“The demons,” she said, and a heavy weariness entered her voice. She stood very straight, her hands clasped together in a tight, bone-breaking grip. “I tracked the quantum fire of our Aetar Master and arrived at the mouth of the veil, in time to see his light borne up into the prison.”
Jack. My grandfather. Inside the prison veil.
“Shit,” I said.
CHAPTER 20
M
Y mother had raised me on myths and fairy tales, on riddles based in keys of three—three daughters, three sons—always the third path, the third charm. In hindsight, I sometimes wondered if she hadn’t done so in order to prepare me for my grandfather, upon whose shoulders rested Odin, Merlin, Puck—every wise man, every trickster, every old god and meddler. And even if none of it was true, and my grandfather had passed through history as nothing more than an anonymous witness—that was the
possibility
of Jack. Jack could be anything, anyone. Magic was the same as the man.
And I wasn’t going to let him rot in hell.
Grant grabbed my arm as we stood. “You’re not going without me.”
I covered his hand with mine. “We don’t know how to close the veil. Someone has to stay here in case things get bad. You’ll be needed.”
Needed to fight if those Mahati decided to bust ranks and tear through the world. More likely than not, even if I managed to scare them again.
Or you can lead them,
murmured the darkness.
Lead them on the hunt you want, preserving the lives you want. That is your right.
“Maxine,” Grant said, covering my hand that held the seed ring. “I know what to do.”
Pain spiked through my skull. Like a dagger, sinking into my brain. “What do you mean?”
There was a look in Grant’s eyes that was sharp, so grim it made me afraid. “Whatever hit us at the end of that . . . vision . . . left something in my mind. I know how to close the veil.”
“What do you speak of?” asked the Messenger. “What vision?”
I didn’t know how to answer her. All I could do was hold Grant’s gaze, watching determination sink into every line of his face. Whatever he had seen, he believed.
“Thoughts become things,” he said, softly. Dek chirped, licking the back of my ear. Mal did the same to Grant. The other boys scattered around us, quiet. I looked around Jack’s home, feeling dazed, and focused on the closed bedroom door. I imagined the boy sleeping on the other side, in the dark.
“Call Killy,” I said. “We’ll need her to watch Byron.”
He didn’t argue. Just reached inside his back pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He limped away, leaning hard on his cane. I watched him, then stared again at Jack’s home, at the maze of piled books, and the paintings on the walls—the lovely mess that was chaos and a perfect tumble of words and cozy charm. I had eaten birthday pie at this battered table. I had blown out candles and made a wish.
Everyone safe. Everyone happy. Forever, and ever.
The Messenger stood still, her eyes closed. Meditating, conserving her strength.
“How did they capture him?” I asked her. “He’s nothing but energy.”
“The demons developed devices during the war,” she said, unmoving. “They had many ways of hurting our Aetar Masters.”
“Like what?”
She finally opened her eyes. “I do not know. The Makers do not speak often of the war. Too many were lost.”
“And no one worries the veil will fall and that it will begin again?”
“I am not privy to such thoughts,” she replied coldly, and shut her eyes a second time. “I require a mule if I am to fight.”
“Take a demon,” I told her. “One of the Mahati.”
She frowned. I slipped the seed ring into my pocket and walked to the bedroom to check on Byron. Zee, Raw, and Aaz came with me, pouring through the shadows. I left the door open and felt the Messenger follow as I sat on the bed beside the boy. He was deeply asleep.
I couldn’t see human auras or holes in spirits, but I knew what that furrow between his eyes meant, even while unconscious—and I recognized the way he clutched his covers with his fists. I wanted to ruffle his hair but was afraid of waking him.
His memories are buried in layers,
murmured that sinuous voice.
His time with you is close to the surface, but if you wait, it will be more difficult.
I’d rather him forget me than be hurt.
We will not harm him.
I wanted to believe that. It was so tempting. I could feel my need on the tip of my tongue, another kind of hunger: to explore the limits of the power inside me. For one good cause. Helping Byron.
“You wish to act,” said the Messenger.
“I don’t want him to forget me. I know it’s selfish.”
She studied the boy. “We are trained to forget attachments. Attachments interfere with our ability to serve our Aetar Masters.”
Something in her voice, the way she said it, made me search her gaze. “You remember, though. You remember someone.”
The Messenger’s jaw tightened, and her hand twitched toward the boy’s foot. “I will attempt to retrieve his memories.”
I hesitated—expecting her to say something else—but all she did was hum, and narrow her eyes as she stared at Byron. The teen stirred in his sleep, clutching his blanket a little tighter. Her voice took on an odd sound—
—and she stopped, abruptly. I didn’t like the way she looked at him. Like something startling, unexpected, had just flashed her. And not in a good way.
“I can do nothing more,” she said.
“What happened?”
She stood gracefully, towering over the bed. “He is a complicated child.”
Raw, perched nearby, made a mournful sound. Inside my head, that deep voice said,
Just one touch.
I put my hands in my lap. Below us, down in the art gallery, I heard the faint chime of the doorbell. Not much insulation in these floors. Zee reached out from beneath the bed, grabbed my ankle, and tugged.
“Needed,” he rasped quietly.
I stroked his head and leaned over to study Byron’s sleeping face. I had known him for a year and a half, and in that time he had gone from being a kid I was just helping, to someone who made me feel . . . like a mother.
He should have looked older, but he was the same fifteen-year-old I had first met in a dark, wet alley. Brave, good kid. I wanted to wake him up to see if he would say my name, but that was pathetic and made my heart break a little more.
I stood and left the room. The Messenger had already slipped away, but she stood at the kitchen table, studying the bone fragment. Ignoring me with such intensity I felt the skin prickle on the back of my neck as I wound through the maze of books to the apartment door.
A woman’s voice drifted up the stairs. Not Killy. But familiar.
I found Blood Mama standing with Grant, alone in the art gallery’s shadows, a good ten foot distance between them. Mal had looped himself over Grant’s head, hissing. I looked for anyone else—inside, or on the sidewalk outside the gallery—but the hush and feeling of empty air was complete. She had come alone.
Same human skin. Same coiffed appearance, with her perfect legs and red hair. But her aura did not thunder, and her human face was hollow with pain and fear. Raw and Aaz clung to my legs. Zee sidled near, watching Blood Mama with fire in his eyes. She could not look at him. She could not look at me.
For all her arrogance, she had been afraid of the veil’s breaking, of the other demons finding their freedom. Her worst nightmare, maybe, as much as it was mine. For different reasons. I remembered the Mahati eating her children. I remembered what Ha’an had called her, which was the same name the darkness had given her in Killy’s bar.
Lady Whore.
I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Except for the fact that she had arranged my mother’s murder.
“Where’s the entourage?” I asked.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t enjoy this.”
I was silent a moment, feeling tired and cold. “There’s nothing I enjoy less.”
Her aura shuddered, collapsing around her shoulders before flaring, once, as though in defiance. “Do what Lord Ha’an asked.”
“Lead the hunt.” I drew in a deep breath. “No.”
“No,” she whispered. “I knew this day would come. I made my bargains, I extracted promises from your bloodline. But none of that means a thing without your protection from the Lords of the prison.”
I walked closer, Zee and the boys gathered close like wolves. “Did you think the veil would break, and somehow I’d be a different woman? Overcome? You thought I would give in that easily?”
Her eyes glittered. “The power inside you is immense, and thoughtful. And it loves only one thing. Death.”
You do not know us,
said the darkness, rising thick and hard into my throat.
“Do not presume,”
I said, a moment later, those words emerging on their own, without my control. Grant shifted, watching me. Zee touched my knee.
Blood Mama shuddered, lowering her head. “Lead them. It is the only way to stop them. You will never kill them all, no matter how strong you are. The Mahati are only the beginning. Ha’an is a strong Lord, but still weaker than the others. He thinks too much.”
He is loyal,
said the deep voice, receding from my throat.
He does not connive like her. Or the others.
Stand-up guy. Who still wanted to eat humans.
I glanced at Grant, but he studied Blood Mama with that inscrutable expression I knew so well: thoughtful, a little cold. But not cruel.
“If you’re afraid,” he said, “stay outside the veil.”
Her disdain was sharp. “And what good will that do me? The veil is open, Lightbringer. You cannot convert all the Mahati.”
“But we can close the hole,” he told her quietly. “We can lock them up again.”
I drilled holes in his head with my gaze. He ignored me, but there was something in his eyes, something I had to trust. I had no choice.
“You’re a fool,” said Blood Mama warily. “That is impossible.”
“You will not make any more children if you do this,” Grant went on. “You will not harm humans. You will not scheme. You will not live on pain.”
“Otherwise, get the hell out,” I told her. “I’ll be sure to bring your name up to Lord Ha’an. I’ll be seeing him soon.”
Fear flickered, and she went very still. “Do not.”
I smiled. “My ancestors may have been stupid enough to promise you your life, but I don’t think anyone ever said they wouldn’t
talk
about you. That right, Zee?”
“Right,” he rasped, dragging his claws against the floor.
My smile widened. “Ha’an is going to
love
you, when I’m done.”
Blood Mama swore at me, her aura flaring wildly. “How do I know this is not a trick?”
“We’re not asking much,” Grant replied, “for a demon desperate to live.”
She pointed at him, her finger making a hooking motion. Mal hissed at her. All the boys growling.
“I promise,” she spat out, ignoring them, looking only at him—and then me. “I promise not to connive, not to make children, not to cause pain. I promise on my blood, on my honor as Queen.”
“No queens here,” Zee rasped. “None but Maxine,”
Blood Mama flinched, giving him a hateful look.
Shadows moved on the sidewalk. Grant opened the door.
Killy clicked her little bootheels into the studio, followed closely by Father Lawrence. He looked human, brown-skinned and round in the stomach. There was a bulge under his black sweater that screamed gun. I’d seen him shoot before. He had good aim—at close range. I suspected, strongly, that he wasn’t going to be returning to the priesthood.
Killy didn’t talk to me. Or look at me. She faltered when she saw Blood Mama. And then, again, when she saw the Messenger, who had come down to stand silently in the shadows. Listening, watching.
But Killy said nothing. She sucked in a deep breath and brushed past, disappearing up the stairs.
Father Lawrence glanced at us all but settled his gaze on me. “Is it time, Hunter?”
I could only guess what he meant, but the safe answer seemed to be, “Yes.”
The priest nodded, with a wistfulness that made my heart hurt—and glanced at Grant. “Take care of her.”
“You do the same with Killy and Byron,” Grant said.
Blood Mama was already backing away to the door, disgust on her face—and fear. I held out my hand to Grant, and he took it. The Messenger gripped my shoulder. Zee wrapped his claws around my wrist. All the boys gathered close.
I closed my eyes. Focused. The armor tingled. So did the scar beneath my ear.
“Away we go,” I whispered.
We entered the forest below the crack in the veil, and it was dark and cold, except for the red seam frozen in the sky. I saw no demons, but that meant little. I smelled blood, and the scent made me hungry, deep inside. The darkness rippled into my throat, spreading beneath my skin. Zee, the boys, stared up and up, their eyes glowing.
“As soon as I have Jack, I’m out of there,” I told Grant, hating how breathless I sounded. “If I’m longer than five minutes, start anyway.”
“Right,” he said. “Of course I will.”
“I’m serious. Are you sure you can do this?”
“Not even a little.”
“Liar,” I said, watching his mouth tick into a faint smile that did nothing to smooth away the grimness of his gaze and set of his jaw. I glanced at the Messenger. “Remember what I said about the Mahati.”
She ignored me, staring at the crack in the sky. I refused to look up—if I did, I wasn’t certain I would be able to go through with this. It didn’t matter that I was supposed to have power. It didn’t matter that I had the boys. I felt small and terrified, like a kid in a dark room. Terrified of what I would find, of what would happen to me. Scared to death that I would fail.
I looked once more at Grant, soaking him in. Feeling that second pulse ride against my heart—our bond white-hot.