by Ann Aguirre
In time, we will punish them all. The voice in my head could’ve been Cameron, or it might’ve been me. How much did that distinction matter anyway?
I texted Raoul the time and place, just in time too. My phone was almost out of juice. With a quiet shrug, I chucked it into a waste can. It’s strange how easy it is to leave a life. Hopefully the replica the Harbinger had crafted would reply to e-mail messages. If not, there was nothing I could do. My course was set.
Before tonight, I needed to visit one more place.
I went out to Jamaica Plain and with a few wrong turns located the store Rochelle had taken us to. Like before, it was locked tight and looked deserted. I whispered to Cameron, and the lock froze over, then I broke it with a decisive blow. The door creaked open. Inside, all the cursed objects perked up, practically vibrating with excitement.
“Find something that will help us,” I whispered to my familiar.
My head turned, and then he used my hands to prowl through the stacks. He came up with an ornate ring coiled like a snake with small rubies for eyes. It stung a little when I slipped it on, but I also felt icy calm, completely in control. I needed that for what was to come. But before I could pick anything else, a shadow fell across the open doorway.
“After I helped you, little one, you’d steal from me?” Rochelle wore an expression of quiet fury; there was no kindness or compassion in her now.
“You said not to call,” I said.
“Do you think the boy you lost would want this for you?” She dragged me by my shoulders to a looking glass on the opposite wall.
The mirror was unspeakably ancient, polished silver instead of glass, and in its wavering reflection, I saw a hollow-eyed thing, pale and hooded, with spectral shadows flickering all around. In this light, I was a witch or a demon, not a human girl at all. This wasn’t an ordinary mirror, for it showed what was truly there.
I glanced away. “You said all my paths are dark, right? This is the one I chose.”
“I won’t stop you.” She took a step back. “Not because I shouldn’t … but because I can’t. Think on that. Your blade has a taste for killing now … and so do you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do you think it’ll be over once you fight this battle? I think you’ve felt the hunger already. Blood always wants more.”
Cold prickled where Aegis wrapped around my wrist. I barely managed not to say, I can stop whenever I want. Instead I muttered, “Govannon didn’t give me some cursed sword.”
“Did he not? Have you tried to put it down?”
That silenced me for a moment. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Nothing did, except making Wedderburn pay. “Sorry about your lock. I’ll take the ring and go.”
“It’s not too late,” Rochelle whispered. “It’s never too late. I’ve turned aside and I write my own stories now. I heal the sick. I live on their gratitude. In the old days, they sacrificed to me, one child for the sake of another, daughters for sons. But you have to want it, and you have to be stronger than you’ve ever been.”
I remembered Raoul saying that about my training, how I needed to learn to fight to defend Kian. But in the end, Death still took him from me. They took everything from us, everyone we love. We must make them pay. Revenge is all that’s left. Some part of me wrestled with that leaden certainty. My dad, Jen, Davina, Vi, Seth, Ryu—
Wait.
My mind went red with rage, blotting everything out. Rage, red as blood. Cameron spoke with my mouth, but it was all right, because they were my words too. “I’m already stronger than I’ve ever been. Soon enough I’ll prove it.”
Whatever she might’ve said, I didn’t hear. I ran from the oppressive energy of those haunted objects, focused only on the goal.
Tonight, I kill the winter king.
NO ONE LEFT TO TORTURE
I was the first to arrive. If Wedderburn was watching, he knew that already. I half expected there to be a wrecking crew in the underground parking lot, as I waited for Raoul and Allison in the shadow of a stanchion. Allison came first, dressed practically in black from head to toe. She’d even donned steel-toed ass-kicking boots in honor of the occasion. She glanced around and I stepped into view.
“I’m here. The cameras don’t show this corner from what I can tell. Otherwise security would already be after me.”
“Good thinking.”
Raoul slipped in a few minutes later. In fact he crept right up on us. Whatever he’d studied in the east, he hadn’t lost a step working for Wedderburn all those years. I didn’t bother giving a mission brief; they knew we were here to wreck up the place and ultimately ice the winter king. Pun intended. Anybody who got in our way was collateral damage.
I gestured toward the elevator and Raoul nodded. This was most of the reason I’d insisted he had to come along. He knew secret routes and access inside. No high-rise was impregnable. He led us the long way around, skirting camera angles until we arrived at the service elevator. It required a code to open, and Raoul tried one, but it didn’t take.
“I expected as much,” he murmured.
“Will that set off alarms?” I asked.
“It shouldn’t. Sometimes people mis-key their pass codes. It used to take three failed attempts to lock the system down.”
“What now?” Allison wanted to know.
“The late-shift cleaning crew will be out soon,” Raoul said. “So we wait.”
True to his word, five minutes passed as we watched the lights on the elevator tick downward, then the doors opened. Only one man got off, so maybe the rest of them were taking their time, cleaning out lockers or whatever? Raoul grabbed him and slammed him into the lift before the doors could close. From what I could tell, he was a normal middle-aged dude; there was no tinnitus. With his arm levered behind his back, he moaned as his face hit the metal wall.
“I don’t have any cash on me,” he babbled.
Allison laughed. “Do we look like muggers?”
I pressed the open button on the doors. “We’ll take your pass card. And if you want to live, you’ll run when he lets go. You won’t call anyone. You won’t report to work tomorrow night. There might not even be a building here when we’re done.”
“God, I wish I could quit.” The man raised miserable eyes to meet mine. “You want to kill me? Go ahead. I used to be a catalyst. I was supposed to be somebody.”
“And now you’re Wedderburn’s janitor?” Allison sounded scornful.
“We don’t all become liaisons,” the guy whispered.
“Holy shit.” I had no idea that the building was staffed by slaves. But it made sense. It wasn’t like WM&G could trust contractors. So the people in the building were either owned by Wedderburn and Graf or they were immortals.
“Then today is your independence day,” Raoul said smoothly.
Maybe we should’ve killed him, but he seemed happy to hand over his key card. It wasn’t top clearance coded but Raoul said he could work with that. I shoved the janitor out of the elevator as Allison slid the card into the slot above the floor numbers, then red ringed the floors the guy was permitted to access. Instinct guided me then. I pressed the one Kian had selected when he took me to see the Oracle.
“Do you have some kind of plan you’re not sharing?” Allison asked.
“Maybe.” Mostly I wanted to free a prisoner.
The doors opened and everything was as I remembered it. From the high polish on the preternaturally long corridor, it seemed the janitor took good care of this floor. I imagined him using the power buffer, right up to where Wedderburn kept the Oracle locked up. She wanted nothing more than to cease to be, after all these years alone. I’d probably try to kill anyone who came to ask me for a favor too, even if they brought offerings, as Kian had.
Kian.
The ice Cameron had wrapped around me kept me from feeling much of anything. Gratitude bled through as I led the way toward the vault. Raoul kept close to my shoulder, eyeing the cameras we passed. It wouldn’t take lon
g for security to come at us, but if he thought this was a stupid move, he didn’t say so.
“Can you get in?” Allison moved quieter than I expected, and there was a predatory grace about her. I could tell she was hungry for battle.
“I hope so.”
When we got to the enormous doors, I activated Aegis and sank it into the keypad with all my strength. The resultant shock jolted me, but I didn’t feel the pain. My spirit armor took it, and I held on until the short opened the doors. Alarms went off all through the building, the loud, emergency kind. Allison stared at me with some expression I couldn’t read, then she stepped into the smoky beyond. It would take a little while for them to get here, so I followed, knowing we’d have a battle on our hands when we left. Raoul came last, eyes narrowed at the mist.
I paused, raising my voice to call out, “We’re not here to ask you to look at our futures. I came back to get you out, if that’s still what you want. But you have to hurry.”
The Oracle slithered into view, all supple elegance. Her hair was a thousand snakes and her eyes were entirely mad. But she didn’t attack. She flicked a look at the broken door, barely visible from the wavering on this side of the threshold.
“Hurry? There is no time here, child. That is how he keeps me.”
“Oh. Well, still. I didn’t come to ask for anything, I don’t have the paints and charms. So you know, go now. You’re free.”
“This is a noble gesture? Then you must be rewarded. I will offer one last vision before I go to my much deserved rest.”
Before I could say I didn’t care, the smoke deepened around us, isolating me. I couldn’t see my hand before my face, let alone Raoul and Allison. Then the first image appeared. It was me … but not me. It looked as if I hadn’t eaten in weeks, like I lived on misery and woe, and Aegis was upraised in my hand. Beside me stood the Harbinger and he was smiling. We stood at the head of a great army, monsters slavering to attack at our call, and the city before us burned, buildings bombed to rubble, people stumbling in bloody rags. The gaunt-faced me seemed impassive. Shivering, I took a step back.
“You don’t like the path of the Dark Queen? It’s one you have chosen. What you do here, today, will set your course, no longer written in water. He will fight by your side until the time is right for him to become the Breaker of Worlds. Together, you can bring an end to all things.”
What? No. We already said good-bye. I don’t want this future. How do I avoid it?
But the picture was already changing. I looked a little better in this version, still human at least, but I had the same zealous glow in my eyes that I’d noticed in Tiberius Smith. I stood at a podium, speaking to a faceless crowd, then the scene shifted, and I was leading a small group against the Cthulhu monsters. Men died, but I fought on; Aegis made me a formidable foe.
“Ah, here you become humanity’s hope. There will be war against the immortals with you leading the charge. They call you the Ice Maiden, she who stole the sun god’s heart and slew the winter king. She cannot love; she only lives for the next battle.”
This is what happens if I execute Wedderburn and join the Black Watch. Rochelle’s words came back to me. I mentioned that all your paths are dark ones, did I not? But there had to be a way to fix things. Surely I didn’t turn into a heartless slayer or monster in every timeline.
As I thought that, the smoke swirled and shaped anew. In some ways, this was the most puzzling prediction yet. I sat alone in a small, dark room, stooped over a potter’s wheel, painstakingly mending a broken cup. Once I finished that, I took up another fractured ceramic piece. The cycle seemed endless, as there was an incredible pile of shattered things in need of repair. I didn’t look up or speak; I only labored on and on.
What the hell?
“That’s enough,” I said.
“But there’s more to see. You have so many futures fighting for ascendance. In truth, it is fascinating, even to me.”
“I’ll find out when the time comes. You should go.”
The Oracle bent double in a bow that bordered on obsequious and then she raced past us, as if she expected we might stop her. As her body hit the doorway, she melted into sparks of light, inchoate ideas losing form as the real world reasserted its pull. Taking a breath, I dove for the exit, and I hit the ground right in front of the security team arrayed against us. Raoul and Allison were at my back as they opened fire. Allison’s whole body shifted then, elongating, jaws becoming more prominent. In this form I could definitely see why people had called her a demon back in the day.
Since I came out low, I avoided the first volley and then I was in melee range. These guys weren’t trained for up-close tactical combat. They knew one thing: point and shoot. I sliced through a man’s arm and was mildly surprised at how easy it was, like a knife through soft butter. Blood geysered from the wound and he went down screaming.
Yes. The exultant thought was Cameron’s or mine, and then I swung at the next man trying to level an AR at me. Bad move in close space, so while he scrambled for his pistol, I ran him through. Kicking his body backward, I whirled at the next, only to find Raoul snapping his neck while Allison drained the life out of the final guard. I could see her getting rosier and more beautiful, gross but also seductive, like the black widow that fed on its mate.
“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble storming this bastion,” she said, practically licking her fingers.
“Resistance will be higher as we climb,” Raoul pointed out. “And they will have locked the elevators down.”
“Stairs it is.”
He led the way to the stairwell. As Allison kicked open the door, another squad hit us. Their radios crackled, demanding an update, but they were busy emptying their magazines at the wall. That wasn’t the most effective strategy and had no impact at all on Allison. Her body bulged and reshaped, spat the bullets onto the floor. One guy actually pissed himself when she unhinged her jaw. It felt like overkill for Raoul and me to wade in, so we let her have this team, and she devoured all of them.
“It’s been ages since I fed this well,” she purred.
“How many human guards do they have?”
Who cares? Cameron seemed impatient, but that … tone bothered me. I should care that ten men were dead, and that I was responsible. Right? But instead my nerves were tick-tick-ticking, jonesing for the next fight. It even seemed like Aegis was straining in my hands, pulling me up toward the higher levels where the killing would be sweeter. Blood had splattered all over me, but I didn’t mind.
Wait. Sweeter? No. It shouldn’t be. I’m determined to do this, but—
Raoul cut into my confused, muzzy thoughts. “I’m not sure, but it was at least a hundred before I escaped. He may have beefed up in preparation for our strike.”
“How delicious,” Allison said. “How far up are we going?”
I told her what floor Wedderburn was on, which left us twenty-odd to climb. There would be no other pit stops, however. We made it two more floors before the next team found us. They’d sent more men in full riot gear, but it didn’t help. With some dispassionate part of me, I noticed that modern weapons weren’t designed to defend against blitz attacks. Allison went up the walls with her claws and dropped on them from above. The man she hit sprayed upward in an out-of-control arc and his comrades screamed as they were hit. Aegis cut cleanly through their shields and padded armor. With one neat twist, I killed my opponent and moved to the next.
Raoul was breathing hard when the last guard hit the ground. Blood from my blade flecked his cheeks, and his eyes were incredibly sad. A twinge went through me over the way I’d basically blackmailed him to get him here, but it soon faded. Above, there were more enemies to vanquish, and if Raoul had chosen not to help me, then he was one of them.
Allison was moving toward the next level when she called, “Can’t keep up, old man?”
His reply was quiet. “I will fight as long as I must.”
On the fifteenth floor, we hit immortal resistance. I
nstead of another squad, a blue-skinned crone waited for us. Her ragged gown seemed to have been crafted from strips of human skin and she flourished iron claws on each hand. A crackle of dark energy about her told me this wouldn’t be a simple fight. The fact that she was alone meant she was tough.
But everything dies.
“Why are you fighting with this human rabble, Lil?”
“Don’t call me that,” Allison snapped back. “I’ve been updating my image, something you might work on, you disgusting hag.”
“When I find something that works, I stick with it.” As she finished speaking, she launched lightning from those iron claws, and I dove beneath the stairs for cover.
Not fast enough.
Voltage slammed into me, and it was like being hit by a truck. Apparently spirit armor couldn’t protect me from everything. I heard Raoul groaning, but Allison snarled something in a language that might’ve been Sanskrit, and charged. To get back on my feet, I whispered to Cameron, and raw power surged. If my body was weak, I could compensate. It gave me the push I needed to rush the stairs, using Allison’s broad back as cover.
When I hit the landing, the hag and demon seemed locked in equal combat. Since Allison had a hold of her arms, the witch-thing couldn’t seem to use any of her powers.
“You asked why?” Allison jerked her horned head at the blade in my hands. “This is why. Take a good look at that blade and tell me you don’t know who forged it.”
“Govannon,” the witch breathed.
“Exactly. So I ally myself with this monkey or I get mowed down. As an independent, I’ve always known when to shift my loyalties.”
I ran at them. The witch tried to do something to me with her eyes, but I focused on her arm instead. With one clean slice, I took her hand off at the claws, and to my horror, it skittered across the floor, talons scrambling for my legs. Allison growled in frustration.
“Heart or head, you dumb ape. Preferably both. I can hold her but I can’t finish her. That’s your job, Lady Demise.”