Darklands (26 page)

He’d slaughter me within ten seconds. The thought sent a cold wind through my dreamscape.

Mab rubbed her arms, as though she felt it, too. “Don’t fret, child. It’s as difficult to leave the Darklands as it is to enter. In ancient days, after Arthur stole the cauldron of transformation, Lord Arawn tightened the borders.”

“Lord Arawn—he’s the ruler of the Darklands?”

“He is. When you and I last spoke, we mentioned
Preiddeu Annwn
, ‘The Spoils of Annwn.’ Do you recall the poem’s refrain?”

“‘Except for seven, none returned.’” Saying the words, I shivered. Must have been that wind.

“Yes. Three shiploads of Arthur’s finest warriors, and only seven men made it back. Seven, child. Few return from the Darklands. And none returns unchanged.”

I nodded. Pryce had gone in as a human, and there was no coming back as one. He’d return as either a demi-demon or a zombie.

“Pryce was clever to use the zombie virus to guarantee his return,” Mab continued, “but I don’t think we’ll see him before
those three days are up. Besides, there are many things that can go wrong between now and then.”

I perked up at that. “Like what?”

“The cauldrons, all three of them, draw their power from the special magic of the Darklands. It’s not the same as the magic of this world, and that may confuse Pryce. Also, before the cauldron can transform anything, it must be returned to its place at the center of the Darklands, where the magic is strongest. The Keeper you saw will notify Lord Arawn of the cauldron’s return, and haste will be made to transport it. It’s unlikely, but some accident could prevent or delay its return.

“Besides, Lord Arawn is no fool. He won’t simply return the cauldron to service, not after it’s been out of his domain for so long. I’m sure he’ll purify it in some way first.”

“And the purification will reveal the demons.”

Mab pursed her lips, then nodded. “Demons are excluded from the Darklands. Annwn is not a realm of tormented and damned souls. Demons have their own, separate region—what they call Uffern, and we call the demon plane. Pryce has bound the demons to the cauldron and cloaked their presence inside it. If those demons are discovered, however, they’ll be killed or driven from the realm.”

“Then the cauldron would be useless to Pryce, right? No demons, nothing to transform.”

“Yes. Pryce is aware of that, I’m sure. I’d wager that he intends to be at the purification ceremony and will make his move then. But that brings up another problem for him. To get to the cauldron, Pryce must find his way through the Darklands to their center. Traveling through that realm may not be easy for him.”

I feigned surprise. “Don’t tell me his GPS won’t pick up a signal in the realm of the dead.”

Mab cocked her head. “GPS?”

“Never mind.” Never attempt a technology joke—not even a lame one—around my aunt.

Mab stared at me for two or three seconds, then dismissed my comment as irrelevant. “When you killed Cysgod,” she said, getting back to the matter at hand, “Pryce lost his animating force. Myrddin restored him by stealing others’ life forces and pouring those into Pryce. In this world, the spirits of those Myrddin killed are bound to Pryce. In the Darklands, though, they might escape.”

“They can do that?”

“Myrddin bound those murdered souls to Pryce’s physical body. Now that body is technically dead and Pryce’s spirit is in the Darklands. Annwn is a place of spirits, or shades, as they’re called there. For most, it’s a temporary way station. Many spirits simply pass through on their way to other realms. Some go into the cauldron of rebirth and return to this world in new bodies. A few—a very few—make the Darklands their permanent home. At any rate, the bonds that hold those other life forces to Pryce are weaker there. They will try to peel themselves away from him, so they can move on to wherever they’re meant to be. As they leave him, he’ll grow progressively weaker until he’s able—
if
he’s able—to get his shadow demon back.”

That sounded promising. The faster Pryce weakened, the less likely it was that he’d reach the cauldron. “Is there anything we can do to help those spirits leave him? Light a candle or something?”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll have Jenkins drive me to the village church in the morning. Lighting a candle for each of Myrddin’s victims will send them energy and guide them on their way.”

Okay, that was something. But it didn’t seem like much. “What else can we do?”

Mab folded her hands in her lap. For a long time, she sat motionless, looking into the fire. She didn’t turn her head when she spoke. “I’m afraid, child, that I haven’t the foggiest.”

“But…” Mab always knew what to do. Always. I realized my mouth was hanging open, so I closed it. “So, what? We sit around and hope that Pryce’s plan blows up in his face?” Although Mab had listed many things that could go wrong for Pryce, I didn’t like the idea of counting on his failure.

She turned to look at me then. “I’m afraid I see no alternative.” Mab’s voice was calm, but there was something strange about her face. It took a moment to realize what it was. Fear colored my aunt’s eyes. I’d never seen it there before. She believed Pryce would succeed—and the thought scared her.

My aunt was never, ever scared.

“Can’t we go after him? Is there a way into the Darklands from here?” I made a sweeping gesture to encompass my dreamscape. I thought about the red-lit door I’d seen at the Devil’s Coffin and began reconstructing it in my mind: a rectangle of misty red light. No, not quite like that. I deepened the shade of red a little and—

“Victory, stop it!” The sharpness in Mab’s voice made the image wink out, like she’d yanked the plug on a TV. I blinked and focused on her. “That won’t work,” she said. “Any portal you create here will lead into another part of your dreamscape. It won’t get you into Annwn.”

“So how do we get there?”

“We don’t. Even if we could cross the border, it would be too dangerous.” She clasped her bloodstone pendant. “Victory, I’ve lived in this body for more than three hundred years, well past my allotted time. If I were to enter the Darklands, I could not take my bloodstone with me. It would be like leaving my strength behind. What’s more, Lord Arawn would never allow me to leave. Not without passing through the cauldron of rebirth.”

“All right, I’ll go.” It would be harder without Mab, but I’d faced Pryce before.

“How, child? There’s no virus for our kind that will guarantee your return. No.” She dropped the bloodstone and shook her head. “I told you, a raid on the Darklands is too dangerous. Remember the poem’s refrain, ‘
namyn seith, ny dyrreith
.’”

Namyn seith, ny dyrreith.
I wasn’t what you’d call fluent in medieval Welsh, but I knew those words: Except for seven, none returned.

Well, there were seven who
did
return. “I’m willing to take the chance.”

“I’m not willing to lose you, child.” Her voice was firm, but the tone was soft. “Put the idea out of your mind. You’re needed here.” I was going to ask for what, but she stood and started pacing again. “Our best strategy is to prepare ourselves to battle Pryce if he recovers his shadow demon. What will his first move be? Let us both think about that, and we’ll discuss it tomorrow. For now, we’ll say good night. Keep this pistol”—she tossed me the gun she’d used to kill my dream-demon—“in case more Drudes appear in your dreamscape tonight. We’ll deal with the Eidolon once you’re out of quarantine.” A faint smile touched her lips. “Butterfly. I like that. It will help keep the demon at bay until we can fight it properly.”

“But, Mab—”

Her colors swirled up, fast and thick, obscuring her. Blue and silver filled my dreamscape. I waved my arm in the mist, trying to bring her back, but she was gone.

*   *   *

I DIDN’T NEED MAB’S GUN—NOT BECAUSE I HAD MY EVER-expanding demon infestation under control, but because I couldn’t sleep. As soon as Mab’s colors faded, my eyes flew open. I sat up in bed, arms braced, pointing the gun around the room. But there was no gun. Of course not. It existed only in my dreamscape.

I relaxed my empty hands and fell back onto my pillow. Moonlight streamed in through the high windows. In the corner, up near the ceiling, a spider constructed a web, her legs busy as she spiraled inward. She stopped, resting motionless in the exact center of the web. The moonlight washed her out, making her pale gray, a ghost spider hoping to catch fragments of thoughts, memories, and dreams.

She was welcome to mine.

The situation was even worse than I’d thought. Pryce was running around the Darklands, leaving Mab helpless and frightened.
Helpless
and
frightened
were two words that should never, ever be associated with Mab. Yet there they were, thanks to me.

That Eidolon had me, bad. All my thoughts turned to self-blame and regret, going through the familiar, exhausting carousel of hurt and disappointed faces: Kane, Dad, Maria—I hadn’t made that dream-phone call to my niece—Mom, Gwen. And now add Mab. Had I
ever
done
anything
right? When you’ve been infested by an Eidolon, the last thing you need is an entire week alone with your thoughts and nothing to distract you. I’d be a raving lunatic by the time they let me out of here.

“Knock it off, Butterfly,” I said out loud.

Moist, smacking sounds of chewing filled the room. Other than that, Butterfly ignored me.

Tina was always eager to fight demons. I should have given her a big-ass sword and told her to cut the damn thing out of me. One way or another, she would have put me out of my misery.

In fact, I’d be doing more good right now if I’d let her disembowel me. An image arose in my mind: Tina standing there, her nose wrinkled with disgust as my intestines spilled to the floor. “Oops,” she’d say. But at least she would have sent me to the Darklands, where I could stop Pryce. Here, what good was I to anybody?

Mab said we had to be ready to fight Pryce when he returned;
that was fine as far as it went. But it didn’t go far enough. It wasn’t action; it was reaction—a loser’s plan. And I wasn’t ready to give up the battle yet.

Above me, the spider waited, motionless. “Got any ideas?” I asked. If she did, she kept them to herself.

There had to be some way to enter the Darklands. Preferably a way that didn’t involve getting skewered by a teenage zombie. I thought back to the old stories. Venturing too deep in the woods, traveling too far north, or sailing too far west—all had led human wanderers into the Darklands. Some found their way out again; others did not.

Except for seven, none returned.

I couldn’t wander anywhere beyond the boundaries of this small cabin, so those stories weren’t going to help. What else? Pryce had opened a door. But I wasn’t a wizard, and I’d be stuck here for the next two nights of the full moon. Still, the Darklands had at least one doorman—that robed figure who’d shut the portal in Pryce’s face. Mab had mentioned Keepers, guardians who could grant permission to enter. Who were they? All mythologies station at least one guardian at the border to the otherworld, like Cerberus in Greek mythology, Garmr in Norse, and Nehebkau in Egyptian. Who guarded the border of the Darklands? Who made sure that the living and the dead both stayed where they belonged?

I had it. Not a guard but a psychopomp, a spirit who spent her nights on
this
side of the border, whose job it was to escort departed souls out of this world.

Mallt-y-Nos. The Night Hag.

I remembered the stories. She was said to ride across the sky with her pack of baying hellhounds. Each night, she hunted lost souls, driving them mercilessly across the border and into the Darklands.

Mallt-y-Nos knew the crossing places. Mallt-y-Nos could guide me into the Darklands.

But would she let me in? And, even more important, would she let me out again?

Except for seven, none returned.

I had to try. I threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. My guts twisted as the Eidolon squirmed in protest.

“Get lost, Butterfly,” I said. “I’ve got work to do.”

CALLING A SPIRIT IS TRICKY BUSINESS. TO DO IT RIGHT, YOU need a ritual dagger, along with candles, incense, salt, and an altar loaded up with all kinds of magical paraphernalia. Except for the kitchen salt shaker, I didn’t have any of that. What I had was my intention.

I stood in the center of the living room, having pushed its few pieces of furniture against the walls. I took a couple of minutes to get centered, breathing deeply and going inside myself.
Breathe in…breathe out. Breathe in…breathe out.
No thinking, no guilt, just a steady focus on each breath. When the world seemed to pulse in time with my heartbeat, I opened my eyes. I pointed at the cabin floor and moved in a slow, clockwise circle. I concentrated on my intention: protection. I projected my will from my brain, my heart, down my arm and through my pointing finger, creating a sphere of protection around me. Nothing could enter the circle unless I allowed it.

Let it be so.

Then, I called the Night Hag. I pulled up everything I knew about her legend. I remembered the terror I’d felt as a child—lying in bed, sure she was coming for me, pulling my pillow over my head to block out the sound of galloping hooves. I could see
the pages of a book of Welsh folktales, one from Mab’s library, where I’d read her story. I felt the uncanny shiver that had tingled through me when, walking alone at night in a dark Welsh lane, I’d felt
something
pass by. My pulse pounded like those galloping hooves. My whole body trembled with the desire to run, to flee, to stay out of range of the hag and her pack of hellhounds. But I stood my ground.

And I called her to me.

“Mallt-y-Nos!” My voice rang out with a confidence I didn’t feel, pushing past the cabin’s walls. “Matilda of the Night! Lady of the hunt! Mistress of Hounds! Night Hag, who drives lost souls to the Darklands! I, Victory Vaughn, do invoke thee!”

The words echoed back to me, then faded. My intention cut through the silence, as I held the image of Mallt-y-Nos in my mind. A silhouette on horseback, shadowy against the moon, long hair flying behind her as she rode. She reined in her horse and cocked her head, listening. I called out again: “Mallt-y-Nos, come to me!”