The Labyrinth of the Dead (6 page)

The crackling power leapt to her will,
eager to burn free once more. Instead of the all-encompassing thrill of the
aura, she focused the heat and light between her shoulder blades. Her jacket
was loose-fitted and her corset cut low in the back, just in case she would be
faced with this particular eventuality.

Gathering herself up, Portia took a
deep breath and leapt from the edge of the cliff. The reins on her inner light
easily slipped through her fingers, and in a flash of glittering brilliance,
her sickening plummet slowed. Stretching wide silver wings, Portia swooped away
from the lurid water and into the tenebrous sky. Her jacket easily pushed up to
her shoulders, exposing her back and allowing her wings free movement. The
battle axe did not affect her balance as much as she had feared, but the
satchel hanging across her body vexed her considerably as she navigated toward
a hanging lantern affixed to a dockside post. As she approached, she realized
that she had not considered landing from a great height and at full speed.
Driven by pure instinct, she flapped the wings forward ponderously, trying
desperately to kill her momentum. With her heels jutting forward, Portia
clutched the satchel to her chest and braced for impact.

Her landing was
hard and ungainly. Portia could not lose enough speed before she came down onto
the rough-hewn planks, and the great wings did not fold down quickly. The right
one bent back painfully as she rolled over her shoulder. The satchel flew free
of her torso, spilling its contents across the dock. Ignoring the flutter of
broken feathers in her wake, Portia scrambled to catch the jars and packets as
they skidded dangerously toward the edge. A wax-sealed bottle rolled away from
her grasp and tumbled end over end until it disappeared. A long moment later,
she heard it splash into the water below.

"Bollocks!"

"I didn’t know you could fly, Portia."

Portia froze, her eyes narrowing in the
darkness. A creeping chill crawled across her flesh.

Slowly, a smallish shape materialized
out of the darkness. The single lantern bounced yellow light across Kanika’s features and gilded her curls.

Portia pushed herself to her knees.
"How did you get here, Kanika?"

"The bridge." She pointed to a pair of
those peculiar tall stones several yards away. "But it’s broken now."

"How did you get
here
, to the
under-side? And ahead of me?"

"You’re just slow." She laughed.

"I thought you wouldn’t come here."

Kanika shrugged. "Changed my mind." She
touched Portia’s damaged wing, tugging on the out-of-joint tip.

"Ouch! Careful!"

"Curious. You didn’t have these
before."

"No. I didn’t." Portia sat up and tried
to smooth the mangled feathers. She flexed them gently and the topmost right
joint popped loudly, sending a spark of pain through her body. The wings had
become a physical part of her. Portia focused and made to dispel them, but
nothing happened.

"What are you doing?" Kanika leaned in
close.

"Concentrating."

"On what?"

"Putting my wings away."

"Oh. You can do that?"

"Yes, at least I think so. I did it
before, once. Now, if you would just hush a moment and let me think." But it
was no use. The wings, as silver-white and gleaming as her hair, remained.

"I’m waiting."

"It’s not working."

"Interesting."

Portia gazed up at the girl. There was
something unsettling about her tone. "Kanika, how did you come through the
willow?"

"I followed you. It wasn’t hard." She
held up a charm. It was a small felt oval, neatly stitched into a pouch. "You
helped. Just like you told me you would!" She pulled from it a narrow braid of
Portia’s hair. "And it was simple to take some of your spit and tears. You get
weepy when you sleep. All I needed was some blood and you were so kind to leave
that on the willow. Between that and this," she dangled the charm from her
dainty fingers, "it was so easy to come here."

"I thought you wanted to get back to
the living realm?"

"Oh, no. I wanted to get
here
.
The living realm can wait."

"I see. What is here that you want?"
Portia asked, although fearing the answer she might hear.

"You," Kanika said, simply. "And
Imogen."

"Well, then, I suppose you’ll be
helping me find her after all."

"Sure thing," Kanika answered, but her
tone sounded less than convincing.

Portia got to her
feet and put the scattered containers back into her satchel. She collected the
battle axe and settled her wings down beneath her coat. The feathers rasped
against the silk. The hanging coin began once more to sway, urgently swinging
toward the center of the island. Portia began to follow its lead; Kanika hung
back a moment.

"Are you sure you want to listen to
that? Some things here have their own motives."

"I’m sure they do," Portia replied
dryly.

"Some things here just want to get
home."

"For the moment this damnable thing is
in accord with my own sense of direction, and therefore this is the path we
will follow." She absently touched the charmed medallions that hung around her
neck, and the blue glow illuminated her path once more. The glow clung to the
ground like a fog, guiding her steps toward the ominous shapes in the distance.

Kanika’s eyes followed Portia’s, but it was apparent from
the deep furrow that formed in her elegant high forehead, the girl could not
see the trail to follow it.

Portia took some gratification in that.
"You’ll have to trust me, my dear."

Kanika’s fingers were cool as Portia grasped them, and a
current of trepidation ran through her. Beside her, the girl walked unperturbed
and nearly lighthearted, but Portia sensed something dark beneath the blithe
surface of her companion. Dark, menacing, and terrifyingly familiar.

—5—

COILS OF black smoke wound up from the skyline of
the city, billowing from tall chimneys. It might have been a city of the living
world, but for the hulking buildings that almost seemed to breathe, taking in
clean air and belching out wretched fumes. Below their feet, the ground hummed
with the cacophony of industry that grew louder as they moved away from the
docks.

"What is this place?" Portia asked.

"They call it the city of Salus."

"Salus, as in salvation?"

Kanika’s lashes swept low over her grey gaze. "One of the
many things available here. Do you see why I was so eager to come, now?"

"You’re looking for salvation? That’s
what all this is about?"

"Yes. What can be more noble than that?
Well, perhaps walking into the land of the dead to rescue a loved one." She
winked. "Now we must hurry. There are few sanctuaries in this place, and night
is coming."

They reached the city gates and found
them standing slightly open. The black iron spires had been clad in worm-eaten
wood. Deep gouges marred the front of them, as well as the jagged stone walls.

"So what’s trying to get in?"

Kanika smirked. "Nothing compared to
what’s trying to get out." She pulled the gate fully open to reveal a patchwork
of discolored planks on the inside, each one scraped and scratched twice as
badly as the front. It was not comforting.

"I see. Then what is trying to get
out?"

Kanika pointed to the gashes in the
wood. "Lost souls."

"That’s all?"

Kanika tilted her head to one side.
"This doesn’t frighten you?"

"Not really, no. Kanika, do you know
what I do?"

The girl paused and Portia saw it
again: the shift behind her eyes like ripples on a pond. Kanika smiled and it
was familiarly coy. The hairs rose on the back of Portia’s neck and a tremor
raced through her wings.

"I know what you do," Kanika purred.
"And I should have known that you wouldn’t be afraid." She beamed up into
Portia’s eyes with a beatific smile.

Portia resisted the instinct to step
away from the girl. It was becoming apparent that Kanika was not alone;
something was riding her. She had seen possession before. This was of a
different sort, not a true subjugation of will by the demon, but somehow a
commingling of the two souls, not unlike what she experienced with her angel.
But, contrary to her situation, her angel’s soul did not battle for dominion
and they did not take turns being in control. Portia saw to it that she remained
the ascendant force. She would have to tread carefully.

"Where do we go from here?"

Kanika glanced up the road. The broad
street was ill-kept, with ruts and holes in the paving. "You want to find your
beloved, right? Well, I guarantee she is somewhere in there." She pointed
toward the center of the city.

"And what about you—what do you want?"

"Right now I want to follow you. You
told me you’d help me."

"I told you I’d only help you if I
could."

"Trust me, you’ll be able to."

Portia paused. There was no use arguing
with her, not here in the open next to the city gates that told of dangers
lurking in the streets. "Let’s get someplace safe, someplace we can speak more
openly."

"A sanctuary," Kanika suggested. "So,
find one."

"You make it sound far too simple, my
dear."

"Not so. I know there are things here
that you can see and I cannot. I know you have found your way through the
under-side quite easily and evaded the queen’s snares. I have great faith that
you can find your way to the sanctuary of Salus."

"Is there only one?"

"Only one that matters. Only one that
has the power to keep someone like you safe from someone like her."

"The queen?"

Kanika nodded.

"I wish I understood what she wanted
from me."

"Angels never die and Nephilim never
come here. I am certain that she finds you a curiosity."

"But you said Imogen was here."

"And if she is to be found, then she’ll
be in the sanctuary. Let’s
go
." She tugged Portia’s sleeve.

The thrum of her breastbone rose in
intensity, seeming to confirm Kanika’s suggestion of
where Imogen could be found. "The nights are bad here, as well?"

"There are dangerous things everywhere.
Most of them live here. What you saw in the shadow-Penemue was a delightful tea
time with sparrows and butterflies compared to what lurks here after dark. The
Queen of the Here-After is forever hungry, and her minions go a-hunting at
night for unwary travelers." Kanika slipped her arm through Portia’s, and
together they walked between the battered gates. "But you won’t have anything
to be afraid of, my sweet. Not you, you have nothing to fear."

Portia feigned a cool demeanor, but her
wings fluttered nervously, sending a nip of pain through her entire right side
each time the injured one twitched.

Great, crumbling façades flanked them,
interrupted only by moldering courtyards and cross streets paved unevenly with
flagstones, cobbles, and tar. The sky above was lit a lurid orange and purple;
Portia wondered how they would tell when night had descended. The low growl of
engines accompanied them everywhere they walked, from the broad central street
to the smaller roadways that diverged from it. The city was desolate but
enthralling.

"Have you been here before?" Portia
asked. "To Salus?"

"Once." Kanika’s
forehead pinched a moment, and she shook her head. "Only once, but trust me,
that was enough."

"But you went through a lot of trouble
to come back."

She paused and pretended to be
engrossed in deciding which street to take next. "Sometimes…things happen and
you think that what you’re doing is a good idea. You think that what you are
risking is worth the reward." She glanced surreptitiously back at Portia. "I’m
sure you know what that’s like."

"I do. Where to next?"

She kicked at a loose cobblestone and
shrugged. "I’m so turned around. It isn’t the same as it was before. I thought
I knew the way."

"Not the same?"

"No. The roads, they rearrange
themselves sometimes."

"How so?"

"Hear that?" She tapped her heel on the
ground, indicating the ubiquitous rumble. "It’s what keeps the island floating.
But sometimes, it has…hiccups."

"Hiccups?"

"It stalls out and streets vanish or
shift places. I think it happens when it has an interruption in fuel."

Portia was almost afraid to ask. "What
does it run on?"

Kanika pressed her lips into a thin
line and pulled out one of her coins. "This."

"Shadow-gold?"

"Yes. Some of it is fired with gold,
but it works better with a whole soul, compressed like coal into a little
glowing ember and fed into the engines."

Portia’s eyes widened and she realized
what the queen might want with her. "We need to find Imogen, and we need to
find her now."

"I swear it was here before!"

"So help me, if you have led me astray
on purpose, Kanika, you had better hope you end up in the belly of that engine,
because I guarantee that will be a far more pleasant way to die than what I’ve
got planned."

Kanika shrank away from Portia’s
glowing fury. "It was here," she choked out. "I remember. I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t
lie to you." The glimmer of what Portia was beginning to recognize as the real
Kanika shone across the girl’s face.

Portia closed her eyes and took a deep
breath. She stroked the medallions hanging from her neck. Their guiding light
had faded into nothing as soon as she had set foot on the island. She poured
energy into them, but they gave her nothing in return.

"Ask the axe."

Portia opened her eyes and regarded
Kanika warily. "Why would it know?"

"It was made here. It was forged and
fused with souls. What they know, it knows." She said the words so
matter-of-factly.
Fused with souls.