Mab crossed her arms and frowned. “I’m not a toddler terrified of bad dreams.” Her expression softened a tad. “Good night. Or perhaps I should say good afternoon. At any rate, sweet dreams.”
I started down the hallway, then turned around. “Are you sure you don’t want my bedroom? I could have fresh sheets on the bed in two minutes.”
“For heaven’s sake, Victory, go to bed.”
I did. As I snuggled into my soft pillows, pulling the comforter around me, I was glad Mab was willing to sleep on the couch. That was my last thought before the gentle tide of sleep washed over me.
SWEET DREAMS, MAB HAD SAID. BUT SHE’D BE BLUSHING crimson if she knew what I was dreaming now. Kane. And me. Alone, lying together in the empty darkness. Our bodies were clothed, I noticed with a pang of disappointment, but twined together. We were kissing, and everything was in the kiss.
His lips, so warm, pressed mine. His mouth went to my jaw, kissing and nibbling its way up to my ear and then along my neck. I leaned back my head, eyes closed, and shivered with the deliciousness of it. We were so close. It was like there was nothing else in the universe—only this closeness, this tingling warmth, his scent of musk and midnight forest.
I kissed his cheek, moving back to meet his mouth. The tip of his tongue flicked out, traced the shape of my lips. I inhaled deeply.
Something was wrong.
The scent I knew so well had changed. Beneath the pine and fresh air lurked an undertone of something unpleasant. Something heavy and rotten. Sulfur.
I pushed hard with both hands and scrambled backward. The face that now looked at me, the face I’d been kissing a moment ago, wasn’t Kane’s.
“Hello, cousin. Ready to join our side?” Pryce spoke the same words he’d sneered at me in Logan. His face twisted with ugly laughter.
I didn’t answer. I shook off my disgust, conjured a dagger, and struck, aiming for his evil heart.
Halfway through the strike, I faltered. Pain flared in my demon mark. My arm lost its strength and dropped to my side. My fingers released the dagger, which disintegrated before it hit the ground.
Pryce’s laughing face distorted, growing larger, changing its shape and color. The laughter deepened; other voices joined in. Difethwr puckered its warty blue lips, making mock kissing noises. Demon voices roared.
The Hellion grew to massive size. I tried to conjure another weapon to fight left-handed, but nothing materialized. So I ran. All I wanted was to get away, to find a path out of this nightmare. The Destroyer’s fingers, big as logs, closed around my waist. I screamed and thrashed as it lifted me to its face. Its cavernous mouth gaped, fringed with razor-sharp teeth twice my height. Fires burned deep in its gullet, and its stinking breath emerged in a cloud of sulfurous smoke. The Destroyer dangled me there like a morsel.
This is a dream. It’s not real. Wake up!
A nasty blast of hot air blew over me as the Destroyer laughed again. “Here is thine awakening.” Its mouth snapped shut and it lifted me higher, holding me at eye level. “Look, shapeshifter,” the Hellion’s many voices commanded. Look, look, look, look. The word came at me from all sides, from inside my own head. Look, look. I had no choice. I gazed into eyes the size of movie screens.
Hellflames burned there, but that wasn’t all. A scene took shape. I recognized Boston Common, a terrified human woman running toward me for help. It was the same vision the book had given me. No—not that. I closed my eyes and turned my head away, but the scene continued to play itself out in my mind. Again I ran her through. Again I laughed at the horror in her eyes as she fell. Again I looked for others to kill.
“No,” I whispered. I filled my mind with no, pushing the images away. No, no, no.
“It is thy destiny,” the Hellion said.
No, no, no. I built a wall in my mind, each no a brick to keep the Destroyer out. No, no, no, no, no.
The Destroyer muttered something, but I couldn’t hear it. I focused on no. No, no, no. No . . . there is . . . no, no . . . another . . . no . . . another way. No, no, no.
Confused, I paused in my litany of denial. As I did, words came through loud and clear: There is another way.
Who said that? My eyes flew open. Difethwr’s own eyes held their flames, but the image of Boston was gone. Something had replaced that scene of horrible destruction—fear? Was it possible?
Could the Destroyer be afraid?
Difethwr roared and flung me away. I soared through empty air. My arms and legs thrashed as I fell and fell and fell . . . until I awoke with a start in my own bed.
My bedside clock read seven thirty-two. I had to check for the little red dot that indicated whether it was A.M. or P.M. Evening, good. I’d slept long enough to make it through the night that lay ahead. I flopped onto my back and waited for my pounding heartbeat to return to normal.
Ugh. Images from my dream swirled through my head. How could a dream that began so wonderfully turn so wrong? The only good thing was that I’d kept my clothes on. I rubbed my mouth, erasing Pryce’s kiss. My body felt coated with foul-smelling slime. I threw aside the covers, grabbed my robe from the back of the door, and headed for the bathroom.
Voices drifted down the hall from the living room.
“Victory?” Mab called. “Is that you?”
“Shower,” I yelled back. Whatever Mab wanted could wait. This might take a while.
Hot water spraying over me, I scrubbed and scrubbed until my skin was red. I wished I had sandpaper to remove the feeling of Pryce’s kiss, of Difethwr’s slime-dripping grasp. I wanted the memory of my own helplessness before the Destroyer to swirl down the drain. I wanted to bleach out the picture of myself on Boston Common, cutting down an innocent woman. It was going to take more than soap and a loofah to do that job.
As I toweled myself dry, I recalled that other voice, the one that had cut through my denial. There is another way.
Who had spoken? It wasn’t Pryce, and it wasn’t the Destroyer. The voice had seemed to come from inside my own mind, squeezing its words between the no’s I was mentally chanting. Yet Difethwr had heard it, too. The Hellion had seemed afraid, or at least disturbed. No, afraid. Fear had crept into its expression before it tossed me aside like an unwanted plaything.
Probably the voice had bubbled up from my own subconscious. Things like that always happen in dreams. Yet even though it spoke inside my mind, the voice wasn’t my own.
Another way. Who’d said those words, and what could they mean?
25
I DRESSED IN JEANS AND A T-SHIRT, AND FINGER-COMBED MY hair into some approximation of a style. Feeling less icky, I entered the living room to find Tina playing with one of my swords. She’d pushed aside the coffee table and stood in the middle of the room, practicing lunges with all the grace and balance of a one-eyed alley cat with four broken legs.
“Tina!” I snapped. “Put that away before you hurt yourself.”
She staggered sideways in mid-lunge and swung around to face me, knocking over a lamp in the process.
“Oops.”
“What do you think you’re doing? I told you never to touch my weapons.”
Tina licked her lips nervously. “Your aunt said it would be okay.” She bent over to pick up the lamp, nicking an end table with the sword point.
“Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”
“But I did, child.” Mab sat in a side chair. I’d been so focused on Tina I hadn’t seen her there.
Wait. Had aliens stolen my aunt and replaced her with a copy? The Mab who’d trained me, tougher than any drill sergeant, would never let someone with Tina’s inexperience touch a sword, let alone fool around with it. I’d studied books for five long years before she’d let me practice with a wooden sword. And yet here she was, calmly watching as Tina played a bull while my living room played the china shop. A bull with a long, sharp sword.
None of these thoughts found their way out of my mouth, which simply gaped in astonishment.
“Isn�
��t it awesome?” Tina gushed. She’d figured out that it was a good idea to set the sword aside while she righted the lamp and also a picture frame she’d knocked over. “Mab’s teaching me to become a swordsman . . . er, swordsgirl? Whatever. I’m learning how to fight.” She snatched up the heavy long sword and swished it around like a rapier. I grabbed it from her before she carved a figure eight in the sofa cushions.
Wordlessly, I turned to Mab.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. I doubted it. First proclaiming me Lady of the Cerddorion, and then encouraging Tina to play with swords? I couldn’t begin to get my mind around those concepts. “But these are remarkable times,” Mab went on. “We need to recruit all the support we can, and this young lady is willing.”
“Right.” Tina reached for the sword, and I stepped back to keep it out of her reach. “I’ve been willing for, like, ever.”
My voice returned as I faced Mab. “She became my apprentice less than a year ago, then quit after a couple of months. She’s never been serious.”
“I have so!” Tina’s tone was indignant. “I read that whole book! You know I did, ’cause you helped me go over some of it.” She was referring to Russom’s Demoniacal Taxonomy, a basic demonology textbook. But you don’t jump from one read-through of Russom’s to swordplay; you just don’t. Mab certainly never let me do that.
Keeping my body between Tina and the sword, I spoke to Mab. “You honestly believe she’s ready to start working with weapons?”
“Honestly? No. But unfortunately we are not talking about a proper apprenticeship. We are preparing for war.”
War. The word tolled an ugly note, like a cracked bell. It subdued even Tina, who quit trying to reach around me and stood quietly with her head down. Some wisps of blonde hair, escaped from her ponytail, hung in front of her face. She looked young and vulnerable, and suddenly the last thing in the world that I wanted was to drag her into this.
“It’s not her war.”
Mab’s eyes swam with sadness. “If we can’t stop it, child, this war will destroy everyone in its path.”
26
WE COMPROMISED. TINA COULD CONTINUE TO PRACTICE, but only if she used a short sword of my choosing, one less likely to slice up the living room. I could hear Mab coaching her—“Widen your stance. There, that’s better! Now, again”—as I went into the kitchen to brew coffee. The Book of Utter Darkness lay open on the table, where Mab must have left it. That was odd. Mab was the very definition of neat and tidy, not someone to leave things lying around. Maybe she wanted to show me something in the book. In my shock over seeing Tina waving around a long sword, I’d forgotten to ask Mab if the book had revealed anything while I slept.
I half turned toward the book, letting my gaze skitter across the open pages. Words formed in my mind: There is another way. The book slammed itself shut.
I jumped back. That was a new trick.
I pulled on Juliet’s pink rubber gloves and tried to reopen the book. It wouldn’t budge. I yanked the gloves off, tossed them aside, and tried again. No visions leapt at me when I touched the cover. But I still couldn’t open the damn thing. It was like a solid block of wood.
There is another way. The words shimmered in my mind, then faded. The book remained stubbornly closed.
Coffee. That’s what I needed. Sometimes, the best way to deal with a crazy world is to brew a good, strong pot.
I scooped some beans into the grinder and pressed the button. The machine’s jarring whirr was the perfect soundtrack for my mood. As much as I tried to keep it out of my mind, I kept seeing Pryce’s face, his heavy-lidded eyes fringed by black lashes, in the moment before I pushed him away. When I forced that image from my mind, it was replaced by Tina lunging and waving around my sword. I’d rather picture the grinder blades pulverizing coffee beans into dust.
Still, I needed my coffee. I turned off the grinder, but its harsh sound continued. What the—? I pushed the button several times, then yanked out the plug. The blades weren’t turning, but the grating sound didn’t stop.
Then I spotted the black butterfly perched on my coffeemaker. The grinding noise turned into speech. “Whoa, that was some dream,” Butterfly said. “You’ve got enough weird stuff going on in that head of yours for an army of psychoanalysts to write a whole library of books.”
“Did you find out where Pryce goes in the Ordinary?”
“I’ve been occupied with much more . . . interesting things.” I swatted the demon off the coffeemaker and measured the water and grounds. Maybe if I ignored the thing, it’d go away.
Didn’t happen.
“I wonder what the ol’ werewolf boyfriend would think? Have you considered that?”
Exactly what I’d been trying my damnedest not to think about. I started the coffeemaker and searched the cupboard for my favorite mug.
“I’ll tell you what he’d think of it,” Butterfly continued. The demon didn’t seem to realize I was ignoring it. “First of all, his poor, delicate werewolf-y feelings would be all hurt. I mean, another male trespassing on his territory, playing kissy-kissy with his female. And she liked it.”
“I did not!” So much for ignoring the demon. There were no words for the repugnance I felt at its suggestion.
“Did so. You liked it a lot until you realized who it was.”
“Exactly. I like kissing Kane. I don’t like . . .” My words trailed off as I shuddered.
“Uh-huh. Well, here’s the million-dollar question, sweetheart. When did your smooching partner switch from the wolf to the demi-demon? ’Cause I think I detected a few seconds there when you enjoyed playing kissy-face with you-know-who.”
“You’re wrong!” I slammed down the mug with such force I cracked it. Butterfly’s suggestion spread nausea through my entire body. I desperately needed to gain control of this conversation—now.
“You know, my apprentice is practicing fencing moves on the other side of that door. Maybe I should invite her in here for a little target practice.”
“You mean that teenage zombie?” Butterfly’s laugh was a cross between a bray and a snort. “Go ahead. Want me to call her for you? She’d never get within an inch of me. But she’d destroy your entire kitchen trying, and your mortification when she found out you’ve got your very own Eidolon would be . . .” Butterfly sighed happily. “Delicious.”
Okay, so maybe siccing Tina on Butterfly wasn’t the answer. But I had other weapons. Positive thoughts and happy images usually force an Eidolon to back off. So I reached for a thought that felt good. It was spring. Everyone loves springtime in New England, right? I pictured the warm May sun in a clear blue sky, birds chirping, lilacs blossoming—the image didn’t hold. The pleasant landscape coalesced into Pryce’s damn face, his lips glistening from our kiss.
“Yum,” Butterfly said. The only other sounds were the heavy, wet noises of a demon chewing and swallowing.
All right, if I couldn’t banish Pryce’s face, I’d use it. I merged the picture of that face with the Eidolon’s munching sounds. Pryce’s eyes remained half open, suffused with the pleasure not of kissing, but of eating. As he tipped his head back, he raised his hand. In his fingers was a fat, squirming maggot. One with the face of a demon. Just to be sure the image was clear, I mentally tattooed the word Butterfly along the demon’s side. Pryce opened his mouth wide and bit the demon in half. His eyes closed with pleasure as he chewed.
Butterfly screamed. “Stop! That’s terrible! Knock it off!”
“No fun being somebody else’s snack, is it?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“It’s different because . . . because . . . It just is.”
I kind of liked this mental image of Pryce munching a maggot. It made me feel better in all sorts of ways. I kept it as clear as I could manage as I poured myself some coffee.
“Ow! Ow! All right, I’ll starve. I only materialized to ask you something, anyway.”
I sipped my coffee. I didn’t need
to hear any more questions about how Kane would react to that dumb dream. In my mind, Pryce licked his lips and moved the remains of the maggot closer.
“No!” Butterfly spoke quickly. “Listen, Uffern is in an uproar. Here’s all I want to know: What in the name of all that’s unholy did you do to the Destroyer?”
In a blink, I let the image of Pryce eating Butterfly disappear. “What do you mean?”
“Not an hour ago, the big, bad Hellion went squealing through the demon plane like a pig running away from the butcher and hauling Pryce with it. The two of them had this earthshaking argument. And if you think that’s a figure of speech, you’re wrong. Towers crumbled.”
An hour ago. Just about the time I’d been jolted out of my dream.
“The thing is, I could’ve sworn I heard your name mentioned. Since you conjured me, that puts me at risk. So I ask again: What did you do?”
There is another way. Those words really had frightened the Destroyer. Problem was, I had no idea where they came from or what they meant.
“I don’t know,” I told Butterfly truthfully. “What did Pryce and Difethwr argue about?”
“You think I hung around to listen? I’m just a little demon, and so far they’ve overlooked me. But I’m your Eidolon. You conjured me, and that puts your mark on me. If either of those two bad boys catches wind of that, they’ll torture me until I tell them everything I know. Since I don’t know anything, they’d keep going just for fun—and that’d be way too much pain.”
“Poor you.” But I wasn’t thinking about Butterfly’s dilemma, I was thinking about why that voice in my head scared Difethwr.
“What voice?” Damn Eidolon was eavesdropping on my thoughts again.
“Don’t ask me. Just a voice in a dream.”
Butterfly fluttered around my head, like it was trying to peer into my mind to see my thoughts more clearly. I let it. I didn’t know what had scared the Destroyer, so there was nothing to hide. Anyway, maybe Difethwr’s reaction had nothing to do with the voice. Weird things happen in dreams. Maybe the Hellion had been startled by the sudden appearance of some image from my subconscious. God knows I’ve got enough scary stuff lurking in there.
Hellhound (A Deadtown Novel) Page 22
