by Kresley Cole
Suddenly I heard Death’s coaxing voice: —Ask her about the game, Guthrie.—
When Guthrie saw me stiffen, he said, “You heard that too? His voice often fills my mind—has for months! Is he the devil?”
I huffed with irritation, tossing down my quail, making the plate rattle. “No, that’s a totally different card. You’re hearing Death. Because he always butts in when I’m enjoying myself. Earlier today, I was with Jack in a cave, and—”
“Who is Death?” Guthrie interrupted. “Why can I hear him? What is this game he speaks of? Answer me!”
I looked longingly at my quail, but obeyed Guthrie’s order. “Death is one of the Arcana, a group of twenty-two kids who’ve been chosen to play in a life-or-death game, all with special powers. We’re commemorated on Tarot cards, yadda, yadda. You’re one of us—the Hierophant. You can brainwash people.” I lowered my voice to a confidential tone. “I know you think you see spirits, but it’s really the images of our cards flashing over us. You hear our calls when we get near.”
“Why should I believe this?”
“You heard a boy murmuring Crazy like a fox, didn’t you? And a girl saying Behold the Bringer of Doubt.”
His lips parted. His were cracked almost as bad as Meth-mouth’s. “How could you know these things?”
“You might want to rework some of our commune’s beliefs. A tweak here and there?” I grimaced as I asked, “I just overstepped, didn’t I?” Way to insult your leader, Eves.
“I-I don’t understand.” For the first time I heard uncertainty in Guthrie’s melodic voice. “Who started the game? Why was I chosen?”
I put my elbow on the wet table—had someone spilled ketchup or something?—and settled in to dish. “Oh, Guthrie. Where do I even start?”
“At the beginning. But first, I want you to have a bite.” He flashed his pointy smile.
Death whispered in our minds: —Don’t you want to know who she slaughtered last week? This creature cut a man in two.—
Guthrie scowled, but couldn’t resist saying, “What is he speaking of? Someone like you could never harm another in such a manner.”
As I put down my supper yet again, I mentally yelled at Death: Leave us the hell alone! Struggling for composure, I said, “It’s an awful story, but if you really want to know . . .” Then I proceeded to tell him about Arthur. Throughout the tale, Guthrie’s skin grew paler, and his face started dripping with sweat.
I’d had no idea I was such a compelling storyteller!
A vague recollection tugged at the edges of my attention, of some wrong I might have done him, but I was too caught up answering his questions to pinpoint it.
Suddenly he clutched the table, nails digging in, and gave a long groan of pain. I heard more groans from the lower tables, then frenzied cries. Throughout the cavern, people started dropping to the floor, convulsing, clawing at their throats as if they couldn’t get enough air.
Guthrie shot to his feet, teetering as he swung his gaze on me. “What have you . . . wrought?”
My eyes went wide. “Oh, God, my poison! I didn’t know you then! Had no idea what you would come to mean to me!”
With a strangled gasp, he collapsed to his back, as if his legs had been taken out from under him. I rushed to kneel at his side, filled with guilt. Below, chairs clattered, tables overturning. Grown men screamed.
Over the pandemonium, I could hear Jack bellowing my name to the sound of rattling shackles.
“There are . . . more of us,” Guthrie grated to me. “Whole clans. Scouts, followers . . . throughout this range. They’ll feel my death . . . will follow my last order.”
“You can’t die!”
The chaos was already beginning to fade, the death throes below growing quieter and quieter.
With his eyes clouded like those of his followers, Guthrie yelled, “Avenge me! Kill this girl! She is everything that is foul, all that is unclean!” His words boomed across the cavern.
I was foul? If Guthrie said it, then it must be true. Hadn’t I known I was a monster? Jack hadn’t been able to accept me until he’d heard all about my trials and my fears, until he’d thought he could help me with my problem.
As life left Guthrie’s body, the echoes subsided. His last words to me: “You’ll . . . rot . . . in hell . . . for this.”
“Wait, I’m so—” I fell back on my ass, jolted out of my panic.
Exactly why was I apologizing to a murderous cannibal? I scrambled to my feet, gaze locked on my plate, on the “quail” in the center. Human flesh had been cut in a square like a serving of lasagna, only the layers were striations of skin, fat, muscle.
I’d been inches from putting that in my mouth! Because I’d been . . . brainwashed? Again, to have another control my thoughts! I’d nearly eaten part of Tad. I’d nearly become a slave to the Hierophant. Fury boiled up inside me.
“What have I wrought, Guthrie?” I surveyed the amphitheater full of bodies. “I’ve wrought your doom.”
The back of my hand tingled as a marking appeared. Beside the Alchemist’s icon was a tiny likeness of two raised fingers. The Hierophant’s symbol.
I’d destroyed him, and I was glad. Kill them all. Heat in battle. As I grinned down at my pair of icons, I craved more. There were four other Arcana in this mine, chained and helpless.
No! Rein it in, Evie! That wasn’t how this night would end. My next move was getting everyone free. On unsteady feet, I hurried toward the pantry, speeding down the stairs, winding around contorted bodies—
A hand shot out to seize my ankle. Meth-mouth. He was still holding a chunk of flesh in his other hand. “You’re unclean. Must die!” he choked out just before his body relaxed, his bladder emptying.
I peeled his fingers off me, then ran all-out for the cell. At the gate, I found Jack still straining against his chains. When he saw me, he rasped, “Evangeline, you . . . back?”
“I’m back.” I used my claws to break the gate lock, then freed Jack. He yanked me into his arms, squeezing till it hurt.
“You bagged the Hierophant!” Selena looked jubilant. “You took him out, Empress.” Possibly the first time she’d ever addressed me as that. “Now, let’s get out of here.”
“Are you okay, Jack?” I reached up to gingerly touch his head. “Goose egg, huh? Isn’t that supposed to be a good sign?”
“You’re worried about my head? I didn’t know what the hell they were doing to you out there!” Jack was growing more and more alert. “Free the others, fille. Patrols might return soon. Just because Guthrie’s dead doan mean the others’ eyes will clear. They’re bound to him even after death, right?”
“Yes.” Meth-mouth’s eyes had still been cloudy, Guthrie’s last order foremost in his thoughts. . . .
Once I’d popped everyone’s cuffs, I helped the other prisoners to their feet, while Selena and Lark lifted Finn between them. Wide-eyed, Matthew scuffed close to me, but he was holding steady.
We moved out as a large group, Jack in the lead. “We need to lay hands on our gear, our bows. Do you know where they stashed them?”
I nodded. “Just ahead, there’s a hub. You’ll see piles of supplies.”
When we reached the central cavern, everyone froze in place at the carnage: Tad’s grisly remains and my poison’s work. Corpses with unseeing eyes, faces frozen in agony. Meth-mouth with bloody flesh clutched in his hand.
Jack drew back, yanking me into his chest. “Doan look, bébé. I’m goan to get our things. Get your warm coat. Everything’s goan to be okay, just keep your back to this place.” He took me by the shoulders and turned me around like I was a little girl.
I understood his concern. Now that the heat had passed, I didn’t want to see. But I comprehended that I’d killed dozens. I told myself they were murderers who would never have returned to normal.
Maybe it helped.
“Selena, a hand,” Jack said, loping off to reclaim our things. She and Lark propped Finn against a wall; then Selena ran after Ja
ck.
“Look for the littlest camo jacket,” Lark called, “that’s mine!”
The other prisoners murmured to each other, seeming equally uncomfortable with the prospect of leaving our protection—and standing near me.
Jack and Selena returned shortly after to distribute a pile of our gear. They’d also scored two flashlights, arrows, a torch, and some clean-looking material for a bandage.
As Lark wrapped Finn’s calf, Jack helped me into my coat, strapping my pack over my shoulders, warming my arms. But he made sure to keep me facing away from the main cavern. “Now, which way do we go? I got no idea where we are.”
Lark knotted Finn’s bandage tight, wincing when he did. “We go through the mountain.” She shrugged into her camouflage coat, checking the pockets for her things.
“That’s not the way,” the woman prisoner said, limping forward. “We know these mines, have lived near here all our lives.”
“If you go out the front entrance, you run the risk of more Teeth,” Lark said. To us, she explained, “My way takes us to the other side of the mountain in hours. You were heading south? This will save you days of climbing.”
Climbing?
“Finn could never make it in his condition,” she added, pretty much cementing my decision. Her two rats scurried to her then, startling the prisoners.
Even I got weirded out when the rodents climbed her like a jungle gym, clinging to the back of her coat with their tiny paws, baby-possum style.
Finn cracked a smile, as if he thought that was adorable.
At that, the locals started heading out, but the woman lingered to say, “We’re going to resupply, then make our way out the front. If you go deeper into the mine, you’re going the wrong way.” She followed the others.
I turned to Matthew, reaching up to brush hair from his forehead. “What do you think, sweetheart?”
His brows drew together, his eyes glinting. His pupils looked dilated from shock. “There’s one, there’s two, there’s three.”
“I don’t understand. Do you mean three directions?” I asked, but he just blinked at me.
As Selena looped one of Finn’s arms across her shoulders, he said, “Let’s do this—Lark’ll lead the way.”
Selena glared at him. “Why not follow the locals?”
“I know this place,” Lark insisted. “I’m saving us days.”
I turned to Jack. If we trusted her now and she didn’t betray us, we’d be locking down our alliance. Without a strong alliance, we were dead anyway.
In French, he grudgingly said, “Separating from those people is probably for the best.”
For better or worse, we followed Lark.
19
At the start of an offshoot shaft, Jack had tried to hand Lark his torch, but she’d said, “Night vision, dude.” Then she’d set off farther into the mountain, with those two rats clinging to her back.
If she was distraught over the deaths of her wolves or her missing falcon, she had a hell of a poker face. Were we seeing the Strength Card’s single-minded purpose?
Jack, Matthew, and I were right behind her, Selena helping Finn along behind us.
Lark seemed to know where she was going. In short succession, she’d made several turns, confusing me. But she appeared confident.
Even this far underground, water sprinkled down from the ceilings, making Jack’s torch hiss. As usual, we were soaked, freezing. I remained exhausted from expending so much poison, leaning against Jack for support.
I worried about his head, Finn’s leg, and Matthew’s haunted gaze. The boy was squeezing my hand so hard I thought the bones might break. Yet I didn’t say a word to stop him.
Whatever he needed to get through this night.
“Get your flashlight ready,” Jack grated to Selena. His torch was dwindling. It wouldn’t be long now before it guttered out altogether. And Finn was much too weak to conjure a lantern.
Lark might be able to see in the dark, but none of us could. And down here, dark would be pitch black.
“Finn, you doing okay?” I called over my shoulder.
“My leg hurts like hell, but I’ll live. By the way, I hate that dick! Guthrie puts the cult in difficult, huh?”
Selena said, “Past tense.”
“Yeah, waking up in his cell was like getting a glass of cold piss in the face. Thanks for offing him, Eves.”
“Uh, sure.”
We’d just made yet another turn when I thought I felt the ground moving beneath my feet. “Did you feel that?”
Jack shook his head. But to Lark, he demanded, “How much longer?” I knew this had to be freaking him out as much as it was me. We were both born and raised in Louisiana—there weren’t exactly a lot of mines in cane country. We might as well be atop the Alps. Or on the moon.
“Not long now,” she answered. Was one of the rats on her back peeking at me? Creepy. “We’re going to hit a low spot, then we’ll start ascending. We’ll see light soon after.”
When another quake trembled, I murmured, “Jack . . .”
He exhaled a gust of breath. “I felt it.”
Just then the entire shaft rocked. We had to sidestep to keep our balance. Pebbles, sand, and water rained over us.
Once Jack’s torch hissed its death, he and Selena scrambled to turn on their flashlights, the beams reflecting off a pool of water ahead.
We’d come upon the low spot. One problem: it was covered with water.
And it was rising fast, sloshing like rapids.
“This is new,” Lark said in a casual tone. “We’ll have to cross it. How deep do you figure it is?”
Jack handed me his flashlight, gave my shoulder a squeeze, then strode toward the edge. Without hesitation, he waded out into the water, knee-high, then waist-high; he abruptly sank beneath the surface. Just when I was about to run for him, he bobbed up and swam back toward us.
In the weak beams from the flashlights, his normally-tanned face looked pale, his limbs stiff as he strode out. How cold was it in there?
“It drops off. And it’s deep. We’d have to swim it.”
At his words, Matthew grew wild-eyed, crushing my hand. “WATER!”
Of course he was terrified after nearly drowning in his basement. That was why Matthew had been so pensive—he’d known this was in our future. So why not give us a heads-up? “Swim it, Jack? What about Matthew and Finn? Maybe we can go back the way we came?”
“If we do that, we’ll run out of light,” he said. The flashlights were already flickering. “And we’re getting close. Feel that air breezing?” He pointed toward the black expanse in front of us. “We’ve got to be near the end.”
Finn said, “Don’t stop on my account. I’d rather swim for a stretch than climb.”
Another shaft-shuddering quake. What sounded like larger boulders dropped in the distance, exploding against the ground.
“I can help Finn across,” Selena said, “but we need to push on. Any more quakes and we’re going to get trapped down here. Look at the roof trusses.” She tilted her light up.
Massive lengths of wood bowed under the weight of boulders, curving like the ribs on a ship. Ominous splintering sounds echoed.
In a rush, the water started rising even faster. To navigate that in the dark?
“WATER. WATER!” Matthew was hysterical. I was getting there myself, my heart thundering.
Jack brushed his knuckles along my cheek. His skin was shockingly cold. “Listen to me, bébé, it’s just like a swimming pool. You were a terror in the pool, non? As soon as you’re across, coo-yôn will be clamoring to follow you.”
Matthew had been traumatized just weeks ago. Now we were expecting him to swim in a dark mine with rising water?
Lark said, “Look, I’ll go first.” She bounded into the water, diving in an arc like a porpoise. Her rats were dislodged, paddling in her wake. When she surfaced some distance away, I saw her cutting through the water—until she disappeared into the murk.
Moments la
ter, she called, “I’m here. On the other side. Yawning.” Even her echoing voice conveyed her impatience. She’d made it look so easy.
I turned to Matthew, peeling my hand from his. “I’m going to follow Lark. And then you and Jack will swim after me.”
“NOOOO!” he howled, the sound paining my ears.
“Coo-yôn, listen to me. It’s not far. How about I swim with Evie, then come right back for you? I’ll be beside you the whole way.”
Matthew seized my shoulders. “Dying! Dying! Death!”
With a muttered, “Screw this,” Selena eased Finn down to a sitting position, then jogged off to scout the way back.
Jack tried to pull Matthew off me. “We’re running out of time, kid!”
“Nooo, Empress!” Matthew thrashed, accidentally clocking me in the face.
My jaw sang. I reeled, dizziness and another tremor almost sending me onto my ass. “It’s o-okay, honey, just calm down.”
Selena returned. “We’re blocked. Trusses fell, tangling up like pick-up sticks. There’s only one way to go.”
“Calm yourself, coo-yôn!”
Matthew’s long arms connected with Jack, battering him. He was like a drowning man on land.
“Sorry ’bout this, boy.” Jack drew back his fist and popped Matthew in the face.
Matthew lurched, flashed a wounded expression, then went limp.
“Jack!”
He caught Matthew, laying him on the ground. “We doan have time! I’m going with you first.”
“No, you have to stay with Matthew! Make sure he gets across. I’ll be fine—just like you said, I’m a t-terror in the pool.”
“No way, Evie.” He curled his finger under my chin, lifting my face up.
“Stay with him, Jack. Please!”
“We’ll swim together, Matthew in tow.” He pressed a brief kiss to my lips, then reached for my pack.
I shimmied away. “I can handle it. You’ve got enough to carry.”
After a pause, he nodded. “Then in you go, bébé. You can do this.” He turned to Selena. “You got Finn?”
She helped him to stand. “We’re right behind you, J.D.”