I STEPPED from darkness into light. The gibbous moon shone down over the charred remains of Eliza Drake’s forest. Smoke curled in gray wisps from the ground and from the blackened hulks of the trees. The air weighed heavy with the bitter taste of burnt wood and worse. A bare, cracked ravine of shattered rock snaked down the length of the slope. It took me a moment to recognize it as the stream where Eliza Drake and I had bathed. The vanished flames had eaten every trace of the mossy bed where we had slept.
I walked slowly through the blasted landscape, wondering how Eliza could have allowed this to happen. Her power in her own places had always been nearly absolute.
I understood when I reached the site of her manor.
The flames had raged so hot there that brick and mortar had slumped to shapelessness. The wood had all been consumed. But this fire had been particular. The grove that had surrounded her manor had been left more intact. The flames there had only stripped bark and limbs from the trunks of the trees. The trunks themselves remained.
Eliza and her retainers hung from them.
Someone had nailed them to the trees, using spikes now blackened by the fire. I knew them by their number, for they were unrecognizable, their limbs no more than twisted stumps of charcoal, their heads made featureless by the fury of the conflagration.
I stumbled through the grove, counting the bodies, searching for some sign to identify them. On all of them, long teeth gleamed dully in the moonlight, sullied but not entirely charred by the fire.
This had been no holy excursion. Whoever had killed them had destroyed the lands thoroughly, but limited the flames around the trees to make Eliza and her retainers suffer longer.
I could not tell the bartender from Teila, nor could I isolate Eliza Drake from the group. I searched, but I could not identify her. The long night had at last claimed them all.
The music that had been with me since the valley of the Nephilim faded, leaving only a wrenching emptiness in its place.
I pulled them down as gently as I could. I built a cairn of stone over the bodies. Had I loved Eliza Drake? Our relationship had been both more and less complicated than that. We had filled an emptiness in one another, if only for a while. So many connections were severed by those who chose to make their home in CrossTown. Long associations were rare enough to occupy that space usually reserved for family. Had Eliza and Teila and the rest deserved the torment of their final hours?
Possibly. None of us were innocent.
I stayed in that place for a while, remembering, giving them their due. They had been predators of humanity. Their kind was considered a scourge by all of the righteous.
They had killed to live. We all killed to live.
Shock faded slowly. The cool, gritty substance of the rock under my hand brought my focus back to the moment. Of all I might have anticipated, I had not anticipated what I had found. Why had they died? Who had killed them? Had this been unrelated to my troubles, or had I brought death down upon them by taking even momentary refuge with Eliza Drake? I needed to know the answers to those questions. If I owned any responsibility for their deaths, then I would always carry some burden for what I had done, though that burden could perhaps be lessened with the blood of their killers. Their deaths cried out for vengeance. I needed to discover who had done this thing and why. I needed a release for the bitterness in my soul.
I turned my attention toward the ruler of NightTown. Nothing happened in NightTown without the Master’s knowledge. I left that place behind me, and set out through the darkness for NightTown’s center.
NightTown’s center ran up a long slope of saw-backed foothills to a mountain peak dominated by a sprawling keep. Ruins dripped off those slopes like blood from a knife. Small villages and patches of wild wood threaded throughout the ruins like mildew through a decaying patchwork quilt. Most of Night-Town’s citizens dwelt in the ruins or the wilds. The villages occupied a niche more akin to a larder than anything else in the NightTown scheme of things.
I took the main Road that swarmed up the crooks of the ridgebacks, though I traveled more swiftly through the darkness than would be considered natural. Eyes glittered in the shadows at the edges of the stone Road. The soft rustle of padding feet escorted me, but not one dweller in the darkness moved against me. Perhaps they realized that the darkness held no secrets from me. Perhaps they could sense that I was no common game.
Nightmarish forms, toothy shapes with twisted limbs, and those who held their most fundamentally alien qualities beneath a mask of humanity were all more evident to me as they lurked in the shadows than when they stood naked in the light of day. The fact that those predators took to the shadows as a shield only placed them more deeply within my place of power. Not one of them gave me cause to move against them, so I wasted my time with none.
I had considered stepping directly into the keep at the top of the mountain, where the Master kept his seat. But Vlad Tepesh had a certain sensitivity in regard to what he considered invaders, and he’d always defined that in the loosest terms possible.
I’m sure he found things more convenient that way.
Since I wanted to save my energy for whoever had burned Eliza and her holdings, I took the less direct path. That Road took me a bit longer, but allowed the word of my arrival to run ahead of me. If the Master decided not to see me, then I supposed I would have the chance to test my new strength against his. I had no intention of being denied.
I passed up the ridges until the slopes flattened to a high plain. Long poles marched across the plain like a denuded forest. Black stains crusted the lengths of the poles and fed the thick beds of moss that humped over the base of the ancient wood. NightTown scavengers had removed all of the larger traces of the Master’s cruel entertainment. I saw no sign of the banquet table I had heard that he would set up so that he could feast during the mass impalements and enjoy the music and the dancing his victims provided himself and his court. Perhaps the rumors were exaggerated. Perhaps he had the table in storage, the settings and cloths out for cleaning.
I crossed out of the plain and came at last to the entrance of the keep. The drawbridge lay across an apparently bottomless chasm in the rock. The darkness there, more transparent than any glass to my new senses, held a great deal of empty space, and a myriad of patient lurkers. The lurkers did double duty. The mainstay of their diet undoubtedly fell from the middens of the keep. I felt certain that those lurkers would have regarded any available flesh, living or dead, as a bonus.
A huge figure stood guard at the drawbridge. The tips of his tufted ears passed the eight foot mark. Lips curled back from an impressive mouthful of fangs. Golden eyes glowed in his massive, wolfish head. Thick fur covered his almost manlike body. At an estimated weight in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds, he was the largest wolfbreed I’d ever seen, aside from the Watcher of the silver stair, who wasn’t a wolfbreed except in the loosest sense. “Zethus,” he said. “Looks like times have been hard. You’re a mess.”
I shrugged. I hadn’t been thinking a great deal about my appearance, but he undoubtedly had the right of it. When I had rebuilt myself in the flames of the Nephilim, I had fashioned my clothes and my body as they had been. I’d been through heavy wear. It showed in how I’d reconstructed myself. “I want to speak with your master,” I said mildly.
His eyes narrowed, but his tone remained civil. “Fortunately, this is the Season of Judgment. Any in the Master’s demesne may petition him for a hearing.”
I smiled without humor. “Good. I’m sure he’ll hardly notice me in the press.” I stepped past him. One massive hand fell to my shoulder, claws extended. I looked up at him without speaking.
“You would do well,” he said softly, “to show more respect.”
Shadows of emotion stirred in my soul. Power roused. The mask slipped. His hand fell away from my shoulder and he dropped his gaze. I turned from him and continued across the drawbridge. The heavy wood ate the sound of my footfalls. Raw stone rose around me as I entered the mouth of the keep. A deep chill entered my surroundings, my breath fogging the air. Cold flowed soundlessly out from the mouth of the keep like the breath of a dying man. Two more massive wolfbreeds waited just inside the raised portcullis. I passed them in silence. They remained at their stations, only their yellow eyes moving as they watched me walk by.
Rats, beetles, and other carrion eaters of all shapes and sizes swarmed through the passages of the keep, acting as the eyes and ears of their master. The darkness around me literally crawled with life, every tiny spark of vitality a single note in the Master’s personal symphony.
Torches burned at distant intervals along the hallway, a consideration of the Master to mark my path. Shadows clustered thickly around the torchlight, fighting to eat the light. Shadow muted the glow of the torches down to a pale, tired glimmer that faded quickly before the power of the full darkness. The darkness in that place had a rich texture, a sleek taste of silky strength. It moved easily to the touch of my casual awareness. The shadows there had been unchallenged by the light for so long that light itself faltered before the hungry darkness.
I stepped out of the long hallway into a great room. Rich tapestries hung from the walls, depicting scenes of hunts and battles and death. The game in the hunts ran on two legs. A great fire burned in a fireplace that gaped like a hungry mouth. The fire burned without heat, the chill in that place thick enough to layer the walls and floor with a fine coating of hoarfrost. Frozen rushes crackled under my boots as I made my way into the room. Icicles would have hung from every fixture, I felt sure, had the air not been so devoid of moisture.
No other noise rose to meet me as I walked down the length of the great room toward the high seat that faced me from the other end. More wolfbreeds lined the walls of the audience chamber. I envied them their fur. Others stood silently in the darkness, watching me pass. None of them betrayed any signs of normal humanity, other than to the most casual of observers.
The Master had been holding court.
As I walked abreast of the fire, one of the courtiers ahead of me drifted into motion. He came to stand across my path at the edge of the firelight. Scars webbed his face, breaking his heavy features into something like a Cubist interpretation of a mass murderer. “Sorcerer.” Jagged fangs glinted at me as he spoke in the cultured tenor of an Anglican choirmaster. “You look as if hard times have found you. What do you want?”
I cocked my head. “I didn’t come here to speak with you, Carnifex. I came to speak with your master. Don’t waste my time.”
“In this place, he is your master as well, human. As are we all. I no longer smell the taint of the Tindalans on you. And the bounty on your head is rich.” Cold hunger touched his voice with ice.
My eyes narrowed. The burden of Eliza’s death shifted to feed a growing pressure. That pressure was looking for an outlet. Carnifex didn’t know it, but with his attitude he might as well have been wearing a placard that read, “Use Me for Emotional Relief.” The rage I had been holding in abeyance strained at its bonds. Had Eliza been tortured for information regarding my location? Had I brought her killer down on her? “You haven’t been keeping track of current events,” I told Carnifex. “The Whitesnakes are no longer in any shape to pay bounties. The cult and their demon god have fallen on hard times. Take the hint.”
He took a step closer. “Where is the Key, sorcerer?”
I locked gazes with him. I distantly felt him trying to twist my will. His attempt slid off my mind like raindrops sliding down a window pane. “I came to investigate a death, Carnifex,” I said. “You know what I’m talking about? Were you involved?”
He sneered. “That bitch is burned. She’s not feeling any pain. Worry about yourself.”
As he finished his first sentence, all that I had been holding back exploded into full fury. Transparent power blossomed, searching for an outlet. I fed that power into the fire already burning, bound it and shaped it to my will. Carnifex sensed rousing power and lunged for me. He moved with inhuman speed. The power moved faster. A sudden furnace blast of heat broke the cold like a hammer smashing through a sheet of glass. Shadows died as light flared through the room. A rope of bright flame thicker than a man’s waist exploded from the fireplace, swallowed Carnifex, and sucked him back into the suddenly raging inferno like a chameleon devouring a fly.
The courtiers flinched away from the blaze of light and heat. I approached the fireplace, picked up a poker, and turned the embers idly. The great logs had fallen away to almost nothing in an instant. No trace remained of Carnifex. The low flamelets that remained to dance sinuously over the embers were beautiful.
“So you opened the door.” The Master rose from his seat and descended the steps to stand at the edge of the light. The mask of his humanity was almost complete: only the insatiable hunger of his eyes penetrated the façade.
I straightened, replaced the poker, and turned to meet his gaze. “The Key is gone. The prize is gone.”
“And so you are the last of the Nephilim.” One hand absently stroked the long mustache that drooped down to his chin.
“What happened on the estate? Who killed Eliza Drake?”
The Master took his turn with the poker, turning the embers, staring into the fading flames. His lean, aristocratic features held as much expression as the stone in the walls of his fortress, but I could tell he wrestled with some unease. Too much humanity glinted through the mask. “I have the one directly responsible. He awaits my judgment.” Some signal passed unseen from him to a courtier. The courtier vanished through a doorway. “But there are complications. He did not act alone. And the other is beyond my power.”
I bent down, caught his gaze. “I am not bound by place. Who did this thing?”
The mask of his face gave me nothing. “A citizen of Night-Town. And one from outside. One strong enough to strip Eliza Drake of her defenses. Then the killer moved in.”
That ran through me like a lightning bolt. The same method had been used to kill Corvinus. Fetch was the first half of my answer, and I had a solid suspicion for the other half. I felt movement behind me. I did not need to look back to identify the prisoner the two Wolfbreeds hauled between them. Emory Drake.
I turned. Emory smiled when he saw me. “Too late to save her. Always too late. And in the Master’s hands. You are a fool, sorcerer. Your captive spirits are not enough to help you in this place.”
He hadn’t been kept well informed. Of course, he had been more of a tool in this game than anything else, and in the confines of the Master’s gaol, he probably hadn’t been kept up on current events. The power within stoked rage to a white heat. “You killed your sister. Why?”
He laughed. “It was the price I asked. The favor owed me in return for the death of your master. He died screaming like a woman. My sister was even better …”
His words ended abruptly. The large, clawed hand of one of his guards had wrapped itself casually around his neck. His toes scraped the flagstones. As a vampire, he couldn’t be strangled to death, but it seemed to be an effective way to keep him from talking.
The Master stood abruptly. “I am asked for a judgment. The crime is trespassing and killing without my let.” He nodded to me. “He is yours. I give him to you.”
The wolfbreed dropped Emory and stepped away from him. His partner stepped back at the same time. Emory straightened his coat and smirked at me, showing considerable fangs. He obviously thought the Master had just handed him my head on a plate. Had this happened before my journey through the valley of shadow, he might have been right.
Then again, maybe not. Emory hadn’t shown many signs of brilliance.
His sudden rush surprised no one. I let him come, power within me flaring in anticipation, shaping my flesh to my desire. His movements slowed. The dance of the firelight froze. As he reached for me, I slipped my arms under his, clasped my hands under his chin, set my hip against his pelvis, and broke his back.
I used the moment of shock. I caught and held his gaze, and ripped the identity of his patron from the surface of his mind. I recognized her. She wore the same shape she had when she had brought me into her place of power.
I saw him kill Eliza through the lens of his memory. I saw Fetch take him there, dancing to Titania’s command, smashing through Eliza’s defenses, stripping her of her powers, and releasing Emory to his work. I saw it as a reflection of a reflection, an act repeating the earlier attack on Corvinus.
It was little more than confirmation.
Shadowy streamers curled out from the darkness covering the wall of the Master’s fortress as I dropped him. His mouth stretched wide in a scream of pain and rage. I choked the scream in his throat, locking him in the prison of his own thwarted fury. Guided by my will, coils of darkness caught and bound him, then snapped him back to the wall with irresistible strength. I reached into the flames, shaped the fire with the power of creation and the strength of my will into the form of an eighteen-inch spike. I pulled eight more golden spikes from the heart of the flames.
Then I pinned him to the wall with nails of fire and a hammer of darkness. His blood sizzled and spat as the spikes ate into his hide. His curses became screams that would have torn the flesh from a living throat. I nailed him at wrists and ankles, shoulders and hips. The last spike I put between his eyes. His screaming never stopped. Nor did his screams escape to meet any sense other than mine. I had bound him within himself. I had left him his agony for comfort. In the absence of guilt, pain would have to be enough.
The darkness thickened, covered him over, and faded. When my will eased back from the shadow, Emory Drake could no longer be seen. The stone of the wall bore scars like a tormented face, and nine holes marked it. Echoes of the hammer danced lightly through the hall.
When I turned, the courtiers flinched.
The Master shook his head. “I would have made him last longer.”
I gave him a smile full of malice. “He will last as long as his strength holds, and as long as this place stands. I have given him his own private hell. I have given him all he ever deserved.”
The Master looked away from me. “And now?”
I stared into the flames. I give you this, I told Eliza silently. Would that I could have given you better.
It helped and it didn’t. I have ever found revenge to be dissatisfying. It doesn’t help with the pain. For me, balancing the scales is a need, not a pleasure. Something within me, though, something old and something new, fed and grew on Emory’s pain.
I thought about Fetch, and what I had seen through Drake’s eyes. Drake’s story of my master’s murder matched Shaw’s story of how Corvinus died except in one detail—the last visitor, who had cleaned up after Fetch and Drake. Fetch had to be acting as Titania’s errand boy still, and Titania was Drake’s patron. Titania had reached beyond her limitation of place through her agents. They were nothing more than tools, really, executing her will.
She would be waiting for me. I had no doubt of that.
I could see it clearly enough. She had taken Corvinus, but lost the opportunity to find his research through Drake’s clumsiness. So she’d turned to me, and set me on the path. She had Fetch to insure my death, but first, if luck was with her, I might lead Fetch to Corvinus’s research and give her the opportunity to destroy the key to the Fane. My evasion of Fetch in the Deep-Town workshop had broken those plans. How desperate Titania must have been, how heavy her fear must have weighed upon her, to drive her down this path to try and close every possible Way that led back to the Nephilim.
And so had she brought me to become what she most feared.
I didn’t understand, though, why Corvinus hadn’t followed the key to the Fane. Maybe he’d known more than I, or hadn’t been desperate enough to take the risk. The knowledge would have been his main goal anyway. For Corvinus, knowledge was the true power.
I considered my options. I needed to think. Revenge alone was not enough for me. I didn’t enjoy it as well as some. I harbored no illusion that Titania would leave me be. She had spent centuries sharpening her claws and honing her enmity for the Nephilim. She would not fall as easily as Drake had. Fetch still remained as a complication. I needed time to consider. I needed time to prepare. I decided to take the time to see an old friend and an old enemy. But first, I would take the time to stop by my place to free the ones I had bound there. I didn’t want any debts outstanding when I came to face Titania.
I opened a door in the darkness, and stepped through to a starlit evening at the edges of CrossTown.