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“Why are you talking like you’ve got some terminal illness?” he said, his voice suddenly cold. “Why are you talking like you’re about to die?”
“I’m not. Just. Dude, I’m just saying thanks. For letting me sleep over, for being a friend. That kind of thing. Okay?”
“Right,” he said. “I don’t want to hear any of that doom and gloom shit. You’re going to be fine, Dust.” He went silent, for a beat. “We’ll make sure of that.”
I said nothing else. I didn’t have to.
Some minutes later, Herald’s breathing steadied into the rhythm of soft snoring. My mind drifted to what Romira had told me. So she was a champion of Cerberus, huh? She could channel his power, siphoning as much of it as she needed through their contract. For someone who’d forfeited her soul, hey, Romira seemed to be doing pretty okay.
Maybe Hecate was right, and I could approach the Midnight Convocation, make my bid for the Crown of Stars. Then, just as she said, with the power of the entities, I could see through the heavenly bodies themselves, through the stars and moons of the universe, as if they were my eyes. I could reach through the vastness of night, and one by one, surgically eliminate the cults that threatened to bring the Eldest to our world with their forbidden prayers.
Maybe pa
tronage wasn’t such a bad idea. Romira was living proof, wasn’t she?
Maybe I didn’t need my soul after all.
Chapter 15
Herald kicked me out the next morning, shortly after receiving word from Odessa that it was clear for me to make a move. But “kicked out” was a bit of an exaggeration. Okay, more like a huge one.
He made breakfast – fried spam and runny eggs over white rice, so damn good. He even washed the clothes I was wearing the day before. It was nice, like having a mom, if your mom was a perpetually grumpy Japanese sorcerer with latent anger issues.
“You’re being so nice to me,” I said, smiling between mouthfuls of spam and rice.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” Herald said, handing me a cup of coffee. “There. Is that more like it?”
After breakfast, Herald went through the motions of getting ready for work, slipping into one of those vest-and-tie ensembles he liked to wear, looking like a snazzy librarian, or maybe a really hip bartender. He turned off the lights, shut the blinds, then nodded.
“Right,” he said. “I gotta go to work, and you gotta get the hell out of here. Pick a shadow and go.”
I nodded back, but before I could step into the shadows, he pulled me in for a wordless hug. Herald wasn’t much of a hugger. In fact, he hated being hugged. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I hugged him back tighter. It just felt right.
As I sank into the shadows of the Dark Room, I mentally declared my intent to arrive in the Boneyard. I was getting better at this long-distance shadowstepping thing. Soon I had crossed the tunnel of the Dark Room, traversing half a city in a matter of seconds and showing up right by my bed, back in the Boneyard.
I could’ve taken some time to drop in on the boys, if they were even home or awake to begin with, but I knew what I needed. I only came to pick up the ring Carver had lent me, the one that could change my face with its glamour and cloak my energy signature, the unique pattern of soul and vita that marked every being in our reality. Spiritual DNA, in a sense. That covered my bases. The Eyes couldn’t find me then, and the Heart wouldn’t be able to harm me if they couldn’t see me.
Staring into my dresser mirror, I slipped the ring on, watching with only a little wonder at how my face, my eyes, and my hair rippled and warped, like a pebble had been dropped on a reflection in a pond. Within moments my reflection showed the new me, assembled from the ring’s idea of the kind of face I’d need to wear to go incognito: ginger hair, barely-there eyebrows, and bright green eyes. Sure, why not. I could rock that. Still cute.
I unloaded the contents of my enchanted backpack, throwing out loose pieces of lint and a couple of receipts before my hand finally made contact with Vanitas somewhere inside the pocket dimension. He grunted in annoyance as my fingers brushed against him. He didn’t like being touched. Vanitas floated out of the backpack by his own power. I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but he was frowning at me.
“No touchy,” he said. “Unless you absolutely need to use me in a fight. I thought we established that. Also, do you really think this is a good idea?”
I blinked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Vanitas scoffed. “Our minds are linked, you idiot. I can see what you’re planning to do, and I don’t like it one bit.”
Damn it. He got me there.
“Listen. All I’m looking for is information, okay? It’s not like I’m going to do something stupid.”
“Dustin. Selling your soul to the highest bidder absolutely qualifies as ‘something stupid.’ At least talk to Hecate first. Hell, talk to Carver.”
Vanitas was right. I hated that he knew exactly what I had planned. Hecate had mentioned the Midnight Convocation. If I could meet the gods there, if I could offer myself to the right entity, maybe I would find the spiritual fuel I’d need to stop the cults from rousing the Eldest.
It’d be just one step to stopping their horror from infesting our reality, sure, but it was better than sitting around doing jack squat. My soul was a small sacrifice if it meant saving the souls of the hundreds, no, of the thousands who would die if the shrikes broke through the barriers and invaded.
The main question I couldn’t answer, though: where the hell did the Convocation gather? Where would I even find them?
