Darkness Calls (29 page)

Jack nodded solemnly, without a word, something in his eyes warming me—even as those same eyes had chilled me, only minutes before. I clung to the warmth, though. I savored it.

On the bed, Father Lawrence stirred. I peered over the mattress edge and found the priest staring at the stateroom ceiling. I saw little of his face from where I sat, but he was quiet and still except for a slight twitch in his right foot. His head lolled to one side. I met a gaze broken in halves: his left eye was brown and normal, while his right remained crimson, golden—but very human in its confusion. No fur on his face. Nothing but a normal man.

“Hey,” he said hoarsely. “I’m tied up.”

“Yes,” I replied, wishing very much that I didn’t have to speak to him at that moment. “Do you know what happened to you?”

Father Lawrence hesitated, and licked his cracked lips. “Bad touching.”

Grant made a small sound that could have been laughter. I was not amused.

“You were changed,” I said, feeling like crap for the crisp tone in my voice. I had no better way to tell him, though. Sugarcoating the concept of being
turned into a werewolf
was almost as absurd as the actuality of being a werewolf—however one defined such a creature. I couldn’t imagine there was a basis for comparison. Not a recent one, anyway.

But when I looked at Father Lawrence to gauge his reaction, he was not paying attention to me at all. He was staring at Jack. With an astonishment that seemed to far outweigh any predicament involving rope, boats, or fur.

“Damn,” said the priest, twitching across the mattress; resembling a roly-poly caterpillar more than a fanged man-wolf. “Jack. What are you doing here?”

“Whoa,” I said.

Grant made another small sound, but it had nothing to do with laughter. He tried to sit up, and I braced my shoulder against his back to support him. He rubbed his chest, wincing—and gave Jack a long look, before anchoring his focus on Father Lawrence.

“Huh,” he said.

“Jack,” Father Lawrence said, ignoring us, still staring at the old man—who finally, grudgingly, peered over the side of the bed with all the reluctance of a man about to get shot between the eyes, or given a wedgie.

“Hello, Frank,” replied Jack mildly. “Small world.”

My head was going to explode. “You two know each other? How is that remotely possible?”

Father Lawrence’s stare was disconcerting; the uneven color of his eyes lent him a slightly deranged appearance. “Jack Meddle was my professor at Princeton, before I decided to . . . devote my life to God. We stayed in touch.” He paused, staring from me to the old man. “How do
you
know each other?”

I had no idea how to respond. Grant leaned into me, shaking his head, and Jack said, very quietly, “Frank, I made a mistake. A rather egregious one.”

I heard footsteps outside the stateroom, and the door slammed open. I expected Mary, for some reason—but it was Killy who stared inside, breathless, her gaze floating over Grant, Jack, and me—before settling like a lead weight on Father Lawrence.

She said nothing. She did nothing. Simply looked at him, her eyes dark with terrible heat. Father Lawrence lay in his bonds, frozen beneath her scrutiny. As though she was a sight as unexpected as Jack; and terrifying. I wondered if he remembered attacking her. If Grant had left him any memories at all.

Killy finally looked away, dragging in a deep breath. “Better. You did good by him, song-man.”

“It wasn’t an easy fix,” Grant replied hoarsely, one hand still clutching his chest. I wrapped my arm around him, placing my hand over his. Willing him my strength; anything, everything.

Killy’s cheeks flushed, and she nodded silently, staring at her feet. “We’ve got more trouble. I was coming to tell you. Someone’s here.”

AN hour until sunset. Byron and Mary stood inside the bridge, staring out the windows. I saw nothing but cold waters and a cargo ship, too far away to resemble anything but a floating brick. The coast curled behind us in the distance. Overcast skies, but no rain. Not yet.

Cribari waited on the deck. He was alone. Back turned to us, facing the ocean. No mistaking that tall, lean frame, or the angle of his shoulders. He wore simple black: a thick coat that covered most of his body. Zee and the others raged in his presence, tugging so hard it felt like duct tape was being continuously pulled off my body, from scalp to soles.

No one went out to greet him. We remained inside. I stayed close to Grant. He could barely walk. Mary stood near him, as well. She had flinched as though slapped when we walked free of the yacht’s belly—and now rubbed her scalp, her cheeks—held her own throat with two hands—never once taking her gaze from Grant as quiet dismay rolled through her face.

“Didn’t feel,” she whispered. “Didn’t hear. Didn’t know.”

Didn’t know you were dead,
I finished for her. I had been around Zee and his riddles long enough to understand some of the old woman’s vague half sentences. And the fear in her eyes was enough like mine that words were unnecessary.

Grant leaned hard on his cane, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. The tissue clutched in his left hand was spotted with blood. He watched Cribari as anyone might a loose live cobra: calculating ways to kill. I turned in a circle, staring out the windows. Searching for any other company that Cribari might have brought. All I saw was an old fishing vessel covered in nets and blue tarps; men moving quickly across the deck.

“How did he get here?” I asked, noting how Byron never once took his gaze off the priest.

“Don’t know,” Killy said, fingers pressed against her temple as she glanced briefly at Mary. “I turned around, and there he was on the deck. Watching the sea. He’s ignored us since he arrived.”

“And can you . . .” I hesitated, tapping my forehead.

She shook her head, ever so slightly. “He’s not open.”

“He was in a coma the last time I saw him,” said Father Lawrence. His red eye was cold and calculating as he watched Cribari—even as his brown eye remained warm, uncertain. It was like looking at two different men—men still unaware of what had been done to them. I hadn’t managed to tell Father Lawrence yet. Nor did I know how far Grant’s attempt to heal him had gone.

“Antony has been altered,” Grant said, “but not significantly. If he was in a coma, then what I’m seeing could have been the result of his healing process and nothing else.”

“Mr. King turned everyone else into a doll. Why not him?”

“Some men you don’t give power,” Jack said. “No matter how crazy you might seem.” The old man stood beside me, staring out the window at the priest. “I was a fool,” he whispered, almost to himself.

“About my grandmother?” I asked him, thinking of Mr. King’s words; his mysterious condemnation.

Jack gave me a sharp look. “About everything
but
that.”

He began to push past me to the bridge door, but I blocked him. Frustration filled his face. I glimpsed Father Lawrence watching us much too thoughtfully.

“He can’t hurt me,” I said. “Stay here.”

“There are things you don’t understand,” Jack said, but I had already turned away to grab Byron’s collar. He grunted in surprise as I yanked him toward the stairs leading down to the staterooms.

“Go,” I told him. “Find a place to hide, and don’t come out, no matter what you hear.”

“No,” he said, fighting me. “It won’t do any good.”

“Byron—”

“They always find me when I hide,” he whispered, and the shadows that battered his dark eyes made me nauseous. I remembered him, months ago, living in a box—and I remembered, too, his bruises, his fear of men. The things he still could not tell me. His voice in my head, speaking of Mr. King.

This was not his fight. He was just a kid, forced from one dangerous life into another. He could not possibly know what was coming to hurt us, but it was all the same to him. Just one more thing to survive.

I pulled Byron close, staring into his eyes. He did not flinch or blink. Grant touched my shoulder. “We can’t keep running,” he said.

Just one more time,
I thought, as my finger armor began to burn through my tattoos.
One more jump, and then we’ll see.

But Grant’s fingers tightened, ever so slightly, and I closed my hand into a fist, willing the armor to quiet. Its hum faded, but only a little: those tendrils of quicksilver that were molded to my skin felt deeper than bone; as though, if the metal were ever peeled back, one would find my muscle had turned to silver, and the rest of my hand to iron bars: parts of me, becoming the thing.

I went outside to speak to Cribari, my right hand still in a fist.

He did not turn to look at me, not even when I stood at his side, and we faced the darkening sky and the gray sea. The boat rocked, as it had since the beginning, but I noticed it more on deck, slammed by the wind, and swayed with my legs spread and knees slightly bent.

“So,” I said. “How are we going to do this?”

Cribari smiled faintly. “I expected you to kill me by now.”

“He would just send another in your place.”

“True.” His smile turned colder. “He has many soldiers at his disposal.”

I shook my head, aware of Jack standing in the doorway behind me. “You’re an idiot. He’s no angel. He’s no messenger from God. He’s as petty as you and I, and as flawed. You’re being used.”

His cheeks reddened, and muscles twitched around his eye, but he showed no other sign of agitation. Just that cold, fake smile that I wanted to beat off his face with my fists and cut with my knives. “You are made of lies. We should have seen that from the beginning, at our creation, but we were too dazzled by illusions. When the Wardens died, and you were the last—”

Cribari stopped, and finally turned his head just enough to look me in the eye. “We succeeded in killing your kind before, you know. A woman of your bloodline. She trusted our order, and so it was easy to make the kill. She had a child, unfortunately.”

Zee yanked so hard against my chest I had to take a step forward. I covered my awkwardness by pretending I wanted to see over the rail, but all the boys were wild on my skin, heaving like little tsunamis.

“I suppose your order was given a divine decree then, too,” I said to him, remembering the woman in the grave, and her wailing daughter. “Does murder taste sweeter when you can put all the blame on a higher power?”

His eyes narrowed. “Take care how you speak to me.”

“I think not,” Jack said, walking gracefully from the enclosed bridge. Father Lawrence was behind him, and Grant. I wanted to tell them to go back, but the men had looks on their faces that were determined and cold. Mary watched from the door, the wind whipping the hem of her loose dress around her knobby knees.

“She is your Lady and Queen,” added the old man, and there was a tone in his voice that made me think of lone figures standing on the borders of darkness guarded by flames, firelight, the heat of bodies gathered to hear a sto ryteller sing of heroes and monsters. “She is the one who will save you.”

Cribari turned fully around to face Jack, fury ticking through his gaze. “You are
no one
. How dare you.”

Jack stared at the priest with disdain. He rolled back his sleeve—each movement slow and deliberate—until he revealed a tattoo. A tattoo that covered the underside of his upper forearm. A mirror image of the scar below my ear.

Only, the lines of his tattoo were made of a white bone that crested the old man’s flesh in slivers and curves. Bone, that was part of his skeleton. Bone, natural grown.

“I dare because I am the Wolf,” Jack said quietly. “And you
will
do as I say.”

Father Lawrence swayed so badly, Grant had to catch his arm. I felt similarly shocked. Cribari’s face turned pale as death, and his knees gave out. He sank to the deck, staring at Jack like he was a monster. “Not you.”

“Me,” said the old man grimly. “I
made
you.”

If Cribari had been holding a gun, he would have put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger. For a moment, I thought he would throw himself into the ocean and try to drown himself. His despair was so profound I could taste it like poison.

“Is she the one?” Cribari whispered. “Does she bear the mark?”

There was only one mark he could be talking about. Jack began to shake his head in denial, but something came over me. I pulled aside my hair, feeling Dek’s tattooed body recede from my skin. My finger brushed over the exposed scar. I turned my face to the priest.

Cribari stared, shuddering violently, holding his chest with hands that strained against his black jacket like white claws. Pale, slick with sweat; staring at me with undisguised, speechless loathing. I felt like the boogey-girl, or Jackie the Ripper; or maybe just a rabid dog.