Bloodstone (16 page)

Out of the dark, something slimy wrapped around my ankle. I kicked it off and ran forward. Immediately, the stone began to vibrate. Galloping hooves pounded straight for me, and I swerved to the right. The stone’s vibration ceased.

Something huge galloped past. Although the smoke didn’t part, air rushed past my cheek. When the echo of hooves faded, I stepped forward. The stone vibrated. I turned ninety degrees to the left and took another step. The vibration stopped. When I turned back the way I’d been facing, the vibration began again.

I let the bloodstone lead me. At first, I proceeded with my left arm stretched out ahead, feeling for boulders or trees—or other, more sinister obstacles—that loomed suddenly from the darkness. But the stone guided me around those. I wished for a weapon, and a sword materialized in my left hand. It was a comfort to curl my fingers around its grip; the next time something tried to grab me, I’d slice the attacker in two.

There was no way to gauge my progress. I kept moving forward, following the vibrations of the bloodstone. The ground felt soft and springy under my feet, like a stretched-out trampoline. Each step sunk and rose, and I had to concentrate to keep my balance. Through the darkness came every sound and scent that feed people’s imaginations: Howls of rage or pain. Deepthroated cacklings. A distant siren song. A baby wailing. A woman sobbing. One moment the smoke blowing across my face smelled of rotting flesh; the next it smelled of roses or camphor. I kept going.

I took a step, and the bloodstone’s vibration changed to an electric pulse. The shock nearly made me drop the pendant, but I clenched it tighter.
Pulse, pulse, PULSE.
It felt like a warning. I turned my head wildly, my sword ready, but I couldn’t see anything through the smoke.

Until what I did see made me wish the smoke would close back in.

A black blob emerged. A form, sucking up everything in its path, even the dense smoke. The form was right in front of me. I stabbed it with my sword, and the blade disintegrated. The form simply absorbed it and kept coming. I turned to run, but the form was there, too. And there. And there, wherever I turned. I felt like I was at the bottom of a deep well, and the walls were closing in on me. The bloodstone’s frantic pulses cut through my hand.

The form touched my left arm. A sickening, liquid sensation shot through me, like I was melting, as my flesh began to merge with the form. The bloodstone flashed, delivering a teeth-clenching shock.

And I woke up.

USUALLY IT’S A RELIEF TO WAKE UP FROM A BAD DREAM. Your racing heartbeat gradually slows to normal as the familiar surroundings of your warm, safe bedroom come into focus. But for me, waking up meant returning to a reality worse than any nightmare.

I shivered; the room where I lay a prisoner had grown icy cold. My left arm felt bruised where the form had touched it. I wished I could move to rub some life back into the spot. I clenched my fingers and felt something. In my right hand, I still held Mab’s bloodstone.

Maybe I could try again.

And I did try, but I couldn’t settle back into sleep. As soon as my mind started to descend into my dreamscape, the form was back, surrounding me, cutting off air and light, pulling me in. Again and again, I jolted awake.

It was useless. I gave up and lay shivering in the darkness.

The door opened. Two Old Ones came in, their icy auras chilling the room even more. One of them bent over me, eyeballs rolling in the lidless sockets, fangs stopping just short of my face. His mouth stretched in a ghastly smile. Then they positioned themselves at the head and the foot of the table that held me and silently wheeled me out into a hallway. Harsh fluorescent lights blinded me; I closed my eyes against them, then blinked to get my vision back.

They steered me into a large room. As far as I could tell, there were no windows. What I could see of the walls were white-painted concrete blocks. Above me hung stained, cheaplooking ceiling panels. Then I could see myself, as the Old Ones wheeled me beneath a flat mirror that took up the space of two ceiling tiles.

I wore a hospital gown, its ties loosely closed in the front. Thick leather straps, fastened with buckles, held my ankles and legs, my wrists and arms, my waist and chest—even my forehead—tying me down more thoroughly than Gulliver among the Lilliputians. The table stopped. The mirror showed me another table right beside me. On that table, under a white sheet, lay Pryce.

This time, I had no doubt it was him. I recognized his pale skin and black hair, but in the month since we’d done battle, he’d gotten thin. His eyes were closed, the skin under them sunken. His tongue protruded slightly. Although the room was freezing and he was covered by a thin cotton sheet, he didn’t shiver. His only movement was the slow, even rise and fall of his chest. If not for that, I would’ve thought I lay next to a corpse.

“Hello.” Myrddin’s voice was cheerful as his face appeared above me. His foul breath washed over me, and I could see the back of his head in the mirror. “And soon, good-bye. The sedative should be working its way out of your system now. Don’t try shifting your shape; I can prevent it. Power over animals is one of my skills.”

I double-checked in the mirror; the IV was gone. “Then why did you drug me?”

“Convenience. I had preparations to make. You don’t think I’d trust these backstabbing Old Ones or their vampire puppets to make them for me.”

He turned to Pryce, put a hand on his shoulder. “My only son. Do you know how difficult it is for my kind to reproduce? This boy is my most prized possession. I’ve followed him with interest over the years, of course, to the extent I could. But I was . . . away. And scrying is so passive. I couldn’t help him, guide him,
mold
him as I wanted to.”

Myrddin ran the back of his hand along Pryce’s cheek. “Now that I’m back, we’ll be gods together, my boy and I,” he murmured. Then he raised his voice. “You hear that, Colwyn? Gods! True gods, not skulking shadow-dwellers like you desiccated fossils.”

I guessed that Colwyn was one of the Old Ones who’d rolled me in here. He didn’t reply to Myrddin’s taunt.

Myrddin returned his attention to me. “And how is your . . . aunt, I believe she calls herself?”

His question took me by surprise. “Are you talking about Mab?”

“Mab. Yes, of course. So many names, one loses track over the years. At any rate, how is she?”

“None of your business.”

“You think not? But your present predicament is my business, seeing as it’s my doing, and Mab has everything to do with that. You see, I don’t need
your
life force in particular to revive my son, although as I said, I’m interested to see whether the shapeshifting ability transfers. But a human would do just as well. Further, the process I’m going to subject you to is excruciatingly painful.” He smiled, like this was good news. “It doesn’t have to be. Your death could be quick and clean like the others’. Yet I’m putting in the effort to make it slow and agonizing because of your aunt.”

He leaned over me, his stinking breath hot on my face. His eyes searched mine, looking for a reaction. I wouldn’t give him one; I closed my eyes.

“Years ago, she did me an evil,” he said, close to my ear. “And evil must be repaid with evil, don’t you agree? Your ‘Mab’ deprived me of my family and made me suffer. So I must do the same to her. Nothing personal, my girl. Simply redressing the balance—or making a start, at least.”

He must have straightened, because when he spoke again his voice was more distant. “It’s a pity the Old Ones are so camera-shy. Won’t allow them in the place.” I opened my eyes to see what he was doing. He held a tangle of narrow plastic tubing. He pulled a tube from the mass and coiled it as he spoke. “Colwyn—he fancies himself chieftain of the Old Ones, you know—Colwyn is so unreasonable. I’d love to record this procedure. For science, of course, but also as a gift to your aunt. The Old Ones think they’re eternal, but really they’re quite backwards.” He looked to his right. “Yes, you. I’m talking about you.” He went back to coiling. “Colwyn and I have never trusted each other, so it’s rather awkward to find ourselves in a position where each requires the other’s assistance. I said I’d been away. Colwyn brought me back. He reunited me with my son and is providing support—locations, equipment, minions—so I can revive Pryce. In return, I’ll give him what he wants.”

“What’s that?”

“What else? The secret to eternal life. I have it; he doesn’t. Hah!” He spat that last word off to the side, toward Colwyn. “But the bastard has tried to tilt the scales in his own favor. You see, he released me from . . .” Myrddin’s eye twitched. “From where I was. But only for a limited time. I have ten days of freedom before his spell wears off and I’m returned to that horrible place—unless I share my secret with him. But I won’t share the secret until Pryce is restored, and Colwyn won’t remove the time limit until I give him what he wants. And so we find ourselves at a stalemate.” He giggled. “At least until one of us can figure out how to betray the other. Eh, Colwyn?”

Myrddin dropped the last coil on Pryce’s table. He reached toward me and held open my right eyelid, shining a light into my eye. Then he repeated the process with my left eye. He leaned forward and whispered, “Colwyn thinks he’s in charge, but he doesn’t command me. There’s recording equipment hidden in the mirror above you. You will scream nicely for it, won’t you? Your aunt will want to know
exactly
what happened to her favorite niece, after all.”

No screaming, I promised myself. No matter how bad things got. If Myrddin sent Mab a video of my last moments, she’d see that I died bravely.

He straightened and spoke in a slightly-too-loud voice. “I do believe you’re ready. Well,
you
may not be, I’ll grant you that, my girl.”
Giggle, giggle.
“But the sedative has worn off enough to proceed.”

I didn’t believe Myrddin could stop me from shifting without the drug. If its effects had diminished, it was time to call the wizard’s bluff and change into something powerful, angry, and deadly. I closed my eyes. The image of a grizzly formed in my mind—reared up, roaring, claws raised—and I poured all of myself into it. The image held. Energy buzzed through me. My limbs burned and twitched as the change began. I pushed more energy into it.

A hand settled on my forehead. It soaked up the energy like a sponge. I still held the grizzly’s image in my mind, as vivid as if it stood before me, but my body remained unchanged.

“No,” said Myrddin simply. He held his hand in place as the energy fizzled. I struggled, tugging on the energy, trying to pull it back from him, but I couldn’t do it. He absorbed it all.

When there wasn’t a spark left, the pressure of Myrddin’s hand left my forehead. “It’s time,” he said. “Bring in the Reaper.”

 

 

I DON’T KNOW WHETHER I BLACKED OUT OR GOT SWALLOWED up by panic, but I don’t remember the Reaper entering the room. The next thing I knew, a figure stood beside me, holding an evil-looking sickle. The figure was robed, like the Old Ones, but the hand that held the weapon was human. A man’s hand.

I’ll have to tell Daniel he was right,
I thought, then laughed hysterically because I’d never get a chance to tell Daniel—or anyone—anything ever again.

The Reaper’s face was too deep inside the robe’s hood for me to make out his features. A distant cawing sounded. I opened my senses to the demon plane and was nearly deafened by the raucous sound of hundreds of crows. In the demon plane, a huge beak protruded from the Reaper’s hood and ghostly black wings sprouted from his back. He was thoroughly possessed by the Morfran.

Sharp pain yanked me back into the human world. The Reaper had unfastened the ties at the front of my gown and was dragging the point of his sickle along my breastbone, tearing my flesh with the blade.

I gasped. But I clenched my teeth tightly before the pain tore a scream from my throat. I would not scream.

The Reaper cut further, carving symbols into my skin. In the mirror, all I could see was his robed back. I didn’t know what the symbols were; all I knew was how much I hurt.

“Enough.” Myrddin put a hand on the Reaper’s arm. “That will do. This one is different.”

A high-pitched whine issued from the Reaper’s hood. The sickle sliced toward my throat.

Myrddin’s hand stopped its descent. A few muttered words from the wizard, and the Reaper was lifted from his feet. Two seconds later, a grunt and cry sounded as he hit a wall.

“Keep him back,” Myrddin said. “What? No, I don’t need the jar. Didn’t you hear me? This one is different.” Working quickly and silently, he picked up a length of tubing and fitted it with a long, thin, wicked-looking needle. Then he moved between me and Pryce, and I couldn’t see what he was doing. The mirror showed my chest as a mass of blood—so much blood I couldn’t make out whatever patterns the Reaper had sliced into me. Myrddin turned back to me, needle in hand. The tubing trailed behind, somehow connected to Pryce. Myrddin used the needle to trace the symbols the Reaper had carved into my flesh. I felt every inch. He paused directly over my heart.

“The heart,” Myrddin said, “is the center of a person’s life force.” He pushed. The pain sharpened. No, he couldn’t be—but he was. He didn’t stop. The needle slid into my heart and stayed there. My heartbeat went crazy, the muscle trying to push out the invader. “When the heart stops, so does life. Of course, I don’t want you to die at once, so I’ve spelled the probe to minimize its physical damage. What we’re going for here is the slow, painful draining of every last ounce of your life force.”

It hurt. God, how it hurt. Like nothing I’d ever felt before. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I gritted my teeth against my agony. I would not scream. I would not think about the needle thrust deep into my heart.

“Like the blood,” Myrddin continued, “the life force circulates through the body.
Chi
,
prana
,
élan vital
—call it what you will. Every culture expresses the concept in some form. Now, these acupuncture needles”—he showed me a handful of fine needles with colored ends—“will be inserted at strategic points to slow down the flow of your life force. A sort of reverse acupuncture, if you will.” He stuck a needle in my arm, another above my eyebrow. “The aim being, of course, to drag your life force from you. I want you to feel the wrench of that chi leaving every cell of your body.”