by Camilla Monk
Faust raised his cane and hummed a few words that sounded like a verse. “Oh, beware of the many eyes of the strix . . .”
His cane hit the floor barely a second after I caught a familiar sleek black sedan glide down the street and park in front of the station. Lucius had the time to open the Mercedes’s door, but not to step out.
“How did they find us?” I panted behind Faust across the silent hall.
“The owl’s eyes,” he replied, slaloming near-effortlessly between frozen tourists and their suitcases with the help of his cane. “A nasty little spell. Didn’t I say we should have gone back to my place? My fascinus doesn’t only protect the laundry, you know.”
I stumbled, caught myself. “The winged dick? Is it some kind of magic shield?”
“This old infirm needs his privacy,” Faust grunted. “Now I’m taking you back there, and you won’t step out of that attic until I’m done with Montecito. Are we clear, Emma?”
Under any other circumstances I would have blistered at his uncharacteristic burst of alpha douchebaggery, but we were being hunted by the goons of an immortal witch. I shut up and walked faster. We were almost out of the station. Beyond the hall’s gigantic mouth, a line of cars and colorful Vespas had been stopped in their course in front of a café where patrons held their cup of espresso to their lips without drinking. When a dark shape slithered at the edge of my vision, I thought Faust had released the flow of time already. I broke my stride to glance around.
His sixth sense kicked in instantly. “Emma? Are you coming?”
“Yeah, I thought I saw something . . .” move. But everyone stood petrified in the hall, and a couple of pigeons hung still above our heads, their wings stretched to their fullest.
He stopped, his eyes half-closed, listening to the void. His nostrils flared. I couldn’t pinpoint the sensation, but I, too, felt the hall stir alive around us. A trail of goose bumps bloomed down my back. The shadows . . . it was the people’s shadows. Now I could see it. On the floor, the walls—they were shivering, stretching, crawling toward us with a will of their own. Sudden pressure welled in my chest, exploding in a single scream. “Faust! Run!”
I raced to him, but it was too late already; the shadows whirled around us like tendrils of smoke, trapping us in a column that roared all the way to the station’s ceiling. I clung to Faust’s arm, dug my fingers into his coat. “Please tell me you can still that shit like you did back in London!”
There was an undercurrent of amazement in his voice as he admitted, “I don’t think so. Not without breaking a lot of rules . . .”
“Then break them all!” I screamed.
“Yes, Faustus, why don’t you unseal the table for us?” The voice was silk filtering through the chaos, all too familiar.
Crushing fear vised me to the floor as her pale face and golden shawl appeared behind the walls of the vortex imprisoning us. She walked through the spinning shadows as if they were just a cloud of ink. Lady Montecito had found us after all. My eyes flitted between her and Faust. So that was what she wanted from him? What did she mean by unsealing Chronos’s Table anyway?
Her pale eyes swept over Faust’s ratty clothes. Her dark red lips curved in a parody of a smile. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, Faustus. Every time I saw a piece of human waste lying around in the street, I wondered if it might be you, hiding under the rags.”
He rewarded her greeting with an easy grin of his own. “I, on the other hand, can’t say I ever thought about you until recently . . .” His eyes darkened. “Tell me, my lady, who’s lending you that kind of power?”
The corners of her lips quivered. “Your worst nightmare.”
Faust’s expression didn’t waver, but knuckles went white around the wood knots of his cane. “Oh, my lady,” he murmured darkly. “What have you done?”
Her tongue darted to swipe across her lips, and there was this bone-chilling edge of excitement in her voice as she hissed, “He chose me.” Her eyes briefly fluttered closed, like she was high. “He wants to unseal the table, and there is no place in this world where you could ever hide from him.”
Faust’s eyebrows quivered a fraction, so fast it could have been a trick of the light. Every single hair on my body raised on end in response. When Montecito’s mouth opened again, I shrank behind him, but it was my name she spoke, dripping from her tongue like honey. “Emma . . . you must be so confused. He knows you’re looking for your place in this world. He knows how much you’ve suffered. Lucius told you the truth last night; there is a place for you among us.” Her lips quivered. “At his side.”
In a demented cult, basically.
Faust’s cane came up to shield me, giving me the strength to lash at her. “Don’t get near me; I saw what’s in the Libro too! I saw McKeanney’s office, and I heard Lily crying! What are you planning to do with her?”
Her features remained a waxen mask, but her mouth curved, and a soft laugh escaped her. “I’m going to help her earn her PhD in reward for finding the table for us. Her grandfather wasn’t as indispensable as he liked to think.”
“You killed him . . .” I managed out.
She arched a perfectly trimmed eyebrow. “I did not. McKeanney made the conscious decision to end his life because the poor man was so conceited he believed we wouldn’t find the table without him.” She gave an eye roll. “He dreamed up a mediocre play in which I was a gorgon, and his sacrifice served to thwart my nefarious plans.”
“He discovered your true nature and tried to escape Katharos’s claws,” Faust corrected icily.
“He made us waste two years, and for what?” She shook her head in mock disapproval. “Lily turned out to be much brighter than her grandfather ever was. She decoded all his notes for me, combed through thousands of pages in a matter of weeks.” Montecito’s gaze fell on me, mocking. “And she loves working for us.”
I snarled. “Don’t look at me, you fucking waste of oxygen.”
She sighed. “You see, Faustus, how it frightens humans, the power our kind wields.”
He rewarded her with a feral sneer. “Make no mistake, my lady: you’re not immortal, and Perses can’t make you. You’re a lovely rotting body, nothing more.”
The corners of her lips quivered down. “He will grant me the gift of eternity, with the power of the table.”
My jaw hurt from the effort to stay clenched and not let shock show on my features. There it was, the missing piece. A fraction of the secret Faust wasn’t allowed to reveal. He’d hinted at it last night though, perhaps unconsciously. Time can’t be stolen, only given—by Chronos’s Table. Perses wanted the table, and his shadows had promised the impossible to Lady Montecito: more than just a wonky embalming spell, as Faust had called it—true immortality.
I wrestled my fear under control, forcing myself to look past her at the swirling black wall trapping us. What was in it for him, though? For that mysterious titan whose power Montecito had borrowed, and whose voice she claimed to hear inside her head?
“Emma,” she called softly, locking her gaze with mine.
Faust’s free hand grappled for mine, squeezing it tight. “Don’t fall for it. She’s trying to manipulate you.”
“As you are!” she hissed back at him. Her gaze cut back to me. “Emma, he’s figured out you can break the table’s seal. Eventually, he’ll have no choice but to kill you.”
Her words cracked in the air between us. In a split second, I was standing again in Katharos’s lab. My palm rested on the table, and I knew nothing but the contact between me and the table’s granite as I unwittingly broke Faust’s time-stopping spell. I let go of him, barely aware of the victorious curl of Montecito’s lips. “What does she mean? What is . . . what’s wrong with me?”
Faust’s Adam’s apple rolled in his throat. “There’s nothing wrong with you, and all you need to know is that I will keep you safe.”
I shook my head in panic. “Safe from what?”
Montecito shot him a disdainful glance.
“Himself. He’s bound to the table, Emma. He guards it and must destroy any threat to it.” Her eyebrows drew together in mock-confusion. “He’s just a slave. Have you forgotten that already?”
I hadn’t. The tattoo around Faust’s wrist served as a constant reminder of his ‘contract,’ as he called it. But I’d been so desperate to find an ally against Katharos, that I’d chosen to ignore the obvious. I wasn’t Faust’s sidekick or whatever. I was just another pawn in this game, another threat to the table he guarded. My lungs tightened as if there were a mass growing in my ribcage, a tangible symptom of the nameless disease inside me. I wobbled away from Faust, my lips trembling without a sound. I couldn’t find a way out of this nightmare.
Faust’s hand reached for mine again, only to claw at thin air. Anger twisted his features, transformed him. “Emma, stay close!” he shouted.
His bark only served to make me jump back even farther until it was just him facing Montecito. It wasn’t until her right arm moved to direct the swirling shadows at him that I realized this had been her goal all along. The shadows gathered and waved to form a hissing spear flying toward him. Faust raised his cane to block the attack just as fast.
My feet remained paralyzed as the dark howling mass ripped through his torso and dissipated in the same instant. The second after, he was still standing, cane in hand. His eyes were wide and unblinking, their pupils paler than ever. My lips worked to croak his name in vain. His body reeled, and the moment he collapsed, the wail trapped behind my lips burst out. “Faust!”
I lunged to kneel by his side and froze as if I’d been struck in my turn. My hands hovered, shaking above the scorched hole in his chest, bigger than a fist. I tried to breathe, to keep myself together, but I could see the floor through Faust’s chest, where his heart had been seconds ago. His lips remained parted in surprise, unmoving.
I gasped for air under Montecito’s cold gaze. “Oh God . . . Oh no . . .” He couldn’t be dead; he was immortal! He’d been feeding cats and roaming the streets for twenty centuries! I couldn’t bring myself to touch his lifeless body. My hand felt for his cane instead, seeking reassurance in the solid knots of wood. My fingers closed on dust as it disintegrated with a whisper.
“It is arrogance that killed him, Emma,” Montecito cooed, creeping closer.
Time was streaming again. Life had resumed around us in the station, but no one noticed us. Faust lay dead at their feet, my jeans and hands stained black from the ashes of his cane, and they just hurried by, dragging their kids, their suitcases—all under Montecito and Perses’s spell.
She called my name softly. “Emma?”
My head snapped up, and adrenaline rushed back to my blood, lacing with rage in my veins. Lucius had joined her. He stood behind her with a bunch of his suited gorillas as she spoke. “Let’s head back to the villa.”
I scrambled away, raising my hands to shield myself. She stiffened, and seeing the way her fingers twitched, it dawned on me that this magical disease of mine was the only weapon I had left. “Y-you know what will happen if you touch me,” I warned.
Oh yes, she did. Montecito snorted and clenched her right fist. I rolled terrified eyes at her pale skin as it went taut over her knuckles. No veins underneath, just a lifeless envelope. What would happen if she used the spear on me too? Could I possibly dispel it like Lucius’s shadow whip thing, back at the mausoleum?
Tense seconds ticked between us. Her prune lips curved. “I know you only meant to help Lily.” She didn’t need to add anything else; the threat was crystal clear.
I lowered my arms with a trembling exhale.
Lucius snapped gloved fingers at his bodyguards. “Take care of the trash.”
Two men stepped forward to take hold of Faust’s prone body. I lunged over to shield him. “Don’t touch him—”
“Emma.” The kindness dripping from Montecito’s had frozen into sharp icicles. She flourished a graceful hand at the oblivious crowd bustling in the hall. “There’s no point in making a scene. You don’t exist for them.”
My hands clung to Faust’s coat, my eyes begging the travelers in vain. Two cops were helping a Japanese tourist clad in a colorful kimono, mere feet away from us. They didn’t see a fricking thing, wouldn’t spare even a glance at Faust’s corpse. The rest of Lucius’s henchmen shuffled to surround me as I got up on shaky legs. Montecito’s favorite goon wasn’t stupid; he knew I could do nothing against regular beefy dudes. I watched from the corner of my eyes as their cronies lifted Faust’s body. No way out, and even if I tried to run, they had Lily. I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory of her agonizing wails in the Libro, pounding in my skull, crawling under my skin. It had been more than just grief; her voice had been raw with horror and despair. I sensed, bone-deep that the Libro had tried to warn us about something.
Maybe once Montecito’s spell wore off I could just spot a cop . . .
My eyes darted left and right as our gloomy bunch made its way out of Roma Termini through an indifferent crowd. Once we were on the street, though, I caught fleeting glances at Faust and the guys carrying him to a black SUV. Kids would look up from their gelato cone to stare; a pack of bums clustered around a shopping cart full of trash bags side-eyed us. My pulse raced with renewed hope. The spell had been lifted, maybe because Montecito was so sure she’d won anyway.
One of Lucius’s men went to open the trunk. Within seconds they’d crammed Faust in there, with the ease of true professionals. Barely a few people noticed them, or the way my shoulders jerked in response to the door slamming shut. Done with Faust, they unlocked the rear door, and an unidentified hand gave me a discreet shove. I twisted my neck to catch one last look at Montecito as she folded into the backseat of a black Mercedes.
Silver flashed at the edge of my vision.
There was a sudden cool sensation on my nape, a few drops of liquid hitting my skin as a can whizzed past me to hit one of my captors in the chest. Beer splashed all over his pristine shirt. He drew out his gun before the projectile had even touched the ground. I went rigid. Lucius’s eyes scanned the street behind his sunglasses, right before a single scream set the dominos of utter mayhem in motion.
“Ha una pistola! Aiuto!” He has a gun! Help! The voice was unusually shrill—almost childlike—and belonged to that girl in the kimono I’d seen in the station moments ago. She pointed out our group to a pair of policemen running toward the cars. Montecito’s Mercedes took off with a roar of its powerful engine while Lucius threw caution to the wind and lunged to push me inside the SUV. I flung awkward arms at him with a war cry and howled for help in my turn. “Don’t touch me! Help! Someone, help me!”
His men tried to grab me, but suddenly it wasn’t one can being thrown at them; it was a fricking storm of the cheapest, nastiest booze a euro could buy you in Rome hailing from all directions. Bums in their dirt-stiffened rags popped up all around us, yelling insults and hurling cans at Lucius and his men, which clattered against the SUV’s sides and showered the windshield with stinky foam.
Another bodyguard tried to pull out his gun, only for the policemen to do the same and yell for Lucius’s goons to drop their weapons. And through all this, no one seemed to notice the flash of black and gold making a dash for the driver’s door. It was no magic, no mysterious ancient power, just an Uber driver with a sketchy resume doing what he knew best—jacking a car. By the time I realized the surreal chaos unfolding around me had been orchestrated by Silvio and his secret bum network, he was behind the wheel, barking, “Salta!” Jump in!
Powered by pure adrenaline, I grabbed the open rear door, but a crushing pain in my shoulder stopped me before I could climb in the backseat. Lucius. Throwing caution to the wind, he’d sunk his claws in me with an inhuman roar. I screeched my lungs out, writhed to free myself while cans still rained on him. I arched until my spine might break, reaching behind me to pry his arm off. My fear was a remote, insignificant particle of myself, washed away by the rage pumping in my veins. I squeezed his forearm as ha
rd as I could and felt the muscular flesh shrink and dry up under the fabric of his suit.
Foam seethed through his clenched teeth as he fought to retain his hold. A ribbon of colors shimmered at the edge of my vision, and for a millisecond, I thought someone had punched me, but instead, a pair of lean and unbelievably strong kimono-clad arms hauled me into the backseat. I registered a loud crack, like a worm-eaten floorboard snapping off before the door slammed shut.
Lucius’s enraged howl kept ringing in my ears even as Silvio slammed the gas and we bulleted away from the station. Crushed into the seat by the sudden acceleration, unable to breathe, it took me a good ten seconds to realize that the weird branch I still clung onto was Lucius’s dried up arm.
I tossed the arm with a shriek of horror. The Japanese girl—when the hell had she climbed in the car? Before or after the beer fight?—caught it and shoved it into her embroidered silk bag. “I keep. I like. For research.”
Curled against the door, I gawked at the bony fingers now poking out of her bag while Silvio raced down a busy avenue. “W-who are you?”
She fastened her seatbelt without looking at me, her face and voice void of any emotion beneath the long bangs of her ebony bob. “I am Ryuuko. I am the dragon who guards the Porta Alchemica.” Her brow creased a fraction. “I don’t like cars. I like animals.” Her gaze set on Lucius’s hand. “And research.”
This particular moment called for a resounding “What the fuck?” but the wheel spun in Silvio’s hands before I could speak, and I went flying into Ryuuko as the SUV took a sharp turn right.
I found myself sprawled across her lap, my nose inches from the hand. She shoved me away with the strength of a wrestler. “You buckle up.”