“How did you know I’d be at the Cross and Crow tonight?”
“Difethwr, of course. Thanks to your bond, the Hellion is constantly aware of your location. If I care to know where you are, Difethwr informs me.”
So that’s why Pryce was always showing up—the Destroyer told him where to find me. Wherever I went, Pryce could pop out of the demon plane, right into my face. Wonderful.
He sat back, settling in, and snapped his fingers again. Instantly he held a huge, golden, gem-studded goblet. Tacky. He tipped the goblet and drank deeply, then smacked his lips. “And so, cousin, you survived test number two.” He held up two fingers, then waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. “If I were grading you, I’d give you a D-minus. You bumbled through, but frankly you showed no finesse whatsoever.”
“I’m not interested in proving myself to you.” I plucked the goblet from his hand and threw it on the ground. “So we can skip the third test, whatever it is. You can say I failed it, if that makes you happy.”
“If you fail the next test, you die. That’s how it works.” He shrugged. “I understand your reluctance to proceed. You’ve barely squeaked by so far. Mab rescued you the first time, and tonight you survived through dumb luck. You’re worried that someone of your inferiority won’t make a suitable consort for me. I have concerns about that myself. The more I see of you, the more I doubt the prophecy refers to you.”
Arrogant bastard. Again, I started to summon the mist that would end the call, but then I had an idea. I’d have to put up with him for a few minutes more, but it might be worth it.
“And here I thought you were hot for me.” As I spoke, I set up a mental shield, partitioning off part of my mind. I imagined the shield as a one-way mirror, the kind you could look through without being seen. Behind the shield, I focused on Mab, calling up her colors.
“Don’t flatter yourself, cousin. You’re not remotely my type. You’re scrawny, rude, mouthy, and you wear your hair absurdly short. I prefer my females more … feminine.”
The crack about my hair was a low blow. Whatever I’d tried to do with it—grow it out, put in a few highlights—it always reverted to the same style after a shift. I reached a hand toward it, then stopped myself. Focus on Mab.
In the shielded part of my mind, Mab’s colors swirled and billowed up, blue and silver. The call was going through. I muted the colors a few degrees, hoping Mab would understand it as a warning to stay quiet.
“If you don’t like me, why not find yourself a nice, ‘feminine’ demi-demon and settle down?”
“I’m as bound by the prophecy as you are. If you pass the third test, all will be settled. I believe, however, that you’ll fail. You’ve been lucky so far, but luck won’t carry you to a destiny that’s not truly yours.”
Mab’s shape appeared as a shadow in the mist. I watched her from a tiny corner of my consciousness. She held a finger to her lips and nodded.
I turned my full attention to Pryce.
“So what’s the third test?”
He wagged his finger at me like I was a naughty child. “If the book sees fit to withhold that information, I won’t give it away. It’s much more fun as a surprise.”
“Why? I thought—” I had to tread carefully. If I tried to say the prophecy and it came out garbled, Pryce would know something was up. “You know, the other prophecy. The one you claimed to receive before my birth.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Don’t add stupidity to the list of your shortcomings. I told you before, prophecies can be tricky. One must guard against letting them lead one down the wrong path. All the signs and omens appear to be in order, but then boom!” He clapped his hands, and a fireball exploded from them. “Everything blows up in your face.”
“So what if this particular prophecy doesn’t point to me? What will you do?”
He waved his hand, dismissing the issue. “I’ll look elsewhere for a mate.”
I risked a glance at Mab to see if she’d heard. The set of her mouth told me she had. But looking at her had been a mistake.
“What are you—?” Pryce clapped his hands again, and this time the explosion shattered the shield. Mab stepped forward. Pryce leapt from his chair, his features twisted in fury, but immediately he smoothed out his expression. “A conference call, is it? Hello, Mab. I’d say you’re looking well, but frankly you look terrible.”
“You won’t win, Pryce,” Mab said. “Understand that now, before you escalate things. You have two choices: You can go back to wherever you’ve been and live. Or you can pursue your ambitions and die.”
“Thanks for the advice, Auntie. But neither of your suggestions fits with my plan. Truth be told, you don’t fit with my plan. I take it you haven’t yet read about yourself in the book?”
“The book lies. And there are other prophecies than those you choose to heed.”
Pryce laughed his nasty laugh. “I know what’s coming. I feel my power growing. All the Cerddorion heroes of old fighting together couldn’t stop me. A miserable old hag like you certainly can’t do it alone.”
“Don’t insult her.” From nowhere, the Sword of Saint Michael appeared in my hand, its blade in full flame. I stepped between Mab and Pryce, extending the sword to within an inch of his face. “She’s not alone. I stand with her.”
Pryce’s face rippled. The skin boiled, then split, revealing his demon form, the same hideous monster I’d fought in the pub. “We shall see about that, shan’t we?” he growled. He moved away from the sword, and his human appearance returned, his face knitting itself back together.
“You’ve said what you came to say.” I advanced with the sword, hoping he’d stand his ground so I could see what happened when I pressed the sword against his neck. I wanted to see his human form split like a banana peel. I wanted to drive the flaming blade deep into his disgusting demon body. Even if it wasn’t real, it’d be so, so satisfying.
“I’m going.” The black-and-olive mist swirled up around his knees. I concentrated, making the mist rise thicker and faster, until it obscured Pryce. With a single, strong puff, I blew the mist away. All trace of Pryce blew away with it.
I turned to Mab, eager to hear her thoughts about Pryce’s prophecy. But her colors were rising around her.
“Sleep now, child,” she said. “You need to rest for tomorrow.” Then she, too, was gone. Before I could call her back, sleep swallowed me whole.
26
I SLEPT UNTIL ALMOST NOON, THEN FOUND MAB IN THE library. She sat at her desk, bent over a book, probably the book, and looked up when she heard me. She wore her black training clothes, and there was a determined set to her jaw that showed how worried she was.
She didn’t waste time with good morning. “So Pryce believes you’re destined to bear his child.”
Picturing Cysgod’s hideous face, I couldn’t suppress a shudder as I nodded. “Have you ever heard a prophecy like that?”
“No. But I consulted the book this morning and there it was, clear as a bell. From a goddess two lines diverged, but they shall be reunited in Victory. Is that what it said to you?”
“Word for word.” I felt almost giddy with relief to finally share the burden of that prophecy with my aunt. “But there’s got to be another way to interpret it, right? What do you think it means?”
“Don’t ask me that, child. Pryce has tried to force your thoughts about its meaning down a certain track. I won’t influence you that way. Remember what I said before: Hold the words lightly in your mind. Don’t allow anyone—not Pryce, not me, not even yourself—to sway you toward one meaning or another.”
“What’s the point in wrestling with the damn book if I can’t try to understand it?”
“You can try. In fact, you must try. Pryce refers to the book to plot his moves. But the book works against us as we attempt to use it. Try to understand, but don’t accept any meaning as definitive. And above all—”
“I know, I know. Be pure.”
“It’s the only way to defeat him, chi
ld.”
I could see that, sort of. Pryce wanted to make me into something I wasn’t. So being pure meant protecting myself from his manipulations. Still, my future didn’t look too great from where I stood: Fail the third test and die, or make demon babies with Pryce.
Whoa, stop right there. That was exactly the kind of thinking Mab was warning me about.
“The book revealed more than the prophecy. It narrated last night’s battle at the pub. I’ll attempt to repeat it as the book gave it to me.” She described what she’d read. “Is that accurate?”
“Yeah, except it makes Cysgod sound like a hero and me like a complete klutz.”
She smiled. “You’re no klutz, child. Pryce would have you believe you won by sheer luck. But the ability to improvise is an important skill for any fighter.” She scrutinized my face, as though trying to read my thoughts. “If you do believe it was luck, think of it this way: Luck means destiny is on your side, not working against you.”
“Do you believe in destiny?”
“I believe we make our own. Here”—she got up from her desk chair—“you have a go. I’ve worked with the book all morning. ‘Wrestled’ would be an apt metaphor. But it gave me more information than it has in a long time. Perhaps it will show you something new.”
The book waited on my aunt’s desk like a steel trap, ready to snap off my hand when I touched it. I stalled. “Why did the dream phone work last night? I made the tea extra strong.”
“I warned you the tea’s power would lessen.” She rapped the book and gestured toward the chair. “Time’s short, child.”
I plopped myself down and reached for the open book, thinking I’d rather be outside taking my chances with the Morfran again.
Mab pulled up a chair beside me as I studied the page. It was Pryce’s damn prophecy again. I was sick to death of hearing about my destiny to reunite the lines. I stared and stared, the letters blurring, but I didn’t get anything more than what I already knew: And shall thrice-tested Victory be conquered? First, the carrion-eater consumes living flesh. Second, a battle in the world between the worlds.
Third. The third test had to come next. What was it?
The next page showed an illustration I’d seen before, although I could have sworn it appeared earlier in the book—not that it mattered. Things seemed to move around inside this book as they pleased. Difethwr pointing at a hill, crows flying out of a square cave mouth. I focused on the picture; understanding didn’t always come through the text. Third …
I leaned forward.
Third, Victory falls …
An explosion of words blasted through my mind. Victory, tested, conquered, Morfran, falls, lady, Cerddorion, death. I tried to catch hold of the meanings, but it was like trying to grab individual snowflakes in a blizzard. The contents of the book flooded my consciousness—not word by word or phrase by phrase, but everything, all at once. My head screamed with noise and pain.
I tried to look away from the page, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, couldn’t close my eyes. The illustration changed. Crows—thousands of them—poured from the cave. They darkened the sky. And they kept coming. They blacked out the picture, then the page. Still they kept coming, spilling onto the next page and obscuring its text. They flooded the pages to the very edges.
From the cacophony in my head, a single word emerged. Death. It pounded like a drumbeat: Death. Death, death, death, death, death.
I jumped up, knocking over the chair, and backed away. The screaming in my head grew louder. I screamed back to drown it out. Deathdeathdeathdeath. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my hands against my ears, trying to make it stop. Stop! Deathdeathdeathdeathdeath. I staggered a few steps, then fell to my knees. Deathdeathdeathdeathdeathdeathdeathdeathdeath.
Abruptly, it ceased. I stopped screaming, too, my throat raw. My ears felt like they were bleeding.
“Vicky—can you hear me, child? Are you all right?” Mab was beside me, shouting, her hand on my shoulder. I sensed she’d been shouting for a while.
I put my hand on hers. “I’m okay,” I croaked. “Give me a minute.” I sat still, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. My mind felt dirty, like it had been smeared by a filthy rag. But it was quiet.
When I opened my eyes, I saw where I’d fallen. The one place in this room I’d avoided for ten years. I kneeled in the exact spot where my father had died. The outline of his body glowed faintly beneath me.
Death. Victory falls.
Mab tugged at my arm. “Can you get up?”
I nodded, shook off her help, and climbed shakily to my feet.
“Come sit by the fire. Tell me what happened.”
“The damn book hit me like a freight train, that’s what happened.” I sat in a wing chair. “When the picture changed—”
“Wait, child. Slow down. What do you mean, the picture changed? How?”
“You didn’t see it?”
She shook her head.
I told her what I’d experienced: how the whole book crammed itself into my head in a shrieking jumble, how the Morfran emerged from the cave and spread across the pages.
Mab jumped to her feet. “Pryce is making his move,” she said. “We have to stop him.” She paced in front of the fireplace. “There’s an abandoned slate mine about a hundred miles from here. It holds an enormous Morfran deposit. What you saw in the book, the way the illustration changed, tells me he’s on his way to release it. We must keep it contained.” She hurried across the room, calling for Jenkins. At the doorway, she turned back. “Be ready to leave in ten minutes.” She rushed into the hall.
Sitting in my chair beside the warm, cheerful fire, I shivered as a cold shadow passed over me. Yet I felt calm. The spot where my father had died no longer glowed. There was nothing to mark it but my memory.
Victory falls.
Death.
No ambiguity there. I’d try, and I’d fall in the attempt. I was going to join my father.
I was glad I hadn’t told Mab about the third test or how death had flooded my mind. There was no point in worrying her about my fate. Pryce said failure meant death, but some fates really were worse than death.
And if I was going to die today, I’d drag him to Hell with me.
I SPENT MY TEN MINUTES CHOOSING WEAPONS FROM MAB’S armory. I loaded up on bronze-bladed throwing knives—one went into a wrist sheath and two more into thigh sheaths—and a knuckle-duster trench knife for my belt. I wished I had the Sword of Saint Michael. But it was locked in my cabinet with the rest of my gear, two thousand miles away. A sword that size wasn’t practical for fighting in a narrow mineshaft, anyway, so I opted for a baselard, a Swiss short sword with an eighteen-inch blade.
I longed for a gun. I could’ve used an assault rifle or even a nice, compact nine-millimeter pistol. But Mab fought the old-fashioned way: with swords and knives and incantations. Fine for demons, but if Pryce was in his human form, it’d be a lot easier and surer to slow him down with a spray of bullets than with fancy sword work.
Selecting weapons felt good. It was something I knew how to do. If I was striving to be purely myself, maybe this was it. Preparing for battle, ready to step forward to protect those who needed it. Like Boston’s two thousand zombies.
That was one consolation. When I died, Pryce would lose his precious bridge between Uffern and the Ordinary. Mab wouldn’t let him get the critical Morfran mass he needed to attack the zombies without me. Even if I failed to kill him, my death would be a setback.
But I was going to kill him.
I met Mab in the front hall. Like me, she was bristling with knives. “I’ll carry Hellforged,” she said. She patted a sheath at her right hip. From there, she could easily draw the athame quickly with her left hand.
“Good idea. This isn’t a training exercise.” I took off the special ankle sheath and removed the athame. It was much calmer as I handled it, twitching only once or twice before I gave it to Mab. “Now that I have a free ankle, let me get another knife.”
<
br /> “Don’t be long. Jenkins is bringing round the Land Rover.”
I went back to Mab’s weapons cabinet and chose a dagger, along with a regular ankle sheath, one without the strap over the top. When I was ready, I hurried toward the front door, almost colliding with Rose in the front hall.
“Oh, Miss Vicky. I was afraid you’d already gone. Here.” She thrust a basket at me. “It’s sandwiches and things. In case you get hungry.”
I hugged Rose and took the basket. “Come back safe,” she said.
If only she knew.
I walked outside, armed to the teeth and toting a picnic basket. Jenkins pulled the Land Rover into the coaching yard. The big vehicle crunched over the gravel and came to a stop at the front steps. Jenkins started to get out to do his chauffeur thing, but Mab marched to the car and got in the front passenger side. I was opening the door behind her when I noticed a movement in the driveway.
I shaded my eyes against the afternoon sun. A blue Mercedes, dust rising from its tires, drove into the coaching yard and stopped beside the Land Rover.
The driver’s door opened, and a man got out. A man with silver hair, broad shoulders, and a wolfish grin.
Kane.
Kane was here. In Wales. At Maenllyd.
Not a mirage, not a daydream—he was really there. He opened his arms. I rushed around the Land Rover, around the Mercedes, and flew into his arms.
He was warm and solid, and he smelled like a moonlit winter forest with distant wood smoke on the breeze. We clutched each other. I tilted my head back to see his face, and his mouth met mine in a long, deep kiss.
Kane. Oh, God, the taste of him. I’d almost forgotten.
A car door opened, then closed. “Vicky, we must go.” Mab’s voice pushed its way between us. I didn’t want to step back. To hold Kane, to breathe him in, to press my lips against his—those things were to be alive. To break apart would be to return to my new world, the world of death. I lingered another moment, just one more. Then I moved away.
He let me go. But he caught my hand and held it.
My aunt stood beside the Land Rover, her door open. “Mab,” I said, “this is Kane. I’ve told you about him.” I was so glad I actually had.
Hellforged d-2 Page 23
