Deadshifted (21 page)

A man who was insane enough to create a room like this would have no problems with killing Asher and then lying to me.

“Rory?” I called out, my voice a question.

“It’s empty in here.” He reappeared in the doorway.

“For real?” I didn’t want to go in there; it would smell more like Nathaniel—

“Honest. I’m sorry. I think.” He did his one-shoulder-shrug thing again. “I’m not sure if that’s worse or better.”

“Neither am I.” I stepped closer to one of the walls. Not all of this ink was dry. Not all of this ink was even ink. I dabbed a finger though a map on the bed and left a dark red smear behind, taking out the corner of what could have been a continent … or, if I squinted right, a horrible leering face. My stomach turned again as I looked at the stain the blood had left on my hand. I would have put it to my mouth to hold my nausea back, but that would make me more likely to throw up. “I’m sorry—” I rushed into the bathroom where he’d just been.

“Take your time!” he called after me.

It did smell like Nathaniel in here. His things, razor, toothbrush, were neatly organized, laid out on a towel. Nothing strange in here, not like the crypt-keeper vault his bedroom was. In here, if I couldn’t see the blood on my hands, I could have pretended that housekeeping was on its way soon, with fresh towels. I turned the cold water on and massaged a bar of soap single-handedly, staining it pink. Whose blood was it? Whose?

When I was mostly sure all the blood was gone, I looked up at myself in the mirror, slinged and exhausted. I’d been pushing myself for two days—there wasn’t much of me left to go. The
Maraschino
took another sudden turn—away from the “rescue” ship, or toward it?—and my stomach lurched again. That was good, right? It meant that things were okay in there? Or … that I was infested, like Raluca had been. One of those two. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to see the truth.

“Let’s go,” Rory prompted, his voice farther away. I pushed back from the bathroom counter and looked back into the bedroom, where he stood at the entrance to the doorway at the far side. “I didn’t want to wait in there.”

“I don’t blame you.” The bedroom was like a cave, a shrine to one man’s insanity, the man who was currently taking the whole ship down. After this, I didn’t know if we’d be able to stop him. If I’d been able to find Asher, maybe, there would have been a chance. But not on my own, not now.

All I felt was exhaustion … and hate. Hate that I’d had to go through all of this, hate that Asher wasn’t here, and above all else hate at my helplessness. Nathaniel had all the power, all the cards, all the guns. I wanted to strike back at him, and I couldn’t. I’d burn this place if I could—and I remembered a room that Anna’d wanted to burn, what seemed like ages ago. Maybe this was how she’d felt.

I ran into the room and reached for the highest point I could and clawed my fingers down. My nails caught on staples, yanking vellum and smearing charcoal, tearing strips away.

“Edie—” Rory warned.

“No!” I shouted at him. I needed this. I didn’t care that it was a waste of time, it was a small act of rebellion, and I needed it. I raked my fingers through another stack, ripping a horrible face in two, giving it a reason to scream just as it was painted. More ink-blood stuck to my hand and I wiped it on the bedspread, like a murder scene, before starting on the next wall. My nail polished chipped off, bits of red scattering like scabs, and I didn’t stop. I would tear this place down, ruin this one thing that was his just as he’d ruined me and mine. I had had a future. For one bright moment, I’d had a husband, a child, a family, perfection. Nathaniel had taken all of that away.

I ran for the balcony window, the last wall, and found the pictures were pasted to the glass. I ripped pieces off in long tears that made it look like I was an animal, clawing to get out of a cage, one strip at a time, as much as the fingers of my one good hand could free. After I’d ruined that I would throw everything Nathaniel owned into the sea, all of it—destroying even some small part of him like he’d destroyed me. I lunged up and grabbed a fistful of his ramblings from where I’d already started a tear and ripped it sideways like I was opening up a door—when I saw a figure, tied to the railing outside.

What had been crazed became frantic. “Rory—help me!”

Arms picked me up and pulled me back. “You can’t go to the sea—”

“He’s out there!” I fought back, my shoulder burning as I moved. I twisted and found Hal holding me, looking down at me with worried eyes. “I saw him, Asher’s out there!”

Hal released me warily. “Stay here.” He leaned forward, keeping himself between me and the balcony, in case I might run for it, and peered through a tear. “There is a man out there—”

“It’s him!” I rushed forward and leapt up to grab another map away. “He’s out there!”

Rory frowned, but joined in when Hal did. We unwrapped the window like a present until we found the door’s latch. Pulling together, we managed to slide it open over the remnants of the maps, and their crinkled pieces held it there.

A gust of wet air, trapped between rain and mist, blew in and swept all the papers I’d torn aside like leaves. Asher faced out like an oceanic scarecrow. The suit I’d seen him leave in was in shreds, and he leaned over the railings like he might topple—he would have, were he not tied to the railings at both his hands and feet.

“Asher?” I reached out for him to try to pull him back. His skin was cold and clammy. I instinctively ran my hand up his throat to feel for his pulse. It was present, but slow.

“This could just be a diversion,” Rory warned.

“Give her time,” said Hal.

I pulled him back as far as I could. His wrists were raw where the ties had chafed, and there was a dressing over his left hand, some wound covered up with a bloody towel. “What did he do to you?” I tried to hold him awkwardly from the side to take the pressure off him. “Get me something that can cut him free. Hurry!”

While they searched Nathaniel’s room, I stroked wet hair back from Asher’s face. Left alone, he’d changed back into himself. “Please be okay.” I kept petting him, trying to hold him up. The
Maraschino
tilted again, caught by a tall wave, and he started to slip through my arms. “Please please please be okay. I can’t do all this without you. I love you. Please be okay.” I held him so tight my bad shoulder ached and my good one might pop.

Hal’s strong arms caught up Asher from me, and Rory began sawing away at the ties with a room service steak knife. Even though I was almost in the way, I wouldn’t move, I needed to be there for when he woke up, so he could see me and know that things were going to be fine. Rory made it through one wrist tie, and Asher’s arm hung limply free. “Honey, wake up. Be okay.”

He shifted. From the Asher that I and others knew to Hector, the doctor I worked with. His skin went from white to tan, and his features changed, cheekbones suddenly malleable, sliding into place.

“What the fuck?” Rory said, and Hal let him drop a few inches in surprise.

“It’s okay!” I looked to Rory. “Keep cutting. Please!”

Rory looked from me to Hal, and at an unseen signal kept going, although at a slower pace.

“Asher—it’s me. You’re safe now.”

His eyes fluttered open and he held up his injured hand weakly.
“¿Dónde está?”

I knew enough Spanish by now to know he was asking where Nathaniel was. “I don’t know.”

He took in his own condition, legs still lashed, and then looked at me. “Hurry.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I clung to him to offer him whatever protection from the weather I could. His free hand wrapped around me, bound up with dried blood. “Are you okay?” I whispered, pressed awkwardly against his chest, half hugging him and half hugging Hal.

“I will be. Are you?”

I nodded. Everything was going to be all right now. Somehow we’d all manage to get off this damn boat. He staggered backward, a foot set free, and pulled me close. I felt his lips brush against my hair. “I thought you were gone.”

“Me too.” It was raining in earnest now, which was good, because it hid my tears.

He shook his head, his chin rubbing against me. “I’ll never leave you again.” Rory finished sawing and set Asher loose. He wisely waited to change back until then, as Rory still held the knife at the ready. “I know I have a lot to explain,” Asher said, taking all of our group in.

Hal jerked a thumb toward the room behind us. “Let’s do it indoors.”

Asher leaned on me as we went inside. The rest of the room was still there, in all its strange glory, and Claire was sitting on the bed with Emily nearby. I felt Asher groan at the sight of them.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, to him, to me, to everyone. I didn’t even care if it was a lie. It was all I could do to stop from petting Asher, just to feel him whole beneath my hands, present, there. Maybe the pregnancy hormones were finally running wild, I didn’t know, I just couldn’t stop crying.

He pulled me into him. “It really is. We’re going to be fine.”

I nodded into his chest, blind. It was awkward and I didn’t care—but after a time I did, and turned around, looking out at the rest of the group, still plastered to Asher’s side. If I kept ahold of him, he couldn’t ever leave me again.

“Was the room like this when you got here?” Claire asked, after pointing at the destruction I’d left on the floor.

I shook my head. “No. I went a little crazy.”

She snorted. “Good for you.”

Asher stood straighter, stroking my wet hair, addressing everyone. “We need to get out of here.”

“Not before you tell us what you are—” Rory said.

“No, he’s right. It’s not safe here.” Claire gestured for Hal to come and retrieve her. It occurred to me that Hal was a very patient man. “You still have the master key, right?” she asked, looking to me. I nodded. “Then let’s discuss this somewhere down the hall. Or on another floor entirely.”

Asher grunted. “Hang on.” He planted me, and disappeared into Nathaniel’s bathroom, then returned. “Okay. Let’s go.”

*   *   *

By the shaky logic that the gunmen would be rising up going door-to-door, we agreed that getting a floor higher would buy us the most theoretical time. I walked by Asher’s side, and I reached for his injured hand as we headed toward the elevator at the end of the hall. The towel-dressing was occupying the space of two digits—he wouldn’t be able to wear a wedding ring now even if he’d wanted one. “Why this?”

“He wanted to see if they’d regrow.”

That was so awful I stopped walking. “Why more than one?”

“So people would know it was me, not him, if I changed again.”

“Oh.” I realized if we made it back from this, “Hector” would have to explain two newly missing fingers at work. Despite Asher’s being a shapeshifter, Nathaniel had effectively marked him for life. He wasn’t a salamander, he couldn’t regrow lost limbs.

“He’s nothing if not thorough.” Asher shook his head and pressed me to him tighter. I bit back a squeak as my shoulder bent a direction it shouldn’t. “What’s happening to the rest of the ship?” he whispered in my ear.

“The rescue ship brought gunmen over instead of aid. They’re tearing through the ship right now, shooting whoever’s still alive. I don’t suppose you’ve got an entomologist inside you somewhere?”

“Never had the pleasure of meeting one.”

“That’s a shame then, because it turns out there’s weird worms inside a bunch of people, making them eat everything and then fling themselves overboard.”

Asher’s nearness slowed our pace. We were already at the back of the group, afforded some privacy for our reunion, although Rory was casting back anxious looks. Claire was hitched up on Hal’s back, and Hal had a gentle hand on Emily’s shoulder, herding her forward.

“Edie…,” Asher said, his voice low in my ear, and then tilted his head at everyone ahead of us.

I didn’t need to look into his eyes to know he’d done the math. There was no way we’d manage to get this crazy group of people off this boat. We’d be better off on our own. He knew it, I knew it, we both were right. But.

I shook my head and gave him a bittersweet smile. I loved him more than anyone else I’d ever loved in my entire life. I would walk across glass for him, or run back into a fire. But everyone up ahead had just helped me set him free. I couldn’t turn my back on them, not even to save my own hide.

Asher sighed beside me, a sound more felt than heard, and closed his eyes slowly, like a cat resigned to his fate. I would have squeezed his hand, but I didn’t want to hurt him.

Our group reached the freight elevators that we’d already used, opened the door, and waited for the elevator hidden behind it to arrive—and when it did it was occupied by a single soldier.

Luckily, our group was more comical than threatening, which gave Claire a chance.

She leaned over Hal’s shoulder and whispered, “You didn’t see us. Go back the long way.” Her voice was the sound of writhing snakes, scales rasping drily over one another. It echoed in the elevator and it felt like it was a personal instruction. I took a step back—and Hal’s arm reached out to stop me.

The soldier whom it’d been directed at dropped the barrel of the gun he’d been raising and nodded crisply, order received. He walked around us as though we were not there, and headed down the hallway to the stair.

Asher openly gawked. “I know a lot of languages, lady, but I’ve never heard one like that before.”

Claire smiled down at him. “You’re not the only one with secrets.”

“Am I the only one without a superpower here?” Rory said.

I gave him a sympathetic look as the elevator door began closing. “Nope.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

It didn’t take any time at all to rise up a floor, and we deposited ourselves in one of the large rooms facing out to sea and barricaded the door. We’d have warning if anyone entered, but we’d also be trapped inside.

I wasn’t surprised to see an unfamiliar dead body in the bathroom. Emily’d found it first, but Rory’d gotten a hand over her mouth to muffle her scream in time.