“Really,” I replied carefully. “I can’t imagine what you find unexpected about anything.”
He did not smile. “Your blood. He is in your blood. Every Avatar who inhabits a skin marks that skin with a print that is of us, and individual to us. That . . . print . . . is in you. Only one generation removed. I can smell it.” Mr. King jerked me against him. “Tampering with your lineage is something even I would not do.”
“You’ve tried to kill me.”
“Death is safer than the alternative,” he whispered. “What you are is inviolate. Which means, my Lady, that you are worth more to me now, alive. When the others see you, when they learn what Old Jack has done, he will suffer. He will suffer more than Ahsen.”
“You loved her,” I said, cold. “That’s why you hate him so much.”
Mr. King pushed me away, and I stumbled into the dancers. Not one made a sound, and I did not look at them as silk rustled and metal gleamed around my arms and legs. I had eyes only for Mr. King.
“If I cannot possess what I need,” he said softly, “I will have to devise a way to take it.”
“You’re good at that.” I gestured at dancers, who swayed, so silent and watchful; unnaturally so, as if they had been made to do nothing more than move along the engraved labyrinth lines. “You’ve taken so much already.”
Mr. King began to turn his back on me. “I took nothing. All of this . . . was offered to me, as in the days of old. This, my temple. And in return, I have given much. Magic. Lives less ordinary. You would be amazed at how many crave such simple things.”
I had seen grown men and women drink blood and avoid sunlight because they thought it would make them vampires. I had observed attempts at witchcraft, or focused meditations in the search of psychic powers. It was the New Age, everywhere; and never mind UFO hunters. Even the idolization of the material and monetary was as much a means of escape as any fantasy of the otherworldly.
So no, I was not amazed. But it frightened me that it had been so easy.
“We fought the war,” continued Mr. King, almost to himself. “We built the prison walls. All for this jewel, this sweet island, to save ourselves and the humans who treated us like gods. But they forgot us when we were no longer needed. They tore us down. They built their world with iron. So I take what is mine, as is my right. As is the right of one who made them.” He flashed me a hard look. “The Labyrinth will not deny me again.”
He clapped his hands, and the dancers parted. I saw Father Lawrence, on his knees, clutching his chest. Nephele stood behind him, her palms resting on top of his head. I started to run toward them, and hands caught me. The dancers. Fingers like steel knots.
“Stop,” I snapped, heart thundering. “Don’t hurt him.”
“He is flesh,” replied Mr. King. “He is nothing except what I desire. Unless you would unlock the Labyrinth in return for keeping him whole?”
I hesitated, and a faint smile touched his mouth. “I thought not.”
Mr. King looked at Father Lawrence, and a charge surged through the air, against my skin. The priest threw back his head and screamed.
Now, I told myself, fighting desperately against the hands that held me. Goddamn it, now.
Father Lawrence’s voice broke, breath rattling in his throat. His entire body trembled, his head thrown back and held by Nephele. She was smiling at him, gently, but her fingers dug so deeply into his cheeks and brow I saw blood trickling from beneath her nails. Mr. King stepped closer to him, still staring, his hands moving now like a conductor’s. The brown skin of Father Lawrence’s hands rippled.
I screamed at the Avatar, surging forward, and the boys screamed with me in their dreams. My tattooed flesh grew hot—Raw and Aaz, burning—and the men and women holding me cried out as my clothing began to smoke. I lunged again, and this time no one held me back. Beneath my ribs, inside my heart, the coiled shadow finally stirred.
Mr. King turned to look at me, and I slammed my fist into his jaw, cracking the mask he wore. Only, it was not wood. It was bone. Growing out of his face. He spun, but did not go down, and I snatched his hair with my right hand and grabbed his throat with the other, digging my fingers into his jugular. Hunger rose inside me. Tasted like laughter. His flesh was hard and smooth as marble, and the boys began burning him alive.
He made no sound. No nerves to feel pain. But blood seeped from the corners of his eyes, and though he stared at me first with arrogance, even boredom, that changed in moments. He looked too deeply in my eyes. He looked, without blinking. And the fear that flickered through his gaze, in pieces, was so thick I could have carved it from him.
Hands reached around my body to pull me away, so many hands that clutched and grappled, but nothing could move me. Flesh that touched me burned. And still he stared, and the darkness rustled, rising; and I whispered, “Who ever did you think killed Ahsen?”
Mr. King stopped struggling. I leaned in so close my mouth brushed his cheek, and he recoiled from me as darkness rolled smooth within my bones and blood, slow and easy, as if an ocean brewed inside me: warm, tangled in moonlight. I closed my eyes because I did not need to see. I could feel every breath around me, each heartbeat tingling on my tongue. Those dancers surrounding us, reduced to bone and flesh and blood—life, dripping from them; life, eking through their porous skins as though rivers were contained within. I could taste them. I could touch them, with a thought.
Borders of illusion whispered, too: this stone palace nothing but a figment, a step sideways into a bubble born from Mr. King’s mind, which carried a scent small as his soul, rotten and small, so old it was nothing but a crusty knot. Pitiful creature. Nothing and nobody, but what he pretended to be. No one real to call his own.
Except Ahsen. You took that from him.
Small worm of a thought. Pushed away. But not before I remembered her death—and saw Grant in her place.
I tried to open my eyes, but my body refused me. Tried to listen, but heard only the thrumming thunder of shadow-coils rubbing against the underside of my skin. Fought to feel Mr. King, choking in my hands, but sensed nothing but his spirit.
Kill him, I told the creature inside me, recoiling from my own self. Kill him now.
It did not. It held back, examining the Avatar. Regarding him with the same cold scrutiny one might give a peculiarly rare species of ant. I could feel its curiosity, which was infinitely alien—alien, and yet, me.
We remember, whispered that soft, sibilant voice, and Mr. King screamed, clutching wildly at his head and my hands, shuddering so violently it was as though tiny axes hacked at him from the inside out.
He was in pain. Brutal, vicious pain. I wondered if he had ever felt pain, but it was in him now, and I felt no joy, no satisfaction. Just horror. I had gotten what I wanted. He was being killed.
Slowly. Tortured.
Something else, too. Memories, scalped from Mr. King. Behind my eyes, images fluttered: thorn-strikes of starlight so dizzying I fell hard to one knee. All I could see was stars, a blanket of stars vast and lonely without end—and others with me, traveling through the nebular night as wolves, in packs, clustered tight as thought—becoming one thought—unity not enough to assuage the crawling, intolerable knowledge that we feel nothing, we are nothing, even as we scream as one we will never end, we will pass though darkness in desolation and begin as thus again—
Again and again. I could not escape. I fought, screaming to hear myself past the screams already inside my head—those endless starlit cries of the Avatars, lost in their madness—dimly aware that I was clawing at my own body, fingernails striking sparks on my skin. My voice broke.
Then Zee was inside my head. Zee and the boys, humming a desperate lullaby—and that coiled presence within my heart, the shadows surrounding my heart, broke the connection to Mr. King.
Who, in that moment, fled.
I felt it happen. I tasted Mr. King’s spirit—cold, hard knot—as it shot from the flesh of his breaking body like a bullet. Odd, terrible sen
sation. As though part of my belly button left with him. Nothing I could do. I lay sprawled on the stone floor. I could not move. I could hardly see. My voice was nothing but a hiss and drool.
The creature inside me was quiet. My only weapon against Mr. King—receding, inexplicably so. Every other time it had possessed me, it had killed indiscriminately—and this, the one time I needed it . . .
It had become . . . thoughtful.
Or not.
I managed to roll over. And found myself surrounded by dead people.
CHAPTER 16
I had begun to keep a journal. Not for myself, but for the future. My bloodline. Every Hunter kept a record, meant to inspire and teach from beyond the grave. I felt sorry for the kid who inherited mine.
My grandmother had not been much of a writer. Just one slim volume, meant to describe an entire lifetime. No mention of Avatars or Jack. But as I lay sprawled in the hall and prison of Mr. King, I was reminded of a rough note written on one of the last pages; a scrawled afterthought: The result of an act is always less damning than the thought that made it.
I did not agree.
The vast temple had vanished. I was back inside the club—which, I suspected, I had never left—disco ball swinging, music still rocking out with a beat that set my teeth on edge. I was ready to put my fist through the stereo system.
No one was dancing. No one was as dead as I had thought, either. Just unconscious, sprawled in loose-limbed heaps that smelled like leather and sweat. I listened to the quiet rush of breathing—more than a hundred bodies strong—and found the sound comforting, in an odd way. Until I considered what would happen when those men and women woke up.
I struggled to stand, but my knees gave out. My head felt full of holes. For one moment when I fell to the floor, I could not remember who I was.
Until I looked down at the tattoos on my hands. Red eyes stared back at me, glittering amongst obsidian scales and silver veins. I rubbed my hands, gently, and Raw and Aaz rubbed back. I covered my face, breathed deep, and shuddered.
All you can do is trust yourself, whispered my mother’s voice. I clung to that memory though it hurt me. I had trusted myself, and failed. Mr. King was alive and gone, and now he knew more about me than was safe. I had lost the element of surprise.
Zee rumbled against my skin. I went still, and beneath the pulsing beat of drums, heard a muffled tapping sound. Felt, more than saw, a presence behind me. Someone reaching for my shoulder. I turned without thinking to grab that outstretched hand—twisting hard—and heard a masculine grunt that was impossibly familiar.
Too late to let go. A large man crashed down beside me, cushioned by an unconscious woman whose breasts had popped free of a skimpy halter top. An oak cane hit my leg. I leaned forward and snatched a fistful of flannel shirt. I used too much force, but fear was running through my veins: fear, shock, and relief.
“What,” I rasped hoarsely, “are you doing here?”
“What do you think?” Grant asked roughly, and grabbed the back of my neck—holding me still as he searched my face with startling anger. “Did you really think I’d let you walk away like that?”
“I knew what I was doing.”
“Liar,” he mumbled. “Jesus, Maxine. You tell me to stay alive, then disappear with that look on your face—”
“What look?”
“Like you’re marching to the firing squad,” he retorted, hauling me into his lap. “Don’t play dumb with me.”
And then he sank his fingers into my hair and kissed me so hard I stopped breathing. My eyes burned with tears. I held on tight.
He stopped, finally, but his arms belonged to a grizzly bear, and I could not see my way free as he hugged me tight against his chest. His bristled cheek rubbed mine, breath rag gedly warming my ear—and we could have been anywhere, anywhere in the world but this place, surrounded by lost men and women, with hard music hammering the air.
“Look at this place,” he whispered. “When I saw all the bodies, all the people . . .”
“I failed,” I whispered.
“You’re alive.” Grant leaned back to look at me, still holding my face as his thumb brushed over my mouth; and then, again, softly: “You’re alive.”
I stared into his eyes, grieving. I was alive, but had botched everything. Grant was in more danger now. All of us were.
“How did you—” I began to ask, and sensed movement behind me. I looked, and saw Jack picking his way around the bodies. Shadows bruised his eyes, and his white hair was wildly tufted. His face seemed incredibly gaunt, but I blamed exhaustion for that. And fear.
He gave me a long, steady look, solemn as the grave, and turned away without a word. I could not tear my gaze from him—in my head, trying to reconcile the old man with Mr. King. Both the same. Both so radically different.
Both of them grieving.
Jack knelt. I glimpsed black cloth beside him. A pudgy brown hand.
I scrabbled to stand, heart lurching up my throat. Grant frowned, looking at me, and I pointed. “Father Lawrence.”
The priest was still alive, and lay on his back, unconscious. His breathing was steady, his pulse strong, but both Jack and Grant stared at the man as though he carried some terminal disease that was catching. I got down on my knees beside Father Lawrence and touched his hand. I could still hear his screams.
“Be careful,” Jack said.
I wrapped my hand more firmly around his. He looked the same, his face slack in sleep, but I knew that meant nothing. “How deeply was he altered?”
“Enough,” Grant said grimly.
My fault. I had stayed for nothing. I squeezed his hand and gazed around the rest of the club. I heard several faint groans, and glimpsed movement. Nephele lay nearby, sprawled on her face.
“Have they all been changed?” I asked the men.
“Most.” Jack turned slightly to survey the room, something very quiet and restrained in the way he moved. He was hurting, I realized. Sore. I remembered that he had been sick after transporting me. Grant was a bigger person, and the old man had been running for days, weeks, even months.
I reached up and grabbed his hand, my finger armor glinting against his tanned, wrinkled skin. Jack glanced down at me in surprise—which then shifted into something softer, sadder.
“They’re a danger to others,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”
Grant tore his gaze from Father Lawrence, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the slowly rousing men and women. He reached over his shoulder for the golden flute sheathed in its dark case.
Jack grabbed Grant’s arm, stopping him. “You have to choose who’s more important, lad. Your resources are not limitless, no matter what you’ve done in the past.”
Grant shook off his arm, but did not reach for his flute again. He looked from me to Father Lawrence, and his expression was guarded. Behind him, Nephele groaned, fingers twitching. More people were moving. I could not stop them all, but I stood slowly.
“Old Wolf,” I said. “If they go free, as they are—”
“What they are can’t be easily changed,” he interrupted, staring into my eyes. “And you can’t imprison them. If you kill them—”
“Stop,” I said.
“If you kill them,” he persisted, “you might save some lives, but you’ll be condemning others whose only mistake was believing in the lie of an easy life, the life of one who is . . . special.”
I stared at him, torn. Still able to feel those hands at my throat, that knife slipping between my legs. Violent tendencies would not remain inside this club. Nor did it matter that most normal people would be unprepared for any kind of physical violence, regardless of whether their attacker was superenhanced, or not. It was not just innocent lives at stake. Eventually, inevitably, one of those cat-eyed men, or women covered in scales, would end up arrested or in a hospital. The physical differences would not go unnoticed.
I looked at Grant. “What do you think?”
He surveyed the room, lea
ning hard on his cane: a man as out of place in that club, surrounded by those bodies, as a wolf might be in a cement block. I wished I could see through his eyes. I wished I knew with certainty the truth in the hearts around me.
“I think you have little choice in the matter,” he finally said, grim—and gave Jack a hard look. “I think you have to choose your battles.”
At any second we would be noticed. The pounding music and wail of synth guitars made me dizzy. I glimpsed spines rocked with hard bone protrusions, and pointed ears tufted with fur. Nearby, a young woman with a sweet face was sitting slowly up. Small iridescent wings, like a drag onfly’s, drooped from her shoulder blades. They looked useless, merely cosmetic.
Magic, Mr. King had said. Lives less ordinary. You would be amazed at how many crave such simple things.
I missed dealing with demons.
I stooped beside Father Lawrence and grabbed his wrist. Held up my right hand to Jack. Grant stepped close, his fingers strong on my shoulder.
“You know how to use this thing better than I do,” I said to the old man, as his hand closed around mine, his thumb briefly caressing the sliver of armor running from my ring finger to the bracelet cuff.
“But it likes you better,” he said.
In moments we were gone.
WE did not return to Jack’s apartment. We slipped free of the abyss and found ourselves inside a dark stairwell made of cracking cement and peeling plaster, the air thick with the scent of exhaust. An open doorway was beside me. I saw a parking garage on the other side—and nearby, Grant’s Jeep.
“We’ve been busy,” Grant said, trying to help me as I grabbed Father Lawrence under his arms and dragged him toward the Jeep. Jack moved ahead of us, watching the rest of the garage.
I gave him a brief wry smile. “So much for coming to save me first?”
Grant’s jaw tightened. “Jack couldn’t find you. Not in the beginning. And the apartment wasn’t safe.”
“We can be tracked anywhere.”
“But it takes time,” Jack said, over his shoulder. “And we need time, if only to rest, and plan.”
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