by SM Reine
“Elise?” Lincoln managed to stammer, his dry tongue thick in his mouth.
She held a bouquet of white roses. Copper blades jutted from their centers, and the thorny stems would have made her bleed if she weren’t wearing gauntlets. “Lincoln,” Elise replied, not without a hearty helping of impatience to her tone. That impatience, more than her presence, made him wonder if this could be real.
No. It’s impossible.
“Very funny, Inanna,” Lincoln said. “I know you were having a good time jerking me around looking like Elise in the Summer Court, but this is a whole new level. You’ve really gotten my attention this time.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Elise asked. “I followed you into the Summer Court. I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, and you’ve been ignoring me.”
Was this what insanity felt like? “Just tell me what you want, Inanna. Do you want me to hunt better? Hunt something different? Get revenge against Ereshkigal?”
“I want you to get your ass up here so we can get married,” Elise said.
It wasn’t much of a proposal, and Lincoln never would’ve married the kind of woman who thought it appropriate to propose to him in the first place. He still caught himself stepping toward her, advancing up the very tangible pews of the cathedral.
He stopped below the stairs leading to the altar, gazing up at Elise.
Damn, but she looked convincing. Inanna had gotten every detail right except her species.
“Inanna,” he began.
“You don’t realize how much focus it takes for me to communicate with you,” Elise interrupted. “You don’t know anything.” The bouquet wilted within her hands, fading to a shower of petals and blades over her feet. “You keep asking for answers, pretending like you want to know more about God, but when the truth gets screamed in your face, you turn off your ears. You hide in the comfort of complacency. No more of this shit, Lincoln. Get the fuck up here and marry me.”
He was getting uneasy. “When I was possessed by a demon, she came to me like a woman. She seduced me in a dream.” This looked like a similar tactic. But he hadn’t had any of the lapses of memory that came with demonic possession.
This had to be Inanna.
It was like Elise read his unspoken thoughts. She said, “Look at it this way. How could I be Inanna? You’re Inanna.”
“I’m not,” Lincoln began to say.
He looked down at himself. Gone was the jacket. Gone were his jeans and boots. He wore a simple linen gown over a woman’s voluptuous body, breasts enlarged and stretch-marked from nursing. His hips were wide, and his naked feet were dirty.
Despite a dress so simple, he wore jewelry: leather thongs adorned with teeth, ribs, and finger bones interspersed with keys in a variety of shapes and sizes, as if he were carrying the ability to unlock every door in the village.
He lifted his hands to look at the copper tones in the flesh of his palms. This was Inanna’s skin. These were Inanna’s breasts, and her soft belly. He had every one of her scars.
Lincoln was Inanna.
And when he looked up, he found himself standing in a sweltering desert oasis at the edge of the pool where herons slipped between the reeds. Elise stood across from him, still armored like a modern Joan of Arc, and their wedding was officiated by a faceless old crone.
It didn’t feel like a hallucination. It felt as real as when Lincoln had hunted through Meadowood Mall for a bounty.
“What the hell do you want?” Lincoln asked.
Elise’s gauntleted hand reached out, and her leather gloves curved around his wrist. “I already told you,” Elise said. “I want you to marry me.” She leaned across the distance of an entire universe to brush her lips against his. She tasted of whiskey and infinity, and it was too much.
The world turned white. Lincoln’s mind went blank.
He was lost.
Chapter 30
Lincoln returned to consciousness on a bed roll. It was almost flat, so he could feel the rocks underneath him. Daylight filtered through the turquoise tarp of a tent, propped up by rusty bars.
A heart-shaped face hung over him. For once, Lincoln didn’t first notice how dark Sophie’s skin was, but her delicate brow, stubborn chin, and how the long lines of her neck arched like a swan’s.
Cool fingers were moving over his stomach. He tensed when he realized Sophie was touching him.
“Why, good morning,” she said, sitting back on her heels. She was kneeling on a bed roll beside Lincoln’s, and her many bags were piled behind her. This was “their” tent. Summer had said she would find one for them, but Lincoln had been too busy hunting to visit it earlier. “Given that you survived wandering through this forest on a full moon, I feel it’s unnecessary to ask whether you’re all right. If you were anything less than all right, you would be dead.”
“Good morning to you too,” Lincoln grumbled.
“Do you want to tell me why you stumbled into the town square at five o’clock this morning looking as though you fought another cait sidhe?”
“I’d love to tell you, if I remembered anything.” He wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten out of the cathedral—or when.
He tried to sit up. She pushed him back.
“Hold still. I’m bandaging your wounds. None are severe enough to warrant a visit to the healer, which you may regard as fortunate or otherwise depending on how badly this hurts.” Sophie taped gauze over the claw marks scored into his side.
It hurt all right. He hissed through his teeth at the pressure. “A shapeshifter didn’t do this. I was hunting.”
“I can’t imagine what else you would find to wrestle in these mountains,” Sophie said. “Perhaps a bear? Even a man as manly as you only proves himself a fool if he thinks to wrestle a bear.”
He rubbed his skull. He had a headache right where his dad had shot that black bear with an arrow. “There’s something else up there.” Lincoln rolled partially onto his side, giving him access to his pocket. He withdrew three things: the photographs, the falhófnir dagger, and a shred of skin stuck to its tip. He hadn’t expected to find the third thing. He didn’t realize he’d actually cut the gargoyle.
The shred was definitely skin—it had pores—but it was no longer pliable. It was like a piece of rock had shattered off a greater boulder and somehow adhered to the shape of his dagger’s tip.
Sophie snapped it off. “Gods above,” she breathed, running her thumb along the inner curve of skin. “This came from a preternatural creature you hunted who was not a shapeshifter?”
“Yeah. You recognize it?”
“Golem,” Sophie said. “Animate stone. Gaean creatures—that is to say, in the same kingdom as shapeshifters, witches, and sidhe. Most specifically sidhe.”
“It looked like a gargoyle,” he said.
“Gargoyle, grotesque, golem. The modern name postdates their extinction. They’ve not been seen since the Treaty of Dis.”
“Seems like a common theme,” Lincoln said. “How many species did the Treaty wipe out?”
“Too many. It was meant to reduce predators that risked human lives, creating a stable pool of food for angels and demons—both of which feed on mundane human energy. It also meant less competition for them. Less danger. Anything they deemed as outside their respective factions was sacrificed.” It was amazing how Sophie could manage to look so angry over something that she hadn’t lived through.
“Maybe they were onto something,” he said.
Sophie looked more exasperated than shocked at this point. “I expected you’d hold that attitude.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Your love of authority involves implicit approval of imperialism,” she said. “The strongest are permitted—nay, expected—to conquer those weaker in order to establish systems that people like you then enforce. Never mind that the vast diversity of species, with the beautiful facets of power and culture that came along with them, were demolished by the empire you uphold.�
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“That’s how nature works, shortcake. Survival of the fittest,” Lincoln said. “Angels and demons were fittest.”
“Demons ruined your life,” Sophie said, not unkindly.
“Then maybe the angels just didn’t go far enough wiping out the threats to humanity.”
“You’d prefer to be fodder for the elite? Wouldn’t you rather know true freedom?” she asked. “Freedom is dangerous, yes. But freedom means that everyone can live authentic lives without laws passed from on high. That may include predators like your gargoyles, but it also includes the men who fight against them. And freedom disempowers men like Sheriff Noah Adair whose only advantage is authoritarianism.”
She was so righteous that she got a little rough taping the last of his wounds. Lincoln flinched away, caught her wrist.
“Ouch,” he said, but he didn’t really mean the wound. Something was hurting inside him, right where the white-draped Godslayer would have wrenched his heart out with her clawed gauntlets.
Sophie’s breath stuck in her throat. She wasn’t trying to free her wrist from his hand. “Are you going to accuse me of being unkind to you again? Is it unfair to point out the flaws in your worldview?”
“Naw,” Lincoln said. “You’re right. The law of God is higher than the law of any man, demon, or even His angels. He wanted the world to be filled with plenty. They messed with it.”
“Ah, Lincoln,” she sighed. “Still fixated on your monotheistic fantasies.”
“Faith is a verb,” he said. “I’ve chosen to practice it. I’m not gonna let it go. But…” The bones of her wrist were as dainty as everything else about her. She kept her fingernails short, but there was still ink underneath them. A tiny corkscrew of hair had escaped one of her braids and fell over her temple.
Elise had grabbed Lincoln’s wrist like that, in the cathedral. It hadn’t been a vision or a dream. It had felt real.
She expected him to marry her.
“Lincoln?” Sophie asked. He had been quiet too long.
He dropped her hand, grabbed his shirt, and managed not to groan as he pulled it over his head. “I don’t think the earthquakes have been from shifters drilling in the mountains or because Mount Bain’s gonna blow. I think it has to do with those gargoyles. Tell me more about them. What else do you know?”
“Golems require a handler,” she said. “Unless they’re being actively maintained by a witch, or sometimes a sidhe, they are inanimate stone. Little more than statues. Upkeep is magically intensive. One would only invest into a gargoyle if they had desperate need. An entire clutch of gargoyles may require a coven to remain animate.”
“You think there’s enough magic in that to make the earth shake?”
“Easily,” Sophie said.
“Could the hospice deaths be fueling the gargoyles? Blood magic, like human sacrifice?”
“Then what are the gargoyles intended to do? That would suggest the deaths aren’t the actual crime the witches are preparing to commit,” she said.
Lincoln didn’t know how to answer that one. “Don’t tell the Alphas anything about this yet,” he said.
“Why? I’m sure they would want to know if another preternatural species is on their mountain. They’re surely more equipped to confront them than we are.”
“But I know who the gargoyles are. Two of them, at least.” Lincoln pulled the photos out of his jeans pocket again. He showed the new one to Sophie, with the two young men standing in front of Poppy’s. “I found keepsakes in the caldera of Mount Bain. Stuff that the gargoyles kept from their lives before Genesis. I think these two guys are two of the gargoyles, and I wanna know who they are—why they’re doing what they do.” Stealing goats, maybe killing people, punching dead bodies.
“What are those?” Sophie asked, pointing to their wrists.
The picture was too blurry. “I can’t tell.”
She shuffled briefly through one of her bags and came up with a magnifying glass the size of her face. Its ornate brass handle looked to have been rubbed smooth by generations of use.
“Let me see that again,” she said, reaching for the photo.
“That’s the least surprising thing you’ve pulled out of your bags so far,” Lincoln said. “I’d have been kinda disappointed if you didn’t have a magnifying glass.”
“Obviously, because how else will I enlarge things that are too small to see?” Sophie asked.
“Obviously,” he echoed.
She didn’t seem to catch the sarcasm. Sophie examined the picture again, focusing on their wrists. “They appear to be…paper bracelets of some kind?”
Lincoln looked too. The picture was hard to make out, since it was faded with age and the light inside the tent was all tinted turquoise. But when he tilted the magnifying glass just right—the thing weighed as much as a text book—he could see that they were indeed wearing paper bracelets.
“Hospital bracelets,” Lincoln said. A woman was watching the boys from inside Poppy’s. A nurse taking them on an outing, perhaps. “I can’t make out any text on the bracelets.”
“There is a partial logo, though,” Sophie said. She’d already pulled out a notebook and sketched her version of the logo. Lincoln wasn’t surprised to see that she was an amazing artist.
He recognized the logo immediately.
“That’s from the Tri-County Medical Network. I just saw it on one of the hospice brochures…” Lincoln wasn’t nearly as organized as Sophie. It took him a minute to find it inside his jacket. He unfolded it across the bed rolls, then pointed to the list of facilities. “There. That’s the West Grove Mental Hospital.”
“The boys in these photos were patients,” Sophie said.
Chances weren’t good that they’d still have records from before Genesis—or that the facility would even be open. But they had to try. “Grab your luggage, Mary Poppins,” Lincoln said. “We’re going to a mental institution.”
Chapter 31
West Grove Mental Hospital was an unremarkable brown building on the edge of Woodbridge. Before Genesis, it would’ve been impossible to get inside; the heavy doors had electronic locks, and it was surrounded by a tall, smooth wall that even Lincoln doubted he could climb. But the doors were held open by wooden wedges, and there were no lights within the building. No lights meant no electricity, and no security.
“Oh no,” Sophie said, disappointed. “This was our only lead in the case.”
“You’re starting to sound like a regular detective,” Lincoln said.
“I love mysteries. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the sensational ‘The Woman in White.’ Frankly, if it weren’t for people dying, I’d be thrilled to be working on this,” she said. “Wait, are you going inside? It’s obviously abandoned.”
“They might still have records,” Lincoln said.
He entered the institution, leaving the door open behind him. It didn’t offer enough light. He couldn’t even see the end of the hallway or tell whether it ended in a room or door.
A flashlight clicked on. Sophie handed a second, unlit flashlight to Lincoln.
He stared at her.
“Do you not want a torch?” she asked.
He took it. “Thanks.” Lincoln was starting to expect her backpack to release a hot air balloon so Sophie could escape her next encounter with his family.
They proceeded down the long hallway. It turned right at the end, and then left, leading them past a courtyard but no other doors. There was no signage to indicate where to go, either.
So they just kept going deeper.
Lincoln wasn’t sure if the faint shuffling he heard were his own echoes, or if there was something living in the building. Sophie didn’t seem to hear it. She looked much too excited to be in the darkened hallway, with weeds growing between the tiles and years-old posters curling on the walls.
“What’s ‘The Woman in White’ about?” Lincoln asked, more to distract himself than her.
“Ooh, such a good story,” Sophie said
. “It involves one woman masquerading as another and becoming locked in a mental institution. Loss of identity was a common theme in novels of the era, you know. Records were poorly maintained and the anxiety was reasonable.”
“Hopefully nobody ever got falsely locked up in here,” he said.
They finally reached a door into one of the wings. This one was locked. Lincoln peered through the window and was surprised to see that the desk was staffed, lit by a camping lantern. Someone was writing on an old-style accounting ledger inside.
A nurse.
Lincoln knocked to get the attention of the woman at the desk. She glanced over at him, and waved him away, shaking her head.
He knocked again, more insistently.
“What a strange building,” Sophie said, watching down the hallway that they had come from. The shadows behind the weeds swayed in time with her flashlight. It looked like they were moving. “Unmarked hallways constructed like a labyrinth so that there’s no way to find the front doors…”
“It is a mental hospital. It’s meant to keep people who are confused and sick inside. I just don’t know why anyone’s in here if it’s so rundown.” Lincoln pounded his fist on the door again, and the time the nurse rose from the desk.
She opened the window on the door. The slam of metal echoed through the empty halls. “What do you want?”
Lincoln showed her the photo that he had found on Mount Bain. “Do either of these men look familiar to you?”
The nurse didn’t seem to have heard him. She withdrew to her side of the hallway again, looking over her shoulder. Crying echoed down the hallways. She shouted to another nurse. “Is it G room again?”
“He wants his Nicorette,” another nurse called back.
“We don’t have Nicorette!” shrieked the nurse at the door. “He knows that! Don’t give him shit!”
Sophie was hiding behind Lincoln. He squared off to block Sophie as much as possible.
“Detoxing after the apocalypse must be terrible, isn’t it?” Lincoln asked.