by Marjorie Liu
And that scent of cinnamon all around me, in my hair, on my clothes, buried in my skin.
I remembered those things. I hadn’t forgotten them. But having them so near the surface of my mind made me feel distant, removed, out-of-body. As though I was living another woman’s life.
I looked at the armor again and clenched my hand into a fist. The woman could be anywhere. I couldn’t hunt without help, and it was still daylight. I was stuck. A sitting duck. And that woman was out there, probably using her voice on another unlucky soul. I wondered how many lives it took to heal a broken neck.
I scooted closer. “Will Mary be okay?”
“Yes,” Grant said firmly, but in a tone of voice that really meant No, but I’ll make it happen if I have to rip a hole in hell.
“Who was that woman?” Grant asked, then shook his head. “Wait. Get me my flute first.”
“Where is it?”
“Over there, beneath the window.”
I managed to stand again and staggered in the direction he pointed. I saw the table, and several flutes—most of them made of wood—but there was one that gleamed golden, a lovely instrument. I had a feeling that was the one he wanted. I picked it up, turned—and stopped.
My mother’s chest was on the floor beside the table. Old-fashioned, solid wood. Nothing fancy except for what it held. Journals, photographs, weapons, all the little pieces that were left of my mother’s life and my childhood. It was hard to look away. I could remember carrying it up the stairs into this apartment, I could recall placing it in different spots, trying to find just the right place to store it.
I could see, in my mind, removing pictures and spreading them on a table, pointing out my mother’s face, and saying, You’re right, we do look alike. But all of us always do.
I walked back to Grant. He was humming. Sounded like something from Swan Lake. I gave him the flute, but he grabbed my hand before I pulled away.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, and it hit me that I was naked. No one—no one I remembered—had ever seen me like this. I had never imagined anyone would. Too much, too insane. Demons covered my skin. Maybe they resembled tattoos, but I knew the truth.
But Grant didn’t look at my body. Just my eyes.
“Maxine,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Maxine, answer me.”
I tried to pull free. “I can’t be hurt. If you know anything about me—”
He stopped me by kissing my hand. Just one kiss, but it was gentle and desperate, and my voice choked into silence. I shouldn’t have felt that kiss, but I did—the boys let me—and the heat of it sank through my muscles and bones.
My first kiss.
Grant pressed his cheek against my hand, and let me go. “Better get dressed,” he said hoarsely. “Someone’s going to come looking for us soon. Might come up here.”
I nodded, unable to find my voice. I went and locked the front door, then walked past him and Mary to the bedroom. I spared a glance for Jack’s body, still covered by the sheet. My grandfather. Praise be his light.
He was starting to smell.
Grant began playing the flute. A mournful melody filled the air, achingly beautiful, cutting through my chest like a blade made of exquisite light: first light, dawnlight; that soft morning glow, the kind that filled windows and warmed skin and sheets.
I felt that light inside me when I heard his music. I felt five hearts beating against my skin, in steady time to that rise and fall of perfect notes. Five hearts, my heart, all of us together, as one.
And a sixth, I realized. A sixth heartbeat, pulsing softly below my heart.
There and gone. I touched the spot, breathless. Waiting to feel it again.
I was still waiting, even after I started looking for clothes.
CHAPTER 9
I wanted to stay away from the bathroom mirror. Just one glimpse was enough. I was bald. Tattoos covered my entire head. I looked like a circus freak from circus hell, the kind where clowns ruled. My worst nightmare. I hated clowns.
“Hey,” I said, rubbing my cheeks, rubbing and rubbing until Dek and Mal got the message and receded from my face. Pale skin appeared from beneath black scales and silver claws, and my lips went from gray to pink. I think the boys would have stopped at my former hairline, but I had no wig, no hat or scarf. Until I could find something to cover my head, the boys would just have to sit out the day below my jawline.
I rubbed the scar beneath my ear. I looked like shit.
My cowboy boots were ruined. I peeled them off. Slid on new jeans, a turtleneck and slim vest. Found running shoes and socks. I looked almost normal when I was done. Except for the shadows in my eyes. And the fact that I had no hair.
Fortunately, I still had some eyebrows. Not very good ones, but at that point, I was happy for anything.
I tugged on gloves last of all. Held up my right hand and turned it around, studying the armor. It had grown, as I’d known it would when I transported myself from that hall downstairs. Not much, just a fraction of an inch up my wrist—but that was a fraction of an inch I’d never recover.
“Fuck you back,” I said to it. “I hope you had a good reason.”
Grant had stopped playing his flute. I hesitated before leaving the bedroom, but when I opened the door, he was still seated on the floor. Mary’s eyes were open. She was smiling at him, so sweetly it almost hurt to see. She gave me the same smile though it slipped a little.
It was enough, though. The old woman didn’t smile for just anyone.
“Alive,” she said, patting Grant’s hand. “Good song.”
She looked healthy. Pink skin, bright eyes. I imagined her hair appeared a little less gray; and some of her wrinkles had smoothed away.
“What did you do?” I asked Grant.
“Gave her back what was taken. Plus a little extra.” He rubbed his face. “It was close.”
Close. He looked tired. I sat back, thinking hard about what I had seen, what I had been told, what I remembered. Piecing it all together.
I had questions, but all of them but one could wait.
“Mary,” I said. “Where’s Byron?”
POLICE were everywhere. I had a feeling they would be looking for Grant—based on the same feeling I had that he owned the place—but he stayed with me as we made our way to the basement. Mary came with us, after changing into some of my clothes. Pants looked strange on her. So did long sleeves. I made her leave the butcher knives in the kitchen.
No one saw us. A quick glance outside the windows showed that the police were still keeping everyone outside the building; but I heard voices echoing down the smoky halls, using words like arson and structural integrity.
The basement didn’t smell like smoke, and the air was cool and damp. Years ago, the warehouses that made up the Coop had been part of a furniture manufacturer, and some of the old equipment was still stored in the dark underbelly—massive iron structures whose purpose I couldn’t guess though the boys liked to come down sometimes and climb all over them. Good diversion while hunting rats. During their last adventure, they had worn safari hats and carried machetes. Eaten both, along with the rodents.
There were few lights in the basement, and none was turned on. I left it that way. I could see light from Mary’s room, shining from beneath the closed door. It made a path across the concrete floor, and our footsteps, along with Grant’s cane, echoed loudly. I heard no one else but us. Mary started humming “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” and twirled on her toes like a dancer.
I hadn’t been down to Mary’s room for weeks. Not much had changed. Racks lined the walls, filled with wooden flatbed containers brimming over with young marijuana plants and blazing sunlamps. On my last visit I’d had the boys eat her plants—and equipment. These couldn’t be the same ones. But here we were—and here those plants were. I just hoped the police didn’t come into the basement looking for anyone.
Byron lay on a cot in the corner, covered by a thin blanket and about fifty balls of brightly colored yarn. A zombie
sat with him, holding a gun.
Rex. For a split second I didn’t recognize him, but then the memories returned. I hung back at the door while the others went in and studied that thunderous aura. Old parasite. Oldest one I had seen in quite some time, including this morning’s run-in at Killy’s bar. The dark cloud of his aura hovered over a grizzled brown face creased with wrinkles and other signs of age and stress. Rex’s host had lived a hard life before being possessed.
But that didn’t explain why I was tolerating the presence of a demonic parasite. Or why it felt natural, as though it was the right thing to do.
Conversion. The word filled my head. Conversion.
I gave Grant a sharp look. Demons. Grant can change demons. Alter what they are.
I closed my eyes, glad for the doorway I was leaning on. I sought out memories of Rex, and other zombies who inhabited the Coop. Possessed men and women who came and went, but often stayed. Always uneasy around me but willing to take the risk. Because they were . . . they were . . .
Converts. Breaking themselves to become something new. Feeding, not on pain, but . . .
I opened my eyes. Rex was staring at me. So was Grant, but there was only compassion in his eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at me with such acceptance, as though it was okay, I was okay: who I was, what I did, was okay.
Should have bothered me, just out of sheer contrariness. Should have scared me, because he was a strange man and I was a strange woman, and there was a very strange history between us I didn’t remember or understand.
But I was past that. I had bigger problems.
And I liked the way he looked at me.
I inclined my head toward the gun in Rex’s hand. “Expecting trouble?”
“Just you,” he said, aura flaring. “I don’t like the look in your eyes. Makes me feel like I should start running.”
“Maybe you should. Get away from the boy.” I pushed myself off the doorway and walked to the bed. Rex stood and got out of my way. I ignored him. Byron’s eyes were closed, his breathing steady. I touched his brow. He was warm, but his color was better.
I wanted to wake him up and forced myself to back up a step. “What is all this?”
“Rainbows,” Mary said, tweaking a strand of purple yarn.
Rex rolled his eyes and slid the gun into the waist of his jeans. “She said there was trouble coming and made me bring the boy down here. Told me to stand guard while she went to go cut a motherfucker.”
Grant studied the boy, and frowned. He said, absently, “There was a fire. The entire second wing burned down.”
Rex stared. Mary tore a marijuana leaf off the stem and jammed it in her mouth. “Forced gate,” she muttered, chewing hard. “Labyrinth burns when torn.”
The Labyrinth.
It always came down to that place. That road.
Demons were not of earth. Demons weren’t even really demons—not in the biblical sense. Just a name that suited creatures that hunted and fed on humans—in the same way that the zombies I hunted weren’t movie zombies but simply human puppets, possessed. Names were conveniences only.
Demons, like the Avatars—and humans—had traveled to earth via a network of interdimensional highways. A crossroads between here and there—a place beyond space, or time, or anything that I could possibly comprehend. Only that it was the Labyrinth, the quantum rose, a maze of knotted roads between countless worlds.
Earth, being one of them.
I thought of the dead man in front of Byron’s door. “You’re saying she exited the Labyrinth inside the Coop itself?”
“She comes with a need, and needs make gates.” Mary tapped her chest and pointed to the boy. “She hunts the Old Wolf. And his skins.”
“Byron’s not a skin,” I said firmly.
“Everyone’s a skin,” Rex replied. “What’s going on?”
“Stop.” Grant held up his hand, tearing his gaze from Byron. “Who was that woman? Why would she want Jack?”
Faces and names flashed through my mind. Ahsen. Mr. King. Avatars, both of them insane. Too dangerous to live.
I could hear their screams. I remembered killing them. The first with my bare hands. The second . . . with someone else.
Who was just a hole in my memories.
I looked at Grant. “She’s come because of those two Avatars who died. Jack’s kind felt their murders and sent her to bring him back.”
“Back.”
“Two of your own get murdered, you don’t come yourself. You send someone else to investigate.”
“Someone who can control an Avatar.” Grant glanced at Mary. “That woman and I share the same gift. How is that possible? I thought there were no others.”
“No free others.” Mary reached out and tenderly brushed his hair from his face. “Babies stolen into chains, raised in chains, modified and cut and slaved in chains. An army in chains.”
I gave up trying to stay away from Byron. I sat down on the bed, balls of yarn falling to the floor around my feet. The boy never stirred. He breathed, but his sleep was so deep. I touched his wrist, feeling his pulse. Strong, steady.
“I remember,” I said. “I remember Jack talking about this. But the details are so unclear.”
“Probably because it has to do with me.” Grant sighed, rubbing his face. “I’m not from this world, Maxine. My mother brought me here when I was a baby. We came through the Labyrinth.”
“You were escaping the Avatars.”
“Yes.” He gave me a cautious look. “What else do you remember?”
I remembered only what I had been told by Jack. But that was enough. I could still hear his relentless, urgent voice.
The Lightbringers and the people they watched over were the first humans. Found on one world. One distant, now-dead, world. All humans, my dear—every human—is descended from them.
We stole their bodies. We bred them, molded their flesh. And when a particular breed of human was conceived, a world was found through the Labyrinth and seeded with that strain of flesh. Allowed to evolve, and become. Time moves differently in the Labyrinth. What took millions, billions, of years, we could have instantly, merely by opening and closing a door.
Worlds, seeded with life by the Avatars. Worlds, used as playgrounds and castles in the sky. Worlds upon fantastic worlds, linked together through the Labyrinth, that maze of infinite possibilities.
Humans had been brought to Earth as proteins and molecules. Part of the lab, the farm, my grandfather had said. The grand experiment. A reservoir for bodies.
Bodies descended from the Lightbringers. The first humans.
I finally remembered hearing that name, in its proper context. Jack, speaking of Lightbringers in desperate tones, calling them guardians, judges, truth-sayers, warriors. Hunted and murdered because of their ability to manipulate energy. And, by extension, the Avatars.
Blood Mama was right. I didn’t know if the demons could be any worse.
And if Grant was a Lightbringer, then that meant . . . that meant . . .
I closed my eyes, trying to focus. “What matters is that . . . woman . . . saw you. She recognized what you are. We can’t let her leave and tell anyone she’s found a Lightbringer here.”
“She might have already left this world,” Grant said.
Mary plucked at the yarn and shook her head. “Not without Wolf. Slaves obey.”
“She wants Jack, which means we have to find him first. We have to protect him. We have to stop her.”
Grant made a frustrated sound. “I hate this.”
I stood. “What can we do to protect the boy? She was drawn to him before. Probably because of Jack’s connection with him.”
Mary pushed aside the blanket. A golden pendant lay heavy on Byron’s chest, a compact disc that was nothing more than a tangled coil with no end, no beginning, just layers of roped metal that knotted together in a design that tricked the eye. When I looked at the pendant, its center seemed impossibly deep and far away, as though
I could touch it and find my hand swallowed. Looking at it made me dizzy.
But the design was familiar. I had just seen something similar embedded in Mary’s sternum.
“That’s my mother’s,” Grant said.
“Masks his mark,” Mary replied, with a sly smile. But that was all she said. I heard a clanging sound outside the room and the echo of voices.
“Police,” Rex muttered. “Shit.”
Grant tightened his grip on the cane. “I’ll take care of this. Watch the boy.”
He limped out of Mary’s room. After a moment, I followed.
Men were coming down the stairs with flashlights. I hurried ahead of Grant, moving silently in my soft-soled shoes, and flipped the switch on the wall. Lights came on. I heard grunts of surprise, and peered up at three men in uniform—one police officer and two guys from the fire department. The police officer had a familiar face, but I couldn’t remember his name. I was bad with names.
“Sorry,” I said. “We’re so used to this place, we don’t really need the lights.”
I’m not sure the men believed—or heard—me. They seemed to be too busy staring at my bald head. I had forgotten my missing hair. Didn’t know how. My scalp felt light, cold. I almost touched it, self-conscious.
Grant limped close, drawing their gazes. “Ralph. Were you looking for me?”
The police officer, a lean man in his early forties, flashed him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Father Cooperon. One of the ladies said you come down here sometimes to, um, take care of one of residents.”
“Yes,” Grant said, with surprising composure and authority. “I planned on finding you after I was done calming her. Has something else happened?”
Ralph’s expression of regret deepened. “I know this has been a tough morning, Father, but I need you to look at a . . . a body . . . we pulled from the fire. Just one,” he added hastily. “A white male, maybe in his twenties. No ID. We’re hoping you’ll recognize his face.”