Queen of the Dark Things (40 page)

“Okay.” Gossamer saw a campfire. And a man. Not a man. A spirit. He looked up at Colby. Then his mouth dropped open and he began panting with excitement.

Colby and Gossamer looked long and hard at each other, each sifting through the other's thoughts. Gossamer nodded; Colby reeled back a bit, then shook his head. Just as Colby had shared his thoughts and memories with Gossamer, so too had Gossamer shared his with him.

And it was at once clear that all was not as it appeared to be.

Don't say a word
, thought Colby.
This stays between us. You hear me?

“Yeah,” said the dog. “Loud and clear.” Then he barked once, just to see if he still could. “Okay. Let's do this. Time's wasting.” He trotted toward the door, stopping to give a single look over his shoulder to see if Colby and Yashar were following. “
Come on!
”

“Welcome to the club,” said Yashar to Colby.

“What do you mean?”

“Now you know what it feels like to be responsible for someone who has no idea what they've asked for.”

“Oh,” said Colby, slipping into distant thoughts. “Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit.”

The door burst open and Austin stormed through, hat cocked sideways on her head, rage overflowing with bluster. “What the hell did you bring to my city?” she screamed.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! You're not allowed in my house! What the hell do you—”

“This is my city, asshole. I can go wherever the hell I want.”

“No you can't, Captain Police State.”

“
What the hell did you bring to my city?
”

“I didn't bring—”

“Yes you did. They're here because of you. Everything is here because of you. Demons, shadows, and a little girl who calls herself Queen. They're not here for the fucking music.”

“Now you don't know that, they could be—”

“Don't be a smart-ass. Not now. You have fucked up one time too many, Colby Stevens. Bill was one of the good ones. The Cursed and the Damned was a little piece of magic this town can never get back. It was one thing when they came on their own, but when you chose to traffic with them, this became something else entirely. I won't have sorcerers in my town, Colby. I won't have power-hungry jackasses bringing the worst kinds of things here.”

“That's not what's happening,” said Colby, his voice pinched, defensive.

“It is what's happening. You've done nothing good for this town. Ever. First you clear it out of all the fairies because you had a beef. Then you kill a spirit without consulting me, which, albeit, I had more than a little something to do with. And now, well, now the Seventy-two are showing up one by one while an army of shadowy creeps comes to tear the place apart. I won't have it. You're gone.”

“What?”

“Your Austin privileges are revoked. Grab your shit and get the hell out of my town. You're done here.”

Colby stepped forward, standing almost nose to nose with her. While she was a slight bit smaller than he was, her posture was more assured, meant business. He tried to remain bold, staring straight in her eyes, but she was far too intimidating. He swallowed hard, trying to raise enough courage to tell her off. “I'm not leaving.”

“The hell you aren't. What do I have to do? Level the house? Harry your every move? Make things so bad for you that you can't bear to stand here another moment? I'll do that. I can do all of that. Or you can leave right now. Get out and never look back.”

“Not until this is done. I have to finish what I've started.”

“No,” said Austin. “This is my city they've come to. I'll finish this.”

“Then let's do this tog—”

“No! I can't trust you. Someone came to threaten your life and you bargained away your own soul to save it. You're not who I thought you were.”

“And who did you think I was?”

“The guy who only thought about damning himself when it meant saving his friends. Get out. Get out of my town. I want you out of here by sunset.”

“That's just a couple of hours away.”

“Yeah. It is.” Austin looked up at the ceiling, her eyes slipping from anger to worry. She looked back at Colby. “She's here.”

“I thought she was already here.”

“Her shadows, maybe. But not her. She's at the city limits. I'll take care of this. You pack your shit and go.”

“No. You can't go talk to her. She's—”

“She's what?”

“Dangerous.”

“I can take care of myself. Now get the fuck out of my town.” She pointed straight at Yashar. “That goes for you too.”

“I figured as much. It was a nice town, while it lasted.”

“It was. And then you two had to fuck the whole thing up.”

Austin fell away like a shattering piece of glass, shards toppling silently, abating into nothing before they hit the floor. She was gone.

Colby, Yashar, and Gossamer traded glances, wondering what to do next.

“We can't do what you're thinking, Colby,” said Yashar.

“And how do you know what I'm thinking?”

“Because I know that look in your eye. Don't let the fact that she's sweet on you distract you from what she really is. She'll tear you apart.”

“She's not sweet on me.”

“Colby, stop being an idiot. This isn't the time.”

“I'm just saying—”

“When a loci tells you to leave, you leave. You don't ask questions.”

“It's her or the Seventy-two. Whose wrath do I really want to suffer? She gave us until sundown. That gives us time.”

“Time for what?”

“Three more boons.”

“Colby!”

“I made a deal.”

“A deal you shouldn't have made.”

“Five souls for five boons. If I don't deliver, they will hunt me down and
they
will tear me apart, which they were going to do if I didn't make a deal. I never had a choice, Yashar.”

“You did then. You do now. Stop trying to pawn this off on them. This is how they work. It is how they've always worked. You're supposed to feel like you had no choice, like every alternative was worse. They weren't. There's nothing worse than selling a little bit of yourself just to save the rest of it. Because once you've done that, there's nothing to stop you the next time and the next time until there's nothing left. When are you going to take responsibility for your own damnation?”

“Right now. Right here. Get the candles. The black ones.”

C
HAPTER
53

T
HE
P
AGEANTRY OF
Q
UEENS

D
awn was rapidly approaching, but darkness still swallowed the city. The Queen of the Dark Things rode gallantly through the trees on the outskirts, poised atop her ambling bunyip like a knight strolling before an adoring crowd. Beside her, hobbling as fast as it could, was her body, still driven by the kutji that had stolen it. Behind her, dozens of kutji scampered across the landscape, none daring to go any faster than their mistress. The five dukes of Hell, each with the mark of Solomon burned into its chest, followed gravely, their faces pained, as if they were marching to their own funerals.

At once, the Queen came to a halt, holding up her hand to stay the procession.

Before her stood Austin, her jaw tight, eyes hidden beneath the brim of her straw hat. “Turn around,” she said. “You've come to the wrong city.”

“I don't think I have,” said the Queen. “I'm pretty sure Colby is in here somewhere.”

“Not for long. But while he still is, he's under my protection. This is my town.”

“Would you like to keep it?”

The wind whipped up around Austin and the very earth came alive at her feet. Her hair, however, stayed perfectly in place, as if she were unaffected by the gales ramping up at her command.

“Focalor?” trilled the Queen of the Dark Things, as if summoning a child for breakfast.

The beast stepped forward, nearly seven feet tall, with the tan wings of a griffin stretching out from his back. His hands had callouses upon callouses, his arms sculpted from centuries of pulling ropes aboard ships, his eyes the color of sea spray. The stench of the drowned followed him, sharp with salt, heavy with bloated rot. Everything he wore was tattered and drenched. He raised a steady arm and stayed the winds, howling mightily with the sound of an angry sea as he did; he was its master, everyone else merely dabbled.

Austin struggled against the dying winds, trying to muster them back to full strength, but she lacked the power. The earth below her still rumbled, the tremors growing wrathful. But she was losing.

The Queen shook her head. “You're a powerful spirit. I don't want to be on your bad side. Just let us pass and leave us be.”

“Not gonna happen.”

The Queen looked around at her subjects, smiling. “Take her.”

Austin nodded, pulling the brim of her hat farther down over her eyes. She clenched her fists, energy crackling, enkindled.

The shadows charged, sharpened claws on their remaining hands out, grasping, their mouths wide with razor teeth. They sounded calls for her blood, jeering and screaming as they stampeded over one another to be the first to rend her flesh.

Austin began to glow, her skin luminescent, brightening with the glare of the sun. The shadows recoiled, shrieking as the light sizzled away the black of their bodies. They ran, hid behind trees, crawled into the spaces in between the rock and the ground. With a single finger, Austin slid her hat back, grinning. “What's this Queen without her dark things?”

“They aren't the only things of the night.” The Queen waved and the five dukes all stepped toward her.

“This isn't between us,” said Austin to the five. “Your brothers and I have no qualms.”

“Not our choice,” said Focalor. “We serve only the ring now.” Beside him was Astaroth, the Naked Angel, astride a beastly black dragon, a poisonous serpent writhing in his grasp, golden crown atop his head. The dragon hunched low, creeping rather than walking, its scales grinding with the sound of sawing bones, mouth agape, flaming spit trickling out of the sides of its mouth.

Following behind them was Berith, alabaster skin pulled tight beneath a crimson military uniform, desert style, like a U.S. soldier's that had been dyed haphazardly in a river of blood. His eyes shone blue, his hair short, curly, blond, peeking out beneath a black iron crown. He rode a horse every bit as red as his uniform, even its eyes swirling, sanguine pools, only its onyx hooves and ebony teeth standing apart from its scarlet flesh.

And from the other side came Bune, himself a dragon, large scales the color of twilight, with three heads swaying on long, spindly, serpentine necks. The outside pair were massive, draconic, with teeth like sabers and eyes like puddles of festering piss. The middle-most head, however, was that of a man, portly, hideous, three chins and broken teeth, sweat beading atop its brow.

And lastly came Dantalion, just a little farther back than the rest.

The five made their way slowly, deliberately, toward Austin, more threatening than actively pursuing. After all, they knew her next move better than she.

Austin clenched both her fists, held them out like a tiring pugilist, then threw her arms back, shredding the ground on which she stood. The earth buckled, lines and shapes appearing in it, forming a pentagram twenty feet across with her standing at its center. The five dukes continued advancing, surrounding her at each of the star's five points, unable however to take one step farther.

Focalor cocked his head arrogantly, grimacing. “Keep it up, bitch. Better not falter. The minute you step out of there I'm going to drag you through the fields, drown you in your own lake, and then fuck the corpse.” He licked his dry, sea-wind-cracked lips.

Austin held firm, trying not to let him get to her. She could hold this for a while, but do little else. She was powerful, but no more so than any one of the demons. Five to one, she was done for. She'd gotten herself in way too deep.

“This doesn't need to be adversarial,” said the Queen, slowly steering her bunyip closer, step by step. “I need to speak with Colby. That's all.”

“You mean to kill him.”

“Only if he doesn't mend what he's broken. This is all his doing, you know that.”

“You have a beef with him? You settle it outside my town.”

“Why are you protecting him? He wouldn't do the same for you.”

“You don't know that.”

“Oh!” said the Queen, clapping excitedly. “You have feelings for Colby.”

Austin gritted her teeth. “No. I just do right by my people, that's all.”

“No, no, no. I can see it in the way you hold yourself. The way your nostrils flare when I say his name. Does he know?”

“Turn around. Don't come back.”

“Does he care about you?”

“Colby only cares about Colby.”

“Noooooo. We both know that's not true. We've heard the stories. Dantalion! Tell her the story about the fairies. The one about the tithe!”

Dantalion nodded, a bottle swinging from his waist in mockery. “When Colby Stevens was but a boy—”

“I know the story,” said Austin.

“He'll leave you, you know. It's what he does.”

“You don't know him. Not really.”

“No,
you
don't know him. You're only seeing what you want to see. You don't know what's going on here. You don't know how this is going to play out. This could all end peacefully. He could set me free and my friends and I could be on our way.”

“It's too late for that.” She pointed at the five demons. “Their friends have seen to it.”

The Queen leaned forward on her bunyip steed, eyes concerned, fearful fingers tickling a silver ring on her finger. “The Seventy-two? Colby's given himself over to them?”