The fragments of information I had were starting to form a picture I didn’t like.
Frost yanked the end of the chain, leading me off the platform and down the center aisle of the dark church. I didn’t bother resisting, yet. Maybe she wouldn’t shoot me again for a while. “So, does everybody in this town have a copy?” I said. “Is that how it works?”
“Some do. Some don’t.” She didn’t look back at me.
“What about you?”
She made an irritated sound. “Do I look like a copy?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t that point of a copy — to look exactly like the original?”
“Well, I’m not. Now shut up.”
The idea that she really was herself stung. I decided to hope she was lying, and that I’d find the real Calla Frost … somewhere. On this side of the gate, I guessed. But for now I had to work with what I knew, and what I could reasonably assume.
All the Davenports I’d met had to be the originals. Winifred, Nicholas, Nova. The other two founding fathers, the constable and the pastor, were probably copies. Frost’s research team, I couldn’t be sure about either way. Maybe the originals were dead, or the copies were dead. Or only some of them had copies and the original Frost was now the only survivor.
I pushed the thought away. Thinking about that hurt too much, and I had to conserve whatever mental resources I had left to find a way out of this. Even if I didn’t believe there was a way out.
At least Malphas made sure I’d stay alive. Lucky me.
Frost led me through the church doors. Once we got outside, I froze in place. Couldn’t help it. I barely noticed the jerk of the collar as Frost kept going without me and came up short, or the second, purposeful tug that made me stumble and fall to my knees.
This was Lightning Cove, but it wasn’t. Not at all.
The houses were there, the streets, the cars. Everything was perfectly made — and perfectly sterile, as if no one had ever touched anything. It might have been identical, but it was impossible to tell. Because of the light.
The entire sky glowed a sullen, furnace red. No sun, no clouds.
No moon. Which meant even if I could somehow get the hex charm off … no magic.
“Get up,” Frost snarled, giving the chain a hard pull. “You don’t keep walking, I’ll have you dragged all the way there.”
Somehow I managed to stand and look away from that awful sky. “All the way where?”
“There.” She pointed to my left.
I followed the gesture and saw the rocky cliffs. And the lighthouse. Unlike the one in the real Lighting Cove, this one was working — but the sweeping searchlight was the same sickly green as the flash I’d seen briefly in the mirror.
And just beyond the lighthouse, where the ocean should’ve been, was a sheer wall of dark, churning red mist lit by continual bursts of red lightning.
I coughed and started moving. Reluctantly. “That’s what, a mile or two away?” I said. “Listen. Not that I’m eager to start being tortured or anything, but couldn’t we just drive there? I mean, your car’s still around back. I think.”
“No. We can’t drive.”
“Why not?” I said. “You could save all your energy for torturing.” And I didn’t think I was going to make it very far under my own steam. Right now, breathing was still too much movement for comfort — and walking was a whole rock concert of pain. My chest was actually worse than the bullet wounds. It was just a screaming mass of ruined flesh with a chunk of half-melted metal in the center.
If I somehow got through this alive and not possessed by a demon, it was going to take a hell of a lot of cover-up tattoos to hide this scar.
“You really want to know?” She snorted, dragged me over to the nearest car, and lifted the hood. Somehow she did it without popping the latch first. “That’s why,” she said.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to look, but I did.
There was nothing in there. No hoses, no spark plugs or radiator, no engine. Just an empty cavity.
“Malphas has never seen a car before. He’s not so great at making the insides of things.” Frost dropped the hood. “Now walk, goddamn it. Before I decide to make you crawl there.”
I walked.
CHAPTER 15
We were still within sight of the church when I collapsed and couldn’t get back up.
Under any other circumstances, I probably would’ve been able to keep going. The Fae in me could take a lot of punishment — I’d been tested on that, over and over. But in this place, with no moon and the hex charm sealing off my spark, I was basically a human.
One who’d been battered, char-broiled, choked, shot twice, and currently had endless poison pumping through me.
My eyes were nearly swollen shut because they’d been streaming constantly with every step I took. Even now, the grass I’d fallen on felt like tiny razor blades everywhere it touched my skin. The air was sandpaper, and my own harsh breathing screamed like train whistles.
Frost yanked at the collar. I didn’t have enough strength left to choke. In fact, I was pretty sure I passed out for a few seconds.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Her voice shoved ice picks into my ears, heaving me back into agonized awareness. “Fine. I’ll drag your ass until you decide to walk.”
“Don’t.” I wasn’t sure she could hear the sliver of sound that escaped my lips, even though it sounded like thunder to me. “I’ll die.”
It was cold, realizing those two words weren’t an exaggeration. But I knew it. If I moved another inch, my body would just give up and stop being alive. Hell, the blood loss alone should’ve killed me by now.
I almost wished it had.
“Bullshit,” she said. “You’re immortal.”
“Only … half.”
I could feel her considering that. She’d been warned not to let me die, and the alternative did not sound pleasant. This guy was a demon, after all. He had to know a thing or two about torture.
The view through the slits of my eyelids got a little darker, and I figured she was crouched in front of me. Inspecting me. “Huh. Maybe you really are on death’s doorstep,” she said.
“Shhh.” It was the best I could manage. Please don’t talk so loud, my eardrums are bleeding was way too many words to say. “Cuffs. Poison.”
Her sigh was a Category Four hurricane. “Guess we can lose those,” she murmured. “You’re powerless anyway.”
I would’ve thanked her, but I didn’t appreciate it.
The process of taking the cuffs off felt like being rolled in a cement mixer with a half-ton of broken glass. I would’ve screamed if I could breathe. For a few seconds, I distracted myself with the image of my own shrieks shattering my head, like an opera singer breaking a window with a high note.
Suddenly the image snapped off. Along with everything else.
The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by green light. Somehow I understood that I’d passed out. This was a dream, or maybe a hallucination. Vision. Whatever. At first I thought it was Kelwyyn. The Fae who’d been the DeathSpeaker before me was stuck forever in the Mists of Arcadia, and I’d spoken to him a few times, surrounded by green like this.
But the quality of the light was wrong. All sickly glow, no misty fog. This was the green of the mirror flash, the pulsing flare of the dark-side lighthouse.
And for some reason, I heard my mother’s voice.
Draw in the light.
“What light?” At least it didn’t hurt to talk in my dream. But I did wonder why I was dreaming about my mother.
The stone. Quickly.
“The moonstone?”
Even as I said it, I knew that was what she meant. Pull the stored moonlight from the pendant into myself. It was something I’d never done, never considered doing. And not something my mother should have suggested. She’d been dead long before I was given the moonstone. Still, I did it reflexively without knowing why.
The green light vanished on a woman’s sigh, and I heard a real
voice outside my head.
“Gideon. Wake up.”
I really didn’t want to, but it was too late. Full consciousness, and pain, had returned. This time it was almost manageable, though. Only sheer agony, instead of hanging by a thread over the pit of death.
My eyes opened halfway. I was lying face-down on the ground, my head turned to the side and my arms behind my back — not cuffed with cold iron, but tied with rope. Frost sat cross-legged a few feet away with the lead chain wrapped around one hand and a small switchblade in the other.
When she noticed I was awake, she got up and started for me with the knife.
“So, torture now?” I rasped. At least I could speak above a whisper.
Instead of answering, she dropped to a knee and cut the rope away. “I had to leave you for a minute to grab supplies,” she said. “Got the bullets out. Oh, and that reminds me. I’ll take this.” She grabbed the moonstone, slipped it over my head and pocketed it. “I don’t know if it works over here, but you’re not keeping your little glowing sword.”
I almost laughed. Whatever that dream was about, someone or something knew she was about to take the pendant. Hell, I might’ve been considering it myself, somewhere in my subconscious. She could have the damned thing. It was useless right now, anyway.
But I still intended to get it back from her.
“All right. Sit up.”
I wasn’t sure I could. With my wrenched shoulders screaming, there was no way I’d be able to push on my arms. I managed an awkward, struggling flop onto my back instead. It took a full minute to catch my breath again, and I gritted my teeth and pulled slowly upright.
There was a faint pulse somewhere inside me. My spark, now supercharged with the moonlight I’d taken in and trying to do … something. The magic still couldn’t go anywhere. But it was active.
Frost produced a slim silver flask, unscrewed the cap and held it out. “Drink.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s dry over here,” she said. “It’s just water.”
“No, thanks.” I didn’t believe her. It was probably just more torture. A flask full of gasoline, or sand, or bleach. Something horrible and burning, anyway.
She glowered at me. “Don’t make me pour this down your throat.”
I took it and drank. It was, in fact, just water.
“Enough.” She snatched the flask back when I’d gotten halfway through. “We’re walking now. And don’t bother playing the I’m-dying card again, because it’s not getting you out of this.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I hear you.”
She heaved a breath. “Why don’t you just agree?” she said. “You’re going to break. Whether I do it, or he does. And I mean break. Permanently.” The look in her eyes was almost sympathetic. “If you agree now, at least you’ll still be you.”
“No.” My throat tried to close on the word, but I coughed it out anyway. “I’m not letting that … thing use me. You should know that.”
“Oh, really. Why should I know that?”
“Because it’s what Milus Dei wants. To use me.”
She flinched like I’d slapped her. I would’ve taken pleasure in that, if I could feel anything besides pain.
“I’ve never let them. I won’t let him, either.” I waited until she looked at me. “And if I die … when I die,” I said. “I’ll still be me.”
Her sympathy became brief, absolute misery. “No,” she whispered. “You won’t.”
In that moment, I started to believe her.
She looked away. “Come on, get up. Let’s go.”
Standing was going to be a real bitch. Everything in me tensed in anticipation, and I pressed a hand tentatively to the ground, hoping my arm wouldn’t buckle when I pushed.
It didn’t. I was actually feeling better … and not just because of the absence of cold iron or having the bullets out.
My spark couldn’t get out, but it still worked on the inside. It was healing me.
If she left me un-ironed long enough, I might be able to get away.
I got up slower than I had to, already trying to figure a way out of this. But the more I thought, the more I realized I couldn’t just escape. I knew nothing about this place, except that there was no way I’d be able to waltz back into the church and through the gate. There would be guards on the other side. Not to mention witches. Oh, and a demon who was half Fae, and was also me. Malphas knew everything I did —and whole lot more.
Another problem was the innocent, original people I had to assume were over here somewhere. Maybe including the real Frost. I hadn’t quite lost hope that this one was a copy, but I refused to take a chance and kill her with zero information.
I couldn’t let my injuries heal. The visible ones, anyway.
And I’d have to let her torture me until I could figure it all out.
CHAPTER 16
I’d thought we were going to the lighthouse. But when we eventually reached the cliffs, Frost led me into a ground-level cavern, and then through heavy wooden doors to an actual underground prison built into the rocks.
By that time, my spark had restored me enough that I had to fake crippling pain. My chances were a whole lot better if I could keep her off guard until the right moment.
The super-spark did have an unintended side effect, though. I could feel my human side retreating, not wanting to have a damned thing to do with all this agony. Right now the human part of me was a liability — and the Fae in me knew that. Which was why it was taking over.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could control it.
I hadn’t seen much of the prison so far. Torch-lit corridors leading left and right from the main entrance, with glimpses of cell blocks at the ends of them. And more or less straight ahead, this room.
The torture room.
Two people I assumed were prison guards had been waiting at the doors when she brought me in here. Someone, either Frost or Malphas, must’ve anticipated that I’d put up a fight — and I did, because they expected it. I didn’t fight too hard. Still, it took all three of them to get me tied to something I was pretty sure was a torture rack. The kind that stretched, dislocated, and ripped off limbs. In the upright position, so I could see everything.
Now the guards had left the room, and it was just me and Frost.
There were torches in here, too. The flickering light played along the damp, pitted stone walls and made dancing shadows from the collection of ominous devices this room held. I recognized a few of them, like the whips hanging from a wooden rack on a wall, the brands and pokers in a stand beside a glowing fire pit, and the guillotine in the far corner.
“Believe it or not, this place looks pretty much the same in the real Lightning Cove.” Frost stood beside some kind of tool bench, picking up various small instruments and inspecting them in the firelight. “They have cells at the constable’s station now, but the original settlers used this prison. They built it mostly for witches.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “Thanks for the history lesson.”
If she heard me, she didn’t acknowledge it. “Some of this stuff would kill you,” she said. “Like the rack you’re on, if I tightened it enough. Or this.” She picked up something that looked like a metal beanie cap threaded on a vice clamp, attached to a small wooden base. “This is the head crusher. These things?” She pointed to two small containers at the edge of the wooden base. “They catch your eyeballs when they’re squeezed out of your head. That happens sometime after your teeth shatter into your jaw.”
“Sounds like fun. Let’s try it.”
“Well, I would. But I have to keep you alive.” She put the head crusher on the tool bench and walked toward a wooden chair with arm rests, leg and foot rests, lots of restraining straps — and every contact surface covered with metal spikes. “It might not look like it, but this actually won’t kill you,” she said. “It’s a Judas chair. The spikes close the wounds, so you won’t bleed to death. We’ll get to this one eventually.” She paused
and cocked her head. “Of course, we’ll have to cauterize the wounds when we pull you off. I’m not sure which part will be worse for you. But I guess we’ll find out.
I closed my eyes and tried not to imagine sitting in that thing. “Can’t wait,” I said. Though I absolutely planned on escaping before it went that far.
“Your tough talk doesn’t impress me. Just so you know.” She gave one of the arm straps a brief tug, and then moved on to a thick, roughly made metal bucket on the floor, filled with greenish-brown foamy goop. “Do you know what this is?” she said as she grabbed the handle and lifted it.
“Yeah. A bucket.”
“Nice work, Sherlock.” She headed toward me. “We’ve talked a lot in the past, you and me,” she said. “One thing I learned was that I’m pretty sure I know more about the Fae than you do. I’ve done a lot of homework. And you … well, you’re fairly clueless sometimes.”
I decided not to dignify that with a response.
“For example,” she went on. “One of the old myths was that fairies would clean houses in exchange for bowls of milk. This was partially true, but they didn’t do it for the milk.” She nodded at the bucket. “They did it because they can’t stand filth. They hate dirty places, and they especially hate being dirty themselves.”
Okay, she had me there. I didn’t know that about the Fae. But I sure as hell knew it about myself — I generally took two showers a day. Sometimes three. I’d always figured it was because of my work with dead bodies and the conditions I’d lived in for the first sixteen years of my life. It never occurred to me that my semi-obsession with cleanliness had anything to do with being Fae.
“Hey. Don’t worry, though.” Frost placed her free hand on the bottom of the bucket. “This won’t kill you.”
With that, she heaved back and threw the contents at me.
Freezing cold, thick, slimy, salty ocean muck.
Prison of Horrors (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 6) Page 6