They had visitors. Two of the wicker-masked caretakers, forest-green robes trailing behind them, approached the table in silence.
“Thought this might happen. They get touchy when it looks like somebody might start a fight.” The Marquis looked their way. “It’s good. We’re all friends here.”
One of them pointed at Marie. A blurt of machine static sounded under his mask, and then a wet, phlegmatic gurgle.
“Really? Sure, I’ll tell her.” The Marquis turned to Marie. “Our Lady of the Gas Leak wants a word with you. Says it’ll just take a minute.”
“And…who is that, exactly?” Marie asked.
“The reason we’re able to gamble and drink on a derelict angelic war cruiser without getting our faces chewed off. She’s the mother hen of the ship. Knows everybody and everybody’s business, don’t ask me how. Mostly she works through the caretakers, not a lot of one-on-one face time.”
Nessa and Marie shared a glance. They both looked to Hedy, who nodded in return, joining in on the wordless discussion.
“We’ll go,” Nessa said.
The other caretaker shifted his staff in front of him. The sound he made was like ground beef squeezing through a drainpipe.
“Just your girl,” the Marquis said. “You two can hang out here in the meantime. It’s going to take an hour to get our ride prepped anyhow.”
“Is it safe?” Marie asked.
“What? With the Lady?” He snorted. “Safest place on this ship, I’ll tell you that for damn sure. Nobody messes with her or the caretakers. Sort of a collective understanding that we’ve all got a good thing going here.”
Marie turned back to Nessa. She reached out, squeezing her forearm, needing to touch her. She could read the look on Nessa’s face and felt it in her bones. They’d almost lost each other once already. It was too soon to be apart.
“I don’t think so,” Marie said. “We’re fine right here.”
The caretaker made his squelching-meat sound again. The butt of his staff rapped anxiously on the floor. The Marquis shrugged.
“You want me to tell ’em that? Okay.” He slouched in his chair, looking back to Marie. “He says the Lady knows what you are, because she’s one too, whatever that means.”
Nessa gave Marie a sidelong glance. “Another character from the first story?”
“He says she’s got a gift for your girl here. No strings attached.”
“No such thing,” Nessa said.
“Be that as it may, and I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment,” the Marquis said, “that’s the message. And she says if you don’t accept it, the caretakers won’t try to stop you from leaving, but you’re both going to die out there.”
Marie weighed the odds. Could it be a real offer? A trap?
“You said this…Lady of the Gas Leak, she’s been here a long time?”
“Longer than anybody else has.”
Not a ruse by one of their enemies, then. Not Savannah Cross in disguise, not Nadia scrambling to recapture her wayward replacement Knight.
“I think we should risk it,” she said to Nessa.
Nessa was silent for a moment. Taciturn. She glanced down, pursed her lips, and thought it over.
“If you’re not back in thirty minutes,” she replied, “I’m tearing this ship apart.”
They kissed, a quick peck, sharing a heart flutter between them, then parted. One of the caretakers stepped aside and gestured with his staff, inviting Marie to the stairwell. They fell in at her sides, silently escorting her into the labyrinth below.
* * *
The caretakers guided Marie through a trackless maze of dark steel corridors, past wall screens flashing their endless and unanswered call for help and banks of dead machinery. Another stairwell down, this one short and ending at a windowless door, marked the end of the journey.
They stood aside. One pointed his staff at the door, and it slid open with the grinding sound of old, unbalanced gears. The room beyond was misty, kissed by a faint and wintery fog, and bathed in dim white light.
Marie stepped across the threshold. The door rumbled shut behind her, sealing her in.
She couldn’t see the far edges of the chamber. The floor was marked with pools of light from round fixtures somewhere overhead, illuminating patches of mist while casting the rest in darkness. Fat pipes ran along the walls, coated in faded flecks of venom-green paint and bearing an odd glyph, like the symbol of Venus mounted by the horns of a cow.
She felt lightheaded. Dizzy on her feet, and the more she breathed, the more weightless she felt.
“Do not be afraid,” a young woman’s voice said. It came from all around her, and Marie turned, fast, almost spinning off her feet. She caught herself before she tripped.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
“My appearance may be…disconcerting. But I mean you no harm.”
Marie caught movement in the corner of her eye. It was a woman’s form, draped in a green silk dress that clung to her slender body. Green scarves dangled from her arms, her outstretched wrists, and wrapped her neck and face like a shawl.
The woman moved out of synchronicity with the world. She walked, circling Marie, and skipped a beat here and there; her leg would suddenly be two inches from where it was, her arms in a different position. Her scarves billowed behind her, rippling in an invisible wind.
Marie rubbed at her eyes. “I’m hallucinating,” she murmured.
“We are all hallucinating. What is reality but a shared dream?”
“Hallucinations are a lie,” Marie replied. “Reality is real.”
The woman jumped in space, suddenly three feet from where she had been walking. Marie turned in place, following her movements. Gentle laughter echoed through the mist.
“We’ve had this debate before, you and I.”
“I’ve never met you,” Marie said.
“Not this you and I. The eternal you and I.”
“You mean…previous incarnations? Who are you?”
The woman danced as she walked, flinging her arms before her shrouded face, occasionally flickering into a half-glimpsed pirouette. Her footfalls were silent.
“I am Hypatia,” she said, “but you would know me as the Psychopomp. A psychopomp is a shepherd of lost souls. And I, in the role that was written for me, am a shepherd of a very particular, small selection of special ones. Like yours.”
“So…one of my previous incarnations has been here? On this ship?”
“Why do you separate yourself?”
Marie frowned. “Meaning?”
“There was a time when you welcomed communion with yourself,” Hypatia said. “In your darkest hour, recalling your past kept your mind intact and your spirit strong.”
Marie remembered the Vandemere Zoo. She remembered the electric surge of agony as she bucked and writhed against her straps, while Savannah Cross’s torture machine layered torment upon torment. And the Other, the sickle-wielding knight who stood at her side, mopped the sweat from her brow, and whispered words of strength into her ear.
“But now you wall yourself off,” Hypatia said.
Marie saw a faint image in the mist. Distant, a silhouette, but she knew what she was looking at. The statue of Lady Martika.
“Those people, those other lives,” Marie said. “They aren’t me.”
“Refusal to admit a disturbing truth does not make that truth go away.”
“Now you sound like Nessa,” Marie told her. “Why wasn’t she allowed to come? Why only me, alone?”
“Because my gift is for you. I don’t know if you understand this, but each of us—the creations of the first story—possesses a gift. Mine is perfect recall. I do not lose my memories when I reincarnate. Every lifetime is another book that never closes.”
“What’s my gift?” Marie asked.
“War,” Hypatia said. “You are the tip of the spear, the shield breaker, the one who finds a way. But with my help you can be stronger than you are now. Strong enough—poss
ibly—to face the trials ahead. Would you like that?”
“Will it help me save Nessa?”
“I bear witness to the past, but only a tiny glimmer of the future. I do not know if you will succeed in your quest with my gift in hand. I only know that without it, you will unquestionably fail.”
Hypatia’s words bounded off the corroded walls and reverberated through the mist. The word fail became a thrumming echo in Marie’s ears.
“I can grant you the power of the Conversation,” Hypatia said, frozen for a moment with her arms to the heavens and her scarves flinging upward. Then she was four feet away, crouched low to the ground like a jungle cat. “It is the power to speak to your past lives. As you have done before, under duress, but now guided by your heart and your needs. You have so many battlefields, so many victories and defeats written upon your scroll, Marie. So much you could learn. There is no reason you should have to keep making the same mistakes, life after life.”
She almost said yes. It sounded like a gift with no downsides. Maybe it was her old detective instincts, or maybe Nessa had been rubbing off on her, but she hesitated.
“What’s the catch?”
Hypatia flickered again, standing before her, frozen with both hands draping scarves across her unseen face.
“I believe that the story exists for a purpose,” Hypatia said. “I believe that we exist for a purpose.”
Marie contemplated that. She breathed in, and the mists vibrated around her as Hypatia danced away. She was a string of still images now, frozen and moving at the same time.
“Maybe so,” Marie said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a good purpose.”
“All of reality is a dream, and I have appointed myself its priestess. And a good priestess tends to her flock. You would benefit from my gift. You would be made stronger. I have no reason to deny it to you and every reason to wish for your victory.”
“But what about Nessa?” Marie asked. “If you can give it to me, why not her, too?”
“Because of her nature. A hundred lives of magic, dread secrets learned once and then forgotten—she wouldn’t be able to resist plundering each and every one. That much power would shatter her mind beyond any hope of repair. She would destroy herself. Either that or become a god, and I have no wish to see your lover become a broken god.”
Marie had to admit that made sense. “So how do I use this thing?”
“The Conversation will be under your control, conjured by your instincts,” Hypatia replied. “When you need it, call to it. Simple as breathing.”
Marie hunted through Hypatia’s words, sifting for a trap. All she found was gossamer mist. Something about the self-appointed priestess felt worthy of trust, the fleeting echo of a long-forgotten friendship.
“All right,” Marie said. “Let’s do this.”
Twenty-Nine
Hypatia flicker-strode through the mists, jolting in and out of reality, and stood before one of the fat pipes that lined the walls. Dusky fingers laden with heavy copper rings brushed its face in reverence, and bangles dripped from the curve of her wrist. Her fingertip traced the odd glyph on the pipe, the sign of Venus mounted by a cow’s horns, leaving a glistening wet trail in its wake.
She reached down, took hold of a valve, and gave it a sudden, violent twist.
Lime-green gas blasted from the pipe, engulfing her, her scarves billowing. She leaned back, throwing up her arms in a gesture of prayer. It was the first time Marie caught a glimpse of the woman’s face. Chains of copper formed a metallic curtain across her high and dark cheekbones, linking clusters of rings in her nose to hoops lining the curves of her ears. Her eyes were white. No irises, no pupils. Just a web of bloodshot veins set into milky nothingness, as if they’d turned inside out in their sockets.
The gas gusted across the room, washing through the mist as it spread. The room spun and challenged Marie to keep her balance. She felt like she was spinning, twirling, even as she stood motionless and her hips rocked from side to side, following the beat of an invisible drum.
Hypatia danced toward her, hovering frozen in the middle of a pirouette, then midway through a graceful bow. Then, in the blink of an eye, she stood before Marie. She clamped hot, clammy palms to the sides of Marie’s head and spoke a single word.
“Remember.”
Gas flowed from Hypatia’s lips, washed over Marie’s face, and blotted out the world.
* * *
Marie felt time slow to a crawl as she stood in darkness.
The Conversation, she thought. Instinct told her so. It was simply a part of her now, and she sensed she could leave as easily as taking a single step to her left. She stayed, for the frozen moment, and let her need call to the shadows.
She wanted to see her again. The Knight of Mirenze, the perfect warrior who had eased her through the worst night of her life. To thank her, if nothing else. More than that, she needed guidance. A little advice from someone who had walked these roads before her.
A figure appeared in the deeps. Her armored silhouette sauntered toward her.
A glimmer of light turned the armor into mechanized black steel. Lady Martika’s hair spilled over the back of her Valkyrie suit, and she cradled her bulbous, insectoid helmet in one arm. She stood before Marie, impassive, and squared her footing.
“You aren’t what I wanted,” Marie said.
“Should we start a mutual-lack-of-admiration society? Nadia’s plan is perfect. Why are you fucking it up?”
“That proves you aren’t me,” Marie said. “If you were, you’d understand.”
“The fact that I’m in your head says otherwise, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
Martika rolled her eyes. “Were you not listening to Little Miss Priestess of the Dream out there? The Conversation calls the incarnation you want. The one you need. And here I am.”
“Then there’s been a mistake.”
“Now you’re just being stubborn,” Martika told her. “Which, to be fair, is one of our most consistent qualities. Come to think of it, as far as magical gifts go, this one is amusingly ironic.”
Marie tilted her head. “Ironic?”
Martika spread one gauntleted hand, waving it at the darkness that surrounded them.
“Think about it. Of all the characters of the first story, we’re the one who gets the Conversation. The one who universally digs her heels in and refuses to listen to anybody. But I can help you. You’ve done all right for yourself, given what you’ve had to work with, but the NYPD never taught you how to fight monsters.”
“Pretty sure I’m talking to one right now,” Marie said.
“Nature and nurture. We’re the same woman, Marie. Only our circumstances changed. If you came from the world I did, if you survived my childhood—”
“We all had shitty childhoods,” Marie said. “I had to hide under a bed and listen while my parents were being killed. I didn’t grow up and commit mass murder for a dictator.”
Martika gave an exaggerated sniff and rubbed her curled finger at the edge of one dry eye.
“Aw, poor little girl.” She lowered her hand. “Junker gang broke into my parents’ squat because they heard a rumor that we had a food stash. It was a lie; we were eating rats, just like everybody else on the block. They got angry. And me? I had to help.”
An angry retort died on Marie’s lips. Martika’s glare was relentless, fixed on her like a spotlight.
“You mean,” Marie said, “to help with…”
“Murder was my initiation. See, the gangs liked recruiting children by force. We didn’t eat as much, we could slip into places, move around fast, and we were easy to control. They took me with them when they left. I spent six years with that crew. Learning. Studying. Practicing. Then, one night, I cooked them a special dinner. Laced it with a heavy narcotic. Should have seen the looks on their faces when they woke up, all shackled together. And there was me, standing over them with a chainsaw.”
Martika’s lips c
urled in a wry smile, eyes distant, savoring the memory.
“Blood in, blood out,” she said.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Marie said. “But it doesn’t excuse what you did.”
Martika laughed. “Did I ask to be excused? I am the Knight. I apologize to no one. I’m trying to make you understand something here. I grew up in hell. My world was devouring itself, falling to pieces, racing toward suicide. It needed a leader to take control, and that leader needed a right hand forged from steel.”
“You murdered innocent people.”
“Yes,” Martika said. “But only the ones who couldn’t be brought to see reason or terrorized into submission, and there weren’t many of those. I am very, very good at terror. When Nadia took her rightful throne, my Valkyries and I made it clear, to the entire world, what their choices were: kneel or die. Very simple. Very easy. And that is how we saved our Earth. That is how we rescued humanity from itself.”
“I would never do what you did,” Marie said.
Martika’s armor softly whirred as she spread her fingers.
“Proof to the contrary stands before you. You know this is why you haven’t been able to answer your question, right?”
Marie’s brow furrowed. “Question?”
“The one that’s been plaguing you from the beginning. What is a knight? We’ve lived on a hundred worlds, a hundred lifetimes—more than that, to be honest—and we’ve found hundreds of answers to that question, most of them contradicting each other.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me it means being just like you,” Marie said.
“No. I would never say you should be like me. And that just shows how far away you are from the answer.”
Martika closed in on her, crossing the shadowy void between them. The armor added a couple of inches, and she looked down at Marie with a strange tenderness in her eyes.
“You’re talking to your memories, Marie. You’re having a conversation with yourself. I’m not a different person, living inside your head. I am you. And everything I did, every drop of blood on my hands—you did it.”
Bring the Fire (The Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Book 3) Page 23