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“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.
