The Labyrinth of the Dead Page 6

  She came up beside the figure and put her hand on her beloved’s shoulder, feeling the aching familiarity of it beneath the filmy veil. The young woman tensed and pulled away without uttering a sound.

  "Imogen, it’s me! I’ve come to bring you home."

  Portia stepped in front of her and reached for the hem of the veil. The garden shifted abruptly, flinging the sky into her view as she hit the ground. Portia froze, her chest aching and her breath coming in ragged hiccups.

  A statuesque figure came to stand over her. Her fingers were the color of fine brandy and showed just beneath the edge of her veil, crackling with energy. "This is our home. You are not welcome here."

  "Am I not?" Portia dragged her legs beneath her and unfurled her wings, ignoring the pain that lanced through them.

  The woman drew herself up into an intimidating posture. "I am not impressed by your half-bred heritage, Nephilim. Wings or no, you are no angel. And you are also not dead." She huffed. "I did not invite you here. You came tearing through my wall and through my ward and you are not welcome to stay. Neither of you." Behind her, the line of women continued on the path across the dell and into an arch cut through a very tall hedge.

  "Imogen," Portia shouted once more, scrambling to her feet. "Imogen!"

  Imogen skipped a step, but the women ahead and behind took her by the elbows and guided her away.

  Furious, the brandy-skinned woman thrust her hand out toward Portia, blue-white power hissing from her fingers. Portia threw up her palm, meeting the woman’s with her own, pressing flesh to flesh. The pressure was intense, but Portia wrapped her own power around it, surrounding the assault, then sending it back. The woman staggered and dug in her heels before breaking off her attack and rubbing her hand.

  Portia brandished the axe. "I have no desire to hurt you. But I will not allow you to stop me from taking Imogen home with me. If I have to cleave you in half to get to her, I am sorry, but that is what will be done."

  Through the veil, Portia could see her dark eyes widen as she saw the axe. "Where did you get that?"

  "What does that matter?"

  "Because it tells me exactly how witless you are."

  Portia frowned. "Why?"

  "Do you have a habit of taking dangerous weapons from strangers?" She nodded toward where Kanika was failing to hide behind the hedge. "Or is she not a stranger to you?"

  "Is she a stranger to you, madame?"

  "No. I know her. I would recognize that wretched aura no matter whose face she wore."

  "What?" Portia turned her head to see Kanika’s forehead pinched and pale with anger. A searing heat blossomed in her belly and knocked her breathless to the ground once more.

  Portia saw the flash of the next bolt aimed at her and brought the axe up to deflect it. To her surprise, the flare of magic struck the axe head and was absorbed by the metal.

  Encased in a bubble of light, the woman hovered above her, hands stretched forward and ready for another blow. "This is a fool’s errand, child. Go home. You will leave now."

  "Like hell I will!" Portia lurched to her feet and ran after Imogen. The arch opened into a small clearing, and beyond that, a hedgemaze. The veiled women were nowhere to be seen. "Is this place naught but mazes and labyrinths?"

  The brandy-skinned woman appeared by her side, still floating within her protective sphere. "We have to guard our secrets somehow. You Nephilim interlopers come more and more often now. We protect what is ours, the very last thing we have left to protect: our souls." She moved forward, out of Portia’s reach, and disappeared around the first turn.

  Portia followed, but there was no sign of her. The verdant path between the two tall hedges looked untouched, with not a single blade of grass crushed underfoot.

  "Madame, you won’t frighten me away with your threats and parlor tricks. I mean to take Imogen back with me, and if I have to hack through every nook and cranny of this damned maze, then that is what I will do." Portia raised the axe.

  "No, don’t." Kanika jogged up behind her.

  "Why not?"

  "Because you won’t find the way."

  Portia touched her breastbone. "I will."

  "No." She pushed Portia’s arm down, lowering the axe but not touching the thing herself. "There is an easier way than going through. Go over." Kanika made a flapping motion with her hands.

  "I’m hurt. I can’t fly." She flexed her right wing, feeling the joints grind painfully.

  "Let me fix it."

  "How?"

  Kanika plucked a coin from her pocket. "Do you have your rosewater still? And that Blessedwood root powder?"

  Warily, Portia found the two items. They were certainly not the most potent of her arsenal of herbs, but she was reluctant to part with them.

  "Don’t worry, I won’t need much," Kanika said, as if she could hear Portia’s thoughts. She took the coin to a flat stone just off the path and laid it down. She sprinkled it with the powder. "Now, hit it with the hammer side. And make sure you say ‘I release you to my service’ to the coin when you do."

  "What?"

  "Just say, it! It’s important or else it won’t work."

  "Why don’t I just hit it and you say it?" Portia felt reluctant to speak the words. It seemed too easy, and she wondered if Kanika was simply mocking her, seeing how far she could get Portia to follow. "If this is safe, why don’t you go ahead and show me how it’s done?"

  The girl rolled her eyes. "All right, fine. Sure thing." She watched Portia carefully, obviously enjoying the view as Portia swung the battle axe over her head and brought it down squarely on the copper-black coin. It cracked clean in the middle and a few sparks shot forth. "I release you to my service," Kanika declared in a voice weighted with authority. "You are mine now to command." She sprinkled the broken coin with rosewater and took the paste of Blessedwood root powder and scraps of shadow-gold and rubbed it onto the portion of Portia’s wing that was swollen and bruised. "Knit and mend and bind together, heal what was broken once and safeguard it from being injured again."

  At those words, the contusion grew hot to the touch with a radiating warmth that filled Portia’s entire body. The limb flexed easily and her weariness faded. On the stone, the remains of the coin smoldered a moment, then collapsed into a small pile of cinders.

  "Kanika, what have you done?"

  "I helped you! Besides, it isn’t like they had any personality left. And what purpose is there in this existence?" She flicked the coin that hung from the axe. "They helped you. I am sure they would be pleased to know it. It isn’t any fun at all when you go through a whole lot of trouble just to survive that long only to have your soul consumed and the scraps pressed into gold for greedy necromancers." She handed the bag of powder and the bottle of rosewater back to Portia with a smile. "And it is going to help you get your Imogen back. And that is what we want, isn’t it?"

  Portia felt numb. "What ‘we’ want? No, Kanika, you are already too deeply involved. I think we might want to part ways soon." She looked down at the axe. The initial revulsion she felt for it had faded, and she was growing used to it. More than used to it, she was growing fond. She wondered if she sent Kanika away, could she still keep it?

  The girl harrumphed. "After all I have done thus far, this is how you treat me? I might as well help you, t’would be a shame not to. I mean, I’m here aren’t I? And able. And willing." She batted her eyelashes. "Just means I know I can count on you to help me later."

  Portia hesitated. "We’ll discuss this in a minute. Stay here."

  It took a few false starts before she could manage to bring herself aloft from the ground. She was sweating and panting as she finally rose high enough to catch some of the rank breeze and glide over the hedgemaze. It was a mind-numbing thing to look down into, the pathways shifting and undulating as she watched. It was a maze forever changing, rearranging itself.

  "Well, no wonder I couldn’t follow her."

  "What do you see?" Kanika’s voice was but a snatch of
melody from below.

  "Nothing of value yet…wait…"

  Out of the draping mist, the form of a tower emerged, pale as marble and glimmering like an opal as it reached up into a sky that was the perfect shade of rich, wintertime blue. Portia sank slowly from the sky, hovering within the shrouding fog as the veiled women exited the hedge maze below her. One by one they emerged into the serenity of daylight and roses. Several of them had lifted their veils and were coaxing a group of newcomers to drink from a silver cup of water fetched up from the well. The newcomers were all female and dressed in motley rags. They took the water gratefully.

  "Intractable moppet," the brandy-skinned woman growled up at Portia.

  Portia blinked in the feigned sunlight. She did not see Imogen among the women at the well. "You bring in souls from outside your precious walls. Surely you can offer me hospitality as well?"

  "To stay, they must earn their keep by making daily forays into the city of Salus to search for innocents before the queen scents them," the woman replied. "You have no intention of doing so."

  "Are there any men among you?"

  "No." She shrugged and waved her hand dismissively. "We give them what they need to fight their way out of Salus."

  "That’s hardly charitable."

  "’Tis a good thing this is no charity then, isn’t it?"

  "Madame," Portia drew closer to the ground, "you must understand my purpose here. I have come to reclaim my beloved, whose body lies living still and needs the soul returned to it."

  "Noble," the woman said, nodding. "But quite impossible."

  Portia made to step down onto the silken grass when the woman brought a fiery sword from midair, holding it like a warrior long trained.

  "You will not so much as lay a toe on this hallowed ground. You bring a curse with you." The woman nodded toward the axe. "And I will not have this forgotten tower so easily remembered. Perhaps the rest of the souls here pale in comparison to the one you love, but they are each precious to me. Do not make me kill you."

  "If you could, I’d be impressed." Portia folded her arms and hovered with annoyed snaps of her wings.

  The woman below her drew back her veil. Her eyes were as amber as her flesh and her ebony hair was bound up in a series of elaborate braids. "Then come down here and we shall see who will perish, little half-angel."

  "More than half." Portia lifted the axe and the coin swung in feverish circles.

  "Portia!" Kanika’s shrieking voice carried through the sheets of fog. "Portia, come quick! They’re here!"

  The woman’s eyes widened. "The queen’s dark armies have tracked you to this place—they have found you here." She swore to herself. "I knew you would be trouble. You have brought death here."

  "I wouldn’t have thought that death was so frightening to the dead."

  "Obviously, you do not think often."

  "I’ll tell you what. I get rid of the problem and you let me into your ivory tower."

  The woman seemed amused by the proposition. "If you survive, mayhap I will speak to you again. If you return, call out for Celestine. But do not let that baggage you travel with come within the span of my arms. She is not welcomed."

  Portia nodded. "As you wish. I will return and I will hold you to your word." She turned and crossed back through the shrouding mists to find a horde of shadows encroaching on the garden gate beyond the bridge. She landed firmly on her feet beside Kanika. "I thought you said they wouldn’t follow us here."

  The girl shrugged helplessly. "They aren’t supposed to be able to come in here."

  "Well, we have some time to think. There is a ward up, after all."

  "I wouldn’t count on that."

  "Why not?"

  Kanika pointed and shrank back, pressing herself into the hollow of Portia’s wings.

  The first herder had returned to the gate, its hand outstretched with fleshless fingers splayed. It took in a deep breath that whined around the holes in its mouth plate. Then it waved the other hand. From out of the enveloping darkness, they came forward: hulking creatures with studded armor barely containing their muscular bodies. Spikes of bone protruded from their forearms and hands, each one tipped with a barbed point.

  Two of them pushed through the stinging vines as if they were honeysuckle and leaned into the gate. The metal groaned and gave way in minutes, and the reapers came through two abreast. The moonflower fell to the ground and was crushed underfoot.

  Portia scaled the bridge, surveying them from the top. "They are going through an awful lot of trouble just for me."

  "What can I say, Portia sweet? You’re one of a kind."

  "What happens if one dies here?"

  "I have no idea, since you’re still alive."

  Portia nodded. "Best not to risk it, then." She crouched down and readied the axe. Closing her eyes, Portia called on the deepest recesses of power that she usually kept divided, lest she lose control entirely. It flowed into her waiting soul, lighting her flesh as it came, traveling across her belly and down her legs and up her arms and out across her wings. Her skin began to tingle, and then to glow. Her muscles twitched, and her wings stretched wide and flexed nearly of their own accord. The sensation was strange, as if she was not the only one whose command her body now answered.

  I am here, spoke the voice within that Portia thought she had merged wholly with her own.

  Are we two once more?

  No. But you have never called for all of me before now.

  Are you ready to fight?

  She felt the angel’s soul stretch against the bindings that tethered them together, testing and pushing. The sensation subsided and Portia felt its satisfaction. Yes. Let them come. I am ready.

  When Portia opened her eyes to gaze down at the creatures below, the demon denizens began to quail before her light.

  —6—

  PORTIA WOULD hold the bridge.

  She had shed the short silk coat and left the satchel with it on the far side. Nothing in there would afford her any help in the fight. Dressed in only her corset and wide trousers, she could maneuver much more easily. The air within the sanctuary was pleasant, neither cold nor warm, but Portia could feel the chilled breeze that blew in from Salus, pouring through the rent in the ward along with the foot soldiers of the queen. Gooseflesh rippled down both arms.

  Invigorated by the barking commands of their captain, the reapers lifted their sickles and advanced several steps toward her, spoiling the ground beneath their feet as they came. She waited, breathing deeply, storing up the power building within her. She could see their eyes gleaming with dark mirth beneath the visors of clumsy metal helmets. The chin straps were not even fastened. Overconfidence exuded from them as strongly as the odor of their acetic sweat, but they did not break ranks and engage her.

  One of them finally came forward from the rest of the group, swaggering toward the foot of the bridge. He leaned one meaty elbow on the railing, sending a creak of protest through the whole structure. Portia met his stare, glimpsing his lidless eyes and reptilian mouth in the low light. He was different from the others, his armor more elaborate and his stance radiating leadership. He smirked, showing rows of black, needle-like teeth, every other one curved to a fine hook at the end. These were not killers, Portia realized, they were collectors—reapers in the true sense of the word. They brought in the harvest of souls to their queen. And she was their prize tonight.

  "It won’t be easy," Portia told them. "I am not so soft as I might look."

  The leader swung a fist, and two of his fellows came at the bridge, their heavy footfalls shaking the entire thing. They were crushed together hip to hip, barely able to fit. Portia dropped down, tucking her wings tightly to her body and making a sweep to their ankles. The axe blade bit deeply, divorcing one foot cleanly from its owner and eating a gash through the other three legs. The leftmost reaper howled in pain and lurched toward its companion, pushing them both off balance. Portia tucked her chin down and came at them with her shoulde
rs, catching them just below the knees. She pushed upward with all her strength, opening her wings for more leverage, and sent both of them over the side of the bridge into the stream below.

  The next attacker was on her before she could regain her footing. This one came with far less bravado. It approached with blade raised, knocking into Portia with its bulk before swinging the dark sickle toward the back of her thighs to incapacitate her. She let herself fall, spreading her wings wide to cushion the blow, and plunged the point of the battle axe between the chestplate it wore and the leather corselet protecting its abdomen. With practiced ease, she brought up her feet and kicked the reaper over her, using the inertia of its enormous body to keep it moving. Springing to her feet, she hacked through the leather flap covering the base of the creature’s skull until purple-brown blood began to fly and the reaper shuddered violently and went still.

  Only one of the reapers was emerging from the water. Coils of steam rose from its flesh as it staggered toward the leader still idly leaning on the rail. Without taking his eyes from Portia, the captain pulled a black kris blade from a thigh sheath. The knife’s edge looked dangerously sharp, but no light glinted along its surface. In fact, it seemed to draw in the surrounding light and devour it. Noticing Portia’s discomfort, the captain smiled and ran his tongue across the rippled surface of the blade before plunging it into the reaper’s throat. He commanded the others forward with a guttural order and they came in a swarm.

  These troops were cautious, none wanting to be the first to engage her. They feinted forward and back at the foot of the bridge, trying to draw her down to them. Portia could see the radiance of her flesh reflected in their armor and in their eyes. Finally, the leader barked something at them and swung one reaper up onto the bridge by its arm. As it stumbled forward, the others pressed in behind. Splinters shivered loose from the understructure of the bridge as so many of them piled onto it. She stretched her wings wide, preparing to take to the air should it give way.