A thick, uncomfortable silence filled the space between us, expanding like a virus and contaminating everything it touched. I found myself breathing again, a nervous habit I never fully managed to discard.
A question was hanging on the tip of my tongue. I opened my mouth to say it, expecting it to come out as a vague, grumbling noise, but instead, I managed to give it form.
“Do you know anything about Vander’s most recent transgression?”
Quillan looked up after staring down, as if he were examining an old memory he stumbled over while it was languishing in the far corner of his mind. His eyes snapped back to the present and narrowed at me. The scowl on his face extended to his voice, giving a sharp edge to all of his words. “No,” he said, “but I know you—”
“Please, just answer my question,” I interrupted hastily. My urgency and irritation surprised even me. I didn’t realize I was feeling that way. “What do you know?”
His expression shifted and he looked confused. It took him a long moment to find some less perilous words. “Not much,” he said as he shrugged. “Basically nothing. I know he and Dulcie broke up, or kind of. I heard Knight telling Casey as much when Casey asked him, but that was ages ago. I’m the last person besides maybe you that either of them would actually choose to discuss it with.” He shrugged again, as though the gesture were intended to take the sting out of that last bit. “What do you know?”
“Little more than that. Meg was involved, and it was a wretched thing, but no details.”
“Hmm.” Quillan nodded, chewing the inside of his cheek. I had seen Dulcie doing that before, a common tic, I supposed, but I wondered if she picked it up from him, or he from her? It was an irksome thought either way. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“She’s pretty shaken up,” said Quillan.
“Is she?” I asked. “And what, pray tell, gives you that idea?”
He scowled at me the way he might have toward a particularly stupid or vexing employee. Possibly at Dulcie in the beginning, when she was still new and even less cautious than she is now.
“More than usual,” he went on.
“I’ve noticed.”
“This is a lot.”
I scoffed, quite by accident, and rolled my eyes. “It is. But Dulcie can handle herself.”
“Can she?”
“Do you doubt her survival skills?”
“No,” he answered quickly. “But we’re all in a lot more danger now, and Dulcie often does really dumb things in her efforts to protect the people she cares about.”
I took a step forward and wrapped my fingers around the cold metal of the chair opposite Quillan. “Rather bold of you to assume you are on her list of people to worry about.”
“I shouldn’t be,” he said, raising his hands halfway up, “but I probably am, because that’s who Dulcie is. You probably are too,” he added. Was he trying to drive home the ridiculous notion that Dulcie could care a lick about either of us? If she fears burning candles, yes, she will most certainly be afraid of wildfires.
“Are you proposing a solution, or are we just making idle small talk?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. His expression was blank and almost relaxed, but I could hear his heart pounding hard— fast even for an elf. “Any ideas?”
An image flashed through my mind’s eye of Quillan lying dead at Dulcie’s feet. “Nothing you would enjoy hearing about.”
“Because they involve killing me?”
“Ideally, they involve Dulcie killing you,” I said. “But I very much doubt I could persuade her to do that.”
Quillan leaned back in his chair. “Even though she should.”
“Even though she should,” I repeated coldly. In a perfect world, Dulcie would have killed the whole lot of us a long time ago.
I was about to say something more when we heard her screaming.
SIXTEEN
Knight
I was falling and the whole world turned bright red.
Crimson clouds filled my vision, streaks of lightning coursing through them like rushing water through pipes. I was falling through nothing but empty air and hearing the hissing warmth that comes from steam engines and sleeping dogs. The dense clouds were thick enough that I felt closed in. Like I was caught in quicksand, or drowning in mud.
I fell through a circle, a shimmering portal outlined in red, and hit the concrete. Hard.
I dropped, rolling to avoid some of the impact, and came up on one knee. Behind me, the portal I dropped through winnowed out to a single shining, red line. It shrank down to a tiny point before it disappeared altogether with a fire-white flash.
I looked around, seeing trees, hills, and a beach on the periphery of my vision. It was past a ruined highway and a handful of warehouses with crumbling roofs—the kind of place that was probably shattered to pieces long ago.
I recognized it at once. “We have arrived in Splendor,” I said.
Yes. Hades appeared in his customary rush of smoke.
“No pushing me into the ocean this time?”
There are many doors leading out, but none that lead in. Entering such a place without rending the various dimensions as Meg did requires the precise alignment of cosmic variables beyond your understanding.
“Gotcha. Where the hell is my army?” Fuck, that felt weird to say.
Where they must be.
“Which is where exactly?”
Scattered, said Hades, about the epicenter.
“The epicenter of what?”
“Mr. Vander, sir?” asked Henry. He slowly got to his feet a couple yards away, readjusting his glasses and shining like a fucking glowstick in a cave.
“You’re glowing,” I exclaimed.
Henry looked down. “Oh, hey, look at that!” He turned his eyes toward Hades and frowned with visible concern. “Um. Why am I glowing?”
The power that carved the Lokis from the bones of old mountains lives inside you now. You are a beacon, a light drawn backwards to the moth. Through this power, you will see what others cannot.
“Like that?” Henry asked as he pointed to something above the trees.
I looked and saw nothing but leaves and blank black sky. It was slowly surrendering to the burnt orange and grey of the dawn. Somewhere a dog started barking, and a car alarm was blaring, but other than that, it was eerily quiet even for this hour. There was absolutely nothing to see. “Like what?”
“Like that. The big, swirling, red thing way over there.”
“I don’t see any big, swirling, red thing.” I turned to Hades. “What’s the big, swirling, red thing?”
The epicenter.
Oh. “Meg.”
Precisely.
I was finally starting to catch up. “And Henry can see her from here?”
He can.
“And we’re positioned inside a shrinking spiral around Meg in order to kill and contain whatever she and the Darkness are spitting out of home base?”
Hmm, said Hades. He sounded like he was chuckling.
“What?” I demanded. When he didn’t answer right away, I asked again. “What?”
It seems you are not completely stupid after all.
“Great, thanks, how come Henry can see the red thing and I can’t?”
Do not whine, it is most unbecoming.
“For fuck’s sake, Hades.”
His skeleton grin seemed slightly more pronounced. The Sight is something a Loki cannot possess. Only an unclaimed soul, a clear soul, has the capacity to bear witness without going mad.
“Is that ‘sight’ with a capital S?”
Indeed.
“Of course it is.”
Would you prefer a more intricate or complex reason? Life will always be simpler and more complicated than you would like. Hades looked suddenly at the horizon. You are running out of time.
“You say that a lot.”
He didn’t acknowledge my comment. The ringing of the Burning Gong has given you access to the
minds of those in your army. Reach for them, and they will answer. His tone turned darker.
“What, like telepathy?” I asked.
Yes. Give your army access to your mind in turn. Your maps, your memories, and your understanding to navigate Splendor and Meg herself. Hold nothing back; you do not have time to hide anything at this juncture.
“Are you actually helping me for once?”
He turned, but not to glare at me. His eyes, burning embers within the hollow sockets, were soft, almost gentle. Find the monsters. Burn their hearts in your hands. Do not allow the dark fire to touch you; they are the flames of madness, and they will unhinge your mind. Shadows emerged from the ground and wove around him, going up and up and up, cocooning him in red and black. I have done all I can for you now. Good luck.
He vanished in a plume of smoke.
“Well, he’s interesting,” said Henry. “Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. We have plenty of work to do.”
I reached out.
I’d done something similar with Dulcie once after Jax stole her from the ANC. My body had considered her mine, whatever that meant now, and even at such a crazy distance, I could still contact her. I remembered for a fleeting, worthless second, how relieved she sounded when she heard my voice in her head; and how panicked she felt when Jax discovered me and cut us off. I wondered if I could still reach her now… if I could only sneak into her head and apologize before she caught me and threw me out. I wondered if my eyes still glowed when I looked at her, or if she even wanted them to.
Focus, Knight. World to save, vampire to kill.
It didn’t take long to figure out. We Lokis always possessed telepathic capabilities between ourselves, but they were on a smaller scale. Now I had to try to communicate with them en masse, which I expected would be weird. To say the least. But also intuitive.
Lokis, engage, I thought. Which could have been overly formal and Power-Rangeresque, but whatever. It worked.
Gabe was the first to respond. Wassup, my dude?
The rest followed suit with what I can only describe as a mental ping. Without saying anything in particular, they made their presence known. Ten seconds later, we had a full hub.
Where the hell are we? asked Marco, the Spanish guy. He was taller than most of us with a heavy accent and I’d never met him before, but it seemed like I knew him all the same. My mind was filled with the information from the others now: names, origins and emotions were swarming like bees in a shed.
We’re in Knight’s head, Gabe answered. Your head, my head.
Not what I meant, jackass, Marco replied.
Splendor, I answered. I’m going to open my mind to you all completely. Hold nothing back, Hades had said. No time to put up walls. Reach into my mind and take what you need to get where you’re going.
And where are we going exactly? Gabe asked.
I looked at Henry. “Where are we going?”
“Toward the big, swirling, red thing, probably,” he answered, but he was frowning and chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“But?” I asked.
“But I’ve got a weird feeling,” he said as he pointed down the road. “It’s a warm feeling in that direction. I don’t know what it leads to, but I think we should go there first.”
I nodded because I figured Henry was like the chosen one so trusting his gut instincts was probably a good move. “One second, kid.”
Okay, everybody, think your locations at me, I said to the impatient legion. A mental image of whatever you’re looking at will be fine.
My mind was instantly flooded with pictures of buildings, new and old, decrepit and bright, illuminated by flickering street lights. I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a robot, tapping into surveillance cameras and sifting through entire databases in less than ten minutes.
Everyone was exactly as Hades said, within about a ten-mile radius of us. Henry and I were clearly on the western side of that perimeter. Fuck, this is weird.
You’re telling us, said Gabe. I just downloaded most of Splendor from your brain.
So you know where you are now? I asked.
Yup. Aw, man, you’ve got a Jamba Juice here?
Gabe. Priorities.
Right, sorry. So what’s the plan, Vander? This is your turf.
Fuck, what kind of monsters were we even looking for? I wanted to keep everybody right where they already were. That way, if a horde of big, angry whatevers suddenly came flooding out of Meg’s location, Splendor wouldn’t be caught totally defenseless. Can you all see where you are with regard to each other?
Resounding chorus of yeses. If necessary, I could think very hard about a specific person and get a general sense of where they were. A vague perception of warmth would point me in their direction.
Okay, we’re taking positions around a central point, I said. Henry says a big, red, swirling thing is there, which most definitely must be where Meg and the Darkness are.
And the Darkness? Gabe asked. Meg isn’t the Darkness?
The Darkness has possessed her. It’s like an angry Eldritch monster she’s using to get more power. We’re pretty sure it’s also driving her crazy.
I could feel him nodding, which was a bizarre sensation. Like somebody lifting your arm when your eyes are closed.
Sounds like fun, he said.
Loads. Start moving in a spiral towards it, I said. Keep on the lookout for monsters, especially anything you don’t recognize. It will probably be something dark, ugly, and conspicuously weird.
So, you? asked Gabe.
Could just as easily be you, thought Marco.
There was a hearty round of mental laughter. It petered out within two seconds as the severity of the morning settled over all of us—probably because someone realized what all of this meant, and the feeling bled into the rest of us.
So is this, like, the end of the world or something? asked a Loki named Nico.
Who the fuck knows, right? I answered.
Damn, said Nico. Pretty decent way to die.
Nobody’s dying today, I retorted. I’m going to follow Henry.
All hail the human flashlight, said Gabe.
Marco interjected, We’re all flashlights; take a look.
He was right. I looked at my hands, which were gleaming gold. I was casting a soft candle-like light across the street and the trees, brighter than I’d ever produced in the Netherworld. I imagined ripping out the hearts of the creatures we were searching for, and I saw their hearts crumbling like cigarette ash disturbed by a sudden gust of wind. This was Hades’ power. This was that manifestation of purpose he was talking about.
I’ll let you know where Henry takes us, I said. Keep your eyes open, we barely understand what we’re dealing with. Most of you are in law enforcement, and those of you who aren’t have at least seen enough to know how to be smart. Keep in touch, and use your best judgment.
And we’re on a mission to rip out hearts, asked Nico. Right? That sounded important.
Yeah, we’re ripping out hearts. It almost seemed karmic, or prophetic. One more thing that involved the Universe taking a long, hard look at my life choices and going out of its way to teach me by doing something ironic.
And burning them in our hands, added Marco.
“Detective Vander, sir, it’s getting bigger,” Henry interrupted as he watched the big, swirling, red thing. “And it’s moving faster now.”
I said the next bit out loud as well as in my head. “Then we’d better get moving. We’ve got a world to save.”
SEVENTEEN
Bram
We burst into Dulcie’s room just in time to see her setting the abomination on fire.
Its hand, long, slender and sharply-clawed, was wrapped around her throat and pressing her up against the wall, though clearly not with the intention of strangling her. One of its mouths was on the thin face of a drow that was mounted onto the body of something far larger and hairier which was attached to her ear.
It whispered to her softly, running its free hand down her arm, as though it were trying to reassure her.
Despite being fully wreathed in fire, it did not seem to care.
“We,” said the abomination, its voice now smooth and steady, “are going home.” It sounded like a cracked perversion of Meg’s voice, braided with something darker and far less friendly.
“The hell we are,” Dulcie answered and reached upward. Perhaps she intended to break the thing’s wrist and wrench herself away. Before she was allowed the chance, something beside me went crack!
With a flash, the beast staggered a single step to the left. Black blood oozed from a small wound in its shoulder. It turned its multiple heads towards the source of the bullet, a fierce snarl coiling out of its throats like a cement mixer.
“Got it!” said a human officer standing near the door. He appeared absurdly pleased with himself. I spared the time to roll my eyes.
Dulcie took advantage of the abomination’s momentary distraction. She slammed her arm full force into its elbow. The creature’s arm bent ninety degrees in the wrong direction with a spectacular snapping sound before the skin ripped and the grey sheen of bone emerged beneath the burning light. The hand around Dulcie’s throat went slack, since all of the tendons were severed.
Dulcie darted away. The abomination turned back and swiped at her, grabbing her shirt and ripping through it, woefully ignorant of its own strength. Dulcie pulled herself free and bounded to her feet, her shirt dropping behind her like a flag cast from a burning ship. She was now left in a Nike sports bra, her midriff bare for all to see. Of course I tried not to pay much attention and found myself feeling increasingly ashamed that my attention should be riveted to the softness of her exposed skin during the most inopportune of moments.
As she moved, the fire leapt from the abomination to the grey carpet, and it, too began to burn. Alarms started to ring, glass-shattering shrieks accompanied by blinking, white lights. We heard the distant sounds of an urgent and very irritated evacuation.
What Screams May Come Page 20