I could go through that gate and be back in the cemetery. But then I'd suffer Cairn sickness as well as bleed to death from a sword wound and a bite. I had to take a chance. I didn't want to be stuck here indefinitely.
I tried to move faster toward the gate. But every step was harder than the next. I'd lost a lot of blood, and if I didn't get that bite treated, it could get infected, given all the rot and nasty in that thing's mouth.
I lost my footing as my knees gave out. Both of them. I landed on my right side, unable to lift my head or do anything else. The castle grew dark. "Mike…I'm so…so sorry…"
OLD ENEMiES
I was back in the tree, wrapped in rough bark. I couldn't breathe or move or speak. It was cold and I was afraid of the dark. Things lived in the dark. Mom had been afraid, too. She used to bless the house every night and light a white candle in the window to ward away the bad things. Dad never understood, nor did my sister and brother. Dad called her names, bad names. Dad said it was burning those white candles that set the house on fire and killed her.
The tree was talking to me, telling me about the earth and the worlds that existed around it. It told me I needed to be still and listen to my small, still voice.
But when I did…when I made myself still in that tree and stopped fighting the bark closing in on me so I could hear that still voice… all I heard was it screaming….
"Darren?"
I knew the voice.
Opening my eyes was difficult. They felt swollen and sore. As I tuned into my body, then everything felt swollen and bruised. Memories came back piecemeal. The arch in the cemetery. Rippin' Jack possessing Mike. A castle made of obsidian-black stone. Zombie Boy chomping down on me—
"Stop moving…just relax, okay?"
The voice was there again and I looked to my left to see Stella looking down at me. Stella. She was alive, and she didn't look crazy. She leaned away for a second and then placed a cold, wet rag on my forehead. I shivered. In fact, I couldn't stop shivering. I was wrapped in thick, gray blankets in a large gray bed. Did I make it out? Was I still in the castle?
I pulled my arms from beneath the blankets and looked at them. There were marks on my wrists and my left hand was still wrapped in a strip of my tee-shirt. I tried to move my left leg to bend it like I always did when I was lying down, but the pain that lanced up my left thigh made me see stars. I remembered the sword and the slice through my thigh.
"Darren, you've got some serious wounds this time. And one of them's infected. I've given you some tea and your fever has finally broken."
I stared at her. Thinking was slow. Putting thoughts into a coherent sentence, and then translating them into questions seemed impossible. It felt like my brain was full of cotton. "Castle…are we out? The Djin said he let you go."
"Yes, he did." She took my left hand and put it to her cheek.. "But I came back for you. Raven sent me. I found you in the hall. You were bleeding. So I dragged you to bed and I've been taking care of you ever since."
I went back over what she said, making sure I understood it. "So…Raven sent you in? She didn't get me out?"
She laughed and took the towel from my forehead. I heard her dip it into more water and wring it out, then she placed it back on my forehead. "I think you're still delirious, Darren. You've been sick for a while. But the doctor said you'd recover."
"Doctor?" I tried to push myself up in the bed but it was like trying to pull the lower half of my body out of mud. It felt like the mattress and blanket were wrapping tighter around me. "Stella—"
"Sshh. Just lay back down."
"I'm in pain…did the doctor give you anything for pain?"
"No. She said you'd be okay."
Something felt off. Way off. If I followed Stella's reasoning, then we were still in the Peripheral in that castle. And with the way I felt, I had a full-on raging fever, which meant infection. And infection was probably from the Lamia bite, either from bacteria or because I was becoming a Lamia. "Stella, I ran a sword through my thigh and a Lamia bit me."
"A Lamia?"
"Yeah…it's a monster. Ghouls make them."
"Yes they do."
I managed to pull the blanket off of me. I was a human burrito in this bed. What I saw when I pulled it back shocked the hell out of me. I was still fully clothed. The only bandage around my thigh was the one I'd made with my shirt. The bite on the left thigh was green and oozing and the bed was soaked with blood. I was literally laying in a bed of my own blood. I hadn't seen a doctor at all.
"Stella, how long have I been here?"
"Several days. Look…" She took the towel out of my lap where it fell when I moved the blanket. "Let's see if we can't get you back to sleep. Okay?"
"Stella." I grabbed her hand with my damaged one. My grip wasn't strong—I doubted I could hold a kitten my hand shook so bad. "Please, did we leave the Peripheral?"
"Darren, nothing leaves the Peripheral. That's the rule. The door's gone, so you'll just have to—" She stopped and smiled at me, as if she forgot what she was going to say.
"Stella…have you seen anything that looks like a mirror floating in midair?"
She started to say something, then closed her mouth and looked upset. "I'm not supposed to say."
"Does that mean you have?"
"Yes, but it's not here. It's in the woods." She looked to her right, then her left, and leaned in close. Her eyes had a strange sheen to them. "I was in the woods the other day with a nice police officer. Don't you remember? You were there."
A wave of relief washed over me. Good, so she remembered that much. At the time she looked as if she'd been restrained, and she might have been. But now she seemed more…docile. I wiped at my forehead and face with the corner of the blanket. I was sweating. Hopefully that meant the fever really was breaking. "Can you take me back there? I think the fresh air would do me good."
"I'm not supposed to…"
The door opened and a large, familiar raven flew in. It landed on the foot of the bed and cawed, "Hob! Hob! Go to Hob!"
Puck! The raven that annoyed Maab by crying out the truth. Was he telling me to see Hob now as the truth?
Hob was the Urisk that guarded Maab's Cairn in Alfheim. Hob had helped us, healed us, helped us escape. His price had been the want of conversation, and I felt a pang of guilt because I never tried to go back and visit with him.
"Shoo!" Stella jumped up and grabbed a broom. The raven took flight again and dodged Stella's attack.
"Hob! Hob!"
I managed to sort of move my legs over the side of the bed. I stopped there because standing terrified me. "Puck! Where is Alfheim from here?"
"Follow the Black Road!" The raven ducked past Stella and out the door.
"Damn nuisance! Maab should have killed that damn thing centuries ago."
I paused in the middle of hoisting myself off the bed. I looked at Stella. "Maab? You know the former Faerie Queen?"
Stella looked confused at first, then worried, and then she wiped it all away with a smile. "My poor Darren…you're sick. You must have heard me wrong."
"No…I heard you just right. You're not Stella. I'm still in the Peripheral."
She glared at me. Didn't move. Didn't say a word.
I managed to pull myself up to a standing position—of course, the headboard supported most of me and I was standing on my right leg. "I'm going to find Hob."
"Hob's dead."
Stella's voice wasn't Stella's anymore. It was a flat, empty voice. No, not quite empty. There was something there, full of misery and pain.
I didn't want to spend time on who or what this was. I didn't want to believe Hob was dead, either. Why would Puck come find me if the Urisk was gone? Puck had been the one to warn us at Maab's castle that day. He'd been the only one to tell the truth.
I narrowed my eyes at Stella as she stood a few feet away, the broom still in her hand. "Who are you?"
A smile pulled at the corners of her lips. "You really don't know."
<
br /> "Why would I know?" I attempted to ease myself to the left toward the open door.
The door slammed shut.
Oh boy.
Not-Stella took a single step toward me, and as she did, her appearance shifted. The red in her hair slipped down 'til it hung on the ends of platinum hair. Her long face morphed to a more petite shape. Her lips went from red to black, and her body shortened. Her clothing moved and folded until she was dressed in smoke and shadows. Small fires burned inside of a billowing skirt and I held onto the headboard for dear life.
But this wasn't Stella—oh fuck no, it wasn't her.
This was Rhonda Orly.
A sly smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she tilted her head toward her right shoulder and her eyes grew red. "Hello, Darren. I can't say the Peripheral has been kind to you."
Her voice was doubled like a Revenant's, a harmonic resonance that scared the bejesus out of me. I swallowed and cleared my throat. "Who….who else do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"
"Oh, you mean my First Born?" She laughed. "We don't call ourselves that here, Darren. That was the name my grandfather's second wife gave her brood when he mated her. A direct stab at wanting to make the children of his first love illegitimate." She laughed. "As if our grandmother cared."
I had no idea what she was talking about. And I really didn't care. I was still dealing with the shock of learning Rhonda was now a Revenant and the First Born, or whatever it called itself, inside of her was a complete nutcase. Not to mention my own circumstances had just gotten a whole lot worse. Rhonda manipulated the Grimoire to make me love her when she was just a mortal witch. I didn't remember it, but I got the story from others. They all told it the same.
She had the key to fucking me up really bad.
I glanced at the bed. At the blood-stained sheets. Stained being the key word. The blood was dried. I looked down at my ripped jeans. The blood was dried there as well. I put a hand to my chest. Had she messed with the Grimoire while I was out?
Rhonda and her creepy imaginary friend made tsk-tsk noises as she moved slowly to the desk on the other side of the room and leaned the broom against the wall. "I haven't touched the book, Darren. I no longer have that access. That Angelic whore locked me out of it. But don't think I haven't tried the entire time you've been here."
Entire time… "How long…?"
"In the Material World, a month has passed." She smiled at me and a chill ran the length of my back. "Your friends believe you dead. You shouldn't have made it so easy for Rippin' Jack."
The Djin! I licked my lips and tested my power. The book opened, and flipped forward and then back as I begged it for a way out of this and back home. I didn't want to believe that much time had passed.
"It's no use, Darren. You see, we have been searching for a very long time. To find a way to free our mother from the prison my grandfather placed her in."
"We?" I prompted. I wanted to keep her busy until I found what I needed. I figured I could use the same spell I'd used to freeze Raven in the dojo, but I also needed something to heal me, or at least give me the strength to find Alfheim and Hob.
But then I didn't need her to answer. I already had it. I looked at her. "You're Charybdis. You're the one that turned Lucy into a Ghoul and made her create the Lamias."
She reached out and touched my nose. "Good. Very smart. Have you figured everything out?"
"No. I don't know how you got to Rhonda…or why you hired a Djin—"
"I didn't hire the Djin," she spat out and her eyes flamed behind dark lashes. "I would never lower myself to make a deal with something as pathetic and simple as one of those."
She hadn't hired him to take me. "So you weren't the one he delivered me to."
"No…" she laughed and spun once, her skirts igniting with dancing flame. "And that's why I don't trust them. Oh you were delivered correctly, but then the idiot took the one thing his boss had forbidden him to touch. But by that time, the contract was finished. And you were sealed."
I knew I was missing something. Something important. "You…you want to create the Coyote Flame. You want the large portal made."
"To bring my family into this world." She held out her arms and curtsied. "Yes I am Charybdis. My brother is Scylla. My sister is called Chimera. And our mother was known as Echidna."
I blinked at her. Her family read like a mythological disaster. "Echidna—the mother of all monsters?"
Whoops. Wrong thing to say.
Charybdis/Rhonda was instantly in my face, her hands at my throat. I didn't have to lean on the headboard and wall anymore because she was holding me up by my spine. "We are not monsters! We were betrayed by the God Mother…how dare you even speak my mother's name! You who reek of her stench. Her blood."
Again…clueless. But it didn't matter, because the lack of blood to my brain was cutting off all serious thinking.
Revenants were strong. Damn strong. So if I didn't act quick, she was going to kill me, and then either the book would heal me or it'd be on its way to the Well of Souls.
"Batiltu!" It came out more like a cough as I used my cumulated anger and fear to blast her at the same time. She let go of me and flew across the room, then froze in midair.
I went down on my knees, coughing as I pulled air into my lungs. That expenditure cost me, and I didn't have time to ask the millions of questions battering at my brain. I had to get back to the Material world—I had to find Hob. I had to find Mike.
Once standing—sort of—I yanked the door open and looked up and down the corridor. I was still in the castle. Not a person in sight. I had no idea where this castle was in relation to where the ruined hulk of Maab's was. But if I could get to Maab's, I knew I could find the Cairn entrance. I was pretty sure Charybdis had closed the one in this place.
As I glanced back at Rhonda, I felt the book open to a page I hadn't seen before. The spell formed in the air between myself and her. She saw it as well and screamed through unmoving lips. She knew what the spell would do. So did I.
But…the real question was…could I knowingly do this to her?
It was a spell to permanently sever a First Born from their host. I doubted I had the energy to do it, or the time. The look in her eyes terrified me about as much as the thought of performing it. I wiped it away and asked for healing instead.
A new page appeared in the air before me. This one was much simpler—but still scary. "Emuq tabalu."
Golden light sparkled around Rhonda, swirled like glitter, and formed a funnel from her to my outstretched hand. The funnel bore into my palm and the tattoo there burst into flame. My body seized as if I'd been hit with a million volts of electricity.
Just as quickly, the glitter faded and the light disappeared. I staggered back, my thigh, palm and head no longer hurting. A quick look showed the wounds were gone. But when I dared to look at Rhonda—
A charred, angry husk of a human stared back at me. Her hair was gone, singed from her scalp. Her clothes were gone as well, and the skin…her skin was black and puckered. Only her eyes remained intact and they were solid black as a voice screamed at me in my head.
You will pay for what you have done to me!
I was horrified at what I'd done. Disgusted. I took a few hesitant steps back and looked at my hand. The tattoo circles spun in concentric circles, energized and infused. They hadn't moved or glowed like this since before my memories stopped. And the strength…I felt as if I could burn down the world…if I let myself.
I looked at my left hand—
There was no tattoo. What remained was a puckered scar where the sword had sliced the circles in two.
A part of me…some piece of me knew this was important. That I'd somehow broken something…I just didn't know what.
BETRAYER!
Charybdis's words followed me down the corridors of the castle. Armored Knights tried to stop me, and one by one I reduced them to ash with no idea what or who or if anything dwelled inside of them. One thing I did notic
e; For every knight I hit, my strength increased.
When I saw the double doors open I ran toward them. I ran as fast as I could and the second I cleared them, I was airborne. The wings I'd discovered in Hob's home unfurled and beat furiously as the First Born's words ran throughout the castle.
THE DESTROYER IS MINE!
CAiRN
From the air the Peripheral reminded me of a battle-torn continent. The horizon stretched into eternity on all sides and the sky was a heavy brown tinged with gray. At times I thought maybe—just maybe—blue sky would break through enough for me to breathe. I kept my focus on the land below, searching the valleys and mountains for the broken crystal castle, the one that crumbled when Mike's daughter Brendi removed Maab's head.
Finding that castle was all I thought about. I didn't want to look back at what I'd just done. I didn't want to remember how Rhonda looked—burned, suspended in midair—or the strength and power in the voice that still echoed around in my head. I was better physically because of what I'd done, but I was scared out of my mind mentally.
Whatever kind of First Born Rhonda had invited in wasn't like Jason's or Manuel's. No…this thing had power behind it. It was different.
Very, very different.
I didn't know how long my spell would hold it, and I didn't want to be in the 'Pheral when it failed. I was sure Charybdis had me well within her sights. I was her number-one target. I didn't even want to guess at the knowledge she'd gleaned from possessing Rhonda.
About the Society. About the Revenants.
About me.
And for once I was pretty damn happy Gabriel had fixed the Grimoire so Rhonda couldn't fuck with it.
The first broken turrets of the crystal castle appeared over a ridge. My heart thundered in my chest as I got closer so I spiraled around to find the broken wall that myself, Mike and Sam had traveled to. I remembered the barren waste, but didn't see it for miles on either side. When I found the wall, I landed not so well on the dirt and dead grass. The heels of my bare feet kicked up a cloud of dust as the sword appeared in my hand. My left leg threatened to buckle under me and I looked down at the poorly bandaged wounds. It didn't look like I was still bleeding, but I didn't want to remove it and peek, just in case that band of tee-shirt was the only thing keeping my leg working.
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