Labyrinth of Stars (A Hunter Kiss Novel) (16 page)

But when I tried to send us into the void, nothing happened. Seconds passed, a full minute, and we remained exactly in the same place, crouched by the same dead body, surrounded by the dying.

The only difference was that I heard screaming.

I began to stand—Zee caught my hand and shook his head. I turned, and found Lord Ha’an drawing near, still holding that sick demon child.

“The Shurik and Yorana are fighting,” he said, just as the screams grew more agonized.

“Doesn’t sound like the Yorana are winning.”

“The Shurik have always been the most dangerous of our kind. The Mahati would not have survived against them.” Lord Ha’an shrugged, looking totally unconcerned. “They are . . . friendlier . . . now. Even I can admit Lord Cooperon has been a good influence.”

The screaming ratcheted into a higher, more frenzied pitch—absolutely desperate.

“Great influence,” I muttered, thinking about what I’d said to that little Shurik on Grant’s shoulder. I glanced at Zee and the boys. “Should I stop it?”

Raw looked at me like I was crazy. Aaz just smirked, and Zee nibbled on the tip of his claw, giving me the most uncommitted shrug I’d ever seen. On my shoulders, Dek and Mal began patting my ears in a fast rhythm and hummed an upbeat version of the BeeGees’ “I’ve Got To Get A Message To You.”

Fine. No aid. I glanced down at the armor and clenched my hand into a fist. The blood had absorbed, but I was getting
no
cooperation. I wasn’t entirely surprised—just disappointed, frustrated. The armor had been constructed from a fragment of the Labyrinth, the stuff
possibilities
were made of. But that also meant it had a mind of its own, and sometimes—at the worst times—it liked to tell me, in its own silent way, to fuck off.

So, this was going to get dirty.

I took a deep breath, slid my left hand along that cut arm—and licked the blood off my fingers.

It was still warm. My first instinct was to gag, but I forced myself to lick again, and again, and something shifted inside me—that dark hunger, that caress of power rising from below my heart. But no pleasure came with that awakening. Only dissatisfaction.

We are not scavengers,
whispered the darkness.
We do not eat death.

We are death,
I told it.
And this is a different kind of hunt.

I sat back. I didn’t feel any different—except sick to my stomach. I couldn’t blame that on the immediacy of any disease, though. I was disgusted at myself. I wanted a toothbrush and a finger down my throat.

I wiped my mouth and looked at Zee. “Enough?”

His ears and hair lay flat against his skull; several of his claws pressed against his mouth like he was going to be sick. This, from the demon who had once eaten otherworldly intestines like spaghetti. “Maybe too much.”

“I trust you.” I reached out to grab Zee’s wrist. Raw and Aaz hugged my waist. “Follow the trail.”

“Need daylight,” Zee said. “Need to be one with you.”

“Got it,” I said.

But we weren’t going anywhere.

N
EVER
take magic for granted. The minute you do, it will fuck you up.

I
have some pride. What good it does me. When I realized I wasn’t going anywhere, I used my own two legs and walked the hell away from the quarantine zone. I avoided all Mahati. I trusted the boys to keep other demons away. I didn’t think too hard about where I was going. Only one place on this land where I felt truly safe—and the dead were there, too.

The earth on the hill had been torn during the battle: everywhere, chunks of dirt and grass, and deep holes. Some darts were still in the ground, and broken pieces of spears. I smelled blood. Or maybe that was my breath.

I was relieved to see the old oak still standing, untouched. We’d been on our way to the farmhouse when the giants attacked, and the creatures seemed to have bypassed this spot. The grass around my mother and grandmother’s grave didn’t even look scuffed—and the boulder that covered them was still in place. I climbed on top of its broad, flat surface. Lay on my back, staring at the stars.

Whatever I’d done had worked. Twenty minutes after taking that blood into my body, I felt sick as hell. Walking up the hill took all my strength, and just resting on this rock was making me breathe in ways that felt like my lungs were about to implode. My skin prickled worse than ever; and it was the fever, the burn, that hot lick of death settling in. I couldn’t believe how fast it was hitting me.

“I was stupid,” I said to Zee, who sat beside me, very still and quiet. “I got lazy.”

He said nothing. Raw and Aaz flopped down against my legs, dragging a six-pack of beer behind them, two tubs of fried chicken, and a small chain saw.

“M&M’s,” I said absently, and moments later, one of them put a large crunchy plastic bag in my hand, already open. I started popping chocolate. Dek and Mal slithered down my arms, and I fed them, too. Their purrs radiated heat.

“No Hunter has died of disease, right?” I asked the boys.

“Kill it in our sleep,” Zee rasped. “Only one old mother poisoned. Refused to listen.”

“Idiot.”

He sighed. “Hated us. Hated daughter. Hated all her old mothers. Tried to forget life. Tried with blood and war. Tried with strong drink. Could not kill herself, so let another.”

“How did her daughter respond?”

“Blamed us. Did not live long past own daughter. Better, after that.”

I bet. “When was this?”

Dek hummed, then chirped. Zee nodded at him. “Four thousand years. More than. Came by boat and foot across ice-north in winter. Walked down along coast. Walked for years. Walked into jungle. Walked into blood.”

Sick as I felt, that still made me smile. “So my ancestors came to this continent four thousand years ago, then rambled on down to South America?”

Zee shrugged. “Had time. No fear. When no fear, go places.”

Such true words. But I was envious of those women, envious that their world had been simpler.

“Nothing ever simple,” rasped Zee, so quietly I barely heard him. “Not death, even.”

I touched his head. “Do you ever wish you could die?”

Raw and Aaz stopped eating. Zee lay down beside me, curling close as the spikes of his hair flexed against my hand.

“Sometimes,” he whispered.

I ached for him. “
Can
you die?”

“All are mortal.” The little demon reached into the bag of M&M’s. “All.”

I swallowed hard, throat dry, skin blazing with fever. Tears burned my eyes. Shame, frustration, anger—all rolled through my heart, filling me up until I wanted to scream. I’d been so cocky. So sure of myself. Rushing headlong into danger because I assumed someone else would save me. Hadn’t I learned my lesson by now?

And it wasn’t just me I’d put at risk. That was the worst part.

“I’m afraid,” I told them. “I’m afraid for my daughter. I screwed up.”

Zee placed his claws on my chest, above my heart. “Last until morning. Fight.”

Fight. Yes, I could do that.

Fuck it all. I’m not going to die.

Five minutes later, I started vomiting blood.

DON’T
take breathing for granted,
my mother once said.
Never say for sure that you’ll still be alive tomorrow.

I wasn’t sure I was going to be alive in an hour, and it wasn’t even midnight.

Zee held a cold bottle of water, and a wet rag that he used to dab my face. Raw had shoved a pillow beneath my head and knees, and Aaz was on my other side, rocking back and forth with a teddy-bear paw stuck in his mouth. Dek and Mal coiled beside my head, under my head, across my chest—absolutely silent.

I needed that silence. Little jackhammers were assaulting my joints and muscles—my skin burned, I burned—and my head hurt so badly, I closed my eyes and breathed through my mouth, afraid to move. Even a purr would have been too loud. The more I hurt, the more I retreated inside myself, moving deeper, downward, part of me hoping to get so lost I didn’t feel any of the pain.

The fear, I couldn’t help. I was so afraid, afraid of everything, afraid for our child, afraid Grant would feel my distress through our bond and try to reach me—afraid that everyone I loved was going to be hurt, and lost.

Fight. Stay alive.

I vomited again, utterly helpless as that bitter burning wash of heat pushed up my throat. I tasted blood in my mouth and coughed, spitting out what I could—but it exhausted me so much, I had trouble rolling over to my back. I had to stay where I was for several long minutes, face pressed to cool stone, eyes wet with tears.

Fight. Stay alive.

I fell deeper into myself, awareness shrinking to breath, heartbeat, the stone against my back. I fell even deeper, aware of my mother’s bones beneath me, and my grandmother to my left. Dead and alive, both at the same time. Dead here, alive in the past, and the walls were so thin between us. How often had I breached that wall, how often had I stepped through to another world? They were both so close: just on the other side of a thought, a wish, a dream.

I wanted them with me, so badly.

Zee ran his claws through my hair and pressed that wet rag on my brow. It was deliciously cool, but I wanted more. I wanted to be buried in snow and ice, and I doubted even that would be enough to dim the heat. I thought of Grant, suffering through this, and my heart reached out to him. I couldn’t help it.

Our bond. Our light. No Lightbringer could use his powers alone. If he tried, it would eventually kill him. A bond was needed, a person who could anchor and share the power of life.

I was that power. I was that life. And in so many ways, he was mine.

Golden light rushed through me, shining behind my closed eyes—brilliant and spirited, with its own clear tone that rang in my ears like some faraway song. I let it carry and caress me from the fever and pain; and with it memories, moments, shimmering in a haze through my mind—all of them, with Grant.

You’re going to live,
I told him, pouring my own heart and life into our bond.
You’re going to live such a long time.

Maxine, you’re sick,
I heard him say, but his voice in my mind sounded very distant, lost in the fog of infection burning once again through the light.

I love you,
I told him, ready to push him away, close up our bond—lock it tight so he wouldn’t feel any more of what I was going through.

Only, he wouldn’t let me.

It was like slamming open a door in a hurricane. Light battered me, and no matter how hard I struggled, that storm held me in place. My chest tugged, a lure that hooked into my blood, pulling hard. Again and again, until it reminded me of a mouth on some open wound, drawing out poison. I could suddenly
feel
the disease inside me, feel it as if it were a rotting brown corpse, and inside my head, I saw it being broken apart and enticed down our bond.

Impossible. Grant couldn’t heal me. The boys and I were immune to his voice.

But he wasn’t using his voice, I realized. This was something else, something deeper, the part that made us one person.

“No!” I said out loud, struggling to rise. Zee and Raw held me down. Aaz gave me a frightened look and sat on my legs.

No,
I screamed at Grant.
No.

He said nothing, but the light of our bond dimmed. Pain built inside my sternum, like a knife being pushed, inch by slow inch, into my chest. I writhed, crying out, looking for anything, anything I could do to make it stop.

But I couldn’t, and a vision slashed through my mind—of Grant, on the couch, his fingers digging into his chest and his face deformed with pain. His breath, ragged and gasping, blood foaming around his mouth. Mary standing over him, calling his name. No one else there. Not Jack. Not me.

I was killing him. He was killing himself, trying to save me.

“Fuck!” I gasped, slamming my right hand into the stone. Sparks danced and the metal chimed. But nothing happened. I couldn’t go to him.

Grant,
I begged.
Grant.

I fought harder, and the world beyond my body disappeared—all that existed, all that mattered, was the nightmare unfolding inside me. My human mind wasn’t made for the abstract: Disease resembled a rotting corpse, my bond with Grant a shaft of golden light. The darkness inside me: a serpent wound deep around my heart. It didn’t matter that appearances weren’t real—what mattered was the reality behind the appearances and what it let me perceive.

And what I perceived was that my husband was going to die in the next minute if I didn’t do something to save him.

No thought, just instinct. I threw myself down that bond into Grant’s soul.

It was like diving headfirst into a hole the size of a rabbit, and the sensation was physical and mental, and overwhelmingly uncomfortable. It wasn’t my body being compressed, just my mind—but the two felt so much the same that I was sure I was going to die, right there, from the attempt.

Instead, I dissolved. I broke apart.

And fell into my husband, just as his heart stopped beating.