Labyrinth of Stars (A Hunter Kiss Novel) (20 page)

I kept working, though, chipping and tearing away at the metal binding the manacles—until finally the Messenger jerked her arms apart with a grunt and separated her wrists. I flexed my hands, fatigue running deep into my muscles. My fingers throbbed. So did my head. I was suddenly so thirsty, I couldn’t separate my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

I managed, though. “Are you okay?”

The Messenger flashed me a hard, uneasy look; her gaze swept down my body, no doubt reading my aura just as Grant always did: like a book that could spell out in one glance all the secrets of my soul.

“You are not the same,” she said.

“No shit,” I replied. “What just happened here?”

The Messenger walked toward the Mahati warrior sprawled face-first in the dirt. Chains dragged, from her feet and wrists. “You know what happened. I never returned to my masters—and now, after all this time, my old gods have decided to learn what happened to me. And why, as I am still alive, I failed to follow their commands.”

Years ago, she’d come to us as the enemy, sent to investigate the deaths of two Aetar on earth. We’d fought, again and again, until my husband had snapped the conditioning that made her unquestioningly obedient to her gods. Sometimes, I suspected he’d done a little more than that. I couldn’t really imagine anyone’s switching sides so easily, not after a lifetime of brainwashing.

“They sent a small army after you.”

“It takes a small army to capture my kind. Not that it is often required.” The Messenger crouched beside the Mahati, and for the first time her expression fractured, and deep sadness flickered in her eyes. There, and gone, all in a moment. The hardness returned, the glint and cold.

“They killed him,” I said, not seeing any movement, not even the faintest rise and fall of breath.

“He lives still,” she replied, surprising me. “But they hurt him when they severed our bond.” And then she fixed that narrow gaze on me, searching, focusing, seeing the invisible. “Did they do the same to you and the Lightbringer?”

A dull ache hit my chest. I reached for my bond with Grant, but the hole was still there, as gaping and horrible as ever. “No. Something else did that.”

“And he has not reasserted the connection?” A frown touched her mouth. “Is he dead?”

“Not yet. But that’s why I came to find you. He’s been poisoned with a disease. All of us have, including the demons.”

She did not look surprised. “Illness is a weapon that has been used before, on worlds that found disfavor with the Divine Lords. It is simple and efficient. A population dies until it is small enough to be controlled or exterminated entirely, then time erases the rest.”

“You’ve seen this with your own eyes.”

She looked down at the Mahati. “I have killed the survivors.”

Of course she had. And I’d just turned men and women into ash by touching them. No fucking stones were going to be cast by me. “Do they ever change their minds? Give these people a cure?”

“It has happened,” she said, running a slow hand through the air over the Mahati’s back. The chain dangling from her manacle rolled against his side, and I saw his gray skin twitch. “Not often.”

Flesh was cheap. Flesh was part of the game. It would, indeed, be more interesting—more
fun
—for an Aetar to create a new civilization, new life, from scratch. No matter the cost.

And to them, there was no cost at all.

It wouldn’t cost them anything to kill this world, its humans and demons—even Grant.

Not true,
part of me thought—a part that sounded too much like the darkness for comfort.
Because you are in this world, and you are the creation that cannot be undone.

I looked back up the hill, at the piles of ash blowing toward us. I could barely recall taking those lives. Just the rage and righteousness, followed by the numb distance of the haze. What few memories remained felt cold, crisp: those pale, bald figures lost in their robes, lost to me and the power I had called on.

“They questioned me about your child,” said the Messenger suddenly, fixing me with that cold, piercing gaze. “Almost as much as they questioned me about my own corruption.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, then opened my mouth again, about to begin my own interrogation. But the woman beat me to it, with a sharpness in her voice that made me uneasy.

“Do you know
how
my kind discovered she is a creation of the Lightbringer’s seed?”

“I assumed they just . . . knew,” I said, lamely. “That there were spies.”

“Spies,” she echoed, staring at me like I was a fool. “No spies, Hunter. Only betrayal. The Aetar were
informed
about your child.”

Uneasiness became flat-out dread. “Who would do that?”

Bitterness touched her mouth. “They told me it was the Wolf.”

The Wolf.

Jack.

My grandfather.

I
suppose some people would have called the Messenger a liar, but she’d never given two shits about deceiving me. Threatening to kill me, yes—acting like an asshole, certainly—but lies? I wasn’t sure deception was even in her genes. Like, literally.

But I still didn’t believe her. I couldn’t. She had to be wrong; it was an Aetar trap, a setup. Plant some bad information, then let it leak. Watch me lose my shit and make stupid choices. It happened in the movies, right? Not that I needed a distraction to make stupid choices; I did that spectacularly well when I was fully focused and present.

“Jack wouldn’t,” I said, and inwardly cringed at the sound of my voice; like a plaintive five-year-old. My grandfather loved me. He could not have done this.

“He is one of them,” replied the Messenger, with cold assurance. “The gods are bound together, Hunter, through time and spirit, and intent. How can mortal flesh compare to bonds that have lasted the age of stars?”

I shook my head, walking away from her—stopping after just a few feet and bouncing on my toes. I wanted to run. “No.”

“As you wish,” she said, with only a hint of mockery, and crouched again over the Mahati. Her voice rose soft in song, barely audible, though I felt the chill touch of power shiver over me. It was all for the demon, though. I finally saw his back rise and fall. Still alive, just as she’d said.

The wind shifted. A sour, piercing scent filled my nose. I turned, looking deeper into the rocks and scrub, and saw a pale, naked foot. A couple steps closer revealed an entire person.

Several people, in fact, piled together and bleeding from their throats. Dressed in almost nothing, with hairless bodies and disconcertingly simple faces—as if a designer had been building androids that would only approximate human.

“Mules,” said the Messenger behind me. “My demon killed them first. He was wise to do so.”

Mules. Humans whose only function was to provide life energy. The engineered, enslaved Lightbringers would have brought them along as portable meals, necessary for their survival. Just as my energy, my life, had been necessary to keep Grant alive when he used his gift.

The Mahati demon stirred, shifting restlessly against the ground. He only had one arm; the other ended at the elbow. Scars from stripped, cannibalized flesh covered his back and thighs; long silver braids flowed around him in thick ropes. His head turned slightly, and his eyes began fluttering open; not quite conscious, but close. The Messenger sat back, voice dropping to a hum, gaze serious and dark. Her entire focus, on him. I didn’t want to interrupt—but, whatever.

“The Devourer,” I said. “Do you know that name?”

Her entire body twitched, a convulsive, electrocuted shudder; I might as well have jolted her with a cattle prod. Her voice broke into silence, and she tore her gaze from the demon to stare at me. I had never seen her appear so startled. It made her seem . . . young and human.

“Did the Wolf share that name with you?” she asked.

I shook my head, gaze never leaving hers. “Tell me about the Devourer.”

She flinched, baring her teeth. “Do not say that name out loud. It is dangerous to speak of him.”

“Really.” I drew out the word, unhappy with her reaction. “Why?”

She hesitated. “The gods embrace creation and beauty, all the possibilities represented by the divine organic. It is life, for them, even when their motives are . . . off-putting. But
that
one . . . his art . . . is the opposite.”

“Death, you mean.”

“Suffering. Annihilation.”

I gave up trying to be tough and sat down on the ground. The Messenger blinked and leaned back on her haunches, robes and chains hanging loose around her. Shadows winged. Vultures, already gliding high in the sky.

“He might know how to cure the disease that’s killing us,” I said, but saying those words out loud made the situation feel more impossible.

“He is a monster,” she said, surprising me. “And there is no Divine Lord who would disagree, or punish me for saying so. It is known. It is truth. If there is a god whom other gods fear, it is he.”

“So you’re saying we’re fucked.”

Her brow lifted, delicately. “If there is a cure, you will find it elsewhere. Or, you will help the Lightbringer survive this illness through other means, and you will tell yourself that is enough.”

“Enough,” I repeated. “You mean, let the world die of this thing.”

“There are wars that cannot be won,” she said quietly. “But there is always a war, Hunter.”

Fight to live another day. And then live to fight.

It was the same refrain I’d heard my entire life, and it was just as cold from the Messenger’s lips as it had been from my mother’s. It was no lie, either. No fool’s advice. This was the life we had been born into. The life our bodies had been crafted for—always, the fight. My daughter carried that blood. My daughter, built cell by cell from
my
cells, my soul, and the souls of those who had come before.

But violence was not the life I wanted to give her. Violence was not part of the dream I wanted inside her head.

Escape from that future seemed to be slipping away, though.

“Who would know where the Devourer is?” I asked.

The Messenger flinched again and gave me a cold look. “If you find him, you will receive no answers, there will be no cure. He will unmake you, Hunter.”

“It’ll tickle, I’m sure.” I stood and had to close my eyes as dizziness kicked in, and black spots pushed into my vision. But my head throbbed a little less, and the burn of fever seemed to be fading. Was I healing? Were the boys suffering, so I could live?

“Who?” I asked again, opening my eyes.

The Messenger ignored me, reaching for the Mahati, who was trying to sit up. She never actually touched him, but her fingers seemed to strum the air, and another low hum left her throat. He tilted his head to look at her, and I didn’t know what I saw in his eyes—anger or hate, or maybe something that could have been desire. Whatever it was, that look held power between them, and I felt like an intruder.

“The Divine Lords cannot hide from one another,” said the Messenger in a soft voice, not taking her gaze from the Mahati. “Find the Wolf. He will know.”

And then she finally looked at me, and her gaze was cool and still, not marred in the slightest by the swollen lip or cuts above her brow.

“I have ever been loyal to my gods,” she said. “And you and the child you carry
are
abominations. Your power is dangerous. It will break too much that is sacred. The unknown,” she went on, pointing to my stomach, “cannot be trusted.

“But,” she added, softly, “you and the Lightbringer gave me freedom, of a kind. I know to value it now. I understand its worth. So for that I will tell you . . . be wary of the god who is your grandfather.”

“He wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Not even for your own good?” The Messenger finally slid her hand under the Mahati’s arm, and with her other stroked the air above a deep gash in his biceps. “We also tell stories about the Wolf.”

“Yes?” I asked, wary.

Bitterness touched her mouth. “He is the hunter who slaughters worlds.”

I
expected it to still be night when I returned to the farm, with the Messenger and her Mahati in tow—but the sun was just peeking over the horizon, a golden glint piercing the farthest edge of a blue sky, and the boys seemed to sag against my skin. Quieter now, sluggish. Exhausted, I thought.

A small herd of cows was penned in by the barn, making distress calls and looking wild-eyed and uneasy. I didn’t know who had brought them there, but I had a strong feeling they weren’t long for the world. Meat, just like the rest of us.

I charged up the porch steps, skipping around writhing piles of Shurik, who ignored me but lifted their fat little bodies off the old wood slates to hiss at the Messenger. Her lip curled with disdain. Her Mahati flexed his one good hand, the long tines of his fingers rubbing together with a steel-scraping sound.

Heart was in my throat. Prepared for the worst. But Grant was still stretched out on the couch, Mary seated beside him—stuffing fresh marijuana leaves in her mouth with one hand, dabbing his brow with the other. A machete was in her lap. At her feet, the crystal skull that my grandfather had been lugging around.

I looked at it and felt my stomach turn over. I didn’t know what that feeling meant, but it came from a deep place, and the darkness—the darkness that was flowing through me, even though I was myself again, myself as much as I could be—curled around that sensation and tasted it.

A window,
it whispered.
But light can distort sight . . . in ways that darkness cannot.

I ignored that, looking for my grandfather. No sign of him, and that dread growing inside me only deepened. I didn’t go searching the house, though. I sat beside Grant, taking his hand in mine. I felt the fever before I got close enough to touch him; his entire body radiated furious heat. His lips had cracked and peeled, and his face was sunken. The Shurik on his chest barely moved to greet me—all I got was a faint hiss. I almost patted its head but caught myself before anything embarrassing could happen.

“He dreams,” Mary whispered, sagging in her chair. I gave her a second, harder look, and felt my gut clench.

“You’re sick, too,” I said.

“Disgusting,” she muttered through gritted teeth, but she was staring at the Messenger when she said it. “Flesh, disgusting.”

“Move, all of you,” commanded the other woman, then glanced at the crystal skull and blinked. Disgust, dismay, touched her face.

“Barbarians,” she announced. “Leaving an artifact of power on the
floor
like a footstool.”

“Keep power close,” Mary rasped with defiance—and winced, touching her head. “Power never sleeps.”

The Messenger looked at the old woman like she wanted to argue. Or start a bare-knuckled boxing match that would end with someone’s head popped off. My bets, if it happened, were on Mary—but someone had to be the adult, and I guessed that was me. Fuck us all.

I stepped between the two women, blocking them deliberately from each other’s view. I had my own problems with the Messenger, but all Mary saw when she looked at her was the slave of a war fought and lost—the face of a child who should have been born free on a world that was now gone forever, except in her memories. And it always pissed her off.

I helped the old woman stand, which was harder than expected—mostly because she didn’t know how to accept my help. When she began to stumble, she punched me in the arm instead of letting me support her. Strong old woman—I felt the blow through the boys. Dull, but there. The rest of my body was still sore, too. I expected to see bruises on my skin later on.

I tried not to think too hard about that. It made me afraid.

I slid my hand under Mary’s elbow and led her to the kitchen. “Where’s my grandfather?”

“Still gone,” she muttered. “Shurik came to guard. Other demons staying away. Some sick. Rest are cowards.”

Maybe, I thought. But this was survival for all of them—all of us—and I couldn’t condemn a little cowardice when your entire species was on the line. I would give them all up to keep my daughter and husband safe, and they knew it.

When Mary collapsed into the chair, I knew she was sicker than she was letting on; she didn’t even give me a dirty look. I drank two glasses of water—gulped them down so sloppily that a small river ran down my chin and throat—and then placed a third glass into Mary’s hands.

Someone had turned on the television again but left the volume muted. I saw more images of the Mahati storming that cabin, but it didn’t make a dent in me. Right now, with all this shit raining down, a ham sandwich would have caused me more anxiety.

I pulled my cell phone free of my back pocket and called Rex. He answered on the first ring.

“What?” He sounded wary. “I haven’t found any more Aetar. And before you say another word, there are disturbing rumors coming out of that farm.”

“We’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die?”
I replied, wryly. “Pfft. I mock your rumors.”

Rex grunted at me. “You’re a terrible liar.”