Beside me, Kane’s ribs heaved in a silent, wolfish laugh.
“As we fought,” Mab continued, “I held back a little energy each time I blasted Myrddin. It made him think, wrongly, that I was weak. But holding back also let me gather sufficient energy on the side for a double attack. I attacked Myrddin, and it staggered him. Immediately, I turned and blasted Pryce. But I tried too hard to be fast. It bungled my aim, and most of the energy missed Pryce and hit the table on which he lay. Pryce cried out, and Myrddin snatched him into the demon plane.” She sat back, looking tired, as though she’d just fought the battle all over again. “And now you know what happened.”
“What about the Reaper? What happened to him?”
Mab looked puzzled. “Who?”
I explained about the killings that had happened in the South End. “He was there tonight. Stanhope Street isn’t in the South End, but I’m sure it was the Reaper. Myrddin called him that. He had a curved blade. And he carved these symbols into my chest.” I opened the bloodstained hospital gown to show her.
Mab stared, and I wondered how bad it was. In all the rush and confusion, I hadn’t checked. “Victory,” my aunt said. “There are no symbols there.”
I looked down. The skin was unbroken. No scabs marked the lines the Reaper had cut into my flesh.
I stared at the smooth skin. “I don’t understand.”
Mab pulled the gown’s front shut, tying the strings as though I were a toddler. “It could be that Myrddin used healing magic to erase any symbols when he figured out I was coming; he wouldn’t want me to see them. And our kind heals so quickly. Or—and I’m afraid I must say this—it could be you imagined the whole thing. All that fear, all that pain . . . As you said, child, you were close to hallucinating. At any rate, you’re tired. You need to rest to regenerate the life force Myrddin stole from you.”
I did feel tired—and now confused. Even though I’d spent a good part of the past day drugged and dreaming, I felt like I could sleep for three or four days straight, even on a rockhard mattress in a cheap motel.
Mab got into the other bed and lay on her back. Within minutes, gentle snoring filled the room. Kane gave me a quick, gentle lick on the cheek, then jumped off the bed and lay in front of the door, guarding it.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said to him as I turned out the light. And I hoped I would—the Kane I knew, not his human mind trapped in his wolf body.
Although I was tired, sleep didn’t come. I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, my hand tracing a line along my breastbone. A vertical line, with a short branch at each end. Even if no marks appeared there now, I could feel the knife cut deep into my flesh. I could see the Reaper’s hood falling forward as he bent over me, intent on his work, as the Morfran’s frantic cawing urged him on. It was no hallucination. The Reaper had been there.
Pushing the image away, I turned onto my side. The freedom of movement felt like a miracle, and I shuddered at the memory of being held immobile as knives and needles violated my body. If Mab hadn’t ventured across the collective unconscious and into Maria’s dreamscape, I’d be dead now, my life force siphoned from me and poured into Pryce.
Myrddin hadn’t managed to wrench away my life force tonight—but he did get some of it. My weakness, the bonedeep ache in every part of my body, confirmed that. What did it mean that some of my life force had gone to Pryce? For now, Pryce was still “the sleeper,” but if Myrddin revived him, would Pryce have access to my thoughts? Would he always know my whereabouts, like Mab and her bloodstone?
No way was I going to let that happen. We’d just have to stop Myrddin before the Reaper struck again.
15
SUNLIGHT STREAMED AROUND THE EDGES OF THE DRAPES that blocked the room’s picture window. I blinked against the light. Warm. The thought floated lazily through my mind. I felt warm, snuggled under blankets and two comforters. I felt alive again.
Kane. The thought hit me with urgent power. I sat up and looked toward the door.
Kane sat up at the same time. He was still a wolf.
I patted the bed, trying not to let dismay show on my face. He trotted over and jumped up beside me. He lay down, curling up, his head resting between his paws. His ears drooped. “We’ll fix this,” I said. I hoped my voice sounded surer than I felt.
“Indeed we will,” said Mab. She sat at the table in the far corner of the room. “Assuming, of course, that it’s possible.”
I pressed a finger to my lips, looking down at Kane and back at Mab, to indicate she shouldn’t say such a discouraging thing.
“Mr. Kane is well aware of his predicament.” A bag sat on the table before Mab. She removed three paper cups and pulled the lid off one. The smell of coffee filled the room, and my stomach growled loudly. Mab smiled. “That’s a good sign. Now, let’s see how well you can get out of bed and walk over here.”
I threw off the covers, but immediately felt like I’d stepped onto an arctic plain. I pulled one of the comforters from the nest I’d made on the bed and wrapped it around me like a cloak. Better. I was becoming almost fond of the orange-and-brown pattern.
Walking proved no problem. Aside from some lingering soreness, I felt steady on my feet and strong in my limbs. And the coffee tasted divine, its warmth spreading through me as I swallowed. Mab had a different appraisal of her tea. She sipped, then made a face. “I don’t know where you Americans ever got the idea to call such swill ‘tea.’”
Kane sat on the floor beside me. He looked back and forth between us and made an impatient noise that sounded almost like a whine, except not once in all the time I’d known him had Kane ever come close to whining.
“How does your young man take his coffee?” Mab asked.
“Black, no sugar. Like me.”
Mab nodded as she picked up the third cup. She took off the lid and blew on the liquid. Then she held the cup out to Kane. He sniffed at the black liquid and then flicked out his tongue experimentally.
“It’s all right,” Mab said. “I had them put in a couple of ice cubes so it wouldn’t burn.” Kane stuck his muzzle in the cup and drank. I was glad to see it. Kane never did like to start the day without his coffee.
I took another sip of my own drink. “Mab, what can we do about . . .” I was going to say “the situation,” but Mab was right. Kane knew there was a problem—hell, it was his problem. Trying to shield him with vague language was ridiculous. “What can we do about Kane?”
“As I see it, there are two possibilities,” Mab said. Kane finished his coffee and licked his chops. Mab put the empty cup on the table. She dug around in the bag and pulled out three sugar packets. As she spoke, she dumped the sugar into her tea and stirred. “One: Wait until the full moon. At that time, the moon’s power will most likely transform Mr. Kane into true wolf form, as usual. And when the full moon passes, he should return to his human form.”
It was too long; the full moon was three weeks away. And I didn’t like the sound of “most likely” and “should.”
“What’s possibility number two?”
“Myrddin’s energy changed him to this form. Myrddin’s energy can change him back.”
Great. “So we just waltz up to Myrddin and say, ‘Hey, old buddy, can you do us a favor?’”
“None of that cheek, young lady.” She pulled some crullers from the bag and arranged them on a napkin. “Here, you must eat. The sugar will restore your strength.”
She unwrapped an English muffin filled with egg, cheese, and ham and set it on the table in front of an empty chair. Kane jumped up onto the chair and, um, wolfed down the sandwich. Mab unwrapped another for him.
My stomach growled again. I picked up a cruller and bit into it. “Okay, sorry about the sarcasm. But what are we going to do? If I understand right, we can wait until the next full moon—” Kane let out a short bark to show how little he liked that idea. “And the full moon may or may not fix the problem. Or we can ask Myrddin to undo the damage he caused. That would be the same Myrddin who tried to kill me yesterday.”
“I said nothing about asking him. We’ll have to force him.” Mab moved aside the food bag and opened a small laptop computer. “I’ve been reviewing the recording Myrddin made last night—”
I nearly choked on my cruller. “You know how to use a computer?” I’d always thought of my aunt as the original Luddite.
She didn’t even bother to shrug. “One does what one must.” Mab squinted at the small screen. “There was a camera behind the shattered mirror. It broadcast wirelessly to this . . .” She flicked a finger at the laptop. “To this contraption. I’ve been going through the files. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing important there besides Myrddin’s video.” Her voice broke on the last word. She picked up her tea, but the cup shook and she put it down again. “Victory, child, I’m so sorry we couldn’t get there sooner.”
I closed my eyes against the image of a descending needle. “I’d say you arrived just in time.” Then I thought of something. “The Reaper . . . ?”
Mab nodded. “Yes, child. You were correct. A hooded man attacked you with a curved blade. But whatever symbols he carved into your chest, I couldn’t make them out. His back obscured what he was doing, and then there was so much blood.” She grabbed a napkin and pressed it to her face, turning her head away.
I rubbed her shoulder, reminding her I was all right now. After a moment, she sniffed and balled up the napkin in her hand.
“The Reaper was possessed by the Morfran,” I said. “In the demon plane, he looked kind of like a giant crow.” That awful cawing, driving the Reaper to use his blade, echoed in my mind.
Mab nodded thoughtfully. She raised her cup with a steadier hand. “The Morfran is the essence of all demons. A Morfran-possessed hand drawing the symbols on the victims adds that demonic essence to the ritual. Without the Morfran, Pryce would be revived as a mere human. Myrddin wants his demi-demon son.”