Despite myself, I was fascinated. Strange as it might sound, listening to Rory, I forgot the horror of what I had just seen. I forgot that we were walking into town, in the direction of the strange shadowy figures. I even forgot for a moment that we were in the underworld at all.
But I couldn’t reconcile something Rory had said earlier with what I had seen and heard tonight.
“Rory,” I said, stopping in place and putting my hand on his shoulder.
He met my gaze with his own and, once again, his dark eyes were impossible for me to read.
“If your coven tries so hard to do the right thing, why were they trying to wipe your memory? That seems like a pretty extreme form of punishment. And why try and stop us from saving Gwydion in the first place?”
Something passed across his face and I knew suddenly that I had given voice to thoughts he’d been thinking all along. But he couldn’t — or wouldn’t — answer me.
A long silence passed between us. Rory seemed to shrink in upon himself.
I felt a pang of guilt, but I continued anyway. “Rory, if we do make it out of here, what happens then? Are they still going to give you the waters of Lethe? Are they going to give it to me as well? And to Gwydion?”
Rory looked away from me sharply, but I not before I caught the look of pain — and guilt — etched into the lines of his face.
“I don’t know Kendra. I wish I did.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We'd been walking for what seemed like a long time. In reality, I wasn't sure how much time had actually passed. The sameness of the surroundings made every moment seem twice as long as it should have. Or rather, it made time seem unimportant.
Of course, I knew better. Time was crucial and it was not on our side. Earlier, sunrise had seemed remote and distant; plenty of time to find Gwydion. Now, I was terrified that dawn would be upon us at any moment. Though, I wasn't really sure how we'd know when we began running out of time.
I didn’t ask Rory. I didn't really want to dwell on how hopeless this situation might actually be, though the thought lingered in the back of my mind. The underworld was much more vast and empty than I had imagined it would be. Even though I had what amounted to the magical equivalent of a compass to point the way to Gwydion, I still wasn't entirely sure how we were going to find him in time.
Though the town had seemed closer as we were descending the mountain, now that we were on level ground, it suddenly seemed further and further away with each step we took. I wondered if it was some kind of weird underworld quirk, that objects appeared closer until you tried to actually get to them. Rory didn't seem concerned. Or, if he was concerned, he didn't show it.
He had lapsed into a grim silence beside me.
And without any distraction, I was again confronted by the fact that the world was no longer quite the way I'd thought it was. Had Gwydion seen the same thing we’d witnessed? Had he known the truth of what had befallen the town beforehand, or had he been just as taken aback as I was?
My brother suddenly felt farther away than ever. The fact that I had no idea how he would have reacted to what we'd just witnessed made him seem even more distant in my mind. Gwydion had known that witchcraft was real before ever coming here. Rory had made it sound like they’d kept their secret for awhile. Months, at least. Maybe longer than that. How had Gwydion kept it a secret from me?
At that thought, I finally broke the silence.
“How did Gwydion find out that you're a witch?”
Rory glanced at me warily. I only saw it for an instant, so quickly that I might have imagined it.
Then he grinned at me.
His bright smile didn't quite seem genuine. It looked like it was stretched tightly across his face, almost like a grimace.
“Which time?”
At my mystified expression, his smile became more genuine.
“We met in jail,” He said. “That's where he learned about all of this. The first time, at least.”
“Jail?”
“I've lived a full life,” Rory assured me, his voice light. “The coven was tracking a particularly powerful and nasty revenant in Seattle that was killing people in the King County jail.”
“Revenant?”
“Basically a murderous ghost that can become corporeal at will. In general, they're nasty business. I prefer zombies.”
“Well, who wouldn't?”
“Anyway, I was the bait. This thing was only going after a certain kind of guy. The kind that preferred the company of other men. And since I was the only one in the coven that fit the profile, I was the one who had to draw it out.”
“So you went to jail?”
“I stole a car,” He explained, sounding proud of himself. “I immediately got caught. Obviously, that was the point.”
“Right, but isn't grand-theft auto kind of a big gamble? What if you'd gotten thrown in a different jail? And also, is having a criminal record really worth it?”
“Well, I wasn't really on my own. The coven was behind the scenes, enchanting the situation to make sure that I ended up in the right place, on the right floor, in the correct cell block,” Rory said.
“Right,” I said, chilled. “Because that's something you can do. Manipulate things like that.”
Rory shrugged. “That's nothing, actually. The coven is like...” He trailed off with a frown, as though searching for the perfect analogy, “Like a swat team. Except with magical powers.”
Shockingly, his words did nothing to lessen my disquiet.
Rory fell silent again.
“So you stole a car,” I prompted. “And your coven made sure you landed in the right place? Wasn't that sort of dangerous? Since it was just you?”
Not that I particularly doubted him. I'd already seen what he was capable of, and something told me that I hadn't seen the half of it yet.
“The coven linked their powers to mine. So it wasn't just me, not really.”
“And you met Gwydion there?”
“He was my cell mate,” Rory agreed. “The first time I saw him, it was electric.”
“Skip the pornographic bits, please.”
“It wasn't like that,” Rory said. “Anyway, he saved my life.”
I felt my eyebrows raise in surprise.
Rory shot me a rueful smile, “It turns out that you’re right. One witch acting alone, no matter how powerful they are, is a bit of a bad idea when there's a monster in the mix.”
“Gwydion’s nobody’s hero,” I said. I had meant for the words to sound joking, but it came out flat. An unequivocal statement of fact.
The moment the words left my lips, I was taken aback at myself. I felt my cheeks flush hot.
Rory stopped in mid-stride, then turned to me. He looked at me seriously, “Kendra, your brother has helped me save more than one life since he’s found out about all of this.”
I stared at him, still feeling my cheeks burn. I instantly knew that I didn't believe him, which made me feel even worse. I wanted to, but I didn't. My brother was a great many things, but he wasn’t exactly a white knight. Maybe he had been once, but not anymore.
Rory bit his lower lip, studying me.
“Let me show you something,” Rory said finally. “It's actually one of the cooler features of the underworld. Basically the only perk, if you use it right. The darkness is malleable.”
“Malleable?”
“You'll see,” He assured me.
His eyes became fixed on something behind me. He made a weaving motion with his hands, then incanted something under his breath.
I followed his gaze and the breath caught in my throat.
Fog rose up from the darkness, molding itself into shapes. Just like it had earlier, when we'd been shown the vision of the creature — if it could be called that — that had destroyed Hollow Hill. Within seconds, the scene before us was as clear and vivid as a film projected onto a movie screen. With a start, I saw that the memory was in colo
r. I'd gotten used to the eternal grayness of this place.
The first thing I noticed was the ugly pale yellow of the walls, the color of a rapidly spoiling cream. The room was small, only about eight feet wide and ten feet long. Two cheerless metal bunk beds were bolted into one wall. They were painted a pale shade of mint green. A stainless steel toilet was bolted into the narrow scrap of wall beside the bed. The floor was a flat gray color and looked to be made out of some kind of laminate. A buzzing florescent light in the ceiling cast the room in a dingy white light and there were no windows at all in the room, only a set of thick metal bars.
There were two men in the room. I recognized them both immediately. Rory and Gwydion. They were lying down on the beds. Rory was on the bottom bunk and Gwydion was on the top bunk. Though they were both lying down, they were still wide awake.
“So,” Gwydion said, breaking what had clearly been an uncomfortable silence. “Why'd you take the salt?” His voice sounded oddly hoarse, as though it had been a long time since he'd last spoken.
Rory frowned up at Gwydion from the bottom bunk.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw you take extra packets at dinner.”
I saw Rory was still frowning. He was silent for a long moment, before saying, “You were watching me?”
His tone wasn't inviting. In fact, he sounded almost dangerous.
“No,” Gwydion said immediately. He looked a little deflated and I saw that a blush had crept into his cheeks. He added, “I’m sorry, I just thought—”
“Look, just stop right there. I'm not up for doing any prison-bonding with you.” The look on Rory’s face wasn’t tough at all, though. He looked almost regretful.
“Look, I’m just passing the time. I just thought—”
“This isn't OZ,” Rory said, interrupting him. “We don’t need to team up for protection. And I'm not exactly a hardened criminal. It's my first time here.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell people that.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You know,” Gwydion said, “I saw you step in to help out Smithy earlier. Everyone else was just watching, too afraid to do anything, and you stepped in between Smithy and Cobra like it was nothing.”
“Cobra? That can’t be his real name.”
“No, it’s just what we’ve been calling him. Because of the tattoo. On his hand.”
“Clever,” Rory said. “I was looking for a place to sit down. That seemed like as good a place as any. What makes you think that Cobra was even going to do anything?”
“The first day he got here, he sent someone to the hospital. Or at least, that’s what I heard.”
I saw anger twist Rory’s face up into a hard knot, but he didn’t say anything.
“The weird part is that Cobra backed down,” Gwydion added. “Right when you sat down. You didn’t even have to say anything, but the look on his face...” He trailed off and I could see that he was frowning, as though lost in thought. “He looked spooked. I didn’t know guys like that could be scared.”
Rory lost his smile. “Whatever you think you saw, I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You probably made an enemy in here,” Gwydion said, ignoring him. “Cobra’s been here awhile, so probably more than one. He’s got friends.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Rory said again. “And why do you care so much? Are you warning me or threatening me?”
“I’m just trying to understand why you did it.”
“And I’m telling you that’s none of your business.”
“Look, it’s my first time in here too. I shouldn’t be here. Or, I don’t know, maybe I should be,” Gwydion said. For the first time, I noticed that he sounded a little bit afraid. A little bit like the boy I'd once known. He was silent for a long time. “I wanted to help him too. Smithy, I mean. But I didn’t. You did. Whether or not you meant to, you did.”
Rory looked as though he had no idea what to say to that.
Gwydion spoke again, after more than a minute had passed in silence, “Do you regret it?”
“Regret what?”
“Whatever brought you here? To this point in your life, I guess.”
“Well, being caught stealing extra packets of salt by my cell mate and then cross-examined for where I chose to sit at dinner aren’t really high points in my life,” Rory replied. He hesitated, then added, “But no, I don't regret my choices.”
“I do,” Gwydion said quietly. “Almost everything I've ever done has ended up being a bad choice.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Rory asked, but his tone was gentler now. There was no trace of rebuke in it. He sounded legitimately curious, “Most guys in here would beat the crap out of you for talking to them this way. Like Cobra, for instance.”
“You're not like him,” Gwydion said. He sounded suddenly very young. “You wouldn't hurt — anyone. Not unless they forced you to.”
Gwydion had been about to say 'you wouldn't hurt me', but he had stopped himself in mid-sentence. The younger version of Rory caught it. We both caught it.
I watched as emotions chased each other across Rory's face: surprise and a flash of something else, something that I couldn’t quite read. It was fierce and almost protective.
“You don't know that,” Rory said. “I could be a psychopath, for all you know.”
“I know psychopaths,” Gwydion said softly. His eyes were faraway, fixed on the ceiling. “I was raised by one. I know how to tell whether or not someone is the sort of person you can trust. Even if I hadn’t seen what you did earlier, I would’ve known what kind of person you were.”
Rory didn't seem to know how to answer that, though I could see that he wanted to.
“You said that you keep making bad choices. Why not make some good ones when you get out of here?”
“Easy enough,” Gwydion muttered. “Tell you what, if I ever find a good choice, I'll let you know.”
“I wish you would,” Rory replied immediately. Something in the way he said it seemed to surprise them both.
“Well,” Gwydion said finally, breaking the awkward silence that had descended. “Anyway, when I saw you stealing salt, I took a couple of extra packets too. They're under your mattress.”
Rory propped himself up on one elbow and pulled back the corner of his thin mattress, more a thick pad than anything else. Sure enough, a large handful of salt packets were spread out on the mint-green metal. Rory didn't say anything, but when he laid back down, I could see that both boys had identical grins on their faces.
Then scene changed before us. It was still the same jail cell, but this time, the overhead light in the ceiling was off. The cell wasn't dark though – the lights in the hallway had dimmed, but they still cast enough illumination to see everything perfectly.
Gwydion was asleep on the top bunk. The way that he was curled up on himself, he still seemed younger and more boyish than he should have been. But even in sleep, there was something guarded in his expression.
Rory was lying on the bottom bunk. He seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes open. Every few seconds, his eyes would close, then reopen suddenly. As though he were trying to keep himself awake.
I gave the real Rory a worried look. He was watching the scene in front of us with a remote expression, but I noticed the way that his eyes lingered on Gwydion.
I turned back to the scene that was unfolding in front of us.
The light directly outside the cell dimmed suddenly. There was a faint crackling sound from the hallway. Then the light blew out entirely, plunging the cell into darkness.
For the briefest moment, I couldn't see anything at all.
Then I heard the younger version of Rory mutter something under his breath. The air itself seemed to lighten somehow, almost imperceptibly. The effect was so subtle that anyone looking at it might not notice that there was no actual light source to provide any
sort of illumination to the room, but it was just enough light that I could see what was happening.
Something was in the hallway, just outside the bars to their cell.
It was like a cloud of thick gray-white smoke, but there was something wrong with it. Whereas ordinary smoke would have dispersed itself, rising towards the ceiling and filling the space, this was holding itself together somehow and hovering in place.
It lingered for a long moment, as though watching them through the bars.
A moment later, it moved towards the cell, passing through the steel bars effortlessly. In a heartbeat, it was in the cell with them.
And then it moved again, but not towards Rory and Gwydion. It looked like it was gathering itself together somehow. Like it was forming a body for itself.
A moment later, it looked less like a cloud and more like a man, except entirely white. His face was contorted in rage, but I couldn't make out any features. His neck and chest were dripping with what looked to be a strange glowing white fluid that looked almost phosphorescent. It took a moment for me to realize that it was blood.
In stages, but still impossibly fast, color and detail flowed into the specter, until he could have been any other flesh and blood person standing in the cell with them. He was built like a mountain and his facial features seemed blunt and hard, though it was difficult to tell much more than that, because his face was still contorted in rage. He was dressed like a prison guard. He was completely covered in blood and there was a strange gleam in his eye. Excitement.
He was holding a butcher's knife in his hand.
Before Rory could move, the revenant had crossed the room in an instant.
It brought the knife down.
Rory rolled away, but the knife caught him in the shoulder. It was a glancing blow, but a small cry of pain escaped his lips. For split second, I saw something shining where the knife had cut him in the not-darkness.
Rory was bleeding.
The revenant blocked Rory's exit.
Gwydion stirred on the top bunk.
The revenant's eyes snapped to him. It grinned, delighted.
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