by Jenn Stark
Her accent sounded Asian, and I swallowed. Soo had never told me her mother’s name. She also hadn’t told me her mother was still kicking around in Hell. But this had to be her—had to be. The amulet in my hand was practically on the verge of nuclear meltdown.
“Your…daughter, Annika Soo sent me,” I finally managed. “To see you. To find your—”
“My daughter.” The woman said the words in a strange, singsong cadence, and I tried not to shiver at the insanity lacing her voice. Or to fixate too much on her face. Instead, I attempted math. If Soo had been five when her mother had died, that had been, what—thirty or forty years ago? There was no way to tell the Chinese syndicate owner’s age, but she wasn’t in her twenties, no way. Had her mother been here all this time? Watching? Waiting?
Her mother’s voice disrupted my mental calculator. “My daughter is careful and wise,” she said, and her words were stronger now. “She will not come here. It is good she sent you instead.”
I grimaced, thinking the same thing. If Annika had seen her mother this way, all the pent-up rage she held against Gamon would explode within her, shattering her control. She couldn’t come here. Ever. I edged forward. “Why do you think that?”
“She would not have found me.” Her mother refocused on the fire, so she missed the surprise on my face. “She believes in what she can see with her eyes, touch with her hands. That is where she draws her strength. Not the ancient pain that brought me here. She is strong, though she is but a child.” She crouched down and began scrabbling in the pile of clothing. “Such a beautiful child. Her fifth birthday was a day of sunshine and rain, both in one day. So like Annika, my precious girl.”
I hesitated, completely out of my depth with how to speak to this woman. I could sense from the tug on my amulet that I needed to advance toward the fire. But unless I blew bodily through Annika’s mother, I didn’t see how that would be possible. “She’s no longer a child,” I said. “She’s become the leader of your mother’s syndicate. She rules many people now. She is feared.”
The woman swung her head around to me again. It was difficult to look her in the face, but now…somehow less so. Either I’d gotten used to the crushed indentation in her skull, or it was less pronounced. The blood on her face had been wiped away as well, leaving unbroken skin in view. She seemed almost…normal. Almost the lovely woman she must once have been. “She is grown?” she asked in a quavery voice.
I nodded, taking another step forward while scanning the room beyond the woman. Though the chamber was built for a female’s rest and healing, Annika’s mother apparently hadn’t slept anywhere but the hearth for the past thirty years. She was hunched and frail, a mass of trembling nerves. As she lifted a listless hand to her face, I could see the long ragged mark on her arm. It gleamed as if it had been inked yesterday.
“Grown,” she muttered, shuffling against the piled clothes. One delicate foot edged out to touch a small mound at the edge of the fire. “Grown and safe. Safe and grown. My precious Annika.”
My eyes caught on the tiny effigy she nudged. There was a ribbon, a fine ink pen, its nib broken off, and a ragged comb. The woman lifted her hand, dropped it. “I-I’ve been keeping these. For my daughter.”
My heart quailed. There was no way Soo had any idea that her mother still existed in some form, especially not here. Her fury would burn right through her, fury and guilt and horror at what had been done without her knowledge. To know that while she lived in power and strength, her mother…
I didn’t know if what I was seeing was truth or illusion, but as I neared the woman, I could smell her soured skin, fetid breath. The blood on her scalp glistened, as if she’d received the crushing blow an hour ago, not a generation. Could this possibly be real?
“I feared she would come here—by choice or by force,” Soo’s mother rasped as I drew next to her. “If she came, I could not leave. Would not ever leave.”
“She would not want you to stay here, waiting for her,” I said with absolute certainty. “She is very strong, and she remembers you with deep love and honor.” I glanced around the beautiful room and again at the foul body of the woman in front of me. Annika would never forget this image, were she to see it.
I lifted a hand toward her mother. “If she knew you were here, she would come to help put your mind at ease.”
“No!” The woman jerked her head up again, and the wound once more seemed different, smaller but no less fierce, the edge of it now high enough so I could see her eyes clearly. They were solid black, the one thing about her that didn’t seem quite human. But she flapped her hands at me, shooing me back. “No. She must not come here. She must never come here.”
I held my ground. “I can help make sure she never does. I can help protect her.”
Soo’s mother quieted in front of me, but she didn’t speak, merely glared at me mistrustfully. I leaned forward.
“You have these small remembrances of Annika, but there is one item of yours that she wishes to have, to help remember you by and to keep her strong.”
Her mother frowned, then glanced down at the pile of memories at her feet. She stooped quickly and came up with the broken comb, offering it to me with such an expression of hope that my heart cracked.
“No—no, not that,” I said.
“You use. You use this,” her mother implored, and she swiped at my hair. I flinched back, and her face crumpled beneath the deep gash. “It is still good. It is still—”
She lifted her hand again, and I steeled myself to take the assault. I needed this creature to trust me, whether she was a ghost, an illusion, or truly Annika’s mother. She seemed so much softer than Annika, but I’d been assaulted by women in the past. Their size was often no indication of their ferocity.
To my surprise, the woman’s hand was gentle as it pressed the comb through my hair, running through the strands that had slipped out of my ponytail. Expertly, she brought the comb down, then up again, and fixed it in my hair. I was reminded of Rutya’s careful strokes, so similar to this, and a chill raced through me. Was Rutya’s ability physical precognition, in addition to her divination? Why in the world had Gamon let her go, if so? Of all the traits a Connected could have, physical precog was one of the most valuable—the ability to show, not simply describe, what was to come. To demonstrate the killing blow, the fatal jump…the touch of a mother threading her fingers through her precious child’s hair.
“Good, good.” Soo’s mother smiled, her broken teeth rendering it a ghastly grin.
I blurted out my request.
“The amulet, honorable mother,” I said, not knowing what to call her. “Annika sent me here to find an amulet of yours. Like this.”
I lifted Annika’s pendant, and the woman flinched back, flapping her hands wildly. “Your pendant,” I pressed. “Where is it?”
Everything on the woman seemed to crumble in on itself at my harsh and sudden words. She hunched over as she lifted a hand to her chest. “No, no! She doesn’t want that,” she cried. “Filthy, foul, broken, cursed. I’ve tried…no.”
Disappointment numbed me as I watched her hobble over to the wall, but the amulet swinging from my fingers practically vibrated with heat. Surely its twin had to be here. Should I draw the cards in front of this woman? How would she react?
“It’s broken,” Soo’s mother sobbed again, sounding crushed. I knew the feeling. As my mind scrambled, I watched her pick up a long stick and lunge at the fire, poking the rod into the ashes. “Broken,” she muttered.
My brows went up. I stepped forward as she pushed the stick into the fire again.
The slightest sliver of jade gleamed beneath a scattering of ashes. The amulet in my grasp tugged forward, and I swallowed my sudden impatience to grab the thing and leave.
“It’s very beautiful,” I said.
“Broken.” The words were a mournful sigh. “Fouled.”
I edged forward. “It would be an honor for Annika to receive your amulet as a gift, even if you do no
t feel it is a worthy one. It is a piece of you she will always treasure, a grace for you to give it to her.”
“Grace,” the woman sighed. But she dug forcefully in the ashes, and a wide crescent of the amulet became visible. It was identical to Annika’s, as far as I could see, a thick jade disk strung on a looping chain of embroidered twine. The twine remained, despite the fire, and the amulet appeared none the worse for wear for lying in an ash heap, flames crackling over the top it.
“It’s an emblem of you,” I murmured as Soo’s mother leaned toward it.
She stiffened. “No,” she spit, wheeling around. “It is an emblem of death and decay. A stain on our family that we cannot correct. Cursed! It is cursed.”
There was no denying the anger in her stance, and she brandished the rod as if to attack me—or at least defend the amulet from my greedy fingers. Then again, she was dead. How much worse pain could I cause her?
“You cannot have it.” Her words were flat and oddly cadenced, and I glanced at her sharply. Suddenly, her face was no longer Annika’s mother, but a shrouded, featureless mask, all in shadow. “It is not yours to take.” The voice had become a rasp, guttural and thick. Gamon’s voice. “Begone from this place.”
“I can help you,” I said, taking another step forward, my hands up and my voice steady.
The laughter that came from the woman’s mouth was harsh. “You can help no one, not even yourself. You are no risk to—”
I pushed Annika’s mother into the fire.
An unholy scream erupted from the woman’s mouth as she flailed backward, her feet grinding for purchase on the hearth. She squawked as her slippered foot connected with the amulet, and ash, rocks, and—yes!—the amulet spilled out of the hearth and onto the thick rug beyond. I pulled one of the blankets from the bed and scooped the thing up, my body reacting to its infernal heat despite the thick material.
Then Soo’s mother was on me. Bursting out of the fire, she came at me aggressively, flailing for my hands. I shook the amulet free, and it fell to the ground, then I wrapped up her mother in the heavy blanket. Lifting her bodily, I threw her on the bed, her scream echoing off the walls as she tore at the blanket, unable to get purchase with her frail hands. Stumbling back toward the amulet, I whipped out the pair of the librarian’s white gloves I had stuffed in my hoodie and used one of them as an oven mitt. Scooping up the amulet and—
Whoa. Unlike the grandmother’s hunk of jade, Soo’s mother’s amulet had become strangely cool to the touch, almost radiating a chill through the gloves. Worked for me. I shoved it into my pocket as Soo’s mother fought her way off the bed.
“Thief! Thief!” she cried, and she went for me again.
I was so shocked by her face that I almost lost my footing. Instead of the crushed scalp and wild, matted hair, Soo’s mother was—well, beautiful. Whole. She rushed at me with rage writ large across her features, but she stopped short, her arms up, her eyes clear as she gaped at me, clearly startled.
“You’re free,” I said as we circled each other. “That amulet, it’s been tying you here. Now I have it, and I’m taking it to Annika. You don’t need it anymore, and it’s not yours. It’s hers. You can leave. You can go.”
She shook her head slowly. “I must stay. I must wait.”
“No,” I continued inexorably as our conversation took me nearer to the door. I could run out at any time, and though Soo’s mother appeared heartier than she had been, I was younger and faster and hadn’t spent the last three decades in Hell. I was pretty sure I could take her in a footrace. Or a fight.
But I couldn’t leave her here, waiting forever for a child who would not come. “Annika will never find you here. She can’t. I won’t let her. She’d hate to think of you stuck in this hole. You have to make your way out and go on to your next life, whatever that is. There is no honor in this place.”
“You lie!” she cried. “You are here to trick me, to enslave me anew.”
“No! I’m here to—” I stopped short before I could offer the words “save you,” remembering Kreios’s words. Was this some sort of trap? Was I running the same risk that Annika’s mother had, tying myself to the things of this place and being restrained by them? The Devil card rose large in my mind, mocking me, but I had not pulled the Devil before I’d walked into this chamber. I’d pulled the Queen of Pents.
Which meant I could take this treasure. It was mine.
“I would let you make your own decisions, free of your past,” I finally finished. “The way your daughter would want you to make them. Think of Annika.”
She drew back from me then, standing firm. “Prove your words,” she demanded. “Tell me of my daughter.”
This was not the same request of the woman who’d crouched before me on the hearth. This was the demand of a clear-eyed, clear-souled mother. I straightened as well, staying on the balls of my feet. “She’s a leader of many people, feared the world over by those she opposes. Her body is strong and fierce, her mind clear. She is a good provider to her syndicate, wealthy beyond anything I have ever seen.” Not exactly true, but I didn’t think her mother would split hairs.
She didn’t. “She sent you to me?”
I couldn’t lie through this one. “No. She didn’t know you were here. She sent me for your strength, this amulet,” I said. “She has a great war to fight, and she would use all the resources at her disposal.”
“Like you.”
Well, not exactly. “I help how I can.” I gestured around the room. “By coming here. That is my role.”
She nodded. “Does she still bear the mark of Gamon?”
“She does,” I said. “She has not forgotten. With your amulet, she will erase Gamon’s hold on your family.”
“She will not.” Annika’s mother regarded me with piercing eyes, and I thought of the woman she might have been, had she not been kidnapped and stripped of her child and her life. “But you will. You will honor our family and carry it forward.” She bowed to me.
Okeydokey. I needed to carry the amulet out of here was what I needed, but I gave her mother a short bow as well.
When I straightened, she was gone.
I wasn’t alone, though.
A slow, derisive clap sounded from the doorway of the bedchamber, and as I spun around, an all-too-familiar voice mocked me. Familiar, because it was mine. I stared at the apparition. Brown hair, black hoodie and pants, heavy boots. And a sneer that could cut through glass.
“That…” my twin said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “was beautiful.”
Chapter Twelve
I’d had it up to here already with Hell’s games, but this, I didn’t expect. “Who—what is this? Why?” My double stood between me and the door, watching me with a smirk as I tried to work through the angles. She looked like me, dressed like me. Her hair was as long, her skin as tanned. She could be my twin.
Except she wasn’t me. I was.
Right?
“Who are you?” I managed, stepping carefully to the side as I slung both of Soo’s amulets around my neck, their innate heat and coolness canceling each other out. If I could get through the door…
My twin shrugged. “Who do you think I am? You were supposed to die, all those years ago in that fire in Memphis. You didn’t. You were supposed to face the music. You didn’t. But failing all that, given the chances you had, you were supposed to get tough. Do what you needed to do, kill who you needed to kill. You didn’t. You were supposed to be the Connected you were born to be. And, let’s face it, you aren’t.”
She patted her shirt. “I am.”
My head spun with every sentence that spewed out of my twin’s mouth. “No.” I shook my head, holding on to Kreios’s warning. “You are regrets, the road not taken. The face of the decisions I didn’t make. You’re in my head.”
“Oh, I’m in your head all right.” She shifted easily, then draped herself across the doorway. “What if I told you that Armaeus was on the other side of this doorway, waiting for you
? How would that make you feel?”
I tried and failed not to react. “Armaeus is this close?”
“Oh, honey, he wants you so bad it’s laughable. And he’s yours, if you get through me. Of course, if you don’t get through me, things could go very badly for him.” She winked at me. “The Devil gave you a crash course on the dangers of this place, right? I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.”
She was talking in circles but giving me nothing I didn’t already know. These weren’t truths but suppositions, and I had to stay focused. I stepped forward, but my twin didn’t budge. “Get out of my way,” I said.
She smirked. “Go ahead, try and make me.”
“I don’t have time for this—” As I spoke, I strode fast, leaning forward, my fists clenched. When I encountered the—whatever it was—it gave for the barest second, then solidified into firm, apparently human form. I bounced back, surprised, and my twin grinned at me.
“Almost, sweetheart, but not quite. And every time you think I might actually be real, a bona fide flesh-and-blood Sariah come back to haunt you from your past…guess what?” Her grin morphed into a leer. “Your wish comes a little closer to being true. And you’re gonna want me to be real, you know. You’re gonna want to know the things I know, the things you haven’t been willing to tell yourself all these years. You’re gonna want to know the actual truth behind yourself, your abilities. The truth about this fucking war and about Mom.”
“No!” I punched both fists forward, and they went clear through the apparition, the force of my forward motion surging me into open space. Arms flailing, I crashed to the floor, except it wasn’t a floor exactly, it was…
“Sara?”
Armaeus’s voice sounded so loud and strange in my head that it merely added to my disorientation. I flopped over on my backside, my brain scrambling to catch up. I swung around, then around again, hopping to my feet in a crouch, my hands out, my eyes narrowed.