“No. That’s ridiculous. I won’t.”
“Then you will die, Colby Stevens. You will die. Here I’ve told you that the thing you face will stop at nothing to get what she wants, but you, you have a point at which you will go no farther. Even to protect yourself. You are doomed to meet Ewan’s fate. And you will lie there, staring at the stars as your friend did, as the light fades from your eyes, wishing you’d just given me the damn dog.”
Colby’s eyes narrowed, his temper flaring.
At once Rhiamon realized what she’d done, aging forty years in a heartbeat. Her face was once again awash in wrinkles, her eyes pleading for mercy.
The air around them crackled, Colby’s rage tickling the rich stream of dreamstuff surrounding them. He looked at the old woman cowering before him and at once he understood the nature of her power. “This form,” he said. “I’m supposed to feel pity for an old woman when I’m not seduced by the allure of the young one?”
She nodded. “Maybe you’re smarter than I ever gave you credit for.”
“And maybe I vaporize you right here and now.”
“Maybe you do. Maybe you continue down that road. Maybe you become more like us every day.”
Colby’s ire waned, the sudden pangs of his conscience dragging it screaming back into his belly. “I’m not like you, witch.”
Rhiamon eased back forward, cautious not to further aggravate him. “That’s what I mean. The Queen, she’s more like us than you’ll ever be. She has given in to her nature and that nature is a decisive one. She doesn’t fear the creatures of the night; she conquers them. You still think you can reason with them. You’ll try to reason with her . . . when you have to.”
“If you won’t help me, why even talk to me?”
“Because you fascinate me.”
“I do?”
“Yes. You are unburdened by destiny. It holds no sway over you. The others around you, they see what you can become—the potential within you—and they assume that this is your destiny.”
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s not. It is your potential. They’re right in believing what you could become. But you stay ever perched upon the precipice of greatness, staring into it as if it were the abyss itself—a gulf of terrible things that you shan’t even gaze upon lest it swallow you whole. No, you have no destiny. And you squander what little else you have. You’re like a keg of soggy dynamite with a lit fuse. Maybe you’ll change the landscape of the very world. And maybe everyone is just tiptoeing around you for nothing. And that fascinates me.”
“You don’t think I can? Change the landscape?”
“No. I just don’t think you will. You don’t have the guts. The only time a pure soul ever changes anything is by dying. It’s the ones with the stomach to do bad things that change the world. You’ve done things that showed potential, but you’ve been regretting them ever since. The Queen of the Dark Things knows no remorse. She will change the world.”
“How do you know she’s coming for me?”
“The only ones who know aren’t talking. We just know she’s coming. We can feel it. And we know that we can either run or we can serve.”
“Which will you do?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” said Rhiamon. “Honestly, I was certain you’d have killed me before she even got here. But now? Now I know I will most likely outlive you.”
“Damnit,” said Colby.
“What is it?”
“I know now what I have to do.” Colby stood up. “Thank you, Rhiamon.”
“So that’s it? I have done this for you, what now will you give me?”
Colby pointed at Gossamer. Gossamer’s eyes went wide with worry. “You see my friend over there?”
“Yes,” she said, growing younger by the second.
“He’s awakened. I did it myself.”
“I know this. It’s why he’s such a valuable prize.”
“I did it with the soul of a redcap.” He looked at her with stern, bitter eyes. “And what do you think that redcap told me, screaming, in the last seconds of his life? What information do you think he tried to bargain with?”
Rhiamon was 150 years old, the whole of her body wrinkling in on itself, her eyes sunk an inch deep in their sockets. He knew.
“Today you’ve earned another day. You’ll see another sunrise. Maybe another after that. I won’t kill you today, witch. I give you today. That’s what you get. Today.”
“I’ll take it,” she said, cowering behind a skeletal hand dripping in liver spots.
Colby stormed off with Gossamer in tow. Gossamer looked up, tail wagging. “For a second there, boss, I thought you were going to do it.”
Colby looked down at his friend, his expression uneasy, breathing labored. “I would never do that, Goss. Instead, I have to do something far, far worse.”
CHAPTER 40
THE DUKE AT THE FOOT OF A ROCK
Duke Dantalion the djinn, seventy-first of the Seventy-two and master of a thousand faces, was in the throes of the most wonderful dream. He stood atop a spire, surrounded on all sides by luscious flesh, begging for his cock, moaning to be fulfilled, as he stared down at the city beneath them, its towers burning, pillars of smoke trailing into the sky, its empire crumbling from his deceptions. He’d done it. He’d brought the world to a glorious, debaucherous end. And now, as his fellow brothers looted the city for souls, he would while away the hours with its most beautiful women. He would make love to them, each and every one, with the face of their own lovers, before revealing himself, just before he came, to revel in the terror of the moment.
He took one of them by the hand, and laid her back so he could watch the city burn as he fucked her. She looked up at him, legs spread wide, eyes insatiable, and said, “Wake up, asshole.”
The world trembled, shook, his side burned. He screamed as the universe cracked, shards of it falling away like a broken mirror. Then everything went bright yellow, his eyes burning with the stinging rays of the sun.
“I SAID WAKE up, asshole,” said the Queen of the Dark Things, throwing another handful of salt at him.
Dantalion’s eyes shot open. The desert. He was in the desert. Leaning against a rock. The dream was over. And he was in trouble.
He jumped to his feet, took in his surroundings. The dirt around the rock had been marred by colorful sand and salt, drawn into the shape of a pentagram. Symbols of warding and binding adorned it. He was trapped.
“Do you know who I am?” asked the Queen.
Dantalion nodded stoically. “You are Kaycee Looes.”
The Queen hurled another handful of salt at him, his flesh burning as if sprayed with acid. He cried out, unable to bear the agony.
“Do you know who I am?”
“You are the Queen of the Dark Things,” he said through the pain. “And I am in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”
“The worst kind.”
“Is this about the bet?”
“What bet?”
He breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t know. “It’s nothing. A silly bet some friends made centuries ago. I was just dreaming about it. I’m still a little confused from being awakened so abruptly.”
The Queen reached into a kangaroo skin dilly bag on her hip, and pulled from it another handful of salt.
“Okay! Okay!” he shouted. “The bet that made you what you are. That brought about the kutji.”
“You know how I came to be like this?”
“I do.”
She scattered the salt on the ground then reached once again into her bag. This time she pulled from it a crystal bottle—etched with Persian, inlaid with gold and jewels, stoppered with an ancient cork, its glass a golden yellow. “You know this bottle?” she asked.
“I do. It is Mehrang. It means ‘Color of the Sun.’ I knew its last occupant. He was a friend.”
“I can reunite you.”
“No you can’t,” he sneered. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
“I do.�
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“Then you know my name appears in tens of thousands of books. I have been written into holy texts and books of sorcery. I cannot be so easily forgotten. Nor would my brothers allow me to be.”
“But you can be bottled. Stoppered with the seal of Solomon so your brothers will never find you, sealed in concrete and buried deep in the sands of the outback.”
Dantalion’s boldness failed him, and his fear showed through. “Yes. I can be bottled. Have you come to me for wishes? Because I can’t grant those. It is not in my power.”
“No. I’ve come for information.”
“That I can grant.”
“You know my curse.”
“I do.”
“I want you to break it. I want to be free.”
“No spirit can break your curse, demon or otherwise. Your curse cannot be broken.”
“Then I have no need for you.” She pulled the stopper loose from the bottle.
“Wait! Waitwaitwait!”
“Why should I?”
“I said no spirit can break your curse, that it could not be broken. I didn’t say you couldn’t be free.”
“Go on.”
“It is possible for you to free your spirit from the binds of your body, but it requires a lot.”
“Like?”
“A willing spirit capable of possessing your mortal body.”
“That I have.”
“I said willing spirit. And capable. Your body is in Arnhem Land and your kutji are forbidden from going there. And what must be done, your spirits will not do.”
“I know where my body is. And I know of a thing that can go there. A thing willing to do anything it has to.”
“Ahhhhhhh,” he said, waving a knowing finger. “You do, don’t you?”
“Yes. What then?”
“What then what?” he asked, trying to concentrate against the searing pain.
“Once a thing has taken my body, what then?”
“Then your body and that spirit must be disbelieved. Ripped out of reality. Restructured anew.”
“And you can do that?”
Dantalion shook his head, a sick little grin creeping across his lips. He was almost laughing. “No spirit can disbelieve a thing. Only a thing of the flesh can do that. But to dissolve both flesh and spirit as one takes great power. And of the flesh, there is only one being alive with such a power, a man who can will almost anything away with a wave. But he’d never do so willingly. Especially not for you.”
“Who is he? Why won’t he help me?”
“You know him. His name is Colby Stevens. And he hates the things of the night even more than you. What you’re asking for is immortality. To be free to continue your crusade without limits. Colby would never, ever allow such a thing unless he had to.”
“Perhaps he will if I ask him,” she said.
“Ask? Colby Stevens? He’s a prickly little cocksucker. When was the last time you saw him?”
“When he left me here in the desert to die.”
“What, then, do you think has changed about him in the years since? He won’t help you. Not after what you’ve become.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What? By what you’ve become?”
She fumbled for another handful of salt. “Yes.”
Dantalion chose his words very carefully, crouching defensively, staying her with a worried hand. “A dreamwalker without the need for a body and a will as strong as yours. Doing that would make you more powerful than he would allow. You have become the Queen of the Dark Things. And the dark things are what Colby Stevens hates most.”
“Then we’ll have to change his mind.”
“He would destroy you first. His temper is quick and his arrogance knows no bounds.”
“Then we’ll have to find something he bloody cares about and tell him to choose.”
Dantalion smiled, the pain fading away. He nodded, beginning to take a liking to the girl. “Yes. Yes. Make him suffer and choose. This could work. You could be free after all.”
“I’ve been told,” she said, unstoppering the bottle and sieving in a fistful of salt, “that if you salt the inside of a bottle before putting in a genie, he feels its burn for as long as he’s in there. How long do you suppose you’ll be in the desert before someone finds you? A hundred years? Five hundred? A thousand?” She swished the salt around the inside of the bottle.
“What? I’ve answered everything you’ve asked.”
“There’s one more thing I need from you.”
“Anything. Ask it.”
“Swear to me. Swear that you will grant me one last request and I promise that you will never see the inside of this bottle.”
“I swear it.” He said. “Anything.”
“I need for you to get me . . . the ring.”
CHAPTER 41
THE FIVE DUKES OF THE BATAVIA
This may be the worst idea you’ve ever had,” said Yashar through clenched teeth.
“What choice do I have?” asked Colby, seated once more at the bar, Gossamer panting with concern beside him.
“You have the choice either to do it or not to do it. I vote not.”
“Rhiamon said the things that knew what was going on weren’t talking. She meant them. The Seventy-two.”
“You can’t trust that old witch and you know it.”
“Do you think she’s wrong? That they don’t know what’s going on?”
“No. I think they know exactly what’s going on. I just don’t believe that you’re really involved in this. I think they want you to be.”
“I only want to summon the Horse. He speaks nothing but the truth. He’s their oracle, nothing more. He’s already appeared to me. He’s already watching me. You said as much. How much more trouble can I really get into with him?”
“The answer to that question is entirely what concerns me.”
“It’s not like I’m going to make a pact with him or anything. We need information. He has it.”
“We can get it other ways.”
“HOW?”
Yashar looked long and hard at Colby from across the bar. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“Rhiamon said that what the Queen has over me is the fact that she’ll do anything to get what she wants, but I won’t. Maybe it’s time I took a risk. Did what no one expects me to do.”
“Trafficking with demons. That’s a risk?”
“Yes.”
“This is how it starts.”
“No. Hopefully this is how it ends.”
“Don’t say things that might be far too prophetic for your own good. How much of your soul are you willing to leverage for this?”
“To make things right? As much as it takes.”
Yashar tapped the bar nervously, mulling over Colby’s rash decision. “Just Orobas?”
“Just the Horse.”
Yashar sighed. “Do it. Make it quick before—”
“Before what?”
“Before I lose my nerve.”
Colby looked down at Gossamer. “You should go home. You don’t need to be here for this.”
“I’m not going anywhere, boss.”
“This isn’t something you want to be around for.”
“I’ve been shot at by Sidhe and chased by monsters. What makes you think I’m going to get spooked by a horse?”
“Because he’s not really a horse.”
Gossamer nuzzled up to Colby, putting his forehead against his leg, tail wagging. “I won’t leave you.”
Colby scratched Gossamer behind the ear, melting a little. “Stay behind the bar, close to Yashar.”
“Okay, boss.”
Colby stepped back, letting Gossamer slip between his legs as he trotted behind the bar. Then he took a deep breath, held out his arms, and the world began to ripple, swirl, bend against the flow of time. Everything slowed down, the single bulb dangling on a wire from the ceiling flickered and buzzed. A hole opened in space, the gravity of it bending even the light around
it.
“Colby . . . ,” muttered Yashar, terrified.
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“I noticed.”
The hole contorted, shimmered, took the form of a horse. And then it was a horse, its fur an inky black darkness, its eyes darker still.
“I didn’t summon you yet,” said Colby.
“You didn’t have to,” said the Horse.
“You were listening.”
“For some time now, yes.” The Horse, Orobas, took one trotting step forward, its body melting, morphing into the shape of a man—a man with hooves where his feet should be and the head of a stallion. “I can change further, if you’d like. Appear in the form of a man if that will make you more comfortable.”
“No,” said Colby, harshly. “I don’t want to forget for a moment what you really are.”
“As you wish. What is it you need of me?”
“I need to know what’s going on.”
The Horse took a seat at the bar, turning its large equine head toward Colby. “We don’t entirely know.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
“Have a seat.”
“I think I’ll stand.”
“Have a seat, Colby. The tale is a long one, going back quite some time.”
Colby sat at the bar next to Orobas, placed his hands together on the battered plywood bar top. “Tell it.”
Orobas nodded. “This began many years ago, in the year 1628.”
“Oh shit, you weren’t kidding.”
“Five dukes met in Amsterdam, each there for the same reason. The Dutch East India Trading Company had just built the biggest, boldest ship ever then to sail the seas. Over one hundred and eighty-six feet long. Thirty-four feet wide. One hundred and eighty feet at its highest point. It carried in its belly twenty-four cast-iron cannons and could accommodate up to three hundred and fifty souls on board. It was christened . . . the Batavia.
“In their hubris, the Dutch East India Trading Company proclaimed repeatedly that she was not only unsinkable, but that God himself could not put her beneath the waves. God himself. As you can imagine, many of my brothers couldn’t resist such a dare. And five of them answered the call. Duke Astaroth, the Naked Angel. Duke Berith, the Alchemist. Duke Bune, the Three-headed Dragon. Duke Focalor, the Stormbringer. And Duke Dantalion.”
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