City of Shadows (27 page)

“With no family to guide him,” Kael said, “it's likely he didn't know what he was until much later.”

I remember Samuel's words from the FAHQ rooftop.
They want to prove to the elders we aren't dead … We could control this city, this land, and its people.
He told me everything, and I was so willing to believe Kael was behind this, that I didn't see the truth behind his words. “He knows now. And he's tired of hiding in the dark. He wants to be recognized.” Faerie's elders killed Samuel's family. This was about more than a revolution, he wanted to prove his worth. He wanted revenge on everything and everyone who'd ever thought him less than what he was born to be.

The rumbles grew louder. We followed a curve in the tunnel until the walls opened up to reveal a silent platform. Kael helped me over the platform's edge. I gritted my teeth against the pain pounding in my head, but the worst of it was passing.

“You still have your daggers?” he asked.

“You'd have to pry them out of my dead hands,” I replied, risking a smile. Kael could easily have done just that. The general had shared his draíocht and patched me up when he could have finished what Samuel had started. I owed my life to a man who'd once killed me. I'd spent so long hating him, that when I looked at him on that platform, draped in shadow and saw the man who'd been betrayed by
someone
he thought of as a son, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to feel. I knew that betrayal; it twisted in my gut like a thing alive. We shared that. He knew it too, might even have been thinking the same as he looked back at me.

A crawl of power slid across my skin. A warming sensation wrapped around me, like sinking into a hot bath. It was delicious, but Kael's cool glare warned against letting it have me.

“Draíocht,” he said. “More than seems possible. He's spent a great deal of time here. In the absence of any obvious draíocht source, he must be drawing the life of London into him. You're feeling the residue of that process. The overspill.”

Unseen draíocht licked against my skin. If he could waste this much energy, exactly how much could he contain? I searched for any signs of anything unusual but saw only an empty, half-finished platform.

“Faerie's beasts feel it too. They'll be close.” Kael moved by me. “Come.”

My feet felt heavy and my mind slow. I didn't want to leave. I could soak the draíocht into myself, drink it down and absorb its strength. I needed it, to make myself powerful. “
Infinite power trapped in a weak human shell
.”

Not anymore, Samuel. I know what I have to do now.
“Wait, let me—”

The shadows rippled. A blast of warm air pushed from behind, followed by a rhythmic snarl that no earth beast could muster. Kael spun, freeing his daggers with a flick of his wrists. His silver eyes shone in the dark, and then the words began. Foreign fae words, smooth and intoxicating all on their own. His voice traveled into the dark and poured into my ear, trickling through whatever defenses I had left and seeking out the ancient part of me.
Power.
Surrounded by draíocht, I smelled the rich and sweet scent of Faerie, of home. A tiny spark inside me, the one I'd kept hidden, started to burn. I turned my head.

The
lytch—made of shadow and night—pulled the dark around itself and reared up in front of us. I saw it then, the truth of it. Eyes like embers, teeth like the daggers I had in my hands. So vast, its bulk pushed against the curved ceiling. Had I seen it before, really seen it, I'd have been afraid. Its eyes laughed. It knew me. Saw the truth of me as I saw it. And as Kael's words whirled around us, we stood united, the lytch and I.
Old draíocht.

“
You seek to control me when you cannot control yourself, Arachne's host
,” it said, speaking into my mind as the queen had once done.

Control? No. “
You can't control the dark
,” I responded.

A smile darted across my lips. Kael's ancient words rolled on, warming me through in the same way the draíocht had.

I limped forward, toward the rippling dark.

The lytch tucked its beast-like chin in and brought its head low. Its elongated snout was easily the length of my leg. Its teeth, the size of my fingers. As it settled its chin on the platform, oily shadows flowed around it. I reached out a hand. It snuffled. A forked tongue flicked out and swept over the back of my hand, barely there at all but real enough for me to feel the spritz of draíocht.

“
I do not know this place. It is hard and empty. But I know you
,” the lytch said.

Kael's words were distant now, far away and half forgotten.

“
Would you like to go home?
” I could take it into me, as I had its companion. I smelled like Faerie, and the general's words settled around it, reminding it where it came from. This monster wasn't bad; it was lost. In that, we were alike.

“
There are people here, little fae construct. People the elder's son used. Many have perished. They too, are lost, like us
.”

People
?
Becky?!
Fear and hope fired through my weariness, jolting adrenalin into my veins. “Show me,” I said aloud.
Please let it be her.
Hope fluttered in my chest like a thing alive.

The lytch turned so fast that a wave of shadow washed over me, snatching a gasp from my lips and drenching me in draíocht. I staggered but pushed forward. The lytch rippled along the length of the platform into the tunnel. I ran into the dark, Kael's calls chasing me.

The tunnel rumbled, and ahead, our disused tunnel joined another. A subway train burst into the opening, sparks dancing around its wheels as it clattered and thundered through the junction. In seconds, it was gone again. I watched its red lights fade in the dark and then turned my gaze back toward the similarly red eyes of the lytch.

It sailed into the active tunnel, pulling the dark with it so that it absorbed every one of the maintenance lights it rode over. I jogged along the tracks after it until it surged through a closed maintenance door and out of sight.

I tried the door. It didn't budge. The ground rumbled, the walls too. Another train, or something worse?

“What in the name of Magh Meall are you thinking?” Kael growled, pacing up to me, his eyes just as deadly as those belonging to the lytch. “We need to leave now, while the lytch is elsewhere. We must return to Holland Pa—”

“Becky. She's here!” I kicked at the door, but all it did was rattle the hinges. “Help me.”

He reached for my arm. “The lytch will kill us—”

I shook him off and kicked the door again. “I'm not running from it, Kael.” More rumbling shuddered through the tunnel walls. “It's helping me. It's lost, that's all.
It's
not trying to hurt anyone. It's just confused, like the rest of the damn fae.” This time when I slammed my shoulder against the door something creaked, but it still hadn't budged. Kael was looking at me, his gaze harsh and hooded with shadows. Whatever was going on inside his head, I didn't have time for it.
Becky
didn't have time for it. “Are you going to help me or wait for the next train to pulverize us?”

“What are you expecting to find in there?”

I threw my hands up. “Becky, and others!” He was still looking at me like I was nuts. “He's not been feeding on the ‘
life of London
.' Wake up, Kael, he's been taking people, bringing them down here and taking their draíocht, like he did with me. He took Andrews's sister! They're inside. The lytch told me. Help me open this door.”

His gray eyes widened with shock. He nodded once and stood beside me, eyeing the stubborn door. “On three. One, two, three—”

The door flung open, sending us both stumbling into the dark. The stench of rancid meat hit hard, watering my eyes and coating my throat. I gagged and briefly turned away.

“
Death
,” I heard the lytch say from above. “
All around there is death where once there was life. No life here. The elder stole it all
.”

A small hue of orange spilled from the tunnel's maintenance lights into the chamber, illuminating enough for me to see Kael standing among the bodies. So many bodies I couldn't see the floor for pale hands and hollow-eyed faces.

“Kael.”

“Hundreds,” he whispered.

The chamber traveled deep into the dark and the dead covered every inch.

“
The elder's son has their power now, little fae construct
.”

I
looked up and saw the thick ripple of dark above, like the night sky without its stars. “Do you know where he is?”

“
Your companion does
.”

Kael knelt beside the nearest body. “I should have killed him as a boy.” He touched the face of a woman. “I should have killed him, but I couldn't …” His lips drew back, as though touching the dead pained him. “I've seen enough death. But this … I could have stopped this.”

“Kael, we need to find him.”

The general stared at the dead and my words went unheard.

I stepped into the chamber, inching carefully between upturned hands and dust-covered ragged clothing. Homeless people. Shay had told me the fae were taking the homeless; Samuel had been doing the same.

Sobs clogged my throat, but I gulped them back. The hope I'd held onto slowly slipped through my fingers. I didn't want to look, to see their faces, and never forget. They'd been snatched from their lives by Samuel; did they have people wondering where they were? Waiting for them, like Andrews waited for Becky? And that's when I saw her. Curled on her side, her legs pulled in, as though she might be trying to make herself small and unseen. Her eyes were closed, and for that I was thankful. She barely resembled the laughing, smiling young woman from the memories I'd stolen from Andrews's mind, but I knew her. I heard her words, her pleas for help, and I felt her despair crush around my heart. I was too late.
I'm so sorry.

A few days ago I lay beside Samuel while these people were dying, trapped in this room.

Bile
burned my throat. I swallowed hard, tasting the pain and disgust on my tongue.

“You knew her,” Kael said from beside me. I hadn't seen him move and almost didn't hear his words. At least she was at rest. That was all she'd wanted, in the end.

“He's drained them of all life,” the general said, his voice tight with control. “It should be enough to hold open a path to Faerie. He won't fail this time.”

A sharp strike of rage rushed through the calm. I couldn't save her, but I could damn well stop Samuel. It wouldn't bring Becky back, it wouldn't save Andrews from knowing the horror his sister had endured, but it would bring an end to it.

“Where would he go?” I quickly swiped at the wetness on my face.

The general's eyes had lost some of their chilling hardness. His face too had softened. Regret, sadness. “Three,” he said. “Always three. He'll need three focus points to anchor the path. Somewhere open, somewhere people will gather to watch. He'll need a crowd to feed from. People and three anchor points.” He swallowed and said again, “Always three.” His glassy eyed gaze drifting over the fallen. “He can't cover this up. While he's laden with draíocht, he'll have to act now, before news of our disappearance reaches the FA. I need to mobilize my warriors.”

“Then let's go mobilize them.”

“
You have Arachne, One of the Three within you, little fae construct
,” the lytch said from above. I followed the general to the door, letting the words settle around me. “
They will follow you
.”

I paused in the doorway. The tunnel rumbled, and behind me the dark breathed, alive and waiting for my reply. “The beasts of Faerie, those like you, in
the
tunnels,” I said. Kael turned, surprise widening his eyes as he heard me speak fae words. I focused on the lytch. “Stay hidden. Don't harm anyone, and I'll help you.”
Somehow
, I silently added before closing the door on the dead.

The general and I emerged from the station entrance. I gave the construction site a quick scan for any sign of Samuel. My gaze snagged on the boot prints in the mud, and the pit, where he'd pushed me over the edge.

I followed Kael through the fence, onto the street outside. Something flowed through the narrow alleys and switchback junctions now. Draíocht danced unseen through the air, a tantalizing summons.

Kael lifted his head. “There.”

Above the rise of London's office buildings, curious wisps of green teased into the night. “Where is that?”

“Trafalgar.” Kael lifted a cell phone from his pocket and started to stride down the street. He stepped off the sidewalk in front of an oncoming car and turned his glare on the driver. Tires screeched on wet asphalt. Kael wrenched him out of the driver's seat, snarling, “Fae Authority. Get out.”

I shot the gaping driver an apologetic frown and climbed into the little car's passenger seat, slamming the door on the verbal abuse.

Kael tossed the cell phone into my lap and turned the car in the road. “I'm not getting any reply from HQ. Try Nyx.”

Hanging onto my seat with one hand, I scrolled through the contacts and found Nyx's number.

Kael raced the little car the wrong way down the narrow one-way A400. Oncoming traffic flashed its headlights. He bumped the little car half onto the sidewalk and plowed on, unfazed.

The
cell blipped and a voice answered, “General, we've been trying—”

“Nyx, it's Alina.” Silence. “Nyx?”

“Why do you have Kael's phone?” Her tone had that nonchalant enquiry about it, which really meant she was considering all the ways she could stab me.

“Don't worry, he's fine. He's right here. We're heading toward—”