull harder but she couldn't budge it. She struggled angrily, desperately, like an enraged animal in a trap.

  I stalked toward her. If she had carefully worked the machine free, she might already be tearing me apart, but was losing herself in an animal blood-lust, pounding furiously on it in frustration.

  Several metal plates broke free and fell to the floor. Macy squealed with animal glee, picked one up and threw it at me.

  It sailed past my ear and struck a machine beside me so hard the sound was like a gunshot.

  I dropped low and scrambled for cover. More plates slammed against the metal equipment around me.

  Macy leaped to the top of a lat pull-down machine and crouched low. She held a stack of metal plates cradled in her left arm and began throwing them at me, laughing.

  I pressed myself against the floor behind a leg extension machine as plates clanged around me. One rebounded into the air and dropped heavily onto my legs. Another dented the metal post beside my head.

  "Hey, Macy, is it too late to go to Rio?"

  She laughed and threw all the plates into the air, making me scramble to a new hiding spot as they rained down around me. By stupid luck, none of the plates hit me.

  Macy slid out the remainder of the plates, letting them clatter onto the floor. Then she lifted the whole machine.

  But it was tangled with other equipment and she couldn't get it more than a couple inches off the floor before it snagged and stuck in place. She screamed with rage and shook the machine, making it rattle like an avalanche of ball bearings, then let it fall.

  "Dammit! I didn't want to have to do this."

  She bent down, folding her body like a piece of taffy. She twisted her bare, tethered foot, placed her heel into her mouth, and bit down.

  Goosebumps ran down my back. "Oh, hell no."

  She had to worry her head back and forth a few times, but then it was over. Her heel was gone. She swallowed it whole with a grotesque gulping sound.

  My heart sank. Even if she was injured, I didn't have the speed or strength to take Macy in a fight. Hell, I couldn't even run. There was only one thing left to do.

  I leaped to my feet and charged at her, ghost knife high and gloved hand out, screaming like a kamikaze.

  Macy slid her bloody, mangled foot free of the tether. She smiled at me, glad that I was making it easy to get at her.

  A shadow behind her shifted position, then the figure kicked at the lat machine. It toppled toward Macy, who spun and caught it with both hands before it could pin her.

  At the same moment, I stabbed the ghost knife into her shoulder, splitting open her sweater. She seemed to wilt, and the lat machine fell across her throat and collarbone, pinning her.

  "Ray--" she said.

  I hesitated. She sounded different, much more like the woman I had met in Jon's van. "Macy?"

  "Ray, you can't cure me. Don't try. There's hardly anything left of me in here."

  A chill ran through me. If she really was gone, she wouldn't talk this way. Had the ghost knife brought her real self back somehow, or was this some kind of trick?

  It didn't matter either way; I had to act. I grabbed her shoulder with the glove; she screamed. The ghostly branches appeared around her face. I was about to make the first cut by swiping the ghost knife around the outside of Macy's head when one of the branches turned toward me.

  At the end of it was a single eye.

  It was unbearable to have this thing staring at me and, without thinking, I sliced it off.

  Macy went wild. In a burst of hysterical strength, she threw off the lat machine. She was free.

  In a reflex born of dumb fear, I threw the ghost knife at her from two inches away. It passed through the bridge of her nose and her forehead and went into the floor. Black blood dribbled from the wound. Macy spasmed once, then went limp.

  I scrambled away, cursing myself for my fear. Her skull cracked and bulged. Black, spiny legs stabbed out of her cheeks and mouth, then the cousin fell still. The legs dissolved into black smoke, and more smoke wafted out of the punctures in her face.

  I'd failed her. There was black, oily blood on the back of my hand; I wiped it on the carpet. I'd tried to save her, but I didn't have the guts.

  "I'm sorry." I touched her hand--it was so hot it was almost feverish. "I'm so sorry."

  I looked up and saw Annalise standing beside me. One of her legs was twisted and crooked, and one of her arms hung limp at her side. She stood on her one good leg and held herself steady with her working hand. She didn't have any of her ribbons, either.

  She was strong enough to kick over that lat machine, though. I wondered how she'd respond if I thanked her.

  She scowled down at Macy's body. "Don't apologize to them. They did it to themselves."

  Annalise seemed to lose her balance. I almost lunged forward to catch her but stopped myself. We weren't exactly friends at the moment.

  She steadied herself with her good hand. "What you said--about not leaving us here for her to... Why did you do that?"

  If she had to ask, there was no use explaining it. "Look, let's call a truce between us, okay? We'll work together to take care of the cousins, and whatever I have coming to me for stealing Callin's book and writing your name on that envelope, we'll deal with it then."

  Annalise stared at me. "That sounds like a smart deal to make." Which wasn't exactly a yes but it was good enough for now. At least she wasn't grabbing at me, trying to break my neck.

  I wasn't sure how I felt about working with Annalise, even now. I'd seen too many dead bodies to question her goals, but I still wasn't cool with her methods. But I couldn't leave her here in this building when Jon and Echo might come back at any moment.

  "What were you saying to her about a cure?" she asked, hopping closer to Macy.

  "The ghost knife," I said, well aware that she had taken it away from me before. "I don't know if it's possible, but maybe, just maybe I can cut the cousins out of them. Like surgery."

&nbs
p; "You have got to be kidding me."

  "I know the predators are dangerous." My anger was building and I did my best to hold it in. "I've been stumbling over dead bodies all damn day. I know we can't let the cousins bring more of their family here. But I want to stop them and save my friend at the same time, if I can."

  Annalise's expression was cold. "This is bullshit."

  "I couldn't hold Macy down." I tried to sound as reasonable. "But you're strong enough--"

  Annalise grabbed the top of an exercise machine with her good hand and lifted herself a few inches off the carpet. With her good leg, she stamped on Macy's face.

  Macy's skull cracked like an empty ceramic bowl and her head sagged like a deflated balloon.

  Annalise hopped toward me. "There's nothing left of your friends. Accept it. The cousins killed them."

  She sounded like she knew what she was talking about, but I didn't trust her. "Echo, yes. Definitely. But didn't you just hear Macy? She sounded like herself for a--"

  "Accept it. They're dead."

  "I have to try." I glared at her.

  She glared back. "Callin is missing, Irena's dead and I've lost all my ribbons. If we don't kill the creatures that killed your friends--"

  "No." I refused to look away from her. "I'm not you! If Jon has to be killed, so be it, but first I have to try to help him. You don't understand! I can't kill my friend just because it's the easiest way to stop him."

  She looked startled by that, but only for a second. "When will the fucking light fucking dawn? You can't cure your friends!" She glanced over at the scorched sigil on the parquet floor. "We have to destroy this building so no one else will try the spell, at least."

  "That I'll do."

  "Good! Get paper to burn. A lot of it."

  I ran downstairs. The building was just as empty as before. I sprinted to the office that smelled of cigarette smoke and took a lighter from the top desk drawer. Back out in the reception area, I yanked open a filing cabinet. It was amazing how much paper these places needed. I scooped up an armload of file folders stuffed with computer printouts.

  A flashlight beam played across the room. I ducked low and peered around the desk.

  A police car stood at the curb, shining a light on the license plate on Wally's motorcycle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I ran up the stairs, cursing myself for my laziness. If I'd parked down the street it wouldn't be such a big deal. But the bike was right out front and the cops were sure to check out this building. And of course I'd cut open that damn door.

  At the top of the stairs, I stopped dead still. Annalise knelt on the floor among the exercise machines beside Irena's body. With her good arm, she pulled her friend close, then lowered her face toward Irena's neck.

  Oh, no. Was Annalise eating her friend's corpse right here on the floor in front of me? Was there any difference at all between these assholes?

  I dropped the papers onto the floor. It was too much. It was all too much and I couldn't let this go on. I took out my ghost knife.

  Just then, Annalise sobbed. Suddenly, it was clear to me that she wasn't hunched over to feed; her head was lowered and her shoulders were trembling because she was crying.

  I turned my back to give her a semblance of privacy and cut a hole in the parquet floor beside the sigil. There was a ten-inch space between the wood and the cement floor beneath, which seemed like a good thing for the fire I was planning. I shoved piles of papers into the hole, then sliced the cut-out square of parquet into sticks and piled them on the paper.

  "Cut another hole over there." Annalise pointed to a spot on the other side of the sigil. She had managed to stand on her good leg. Her expression was stoic, but her cheeks were wet. "For ventilation."

  I did. I used the wood to increase the pile. "You know what you're doing," I said.

  "I've had practice."

  "There are cops outside."

  Annalise nodded. "The police can never, ever get anywhere near a spell. Never. Light it and get me out of here."

  I lit the paper in three places. There was a closet full of cleaning products downstairs--not to mention a cafeteria that was likely to have nice, flammable oil in it--but there was no time to find a proper accelerant. Luckily, the paper seemed to be doing fine on its own.

  I scooped Annalise into my arms like we were entering a bridal suite. She winced but didn't make a sound. Damn, but she had gone pale. I gave her a moment to lay her broken arm across her torso, trying to pretend that she didn't stink of sweat and old laundry.

  When she was ready, I ran down the stairs and started toward the fire door at the cafeteria end of the building. At the far end of the hall behind us, a flashlight beam played through the gap in the door I'd cut open. I peeked through the window and, when I saw there was no one in sight, shoved the door open and ran through it.

  No alarms sounded but I was sure a silent one was ringing somewhere. The inside of the building was darker than the parking lot, and passing beneath the security lights made me feel exposed as hell, but no one yelled at me to freeze.

  At the edge of the lot was a short dirt slope that lead to a fast food parking lot below. I scrambled down it as quickly and as carefully as I could. "Do you have a ride nearby?" I asked.

  "No," Annalise said. Her eyes were closed and her teeth clenched. I was trying not to jolt her around too much, but she was still in a lot of pain. "Your friends didn't let me drive to my own murder."

  "Well, damn. Aren't you hilarious? We'll just have to steal something." We'd reached the end of the second parking lot. I couldn't carry her down the sidewalk without attracting a lot of attention, so I hustled into an alley instead. We disturbed a guy lying next to a Dumpster but we were gone before he could do anything about it.

  At the far end of the alley was a 24-hour supermarket. It was busier than I would have liked. I stayed back in the shadow of the alley while I figured out what to do. "And by the way, I found the real spell book. The one the summoning spell came from."

  "Well, damn. Aren't you hilarious?" Her little voice sounded tight.

  "I don't expect you to believe me." I told her about Nettle Philip's house anyway, about the weird ice... something in her living room, about the claw marks on the wall, and about the stack of papers. I gave her the information as a peace offering, but it felt like I was shedding a burden, too. Let someone else think about that dead woman for a while.

  A cop car raced up the street toward us, its lights spinning but the siren was off. I ducked back farther. We needed wheels so we could get away from here. I didn't know where we'd go, but it would have to be private enough to avoid the cops but not so private that Annalise felt free to pinch my head off.

  Besides, if she was like Irena, I could fetch some prime rib or something for her and she'd be back at fighting strength in no time.

  Which meant I was an idiot. I should have dumped her a block back, but I hadn't. There was something about her that pulled me in. It wasn't that she was beautiful, because she wasn't. It wasn't that I liked her, because I didn't. It was, I guessed, because she was so damn powerful that it felt good to be near her, as if some of her potency might rub off onto me the way street bums warm themselves by a fire.

  "I'm sorry about Irena," I said. "I liked her."

  "She understood the risks," Annalise answered. "You're the only one who didn't--doesn't."

  I dropped her and jumped away. She rolled against a plastic recycling bin, grabbed her injured leg and cried out. I circled farther from her, putting the corner of a building almost between us. "Shouldn't you kill me before you talk about me in the past tense?"

  She looked up at me, her expression filled with hate. "You're just as dead as your friends. You're a walking corpse, just like them." She braced herself against the wall and struggled upright. I backed farther away--the edge of the lot was just a few feet behind me. "You lied to me, took my spells, and worst of all, because of you the only friend I had in the world is dead."

&nbs
p; "I know. I didn't want that and I'm sorry."

  "Don't tell me what you fucking want. You're never going to have anything that you want, because I'm going to hunt you down and burn you and all your apologies to screams and ashes."

  Time to go. I backed away, quickly, then turned and ran. It should have made me ashamed to run away like that, but it didn't. I didn't have room in me for any more shame.

  I slid down the grassy slope at the edge of the lot then through the alley at the bottom. When I came out the other end onto the sidewalk, I slowed to a quick walk.

  Maybe there was some way I could avoid the payback Annalise wanted to give me, but I couldn't imagine it. She had power, and "peers," and the resources of a society I knew nothing about. After years of keeping my head down--as a criminal and as a con--I'd finally pissed off the wrong person.

  My last hope was that I'd live long enough to save Jon--assuming it was even possible. After that, nothing mattered. Annalise would get her revenge and that would be the end. I was almost tired enough to welcome the thought.

  A crowd of homeless teens hung out on the corner, futilely spare changing. Across the street from them, two women in tight clothes idly watched cars creep down the block. Three guys stumbled out of a bar, two of them practically carrying the third.

  It was the sort of neighborhood that gets a lot of attention from the cops, and sure enough a police cruiser rolled down the cross street up ahead. I turned into a bus shelter and pretended to be interested in the schedule. The cruiser passed without stopping or chirping the siren.

  I didn't like the look of the bar the three guys had stumbled out of, so I went around the corner and found another. The door was open, despite the cold. I peeked in. The music was loud and the room dark. The patrons inside were just shadowy figures nodding over their drinks.

  I walked into the parking lot next door. The Dumpster cast a heavy shadow from the streetlight across the way. I crouched down in the dark and waited.

  I didn't have to wait long. A drunk staggered out, his sweaty hand clamped around the wrist of a woman with a sagging belly and too many years of booze in her. She giggled as he hauled her toward the parked cars.