Nothing happened.
“Barnabas . . . ,” he growled. “Do something!”
The snake lashed out toward him, fangs at the ready, but when it lunged all it met with was the tip of a sword. Barnabas swung the weapon, slicing off Aegus’s head in one clean cut. It dropped to the ground, heavy as a ripe, oversize melon.
Maddox’s legs nearly gave out.
Becca let out a sigh of relief.
The collapsed snake’s tail twitched in agony.
“Remember, it’s a magic snake,” Becca said shakily. “It might be able to grow another head. Let’s leave before we find out, all right?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Maddox replied. “Barnabas, let’s get out of here. Now.”
Without another word, the three of them, two thieves and a spirit, slipped out of the room and made their way down the hallway, searching for the nearest exit.
“Excellent,” Barnabas said. “We’re closer to ending Valoria’s reign with every step we take.”
“Is this not the first time you’ve tried to assassinate her?” Maddox asked.
“Assassinate an immortal goddess? It’s not as simple as putting a dagger through her cold black heart. She’s powerful, smart, and deeply paranoid. Her only weaknesses are her obsession with that niece of hers, the thief who stole her dagger, and, well, that snake I just sliced into two scaly pieces.”
“And you believe that what’s in this box will help destroy her.”
“Yes, I do. And now we need to bring it to the person who knows how to get through that lock.”
Barnabas kept saying “we,” as if he and Maddox had suddenly become a team. “I never agreed to help you,” Maddox said.
“That’s right.” Becca nodded. She stayed close to his side, so close that he’d be able to feel her warmth if she were more than a spirit. “No promises made. You can lose him the second we get out of here.”
Barnabas was quiet for a moment. “I can help you find the answers you seek, Maddox Corso. I know a great deal about both you and your magic.”
He’d never told Barnabas his surname. “How?”
“I knew your father.”
Maddox’s steps halted. “My father.”
“Yes. I can tell you about him and how he met his final fate.”
“He’s . . . dead?”
Barnabas stopped as he turned the next corner. “I believe that’s the servants’ entrance up ahead. We’ll talk about this later. For now, let’s keep moving.”
Just a few short words had made his mind reel.
His father.
Maddox’s father.
“Don’t let this distract you,” Becca said. “He could be lying, leading you on, saying whatever he needs to say to get you to keep following him. All he’s giving you are words, not proof.”
She was right. He had no reason to trust Barnabas or any promises that came out of his mouth.
Barnabas shoved open a creaky door. “Interesting. Perhaps this isn’t the servants’ entrance—more like their exit—but it will do just as well.”
The door led outside and into a graveyard with small, modest stone markers.
“Tread with care and in silence, my young friend.” Barnabas began to walk, slowly and with precision, over the grassy area. A hundred paces ahead, Maddox saw stone gates and, beyond those, blue skies, green hills, and forestland. Freedom.
Maddox tried not to think about the dead that were just underfoot. He needed to concentrate on something else. “Barnabas, please tell me more about—”
“I said silence.”
Maddox frowned. “Why do you keep saying—”
Something grabbed his ankle.
“Maddox!” Becca shrieked. “The ground!”
Skeletal hands had begun to emerge from the earth, pushing up desperately through the dirt.
Maddox gasped. “Valoria is the goddess of earth and water. . . . This must be earth magic. She’s enchanted this graveyard to keep anyone from escaping.”
“Wrong,” Barnabas growled. “This is your doing.”
“My doing?”
“Don’t you know? Summoning spirits, trapping spirits and shadows . . . raising the dead. You are a necromancer, my young friend.”
“A what?” he exclaimed.
“Death magic is your gift.” Barnabas grinned broadly as if he’d just presented Maddox with a delicious pudding for dessert. “Now, let’s run very fast before we’re torn into pieces, shall we?”
He didn’t have to be told twice. Maddox ran, chasing after the surprisingly swift Barnabas, dodging the clawed hands of the rising dead. He focused only on the stone fence before them. Once they got there, Barnabas scaled it without a problem, even while juggling the sharp sword and dagger.
Maddox had the copper box tucked under his arm and did his best not to touch the enchanted lock. “I can’t climb a wall with this. I’m not sure I can even climb a wall without this.”
“Throw it!” Becca suggested. “And do it quickly! They’re coming!”
Heart pounding, Maddox shouted, “I’m throwing it to you!”
“Go ahead!” Barnabas called out.
Maddox hauled himself back and launched the heavy box over the stone wall. He heard a pained grunt from Barnabas’s side, which told him it had been successfully caught.
“Now go. Go!” Becca urged. “Hurry!”
He felt at the wall, trying to get a handhold. He managed to get several feet up before his grip slipped and he fell back down to the ground.
“Not good.” Becca wrung her hands. “Either climb faster or send those things back to their graves.”
“I don’t even know how I raised them!”
“Then that leaves you with one choice. Climb! Now!”
“Talk, Becca. Say something—say anything—to help distract me.” His hands shook as he tried to grasp the jagged stones, and he began to bleed from the effort. How had Barnabas done this with such ease?
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Hey, you know what? Your world is a complete mess. It’s violent and cruel and bizarre and scary, and I hate it. There’s, like, literally only one thing I like about it.”
He wasn’t surprised that she despised this place where she was trapped. He wasn’t so fond of it himself. One day, when he had the money and the means, he would travel somewhere far away and never look back. “What’s that?”
“You,” she said simply, and as he locked gazes with her, her smile managed to enchant him utterly. But then her smile turned quickly to a scowl. “Now, hurry up, would you? Go!”
Hand over hand, he climbed the wall, this time not slipping before he got to the top. Two dozen corpses covered with rotting flesh stumbled and crawled toward him, reaching up to try to grab at his ankles. If he’d taken even a moment longer, they would have been successful.
When he jumped down to the other side, Becca was already there waiting for him.
“Luckily, it seems as though the dead can’t climb,” Barnabas observed. The box sat next to him on the ground, undamaged. “We’re safe, but we need to keep moving. It won’t be long before Valoria learns we’ve escaped. It’ll take her a little while to deal with the newly undead, so that buys us a small amount of time.”
Maddox wasn’t budging from his spot. He crossed his arms. “Did my father tell you that I’m a . . . a nacromincer.”
“Necromancer,” Becca corrected.
“Necromancer,” Maddox repeated firmly.
Barnabas nodded. “He did.”
“Why can I do this . . . death magic, as you called it? Why can’t I do magic like others—like witches?”
“That, I can’t tell you. What I do know is that you’re powerful, and I need your magic to aid me.”
“I don’t even know how to harness it properly. How can I help anyone else?”
“You agree that Valoria is evil?”
“Of course I do.”
“And she needs to be stopped?”
“Yes, but that’s impossible. You can’t stop an immortal goddess—not here and not in the South. It’s well known that many rebels who remain loyal to King Thaddeus’s legacy have tried and have died in their attempts. And even if you were successful in vanquishing Valoria, there’s still Cleiona to contend with.”
Barnabas flicked his hand in dismissal. “I’ll deal with the other one later. One goddess at a time, my young friend.”
“I’m not your friend. I don’t even know you. You need to tell me what your plan is right now or I refuse to go a step farther.”
Barnabas glared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“Fine. We’re taking that box to the most powerful witch I know, the one who told me it existed in the first place. Its contents harbor the means to send someone from one world to another.”
Maddox shot a look at Becca. Her eyes were wide with shock at Barnabas’s claim.
“Other worlds.” Maddox couldn’t believe his own words. “Such talk is . . .”
“Madness?” Barnabas grinned. “Perhaps. But there’s only one way to know for sure.”
“This is it. This is what I need.” Becca drew closer to Maddox. “If he’s being honest, this could be the answer we need to send me back home.”
He met her gaze and nodded. “It certainly could.”
“I’ve had my say,” Barnabas said after a moment of silence passed between them. “And I’ll understand if you wish to part ways. But I’d much prefer you to join me in my quest.”
Other worlds. Death magic. A chance to help a beautiful girl—his first real friend—who truly needed him. Who believed in him when he didn’t believe in himself.
Finally, Maddox nodded. “Then let’s get going.”
Chapter 16
CRYSTAL
After a brief visit to the hospital on Tuesday evening, Crys went to school on Wednesday, but barely paid attention to her classes. After school, she took over at the bookshop so Julia could visit Becca. After Crys closed up shop at six, she headed to the hospital again.
Becca appeared to be peacefully sleeping. Crys sat down heavily in the now familiar bedside chair.
She’d avoided saying more than a few words to her mother all day, knowing she’d be furious if she learned Crys had gone to see Dr. Vega behind her back.
Julia Hatcher didn’t like it when her eldest daughter broke the rules.
All day Crys’s thoughts had stewed and simmered as she tried desperately to come up with a plan—something a seventeen-year-old girl who didn’t know anybody important could do to help her sister.
It all came back to Markus and the Bronze Codex.
It had been days since she’d met her father at the AGO. Three days with only silence as she waited for him to reach her with news about meeting the mysterious man in the flesh.
“I’m trying to figure this out,” Crys told Becca in the last few minutes before leaving for the night. “I refuse to sit back and wait for other people to make decisions for you or for me.”
As she headed home, she was distracted by the bright screen of her phone. She was composing another message to her father, which she’d deleted a dozen times, changing a word here and there, then writing it over again and again.
I’m still waiting. And hoping. Call me.
She felt just about ready to press Send. She hoped her message conveyed the right balance of patience and daughterly whimsy. How could he ignore that? And if he came back with a No, my boss won’t meet with you, then at least Crys would have an answer. Besides, her father couldn’t be the only way to get to the society leader.
“Hey, blondie. Nice phone.”
Crys slowed down at the nearby comment and glanced to her left to see a tall boy with dark hair studying her with a smirk.
“Gee, thanks,” she replied drily.
“I need a new phone.”
“Yeah? Then you should probably go to the mall and get one.”
“Let me rephrase that. I need your new phone.”
At first, she didn’t understand what he meant. Her head was in the clouds, so focused on the task of composing her message. “What?”
“And your bag, too.” The boy shrugged. “Now would be good.”
She swept her gaze around to see that, while the sidewalk wasn’t extremely populated, she and her new friend weren’t totally alone, either. This jerk didn’t seem to care that they had an audience. “Go to hell,” she said.
His smirk only got bigger as he came at her, fast, snatching the phone out of her hand and yanking her bag off her shoulder.
She got a hold of her bag and tried to pull it back. “Let go!”
“I’ll break your fingers if I have to, bitch. You let go.”
With another yank, he pulled her leather bag away completely, turned, and began running away.
Crys stared in shock at a couple of alarmed-looking people passing by. “Did you just see that?”
“Be careful,” a woman called to her. “He looks dangerous.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
She started running after the thief. Her phone—not to mention her bag—had her entire life in it. E-mails, texts, bookmarks. Addresses. Photos.
The guy had long legs and he was a fast runner, but she refused to give up that easily. He now had her wallet. Her money, her bank card, her ID.
And her Pentax was in that bag, along with six rolls of undeveloped film.
“Stop, thief!” she yelled, hoping someone might help her before she lost sight of him.
And someone did. Another boy stepped in front of the thief, who staggered to a halt. The new boy grabbed for the fuchsia bag.
She recognized him immediately, even from a distance. It was the boy from the university—the one who’d asked her questions. The rich kid . . . Farrell Grayson.
The thief slammed his fist into Farrell’s face, sending his head snapping to the side.
The thief went to hit him again, but Farrell ducked and punched him in the gut.
Crys caught up to them and jumped the thief, ready to use Aunt Jackie’s “groin and eyeball” self-defense lesson. Her momentum took him down, hard. Her phone dropped to the sidewalk, and the contents of her bag tumbled out. When the thief scrambled to grab it again, she kicked him in the face.
He yelped in pain, covering his nose, and sent a chilling look at her before he took off.
“Yeah, you run!” she yelled after him, outraged. “Run fast, asshole!”
Farrell helped her stuff her wallet, phone, and other items back into her bag. Then he picked up her Pentax, which had smashed against the sidewalk.
It was in pieces.
Time stopped as she registered that her beloved camera had been destroyed.
“No.” Her throat rapidly thickened to the point that she couldn’t swallow. A hot tear slipped down her cheek.
“Hey, don’t cry,” Farrell said. “It’s only a camera. And, no offense, but it looks like it belongs in a museum. How old is this thing?”
“It’s old,” she managed, her breathing coming out in shaky gasps. “But it . . . has . . . sentimental value.”
She’d tried to be strong all week, to not cry, and now she was having a full-blown emotional breakdown in front of Farrell Grayson.
“Then I’m very sorry,” he said.
She shook her head, pulling her glasses away so she could wipe her eyes. “Damn it. I don’t cry.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“I don’t normally cry.” She let out a shuddery sigh. “Look—thanks for stopping him. I appreciate it.”
“I only slowed him down. With my jaw.” He rubbed his chin. “Besides, I think you could ha
ve taken him down just fine without me. You’re tougher than you look.”
“Thanks, I think.” She took the broken pieces of the camera from him and put them into her bag, not ready to throw them away quite yet.
He cocked his head. “I know you, right?”
She sniffed. “Funny. This time the line actually works.”
“What?”
“The university. We briefly crossed paths yesterday.”
Recognition dawned in his hazel eyes. “Right. You’re the girl who didn’t have time to talk.” He reached into the pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapping one out without even glancing down, as if he’d done it a thousand times before. He placed it to his lips, and brought a silver lighter up in his right hand. Then his gaze snapped to hers. “I know we’re outside, but I feel I should ask anyway. Do you mind if I smoke in front of you?”
“Normally I would, but since you’re the only pedestrian who tried to help me out when I got mugged, I’ll allow you to go ahead and damage your lungs in my presence.”
“Don’t worry. My lungs’ll be just fine.” He grinned that charmingly crooked smile of his and sparked the lighter, touching the orange flame to the tip of the cigarette.
Out of the three million people in this city, she’d happened to run into this same guy twice in as many days. That was a crazy coincidence.
“Do you live around here?” she asked.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. Not many fancy mansions in this neighbor-hood.”
His grin widened. “Lucky guess? Or do you magically happen to know who I am?”
Interesting word choice, she thought. If only he knew about the education she’d just received from Dr. Vega. “I’ll admit that I saw your photo spread in FocusToronto last year. And, I mean, your face is already well known in the city.”
“My mug shot did get some press a while back.” He eyed her curiously as he took a deep inhale of the cancer stick and blew out the smoke, though happily he did so in the direction opposite her face. “Aren’t you going to ask why I happened to be here, tonight, ready to jump in and get my face pounded by some random thug?”
A Book of Spirits and Thieves Page 18