City of Fae (28 page)

The lights rinsed the stage clear, receding to reveal the monster spider hunched at the back. Chaos erupted. Band members burst from their podiums and scrambled away. Horrified screams burst from the crowd. Panic twitched ripe in the air. And Reign? Reign saw her, and me, bearing down on him. I’d betrayed him. Or so he thought. Dashed hope and disappointment twisted his expression. He let go of the reins on his hound. His body sagged, limp with relief. A veil of green vapor rolled over him. In moments, he’d be unstoppable.

“No!” the queen screamed. “Don’t let him turn … Kill him!” She saw my betrayal when I hesitated, and she knew she’d been played. A frustrated cry burst from her. She scuttled forward, bursting through the band’s equipment, her legs rippling like liquid.

“Reign!” I tried to warn him, but caught mid-change, tangled in a web of his own spiraling draíocht, he couldn’t move to protect himself. I lunged, blindly attacking. The queen swept me back with one cutting slash of her legs. I tumbled, landing on my front, just as she plunged one of her lance-like legs through Reign’s chest and lifted him clean off the stage. He dangled like a doll, twitching, limp and useless, impaled on her limb. She took a moment to admire her catch, watching his head loll to the side, and then tossed his body into the terrified crowd.

“No!” Fear, rage, and disgust churned my thoughts into a terrible maelstrom with one sole purpose at its center. Kill her.

Alarms sounded, great wails. I hardly heard them.

“You tricked me!” She pointed her bloodied limb at me, but turned and snatched the fleeing guitarist into her embrace. In a blur, she gathered the man against her chest, manipulating his body, angling him into her embrace where she could hold him firmly. He screamed. I’d never heard screams like it. They were primal sounds, the sort of sound that curdled blood and haunted dreams.

“Don’t!”

“I will take them all,” she hissed and plunged her poisoned fangs into his shoulder. A shudder rippled through her. She groaned, upper body arching with pleasure. His screams died almost immediately. She tore her fangs free, passed the body beneath her, and worked her back legs to cocoon her victim in silk while her hunter’s gaze scanned the fleeing crowd. “More … Yes.”

On my feet, palms itching around the dagger handles, I had to stop her. “Don’t do this.”

“Why ever not? I’ve waited long enough for my time in the light.” She laughed and scuttled forward. I veered ahead of her, blocking her path before she could drop off the stage into the thousands. Her monstrous body reared up, legs clicking. “Silly thing, you cannot stop me. You are a part of me. Get out of my way.”

“No.”

Disappointment showed on her hard face. “I did everything right, created every facet of you, and still you fail me.”

“Happy to disappoint, Mom.” I shoved off my back foot, denied fear its purchase, and ran right at her, where her horrible legs couldn’t sweep me back. She screamed, more from anger than fear I think, and scurried back, but not far enough. I slammed a dagger through her toughened outer carapace, cracking her shell, and plunged it deep inside. A slippery creamy substance spilled from the wound and loosened my grip. She screamed, jerked back, snatched the blade free of my hand, and roared. The sideswipe from her legs knocked mine out from under me. I fell; head, shoulder, and hip slamming into the stage. Her limb craned back over my head. I blinked, and rolled. She punched her leg through the stage where my head had been moments before, and screamed her rage as I scrambled away.

I still had one dagger remaining. I could do this. It wasn’t over yet.
Do it for Reign. For Shay. For London.

Soft taps landed on my head, my shoulders. Spiders rained from above, and not just on the stage. The crowd, still trapped, surged and screamed as one. Spiders flowed from their webs and dangled like stalactites from the lighting gantry. People collapsed, trampled by the surging crowd. They were dying. Lives lost. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair.

“Stop this. Please,” I begged.

“They are food. Just food.” She tugged her leg free of the hole in the stage floor and hunched down, reaching for the dagger protruding from her underside. “We are superior. I did not deserve to be forgotten in this place. I am glorious.”

“You’re insane.”

A hideous maniacal grin cut into her face. She spilled off the stage, into the crowd. People scattered, desperate to get away. They clawed over one another, eyes wild. She rushed them, knocked some aside, snatched others to her chest, and tore into them.

I’d failed. They were all going to die. What had I expected? I’d failed everything since the moment she’d created me. Failed her, failed myself, failed Reign.

His body lay near the front of the stage. I scrambled down, over the fallen barriers, and dropped to my knees beside him. “Reign … No.” Scooping his head into my lap, I tried to ignore how pale he was, how his lips had grayed. Blood marred his face and matted his hair. His torn clothes hung awkwardly on his twisted body. If I ignored all that, he could have been sleeping. He couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was the one running on borrowed time. I knew I was going to die, but Reign … He had tried to do the right thing. Surely that counted for something?

I wiped my thumb across his lips, sweeping off the blood. “She’s going to kill them all … She’s too strong. We didn’t stand a chance.” I pressed my hand to his cheek. The cool, clammy, touch of his skin told me it was too late, but I didn’t want to accept it. “I thought … I thought I could do something, make a difference, but Warren was right. I’m nothing. I’m not like you. I’m not even real. I can’t beat her.”

Tingles wormed beneath my palm, where I touched his face, and crept up my arm. The numbness I’d experienced during our brief touches wrapped pressure around my upper arm. My stomach rolled and every instinct screamed at me to let go. Dropping the dagger, I leaned over him, both hands clasped on his face, and let the numbness have me. “Take it, Reign. Use it … I give it freely, just please, please wake up. I can’t do this alone.”

Screams volleyed around the arena, but their numbers waned. Broken bodies lay scattered among empty seats. Webs trailed and glided over doors, chairs, barriers. The queen fed somewhere. I could hear her legs clicking, weaving webs. And the rivers of spiders flowed.

The numbness stole feeling from every muscle. It didn’t tingle anymore, just left me adrift, somewhere between awake and asleep, conscious and unconscious. Those moments and places between. I was there, present, but elsewhere.

“Please, Reign,” I whispered against his bloodied lips. “Let it be enough.” When he’d taken my draíocht seconds after we’d first met, he’d done so without my permission, and learned things about me nobody but the queen knew. I’d thought, at the time, that I should have been the one to walk away on that platform. But he knew me for what I was, seen the truth of me from the very beginning. He should have walked away from me. He hadn’t. Instead, he’d watched, learned, and taught me how to be me. And I’d never forget that. This time, I gave my draíocht freely, almost pushed it into him. It had healed him before, it would heal him again. It had to.

An electric current pulsed between us. I’d mistaken it for the beat of my heart, but as it grew, I slowly, carefully, came back to myself. His fingers teased through my hair. I leaned into his touch, seeking it out, and then realized he had to be awake to touch me like that. Eyelids weighted with lead, I dragged them open and found Reign peering up at me. No, down at me. I lay on my back, cocooned in confusion. How … ? He said something, but I couldn’t hear him. How could he be so far away when he was right there in front of me?

“Alina.” Tears brimmed his beautiful eyes. “You gave too much. You gave it all, American Girl.” His smile quivered before he turned his face away and squeezed his eyes closed. Slowly, painfully, he pulled his gaze back to me. “Don’t you know, constructs aren’t heroes.” He moved in close, close enough to kiss. “I wish … I wish we’d had more time.” He trembled, I could feel the shivers in his touch. I watched, fascinated, as those butterfly eyes bled a violent red. A savage grimace pulled on his lips. He fought, but he wasn’t lost to the hound, not quite yet. “I’d have shown you the world,” he said. “I would have let you love me.”

“I don’t think I’m made for love.”
So tired …
I would just rest a little while. I
needed
to rest.

He bit back emotion and shook his head. His bloodied hair fell in front of his bright eyes. “You saved me.” A twitch shocked through him. He doubled over, muscles straining, and met my gaze one last time. “Thank you, Alina.”

I wanted to thank him for making me whole, for showing me a world outside my design, but the words detached and drifted away before I could speak them. He fell back, stumbled to his feet, and staggered out of sight.
Wait …
I wanted him back.
Don’t go.
I didn’t want to be here, alone. Why was I so cold? Nothing worked right. My thoughts fell quiet, and my body refused to move. I had to get to the queen. I still had a dagger. People continued to die. Eyelids shuttering, I forced them open and urged my lungs to fill and expel, breathe in, breath out … That was important. I had to stay awake. Was I dying? To hell with that. I wasn’t going out without seeing this through. No way was I bowing out before the show was over.

The queen’s shadow fell over me. The lights from above burned her silhouette into my vision. “Alina …” Spiders dripped from her body. Thousands of them rippled around me. Countless legs tickled my exposed flesh.

The queen rocked on her legs, and reached a limb toward me, probing tentatively. “Oh, sweet thing, this would not have happened had you obeyed me.”

I willed my fingers to close around the dagger.

“I cannot make you again,” she said.

The horror of her came sharply into focus. Spiders swarmed over her body, feeding on the blood painted across her torso and face. The dagger still jutted from her underbelly. White blood oozed around it. But it wouldn’t be enough to kill her.

“You failed.” I breathed the words, not managing a whisper, but she heard.

“Failed?” She laughed. “No. This is just the beginning. These people are mine. Once I am done feeding, the fae will come when I call. They will serve, and we will turn this miserable city into our own Faerie. It will be glorious.”

“You failed …”

She made an odd rattling sound in the back of her throat and reached down to scoop me up into her embrace. I could barely hold my head up as she cradled me close. “There is little life remaining in your shell. Not enough to warrant feeding, but I will take you back. You are mine, after all.” She peeled her lips back, revealing her crescent fangs, intent on biting me, swallowing whatever remained of her draíocht in my veins.

“You failed … to kill Reign.”

She plunged her fangs into my neck and shoulder, thrusting them deep. The pain alone jolted me awake, just for a moment, but long enough to plunge the dagger into her chest. Her scream erupted in my ear. She threw me down and loomed high over me. “You miserable creature!”

The hound hit her in the side like a missile. White teeth glinted and hooked claws sliced. They tumbled in a mass of spider legs and beast. Snarls and growls mingled with the sound of bones cracking. Resting limp on my side, I watched through silent tears as the hound ripped into her. She flailed, her legs kicking, twitching, but the hound had her on her back and pinned beneath its huge bulk. It buried its maw into her torso and tore out her milky insides.

Spiders surged, spilled down from the ceiling and scurried in from all sides. They sensed their queen dying, as did I. Her screams rattled, then drowned. Her heart thundered in my chest. The hound clamped its jaws around her throat and whipped its head from side to side, tearing her apart.

Her touch in me flickered and vanished. The constant beat in my ears fell silent. The poison occupying my thoughts dissipated and drained away, lifting a horrible weight from my body. A weight I hadn’t even known I’d been carrying. Mind quiet, body still—I was free.

A few spiders paused on the back of my hand, right before my eyes. Their legs tapped, waiting. Others stopped too, and those that had climbed onto the hound skittered away.

“Leave. Go back,” I whispered. An electric shiver twitched through them. My will and theirs. They too were free. The rivers of spiders withdrew and retreated back into the cracks and crevices.
It’s over.

I closed my eyes. It
was
over, and so was I. The queen was dead. My purpose dead with her. I didn’t have enough life left in me to move. But I’d beaten her. In the end, Warren would have been proud. The wet sounds of gristle between teeth mingled with the cries from those still alive inside the arena. I heard the beat of helicopter blades outside. Andrews would be out there. I had faith he’d gotten the doors open in time. There was nothing more to be done. My part was over. She was dead, and I was dying. Things like her, like me, were not meant for this world.

A snuffling muzzle nudged my head. I forced an eye open and was thankful I didn’t have the energy to scream. The hound blinked red glowing eyes down at me. Lips drawn back over its teeth, it was either smiling, or about to tear my throat out. A whine pitched high from its throat.

“Get away. They’ll kill you, Reign. The police. The people. It’s not safe for the fae anymore.” There would be evidence, witness statements, cell phone videos. This wasn’t going away.

The hound growled low and its blood-red eyes narrowed. I didn’t fear it, not when I already had death breathing down my neck. Maybe that was why it didn’t attack. When I next opened my eyes, it was gone and I was alone as I’d been when I’d first appeared onto the Chancery Lane platform. I didn’t want to go. I’d only just learned how to live. I was free for the first time. My own person. I could be anything I wanted to be. Go anywhere I wanted. I was Alina. Maybe I’d lived more in the last few days than some did in a lifetime. In the end, Warren would have agreed. Even that stubborn bastard would have had to admit I’d made a difference.