The Iron Hunt (28 page)

Before
I could think of an appropriate response, the boys melted from the shadows,
surrounding me. Oturu’s mark began tingling. Tracker stiffened.

“Cutter,”
Zee hissed. “Hot slicer.”

I
straightened. “Where?”

“Coming
from behind,” said the little demon. Raw and Aaz tore spikes from their spines,
and the wet sounds of ripping flesh made my skin crawl. I glanced at Tracker.
Noted the speculation in his eyes as he gazed into the shadows. I remembered
what he had said to me at the hospital.

“You
were serious,” I whispered. “Demonic activity caused this earthquake?”

Tracker
finished lashing the old man’s legs. “Not this one. But that doesn’t mean they
won’t try and benefit from it. There are many demons hiding on this earth,
Hunter. Feeling the veil open will make them bold.”

I
thought of the rescued children resting nearby, and started scrabbling across
the rubble. Tracker grabbed my arm. I tried pulling free, and felt the temperature
drop like a bag of ice cubes was being poured down my spine.

I
caught movement ahead of me, a flash of pale skin—a glimpse that reached down
into that most primal place in my gut and screamed
not human
. Silver
hair braided into ropes, flowing down a gaunt body dressed only in a leather
belt. Fingers like the tines of pitchforks, impaled with chunks of red,
dripping flesh. The demon moved like a leaf falling from a tree: graceful, with
odd, sweeping movements that sent it low to the ground, up and down, over and
over again.

Alien.
So alien, part of me wanted to scream. Even Oturu had felt more familiar than
this creature, which was so far removed from anything this world could offer
that it crossed my mind, with terrible certainty, that whatever the demons
were, they had not been here first. Interlopers. Invaders. Something beyond the
pale of this world’s horizon. Maybe, even,
demon
was inappropriate, a
word so excessively steeped in religion it had ceased to apply. Because what I
saw now did not feel supernatural, no matter how bizarre its appearance.

I
glanced at Tracker and caught him analyzing the demon in a way that struck me
hard—both with my own inadequacy and a terrible sense of familiarity. Déjà vu,
even. As though I had done this before—crouched with this man, prepared to
hunt. It made me uneasy. Frightened me, even.

“Mahati,”
Tracker whispered. “Second-ring prisoner.”

“How
could anything like that hide on this planet?”

“Easily.
But that isn’t a real Mahati.”

Ahsen.
The stone circle was hot in my pocket. I did not dare
touch it. “How did she find us?”

“Energy.”
Tracker’s lips pressed together in a hard line. “Every living creature gives
off a quantum signature, a vibration that is distinctly unique.”

“She
could have come for me at the hospital,” I muttered, and tapped Zee’s shoulder.
“Ready?”

“No,”
Tracker said.

“Ready,”
Zee told me, as Dek and Mal settled heavily on my shoulders. “But we got a
crowd, Maxine. More than one slicer. More coming for the blood.”

“Stop,”
Tracker said, more firmly. “Something is wrong. This doesn’t feel right.”

“No
choice,” I replied, thinking of the injured just behind us and all those
approaching rescuers: people unprepared for another kind of disaster, for
something that belonged only in nightmares. No invisible spirits, not some weak
zombie parasite—instead a demon made of flesh and bone and blood, one that
could feed easily in this wreckage, without leaving a trace of its existence
behind. Dead bodies would be expected. Missing bodies anticipated. No one would
think twice.

I
stepped free of the rubble, the boys gathered close. Felt a charge beneath my
skin, momentum, as though as I were driving one hundred miles per hour down a
desert road at midnight, blasting through the world in a body of armor. Not
invulnerable, but full of something big and breathless—old-fashioned, even.
Pure grit.

Ahsen’s
silver skin and sharp fingers frayed into smoke as I approached, enveloped in a
shimmer that momentarily collapsed like a balloon with all its air sucked out;
all that was alien fell away like a dream, until, moments later, a little girl
stood before me. Still wearing my young face. A braid of hair in her hand.

The
air was so cold I could see my breath. Ahsen gazed slightly to her left, like a
doll stolen from a little girl, dropped, polished and shining, within a
gruesome pit. Nothing sadder; nothing more chilling.

“You
travel with dogs now,” she said.

I
tilted my head, confused; then felt Tracker step close. A bitter smile touched
his mouth. “Skinner. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Ahsen
swayed, her small body almost lost within the rubble, my young face smooth as
virgin snow. “You were but a germ in my mind before I was placed in the veil.
Enkidu. Tracker.”

Tracker
showed nothing on his face. Neither did I. But inside I wobbled. Ahsen took
another step, light as air, her gaze drifting like two black beetles. “I have
had time to consider the situation, Hunter. My brothers and sisters were
hypocrites. They despised my methods. They valued the results.” Her gaze
floated across my body. “I believe I could have done a better job with you, as
well. The mistakes made with your bloodline… reprehensible, born of
desperation.”

I had
no idea what she was talking about. “Care to elaborate?”

A
faint cruel smile touched her mouth; she was amused, but in the way an
executioner might be, as though savoring the final drop of a good hard kill.
“Hunter. You should ask yourself what is so different about your runts, that
instead of being imprisoned in the veil, they were sentenced to an eternity upon
human skin? The veil, I can assure you, would have been large enough to
accommodate five extra bodies. But for some reason… not theirs.”

Zee
snarled, his claws raking trenches in the concrete. Ahsen said, “You, runt.
Little king without your crown. Do you know what you are?”

I
heard an uncomfortable echo in her words, too much like the memories I had seen
in the seed ring. I thought of my mother. My hand slipped into my pocket.
Ahsen’s gaze dipped, as well, and the skin of her face pulled so taut it seemed
there must be hooks in her scalp, yanking back. Tracker stepped even closer to
me, as did the boys.

“Ahsen,”
I said quietly. “You were, you
are
, one of
them.
An Avatar. Why
are you here? Even if you were imprisoned, why are you helping the demons? Is
it just revenge?”

“Because
I have no choice,” she whispered, her adult voice eerie and throbbing. “But I
have reevaluated my priorities. I have decided to reshape my destiny.”

She
clicked her fingers. I felt a breath of air on my face, caught a scent so raw,
so vile, it was like someone made of sulfur and shit had just cut open a vein
and bled on my feet. Bodies shuffled from the darkness, skeletons made of flesh
and shadow. No eyes or mouths, but only dripping holes where noses should be;
limbs long, knitted with rough sinew, thick veins that pulsed like ropes made
of crude oil. I had never seen anything like them. There should not have been
so many. Beyond, the world pressed— a surreal reality: low cries, sirens, the
chop of helicopter rotors.

“I
was first amongst my people,” said Ahsen quietly. “First of the grafters, the
spinners, the connivers; first to master the divine organic. And I will begin
once more. I will make my own army. I will not be denied the Labyrinth. Never
again.”

The
creatures surrounding us swayed and snuffled. On one of them I glimpsed a
whisper of blond hair peeking through the crude scalp, like the last threads of
a quilt, not quite bound. Horror slit my heart. I stared harder, seeking
anything recognizable, and wondered if those broad shoulders were familiar.

“They’re
not demons,” I said, sickened. “They used to be human.”

Ahsen
made a quiet humming sound. “Humanity is such a tenuous classification, so
easily rendered obsolete. Something you should know, Hunter. You, who are
hardly as human as my shambling constructs.”

The
creatures attacked.

It
had been a long time. Expectation meant nothing. They were fast, and I was out
of practice, mortal, my hands full of knives and nothing else. I forced myself
into a cold, hard place, trying not to think of the people they might have
been. Made me sick. My heart pounded in my throat, and sweat stung my eyes as
all those years of training bled into my muscles, taking over like I was
another kind of zombie, slave to my mother’s lessons.

I
lost track of numbers. Too many. Too many to have hidden here, unseen, unless
they could move like Tracker and the boys—through shadows, winking from dark to
light. What she was doing made no sense, though. Throwing bodies at us, just
throwing them away. Zee and the others tore through the human constructs like
they were made of paper, ripping holes, tearing off limbs—while on my shoulders
Dek and Mal lunged, hissing fire at those who got too close. Hot ash blew
against my face. I saw charred stumps where hands should have been.

I
looked for Tracker. Found him fighting at my back, a length of pipe in his
hands, wielding it with impossible grace, as though it were a sword, the most
perfect ever made. He met my gaze only once, and in it I felt a shock, a
dreadful familiarity; again, that I had done this before. With him.

Ahsen
never moved a muscle. Not for the entire fight. She simply watched me, just as
I watched her, until I suddenly stopped fighting, facing her like a showdown in
Tombstone. No guns, but an army at my back and knives in my hands. I trusted
the boys to keep me safe. I trusted them so much I paid attention to nothing
else but Ahsen as I stalked near, never once taking my eyes off her small body,
that ghost of me.

“You
want the seed ring,” I said to her.

“It
is a trinket to you,” she replied. “Give it to someone who understands its
worth. Just one touch, Hunter… just one, and I became more. Powerful enough to
make
them
.”

I
shook my head. “You didn’t come here to ask.”

“No.”
Her body began evaporating. “But I enjoy our conversations.”

It
was night, and I was mortal. Eminently killable. I already knew I could not
harm her. I steadied myself, one hand holding a blade—the other hand in my
pocket, gripping the seed ring like it was a lifeline. My mother’s life.

Behind
me, Tracker still fought. So did the boys. Her plan, I realized. Wait for the
right moment. Then distract, occupy anyone who could help me, overwhelm them
with numbers—while she overwhelmed me. I thought it might work. My heart was
afraid—dearly, deathly afraid. I heard a small voice inside my head whisper,
Please.

Oturu’s
mark tingled. I heard a low roar of wind, like the first riot of a winter
storm. Suffered a pang in my chest, an eloquent calculation of need and
knowing. I looked up. Just in time.

A
sleek tall body slammed into the rubble like a hammered blade, the impact so
violent I was lifted off the ground. A massive black cloak flared backward,
just short of touching me, and I gazed—throat closed, heart pounding— into a
breathing abyss that pulsed and writhed: a hard, pale jaw, the curve of a
smile, the brim of a black hat, and hair that coiled, wild.

“You
will not touch her,” Oturu whispered.

Ahsen
stared, her pitiless eyes old and glassy. “Not all the Queen’s men can hold the
Hunter together. Not again.”

She
vanished. And reappeared around my body. That pulverizing strength, brought to
bear on mortal flesh; squeezing inexorably as though I were inside the stomach
of a python, being slowly digested. I felt tremendous pressure around the hand
that held the seed ring, but I refused to let go. I refused, with all my heart.

I
stopped breathing. Lights flickered in my eyes.

Something
shifted inside me. A shadow behind my ribs. I remembered that sensation. Old
and dogged, a childhood nightmare; a click, a key turning, and the seed ring
suddenly grew so hot I was certain my hand was going to catch on fire.

Anywhere
but here,
I thought, as I began to
die.
Anywhere she won’t follow.

And
another voice, deep inside my mind, said,
Yes.

The
world disappeared from under me. I fell. The pressure eased, but I kept
falling. There was no floor to catch me. I imagined Tracker’s voice calling my
name, but the darkness swallowed him, swallowed night—and I had nothing, I was
nothing, I was consumed.

I
fell, without end.

I
fell, and did not stop.

THERE
were things a person learned while falling in the dark.

Anticipation,
for one, was a thing of terror. Every moment I thought,
This is it; next I
will hit
, but the moment passed, and still I cringed—and it was the
anticipation that made my heart thunder, my skin crawl. A body was never meant
to fall forever.

There
was something else, too.