by Jill Archer
“You take the left side,” I said to Ari, “I’ll take the right.”
“Not a chance,” he said, following closely at my heels. We started searching the lower front deck hand in hand. Ari’s hand in mine grew forged-in-the-fire hot. I recognized the sign. He was preparing for an attack. Did mine feel as hot to him?
We crept around the larger chests and crates, quietly lifting tarp corners, canvas covers, and anything else a demon might hide behind. Nothing. As we neared the front of the boat, I thought I saw a shadow move.
“Come on!” I yelled, dragging Ari forward with me. Fear had suddenly been replaced with anger. How dare this demon come on my boat?!
But when we reached the area where I thought I’d seen the shadow, it turned out to be no more than a piece of untucked cover, flapping in the wind. I bent down and refastened it. When I stood up, Ari stood in front of me with a peculiar expression on his face. Disappointment? Maybe, but oddly, it looked more like anticipation.
“It’s not here,” I said. We’d searched the whole lower deck.
I stood in the last little corner we’d checked. To my left was Cnawlece’s front rail and behind and beside me were more crates. The deck was empty, except for us. I started to move forward, thinking to navigate back through the crates in order to get to the stairs to continue the search . . . and that’s when it dawned on me.
It might not be Ari standing in front of me. It might be the hellcnight.
“Let’s search the rest of the boat,” I said, regretting the slight wobble in my voice. But Ari just shook his head and reached for me. The look on his face cinched it. Ari Carmine would never have looked at me that way. As if I were living meat.
Instantly, I tried to bolt, but the creature was faster. It grabbed my hand and yanked me back with a jerk that nearly tore my arm off. Fear and panic made my mind muddled and I could barely think of what weapon I should be shaping my magic into. The hellcnight, on the other hand, suffered no such performance anxiety. Immediately it shaped its magic into a fiery battle flail, which it held threateningly in its right hand as it advanced on me, pushing me back into the corner between rail and crates.
I tried to duck under its arm, but it seized me by the face and threw me back. My head smashed into the side of a crate. I looked up into its face—Ari’s face—slightly dazed. I shook my head, momentarily amazed that my jaw was still attached, and managed to shape my magic into the first weapon that came to mind: a fireball. I threw it toward the hellcnight, but fear gave my magic an erratic elliptical spin. The fireball clipped the side of the demon’s ear and blasted a nearby crate. I heard pounding footsteps on the sundeck just as the hellcnight started shifting. It was surreal because the face staring back at me was Ari’s. But the expression was one I’d never seen on his face before. Pure hatred.
The footsteps got louder and I heard shouting.
“I’m over he—” I tried to shout, but the hellcnight stepped forward and pressed his hand against my mouth. As the demon shifted, its hand grew rougher. Coarse hairs pierced the soft skin of my cheeks. Soon, the hellcnight’s hand grew so large it covered my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe. I threw another fireball at it, but the creature easily deflected it. Another crate of food and a huge war chest went up in flames. Before my eyes, Ari’s face—the face of the man I’d given my body to countless times and my heart to once and forever—morphed into a gruesomely pale, blue-veined demon’s face with bloodred eyes and a protruding, slavering jaw full of diseased-looking gums and huge, pointy teeth the size of garden stakes.
The hellcnight lowered his mouth to my neck to take a deep bite, but before he could do more than graze my skin with one of his teeth, I heard something that sounded like a lion’s roar and then a huge four-legged beast crashed into the hellcnight, knocking him off of me. It was Delgato, who had shifted into his manticore form.
Hellcnight and manticore fell to the deck with a heavy thud. The flames from the chest and crates filled the air with crackling smoke. I gathered my fear and my anger around me like a fiery blanket and then melded them into the same razor-sharp, diamond-strength type of magic that had killed Serafina. My magic always seemed to be strongest when I was defending someone. I had only the briefest second to hope that would be the case now. I thrust my fiery spear right at the hellcnight’s heart. It would have worked. I could feel how well shaped it was and how accurately I’d thrown it. Problem was, my target moved. Instead of the hellcnight’s heart, it hit Delgato’s. He writhed in agony on top of the hellcnight, his scorpion tail twitching, his lion’s mane fluttering like the red flames surrounding us, his massively muscled body convulsing.
Burr yelled something to Russ and I felt Cnawlece slowing in the water.
I stared as the hellcnight thrust Delgato’s limp body off of him. It stood up, glared evilly at me, and then jumped over the railing just as Ari—the real Ari—Rafe, and Fara ran over. A moment later, I heard a splash. Ari took one look at my neck and stepped forward. But even love couldn’t prevent my involuntary retreat. The image of Ari’s face morphing into the hideously fanged hellcnight was still too fresh in my mind. I held up my hand to stop him.
“Go check on Russ and Burr,” I said, waving at him and Fara. Ari looked like he wanted to argue, but one look at my face convinced him otherwise.
“Heal her,” he barked to Rafe and then turned on his heel and left. I shuddered. I couldn’t help it. Now that the hellcnight had gone, our signatures were released from his hold. One by one they became distinct again. Ari’s was chaotic, angry, even murderous—the effect of which was to further terrify me, since it echoed what I’d seen in the hellcnight’s face just before it had shifted from “Ari” into the horrifying creature that had attacked me. I didn’t want anyone (most of all Ari) to know that the sight of his face scared me, though, so I focused on the third signature—the weakest one—Delgato’s.
Rafe stepped over to me with an expression on his face I’d never seen before: concern. Well, he could take his concern and shove it, I thought viciously. I think anger and unbelievable regret was making me bitchy. I couldn’t bear the thought that instead of saving Delgato, I’d killed him, especially since he had been trying to rescue me. It wasn’t fair to inflict my misery on Rafe, but I could barely stand myself just then, so I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone—even Rafe—showing concern for me.
Rafe tilted my head up so he could see my neck and get a better look at the wound he was going to heal. I shoved his hand away.
“Not me,” I snarled. “Delgato. That’s who you need to heal.”
Rafe said nothing, only raised his eyebrows. But he walked over to the manticore and knelt beside him.
“I can’t bring people back from the dead, Noon,” he said quietly.
“He’s not dead. I can still feel his signature.”
Rafe looked doubtful and then sighed. “I’m an Angel, not a Mederi.”
“You’re an oath breaker, that’s what.” I practically spit the words out. Rafe stared down at the manticore. I couldn’t tell if my words had any effect on him. I knew I didn’t mean them; I was just being mean. I didn’t feel well. My neck hurt where the hellcnight’s tooth had nicked me. The cut stung and I felt even angrier than I had before. It felt like my brain was one big buzzing hornets’ nest. I reached up to touch my neck. It throbbed. My fingertips brushed the cool silver of the alembic’s chain. I would gladly have traded it for what we’d just lost: two crates of food, a war chest full of weapons, and our captain. I slumped to the floor with my back against one of the crates. My last vision was of Rafe trying to heal Delgato.
Chapter 15
I woke up three days later. Cnawlece was still slowly making her way to the Shallows. We were still on Blandjan. And I was still as impatient as ever to reach our destination. I couldn’t help wondering if the fact that we’d been attacked by a hellcnight made Zella Rust’s accusation against Grimasca more likely. Hellcnights weren’t uncommon (not like drakons were) but they weren’t
commonplace the way familiars or water wraiths were. What if Grimasca really was preying on fishermen in the Shallows? What if he’d found out that we were on our way to investigate? What if the hellcnight who had attacked us three nights ago was one of Grimasca’s minions?
I would have loved to have discussed these questions with Ari or Delgato, but neither was available. Delgato had survived, but barely. He was now sleeping in a comatose state in his cabin. Rafe had healed him enough to save his life, but couldn’t wake him from the hellcnight bite–induced sleep. (I’d been incredibly lucky to have just been nicked by the hellcnight’s tooth. Three days was better than three months, three years . . . or forever.) Delgato had reverted back to his human form and, oddly, no trace of his former manticore state remained. His pointed ears, sharp teeth, and long claws were all gone. I couldn’t even feel his signature. No one knew what it meant, not even Rafe, who’d worked the spells that had saved him (if you could call lying in bed in a coma being saved). One theory was that Delgato’s demon attributes were slumbering along with the rest of him. That they’d resurface when he did. Another theory, advanced by Fara, of course, was that he’d used up his nine demonic “cat” lives and there were no more. He was a magic-less human Hyrke now. His next death would be his last.
Who knew? Not us, that’s for sure.
Ari was barely speaking with me. It wasn’t that he was angry with me. Far from it. It was that he seemed to blame himself for everything that had happened the day of the attack . . . and after. Apparently (I have no memory of it; the Angels and crew told me), Ari came to my room the night of the attack. I went berserk, tried to light him and everything else in my room on fire. Rafe doused it all down with his stupid spell Flame Resistant Blanket, but the real damage had been done. Ari was now on watch twenty-four/seven (to use a favorite Hyrke expression). He refused to switch with anyone. He even slept and took his meals up on the sundeck. To be honest, he was barely speaking to anyone.
We were also down two huge crates of food and a chest full of weapons. In hindsight, storing it all together had been a mistake. But these were the sorts of amateur decisions that got first-year MITs like me killed all too often.
* * *
The night before we were supposed to reach Second Branch, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing the hellcnight’s grotesque transformation from Ari’s beloved features into that gruesome mask of decaying flesh, bulging red eyes, and snapping jaw intent on eating me. Before, Ari was the first person I would have sought comfort from. But now . . . ? Despite being on a boat with a fully functional rudder, I felt adrift. Anchorless.
Sometime around two in the morning, I drifted into the library. Stained glass pictures of a dying deity may not have been the best salve for my mood, but there was nowhere else for me to go. Ari prowled around the sundeck. (I could only feel wispy traces of his signature. After I had attacked him, he’d shut his signature down to practically nothing. I guessed so I wouldn’t feel it. It was both sad and terrifying, all the more so because it was also the least bit comforting.) I wanted nothing more to do with the lower front deck. The engine room was off-limits to a waning magic user, so my choices were the galley, dining room, or library. The kitchen didn’t have a couch and these darkened stained glass windows were infinitely preferable to the dining room’s pictures. Especially after the hellcnight’s attack.
I lit some candles—with a match; despite my earlier self-admonishment to stop advancing in “two steps forward, one step back” fashion, it just seemed easier and safer considering the recent story about me going berserk—and took out my case file. If I couldn’t sleep, I might as well study, I thought. In a nutshell, my assignment, and the meager evidence I’d been given so far, amounted to this:
Vodnik, Patron Demon of the Shallows, appeared to have kept his followers safe for over four hundred years. Sure, it’s true that things could have happened in those four hundred years that did not reach the Council’s ears, but it wasn’t likely. As far away as the Shallows was, there was regular, if infrequent, contact between the outpost and New Babylon. And four hundred years was longer than many of the other outposts had lasted. If there’d been trouble before, someone would have eventually heard about it.
So, after thirteen generations of harmonious patronage between lord and followers, the first complaint was filed against Vodnik by an eight-year-old, Athalie Rust, who accused Vodnik of murder, but she hadn’t actually seen it happen (which, considering she was only eight, could only be for the best). She’d accused Vodnik of murdering fifteen of his own fishermen followers, but there was no direct evidence to support her allegation in the file.
The girl’s credibility was also an issue. She was a child. And while I didn’t necessarily think she was lying, she was probably still learning that, in Halja, bad things happened to good people all the time. Sometimes, there was very little fairness in our world. Eight was still young enough to think that every tragedy needed a villain. And while there was no denying that villains in our world were more numerous than most, just because someone disappeared, didn’t necessarily mean that a demon killed them. Even in Halja.
But thinking that the fishermen’s disappearances might simply be an accident seemed naive in light of the second complaint, the one written by Zella. The one that said that Athalie took a walk with Vodnik two days after filing her complaint and never came back.
Just then there was a small thud on the outside of one of the stained glass windows. My heart raced and I nearly set the case file on fire. But then I realized Ari was fishing from up top and it was likely a leech or a crawfish or something that had just hit the window on its way down. I briefly wrestled with the idea of going up top, but I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t inadvertently do something drastic upon seeing Ari’s face in the dark again, so I stayed put and tried to concentrate on the case.
Both Athalie and Zella said in their complaints that Vodnik blamed Grimasca for the fishermen’s disappearances. Athalie hadn’t believed him. In fact, she’d called Vodnik a liar because “Grimasca wasn’t real.” Zella, on the other hand, hadn’t known what to think. Her best guess was that a demon made Athalie disappear. She just didn’t know which one.
I dug out the books I’d collected at Corpus Justica the day before we’d left. Unfortunately, one of the most useful ones, Furious Cinnabar’s Rogare Demons: Survival Strategies had gone into the water that day in the rain when we were loading. Now that Delgato was in a coma, I felt its loss even more fiercely, but I wasn’t going to turn back for a book. Even if Athalie turned out to be the one who was the liar, she was still an eight-year-old girl who was missing in a swamp. If her people hadn’t found her by the time we got there . . . Well, let’s just say that searching for her, and the fishermen, was just as important to me as figuring out why they’d gone missing in the first place. (Although I had to acknowledge, much as I didn’t want to, that they might never be found. When people disappeared in Halja, they usually weren’t.)
I found the old beat-up copy of Oude Rode Ogen, Bicho Papao, and Grimasca: Folktales for Children that I’d found earlier in the library, oddly tucked into a section full of first-century court decisions and antiquated city surveys. Like Delgato, Grimasca wasn’t in the Demon Register. But Delgato was real. Maybe Grimasca was too. I flipped through the tiny book’s table of contents and found what I was looking for:
THE GRIM MASK OF GRIMASCA
Once, long ago, there was a war. A terrible war.
The fields around a once great city died.
People grew hungry.
But Grimasca grew fat.
Inside the crumbling walls of the city was a family.
A father and seven children. All boys.
The father couldn’t feed them.
So he decided to let Grimasca have them.
One day the father packed a picnic.
He packed all of the food they had left.
Paulus, the oldest son, questioned his father:
“Why are you bringing all
the food we have left?”
The father replied: “I am giving away all that I have.”
Paulus didn’t think this was a good idea.
So he took a loaf of bread from the basket
and hid it in his pocket for the family to have later.
The family spent a nice day on the water.
Paulus’ father rowed the boys far away.
They knew not where they were.
Or how to get back.
Paulus’ father found a beautiful meadow
between two streams with a large waertree.
He spread a warm blanket on the ground
and took all the food out of the basket.
Eat, drink, and be merry, he said.
Let this always be a pleasant memory.
And they ate, and they drank, and they were merry.
Their bellies were full and they grew tired.
“Lie down and rest,” said Paulus’ father.
“I will watch over you.”
And he did. For as long as he could.
But he knew Grimasca was coming.
When the boys awoke, their father was gone.
They knew not where they were.
They knew not how to get back.
And they were hungry again.
Grimasca came and Paulus offered him the bread.
“I’m a butcher, not a baker,” Grimasca said.
“What would I do with bread?”
So the boys ate the bread.
Paulus led his brothers deep into the woods.
Soon they came to a house full of giants.
A whole family of them.
A mother and seven children. All girls.
Paulus explained their predicament.
Was the mother willing to let them spend the night?