Dreams of Shreds and Tatters (15 page)

The niches held books and recitations; he’d since added a library to house his university textbooks and lesson plans. He moved that way now. Perhaps
Summa contra Gentiles
would finally send him to sleep.

He paused at a branching corridor. Of all the rooms and halls in the burgeoning labyrinth, it alone was dark. The breeze that wafted out was cold and dusty. All his memories from Boston, the focus of which had been Samantha’s study. He was almost feeling masochistic enough to pick at those scabs.

Before he could decide, a door slammed in the distance, scattering echoes down the hall. A hot wind gusted, reeking of brine and chemicals and the cloying sweetness of funeral roses.

The memory palace crumbled like a sand castle and Alex jerked upright in bed. The same draft whipped through the hotel room and a strange red light filled the doorway. He stumbled up, groping for his glasses on the nightstand.

The balcony doors stood open, rattling on their hinges, curtains flapping. On the ledge, a blanket puddled at her feet, stood Liz. But the view beyond her wasn’t Vancouver.

She stood silhouetted against a crimson sky—bloody light and clouds dark as scabs, and twisting alien towers beyond. She leaned against the railing, hands upraised as if to ward off a blow. Against that bleeding sky, the wrought iron barrier seemed fragile as blown glass.

She let out a breathless scream and fell.

Alex lunged with a prayer and saw it answered; she fell back and not forward, crumpling onto the narrow concrete ledge, trapping the blanket beneath her before the wind could claim it.

The red light vanished as he reached her. Alex pulled Liz into his arms, scanning the sky for anything to explain what he’d seen. But there was only the winter night and city lights like a web of stars. The shearing wind smelled only of rain and cold and the bitter blend of exhaust and ocean and wet concrete.

Liz moaned as he dragged her onto his lap, her head lolling. Her skin was scarcely warmer than the air. Moisture dripped warm onto his arm, chilling quickly; her nose was bleeding. Adrenaline spiked and he lifted her, dragging the blanket with them. The room was dark—the lamp’s bulb had blown.

Alex made it to the bed before his strength gave out and retractions squeezed his ribs. His hands shook so badly he could barely get the inhaler to his mouth. He counted to sixty and sucked in another dose.

Liz moaned again. Blood trickled down her cheek, staining her hair and the sheets. Alex fumbled for a tissue and pressed it under her nose.

Was this the door the maenad had wanted open?

Her eyes fluttered, black beneath damp lashes, and she murmured something.

“You were sleepwalking,” he lied. “Go back to sleep.” He wiped away more blood and stroked her tangled hair until she lay still.

No chance of rest now. Adrenaline and albuterol stretched his nerves taut as piano wire, played a jangling jazz progression up and down his spine. Alex sat with his back to the creaking headboard and held Liz’s hand until dawn crept cold and blue into the room.

T
HAT NIGHT
, R
AINER
sat cross-legged on the cold floor of the loft, books scattered on the boards around him. Unwarded, the power contained in their pages crawled over his skin, crackled like static at every touch. They whispered in his head, ugly, seductive secrets. Men had killed for the knowledge they contained; the Brotherhood had tried hard enough to kill him after their theft.

None of their incantations could help him find Blake. He shut his burning eyes. The passages carved themselves into his brain, Greek and Latin characters leaving simmering tracers long after he looked away. Alien energy seethed under his skin, like and unlike the power of the King. He couldn’t use it to recall a lost soul—safely, at least—but he could put it to more practical use.

Stretching out his awareness, he channeled the excess power into the gallery’s wards. Sigils on doors and windows flared with dull
otherwise
light as new strength flooded them. Enough to keep the shadow beasts at bay, he hoped.

The nape of his neck prickled as the last magic bled away. Fatigue came in its wake, aching to his bones. He needed rest, but the thought galled.

How could the angel expect him to go on as if nothing had happened? Go back to selling drugs to children, teaching them parlor tricks, turning their thoughts to the King. He had buried a friend today, and tomorrow he would host a party like nothing had happened, would coddle and cajole his backers into parting with more money, woo them with free food and wine. It left a sour taste in his mouth.

Blake was worth more than that.

Rainer had known all the ways it could go wrong, of course— the drug and the oath. He’d seen the disasters in Berlin. Acolytes who burned their minds out with visions until their bodies died of shock. But the alchemy was strong enough to keep soul bound to flesh even after death, to keep the shell animate.

His joints popped as he straightened; a book slid off his lap with a spark and scuff of leather. He’d seen all the horrible things, all the accidents and abuses, but he’d been so certain he could avoid the Brotherhood’s mistakes. He was better, after all—the one the King had chosen out of all of them, the first Morgenstern in generations to mean the vows he swore.

He snorted at his own foolishness. He’d repeated all the mistakes and made more of his own. Now Robert and Gemma and Alain were dead, and Blake was lost somewhere beyond his reach. Antja had grown distant and unhappy, and the rest of his allies were turning away out of fear or greed.

He had to put things right—with Antja, with the others. He had to bring Blake back. He was sworn to serve, but sometimes the best service was given by ignoring orders.

The floorboards chilled his feet as he unlocked the door and left the loft; the concrete steps in the stairwell were even colder. Goosebumps roughened his bare chest. The emergency exits were locked when the gallery was closed, but the door responded to his hand and will as if to a key. A witchlight floated over his head, bathing the gallery in eerie yellow light. Shadows crawled across the floor and paintings writhed on the walls. His padding steps carried through the silence as he followed the winding partitions toward the center of the labyrinth.

The painting had changed. He had suspected it on the night of the opening, but now he was certain. The door opened wider. Just a fraction of an inch, enough to make him doubt his eyes. But when Blake had first painted it, only a hint of the farther world had been visible, only a suggestion of shape and shadow. Now the outline of a tower was clear, and the black horizon beyond.

Blake had slipped through that door and now he was with the King. Rainer was Chosen—shouldn’t the door open for him as well?

The globe of witchlight lowered, spinning in front of his eyes. Bright tendrils lashed out, until a sigil of golden flame hung before him like a misshapen triskelion.

It wasn’t, as his uncle thought, a forgotten rune, an alchemical relic. It was a name. The true name of the King, perhaps, that Rainer couldn’t yet understand.

Something stirred in his blood in response to the burning sign. A chill uncoiled in the pit of his stomach, crawling through his limbs. This power had nothing to do with his own magecraft; this was the King’s gift.

His heart slowed, and his blood thickened and chilled. He closed his eyes as the veins in his hands blackened. The sight still turned his stomach after all these years.

He opened his eyes and fixed them on the door. Blake had passed through—he had to follow. He held Blake’s face in his mind, wrapped the thought of him around himself like armor. The door filled his vision, carvings writhing across the marble. Rainer gathered all his power, all the alien strength inside him, and pushed.

The door opened.

Laughter reached him through the void. A woman’s laugh, soft and mocking. He smelled leather and musk and bitter cloves, the viney green scent of sap. “A brave little bird to fly so far. But this isn’t your place, not yet. And if you’ve come for your offering, don’t worry—I’ll take good care of him. Go home, Chosen, and wait for us.”

The taste of bitter almonds filled his mouth. Then a wave of darkness poured through the open door, and crushed him beneath its weight.

R
AE WOKE TO
sunlight and warm sheets. And bound hands.

Steel cuffs circled her wrists, holding them above her head; a chain scraped the headboard as she moved. The metal was warm from her skin, from the watery sunshine spilling across the bed. The flesh beneath the cuffs was tender, as though she’d struggled. She had no memory of it if she had. Beneath the rumpled sheet, she was naked except for her underwear.

Rae tugged against the restraints and gasped as dull fire blazed through her shoulders. Wiggling her fingers brought them from numbness to stinging pins and needles. Her left calf cramped and the pain made her eyes water. Her stomach was empty, her bladder too full.

“Is this how you usually treat guests?” she asked, because it was better than crying.

Lailah stirred, unfolding from a chair at the foot of the bed. Her palm left a red crease across her cheek. Her dark eyes were shadowed and her hair fell in coffee-colored tangles around her face. “Guests who won’t quit thrashing, yes. You nearly ripped your stitches out. Not to mention my face.” She turned her head to show the angry pink scratches down her other cheek.

Rae remembered the night before in flashes: the alley; the dizzying drive north; a cold, silent house. Light splintering off a needle as Lailah stitched the slash in her side.

Lailah stood and rolled her neck with a crackle of vertebrae. Muscles bunched and uncoiled in her shoulders as she stretched. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“Hold still,” the woman said, leaning over her to unlock the cuffs. Rae held her breath against the pain as her arms fell against the pillow, heavy and useless as dead meat. Lailah stepped back and Rae saw the black gun holstered at the small of her back.

“How long have I been out?” She worked a dry tongue against the roof of her mouth. From the light she guessed it was already afternoon.

“Twelve hours, give or take.” Lailah sank back into her chair. “You were raving in your sleep. About the twins, the king.”

“I don’t remember.” It was nearly true. Only fragments lingered, flashes of dark-eyed women and writhing dancers. Rae propped herself up and glanced around the room: plain and nearly bare, as devoid of personality as a hotel. Outside the window, bare branches swayed against a cold white sky. “Bathroom?” she asked when she could move her fingers and toes again.

“Down the hall.”

Her legs trembled as she slipped out of bed, and she clung to the frame until she was sure they’d hold her. She paused as she passed the window. Winter seeped through the glass, sending goosebumps rippling down her limbs and tightening her breasts until they ached.

Outside, water glittered mirror-bright, framed by trees and distant mountains. Thin, striated clouds streaked the sky, stained orange in the west. Snow lay in drifts beneath the trees, milk blue and untouched by feet or tires.

“Where are we?” Rae asked. Her breath fogged the glass.

“Carroll Cove. Where your friend drowned.” Lailah’s eyes tightened. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“No!” Irritation overcame her fear. “I don’t know anything! Not why Alain drowned, or why Blake is in the hospital, or why monsters are following me. And I don’t know who you are or what you want.” Her tone softened. Shouting in her underwear seemed more ridiculous than righteously angry. “Why? Why bring me here?”

“It’s out of the way, in case there’s trouble.”

“In case you need to shoot anyone, you mean?”

“That’s part of it, yes. And there’s a certain balance in coming back to the scene of the crime.”

“What crime? What happened that night?”

“I don’t know,” Lailah admitted. “And I think we need to figure that out before we can stop it.”

Rae wondered who she meant by
we
. She was about to ask, when movement caught her eye through the window. A shadow fluttered outside, a scrap of darkness at the treeline. Lithe, winged darkness. “Oh.” She raised a hand to the glass, half in wonder and half in fear. “Is that... something from beneath the skin of the world?”

“Yes.” Lailah joined her at the window, a line of warmth down her back. “Something that’s slipped through the cracks from the dark places. Don’t worry—they can’t come in unless they’re invited.”

Rae’s eyebrows twitched. “Like vampires?”

The taller woman chuckled. “Actually, it doesn’t work on vampires. Only things that were never human.”

Rae hugged herself tighter. “Good to know.”

Lailah shrugged. “This is as safe a place as any.” She reached out and tugged the curtain shut, leaving only a narrow stripe of light.

“What now?” Rae asked, her voice fading to a whisper.

“First, get cleaned up. I’ll find you something to wear. Then you can tell me a story.”

R
AE
’
S BLOOD ITCHED
.

She paced the living room of the cabin, this cottage by the sea with its bland, expensive furniture, so clean and unscuffed it could have been new. Borrowed clothes hung heavy on her limbs. Lailah’s clothes—a black sweater that fell to her thighs, its sleeves rolled in fat coils above her wrists. The pants were too long as well, hems folded thick, and sagged off her hips. Everything clean, but Lailah’s scent lingered, metallic and bittersweet in the folds.

Above the expanse of black water, snowlight paled the sky. Night had come on while she distracted herself with a shower and tea. It had taken even longer to get through her story. The bones of it, at least: her friendship with Alain and subsequent introduction to Rainer and the gallery; Rainer’s magic; Jason’s growing involvement with Stephen York; the shapes she glimpsed in shadows.

“You should rest,” Lailah said as Rae reached the end of the room and started back. It was the first time she’d spoken since Rae finished talking. She leaned back on the sofa, legs outstretched. Lazy as a lounging panther, and just as dangerous.

“I’ve rested long enough. I feel better.” She did, mostly. The wound on her side had bled a little after her shower, leaking red and sticky between the stitches, but now it was only a line of warmth across her ribs. The warmest thing in the chilly, empty house.

What would it have said, Rae wondered, if the dead man had finished what he started?

Her circuit took her past the sliding glass patio door, and she paused to stare at the grey world beyond. The sky was the color of a mourning dove’s belly, and fat flakes of snow spun past the edge of the porch light, turning the trees into spun-sugar fairy castles. How long had it been since she’d seen a sky unstained by streetlights? Since she’d tasted clean snow?

“Don’t,” Lailah said as Rae reached for the door.

“Why not?” The wind that whistled past the eaves sounded like starsong.

“An open door is an invitation.”

“Oh.” She peeled her hand off the cold metal handle. She saw nothing but snow and trees and water outside, but who knew what waited in the farther darkness.

“What’s happened to me?” she asked, settling onto the far end of the couch. What was still happening? She lifted her left hand, studying the map of veins beneath the skin. Only blue lines now, that would run red if she opened them.

Lailah reached out and took her hand, callused fingers nestling cool against her pulse. Rae shivered. “I don’t know,” the other woman said. “But you’re lucky. We’ve been keeping an eye on mania for a while now. This isn’t the first place it’s shown up. It used to be just another drug, not much worse than smack or meth. It might have let people see things they weren’t meant to, but who believes a junkie?”

Rae bit back a reply. She didn’t have much use for what she was and wasn’t meant to do. “Used to be?” she asked instead.

Lailah shrugged and let go of Rae’s hand. “At the beginning of the month something happened. Something changed. We felt ripples of it all through the city, weird shivers we didn’t understand.” She grimaced. “Magic is full of weird shit I don’t understand. But whatever it was, it affected the maniacs most of all. Drove them crazy. Drove them... wrong. Killed them, sometimes—sometimes it didn’t.”

“Like the man in the alley,” Rae whispered.

“Yes. We’d seen those shadow things before—nightgaunts, some of my people call them—but now they’re worse. They’re hunting something. Maniacs, as far as I can tell.” For an instant her dark eyes were soft with sympathy, before she drew on her cool mask again. “You’re the one who’s been taking this stuff. What do you think changed?”

“I don’t know.” Rae rubbed her arms. Lailah was right: something had happened at the beginning of December. That was when the stars had begun to call her. “There was... a door. A door opening.”

“I know Morgenstern did something at his cabin, weeks ago. It went wrong and people died.”

“Alain—” She turned sharply. “What do you mean, people? Blake is still alive.” Wasn’t he?

“Gemma Pagan. Robert Files. Didn’t you know them?”

Rae’s mouth dropped open and snapped shut again wordlessly. “But they...” Had vanished, hadn’t they? She hadn’t seen them since Halloween. Which wasn’t strange, because they weren’t the sort of people she hung out with—artists who weren’t starving. “I told you, I wasn’t there that night. I don’t know what happened.” Jason had complained when he’d learned something happened without them, trying hard to hide the sullenness that would only have proved Rainer right to exclude them. If they had gone, would they be missing too?

“They died. Died badly. I think the gaunts got them. Morgenstern called in my people to clean up the mess.”

“Your people? Rabia and Noor?”

“They’re part of it. They don’t usually do the heavy lifting, though.”

“You’re... what? Cleaners? Hitmen?”

“Sometimes.”

Silence settled between them, like an awkward date who didn’t know what to do with his arms. Rae stared at the toes of her boots, yellow-eyed daisies painted on scuffed black leather—the only thing of hers to survive the alley.

Behind the feather-soft sky, the stars wheeled closer to dawn. Her blood tingled with their tides. She glanced up to find Lailah watching her sideways. There was less space between them on the couch, and she wasn’t sure who had moved.

Rae tilted her head to study the other woman. She reached out, slow and careful, and touched Lailah’s scratched cheek. “Sorry about that.”

Beneath the nail wounds lay older scars: a rough indention the size of a dime on her left cheekbone; a crescent tracing the curve of her chin, pink and pale against deep olive skin. A shade darker than Rae’s own winter-sallow tones, skin that had seen the sun. Fine lines fanned from the corners of Lailah’s dark eyes. More tiny scars scattered across her temple, half hidden by her hair.

“What happened?” Rae asked.

Lailah caught her hand and pulled it down. This time she didn’t let go. “An IED.” Her eyes were darker than ever, black as the maenad’s eyes in Rae’s dreams. She smelled of musk and metal, warm skin and, incongruously, sweet shampoo.

“You were a soldier?”

“I’ve been a lot of things.” Their eyes met, and again Rae saw a luminous orange flash in the depths of Lailah’s pupils.

“Are you—” The word caught in her throat. “Human?”

“I was once. Lately I’m not so sure.” Lailah’s pulse leapt in her throat. “Rae—”

She read the shape of her name; she couldn’t hear the sound over the bacchanal cry echoing in her ears. Her veins were full of stars. Lailah tried to speak again, but Rae kissed her before she could.

Blood and flesh,
a voice sang in her head.
Yours for the asking. Take it, take her. The way opens and we are coming
.

Her mouth on Lailah’s neck, salt musk on her tongue. Her fingers tangled in Lailah’s hair; Lailah’s hands slid beneath her sweater, tightening on her hips. Rae’s teeth sank into the join of the Lailah’s neck and the other woman moaned and arched against her. The taut resistance of skin and muscle, the give of flesh and the heat of salt and copper. Lailah’s thigh ground against Rae’s pubic bone as they moved and she whimpered.

Take it.

“No!”

Rae threw herself back, out of Lailah’s arms, and sprawled hard on the floor. The fall knocked the wind out of her. She lay trembling and gasping, blood pounding under her skin. Through the tangled ribbons of her hair she saw her hand clawing at the carpet, veins black as molasses in sallow flesh.

Then the pain came, the dull ache of jarred limbs and a hot knife twisting in her side. Her pulse beat in her lips and the taste of blood and skin filled her mouth. Lailah crouched beside her, calling her name. Rae’s lip quivered at her touch, and it was all she could to fight back tears.

“Hush.” Lailah’s arms circled her, lifting her carefully back to the couch. “It’s all right.” Blood feathered across the skin of her throat, seeping into her collar.

“I’m sorry—”

“It’s all right.” She touched the bite and stared at the red stain on her fingers; her throat worked. “What happened? Besides—” She broke off, a flush rising in her cheeks.

“I don’t know. The way is opening. The door. They’re coming.” She stared at her hands, knotted in her lap: normal now, and trembling.

“Who is?”

“The twins. The king.” Rae shuddered, trying to untangle the images in her head. “The door is opening.” The star-tide still moved in her blood.