CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO worlds, Case fought as never before. With each second, the Gray Lands grew clearer in her vision while the hospital room where she was in the real world faded.
Real? What was real? As the Gray Lands solidified around her, she struggled to remember.
No. This gray nightmare wasn’t real. She seized onto a single thought, the one thing she knew. Her body—her body—was in that hospital room. And she had to get it back before her connection to that room, that world, that body disappeared. Disappeared forever behind the gray mist that every second grew thicker around her.
Through that mist, Case watched as her body walked around the room. Her body, picking things up with her fingers, holding them up to her face.
“Interesting,” her mouth said. Marell’s word. She stopped walking. No. He stopped. He ran her hands over her body and chuckled with her throat. “This would take getting used to,” he said through her lips, turning her head to Morrigan.
Morrigan raised an eyebrow. “For us both.”
She heard herself chuckle again. “Do not worry, my pet,” her mouth said. “I will not remain here. Merely a test. And another successful one. My control of this girl was immediate. And complete. She offered no resistance.”
No resistance? In that moment, Case discovered her emotions had not completely died. Anger flared, hot and strong.
No resistance? Hard Case gave no resistance? The invisible force still pushed her away from her body and farther into the Gray Lands. She focused on that force. And pushed back. Hard. Hard Case hard.
The hazy hospital scene jumped, swinging up and then down. There, in that room, her body had stumbled. She’d made it stumble.
“Marell?” Morrigan said. It sounded to Case as if she called from down a long corridor.
Case saw her own hand flash up, silencing Morrigan. Something shoved her. Not her body, but her spirit, her spirit lost somewhere inside her mind. The pushing sensation grew. The hospital scene faded even more as the mists of the Gray Lands grew thicker.
Marell was pushing back. And he was winning.
Here! Look here!
Yes! Her Voice had returned. If she’d still controlled her body, she would’ve shouted with joy.
Where? she asked.
Here.
A vision formed, replacing both the fading hospital and ever-sharpening Gray Lands. The vision lasted only a second. But she’d seen enough.
She’d seen Fader, waiting in their room. Waiting for her. Counting on her. Counting on her to win.
Coming, bro, she thought. And pushed back with all she had.
The mist thinned. The hospital room appeared again. And the floor rushed towards her.
Her body had fallen. She’d made Marell fall.
Morrigan called something, but Marell didn’t answer the witch. Instead, he answered her. Child, you cannot win.
Yeah? Watch me, asshole.
The final battle for her mind and body began.
How long that battle lasted, she couldn’t tell. With the slimmest connection to her body and the real world, she lost any sense of time. Her struggle with Marell might have been a minute. Or an hour. Or a day. It seemed unending. It seemed an eternity.
Whatever the time span, it was a battle she was losing. With every push from Marell, the hospital room faded more and the swirling mists grew thicker. The Gray Lands grew closer. She kept fighting, but she knew it was hopeless. How could she fight an invisible opponent, an unseen force? She needed a target. She needed something to hit.
A memory of first meeting Will as the Rider came to her. Of how she’d fought the emojis. She’d won because she treated that like any other street rumble. Step up and swing. She remembered, too, Will’s story of facing Marell as the snake thing in Dream. That’ll work. Just give me something to hit. She focused on trying to visualize her foe.
The grayness before her solidified. Something was forming. Something big.
Black as night, the snake swayed above her in the mists, three stories high.
Maybe not the best idea, she thought, stepping back in her mind.
And now, girl, Marell whispered, we end this. The beast reared, poised to strike.
Case! Here! her Voice called. Look here.
An image filled her thoughts. Snow-capped mountains above. A rocky valley below. In that valley, a village of stone huts sat beside a meandering river. It resembled the Dreamscape last night when Yeshe had appeared. This was somewhere in Tibet.
A man and woman labored up the mountain slope carrying a rough litter. On that litter lay a young man, his legs twisted and deformed.
The view changed. The mountain peaks loomed closer now. Far below, the village was but a group of black specks. The couple stopped. They set the litter on a bare rocky ledge, open to the elements. Snow fell, whipped by a strong wind. With a last fearful look at the young man, the couple turned away and quickly began to descend. The man on the litter called after them. Case did not recognize the language, but she still knew what he called.
“Mother! Father!”
The couple did not turn. He screamed at them. Still they did not look back. The crippled man continued calling even after he lost sight of them in the gathering darkness.
The mountain scene faded from her sight. But the young man still screamed in her head. No! No!
She waited for the mist-shrouded Gray Lands to return. She waited to see the snake thing looming over her. Neither appeared. With a suddenness that struck like a physical blow, the hospital scene flooded her vision again. And her senses. Torch smoke burned her nostrils. Her hands brushed rough fabric. Something cold and metallic pressed against her back.
And a man’s cries filled her ears. “No! No!”
She opened her eyes. She was back in the hospital room. And back in her body, sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed that held Yeshe. A woven rug lay under her. As she struggled to her feet, she also struggled to understand what had happened.
She’d won. She’d beaten Marell. But how?
Across the room, Morrigan stood over the soldier in the chair. The man sat bolt upright, staring wide-eyed at Case.
“Marell! Marell, what is wrong?” Morrigan asked.
It took Case a few seconds to understand that Marell, no longer in her body, now occupied this soldier. Off in the far corner, Slip stood stiff and silent as a statue. She remembered Marell’s words. His spirit now dwells in the Gray Lands. Bile rose in her throat. Slip was a Hollow Boy. And she’d just escaped becoming a Hollow Girl.
Marell the soldier pushed Morrigan away. “Nothing is wrong,” he rasped. “I loathed being inside a woman’s body.”
Morrigan straightened. From her frown, she believed Marell as much as Case did.
No, Marell had fled from her. In fear. But why?
He saw what you saw, her Voice said.
Great, she replied, remembering the vision. But what did I see? No answer came. Her Voice was gone. Again.
Marell the soldier rose. Their eyes met. She held his gaze, wanting nothing more than to turn away but refusing to submit, even in this. She waited.
Morrigan had less patience. “Marell, what is wrong?”
In a practiced motion, Marell’s hand flashed to the holster the soldier still wore. Before Case could even flinch, he was pointing a pistol at her. His finger tightened on the trigger.
With a hiss of breath, Morrigan placed a hand on Marell’s gun arm. “We need her alive.”
Muscles played along Marell’s jaw. Case held her breath, not daring to move, her eyes on Marell’s. Seconds passed.
Marell lowered the gun, breaking eye contact. Returning the pistol to his holster, he sat again. He waved in Case’s direction. “Remove her.”
Morrigan looked at Marell, then at Case, shooting darts at her from under lidded eyes. She motioned Case toward the door. “Out!”
Works for me, Case thought. She moved forward, but her foot caught on something. She looked down.
The rug where she’d fallen. Thick and round. Red and black with the same design as Morrigan’s amulet. Three bent skeletal legs inside a circle, arranged like hands on a clock, chasing each other counterclockwise. Widdershins.
“Now, girl!” Morrigan snapped.
She left the room, Morrigan following. They walked in silence until they reached the long hallway leading to her and Fader’s room. Morrigan grabbed her arm and shoved her against the wall. Taller and stronger, the witch held her there. Morrigan glared down at Case, her face pressed close. The woman’s breath was warm and sweet. Her face and words were not.
“What did you do to him, you little bitch?” She whispered the question as if afraid Marell might overhear.
Case swallowed, fighting a temptation to smile. Despite Marell’s attack on her, she still feared Morrigan more. “I don’t know. One second, he’s controlling everything I do. The next…” She shrugged. “He lets me go. Like he said, I guess he couldn’t handle having girl parts.”
Morrigan’s green eyes played over Case’s face as if searching for a lie. Releasing her, the witch motioned down the hall with a vicious flick of one hand. “Move.”
Case moved. Her back now to Morrigan, she allowed herself that smile, one that was part relief, part hope.
She’d beaten Marell, made him flee her body. How, she did not know. But if she could figure that out, it might help Will when he faced the creep himself. And Link’s attempt to communicate was making her rethink the Hollow Boys.
And she’d found the rug. Now they just had to get to it. And then…
“Burn, baby, burn,” she muttered.
“What did you say?” Morrigan snapped.
Case smiled again. “Nothing.”
WITH THE WRETCHED girl locked up again, Morrigan returned to the Weave room. Marell, in Karmalov’s body, stood beside where Yeshe lay, staring at the dead monk.
A finger of fear ran down her spine. She’d told the girl Yeshe hadn’t suffered. Had Marell heard?
“Are you not well?” she asked, aiming to distract.
“What do you mean?” he snapped, looking up.
“Your reaction to the girl.”
Turning away from Yeshe, Marell walked to his high-backed chair. “I told you. I disliked having a woman’s body.” He sat, waving a hand, dismissing the discussion. “Enough. We have plans to make.”
She sat in the other chair. Something had happened, something neither he nor the waif would share. For now, it was enough her small mercy to Yeshe remained undiscovered. “Yes. Eliminating the boy who killed the Mara. This William Dreycott.”
“Eliminate? In a way. He will be my new host.”
That surprised her. “I thought you wished to kill him.” To remove a threat to you, she thought, but knew better than to say that.
“The boy’s too valuable. I saw that in the girl’s memories. His mind is attuned to astral planes. Strongly attuned. And he has wealth and power. And youth.”
She considered that. Karmalov had researched the white tower before their raid. The boy who lived there was wealthy indeed. When he came of age, he would rule one of the largest corporate empires in the world. She nodded.
“You concur?”
“Yes. An inspired choice. You will take him where he lives? Karmalov claimed he never leaves the tower.” Although she’d never learned astral projection, she understood its workings well. Distance presented no problem to an adept of Marell’s level. His astral body could travel across the city to the white tower in an eyeblink.
He looked away before answering. “I have tried.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Tried?” She left the rest unstated. Tried—and failed.
“Just now. Someone—or something—in that tower still blocks me. I could approach the building but not enter it.”
She frowned. “Still? Before, we had assumed the monk was the cause. But if you encountered the same force just now…” She glanced at where Yeshe lay dead.
He nodded. “Not the monk. Perhaps a residual astral shield he raised to protect himself while he hid there.”
Then why hadn’t Marell detected Yeshe’s spirit in the shield? A spirit he knew so well? But she didn’t ask that. “Is such a thing possible?”
“Possible, yes. I could create such a shield given time. But the monk? And to survive his death? I would not have expected it.”
“Could the Dreycott boy?”
Marell hesitated. “Unlikely. He lacks the power, the knowledge.”
She didn’t like this. Too many unexplained events. The failure of her spells on the girl that first night. Her runes vanishing from Fader. Marell’s reaction when he tried to occupy the girl. Now an unknown astral force protecting the white tower? “Not Yeshe. Nor magicks. Nor the boy. Then what?”
He shrugged Karmalov’s shoulders. “Its cause is irrelevant. If I cannot take the Dreycott boy in his tower, then we must lure him from it.”
She forgot the strange force in the white tower. A new fear awoke in her as she guessed his plan. “And the bait?”
Marell’s face wrinkled as if tasting something sour. “That girl. The one he cares for. And her brother.”
As she’d feared. “Not the boy,” she said, her voice low and cold.
Marell smiled. “Your little pet will stay safe. I merely need to borrow him. I will offer an exchange. If this Dreycott boy meets me, I will promise to free the girl and her brother.” He held up a hand as she began to protest. “I will release no one. Once he is away from that tower, he is mine.”
“Then why do you need the boy and girl?”
“Before this Dreycott abandons the shelter of his tower, he will want proof we have them. I will show him your pet.”
“Why not the girl?”
“I will claim she is nearby. That once he meets with me, I will produce her. I will say that if he does not appear or if anyone tries to capture me, then the girl dies.”
“Where will you keep her?”
“Here.”
She frowned. “You said you would take her to the meeting. Keep her nearby.”
“I will tell the Dreycott boy that. I have no intention of bringing that girl with me.”
Again, she wondered what had passed between Marell and the girl. “Where will you meet?”
“I will suggest a public place. To make him feel safe.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Just so long as I draw him from that tower.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Another surprise. “So soon?”
“I am restored. Whole again and more powerful than ever. Too many years I’ve waited. I will wait no more. I will send a Hollow Boy today to the white tower with my offer.”
“And the boy Fader? You will keep him safe at this meeting?”
“You can do that yourself. I want you by my side when I meet the Dreycott boy.”
Pride filled her, but then she cursed herself for still wanting him to need her.
“Besides, your two undead fools have failed too often of late,” he added.
Her pride became simmering anger. Her fools. Stayne and Stryke’s mistakes became hers. “And the girl?”
Marell turned to her. Over a century she’d known him. No matter what face he wore, she could always read his expressions. She knew this look well.
Hate. But, she realized with a shock, hate tinged with fear.
“The girl?” he said. “She stays here. Stayne and Stryke will finally get to play with her. Uninterrupted. Does this meet with your approval?”
She ignored the sarcasm in his tone. Fader safe under her own protection? His wretched sister finally dealt with? Did it meet with her approval? She nodded. “Very much so. Very much indeed.”