Distant Star (13 page)

I ducked as the demons raised their swords, and blue fire curled
around the dark blades before erupting in half a dozen streaks of vicious,
crackling power. The palace guests caught in the hall either cried out or stood
stock-still, probably in shock. The lances of hot fire that rent the air had
them diving back into their rooms for cover and ignoring the fire alarms.

The elevator doors behind me
binged
open as the wild torrents of electric-flame screamed down the hall. I jumped
through the doors and slammed my fist against the button with the two
inward-facing arrows. The doors started to close but just a fraction too slow.

Shit!
Two wild bolts slipped
between the narrow gap in the doors, exploded against the back of the lift, and
blasted a hole through to the darkness of the shaft beyond. I threw myself at
the carpeted floor. If I’d still been standing, they would’ve pierced me through
the neck and heart.

The button for the ground floor was already aglow as the lift
jerked into downward motion. I remembered to breathe as the heavy sound of
things exploding above, on my floor, became muffled and ominous.

I stood, took another deep breath, and noticed that I wasn’t alone
in the lift. I exhaled slowly, staring at a woman who wore a form-hugging red
dress and a white porcelain mask. Her dress revealed a remarkable amount of
cleavage but covered the rest of her body from head to toe, save her tanned
arms. Even her hair was wrapped in a silky satiny hood. She stared at me from
behind the mask, then at the smoldering holes in the back of the lift, and then
back at me and down at my…

“Um… it’s cold out,” I said. I was dripping wet, shivering, and
bleeding from half a dozen small cuts that I could see. Sounds of wrenching
metal echoed up above in the elevator shaft.
Uh-oh.

“Well, is this awkward, or what?” I asked and strategically held
the star cuffs in front of myself. Was that
 
Born to Run
playing over the
speakers in the elevator? The song was a little drowned out by the fire alarm.
Something important was nagging at my thoughts, something out of place.

“My name’s Declan and I’m to be
executed later on today,” I said.
No,
that wasn’t it…

The lady in red was saved from responding to me, the unclothed
lunatic, as the entire elevator
 
lurched
 
to the right, slamming
us both against the wall. The sound of the heavy whip-crack of taut cable
unraveling snapped in the shaft above us.

“Ah hell…” The cable must have broken because the box plummeted
down the tunnel. The fall was short and ended quite abruptly, and the woman
next to me screamed loud enough to wake the dead. We’d fallen about fifteen
feet,

I thought, and bounced off the walls to hit the base of the shaft
hard enough to jar my shoulders into numbness.

Fucking demons
.

For a wonder, the elevator doors
binged
 
open on the ground floor. I
extracted myself from
 
around
 
the lady in red and crawled out of the lift as half a ton of
steel cable crashed down upon it, crushing it. Fortunately, the woman had
scampered out after me, shaken and somewhat out of sorts—another innocent
bystander scarred for life.

“Still
alive down here!” I shouted back up the shaft. I was
furious
. A thick column of flame, hot as the
blazing
sun,
burst through the roof of the lift and
ignited the tunnel with all the
fires of hell.

“Time to go,” I said, stifling another yawn—the cuffs were
still working their infernal curse upon me, trying to force me to sleep.
Adrenalin alone kept me mobile now. I turned away from the burning elevator and
beheld the grand palace vestibule, a lavish space of cool marble columns, hung
with tapestries and the purple standard of the Dragon Throne.

A small dagger took me just beneath my arm. I felt the cool metal
ricochet off my lower ribcage, digging a deep furrow in my side.

I gasped in surprise, in confusion,
in sheer
pain
. The lady in red!

My blood, hot and sticky, flowed down the elegant knife in her
perfectly manicured hand and across her fingernails. A steady trickle ran over
her soft skin down to her elbow. I stood motionless and caught, bent to the
side on reflex alone, trying to edge the knife out of my flesh.

“Ow...”

“Hush, hush, sweet Declan,” said the murderous woman, her blue
eyes truly compassionate behind that white mask. She no longer looked like an
innocent bystander, and I was a fool to have been taken in so easily. “It’s
okay.”

“I… thought you were cool.”

She leaned in close. I caught the light scent of an unfamiliar
fragrance. Lavender, I thought, or perhaps not. She lifted her mask, just
enough to reveal her mouth. Her lips, naturally full and red, pressed against
mine in a warm kiss that only served to dig the dagger half an inch deeper. I
moaned, yet cold surprise hit me harder than the pain.

Breaking the kiss, the lady in red slipped the knife out of me. My
legs buckled, failed of all strength, and I fell back onto the smooth velvet
carpet. I lifted my head and glanced at my side. Everything was far too
crimson.

I don’t die here.
The thought was not as
comforting as I’d hoped.

I sucked in a harsh breath and forced a fresh spurt of blood from
the wound, which almost made me chuckle. I grinned at the masked mystery woman
who had just stabbed me and kissed me in the same breath.

“Do you think we’ll be in love forever?” I asked.

Those luscious red lips, all I had of her, smiled. “Oh my,
charming to the last. She never told me how much fun you would be.”

“Who…?”

“Now that would be telling, handsome.”

Joined by her demonic escort, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the lady
in red blew me another kiss. Of course they were all working together.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee had driven me into her arms, I realized.
Escaping them had been too easy. If they’d really been trying to kill me I
wouldn’t have made it out of my room upstairs. The lady in red drew a slim
paperback from inside the folds of her dress. The demons at her side grasped
her arms, and together they shimmered and disappeared—off to worlds
unknown, unseen, unfound.

She had the talent, then, a Will and the skill to use it. So red
lips, a rather impressive chest, and command of the one true power—should
be enough information for me to track her down, if I lived.

I tried to sit up. Bad idea.

Either the forced fatigue or the blood loss, or a bitter, lethal
cocktail of both, was hampering my vision. I stopped fighting and closed my
eyes.

All thoughts faded to black.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Strawberry
Fields Forever

I awoke in a shaft of sunlight to
someone removing my star cuffs. The hum of my Will poured over the dam in my
mind. The feeling was invigorating, like being doused with ice water, but it
amplified tenfold the burning in my side. Groaning, I tried to roll over, but a
firm hand held me in place.

“Of all the places. In all of the
realms. Across all of the worlds…” Marcus tossed the cuffs aside, glaring at
them as if they were hissing snakes. “You had to come back here.”

I was groggy, but my memory was
sharp. A memory of lying naked and slowly bleeding to death in the grand
vestibule of the Fae Palace, as a woman with luscious red lips looked on. Since
then, at least someone had lent me their trousers.

“I hope you’re not here to break
me out or anything equally as stupid.”

Marcus stepped away, and I could
see more of the room beyond him which looked exactly like the one that
Tweedledum and Tweedledee had incinerated the night before. A familiar man from
my past stood opposite Marc, and two men stood in the doorway—Knights
Infernal.

“Faraday
let me in to see you,” said the man near Marc. “He knows you can’t
run—not this time.”

“Aye, he’s got that right. Hello,
Fenton Creed.”

“Hale.” Stooping next to me,
Fenton peeled away the bandages at my side. “Keep still while I check your
stitches. You’re not to die just yet—not before your summons at noon.”

“Can’t you just heal me?”

Fenton smirked. “I
could
.” He was tall, rake-thin, and
rather unintimidating at first glance. Also at second and third glance. But he
possessed the strongest known Will in Forget. His frame belied the fact that he
could incinerate legions with his mind. If it came down to a direct battle of
Will with him, I would be wiped from existence, smashed like a fly.

Marcus grunted. “I tried to do
it, Declan, but I’m not to use my Will while in the palace.”

For a man as strong in the power as
Fenton, it was the work of a quick thought to seal a wound as trivial as the
gash in my side. He wanted me kept tender.

“Noon, is
it?” I asked. “You keeping me company until then?”

Fenton grinned and cracked his
knuckles. “Seems like old times. Trouble in your road. I almost want you to
run, just so I can smack you down.”

I laughed, which felt better than
grimacing. “Before this is through, you’ll probably get your chance.” I ran my
tongue over my lips to get a taste of the lady in red. “The woman that stabbed
me? She wore a red dress and a white mask—you always knew the comings and
goings in this palace, Fenton, back in the day. I don’t imagine that’s changed.
Who is she?”

A glimmer of uncertainty
shimmered across his face. “I don’t know.” He was lying, I was sure of it.
“We’re investigating. An attack on the palace… should not have been possible.”
He cleared his throat. “But what do you expect, Hale? That your return would be
met with wild jubilation? Word has spread throughout the city that you’re here.
Crowds have gathered in Elusive Square, and are clamoring for your head.”

Marcus had brought some
breakfast—bacon, eggs, and English muffins. After two failed attempts and
a deep breath I finally sat up, then stood and limped over to the circular
table near the window which overlooked the great city. Marcus helped me slip
into a simple black polo shirt. I felt out of sorts without my waistcoat.

“No shoes?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t have
much in the way of currency, and I thought you’d appreciate something to eat
more than something for your feet.”

“Good call. Sophie?” I asked.
Fenton and the two Knights joined us at the table as the smell of crispy meat
wafted across the room.

“Fine. The kid, Ethan, convinced
Clare to help him find Sophie. She was never in any danger—didn’t even
know there’d been some trouble at the shop. The Voidling was after you, and
only you.”

I nodded. “Good. Are they here?”

“Not Ethan and Sophie. Clare came
back with her wounded unit. I told the other two to board up your shopfront and
work on a few new wards.”

“That’s… optimistic.”

Fenton chuckled. “So it’s true?
You opened a bookshop?”

“I thought it appropriately
defiant.”
And what has defiance got you
so far?
“But tell me, Fenton. News has been thin on the ground in the real
world. Tell me about Ascension City today. What’s changed?”

“What’s there to say? We are
still rebuilding after you ended the war. We’ve held peace with the Renegades,
for the most part. Both sides have factions, basically small scatterings of
rebels who still don’t see the fighting as over.”

“How has Faraday kept peace with
those bastards? King Renegade and his Immortal Queen would never accept
anything less than—”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong.”
Fenton paused, then shrugged. “Well, you’ll know soon enough anyway.”

“What?”

“Faraday offered King Renegade an
alliance. He took it. We’re working with them now, Hale, to stop the spread of
your Degradation and to undo the damage to the Story Thread. We’re working
together, both kingdoms as one, to find a way back into Atlantis.”

Marcus scoffed. “That’s not
funny, Creed.”

“I’m not joking.”

“An… alliance?” I tasted the word
on my tongue and found it bitter. “After all they’ve done, and that son of a
bitch welcomes the Renegade dynasty
back
into Ascension City as if the last century of war never happened? Peace I can
understand… but working
together
?”

“That’s the gist of it, yes.”

I could scarcely fathom such a
decision. If I was reading the situation right, then my choices in Atlantis had
not only ended the war, but forced the Knights and the Renegades, those that
mattered, to turn from their own conflict and… Broken quill, the world was
twice damned before lunch. “I’m going to eat the rest of the bacon.”