by J. Kenner
He was silent for a moment, and then he stood and held out a hand to help me to my feet. “All right. Let’s go.”
“You can just tell me where.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, and I understood what he did not say: He would take the stain upon his soul, too. We were partners now. For better or for worse, we were in this together.
“What about Alice?” I asked, as he led me out of the decrepit building. “Do you think she realized it wasn’t her in the vision? That someone was going to take her body?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s what scared her.”
I made a small noise, guilt rising. “She had a file on her computer,” I said. “A photograph, and the file was passworded with your name. And it referenced Saturday. The day she didn’t show up to meet you.”
His brows rose. “Really?”
“You’ll take a look? Maybe you’ll know who’s in it. What it means.”
“Of course.”
I mentally tried to focus on the man whose face was in the frame. The pockmarked skin. Those drooping eyes. I’d seen him somewhere, and it was right on the tip—
“Tank,” I said, the memory finally bursting through. “He’s the guy in that photograph. I knew he looked familiar. It was because I’d seen him a few days before in the picture.”
“Tank,” he repeated thoughtfully.
“You know him?”
“I’ve seen him at the pub, heard about him on the street.”
“Can’t say my first impression was warm and fuzzy.”
“No,” Deacon agreed. “He’s no good. Got his hands in every scam, from spell casting to drugs. An all-around bad dude.”
“I think he’s got Egan involved in something bad. Drugs were my first guess, actually.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I overheard them arguing. Like Egan owes him and all hell’s going to break loose if Egan doesn’t fork over quality goods.”
“Not drugs,” Deacon said, “though that’s a good guess. Herbs.”
“What? Like oregano and basil?”
“More specialized,” Deacon said. “For ceremonial use.”
I frowned. “I thought Egan didn’t hold with the dark arts. I thought that’s what he fought with Alice’s mom about.”
“I believe they did, actually. I also think that Egan is an opportunistic fellow, and the pub is often in need of cash. He’s not above catering to a demonic crowd, and he’s not above importing certain herbs and selling them under the table to his clients for ritualistic use.”
I glanced at him sideways. “You ever bought any?”
“No. But I keep my ear to the ground.”
“Why do you think Alice wanted to talk to you about Tank?”
Deacon shook his head. “Haven’t a clue, but after we take care of Clarence, we can go find Tank ourselves and ask him.”
I nodded, then exhaled, feeling ripped to shreds. “That poor girl.” I pressed the bridge of my nose, trying to hold back the sadness. “She was trying to do exactly what I’m doing—stop the bad guys, end this, close the freaking gate. And she died for it. She died so that they could make me, and now the gate’s stuck open and it’s all my goddamned fault.”
The tears were back, and Deacon hooked his arm around my waist as we walked, making me feel safe, wanted. I held on, fighting through the horror of what I’d become and how. And who’d been sacrificed so that I could live.
“Those slimy, hell-bound, fucked-up bastards.” Honestly, there weren’t curses strong enough to express just how vile I thought my tormentors were. “She was only twenty-two. She’d been accepted to Harvard. Did you know that?”
He shook his head, his expression helpless.
“Her whole life ahead, and they took it from her.”
“That’s what they do. Even when they don’t kill, that’s what they do.”
“I’m going to make them pay. I’m going to find out exactly who killed her, and I am so going to make them pay.”
We wandered for an hour, finally catching the T and taking it to a section of Boston I didn’t recognize. We got off, ignoring the stares of people who saw us, both filthy from battle, our clothes ripped and our faces haggard.
We crossed city streets to an urban park, then passed through, ignoring the couples out for a walk and the joggers out doing their thing.
The path led to an overpass, the walking trail going under as the cars rumbled by overhead. We stepped out of the bright day and into the shadowy darkness. I expected that we’d continue on, but Deacon stopped halfway under the bridge. “There,” he said, nodding to the sloping concrete that supported the road above us.
I looked, but saw no demon.
“Where?”
“Access panel,” he said, this time pointing. I followed the angle of his arm to the top, and this time saw a rectangular metal door, about one-quarter the size of a normal door. Even from this distance, I could see the warning label, prohibiting admission to all except authorized personnel.
“In there?” I asked, dubious.
“It’s an equipment room for the streetlights. It opens onto the sewer system. Between the two, there’s a niche. We’ll find the Secret Keeper there.”
I nodded, then started to climb the steep hill to the top. I reached the metal door and discovered it had no handle. A crowbar, however, had been conveniently left nearby, and I pried the door open, cringing as the metal released an angry screech.
I bent down and started to climb inside, then looked back at Deacon. “Are we doing the right thing?” I asked.
“Right or wrong,” he said, “If you want revenge, it’s the only thing you can do.”
40
We found the Secret Keeper sitting passively in the dark, and when we approached, he looked up at me with knowing eyes. He didn’t speak, but somehow I knew his thoughts: Attack, and I will defend. And beware.
I hesitated, not wanting to do this but knowing I had no choice. Not if I wanted any chance at all of closing the gate. Did the end justify the means? I didn’t know, but I thought so. I was trying to do good. By killing, I was hoping to save the world.
Ironic that that was what I’d thought I’d been doing all along.
The creature had no mouth and stringy gray hair, with skin that seemed like tissue stretched over bones and a sickly green tinge about him. “Don’t help,” I told Deacon. “It has to be me for this to work.”
“I know,” he said, then squeezed my hand and stepped back. I drew a breath, then another. And then I lunged, leading with my blade and finding that he’d pulled out a sword to match me with. He knocked my blade from my hand, his speed exceptional considering the beast rarely fought.
I grabbed a pipe in the roof and kicked, sending his sword clattering out of his hands, then dropped down and immediately and went for my blade, but he turned on me, screaming, which is quite a feat for a creature with no mouth.
But I could feel it, burning inside my brain, hideous and so unexpected that I wasn’t at the top of my game. He didn’t hesitate, but jumped immediately on me, his hands at my throat. I felt him there, not at my neck, but poking about inside my mind, the two of us connected. I didn’t want to be in his head, seeing the horrors that demons had hidden there, but I couldn’t help it, and the thoughts, vile and painful, flashed like a slideshow. Glimpses and snatches. Horrid and unclear. Plans and alliances.
And blood. So much blood.
My body trembled. Pain racked through me, drawing my limbs tight, shooting fire through them until I was certain I would burn up from within. I didn’t burn, though, but sank into a scorched blackness, falling deeper and deeper into the pain. Deeper and deeper into the Secret Keeper’s vault.
A body. Must have the body.
The prophecy. The prophecy awaits.
Such import. The job. Heavy responsibility to bear.
Must find the vessel. Little Alice.
Important job for a little girl.
Find, find, find.
Get her from the man, the E man.
So they can kill the vessel. So that they can bring forth the One. The Champion.
She will serve the Dark. She will serve.
She will serve.
The pendulum will swing toward the Dark, and she will serve.
I saw the speaker in his mind. Tank. Tank had planned the kill. Had sought out Alice. The vessel. The champion.
And the prophecy.
I needed to know the prophecy. Needed to know if it had been fulfilled in me or if there was more.
And the only way to know was to go back in. I didn’t want to—the pain, it exhausted as much as it hurt, draining me so much I wasn’t certain I could break the connection. Wasn’t certain that I wouldn’t lose my mind inside the Secret Keeper’s thoughts. And that wasn’t the place I ever wanted to be.
But again, I had no choice. He wanted in my head, too, and his control over the visions was stronger than mine. Like a whirlpool, I was sucked back, my skin flayed from my flesh as I was pulled under and deeper, faster and faster, until my throat was raw from the screaming and my heart threatened to burst inside my chest.
Darkness.
A circle.
And Tank standing across from Egan. Friday. Sunrise. The girl. The little one. For the glory. For the cause.
And then Egan was leaving, and Tank was smiling.
For the glory. For the ruse. It goes on.
Tank.
And Egan.
Not herbs. Girls. One girl. A sacrifice. Tank and Egan working together.
And soon.
Someone was going to die so very soon.
My thoughts muddled. The pain. The darkness.
I tried to fight through it. I had to see. Had to see where they had her. The Little One. Had to get to her.
Had to save her.
And yet my brain was starting to melt. It was too much. He was fighting me. Fighting hard.
I wanted to protest. To find my blade. To stab him through the heart.
But my own heart had stopped. My lungs had quit drawing air. And the world was growing gray. So gray.
He’d slid inside. Inside my brain.
And he was shutting me down.
I was dying, and—
“Lily!”
“Lily! Your knife! Use your knife.”
The sting of a hand hard against my cheek. I gasped, and as reality returned, I thrust hard with the knife, finding the Secret Keeper’s heart. It was a kill shot, and while the demonic goo eased out of him, I sank to my knees, gasping like a fish out of water as the Secret Keeper’s essence flowed through and filled me.
“I thought I’d lost you. If I hadn’t been here . . . ” Deacon trembled with controlled rage. “If I hadn’t been here, he would have burned you up from the inside out.”
“I’m okay,” I said, clutching his hand. “I’m okay.” I sucked in a gallon of air. “Tank came to him. Gave him his secrets. I saw it all. They did need Alice’s body.” I shifted as Deacon helped me to my feet “She was the shell, and I was the soul. It was planned.” I met his eyes. “Egan fucking sold her to them. And all to make this prophecy come true.”
“Bastards.”
“And there’s someone else,” I said, fear and futility clogging my veins. “Unless we get to her in time, another girl will be sacrificed. Tonight.”
41
“Who?” he asked as we raced toward the street.
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. We have to stop it.”
Deacon stopped in front of a car, a sleek black Jaguar, and ripped off the driver’s-side door. I climbed in, scrambling over to the passenger side.
“Where?” he asked, pressing his hand to the ignition slot and setting the engine firing. The sun was fast sinking, casting the street in an eerie greenish gray.
I gaped, thinking that was one damn handy trick and realizing I didn’t really know a thing about this man I’d aligned myself with. “The pub. It’s closed today. Plumbing.” I snorted. “I’m thinking the real reason’s in the basement.” I remembered the metal plate I’d felt in the wall across from the stockroom. The odd symbols. Demonic, I assumed. Most likely a door of some sort.
Guess we’d find out soon enough.
“Was that where you woke up? As Alice?” Deacon asked, when I told him my theory.
I shook my head. “Probably moved me. Wouldn’t want me going to work at the pub and recognizing the alley. The room. That would raise questions they wouldn’t want to answer.”
I clung tight to the door as Deacon took curves at speeds that made NASCAR drivers look like pussies. “The whole thing makes perfect sense,” I said, once I caught my breath. “Those girls that went missing over the summer. That was Egan. He supplied the demons with sacrifices to get money to cover the pub’s debts.” I remembered what Rachel had said, and felt slightly sick. Did she realize what he’d been trafficking, or just that he’d been doing a demon’s bidding?
“And then one day they come and say they need a particular girl,” Deacon said. “His niece.”
“And he said yes. The bastard said yes.” I drew in a breath. “It makes sense now—that look in his eye when I walked in the door. He never expected to see her alive again. He knew she didn’t disappear on Saturday. He sent her to the stockroom and she was taken. And when I walked in, it was like he was looking at a ghost.” I snorted. “And here I thought he was being all nice and kind when he asked if there was anything I wanted to talk about. He was fishing, wondering if I remembered. Wondering if I knew what he’d done.”
“He sold her,” Deacon said. “He sold his own niece as a sacrificial lamb.”
“And now someone else is on the chopping block.”
“Not if we can help it.” I looked over and saw his hands tight on the steering wheel, his face tight as he struggled to control the rage he kept permanently at bay. I wanted to reach over and touch his arm, to tell him it was okay—go ahead and release the beast. Considering what Egan had done, he deserved to be consumed in fire and fury.
Fear held me back. The fear that once released, the beast within Deacon could never be harnessed again.
Instead, I sat there, hands tight on the armrest, every fiber in me willing the car to go faster.
“What I don’t get is why. Why sacrifice someone tonight?”
“A ruse,” Deacon said.
“That’s what I heard in the Secret Keeper’s mind,” I said. “But I don’t get it.”
“A cover-up, and it’s all for Egan’s benefit.”
I squinted at him, still not understanding. And then, as Deacon fishtailed into a parking space near the alley entrance to the pub, it all clicked into place. Egan had sacrificed Alice, but there his niece was, walking and talking. And unless the demons wanted to bring Egan in on the secret that was me, they needed Egan to think that Alice was a bust sacrifice-wise. That she was still alive and kicking with a big hole in her memory.
But Egan already had their money, and demons aren’t known for their generosity. Which meant they had to hit him up for another sacrifice so that he wouldn’t get curious.
This ceremony was a do-over. A sacrifice for no reason at all.
“Bastards,” I whispered, as we eased quietly down the alley. There might be guards, and I didn’t want us discovered before we even had a chance of saving the girl.
“She’s most likely a runaway,” Deacon said. “Living on the street. Easy to grab.”
“Boarhurst has a lot of them.” I remembered what Gracie had said about her uncle giving her pepper spray. Lot of girls around here went missing.
And then I grabbed Deacon’s hand, remembering. “The vision,” I said, fumbling in my pocket for my cell phone. It was still off, and I pushed the button to power it up, frantic now. “I touched Gracie and I saw a girl in a white gown in a ceremonial chamber. I thought it was because Alice had told her something. Something important hidden in her subconscious. It was so familiar—it was almost like seeing me in that ro
om. I discounted it, because visions aren’t always clear, and she was Alice’s friend.”
“You think she’s our girl?”
“I think Egan was irritated when she gave notice.” I focused on the phone. I had five new calls, but I ignored them, dialing Gracie’s number instead. She answered on the third ring, and I sagged to the ground in relief. “Where are you?” I demanded.
“Alice?” Her voice was slow, groggy. “What time is it?”
“Where are you?” I repeated.
“I’m in L.A.,” she said, life coming back into her voice. “Can you believe it? For work! An emergency trip, and on my very first day!”
I hung up. I’d plead broken connection when I saw her, but right then I couldn’t talk. “She’s okay. It’s not her. We keep going.”
I started to put the phone away, but scrolled through the incoming numbers first. Clarence I recognized as three of the calls, most likely calling from in front of my apartment, waiting for his report on my massacre of Father Carlton.
The other two I recognized as well. Rose.
With a growing sense of dread, I called voice mail, heard Rose’s tentative voice.
“So, um, Alice. . . . . God, this is stupid. I don’t even know you. But I still feel like someone—Never mind. I dunno. Wanted to talk to you. Give me a call.”
She hung up, and I frowned, scrolling through to the final message, also from Rose.
“Things really suck right now. It’s just that, you said you were Lily’s friend, so I hope you’re not gonna be pissed. Anyway, I figure cab fare can’t be too much, right? Hopefully you’re working. ’Cause I really want to see you. So I guess I will. See you, I mean. And I’m gonna take my dad’s cell phone with me,” she said, then rattled off the familiar number before signing off again.
I looked up at Deacon, horrified. “Here. She was coming here.” Frantically, I dialed Joe’s cell number. And when the damn thing went straight to voice mail, I had to stifle the urge to slam it against the wall.