Jack thrashed again. “Stay with us, podna!”
Joules lunged for the Chariot, catching his shoulder. “Don’t go, mate!” But Kentarch was already disappearing.
The two vanished.
38
The Queen of Cups stared at the spot vacated by Kentarch, looking stunned by the turn of events.
“How could you do that to him?” I demanded.
Regaining her composure, she said, “He asked me a question; I answered it. The problem with being a winner like him is that sooner or later, everyone must lose. He couldn’t stomach a defeat like that.”
“Who could?” He felt responsible for the death of the one he loved best in the world. Could we locate him and bring him back into the fold? Maybe he was forever lost to us. If so, what would Joules’s fate be? “I thought you liked to help people. You were going to be a freaking shrink—you could have helped him.”
“A Major we don’t favor?” Lorraine snapped her fingers again, and a guard traded her full chalice for an empty one. As if she hadn’t just crushed a good man, she said, “Your turn, Empress. Remember: one question only.”
I, too, was a Major they didn’t favor. Like Kentarch, I wasn’t the most psychologically sound individual. What if she told me something that sent me over the edge?
Whatever Jack saw in my expression had him struggling to break free. “Doan do it!” He caught my eyes. “You know what’s at stake. Stay with me.”
He was telling me not to give my blood. Not to risk insanity. Not to reveal my pregnancy. To live out my days with him.
But if Lorraine could divulge so much to Kentarch, surely she could tell me how to kill the Hanged Man. Hadn’t Circe said the answer would be on the coast?
I sensed I was only going to get one shot to learn Paul’s weaknesses—and this was it.
Decision time. My hand drifted down to my stomach. Aric wouldn’t want me to jeopardize his son.
“Fight them, Evie!”
Fighting meant surrendering Aric forever. How would I tell my kid that news? Yeah, I could’ve saved your father, but I gave up on him.
Lorraine said, “What would you like to know? Perhaps how to kill the Hanged Man? He’s taken control of your allies, hasn’t he?”
That settled it. I crossed to her throne. “Yes.”
“Damn it, no!” Jack snapped. “The Cups have got to be the ones coo-yôn warned me about—the bad dreamers. The Flash turned them evil. Everyone’s been hailing them like they’re good, but they’re not!”
“We do believe in dreams, Empress.” With a challenging glint in her light eyes, Lorraine said, “Perhaps you should deny me.”
Ignoring Jack’s protests, I shoved up my sleeve.
She raised her knife to my bared arm. “Very good, Empress.”
I winced from the slice. Lorraine and I both watched my blood pour, like two elevator passengers regarding floor numbers as they lit up. Almost there . . .
Once the chalice was full, she didn’t even glance at my blood before she said, “There is only one way for an Empress to defeat the Hanged Man: you must strangle him with a noose that has taken the lives of twelve murderous souls, his Arcana number.”
This was the weapon Circe had spoken of! All my waiting had paid off.
She gave a dramatic sigh. “Alas, the noose no longer exists. An Old West museum had one in an exhibit, but the Flash burned the rope to ash.”
My chest twisted. Then Aric was lost to me forever. “You knew it was gone, yet you still took my blood.”
“We know all the Majors’ weaknesses. I didn’t need to waste a blood offering.”
Bitch! “Tell me how to kill Richter.”
“Ah-ah.” She held up one finger. “A single query only. Now it’s my turn.” To do what? Lorraine gazed at my collected blood, swirling it like wine. Top notes of nightmares. “What secrets does the Empress harbor that I need to know?” She breathed over the rim. “Wait, what is this?”
The Lorraine mask began to slip.
Slipping . . .
Slipping . . .
Gone.
She jerked her gaze up, lips drawn back from her teeth. She threw the chalice against the wall, blood streaking the fancy wallpaper. “You carry his child! You’re pregnant with Death’s spawn!”
I gazed from one Minor to another, gauging their shocked expressions.
“You sought that noose because you want to save Death, so you can return to him as his wife!” Lorraine sputtered, “All but one Major must die or the earth won’t revive! Yet you want to live on with your Arcana offspring? Should the earth perish forever because of your selfishness?”
“My kid isn’t an Arcana. He’ll be a normal mortal.” Saying the words out loud almost made me believe it.
One guard said, “A union like that violates the dictates of the gods. We’ll all be punished!”
The King of Cups added, “You’ll bring down the gods’ wrath upon us all!”
Jack yelled, “Or she could save everyone!” One of the guards whaled a punch into his stomach. Jack doubled over, gasping.
The men holding him forced him against a column, cuffing his wrists together behind it.
I advanced on them. “Don’t touch him again!”
“Or what?” Lorraine cried. “I saw enough of your blood to know your powers are stifled.”
They knew I was a wreck. But I have a secret . . . .
Should I try to attack an armed suit of Minors? One bullet could end my kid, and they had Jack as their hostage. I caught his gaze as he grappled to get free of those cuffs.
Lorraine told the King of Cups, “Kill her.”
Two words I’d never wanted to hear again. “You’re not allowed to harm me.”
“We have no choice,” Lorraine said. “You’re pregnant with an abomination!”
I didn’t necessarily disagree. But Tee was my abomination.
Squaring her shoulders, she said, “You broke the rules; you no longer deserve to be protected by them.”
I had broken the rules. I wasn’t supposed to be with Death. Or to defy the gods’ dictates. Or love two men at the same time.
The king raised his brows. “Make her a sacrifice?”
Before Lorraine could answer, I said, “You really want to go there?” I might not be the Empress I once was, but I still had powerful friends. “Circe is my child’s godmother. If you throw me in the trench, you’ll suffer her wrath.”
The Cups murmured as one, “Abysmal.”
“Take her to the mainland,” Lorraine told the king. “Quietly. Then return with her head.”
My slitted eyes took in the guards’ expressions. These men looked excited by the prospect of beheading a pregnant teenager.
My God, it was never going to stop. Just like Jack said—the monsters would keep coming. Richter, Zara, cannibals, the Sick House, another Hal and Stache. And I’d been battling them all with one hand tied behind my back.
Faced with these assholes, I came to a startling realization: I’d rather risk the toxic well.
Jack bit out, “Fight, Evie! You’ve got no choice.”
I agreed. The red witch stirred inside me and blinked open her eyes.
Lorraine commanded, “Shut him up!”
A guard launched another punch, but Jack kept yelling. “Rise up or die! The little doll’s got teeth!”
My claws dug into my palms, bloody crescents. My breaths came in shallow bursts. They’d beaten Jack, they’d torpedoed my hopes of saving Aric, and they planned to end me. A disgusting old Cup wanted to behead me on a dark shore.
Tee would be no more. The red witch bristled at the idea. Protect what’s yours . . . .
“I’ll bring you back, bébé. I’ll always bring you back.”
Glyphs sparked across my skin, my hair turning colors. I told Lorraine, “One last warning: let us go—or you’ll pay the price.”
“And doom the earth for all time? Never!”
Then it’s done. Before I could surrender to my rag
e, she gave some kind of signal.
“Evie, look out!”
I turned in time to catch a rifle butt with my face.
39
Dizziness . . . pain . . . Jack’s yells . . .
I couldn’t seem to raise my head—or wrap my battered mind around what was happening.
My forehead throbbed, yet my cheek and nose also tickled. Blood running down my face? Yes, my hair was wet with it.
Guards cuffed my wrists in front of me. Another sliced my arm, spilling more blood into an awaiting chalice. Were they replacing the one Lorraine had splashed over the wall or further weakening me for my execution?
As if from a great distance, I heard Jack bellowing that I couldn’t lose more blood.
When the King of Cups lifted me into his arms, Jack thrashed like a madman, so the guards beat him some more. He landed a vicious head-butt against one, but without his fists . . .
Lorraine glided over to me, her gown swishing. In a soothing tone, she said, “You shouldn’t take this personally, dear one. Just consider today a reverie. Surrender to the dream, and it will be over soon.”
All you have to do is surrender, Gran had told me, draw on your hatred and pain. Become her: the Empress you were meant to be. I twisted against the king’s grip.
“Calm yourself.” Lorraine’s blissed-out voice sharpened as she commanded her guards, “Shoot the Cajun.”
Jack suddenly went quiet.
Oh, hell no. I sank my teeth into the king’s wrist.
He tossed me away. “You bitch!”
I hit the bloody, wooden floor, and jerked my head up. A guard had his rifle aimed at Jack’s forehead.
“Evie.” We met gazes as the gun cocked.
Wooden floor. Wooden . . . With a shriek, I stabbed my claws into the floor and revived the boards. Shoots exploded upward across the room, impaling the Cups, stabbing limbs.
Shafts of wood immobilized each of them—just as I’d done to Cyclops back at the castle. Had some part of me wanted these Minors alive?
Jack alone was unharmed. He looked dumbfounded by my handiwork; he’d get over it.
Across the dance floor, the Cups were trapped upright like pinned butterflies, unable to raise or reach their weapons. They yelled in agony, struggling to get free, yet only injured themselves worse.
I used my claws to slice the cuffs off my wrists. Swiping blood-drenched hair from my face, I stumbled to my feet and stalked toward Lorraine.
She craned her head around to keep me in view, sniveling at my approach. “No, nooo!”
As I passed the other Cups, they spat blood, hissing that I was carrying an abomination. That I was condemning the world.
Sticks and stones. “Shouldn’t you have seen this coming?” I asked Lorraine. If only she’d read the future beyond my pregnancy. Talk about a buried lead. “But then, these days I can barely predict what I’ll do. You didn’t stand a chance.”
“Go to hell!” Blood spilled from her lips. “You’ll d-dream of this memory forever.”
“Oh. You think this is the worst I’ve ever seen? It doesn’t even make the podium. Besides, it’s only a reverie, right? But I can turn it into a nightmare. Should I make this wood grow inside you? Replace your every vein?” I thumped the shoot through her right leg, the vibration making her cry out. “Or you can talk. Is there truly no other way to kill the Hanged Man? Were you lying?”
“Vow you’ll spare our lives . . . and I’ll tell you.”
I canted my head. “Fine. I give you my word as the Empress that I’ll spare you.”
“The rope was destroyed . . . no longer exists! I’m glad of it!”
For some reason, I believed her. After all these weeks of waiting, my mission was over? And Aric was already a casualty of the game?
“How do we kill Richter? How’s he supposed to die in this game?”
“The Hanged Man . . . convinces the Emperor to kill himself.”
My lips parted. What would stop Paul from doing the same to my friends—and to Aric? The Hanged Man was poised to win the entire game. Evil would rule.
I didn’t want Richter to win, but everything in me rebelled against Paul’s victory too.
My eyes narrowed as an idea surfaced. I could create hemp. I could always make a noose. Just needed to execute with it.
A whole suit of guilty souls happened to be trapped in this place, offered up to me.
If I defeated Paul and freed Aric, we could put Richter in the crosshairs once more. But first I had to secure the weapon.
Was I strong enough to do what needed to be done here? Callous enough? I am, the red witch said. Give yourself over to me!
I looked at Jack. His face was bruised and pulpy, one lid swollen shut. He’ll bring me back.
Proceeding with this noose plan wasn’t necessarily the good-guy thing to do—but it was the move I wanted to make.
To survive in this new world, I’d need to be deadlier than my violent adversaries. Crazier than the insane ones. More monstrous than them all.
In other words, mother of the fucking year. The heat of battle scalded me. “Jack, I think I’m going for a swim.”
His smile was bloody. “Not too deep, bébé.”
Lorraine and the others kept thrashing to get free. Whatever she saw in my expression made her eyes grow crazed.
“You vowed . . . not to kill us.”
I rapped my purple claws together. “As everyone keeps reminding me, the Empress is a known liar.” The deviousness of briars was my own. “Put yourself in my position. Basically, I’m weighing your serial killer lives against the future of mankind. Dear one, you shouldn’t take this personally. Just surrender to the dream.”
Vines erupted from my skin as rage burned. I gazed down at that bottomless pit with a little less horror than before—it’s getting easier, Evie—because I was becoming the Empress I was meant to be.
“Other Minors . . . will sense our murders. The kingdoms will unite . . . hunt you and your child . . . hunt all Majors.”
“You bashed my face in, planning to cut off my head. You threatened the lives of Jack and my kid. The Cups shouldn’t have picked a fight they can’t win.” A thornless rose stalk surfaced from my nape to circle my head, creating a crown. Leaves pointed up, and a dozen red blooms matched my drying blood. In a breathy voice, I said, “Recognize me now? Lorraine, maybe in the next game you’ll remember: An Empress always trumps a queen.”
Gran would be so proud. For the first time, I gave myself over to the red witch completely.
Do.
Your.
Worst.
40
“PLANK, PLANK, PLANK!”
I blinked open my eyes, found myself kneeling beside Jack. Was he yelling at me? In my clenched fingers was a crimson-spattered noose. I could barely move my heavy limbs, drained by my power outlay.
“Jack?” My throat was on fire. From the red witch’s shrieks? Petals and razor-sharp thorns surrounded me like a victim outline.
“Snap out of this, Evie! They’re coming for us. Cut me loose.”
I leaned around him, slicing through his cuffs.
Jack pulled me close. “You back with me?”
I nodded against him, not sure of anything at all. “What happened?”
“We’ve got to go.” He pried my white-knuckled fingers from my new noose, taking the thin length from me to loop it around his waist. He zipped his coat over it.
I caught a glimpse of the dead Cups before Jack pinched my chin and drew my gaze away. “Doan look at that, peekôn.” He helped me stand.
“What did I do?” Everything was a blur.
“What you needed to.” We headed toward the exit. On the way, he seized a rifle from a fallen guard.
Outside, Jubileans clamored for the plank. “Lorraine’s dead!”
“All the Ciborium were murdered by the witch and that Cajun!”
“The criminals are still aboard.”
“Jack, what’s going on?”
“Some
body came in during . . . while you were . . .” As he tried to put my actions into words, I vaguely remembered someone rushing in, vomiting, then fleeing. “Doesn’t matter. They’ve broken into the arsenal. You got any more fight in you?”
A whimper left my lips.
“Afraid of that. Come on, you.” Rifle raised, he grabbed my hand and charged out of the ballroom.
We almost made it off the ship, but an armed mob blocked our way. “Plank! Plank! Plank!”
Jack aimed his gun from one to another.
I glanced over my shoulder. More Jubileans circled us from behind. “There’s too many of them.”
A tall, burly man took a step forward. Their new leader? Leveling a bayonet at us, Burly said, “Drop it, Cajun, or we shoot the witch in the face.”
“Putain.” After a hesitation, Jack laid down the rifle. “You’d kill a rare female?”
“After what she did in there?” Burly’s eyes held a mix of animosity—and fear. I was as good as dead in his mind. “For the murder of our queen and guard, you’ll both walk the plank. Or you’ll get stabbed to death.” He motioned with his bayonet. “You know the way.”
With frenzied grunts, the men prodded us. We had no choice but to stumble along, closer to our execution.
In French, Jack told me, “If we survive the fall, the cold will kill us in the blink of an eye.”
“Circe’s our only hope.” But how could she adjust the temperature of her element? She’d been unable to fight the ice at the castle.
The mob forced us out onto the foggy deck. In the freezing darkness, the plank loomed.
Both Jack and I stopped in our tracks.
I strained my voice to scream, “Circe!” Was she anywhere near us? Could she hear us down in her echoing abyss?
Burly snapped, “Shut up, witch.” He swung his bayonet at me, but Jack defended with his arm.
Slice. Blood poured.
“You’re goan to pay for that.”
“Save it, Cajun.”
Would they stab Jack’s stomach next? His heart? “I’d rather chance the water.” I shuffled out onto the plank, chancing a glance below. My breath caught in my throat. The trench was a hungry beast, awaiting its due.
The Dark Calling Page 25