Vault of Shadows (36 page)

He heard voices calling his name, but they seemed so far away.

“Guys!” he shouted again. “Back here!”

The queen smiled. “I hear that you've seen your father's face recently. How pleased you must be.”

“Shut up,” he said. “Besides, that wasn't really my dad. You don't
know my dad. You don't know anything about him.”

“Oh, but you're wrong, human child. I know everything about him.”

“You're a liar.”

“Am I? Would you bet your life I know nothing at all of Michael Harper Silk? Musician and teacher.”

That was like a punch.

“You could have gotten that information from your boyfriend,” Milo said in a voice that was little more than a low growl. “Nice try.”

“I could have,” she conceded. “My champion is so generous with everything he has and knows and is. But even he could not have shared this with me.”

She swept her hand across the inside of the shimmering wall of the faerie ring and a face appeared. His
father's
smiling face. Plucked from Milo's own memories. Not a static image, but something closer to a video loop. His father was looking away and then burst out laughing as he turned toward Milo. It was silent, but Milo remembered that laugh and the circumstances. It was during the second year of the invasion. They were sitting around a campfire and his dad had been singing funny songs he'd learned from a man named Weird Al, who lived in one of the other EA camps. It was a silly song, and as Dad finished it he burst out laughing. Everyone was laughing. It was one of Milo's happiest memories. But now the queen twisted it and made it a whip with which she lashed at him.

“No . . . ,”
he breathed in a weak voice. “No.”

“Tell me, boy, how could I, queen of darkness, mistress of the faerie realms, know anything about a mere mortal?”

The world seemed to collapse down to the two of them. His friends were still calling his name, but Milo could not process that. All he could do was stare at this woman. Her smile was the cruelest thing he had ever seen. She seemed to be feeding on his pain the way the Huntsman fed on the life energy he stole.

Vampires.

The word burned in Milo's head. Not the correct word, but more than close enough.

He fought for control of his voice. “Yeah? So what? Just because you creeps can use some truths to tell even bigger lies doesn't prove anything. No, I'm wrong, it just shows that you're both a pair of total freaking scumbags.”

She held up one slender finger. “Oh, be careful now, my little Daylighter. Mind your manners or there will be consequences.”

“What are you going to do? Kill me? Torture me? Pretty sure I already know what you want to do.”

“Ah, how naive you are. You think you understand the horrors that await you? A human imagination could never stretch that far. You think torture is only what we will do to your flesh. And you probably think that you'll die before it gets too unbearable. But, child of the sun, you do not know what an immortal faerie queen can do to you as years turn into centuries and centuries become millennia.”

Milo's
mouth went so dry he couldn't manage even a tiny reply.

“Do you want a taste of real pain? Behold, Milo Silk.” She flicked her hand across the laughing image of his father and it was instantly replaced by a new picture.

A figure stood in a badly lit metal hallway that looked like one of the corridors aboard the hive ship. He stood just beyond the downspill of light, and it cast his face in shadows. There was enough light to see most of his body, though. He wore a mix of chitinous insect armor and the steel and leather worn by shocktroopers. However, this was not a 'trooper. Nor was it the Huntsman, as Milo had feared. There were no extra limbs, no pincers, no snapping mandibles or antennae. But the head shape was wrong.

It was only when the figure stepped into the light that Milo could see what was wrong. Instead of human eyes, this man had the multifaceted eyes of a blowfly. Dark red and inhuman. The flesh around them was scarred and melted from recent and brutal surgery. The man raised his hands and began flailing wildly as he fought to orient himself with these eyes. He touched his face and brushed his fingers across those eyes, then screamed as he stumbled backward, trying in vain to escape what had happened to him.

Despite the monster eyes, Milo knew that face. He knew that scream.

So he screamed too.

“DAD!”

The man froze in place, head raised to listen, staring with those mutant eyes. “M-Milo . . . ?”

“Dad! Dad, it's me. Dad, where are you?”

“Milo!” cried his father. “Milo, where are you? I can't see you. What's happening to me?”

“I'm right here, Dad. I'm in New Orleans. Where are you? What's happening to you?”

“Milo? Are you safe?”

“Yes. Yes, I'm with friends. Where are
you
?”

“Where's your mother? Is she okay? Oh God, Milo . . . are you both safe?”

“Dad, I—”

And the queen snapped her fingers to extinguish the connection. His father vanished, and there was a silence so heavy that it crushed Milo. Absolutely crushed him.

He dropped to his knees and caved forward, beating the floorboards with his fists as dry sobs broke like grenades inside his chest. Was this true? Was his father alive? Had he really just spoken to him?

If so, what were the Bugs doing to him? Were they transforming him into another monster like the Huntsman? Or was Dad some kind of lab animal for them to experiment on? And
where
was he? Was his father on the New Orleans hive ship? Or somewhere else? There were six other hive ships on Earth, and hundreds of other craft. Thousands of ground installations too.

“Milo . . . ,” said the queen, almost singing his name, the way people do when they want to tease. “I know
that you would like to kill me now. I would expect nothing less.”

He didn't even look at her. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished he could teleport away to anywhere else.

“You can be my enemy, Milo Silk,” she said, “and suffer every hurt and indignity that I can devise—and my imagination runs so deep, Milo. Cruelty is an art, and no one can claim to have a more skilled hand than Mab, Queen of the
Aes Sídhe.
Not even my champion, and he is a master of the art of pain.”

“Shut up.”

“Shhh, listen now. You can oppose me, or”—her voice became silky—“you can serve me. You can earn my gratitude and my favor, Milo. I reward my friends, and as cruel as I am, I can be even more generous. So much more generous. Would you like to know what I would give to you if you were to do a little favor for me?”

Milo tensed, hating himself for wanting to hear what she offered. But fearing the offer too.

“I can restore your father to you. And not as the misshapen thing you saw. I can
restore
him, healthy and whole, to you. Your mother, too. I can reunite you with your loving family and then offer you protection so that no harm will ever come to you.”

Milo slowly raised his head. “You're pathetic and you're a liar. The Huntsman tried the same trick. He said he'd give me whatever I wanted if I gave him the Heart of Darkness. Now you're telling the same lies. I hate you.”

Queen Mab seemed to grow in size, and the crackling electricity that ran up and down her body intensified, forming arcs with the shimmering wall around her. The tiny faerie warriors cowered back and fled into the earth at her feet. “Do you dare to call me a liar?” she said in a voice like thunder.

“Yeah, I do. You're all liars. You and your
boyfriend
and the whole Swarm.”

The queen glared at him for five long seconds; then her anger changed into something else and her scowl of rage was replaced by a mask of cold dignity. “Know this, Milo Silk: I may be many things, and most of them are unpleasant to one such as you, but never in fifty thousand years have I told a lie. The very powerful do not need to hide behind lies. When I say that I will restore your family and keep you safe, it is truth and I will give a blood oath on it. There is no more powerful bond in this or any universe than the blood oath of a faerie queen.”

Milo stared at her. His face was as hot as a burning match and his fists hurt from pounding the floor.

“Milo!” came the call of a voice that seemed strangely far away. Evangelyne. Desperate and frightened.

He tried to speak, to answer, but he couldn't. All that he could manage was to kneel there and look at the smiling face of the faerie queen while her words echoed in his head.

I will restore your family and keep you safe.

Milo's mind was filled with ten thousand memories of
his parents. From before the war, from the first years after, and in the things he'd seen in those twisted visions. He missed them so badly he wanted to scream. He wanted the world to reset and go back to the way it was and to be the way it should have been.

“Be quick, Milo Silk,” purred the queen. “Serve me now and have my gratitude forever.”

He raised his eyes to meet hers. They burned with green fire.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

H
er smile was as cold as ice and as merciless as death.

“All you need do is gift me two little gifts. One is in your pocket. I can hear it buzzing like a locust. Lay the crystal egg of the hive queen on the edge of my faerie ring. Do that and I will save your father from a life of torment.”

“What about my mom?”

“Mothers are so important, aren't they? And yours is so fierce and strong. A warrior and a hero. Many would sacrifice their lives for her.” The queen ran her fingers along the shimmering wall and suddenly an image of his mother appeared. She was in uniform, hunkered down behind the stump of a shattered tree, rifle in hand, a smear of fresh blood across one dirty cheek. Behind the tree was a Stinger and it was coming toward her. His mother tensed, fitting the stock of her rifle to her shoulder as she prepared to fight the horrible creature. Then the queen snapped her fingers and the image winked out.

“No!” cried Milo.

“Is that the past and did she die? Or is it the future
and may she yet be saved? Or . . . is this happening right now and only my champion, the Huntsman, can call off his hounds?”

“Do something. Save her!”

“Only you can do that, my child. Only you have that power.” She leaned toward the wall. “Go find the little werewolf girl; shoot her with your slingshot. When she falls and becomes human, take the Heart of Darkness from the pouch at her waist. No, don't look so surprised. Do you think such things could be hidden from a queen of faeries? Go and do this now. Lay the Heart of Darkness beside the crystal egg. Do that and everything your heart desires will come to pass. You have my word.”

“He won't let you,” said Milo. “The Huntsman won't let you help me. He won't let you save them. He'll make you into a liar. He'll kill everyone.”

The queen laughed. There was no trace of doubt in her eyes or in that mad laugh.

“You think my champion will oppose me? You have so much to learn about the universe. Now,” she said, her laughter over and her smile fading, “do as you are told.”

The yells of Evangelyne and the others faded and went away. There was no sound at all from the library.

“Your friends have abandoned you,” said the queen. “While mine are bound by oath and love to me.” The little faerie warriors had crept from their holes and were standing in glittering ranks around her. “And my champion is coming. He knows what is needed to bring me
into this world. You saw part of it when you arrived, did you not? My champion sacrificed a woodland faerie to try to break the spell, but alas it was not pure enough to shatter the last lock. His firedirk will drink the life from your fat friend or perhaps the werewolf. They are young and pure and full of energy. Their lives will finally free me from my exile. And then
I
will repair the Heart of Darkness. I know spells that can bind even a ghost like the Heir, and I will force him to do what needs to be done. Oh yes, little Daylighter, everything is flowing forward as I have foreseen it. Everything is as I will it. Now . . . earn your place in the court of Queen Mab by doing as I have asked. It is a little thing but the rewards are great.
So
great.”

Milo stood up very slowly. It felt like there was a ton of weight pressing down on him, but he managed to get to his feet, and he stood swaying. Weak inside and out. He dug one hand slowly into his pants pocket and removed the crystal egg; then he held his hand out toward her, careful not to touch the shimmering wall.

“You'd give me my dad back for this?”

“So I promised.”

Milo closed his eyes, and in that brief personal darkness he saw himself with Mom and Dad. Together. Alive. Happy.

Safe.

It would be so easy to give her what she wanted. He had the tullinium alloy ball bearings. One of them would
be enough to take down the werewolf. She was, after all, only flesh and blood.

He nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

“Yes!” she cried in delight. “You have made the wisest choice. You are—”

“Okay,” he repeated, “I'm only going to say this once.”

Her flow of words stopped and she half-recoiled from him.

“First,” said Milo, “bite me.”

The queen went pale with rage.

“Second, Your Majesty, I hope you stay locked in your faerie world for about a million years. I hope you rot in there. You and all your little jerk warriors. I hope you get some horrible disease that makes your face fall off. If I had any way to do it I'd toss a couple of grenades in with you, 'cause you deserve to get blown to pieces. You're no different from the Huntsman. I didn't think I could ever hate anyone as much as I hate him, but congratulations. You're just as much of a parasite as he is.”