The Labyrinth of the Dead Page 12

  "The tower, it’s becoming solid, becoming real. I think this is the epicenter, the place where they are going to bridge the gap between the underworld and the land of the living."

  "And they need me for that, don’t they? They want to press me between the planes of the worlds and open up a path."

  The ground rumbled ominously. Portia could see the machinations now, the inner workings of the great engine buried beneath her feet. A scream rang out from beyond the door once more, rising in pitch with deep gurgling cries. Portia saw through the still-sheer wall that Lahash and his fellows had not only gained the top floor at last, but that his reapers were engaging Kanika with little success.

  She took Imogen’s hands and held them tightly in her own. "Whatever happens, Imogen, I will not leave here without you."

  "Which means you may not leave."

  "I knew that when I stepped through the doorway that brought me here."

  Imogen squeezed Portia’s fingers in return. "Thank you."

  Portia fought back a teary hiccup and kissed her beloved. For a moment too short, they were schoolgirls again, learning the secrets of one another’s bodies in the dark and secret quiet of their rooms. The weight of those fond memories threatened to crush the breath out of Portia’s lungs. She clung tightly to Imogen, whose body was agonizingly familiar yet wondrously new. They parted reluctantly, panting, with high color flushing their cheeks.

  "It has been too long since I have been able to kiss you properly," Portia whispered, smiling despite herself.

  "First thing when we get home."

  "Absolutely. I’ll tie a stocking to the doorknob."

  Imogen laughed then, a clear, unburdened giggle. "You always know how to make me smile."

  "You haven’t seen the half, my love." Portia held her hands tightly, still marveling at the strangeness of seeing her own eyes smiling at her.

  She took up the axe and Imogen fell in at her back, just like she always had, although her gait was unsteady. The walls around them had grown cloudy and opaque as the tower slowly shifted into something that was not wholly of Salus and not yet entirely something else. She could hear the struggle and smell the blood, but she could no longer see who had the advantage.

  With a whispered prayer, Portia threw open the door.

  —11—

  THE TOPMOST tower room was awash in blood, both sticky, dark ichor and the shimmering fluid that passed through the veins of the spirits. The withered husks of several of the shrouded women lay motionless on the floor with Celestine keening over them, straining the length of chain that still bound her.

  Portia staggered a step back as she beheld Kanika. The girl’s body was but a mask worn tightly over Nigel’s soul, which was half the young man she knew and half the vile demon he had become. His flesh was putrid grey with gill-like slits running along ribs teeming with writhing appendages, some made of spirit, some looking far too real. Analise Aldias was overlaid upon him, and the angel Katriel on top of that. Countless sallow faces with mouths wide in fear and agony wreathed him, with Belial above them all. Angry, betrayed, vain, she fought against Nigel with what small strength she had left to her. And at the bottom of this sickening kaleidoscope was one small pearl: a girl with coal-black curls, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, weak, defeated. She was the girl with the piping song and rosy cheeks; she was the real Kanika.

  The Kanika that owned them all looked up with her stolen face and turned away from Lahash, advancing on Portia.

  "Sweet sister, have you had your reverie? You can’t say I am heartless, now, can you? I saved her for you! Just for you." The veiled maidens had been lined up like a string of sacrifices. With their heads bowed, they did nothing, they said nothing, only went meekly to their deaths when Kanika beckoned. Celestine had been bound, hand and foot, to the couch and could only look on helplessly as Kanika devoured her charges one by one.

  Kanika took the next woman in line and sank her sharp teeth into her throat, savoring a long draught but looking across the room at Imogen with hunger plain in her eyes. She licked the bronze blood from her lips. "I could have consumed her at any point, Portia. But I did not. I wanted to, oh I very much wanted to, but I thought waiting would yield me the greater pleasure. After she has served her purpose, I will get to avail myself of her body, again."

  Still fixated on Imogen, Kanika moaned into her prey, drawing out mouthfuls of the maiden’s life. As she drank, Portia could see the essence leaving the woman and filling Kanika with yet another fractured spirit. Portia brought the axe down between them, slaying the shrouded one who fell too lightly to the ever-shifting floor with a sigh. Bringing the blade up, she watched the throng of ghosts move away from the axe as she aimed for Kanika’s abdomen.

  It was merely a glancing blow that healed as quickly as it bled.

  "Portia, this is not the way to go about this. I offered you a place at my side, and you spurned me. In fact, you killed me. Such good it did. I am more powerful now than I have ever been, more powerful than I could even have imagined being. How limiting it is to be alive. I had no idea that death could be so expansive, so mutable, so powerful. I suppose I should thank you, sweet sister. You’re good for me." She rubbed her small hands across the tattered dress that clothed Kanika’s body, pushing up her small, young breasts. "And I was hoping that like this, I might be good for you, too."

  "The answer is still the same. I am here to stand between you and the destruction you crave. I will not let you win, Nigel."

  "Oh, that. It’s far too late for that, Portia. I have already won. Penemue is a dying place now, devoid of leadership and lacking new charges. The Primacy had turned a blind eye to it, leaving it sitting prettily in the Aldias’ grasp. And all the gateways found there are under my control now. Soon, there will be one more."

  The tower shook. The quakes were closer, stronger than they had been.

  "You were always too self-absorbed, Nigel. Telling me of your great plans, talking instead of acting on them."

  Imogen stepped around Portia, and just as Celestine had done, she created a sword of light and fire. She thrust it through Kanika’s back, the shining tip ripping through the girl’s narrow body. Around it, Portia could see the battling forces of spirit: the sword’s essence trying to cleanse the darkness with fire and that which was Kanika pooling her power around the wound to stop it. Kanika roared in pain and the aura of spirits and shadows around her writhed and contracted, healing the rent in her flesh.

  Without turning away from Portia, Kanika knocked Imogen to the floor with ease. "If I destroyed her, it would kill you. It would please me to break you, Portia, to bring you to your knees, begging for her life."

  "You need her too much, Nigel. That threat means nothing and you know it!"

  Lahash intervened, then, stepping over the bodies of several fallen reapers, baring his small black blade. "You know what this is, demon. You know how it can harm you."

  "Your queen commands you to stand down," Kanika boomed in Belial’s voice.

  "Enough of your tricks!" He threw himself forward, catching his barbed bone spurs on Kanika’s skin so she could not evade him. He brought the blade around, sliding it between her ribs. Portia recoiled from the darkness that spilled, evaporating Lady Analise’s soul in a crackle of quiet thunder. Kanika fought free, clutching her side, which bled steadily and refused to close up.

  Portia had seen the blade in action and knew how quickly it could kill. Kanika hissed and leapt at Lahash, fingers extending into long golden talons. She parted muscle and flesh from bone with ease, leaving a gash wide enough that Portia could see his wrist joint. Reapers came, piling one on top of the other, attempting to smother Kanika.

  "Celestine," Portia urged her. "Help us!" She rushed toward the couch and took the chain in her hands. It was easy to snap, each link pulling apart as easily as soft wax in her hands.

  "No. It is too late. There is nothing we can do." The woman turned her face away.

  Frustrated, Por
tia unwound the golden links from the woman’s neck. "You were eager enough to put your blade through me and now you’re ready to just roll over and let this happen?"

  "You do not understand, my dear. It does not matter what happens to Kanika or Nigel or whatever name or face Belial wears now. What has been put in motion cannot be stopped, and it cannot be undone."

  "And so you won’t even go down fighting?"

  Celestine chuckled darkly. "Gyony. Do you ever think beyond honor and glory?"

  "There has to be a way to put a stop to this!"

  The woman shrugged. "Then find it. But I have no answers for you." She raised herself from the couch and slipped into group of her remaining maidens, calling softly to them. They followed in a silent wave of white, slinking away behind their mistress into the room where Imogen had been kept.

  "Cowards!" Portia shouted, and regretted it. The weakly flickering energies of the beleaguered women dimmed even more. Celestine held her head high as she closed the door behind them and used the last of her strength to weave a ward that even Portia did not think she could break.

  Kanika’s strength was diminished, but not nearly enough to make her easy prey for the reapers. She drank from them as they attacked her, draining what she wanted and leaving them to be trampled beneath the too-eager feet of their comrades. Slowly, she regained her power as they dwindled in number.

  Portia struck a blow here and there, darting in and out of the fray with the axe, but in the confusion of bodies, she could not make good contact with Kanika’s small frame.

  "This cannot end well." Portia snapped her wings in frustration and called to Lahash. "Call off your dogs, they are doing us no good!"

  "What do we do now?" Imogen circled widely of the brawl, favoring her right leg and glancing at the closed door with a certain heaviness.

  Portia kept one eye on the fighting and the other on Lahash, who, although agitated, did not engage in combat. "The blade, what exactly does it do?"

  "It destroys," was the simple answer he gave her. "It was forged in hell for no other purpose."

  Portia blinked, caught off guard. "Are there more of them?"

  "Not in Salus. Not that I know of, anyway."

  She thought of the heaving, steaming forges belching thick smoke into the night air. "I think Belial was too canny to allow the only thing that could destroy her to rest in your hands. I think if we went searching, we could find more of this metal."

  "Her Highness would not lie to me."

  Portia whistled for the herders, who came to her at once, emerging from their hiding place in the stairwell. Ruthlessly, she took the skinned palm of one of them and pressed it to the flat side of the kris blade. The creature yowled like a scalded cat and jerked its hand away.

  "Now that you have tasted it, you can find another. Bring it all to me. Go."

  They ducked their heads, clicking and chirping and falling over one another as they fled down the stairs. The body of a reaper tumbled down the steps in their wake, spewing faintly steaming ichor as it went. Kanika had dispatched with almost all of them, leaving a sorry mess of broken bodies in a thick ring around her.

  Portia watched the herders go, sending a silent prayer after them. She then rounded on Lahash. "Give me the dagger."

  He balked. "Absolutely not!"

  "Are we going to argue about this, or are you going to let me kill her?"

  "Why not use the axe?"

  "Were you not there just a minute ago when I slashed her with this thing and it didn’t work? Now give me the dagger!"

  "You are an idiot." He sheathed the dagger and tried to wrench the axe forcefully from Portia’s hands.

  She easily kept it from him.

  "Lady Portia." He opened his hands. "Let me see the axe. Trust me."

  She snorted with laughter. "Fine. I can still kill you without it."

  "That won’t be necessary, I assure you." He sliced the blade across her palms. "Take it, now."

  The feel of her blood on the Nephilim leather was chilling, nauseating.

  "Go on, quickly! Make it your slave. You know its name."

  "Excuse me?"

  A reaper fell to the floor beside them and Kanika clambered out of their clawed embraces. There were too few left to keep her from advancing on them.

  "She knows! Belial knows we’re breaking her binding. Hurry, damn you! If you are as great as they say, you should be able to do this."

  Portia looked into the axe, at the powers bound into the metal and wood and leather. With her new sight, she could see what alchemy had created it, and she spoke to the spirit within.

  Zepar, I baptize you with Gyony blood, with the essence of angels, in the name of Portia and in the name of Fereshte and in the name of the Almighty that commands us all. Blood of my blood, soul of my soul—both of which you share, my father. I bind you to me in body, in soul, in this plane and the next. So by my will, forever, be commanded by my flesh, my blood, my mind, and my soul.

  The axe changed before her, lengthening into a more graceful weapon with a slender, slightly twisted handle. The blade elongated and thinned into an image of a crescent moon, silver and gleaming. The point spiraled into a sharp-tipped unicorn’s horn and the hammer side became fiercely gilded.

  "No!" cried Kanika with the echo of Belial in her words. She scrambled toward the glowing axe.

  Portia sidestepped her, throwing her off balance with a sweep of her wings and knocking the girl to the floor. She brought the axe down and pierced the flesh at the hollow of Kanika’s throat with the pointed tip. Blood welled up and pooled there; as another tremor rattled them, it sent ripples across the puddle.

  "This ends now."

  "Would you kill me in such cold blood, my sister?"

  "Yes, I would."

  "Would you kill us all?" The little pearl that was Kanika was dangled before her vision, shimmering within a corona of light, the girl’s last defense.

  "If that is what I need to do, then yes."

  "Poor dear. No one has ever come looking for her. She thought you might actually save her."

  Portia reached out to snatch the gem away, but it slid out of her grasp.

  "I know your weaknesses, Portia," Kanika taunted, "you wear them on your sleeve for all to see and exploit."

  "Only those craven enough to hide behind threats of harm to children."

  "I told you she was no innocent."

  "We are all innocent when compared to you." Portia raised the axe, but Imogen stayed her hand.

  "Wait."

  "Why?" Had it been anyone else, they would have tasted her wrath, but for Imogen she checked her temper and stayed her hand.

  Imogen pointed up through the crystal ceiling and Portia lowered the axe.

  Above them the swirling mists were gone and the eternally winter-blue sky looked as if it had cracked in half. Beyond the torn dome of sky, Portia could see stars. The stars were aligned into constellations she knew: the archer, the seven sisters, the dragon, and the bear.

  "Dear God, Nigel, what have you done?"

  The floor quaked violently enough to knock Portia off balance, and a nearly solid-looking stream of light burst up through the ground around the tower, throwing clumps of stone and sod in its wake. Another and then another flowed up past them and into the sky chasm. A familiar thrum rumbled above them as a slow-moving dirigible patrol passed over the gaping hole in the sky, its searchlight dissolving in the stronger brilliance of the souls consumed to feed the subterranean engine. She heard the crackling squawk of a voice through a loudspeaker, a human voice, but could not make out the words. The sides of the airships were painted with the insignia of the Royal Air Force. They belonged to her world, the land of the living, and they were coming dangerously close to the weakening barrier.

  "Put a stop to this, now!" Portia lowered the axe, pressing the crescent blade to Kanika’s neck. The engravings, she saw, had rearranged themselves into something new, but she could not decipher them.

  Kanika laughed
and shook her head, daring the blade to slice through her flesh. "Why would I? It’s what I have always wanted, what all the Aldias have always wanted. And besides, even if I had a fancy to end it now, it’s far, far too late."

  The gash in the sky opened wider as the soul-fueled light ate away at the barrier between the worlds and the engine pumped more and more power up through the tower.

  "Lahash, get Celestine in here. She must have known her sanctuary was being groomed for this role. She could not be so daft as to not have known what Belial had planned."

  "But the ward. I have no appendage to sense it, but even I can smell magic that strong."

  "Use the dagger and cut through it if you have to, just get her out here."

  Kanika stretched out, folding her arms behind her head and looking quite comfortable. And smug. The cut on her throat had shrunk, but it still wept blood. The shining liquid trickled around the swell of her breasts and down into her armpits, but she paid it no mind whatsoever.

  More airships flocked toward the hole in the sky, circling it and shouting into their voice-amplifiers.

  Imogen went out to the open balcony that encircled the tower and gazed up.

  "Imogen," Portia called, "don’t get too close!"

  Lahash sliced into the door with the small dagger, looking like a man trying to open up a tin of beans with a toothpick. From outside they heard the crumbling of the land and occasionally a scream or the fright-filled bay of a dire-hound.

  Kanika just stayed put, smiling broadly at the chaos around her. She moved her leg to press it against Portia’s calf. The injury to it had healed quickly, but the girl’s touch reminded Portia how tender it still was.

  "Belial wanted you, dear Portia. Wanted the taste of you on her lips, and not in a daughterly fashion. She meant what she said when she offered you to sit in sovereignty beside her. Well, in honesty, she would be willing to call you anything you wished to be called so long as she could straddle you with her sovereignty. You could still have that." Kanika wormed closer and drew one finger down Portia’s thigh, the nail still curved into a sharp golden talon. "You know how much I love you, how much I desire you. You understand me, Portia, understand the impotence of such power and strength trapped in a thankless duty, risking life and limb and love." Kanika glanced out at Imogen. "And for what? Because somewhere someone wrote down that we must? Have we been born just to die for someone else’s war? Who says these worlds cannot live in harmony? Who decided that angels were sacred and demons profane? We can change things, Portia. You and I, but only together. I need you. Yes, I can admit what I have always denied to myself. I cannot do this alone. I thought I could, but I see that it is impossible now."