by Dawn Metcalf
Blackness came down like a hammer.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JOY FROZE, HAND on knife and knife in cake. The room was all darkness and indigo shadows. It was eerie and cold. Sound had smothered dead.
This isn’t happening, she thought. This isn’t possible. This is home.
She gripped the handle of the knife as her eyes adjusted to the loss of light—midnight-blue shadows slid up the wall like beads of lava under glass, bending in weird directions, unnaturally slow. Was this still real? What had happened to Ink’s wards? It looked like her kitchen, but not. She watched the clock tick forward. Time was still alive.
“Dad?” she said, not too loudly. She thought she saw movement, a black shape against blue. She wasn’t alone.
Joy drew the knife out of the cake and held it in front of her, mimicking Ink and his blade against the bubble of shadow at school. She moved away from the counter, one step. Two. Sparks lit the tip of the knife. A pale, electric shimmer traced a curving path and disappeared. There was a shadowy barrier drawn in charcoal on the floor. Joy touched the knife blade—it was warm and strangely slick. A pale dust smeared her fingertips. She wiped it on her jeans and backed into the counter.
Squinting through the barrier, she thought she saw eyes. There were voices murmuring just on the edge of hearing; muttering, cooing, a couple of popcorn cackles popped...the low buzz of many voices growing closer. But she couldn’t see anyone beyond the shadowy wall. Nothing moved, although she could feel them pressing closer, invisible predators in the false dark.
Joy retreated, the edge of the counter digging into her back. The growing swarm of sounds became screeches, incoherent babbling and wicked laughter throwing her imagination into overdrive. She sensed danger everywhere but everything in her kitchen looked just the same.
Blinking hard, she tried to see “between.” She knew she could call Ink, but she hadn’t yet. Would it trap him, too? She stood her ground, wondering. But what could she do alone?
The growing cacophony raged just outside the barrier. She squeezed the knife handle, which quivered in her hand. There was nowhere to run. Joy climbed onto the counter, braced one foot against the cabinet and slashed uselessly at nothing.
A voice pierced the hum of malevolent bees.
“Bring him.” The voice oozed honeysuckle wine. “Bring him to me.”
Joy shook her head and shouted, “No!”
“Bring him...” the voice curled like smoke “...or die.”
The ceramic cookie jar on the counter exploded, pieces scattering like streetlamp glass. Joy tried to shield her eyes as tiny shards sliced her arm. The stinging made it all more real.
“No,” she whispered without strength or conviction. There was a sudden rush and the violent sounds grew awesome, filling her head. One laugh rang above it all, delighted and chilling. Joy screamed against the pressure, adding her voice to the noise. Joy knew what they wanted, but it wouldn’t come from her. She squeezed her temples and shook her head in her hands.
“I WON’T CALL HIM!”
The disembodied voice pressed down through the sound.
“You don’t have to,” it lilted. “Not with your voice. Blood calls to blood—” Joy watched a red rivulet run down her arm “—and, as they say, love conquers all.”
The world zippered open and Ink stepped through.
“Joy.” His voice punctured the din. He swept the bare razor underhanded, shielding them against unseen foes. He was inside the ward, which made her feel both guilty and glad. Her arm stung. Her head ached. He wiped away the small streak of blood from her wrist and looked pained.
“I’m fine!” Joy screamed. “What is it?”
“A trap. And a good one.”
“Where are they?” Joy kept shouting, although Ink didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard.
“More accurate to say ‘Where are we?’” he said. “This is not your home.”
Joy shook her head slightly, distrusting her covered ears.
“What?” she shouted.
“This is a replica, an illusion,” Ink said again, shifting himself against her legs dangling off the counter’s edge. She hooked him with her foot, pulling him closer. The knife in her hand shook. His razor did not. Waves of sound crashed over them. She could feel his voice buzz where they touched. “It was set on the edge of my wards,” he said. “It smells coppery. A blood-key.”
Joy gave an experimental sniff. She was comforted by the cool-rain smell of Ink’s hair. The pounding, malicious garble beyond the barrier grew thicker every moment.
“Can’t we just go?” Joy shouted by his ear. His Joy-ish ear. “Can you get us out of here?”
Ink shifted his weight thoughtfully.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I can. Easily.”
She tried not rolling her eyes. “Then let’s go!”
“No,” Ink said. “I do not think so.”
“WHAT?” she shrieked. “Why?”
He dropped his hand, and the razor hung limply in his fingers. He turned to face Joy.
“You are my lehman,” he said, drawing her closer, staring into her left eye as if he could read himself there. “This trap was set for you. Why? Because you are my lehman, Joy. It was really set for me.”
Joy hunched against the clamor and nodded, letting her own knife sink to the counter. “Yeah,” she confirmed. “Someone out there wanted me to bring you here.”
“And for me to get you out again,” Ink said. “Easily.” He drew the blade along the barest edge of the ward, seeing the lightning flash. A hot smell filled the room, the scent of blood. The voices rose. “Maybe not so easily for you,” he concluded.
Joy grabbed his shirt to pull him nearer. “They want your signatura!” she shouted. “You draw it every time you cut through space! Maybe they keep calling you out, trying to force you to draw it, giving them the chance to see it—to steal it!” And she’d let them. She’d been part of it. Every trap. Bait.
He rested his forehead against hers briefly, a small surcease from the clamor. “It does not work that way,” he said. “I would have to give it willingly. It cannot be stolen. Yet someone undoubtedly wants it and wanted us here.” Ink scanned the darkness. “The trap is still set. And we still need to get out.” He rested his fingertips on her collarbone. She breathed against his palm.
“I can smell you,” he confessed. She blushed. “So can they. But they cannot see you yet.” Ink jerked his head as if indicating over his shoulder, where nothing could be seen through the film of shadow. “Not until you cross the barrier, breaking the wards.” Joy’s pulse jumped. Her ears buzzed. She was both terrified and highly aware of his skin on hers.
He examined the small smear of red on his thumb. “Stay clear of the barrier. The wards are keyed to you.” His voice sliced through the clamor. “If you attempt to break through, they will pounce. You are lucky you did not touch it. The blood would have alerted them. I assume you only used the knife?” Joy nodded. He smiled. “You are learning, too.”
“Fair is fair,” Joy quoted. “So what do we do?”
“Did you find a trigger? Like the combination lock...?”
Joy groaned, remembering. “The keypad!” Joy said, pointing to the front door across the kitchen in the foyer. “I didn’t even look at the buttons. I should have checked for glyphs.”
“Not your fault,” he said. “I can get there to break them, but I am not certain whether the barrier will lift or shatter, and I will not surrender you by chance.” He pressed three fingers to her chest, pushing strength into her core. “I can make it. But we must create a decoy.” His eyes flickered. “One of blood.”
Joy swallowed and looked around their sparse prison: there was the microwave, her knife, shards of plaster, a cup of pens and the cake. It only took a second to think of someth
ing. If that. She raised her voice over the din.
“Use the cake.”
The onslaught of sound pressed them closer. Joy covered her ringing ears. Ink pinched a bit of crumb topping and rolled it between his fingers. He nodded.
“That can work,” he said, then looked into Joy’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”
She could still hear him, through flesh and noise.
“I love you!” she shouted.
It wasn’t the answer he’d expected or the one she’d expected to give. It was the wrong time, the wrong thing to say, but her answer lit a fire in his eyes. Ink smiled grimly.
“When I cut your hand, place it on the cake,” he instructed. “Let it soak for a count of ten. Count slowly.” Ink took her hand gently from her ear, stroking her palm as if treasuring the feel of her unblemished skin. “Do not lift your hand until you are ready to throw.” His thumb stopped in the center of her heart line. “Aim there, toward the fridge,” he said. “If it hits, all the better. They are not to let you cross the wards and will swarm the decoy, believing it is you.” His mouth rolled over the word and paused. His black eyes absorbed hers. “You must move quickly. Run the other way. Get behind something large and wait for me.”
She nodded quickly. The heightened, wailing pitch made her ears ring. Ink pulled her closer, his jaw moving against her cheek, speaking cleanly into her ear.
“I will not fail you.”
Joy screamed back, “I know.”
Ink peeled her fingers back and placed his razor flat against her palm. He looked deep into her eyes and held her there. She forced herself to hold his gaze, ignoring the cold metal on her skin, shaking slightly in anticipation.
“I love you, too,” he said simply and slashed her palm.
It was fast. Shocking. Light and lightness came before the pain, afterimages like flash cameras popping before her eyes. Ink pressed her hand against the cake, the sugar darkening around the wound. The dough grew slippery. The crumble, wet. Joy stared at her hand bleeding into cake.
Ink launched toward the foyer, a glint of silver smeared red against the purpled dark. Querulous sounds banked and barked, surging after him as he passed through the barrier, scything sharply to the left.
Joy counted aloud as she tested her feet on the linoleum, willing her hand to stay planted, her fingers smeared with red and cinnamon. The world chattered and screeched. A sudden spring of sweat made her light-headed. She couldn’t faint. Not now! She had to count.
“...three...four...five...”
Her palm sank in the soft dessert. Joy couldn’t help thinking that Shelley would never forgive her.
“...seven...eight...nine...”
Lifting the plate in one hand, Joy carried it to the edge of the barrier. It hissed static and light. She felt broken and floaty.
Her vision fuzzed. She lifted her eyes and stared hard at the fridge.
“Ten.”
Lifted and threw.
There was a collective intake of breath as her hand peeled off the cake, kissing air. Joy tucked her palm under her armpit and moved on the moment of impact—cake, crumb, ceramic and red exploding against the side of the fridge. The monsters surged; a gross column of nameless things appeared and dove upon the bloody thing.
Joy ran. She sprang over the couch single-handed, tucking herself into an easy quarter-roll south of the pillows. She came up quickly, snagging the afghan and wrapping it tightly around her hand and arm. Blood had soaked her shirt and skin, the smell heightened in the dark. A rabid, snarling mass converged and fought, tangled on the opposite end of the kitchen near the fridge. Ink was at the keypad, busy breaking glyphs. She shrank behind the end table. The cake decoy wouldn’t last long.
She couldn’t stay here. Joy knew she should move, but she was stuck, weighed down by blood loss and the heavy crocheted blanket. Joy’s hand started to burn and her knees locked. She couldn’t even adjust her leg around the cell phone jabbing into her hip.
Then she heard them—monsters circling the counter, lumbering toward the den.
She needed help. Help! Now! Kurt or Officer Castrodad or the beefy, blond drunk at the bar... Someone big. Someone good in a fight. But she had no one to call.
Call!
Joy fumbled for her cell phone, digging it free with one hand and hitting autodial 1.
The kitchen phone rang, a thin trill of bells.
Joy inhaled and screamed: “FILLY!”
A crack of lightning, and she appeared: blue tattooed, braided, and caped in bones. Eyes flashing, the blonde warrior savored the scene, smiling at Joy like a lover.
“It’s not the EverBattle,” she said. “But it will do.” She rotated her wrists in their vambraces. “Victory!” she thundered and grabbed the nearest hunk of hair and snarling teeth, breaking off a fistful in her hand. The shriek that followed died quickly when she plunged her arm into the creature’s side and squeezed something vital. It choked, shuddered and fell, but Filly was already whirling.
She slammed a skull against the wall with a hollow, wet sound, cleaving through the next body in a wide arc that set her cape bones rattling as it swirled about her shoulders. Filly kicked viciously to one side and tore a snout sideways, broken. She laughed like a maniac. Joy crawled deeper into the afghan.
A cry rose along with a claw the size of gardening shears. Filly took the brunt of it on one armored arm and punched through the monster’s trachea. It gagged with a gurgling cough. She spun quickly, landing two blows that fell from her arms like tethered weights. Something crunched and it lay still. A tail caught her face. Joy screamed, but Filly licked the blood from her lip and bellowed, launching herself viciously at her new opponent, pinning its long, ferretlike body over the counter’s edge. Her leg muscles strained against the floor. She kept pushing, groaning—a battle of physics and will. Joy winced at the sound of bones snapping as it screamed.
A great, dripping mass peeked around the corner of the couch, its yellow eyes burning, its low-slung belly nearly brushing the floor. It crawled like a reptile and smelled like sewage. Joy inhaled sharply and flipped the end table over, creating a shield.
“Ink!” she cried.
“One moment...”
She grabbed the lamp in one hand. Her side hurt, the afghan slid under her armpit. The creature’s back curled, rippling muscles and grime, shifting, preparing to pounce.
Joy tensed.
The second split.
Black underbelly filled her vision. No time to scream.
No!
False night lifted in a curtain of light.
Joy rolled backward on the floor and came up balanced on the balls of her feet. No impact. Nothing. Uncurling, she chanced a look: the creature was gone. The monsters were gone. The darkness was gone. The cake, the bodies and the sewer smells were gone. She rose still holding the lamp, trailing the electrical cord and the bloody afghan like a cape. Ink stood in the foyer. Filly, shocked and cursing, stamped near the sink.
“By the Halls!” Filly spat with rage.
“My apologies,” Ink said, dusting off the keypad. “But I did not invoke you.”
Filly spun on her heel, spying Joy. “You!” Joy cringed, her head pounding with relief and a pressing need to collapse. She focused on Filly’s accusatory finger. “You called me to battle!”
“There was a battle!” Joy said. “You were in it!”
Filly snorted, horselike. “Too short.” She threw a hank of something long-haired and bleeding into the sink and shoved it down the disposal, switching it on. It made a choppy, chunky sound. She snapped it off. “Call me when something interesting happens,” she muttered.
“Victory!” Ink saluted her.
“Victory,” she said halfheartedly and with obvious disappointment. There was a clap of thunder. Joy watched her disperse, static ra
ising the hairs on her arms.
She blinked around her apartment, touching the couch with an experimental toe.
“This is...?” she said, almost unsure.
“Real,” Ink confirmed. “Yes, Joy. This is real.”
Something inside Joy began to relax, but not much.
“You did well,” Ink said, coming to her side. “I would not have thought to ring a bell.”
“Yeah, well, modern technology.” Joy looked around, dazed. “This was Aniseed’s doing?”
He touched the wall. “Yes.”
“Because she wants your signatura,” she said hollowly.
“Yes,” he said. “I think that is why.”
Joy nodded, clamping her bundled, bleeding hand under her armpit and staring stupidly into space. One thought bobbed to the surface. “Don’t give it to her,” Joy said. “Whatever happens, don’t let her have it.”
“I will not,” he said. “But I will not risk you.” Ink’s face softened now that the fear had passed. He cupped the side of Joy’s face and wiped wetness from her eyes.
“I can’t leave you alone for a minute,” he chastised her softly.
Joy chuckled in surprise. “You ‘can’t’?” she echoed. “You’re using contractions more.”
Ink rubbed his thumb against her cheek. “I blame you.”
A key in the door rattled. Joy tensed and Ink stepped back as the front door swung open. Joy’s father and Shelley walked into the house. Joy tried not to look at Ink as his black gaze followed them both.
“Dad,” she said, adjusting the afghan around her. “Shelley. Hi.”
“Hi,” her father said. He took Shelley’s coat and hung it in the closet. “How was shopping?”
Joy stared at him. Shopping? How long ago was that?
“Joy?” her dad prompted. “Did you buy something?”
She snapped out of it enough to look him in the eye.
“No,” she said. “No. Nothing. Just window-shopping.” Joy spoke a little more quickly than she thought must be normal. “Monica bought bras,” she blurted out. “I mean she bought stuff and I just...” watched? looked? “...helped.” The adults exchanged looks as if they might laugh. This conversation was officially veering out of control. Joy’s brain replayed blood and cake and kissing Inq and demi-bras and Nikolai and monsters and Kestrel and sigils written in chalk. She’d lost track of time. Her head spun. She squeezed the afghan closer. Ink followed her dad curiously as he circled the counter. He was examining her father’s clothes with interest.