Labyrinth of Stars (A Hunter Kiss Novel)

by Marjorie M. Liu

  She flinched, baring her teeth. “Do not say that name out loud. It is dangerous to speak of him.”

  “Really.” I drew out the word, unhappy with her reaction. “Why?”

  She hesitated. “The gods embrace creation and beauty, all the possibilities represented by the divine organic. It is life, for them, even when their motives are . . . off-putting. But that one . . . his art . . . is the opposite.”

  “Death, you mean.”

  “Suffering. Annihilation.”

  I gave up trying to be tough and sat down on the ground. The Messenger blinked and leaned back on her haunches, robes and chains hanging loose around her. Shadows winged. Vultures, already gliding high in the sky.

  “He might know how to cure the disease that’s killing us,” I said, but saying those words out loud made the situation feel more impossible.

  “He is a monster,” she said, surprising me. “And there is no Divine Lord who would disagree, or punish me for saying so. It is known. It is truth. If there is a god whom other gods fear, it is he.”

  “So you’re saying we’re fucked.”

  Her brow lifted, delicately. “If there is a cure, you will find it elsewhere. Or, you will help the Lightbringer survive this illness through other means, and you will tell yourself that is enough.”

  “Enough,” I repeated. “You mean, let the world die of this thing.”

  “There are wars that cannot be won,” she said quietly. “But there is always a war, Hunter.”

  Fight to live another day. And then live to fight.

  It was the same refrain I’d heard my entire life, and it was just as cold from the Messenger’s lips as it had been from my mother’s. It was no lie, either. No fool’s advice. This was the life we had been born into. The life our bodies had been crafted for—always, the fight. My daughter carried that blood. My daughter, built cell by cell from my cells, my soul, and the souls of those who had come before.

  But violence was not the life I wanted to give her. Violence was not part of the dream I wanted inside her head.

  Escape from that future seemed to be slipping away, though.

  “Who would know where the Devourer is?” I asked.

  The Messenger flinched again and gave me a cold look. “If you find him, you will receive no answers, there will be no cure. He will unmake you, Hunter.”

  “It’ll tickle, I’m sure.” I stood and had to close my eyes as dizziness kicked in, and black spots pushed into my vision. But my head throbbed a little less, and the burn of fever seemed to be fading. Was I healing? Were the boys suffering, so I could live?

  “Who?” I asked again, opening my eyes.

  The Messenger ignored me, reaching for the Mahati, who was trying to sit up. She never actually touched him, but her fingers seemed to strum the air, and another low hum left her throat. He tilted his head to look at her, and I didn’t know what I saw in his eyes—anger or hate, or maybe something that could have been desire. Whatever it was, that look held power between them, and I felt like an intruder.

  “The Divine Lords cannot hide from one another,” said the Messenger in a soft voice, not taking her gaze from the Mahati. “Find the Wolf. He will know.”

  And then she finally looked at me, and her gaze was cool and still, not marred in the slightest by the swollen lip or cuts above her brow.

  “I have ever been loyal to my gods,” she said. “And you and the child you carry are abominations. Your power is dangerous. It will break too much that is sacred. The unknown,” she went on, pointing to my stomach, “cannot be trusted.

  “But,” she added, softly, “you and the Lightbringer gave me freedom, of a kind. I know to value it now. I understand its worth. So for that I will tell you . . . be wary of the god who is your grandfather.”

  “He wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “Not even for your own good?” The Messenger finally slid her hand under the Mahati’s arm, and with her other stroked the air above a deep gash in his biceps. “We also tell stories about the Wolf.”

  “Yes?” I asked, wary.

  Bitterness touched her mouth. “He is the hunter who slaughters worlds.”

  I expected it to still be night when I returned to the farm, with the Messenger and her Mahati in tow—but the sun was just peeking over the horizon, a golden glint piercing the farthest edge of a blue sky, and the boys seemed to sag against my skin. Quieter now, sluggish. Exhausted, I thought.

  A small herd of cows was penned in by the barn, making distress calls and looking wild-eyed and uneasy. I didn’t know who had brought them there, but I had a strong feeling they weren’t long for the world. Meat, just like the rest of us.

  I charged up the porch steps, skipping around writhing piles of Shurik, who ignored me but lifted their fat little bodies off the old wood slates to hiss at the Messenger. Her lip curled with disdain. Her Mahati flexed his one good hand, the long tines of his fingers rubbing together with a steel-scraping sound.

  Heart was in my throat. Prepared for the worst. But Grant was still stretched out on the couch, Mary seated beside him—stuffing fresh marijuana leaves in her mouth with one hand, dabbing his brow with the other. A machete was in her lap. At her feet, the crystal skull that my grandfather had been lugging around.

  I looked at it and felt my stomach turn over. I didn’t know what that feeling meant, but it came from a deep place, and the darkness—the darkness that was flowing through me, even though I was myself again, myself as much as I could be—curled around that sensation and tasted it.

  A window, it whispered. But light can distort sight . . . in ways that darkness cannot.

  I ignored that, looking for my grandfather. No sign of him, and that dread growing inside me only deepened. I didn’t go searching the house, though. I sat beside Grant, taking his hand in mine. I felt the fever before I got close enough to touch him; his entire body radiated furious heat. His lips had cracked and peeled, and his face was sunken. The Shurik on his chest barely moved to greet me—all I got was a faint hiss. I almost patted its head but caught myself before anything embarrassing could happen.

  “He dreams,” Mary whispered, sagging in her chair. I gave her a second, harder look, and felt my gut clench.

  “You’re sick, too,” I said.

  “Disgusting,” she muttered through gritted teeth, but she was staring at the Messenger when she said it. “Flesh, disgusting.”

  “Move, all of you,” commanded the other woman, then glanced at the crystal skull and blinked. Disgust, dismay, touched her face.

  “Barbarians,” she announced. “Leaving an artifact of power on the floor like a footstool.”

  “Keep power close,” Mary rasped with defiance—and winced, touching her head. “Power never sleeps.”

  The Messenger looked at the old woman like she wanted to argue. Or start a bare-knuckled boxing match that would end with someone’s head popped off. My bets, if it happened, were on Mary—but someone had to be the adult, and I guessed that was me. Fuck us all.

  I stepped between the two women, blocking them deliberately from each other’s view. I had my own problems with the Messenger, but all Mary saw when she looked at her was the slave of a war fought and lost—the face of a child who should have been born free on a world that was now gone forever, except in her memories. And it always pissed her off.

  I helped the old woman stand, which was harder than expected—mostly because she didn’t know how to accept my help. When she began to stumble, she punched me in the arm instead of letting me support her. Strong old woman—I felt the blow through the boys. Dull, but there. The rest of my body was still sore, too. I expected to see bruises on my skin later on.

  I tried not to think too hard about that. It made me afraid.

  I slid my hand under Mary’s elbow and led her to the kitchen. “Where’s my grandfather?”

  “Still gone,” she muttered. “Shurik came to guard. Other demons staying away. Some sick. Rest are cowards.”

  Maybe, I thought.
But this was survival for all of them—all of us—and I couldn’t condemn a little cowardice when your entire species was on the line. I would give them all up to keep my daughter and husband safe, and they knew it.

  When Mary collapsed into the chair, I knew she was sicker than she was letting on; she didn’t even give me a dirty look. I drank two glasses of water—gulped them down so sloppily that a small river ran down my chin and throat—and then placed a third glass into Mary’s hands.

  Someone had turned on the television again but left the volume muted. I saw more images of the Mahati storming that cabin, but it didn’t make a dent in me. Right now, with all this shit raining down, a ham sandwich would have caused me more anxiety.

  I pulled my cell phone free of my back pocket and called Rex. He answered on the first ring.

  “What?” He sounded wary. “I haven’t found any more Aetar. And before you say another word, there are disturbing rumors coming out of that farm.”

  “We’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die?” I replied, wryly. “Pfft. I mock your rumors.”

  Rex grunted at me. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “Whatever. I need you to tap that network of little parasites and find out where my grandfather is, and what he’s doing.”

  He was silent a moment. “Are we officially spying on him?”

  “Your kind spies on everyone, whether they want to or not. Give me a fucking break. Blood Mama probably has an army floating over my grandfather’s head.”

  “You’re nuts. I’ll call you as soon as I find something.”

  Good, reliable, demon-possessed Rex. And to think, I’d once almost murdered him. I started to hang up, but he said, “Maxine.”

  He almost never used my real name. It was always, Hunter, or Hunter Kiss, or maybe just an expletive. So I hesitated, waiting, and he said in small voice, “I like this world. It’s fucked up, but it’s good. Please tell me that’s not about to change.”

  “It already has,” I said, and couldn’t bear to say anything else. I very quietly ended the call.

  I went to the bathroom. Sat on the toilet and tried not to cry. With my pants pushed down I could see the boys on my legs and they looked gray and pale, and dull. I ran my hands over them, held my palms over their slow-moving faces—and whispered, “Love you, love you, love you.”

  My reflection was shit. I had new wrinkles in my forehead that made my face look like a minitractor had been plowing right to left and between my eyes. My lips were cracked, bleeding, my cheeks sunken. Haunted, all of me. Haunted and sick, and exhausted.

  I washed my face, patted my abdomen, and took a deep breath.

  I could do this. I was not alone. I was beloved.

  I went back out into the living room. Natural light pushed through the windows, but the space was cool and dark, which only deepened the hush that fell around us.

  The Mahati crouched in the corner, eyeing the Shurik through the open door. The Messenger had already taken Mary’s seat and stared at Grant with unblinking, distant eyes. I wanted to pester her but kept my mouth shut and listened to my own body: dizziness fading, strength returning, headache almost gone. I wasn’t as happy about that as I should have been.

  The Messenger said, “I do not know if I can help him. He is torn inside.”

  I wanted to ask what that meant, but a low, smooth hum rolled from her throat. Power flowed over my skin, and the Mahati took a deep breath and strode from the house. Fled, really. He kicked some Shurik on the way out, and they hissed at him like he was their next Happy Meal. He didn’t seem to care.

  I hesitated, then moved in close and picked up the crystal skull. I didn’t particularly want to touch it—the memory of that earlier vision was still too sharp. I was afraid of what I would see again.

  Nothing at all, it seemed. I waited, holding my breath. Took me only a minute to start feeling ridiculous. I was going to jump at shadows soon.

  The Messenger was right, though: It seemed wrong, having it there on the floor. I wasn’t sure why Mary had removed the skull from Jack’s hiding place.

  I carried it outside to the porch. Five fat Shurik were tangled up in my chair, the one I always sat in with Grant when we wanted to feel like an old married couple.

  “Move,” I snapped, and all of them raised the tips of their wormlike heads to stare at me. I felt, quite distinctly, that I was looking at a bunch of petulant teens giving me the “fuck you, old person” stare, which would have been a lot more amusing if I hadn’t already felt like an actual fucked-up old person. I waited a couple seconds to see if they were going to listen, but they didn’t even twitch in the right direction.

  I used my foot to sweep them off the chair. It was like trying to move cats. All hisses and Velcro grips and tumbling, curling bodies. One of them lost its mind and tried to bite me through my jeans. I felt its teeth connect, the immense strength of its jaw, but no pain. The Shurik, on the other hand, fell back with all its teeth falling from its mouth, covered in black blood and shrieking.

  I sat down and pretended not to care. I also pretended not to watch as its companions dragged its writhing body off the porch into the dandelions, its little cries growing fainter and fainter as it was pulled farther from the house. The rest of the Shurik inched away from me. Not far—apparently, they had some pride—but just out of reach.

  With my feet up on the rail, I balanced the crystal skull on my knees. Slid my gaze past those holes for eyes, down to the sharp piranha teeth. I felt light-headed.

  “Jack,” I said, thinking out loud.

  Thirteen skulls. Created to amplify an Aetar’s inherent power—enough to build a prison on a woman’s body, a prison for five demons and the darkness inside them, a prison that would be inherited through blood: a reincarnation of mother and daughter and demon, for all time.

  The boys had destroyed all those skulls, except this one. Jack’s skull. Jack’s weapon.

  He wouldn’t have betrayed us. He wouldn’t have told the Aetar about Grant, or that I was carrying the child of a Lightbringer.

  Doubt began to pick at me, though. Just a little. But a little was a lot.

  “What did he see in you?” I muttered at the skull, picking it up and looking into its eyes. “What did he see, for all those months?”

  And how could I use this thing to help us now? How could I use it to find the Devourer?

  The Devourer.

  At the exact moment I thought that name, a shock ran through the skull, straight into my hands. I almost dropped the damn thing, fumbling for it against my chest. Heat flowed from its core, followed by a sheen of light that arced through the crystal in a hot white flash.

  My armor reacted as well—rippling like water, clashing against the edges of my skin like it was fighting to cover the rest of my arm and body.

  The boys surged. Zee’s face appeared in my arm, crimson eyes open and staring, his claws frozen, stretched over my skin in a grotesque image of battle. I heard a ringing sound, louder and louder, drilling through my ears, straight through to the center of my head.

  The skull began to glow. My vision flickered to black. For a moment I was afraid I’d fallen into the void, except that I could still feel the chair beneath me and the breeze in my hair. I touched my eyes, but they were open. I was blind.

  Heat flashed over my skin. So much heat, the air burned around me: popped, and crackled like bone. I tried to take a breath, but there was nothing: The air pulled right out of my lungs. In its place, smoke. A bitter cloud that coated the inside of my nostrils and mouth, plugging my throat like a hot fist pushing down my esophagus.

  Fire. I was inside a fire.

  I grabbed my right hand, desperate for the void—but all I felt was naked human skin. No metal. No armor.

  Fear hit, mixed with the drowning poison of dread—so overwhelming I no longer felt the fire burning or the smoke choking me. No pain, just feelings, a toxic crash of emotion that slammed into me, and kept slamming, until I felt burned just from terror and not t
he fire. I fought for any escape—reached for the bond I shared with my husband—but that was still gone. Reached deeper, for the darkness.

  It wasn’t there, either. I couldn’t even feel the boys on my skin. I was totally alone.

  Open your eyes, whispered a voice in the fire, but I was so paralyzed and unnerved, I could barely hear it. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I was afraid of the smoke and the sting. I was terrified, caught up in the unspeakable knowledge of dreams—that if I looked, if I looked—something terrible would happen.

  Something terrible was already happening. I opened my eyes.

  And blacked right the fuck out.

  CHAPTER 21

  WHEN I woke up, I didn’t know where I was.

  It took a moment of staring at the porch rail, the driveway, blue sky—my own propped-up feet—before my life came back to me. Even then, it was slow.

  My body felt strange: too big and uncomfortable, like a giant had been stuffed inside my skin, stretching me out as if I were a balloon. My hands were full. When I saw the crystal skull, memories rushed back, so hard and fast I leaned over the arm of the chair and vomited.

  Nothing came up, but some Shurik who had been edging closer stopped and inched away.

  “Shit,” I muttered, head pounding. I began to close my eyes against the pain but stopped as even more memories flooded through me. Worse memories. Memories that made my throat close and left me choking.

  My breath wheezed, barely touching my lungs. I scrabbled at my chest, fingers digging in—but it wasn’t the prospect of a slow, panicked asphyxiation that had me scared—it was one memory I couldn’t shake that made me afraid to close my eyes. Like a kid afraid of the dark: The monsters wouldn’t get me if I could see them coming.

  And I’d seen a monster. I remembered that now.

  Just for a split second: a terrible, obscene moment that stretched and stretched inside my mind, hanging in time, frozen and awful. An impression, more than anything else. Some . . . massive shape, lost in fire, radiating a feeling of immense, remorseless indifference that made me feel small as shit and just as worthless. It wasn’t the implacability of a storm or earthquake—that, at least, felt natural. This was aberrance: alive and aware. And just one look had fucked me up.