by Jenn Stark
“We should have a squad here as well,” Brody muttered. “If those kids are injured…”
“Mmm-hmm.” Nikki cocked an eye at him. “You want to tell them that you’ll maybe have six teenagers transported to an off-Strip wedding chapel via mental projection, and you want someone on hand in case anything goes wrong?”
He looked ready to argue, but she waved him off.
“You really think you put in an emergency call this close to downtown, they won’t have a whole fleet of EMTs and police here within two minutes? You’ll get the support you need. And without the straitjacket if we’re not right about what’s about to go down.”
“Fine.” He slid his phone back into his pocket. “What now.”
Nikki took up her position beside me on the stairs, looking from me to the carpet. “Might as well go ahead and sit down, dollface.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Beats falling.”
Brody’s scowl deepened. “And what exactly do you plan on doing with that saw blade, Sara?”
“It’s going to help me get in—and get out, if I do things right.” I laid the star in front of me on the carpeted step. In the glow of the chapel lights, I could see the etching on the metal tips of the blades. “Pretty, don’t you think?”
“Speaking of blades, chop chop,” Nikki barreled on. “You draw cards already?”
“Not yet.”
Brody made a small strangled noise as I reached into my hoodie pocket, fishing for my Rider-Waite deck. I didn’t look at him. The last time he saw me draw cards to find children was the day before everything changed in Memphis…and there was so much water under that bridge, I’m surprised we didn’t drown in it.
The cards met my questing fingers easily, and I drew them out, three of them, as familiar as a favorite shirt. Turning to the side, I arranged them on the ledge before me, not minding as Dixie, Nikki, and Brody all edged in. It was one thing to have the untutored but curious crowd your space, but these people knew the cards, and they knew what I did with them. Having them see the spread linked me more strongly to this space. From what Blue told me, that kind of link would be important here in a few minutes.
I eyed the cards dispassionately, memorizing their features. The first was the Moon—the card of illusion and deception, or alternatively the card of the ocean, dreams, night creatures. I didn’t know what it meant, specifically, but that was its beauty: I wouldn’t know until I was in place on the other side of my jump.
The second card was the Seven of Swords again. He was showing up a lot of late, and that never made me happy. The card depicted a young man traipsing across a pathway, clutching seven swords. Since I wasn’t likely to be visiting an armory on this trip, I had to take the card for its more esoteric meaning: the need for an abrupt change in strategy, or the elements of deception and illusion. Sort of like the Moon card, but with a craftier undertone. The combination of the two didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy. The Moon card deliberately tried to cloud interpretation on the best of days. But I was about to set foot into unknown territory and needed all the clarity I could get. These two cards together meant I wasn’t going to get it.
And the third card was yet more disturbing, though it shouldn’t be. The Six of Pentacles showed a generous man giving alms to the poor, with six disks raining from the sky. There were six children that I was returning home, and the card was generally a pleasant one. But with the first two cards looming over me with their dual hits of confusion and deceit, I wasn’t happy.
“You know what that all means?” Brody asked gruffly. It was the same question he’d asked so many times when I was a teenager, and he asked it in so much the same tone of voice that I had a hard time separating the past from the present. I focused on the spread as I answered, the words coming easily to my lips but sounding as if I was speaking them from a far distance, a decade and a lifetime away.
“I will when I see it,” I said, and the reiteration of the old exchange made my heart a little lighter. I tucked my hand into my jacket one more time, wanting something—anything—to give me a little more guidance. I peeked at the card, then rolled my eyes, pushing it back in my jacket. I gathered up the three cards and met Nikki’s gaze. “Tower,” I said with a shrug. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“We’ll brace ourselves.” Nikki watched me critically as I sat down at the top of the carpeted platform.
I blew out a breath, feeling the urge to travel welling up in me. Or at least that was what I told myself as my gag reflex triggered. Traveling was hell on a body.
To take my mind off my sudden nausea, I turned my arm and focused on the newest symbol Death had inked there, my gaze tracking the sinuous curve of the narrow strip. Then I reached out and laid my hand on the throwing star.
“You know the words?”
Nikki shrugged. “There wasn’t much to it. All Eshe did was hold out her hand and say—”
I blacked out.
Once again, there was no sense of time passing as I came back to consciousness with a rush, my feet moving me forward without my mind fully aware of my progress until I realized I was about to walk square into a brick wall. I stopped short, then turned around carefully.
I was in the same location as I’d seen on Viktor’s screen, down to the cloud-strewn sky. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or bad thing, though. Was I trapped in the same illusion that the children were? Would I even be able to find them? Across the grassy lot from me was a wrought iron fence fronting a brick building, very New England college-esque. Trees sported rich green leaves, and the lawns were perfectly manicured. Dozens of what looked like perfectly normal students milled and chatted around the building. It was the idyllic setting for an idyllic life.
A murmur at my ear startled me, but I recognized the voice, desperately grateful that I could hear Nikki in this place. We weren’t so far distant as Atlantis had been. That had to be good.
“I’m solid, I’m fine,” I said back, speaking aloud.
“Yeah, well, you’re still clutching the star here. Do you have it there?”
“I…no.” I stared down at my empty hands, but it was the image beyond my hands that held my attention. “There’s a problem.”
The few words seemed to have a ripple effect in front of me, and the image faltered, making me catch my breath. I tried again.
“Speaking…” I stopped. Started. “Changes things. Alters it. Something’s definitely wrong.”
With each successive word, the image in front of me cracked. I thought about the Moon and its penchant for illusion. I knew that this image in front of me was a mirage. But it still was alarming to see it shift and warp as I spoke. I waved in front of my face. “Clear it away, clear it away! I want to see.”
The image suddenly disintegrated in front of me. I whirled around, trying to get my bearings, but I was in a large, white-walled room, containing six covered gurneys. I froze, my stomach clenched into a tight ball as the horror in front of me registered.
The gurneys were small—far too small, and the huddled lumps beneath the blankets were too small as well, the size of children, not of adults, not of young men and women on the verge of all they could yet become.
“No, no, no,” I moaned, stepping back reflexively. But there was nothing and no one else in this space, not a murmur in the oppressively blank room. I walked forward resolutely then, forcing myself to scan the area. It was white, completely white with stark fluorescent light beaming from both the walls and the ceiling. It gave the room a surgical feel. The gurneys were covered in soft blankets, three blue, three pink. There was no indication of what lay beneath the covers, but I knew…of course I knew. The children had been so small when they’d been taken, a few of them only six years old.
Had I learned so much about them, come all this way, for this? It seemed impossible. Why had Viktor wanted me then? Why had he lured me if there was nothing here but death?
With a shaking hand, I reached out to the first blanket, pulling it down. And my heart broke
in two. I didn’t have to touch her throat. She was dead—perfectly preserved as if she’d just drawn her last breath. She’d probably been dead the moment she’d crossed into this dimension, held in its thrall forever.
Mary Degnan. I remembered her face as surely as if she was the little sister I never had, her laughing eyes and sweetheart smile winning me over from the start. I’d known her only in pictures, but she was perfect and precious—and now terribly, horribly still.
“God,” I managed, though there was nothing of God in this place, nor of heaven or the angels. “They’re here,” I said aloud. “They’re… I’m bringing them back.”
If Nikki replied, I couldn’t hear it. I seemed to be moving in slow motion, my own heart rate dropping to a sluggish crawl. I dragged the six gurneys together in a rough arc so that I could touch each of them at once. Then I paused. What if the gurneys came back, but not the children? I couldn’t face this place again. Steeling myself against the horror of it all, I moved with brutal efficiency. I flipped the blankets down enough to uncover the faces of the children. They didn’t breathe, but they didn’t look dead either, and pulling up their arms was easy—their bodies were more like dolls than human cadavers, rigor mortis having long since come and gone. I couldn’t—wouldn’t think about that. I only wanted to be gone.
Failed. I’d failed them again. The mantra chanted in my head. I saw myself as seventeen all over again, the first time Brody had shown me the picture of sweet Hayley Adams. The hope I’d felt. The determination. I’d thought I could find anyone back then. I thought I could stop any crime. All this time, all this hope, for nothing. Nothing but loss and death.
If anyone can save them, it’ll probably be you.
I tasted salt and lifted my hands to wipe the tears from my face as I positioned myself in the center of the gurneys. Reaching out again, I knelt until my arms were perpendicular to the floor, and resting on six too-small hands.
Tears started anew. “I’m ready, Nikki,” I whispered. “Bring me—”
The hands clutched my arms.
I jolted back, rigid, but I was held fast as the small bodies beside me changed impossibly fast, lengthening, growing. Until instead of small children’s palms dwarfed by my arms, I was being clutched by hands the size of dinner plates, hands attached to long muscled arms and powerful shoulders. Creatures of immense size and shape lunged for me, and I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, could only gasp out the final word with a terrified shriek of horror. “Back!” I screamed, trying desperately to pull away.
Talons pierced my skin as I howled with pain. The grip of the Syx held me fast, and I felt the veil rush toward me, bright light and magic exploding around us all.
“The debt at last is paid,” the closest one said to me.
Chapter Twenty
I awakened with the scream on my lips, scrambling off the stairs. The star fell from my grip and bounced down beside me. I wasn’t burned, and my clothes weren’t ripped to shreds, but as I swung around wildly, I saw damage had definitely been done.
“Brody—Dixie!” I gasped, only there was something wrong with my voice. It came out as a bare rasp, the attempt at speech like dragging fiery-hot coals through my throat. I stumbled forward to where Brody half lay on top of Dixie, as if he’d tried to shelter her against a fiery blast. Even as I reached them, they were moving, though, and I heard him moan my name.
I shook him hard, and he came up swinging, narrowly missing clipping me in the chin.
“Sara!” he shouted, bringing a bleat of distress from the half-dazed Dixie, who also looked to be clawing her way toward consciousness. “Sara, you’re all right! What the hell was that?”
He was shouting too loud—too loud, and I slapped my hands over my ears to stop the roaring in my brain. I wheeled around, and something felt wrong, so wrong. I couldn’t understand it. The door of the secondary chapel had been thrust open, the statuary of Venus and her horses shoved aside, but otherwise the room was as empty as, well, a church.
And then I realized what was missing. I turned back to Brody.
“Nikki?” I croaked, surprised that smoke didn’t drift out of my mouth.
“You’re hurt,” he said automatically. He was up on his feet in an instant, ignoring me as I shook my head.
“What happened?” I managed again. “What came through?”
“I…” He frowned, looking around. “I don’t know. Nikki said you were bringing the children back. That they were dead but you had their bodies. She had a grip on you and then started yelling at us to run, to go. Dixie screamed and half fainted or something beside me, and I turned to catch her, dropping down to the ground as…” He shook his head. “It was an explosion of some sort. Strong enough to blast the door off its hinges.” He stared back at me. “And it seemed to come from you.”
“Where’s Nikki?” My voice sounded garbled, and my knees wobbled as I stood there. Dixie gave a cry, and Brody turned back to her as I braced myself on the nearest church pew. I stared at my hand. The skin was darkening, as if from the inside. The outer dermis was still intact and perfect, but the inner…
“Miss Wilde!” Armaeus’s voice shattered into my mind as a fell wind, cutting through the dark fog that was creeping through me. “What has happened? You’re hurt.”
“Armaeus.” I tried to move forward, but I faltered, and suddenly Brody was at my side, barely able to keep me from falling.
“Holy Shit, Sara, what’s wrong with you? You’re on fire.”
“Limo—out front,” I gasped. “There’ll be a limo.”
Dixie was on the other side of me, her gasp audible as she draped one of my arms over her shoulder. “She’s right, Brody. Nikki’s gone, and I’m not sure how to heal this. She needs to see the Magician.”
“The what?” I heard Brody’s growl as if from a far distance. In my mind I saw the rapid succession of cards, falling like dominos. The Moon with its shadow of illusions, followed by the Seven of Swords. I’d been deceived by Viktor, tricked and deceived. The children weren’t alive; they were dead. They’d been dead for a decade. A decade of hopes dying with them, a decade of prayers gone unanswered. A decade of eyes looking to the horizon, hoping, begging for their safe return. All gone in a wisp of smoke and fire.
Inexorably, the fall of cards continued in my mind. The Six of Pentacles and the Tower. It was so obvious now it was laughable, but I hadn’t seen it… I hadn’t seen it. The Six of Pentacles was all about giving and receiving. Sometimes what was given was a gift, pure largesse, and sometimes what was given was a repayment for services rendered. It was the classic Minor Arcana card for a debt being repaid. A debt in this case with a double meaning. A debt of six, or Syx.
Viktor had promised to get the djinn out of their enforced purgatory, and I’d been his tool to do it.
My legs felt suddenly too heavy, but as we cleared the front doors of the chapel, I shrugged off Dixie and Brody, forcing myself to stand. The limo was there, idling at the curb, but I didn’t head for it either. I headed across the parking lot, toward Darkworks Ink. I was fifteen paces away when I noticed that the lights were no longer flickering in the windows, and the OPEN sign was shut off.
I blinked, too shocked to believe it. There would be no solace in that place. Not this day.
I almost hit the pavement before strong arms stopped my fall.
The ride to the Prime Luxe was a blur of smoke. I didn’t understand my body’s reaction to returning through the veil this time. There’d been no attack of Watchers, no fight, no spike of adrenaline. I’d blasted back much more easily, slipping and sliding along the Möbius strip that Blue had etched into me before falling back through to this dimension.
But I hadn’t brought weapons this time. I’d brought creatures of fire and death.
That couldn’t…be possible.
I sensed myself being transferred from the car, but nothing else made sense to me. Nothing else could.
“You would do well to rest, Miss Wilde.” Armaeus’s w
ords were soothing—too soothing. The kind of tone used in hospices, not hospitals.
I flickered my eyes open. The clicking noise they made was also unnerving. “Where’s Viktor?” I rasped.
“He is back in his domain, presumably. He knew immediately what you had done, when you had done it.” There was no censure in his tone, nothing more really than a quiet curiosity.
“He…lied.”
“He did.” A light hand touched my face, impossibly cool. I turned into it, trying not to whimper. Why was I so hot? I felt like I had been boiled from the inside.
“The djinn were forged in fire, Miss Wilde. The Atlantean blade you held in this plane kept you from incinerating, but only just. The moment you let go of it, the fire of their passage began to cook you from the inside.”
I coughed, and smoke seemed to burn through my mouth. “You have a way with words.”
“And you are very strong. I did not foresee the djinn using you in this manner. They are creatures of an ancient magic, but like all demons, they need hosts to exist on this earth. You provided them their host…” He shook his head. “It should not have been possible.” He tilted his head, regarding me. “And now they must find others.”
I grimaced, and slitted my eyes open to focus on him. “In English this time?”
“You set six powerful djinn free into the world, all on your own. To stay here, they must possess six separate souls.”
I winced. “Maybe we should try another language.”
He gestured dismissively. “Demonic possession has been a mortal plague since the dawn of time, a staple of every known religion. There are those who may summon the dark ones forth from their home for brief discourse—mages like Nostradamus, for example—but never for very long. Since their banishment, to remain in this world, a djinn must either have a host or sacrifice their great strength and abilities to become mortal. As you can imagine, most have no interest in becoming mortal.”