Keys and Curses (Shadow Book 2) (35 page)

“The second floor?” Shazza clattered down next to her. They skirted Pierus and darted down the long hall, trying each door as they went.

“He told her to explore and she went up the stairs,” Flower said. “I thought she’d be okay.”

“If he told her to explore, then there was something he wanted her to find.” Shazza’s voice was grim.

Flower was starting to think just that, but she didn’t want to admit it out loud. She didn’t want to admit she’d let Pinky walk into some kind of trap. She didn’t want to admit her key had let that monster hound Nikifor until he was a shell of his former self. She didn’t want to admit she’d been wrong, so wrong about everything, but there was little choice in the matter now. She rattled another door, but it was locked, just like all of them had been. “Pinky!” she yelled.

A piercing scream came from the other end of the corridor.

Shazza disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Left to more conventional means, Flower bolted back the way she’d come. A metallic surge of fear and adrenalin gave her an added burst of speed when she reached the stairs to find Pierus gone. She ran to the other end of the corridor, caught the edge of an open doorway to stop herself and flung herself inside.

She didn’t get much further, because even though her brain refused to register what she was seeing, she couldn’t look away.

She’d never forgotten her first sight of the vampire king. Even for muses, Rustam Badora was the monster lurking under the bed, invading the dark, killing all who encountered him. She’d last seen that face in the aftermath of a war. Then he’d been in chains, on his way to eternity in the Gulakh, the prison Pierus had built and designed himself and whose secrets only he knew. The next she’d heard of Badora was that he was dead at the hands of Hippy Ishtar.

But the creature in front of her was not dead. Flower dug her fingers into the wall behind her. It was a long time since she’d seen a vampire without a mask. The purple veins that clawed his blue-white skin came as a shock. White-blonde hair was plastered to his shoulders and ribs like seaweed, uncut and uncared for since decades past. His skeletal frame curled like a grasshopper. A scar disfigured one entire shoulder.

These things were nothing; Flower was transfixed by the place where his right eye should have been. Silver wires snaked from the empty socket, wound around his face and skull and back again, anchored by barbs that resembled the claws of some brutal predator. From inside the socket shone a bright white light, a light that made her want to go close and touch.

But she was frozen in place. Shazza shrank into the far corner of the room. Badora was wired into the wall behind him, itself a maze of silver lines and terminals. The same wires and barbs that came from his eye embedded him to those terminals until it seemed impossible to tell where he ended and the circuit board behind him began.

Except he’d torn one hand from the restraints. From that hand dangled Pinky, struggling and kicking, while he brought her closer and closer to his long, extended fangs.

“Fairy.” Badora’s voice was rough and gravelly from lack of use.

The sound of that voice released Flower from the spell. She sprang forward. “Take your hands off her you filthy creature!”

The light in that right eye turned to Flower and almost blinded her. “Muse,” he said, and this time he looked bewildered. “Muse not girl. Muse a–a–a him!” He looked pleased with himself. He gave Pinky a shake and she screamed again. He swung his attention back to her. “Eat fairy,” he added.

Flower had no time to consider just what might have happened to Badora. This sure as Shadow wasn’t the king who’d reigned terror for so many years. She reached out for Pinky, but before she could touch her, she was pulled back.

Pierus’s hands on her shoulders made her skin crawl. She tried to yank herself away, but his fingertips bit into her skin so hard she cried out in pain. He spoke into her ear, making every hair on the back of her neck rise in revulsion. “I wouldn’t get too close,” he said. “He hasn’t been fed since the fairy supplies dried up. He’d happily drink both you and your friend.” He looked at the vampire king. “Two muses now,” he added in a loud voice. “But not for long.”

“Fairy,” Badora said, once more reaching out for Pinky.

“That’s not a fairy.” Pierus wrapped a hand around Flower’s shoulders. Steel pricked her throat. Sweat beaded on her forehead and trickled past her eye. “There my dear, comfortable? Now don’t move or I shall be forced to cut your pretty throat, and I really don’t want to do that. Kazza!”

There was no smoke. In her corner, Shazza made a swift movement, but shrank back at one look from Pierus.

“Fairy,” Badora insisted.

“For Shadow’s sake, what self-respecting fairy would go around looking like an overripe tomato? Kazza!” His voice took on an edge of fury.

Pinky burst into tears.

“Fairy!” Badora’s voice rose to match Pierus’s.

“It’s not a fairy! Eat it if you want, but don’t blame me when you get indigestion!”

“No, please let her go!” Flower yelled.

Shazza, who didn’t have a knife at her throat, acted more decisively. She leaped from her corner so suddenly Flower almost didn’t see her, grabbed Pinky and yanked her bodily from Badora’s grasp.

Pierus gave a furious yell, pushed Flower so hard she collided with the opposite wall and grabbed Shazza by the throat. “How dare you interfere?”

His words were almost lost in Badora’s deafening bellow. The vampire king jerked against his restraints and made the whole wall shiver. A wire crackled and threw out sparks. “Fairy!” he roared.

Flower picked herself up and crawled the few feet to where Pinky had landed. She helped her to a sitting position and checked her for injuries. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

Pinky nodded, but her eyes were wide and staring, and Flower didn’t like the look in them. “I’m so sorry Pinky,” she whispered. “I should have listened to you. To you and everyone. This is all my fault.”

Badora’s roar, which had covered her words, came to an end. They both looked past him to Pierus and Shazza.

“I said where’s Kazza?” Pierus repeated. His hands squeezed and Shazza gasped for air.

“I don’t know!” she choked.

“Then find her!”

Shazza disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“Where go?” Badora yelled.

“Don’t you worry your ugly head about it,” Pierus snapped.

The vampire spotted Pinky again and lunged for her, causing more wires to crackle and spark. Flower got between them.

“Really Flower, this is very disruptive,” Pierus said. “Do you always cause this much mess when you pay a call?”

Shazza reappeared before Flower could reply. She was pale and wide-eyed, and she positioned herself well out of Pierus’s reach.

“Well?” he demanded. “Where’s your sister?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You might be the defective one, but even you can go anywhere in Shadow with a thought. How can you not find her?”

“She’s–not–there.” Shazza glanced at Flower. Something in her look was terrified, elated and furious all at once.

Pierus missed the look, but Flower understood. She brought her hands into her lap where nobody could see them shaking. Terror. Elation. She’d not just destroyed the machine, she’d destroyed the false muses too.

“What do you mean she’s not there? She has to be somewhere! Did you check the mine?”

“I mean, she’s not there.” Shazza’s voice grew stronger. Again she looked at Flower and this time Pierus caught the look.

“What?” He strode forward and dragged Flower to her feet. “What have you done?”

The key was still in Flower’s hand. She grasped it so tight the metal cut into her skin. She ignored Pierus and spoke instead to Shazza. “How many were there?”

“Sixty-five,” Shazza said. “All gone. Every one.”

“But not you?”

Pierus said what sounded like possibly the most filthy word Flower had ever heard. Once more his fingers dug in and he strode from the room, dragging her with him.

Shazza ran after them, and Pinky after her, leaving the horror alone behind them. Even after the door closed on him Flower could hear him yelling.

Pierus dragged her up the stairs. Flower didn’t resist, since anywhere away from Badora was fine with her.

Pierus uttered a low, venomous oath when he saw the blasted open door, but when they stumbled into the room, he let her go. He fell to his knees and let out an inarticulate sound of rage, frustration, grief. “What have you done?”

“What I had to.” Flower rubbed the spots on her shoulder where his fingers had made purple marks. “You’ve gone quite mad, Pierus, and I cannot allow what you are doing to continue.”

He dropped his face into his hands. “You’ve killed them all.”

“Your false muses? That was not my intention, and for Shazza’s sake I regret it.”

“I don’t care about them.” Shazza approached the machine and ran her hand over a spot where flames flickered in the wreckage, waving her fingers through the fire. “He killed them a long time ago. I’m defective because he didn’t stamp out my soul. That’s it, isn’t it, king?”

“Nobody asked you,” Pierus snarled.

“I don’t care!” Shazza stamped her foot. “You made me what I am, you can bear the consequences! Tell me why I didn’t die too?”

Pierus paused. For the first time ever, Flower saw him look uncertain. He looked to the wreckage of the machine, then to Shazza, then back to her and Pinky. “The key,” he whispered. “The key is keeping her alive.”

Flower met Shazza’s eyes. “Run,” she mouthed, then she grabbed Pinky’s hand and bolted. They hurried down three flights of stairs and clattered across the huge, dilapidated foyer, only to come up against a locked door.

Pierus’s footsteps echoed on the stairs. He descended at a slow, almost lazy pace.

“Flower,” Pinky whispered, “I’m never going to complain about being pink again if we get out of this alive.”

“And I’m going to personally apologise to Nikifor and Fitz and everyone else I know for being so blind about that man.” Flower’s words were grim. “Quick, this way.”

They ducked through a side door into a large hall dominated by a huge dining table that was dusty and pitted with holes.

“You can’t leave, the roses will kill you like they killed your friend Hippy.” Pierus’s voice echoed into the room. “You’re welcome to hide. I haven’t let Badora out to play in years, but I’m sure he’d love to hunt down that thing he thinks is a fairy.”

Pinky clutched Flower’s hand so tightly her grip hurt. “What do we do?”

“I just killed sixty-five false muses. I’ll kill Badora too before I let him get you.” Flower tried to stop her voice from shaking. “Can’t be that hard to fight a brain-damaged vampire.”

“What with?” Pinky hissed. “We’ve got no weapons! I wish we brought Nikifor and Fitz!”

“Me too.”

Shazza appeared in front of them in a puff of smoke. She collapsed on the edge of the table. Weariness and stress had put lines around her eyes. “I can get out,” she said. “But you two are as good as dead.”

“Listen.” Flower grasped the key as tightly as she could, memorising the feel of it, savouring it, because she’d never been without it. “It’s me he wants. He doesn’t care about Pinky.”

“Oh, you’ve forgotten already he wants to kill me because I’m defective and I helped you?”

“I hadn’t forgotten.” Flower held out her hand, fist still tightly closed. “Take it, Shazza. Guard it with your life and he won’t be able to touch you. All I ask is that you look after my writers and find a way to save Pinky.”

Shazza looked from the closed fist to Flower’s face in astonishment. “Really? You’re going to give me your key?”

“Yes. But you must swear to me you’ll save Pinky and get her back to Nikifor.”

“Flower what about you?” Pinky’s voice turned to a squeak. “If she can save me, she can save you!”

“No. If I escape, he’ll hunt us both down. You he’ll let go. Shazza swear to me.”

“I swear.” There was no hesitation in the words.

Flower took a deep breath, then dropped the key into Shazza’s hand.

Shazza vanished.

Flower and Pinky blinked at the empty dining hall.

“Where’d she go?” Pinky’s voice got higher and higher. “Now what do we do?”

“There you are.”

Pinky and Flower put the length of the table between them and Pierus, who loomed at the door. Flower shoved Pinky behind her.

Pierus jumped onto the table and stalked toward them, as much a predator as any brain-damaged vampire. “Flower,” he said. “You’ve been a very, very bad muse.”

“You’re deranged.” She held her ground, since he was right, there was nowhere to go.

“I resent that.” He stopped at the end of the table and held out his hand. “Give me your key.”

“And then what?” Flower took a few steps backward this time, in response to Pinky tugging her away from the king.

“Then I’ll make everything better.” He tilted his head and regarded her with a half-smile, an expression she remembered well because it used to make her feel special. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you, Flower. You were always the best and brightest of my muses. Of course you would be one of the last to become part of my new Shadow. I respect that. I will even reward it.”