by Jen Ponce
"Would they worry about getting attacked by fleshcrawlers?"
"Not out in the open, not in the light. It's an anathema to them. Plus they need to stay near the swamp's waters, I believe."
I took a deep breath. Another. "Give me your hand."
"I won't deal with Skriven magic."
I held out my own hand. "I want to cloak us. Give us a little bit more of a chance to get my children back alive." His lips tightened, the skin around his eyes puckered. He was going to refuse. I tamped down the urge to slap him or scream. I took a breath. "Listen, Liam is twelve. He loves to play soccer, to listen to music, to dance when he thinks no one is watching. Bethany is ten. She gives the best hugs, puts her whole heart into them, she loves animals, and has been begging for a dog forever." My voice broke. "I can't lose them. Please, Zech."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I won't." Studying his feet for a moment, he then said, "Let's not hide from them. We'll go through the hook."
I was shaking my head before he finished. "No. No. They'll kill them the moment we show up."
"You'll do anything to save them, right?"
"Of course, but how will that save them?"
"I'll give you to them in exchange."
My nostrils flared. What was wrong with his suggestion aside from the fact I might not make it out alive?
He pushed home his point. "The only reason they captured me was to find out how the Coven of the Lotus raised so much power. That night Adamante questioned me," his voice tightened over the word as he said it, "he kept asking if we were working with the Skriven. How we raised the power. They want that power."
"And that power would be me."
He studied me. "It might mean your death. I will leave with your kids if it works, but I don't know where the other end of the hook leads to on your world. It might take me a while to get back, to send someone."
I remembered then, that I'd dropped my cell phone and cursed myself for it. "Let's do it. I don't care. Just get my kids safely home." Lucy looked like me and had my memories. Would it be such a horrible thing for her to live my life if I couldn't? "Lucy is at my home. She—she is being me while I'm here."
Disgust colored his cheeks. "They take your soul. In little bits and pieces until one day they take the last piece and you're empty. Empty of everything. You understand that? You will be nothing."
Tears warmed my face. "Just take them home. Don't tell them anything else. Please." He didn't answer so I grabbed his arms. "Please. Zech, please." Finally he nodded and I sagged in relief. I focused on the hook that had been tugging at me. I didn't give in to its siren call, instead opening a place near it. I took us Earth side first so we'd know where Zech would leave with my kids. The hook opened into a shadowy corner of a warehouse with rust-eaten metal siding. Despite a quick search, I couldn't figure out where I was though the signs warning me that I was trespassing assured me I was in an English speaking country.
I pulled out the forty bucks I always tried to keep in my pocket and handed it to him. "Take this. It's not much, but it'll buy you a phone call and some food."
He pocketed it. "Ready?"
I nodded. I felt for the hook and this time I used it. It pulled both of us through and we ended up in a cavernous room that was, but wasn't there. I blinked, my vision blurry. I squinted but couldn't focus my sight.
"Vanished," Zech breathed.
"No, it's not. It's around us. If I could just, oh lord, this reminds me of the Slip." I leaned on him for support and then concentrated hard on my surroundings, trying to set it like Tytan set his house for me.
Zech shouted.
"What?"
"It snapped around us. One minute nothing and the next boom." He spun in a circle. "I've been here. This is where they were holding me. Not here, here, but close by. They dragged me through here."
The sharp sound of someone clapping spun me around. Three men watched me: Adamante, the one who'd attacked Arsinua at the fair, and a thin man who glowed. Even from this distance, I could see the evil around that one. He was Skriven. He felt like the loose slack skin of the dead.
At his worst, Tytan couldn't inspire as much agitation in me as facing this one.
"I want my kids." My voice echoed in the room, bouncing off the angled walls in strange ways.
"Power," the Skriven breathed. He sounded lustful.
I shuddered, ignored him and aimed my glare at Yarnell. "My kids. I'll trade myself for them. Let them leave with Zech, then you can have me."
"You cows are always so rude.” He had the skinny, twitchy look of a drug user. “Introductions first. I am Yarnell. This man you've met, though I dare say the meeting wasn't ideal. You blasted him through several walls."
"You're lucky you're so far away," I said. "Otherwise you'd have my hand around your neck. My kids. I want to see them. Now."
He smiled wider, his jaw working. He was chewing gum. "This other gentleman is Cambion. Although, I suppose I'd better not say gentleman. He's been fantasizing about your children. I've had to restrain him several times from visiting them."
"Where are they?" I'd expected to shout again, but my voice came out pitched low and deadly.
"Here. Stewing, you might say. Getting ready for their turn to be the star attraction at the Bazaar." He stepped forward, his body narrow, his face narrow, the fingers he splayed narrow. "For the love of your brats you're willing to give yourself to us, knowing what we want from you?"
"Yes. It’s an easy choice. Don't fuck with me. Show them to me now or I'm done talking and I won't be giving myself up. And I'll make sure I take you with me." I stared at him, pouring my hate into it. He stepped back as if I'd slapped him.
"Fine. I'll show you where they are." His coat belled around his legs. I so wanted to run up and kick his ass—literally kick it—but I fisted my hands and kept my distance, waiting until he was a ways ahead before I followed.
At the back of the room he swept aside a dusty curtain that had the same color as the crumbling wall on either side. The gesture reminded me of Zech's sugar tent. It must have resonated with him as well because he muttered, “Bastards. Can't even come up with an original idea.”
Yeah, as if that were our biggest problem right now. I shushed him and made a face at Yarnell when he tried to wave me through. Chuckling at my paranoia, he disappeared and I followed, stopping the moment I saw where I was. Rows of people were chained to the wall in varying stages of hook sickness. Tents lined the room and I recognized the vendors. The Bazaar. I saw Bethy and Liam roped together, both dazed and out of it. I ran for them but the Skriven stuck out an arm. My breath left me in a grunt of pain.
“Don't want you scaring the customers,” Yarnell purred.
Only then did I realize there were people milling around, pausing in front of the people chained to the wall, poking them or discussing their condition. Waiting for them to die.
I wanted to kill them all.
“Adamante. Be a good boy and collect the children. Do it quietly.”
Adamante glared but complied. Clasping my stomach, I kept my eye on him, ready to rip the fucker's head off if he so much as looked wrong at my kids. I could feel the Skriven's gaze on me as if trying to dissect me to see how I worked.
"What is it that makes you so powerful?”
“Indeed,” Yarnell said. “What makes you different from the other cows?”
Breathe, I told myself. Let it go. I kept my calm; Zech exploded. "You know nothing about humans. They are living beings. They feel, they have families, lives. How could you kill them? Use them the way you do, how?"
Yarnell waved his hand, dismissing him. "Another argument, another pointless defense. They are cows. Why else would our world hook with theirs? Why else would our world affect them the way it does if we weren't supposed to use them?" One of the chained captives cursed at him. He strode over and grasped the man's chin. “Why should I be forced to give up the chance to have a family of my own because a few old fools have some sort of misguided guil
t about harvesting your kind to bolster our fading power?”
The man spat in Yarnell's face but he only chuckled, lifting his hand with a tiny spark of energy glowing at his fingertips. In a snap, his face was clean. The chained man's face mottled with rage.
Zech's chin inched upward. “We regret the sacrifices. But what right do we have to trade one life for another? If we can't protect ourselves, maybe we deserve to fade.”
Yarnell stopped in front of Zech, his lips drawn, his jaw tight. “My wife and child do not deserve to fade. They do not deserve to live without power because you fools think it a waste. My family is not. A waste!”
“You are a greedy bastard. Stealing power for your own selfish ends and refusing to give back to keep the rest of us safe.” Zech yanked the pin from the lock on the chain that threaded through each captive's leg manacle. He reached for the top pin and the Skriven pinned to the wall.
“Let him go,” I shouted.
Yarnell's face reddened. He took a step toward Zech, blue sparks dancing across his knuckles. “Our kind will fade anyway if we are too busy fighting off the Wilds to have children.”
The Skriven pressed his forearm into Zech's neck and he gagged and coughed, his face mottled from his struggle to breathe.
“Kill him and I'll kill myself before I let you get your hands on my power.”
Yarnell glanced at me as if reminded again of my presence. “You wouldn't dare.”
“Try me.” Behind him a small crowd had gathered, old, young, rich, poor. All of them in the market to purchase body parts. “And in front of your customers. That wouldn't make for a good buying experience, would it?”
He hissed something at the Skriven. When he didn't comply, Yarnell shouted at him.
With that eerie quickness Tytan had, Cambion released Zech, appearing too close to me for comfort. Zech fell, coughing and gasping to the floor.
"Interesting. Not all human. Part Midian, part ... dare I say it? Skriven?"
“Get the hell away from me.” I stepped back, wanting to help Zech stand up but unable to do so without taking my eyes off the demon.
"Maybe it's because I'm Archaeon Tezrya to Tytan," I said. I wanted to invoke his name and push them in the wrong direction. They didn't know about the heart and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. At least until they cut me open and found it in my corpse.
Cambion laughed, a harsh sound that made me grind my teeth. "You? No wonder he's fallen so far from favor."
Insulted, I opened my mouth to respond but shut it when Adamante returned. He carried Liam and another man held Bethany. They dumped the bodies of my children at my feet. I cried when I saw they were both breathing, breathing, thank all that was good. But they didn't look right—hundreds of spidery veins glowed under their skin, which looked as fragile and thin as paper.
"I suggest Zech take them through the hook before the magic destroys them." Yarnell gazed at them with a wistful smile, as if he wished he could watch them die.
"He can't carry them both," I said, cutting into his sick little fantasy with satisfaction.
Yarnell jerked his head and the man who'd carried Bethany picked her up. Zech took Liam. I kissed both kids, my tears tasting bitter as I followed the men back down the hallway, wanting to watch them go safely through the hook. I also didn't want to expose the captives to what I planned to do next. My heart ached as I watched Liam and Bethany disappear through the hook to safety.
They're alive, I told myself. They're alive. Alive.
Now it was my turn to survive. To stay alive at the hands of the enemy. To live long enough to see my kids again.
A heavy weight lifted from me, leaving me humming with energy. Though I was scared, my head was clear. I centered my concentration on the heart. 'I'll need all the help you can throw me,' I said to Arsinua and Neutria.
As soon as the man stepped back through the hook, the one who'd carried Bethy through, I opened up the heart full bore.
TWENTY-FIVE
"She's calling power," yelled the Skriven.
Arsinua chanted, weaving spells with her words. I didn't have time to create. I needed to destroy them before they returned the favor. I pulled Skriven magic and aimed it at the man nearest me. He disintegrated.
Someone hit me from behind. Spinning, I pictured a deadly ball of energy in my hand and I flung it at him, along with my hate. Adamante. He cursed as it hit him in in the chest, flinging him backward into a wall. Corpse-flesh wind washed over me, rasping over my skin like acid. I screamed, stumbled back, and another barrage hit me. The man who'd carried Bethany jumped on me, finishing physically what they'd started magically.
I grunted when his elbow jammed hard into my gut. He pushed into me, his legs over my left arm, his hands holding my right. I bit at him but couldn't reach anything but his pants. I shut my eyes and pulled again, this time igniting the air around me. The man screamed as his clothes caught on fire. I shoved him off me and scrambled to my feet, running for the hook. I didn't have the energy to make one. I had to get through the one already there. My feet skidded on the floor as an awful thought occurred to me. I'd lead them right to my children.
Adamante ran into my back, knocking me down again. I stayed on all fours, panting, crying, snot dripping. I didn’t have any energy to wipe it away.
Someone kicked me in the gut, sending me over in a wave of pain. A booted foot appeared in front of me. Yarnell. "Big bang, poor finish. You're like a child. You know nothing about how to use the magic, you fling it around, wasting it." He considered. "It was spectacular what you did to Peter. I'll give you that." His boots disappeared from my sight as he said, "Get her secured. We have two weeks until the Council votes. We need her power to be ours by then."
"Tytan won't stand by to see his Archaeon Tezrya killed," the Skriven said.
"You said he was occupied."
I looked at the monster. Both of them. Cambion's lips split into a grin. "Ravana wants her. She's keeping him from saving her. But the Originators aren't known for their long attention spans. She gets distracted, he'll be here, and you'll wish you weren't."
I didn't get to hear anymore. Hands grabbed at me and dragged me away. I had a little hope. Tytan hadn't come to me because he couldn't. If Ravana let him go, I might get away with my skin. If she didn't? I might never have answers to my burning questions: What did she mean when she said she wanted me? Why did keeping Tytan from me help her get me?
If he's not here to help you, and if you keep pulling Skriven magic, she will own your soul. Once she owns that, Tytan won't have anyone to help, now will he?
I nodded, my lids drooping. Fuck. I still hadn't figured out how to use the heart without draining myself.
They dragged me through a doorway and let go. I fell to the floor, scraping my elbow but catching myself before I cracked my chin. My eyes flew open, touched on the drain, the rack, the dark maroon stains on the floor that were Zech's blood. Then I passed out. Didn't stay that way for long. Slapped in the face. Once, twice. I blinked, wincing at the light. I could see sky, not pretty sky—Slip sky. Tytan had found me. I was too trashed to leap up and hug him, but I smiled.
Smiled until I saw who it was.
This time there weren't shadows. She'd wrapped light around her and with her dark skin glowing and her white-light hair and shimmering dress, someone who didn't know what she was might think her an angel.
Hot wax wrapped around me, singeing my already tender skin. "You impudent witch. How you steal. Pull, pull, pull, like a greedy baby at my tit. Yet what do you give Mummy in return? Hmm?" She tsk'd, walking around and around me, making me dizzy with her movement, with the light that burned.
On her third circle around me, I stopped watching and that's when I saw Tytan. He was stripped naked, a collar around his neck, his face brittle with anger. A thin gold chain draped from a ring on the collar to the angel circling, circling. "My spawn offered himself in your place. Interesting, that. Skriven don't act nobly." She jabbed me with her
toe and I groaned with the pain. Even that nudge burned with a heat of a sun. I've never touched the sun, but maybe the sun had touched me.
"So I took Tytan to me, as is my right as Originator. And I took you. For the moment. Though I might give you back to the boy and Cambion."
My head ached. I fought to stay awake, knowing it was crucial, but the struggle was a titanic one. "Let go Ty. I mean," My thick tongue strangled up my words. I tried to swallow, and then started again. "Let Ty go. Take me. Me." I lost consciousness.
A moment later, someone slapped me again. I cursed, tried to push the hand away but didn't have the strength to lift my arm. Someone pulled my lips apart and dribbled a foul liquid into my mouth. I coughed, choked, gagged, but it slid down my throat. A sluggish rush of energy hit me. Not enough to get up and run around, but it did enable me to keep my eyes open. I guess it was good to be awake for my inevitable torture and death.
Ravana tapped a finger on my broken nose and that, combined with the touch of her flesh made me scream. She tore something from me, something so precious I couldn't comprehend it. Again, the agony lasted an eon, but she didn't give me time to wallow. "For what you've taken I want more. You can give me your soul or deliver another to me. If you do that, you can consider yourself the first unspawned Skriven."
I looked at Tytan. He shook his head, once only, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscles jumping. "Which would mean what?"
"You would answer to me. My pet. Unless and until you unmake me."
Unmake her. I glared at Tytan. “You said you couldn't die."
Ravana blocked Ty from my sight. "We can't. Unmaking is a more difficult process. I don't recommend you try it." She knelt beside me, the light she wrapped herself in making my eyes water it was so bright. "Tytan won't tell me what makes you so special. Naughty boy." She leaned even closer and I cringed away, horrified, thinking she might be about to kiss me or something equally awful. "I like that about him. The ones that follow the rules piss me off."