The Iron Hunt (21 page)

I
heard sirens again, louder. I had shut them out, but I knew they were coming
here. Any moment now, this place would be crawling with police. “And Sarai?
Jack?”

The
little bud of her mouth hardened. She wiped her finger on Sarai’s
blood-spattered dress. “They are dead. They will be dead. Here, or in the
Labyrinth.” Her gaze flicked to the man and woman lying behind her, who were
both finally beginning to stir.

I
glimpsed a braid of hair in her right hand. She said, very quietly, “This
should not have been. Someone is interfering. ”

Blood
Mama.
I struggled to stand, trying
not to look at the gaping hole in Sarai’s perfect face. “She’s
gone.
What more do you want?”

“Answers,”
said the child absently, staring off to her left, as though listening. She
stood and drifted toward the books. I saw my mother’s gift in front of her. The
stone disc, shimmering like a smooth dark pearl.

I ran.
If I had not been invulnerable, I would have broken my bones leaping over those
books, but I slipped and slid across jagged mounds of leather and cloth,
fighting to reach the disc before the girl.

I was
too slow, and she was too close. Her hand closed over the stone, and her
expression turned cold, so vicious that the entire room—the air itself, the
books and paper—seemed to stiffen in shock. A tremble washed through me, a
prescient flutter of horror. Zee tugged against my chest so hard I stumbled.

I saw
things in my mind: buried memories, flashes, strokes of lightning. My mother,
standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon with the sun blazing on her tattooed
skin, jumping into the abyss with her arms outstretched like a bird—her descent
bleeding into the eyes of wolves—a pack of wolves, racing at my mother’s back
toward a purple sunset striking golden against the crowns of evergreens. And in
front of her, standing on a rocky outcrop, tanned and strong and smiling—

—Jack.

I
lost him. I lost it all. Pain stabbed, and I slammed my palm against my eyes.
Found myself on all fours, tumbled in books. I sensed movement, and looked up
in time to see the girl—whatever she was—drop the stone disc as though burned.
Her face was a mess, contorted as though caught in the reflection of a
fun-house mirror, her eyes and nose scrunched so tight in her brow she
resembled a Cyclops. She threw back her head, shuddering, and swiveled around
to stare at me with that awful gaze.

“Where?”
she breathed. “Where did you get this?”

I
snarled at her, lurching to my feet. Her features smoothed, but this time she
did not take my face; another woman instead, small and dark, hardly a wisp.
Sharp teeth glinted in her mouth.

“I
will kill you,” she whispered. “Tell me.”

I did
not remember stripping off my gloves, but my fingers flexed free and hot, and
the boys raged. I lunged, tearing books beneath my boots, and slammed my hands
into the cloud of her body.

The
boys tried to latch on, but as before, she was slippery like water, utterly
different from holding the essence of a parasite. She spread out, across the
man and woman beside us—who were sitting up, staring. I could not stop her.

And
then, just like that, they were all gone. The Wonder Twins. The girl—demon or
not. I stood alone with a dead woman and a roomful of books, and the sirens of
the police wailing inside my head.

I had
no time. I swiped the stone disc from the floor—startled at the heat that
poured through into the boys—and shoved it deep into my pocket. The knife I had
thrown was nearby. I grabbed it up, then scrabbled across the books to kneel by
Sarai. I brushed the back of my hand against her cheek. Her skin was still
warm, but I told myself it was just casing, empty. A shell. All skin.

All
skin
. I felt a tickle in my brain,
but I was dense as a brick, too sick to think. I wiped my hand over my burning
eyes, grief swelling in my throat. I did not know why. I had hardly known the
woman. I hardly knew anything at all. I closed my eyes, darkness fluttering
behind my ribs. “Trust me,” I breathed to the dead woman. “Trust me to take
care of this.”

I
left fast. On the landing, I called out Jack’s name again but got no response.
The sirens were loud through the walls. No time to leave through the front door.
I turned and ran up the stairs. I found a studio. Empty, clean floors, empty
walls, large windows that flooded the space with sunlight. One neatly made bed
in the corner, and a tiny uncluttered bathroom. No Jack.

On my
left I saw a table covered in a careful arrangement of paints and brushes, and
one canvas that was at least twelve feet square. Sarai had been working on a
painting. Nothing but dark space on the canvas, painted a rich black full of
blue undertones. An abyss, or some starless sky. A hungry dark. I thought of
Oturu. His smile. The girl and her rage.

Sarai
dead. Shot.

I
needed to find Jack.

Sirens
arrived. I wondered who had called the police. Maybe it was a setup. I had
already been linked to Badelt. Placing me here, at the murder of his ex-wife,
would make Suwanai and McCowan delirious.

I ran
to the windows. There was a fire escape outside, over the alley. No police
there yet. I scrambled outside. Closed the window behind me, and started
climbing. The fire escape was old and rusty, and the hinges squealed beneath my
weight. Made me cringe.

But
no one shouted at me. No one told me to stop.

I
climbed faster, and had to scale a narrow ladder the last ten feet to the roof.
I hit the top hard, at a run. I still had to get down again, but this was no
trap. The buildings on this particular street were old and connected, the
joined rooftops constructed at the same height. I ran over gravel and exposed
tar paper, splashing through puddles. When I hit the end of the block, I heard
more sirens and peered over the edge of the roof. Counted three squad cars, and
one ambulance. I took another moment to scan the street for Jack, but saw
nothing. Just gawkers, any one of whom, I supposed, could be working for Edik.
And Blood Mama.

There
was an access door that led down into the building I stood on. No lock. I
walked into the stairwell and warm air flowed over me. Smelled like old tennis
shoes. Below, silence.

I ran
down the stairs as quickly and carefully as I could. I thought it might be an
office building. I heard telephones ringing through the walls, and near the
bottom, a voice: young, silly, some girl having a one-sided conversation about
another person in her class.

I
nudged open the stairwell door, just a fraction, and saw her standing in a
lobby. There was a small candy shop and a New Age bookstore on her left, and
just beyond, a glass door that led onto the street. I almost walked out, but
remembered my appearance. I buttoned my mother’s jacket to hide the holes in
the sweater. Checked out my jeans and stripped off a glove to touch my face
with my bare fingers. No blood.

The
girl barely looked at me as I exited the stairwell. I walked fast into the
crisp, sunny day. Just down the street were the police and a growing crowd. It
had been hard finding parking near the gallery. My car was one street over. I
walked to it, keeping my head up, trying to look relaxed. I managed to maintain
the façade just long enough to reach the Mustang, but once inside, doors
locked, my entire body began to shake. I had trouble sticking the key in the
ignition. I had to sit for ten minutes and just breathe.

I
kept remembering Sarai. Flashing back to my mother. Thinking about veils and
demons and teenage boys.

I
fumbled for my cell phone and called Grant. He answered on the third ring. He
sounded tense.

“Byron
has two broken ribs, a concussion, and one busted nose. Could be some internal
bleeding. Might be other injuries we don’t know about yet. Convincing him to
sit tight hasn’t been easy. He’s scared to death of the police and the welfare
people.”

“Have
any of them shown up?”

Grant
hesitated. “I’m handling it.”

Handling
it.
That could mean anything. I had
to take a moment to collect my thoughts. I smelled like blood. “Something
happened. Sarai is dead. Jack is missing. We were attacked. Shot at. Edik’s
people were responsible. I’m afraid Byron is going to be another target.”

“And
you?”

“I’m
fine,” I muttered, which was a blatant, screaming lie. “You need to be careful.
I’ll try to be at the hospital in less than an hour, but if I don’t show up,
call Suwanai and McCowan. Tell them you think Byron witnessed Badelt’s murder
and that someone came after him. They might give you protection.”

“It’ll
lead back to you, Maxine. And Byron won’t take it.”

“Doesn’t
matter. Do whatever you have to. These people are fast, Grant. They’re
professional.”

“Maxine.”

“Promise
me.”

His
silence was hard, uncompromising. I said his name again and heard, in the
background, someone else do the same. “Mr. Cooperon,” a woman said, and tension
flowed through me; a terrible, awful dread.

“They’re
moving him,” he said. “I have to go.”

“Grant—”

“I’ll
do whatever it takes,” he interrupted quietly. “Love you.”

He
hung up on me. I stared at the phone, then slipped it into my coat pocket. I
thought about going to the hospital—right then, right there—but my knuckles
turned white around the wheel, and I kept driving in the opposite direction.
One more thing to do. One more.

I
parked the Mustang in the garage below Pike Place Market. I smelled fish.
Elliot Bay was one good leap away, waters sparkling like diamonds kicking the
waves. The boys stirred in their dreams.

I
used the skybridge to walk over Western Avenue to the Main Arcade of Pike
Place. It was dark inside the market, a rambling maze, walls cream-colored and
cracking, the far edges of the floor caked with layers of fine debris. The air
smelled ripe, and there was a buzz in my ears—voices, cars, the odd slide of
roller skates—along with a hum, a soft throb that was not human, or of this
world.

I did
not like coming to Pike Place Market. It held only one good memory—that I had
met Grant here, saved his life—but there was nothing else that comforted me.
The veil was thin between land and sea, where so many humans gathered. The
prison walls were weak, so sheer I could hear another kind of ocean, dark and
red as blood. Made of blood. I could almost imagine Blood Mama’s children
gathered on the edge of the wall, spying on the humans who passed through these
tangled halls. Looking for souls, someone broken. Temptation enough to squirm
and squeeze through the cracks in the veil and fight for a good possession.

I
felt those eyes watching me. I felt them through the veil, and beyond them,
Blood Mama herself—bearing down on the other side, making her babies, listening
to them clamor for a quick rush to feed.

I
wandered. Waiting for a message to get passed on through the veil. I ambled
through the Main Arcade, past the artisans and their jewelry and leatherworks;
soap stalls, jam, T-shirts. I smelled flowers. Cars honked. People everywhere;
kids with their mothers, and some out-of-towners laughing with coffee cups in
one hand and cameras in the other.

I
felt naked, exposed. I kept thinking someone was going to look at my face and
point out blood or bullet holes; as if death were contagious; or witnessing
brutal violence created a mask over the eyes, so that everywhere I looked, I
saw Sarai, so still, with that awful finger-sized hole in her head.

Your
mother wanted you to stay a good person. What she did was for that reason only.
Her last words, whispered inside my mind. Which only
begged more questions. First and foremost, why something so seemingly innocuous
would be worth killing over.

I
dragged out the stone disc, the little labyrinth. Nothing looked different. But
I remembered. I remembered that vision of my mother. And Jack.

Not a
fantasy. Not my memories. Something else.

Oturu’s
mark began to burn.

“Raspberry?”
asked a silken voice, close on my right. I glanced sideways, and found a
statuesque woman dressed in a red leather jacket and matching leather pants.
Long red hair had been teased into loose curls that cascaded around a face that
was beautifully groomed—plucked and polished and tight. Her mouth was striking—a
cruel red slash of lips—and her eyes were dark as polished river stone, cold
and hard. She had an aura like a hurricane, spitting shadows and thunder. Aura
big as the sky, crammed into a space the size of a watermelon.

She
held a container of raspberries, plump and out-of-season. She plucked one up
and took a slow bite between perfect white teeth. “Delicious. Honestly, Hunter.
I do not know how you stand it, living amongst such a wealth of sensation.”

“Blood
Mama,” I replied, “I was expecting someone else.”

“Edik,”
she said, smiling coyly. “Oh, my little pet is around.”

“Killing
people.”