by Sarah Fine
“Were they cooking meth before or after you possessed them?”
“I had to have a nice source of income, Lela. Sil was more interested in not getting caught. He possessed people no one would miss. He has always been a cautious little animal.”
“He was, yeah.”
“I am less timid,” Juri said in a voice that was almost a growl. “The people I chose actually had something to offer me.”
I looked at all the cars parked on the weedy lawn, then at the house. Who was in there? I pulled my gaze away from the yellow glow behind the dirty windows to find Juri watching me. “Look at your little mind whirling,” he said in a bemused voice, but then he grew serious. And when he did, he looked so much like Malachi that it made my knees weak. “You look so tired, my love. Come here.”
I didn’t want to. But I did want to.
“I won’t hurt you. You can come closer.” He held out his arms. A spider welcoming me to his web.
My hands curled into fists. “I can’t make the same promise.”
“I’d expect nothing less.” He reached me in two steps and grabbed my hand. I tried to yank it from his grip, but he was too strong. He placed my palm flat on his chest so I could feel his heart—Malachi’s heart. Strong. Steady. No faltering, weak skips. As it should be. “Where is he now, Lela?” he asked softly.
I glared at the woods over his shoulder. “None of your freaking business.”
“Did my Queen entertain him well?”
“Yeah, until she was thrown face-first into the portal without a body waiting on the other side.”
His hand tightened over mine, squeezing until I jerked my knee up. He blocked the strike easily. “I knew she was gone. I knew the portal was damaged, too.” He leaned down. “But I’m going to fix it.”
“Really, how? Did you know your city is in ruins?” I snapped. “The Bone Palace is nothing but a pile of femurs.” I shouldn’t have been riling him up, but I needed him to back off and stop acting like Malachi. It was draining away my will. “The river flooded the streets and brought every building down. I watched the whole city sink into the sand.”
His eyes glittered with violence. “You’re lying.”
“How about you let me cut your throat, and then you can go find out for yourself?”
His arm snaked around my waist, and he pulled me against him, bringing back memories I needed to push away. “If that’s true, Lela, then where’s Malachi? If he’s not still imprisoned in my city, why isn’t he here?” His steely fingers closed around my chin and forced my head up. “What could keep the esteemed Captain from his wayward, stubborn girl? After promising her that his heart—this heart—beat for her and her alone, what could stop him from remaining by her side?”
I glared at him, trying to summon some energy and focus my hatred, trying to ignore the feel of Malachi’s body against me, trying to forget him completely. But then Juri’s eyes widened, and he gave me an amused, sympathetic look. “He’s been released, hasn’t he?” he said. “He left you.”
He tsked as I once again tried to shake him off, but his touch was gentle as he rubbed my back. “No, it’s all right. I know it must hurt.” He smoothed my curls and tucked me against his chest. It destroyed me. Even though part of me knew I should fight, the rest of me was so tired. Worn all the way through. Needing to be held close.
“I remember the first time I saw you,” he said, his voice a caress. “A ghost like so many others—abandoned, alone, damaged. But so fierce. Not like the others. You wouldn’t let me touch you, and every time you told me to get away, I wanted you more. Even now, every time I see you—”
I pushed against him, needing distance, but he wouldn’t give it to me. It was like he knew his body was the drug that could keep me still. Like I was the fly, and the spider’s fangs had sunk deep. No escape.
“Malachi and I are not so different,” he murmured. “When it comes to you, at least. So here we are again. You have been abandoned so many times, Lela. By your mother, by your friend, and now . . . by him.”
“Stop,” I whispered.
“I can be Malachi for you. You can pretend. Just let yourself believe.”
My fingers curled into his shirt. My body felt heavy and loose. I didn’t want to struggle anymore. All I wanted was comfort.
Juri’s breath tickled my ear as he spoke words that shattered me. “I love you, Lela. I’d sacrifice my own soul to save you. I’d give up my freedom to be with you. I’d kill a million times to protect you.”
Tears streaked down my cheeks, wetting his shirt. My arms skimmed around his waist, and I gave in. The illusion crashed over me like a wave.
“In all my years of dreaming,” Juri continued, speaking with my love’s voice, “I dreamed of you, even before I knew you were real. In all my years of wishing, I wished for you. The moment I saw you, I felt it. My whole world shifted. My whole existence grew brighter.”
I turned my face and pressed my forehead to his throat. Malachi was all around me, the only thing I craved. His pulse pounded against my skin. His warmth spread through me, flowing through my veins.
“I’ll never leave you, Lela. I’ll never abandon you.”
I let out a sob as he said what I most wanted to hear. There was the slightest tremble in his hands as he ran them down my spine, the barest shake in his voice as he spoke. This isn’t real, Lela. Wake up, a voice in my head screamed. But the rest of me was lulled by the quiet, by his arms around me. Dimly, I thought of the dark tower, of the temptation I’d felt to lie down and let it have me. Like then, I could give up. Right now. I could let the illusion take me. Or I could keep fighting.
“But I don’t want to fight anymore,” I whispered.
“Of course you don’t,” he murmured. “Of course you don’t. And you shouldn’t have to. Stay with me, and I’ll take care of you.”
This isn’t real, and you’re not done yet. This time it was Malachi’s voice whispering deep inside my mind, like it had during my darkest moments in the tower. The words pricked inside my mind, and I shrank away.
Juri held me tighter. “Nothing could keep me away from you. No one will get between us. Because I am yours. And you. Are. Mine.”
The deep growl rumbled in his chest, jerking me back to reality, as potent as a shot of pure adrenaline. In a flash, I’d dropped all my weight to the ground, slipping out of his grip and rolling away before I jumped to my feet again—six feet away.
“Nice try,” I panted, my knife already in my grip, my skin tingling.
He ran his knuckles along his jaw. “You seemed to be enjoying it.”
My fingers tightened over the hilt of the blade. Malachi was gone. Gone. He’d never said any of those things to me, and they weren’t real. He was in the Countryside, where he belonged. And here I was, playing make-believe with his worst enemy. “Don’t do that again. I’ll freaking stab you if you try.”
His eyes flashed. “No, you won’t.” He took a step toward me and licked his lips as I took an unsteady step back. “Come inside. You came here to scope the place out, didn’t you? I’m sure you told Henry you were doing reconnaissance.” He chuckled. “Don’t disappoint him.”
He beckoned to me and headed up the porch steps. I shoved my hands in my pockets. One closed around my phone, and the other around the handle of my knife. I was ready . . .
But so not ready for what awaited me inside the house.
I frantically began to count. There were five people in the kitchen—no, six—which was filled with large canisters and pots and what looked like an oversized chemistry set. Evan Crociere stood near the stove with his arm around a girl I recognized. She was in my pre-calculus class. The stench wafting out of that room burned the inside of my nose and throat.
The dank living room was lined with couches and chairs, which held over a dozen people, a few of them with little glass pipes at their lips.
Others were watching them, eyes vacant, and others were entertaining themselves in ways that made my stomach roil. Sweat and vomit mixed with the chemical fumes, making my head pound. Doorways at the other side of the living room opened onto what were probably bedrooms. I was betting there were people in there, too.
More than eleven. The place was packed.
Juri chuckled as he traced his finger down my cheek, making me stagger to the side and nearly step on a dude who’d passed out against the wall. “If you’re wondering,” he said softly, “not all of them are Mazikin. And not all my Mazikin are here.”
I inched backward toward the door as Evan eyed me warily from the kitchen. Juri threw his arm around my shoulder. “It’s awful not knowing who the enemy is, isn’t it?”
“No,” I whispered as the girl from my pre-calc class sauntered out of the kitchen with eyes only for Juri. Had she been possessed? Or was she still herself, just really captivated by the guy she thought was Malachi?
Juri gave her a gentle shove toward one of the bedrooms. “I’ll be right there.”
My head spun as I ran through my options. I could call the police—I had no doubt they’d be very interested in this place, judging by the telltale smell. But Juri and his Mazikin would scatter, and I still had no idea who they were. I needed them together and thinking they were safe. Thinking they had us, that their threats and their cleverness had neutralized the Guards. If Juri thought he had won, he’d stay put. And I could find a way to destroy them.
But I couldn’t destroy all of them. Not everyone in this house was Mazikin. And some of them, judging by the Warwick High T-shirt on one of the drugged-out guys on the couch and the WHS Quahogs cap lying on the floor next to a chair, were my classmates. They might have been possessed . . . or they might have just been looking for a high. That didn’t mean they deserved to die.
Juri’s arm coiled around my waist, and he pulled me back against him, so hard that I gasped. “What are you going to do, my love?”
“Let me go.” I hated the weakness in my voice.
His hands stroked my waist. “You can’t win, Lela. Not if you want the already decimated senior class of Warwick High to make it to graduation with all its remaining members. I have a few already, and I could kill a lot more before you could stop us. And I chose carefully. You won’t be able to tell who’s who. They’re at your school. You sat in class with them this morning. They’re out tonight, at parties, on Facebook. They were at Ian’s baseball practice today. They watched you get in the car with the angel after school. How will you fight us?”
My heart nearly stopped. I didn’t know who to fight. I didn’t know what to do.
He played with the hem of my shirt, his fingertips brushing the bare skin above my jeans. “I’ll hold back. For you. As long as you give me what I want.”
I clenched my teeth. “And that is?”
He spread his fingers across my side, stroking my ribs. “I want what he wanted. I want you to give yourself to me. And I think you want to do exactly that.”
“You’re wrong. You’re an evil fucking psycho—”
“Shhh. You know who I am. And who I can be, if you let yourself believe it. Really, what loyalty do you have to the Judge? She’s hurt you, just like she hurt my family. And at her bidding, you destroyed them all. For what? Only to be sent back to do more killing. She’s using you, Lela.”
He spun me in his arms and tilted my head up. “You said you didn’t want to fight, and you don’t have to.”
My phone interrupted and chimed with a text. Juri let me go and stepped back as I pulled it out.
If you don’t reply in the next sixty seconds, I’m on my way.
Juri gave me a half smile. “Maybe we’re done here tonight.”
Never taking my eyes off him, I backed to the door and spun toward the porch, skipping the steps and jumping onto the lawn. My vision was blurred with tears, and my thoughts were blurred with the craziness of everything. I jogged to my car and got in as Juri’s lean silhouette darkened the doorway to the house.
I punched in a text telling Henry I was on my way, and then drove away from the new Mazikin nest. I’d been through a lot in my life, and I’d faced plenty of enemies. I’d survived over and over again. I’d never surrendered. I’d believed I never would. But as I sped down the gravelly road toward Warwick, it felt a little like I already had.
TWENTY-NINE
I DROVE TO THE Guard house, hoping we’d have a training room in the basement where I could spend a few hours punching the hell out of cloth dummies. Every moment and every mile brought replays of what had just happened. Juri had sounded exactly like Malachi. He’d touched me like Malachi had. And I’d let him. I’d clung to an illusion and let it flow through my veins like a drug.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. The lights in the Guard house were on, but there was no car in the driveway. When I walked in, though, Henry was sitting at the white wooden table. His dust-colored stare was heavy as I trudged over and sat down across from him. “Everybody’s locked up tight for the night,” he said, crossing his arms over his bony chest. “And Diane won’t be home for several hours.”
“Good. I got a look at some of the Mazikin. Sort of.”
His eyebrows rose.
“They’re cooking meth—”
“What’s ‘meth’?”
“They’ve got a house out in the woods, and they’re making drugs and selling them. The owners of the house are definitely Mazikin. But he’s got other people out there, too.” I put my head down on the table, resting it on my folded arms. “Honestly, I don’t know how many of them were Mazikin and how many were human.”
“Did you try to find out?”
“I’ll go back tomorrow night,” I said quietly. I didn’t know what else to do. And a small but terrible part of me wanted to feel those hands on my skin. Wanted to hear his voice in my ear. Wanted another hit, something that would numb the pain for a few minutes.
“You got inside the house. They didn’t try to stop you?”
I shook my head. “I think Juri wanted me to see what he’d done.”
“And he didn’t try to capture you or kill you?”
I peered up at Henry. “Got something on your mind?”
He let out a hollow, dry bark of a laugh. “Plenty. What did he say, Captain? What’s his angle?”
I shrugged and looked away.
“What’s your angle, then?” he asked, his voice taking on an edge. “How many nights are you going to play this game?”
“I’m doing my best, Henry. Sorry I’m not making things happen fast enough for you.”
Henry’s eyes flitted over me. “Did he try to act like Malachi? That would be a mighty hard lure to resist.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. “He can’t fool me.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about.”
“I better get home.” I sat back in my chair.
Henry leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “It feels good, doesn’t it? Makes you want to forget everything. Forget who you are and what you’re supposed to do. I know what that’s like.” He scratched at a spot on his stubbly cheek. “It’s what got me killed in the first place.”
I’d had my palms braced on the table, ready to run back to Diane’s and hide for a few hours, but his words froze me in place. Henry had never talked about himself, not much, at least. “What do you mean?”
“I’d been taking people out for years. All contract work. For the mob, mostly, but a few independent gigs. I was always alone. Didn’t have any friends. Couldn’t afford to let anyone close.” He looked at a spot on the wall while he talked, like all the memories were right there in front of him. “I was in Chicago for a job. Some midlevel associate who was ratting to the feds. I spent the weekend stalking the guy.” He chuckled. “Didn’t realize someone was stalking me.”
I
took my palms off the table and placed them in my lap. Waiting.
“In those days, men like me . . . we couldn’t exactly be ourselves. But there were places we could go. I needed that sometimes, you know? Just needed to touch another person and have that person touch me. Made me feel real. Less like a ghost.” The color rose in his cheeks as he met my eyes, then he looked away, clearing his throat. “Anyway, I found one of those places that night, right near the main drag where my target was staying with his mistress. I figured a few hours wouldn’t make a difference. And as I walked up to the place, a man stepped out of the shadows and offered me a cigarette. Marvin Riccio.” Henry shook his head as his lips shaped themselves around the name. “He was like me. A killer, through and through. And we’d been together before. Love and hate could be wrapped so tightly around each other . . . That’s how I felt about him. There he was, right when I needed someone, and even though I knew it wasn’t quite right—I mean, why was he there? Right there, when I was in town for a job?—I knew what I wanted. He made me weak.”
“You let him get close to you.”
“It happened so fast. One minute I was lighting up, and the next, we were in the alley, and he had his hands on me, and I never wanted anything so bad. Never felt so wanted, either. Always felt that way when I was with him.” He stopped there, still staring at the wall. “It felt good to be wanted,” he said, so quietly that it was hard to hear him. “It felt good, in those seconds, to think he couldn’t stay away from me.”
“Seconds.”
He nodded. “I was on the ground with a knife in my gut after that. And you know what he said to me as I lay there dying? He said, ‘It was never real.’ ”
I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Henry.”
“That wasn’t the worst part, Captain. What made it burn was that I already knew. I’d known it all along. I’d just chosen to pretend. So I died knowing that I’d done it to myself. And when I got to the Wasteland, I knew I belonged there. I didn’t even fight it.”
I backed my chair away from the table, nearly falling over backward because I was so eager to get away from him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Henry. I have to go.” I felt for my keys in my pocket as I strode toward the door.