by Neil Gaiman
Another scream cut through the blackness around me. The little white stars around me blurred as my eyes watered, but I was too stunned to cry. How could this be happening? What was happening?
The part of my mind that wasn’t frozen in shock somehow made my mouth work. I ignored the gibbering voice in my head that was screaming Don’t draw its attention or you’ll be next you idiot oh lord ohgodohgod, and managed to put some amount of authority into my words. “Show yourself, coward! Or do you only stalk the helpless?” Archaic and dramatic, I know, but J’r’ohoho’s last words were ringing in my mind. He’d always had a formality to his tone, and I’d always enjoyed hearing him talk science with his somewhat medieval speech.
I desperately hoped I’d get to hear it again.
We waited in horrible, horrible silence for an eternity that spanned a few seconds. It was horrible because I expected to hear another one of us die—please oh please don’t let them have died—any moment, any moment, and the mix of waiting and praying made me feel sick.
“Little Harker,” a voice said. It was a woman’s voice, sweet and honeyed and revolting. I sagged with relief, letting out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. I’d gotten its attention, whatever “it” was. That meant, for a moment at least, it wouldn’t be hurting anyone else.
“Sweet little Harker,” the voice said again, and something brushed flower-petal light against my cheek. There was a tingle of magic in the air. “I’ve been waiting so long.”
I listened, but the voice fell silent. The sense of magic faded.
And someone else screamed, to my left.
“Waiting for what?” I screamed as well, before the other sound had even died. The words ripped themselves from my throat. “What were you waiting for?” I had to keep talking. I had to keep her attention.
“To thank you, little butterfly,” she whispered. At least, it had the quality of a whisper, but it was loud and it echoed in the stillness. I could hear someone crying to my right, soft sobs that rubbed my nerves raw.
“For what?” The question came out like a growl. It may have made me sound fierce; it was actually just me trying to get words out through a throat made tight with the threat of tears.
“For showing me to my cocoon, wildfire,” she said. I was confused at first, but then I realized the way she’d said that last word sounded like something she was calling me, like a nickname. “And for bringing all these little candles to feed me.”
“Who are you?” I demanded, though I already had a nagging suspicion. It was more that I was terrified of losing her attention. I had to keep her talking.
“Mother Moth,” she said, and some of the maybe stars in front of me started to fade. It was only some of them, though, and I squinted—and realized it wasn’t that they were fading, it was that something was materializing in front of them. “Though that is not the name you knew me as.”
“Lady Indigo,” I whispered, as she appeared fully in front of me.
Now, I’d been prepared for something terrifying. I was trapped in something like a spiderweb, and the awful sounds I’d just heard had conjured images in my mind of monsters beyond comparison, anything from giant demons to Lord Dogknife himself.
I wasn’t prepared for this.
When I’d first met Lady Indigo, before I’d ever come to InterWorld, she’d been human. Beautiful, in fact, with long dark hair and emerald-green eyes. She still had the eyes, starkly prominent in the hollow gauntness of her face. Her skin wasn’t any kind of normal human flesh color now, not pinkish or tan or brown or black. It was red, crimson specifically, and see-through. I could see her skeleton beneath it, though that was all. There were no muscles, no organs.
I could see other bones as well, ones that didn’t belong in a human. The most prominent were the ones that arched upward from her back, like . . . well, they looked a little like wings and a little like spider legs. There were eight of them in all, four on either side. They were huge, and stretched between them was webbing that looked to be fused together from the skins of a dozen different creatures. I recognized some of them from my zoology and paleozoology classes at InterWorld. Some of them probably hadn’t ever been cataloged because no one who’d seen them could have possibly lived long enough to give them any other name than oh lord, it’s gonna eat me.
The effect was sort of like an angry moth that was also a spider and a person, except it was a lot scarier than that. Especially combined with the look she was giving me. It was a sick sort of attraction, like I was the flame to her moth, prey to her spider, and a mate to her human, all at once. Like she wanted to nest in my skin.
I was shivering as she moved closer, the scent of death and roses overpowering me. “You . . . what happened to you?”
The last time I’d seen Lady Indigo had been two years ago, when my team and I were escaping from the HEX ship Malefic. I’d had a pouch of some kind of powder I’d picked up from the rendering room, that awful place where Walkers were dropped still alive into a cauldron and boiled down to their essence. I’d grabbed it in desperation, thrown it at her, and she’d been enveloped in red mist. I hadn’t ever found out what happened to her.
I wished that was still the case.
“You stole my flesh,” she whispered, one of those bone spider-leg/wings reaching out to stroke my hair. “You reduced me to nothing, little Harker, nothing but magic and desire. But I survived, oh yes, I did. You are never truly alone in the Nowhere-at-All, and I proved stronger than any of them. I feasted, I did, and I learned. I learned. . . .”
Her voice trailed off as something else caught her attention, something to the right of me. It was hard to tell on her transparent, red skin, but there might have been blood on her mouth. I wasn’t sure.
Her eyes narrowed, and she shifted as though to move. “What did you learn?” I asked quickly, catching her attention again.
She looked back down at me, her face less than a foot away from mine and those spider-leg wings stretching out and over us both. “I learned how to feel your fire, little Walkersssss . . .” She trailed off into a hiss, twitching once or twice, and suddenly turned her head to the side. She popped some of the vertebrae in her neck with a sound like cracking knuckles, one that set my teeth on edge. “And how,” she continued, “to sssssssuck it all up . . .”
She smiled at me, a perfect, beautiful, human smile, except for the fact that I could see through her face. “Flames,” she muttered. “Such beautiful flames. Beautiful butterflies. Mother Moth has all she needs, now.”
It became obvious right then, as it really should have been before, that she was completely mad. Whatever had happened to her—if I’d gotten the powder from the rendering room, had it been part of the process used to boil us down to our essences? Is that what I’d somehow done?—it had clearly stolen her sanity. Although, that could have been attributed solely to being trapped in the Nowhere-at-All for a few years . . .
“What do you mean, all you need?” I asked, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore. “Indigo!” I shouted, and that got her attention.
She moved suddenly, all the points of her bone-wing-legs digging into my sides. She was on top of me, hovering over me, and I could feel our skin touching. Hers felt slick and rubbery, and I tried to shrink back, but there was nowhere to go.
“You will address me as Lady,” she hissed, right in my face. “I remember a time when you would have done anything I asked, little Harker, and I can make that time come again.”
“Try it,” I spat, though in truth I was terrified of her enchanting me again. The last time she’d cast a spell on me, I would have walked happily off a cliff if she’d asked me to. I couldn’t bear the thought of being under that kind of control again, but I wasn’t about to let her know that.
“And so I shall, wildfire,” she murmured, her lips close to my ear. “I’m going to eat all your friends and then make you love me for it.”
I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a shocked, strangled sound. I was furious
, and terrified. I had to do something. There had to be something I could do, but I couldn’t Walk and I had no equipment on me, nothing to help me out of this web thing.
“I’ll go with you,” I said desperately. “Take me wherever you want, just—”
“Let them go? Such a noble Harker,” she said, pushing against me and the web. She floated backward, the bone-legs that had been digging into my sides arcing up behind her, looking more like wings again. “A valiant hero, defeating the evil sorceress, leaving her to wither and fester in the dark . . . Which little light should I drink from first?”
She was hovering about three feet from me now, impressive and terrible as she lifted a hand to point at me. “Duck,” she said, and I was further confused. Then she smiled, pointing to my left. “Duck . . .”
She moved her hand further, pointing at someone else I couldn’t see. She stayed in front of me, so I could see her expression as she chose who was to die next. “Duck . . .”
Then, with no warning whatsoever, I couldn’t quite see her anymore. Someone was blocking my view, their back to me, but I recognized the ratty backpack she wore. Josephine. She was suddenly there, between me and Lady Indigo, and then I heard a loud crack as she fired her .45.
Now, InterWorld didn’t tend to use standard guns for two reasons. Mostly because we had access to things far more advanced, like plasma blasters. The other reason was most agents of Binary and HEX either were immune to pesky things like bullets or had ways of getting around them, like skin shields or magic. I wouldn’t have expected a standard gun to do much damage to something that looked like that.
A short, startled scream ripped through the air, but this time it was Lady Indigo. Bullets, it seemed, would work.
Crack. The gun fired again, and Lady Indigo recoiled. Then another figure appeared, in a shimmer of violet light that made my heart leap into my throat. “Acacia!” I yelled, and then I got a haphazard impression of familiar violet eyes set in an unfamiliar face, and a glare that would wither stone. It wasn’t Acacia. It was a boy about my age, wielding a katana-style sword that sported a blade of something other than steel, maybe jade. He raised the weapon over his head, facing me, and I had another instant to realize it was patterned gold and green, like a circuit board. Like Acacia’s fingernails.
Then he struck, slicing the circuitry blade down toward me. Despite the fact that this seemed like a rescue, I couldn’t help a surge of adrenaline as he brought the weapon down. He was cutting it close—
I felt a sudden sting against my ear, but the web fell away behind me. I grabbed at the remaining bits of it, remembering that the Nowhere-at-All had its own gravity, and I could fall if I wasn’t careful.
This new person who wasn’t Acacia didn’t seem to be having that problem; he cut me free of the web, then sped away toward the other ones. It was like he was gliding on nothing, skating on air. I remembered Acacia having done the same thing once, in the In-Between.
Crack. Josephine was still firing. I turned to look; she seemed to be standing on nothing, Hue hovering next to her. A second later I realized she was standing on a grav-board. I had no idea where she might have gotten it, or where she’d been for the past few minutes, not that it was important right now; she was still shooting, and I’d counted at least three shots. Those plus the one she’d fired at Hue meant she was at least halfway to empty on a standard .45, and Lady Indigo was still moving.
“Joey!” Joeb was free now, too, also clinging to his web. I turned to face him, seeing what was behind me for the first time. I’d been right in my estimation; we’d been suspended in separate webs, in a giant circle, facing outward.
“Get everyone out of here!” I yelled. “Walk!”
“Where?” he shouted back, as two more shots rang out and Lady Indigo let out a high-pitched sound that was half wail, half hiss.
“Anywhere, just Walk! I’ll find—”
“Stay,” the boy with the circuitry sword commanded, his voice carrying easily over the commotion. “I’ll take you!” He was gathering up the threads of white light that had made up the spiderwebs, somehow weaving them together and drawing us all inward. I hadn’t noticed it until now, but I was moving. The spiderweb I was clutching was being drawn into the center, with all the others. I was moving further away from Josephine and Lady Indigo.
Click, went Josephine’s .45, and she shoved it back into her makeshift holster as Lady Indigo lunged for her. One of Lady Indigo’s skeletal wings drooped slightly to one side, though she was still flying; she swooped down toward Josephine, who kicked off with her grav-disk, the two beginning a grotesque aerial dance as Lady Indigo attacked and Josephine dodged. I hadn’t had any disks to train her with back at InterWorld Beta, but she seemed to have gotten the hang of it. I recalled the older kid next door when I was growing up; he’d given me some skateboard training before I’d skinned both elbows and lost interest. Maybe Josephine had been better at it than I had. She certainly looked like she knew what she was doing, weaving in and out of the webs still hanging in the air and expertly avoiding Lady Indigo’s attacks. They were spiraling higher and higher, farther from the webs as the mysterious newcomer drew us all closer together.
Josephine zipped closer to me, banking a hard left on the grav-board and moving back the way she’d come. Hue was still hovering around her, alternating various colors of distress. Lady Indigo whipped out a wing, the bone striking Josephine directly in the torso. She doubled over, the grav-board flying out from under her as she started to fall back down toward us.
“Hue!” I yelled. “Get the disk!”
My little mudluff friend didn’t even hesitate. He sped toward the grav-disk, not slowing as she approached it, and completely enveloped it in his body. Then he vanished, reappearing next to me faster than I could even blink. Above us, Lady Indigo was wheeling around, folding her wings down as though to dive.
“Harker, stay!” a command rang out, the unfamiliar voice of the stranger who claimed the ability to save us. I ignored him.
I leaped off the web, knees bending as I landed on the grav-board. I kicked it into gear, my body suddenly feeling twice as heavy as I surged upward. I heard the unfamiliar voice again, calling out “Harker! I will leave you behind!” as the light around me changed, taking on a purplish hue.
Fine, I thought, but I’m not leaving her. I could see Josephine a few yards above me, spread-eagled to slow her fall. If I could get to her before Lady Indigo did—
Time seemed to slow like that; Josephine falling toward me, Lady Indigo right behind her, skeletal wings folded back to minimize resistance. Josephine tucked her arms and legs in close to her body in an attempt to fall faster. I reached for her.
She was backlit by a flash of light, bright red and soundless, like the explosion of a small star. The force propelled her forward, her head snapping back awkwardly at the sudden motion. Then my arms were around her, and I pushed off the grav-board, jumping backward, flying (falling?) back to our comrades. Lady Indigo was nowhere to be seen, and that familiar purple light was seeping in around the edges of my vision. As we fell closer and closer to it, I heard that voice again, screaming “Leave her!”
I held Josephine tighter, falling into the light. She was limp as a rag doll in my arms.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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I HIT THE GROUND hard, on my back, my arms still wrapped around Josephine, cradling her protectively against my chest. The air left my lungs, stars exploding in the corners of my vision—but I could still make out the tip of that circuitry-bladed sword as it was leveled at my face.
“I told you to leave her,” the boy who wasn’t Acacia snapped. All I could do was glare, half turned to protect Josephine with my body.
“We don’t leave our own behind,” Joeb said calmly, coming up to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Please, explain yourself.”
The boy shrugged
Joeb’s hand off, which gave me the opportunity to scoot back from the tip of his blade. I leaned up against a wall, registering dimly that we were back at InterWorld Beta. There were more than a few of us in the room right now, but at the moment, I only cared about one.
“Josephine,” I murmured, propping her head against my shoulder and touching her cheek. She didn’t respond, though her eyes were open. I felt my breath catch, fear clutching at my stomach. This wasn’t happening.
“I’m Avery Jones, Agent of TimeWatch,” the boy answered, and I slowly looked up. “And if you don’t leave your own behind, explain why my people had to find and fix him.”
He gestured with the hand that wasn’t holding the sword, and at first I had no idea what he was indicating. There were several of my team members standing there, as they had been when we’d arrived. Jo’s white angel wings, some of them still wrapped firmly with bandages, stood out starkly against the gray-silver walls. Next to her was Josef, who also stood out due to his massive size. J’r’ohoho was on the floor before them, not moving, and kneeling next to him was a Walker who looked almost exactly like me, tears on his face as he gripped the centaur’s shoulder.
“J/O,” I breathed, a jolt going through me. The last time I’d seen J/O, he’d been trying to kill me. Now he was crying, head bowed over J’r’ohoho’s body.
“We found him wandering through the timestream,” Avery accused. “Who left him there, exactly?”
“I had no choice,” I snapped, recalling vividly the feeling of Acacia’s hand on my shoulder, the way all the strength left my body as she took me through time against my will. “Acacia—”
I got no further. He took two steps forward before I could react, the tip of his sword pressing against my lower lip. The blade was warm against my skin.
“Say her name again, and see what happens,” he said, his voice low and angry.
I should have stayed still. I should have pulled back slowly and answered calmly, and I knew it. Instead, I was on my feet almost before I knew what I intended to do, batting the sword away and closing the distance between us. My hand found the material of his vest, and I hauled him closer to me.