The Mortal Bone (6 page)

Every inch of my skin heaved and ripped, as surely as if some giant hand was grabbing my toes and pulling me inside out, taking parts of my soul with the flesh. When I staggered forward, bracing my hands on the burned wall, I saw the boys writhing on my skin—clawing at their faces in a knotted tangle of limbs, and throbbing veins, and glowing red eyes that oozed tears of blood. Blood that rolled down my arm, and dripped onto the floor.

Arms wrapped around me, but being touched felt like razor blades and acid. I struck without thinking, taking another step forward and falling on my knees. I came down too hard, though. The floor beyond the door was nothing but a charred husk, boards burned through, weakened.

I fell through.

Time slowed down. Every moment, stretching. My body flew apart, taking my soul with it, and my heart. I felt my body die. I believed it. I believed I was dying. All the times I’d felt close to death were nothing compared to this. Everything that mattered was leaving me.

Shadows gathered. I saw lightning. I heard screams.

I hit the floor. Face-first.

The impact lasted a split second, but felt like a mountain was crushing me. I shouldn’t have felt it, but I did—and then, nothing, except a terrible spreading pain in my face, and head. I lay still, absorbing that pain, breathing hard, heart pounding. Mind totally, blissfully blank.

Until I heard whimpers all around me.

I cracked open one eye, and found myself staring at Zee. We were both on our sides, cheeks pressed to the cold tile. His red eye leaked tears of blood.

I tried reaching for him, but my arm wouldn’t move.

“Maxine,” he breathed.

I tried to speak, but my jaw wouldn’t move. I tasted blood.

A hot tongue licked my ear, and I heard a broken purr that ended on a sob. Raw dragged himself into view, pulling Aaz’s still body with him. Mal flopped onto the floor, limp as a sock, eyes closed. Dek, still wrapped over my shoulders, grabbed my ear with his tiny claws and pulled—like he was trying to make me move. I would have been thrilled to oblige, but nothing worked.

I couldn’t feel anything below my shoulders.

Zee managed to heave himself closer, claws digging through the tile like butter. I heard distant shouts, but all that mattered was the grief and stunned shock in the little demon’s eyes. That, and his weakness.

My boy was never weak. Never.

“Maxine,” he whispered again, finally reaching me. His palm rubbed my cheek, so gently. I tried to lift my head, but the effort was too much, even with Dek’s help. The slightest attempt sent a slicing, mind-fucking pain through my entire skull, so much I thought I would pass out. I
hoped
I would pass out.

But I didn’t, and I rolled my gaze upward, trying to see Zee better.

What caught my attention was the shaft of sunlight hitting the wall on the other side of the room.

Sunlight.

Sunlight.

No,
I thought.
No.

The boys and I had been ripped apart.

CHAPTER 6

I
knew I was paralyzed before Grant found me.

I had a minute—a full minute, a hundred years, a thousand—to think about why I couldn’t move. I’d had worse falls. Figured there was a grim, horrible joke in my breaking my spine from plummeting just ten feet.

Terror slammed me. The most profound, destructive horror of my life. It consumed me for that same infinite moment, filling every cell of my body with poison. Igniting me with a pale fire more terrible than any conjured hell.

Zee touched my cheek with his claws, razor claws that could dig through stone like water, that could eviscerate with just a glancing blow. He touched me, and his caress was gentle, light as air. He wept blood.

Dek was making mewling sounds, and so was Mal, flopping on his side, trying to orient himself with a pitiful, shocking lack of control. Raw had dragged Aaz into his lap and rocked back and forth, sucking his claws. All of us, traumatized.

“Broken,” whispered Zee, voice cracking with grief. “All of us, broken hearts.”

I’m sorry,
I wanted to tell him, unable to speak, screaming, screaming on the inside.
Baby, I’m sorry.

I heard the quick, rhythmic slam of a cane. Grant, shouting my name. Footsteps pounded, but not his. Someone faster.

“Damn,” said Rex, behind me.

Zee snarled. Raw stopped sucking his claws and leapt over my body, teeth bared. Aaz, pushed to the floor, twitched his tail—but otherwise remained unconscious.

Mal tried to growl, but it sounded weak. Hisses poured from Dek’s throat, and his long body coiled even tighter over my head. I wanted to tell him he was too heavy. I was pretty certain my nose was broken, and it was getting difficult to breathe.

“Damn,” said Rex again, but his voice was weaker, and he sounded farther away.

“Maxine,” Grant said, then—but he choked on my name, and I knew he stood frozen, staring. I wished I could turn my head to look at him. I wished I could tell him I was okay, even if it was a lie. I wished. I wished so hard.

“Severed,” Zee whispered to him. “Hurry.”

Grant limped close. I saw his cane first, then his shoes. I heard his sharp intake of breath, and tried to roll my gaze up to see him. It was too hard, though. My head throbbed. I was getting tired.

“Maxine.” Grant knelt, and the fear in his eyes was almost enough to kill me right there. He began to touch me, then stopped. A tremor rolled through him.

I’m fine,
I tried to tell him, staring into his eyes. But instead of words, tears burned, and spilled.

My boys. My boys are gone.
I felt empty, and too light.
My boys.

“Someone’s coming,” Rex hissed. “Must have heard the screams.”

“Sweetheart,” murmured Grant. “You need a hospital.”

“No.” Zee touched my right hand, digging his claws into the armor. With his other, he grabbed Grant. All the boys crowded close, Raw dragging Aaz by his tail until they rested upon my leg.

“No,” said Zee, again—and we slipped into the void.

I floated, lost, soul flying in that endless night. I listened to my heart. I listened to my blood.

I listened to that dark entity stir inside me, restless and heavy with power.

This is just a vessel,
whispered a sibilant voice.
And you are more than flesh.

More than flesh. I did not know what I was at all. Not now.

If you can fix me,
I began to reply, but the darkness laughed, and a hard, fierce hunger surrounded me, filling the void.

We were spat out before I could tell that monster to go to hell.

The sun still blazed. My cheek pressed against hot sand, and the air baked each breath I sucked into my tired lungs.

Zee shielded his eyes, cringing. All the boys whimpered, with pain and shock, and fear. Dek and Mal buried their faces in my neck.

“Where are we?” Grant asked in a sharp, ragged voice. “Zee.”

“Help here,” replied the demon, staggering away. I couldn’t see where he went, but a pained grimace passed over Grant’s face, and he fought to stand, leaning hard on his cane.

“Maxine,” he growled. “Hold on.”

Hold on,
I thought.
Nothing to hold on to.

Not even myself. It was so hard to breathe, and I was tired.

Dek bit my ear and began humming “You’re All I Need to Get By.” I wanted to tell him that Motown wasn’t going to save my life, but I clung to his voice—and when Mal joined in, I thought,
Well, maybe it might.

My eyes closed again, though. Dek scratched my ear, but the pain wasn’t enough to keep me awake. Everything was slowing down, including my heart. It made me afraid, but even fear was no cure. I couldn’t feel my body. I tried instead to focus on what I could feel: sand, sunlight, blood in my mouth, the terrible wash of throbbing pain in my nose and head.

But I started to drift. I faded.

I heard a woman say, “Hunter.”

I knew that voice, but her name was too far away—and then I didn’t want to remember, because I heard Grant, and he sounded angry. “What are you—”

“We must hurry,” interrupted that woman. “Just as I showed you before, Lightbringer.”

“It won’t work. She’s immune to me.”

“No.” Zee’s low rasp, filled with concern. “Not immune now.”

I tried to open my eyes, but the darkness was too sweet. Warm, gentle hands touched the top of my head. I knew it was Grant. His touch was familiar, soothing.

Finally, I no longer felt afraid.

“Listen to my voice,” he whispered, and pressed his mouth to my ear. I heard thunder in his throat, then a rumble that was primal and rich, and full of power.

He sang, and carried me away, into shadow. Blissful. Silent. Without pain.

I drifted, lost. I drifted, blind.

I dreamed of a man.

He was made of silver, with silver eyes and silver hair, raining silver every time he moved as though he were nothing but stars, falling. I tried to catch with one hand some of those lost lights—and they slipped into my palm and stayed there, shining.

Five stars. Five lights.

You are strong without your armor,
said the man.
You need to be strong.

I closed my hand, so careful to hold those stars, but somehow they slipped through my fingers. I tried to catch them again, a cry rising from deep inside me, but my throat choked on my own desperation, and the grief that filled me as the stars faded into the darkness was so piercing, so overwhelming, I thought it might kill me.

But I didn’t die. I woke up. Fast. Hard. Thrown out of my mind into the world again. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but it was still day when my eyes opened.

I saw the edge of a white sheet drawn like a canopy above my head—and the sun shone bright against the cotton, reminding me of clotheslines and Texas summers, and the scent of clean laundry. Past its farthest, fluttering edge—an endless wash of blue sky and that piercing promise of light.

No time to enjoy it. Heat and pain sparked inside my skull like a sledgehammer strike. Even though I lay flat, everything spun and heaved, until I could have been hanging upside down or diagonal, or slumped backward off a cliff with the blood rushing to my brain. I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

Vertigo, however, was still preferable to pain.

My head continued throbbing, a shuddering, rolling pulse that traveled from the base of my skull to my eyebrows. A deep ache burned within my spine and across my shoulders. I couldn’t move to make myself more comfortable. I tried, but my arms were too weak. My legs twitched but nothing more.

I could
feel
them, though—and I hadn’t been able to earlier. A coarse blanket rubbed my skin, and my knee itched. Blood dripped from my nose. I tasted it on my lip.

“Maxine,” said Grant. “I’m here.”

I cracked open my eyes again and saw a blurred shape vaguely like him. I tried to speak but choked on my dry tongue.

I managed to turn my head, and glimpsed my shoulder, part of my arm. All I saw was skin . . . skin that hadn’t seen the sun in more than six years. So pale, so white. I was made of snow, I was so white. I felt just as cold, in that moment. Cold and feverish, and ill.

I stared, unable to accept, or believe. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. What had happened was my imagination, and I was hallucinating.

But when I searched my heart, when I strained to feel the boys, nothing was there but an empty, gaping hole—that terrible lightness.

I struggled to sit up, desperately afraid. “Zee.”

Grant held down my shoulders. “No, Maxine. You can’t.”

“Get . . .
off me
.” But I collapsed, dizzy and in pain, dimly aware of another set of hands wrapped around my ankles. I couldn’t see who was there, but that grip was large and strong.

“Hurry,” said a low female voice. “If you are going to do this—”

“In a minute,” Grant snapped. Then on my brow, he placed a rag that was so cold and wet, it felt like it had been soaked in ice. The sensation was delicious, and I closed my eyes, sighing. Water trickled into my mouth. I had trouble swallowing at first, but didn’t care. It felt so good on my face, soaking my dry mouth and cracked lips.

“Better?” he whispered.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“I have to start again.” Grant’s voice cracked, midsen-tence, exhaustion in every word. “I’m sorry, Maxine.”

I didn’t know what he was sorry for until he started singing.

His voice was no stranger. I had listened to him sing for years, watching how his immense, restrained power changed people and demons, and twisted reality. I had stood beside him, as an observer—an outsider, even—because his voice could not touch me. With Grant, I’d never had anything to lose but my heart.

I heard only a hum, at first. Low, quiet, simmering. A slow burn of sound, filling my ears, flowing over my sensitive skin in a wash of heat. I thought,
Okay, okay, this is what it feels like to be touched by him
, and I was ready, I was fine.

Then his voice changed.

And I started screaming.

CHAPTER 7

N
O more dreams of silver men.

I woke up again, disoriented, raging with thirst, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

I had a fever. I was pretty certain that was it. I’d never been sick in my life—injured, maybe—but not sick. I didn’t know what a fever should feel like, but the prickling, terrible heat rising from my skin seemed like a close approximation.

I tried opening my eyes, but my lids were stuck together, keeping me blind. That scared me almost as much as the fever and thirst. I whimpered, and was ashamed.

“Maxine,” Grant whispered, somewhere beside me. A cold wet cloth pressed against my brow, but it wasn’t enough. I shifted a little, and felt plastic around the edges of my body: bags filled with water. Maybe it had all been ice, but not anymore. I felt so hot. Unbearably, as though I were going to catch on fire.