Strange and Ever After (26 page)

My blood ran cold. My lungs choked off.

Marcus was here, and he had shot the only person who knew how to destroy the Black Pullet.

And now the Old Man was dying. His demon soul could not keep the blood from pooling on the floor—this was an injury too vast.

The jackal shrieked in my brain.
RUN!

But I couldn’t run. I had nowhere to go. Marcus was striding toward us, his eyes as bright as torches in the darkness.

And even if I could run, I wouldn’t. Marcus was alone. No army, no escape. Now was my chance to
destroy
him.

Joseph and Daniel crouched behind the pedestal opposite me, Oliver behind another nearby. I locked eyes with my demon.
Stop Marcus,
I thought.
Sum veritas
.

Blue light flashed around his pupils—then from his fingertips. Marcus’s pistol fired, but not before Oliver’s magic slammed into him.

But the power had no effect. If anything, it sank into Marcus like water onto sand . . . and the monster laughed.

My hand mindlessly shot into my pocket for the ivory fist. . . .

Shit
. It was part of the clappers now, and
they
were on the floor. Next to the dying Old Man.

Thunder ripped through the room as Joseph’s electricity blasted from his fingertips as Daniel’s pistols fired.

Marcus stumbled this time—even toppled back several steps. But it wasn’t enough. He had spotted the clappers, and he was moving toward them faster than Joseph or Oliver could mount another attack. Faster than Daniel could reload.

And faster than I could dive for the ivory.

I lurched at the Old Man anyway, clawing for the clappers. But as more electricity and magic blazed overhead, I lost sight of them. Lost sight of anything. My hands slapped through the Old Man’s blood, through his robes . . .

But no clappers.
No clappers
. Where were they?

I could use them to lead the imperial guards. I could finally take down Marcus. Crush him from the body that was not his and watch as his soul burned—

Joseph’s electricity snapped off—Oliver’s magic too—and all that was left was Marcus’s purring laughter. It rolled into my ears, and I knew with a sickening hitch in my gut that somehow
he
had found the clappers first.

Run!
the jackal roared.

I shoved off the floor. Another gunshot exploded—blasting into the stone chest. I dived behind a mummy and yanked out my pulse pistol just as Daniel fired his.

But then a muffled voice screeched,
“Joseph!”
It was Jie, distant yet approaching.
“Joseph!”

Marcus’s head jerked toward the archway—just as Oliver’s magic flashed.

But as before, the demon magic had no effect. When the blue light faded, I saw Marcus striding easily from the chamber, the ivory clappers held high. “Kill them!” he bellowed over his shoulder. “Now.”

“Stop!” Joseph hurtled from behind a mummy, his crystal clamp flying upward. . . .

A spear swung out, and the handle smacked his stomach like a baseball bat. It was one of the guards—and it was
moving
. Joseph flew backward, barely darting aside before a second mummy slashed out.

That was when I noticed that the mummy before me was rearing back for an attack.

“Stop the guards!” I shrieked at Oliver, scrabbling backward. “
Sum veritas
!”

Oliver’s magic crashed over me, spiking the mummy and its spear backward. But almost immediately, the guard clambered upright and lunged at me once more.

I fired my pistol—Daniel fired his. All the mummies in
the room froze . . . only to reanimate half a breath later. Just as fast and just as deadly. Left and right, they slashed at us with spears. Their attacks were jagged and stiff, but too quick for us to hold off.

Yet the pistol’s pulse had given me enough time to yank out my crystal clamp, and as I clenched it tight, a hot, angry power rippled through me.

I let it loose. The nearest mummy toppled backward, its spear snapping in half, and before it could rise again I rounded on the next guards.

Yet they were everywhere. Oliver, Joseph, Daniel, and I—we twisted and blasted, kicked and ducked, but our magic and our weapons were ineffective.

We really had only one choice—exactly as the jackal had said:
Run
.

A pistol popped through the room, and then Jie’s voice ripped out,
“Come on! I’ll clear a path!”

Yet as we bolted toward the archway, the jackal spoke once more—and this time his message was different.
Wait.

I didn’t wait. Except the message came again, reverberating with command.
WAIT.

So I staggered around. The jackal’s scruffy body was bent over the Old Man . . . and the Old Man’s eyes were open.

Come
.

I wanted to scream at the jackal—
No!
—but I knew I had to obey.

So, with a running leap, I slammed onto my knees and slid
through puddles of blood across the floor.

I bent over the Old Man. His throat was healing—but not quickly enough. Each of his ragged breaths sent too much blood spurting out. His hands bloodied but his eyes sharp, he grabbed my wrist and
yanked
me close. “Stop the Pullet,” he rasped. “Stop that man who wants to raise it. You can get help on the dock. By blood . . . and moonlit sun. Get help and stop him.”

Then the Old Man released me. The jackal vanished.

I clambered back to my feet, my fingers already gripping the crystal clamp. Half the mummies charged straight for me.

Briefly, Oliver’s panic twisted through me. He knew I wasn’t with everyone else. He was coming back for me.

No,
I ordered.
I am coming.

Then I let the electricity collect inside me. The guards were moving in fast—ancient spears and skeletal, sinewy bodies. One breath, two. The electricity scorched through my veins, boiled in my skull. Too much of it—too much . . .

I flung up my hands and let the magic loose. Like a thousand bees stabbing me, like a thousand voices shredding my throat, it erupted from my body. So much electricity—it erupted from my fingertips and my eyeballs. From my tongue and my chest. It was everywhere, and for a long, endless moment, I thought I had gone too far. Drawn in more power than my body could handle . . .

Then it broke off, and my scorched vision saw the faintest line of escape. A path through the mummies. I shambled forward, and the haze cleared with each step. I tripped over two
spears—spears that were already drawing in and mummies that were already returning to life.

I reached the doorway. Blue light blazed ahead, and the
pop-pop!
of the pulse pistols slipped between the thunder in my ears.

I bolted up the narrow tunnel. Faster, I ran. Faster. There were mummies ahead, and there were mummies behind. Their armor clanked, and their bony feet clattered. Soon enough, the guards in front would realize I was behind them. They would turn around and swarm over me. . . .

And I could not call on Oliver’s power—not while I used electricity. So I simply pushed more strength into my legs. One foot in front of the other, and one ragged, heaving breath after the next . . .

Until the mirrors shifted. As one, they rotated, and all light winked out.

Black, clotted panic surged up my throat. I couldn’t see. I lost all sense of the tunnel or where anything was: the mummies, the Spirit-Hunters, the exit. All I could do was hear the guards’ footsteps and armor. Closing in . . .

My feet slipped on the loose gravel. My hands hit the floor. My chin hit next. The crystal clamp fell and clattered back down the tunnel.

“Sleep!” The scream burned up my throat, and magic I hadn’t even gathered rushed from me. It poured out of me in a great wave of blue light.

Oliver’s magic. I pushed myself back up with bloodied
hands. In pulsing gusts of magic—
Sleep, sleep, sleep
—I kept the guards above slowed and slogging.

And through the light, in front of Daniel and Jie, I saw Oliver. His eyes glowed so brightly that the contours of his skull blazed.

I reached the next mummy, ducking below its spear. Then the next mummy and the next—they were slowed by Oliver’s unrelenting power. It rolled off him, gushed from me. All the while, Jie kicked at knees, and Daniel heaved bodies aside.

And Joseph ran onward, chasing someone who always managed to outrun us.

I pushed past the final mummy, shoving its spear aside, and then Daniel’s hand was latching on to mine and pulling. We reached Jie—Daniel grabbed her too. Then we were to Oliver, and it was my job to snatch his wrist.

My demon jolted, his magic roaring back and the glow leeching from his face.
“Run,”
I shouted.

He did run, shoving at me from behind while Daniel towed ahead. The mummies’ speed was fast returning—and ours was fast
flagging
. . . .

But Joseph had already reached the sunlit door. With a final burst of strength, I pumped every ounce of life into my legs—into my grip on Oliver and my grip on Daniel. We were so near, so near. . . .

Then we were through, back on this high stone level of the Great Pyramid. The morning sun stabbed my eyes. Joseph had bolted left along the worn-pyramid side. We followed.

The mummies followed too.

I don’t know why I’d thought daylight would be our salvation. The guards were not slowed in the least. They hopped the pyramid steps as easily as acrobats. In fact, the narrowness of the tunnel had slowed them—now that we were open and exposed, they doubled their speed, scuttling on all fours like bronze spiders.

“Faster!” I shrieked at Oliver. But he needed no prodding. His eyes flashed blue; his face paled; he lashed out with another attack.

It did nothing. With the extra space, the mummies simply fanned out. The magic licked harmlessly over them.

So on we ran. My ankles rolled, and the corner of the pyramid came into view. We would round the edge . . . and then what? Even jumping to the next level would be too slow, and at this point, the only thing that kept me going was Daniel’s hand on mine—and Jie’s hand on his.

We reached the edge, barreled around . . . and then as one skittered to a stop, our arms spinning.

For Joseph had halted, his gaze on the distance, his shoulders back.

“Run!”
Jie screamed, bolting to him. She made it in three steps, her hands outstretched to shove him into action . . . and then she froze.

Midstride, her entire body locked up.

“Jie!” I screeched.
“Move!”
But she didn’t move, and had it not been for our own motion—for Joseph’s twisting body and
Daniel’s beating steps—I would have thought the world had frozen once more.

But then Jie pivoted sharply left, and when she began to bound up the pyramid in great, inhuman leaps, I realized what was happening.

Somehow the compulsion spell had taken control once more.

I lunged after her. “Shoot her!” I screamed at Daniel. “Stop her!” In a frantic climb, I hauled myself up the stone and then the next. Mummies scrambled ahead of Jie, moving at the exact same speed and in the same direction.

She was so much faster than I was. Ten steps above me quickly became fifteen. . . .

Daniel’s pulse pistol cracked. Jie’s right leg ripped wide, the cloth shredded and turned instantly red.
“Resiste!”
I screamed, focusing all my magic on canceling the compulsion spell. My vocal chords snapped, yet over and over I shrieked at her,
“Resiste! Resiste!”

For a moment her arms clapped to her sides and she stiffened like a plank . . . then she toppled forward. Her face hit the stones in a sickening thud.

I spared a single glance at the mummies—they were rounding the top of the pyramid now . . . and then they were gone. They followed something I could not see. So I continued my frenzied climb after Jie. Joseph passed me, reaching her long before I was even close. He eased her onto her back and shouted her name over and over.

Then Daniel was clambering by. He fell to Jie’s side,
crying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

By the time I finally climbed the last step to reach them, Daniel had wrapped Jie’s leg tightly in his shirt . . . and her eyes were open. But they were empty.

I threw a glance at Oliver. He swayed with exhaustion, his face too pale and his expression was . . .

Heartbreaking. Something about him looked broken, I wet my lips, caked in sand and sweat, to call to him. . . .

His hand lifted. He pointed east, and when I followed his finger toward the morning sun, my knees almost dissolved beneath me.

For drifting up from the other side of the pyramid was a balloon. A simple, round one—much smaller than our airship and with nothing more than a basket beneath.

And there were two figures standing within. Marcus and . . . Allison.

“No,” I whispered. My head shook, slowly . . . then faster. “No.” I staggered into a run, passing Daniel and Joseph and Jie. And still the word fell off my tongue, louder each time. “No. No.
No.
”

It couldn’t be. She had to be compelled—it was a spell. Allison wasn’t with Marcus willingly—she just . . .

Couldn’t be.

But the truth settled through my chest, spreading outward and inward like the blackest of oils. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I stumbled. . . . I fell. My hands hit the stone steps.

I had trusted Allison. I had thought we were allies.

God, I had been so,
so
wrong.

A laugh splintered up my throat. I was a blind fool. Of course Allison and I were enemies; we had been since the day she had learned that Elijah had killed Clarence—and I had
known
it. Deep within, I had known it all along, but I’d refused to see. I had not wanted her to be the enemy even when the facts were all there—obvious and undeniable now that I truly looked at them.

Back in Philadelphia, when Allison had demanded answers about Clarence’s death, I had thought it odd how she took the truth so stoically.

But she had already
known
—that was why her reaction had been so stiff. In fact, she had probably come to my house that day simply to ensure that I got on the steamer for France. . . . Marcus had dug his talons into Allison ages before I had spoken to her. Somehow, Marcus had found her, swayed her to his side, and then used her.