"I took it out of the air, catching it as one would an egg. Loss was possible. But so was gain." Aric gazed down at me. "Without risk, life grows stilted, no?"
Jack watched our interplay keenly.
"You've seen this baton before, Empress, on one of the shelves in my study. Next to the crowns of the many monarchs I have felled," he added, no doubt for Jack's benefit.
Aric had safeguarded all of those treasures in his home for eons. But now he'd taken one off his shelf, out into the world--because he was out in the world.
He was no mere observer. The Endless Knight was interacting with us--living. Aric was right; he did evolve.
"It's priceless, yet you'll still use it for this?"
He inclined his head. "For you."
Was he willing to part with one of his possessions because he thought he would have a life with me? If I didn't choose him, would he go back to stasis? To misery? "Why did you bring it?"
As if a switch had been flipped off, Aric's gaze went cold. "Lest we ran afoul of the Emperor."
Once we'd rescued Selena, I would get to the bottom of Death's animosity toward that card.
"Is that goan to have enough juice?" Jack eyed the baton, then the bunker door, and back.
"From what I understand," Aric said, "the firepower is dependent on how hard it's thrown--and I'm far stronger than Joules."
Jack cast me a look: I can't even with this guy.
"In any case, I'll aim for your explosives on the door."
Dragging Milo with us, we took cover behind a rise of rock about a hundred feet away. Aric manipulated the javelin until it extended to its full length.
Milo must've realized what Death held. He went buggy-eyed, yelling into his gag.
"Ready?" Aric surveyed us. "When I throw, I'll cover the Empress. Because--armor."
"Just do it, Reaper!"
He took aim, exhaled a breath. Lips thinned, he launched the javelin, unleashing that harnessed aggression of his.
The spear's trajectory didn't arc, just sped in one line. Like a bullet.
He hunched down, covering me right before it hit. The blast reverberated from the door.
The mountain quaked, the ground rumbling. Gravel rained from the ridge shielding us. As the percussion subsided, smoke billowed.
Had we succeeded?
The air began to clear . . . revealing the warped door. Metal had melted, leaving a huge hole.
Aric had done it! I wanted to hug him, but I quashed my excitement. This was only step one.
Besides, he looked anything but celebratory. "Don't make me regret that, Empress."
We approached the entrance with caution. Foreboding red emergency bulbs flashed from the interior, the only source of light.
Jack had his bow at the ready in one hand, Milo's jacket collar in his other. Aric had unsheathed both swords. My claws dripped.
We stepped inside an industrial-looking transition area. Bulky pipes, oversize bolts, welded plates. Orange graffiti covered gray metal walls. In Goth lettering, someone had repeatedly painted: SMITE STRUCK FALL MAD
In the flashing red lights, those ominous words appeared to move. The same words Matthew had told me.
Jack shoved Milo forward. "Only one way in." The room had no doors, just an elevator.
"This must be a trap." Aric swept his gaze.
"Come on, Reaper? You want to live forever?"
"I don't recommend it." To me, Aric said, "When we face them, you can't hold back."
"I won't." Much. I made my way to the elevator. "The twins wouldn't have expected us to get in so they might not have traps in place. They could be rushing to do something as we speak." I pressed the call button. "We should hurry."
The doors yawned wide. Inside, fluorescent lights flicked on and off like those red bulbs.
Aric hastened past me to enter first, sheathing his swords. "Let me look around." After a few moments, he motioned for me to join him. Behind us, Jack booted Milo inside.
Lit buttons showed thirteen floors. The numbering was reversed; the second floor was below us.
So many levels? This place was like a subterranean hive.
"Should we torture Milo for their floor?" Aric yanked the man's gag away. "Do you have something to tell us?"
We didn't have time. "Aric, look at the buttons. Hard." With his superhuman sight . . . "Can you see which one's been used most?"
He scanned them. "The six button has the most wear. Fitting, since it's the Lovers' card number." He pressed it.
Milo went ballistic. "You trespass--you have no right! We're the just defenders, the righteous in this game. We are love's destruction!"
As the doors slid shut, Aric moved closer to me. Under the crackling lights, Jack and I shared an uneasy glance.
My heart thudded when we began to descend, seeming to inch to the next floor. "I am the lizard's tail. I am the tail." Milo kept blathering that. "I'm shed when we're caught." He'd said the same thing last night.
What could he mean? Sometimes when a tomcat caught a lizard, the creature would shed its tail, allowing it to escape.
My eyes widened. "Push the emergency stop!" The twins were going to sacrifice their father. We had entered some kind of trap. They would bet on me surviving, regenerating for their torture. "We have to get out of here!"
But Aric was looking up--at the access hatch that had just opened.
A girl peered down, a replicated tableau glimmering over her.
With a giggle, the Violet clone dropped a grenade into the cab--and slammed the hatch shut.
37
Jack had told me about grenades. Once you pull the pin, a grenade is not your friend.
And most exploded within five seconds.
One thousand one . . .
Aric dove for it, just as Jack did. Collision. Cursing. I couldn't see what was happening in the wavering lights.
One thousand two . . .
Milo kicked at their faces, so I slashed him with my claws. Aric caught the grenade.
One thousand three . . .
He vaulted upward, punching that hatch so hard it flew off the hinges. The Violet clone shrieked. Jack snatched me in his arms, pressing me against the wall. "Brace yourself."
One thousand four . . .
With a yell, Aric lobbed the grenade straight up through the opening. The only place he could.
Where the cables were. The brakes.
One thousand five--
BOOM!
We . . . dropped. Free fall. That feeling of weightlessness wrenched a scream from my lungs.
"I got you, bebe ! We'll get through this. We'll get through--"
Landing.
Bone-jarring impact. Grinding metal. Stabbing pain?
The force pitched Jack from one side of the half-crumpled cab to the other. I was held fast. With a swallow, I peered down. A piece of metal had skewered my waist, just over my hip.
Stone and debris plummeted onto the top. The clone gave a cry. More rocks bounced, then spilled through the opening, blood-smeared from the girl above.
I needed to move. Stifling a scream, I stepped forward, nearly collapsing.
"Evangeline!" Jack's hands searched me for injuries. "Christ, you bleeding?"
"I-I'll be okay. Are you hurt?"
"Non."
"Aric?" I asked.
"I'm fine. Milo's been better."
He was rolling on the floor, moaning in pain. Stones continued to fall.
Jack gazed up. "We got to go before we get buried."
Aric unsheathed a sword to pry open the mangled cab doors. "Or before another carnate drops more explosives." He wrenched one of the doors from its track; it clattered to the floor.
Holding my side, I gazed out into a dimly-lit warehouse. Were those pallets of canned food?
Over the falling rocks, I heard snarling.
Jack snapped a glow stick from his coat pocket, tossing it. The tube skipped across the floor.
When it stopped, I lost my breath.
Bagmen. What must be hundreds of them. All branded.
Milo laughed. "The tail. The tail. Now the cunning lizard gets away."
With crazed snarls, the horde charged.
Jack shoved me at Aric. "Get her out!"
As Aric lifted me to the hatch, Jack hauled Milo up and tossed him to the oncoming Baggers.
Ignoring the pain in my side, I scrambled to the roof, past the dying clone. A boulder rested on her crushed torso, like she'd caught it.
She smiled at me serenely, as if she were on a train, heading off on an adventure.
As if we'd be sure to meet again. Then her lids slid shut.
More rocks fell, pinging me on the head. A big one connected. I staggered, seeing four of the dead clone.
"They're goan to overrun us." Jack drew his pistols, picking the Baggers off.
"Climb up here!" I'd thought he and Aric would be right behind me.
The snarling grew louder and louder.
"If we don't stop them"--Aric's swords flashed out--"they'll power their way through the top of the cab."
I raised my gaze. "There's another floor, maybe thirty feet up." The doors at the elevator stop had been blown wide from the grenade. Red lights pulsed from that landing.
Jack snapped, "Get her out of here, Reaper. NOW!"
Before I could argue, Aric leapt up to join me, grabbing my bloody waist. He drew back to the opposite side of the shaft. "You can do this."
"Do what ?"
He tossed me. I flew upward, arcing toward the opening.
Oomph. The edge gouged my wound as I landed, half of me inside, half clambering.
"Climb, Empress!"
My boots scrabbled against the uneven shaft. Before I could hoist myself in, pain shot through my head.
Another rock? Cracked skull? Blood poured down one temple. My glyphs flickered. With the last of my strength, I hauled myself up into some kind of storage room.
Louder snarling below. No more gunshots. Jack?
I couldn't release my thorn tornado without risking him. Poison wouldn't work on them. I had no ground to grow vines, no plants to revive.
I flopped onto my front and shimmied to the edge. "Aric!" I saw him through a frame of dripping blood. A crimson slick gathered around me, pooling over the lip of the floor. "Don't leave him!"
After a heartbeat's hesitation, he seized the coil of severed elevator cables, ripping them free. "Deveaux!" He threaded the length through the hatch. "Grab hold!"
"Got it! Go, go! Fuck--they're in!"
In one motion, Aric heaved on the cable and vaulted toward me. Midway, he lost momentum, snagging the edge of the floor with the tips of four fingers. "The mortal's caught on something."
Jack dangled halfway out of the hatch; Baggers scrabbled to drag him back down, clinging to his feet.
Cable in one hand, crossbow in the other, he fired. For every Bagman he killed, two more took its place.
Hanging by his fingertips, Aric grappled to heft Jack--and the chains of Bagmen suspended from each of Jack's legs. A Bagger tug of war. "Can't hold this for much longer. The mortal's probably been bitten."
A rock the size of a soccer ball struck the back of Aric's head, knocking his helmet off.
It fell. . . .
Snagged by a small jut of stone--right above the rising tide of Baggers.
"Must have that." Aric's gaze darted from where it balanced to Jack and back. How long before he dropped the "mortal" to save his all-important armor? What if he didn't drop Jack?
If I lost them both . . .
Never again to see Jack's clear gray gaze.
Aric's unguarded smile.
The Empress didn't get collared or caged--and she didn't lose those she loved. Despite my injuries, the heat of battle welled inside me. My heart thundered as I wobbled to my knees. Aric wanted me to unleash the red witch? I was ready!
But how to fight Bagmen? My eyes darted. How?
Dig deep, the witch whispered. As you would in earth.
Could my arsenal come from . . . within me?
"Goddamn it," Jack bellowed. "Out of arrows too!"
"Sieva, I can't hold this."
My body began to thrum in unknown ways. As an almost electrical pleasure spread inside me, my breaths shallowed until I panted.
I was familiar with the feel of roots churning beneath the ground. Now they seemed to churn within me.
And it was sublime.
The red witch rose--watch out Death, here she comes--and I let her free. Light exploded from my glyphs, radiating from my face, through my clothes.
The Baggers screeched, shielding their sensitive eyes.
My body vine shot upward from the back of my neck, dividing into a mix of ivy and rose. Writhing green ropes fanned out behind me like a giant aura.
I snatched the base of the vine, ripping the wriggling mass from my skin. With a scream, I hurled it into the shaft.
A grenade of my own.
I envisioned spears of green shooting out, branching like arteries, invading--growing not from earth, but from my own power.
My lips curled with bliss as I let myself go adrift--until I could perceive vines as they punched through slimy chests and impaled skulls. As they opened up Bagmen from the inside out.
Yes, sublime.
Baggers wailed as ravenous ivy suckers burrowed into their skin, prying hands from Jack.
"That's it, Evie! I'm loose!"
Before my eyes, rose stalks and ivy slithered up the sides of the shaft, blanketing the rock. Shimmery green painted everything. Vines wove a net above me to catch falling debris.
Aric released his hold on the stone lip and dropped down a few feet to grasp one of the strong stalks. He reeled in that cable, hauling Jack up.
Then Death and Jack ascended--like mysteries brought to light.
Once they'd reached my floor, Aric demanded, "Were you bitten, mortal?"
Jack inspected his legs, yanking up the slime-covered material of his jeans. No blood. No broken skin. "Non. It was close, but no." We'd saved him in time.
I commanded that net to drop, trapping the swarm of Baggers below. They tore at it, clawing to rise up--just as the red witch continued to clamor within. My outside battle mirrored the one inside me.
With the scent of roses flooding the air, my gaze slid to Death. Five icons from him alone. He had no helmet to protect him.
"Rein this in, Empress." Death's face was tense, his brows drawn. "Remember: I will not fight you."
I turned to Jack for help. Yet as I met his eyes, I realized he wasn't my anchor.
He was my reminder--that I wanted to keep my humanity.
Wasn't Aric a reminder as well? Of my vow never to hurt him again?
Inhaling deeply, I grappled to contain the witch. Anxious heartbeats passed before my claws retracted, my glyphs fading.
I'd used my powers as never before. A handful of icons had been there for the taking. But I'd muzzled my witch!
Eerily carried by my vines, Death's fearsome black helmet floated upward. I retrieved it, handing it to him. "How'd you like that?" I said between breaths. "Unleashed enough for you?"
He shook his head.
"Come on! It gets worse than that?"
Slow nod. "That wasn't even a fraction, Empress."
"Seriously?" As quickly as the heat of battle had risen, it dissipated. Light-headedness overwhelmed me. "My glyphs could've lit up a small Midwestern town. And I went all Little Shop of Horrors with those vines." Selena's nickname for me.
"Indeed. Still not more than a fraction."
Jack swiped his hand over his face. "Where'd you learn how to do that, peekon? Baggers thought they were in the sun! How many vines can you make at a time?"
At least he was impressed. "I don't know. It's a new bag of tricks."
Jack turned to Aric. "At every second I thought you'd drop my Cajun ass. But you didn't."
"I suppose it wasn't your time yet." Aric donned his helmet.
"In any case,
thanks for not making it my time."
Seeming uneasy with the gratitude, Aric knelt beside me. "You cut your scalp?"
My surge of adrenaline dwindled, making way for the excruciating pain in my body and an onslaught of nausea.
Aric parted my hair. "Not just a cut. You cracked your very skull. And your side was pierced through."
"I'll heal."
Jack watched us with narrowed eyes.
I narrowed mine in turn. "What were you thinking? It made no sense for you to face off against Bagmen, with limited weapons--and no armor." My worry morphed into anger. "Just like it made no sense to rush into a horde of them the other night! Even though you'd promised me."
Jack's expression: busted.
"Another time for this, perhaps," Aric said. "There's movement in the stairwell." A green EXIT sign gleamed not far away, below it an open door.
"Out of ammo, me." Jack ran his sleeve over his sweating brow. "More Baggers?"
"We won't be so fortunate."
A chorus of voices sounded from that doorway: "We will love you ever so much."
38
Carnates spilled into the room, so many that my woozy mind couldn't reconcile what I was seeing.
Faultless duplicates. Paper cutout dolls stretched side by side forever, except these carried swords.
Death unsheathed his own and marched into the fray. Right beside him, Jack snagged a fire extinguisher as his only weapon.
When I tried to rise, I heaved. Turning to one side, I vomited into that pool of my blood.
"Just stay back, Empress!" Aric's swords sliced out.
"We got this!" Jack bashed in a Vincent head.
I tottered to my feet, propping myself up against a wall. Once my strength returned, I'd call for a flood of green from the elevator shaft--
A hand covered my mouth!
The ground seemed to move under my feet--no, we were moving. A false wall rotated us into a hidden area. Would Jack and Aric even know I'd been taken?
"If you want to see Selena alive," a male whispered, "you'll be a good girl."
Vincent. I sensed he was the real one.
His idea of a good girl was something I'd never be. When he looped an arm around my neck, I grew my thorns, about to inject him with poison. One half of an icon was about to be mine!
"Recognize this?" He raised a pressure sensor in front of my face. "Selena wears the collar now."
But . . . but the Lovers' icon . . .
No, no, Selena was my friend. She'd lost the Archer's arrow meant for me.
I inhaled for calm. Vincent might take me to her--and to Violet--guiding me through the Shrine. I raised my hands in surrender.