"I killed you once before, and I can do it again," Adramelech rumbled.
Imogen reached out her right hand and planted it firmly against his solar plexus. The demon howled as a burst of light knocked him backward onto the floor.
"You may try," Imogen told him in a level voice that was not quite hers.
Nigel sidled away, angling to follow Alaric up the side of the great machine. Portia managed one lurching step after him before Radinka grabbed her ankle.
She hissed and looked back at the girl, now transformed into a baleful witch and acting as conduit to what she did not know.
"Radinka," Portia gasped, "I know you can hear me, I know you can stop this!" Her words came in rushes and halts as she all but chewed through the layers of bindings thrown down upon her. "Listen to me. This is not what you want."
"What I want?" The reply was hollow, hardly even a shadow of Radinka’s voice. "This is what I want. I want body. I want soul. I want to feed. I want to be free. I will break you apart and consume you. I will walk again in the world, one world under my feet, living and dead. I will rule."
Adramelech growled. "Who speaks just now?"
"Call me only Dark One, One Who Sleeps Beneath the Waves, One Who Waits in Eternal Night. I give my name to no one. That way lies death." Radinka’s sightless eyes flickered back toward Portia with malicious delight.
"Nicor," Adramelech said. "I know you of old, you watery fool. Alaric was too canny to deal with only one of us. I knew you must be lurking nearby. Samael, master of air, and Merihim of the earth must also be in league here."
The engine groaned and Portia managed another step toward it. "They are," she panted. "Samael is also one of the soul-eaters, and Merihim has power over death, just like Nicor does. I think I know where they are."
Adramelech glared at the machine. "Could he be so bold?"
"Of course he can, you fetid idiot," Portia answered. "Megalomaniacs, all of you. And every one gullible to the last."
Adramelech slammed his fist into the floor beside Portia, but she did not flinch. She lurched, half crawling, dragging the axe with her to the engine.
"There are things that need to be done if this is going to be stopped," Portia said.
The demon frowned. "It cannot be stopped!"
"You keep saying that." Portia shook her head, out of patience. "You, Alaric, Nigel. Of course it can."
Imogen stepped in between them, covering Portia’s pursuit of Alaric and Nigel to the bulkhead’s ladder. She stared down Radinka and the demon, daring them to move against her. They kept their distance, and as Portia got farther from Radinka, she regained more control over herself, mind and body. She glanced back, seeing Imogen standing in the midst of what looked like a wall of fire with her arms outstretched, ready for anything.
"I love you," Portia whispered, shaking free the leaden lethargy of her arms and gripping the ladder.
The climb should have winded her. It was steep and the ladder unsteady, but she never grew tired as she climbed the wall. Another catwalk ringed the top of the bulkhead, about a yard and a half wide with a grate floor. The engine rose up from the center of the circular enclosure, an enormous cone shape that widened into a base of gleaming tubes. Some kind of turbine spun within the cone, blowing out gusts of hot air at regular intervals.
Still uncertain on her feet, Portia hurried carefully along the catwalk, spotting a stair at the far side. From somewhere behind, Radinka screamed, but she could not turn back now. Too much rested on her shoulders, both abstract and personal. Alaric had Hester’s hairpin, and Portia knew he meant to use it, use her, for something terrible.
As she circled the great machine, she could not help but be impressed with Kitty’s handiwork. In any other circumstance, she might have marveled at the finely joined seams punctuated by rivets in perfectly straight lines and the subtle luster of the brushed metal that reflected her in an abstract shape of silver and garnet.
The glass tubes at the bottom of the turbine were the same that ran under all of Salus, those that transported the souls used for fuel and for the crafting of the everyday objects in the world of the dead. They glittered with residue, but otherwise sat quiet and empty. Although, Portia thought, not for long.
The narrow stair ended in a short corridor that took her beneath the floor of the engine room and under the main bulk of the engine itself. The chamber was a claustrophobic, low-ceilinged room hewn from the solid rock that made up the very heart of Salus, and it hummed with its own fey power in contrast to the whirr of the engine.
Alaric and Nigel’s raised voices echoed through the room, rising in volume and pitch. Portia flexed her fingers around the axe handle, strengthening her grip as residual pins-and-needles numbness pricked her hands. Carefully sliding into the chamber, she saw that they stood beside a wide intake manifold. Alaric held out the little pearl that held the remaining shard of Kanika’s soul. Nigel stood, paralyzed and horrified, as Alaric held the little sphere over the opening. Alaric’s lace-edged cuff, streaked with dried blood, blew in the direction of the intake.
"We had an agreement," Nigel shouted.
"Which you have violated!"
"I have violated it? What about you? You brought in that witch-girl to start the summoning and feed the machine without even informing me!"
"And I must inform you of my decision?"
"Yes!"
Alaric shook his head. "Stupid boy. You and your sister, both. Gullible. Foolish."
Nigel reached out for the pearl but Alaric closed his fist. Had Portia held any affection at all for the man she might have warned him, but instead she stayed silent as Nigel brought forth the bedamned stiletto. She did not know Radinka had taken it after removing it from her chest, but thinking back, it had not been anywhere on the floor in the upper chamber.
Nigel buried the black metal into Alaric’s neck, stabbing it quickly at first, then pressing it deeper with the pad of his thumb. Alaric might have screamed, but blood gurgled up into his mouth instead.
Alaric’s hands twitched and he dropped the glowing pearl. Portia spied Hester’s hairpin tucked into his belt and reached out to take it, but Nigel was too quick, shoving Alaric into the intake vent.
The machine groaned for a moment, unused to taking in actual matter, before resuming its awful suction. They could hear the thump of the body as it was pulled through the shaft toward the center point of the engine.
"Nigel, you idiot! Lady Hester!"
He turned, grey eyes narrowed. "You should be more worried what that blade is going to do when it gets consumed." He stepped away from the controls and crossed his arms.
The omnipresent shudder of the engine grew more pronounced, then changed its timbre, sounding more like a meat grinder. A deep, hollow moan echoed through the whole chamber as the machine threatened to shake itself apart.
It held, but the cavern did not.
Large cracks opened in the chamber ceiling, tearing themselves open and disgorging rock and shimmering soul-forged masonry. Portia blocked the falling debris with her wings as she searched frantically for Kitty and Kendrick. She found them sheltering beneath a large bend of piping and ducked in beside them.
Kitty sobbed into her folded arms, her wrench hanging from one hand, almost forgotten. "I couldn’t do it," she hiccupped, "I couldn’t stop it. The spirits had taken it over—it isn’t just a machine anymore, its something else now, something alive." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving grimy streaks across her face. "I’m sorry."
"It’s all right, sweetheart, you did your best. Let me see what I can do. You and Kendrick better get somewhere safer."
"How is Radinka?" asked Kendrick.
Portia hesitated, and his face fell.
"Is she dead?"
"No. But…she isn’t quite herself at the moment."
Surprisingly, he only nodded. "Ah. I was afraid that would happen. There may be something I can do." He touched the key charm dangling from the ribbon on Portia’s wrist
. "You’re not the only hopeless romantic in Penemue, you realize."
He stood, not waiting for her reply, and tucked Kitty under his arm, holding her securely against his body. Guiding her, he stepped out from beneath their hiding place and into the disintegrating room.
Kitty glanced back. "If you can destroy their anchors, you can separate the demons from the machine. Of course, then you’ll have demons on the loose to worry about."
Portia smiled. "But that happens to be my specialty. Thanks, Kitty."
She watched them go, waiting to see if Nigel would stop them, but he did not. That meant he was likely busy with mischief of his own. She scrambled up and over the protruding ductwork and began to scale the side of the rift engine itself.
Like a bud about to open, the engine’s sides curved up to a point with narrow slits between each section. Inside, glowing like a hot coal, sat a vaguely rounded glass orb. It rested on a flat surface with copper pipes leading into it from below and a netting of wires suspended into its corona from above. Those wires rose into a thick cord that fed through a hole in the chamber’s ceiling and disappeared into the darkness above, presumably connected to the tower somehow.
Nigel slipped through one of the slim gaps, his ghostly form shifting easily to accommodate the space with only the little mechanism inside of him remaining solid. He approached the orb, placing his fingertips onto it. Portia could see the four shapes within it, a handful of trinkets, it seemed, but she knew better. Like the wrench and the hairpin, these were no mere knickknacks; they were the key holding points for Alaric’s control of the four demons enslaved to his plan.
The machine growled and seemed to vomit up a thick slurry of what had been flesh and bone into the orb. Nigel grinned as the metal walls lowered, exposing this secret chamber. The light from the orb doubled in intensity and doubled again as the bloody mass evaporated into the objects within.
"I wanted it to be him," Nigel said without looking at her, "not you. Once dead, you are no more use to the engine. Not for this, anyway."
"Nigel…"
"I’m not stopping this. I am just taking his place."
"I cannot let you do this."
"Noble, noble Portia. How do you think you can call a halt to it? Would you risk saving them at the cost of a thousand strangers?"
He pointed to the coiling vapors rising up from the orb. In that twining fog she could see Analise and Katriel and, yes, Hester, as well as others she did not recognize. Nigel gripped the little sphere in his hand tightly for a moment before tossing the remnants of Kanika into the fray.
"He took everything from me, even those that made me strong again. But now I’ve turned the tables and am using those very ghosts to take my revenge."
"Is that all you wanted out of this? Vengeance?"
"Of course not. Power, Portia, my dear sister. The power held by the Regalii that should be the birthright of every one of us."
Around them, the walls cracked and trembled. The ceiling above threatened to cave in on top of them, bringing the entire tower crashing down on their heads.
"It isn’t safe here, Nigel."
"Of course it is. Kitty isn’t an idiot. This chamber was meant to crumble. We’ll be fine. The others, however…" He laughed. "You’re so cute when you think you’re doing the right thing but really sending folks to their deaths."
Portia controlled the boiling rage that filled her, gripping the axe firmly and taking a deep breath. Step one, break the orb and get the anchors. Step two, destroy the anchors and free the demons that are bound to this infernal machine. Kill Nigel anywhere in the process.
She felt the gentle brush of the charm at her wrist against her flesh and sent a thought of love toward Imogen. Then she raised the axe.
—11—
IN A SLOW, DELIBERATE MOTION Portia swung the axe at the orb, handling it more like a bat than a blade and aiming with the hammer side. Nigel intercepted, just as she thought he would. She altered her trajectory and murmured a prayer before slamming the hammer into the small item lodged in his chest.
At first, the warhammer resisted, as if it had in fact impacted solid flesh, but the force of her swing prevailed as the golden surface penetrated Nigel’s ribcage. The spherical device came loose with her blow and erupted through his back, clattering to the floor several yards away. Immediately, Nigel’s solid form evaporated. He reached for the softly ticking contraption. It was no use, though; his ghostly fingers passed right through it time and time again.
"Damn it!" His shade flickered in frustration, finally turning blood red with rage.
Portia had no time for his histrionics. She brought the hammer down onto the orb, shattering it into glittering dust. The streaming faces in the mist dissipated, and only a thin slick of blood remained to show that Alaric had once been alive.
The four trinkets within turned out to be boxes carved from rosewood in elaborate shapes of dragons. She used the tip of the axe to open the first one, and a gagging waft of brimstone rose up from it.
"Adramelech, be free." She smashed it with the hammer.
The following box contained a clod of black dirt. "Merihim," she said, recalling the demon’s name. "Be free." The axe obliterated the box and scattered it into dust.
The third box contained a delicate bubble of glass filled with water. When she struck it, she smelled that it was seawater. "Nicor, be free. And be free of Radinka!"
With the last, she hesitated. The final demon was Samael, master of the air and of the dead—or at least their spirits. If his anchor was naught but air, she feared allowing it to disperse before she could break the spell Alaric had placed upon him. She decided to destroy the box, leaving it shut.
What she found amid the wooden fragments was unexpected: a small pearlescent sphere like Kanika’s.
Taking it in her hand, the warmth of it felt familiar, soothing.
The engine around her screamed with pressure as the full force of the tower above her head collapsed in an arc of rubble that left her little haven intact. Steam exploded from the pipes surrounding her, and had she been still mortal, it would have seared the flesh from her bones. Instead, it overwhelmed her with heat and momentarily blinded her. She stepped closer to the remnants of the orb structure, wiping her face with the hem of her tunic.
A thick shadow fell across her and she squinted to look up at it.
The demon loomed in the upward-streaming gush, untouched by the heat of it. Its pale grey flesh soon glistened with condensation and, seemingly annoyed with this, the demon twitched a large, six-fingered hand, bringing a rush of cold air in its wake. The gust encircled them both, keeping the worst of the scalding vapors at bay.
"You have something that belongs to me," he said in a voice both quietly haunting and depthless. It rumbled from everywhere at once.
Portia closed her fingers protectively around the glowing ball in her hand.
"Is this your anchor?"
"Yes. It is also my payment."
"Who is it?"
"A woman," Samael growled. "Once beloved by the master, but who thwarted his affections. That is all I know."
"You know her name, I’d wager."
"Of course. She would be no use to me otherwise."
Portia nodded. "And what would you take for her?"
He shrugged his sloping shoulders. "One soul is like any other. There are many here. Yours is particularly fascinating."
"Would you take mine in exchange? To let her live again?"
He began to nod, then stopped himself. "It would not be a good trade, hers for yours. I may be many things, but fair in a bargain, always."
"How about this: mine for hers and the promise that you and your fellows will close the tear between the worlds and restore them as they once were."
Samael laughed. "You should have thought of that before you severed their ties to a human master."
The floor of the cavern shook and tilted perilously. Nigel’s copper trinket rolled to a stop at Portia’s feet, with the f
ading shadow of Nigel scrambling after.
"I’m not human."
"True. But they are no longer slaves." He held out his massive hand. "Give me my payment. I cannot do what you ask. Our negotiation is finished."
"Then things are going to have to get ugly." Portia hefted the axe in her hands.
The demon considered her a moment. "Right, then. You need to know her true name."
"I do."
"And his."
Portia nodded, shifting her weight to stay upright. She thought she could hear the sound of water lapping against rock. "Nigel Aldias, son of Zepar."
Nigel’s ghost flickered a moment, glowing bright with anger, and he glared daggers at Portia. "What have you done?"
"This is the fate you’ve been running from, Nigel, dear brother. Face it with some dignity."
He got to his feet and faced down the creature. "I do not fear you!"
Ignoring him, Samael looked to Portia. "And the other?"
"Hester Edulica."
The demon laughed. "Wrong! I shall now have them both to feast upon!"
But as he spoke, the shining sphere expanded, growing to the size of a woman.
Samael’s great brows furrowed across his forehead. "She is Hester Regalii."
"Actually," Portia told him, "I think the name that her heart whispers is Hester Sloane."
The colorless shape resolved itself into a familiar face, beautiful and motherly, nearly bringing Portia to tears.
"So it is. Very well. A good trade, then. One for one."
Portia nodded. "And I suppose I’ll have to take care of the rest myself."
Samael nodded. "I will warn you, though, my brethren care naught for fairness and they are no longer bound."
Portia gave him a short bow. "I will do well to remember that sage advice."
Nigel wrapped himself around Portia’s legs. "Sweet, sweet sister. Remember all that I’ve done for you. For you and Imogen. I rescued her soul and protected her body. I did it all for you! Please, Portia!"
"You’re a coward and will always be. Nothing is without cost, Nigel. I know you never reckoned this, but I can think of no more fitting an end for you, my dark and demon-touched brother." She walked away from him, turning her back on him and Samael both.
The Tower of the Forgotten Page 10