Darkness Calls (37 page)

I saw only stone, featureless and smooth like the inner wall of a mountain cave. I did not trust my eyes. Mr. King stared at us, rigid and trembling, his hand still outstretched. Jack watched him, and a low, rumbling growl, quiet as thunder, rolled straight from his chest, a sound like that of a wolf. It cut to the primal part of me that was human. He stared at the Erlking with so much hate, I feared for him. I had never seen the man who lived in Jack’s eyes, but I imagined him swelling, straining the confines of skin.

“Jack,” I whispered.

“I see it,” he said tightly. “A fold in space, like the one that hides this place.”

Mr. King narrowed his eyes. “You will not take him from me. I will change both the Lightbringer and his assassin before you do that. I will alter them so far beyond your reckoning, they will be monsters to you.”

“You lie,” Jack whispered, but Mr. King ignored him, staring into my eyes with pure, hard resolve. Bluffing or not, the fear that cut me was real enough. No matter how fast I moved, I had seen what he could do to Father Lawrence, in just moments. Grant would be an easy mark. So would Mary.

But that did not stop the old woman from lunging at Mr. King. She moved incredibly fast, swinging the ends of chains still attached to the ends of her wrists. Steel whistled through the air like short whips, and the edges of the broken links snapped hard against Mr. King’s eyes. He showed no pain—no nerves in his body to feel a thing—but he flinched. A small distraction. Jack said something sharp in a language I did not understand, and Mr. King jerked forward, clutching his stomach. His eyes widened in surprise.

Jack made a tearing motion with his right hand, and a shadow lifted against the wall, like a curtain. A stone platform appeared, covered in a slab of ice.

Mr. King groaned, wings arching backward. Sparks tumbled from his shoulders, followed by a single bright cloud of light—like the aura of a demon, only golden and pale. It hovered, straining, struggling against some bond I could not see. Jack’s hands remained outstretched, fingers arched like claws. Heat rose from his frail body, and his blue eyes were so bright they seemed to glow, as though moonstruck.

“I can’t hold him long,” hissed Jack, sweat beading against his brow. “Free Grant. He’s the only one who can kill him outside his flesh.”

I had already begun to move. His words chased me across the room as I sprinted past Mr. King toward the ice coffin, the boys surging against my skin. Mary was already there, beating at the ice with the ends of her chains.

My hands burned red-hot, and the sword vanished in a flash of light, back into the armor. I reached the slab in moments, and Mary stepped back as I slammed my palms down on the ice, with such force it cracked. Steam blinded me, but I raked my nails deep, clawing away massive chunks of ice. Mary reached in, as well, ripping and tearing with her bare hands, grunting with pain as her own nails tore.

We finally broke through. Grant lay very still, his eyes closed. I touched his face, but he did not stir. Like Killy’s, his sleep was too deep.

Jack went down on his knees, gasping. Mr. King’s aura shuddered. The armor on my hand flared white-hot—and I could see, in that moment, the future spread before me. I saw Mr. King free. I saw Jack dead,
truly
dead. And I saw Grant enslaved, skin grown over his mouth so that he could never make another sound.

I saw it so clearly, so fiercely, I knew it was true—and I lost myself in that moment. I shed my heart, and the shadow inside me exploded from sleep, twisting so violently beneath my skin, I thought my body would transform. Electricity raced over me, and the boys began howling in my mind.

Lightbringers never stand alone,
I heard Mary whisper.
Two hearts live.

I understood. I glimpsed in my head visions brief as heartbeats: men and women, voices tumbling with power, standing under a golden sky and ankle deep in mud and blood; and with them others, silent companions brandishing weapons: whips glittering like diamonds, and humming swords translucent as crystal. For every singer, a warrior, and between them, bonds of power, rivers of power.

I saw Mary. Mary, as a young woman: blond and sinewy, and dark from the sun. Perched on the edge of a rocky outcropping with the stillness and grace of a hawk. She wore little, a patchwork of leather and steel that formed a flexible armor across her torso and legs. A piece had been cut away above her breastbone, revealing the embedded metallic tattoo.

Beside her stood a young, brown-haired woman—carrying a baby in a sling. She had solemn, grief-stricken eyes, and her long, cream-colored robes were filthy with blood and mud. One hand covered her baby’s head. A pendant hung between her breasts.

Marritine,
whispered the young woman, as she reached into the air and made a ripping motion with her hand.
Marritine, promise he will live.

He will live,
rasped Mary, glancing over her shoulder as screams filled the air somewhere distant behind them.
I swear it.

I closed my eyes, burning up with those words—with darkness—burning with the light of the armor, tempering the darkness—and slammed my hand against Grant’s chest, above his heart, pouring my strength into his body: a stream of dark light, from my heart to his. His eyes flew open, breath rattling, but I did not stop. I could not.

“Maxine,” he rasped.

Jack cried out again. Mary ran toward the old man, but I did not watch her go. I reached more deeply into the ice coffin, cradling Grant’s head with my left hand. My right stayed on his chest, all the hearts of the boys beating against my palm, in time with my heart. In time with Grant’s.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Time to sing.”

Grant frowned, but only for a moment. I felt the curious sensation of something brushing against my mind, sliding around the dark spirit inhabiting my heart. Memories smoldered. Grant closed his eyes, sucking in his breath. Pain creased his brow.

But when he opened his mouth again, the sound that poured up his throat was not human. Not anything born of thunder, but older, primal, as though some visceral
om
was clawing its way from his lungs or from the heart of a star. Heat poured off his skin, bleeding through the boys into my soul, and I closed my eyes and watched inside my mind as Grant’s body broke apart in light, becoming light, his voice reaching around the Avatar spark to hold it in a vise.

I felt Mr. King squirm—only, he was not Mr. King, but countless names and skins—and I saw again the vastness of space, suffered the insurmountable pressure of endless time—until, suddenly, the pressure broke—and I witnessed the Avatar’s first memory of flesh, the sensation of a simple touch so much a miracle, so grounding, that what had been madness settled into hunger, and desire. I felt desire. I felt greed. I felt hate and power. Not mine, but Mr. King’s.

I felt his loneliness.

I felt his fear of the vastness of space—and of the vastness within himself.

I felt his desire to
be
.

I felt his terror of Grant and me.

And in the last moment, I heard him whisper,
Our kind are done, we are done, all that we were and created, our worlds and myths, are done, and we are done.

The finger armor flared white-hot. Grant’s voice twisted.

And the essence of Mr. King—his immortality—dissolved into nothing but air.

As, moments later, did we.

CHAPTER 22

I
woke in darkness, but I was not alone. A heart beat next to mine, light against my shadow, a steady pulse bound to mine, same as mine, linked forever to mine.

Grant,
I said, weary.

I’m here,
he whispered.
Rest, Maxine.

Rest,
mumbled Zee.

Rest,
breathed my mother.

And so I did.

THE next time I opened my eyes, it was night, and the boys were awake. I was tucked deep under soft flannel blankets, curled against a soft, sagging mattress. The pillow under my head smelled like Grant. Zee cuddled close under the covers, while Raw and Aaz were heavy lumps on top of the bed, behind my knees and against my stomach. All of them, sucking their claws and holding teddy bears and small baseball bats. Popcorn bags and hot-dog cartons littered the bottom of the bed. Dek and Mal hummed the melody to Madonna’s “Live to Tell.”

I lay very still, savoring the sensation of being alive and home. Home, in Seattle. Home, in the loft. For the first time, more at home here than in my car or a hotel room. I could hear the television in the other room, and low voices; the clank of plates and the creak of hardwood floors. Homey sounds, but alien, too. I felt displaced within the darkness of the room where I lay, cocooned inside an entirely different world.

Just like my heart. I searched inward, for the darkness, that hungry, raging spirit that was of me and separate—and that had judged Mr. King, terrifying him. I found that dangerous presence as easily as breathing—sleeping within me like a fragment of the abyss. Tucked beside it, a new companion: a small golden rose, coiled and burning. Pulsing in time to my heartbeat.

Grant,
I thought, and heard movement behind me. The mattress sank, and a strong warm hand touched my face.

“My dear sweet girl,” Jack murmured.

“Old Wolf,” I whispered, turning to look at him—soaking in the sight of his pale face and glittering eyes, and the faint curve of his smile.

“So,” he said. “We live again.”

I searched my memories, but all I could recall was Mr. King’s voice inside my mind and the echo of his death.

“How did we get here?” I asked, my voice breaking. Zee withdrew a water bottle from under the covers—a bottle I was certain had not been there before—and Jack took it from him, unscrewing the lid and holding it to my lips. Tasted good. Water trickled from the corner of my mouth into the pillow.

“Slowly,” Jack said quietly. “I brought us home one at a time. We were in Sweden, inside a rich man’s eccentric dream. A private home modeled after some famous hotel made of ice. I believe its owner was killed. I found photographs. He was a fat short man who wore glasses, and had bad taste in suits. I suppose that might sound familiar?”

It did. “What about . . . that other place? The temple?”

“A twist in space,” Jack said quietly. “His former prison, where I put him. He could still access it, as he wished. After so many years, I suppose it felt a little like home.”

A swift pang of regret filled me, then faded. “I’m surprised you’re not sick from transporting so many people.”

The old man shifted uncomfortably. “Grant . . . gave me energy to feed on.”

“Ah,” I breathed, remembering the terrible hunger I had seen in his eyes. “You’ve craved that.”

Jack looked away from me, down at his hands. “There are many shameful things I have not told you. And I know it has been a frustration . . . what you call my riddles. But I love you, if it helps.” He closed his eyes. “I loved your mother.”

I love you,
I told him silently, unable to say the words out loud, afraid of the words, as much as I ached for them. I forced myself to breathe. “Did you do something to my mother that she passed down to me? Did you change us?”

“I don’t know,” Jack whispered, meeting my gaze with haunted eyes. “But what your grandmother and I shared . . . what Jeannie and I did . . .”

He stopped. “I regret nothing. I regret
nothing
.”

“But you’re saying that you should.”

“There are rules. Like a teacher violating some trust with a student. That is what I did.”

“My grandmother was no Lolita.”

“She was a firestorm,” he murmured. “Jeannie.”

It was the way Jack said it. Part of me was embarrassed to hear the intimacy in his voice when he spoke my grandmother’s name, but I was hungry for it, too. Hungry to know someone had cared for her. Hungry to know my mother had been the recipient of such affection, even from a distance.

And me. I wanted that love, too. I wanted a grandfather.

My fingers grazed Jack’s shoulder. He reached back and covered my hand with his. Human hand; pale, dry skin. Nothing alien about him.

Nothing but the heart,
my mother had once said, when I was very young.
Bodies break when the heart breaks. Even a dog will die from grief.

So be strong,
she had finished.
Don’t grieve for me.

If she had been alive, I would have called that bullshit to her face.
Do not grieve.
As if that were weakness. She had probably grieved for her mother as much as I still grieved for her. Only she had never talked about it.

But Jack grieved. I thought, perhaps, he might grieve her for as long as he lived.

“Why are you so different?” I asked him, remembering Mr. King in his stolen bodies: angel and human, divine and disgusting; in all those incarnations, rotting on the inside, without compassion or mercy.