Black Ice Burning (Pale Queen Series Book 3)

by A. R. Kahler

  I try to cry out, try to fight. But they are too many. Too many mortals who don’t understand. I’m one of you, I want to cry. They would never hear me over their own shouts. Monster. Demon. Witch.

  “Here is your freedom,” Mab hisses. Then she strikes a match and hands it to my mother.

  My mother. My mother. Surely you will save me.

  “I wish you had been born without air in your lungs,” my mother says. “That would have hurt me less than the shame you are now.”

  Before I can call out, she tosses the burning match to the kindling. Fire surrounds me, fills me. Smoke chokes me. I try to scream against the flames.

  “I told you not to touch anything,” Lilith says, swatting my hand.

  The pendant drops from my grasp; when it hits the ground, it shatters into a hundred tiny pieces. The pieces scuttle and I leap back as the spiders scurry off into the shadows.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Focusing. Yes. I know,” she says. “You became lost in her hell. Imagine that, every day, on repeat, for eternity. Perhaps then you will understand why she has done what she has done.”

  I shake my head, try to rattle free the memory. How much of that was truth, and how much a twisted version of reality? I keep staring at the place the pendant had been. Penelope’s. My mother’s. Mab’s. And then mine. How far back are we linked?

  “How, though?” I ask, memories still scuttling like the spiders I hear shifting in the shadows.

  “How did you become distracted? Well, let me see—”

  “How did she gather power? How did she get followers?” I look around at the room of shit. “If all of this was in her head, how did she reach into the physical worlds?”

  Lilith sits on an overstuffed green teddy bear with missing eyes. The thing is twice the size of her.

  “I already told you that hatred burns. And Penelope’s hatred grew. Alone, that would have just turned her into a monster. But she was still contracted by Mab while down here. I don’t know how or why the contract wasn’t negated when Penelope betrayed the circus. Maybe something Penelope changed in her own clause.” She looks around the circus tent. “This place should have held her, but that contract was a thread back. The more her hatred grew, the more power she gained, and the tighter her grip on that thread became. She used it to tether herself to the mortal world.”

  “But that doesn’t explain anything—”

  “Because I’m not finished explaining,” she says, shooting me a glare. “She started gathering followers because of that thread. Like attracts like, and she exuded a hatred and spite for the ruling classes that many felt, but that wasn’t safe to reveal. She found them through dreams, or they were drawn to her. With every faerie that flocked to her, dreaming of her, inspired by her, her power grew. It became something more than an inner flame. It spread. And as the power moved to a force outside of her, as followers worshipped in secret, she pulled in that Dream. Transformed it with her hatred, with the volatile nature of hell. She turned the hopes and dreams of her followers into fuel, and down here, in the heart of the flame, she channeled it into a tempest.”

  “So you’re saying, if she hadn’t had those followers, she never would have risen?”

  She shrugs. “Perhaps, perhaps not. She wouldn’t have been as powerful, though. The Dream she pulled in, that raw power and hope, that just fueled the transformation she was already undergoing. Turned her hate into might. She is more than the woman she was, because she is now made of the hopes and fears of her followers.” Her lips quirk into a grin. “She is not one. She is legion. And it will take more than a simple banishing to quell the flames she has already spread.”

  “You waited until we were down here to tell me that?”

  “I had to be here to know for sure.” She strokes the teddy bear’s fur. “This place is filled with her memories. If you know how to read them, and not get trapped in them, you can learn the secrets of her universe.”

  “And you have?”

  Another smile, and she hops off the bear.

  “Of course. It’s my universe too.”

  “How are you here, Lilith? How are you a demon, but still a girl?”

  “That is another story,” she says. She tilts her head to the side. “I was split once. Demon and child. I burned with the same hatred as Penelope. Then your mother destroyed the demon part of my soul, leaving the child behind.” She looks sad, almost. “But no one can change your true nature. I was touched by the fires of hell. Even with the demonic part gone, I had a fire. I had a line back to the source.” She shrugs and walks off. “There was simply no need to exercise it until recently. It was much more fun just playing in the show.”

  I open my mouth to ask her more, but she’s already darting behind another pile of Penelope’s shit. That’s not an answer, not really. Lilith’s still part demon, but she has it under control. And Penelope . . . if Lilith is right, I killed the last bit of her humanity by negating the contract.

  The exact opposite of what happened to Lilith.

  Which just makes me think that maybe, once more, I screwed this up. I killed the humane part of Penelope, leaving only the monster behind.

  “We don’t have much time,” she says. “Remember, the longer we linger, the harder it will be to leave. We don’t have anyone in the mortal world to summon us back.”

  Suddenly, the walls of this place feel very, very small.

  I walk, my hands shoved deep in my pockets so I can’t give in to temptation again. I can’t shake the feeling of Penelope’s memories or visions or whatever. The panic. The sense of abandonment. A hole is punched in my chest and I can’t figure out if it was mine to begin with or if this place just put it there. She was abandoned. Chased out by the people who should have loved her.

  I thought you weren’t going to pity her, I hiss at myself.

  I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand.

  I kick through piles of clothes, sidestep around fountains cascading jewels and blood. Now that I’ve seen the darker side of these objects, I see the malice laced through them, and Penelope’s response: the pile of shattered porcelain dolls, their insides dripping crimson; the slashed posters of Penelope as a mermaid, the banner “LAST SURVIVING FIJI MERMAID” painted at the top; the hand mirrors stained with blood or cracked like cobwebs. The rolls of tickets to the Immortal Circus. As my steps lead me to the farthest edge of the tent, I realize that this place isn’t as expansive as I thought. And it’s not walled in canvas. Iron bars rise from the dirt, the canvas strung between them shredded and smeared. The bars rise all the way to the top of the tent, some of them barbed like thorns. So, too, rises the evidence of Penelope’s attempted escapes.

  Maybe she wasn’t just stuck in her own mind down here, twiddling her thumbs and watching the mortal world turn. She wanted out. Badly. And the harder she tried, the more this place fought back. I’m not going to empathize with her. I’m not going to think she might have a good reason to want revenge.

  I keep walking along the perimeter.

  I have to stay focused. I have to find her name. Because with every second that goes by, I feel it. There’s a weight here. An anger that infuses every breath. My pulse is already racing and we’ve only been here a few minutes. Seeing the bars of the tent didn’t help. We walked straight into a trap without a firm idea of how we’re getting out.

  I had assumed Eli would know how to get us out. Now, I have to rely on Lilith, and that’s enough to make me want to scream. She said my mother killed the demon part of her. What the hell does that mean? Why is so much of this history laced with my mother’s story? And why do I have to be blind to all of it?

  That’s when I see her.

  Well, it.

  The machine is surrounded by bags of flattened cotton candy and toy sabers in a darkened corner of the debris. But the moment I look at it, the lights around the glass window pop into brilliance in flashing gold and red, and the inner lights illuminate a wax figure far too realistic for c
omfort.

  The sign at the top says “FORTUNE-TELLER.”

  The mannequin inside is my mother.

  I step forward slowly, feeling my hackles rise as I near the booth. It’s one of those old-fashioned animatronic things, with a slot for coins and another for where your “fortune” comes out.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” I whisper to the machine.

  The figure doesn’t respond.

  Up close, the likeness is too realistic. It’s not wax. I know it’s not wax. Just as I know it’s not really my mother standing inside the glass booth, her hair loose on her shoulders and shawls draped over her body.

  But I don’t know why there’s a coin in my hand, or why I place it in the slot. I only know I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to stop myself.

  The moment the coin clinks in, the mannequin jerks to life.

  “Your future is clouded,” it says in a showy, mysterious voice. “You have fought valiantly, but you will fail. And the world will suffer for it.”

  I roll my eyes and turn.

  “Piece of shit,” I mutter.

  “Claire?” she asks.

  My heart leaps into my throat at the voice. I turn back and see her, and it is her—I know it is. She’s stuck in the fortune-teller’s booth. My mother’s eyes widen in fear and her hand reaches toward the glass before her. Her palm is flesh. I know it’s flesh. Her chest begins to heave as she hyperventilates.

  “Claire!” she yells. Her voice sounds hollow in the machine. “Claire! Please, get me out. I can’t breathe in here. Claire!”

  I don’t think. I hammer my fist at the glass, but it doesn’t give, doesn’t even wobble. Music begins to play in the booth, a creepy music-box sort of thing that grates against my spine and clashes with my mother’s screams. As, slowly, the booth fills with water.

  My mother is screaming louder now, and I grab the nearest thing I can find and start hammering and punching the glass. It doesn’t give. The water reaches her chest and she’s stopped screaming now. Her breath is fast as a rabbit’s and her eyes dart around the tank, her hands desperately seeking an escape. I yank a dagger from my coat and begin stabbing—small nicks appear in the glass, but after the fourth jab the blade snaps and ricochets into the dark. The water continues to rise and my mother continues to struggle. Her shawls swirl around her like smoke, beautiful if not for the panic in her eyes, in my chest. I can’t let her die. I can’t let her die.

  The water reaches the top of the booth far too quickly, begins cascading out from the cracks. But she can’t get out. Water pours down the sides as my mother twists and kicks and floats inside. I stop punching. Step back in horror and watch her squirm.

  “I can’t help you,” I whisper. My words are choked with tears.

  “You could never help her,” Kingston says from behind me.

  I jerk around. Kingston stands there, Melody beside him. There are others, too, faces I don’t recognize—a tall man with a Mohawk, a tiny girl in a silver unitard with a slash across her neck. Even a cat.

  All of them standing stoically, watching me. Watching my mother drown in the booth.

  “Help her!” I yell at them.

  Kingston steps forward, his movements clunky.

  “We are,” he says. And grabs me. “You die; she lives. That is how this was meant to be.”

  His grip is tight and cold, like plastic, and when I punch, he doesn’t flinch—my blow sends pain racing across my knuckles and up my arm. It’s like punching steel. I draw back for another hit but Melody grabs my arm. Her grip is just as strong as Kingston’s, just as immovable. She pulls, stretching my arms out crucifix-style. The tall Mohawked man advances toward me, the cat twining in and out of his feet with every step. He drags a sword limply against the ground, cutting a furrow into the soil of the tent.

  “You die,” the man says. They all say. “We live. We all live.”

  I scream. Or try to scream. Because the girl in the unitard is behind me now and her hand covers my throat. Stuffs itself into my mouth. Something warm spills over my shoulder. Blood. Her blood. She’s bleeding all over me, and as the Mohawked man steps forward, blood starts spilling from wounds in his torso. But that doesn’t stop him from raising his sword.

  Something kicks in then, something beneath all the panic and fear. Something that tells me to fight.

  I drop my weight, which pulls Melody off balance just enough to twist my hand out of her grip. In that motion I grab a dagger from my belt and spin around, slashing at Kingston’s tattooed arm. His hand doesn’t release, but it does disconnect from his forearm. He doesn’t bleed.

  They’re made of plastic. All of them.

  The Mohawked man swings his sword down, but in the chaos, the unitard girl has stumbled into his path. I watch just long enough to see the blade embed in her shoulder before I turn and take off down the aisle, ripping off Kingston’s hand as I go.

  My heart races as I run—I need to get out of here. Need to find Lilith. Need to—

  I turn a corner and yell as another small army bursts from a pile of stuffed animals: the same army, the same people. Skidding, I turn and run down another aisle. My heart races along with my strides. Then something bounds in front of my feet, causing me to trip, and as I stumble to the ground, I catch sight of not one, but two black cats, each with eyes glowing green fire and teeth as sharp and red as used needles.

  One lunges at me. I have just enough time to raise an arm; its teeth slice cleanly through the leather and into my flesh, sending a wave of fire through my veins. I grab it by the scruff of its neck and rip it off, flinging it toward its companion. I’m on my feet and running again before it hits.

  And there, at the end of a row, I see it.

  A huge glass tank, empty and ominous. Mold or algae stains a few corners, and a concrete abalone shell sits in the center. Spotlights shine down on the tank, making the whole thing glow like a multicolored jewel. It’s gorgeous, in a way, but surrounded by the emptiness and shadows, a sort of loneliness echoes from it, a call of the forgotten. I can practically imagine Penelope sitting atop it, staring out wistfully as crowds sauntered by and eons passed. The display feels like a testament to Penelope’s pride: diamonds glitter around the base of the tank, sparkling in the light of the spotlights. I don’t think. I run.

  When I get closer, I see that the tank is far from pristine. The glass is covered in claw marks from within. Scratches tinted with browned blood. Either it’s my imagination or some unfelt wind, but a low howl emanates from the cage. Because that’s what it was. A cage. It doesn’t stop me, though. There’s nowhere else to go, nowhere to hide. And yes, it’s a display case, but if I can get in, if I can hide . . .

  I race behind the tank to where a series of books have been laid out, creating a small staircase leading up to the rim. I leap up and hoist myself over the top. There’s a split second when I think this might have been a mistake, when I realize there’s no real way out, but then I land in the gravel at the bottom of the tank and the thought is dashed from my mind. Too late now.

  They come from the shadows the moment my feet hit the ground. Above me, something slams into place, and I look up in time to see a giant metal lid fitted onto the tank, moved into place by a half dozen Kingstons.

  I look around slowly. Dozens of mannequins walk forward, shoulder to shoulder. They stare at me, blank-eyed, and I wonder how long it will take for them to break through the glass. I wonder how long it will take for them to kill me, and what will happen when they do.

  What happens when you die in hell?

  I’m immortal. It’s in my contract.

  Will I become something else? Something like Penelope.

  The mannequins stop a few feet from the tank, and for a moment I wonder why. Until I hear the music. I’d missed it at first, hearing only the cadence of my heartbeat, the echo of my breath in the tank. But now it grows louder.

  I walk around the edge of the tank, staring out, trying to find the source of the music. Then
I turn and look behind me, and I realize I’m not just staring at claw marks. I’m staring at words.

  Not words.

  A name.

  I would laugh if not for the horror building in the back of my throat. Penelope scratched her name into the panes of her tank. Not her mortal name, either. The creature she became.

  The name unfurls in my mouth as I whisper it aloud. Her true name, her new name, the words and letters a foreign mix on my tongue. It burns like cinders, tastes like sea salt and char.

  The moment the words leave my lips, the tank begins to fill with water.

  The tent is gone, replaced with a foggy cobblestone street. The mannequins have vanished, and I wonder . . . what mannequins? What tent? What am I doing here in the first place?

  People walk past, appearing and disappearing in thin air, all of them staring at me as the tank slowly fills. They point and laugh, but not a single one of them stops to help, no matter how hard I pound my hands on the glass, no matter how loud I scream. I can’t hear them and they surely can’t hear me. Or maybe they can, and maybe they enjoy it.

  The water reaches my waist in no time at all. I scream louder, kick at the glass, but it doesn’t make the slightest crack, not even when I pull out a dagger and slam the hilt into the panes. Still, people walk past and stare. I recognize a few of them. Ex-lovers. Old hits. Mab saunters past at one point, and Roxie appears a few moments later, staring at me with a twisted smile on her face as if she’d been waiting for this moment.

  The water hits my chest, begins lifting my feet from the base of the tank. I try to keep pushing and hitting the glass but don’t have the leverage. The water keeps rising, keeps lifting me, and in moments I hit the lid. It is cold and unmoving and no matter how hard I slam my fists against it, I can’t make it budge. I swim hard, try to keep my lips above water. Then I take one last gulp of air as the tank fills completely.

  Silence surrounds me. I sink slowly to the bottom of the tank. There aren’t any more crowds of passersby. Only one person stands in the boulevard.

  Mab. Wearing a studded black dress and a ruby smile.