Hunter Kiss: Labyrinth Of Stars Part 23

Grant pulled me into his lap, touching my cheek. I finally felt pain. I nudged his hand away to touch my face. I knew the boys were still there-I could feel their bodies heavy on my skin-but if I was hurt, they were hurt.

I felt something hot, wet. I looked at my fingers.

They were covered in blood.

CHAPTER 23.

TRUST is a delicate beast.

Call it a shape-s.h.i.+fter for all the different forms it takes, all its ident.i.ties and flaws and beauties, and its imperviousness to truth and lies. Trust someone, and that trust becomes a foundation. You can build a life based on trust. Might destroy lives, too. Your own, included.

But trust is the deal. Got trust, and you got something. So when people do give it to you, for real, don't f.u.c.k it up.

Because you can't put it back together.

SIMPLE truth: I could have died.

If that blade had plunged into my forehead, as it was meant to, the tip would have punched through the boys into my brain. Even that easy swipe across my cheek was a gusher-about an inch long, and deep. I'd never needed st.i.tches, but this seemed like a good candidate for some. The boys soaked my blood into their bodies before it had a chance to roll down my face, but I could see that red burst welling up through the cut, I could feel it-and the entire left side of my face throbbed. The boys had to be in pain, too, but I couldn't tell who had gotten cut-too many scales and muscles, no glint of a red eye. It brought back bad memories.

I'd lost the boys, once. Lost them from my body, lost our bonds, almost lost our family. Cut from me, given their freedom. I'd been left vulnerable, night and day, forced to rely on myself-forced to learn that I could survive without them if I had to. A lesson for Zee and the boys, too. A lesson in how much they had changed in ten thousand years. A lesson in priorities and s.h.i.+fting hearts, and what mattered when power was no longer enough.

They'd been given a choice: their freedom or the prison of my bloodline.

My boys chose blood. Blood and family.

I couldn't lose them now. Five pieces of my heart, five fragments of my soul. Five little souls, born again in each of us women, for ten thousand years. Good, bad, weak, strong-but we'd carried them, and they'd carried us, and f.u.c.k me if it ended here, now. My daughter needed to know this, the pain and wonder. She needed to have her family with her. I sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't last forever. And neither would Grant, no matter how much I wished otherwise.

It was late afternoon, close to sunset. Breeze had kicked up, swirling dirt from the drive around our legs. Hot sun, clear sky, birds swooping from barn eaves. The boys continued to coc.o.o.n my face, heavy and still, not even stirring in their dreams; a stiffness that continued to run deep, into my arms and legs. It was difficult to move, but I insisted on helping the Mahati warrior relocate the limp remains of the men to the barn. I couldn't leave the dead, even if there wasn't much left but skin and bone, to rot on my living-room floor.

Most of the Shurik stayed behind at the house, but a handful hitched a ride inside what was left of the bodies. In twenty-four hours, not even their bones would remain. Just a wet spot. It crossed my mind not to let the demons eat the dead men, but I remembered what Blood Mama had said, a day and a lifetime ago: This was a war, and there was an enemy. The demons needed a taste, just like hounds required a scent.

Never waste meat.

Grant waited for me on the porch, sitting in a rocking chair, with his cane leaning against the rail. Pale, underweight, but alive. His gaze lingered on the cut in my cheek, and he wordlessly held up a plate filled with sandwiches: ham, a little bit of lettuce, and cheese. Shurik surrounded him, nesting in the blanket thrown over his lap. Little guards.

"I'm still dealing with the whole machete-in-the-head incident," I said, climbing the stairs with deliberate, stiff steps. "Also, my hands feel like dead people. I'm not really hungry."

"So wash your hands." Grant leaned back, relaxing in his chair-his air of calm a little forced. "I'm not going anywhere."

I would have argued, except it was too nice clinging to the illusion of normality. Which totally went to h.e.l.l when I entered the house and found a dozen industrious little demons rolling like dogs in s.h.i.+t through the blood on my living-room floor. An odd scent filled the air: vanilla, mixed with the metallic musk of death. Shurik body odor, maybe. A couple of them stopped to look at me and bared their teeth. I stared back and decided it wasn't worth saying anything. My poor mother's house.

Mary was on the couch, sleeping, with the crystal skull tucked in her arms, right next to her machete. A blanket covered the d.a.m.n thing, but its shape still burned through me. Her bristling wild hair made her head look huge against her sinewy, skinny, body, and she stirred, opening her eyes to slits as I walked past.

I washed my hands, then filled two gla.s.ses of water and went back to the couch. I knelt, with difficulty, and helped her drink.

A faint, crooked smile touched her mouth, but she was gulping water at the same time, and it dribbled down her chin. With one free hand, she grabbed my wrist. Her grip was weak, trembling. Even through the boys, I felt the heat of her fever. She pulled back the blanket and revealed the crystal skull. The armor covering my right hand tingled, tugged, as did the boys.

"It burns," she whispered. "It waits."

I backed away, forcing her to let go of me. The old woman's gaze turned knowing, and she settled deeper into the blankets.

"Hunt," she murmured at me, her eyes black and glittering.

Outside, the Messenger stood in the driveway, staring off into the distance, head tilted as if listening to some silent music. My grandfather sat on the porch stairs, slowly chewing a sandwich and watching her. I stared at the back of his head, but he said nothing to me, and I couldn't muster any words of my own.

Grant, giving Jack a wary look, patted the chair beside him. "Here. While we have a moment-"

"-don't waste it," I finished, leaning down to kiss his mouth. I lingered, deepening the kiss, my lips warm and hungry on his. Precious, beautiful. My man, still alive. My man, here, breathing. Both of us, together. Proof of miracles, right there.

He broke off the kiss with a violent coughing fit. The little Shurik poked its head from the collar of his s.h.i.+rt, staring up at him. I started to speak, but he held up his hand.

"Don't," he said. "At least we're still together."

"d.a.m.n straight," I whispered. "You better stay with us. Or else."

"Threatening a sick man. I get no love."

I kissed him. "All you get is love."

He pulled back, studying me. "Your cheek. The boys."

"They're sick. I'm not invulnerable anymore." I felt my grandfather turn slightly, to look at me. I still ignored him. "But I think they're flus.h.i.+ng the disease from my system."

"Thank G.o.d."

"Not yet. Not until you're well. Not until they're okay, too." And everyone else, I didn't add. Which might be too much to hope for.

He squeezed my hand, then raised his other to touch the Shurik clinging to his neck, the same little demon who had refused to leave his side this entire time. It writhed happily under his touch.

"You saved me," he said in a quiet voice, holding my gaze. "I felt you pull me out of the darkness. But then I was stuck inside my head. I couldn't reach you. My eyes wouldn't open."

You terrified me, I wanted to tell him. You cut me off. My heart feels empty without you in it. I'm scared and lonely and I don't know what to do, or even how to save you.

"The Messenger did the real work." I pointed to the Shurik on his chest. "And we had help."

He grunted. "Answers yet?"

"More questions." I looked at Jack, and a deep ache boomed through my heart: a twist, like a knife was slowly turning. "Talk to us."

My grandfather didn't stir from the steps. He tossed the rest of his sandwich into the gra.s.s and wiped his mouth with two large fingers. Those hands, which were still unfamiliar to me. The body I'd first known him in, the body that had known my grandmother and made my mother, had been slender and tall, with the elegance of a retired dancer. This one, stolen from a dying homeless man, was bulky with fat and muscle, and hairy as a bear. Sometimes, though, I could still forget the differences-his eyes were the same.

"I'm afraid to talk," Jack replied, staring at the hill where my mother and grandmother were buried. "When I think about what I need to say to you, I'm reminded of all the ways I'm not human. I can't pretend that I'm just an old man with a granddaughter."

"I'm past caring." Through the porch rails, I watched the Messenger. She looked alien to me from this distance, as alien as the others of her kind-too tall, too angular, with skin that was flawless and inhumanly pale.

The Mahati emerged from the barn, his long fingers twitching in agitation. His braids gleamed in the fading light, silver chains chiming softly. He stood beside her with an ease that surprised me-such familiar intimacy, such strange sympathy; the way they looked at each other with grave eyes.

Grant took my hand. His skin was warm. Just warm. Not burning with fever. I reached for our bond-found only the hole-but I lingered in that empty s.p.a.ce, holding myself there, pretending there was something to wrap myself around, the memory of light.

A memory of light is the same as light, whispered the darkness.

I suppose you would know, I replied, trying to stay focused on my husband. You eat light.

And the light eats the darkness. Heat spread behind my mouth, like a smile-exactly what that sensation was. It is the eternal dance, Hunter.

It was almost sunset: light stretching, glowing, cooling. Usually the boys would have been tugging at me, itching to be free. Not today. So still, quiet, as if they were conserving their strength. Or maybe they just didn't have any.

"Jack," I said. "Who could impersonate you?"

"No one. It's impossible."

"Then you were the one who orchestrated the attacks on us."

He gave me a sharp look. "Never."

"Then how?"

"I don't know," he snapped. "It doesn't make sense."

"No way he was lying?"

"He believed what he was saying." My grandfather scrubbed at his face. "Something else is happening."

I swallowed. "Could Zee and the boys have been deceived?"

Jack tensed. "In what way?"

I knew right then. No matter what he said next. It was the way his shoulders hunched, and the instant wariness in his eyes. "When Zee said he knew who had 'hammered the arrows' . . . to whom was he referring?"

He flexed his gnarled, brown hands. "You already know that answer, my dear."

I swallowed hard. "And the arrows? What are they?"

My grandfather finally looked at me, and if not for a split-second slip of pain in his eyes, I would have thought he was empty on the inside, absolutely hollow.

"You know that, too," he said.

I stared at him, stared and stared, and my heart died even more; just cracked and crumbled, and fell to ash. Finally, the boys stirred. But it was nothing more than their pain echoing mine.

"You made the disease," I said, barely able to speak above a whisper. "You designed the thing that's killing us."

"That is the one thing I cannot deny," Jack said.

I squeezed Grant's hand so hard, he stirred in his chair. "The illness is efficient," I recited, recalling with perfect clarity the affable voice I'd heard as I'd fought for my husband's life, deep within the cells of that poison. "But it must be altered. It must not be allowed to affect our flesh. Only the demons."

Jack paled, teetering so far sideways he had to lean against the rail. "Where did you hear that?"

"It was you." I stood, feeling the boys tug on my skin, harder now, on the edge of sunset. "You, designing ways to kill, with the Devourer right there at your side."

"You don't know anything," he whispered.

"You lied to me. Your family."

"I had to."

"Bulls.h.i.+t! All this time, I've been searching for answers, and you stood there and said nothing!"

"I had to." Jack's gaze burned wild. "I don't care that you know I designed the poison. That was war, my dear. You watch world after world be ravaged and cannibalized, then tell me what you wouldn't do. You've had the privilege of control and peace. You've had the blessings of not seeing babies cooked."

I leaned back from him, staring. Jack followed me, pressing his knuckles into the porch. I'd never seen him so angry. "You're a fool, Maxine. You're going to kill us all."

"Don't talk to her like that," Grant warned.

"My apologies, lad, but even you're not worth the price. Anything would be better than the arrival of him."

"You're sounding like an insane old man," I said.

"If you think I'm insane, wait until you meet him. Dearest child, I'm keeping you, and your Grant, and billions of other fools, alive. Normally, I'm all for extinction events, but one must draw the line somewhere. That is why I lied to you. There is more at stake here than our cozy little family. More at stake than, say, Grant."

"Jack," I warned. "It's not just Grant. Our daughter, too. Your great-granddaughter. What about her life?"

I had to give it to him-he actually looked ashamed. "I haven't forgotten her."

"Could have fooled me. You're the one who's going to kill us all-with that disease you designed."

"A drop in the bucket," he said, grim. "I don't know who has cloned my life, but even that means nothing compared to the larger danger."

The Devourer, I almost said, but the look on my grandfather's face made me swallow that name. He said, "Something unexpected happened when I used the skull to spy on my kind. I had a vision-of the future."

Fire flashed through my mind, the ominous heat and presence of that creature beyond the flames-staring at me, implacable and hungry. Full of menace, hate.

The darkness inside me was as hungry, and just as remorseless-but it felt different. Cleaner, somehow. Primal, a force of nature. Or maybe I was biased because the darkness was mine, on my side-my personal, inherited monster.

"We're waiting," I said.

Jack held my gaze, clear and unwavering. "I saw you undoing the chains that will release someone who would be best left chained."

Grant stared at him. "I'm dying, Jack. We're all sick. We don't have time for this c.r.a.p. Who is this you're so afraid of?"

Death, I wanted to say, still feeling the crackle of heat. Remembering, too, another vision: my body, dismembered by fire, torn apart like a doll.