A Wild Light (17 page)

“It’s tearing,” he breathed. “Maxine.”

I was still distracted by Grant, my memories. I didn’t understand what he was telling me. Not until I vomited.

There was nothing in my stomach, but the act was violent and shocking. I never got sick. Never.

Except for one time, only. For one reason, only.

Pain spiked inside my head. Zee pulled so hard on my skin I felt certain he would break free. He was trying. All of them were, with all their strength. I looked around, heart hammering in my throat—

—and the world bled light. A storm of light. A wild, aching light that was white-hot, and caressed with undertones of rich reds and purples, kisses of turquoise that broke apart like hissing sparks. I was blind, for light.

Until I looked up and saw darkness.

I blinked, and the light disappeared, the forest slamming back into my vision like a slap. I still felt blind, though—only because the world appeared so dull: gray, bled out, drained.

But the darkness was there. In the sky, above our heads. A crack in the sky, a seam shaped like a lightning bolt, red and bleeding through the clouds. I smelled blood. I heard screams on the other side.

“Maxine,” Jack whispered.

I see it,
I wanted to tell him, but my voice wouldn’t work.

The prison veil was open. And something bigger than a parasite was about to come through.

I
felt like a kid in one of those nightmares where the halls never ended and the doors were all locked, and even though you couldn’t turn to see what was behind you, you heard the hard breathing and felt the heat on your neck, and knew that if you stopped, even for a moment, something worse than death would happen.

Right now, the halls were going on forever. Doors locked. Except there was no running. I’d see the monster coming.

The screams intensified, and the wind shuddered through the forest with one wild heave, tearing at my clothes and making the trees sway and groan. I smelled blood—thick, cloying—and beneath those harrowing cries I imagined the sound of crashing waves, full of storm.

Grant was finally silent, watching the sky with grim horror. Even the Messenger stared past his shoulder, her small eyes opened wide. I looked at Jack, but he was staring at the woman.

“You fool,” he said to her. “You thought you were opening the Labyrinth?
There is more than one kind of door.
”

The Messenger flinched. I grabbed Jack’s arm. “Can it be closed?”

“Not by me.” He looked at the others. “Not alone.”

“Tell me how,” Grant said.

“Lad,” Jack replied slowly. “I told you. It took almost all of my kind to build the veil, and the effort still killed some of us. You can’t.”

Grant stilled. “We don’t have a choice but to try.”

I rose on unsteady feet and stared up at the sky. I felt the weight of something coming, but some of that weight was inside: a part of me, reaching for that hole with aching hunger, a yearning that bordered on homesickness. As though whatever was up there, I needed to find. I needed to touch, and breathe, and see.

Yours, all of it,
a sinuous voice said in my mind.
Yours to lead, to hold.

I tore my gaze from the hole to look down at Jack. It was a struggle. I didn’t see him at first, even though I stared into his face. My head was still in the sky, and my mouth was dry. “Go. If you can cut space, then go. Take Grant, take
her
, and get the hell out.”

“No,” Grant said, trying to stand. Jack shook his head, looking only at me. His eyes frightened me. I was afraid of what he could see in my eyes.

I grabbed the Messenger by the throat. Her dazed gaze cleared, focusing hard on me.

“There are things happening you don’t understand,” I said, desperation making my voice break. “Maybe you can’t. Maybe you’re not wired that way.
But you keep them safe.
You protect them. That, I think you understand.”

She shook her head, face screwed up as though in agony. “I understand you are one of them. And that
he
. . . the Lightbringer . . . did something to me.” Her trembling fingers brushed her brow, and her already pained gaze turned haunted. “I owe you no honor.”

The Messenger tried to grab Jack’s wrist. My grandfather wrenched backward, out of her grip, giving her a horrified look. “No, we will not run. We will
not
. She is my blood. She is the blood of my skin and soul—”

I cut him off, ruthless. “You remember what they did to Ahsen because she was an Avatar.” I looked at the Messenger. “I don’t care what happens to me. You protect them.”

The Messenger looked from Jack to me, her gaze sharper, but in a different way. Thoughtful, almost.

“If you are certain,” she said.

“No,” Jack snapped.

I forced myself to smile. “I love you, Old Wolf. Take care of Byron.” I looked at Grant. “Go.”

“Not a chance.” His hand shot out to grab the Messenger’s shoulder. “Remember what I told you.”

“My eyes were always open,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word.

Grant stayed silent. Jack reached for me, and I backed away. The armor rippled over my hand, pulsing in cold waves. That awful weight bearing down on my shoulders grew a little heavier, and inside me, below my heart, a stirring—the darkness, shedding its shallow sleep.

We were never asleep,
whispered that voice, again.
Simply waiting.

I breathed through my teeth and met Jack’s haunted gaze. “Remember what
I
said.”

His face crumpled. “No—”

But it was too late. The Messenger lunged forward to wrap her arms around him—

—and they disappeared. I wished very much I could follow.

Grant’s hand slid around my waist. Memories crashed. His touch, both familiar and strange.

“You should have left,” I told him, trembling. “I wish you had.”

Grant kissed the knuckles of his other hand and made the sign of the cross. Then he kissed the top of my head and pulled me near. “Life’s too short to waste on running. I won’t leave you alone.”

I swallowed hard, swaying. “I’m not the one who can die.”

“Then why is it you always tell me that I’ll outlive you?” Grant brushed his thumb over my mouth. “You and me, Maxine.”

I grabbed the front of his shirt, stood on my toes, and kissed him hard on the mouth. He tasted hot and sweet—familiar and new—and the darkness stirred a little more, rising, uncoiling to fill my skin. I could see it in my mind, encircling the second golden pulse that surrounded my heart, a pulse that belonged to Grant.

Our link,
I remembered—a connection that bound us, into the soul. I could feel our bond, and him, burning through me, as though the sun lived inside my heart. I wondered how I could have forgotten anything about this man.

The Messenger had created bonds with humans to steal their energy. Grant also needed a source of power when he used his gift—but he didn’t have to steal it. Not from me.

Two hearts live,
I thought, holding him even more tightly, digging my fingers into his shoulders.

Grant shivered, and against my mouth murmured, “I think we may be fine.”

I sensed movement overhead, and we pulled apart. Zee raged upward, against my skin. All the boys, screaming in their sleep. The darkness stirred again, but I did not push it away.

A single eye open inside my mind—
its
eye—and I thought,
Yes, this time I need you.

They need you,
said that sinuous voice, just a hiss in my mind, like a thought captured between dreams and waking.
You are tangled in all those bleeding bones, and war- hearts. Your knots run deep as death, and the endless night.

“No,” I said, out loud. Grant glanced at me, but only a moment. Bodies dropped from the cut in the sky. My heart charged up my throat like I was going to turn inside out, and keep turning, and turning.

I counted dozens, maybe a hundred, falling through the sky—a cloud of silver bodies that cut through the mist like pale ghosts. I felt removed from myself as I cataloged all the alien details—long, naked limbs, flying hair, humanoid masculine bodies—until, closer yet, I saw the holes of their eyes; and closer, the sharp angles of their faces; until they slammed into the earth in front of us, so hard the world shook. Some landed in the conifers, breaking branches, but none of the demons fell—simply leapt, light as air, onto the ground to join their brothers.

Grant slid around me to stand at my back, watching the ones who landed behind us. My spine and chest began vibrating, like a tuning fork was pressed between my shoulder blades. His voice, rumbling so low I could only feel it. I flexed my hand, and the armor shimmered, white-hot, blinding—

—until I held a sword in my hand.

It was a familiar weapon. An extension of the armor itself. A chain ran from the pommel to my wrist; delicate as the blade, which was long and slender, engraved with runes. The metal gleamed with inner light—moonlight, starlight, icelight—and when I scraped the edge with my thumb, sparks flew. I felt good holding the blade. Better. Grounded.

I forced myself to breathe, slow and deep, and thought of my mother. My fearless mother.

There were so many. Pale and gray as the dead, with silver hair that spiked high in bristled tendrils before falling into long, knotted braids. Wiry, gaunt, dressed in leather belts and little else. Their fingers resembled the tines of pitchforks and their faces were almost as sharp. Silver eyes and silver lips, and chains of chiming silver hooks, hanging from ears to narrow nostrils. Most of them lacked at least one arm, or chunks of flesh from thighs; and their fists were full of smoky parasites, Blood Mama’s children, who screamed and screamed.

They ate those parasites. Ripped heads off with their teeth, then tossed aside the smoky remains. I felt no disgust or pity while I watched them consume those lesser demons. Zee and the boys did the same when they could.

Except I wanted a taste, too. The desire hit me hard, in the chest, where the darkness rolled.

The demons watched us—perfectly, eerily still. Eyes glinting, faces hollow with hunger. Saliva trickled from their lips. I found them disturbingly human, or so close that I wondered at their origins. I wondered, too, what Grant saw when he looked at them.

I wanted to know why they hadn’t tried to kill us yet.

“They’re waiting,” Grant said, as though he read my mind. “Something’s coming.”

Something, from above.

A solitary figure dropped through the crack in the sky. I could tell, even some distance away, that he was larger than the other demons, who stirred and looked up, and jostled each other aside to make room. Cracking sounds filled the air, deep amongst the crowded bodies. I heard chewing, and remembered the humans that the Messenger had drained to death. I tried to feel pity for them, or even disgust, but the sounds of eating intensified, and the demons began fighting to reach that spot where I’d last seen the bodies. I watched, and all I felt was a strange pride, or pleasure: like a lioness watching her cubs feed.

I bit the inside of my cheek, then my tongue. Ruthless. Desperate. I tasted blood, and the sharp spike of pain was enough to shake me loose and bring me back to myself.

But I felt that pride, that pleasure, waiting like an iron cape ready to settle on my shoulders, in my heart. I felt it, so strong, just on the other side of me.

Not me,
I thought desperately.
None of that is me.

But it is under your skin,
said the voice.
So close. So close. We are so close.

The newcomer landed softly, despite his size: a giant, the ropes of his braided hair tied around his body like some strange armor. Silver glinted at his waist. He had all his limbs and was not missing chunks of flesh. Of all the demons present, he had meat on his bones.

He studied me. Just me. His eyes were green, a startling color against the dull gray of his skin. His long, deadly fingers tapped gently against his powerful thigh. He was thoughtful.

“Bring them to me,” he said to the others.

The words had hardly left his mouth before the demons swarmed—striking like vipers, with hisses and howls. The sword flashed in my hand, swung like a baseball bat arcing lightning against the demons that tried to slam me. Blood spilled. So did limbs. I did not look at Grant, but I heard him, his voice moving through me as it rose like a crashing wail of thunder, primal and inhuman. I concentrated on his voice. As long as he sang, he was alive.

And so was I. The boys raged against me, burning hot— and inside the darkness rose, filling my skin with its spirit flesh, shedding sleep as it blinked a lazy eye inside my mind.

I got knocked down. Twisted, as I fell, and saw Grant also on the ground, kneeling with his eyes closed, his hands clenched in fists. Sharp fingers hovered perilously close to his face, but the demons stood frozen, staring at him, mouths slack and their eyes rolling back in their heads.

Others, behind them, tried clawing over their bodies to reach Grant. Some turned at the last moment and attacked their own brothers, protecting him. Those who did were torn down without mercy. More took their place. I could not imagine what it was costing Grant to control so many minds.

Fingers stabbed me and broke. Hair lashed like whips, harmless against my face. I kicked out, hard, swinging the sword—and the blood I spilled was crimson and beautiful; and so were the screams, and the fear I saw, and the unease that arose in faces that were hollow with ten thousand years of hunger. Zee raged, between my breasts. All the boys, churning with such heat and violence I felt as though the surface of my skin were made of lava.

Grant still sang. When I thought of him, the golden light of our bond flared hot inside my chest, surrounding the darkness. The thing did not flee, or flinch—but purred—and fed the bond part of its own spirit flesh.