Dark Star (29 page)

Or maybe it was just a guess. Maybe he planned to drag her Beneath, open her veins, let her bleed.

I closed my eyes briefly, trying to shake away the thought.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Mom was saying. “We need to get to her.” She grabbed her hoodie, sliding it over her head as her features darkened into a scowl. “And we have another complication. That idiot cop has gone to confront Tigue.”

I blinked in surprised. “Detective Wyle?”

“He was here earlier.”

“He found out about Anna Berkeley,” I guessed. “He’s going to arrest Tigue?”

Mom shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’s going alone on this one. He’ll be lucky if he just loses his badge and not his life.”

I swallowed, recalling the senses I’d had of him: Those blurred images, that hint of danger. His good intentions, how heavily the deaths had weighed on him. How desperately he’d wanted to help. Anna Berkeley must have been the breaking point. The darkness that chased him was leading him straight to Tigue. I looked at Mom. Her lips were pulled into a thin line, her eyes dark. “What’s your plan?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I take out Tigue. If whoever he’s working with shows up, I take him out, too.” Turning toward me, she took a step forward, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Iris is safe. I’ll bring her back.”

My throat closed up. I stood looking at her, frightened and unable to speak, then turned toward Leon. His face was blank; he looked entirely controlled, collected, like he hadn’t been in a shouting match with me just minutes ago. I wondered if he was afraid, too. I wondered if he was afraid ever.

“Don’t leave the house. We’ll be back before sun-up,” Mom said, giving me a brief, tight hug. She dropped a kiss on my forehead, then turned and walked to Leon, who placed a hand on her shoulder and drew her close to him. His eyes met mine, but he didn’t speak.

Then they were gone.

***

After they left, I headed to my bedroom, shutting my drapes before I flicked on the lamp. I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, then sat on my bed with my legs pulled up against me.

Time moved slowly. Cars passed outside my house, their headlights slashing through the darkness. My dress lay on the floor where I’d discarded it, and I thought vaguely that I should hang it up, but I couldn’t summon the will to move.

It was one thing to know, in an abstract sort of way, that my mother was out in the city, fighting crime and demons and whatever else lurked that I didn’t yet know about. It was another thing to know exactly what it was she faced. To have looked into his cold, flat eyes and spoken his name.

Tigue. I remembered that flicker I’d sensed from him, that smallest glimmer, something I had almost seen.

I stirred from my bed briefly to gather my Nav cards. Both decks, my father’s and Gram’s. I shuffled them idly, first one set, then the other, but I didn’t lay them out. Something told me I shouldn’t try to do a reading for Patrick Tigue. Not now, even to try to get back that flash I’d seen. I had the eerie feeling that if I tried to look at him, he would look right back.

Mom would defeat him. She had defeated Verrick, and he was the worst Harrower the Cities had ever seen.

I continued shuffling. Images moved through me: the broad, straight line of Tigue’s shoulders, the cut of his clothing, the smooth tone of his voice that said so much more than his words, that made me think of the cold empty of the Beneath. I thought of him near the dance floor, charming the woman whose hand he took. Bending toward her, reaching, reaching like he would for a girl on a corner in the rain, whose dark hair made a halo about her—

My mind skidded away from that image.

I thought back to the ring he wore. A loop of silver. The shine of it, the way light gathered.

Not a wedding band, I thought. But a way of binding.

I looked down at my hands. I’d been laying out cards and I hadn’t even realized it. And I’d mixed my decks. They sat in disarray in my lap, except for the three I’d placed faceup in front of me. Inverted Crescent. The Garden. The Garden. One from each deck.

The light tap on my door made me yelp.

I felt my heart in my throat even as I forced myself quiet. The knocking continued, and I scrambled off the bed, letting my Nav cards fall all around me. Gram would have berated me. But Gram was dead.

I opened the door and stepped back as Elspeth stepped in. She stood shivering, hugging herself in the half-light of my room. Her dark eyes were huge and haunted. She didn’t speak.

“Elspeth?” I whispered, almost afraid to speak.

“It’s Iris,” she said. Something slid into place.

And I knew what she meant.

It wasn’t a Knowing.

It was something I already knew.

It was fragments aligning in an entirely different way: things I’d seen, words I’d heard, moments I should have understood. Connections I should have made.

It was the pattern emerging.

My mind rebelled.

Elspeth was speaking, but I didn’t hear her. In the contours of her face, I saw her sister’s image: Iris smiling softly, Iris watching, Iris turning away. I remembered her huddled in the rain, blinking as a hand reached toward her.

It’s personal, she’d said, when I’d glimpsed that moment. She hadn’t wanted me to see his face.

But—no, I thought. No. That couldn’t be right.

I sank down to my bed, where my cards were still scattered. The same three remained faceup. I dropped my hands across them and flipped them over.

Elspeth was still speaking to me. Her eyes were wide, her brow creased with worry. “I can’t talk to Grandmother,” she was saying. “I can’t tell her. So—so I came here. I took Iris’s car, I—”

“Slow down,” I said, trying to make sense of her words. “Start over.”

“When I got home from rehearsal tonight, Grandmother told me that Patrick Tigue had taken Iris. Only, I don’t think he did. I think…”

“You think she left with him,” I whispered.

She nodded, hugging herself tightly.

I looked at my cards. The Garden. Iris’s card. I realized now why Patrick Tigue’s ring had seemed familiar to me. It was made of the same material as the triple knot she wore at her neck.

Other memories flashed through me. It was a present from my boyfriend, she’d said, handing me her necklace. And the way she’d fought that Harrower—she hadn’t fought like a Guardian. She’d fought like a demon. Using a demon’s abilities.

But I still couldn’t fathom it.

“How long have you known?”

“I didn’t. Not—not really. I wasn’t certain.” She took a long, shaky breath, almost a sob. “It got bad after our parents died. Really bad. She wouldn’t even speak to me for months. She wouldn’t speak to anyone. I used to wait up at night, listening, hoping she’d come home.” Another breath. She dragged a trembling hand through her hair. I waited, my heart hammering. “And then—she got better. She started seeing someone. She didn’t tell me, but … I had an idea. I thought it would be okay. Some demons are neutral. We’re not really so different, Harrowers and Kin. We come from the same place. And he helped her, he really helped her.”

And she helped him, I thought, with growing horror.

I closed my eyes, trying to process. “There’s something wrong here. I can’t believe she would go along with—with what he’s doing. Killing people. Going after the Rem—”

The words died on my lips.

The Remnant. She’d wanted us to find the Remnant. She’d placed her hand on me to reach out into the unknown and seek what she couldn’t find.

And she could share powers. She could amplify them. Tigue wouldn’t need another Harrower helping him. She could make him stronger all on her own.

She wasn’t the Remnant. She was his accomplice.

“My mother went to save her,” I said, standing. “She thinks Iris is a hostage.”

Elspeth’s face crumpled. “We have to help her. She doesn’t want to be this way, I know it. He’s tricked her somehow.” Her voice went high and plaintive. “She’s my sister.”

“We’ll help her,” I said. “But you have to go home. You have to tell Esther. And then we’ll figure this out.”

She nodded once, quickly. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find my mother.”

***

I took Mom’s car.

I chose not to think about the fact that both Elspeth and I were driving through the Twin Cities without licenses. On my growing list of catastrophes, losing my permit was nearly at the bottom. My mind was spinning. Mom had told me not to leave the house, and I’d broken promises to her before—but I’d tried calling both her and Leon, and neither had answered. They had to be told. Tigue had Iris with him. He could be pretending to use her as a hostage. As leverage.

I imagined Iris standing before my mother, pleading, pretending, distracting—and then Tigue swooping in from behind, a blur of scales and red teeth.

I shook my head. Tigue was using Iris; that much was certain. He’d confused her somehow. That was the only reason she would go along with this.

The road dissolved around me. The snow stopped, clouds scattering overhead. The highways rushed by in a blur of headlights. Beneath my coat, I trembled, my heartbeat so fast and loud it drowned out the sounds of the radio and the engine and even the traffic. I’d printed out directions to the address and tried to calm myself by focusing on my destination, concentrating on exit signs and avenues. Small, easy steps, I told myself. Reach Tigue’s estate. Find Mom and Leon. Tell them what I knew.

I parked on the street a block or so from Tigue’s home. Around me, the bright glow of streetlamps turned everything yellow. The road was empty, the houses dark and quiet. I hurried down the sidewalk, moving as quickly as I dared across pavement still slick with ice. In the distance, a dog began to bark.

The neighborhood wasn’t familiar to me, but I was close; I felt it. Awareness rang through my body, up and down my skin. I didn’t feel the cold anymore, though I could see my breath billow in the air. Staring out into the empty street before me, I began to run.

I knew Tigue’s house immediately. It was like the others: large and imposing, half-hidden by fence and shrubbery. But there was a difference to it, too, as though the Beneath clung to it, swallowing up its shadows. The gate was open. The windows were dark.

Slipping inside, I drew back against the gate before darting forward. My eyes had adjusted to the dimness, and I saw nothing but empty spaces and an expanse of snow, but my back tingled. I felt vulnerable, exposed.

I stepped carefully through the snow. The grounds were silent. At first, I didn’t see anyone. The night appeared still, serene. The wind brushed past, but it was only the wind, and I stood confused, worried. Then something shifted. The light at the edge of my vision blurred. The feel of the air on my face altered, and I recalled that demons clouded the senses—that I could be staring at them and see right through them, that I had to look harder, to see what didn’t want to be seen.

The night shimmered before me, and then they were there.

Tigue stood apart, his hands held in front of him, his chilly eyes dark and intent. He still wore his skin. Beside him, two Harrowers bent, no longer human in form, starlight grazing their skin. None of them moved. They were watching, waiting, their expressions secretive and sly. I didn’t see Iris.

In front of Tigue, some distance away, I saw Leon. A demon crouched low before him. His coat lay discarded in the snow and his white shirt caught the moon, a beacon in the dark. His shirtsleeves had been rolled up, and along his left arm color swirled. I saw the glow of his veins beneath his skin, hues blending and twining at his wrist, radiating out from his fingertips.

The Harrower he fought lunged for him, and he jumped back, graceful and confident in motion. His arm shot out, parrying. His hair was mussed, his face damp with sweat, and I heard the heaviness of his breath, but the world about him seemed to shine, light clinging to him.

My gaze slid from him to my mother, fighting nearby. Wisps of hair curled about her face, tugged loose by the wind. Both her arms were lit from within, her pulse flashing out in churning colors as she moved, faster than thought or reason. She bent and lunged, and a demon fell howling beneath her, its neck twisted in her grip. The Harrower fell slack, dissolving into darkness, and she moved again, quick and deadly through the snow.

“Ready to tell me what you’ve done with her?” she shouted to Tigue. “If this keeps up, you’re going to run out of Harrowers.”

“Oh, I think you’ll tire long before that.”

Three Harrowers lurched toward her, and as a cry strangled in my lungs, my mother reacted. She didn’t even look. Her hand flung outward and three sharp objects flew behind her, splitting their throats. The demons gurgled and faltered and fell.

The glow at her fingers grew, and she sent a burst of light toward Tigue. He dodged, stepping backward.

A shot rang out through the darkness.

I flinched, turning toward the sound. I hadn’t seen Mickey at first, but now that I did, fear clawed up my spine. He stood behind my mother and Leon, his body tense and straight, his gun raised. I got that same sense from him I always got, something quiet and sad, nearly drowned out by the adrenaline that radiated from him. I didn’t need a Knowing to know how he must feel. He’d entered a world where demons melted out of shadow, and he had no powers to save himself, just a gun and what I hoped was perfect aim.

He was quick, at least. As a shape curved out of the darkness toward him, two more gunshots rang out in quick succession and found their mark. The Harrower didn’t stop—but it slowed just long enough for Mom to turn and send a flash of light to finish it off. The Harrower hissed as it crumpled to the ground.

Mickey reloaded.

I pressed forward, trying to move soundlessly through the snow, but I hadn’t taken more than a few steps before I froze. Through the long space between us, the motion of bodies and the careening light, Tigue’s eyes caught mine.

Connection rippled between us, instant and violent. For the briefest of moments, our senses collided. Knowing met Knowing. The barriers were gone; that cool façade he’d kept at the banquet disappeared. I felt the calm, deadly purpose within him. And he was reading me as I read him. He knew why I’d come, the message I carried. Something flickered in his eyes.