“When—?”
“I shifted back at about three o’clock this morning, and there you were, fast asleep on the floor.” She nodded toward where I’d lain down. “I lifted you onto the cot. I had a fright because I nearly dropped you. That’s when I realized how weak I was.”
For Mab, “weak” was stronger than most norm bodybuilders. If she’d had trouble lifting my 115 pounds, she wasn’t yet recovered. Still, it was wonderful to have my aunt back.
I hugged her again, sloshing more coffee. She bore it stiffly, then patted my back—onetwothree—and gently pushed me away. I took the now-half-empty coffee mug.
Mab crossed her arms and quirked her mouth in a smile, but my head drooped as I looked at the cement floor. “Yesterday … it was my fault.”
“Nonsense. You startled me, but I should never have let my guard down. I knew better.”
“I don’t mean in the mine.” Although that was my fault, too. “I mean before, in the library. I should have warned you.” I sat down heavily on the cot.
She looked at me, waiting.
“The book told me. The message was confused, a big jumble of words. But one word came through loud and clear: death. I thought it referred to me, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to worry you.” Tears brimmed. “But it was you. You’re the one who almost died.”
She batted away my words and sat beside me. “We’ve discussed this before. The book is deceptive. It tricked you the first time you opened it ten years ago, and it tricked you yesterday. If you’d tried to warn me, I suspect your words would have been muddled again. Or if not that, the book would have tricked me, too.” Her voice softened. “You were correct in your assumption, child. I would have worried about you. Perhaps I would have fallen sooner for it. So it’s possible, young Victory, that your attempt to protect me did indeed save my life.”
My aunt was arguing herself dizzy trying to make me feel better. Not that Mab had ever done such a thing before. Huh. Maybe she meant it.
“Yesterday, in the mine,” Mab said, “you entered the demon plane?”
“I had to. Pryce fried my headlamp and my flashlight. It was so dark. Then you cried out, and I thought you were hurt. I was trying to help, not startle you. I didn’t know my demon mark would flare up like that.”
“It wasn’t that, child.” She paused, her mouth a thin line. “You had a shadow demon.”
“No, that’s impossible.” Mab had been through one hell of an ordeal; of course her memory was blurry. “You must have seen Pryce’s shadow demon.”
She shook her head. “I know Cysgod, child. The demon that shadows Pryce is part of him, like a human’s soul. It’s his nature as a demi-demon.”
“Well, see? Impossible. I’m not one of the Meibion Avagddu with a demon soul.”
“It was faint, which was why I stopped and stared. I wasn’t certain of what I saw. But it was there.” She put her hand on my arm, bracing me. “Victory, it was the Destroyer.”
“No!” Coffee spilled as the mug clattered to the floor. No, it was bad enough that the Destroyer could get into my dreams. It wasn’t shadowing me, too. Mab was wrong. She had to be.
But something inside me—a twitch of my demon mark, an echo of laughter—told me she was right.
“I saw it, child. It loomed behind you, and it moved with you. Not a second or two behind you, but exactly as you moved.”
I looked helplessly at my aunt. “What does it mean, Mab?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I haven’t been able to think about anything else since I awoke.” She lifted my right arm and turned it so the forearm was facing up. Gently, her fingers traced the scar that marked the place where Difethwr’s flames had touched me. “A bond works both ways. Ten years ago, the Destroyer marked you, and for most of the interim you were subject to the Hellion’s essence.” I nodded, thinking about those years of unpredictable, barely controllable rages. “Last autumn, you used the bond to reverse the situation, making the Destroyer subject to you. Now, I believe Pryce and the Destroyer are attempting to reverse it again.”
“Putting me in the Destroyer’s power.”
“I’m afraid so. The Hellion is attempting to encroach upon your soul. It wants to make you a demi-demon, just like Pryce and his kin.”
“Is that possible?”
“I don’t know. They believe it is, or they wouldn’t try.”
The idea sat like a lead ball in my stomach. “So the Destroyer wants to take over my soul. And as Pryce feeds the Morfran, the Hellion will only get stronger.”
I didn’t look at her because I didn’t want to see her nod. But she changed the subject.
“Victory, this morning I found something new in The Book of Utter Darkness: ‘As the dead dance, the Brenin shall claim what’s his.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
“Pryce considers himself King of All Demons, so he’d think ‘Brenin’ refers to him.”
“I agree. What about the rest of it?”
“Elsewhere, when the book mentioned the dead, it meant the zombies.” When the dead dance … I saw Tina wiggling her hips as she practiced for her Monster Paul audition. I grasped Mab’s hand. “There’s going to be a free concert in Boston for Paranormal Appreciation Day. Hundreds of zombies will be there.”
“When is this planned?”
“February second.”
“That’s tomorrow.”
Upstairs, someone banged on the kitchen door. A moment later, Rose appeared in the doorway of the shift room. “There’s a boy rode out from the village on his bicycle,” she told us. “He says he’s got a message from Mr. Cadogan at the pub. Has to give it to Miss Mab herself.”
Mab rose and went upstairs. I followed her. At the kitchen door, she handed some coins to a boy who looked about twelve. He gave her a folded piece of paper and left. She closed the kitchen door, read the note, and turned to me.
“I can’t say this surprises me after what we were just discussing. Pryce checked out of the Cross and Crow this morning, making sure to tell Cadogan he’s been called suddenly to the States.” She crumpled the note in her hand. “He’s traveling to Boston this afternoon.”
I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was a little past eight. “I’ll get packed.”
“And I’ll have Jenkins book you a flight.”
Kane chose that moment to stroll into the kitchen. He wore new-looking jeans and a soft, charcoal-gray sweater. “Good morning, ladies. Do I smell coffee?”
Rhetorical question. Kane’s werewolf nose could smell coffee half a mile away. Rose brought him a mug. He kissed my cheek and nodded to Mab. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Better, I hope.”
She nodded, looking regal, a queen answering a courtier’s question.
Kane grinned. But he must have seen something in our faces because the grin faded. “What’s going on?”
“Pryce is on his way to Boston,” I said. “We think he’s going to launch a major Morfran attack on the zombies.”
“Don’t say ‘zombies.’ ” He turned to Mab. “In Boston, we call them the ‘previously deceased,’ ” he explained. Then he turned to me again. “You’re going back?”
“On the first flight Jenkins can book me on.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Mab nodded her approval. “I’ll tell Jenkins.” She pulled open the kitchen door.
“Mab, wait.” I tried, not successfully, to keep the fear out of my voice. I couldn’t do this by myself. I hadn’t yet managed to stone a single crow. Pryce had loosed a critical mass of Morfran—that sky-darkening flock of crows—and I wasn’t good enough with Hellforged to do anything about it. Now I’d learned that the Destroyer was shadowing me, waiting for its chance to bump out my soul and take over. I was going to lose. Deadtown would be a slaughter zone.
My aunt stood with her hand on the doorknob, eyebrows raised. “Tell Jenkins to book three tickets,” I said. “Come with us. Please.”
The expression in her eyes told me she understood my fears. But she shook her head. “I can’t, child. I’m not strong enough to travel. Although Mr. Kane saved my life, I’m not a werewolf. I … my heart. It’s not fully healed.”
She put out a hand to stop me from asking. “I’ll be fine, child. But I’d be no help to you now. Quite the opposite.”
What could I say? It was my fault that Mab had been wounded; I wasn’t going to ask her to risk her recovery.
There was no time for long good-byes. Within an hour we’d packed our bags and loaded Kane’s rental car. Jenkins shook Kane’s hand and clapped him on the back, then gave me a hug. Rose pressed a bag of sandwiches on us—“For the drive,” she said—and hugged us both.
Mab shook Kane’s hand. “Thank you again for saving my life. I owe you a very large debt of gratitude. I do hope you’ll accept my hospitality for an extended visit at some future time. Under happier circumstances.”
“It’s a date.” Kane smiled his thousand-watt smile and kissed Mab’s hand. The way she pressed her other hand to her chest made me worry for a second about her heart. It took a lot to fluster Mab, but Kane had managed it.
Everyone pulled back so I could say good-bye to my aunt. Kane went around to the driver’s side of the car, and Jenkins and Rose withdrew to Maenllyd’s front steps. Mab asked me for the fifteenth time if I had Hellforged. I nodded. I wasn’t trusting my voice just then. “And the book? The Home Sweet Home slate?” I kept nodding. “And you remember the words of the incantation?” I mouthed them silently. I did—for now, anyway.
Mab squeezed my arm. “You can do this, child. Remember what you’ve been working on. Be pure. Purity will help you overcome all threats from the demon plane.”