Kingdoms of the Cursed, page 12
Veronica didn’t know where she was going, but she wasn’t going to wait for the girl to come around. She felt like something was about to bite her or fall on her head, but she couldn’t see it, and wouldn’t see it until it was too late.
She was feeling strong. It was night here, and she had . . . fed, recently. Carrying the girl wouldn’t be difficult.
She lifted the Brume over one shoulder. She closed her eyes and slowly turned until everything felt the brightest, and started walking that way.
The snow was as fine as dust and lifted up like little clouds around her feet as she walked along. The ground underneath felt hard, very hard. The trees were tall, and all were covered in dark green needles. Not pines, maybe fir trees, or spruce. Nothing that grew where she was from, so they must be far from there. If she found the Pale and went through, where would she be? Alaska? Siberia?
But she didn’t want to go through the Pale, she wanted to go back into the Kingdoms.
It wasn’t long before she came to a bend of the river which had formed a kidney-shaped pond. It was frozen solid. She was dithering about whether to walk on the icy surface or go around it when she noticed something from the corner of her eye.
It was a girl, a little younger than her. She had long black hair and almond-shaped eyes. She wasn’t wearing anything, and her skin appeared almost to glow in the moonlight.
“Hello, sister,” the girl said.
“I’m not your sister,” Veronica said, although she knew exactly what the girl meant. Because it wasn’t a girl. Not anymore.
“You’re like me,” the girl said.
“I was like you,” Veronica said. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t remember. I’ve been here a long time. I have treasures.”
“I know you do,” Veronica said.
Again, she remembered her snowman, shrunken and sad in the sunlight.
“I wish I could help you,” she said. “I can’t.”
“I don’t want your help,” the girl—the nov—said. “But stay here. Talk to me.”
“Why?”
Then she knew. The treetops were bending, although she felt no wind. Owls called alarms in the distance.
“Who is that?” she asked. “Who is coming? A Creek Man?” She tried to remember Aster’s word for it.
“A vadras?”
The nov laughed, a lovely sound, like chimes.
Veronica started to run. She slipped to one knee on the ice, and slowed to a walk, but once on the other side of the small lake, with the earth supporting her, she went as fast as she could. Behind her, she heard the nov, still laughing.
Now there was a wind moaning in the trees. She ran harder still, trying to get as far away from the water as possible.
She’d been held in thrall by a vadras for decades. They were old, and they were cruel, and like novs they lived on the death of others—but they were not pretty. A desperate man wading through a stream might catch his ankle on a snag or be pulled under in a flood or be struck by a water moccasin or collapse of fever on the bank. But a vadras could never entice a man to simply walk into the water and inhale.
A nov could. So Creek Men liked to have novs around.
She wasn’t doing that again. Whatever she did, she wasn’t going to be anyone’s slave.
She scrambled up a low hill and to her relief found that the land continued to rise ahead. The river and its marsh were behind her now, and so was he. If he caught her, she would fight. She was different now. She wasn’t sure what she was, but she knew she wasn’t a nov anymore.
She scrambled up the next rise, where the trees thinned out into a white meadow. For the next few steps she heard only the crunch of snow beneath her shoes.
Her head was down, so she saw his boots first. Dark, oiled leather, laced in front. Black leggings stuffed into them.
She looked up.
It wasn’t a Creek Man. It never had been.
His shirt was also black, and a heavy cloak of grey wool hung from one shoulder. A broad-brimmed hat was pulled so it covered part of his face. Not enough. Not those eyes, the same blue as the Sterno flame her mom used to warm her chafing dish.
“Sheriff,” she said, involuntarily taking a step back.
“Hello, Veronica,” he said.
The Sheriff had chased her and the others across the Kingdoms, when last they had been here. He had caught her and buried her alive—in the desert with no water to give her strength, no ponds, rivers, or streams to call to for help. The best she had been able to do was summon dragonflies from a tiny wash, far away.
It had been enough, but only because Errol had come after her, and had the persistence to find her. To see dragonflies where they ought not to be. Otherwise she would still be there.
She wanted to run, but her feet seemed frozen to the snow.
The Sheriff smiled—which looked wrong—then he laughed, which was even less in character from what she remembered of him. She felt a deeper chill in her already almost-frozen blood.
“Oh, it is so good to see you,” he said. “Few escape me, when I lay my mind to them. Even fewer escape me twice.”
She was shivering now, not from the cold. She didn’t know what he meant. The Sheriff had only held her captive once . . .
He took the four steps between them and laid his hand on her cheek.
“The first time I saw you, you couldn’t have been more than four or five,” he said. “Your little arms were so thin. You were missing two teeth. But I recognized the light in you, so pretty and bright. But I knew that wasn’t the time. I can be patient. I knew the light would grow as you did, become brighter as your body began bending into a woman’s shape. I also knew that almost immediately after that it would start to fade. The life would drain out of your eyes, and you would abandon yourself to some savage who could never understand what he was desecrating. You would drain yourself into five or six brats, diminishing all the while, so that by the time you finally died you would hardly even notice. I was only trying to save you from that. And I did, at least for a time.”
She knew him then.
“You aren’t the Sheriff anymore,” she said.
“Part of him is here, still. His power. His knowledge. I remember more about his life than he did. But what remains of him serves me now.”
“I killed you,” she said. But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. She had killed the body—the teacher, David Watkins. But the thing inside of him—that hadn’t stayed down.
“You did me a favor,” he said. “Usually when the meat I’m staying in dies, I must wait to be born again and spend years helpless, unable to do what I must. But you dug me out of David, and the Sheriff was there, broken but still alive, waiting for me. Now I can repay you.”
“That’s okay,” she said, finally finding the power to back up. “That’s fine.”
“You are already mine,” he said. “I was cheated for years, but no longer. I will keep you as you should be: perfect, ageless, never to fade like a flower past its time.”
Veronica’s fear was starting to dwindle. She had killed his other body. She could kill this one. Drag him back down to the water, beneath the frozen surface . . .
“No,” he said.
It wasn’t merely a word. It stabbed into her brain, and her limbs seized up. She stumbled back as her arms lost feeling. The Brume shifted on her back, put her off balance, and she fell onto the snowy ground.
From down there, he looked very tall. Impossibly tall.
He stooped toward her. His grin reminded her of a skull.
FIVE
A VERY BAD CUPID
Sometimes, Errol thought, he had a limited imagination. He had known they would fall fast, but he hadn’t been able to picture how fast, how his stomach would feel like it was trying to float out of his mouth, how all the blood would fill his head like a water balloon.
Technically, they weren’t falling, but sliding—not that he could see the difference as they reached an estimated one million miles an hour. The silk curtains he and Dusk lay on reduced the already minor friction of the glass to almost zero.
It wasn’t this part that worried him, though, but what was coming. When friction came back.
There was no seam where the glass met the stone, but he felt the change instantly. When his feet hit the new surface they caught a little, even lubricated, as it were, by the sheer fabric. His upper body, still on the glass, tried to speed around his feet by flipping him over; his hands and face left the pyramid, but with a yelp he was able to slam back against it.
Then they were on the stone, and resistance was uniform again. They were still going down fast, really fast. The difference was that the silk was starting to feel hot on his bare skin. Just as he thought it was about to catch fire, they crashed into the base of the pyramid.
He lay there, wondering if his legs were broken. They certainly hurt enough, as did his lungs and his gut.
Dusk sat up before he did, coughing.
“Well, that was a bad idea,” Errol said. “Although it was also kind of awesome.”
“Amazing,” Dusk said. She was smiling. “Shall we do it again?”
“Maybe some other time,” Errol. For now we probably ought to—”
“Yes,” Dusk said. Her face fell. “Yes,” she said. “We should try. You remember where my armor is?”
“Yes,” he said.
They retrieved the armor from beneath the shield with the lions, but she didn’t put it on. Instead they began to run, and when their energy was spent, to walk. It felt like forever before the city was behind them, but once it was out of sight, Errol began to think they were safe. That they had a chance.
He was wrong. They’d not even made it back to the wash when he heard horns in the distance.
Dusk pushed on a few more moments, then bowed her head.
“It was a good try, Errol,” she said. “Now you must leave me.”
“No,” he said. “Not this time.”
“Yes,” she said. “They will not kill me, at least not right away. But they will kill you. Flee, Errol. You’ve done enough.”
“Let’s run together. They haven’t caught us yet.”
“Errol,” she sighed. She stepped close and took his hand. She leaned up and kissed him very lightly on the cheek.
“Take this,” she said. She pressed something into his hand. It felt like a marble.
“Éidi,” she whispered, pointing.
At first he didn’t get it. But then his feet started moving—away from her.
“Dusk!” he shouted.
She was already running the other direction. She quickly vanished over a dune and was out of sight.
He tried to retake control of his legs, but it was no good. He heard the horns again, still far away. Then, a bit later, he heard the sound coming closer.
He glanced behind him and saw them, raising a cloud of dust, clearly coming his way.
Had Dusk been trying to save him, or had she sent him off as a decoy? The good feeling he’d started to have about her was quickly evaporating. When was he going to learn? When would he stop being such a chump?
The magical compunction was starting to wear off. He was tired and he was angry and he’d had enough. He knew he couldn’t outrun them, so he stopped, turned to face them, and waited. He looked to see what Dusk had given him; a little golden ball. He contemplated it for a moment, then knelt and buried it in the sand near a withered stick of a bush.
The leader rode a white horse and wore armor that flashed in the sun. Several other horsemen rode with him, but he was also accompanied by a handful of figures on foot. When they got a little nearer, he recognized the golden cupid-things. They ran in advance of the horses, incredibly fast, almost like hounds. They reached him first, and circled him, staring at him with those weird, metallic eyes.
The horsemen arrived a few minutes later. To his dismay, he saw Dusk was with them, tied hand and foot and slung across the saddle horn of the leader.
The first time Errol had seen Dusk, she had been in armor, and he had assumed her to be male. It was dumb assumption, and he had become much more careful since then. This armored character had fine features and high cheekbones—not unlike Dusk—and a shock of blond hair. His—her?—skin was dark, almost black. Could be a man or woman and the armor wasn’t much help. He or she had a forehead mark too, a little golden dot with a bunch of swirlies radiating out from it, like a kid’s drawing of the sun.
“My name is Errol,” he said, standing as tall as he could. “Who are you supposed to be?”
“I’m not supposed to be anyone,” the rider said. “I am Hawk.”
“That’s great,” Errol said. “You’ve got my friend there. How about you give her back?”
Hawk looked amused.
“Your friend, my sister. Who has more right to her?”
“No one has a ‘right’ to her,” Errol said. “You’ve got her tied up. Untie her and—wait, did you say ‘sister’?”
“Yes,” Hawk said. “That makes me her brother. Is that too complicated for you?”
“No,” Errol said. “But how can you treat your own sister like that?”
“I have several sisters,” Hawk replied. “Some I like, some I do not. Dusk is not presently in good favor with me.”
“Oh, uh-huh,” Errol said. “I guess I can understand that. She cut off my leg once. But still, I need you to let her go.”
Hawk stared at him for a moment like he was something gross he’d found on his shoe. Then he shrugged.
“I was curious,” he said. “I wondered who she might have tricked into becoming her ally. I am curious no longer.”
“I’ll fight you,” Errol said.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Fight you. For her.”
“You’re joking, I assume?” Hawk said.
“Not a bit, you cowardly jerk.”
“You have no sword. No armor.”
“Don’t need ’em to take down a creep like you,” Errol said.
Hawk glanced around him, then shrugged. He dismounted and began taking off his armor. Then he removed the padding underneath, until he wore only a white loincloth. Stripped down he looked like a bodybuilder.
“My man will blow the horn as a signal for us to begin,” Hawk said. “Agreed?”
“Just let’s do this,” Errol said.
Hawk nodded. The horn blew.
The other boy moved so fast Errol almost didn’t have time to respond at all. He caught the first punch on his forearm; the next hit him hard in the chest and sent him staggering back. Hawk kept on coming. Errol set his feet and swung, but his opponent ducked and popped him in the chin. He tasted blood and again retreated.
Errol feinted with his left and followed through with his right. Hawk blocked him and returned a cuff on the side of his jaw. Errol saw spots, but not so many he couldn’t see the other guy winding up to finish him off.
Ignoring the punch coming his way, he let fly at Hawk’s chin. He connected so hard it felt like his fist was broken. Then his head seemed to explode.
The next thing he knew he was lying in the sand, staring up at the blond-headed boy, who was wiping blood from his nose.
“Okay,” Errol said. “You give up yet?”
Hawk turned and walked away. As Errol tried to get back to his feet, he saw two of the cupid-things helping the other boy back into his armor.
“We fought,” Hawk said. “You did well. But you lost.”
“Just—let her go,” Errol said.
“Sorry,” Hawk said. “No.”
“I’ll find you,” Errol said. “I’ll come again.”
“I know you would,” Hawk said, as he mounted his horse. One of the golden boys stepped forward, lifting his bow.
By that time, Errol had managed to stand.
The arrow knocked him back down again.
He lay there, staring up at the sky and at the feathered stick in his chest. He dimly heard the horses start off.
The bright sky began to darken, as if night was finally falling. But the sun was still where it had always been.
Finally, something blocked out the sun itself. A human shape. A woman.
“No,” he said. “No.”
Her face was in shadow; he could not see it. And he knew if he did see it, he was done. It was over. She had come for him again, and this time . . .
“Hush,” the woman said.
That was a surprise. He had seen Death coming before, but never heard her speak.
Renewed pain shocked through him. He felt dizzy and, at last, the light of the endless day went away.
The light returned, but gently, along with a familiar sweet-sour taste on his tongue.
He remembered the pain, then, and sat up, clawing at the arrow in his chest. But it was no longer there.
Lotus sat a few feet away, cross-legged. She had a pillow on her lap with a board and paper on it and was busy with her ink pen.
“You should finish that,” she said. “You were a lot closer to dead, this time.”
She nodded at the red fruit lying next to him on the blanket. He and Lotus were in the shade of a large palm next to a stream. Not far away, the broken towers and eroded walls of some ancient city lay half-buried in the sand.
He picked up the pomegranate and began plucking out the seeds, which looked like garnets and tasted like heaven. With each bite, he felt a little better. He remembered a long time ago, when his father had brought him a pomegranate and showed him how to eat it. It wasn’t simple, like eating a grape. It took patience, and a little problem solving to sort through the bitter white membranes that kept the seeds in their neat layers. It took time, but it was worth it. You could spend an entire lazy summer afternoon reading comic books and eating a pomegranate.
“That’s the last one,” Lotus said. “Try not to get killed again.”
“I thought you’d left,” he said.
“I started feeling bad for you. I knew there was no way you could escape them, not without Djinn. I even told you so.”
“You didn’t tell me you could also rescue Dusk,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t. I don’t like her. But then I felt bad, so I came back to look for you. I saw Hawk hunting and followed him to you. I think you ought to be grateful, rather than nit-picking.”
