Labyrinth

by Kat Richardson

  Cameron was at the other end of the couch. I’d met him as a frightened boy who was trying to come to grips with his transition to vampire and his problems with Edward over it. I’d helped him and it was through my mediation he’d ended up under Carlos’s protection. Gone were the long angelic curls, the hint of a mustache, and the artfully ragged sweaters of his university student days. Now he lounged like a blond leopard, sleek and dangerous, all coiled energy and patient knowledge of terrible things. He didn’t project any of the anxiety I’d caught in our phone call before I went to Leavenworth, only power that hung around him as a bright nimbus of red and black. He gazed at me, studying me as if I’d changed since the last time we’d met. I suppose that was true since it had been more than a year since we’d had any in-person contact. Something about me brought out a crease between his eyebrows. He wasn’t quite as good at keeping his emotions off his face as his teacher was.

  “So,” he drawled, “what is Carlos up to?”

  “That depends on where you stand,” I replied, taking a seat at right angles to the sofa on Cameron’s end.

  “Behind him, if possible. Beside him, if he’ll let me.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really? I thought you two might have had a falling-out since the last time we talked.”

  He shook his head. “No. But he’s more guarded lately, even around me. Ever since Edward disappeared . . . he’s very wary. And I did ask him your question about the process started by one vampire and finished by another. He says, ‘Yes.’ That would be exactly what happened and it makes the current situation all the worse.”

  For a moment I was confused and had to think hard on what he was telling me. What had I asked him to ask Carlos . . . ? Oh yes: about Goodall.

  Cameron went on, knowing I would figure it out. “Bryson Goodall must have started out under the Pharaohn’s influence, but subtly. Sent to Edward for the security job—naturally Edward would . . . want a more personal connection. Something like that,” he added, nodding toward his sister and Gwen.

  I glanced at the women. Gwen, her sharp chin tucked down so her long strawberry blond hair fell over her face, watched Sarah with intense eyes while the other talked in a low voice, her face glowing and her eyes animated with excitement. It wasn’t love—at least not a sexual kind of love—but it was a deep connection that wove a flexing net of magenta and blue lines between them.

  “Goodall is like a cuckoo,” Cameron said. “He may be raised in another bird’s nest, but he’s still a cuckoo in the end. As soon as you were out of the way and Edward was in his power, Wygan didn’t need to leave Goodall in Edward’s nest. Now that the information is out, it’s gotten worse for any of us loyal to Edward. That he could have sheltered and embraced a cuckoo—the Pharaohn’s ushabti at that—makes everything he ever did suspect and cause for gossip. Or worse. It’s very bad for Carlos. He’s not a fan of Edward’s but . . .” He trailed off, one hand eloquently touching his own chest a moment, then rolling outward as if to say “you know.”

  “Then, you’re aware of the complication between Edward and Carlos,” I observed.

  “Oh yes. He tried to teach me some way to repair it, but I simply don’t have any such power. It was you who gave him hope it could work at all. But it doesn’t. At least not with me.”

  “What? What idea did I give him?”

  “Remember back with the organ?”

  I nodded. Yes, I remembered the organ that had been the vessel and prison of a vengeful ghost. The case had come to me at the same time as Cameron’s because of my fresh awakening to the Grey.

  “You suggested that vampires, being creatures who live in the power of death, might have some ability to channel that power. You remember?”

  “Uh . . . yes, I do.” I had to think hard on that point. I’d been very tired and confused by that stage in the investigation and I’d only made the suggestion on an idiotic impulse. Sometimes my unconscious is a lot more clever than my conscious mind, and more prone to blurting.

  Cameron’s mouth lifted in a smile that didn’t go any further than his lips. “And it’s partially true, but we can’t direct or control that power. We tried, he and I. But it’s passive. Only a powerful necromancer, like Carlos, can make anything of it. So we failed and he continues to be at Edward’s mercy.”

  I nodded, knowing that much from Carlos and my own experience. “But surely the situation between them is different now. I got that impression at least.”

  Cameron shrugged. “Yes, but how does it matter? In the current upheaval, he’s unable move in any direction. He can’t reject Edward and secure his position with another faction because of the tie between them, but he can’t do anything to support him either; they’ve been enemies for too long. Who would believe it? So he’s suspect and under attack himself. Not that he’s worried about most of the other vampires; it’s only the Pharaohn that scares him.”

  “Anyone should be scared of the Pharaohn,” I said.

  “Most of us are. The ones who aren’t are either his own or too young and stupid to survive. But we cleave to power and most would rather be under his protection than on his hit list. They’re just squabbling to prove who’s good enough to be second lieutenant.”

  “So, without Edward, Seattle’s vampires are currently in a power vacuum with Wygan poised to topple the dominoes he’s been putting in place for . . . how long?”

  “Centuries,” Cameron replied. “And at the moment, he’s the only option we seem to have, outside of willful naïveté. There is no one else capable or in the right position. As far as Carlos and I have been able to determine, that, too, was part of the plan. And we’ve all stumbled blindly into it like sheep.”

  “So you two have discussed this in the past few days.”

  Cameron nodded, grim-faced. It appeared he knew most of what Carlos knew and I guessed. He probably had a much better idea than I of what Carlos wanted from this conversation. That granted me some relief, but only a little. I still felt a bit like I was walking through a darkened minefield, fighting the pull of the grid and the holes in my own knowledge, but I pushed forward with the idea I was getting about what Carlos expected from us, hoping for confirmation in Cameron’s response.

  “What if Carlos could stand against the Pharaohn . . . ?” I suggested. It wasn’t entirely an original idea of mine: The more fractious of Seattle’s sanguinary brotherhood, not privy to the reason it was impossible, had muttered in favor of Carlos toppling Edward for as long as I’d known them. As terrifying as the necromancer was, his evident power was attractive to them over the suave manipulation of their now-missing leader.

  “That would be a battle worth seeing,” Gwen’s voice floated from the far end of the sofa.

  Cameron and I both turned our heads in her direction.

  She gave us a thoughtful smile. “He’d lose, but it would be interesting. And terribly sad.” Her voice was still as soft as ever, but the timbre of it had turned to steel in silk. She still dressed like the subject of a Waterhouse painting, but she no longer drifted through her un-life, it seemed, but floated with a disguised will. Underestimating her would be foolish beyond measure, and yet most people probably did. She had become a frightening monster, indeed.

  “Why?” I felt compelled to ask.

  “It would be tragic to lose Carlos. Ned, though I love him, is too much a fool and too fond of his own ideas. Any strongman among the Seattle pack could replace him with less impact than the death of a mayfly. They are none of them as clever or charming as they imagine, none of them so well equipped for the job as Alice was. But . . . she’s gone and no one has the power to destroy the Pharaohn alone. It would take cunning, power, and a perfect opportunity. So, unless Carlos can defeat the Pharaohn through craft and subtlety, Seattle will fall to Wygan.”

  “Which is worse than you know,” I added, thinking very fast on what I knew of the Pharaohn and his abominable children. “Wygan doesn’t intend to rule Seattle—why should he when it’s chaos and fear that he real
ly craves? If Seattle was all he wanted, he’d have killed Edward already. It just happens that everything he needs to gain control of the flow of the Grey is here. And that includes Edward, and Carlos, and me.”

  Cameron scowled. “Carlos said as much, too. But he won’t tell me what the Pharaohn means to do.”

  “He doesn’t know; I do,” I said. “Our conversation on the phone was too short for me to tell him.” I had difficulty continuing; the chorus of the grid shouted at me to keep silent, to protect it, to say anything other than what lay on the tip of my tongue. But I had to tell them: It was the only way we could do anything to stop Wygan’s plans, and though I was sure they had the parts, only I—and probably Carlos—had the whole picture, even if my view of it was a little fuzzy here and there. I had to force words out, like cold molasses drawn through a straw. “You know . . . your world . . . is . . . separate. Protected....”

  “Separated from the normal world, concealed. Yes. Protected by a guardian beast—the ultimate Guardian, actually,” Cameron finished. “It keeps the normal world from flooding in, and ours from . . . being exposed.”

  I nodded, mentally thanking Carlos for teaching his protégé well, but selectively. It made my words flow a little easier, but only a little. “Wygan’s plan. Is. To change the role. To replace. That Guardian.” Some of it was an informed guess, but the heart-stopping difficulty in saying it confirmed I was right.

  For a moment they waited, expecting me to go on, but that was all I had.

  Cameron figured it out first. “With himself?”

  Another nod from me and I could feel the angry constraint of the Grey loosening on my chest. I sagged, catching my strangled breath again.

  Gwen finished it. “And from there, magic itself falls into chaos and all creatures such as we are swept up in it. Not just our world, but everywhere that magic flows will become the maelstrom and food for his kind.”

  I nodded at her, hating that vision, and offered the only solution I could think of: “If Carlos and I can stop Wygan,” I suggested, “Seattle would be his for the asking.”

  “But Carlos has no interest in claiming the city,” Cameron said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked him, not turning my head away from Gwen as I glanced from the corner of my eye at Cam.

  He gave an adamant nod, also keeping his eyes on Gwen. “Oh, yes.”

  “Could it be forced on him?”

  Cameron laughed at me. “You try it.”

  I shook my head in despair. “So that leaves no one, even if the Pharaohn’s plans are defeated. Which they have to be.”

  “Unless you can rescue Edward,” Sarah suggested.

  Gwen stroked the other woman’s arm, shaking her head with a woeful expression. “Even then, Ned’s reign is over. He fell to the enemy; he left the city to the mercy of the mob and the Pharaohn. They won’t have him back. Carlos is the only chance we have—and only if he can act independently of Edward.”

  I took a deep breath before I said, “I think that can be taken care of.”

  All eyes turned to me. Cameron’s gleamed and he nearly smiled. “He said you could do it.”

  I cut my eyes away from them, not wanting to meet the gazes of two vampires or even Sarah’s half-hopeful stare. “I’m not certain, but I believe I have the resources. There is one problem—well, two, really. The Pharaohn can’t know it’s happened, so we need to divert his attention, convince him that even if Carlos is free, he’s no friend of Edward’s and more likely to do as Wygan wants.”

  “Why?” Sarah asked. “Why would Wygan want Carlos to do anything for him? And why would Carlos do it?”

  “I don’t know the details, but I’ve been told that the Pharaohn will have to call and trap the Guardian in some kind of spell before he can . . . kill it, I suppose. He can’t do it himself since he means to take its place—or maybe the process is too complicated for him alone, I don’t know—and he needs the . . . elements, I guess you’d say, that led him to this stage: Edward seems to be one of those. Carlos is the only dark mage powerful and near enough to do the work. If he’s become Edward’s friend, he would refuse the Pharaohn’s request. We don’t stand a chance of stopping the creep if he thinks we have the ability to oppose him, to hell with the drive. So long as he thinks we’re all his tools or too weak and divided to stop him, we might stand a chance. He is an arrogant bastard, and I think that’s the only viable weakness to attack him through. We may have to get very close to the endgame before we can destroy his plans. He’ll have to believe we are at his mercy, distracted, naive, or too weak to stop him until it’s too late.”

  They all nodded, which made me feel giddy with nausea. I was making plans with vampires to save the world from monsters even worse than they were.

  “For this to work, there has to be someone . . .” I continued, but I couldn’t finish; my head was too noisy and my throat clogged with disgust and inarticulate horror. I had to bite my lip to hold back the urge to throw up or start screaming. The emotionless separation I’d experienced before hovered near the back of my head, but even that didn’t pull me away from the loathing I felt at what I was saying.

  “There has to be a new Prince ready to lay claim to the city,” Gwen finished. “It will not be Carlos and it cannot be Ned. It must be someone strong enough, but not of concern to the Pharaohn. Someone he discounts . . .” She looked at Cameron. “You.”

  Cameron reared back, recoiling from the idea. “I’m no one. The rest of them would tear me apart—I’m a child to them. I have no power, no influence. Without Edward to protect me, and Carlos to teach me, I’d already be dead. And I can’t front for Carlos.” He made an angry gesture, pointing into the north and then chopping downward. “He doesn’t want the job, and as a figurehead to a reluctant Prince, I’m still nothing but dog meat. I don’t know enough to keep this pack of animals in line, even if I could convince them I had Carlos or Edward behind me.”

  Gwen began laughing, a sound both musical and menacing. She clapped her hands, tossing her hair back and jumping to her feet in excitement. “Oh, but I do!”

  She danced around the room, laughing and talking in spurts. “No one worries about poor, silly little Gwen. No one is afraid of sad, stupid little Gwen. They talk and talk and never guard their tongues; they never hide their dirty little secrets and nasty little plans. And I know them all. I know them all! But they’d never let me be Prince—no, no, not Lady Gwendolyn who couldn’t slay anyone, who could never beat a necromancer like Carlos in a battle. But Cameron of Edward? Oh, yes! Cameron who studied at Carlos’s knee? Oh, yes!” She threw herself down on the floor in front of Cameron, ignoring me, and reached up to grab his hand. “My Prince, dear Prince, say yes! I’ll be your hidden consort and I’ll whisper in your ear. I’ll tell you everything and they’ll all cower like dogs and wonder how you know. Take pity on me, poor, sad little thing that I am, the last of Ned’s sorry, sorry mistakes, your warm sister’s cold friend, an ineffectual nobody whom no one will suspect.”

  He pulled his hand away from her, startled and appalled by Gwen’s outburst. “It’s crazy!” He glanced at Sarah and then at me. “I’m still no one, doubly no one with you as my only supporter. I’d have to have Carlos’s backing at the very least, and I’m only his student!”

  Sarah gave a “don’t look at me” shake of her head. I didn’t have a chance to say anything before Gwen chimed in again.

  “Then defeat him! If you beat Carlos in some combat or contest, then he’s your vassal. He has to support you, but he doesn’t have to support Edward!”

  “Me? Beat Carlos at . . . anything? Impossible.”

  “Not if Carlos throws the fight.”

  Cam and his sister stared at Gwen in dumbfounded silence.

  But I nodded, further thinking aloud. “Which, I think, is exactly what he means to do. He said you needed a talking-to . . . that we needed a diversion and commitment to show Wygan. . . . Not a commitment to the Pharaohn, because he wouldn’t believe that, but agains
t—or at least not in favor of—Edward. I’m not sure this is exactly what he meant, but it could work. . . .”

  Cameron still looked a bit unsure. “He said something like that, but I thought it was insane.”

  Gwen smiled at me and it flipped my stomach over cold. Then she turned back to Cameron. “If you and Carlos have a public falling-out about Ned and who’s going to hold power while he’s missing, that’s not a move against him on Carlos’s part. If you come to blows and Carlos loses—even for a ridiculous reason—no one else would want to challenge you after that. The city would be yours! And the Pharaohn will believe Carlos is on his side if only to harm you and Ned.” Her eyes gleamed dreadful red. “Then Carlos can get close to the Pharaohn and destroy him. Before he can take the Guardian’s place. It will work. It will.”

  I felt a little less sanguine about it but confined my comments to saying, “Now we just have to figure out the timing of everything else.”

  Cameron looked at the rest of us, his expression hardening from dismay and incredulity to cold determination. “Tomorrow.” He gave me a hard look. “You’ll have to get to Carlos immediately—now!” He glared at Gwen and Sarah. “And we’ll have to start agitating tonight so it will look as if Carlos is coming after me as soon as word reached him.” He checked his watch—an expensively understated thing. “We can get to the After Dark by eleven if we leave now.” He glanced back to me, as if he heard the objection forming on my tongue. “It has to be now. Enough time’s slipped by us already, and the longer we wait, the closer Wygan gets to his goals. Our activity tonight will help mask yours, but there’s no margin for error. I can see you’re tired, that things are falling apart for you, but all the better reason to move as soon as possible. I’ll work out the details and send you the plan for tomorrow by e-mail.”

  Then he paused, a moment’s uncertainty crossing his face. “I owe you my life—such as it is. I can’t give that back, but . . . maybe I can return the favor. The longer we wait, the less likely that becomes.”