The Replacement (33 page)

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Authors: Brenna Yovanoff

BOOK: The Replacement
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He sighed and turned to me. "We can't leave her."
She sat like a stuffed toy, propped against the arm of the chair, not moving, not breathing. I considered her vacant eyes, dark yellow at the iris, a lighter yellow at the cornea. She was nothing like the blue girls, who whispered and laughed like anyone else. She was empty, and I wondered if it was my fault, if I'd done the raising wrong. If I'd broken her.
Finally, I shook my head. "I don't think it matters. She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't care what happens or who's around."
Roswell leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "She can be destroyed, though, right?"
I recited the limited hazards the Morrigan had listed for the blue girls. "By cutting off her head or setting her on fire."
"And your friend with the claws--he looked like he'd cut her up just for fun."
I nodded.
"Then we can't leave her. I just don't know what we should
do
with her."
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the upholstery of the couch. "If we can get her out of here, I've got someone who'll take her."
I knew that the Morrigan and the House of Mayhem would take care of her. She was strange, maybe broken, but there was still a place for people like her, which was more than I could say for myself.
Drew sighed and leaned back too. Natalie was still holding him around the neck, hiding her face against his shoulder. "Get
her
out? We can't even get
ourselves
out."
And that was the truth. Being underground meant no convenient porches and no windows. The door was two feet thick and the hinges were on the outside.
We sat in silence, waiting for whatever came next.
The collar of my jacket kept brushing the raw gouges from the Cutter's claws, but I just sat on the couch and didn't try to adjust it. It didn't hurt that bad. The room was quiet and dim. I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, thinking that sometimes this was just the way the game ended. Sometimes you did your best, and it all went straight to hell anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE SEVENTH-YEAR SACRIFICE
I
t wasn't long before they came and got us, dragging us out of the dump hill and toward the graveyard in early-morning darkness.
They were tall bony men, seven of them, and all dressed like the Cutter, only none of them were covered in steel. One carried Natalie awkwardly under his arm. No one tried to take the revenant from Roswell.
The Cutter escorted me personally, staying uncomfortably close and wheezing into my ear. His breath rattled and caught, full of a deep, phlegmy glee.
"You're going to love this," he whispered. "She'll go into that crypt to get eaten, and then she's going to scream like blue murder. They always do."
"Bet you like that," I muttered, too breathless and hoarse to speak louder. "Bet you love watching kids get slaughtered."
"No, cousin. Oh, no. I'm going to watch your face."
On Welsh Street, the ground was still smoking. The church--what was left of it--stood crumpled and black, jutting at the sky.
The men shoved and dragged us, leading us into the cemetery toward the crypt. The air smelled like a new kind of smoke, dry and perfume-y like incense.
The Morrigan was already waiting for us in the unblessed corner of the cemetery with her pack of blue girls clustered behind her. All of them were soaked, and she was holding her doll. The rest of the House of Mayhem was fanned out around them. Carlina and Luther stood close together, hugging each other. Janice and the star girl were holding hands, and the blue girls all had little bundles of herbs tied with twine and burning gently.
When she saw me, the Morrigan's expression was grave. "What are you doing here? You ought to be home where it's safe."
I struggled in the Cutter's grip. "The Lady's going to kill Natalie. Please, can't you do anything to stop her?"
"Dearest," the Morrigan said, holding the doll against her chest. "This isn't what I would have chosen if I'd been given a choice, but there's no other way. Without blood, the whole town suffers." She glanced back over her shoulder, looking anxious.
The Lady stood in the shadow of the oak tree, wearing a long, dark cloak. The hood was up and it hid her face, but I knew her by the embroidered train of her dress and the way the handful of house servants clustered around her.
The Morrigan turned back to me and opened her mouth like she had something else to say. Then she froze, staring past me at someone in the crowd.
It was Tate. She shoved through the crowd in her blue mechanic's jacket, looking absolutely furious, and pushed her way to where I stood, held motionless by the Cutter.
She gave him one cold, appraising look, then turned on me. "What the
hell
, Mackie! You told me you were going to take care of it!"
"I tried," I said, fully aware of how weak that sounded. How completely worthless. "Jesus, what are you
doing
here?"
"What do you think I'm doing? Emma said stay away from the graveyard, so I figured hey, it must be the place to be."
The Morrigan came scrambling over to us, careful to stay as far as possible from the Cutter. She stood in front of Tate, fidgeting and rustling in her burned party dress.
She was clutching her doll, but when she lifted her chin and spoke, she sounded patient and very adult. "You aren't supposed to be here. The understanding is that you choose not to see us when we do our darkest work."
Tate flinched back from the ravenous teeth but looked in no way dissuaded. "Yeah, well, I see just fine and I'm not going anywhere without my sister."
The Morrigan reached out, resting her hand on Tate's wrist. "This is aeons older than you or your family. Older than the town. Blood makes the sun shine and the crops grow. This is the truth of the world."
Tate stared down at her, then said in a soft, deadly voice that was almost a whisper, "Fuck the world. I just want my sister back."
"Enough." The Lady's voice echoed from across the stretch of unconsecrated ground. "Your sister is trifling, barely more than a pittance. This is not my concern, and if you continue to disrupt my affairs, I'll have no choice but to call for the man who sees to disruptions."
Tate glanced at me and for the first time, her expression was uneasy. She stared around the graveyard, like she was just now beginning to realize how many of them there actually were and how scary some of them looked.
When her gaze came back to me, the Cutter leaned in over my shoulder and held up a gloved hand, letting the claws drift lazily in front of my face, not touching, never touching, but letting Tate see how easily he could.
I watched as he flexed his fingers. "What do you want?"
He touched the side of my neck and the iron felt cold against my skin. "All I want is for you to stand here and watch the people you love be horribly mutilated. Is that too much to ask?"
I held very still, trying not to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much even a light touch hurt.
Beside me, Roswell and the twins were struggling to get free from the Cutter's bony men but without much luck. Tate had no one holding her, though.
"Let him go," she said, and she sounded hard and mean, like she was ready to destroy him.
The Cutter was so close I could feel him laughing against my ear. "You're a regular little firebrand, aren't you? Come and take him, then. I'm keen to see if you can."
His claws dug harder, harder. They broke the skin and I was breathing in spasms, trying not to make any noise, and everything happened very fast.
Tate bent and yanked the cuff of her jeans up, reaching for the top of her boot.
He let me go and stepped step back, raising his hands like he was surrendering, letting her have me. Then he slammed his fist into the side of my head.
I hit the ground and for a second, all I could see was a shower of tiny lights. I lay in the mud and the ashes, trying to catch my breath. The ground was wet against my back, soaking through my coat. The Cutter crouched over me, resting his claws against my neck. His touch was so gentle it seemed indecent that it could possibly hurt that much. The mark of Roswell's bottle cap stood out dark on his cheek.
"Get off him," Tate said again. Her voice was very low.
The Cutter just laughed his low, rattling laugh. "No, precious, no. What's going to happen is this: I'm going to carve him up a little, and you're going to watch me, and that's how it will go because if you try to stop me, I'll cut a gully down his throat and the two of us can sit here in the dark and watch him bleed out."
The points dug hard into my neck and then I did yell, hoarse and aching, hating the sound of my voice. Suddenly, there was a flat, heavy thud and the claws were gone. I rolled sideways with a cold, searing pain racing up through the base of my skull.
The Cutter lay next to me. He had his hands raised, like he wanted to press them against his face, but the claws kept him from touching his own skin. There was a long burn down one cheek.
Around us, everyone stepped back. Tate stared out at them. She was holding something long and narrow, matte black in the light from the street. It was a crowbar.
The blue girls began to laugh in shrill, screeching howls as the Cutter scrambled to his feet. Clearly, the House of Mayhem had some uncharitable feelings toward him. They didn't care if he took a crowbar to the face. They were just here to bear witness to whatever happened. He glared around at them, then turned on Tate.
She looked small next to him. Young. His smile was wide and it promised murder and before that, pain. The most desperate desire of his life was that he wanted pain for everyone.
"Little girl," he said, and there was a lilt in his voice that sounded almost like regret. "Little girl, please put down your toy. You'll die if you don't."
She shook her head and adjusted her grip.
"Put it down, or I'll lay you open and leave your eyes for the crows." When he slashed at her, there was no warning. He raked at her arm, claws slicing through the shoulder of her jacket. Even when blood soaked through the canvas, she didn't back away.
Instead, she smiled. It was the same smile she'd given Alice in the parking lot. The smile that said,
I have fun when I break stuff
.
The Cutter was grinning back at her, like this was their moment. Like he didn't know that the surest way to piss her off was to draw blood.
She swung again, and this time the bar connected, slamming into his teeth. He fell, stumbling and slipping in the mud and the soot, blood dripping from his mouth and chin, seeping into the ground, smoking on the crowbar in Tate's hand. Already, his breath was grating out of him. He knelt between the headstones, shuddering and coughing.
Tate stood over him, holding the crowbar in both hands. She was still smiling, looking electrified and wild. Around us, the crowd was silent.
The Cutter didn't move. Blood was running from his mouth. He swiped an arm across his chin and glared up at her, looking savage.
"Attend to her," the Lady said, and her voice was shrill.
The Cutter struggled to his feet, spitting blood onto the muddy ground. Then he lunged.
Tate swung the crowbar hard, aiming for his hand, breaking off two of the claws. They flashed as they fell and the Cutter jerked back. She was moving away, already whipping around for another swing.
He caught her as she came toward him, opening a row of shallow slashes down the side of her neck, but she never flinched. There was just the Cutter and Tate and the bar. It was black in her hand and this time it hit him across the chest, knocking him back.
The Cutter staggered, then caught himself. He stood leaning forward slightly, and I thought for a second that he was going to throw himself at Tate, but he only raised a gloved hand and touched his forehead. The claws made a row of little welts where they brushed his skin.
"I stand down," he said. His voice was hoarse and ferocious, his breath coming in huge gasps.
"Really, sir," the Lady said from the dark. "I asked that you remove this inconvenience and am quite mystified as to why you don't do it."
"I stand down," he said again, and this time he raised his head. The look he gave the Lady was murderous.
She spoke coldly from under her hood. "You do whatever I require, and at the moment, I require you to get rid of that girl."
He turned his back on her.
The Cutter faced Tate, who stood holding the crowbar, but he didn't make any attempt to challenge her. His expression was furious but rigidly controlled.
"You," he said. His voice sounded rough, and blood ran darkly off his chin. "Ill-mannered as the devil, but you're clever enough with a blunt instrument. You and I, we could stand to go another round one day, don't you think?"

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