by Devon Monk
Chapter Nineteen
Chills washed over my skin. It was creepy to see Shame take on Mikhail’s body language. He stood with his shoulders too square and moved with an uncomfortable stiffness, somehow looking larger and taller than he was.
Darkness radiated from him. Death radiated from him. And the crystal burned bloodred through his T-shirt.
Terric stood, the look of horror quickly replaced by the blank expression I’d seen Zay use so often.
“Mikhail,” Terric said calmly. “If you hurt him, even death won’t stop me from destroying you.”
Mikhail-Shame smiled, and it was a cold, strange thing to see on Shame. “Soul of his soul, if you are strong enough, he will survive this. You share his price. If you falter, so shall he.”
He turned to Roman. “Open the gate.”
“To where?” Zay asked.
“Isabelle,” Mikhail-Shame said.
“Where is she?” Zay had not let go of the spell in his hand. Neither had Roman. They both looked like they wanted an old-fashioned glyphs-at-thirty-paces duel.
“She is near the well of Life,” Mikhail said. “What began in death will end in life.”
“Multnomah Falls?” I asked.
No one answered. Terric walked up and stood shoulder to shoulder with Zayvion, glaring at Roman.
“Roman,” Mikhail-Shame said, “there is no time.”
Roman, still standing in protection over Mikhail’s body, dropped the spell he had been holding and turned his back on both Zay and Terric.
That took guts.
Terric knelt and placed his hand on Mikhail’s body.
I glanced down and was shocked at how decomposed his body was. Nothing but flesh hanging in stringy lumps from bones. I looked away and put my hand over my mouth and nose to block the smell. I doubted there would be a pulse there for Terric to find but was glad he checked. All we needed was reanimated flesh to deal with.
Roman was already going through the tai chi motions of opening a gate.
Terric stood, caught my look, and shook his head.
Mikhail-Shame looked down at his dead body. There was no expression, no emotion, as he raised his hand, chanted, and pulled enough magic from the networks supplying my dad’s condo that the lights dimmed. He held both hands out toward the body on the floor.
Magic poured out like black water toward the body. Even without holding Sight, I could see the spell wrap the body, obscuring every detail of what had once been Mikhail, devouring flesh and bone alike.
And then the body was gone. Consumed by the spell he’d just cast.
Holy shit.
Terric looked a little startled by that too and took a step away from where the body had been. The magic was gone, leaving behind nothing but ash.
What the hell kind of spell had that been?
An old, forbidden dark spell, Dad provided absently, like he was giving me the tour of a museum, instead of explaining what kind of magic could eat a person’s body down to dust.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
Terric shot a look at Mikhail-Shame, but he had turned to watch Roman open the gate.
Zayvion glanced at me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and pushed my hair back behind my ears, my hands cold and shaking. Dad was still in my head, still next to me, but he was not trying to take control. I was more me than him right now. And I planned to keep it that way.
Zay kept an eye on Roman and Mikhail-Shame, a spell caught in each of his hands.
Mikhail-Shame didn’t seem the least bit interested in the smudge of ashes he’d left on the floor where his body had been. He didn’t even look at anything but the gate. Terric couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Mikhail-Shame. I could tell Terric was hurting. His breathing was already labored, as if he were running a marathon. Sharing in the price Shame was paying. Sharing in the pain, the death.
I didn’t know how long they could survive this.
Dad shifted in my mind. It was their risk to take. Shamus took it willingly.
Yeah, well, there hadn’t been a lot of other options. I didn’t think Mikhail was going to take no for an answer.
And I couldn’t help but wonder what Dad’s angle was in all this. He had seemed almost excited for Mikhail to possess Shame. Why?
Roman finished the spell, and the smell of sand and salt filled the room. A speck of black hovered in the air and then spread and opened like shutters, revealing the lush green of the forest beyond the gate. It was a forest. I didn’t know if it was near Multnomah Falls.
Zay nodded and let go of the spells he held in check. When he turned to look at me, I could tell he was impressed at what Roman had done. Then his gaze shifted to Mikhail-Shame. “You first,” he said.
Mikhail-Shame strode through the gate without hesitation.
Terric followed as if dragged by a short leash.
“Now you, Allie,” Zay said.
“Are you coming?”
“I’ll stay to Close the gate.”
“I’ll Close it.” Roman said.
“The police are coming,” Zay said. “Do you really want to be here when they arrive?”
“I won’t be here.”
“If you run,” Zay said, “I will find you.”
“You’d try. Go.” He started tracing a new spell. Sweat glossed his face. He might be good—very good—but he was paying for the magic he had been throwing around, and fatigue showed in his motions.
Zayvion held his hand out for me. “Ready?”
I took his hand. I so didn’t want to do this. The last time I’d stepped through a gate, it had nearly killed me. At least this time, Zay was right there beside me, instead of caught half between a coma and a gargoyle. “Always.”
We held tight and stepped through the gate together.
For a second, for a single heartbeat, I couldn’t breathe. Vertigo made the world slide sideways; light, shape, and distance rushed past me so fast, I sucked in a hard breath—
—just as my foot landed on solid ground.
I stood there, panting. My legs felt like noodles. Crossing through the gate was exhausting.
Not only was it difficult to open a gate exactly where you intended it to open, but it was also exhausting to use. I now understood why it had never taken off as a form of commercial transportation.
Zay tugged on my arm, and I stepped a little farther away from the gate. We were on a trail with trees around us. From the sound and cool wash of water, we were not far from the falls.
Roman had done a hell of a job opening the gate right here on the trail but out of sight of the parking lot and gift shop below. “Wow,” I said quietly.
Zay nodded. “Very.”
Mikhail-Shame and Terric were just a short distance up the trail, waiting for us. There was no one else on the trail, no one I could see at all. It was raining, just a slight sprinkle, and evening was coming on. Both factors may be working in our favor to keep the tourists and locals away.
I took a step and stopped.
Zay hadn’t moved. He was watching the gate. Waiting, I knew, for it to Close, as Roman had said it would.
The gate wavered from the center outward, like a pool rippling beneath a dropped stone. Once the final ripple hit the outside edge, the entire thing began to contract.
And just before it fell completely in on itself, Roman shouldered through, landing in a crouch on the trail behind us, one hand on the ground, the other working the last lines of a glyph.
He looked a little singed, and milky ash clung to the shoulders and sleeves of his coat. He straightened and took in his surroundings. “What are we waiting for?”
He exchanged a look with Zay, then patted his sleeves, sending ash into the wet air. Zay, I could tell, was impressed as hell, but he didn’t let it show.
“Is Isabelle here?” Zay asked Mikhail-Shame.
Mikhail-Shame nodded toward the falls. “She is at the well.” He took a deep breath, maybe scenting her. Maybe the undead could sense the undead
better than the living.
“Leander is with her,” he said.
Oh, hell. I could feel my father’s fear slide through my mind before he squelched it.
“We should call for backup,” I said. “Victor or Maeve, or how about everybody?”
Mikhail-Shame looked at me, his strange black eyes burning, his smile a rigor of hatred. I didn’t know how I missed it before, but I was pretty sure Mikhail was not sane.
“Were we to call any other magic user here, they would not arrive in time to help in any manner. This will be done now. At my hand. You will follow me, or you will leave, empty of these memories.”
Roman took a step forward, and Zay stepped in front of me.
“Touch her, you’re dead,” Zay said.
Not helping.
I stood next to Zay. “So we walk in there, open a gate to death, and just expect Isabelle to take your hand and walk back into death with you? I’d like a little more of a plan before I risk my life.” Again, I thought.
“Your daughter questions too much,” Mikhail-Shame said.
And Dad answered. Using my mouth. “One of her less endearing traits from her mother.” I forced my mouth closed.
So not funny, I thought.
“We will enter the chamber that surrounds the well of Life,” Mikhail-Shame said, already walking. “We will find Isabelle and Leander. I do not know why they seek the well, but they will not be expecting our arrival.”
“Don’t you think they’d notice the gate we just stepped through?” I asked.
“They care little for such things. They seek a single goal—to once again be one, and rule magic, all magic for all time.”
Still didn’t answer my question. I tried again.
“Why shouldn’t we wait for backup before we go in there?”
“Because,” he said, “there is no greater strength in this world than the seven of us gathered.”
I had to do a quick head count. There were only five people standing here. Wait—add in the two possessors, and it came to seven.
But we were all injured. Terric looked dazed, following Mikhail-Shame almost blindly. The cut on Zay’s face had swollen so that his eye was almost closed. Mikhail-Shame stood there smiling at me like some kind of undead Greek god come down from Olympus, but pain showed in the gloss of sweat over his face and the fever-bright burn in his eyes. He was burning up, burning out, trying to support Mikhail’s dark soul. Even the glow from the crystal in his chest seemed dimmer.
Roman was still steaming a little from his travel through the gate, and even though he was trying to hide it, I could smell the pain radiating off him. I didn’t know how much the Shackle hurt or hindered him, but I could tell he was not at his best.
I felt like crap on a cracker. The price for throwing so much magic around was starting to catch up to me. I had a neck ache and a shoulder ache, and I felt like someone had gone after my back with a baseball bat.
Even my teeth hurt.
“If we are the greatest strength,” I said, “we’re screwed. We need backup.”
He blinked as if he had not expected me to challenge his assumptions. Then frowned. “You should not underestimate the power and abilities of Soul Complements. I have spent my life . . . and my death . . . studying the power Soul Complements can achieve. Even magic bows to their rule.”
That was what I was worried about. Leander and Isabelle were Soul Complements. More than willing to break magic and make magic kill us.
Terric grunted as if he’d been kicked in the chest.
Mikhail-Shame pressed his palm over the crystal, which dimmed even more, and closed his eyes for a second, swallowing. For a moment, he looked like Shame, just Shame. And he looked like he hurt.
“Ter?” he said softly.
Then he opened his eyes, and he was all Mikhail. The crystal burned a deep ruby again. “We don’t have much time.” He strode off, but not before I saw the blood that coated his palm.
Chapter Twenty
Terric fell into step behind Mikhail-Shame, already breathing harder, even though he’d taken only a few steps.
This was ridiculous. Crazy. They were marching to their death. And for some reason, I was marching right behind them, up the wet trail, toward a wetter waterfall, on a cold, wet spring evening, with an undead egomaniac, a broken Closer, an escaped criminal, my undead father, and my injured lover.
Really, I’d turn around and walk home if it meant I could get a hot bath and a good book.
We hit a switchback in the trail, and two people stepped out of the shadows. They did not know how lucky they were not to get a fireball in the face.
“Allie,” a familiar voice said. “What are you doing out on this fine night?”
I peered at the man. Sid Westerly, the Hound. He wore a bulky jacket and had his hands in his pockets, his hood not doing a lot of good to keep his glasses dry. Jamar Legare was next to him, flannel shirt and turtleneck under a trench coat, a slouch hat and sneakers. Very Malcolm X meets the Pacific Northwest.
“Did you see what happened to Jack?” I asked.
Jamar glanced at Zay, Shame, Terric, and Roman. We were all wearing weapons. Another thing I’d explain to them later.
“They know about Dane,” I said. “They’re here to help me deal with this.” Okay, so that wasn’t all the truth. We were looking for Sedra, but last I knew Dane had helped her get away from Jingo Jingo. It was possible he was with her.
“Dane shot Jack,” Jamar said. “Leg. Bea’s taking him to the hospital. The police haven’t arrived yet.” He paused long enough to let me know he thought that was a little strange.
Hells. The Authority had probably found out about it and canceled the call. Was Bartholomew sending people out this way?
“You know where Dane went?” I asked.
“Up that trail,” Sid said. “He hasn’t come back.”
I was glad they hadn’t followed. Dane would be easy to track out here in the brush. For all that there was still a lot of magic around here and the well, which most people did not know about, open spaces, forested places, simply did not have much magic worked on them. So the magic that was used was easy to spot.
I inhaled and caught a whiff of Dane’s old-vitamin stink.
Mikhail-Shame started walking; Terric, dragging his feet, followed behind him.
“We got it.” I wiped rain off my face. My hand hurt, and my face felt stinging hot, even though it was covered in wet. Fever? Probably.
They both gave me a doubtful look. “If you follow me, I’ll take it as a breech of our contract for finding Dane. Deal was to find and not engage.”
I waited until they both nodded.
“Davy’s on his way,” I said. “Tell him not to follow. I’ll see you all back at the den tonight, okay? And call me if you hear anything about Jack.” I started off, bringing up the rear.
I didn’t look back, but after a few steps, I heard Sid and Jamar head down the trail, talking quietly. I was so glad they didn’t follow. I had seen enough bleeding, broken bodies today and didn’t want to see theirs added to the number.
The trail curved along another switchback.
“Here,” Mikhail-Shame said. His voice was a little thin, a little shaky. The walk, or the strain of the possession, or both, were wearing on him.
He had stopped in front of the hill that rose up and up above us. Didn’t look any different than any other part of the trail. Sword fern, moss, and needles covered the ground; fir and vine maple stretched up to the sky.
“Guardian?” he said.
Both Zay and Roman stepped forward.
Roman stepped back and motioned Zay toward the hill. “They’ve probably changed the locks since I last used it.”
Zay cast a spell. The hillside melted away. There was a very real, very solid door in front of us. Zay cast a second spell, something in the unlocking family, and then pressed his hand against the door for a moment before pushing it inward.
Mikhail-Shame whispered something, a h
urried, hissing litany. The breeze and gathering mist in the forest lifted and wrapped around us like a damp cloak of shadows. It was a spell. Some sort of Camouflage. I inhaled, exhaled, smelled forest and stone and the strangely dry scent from beyond the open door but did not smell magic.
Mikhail-Shame strode in first, and we fell into step. I expected a hallway or a room, but instead, a set of wooden stairs led down and down. Light—plain electric with a low enough wattage, they were probably siphoning off of the gift shop and restaurant without making a blip in the meter—poured out along the stairs and in pockets of the walls. It was bright enough to show each stair and to give a general idea of the space.
The walls and ceiling were carved wood, joists and wooden columns supporting the weight of the hill above and around us. It should feel cramped and claustrophobic. But the lights were angled to soak as much warmth into the polished wood as possible and reflect it back, so that it felt like we were descending a beautifully carved and spacious stairway.
The farther down we walked, I noticed glints of light catching on bits of glass worked into the walls and shadows clinging to dark veins of lead and iron. Glyphs, spells, and protections worked into the walls grew like leaves, branches, limbs, spreading through the walls themselves and seeming to shift and sway as if a wind followed us and stirred them.
Six sets of stairs later, I, for one, was breathing hard, and we were at a double door.
Squared-off glyphs ran a line like an ancient language strung across the top of the doors.
Mikhail-Shame cast a spell, pulling the magic from even deeper beneath the ground.
I drew my sword and cleared my mind. I could tell by the heartbeats still at my wrist that everyone else was doing the same.
“Let this end now,” Mikhail-Shame said in quiet reverence, almost a prayer. He placed his hand on the door and pulled it open.
The scent of summer, of magic and flowers and cool night breezes, poured out from beyond the door.
And so did the stink of old vitamins and new blood. Dane was in here.
We walked in, shoulder to shoulder.
The room was easily as large as the ballroom beneath Maeve’s inn. But the floor was inset with dozens of different woods, all polished to a glow, flowing from the lightest white-honey, through amber, then red, and into a deep mahogany black.