The darkness inside me heaved with laughter.
“Not the point,” I whispered.
K’ra’an bared his sharp teeth. “Then, what?”
“I am your Queen,” I hissed, those words rising from deep within. I didn’t know if they were my words. I was too lost. I was spinning inside, and my actions, my voice—I could not say who spoke: the darkness, or me, or the boys.
Zee, Raw, and Aaz fell from the shadows, landing with solid thumps that made the ground shake. Mal slid onto my shoulders, hissing, while Dek coiled around my feet.
“And they,” I added, “are your Kings.”
“No.” K’ra’an spat blood at my feet. “Even if you are the Vessel, I will be free. We gave too much. We sacrificed everything, for them. No more.”
“No more,” I echoed, and chopped off his head.
Deep inside, part of me screamed when I did that.
And somewhere else in my soul, the part mixed with the boys and the darkness, there was only satisfaction, and pleasure.
A job done.
Survival ensured.
Screams rose around us, cries of horror from the demon army that twisted and rattled the air, rising into shrieks—
—that were suddenly silenced. Complete, dead, silence.
I turned to look at Draean. He was staring at K’ra’an’s corpse, blood streaming from his eyes and nose, a rattling choking sound in his throat.
“It could be different,” I whispered. “You were different, once. Peaceful.”
“No,” he said, tearing his gaze from K’ra’an to look at me, with resolve and resignation, and hate. “If you let me live, I will hunt you. I will catch you. I will enter your womb and consume your child.”
I swung the blade, right into Draean’s neck.
He did not cry out or flinch, though his gaze remained on me even as I struck the blow. His head rolled down the hill. The rest of him collapsed beside the other demon lord.
Zee crouched, digging his fist into the dead man’s torso. I heard a sucking sound, and then he pulled out his arm—revealing a large, wriggling Shurik slug in his fist.
The darkness moved through us all, strong and powerful. Zee stared into Draean’s eyes in perfect silence—then ripped him apart in one sharp yank. He tossed the pieces aside. I heard more screams rising, voices high in pitch, spiraling higher with despair. I tried not to listen. I tried not to imagine an entire race dying from the loss of a single bond.
The boys and I stared at the dead demon lords. We stared at each other. I looked past them at the farmhouse—up at the stars—and started to sway.
Those stars were moving toward me.
And then they were in me.
I opened my eyes and found myself resting on a bed of stars and silver roses. Zee was curled against my side, while Raw and Aaz huddled along my back. Dek and Mal shivered beneath my head.
The darkness was quiet. My soul was quiet, though it felt wounded, too, with a particular lightness that made me feel as though an important part of me might just float away.
I saw a man sitting amongst the stars. He was turned from me, staring at something in his hand. I tried to sit up but couldn’t move.
When I looked again, though, the man was beside me. I still could not see his face, but his body was encased in silver, skin etched with runes and designs that seemed to tell a story—one so tangled, I couldn’t make out the details.
“Who are you, really?” I asked softly, wishing I could see his face and trying instead to see what was in his hand.
As if he could read my thoughts, he turned his palm and showed me a jagged lump of crystal.
“I am a dreamer,” he replied. “There are songs in your world about that sort of thing.”
“My grandfather calls you the Tinker.” I want to call you father, I did not add.
“Old Wolf. A man of many secrets.” His hands covered the crystal. “Make a wish.”
I raised my brow. I didn’t have anything to wish for . . . though as soon as I had that thought, Grant filled my mind.
“Ah . . . the Lightbringer. I thought you might like him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“His mother did not find your world by accident.”
“You helped her?”
“Do not be offended. All I did was open a door. Life took care of the rest.”
I frowned, disturbed by the notion. “Tell me again who you are. Tell me what.”
He rubbed his hands over the crystal lump, silver skin flashing in the starlight while those intricate etchings flowed like water up his arms, down his ribs. “I was a man. I am still a man, in some ways. But something found me, long ago, and I was . . . transformed.”
“What found you?”
“I do not know. Just that it was power, and light. A presence born at the beginning.” I sensed a smile in his voice. “It is the opposite of what is in you.”
A chill swept over me. I tried to sit up, but my body refused to move.
“The opposite?” I asked. “I want to get rid of it. It’s terrible. It’s violent, and awful.”
“It is just power . . . and power requires a strong heart to guide it. I would much rather you bear that burden than anyone else. Your mother agreed.”
I wanted to hear about my mother, but my irritation was stronger. “So you both planned everything, is that it?”
“Not everything.” He stopped rubbing his hands, and his shoulder tilted toward the bed I rested upon. “Zee’akka. Raw’akka. Aaz’akka. Dek’akka, Mal’akka. Wake, little Kings.”
Their eyes flashed open, alert and suspicious. All of them sat up, spines cracking, muscles rippling beneath their skin. Dek draped protectively over my chest as they stared at the silver man, the stranger.
My father.
“You,” Zee rasped. “Star Man.”
“Me,” he agreed. “You have a choice to make, all of you. And it will be solely your choice, offered just this once.”
Zee’s shoulders tensed. “Speak it.”
“You can remain free, without bond to Maxine. Or you can live again on her skin, as you always did, before I intervened.”
The boys gave each other uneasy looks. Zee whispered, “What purpose, this offer?”
“You were possessed by an unnatural force for over a millennia. And then you traded that possession for a prison upon a woman’s skin. Woman, after woman, who possessed you all.
“So. I offer you freedom or the prison. Think about it. You have as much time as you need. A thousand years, if need be. This is the Labyrinth, after all.” He leaned forward, and pressed something into my hand. “Rest. Dream.”
“No,” I said, distressed by what he had offered the boys. “Don’t I have a say?”
“Not this time.”
“That’s heartless.”
“I still have a heart, Maxine. You are in it.”
I wanted to protest, but the stars had begun to move. I closed my eyes, dizzy.
“Your daughter will be beautiful,” he whispered.
THE next time I opened my eyes, there were no stars—just a blue sky that stretched forever, and sunlight that was golden, young, and crisp against the green leaves of an oak. I turned my head to the left and saw my mother’s grave.
I ached all over. My head hurt. A round, hard object was in my hand. I tried to sit up, and stopped.
I was covered in tattoos.
CHAPTER 27
WHEN I was thirteen, I ran away from my mother.
It was stupid. I knew that at the time, but I needed space. I needed freedom. We had never been apart, not in any significant way. Always on the road, my life spent in cars and hotel rooms—libraries, if I was lucky—with only a glimpse in passing of kids my own age. Waiting, at night, for my mother to come home from killing the things that hunted humans. Knowing one day I’d join her.
That was the price of being her daughter.
One morning, we drove to some fast-food restaurant to buy breakfast. I t
old her I had to go to the bathroom. All I did was walk out the side door and keep going.
Beautiful day. Shining sun. Cool, crisp autumn air. We were in Denver. I walked to the gas station next door and caught a ride with a woman who had a golden retriever in her backseat. The dog liked me. I’d never spent much time with one.
His name was Puck. The woman called herself Chari. For three hours we drove to Laramie, Wyoming, taking back roads that wound through a raw country filled with stone and grass, and hills that looked like jagged teeth. We listened to seventies rock on the radio, and when the reception turned to static, we talked about life.
Chari, to put it mildly, was all about peace and love. To call that an alien concept was an understatement. Not that I was already some coldhearted killer. I wasn’t one of those kids who stomped on ants. I was all about peace and love, too.
But I also knew there was a cost—and a lot of people in the world who didn’t believe in compassion. Who would take a woman like Chari and turn her inside out and find everything good and cut it from her, piece by slow piece.
Someone needed to protect her. Someone needed to protect them all.
Chari bought me a sandwich when we reached Laramie. She was reluctant to leave me, but I told her I had an aunt who lived in town and that I would be fine. I’m pretty sure she knew it was a lie, but she also believed in minding her own business—in addition to all that peace and love. She gave me her phone number in case I needed anything.
I wandered, for the rest of the day. Freedom was okay, but I was still alone.
I had just enough money in my pocket to buy a pair of used cowboy boots at a pawnshop. A little big for my feet, but the leather was soft, and I could feel all the miles of another life in the soles. I liked that. The old man who sold them said they suited me and that I’d grow into them.
Near sunset, I found a spot near the train tracks that ran through town and made myself comfortable.
Dek and Mal located me less than a minute after the sun slipped below the horizon, their purrs broken with concern. Zee followed, moments later. Full of reproach, and silence.
My mother caught up several hours later.
I was ready for anything. My mother was not a woman to be fucked with. Never mind the demon-hunting. In New York City, I had seen her crush a man’s face with her fist, just for grabbing her ass. She was, in my mind, the most dangerous woman in the world.
But all she did was stand there, staring at me. I didn’t budge or look away.
“You’re all I have,” she said, finally—and that wasn’t what I expected to hear, but it hit me harder than a slap.
It was a slap.
But I needed that. I needed that day in the car with Chari. I needed to be reminded of why my mother lived the way she did, and that the price of being her daughter wasn’t just isolation . . . but a duty. An honor, even.
My mother and I had to be hunters, killers, so people like Chari could have their peace and love.
We had to fight because no one else could fight like us.
No one else could bear the cost.
THREE days after the boys made the decision to return to my body, and five days after the battle at the farm, a red Corvette drove down the old dirt driveway, causing a dust storm and thumping some major bass.
It was near sunset. I was sitting on the farmhouse porch drinking an ice-cold ginger ale, listening to Johnny Cash, and reading a book of baby names. So far, I hadn’t liked any of them.
The boys tugged on my skin. My heart ached when I felt that. With sadness, maybe. I was still working that out.
Grant limped onto the porch, leaning hard on his cane. “What now?”
“Eh,” I said. “Probably a demon.”
He nudged me with his hip. “Given all the other weird things that have happened, what are the odds we’ll have a boy?”
I just looked at him. He grinned, holding up his left hand. “Don’t hit me.”
I grunted, glancing more closely at his hand and the new ring he wore. It was a wide, thick band of clear crystal, the interior of which was filled with an intricate, knotted design similar to what currently covered my armor—and my father’s skin. I knew it had some meaning, just as I knew the repeated motif of the rose probably had little to do with actual roses. Until I had the opportunity to speak with my father again, I was content to simply call it beautiful and mysterious.
Much like the ring itself.
Grant followed my gaze. “Nothing has happened if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Hmm.” I put down the book of baby names as the Corvette spun into the front drive. “I’m suspicious. You’ll probably start time-traveling, or speaking in tongues.”
He laughed, but it sounded nervous.
Grant and I walked off the porch as the Corvette’s door swung open. Blood Mama stepped out. Her host wore a sundress that showed off an indecent amount of pampered leg, and her ample bosom heaved. Her purple aura danced like a wild storm.
“I’m done here,” she said, without preamble. “I’ve made it known to my children that they are to watch the borders of this land. If there are any . . . excursions . . . you’ll be informed. You do realize, however, that you’re insane? The clans will not tolerate living in such close proximity. Not here. Not for long.”
“This is several thousand acres,” I said.
“We used to colonize entire worlds,” she replied. “Perhaps you should find us one.”
“Maybe I will,” I shot back.
Grant cleared his throat. “For now, I just want to find enough livestock and building materials to get them started.”
“And the Shurik and Yorana? You think they’ll listen to you?”
Grant frowned at her. “They’ll have no choice. I hold their bonds.”
I shoved my hands in my jeans pockets and looked down at my boots. My husband was now a glorified demon lord.
He couldn’t explain how he had done it. At the moment I had killed K’ra’an—and Zee tore Draean apart—the bonds with their clans had swung loose, and Grant had grabbed them. Grabbed them, made them part of himself. Just an instinct. Not much different from the bond we shared except this was less intimate. Like two small suns burning in his chest. Not uncomfortable. Just warm.
And powerful. So powerful that Jack had speculated Grant might now be immortal. Or, at the very least, the most powerful Lightbringer ever to have lived.
I wasn’t entirely sure how my grandfather felt about that.
Jack was gone, with the crystal skull. I didn’t know where. He had not said good-bye, and his absence made me uneasy. I thought—I was certain—it had everything to do with the demons who would be living on this land. Demons he had tried to murder ten thousand years ago. Demons he would have murdered five days ago if I had not stopped him.
Maybe he would be proven right. I didn’t want to think about that. Ha’an and Oanu both knew I had protected them from Jack. Apparently, their comalike state didn’t hurt their hearing. As a result, they both felt they owed me. Enough to play by my rules.
And my rules were simple: No feeding on humans.
Blood Mama started to get back into her car.
“Wait,” I said. “When this first started, all I heard was the gloom and doom. Your children, hiding. Your children, contemplating suicide because they said it would get so bad.”
“And you think,” she said softly, “that we exaggerated?”
I stayed silent. Blood Mama gave me a bitter, surprisingly pained smile. “For once, Hunter, I envy you. I envy your innocence. I hope . . .”
She stopped and looked down. “I hope you never learn what could have been. I hope none of us do. To see the full nightmare of the old army unleashed . . . millions strong, and ruthless . . .”
Blood Mama visibly shivered, her aura sucking down around her shoulders. “Perhaps we all changed, being apart from the Reaper Kings and their influence. Perhaps some of us . . . became more as we were, before the old war. I would not have i
magined Ha’an and Oanu agreeing to your terms so quickly, otherwise. But they were a peaceful race, before the Reaper Kings took them. We all were.”
She grimaced, and without looking at us, got back into the Corvette. Grant and I retreated to the porch as she drove away.
“She ordered the murder of my mother,” I said, watching the cloud of dust as she sped off. “How come I want to . . .”
Forgive her, I almost said. But I couldn’t bring myself to say those words out loud. Because she had ordered my mother’s murder, along with the murders of so many of my ancestors. Me included, had things been different. I could not let myself forget that.
Grant slung his arm around my waist. I looked out at the horizon.
Sunset had come.
LATE that night, the boys and I ran away. I did not know where we were going. I let them choose.
It was dark where we landed, except for the stars. I looked up before I looked anywhere else, and the sky was alive, and when I held my breath, and held my heart, I thought perhaps I heard a song, somewhere, in my soul.
The night was spectacularly clear, and the air tasted thin. I looked around, but all I saw were an odd set of ruins where the stonework was precise and seemed to have been part of some odd-looking interlocking structures.
“Where are we?” I asked, as Dek licked the back of my ear, and purred.
“Puma Punku,” Zee rasped. “Ancient city. Built by Aetar when they first come to earth. Home to them, many years.”
Raw and Aaz loped along the ruins, while Mal dropped from my shoulder to explore a nearby hole. I patted Dek’s head and joined Zee on top of a stone block, facing the horizon while the wind blew through my hair.
We were silent, together. That had never been unusual. But now, instead of it being easy, there was tension in the air. I felt . . . vulnerable around him now. Off balance. Power had shifted, then shifted again. Everything was different. It made me sorry and sad.
“Wait,” Zee whispered, and leapt off the stone, bounding across the ruins with his sleek, effortless grace. I touched my chest as he ran, and it took me a moment to remember that I could not hear his heart. I felt empty again, inside.
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