Darkness Calls (36 page)

“I don’t trust you,” I snapped. “No matter how much you love Grant.”

The zombie’s eyes narrowed. “Get out of here.”

I did. When I reached the hall outside the room, Father Lawrence and Killy were gone. No sounds or signs of their escape. The ice floor was scratched, but it was like that everywhere, without one definitive track to follow.

Behind me, howls. My right hand tugged sharply.

You’re on your own,
I told the priest and woman—and raced down the hall, back the way we had come, toward the cold-storage freezer of bodies and beyond, to where the boys were telling me that Grant was being held.

It was hard to move fast. My chest burned. Breathing was worse. After running for less than minute, I bent over, holding myself, trying not to be sick—struggling instead to imagine those skipping stones on still water:
In, out, breathe.

I met no one in the hall, though I heard howls, sounds of combat: ice cracking, broken screams. I thought about Father Lawrence and Killy. Mary. Grant. Zee tugged harder against my chest, while the sword in my hand hummed with light. I felt as though I might be traveling in a circle—I passed many open archways cut into ice—but none inspired the right kind of reaction from the boys.

Until the hall ended, abruptly. I found myself inside a cavernous room. And in the heart of the room was a labyrinth.

As in the dance club, the lines had been engraved into the ice floor, embedded with silver. And, too, a woman waited on the ice, dressed in a long silk cloak the color of snow, with a furred white hood that shrouded a young, perfect face.

“He’s waiting,” said Nephele.

WE traveled the etched labyrinth, following the path around and around, twisting, and every time I looked up from my feet and the engraved silver lines, I found the room had altered, just slightly. Ice was becoming stone, and a peach glow stained the cold blue walls.

Getting to Mr. King did not need to be so complicated, I realized; but it was homage, a shrine and ritual, in the same way it had been for pilgrims at Chartres. The Avatar might fancy himself a god, but he still prayed, still revered something he found larger than himself.

The Labyrinth.

At the center of the maze, the room shifted one last time—blurring my vision, making me dizzy. When I could see again, I stood in the temple, the hall of Mr. King—the Erlking—with its stone and stalactites, and the vast columns that stood in mist upon an impossible distance. No dancers. No bells. I did not understand this place, how it could exist just beyond reality—how Mr. King could make it exist—and yet not be able to access the Labyrinth.

I saw him immediately. I had expected an army between us—guns and teeth and fire—but Mr. King stood alone. He wore a long crimson robe, loose hood draped just over his head, framing a breathtaking face too perfect to be human—but that was, strikingly so. Black hair, pale skin, blue eyes. A silver circlet rested upon his brow. Black wings arched magnificently behind his back—so vast and lovely, even
my
breath caught. Even
I
, knowing what he was, found myself momentarily lost to awe.

Gabriel.
Antony Cribari had never stood a chance.

“My Lady,” he rumbled, and his voice filled the cavern like a slow, hot purr. “I felt your arrival. Despite your . . . grievous wounds.”

“Mr. King,” I greeted him. “You said you wanted me alive.”

“I decided that death would be safer. I was right. Somehow, even now, you are destroying all I have made. My soldiers are engaged.” His gaze fell upon the armor and sword. “Such trouble for a small thing.”

“Sometimes we make our own trouble.” I twisted my wrist until the sword blade rested against the back of my arm. “Grant. The others. I want them.”

“Or you will kill me.” Mr. King’s wings stiffened, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Only the Lightbringers and the demons were ever able to murder my kind. And now you. It was
never
thus with your bloodline. We were so careful when we made you not to cross certain lines.” His gaze ticked past me. “
Weren’t
we, Jack?”

My heart lurched. I stepped sideways, unwilling to turn my back on Mr. King, and angled my head just enough to see behind me.

Jack stood there. I had not heard him arrive. He was gaunt, pale, but with a fire in his eyes that was unholy and wild. I forgot to breathe, looking at him. Nephele was gone.

“We were careful,” said the old man, staring at Mr. King with so much fury I felt very small and young before him, hardly a tick in time. “But nothing stays the same. Not power, not majesty, not dreams. We, of all beings, should know that.”

Mr. King’s jaw tightened. “You played with her bloodline.”

“I loved,” Jack said simply. “I did nothing more than that.”

“Then how do you explain her?” His mask slipped, just a fraction, and I saw the terrible fear he was hiding, a glittering, visceral terror that was wet and sharp. “It
lives
inside her. I looked into
its
eyes, and was
judged
.”

“As we have judged others?” Jack took a step, and another, until he stood beside me, warm and tall. “We have played gods with
worlds
, and yet when faced with our deaths, we cannot swallow the bitterness of our own games?”

“Games of survival,” Mr. King whispered. “You remember what it was like to be lost in ourselves, without flesh to anchor our minds. You remember your insanity. You can feel it now, as I do, always waiting for us. None of us are safe. So
if
we have played at being gods, then so be it. I am sick of your judgments. You are no longer a High Lord of the Divine Organic. You gave up that right when you anchored yourself to this spit of mud and these skins. You gave up
everything
, and yet you punished Ahsen. You punished me, and others. For nothing more than staying sane.”

“Sanity is no excuse for cruelty.”

“Cruelty is a construct. It means nothing.” Mr. King looked at me. “You might understand that one day.”

“She has a heart,” said Jack coldly. “More than I can say for you.”

“Old Merlin Jack. Still defending your knights. Even the ones who will destroy you.” He stepped sideways, sweeping aside his robe with careful grace. The tips of his enormous black wings dragged across the stone floor. “You want the Lightbringer, yes? And the old woman? Two of the same kind. But you knew that.”

“The Labyrinth brought them here,” Jack said, a note of urgency entering his voice. “You speak of judgment, and there is your proof. They are of the First People. Even
you
can see that. The Labyrinth
saved
them.”

“For us,” said Mr. King sharply. “We need their blood to help us survive when the demons break free. No other weapon is left to us.”

“And nothing will be left when you’re done with them. You cannot clone a soul,” Jack snapped in disgust. “You won’t breed anything but what we already have.”

I grabbed his arm. “Enough talking. Where are they?”

Mr. King looked at my hand on the old man’s arm and a tangled snarl altered his perfect face into something ghastly. “If I give the Lightbringer to you, what then? You want satisfaction. You are a wolf, and wolves care for nothing else. In the company of wolves, all that can be expected is blood. And Hunter, you
dream
of blood.”

I must have moved. I must have. Later, I could not remember. Only, the distance between us suddenly did not exist, and when I blinked, the sword was pressed against Mr. King’s throat, and my left hand twisted his right ear. Fear filled his eyes, but when he spoke, there was only a slight tremor in his voice.

“I will have them killed,” he said.

I made no reply. Simply tilted the sword so that it angled up, in front of his eyes. He took a good long look. He could not help himself. He stared, from the blade to the armor, and the desire in his eyes was as strong as a body gone years without touch, like he might stop breathing if he looked away.

“You are cruel,” he whispered, and leaned against the blade, closing his eyes as the steel bit into his flesh and made him bleed. A tremor raced through him, and he let out a sigh that was less pain than pleasure. I pulled the blade back, just enough to break contact, and he tried to follow—desperation haunting his face.

“No,” murmured Mr. King, shivering. “No, bring it back.”

“You want this,” I said, studying the terrible hunger burning through his eyes; and the aching loneliness, the despair, that twisted his beautiful stolen face.

“I want freedom,” he breathed. “I want you to free me from this prison.”

“You are free. Free as any of us.”

“Free to die.” Mr. King squeezed shut his eyes. “The Labyrinth has denied me. I have been turned back, again and again, though the doors once opened at a thought.”

“None of us can walk the old roads as we once did,” Jack said, behind me. “What you want—”

“—what I will
have
,” rasped Mr. King, grabbing the blade with his hand; squeezing until he bled. “What I will have is my dignity, and respect. I will be as I was, and not this . . . thing . . . trapped on a world already dead.”

He turned his gaze on me, and it was bright and glittering with hunger and disgust. “Give me what I want, Hunter. If for nothing else, then for mercy’s sake. I do not want to die here. I do not want to die at the hands of the demons, when they are loosed upon this world.”

“And Grant? Mary?” I trembled, the armor and sword growing hot in my hand. “Don’t bullshit me. Maybe you’ll promise to leave them here. Maybe you’ll tell me you won’t ever come back. But you said it yourself: You
need
them. Your kind
needs
them. You’ll destroy this world for them, just as you’ve put a dent into it with your games of flesh.” Each word made me angrier; each word felt like a hammer on my tongue. And the hunger that suddenly bloomed inside me was so tangled with my own rage I could not tell if the shadow stirred inside my heart. But I thought it did. I thought it stretched beneath my skin, coiling softly.

“I won’t do anything for you,” I whispered.

Desperation filled Mr. King’s face, and his wings flared wildly, with such strength that he managed to push me away. The moment I stopped touching him, he vanished.

Jack grabbed my right wrist, and without a word we fell into the abyss—spat out, moments later, in another stone room much like the one we had left. Small, dark space, cold as ice. I did not see Grant, but Mary sat on the floor, naked and sinewy, her wrists caught in chains bolted into the floor. Too short a leash to stand, and her knees were raw and bloody. Half her face was swollen purple, but there was a crazed clarity in her eyes that burned bright when she saw me.

A tattoo covered her chest. I had never seen the old woman naked, never wondered what she might have been hiding under her clothes. But over her sternum was a coiled circle of knotted lines that I recognized—golden and glittering as the pendant that suddenly swung from Mr. King’s pale hand.

“Look what I found,” whispered Mr. King, staring at Jack. “On the Lightbringer himself, I found this. On the old woman, growing from her bones. You know what that makes her, Wolf. You know what she is. And if she came with the Lightbringer, then you know what
he
is.”

Jack stared at the pendant, then at Mary. A shudder raced through him. “It does not matter.”

“It
matters
,” hissed Mr. King, wings flaring. “It matters for all the lives that family took, and for the army they led. It matters because you were the one sent to exterminate their bloodline. And you said you did.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “It was enough.”

Mr. King snarled, fingers tightening around the pendant. Mary’s chains rattled violently. I found her straining toward the Avatar, pulling so hard her wrists bled beneath the restraints.

“Grant’s woman!” Mary cried at me, her voice cutting straight to my heart. Her eyes glittered; and the golden tattoo shone between her wrinkled, sagging breasts like another kind of armor. The sword in my hands burned hot. Zee yanked on my body.

I ran to Mary. Mr. King shouted, but he was too late to stop me as I swung the blade and cut the chains binding the old woman. She threw back her head, baring her teeth in a snarl, and grabbed my arm. Behind her, Mr. King stretched out his hand, returning her stare. Eyes glowing. Jack shouted a single sharp word.

“Silent, in shadows,” Mary hissed. “Find his voice.”

I clutched the sword to my chest, staring into her wild eyes, and all the boys trembled in their dreams.
Grant,
I thought, burning up with his name.
Grant.

I half expected to fall backward into the abyss, but the world remained. My vision blurred, though, and I saw inside my head a place of darkness, a cold tomb; and within, as though sleeping inside a coffin made of ice, a man. My man.

He felt close. Close, in the same way a person might feel sunlight warm on skin. Everywhere, all around me. I sank into that sensation. I turned in a slow circle, trying to feel its source, and on my left, I felt a tug, a disturbance and ripple, a tickle from the boys. Behind Mr. King.