Betwixt (45 page)

The avenging archangel: Saint Michael.

I
T WAS HER LIGHT THAT GUIDED HIM.
At first Nix had followed a distant glow in the direction of the voice he had heard
screaming, but that was extinguished and another emerged in its absence: hotter, more intense. When it started to move — away
from him? — Nix panicked, thinking he’d lose it, and so he’d sped toward it in the darkness, and when he’d reached it he was
so certain he’d have to confront Bleek that the reflected, altered visage of K.A. D’Amici shocked him, and he punched. Nix’s
closed fist hit the younger boy’s jaw and K.A. went reeling backward, into the curved chest of the jerking body that Nix realized
was Tim Bleeker.

What K.A. had been holding before became Nix’s, and Nix was suddenly in possession of the glowing white thing he had been
trying to find: Neve. Beautiful, bloodied Neve, the ring around her a ghostly white. He moved in front of her to shield her.
To his left, Morgan D’Amici stared, shaking her head, mouthing,
No, no … K.A.
Past her, near the back wall, was Moth, eerily transformed, his bulbous head rudely lit by the fire in the middle of the
cavern Nix had stumbled into.

Except for Ondine, the ring was all there.

Too late he realized that K.A. was trying to do the same thing he was: save Neve and escape. And too late he understood that
the figure now holding K.A., pinning his arms behind his back, was none other than the one he had come to kill. Remnants of
a small explosion were visible — glass on the floor, rivulets of flame running up the walls. Metal chains, at the end of which
looped handcuffs, spiraled on the ground.

“K.A!” Morgan screamed.

“I couldn’t have planned this better myself.” Bleek smiled, his eyes skipping from Morgan to Moth to Nix and Neve and back
again. “Oh, wait. I did! My old best friend and my new best friend. A stranger in my arms.” Bleek tightened his forearm around
K.A.’s neck, which he now held against his shoulder. “And my girl close by. Neve, honey. Come to Daddy.”

Nix turned. Curling his hands more protectively around her soft upper arms, he sensed the girl was too scared to move, though
he noticed that her eyes didn’t leave the creature standing hunched, half-scowling, half-grinning, in front of them. What
had Bleek done to her? For the halo of death around her was shining, pulsing now, starting to go through its changes.

“Run, Morgan!” Moth shouted from the back of the room. “Get out of here!”

“No … K.A.,” Morgan cried. “I won’t leave you, K.A. —”

“Go, Morgan,” her brother said groggily. “Get out of here. They’re all crazy. They’ll hurt you —”

“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere, bitch.” Bleek drew a shining blade from his jacket and held it to the boy’s throat. “You
make one move and your little Kaka dies. This is the kind of party where everyone is invited.”

All Nix could do was hold on to Neve. He tried not to breathe.

“Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better situation. Of
course this one …” He traced the blade across K.A.’s throat and the boy closed his eyes. A spidery crimson thread trailed.
“… isn’t of use to us, but that’s for later.”

“Moth, do something!” Morgan yelled. Nix tried to meet the older boy’s eyes — a sign of what to do — but Moth only stared,
hatred stiffening his face.

“Cat got your tongue, old buddy? You were normally so chatty with the girls. For a while there I thought you were batting
for the other team.”

It was meant to distract. Inch by inch, Nix observed, Bleek was starting to move himself and his hostage toward the door where
Nix stood in front of a trembling Neve.

“Do it!” Moth whipped his head around. “Do it now! Kill him!”

Nix was confused. Was Moth talking to him?

“Kill me?” The cutter spoke to Moth, but stared at Nix. “And how do you propose the lad do this, James? You are on my territory
now. I rule here.”

He was now within a few feet and advancing. Nix had started to back against the wall nearest the door, still clutching Neve,
but there was nowhere to go. If he escaped with her, K.A. would die. If he stayed, they all would.

“I should have eliminated you when I had the chance, back in Eugene,” Moth spat. “I should have done it. If I had only known
you were Raphael’s
bastard son
—”

Raphael Inman? Ondine’s art teacher? Nix saw Morgan’s eyes widen, but Bleek only snorted.

“Oh
boo hoo.
Saggy ass finally tell you his little sob story? Too bad for you, finding out so late. We were on Oprah last week. You know
what, Moth?” He seethed, inching closer to Nix all the while. “You belong in Novala, with the fairies. Though,” he paused
and fake sighed. “It’s going to be hard to explain how you lost the girl
and
the new changelings. And we both know you don’t want to be eliminated. That’s just devastating. Your body tortured; your
consciousness synonymous with eternal pain. Your everlasting home a perpetual moat of despair.” He sighed again. “Really shitty.
Literally.
Oh, what to do —”

Moth yelled this time.

“Do it, Nix! Do it!”

Neve’s head followed Moth’s and they were both staring at him, waiting. Neve, for the first time, seemed to recognize that
it was Nix — her old friend Nix — standing in front of her, and the recognition made her whimper and her knees buckled so
that he had to turn to catch her. He knew the shimmering too well now. Blood traced faded curlicues along the inside of her
forearms and splattered onto her toes. Her hands were dirty. Dried clay caked her back. What had Bleek done?

Even K.A. was staring at him, waiting, though for what, he could not imagine. What did the boy think he was seeing? Bleek
stepped forward again, more boldly now, still holding K.A. and the knife, as if he knew no one was going to stop him.

“You can do it, can’t you?” Moth whispered loudly. “Can’t you transfer the ring of fire?”

Nix seized. Could he? If what happened with Jacob was real, then he should be able to. Yet he knew there was something wrong
with the equation. He couldn’t just transfer Neve’s fate. With Jacob it had been different. The old man punching him had made
the girl choose a path that eventually led her here, to the tunnels. That was how the fire must have jumped. But this. This
was different. Neve was still burning. He couldn’t just transfer her fate without Bleek making a different decision, separately,
inside himself that would eventually lead to his demise.

Yet Moth seemed convinced. There must have been something he knew that Nix didn’t. What was Neve there for? Why did Bleek
want her? And why had he … where was the blood from?

“I can’t —” Nix whispered, staring. He was shaking his head, begging him with his eyes to reveal no more, but Moth, whether
from fear or incomprehension, would not cease.

“But you have the gift,” he continued, his voice screwed to a manic pitch. “You’re the one. You’re the ringer. Save her, Nix.
Before it’s too late —”

Bleek started laughing, his stiletto jogging against K.A.’s throat, his head thrown back in a sick imitation of delight. “Oh
this is rich. Nix, the seer. The great oracle of his generation. And
I’ve got him by the balls.” He turned and faced the ringer again. “Yes, please do. Please do engulf me in flames. That’s what
you see, right? A ring of light around someone doomed to die? Except, shit for brains —” He had taken the belt that had been
used for Neve and tied K.A.’s wrists together. Just as quickly he was next to Nix, starting to unwrap the changeling’s arms
from his charge. Though Nix was clinging fiercely and Neve was struggling to get away, the fear of her ever-increasing fire
sapped his will.

“You don’t know the whole story. You don’t know where it all started. Or when it might end. But I do. That’s the whole reason
I lured you down here in the first place. I don’t want my little pumpkin to die … yet. That’s why I need a ringer. For Nevie.
And for what’s inside her.”

This time Bleek bent down to one of the chains and in one deft movement cuffed the confused, frozen Nix. Just as quickly,
he grabbed Morgan’s wrist beside him and did the same, though she managed to swipe a long-nailed hand across Bleek’s face,
drawing a few viscous pearls of what was left of his desiccated blood. He did not stop. Leaping across the wreckage to corner
a caged Moth, Bleek continued to address Nix, his buzzing voice hovering in air around them as he bent down to pick up another
chain.

“Everything’s got to start somewhere. And thanks to Raphael,” he sneered at Moth in the corner, still edging forward, “I know
a
little secret about Ondine. She’s special, I hear. Has something the rest of us don’t. I found out what it is and how to do
it again. I’m going to do what every parent wants to do. Make myself, only better. I just need you, my friend, to get started.
Neve isn’t going to die. Well, not right now at least.” He smiled evilly. “I
need
her. I think I almost
love
her.” Bleek stopped at Neve and tipped the girl’s chin up. She was sobbing. “She hasn’t taken so well to being down here,
but she needs to stay alive during this —
ahem
— procedure. And for a good while after. But I’m sure you can manage that, can’t you? Huh, Neve?”

Morgan struggled against her shackles, whispering fiercely now. “He’s making a ring. He’s trying to inhabit Neve’s baby. He’s
impregnated her. He’ll kill her after he gets what he wants. That’s why you see the fire. You have to stop him —”

“Shut up,” Bleek hissed, and struck Morgan with the loose end of an iron. She moaned and fell, and K.A. lunged.

“Moth might have figured this whole thing out had he been an iota brighter.” The cutter brandished the swinging weapon in
front of him, and though Moth had been sidling toward him slowly all the while, Bleek spun the metal lasso and plucked him
off the wall. In an instant he snapped Moth’s cuff into place and pushed him back again. The changeling tripped and stumbled.

“But see, this was always the problem with us. He was just too stupid. But Nix …” Bleek paused and looked at Nix squarely.
“Go ahead. Give it all you got. Just to let you know: she
is
going
to die eventually, after I’ve gotten what I need from her. That’s what happens to humans. Eventually they die. That’s why
we don’t
really
love them.”

“Neve!” K.A. yelled helplessly, and tried to pull his hands apart.

“Pick it up now, Neve. It’s time.”

It was the girl’s face in response to Bleek’s harangue that finally made up Nix’s mind. Even in her state, she had understood
something of what was happening to her, what she had been brought down there for. Her face crumpled and she swayed on her
bandy legs. She was about to lose consciousness, he knew. She crumpled to the floor, exposing an already red-ringed wrist,
as if accepting her fate. K.A. lurched toward her again.

Almost tenderly, Bleek lay her wrist in the last cuff and picked up the chain it was attached to, held it and tugged.

“That’s a good girl. Nice and tight. We’re not going anywhere till this is done.”

Neve’s light was exploding now in fervent sparkling bursts. Nix didn’t have time to work out the implications of what Morgan
had revealed to him, just that Neve had to stay alive no matter what. K.A. was still straining on his knees toward the girl,
and Nix felt he had no other choice but to try to save her, even if it meant dying himself. He concentrated on Neve, on her
sleepy dark brown eyes, closing now; and on Bleek, focusing every last bit of his energy on making the fire move … moving
it to Bleek,
who stood now, howling, his head thrown back in ecstasy, his knuckles white upon the chains now wielding the fire —

“Yes, yes! That’s right. Open it up. Feed it….”

Then Nix felt it: a current of burning, electric energy moving among them, along the metal chains all five of them were cuffed
to, K.A. in the center, his eyes wide. His teeth rattled and his eyeballs felt as if they were about to burst. He smelled
burnt hair and struggled to keep his eyes open, on Neve, who was a poisonous shade of white, her eyelids half open, teeth
chattering, as the current entered her. She burned and then quelled, burned and quelled, as if fate itself couldn’t decide
which way to take her. The rest of them ignited in response. K.A., Morgan, Moth, Bleek — they all wore the ring now. Nix,
too? He knew only one thing: they were all going to die. That’s what the light meant. And Nix himself, his own power, had
doomed them.

What had he released?

“Stop it, Nix!” Moth tried to pull away from the chains. “He’s tricked us — it’s what he wanted! The ring — I didn’t know,
Nix…. I didn’t know….”

“I’ve lost it…. It’s beyond me….” Nix was far away, as if in another room, hearing his own cries.

“Can’t you …”

With the last coherent energy he had, Nix lunged at Neve through the violent stream that now linked all of them, through the
chains, all of it channeling into her. Bleek stood laughing in
the middle of the ring, his hands gripping the metal, unconcerned now with his captives.

“It’s the ring!” Moth yelled. “He’s inhabiting her! Stop him, Nix. Stop him!”