Prison of Horrors (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 6)

by Sonya Bateman

  Ultimately, I carried him over to the fire myself. Because part of me did belong to this town, with these people — the part that was descended from Sybil Hadley.

  He would have to be the part I’d leave behind.

  Frost shivered and leaned into me, and I rubbed her arm. “I think I’ll skip the paperwork on this one,” she murmured.

  “Can you do that?”

  “Probably not.” She reached out and traced my fingers. “How are you doing?”

  It took me a minute to decide how to answer that. Finally, I settled on the truth, as much of it as I could articulate. “Alive,” I said, “but it kinda feels like a mixed blessing right now. How about you?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  We fell silent again, watching the fire. It wasn’t long before two people approached us — Winifred and Nova. They must’ve just gotten back. “Is it done?” I said.

  “Yes,” Winifred replied.

  I nodded and looked back at the fire. Apparently, the gate itself was indestructible. It couldn’t be broken or melted down, and there was no magic powerful enough to unmake it. But it wouldn’t work without the Eye. Winifred had pried it off, again, with something she called a ‘holy blade,’ which was what we’d needed the man of God for. Apparently a holy blade was just any knife that had been prayed over.

  Then she and Nova had taken the Eye to the lighthouse cliff and sent it sailing away, with enough power behind the throw to drop it somewhere deep in the ocean.

  “We’re moving the gate itself, too,” Winifred said. “The barrier spell is still in effect, so if it’s outside the borders of the town, there’s no chance anything will come through.”

  “Yeah?” I said without much interest. “Where are you putting it?”

  “I’m thinking of hiring a pilot to fly over an active volcano and push the damned thing out of the plane.”

  That got my attention, and I managed a smile. “Good idea.”

  “I thought so, too.” Her own smile faltered. “Gideon, I’m so sorry about all this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Not your fault.”

  “Mr. Black?”

  The soft voice was Nova’s. I’d almost forgotten she was there. “Gideon,” I said. “Please.”

  “Gideon, then.” She took a nervous step forward. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life. All of our lives,” she said. “I can’t even imagine how you did … what you did.”

  I shrugged. “Not just me. This was a team effort.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What do you mean?”

  She dropped her gaze. “He fought him, you know? The other you.” Taking a quick breath, she looked up and met my eyes. “Every once in a while, when Malphas was about to do something … unspeakable,” she said. “He’d start shaking like crazy, screaming. And then he was him for a few seconds. He was you.” A shudder moved through her. “He’d get as far away from us as he could. He stabbed himself a bunch of times, and once he set himself on fire. He was trying to…”

  She couldn’t finish, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it for her.

  “Malphas always came back,” Nova said eventually. “But it was like he forgot what he was doing before. He stopped him from doing the worst things — and he never gave up. No matter what Malphas did to him, or what he did to himself.”

  I had to tip my head back for a minute. “Yeah, that sounds like me,” I said. “An idiot who doesn’t know when to quit.”

  “I guess you just don’t ever quit,” Nova said. “Anyway … thank you.”

  My smile was genuine this time. “You’re welcome.”

  Winifred gave her granddaughter an affectionate squeeze and looked at me. “You two are welcome to stay at my son’s house tonight,” she said. “He has plenty of room. To be honest, I’m sure you could stay wherever you’d like here, any time you want. You have the eternal gratitude of the whole town.”

  “You know what?” I turned my face to the clear sky, the stars and the moon above, and breathed in clean ocean air mingled with smoke. I wanted to be outside, to stay by the fire and keep it company. Until its job was done. “I think I’ll stay right here tonight,” I said.

  “We’ll stay here.” Frost slipped a hand into mine. “That is, if you don’t mind.”

  I nodded and pulled her closer. “I’d like that.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Frost might’ve made up the story about the moose and the telephone pole, but she wasn’t wrong about the relative speed of the Lightning Cove Public Works Department. Or as they were colloquially known, three guys and a truck. It was going to take them a week to repair the only road out of town.

  I couldn’t wait that long. I had to get home, so I convinced Winifred to help me fix the bridge with magic. Would’ve done it myself if I had any idea how. Since I didn’t, she provided the direction, and I provided the power. It wasn’t exactly a small spell, and it took a lot out of me. But I didn’t mind much.

  I’d be damned if I was going to fight any more demons. At least between now and the next moonrise.

  We headed out in the early afternoon, after a round of goodbyes and well-wishes and other pleasantries I wasn’t really feeling. Winifred gave me a brown paper-wrapped parcel and said it was my mother’s family history, along with contact information for someone in Manhattan she thought I should get in touch with.

  I’d forgotten that she wasn’t just the resident witch. She was also the town historian.

  Finally, Frost and I were in the car and putting miles between us and Lightning Cove. We both must’ve appreciated the peace and quiet, because we traveled in near silence, trading off between driving and dozing every hour or so. Things stayed that way until we passed the highway exit just after Boston, coming from this direction, where Winifred’s storm had stranded up and the hotel … happened.

  Apparently, it hadn’t really hit her until then.

  “Oh my God.” The car slowed and swerved a little out of the lane as she turned to stare at the little cluster of buildings off the highway. “When we … I mean, you and her. You and me. We stayed there, and we …”

  “Uh. Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “We did.”

  “Jesus.” She looked like she might cry. “Gideon, I’m sorry.”

  I frowned. “You’re sorry?” I said. “Sorry seems worse. Don’t be sorry.”

  “Not about the actual thing,” she said quickly. “I mean. It was … you were … wow.” Her cheeks flushed with high spots of color. “I didn’t tell you that, but it’s true.”

  It was my turn for awkward discomfort. “Yeah. You … um, you too.”

  “Anyway, that’s not why I’m sorry,” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry because it wasn’t right,” she said. “Who I was then, she only did it so you’d trust her. Let your guard down. Part of her wanted it anyway, but that isn’t good enough. That’s not how I wanted it to happen.”

  I coughed into a hand. “So you’re saying you did want it to happen.”

  Her mouth opened in dismay, but then she laughed. “Yeah. I wanted it.”

  “Me too.” I smiled and patted her leg. “Maybe someday we can try again,” I said. “Get it right next time.”

  “I’d say there’s a pretty good chance of that.” She glanced over at me. “By the way, what did you promise to tell me?”

  Damn. I was kind of hoping she’d forget — after all, that promise was pretty open-ended. ‘Soon’ could mean anything. Right now was a better time than while I was trying to find the nerve to kill someone who didn’t deserve to die, but it wasn’t the perfect time.

  Grudgingly, I admitted to myself that there was no perfect time. And I was stalling.

  “Gideon?”

  A deep breath did nothing to calm my nerves. “Well, it’s not really fair now,” I began. “You said it first, but you were under extreme duress.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Said what?”

  “Here’s the thing.” Another dee
p breath still didn’t help. “Calla, I think — no, I don’t think. I know I love you.”

  I winced. It was out there, and I couldn’t take it back. I also couldn’t tell her how big this was for me, how impossibly real and dangerous. Love wasn’t a thing I’d known in my life. Now that I felt it, I had no idea what to do with it.

  Declaring it like this was like tearing my ribcage open with my bare hands, and waiting for the knife that would stop my beating heart.

  She still hadn’t said anything. I risked a glance, and caught her half-staring at me with tears streaming down her face. But she was smiling. “Well, then,” she whispered. “Good thing I know I love you, too.”

  My heart stopped anyway.

  It didn’t hurt at all.

  CHAPTER 44

  It was going on nine at night when we pulled in at the Castle and stopped the car in the yard behind my van. About the same time we’d left, however long ago that was. I’d completely lost track of time. “How long were we gone, anyway?” I said.

  “You know, I honestly have no idea.” Frost put the car in park and yawned widely. “Two days? Three? Maybe a month, or a year…”

  “Yeah. Feels like that last one.” The front light by the door came on, and I knew someone had noticed the car. I still wasn’t sure what I’d tell them about the so-called vacation. “Why don’t you come in?” I said. “I mean, you’re exhausted. You can crash here tonight if you want.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “I don’t think I should.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re going to have to tell them what happened. Your brother, at least,” she said. “And they aren’t going to like me much. Not for a while.”

  I snorted. “I don’t give a damn what they think.”

  “I do.” She laced her hand with mine. “I want us to be together,” she said. “We can’t do that if the people you care about can’t stand to be around me.”

  “Well, they’ll just have to get used to the idea.”

  “They will, eventually. But they have a right to be upset.” She looked through the windshield at the warmly lit entrance to the Castle. “I tried to kill you, Gideon.”

  I couldn’t help smirking. “Yeah, that wasn’t the first time you tried.”

  “That was different.” She bumped my shoulder. “Besides, I thought we were calling it even.”

  “We are.”

  “Good.” She turned toward me. “I know they’ll understand eventually,” she said. “You’ll make them understand. You’re good at that. But for now … I should go home, and you should be with your family.”

  She was right. I just didn’t want to admit it. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Just don’t wait too long to call me. Maybe we can go on a real date. I mean, if you want to.”

  “That sounds perfect. Meanwhile, I guess this’ll have to tide us over until then.”

  “Um. This what?”

  “Come here and find out.”

  I leaned over, and she kissed me.

  I hadn’t actually participated in the whole kissing-myself thing, but I knew without a doubt this was a hell of a lot better.

  We said goodbye, and I waited until her car reached the street to turn and head inside. Taeral and Sadie both stood in the lobby waiting for me, and Sadie wore an expectantly happy expression. Until she got a look at my face. Her smile collapsed on itself.

  Taeral went rigid. “What is it?” he demanded. “Something’s happened.”

  “Well … yeah. It was something.” I still didn’t know how to tell them, so I opted for the blunt approach. “I had a great vacation,” I said. “Surf and sand, a nice little cottage, an old prison in the shadow of hell, a couple of witches, and a demon. Frost lost her soul, but I got it back.” I paused, and added, “Oh, and I had to kill myself. That one’s a long story.”

  The looks on their faces were so extreme, they were comical parodies of horror. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t — I laughed. A lot.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Taeral said roughly. “That was not funny.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” I sobered a little. “At least, not when it was happening. It’s kind of funny now, though. You should really see yourselves.”

  Sadie gawked at me. “You’re not kidding, are you?” she said. “All that really happened?”

  “Yeah, but not exactly like that. I mean, I downplayed it a little. Didn’t want you to worry too much.”

  “I take it back. You are an idiot.” Taeral blanched, walked over and embraced me. “I should have gone with you, brother,” he rumbled. “I’ve no idea what you went through, but it’s cost you. Your eyes betray your words.”

  “Hey, man. It’s over,” I said. “And I’m alive.”

  I decided it was a blessing, after all.

  EPILOGUE

  Manhattan, New York — One Week Later

  I couldn’t remember the last time I woke up early and didn’t go back to sleep. Not that nine in the morning was early for most people. But to me, it might as well have been the ass crack of dawn.

  The strange part was, I’d slept for maybe three hours and I wasn’t tired.

  I was, however, badly in need of coffee. And the water in the kitchen wasn’t working again. I considered attempting a modification of the spell Winifred helped me use on the bridge in Lightning Cove to fix it, but it was probably too early to be that smart. So I’d trudged back to my room with the pot and filled it in my bathroom, where the water worked questionably.

  It’d still be a while until the well-used coffee machine finished sputtering out something that passed as coffee. And if I stood here staring at it, the damned thing would take even longer out of spite. I wandered toward the lobby instead, and the only other person around here who’d be awake right now.

  Grygg might even get a whole sentence into a conversation before the coffee was ready.

  The golem’s stony features arranged themselves in a semblance of mild surprise when I came around the back corner. “Morning, Grygg,” I said. “You know, all this time and I never asked. Do you drink coffee?”

  “No.” He almost smiled. “Do you?”

  “Not today, apparently.” I grinned back. I knew he’d noticed me stumbling around swearing at things while I tried to get the machine going. That was the closest I’d ever heard him come to making a joke. Maybe all those movies he’d been watching with Eli were rubbing off on him. “So, I’ve been thinking,” I said. “Is there something you’d rather be doing besides … this? I mean, you don’t even have your own room. We’ve got plenty of space.”

  Crappy, crumbling space. And since he weighed about what you’d expect an eight-foot stone statue to weigh, he’d break any of the beat-up furniture we had. But there was a basement. Maybe he could do … golem things.

  He appeared to consider it, and eventually rumbled, “No. This is good.”

  “All right. I’m just saying, you don’t have to guard the door all the time.”

  As if the universe thought that was hilarious, just then there was a knock at the door.

  “Well, damn.” I looked at Grygg, and he looked at me. “You aren’t expecting a lady golem visitor or something, are you?”

  He wasn’t. And I didn’t wait for him to get around to answering before I headed for the entrance. Nothing to say it wasn’t Abe pretending not to check in, or even Frost. I’d told her it was safe to come around. Taeral and Sadie didn’t blame her for what happened — they were still busy blaming me for not calling them to help. Even though I couldn’t have. I knew the next step would be blaming themselves for having no idea I was in trouble, even though they couldn’t have.

  So whoever was at the door, it could be nothing. Maybe, just for a change, it wasn’t a fun new threat.

  The person outside wasn’t Abe, or Frost, or anyone I knew. It was a tall, thin woman, mid-fifties or so, wearing a long black dress, a silk scarf wrapped around her head, and enough necklaces, bracelets and rings to open her own jewelry stand. In one hand, she
held a large, buff-colored mailing envelope. She didn’t look very threatening.

  Until she pushed past me without a word, making a beeline for Grygg at the front desk.

  “Oh, my. You have a golem.” She walked right up to him and patted his upper arm, and then his chest, her bracelets jingling away. “Magnificent. I don’t suppose you’d consider selling him?”

  Grygg made a sound. It was not his happy sound.

  “Hey, whoa. Back off, lady.” I moved toward her in a hurry, my shock outweighing the amusement. “Of course he’s not for sale. Are you nuts? And how do you know — I mean, a golem? That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”

  She sighed. “Don’t be difficult, Gideon. A golem is hardly unusual, considering the rest of what’s out there,” she said. “It is a shame you won’t sell him, though. He’d make a fantastic pool boy.”

  It took me almost a full minute to process all that. She knew about the Others. She knew my name. And she was treating Grygg like a piece of property, instead of a person who was very aware of what she was saying, and increasingly angry about it. I couldn’t decide which part pissed me off more.

  “Grygg is not a thing I own,” I said. “He’s my friend, and he lives here. You got that? And who the hell are you, anyway?”

  “I’m a person of great significance in the occult community. Obviously.” She gestured at herself, setting off a chorus of clinking metal. “Do you think I’m wearing all this jewelry for my health?”

  Oh, good. That kind of sounded like she meant witch — though she seemed more like the New Age woo-woo type, rather than an actual magic-using witch. I came close to throwing a spell at her on general principles, but some vague feeling told me I should hear her out. If she’d ever actually explain anything. “That’s great,” I said. “But who are you?”