Shutter (32 page)

Ryder and Jude caught up and flanked me. I spared a glance at Ryder. He surveyed the destruction, his face blank save for the black smolder in his eyes, a promise of retribution.

“So many dead,” I whispered. Ryder’s jaw tightened. “Let’s end this.”

I took the lead. We picked our way past the fallen—human and necro—rifles at the ready, flashlights on. The boys carried our reaping mirrors on straps slung over their chests, and as I stepped over the corpses, I thought of my father and of Damian.

I’m coming, Dad.

The blast doors to the Ninth Circle were blown open and bloodied. We plunged into the stairwell, which held more corpses. The sounds of gunfire ricocheted up the shaft. I leapt down the stairs, following the puddles of light created by our flashlights.

On the first basement floor, my flashlight touched on a labyrinth of gray-skinned cubicles, offices with their blinds drawn tight. A man in a lab coat lay prone and still on the floor. Dead necros littered the ground or hung from holes in the ceiling, bits of them blasted over the walls. The whole floor smelled of death, of failure and fury, and I took it in with every breath.

Shots ricocheted from the floors beneath our feet, spurring us on. Deeper. The first subbasement floor housed the observation deck, and researchers transported necros up from pens in subbasement two, nicknamed the Tank, for testing and research. We found the first subbasement impenetrable: Nerve gas tumbled from the ceiling in mustard-yellow clouds, obscuring everything except a glimpse of cinder-block walls.

“Keep moving,” I shouted, slamming the doors closed on the nerve gas. Dad had to be in the Ninth Circle’s deepest depths.

All the way down in the Tank.

SUNDAY, 8:22 P.M.

T
HE TANK’S STENCH PUNCHED
me in the nose before I exited the stairwell. Screams sawed through the walls. Pain wrung the voices so high and tight, I couldn’t tell if they were male, female, or even made with living lungs.
Breathe for four, hold for four
, I chanted to myself, my heart slamming against my ribs. The boys followed me with curse-laced prayers on their lips.

Most of the Ninth Circle’s “residents” occupied the Tank—sort of a dog pound for the dead and necrotized. Laid out like a prison, the pens were set straight into the concrete walls. The boys and I moved into the cell block, following the explosive sound of gunfire. A tunnel bottlenecked visibility for almost twenty feet. At its end, Helsing flares washed the central courtyard in red hues. A reaper stumbled into our hallway, bracing himself against the wall with one hand. He sank to a knee, and I paused beside him.

“Where’s Commander Helsing?” I asked.

With a shaking hand—he couldn’t straighten his index finger—he pointed to the courtyard. “C-can’t get him past that demon, ma’am.”

“Go, get somewhere safe.” I handed him my rifle, as he’d need it more than I would.

As I stepped to the edge of the courtyard, the scene only made sense one image at a time: a black maelstrom of miasma seethed amid the room, black chains whipping around like carnival swings.

A battered Harker tetro screamed at her crew, holding a dented silver pane, trying to draw the ghost’s attention—
my
ghost’s attention—away from my father, who leaned on Damian and pressed a hand into his abdomen, his fingers gore-blackened, maybe holding himself together.

Real-time hit—a chain whistled through the air and sliced a man’s head clean off. The body stumbled about and fell to its knees, blood fountaining form the sawed-off stump of his neck. The Harker guys ducked and scattered.

My anger snapped and caught fire. “Enough,” I shouted, mimicking my father’s authority and fury, the very emotion that had put the bruise on my cheek.

The entity stilled, its miasma massing like ocean fog.

“Your fight”—I unholstered my camera—“is with me.”

“All grown up and sounding just like Daddy,” the entity spat. “I always knew you had too much Helsing in you.”

“I am all Helsing.” Blood roared in my ears as I lifted my camera, shutting everything out but the ghost. I tracked it with my lens, moving into the courtyard. The boys spread out and created a perimeter around me, mirrors pointed in.

The ghost’s split-second hesitation gave me an edge.

I ran toward it and swung my lens in Ryder’s direction. My flash exploded with the press of a button, the light ripping apart the shadows and dissipating the black chains. Energy crackled in the air like lightning, static hissing along my camera’s casing. My shot hit home—the entity screamed and stumbled toward Ryder. The upgraded shot also scattered the entity’s miasma for almost a full second, allowing me to see the ghost in all its radiance: pale hair, lithe legs, and arms that ended in clawed hands. I didn’t see her face, the shutter closed too quickly.

Her face?

The entity is
female
?

I’d been prepared to find Luca on the other side of my lens. But this …
Who is she?

My shutter clicked open. The entity’s miasma congealed as she turned and blurred toward Ryder. Side-stepping, I lined up my lens with his mirror and fired again.

Another burst of shadow, another scream. Another shock of electricity burned against my fingertips, but the ghost still charged toward Ryder.

“Move, Ry!” I shouted, pointing my lens at the floor. He leapt aside as the entity barreled past him. Her miasma collided with the wall, billowing up toward the ceiling as she climbed out of our reaping mirrors’ ranges.

“Amplifying your energy transfer with mirrors, how clever,” she rasped. “After your little trip to the Presidio warehouses, Luca and I thought you might try that.”

Luca?
I had no time to process the information—one of her chains cracked toward my head. I hit the ground, spine bruising on my monopod, and turned up my camera. I blew the flash and lit the whole room, shredding the ghost’s shadows. For a split second, I saw the entity in all her fierce, terrible beauty, staring down at me.

Her face looked like—

No, it was a trick of the ghostlight—

A PTSD flare.

I dropped into a crouch. “Ry, bring your mirror here!” I covered Ryder as he ducked toward me, chains screaming past him. On my left, Jude ran in behind me to maintain our perimeter. To my surprise, the Harker tetro stepped in, hovering on my right. Her crew covered us from necro interference and kept the flares hot, while Damian and Dad staggered toward the exit.

When Ryder reached me, I slid the mirror to the floor under the entity to reflect the deepest point of her miasma. A heavy chain formed above our heads and whipped down, forcing Ryder and me to leap apart. The impact dented the reaping mirror, the chain rattling over the floor. I broke the chain with a flash, and pointed my lens into the mirror. Said a quick prayer. And fired.

A crack of lightning stretched from the mirror to the ceiling, burning my fingertips. The entity fell with a shriek. Her miasma touched down with liquid speed, spilling over the ground and bubbling over corpses, the flares, killing most of the light in the room. She growled—a low, animalistic sound—as she gathered herself off the floor.

“Re-form perimeter,” I shouted, covering Ryder as he snatched up his mirror. He ducked under a chain and fell into position. The Harker tetro slid behind the entity, her mirror aligned with my lens. I scattered the entity’s miasma and slammed her with a full-blown shot.

In the fractured second between my shutter reopening and the entity’s miasma rushing back, I saw her ghostlight flicker.

It’s working, her ghostlight is failing!
But my elation was cut down as the entity whipped one of its chains around and smashed it into the other tetro’s head. She crumpled, her mirror clattering to the floor.
Please let her only be unconscious.

I blasted the entity again, not catching her against a mirror. She spun, lashing out with a chain that wrapped around my thighs and hips like a steel snake. It jerked me to the ground. I fell hard, hit my hip, and lost my breath. She reeled me in.

“Mirror.” I barely had breath to shout—Ryder was too far away, but Jude ran in from the right, almost close enough.

The entity’s miasma frothed over my feet.

I turned my lens toward the ceiling.

The entity grabbed the front of my shirt, but the edge of Jude’s mirror appeared behind her. I breathed in her thunderstorm scent, aimed my lens, and shot her point-blank. The flash exploded and blasted her miasma apart. Electricity jumped from my camera into my body, singeing my skin.

I captured the entity’s entire face, one I knew as well as my own.

One I’d missed so much.

No, she would have passed on. It’s not her, it’s my PTSD, it’s not …

One good glimpse confirmed a fear so dark, I’d locked it in a dead corner of my heart.

“M-Mom?” I stuttered.

The ghost threw me to the ground and vaulted past me, sliding into a corner outside our perimeter. I rose to my feet, shaking so hard I thought I’d throw my shoulder back out of its socket. Everyone in the room stopped. On the periphery of my sight, I saw Dad pause. Turn.

“Tell me it’s not you,” I said, rising to my feet, my voice whittled down to its rawest notes. “Tell me you moved on.”

Her miasma frothed, almost indecisive, then fell down like a curtain. She looked like she had in life—her cheekbones high, pale hair spilling down her shoulders and chest. She wore the white gown Dad buried her in, perfect and unblemished, save for the blood staining her hands. Black shackles of miasma clamped around her wrists, her arms mapped with inky veins extending from the cuffs. Her ghostlight flickered like a light bulb on the verge of sputtering out, her energy failing.

I had her on the ropes—

But my trigger finger just …
stuck
.

“Why?” I whispered, my voice breaking on the word. I shuddered through another heartbeat, through another breath, my whole body in a vise and shattering, shattering. Gathering up the dregs of my fury, I shouted: “Why didn’t you pass on?”

“Pass on?” Chains slid out of her miasma like serpents, swishing along the ground, making the music of my despair. They curled up my ankles and calves, forcing me to step toward her. “Not until Helsing burns.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, but she just threw back her head and laughed. The sound stabbed into me like shards of broken glass. An old darkness rose up in my soul, plucking away my rational pieces, the ones screaming
danger
and
murderer
and
she’s not your mother anymore
, swallowing them whole. I knew this old blackness, this monster, the misery I’d battled for so many months … I didn’t fight when its fists closed over my heart again.

Violet-blue light fell over me. Mom took my chin in her cold hand, her claws like pins on my skin, her chains clinking.

I never wanted this half life,
I thought.
I never wanted the guilt of surviving.

I miss you.

“Do you know who killed me, shutterfly?” she asked, turning my head so she could whisper in my ear. “Luca tells me it was
you
and your little boyfriend.”

“No,” I whispered. “You were already gone—”

“Was I really?” She pressed a thumb into my tear duct. “Then why do I remember your fists and his bullet?”

“You can’t trust Luca, h-he’s—”

“You betrayed me.” One claw grazed my eyebrow, spilling a wet warmth down my face. “Only in death did I realize you’re not my daughter. You’re
Helsing’s
child,
his
child, not mine.”

“I…” But pain made my breath tight, too tight for more words.

Someone shouted my name. Rough hands clapped over my shoulders and threw me to the floor. Pain seared my face, setting my synapses aflame.
Breathe,
I told myself, stanching the blood flow with my palm. My eyeball pressed back against the heel of my hand, intact, throbbing. I pushed myself onto my elbow and looked up, groaning from the pain.

Ryder stood in front of me, fists clenched, staring down the space my mother’s ghost occupied, willing to pay with his life to shield me from death. Mom’s ghostlight outlined his form, and before I could scream
run
, she thrust her clawed hand into his chest. He stiffened, convulsed, ripping the torn sections of my heart apart.

I screamed his name with no power or sound, felt his syllables slipping out of me in a whisper. Mom embraced him as he sagged.

“Now we play this game in earnest, Micheline,” Mom said, her gaze locking on mine over Ryder’s shoulder. Her miasma crashed around them like a tidal wave. The darkness swept over me and drained into Ryder’s discarded reaping mirror, leaving only sparks and static in its wake.

Someone screamed and screamed.

The voice disembodied, raw, far away,

And somehow mine.

SUNDAY, 8:30 P.M.

I
SCREAMED SO LOUD
the room’s silence fractured and stabbed into my skin. I scrabbled at the newly darkened antimirror, smearing my blood and tears all over its surface. I’d rend the metal with my bare hands, dig until I found the place she’d taken him—

Jude grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. I buried my face in his neck and sobbed, not caring that we touched, not caring what he saw. “He’s gone,” I said. “She took him.”

“I know.” He rocked me, holding me so tight I could barely breathe, crying into my hair. I dug my nails into his back, his shoulder, seeking purchase on something solid, grasping any anchor.

Everyone kept their distance, even Dad and Damian. Everyone saw Ryder sacrifice himself for me, for my stupid, loser sake. I wasn’t worth half of him; I couldn’t protect the people I loved most from darkness and death. I couldn’t lose him; I’d never told him everything I meant to:

I’m sorry
for making him choose between having me and following the rules.

Thank you
for being there for me, always.