THIRTY-SIX
Dinner with Rivkah ran late, and Peter reluctantly brought me home rather than to his place after we dropped her off at her hotel. I needed sleep. The baby needed sleep. But before slipping between the sheets, I went to my jewelry box and pulled out the ring Peter had given me. I placed it once and forever on my finger, then went directly to bed, drifting off within moments.
I felt more annoyed than worried when the sound of pecking against my window woke me. I stayed still, thinking that it must have been a bug or an insomniac bird, but another strike against the glass sounded, and then a third. I sat upright in bed. A blissful second or two passed during which I thought I must be asleep and dreaming. Joe stood directly in front of me, and instead of opening out to our side yard, my window framed another room, an enormous stone room ripped from the pages of a fairy tale. Joe held his index finger up before his slyly curled lips, warning me to keep silent, and then tugged savagely on a rope he held in his left hand. I barely had time to register that the rope glowed a sickly green and couldn’t possibly have been composed of ordinary fiber before Adam Cook’s battered face banged on the other side of the glass. The rope Joe held was connected to a noose around the detective’s neck. Adam’s eyes were bruised and largely swollen shut. His lower lip had been busted. His nose was broken and twisted crooked on his face.
Joe pressed the long, thin fingers of his free hand against the window casing and started to slide the window up and open. Even though I still couldn’t help hoping this was a dream, I wanted to yell, to call out to my family, but I couldn’t produce a sound. Joe tugged again on his unwholesome lasso, and then both he and Adam disappeared from sight. A sleek and well-fed rat with a human face, just like the vermin I’d set alight at the bar, crawled up over the window ledge and insinuated its body and pink tail through the opening Joe had made. I shuddered, still unable to produce a sound, as it scurried across the floor and up onto my bed. It crept up closer to me, its beady red eyes glinting up from its miniature human face. “Your mother seeks armistice,” it said. I grabbed a pillow and swatted at the creature. It dove from my bed and returned to the windowsill, where it stopped and turned to face me. “I am to tell you that you will follow me,” it said, “or my brethren and I will eat your ape friend’s flesh.”
I found my voice. “He is not an ape. He’s a man.”
“Ah, but then his flesh will taste twice as sweet,” it said and rubbed its tiny, nearly human hands together.
“I’m coming. Don’t do anything more to Adam.” Jumping out of bed, I crossed over to the window.
The creature looked up at me, the pouting of its lower lip showing its disappointment that I hadn’t refused. “Very well. Follow.” It slid through the opening, its tail disappearing over the ledge last. When I reached the window, I saw the creature waiting for me on the other side, sitting on its hind legs, grooming itself by licking its hands and running them over its head. My repulsion grew so strong that I felt small flames form on my fingertips, yearning to fly from my hand and devour the abomination. It was only his role as my guide that kept me from doing it. I had to save Adam.
I slid the window far enough open to climb out, carefully putting my foot down on the stone floor to confirm its solidity before hefting my full weight over the sill and into open air. I held on to the window’s ledge, ensuring that the ground beneath was solid and not merely a mirage before letting go. As I did, my window disappeared, only to be replaced by a stone-block wall. I struck at one of the blocks with the side of my fist. It was as hard as the floor beneath my feet. The exit was gone.
“She is waiting,” the rodent guide said. “Her patience is not without bounds.”
What I wouldn’t have given at the moment for a visit from Jilo’s three-legged cat. “And neither is mine,” I said, the flame flaring up on the tip of my index finger.
I felt sickened when its face crumpled in fear, and it bowed to me. I loathed the creature, but I hated myself for my readiness to dispose of it. “Forgive me, miss,” it said, prostrating itself at my feet.
“Let’s go,” I said. It rose, its sharp claws clicking across the stones as it moved. It paused every so often to make sure I still followed. We had been walking down the hall for several minutes, and I began to feel like I was on a treadmill. Even though we were maintaining a steady pace, we never seemed to grow closer to the light at the far end of the hall. “How much farther?” I demanded. “I mean, have we even moved?”
It turned and looked up over its hairy back at me. “We have traveled many miles. I do not know how much farther. It is different each time.”
We carried on in silence for a while longer. Stone floors, stone walls, and a stone roof above. Light seemed to be held at a premium in this place—there was always a spare circle of it overhead, but it lent little clarity to what came ahead, and what lay behind us was swallowed up in shadow. I sensed something circling us a little beyond the edge of the light. I stopped for a moment, narrowing in on the sound . . . a growling noise, but not from a dog. Eyes came close enough to reflect the dim light. I looked away and hurried forward to catch up to the rodent chimera, its pink tail swishing back and forth as it moved before me. At the sound of my quickened steps, it stopped and looked back at me. Again its face sickened me, and I had to fight the urge to destroy it out of revulsion. Reassured that I was following, it turned and picked up its pace as well. As we continued down the seemingly endless hall, a question needled at me. Finally I had to know. “Did she do this to you?”
It stopped in its tracks and turned to face me. “Do what to me, miss?”
“Did my moth— Did Emily create you?”
“Oh, no, miss,” it responded with a slight bob of its revolting head. “The other witches, they made me.”
“The rebel families?” I asked feeling the pulse in my neck as my anger grew. She may not have been directly responsible, but how could Emily bind herself to the families who would create such a creature? Its very existence seemed an affront to nature.
“Oh, no, miss. The witches who hold the line, they made me.” It turned before it could witness my mouth falling wide open. I was still trying to collect myself when we finally arrived at the end of the hall. An archway separated it from the next room. Blue light, not the brilliant cyan I had grown to associate with Jilo, but a dim and bruised blue, spilled out through the doorway.
“You owe my daughter a debt of gratitude, detective,” Emily said as I followed the rodent into the chamber. Adam sat slumped over on a straight-backed wooden chair, barely holding on to consciousness. Taking someone I cared about had been Emily’s way of ensuring I would come. I knew that picking Adam as that someone had been her way of punishing Oliver for rejecting her. Adam lifted his head and tried to look at me through his swollen eyes. I ran toward him, inadvertently kicking the rat. It squealed in indignation and skittered behind Emily, seeking shelter from its mistress.
The creature that had been circling me lunged out from the shadows and blocked my access to Adam. I registered that it was a wolf, snarling and snapping at me. I jumped, but managed to regain control and stand my ground. Lifting its head to howl, the wolf let loose with a human laugh. I watched as it crouched on its haunches and began shaking head to tail. The gray fur slid off, the creature shedding its pelt as if it were a cloak. “Not yet, princess,” said Joe, still sitting in a crouched position. I noticed that his backwoods twang had totally evaporated, replaced with a foreign, slightly Germanic intonation. He smiled widely and stood, bowing as if he were actually greeting royalty. Then he scooped up the wolfskin cape and tossed it back into the shadows.
“You are a skin-walker,” I said.
Joe tilted his head, stretching his limbs like he was trying to reacclimatize himself to his human form. “Among other things.” He turned from me and approached Adam. He took Adam’s head between his hands, tilting it up so that Adam would be forced to look into his eyes. Then he tightened his grip, slowly turning Adam’s head from side to side.
“Take your hands off him.” My voice quivered, and Joe turned to me, his eyes wide in mock terror. All the same, he did unhand Adam. “Let him go,” I said, turning toward Emily.
“Oh, indeed, we will,” Joe answered for her. “He has served his purpose. Your concern for this ape brought you here.”
“He isn’t an ape. He’s a man, and Oliver loves him.”
“Oh, God, men in love with each other, don’t get me started on that,” Emily said, rolling her eyes. “I had hoped Oliver would grow past that phase, but if my little brother is so enamored of the detective, he should have taken better care not to leave his toy out where anyone could snatch it.”
“The sooner he’s gone, the better. I cannot stand the smell of him,” Joe said.
“Okay, who the hell are you?” I spun back around to him. “You show up like some hayseed with Ryder and Birdy, and now I find you here with my . . . her?” I had almost referred to Emily as my mother, remembering in time that regardless of whether I shared her DNA, she was not my mother.
“This is Josef, darling,” Emily said. “He has been the most valuable ally I have had in trying to pull you to the right side of history. To the right side of evolution.”
“You mean Ryder was an example of evolution done right?” I asked.
Joe began laughing as if I’d just told the funniest joke ever. Emily held up a hand, signaling him to calm himself. “Josef’s relationship with Ryder and his woman proved a convenient arrangement. Josef is one of us, darling, can’t you sense that?” She squinted her eyes and gave her head a small shake to show how my ignorance shocked her.
“Why did you sacrifice Ryder?”
“What, did you think him an innocent?” Joe asked. “He sacrificed his wife and unborn child and killed a score or more of humans and at least two witches. He was a collector; he gathered his power, his magic, from his victims’ quantum energy—the sum of everything that would have occurred in their lives. He so hungered for power that he quite willingly sacrificed his own flesh and blood to summon Barron and take the demon into himself.”
“It was the demon we wanted,” Emily said. “Ryder was only a useful tool—a container, if you will. The power he had taken into himself through killing humans had grown great, but once he’d augmented it with the demon’s energy, he was ripe for sacrifice. There was enough magic in him to allow me to attempt the Babel spell.”
I turned to Emily. “You are the one who gave him the mark and turned him into a collector.”
“You say that as if you are accusing me.” She took a few steps toward me. “Ryder was a battery, and his death freed his energy so that I could use it toward my own ends. If your fellow anchors hadn’t dampened your magic, I wouldn’t have needed him. But because you willingly let them limit your power, I needed an extra boost of energy. Furthermore, if you hadn’t interfered with Ryder’s attempt to collect your golem’s magic, it might not have been necessary to summon the demon, so I think it’s fair to say that the lives he claimed lie at your feet as well.”
Joe faded into the shadows and returned with a plastic grocery bag filled with something about the size of a melon. He handed it to Emily, who opened it up and smiled, folding the plastic back to reveal Ryder’s face. “Josef,” she said, “let’s display our latest trophy.”
No sooner had she given the command than an enormous chandelier descended before us. The blue light suffusing the room grew more intense but narrower, revealing that this chandelier was the room’s sole source of light. In spite of all the horrors I had witnessed, the sight of the chandelier made my blood run cold. My rational mind fought against a correct interpretation of the image. At first, I merely took in its geometric features. The chandelier was shaped like a cone, its circular base, which must have been at least thirty feet in diameter, at the top, its point facing down.
And that’s where my intellect checked out, for the chandelier did not consist of electric lights, gas jets, or even candles. It was made entirely of severed heads, the eyes of each opening and closing independently of the others. All hair had been removed, leaving their pates perfectly smooth. They were pale, bloodless, and each was carved with the symbol I’d seen on Ryder’s forehead. Some mouths were opened in soundless screams, others in mad laughs. Some remained closed, dispassionate, stoic. The unwholesome blue light that illuminated the world around us was emanating from the heads’ open eyes. The realization that the light falling on my skin was being shed by this nightmare made me want to scream. Would I ever feel clean again? Feeling Joe’s gaze on me, I looked over at him. His own eyes glowed, not with the sickly blue light, but with the joy of witnessing my revulsion.
“Feel no sympathy for them,” Emily commanded. “They are all murderers, many times over, and they had no empathy for those they killed.” She stood and crossed over to the chandelier, where she removed one of the heads. She placed Ryder’s head on the newly vacated bobeche. His face shocked to life, the light building up in his eyes before shooting out his irises. His regard fell on Joe, and he silently mouthed the man’s name.
“They are aware?” I asked, regardless of their deeds during life, it was a gruesome punishment.
“Of course they are,” Emily said and laughed, seemingly amazed that I’d ask such a silly question.
“They were all collectors?”
“Yes. Well, all but this one,” she said, lifting the head in her hand so I could see it better. “This one here is Alan. He never actually killed anyone. He would have liked to, but he didn’t have the balls for it. Alan,” she said, turning the head around so that it would have to look her in the eyes, “was a petty little despot who worked at an airline ticket counter. To make a long story short, he really, really irritated me.” She tossed the head into the shadows, and I heard a crunch as it struck against the stone floor. The sound of scurrying and the excited screeches of vermin filled the room as creatures like my guide descended on their prize.
I shook off my urge to vomit. “If you empowered these people to be collectors, you are responsible for the murders they committed.”
“They would have killed anyway. I merely took advantage of their natural inclinations.” Emily stood back and admired the new addition before waving her hand, signaling that the chandelier should rise. “And now I can turn their evil to a good purpose.”
“What good purpose could you possibly serve?”
An intricately carved mahogany Gothic throne materialized at her side. It was hideous, but in line with its surroundings. She sat and tapped the perfectly manicured nails of her right hand on the top of the lion’s head handrest. Joe came and sat at the throne’s clawed feet. He looked up at Emily, his face glowing with awe, and what else? Was it passion? The way he tilted his face up toward her was like a sunflower following the sun. She reached out and lovingly ran her fingers through his hair. “I told you before about how our teachers and guides have been deposed from their rightful place of honor and banished from this world,” she said. “I serve them in their desire to eradicate the evil that is the line.”
Filled with revulsion for Emily’s world, choking on my disappointment, and yes, hate, I lost patience. “I don’t believe the line is evil. I believe you are,” I said.
The hard look on her face softened, her eyes closed a little and lost focus, as if she were looking into her own soul. After a moment, she pursed her lips and looked up at me. “Evil? Maybe I am. But this is war. Yes, a war. Mercy, I know I’ve gone about this all wrong. I hadn’t intended to make an enemy out of you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have tried to collapse the world in on Jilo and me.”
Her eyebrows arched up. “I assume you don’t mean that poetically, but all the same I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I ignored her lie. “And you really shouldn’t have tried to kill my fiancé.”
“There are mother-in-laws who have done worse,” she said and smiled as if I would find any levity in her actions. “I was angry. I wasn’t thinking,” she continued. “His fairy blood ruined everything,” she said, more to herself than to me, then added, “We were so close when he came and interrupted us.”
“So close to what exactly?”
“To returning this world to its rightful owners, and to returning Maisie to us. The anchors and the witches who support the line will never allow her to return. You have to get that through your head. You want to talk about evil? The line has erased your sister from our very reality. Isn’t that evil enough for you? If not, think about the creature I sent to fetch you. I wanted you to see one of them up close. His kind are not of my making. No, they are a product of the witches who maintain the line. They developed the foul little beings to serve as spies among the humans, to keep tabs on them lest they seek to overthrow their masters as the witches did theirs. That little bit of history is one that’s never taught to the young witches. And so much of what is taught is a confection of half-truths and lies.”
“But bringing down the line will return us to the control of the demons.”
“Stop calling them demons. They are not demons. They are our creators. Our parents. Everything we have and everything we are, we got from them.”
“You are out of your mind.”
Emily’s head tilted to the side and her lips pulled back, revealing gritted teeth. She leaned violently forward, her hands white-knuckled and digging into the arms of her chair. My own muscles pulled taut, preparing themselves if she were to pounce. It may only have been Joe’s position at her feet that kept her from doing just that, but he proved barrier enough to slow Emily’s building rage. She sensed my body preparing to respond in kind to any violence, and she forced herself back against the chair, loosening her grip on its arms. “I am the sanest witch you have ever met. It is only your willfulness, your ignorance that makes you doubt me.” She regained control of herself, righting her head and relaxing her shoulders. “I brought you here to attempt to correct that ignorance.”
“All right,” I said, holding my hands out before me, palms down. “I’m sorry. I’m listening.”
“Thank you for the apology. I accept it,” she said, the final traces of tension disappearing from her face. She folded her hands and assumed a thoughtful pose. As she collected her thoughts, I stood in silence, calculating my odds of making it to Adam and sliding us out of here. “The old ones,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. “When they found our planet, no humans existed, leave alone witches. The small mammals from which we’ve descended were millions of years away from even developing prehensile thumbs on their own. We were tree-dwelling mice, doing our best to hide from the masters of this world, but our visitors saw potential in us, and they decided to make a long-term investment in our future. They claimed our world for us. They cleared the land for us.”
“You are saying they wiped out the dinosaurs?”
“Yes, they erased the dinosaurs, and everything that took their place until we were ready to rise to supremacy. They were always here to help us. Teach us. Protect us. Change us. Perfect us.”
“Enslave us. Even if what you say is true, even if they did play a nurturing role in our early development, they didn’t help us out of the kindness of their hearts. They engineered us to be their servants. Food, even. The witches rebelled to give us free will.”
“Free will to what? Kill each other in wars? Poison the planet with toxins? Gorge ourselves on chemical foods while millions starve? These are the products of your treasured free will. The old ones, our guides, would never have allowed such madness. There are six and a half billion humans on this planet, and that number is burgeoning by the minute. That’s six billion too many for the world to support. Humans are out of balance with nature. They are a virus, spreading, destroying. The human race is the ultimate ecological nightmare.”
“So you bring down the line. You let your old ones back in. Who decides who gets to live and which six billion people have to die?”
“You could. If you help them, I am sure they will let you determine who are the most worthy of life.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I am not qualified to make that decision.”
“No? A nurse who dedicates her life to healing or a drug dealer who murdered his grandmother? Pick one.”
She stood, and pushing past Joe, she began to circle me, forcing me to turn. The movement combined with the blinking of the skull lights disoriented me. “That’s an extreme example. Life isn’t so simple,” I said. “It isn’t so black and white.”
“Oh, my dear girl, it will amaze you how quickly clarity comes to you. How soon you will realize that those shades of gray you worry about are such unnecessary complications.” She stopped and stood before me, the bruised light casting nightmarish shadows on her face.
“Those beings you want to help,” I said, “they want to enslave the human race.”
“Humans need to be subjugated for their own good and for the good of the planet.”
“My son will not live as a slave.”
“Of course not,” she said as she tilted her head toward me, a wrinkle forming between her eyes. “Your son will reign as a king. He will be truly free, not a slave of the line. My darling, you defend the line, but you know nothing of what it is or the blood that the witches spilled in its creation. Tell me, dear, what do you know about it?”
The dream I’d had a few days ago came to mind, and I found myself remembering it in vivid detail. I watched again as a faceless man slithered like a serpent away from a pyramid. Nearby obelisks lit up as lightning struck them. A whirring moan echoed from stone circles. I shook it off. “Pretty close to nothing, but what I do know is that you used me.” I paused and an odd thought hit me. “I have a special connection to the line, one that none of the anchors has,” I said, realizing the truth of the words as I said them. “What is it? Why me?” I asked.
“You are the witch of the prophecy. You are the one who was born to end the line and deliver us all from its tyranny. Why else do you think Ginny separated you from your magic? Why else do you think the united families have continued to estrange you from the power that is rightfully yours?”
She had sidestepped my question. I knew I’d never get any truth out of her, and the longer I allowed her to keep us here, the more likely it seemed that things would not end well. “No, you are wrong. You’ll have to find another messiah. Now let Adam and me go.”
“You are both free to leave whenever you would like, but remember this: They will never bring you into their fold. The anchors are terrified of you, since they know you will be the one to hold them accountable for their sins. Let me help you. Let me teach you what the line really is. How it imprisons you and how it will imprison your son . . . that is, if the other anchors even allow him to be born.” She paused and watched my face, making sure that her words had made the impact she’d hoped they would. “Half witch, half fairy? Certainly a challenge to the status quo. A wild card. The anchors, they don’t like challenges, especially ones they fear might be out of their control. If they learned the truth about my dear grandson . . .”
“Are you threatening me?” My hands curled into claws, ready to strike.
“No, my dear. Just the opposite. I am warning you. I am explaining to you how best to protect yourself and your child. I would never, ever betray your secret to the others, but you are already enough of an outlier in your own right, and I can guarantee that the anchors will also keep an eye on your little one, waiting to remove him from the equation should they ever feel the need. You’ll have to find a way to hide his true nature, or they will kill him just as they killed Paul. Just as they would have killed you and Maisie if they’d known Erik was your father.” Joe came and took her arm. “And just as they would try to murder Josef if they found out Erik was his father.”
I stood there dumbstruck as I looked at Joe with new eyes. The hair, the cleft chin, the high forehead. He did bear a strong resemblance to Erik. Leaning in, he placed a passionate kiss on Emily’s lips. I watched as animal electricity surged between them. Emily pushed him away and laughed. “Relax. He’s only your half brother.” He took her in his arms and pulled her near, so that her back was leaning against his chest. He caressed her, his fingers lingering near her hardening nipples, and nuzzled his face in her hair.
I couldn’t bear another moment of it. “Adam and I are leaving now,” I said. I tried to project confidence and authority, but she knew she’d shaken me.
“Of course,” Emily said. “I can see you need more proof than the word of the woman who gave birth to you. I’ll see that you get it. Please remember I tried to convince you the easy way first, but you left me with no choice. Now I’ll have to force the anchors to show you their true colors.”
I pushed past Joe and knelt beside Adam. When I placed my hand on his shoulder, he flinched. “It’s okay, Adam. I’m going to get you away from here.” He tilted his head up toward me. The look on his bruised face did not reflect gratitude. His swollen eyes narrowed even more, and he pulled back, as repulsed by my presence as I had been by the rodent with the human face. I offered my hand to help him stand, but he pushed it away and forced himself to his feet without my help.