Her face showed nothing, but I heard the hint of urgency in her voice, perhaps fear. I swayed close. “You haven’t told the other demons in the veil, have you?”
Blood Mama looked at me with disdain. “Told them what? That the Wardens are dead? That the Avatars, the creatures who built the veil, have abandoned this world? Or perhaps I should explain how my children have managed to roam free all these millennia, while they stay locked within their cells. Oh, they would take that well, indeed.”
“You’ve played them.”
“I have avoided them, when I can.” Blood Mama leaned against the open car door, staring hard into my eyes. “Understand your enemy, Hunter.”
I also leaned on the door. I removed my glove, and rested my naked hand against hers. Blood Mama did not flinch. Her aura remained steady. Raw hummed against her skin. Hungry, but holding steady.
“There is nothing more intimate than death,” said Blood Mama, tilting closer, voice husky. “I have taught that lesson to more than one of your ancestors.”
“And did you tell them what you’re afraid of? You, Blood Mama?” I also lowered my voice, but only because tourists were walking particularly close to the car, staring. “Maybe you could share with me what is so particularly worrisome about the secret my mother left? Because I think you know.”
Blood Mama’s gaze faltered, and she withdrew her hand—sliding into the sedan with careless grace. Edik sat in the shadows beside her—a spare, silent figure, still pushing his glasses up his nose. He could not look me in the eyes, but Blood Mama held my gaze, the cold, sleek beauty of her host body fading beneath the storm of her immense aura.
“The truth is simple,” she said quietly. “There is a fine line between salvation and damnation, Hunter. And you, I am afraid, are it.”
She shut the door. The sedan pulled away. I stood at the side of the cobblestone street, watching her go, and pulled the stone disc from my back pocket.
In the sunlight, nestled in the black leather of my mother’s gloves, the engraved lines glowed like smashed pearls inlaid with veins of silver fire, flickering over the surface as though the aurora borealis were skimming stone.
Labyrinth, Sarai had whispered.
Some mysteries. I was in so much trouble.
I heard the roar of a large engine. I turned, and the sun blinded my eyes. Hands touched my back.
Someone pushed.
And a bus hit me.
CHAPTER 12
I had never been hit by anything larger than a dune buggy—and that was under extenuating circumstances involving a runaway donkey, a one-legged zombie with a shotgun, and the unfortunate arrival of a freak sandstorm. All of which contributed to my sudden and intimate connection with the wheels of a fast-moving vehicle.
A bus was infinitely larger.
I went down hard. Felt the boys move in the split second before impact, shifting their sleeping bodies across my face. My nose and jaw slammed into the cobblestones with enough force to crush bone, but I felt no pain.
I must have dropped the stone disc. I saw it in front of me, and my hand closed over it just as a bumper slammed into my shoulder and head. I flew; I spun; wheels rolled over my legs—and the sun disappeared beneath a steel chassis that was long and dark, and choked me with exhaust.
Bad day. Very bad day.
Everything stopped. My body. The bus. All I could hear was the engine dripping and my blood thundering. My hands clutched the stone to my chest, my fingers digging into the engraved lines, and for a moment an odd sensation passed over me, as though I was fading away. I saw my mother inside my head—and beyond her, other women, all of them wearing my face. All of them afraid.
Afraid of themselves.
The vision faded, but was replaced: I saw the demon in his cloak—Oturu—and in front of him a woman with my face—wearing tattoos and little else. They stood together, close, leaning in with such comfort, such ease, it was clear they had done so often, for a long time. Behind them I saw a purple sky, two moons. Big moons. Moons totally unlike the single moon I enjoyed staring at when the sun went down.
I snapped out of it. The world poured back in. I sucked in a deep breath. Still under the bus, staring at an engine. Stone clutched tightly in my hand.
But for a moment, all I could see was that vision. Oturu, one of my ancestors—not me, not me—standing beneath an alien sky.
Sounds intruded: some woman, screaming so violently she might have been the one under the bus. My hands started to shake. I returned the disc to my pocket, then took a deep breath and rolled carefully on my stomach. Men were scooting under the bus to help me. I let them, trying to ignore their stares as they saw my face. Took me a moment to realize why they seemed so taken aback.
The boys. The boys had covered my face. And they had not shifted away. My face was covered in tattoos.
I took another deep breath. My rescuers were talking, saying my spine might be broken, my legs crushed. I could have brain damage. They told me not to move.
Like hell. I started crawling. People dragged me free. I heard a collective hiss from the crowd as soon as they saw me—whether from my miraculous survival or my face, I had no idea. A camera flash went off, though. Cell phones pointed in my direction. I was spectacle.
"We’ve called an ambulance,” said one of the men, crouching beside me. His gaze could not seem to fix on any one part of my face. “Don’t move.”
“Thank you,” I told him, standing. I pretended to wobble. Hands caught me and people stared. There were so many people. I tried to look through the crowd, but all I could see were eyes, countless eyes, watching my face, my every move. Mouths hanging open.
Something ugly crawled into my gut, and I remembered a hand on my back just before I spilled into the road. I needed to find out what that was about.
I lurched forward, pushing past men and women who tried to stop me. I heard words like miracle and careful, then turned around, just once, to look at the bus that had hit me. A tourist caravan, not public transport; the driver in the road, on his hands and knees, puking up his guts. I felt bad for him. He could not help that someone had tried to murder me.
In the distance, sirens wailed. Too many of those today. The boys were restless on my skin. I reached the spot where I had been pushed.
And found a man. Tall, broad. Skin the color of a cat’s eye, golden and tawny, his hair black and long, wild around his angular face. I normally did not notice men’s noses, but his was large, hooked, close to being ugly, closer still to handsome. Black eyes. Aggressive stare.
He wore jeans, a black turtleneck, and gloves, and a belt buckle the size of my hand, silver and inlaid with enough lapis to make it appear, at first glance, that he carried a solid sheet of precious stone on his belt. Hard to look away, but I did, and glimpsed a band of iron beneath his chin, peeking from the edge of his collar.
I had never seen the man before in my life, but I knew those eyes. I knew that face. I knew him as though he were part of a dream I could not quite recall, but even that much was enough. This was not a coincidence.
“You pushed me,” I said.
“You survived.” He smiled coldly. “But then, your kind always does.”
His voice was craggy and hard, effortlessly masculine. I thought of my mother’s knives. “How do you know who I am?”
“The world is full of mysteries.” He started walking. I stared after him, torn, then followed without looking back. I had little choice. The sirens were louder, and people still watched me. Might as well leave in the same direction. Pushing me under a bus was not the best way to get my attention, but knowing I was invulnerable certainly was. And it seemed to me that too many individuals were well aware of that rather important personal fact. I had kept secrets all my life. For nothing.
I caught my reflection in a car window, and saw a mask of scales shaped like wings flaring across my cheeks. Above my eyebrows, Zee, staring with a gaze like rubies, the tips of his long fingers curled around my jaw. Not a glimpse of
my own skin remained, not even on my eyelids. I could have been in the circus. National Geographic maybe. I hardly recognized myself.
But I was alive. Unbroken. I caught up to the stranger and felt sharp, tangled. My mother’s coat had new scars. I watched for dark auras, and thought about time, slipping away. My hour to Grant.
“Who are you?” I asked.
His smile was cold. “I’m hurt you don’t remember.”
It was not Ahsen, no matter how well she could shift her shape. “We’ve never met.”
“You’re all the same. That look in your eye. It never changes.”
His aura was clean, but that meant nothing. “Who are you?”
The man looked at me, his gaze blistering. “I am your fool, Hunter.”
He grabbed my arm. The world disappeared.
I did not lose consciousness. Merely, sight and sound. I was in a place of absolute darkness; unremitting, hollow, until I felt a shift inside my body, my innards sloshing into bone; and though I found myself still in darkness, there was a moon in the sky, illuminating an endless field of snow and ice; and the air was bitter, and it was night.
Night. The boys woke up.
The pain was worse than usual, but I did not flinch or make a sound. I watched the man, who stood upon the snow with a look of cruel amusement on his face. And when the boys pulled free, swirling around my body like quicksilver ghosts, his expression never changed; only the corner of his mouth hitched higher, and I felt in him a satisfaction that cut me with fury.
No time to act, though. The moment the boys peeled off my skin, I was hit with a cold that stabbed me as surely as if I had slammed myself onto a bed of nails. The bitter chill stole my breath, and I wheezed, folding my arms over my stomach, fighting the urge to drop to my knees. The cold was unbelievable, horrifying; like being swallowed by winter and slowly digested by ice.
Then, Zee. A glimpse of red eyes, the bars of his sharp teeth, just before he wrapped himself around me, arms tight. Dek and Mal wound across my throat and head, while Raw took my back. My legs were harder to protect, but Aaz did his best, all of them clinging like monkeys. Heat seeped through my clothing into the core of my body. Hearts thundered. I could think again.
“The flesh is weak,” said the man, seemingly unconcerned by the cold. “Even yours, Hunter.”
“Where are we?” My voice was hoarse, broken.
“North Pole.” The man stepped closer, and the boys snarled. He laughed, quietly. “Zee. You haven’t aged a bit, I see.”
Zee snapped at the air, hissing, then rattled off a stream of words that were as melodic and wild as the stiff wind cutting across the ice. Until, finally, his tirade slowed, and he rasped, “Enkidu. You cutter slut.”
The man’s smile faded. The moon cast daggers upon his black hair until he was nothing more than a block of darkness, striated with moonlight. His body, so still. His voice rough. “Never use that name, Zee. Never again. You owe me that much.”
Zee spat, his saliva burning through the snow like acid. The man took another step. I tensed, ready to fight. He stopped, though, and looked up. I saw a shadow slice stars, and a demon fell from the sky.
Oturu. He slammed into the ice like an arrow made of night, and the crack of his impact made me shake. I forgot to breathe. His cloak suffocated light. The lower half of his pale face shone like diamond dust glittering across the snow.
I reached inside my jacket, fingers grazing my mother’s knives. My heart thudded against my ribs. “Zee.”
“Yes, Maxine,” he whispered.
“Are you going to help me this time?”
He said nothing. The demon laughed, husky and warm. His feet, those dagger toes, perched on the surface of the snow as though he were lighter than air.
“Zee can do nothing to break his binding word,” said the demon. A tendril of hair snaked from beneath his hat, reaching for the man standing quiet as death beside him. I could not look away as the demon’s hair stroked the human’s cheek, and I glimpsed in those dark eyes a moment of pure hate.
“Tracker,” said the demon. “You did well.”
“It was my honor,” replied the man, with a deference I knew was a lie. The demon seemed to know it, too. That tendril of hair, delicate as a long finger, snaked beneath the man’s collar. I saw the band of iron around his throat; a protruding link. A hook. The demon’s hair knotted itself through the small opening and jerked, once. The man fell to his knees.
“Tracker,” murmured the demon, again. “Learn to kneel before our Lady.”
The man said nothing. He tried to stand, and the leash snapped tight, making him fall, legs encased in snow. His breath puffed, lips turning blue. Cold. He could feel the cold now.
The demon’s cloak flared, snapping at stars. “Kneel. In your heart, kneel.”
“No,” I rasped. “Stop.”
The demon turned, and though his eyes were hidden behind the brim of his hat, I knew he looked straight into my eyes. Stark against the ice, standing on his toes with that wicked, living cloak breathing against the direction of the wind. Graceful. Dangerous.
The hard mouth curved. “You admire us.”
“I admire your grace,” I admitted, hoarsely. “But I’ll kill you anyway.”
“You will kill us all,” said the demon. “But not today.”
Not if I stayed out here much longer. The boys could only do so much in these temperatures. I supposed that was the point. Strip me of my armor, make me vulnerable. Easy to scare.
My teeth were close to chattering. “What do you want?”
“You,” he said, and against my body, the boys stirred, red eyes blinking, hearts pounding. I glanced at the man in the snow. He watched me, shoulders shuddering, hands hidden in the broken icy drift.
“To kill me,” I replied.
The demon smiled. “To follow you.”
I stared, and he danced toward me, floating upon the flat drifts, pricking the ice and snow with the toes of his feet. He dragged the man behind me, his long tendrils of hair still knotted in the iron collar—and though he had pushed me under a bus, I felt a moment of pity as the man tried to stand, again, and fell.
The demon loomed, blending with the night sky, his mouth a hard, dark line, straight and cold as the distant moonlit horizon. I could not see his eyes beneath the hat, but his cloak flared like wings, and I glimpsed movement, deep within: faces and hands, bodies roiling in the abyss. Eating moonlight, starlight, the cold reflection of snow. The boys tightened their hands around my body. I shook, but not from the cold.
“You are frightened of us,” whispered the demon. “Your heart is lost, but we are here now. All of us, born again, for each other.”
“Then tell me,” I croaked, my voice frozen in my throat. “Tell me what I should know.”
“What you should know,” he murmured. “What you should know is the world at your feet. You, Mistress, with your hounds and the Hunt at hand. Goddess, eternal. But you have forgotten. You have become a mystery.” The demon hesitated. “What has been done to you, Hunter?”
I thought of my mother. A tendril of hair snapped toward my head. Zee grabbed it, holding tight, but not before the very tip grazed my brow. Incredible heat washed through my bones. Golden as sunrise, blinding. Through my jeans, against my skin, the stone circle burned.
The demon went perfectly still. All of us, staring, caught in the dark arctic hush, in a river of stars and moonlight. I would have been breathless with its beauty if I was not breathless with fear and dying.
“You have been tampered with,” said the demon.
“Oturu, no,” rasped Zee. “No bargain broken. Just shifts. Been a long time. Old mothers had new ways.”
“And new alliances,” he said ominously. “I smell the wolf. I can taste the unicorn.”
My knees buckled. I fell into the snow and could not pick myself up. My muscles were too cold. Aaz crawled down to my numb feet, curling himself around them. The demon flowed into a crouch, his cloak spreading acro
ss the snow like a splash of ink. The man was behind him, lost from sight. I stared at the brim of that black hat, trembling.
“We forget time,” he whispered. “We forget, always, that you are a mortal creature. You, Hunter, who should bear eternity upon your shoulders. We see you, we see them all, and we remember her. Always her.”
“Her,” I breathed, shuddering from the cold. “One of my ancestors.”
“The greatest of them. The most terrible.” The demon made a hissing sound, a quiet draw of breath. “You are like her, Hunter. We can taste her inside you. It is why we gave you the mark of our clan. Our mark, that we have given no other since her death. It is a prophecy of wonder.”
My hand shook, but I managed to touch my face. Just below my ear, I felt those lines. I could see them inside my head. The demon leaned in, the brim of his hat close enough to touch. “You think we are so different, but we are the same, Hunter. We are the raging hosts and the masters of the dead, and when we command men to follow, they obey. And so it is the men of the earth who kill and maim, like a flock of birds copper red with blood, while we dance upon this world as great and mighty shadows. But we are merely the sword, Hunter, and only the sword. We must have a heart to wield us. Those are the terms, and we keep our bargains.”
“What bargain?” I watched his hair dip into the snow and begin carving designs, knots and tangles that reminded me of the stone engraving, the labyrinth.
“The terms of our survival,” he whispered. “Our dispensation for a favor done. Allowed to survive and hunt, but only at the command of your bloodline, or one of your choosing. It was her last request. She feared. She grieved.” A tendril of hair tapped Zee’s shoulder. “Your Hunter should have been told.”
Zee shook his head. “Made a promise.”
“Your oath conflicts.”
“No,” he rasped. “It saves.”
I shook my head, shuddering. “I don’t believe it. I don’t. N-not with you.”
“Because we are demon. And you hate us.”
“You’ll d-destroy the humans.”
The Iron Hunt Page 16