Chapter 21

The apparent centerof the graveling attacks was only about a two-hour drive from our motel in Lawrence. Lucy kept the accelerator nearly to the floor the entire way, except for a brief stop for coffee and food.

About an hour into the journey, we passed through earth-spider territory. To Malcolm's and my disappointment, we didn't spot any giant spiders. Lucy assured us we should be grateful, but Malcolm pouted.

Something had been bothering me since I woke up—something worrisome I hadn't thought of until a strange dream last night about Lucy and Charles made me wonder if my subconscious was trying to get me to put something together. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that I would have figured it out sooner if I hadn't been so distracted by the weirdness of the Broken World and muddled by sleep deprivation.

Once we were safely past spider territory and on a well-traveled highway, I cleared my throat. "Lucy, did you push me to accept a ride from you when we met?"

Her silence was an answer in itself. She was expressionless. Behind me, Malcolm flitted, his anger prickling on my skin.

"I ask because before we met you, Malcolm and I discussed at length, several times, that we needed to stay clear of military, police, and anyone like that, for obvious reasons. And then minutes later you rolled up in a military jeep and offered us a ride, and I immediately thought it sounded like a good idea." I turned in my seat to face her. "I need the truth."

Her hands flexed on the steering wheel. "I was suspicious of you. I wanted to know why you would be walking along a stretch of road infamous for fatal attacks by lotoru and other creatures, in the company of a ghost bound to you by magic I didn't recognize. You felt out of place, though I had no idea just how out of place you are. Once I saw your wolf, I had to know who you are and what she is, because that's my job, and because I didn't want you to get eaten. So yes, I gave you a nudge to ride with me." She glanced at me. "But after that, I never nudged you again. Everything you've done since has been one hundred percent of your own volition."

Dark magic and nausea rose along with my anger. Just like Charles back home, she'd forced me to act against my will. My shields, tuned to the magic of my world, had done nothing to prevent her from forcing me to get into her jeep and put all of us—Malcolm, Daisy, and myself—at her mercy. I hadn't even noticed or suspected she'd done it, which was worse because it proved just how dangerous her ability was. She could have nudged me to do or tell her anything, and I might have done so without thinking twice.

"Alice, I'm sorry," Malcolm said, shooting Lucy a venomous look. "I had no idea. I wondered why you accepted the offer, but I figured you had a good reason. I should have said something, I guess."

"You weren't the only one who watched it happen." I turned to look at Daisy. "So much for not letting her use her magic on me."

Daisy put her paw on one of the bags from the roadhouse and stared back at me with golden eyes. Her motive for letting Lucy push me was clear enough: she'd wanted us to go with Lucy to the roadhouse to meet Ronan.

Malcolm could be forgiven for not understanding what had happened, especially because we'd had no idea at the time Lucy was capable of pushing, but Daisy's choice to let Lucy nudge me into accepting a ride cut like a knife. I would never have expected that kind of betrayal from my own wolf.

Lucy was a Guardian, tasked with tracking down potential threats and solving mysteries, much like myself. I could understand her motives, though I firmly believed stealing someone's free will was wrong, regardless of the reason.

Sick to my stomach and almost too angry to feel anything at all, I turned toward the window.

"Alice—" Lucy began.

"Just drive," I told her, my voice toneless. "Don't talk. Just…drive."

Malcolm's fingers touched my shoulder. I shrugged him off. He floated back away from me.

Lucy drained the last of her coffee and set her thermos in the cup holder. Daisy let out a little whine. I ignored them both.

Ronan's Harley rumbled behind us. I wished I was riding on the back of his bike, so I could focus on the wind and sun on my skin, and not on the pain of having my will stolen yet again and the knowledge Daisy had permitted it.

My stomach growled. Damn it. I tore open another protein bar. If Lucy wondered why I was eating so much, she didn't comment—which was good, because I was in no mood to answer questions or make polite conversation.

No one in the jeep said a word for at least an hour, when we reached the edge of a town called Walliston and found ourselves in the middle of a nightmare.

* * *

Like most little towns we'd passed through on our journey south, Walliston was small, picturesque, and home to several hundred inhabitants who lived in modest homes and worked in the same kind of short, squat office buildings we'd seen since our arrival.

Unlike those other towns, however, Walliston was now a ghost town—quite literally.

Our two-vehicle caravan rolled slowly down Main Street, past empty shops with broken windows, silent houses still shuttered and locked down for the night, and office buildings still dark in the afternoon because their employees had never come to work—at least, not in a form in which they could do their jobs.

Ghosts of men, women, and children wandered the streets, visible in our supe lights. Some wept, some screamed, and some flitted frantically, calling out for family members or friends. Most moved out of the way of our jeep, but others stood rooted in place and didn't react even when Lucy drove slowly around them. Daisy whined when a ghost's outstretched arm passed through her.

I checked my side mirror and saw Ronan still behind us, riding slowly in our wake. I might have been imagining it, but I thought the ghosts seemed to be giving him a wide berth.

"Oh, this is bad," Malcolm breathed. "This is so bad."

My dark magic rose and swelled like ocean waves in response to the lingering traces of power around us. The sensation was less like how my blood magic reacted to spilled blood, and more like the way proximity to a ley line energized my earth magic. I inhaled deeply. The scattered traces of dark energy promised power, if I just reached out and took it. I stifled the impulse, but the hunger remained.

Whatever had happened here, it wasn't gravelings that did it. Something else had slaughtered the people of Walliston, and it called to my dark magic as like called to like.

I was still furious about Lucy's push and Daisy's betrayal, but all that had to go to the back burner for now. "What can we do?" I asked. My question wasn't really directed at anyone in particular, and I was referring to more than the dozens—or maybe hundreds—of ghosts haunting the streets.

Lucy had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. "How's your magic? Sensing any gravelings or their handiwork, like you did back in Oakdale?"

I shook my head. "Not like Oakdale, but something similar. What else can come up out of the Underworld?"

"What can't?" Lucy pulled to the curb in front of a home with two vehicles still parked in the driveway. "There are creatures and people and gods down there—things you wouldn't believe even if you saw them with your own eyes. Not that we have much to go on in terms of intel; it's mostly reports cobbled together from records of things that have made it topside and legends that are probably part truth and part complete fiction. But like I said, stuff getting out is rare here."

A ghost ran in front of our jeep, calling for someone—her daughter, maybe. Lucy took a ragged breath. When the ghost was past, she went on. "Cultures that worship certain Underworld deities open gateways with some regularity, but traffic through them is tightly regulated on both sides. A lot of inhabitants of the Underworld don't want anyone from here going down there. Most magic practitioners here don't want to open any kind of portal, because there are things down there capable of unleashing death and destruction on a massive scale. And once opened, portals are sometimes damn near impossible to close."

"Well, that sucks," Malcolm said, his tone curt. He was still angry about Lucy's push, but like me, he'd apparently decided to put that aside to deal with more immediate problems.

"Yeah." She turned off the jeep's engine. Behind us, the Harley rumbled, then went silent.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"We have to know what happened to these people." She got out and shut her door. I got out and opened the back door as my little cat-dragon hopped onto my shoulder.

Malcolm floated out. Daisy got up, stretched, and jumped down beside me. She gave herself a long shake and stared at the house in front of us, her lip curled to show some teeth.

I listened. Other than ghostly keening, an eerie silence reigned in Walliston. No vehicles, no music, no dogs barking, no…nothing. Somewhere down the street, a flagpole rattled in the wind. I rubbed my arms.

Ronan joined us on the sidewalk, his helmet and gloves stacked neatly on the seat of his bike. "A house of death," he said.

I didn't know how he knew what was inside, but my spidey senses told me nothing was left alive in this house, or in any house on this block.

My blood magic tingled as we crossed the lawn. "It's a mess in there," I told my companions.

"I'll take point," Lucy told us. "Ronan, watch our backs."

Daisy growled.

"With the wolf's help," Lucy amended. Ronan snorted.

When we reached the front step, I raised my hand and held it near the door. "House is warded." I closed my eyes and studied the spellwork. "The wards target nonhumans."

"Most wards around here do," Lucy said. "Human invaders are less of a worry than all the things that go bump in the night."

"Allow me to earn my keep." Ronan placed his palm flat against the door. I flinched as the house wards broke. The flash of pain faded as the magic dissipated.

"I could have done that," Malcolm muttered.

Ronan raised his boot and kicked in the door. The door, the bar behind it, and the doorframe exploded into the entryway of the house.

"I could have done that," Lucy said.

I caught a flash of a shadow heading for us. Its dark magic was unmistakable. I knew—though I didn't know how I knew—that it was death incarnate. A blood magic blade emerged from my fingers.

Ronan drew his sword and sliced the shadow in half. It let out a bone-chilling scream as it disintegrated.

"A shade," Lucy said grimly. "Shit."

"I could have done that," I said.

Ronan sighed. "You are all very difficult to impress."

"Stop trying to impress us," Lucy snapped.

He raised his hand. A ball of silver-blue light formed on his palm, illuminating the interior of the house. "No."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Come on." She handed me a small flashlight. "Supe light. If you use it, keep it low, out of our eyes."

"Got it."

She reached behind her head and drew her sword soundlessly from its invisible sheath. Blade raised, she entered the house. I followed her in, with Malcolm and Daisy behind me, and Ronan at our backs. The cat-dragon's little claws dug into my shoulder as she balanced herself.

The thick, coppery scent of blood and eviscerated bodies made my stomach rebel. I set my jaw, swallowed hard, and forced myself to ignore the stench. The house wards, while sufficient against most threats, had apparently done nothing to protect against shades.

The first two bodies we found were large dogs—or what I thought had been two dogs—in the blood and flesh-splattered nightmare of the living room. Two adults had been slaughtered in their bedroom, one on the bed and one near the door, as if she'd tried to run to the children's rooms before she died. I went into investigator mode, shutting down my emotions as best I could so my brain could process this house of horrors.

The three children—toddler twins and an older child—had died in their beds, their blood and bits of flesh strewn throughout their rooms and into the hallway. After I looked more closely, I realized the killings were done out of instinct, but the scattered remains were the result of play. The shades had played with the bloody remains before moving on.

It was, by a significant margin, the most horrific scene I'd ever had the misfortune of seeing…

…and it was repeated, with variations in the number of victims found, in the next four houses we entered.

An hour later, I sat on the front steps of the last house on the block, my hands dangling between my knees. My mouth tasted sour from throwing up, though I'd rinsed it repeatedly and taken a swig from Lucy's flask. I might never get the smell of death out of my nose. I'd sure as hell never get the memory of the slaughter out of my head, or the keening of the ghosts out of my ears.

The others were in the house, searching for shades. So far, the only one we'd encountered was the one from the first house. They didn't need me to search, so I'd come outside to be alone with my anger. Some of it was directed at the shades, though I knew they were little more than mindless echoes, killing because it was all they knew how to do. Most of my fury was directed at Mariela.

According to Lucy, shades and gravelings almost never made it out of the Underworld. I'd had a sinking feeling from the moment I heard about these attacks that Mariela was indirectly responsible. Lucy's comment last night that visitors from other worlds and realms upset the balance of her world and caused things to happen that shouldn't had resonated deeply with me—not because of myself or Malcolm, but because Mariela had set all this in motion. The people of Walliston weren't supposed to be dead. The kids in this house should be in school today, not in pieces. Their parents should be at work. Their dogs should be playing or sleeping in the backyard. Mariela should have stayed in our world, where she belonged.

I understood her desire for justice for those she'd lost—I understood it all too well. I also understood how that desire became a need for revenge when the perpetrators of the Glen Grove massacre escaped prosecution. Somewhere along the way, however, her need for vengeance had blinded her to the collateral damage she might cause, and all the suffering and death.

I had no idea if some residents had holed up somewhere with better wards, or escaped. The fact no one else seemed to have responded indicated no one had made it out to warn about the shades or alert law enforcement from neighboring towns, the army, or the League. There was a good chance everyone in Walliston was dead. Unless there was some other explanation for the shades' presence here, their blood was on Mariela's hands.

That thought, and the memory of the torn bodies, propelled me to my feet. My anger turned cold, became resolve. I would find these shades, and I would destroy them. And then I would locate that door, go through it, find Mariela, and bring her to justice for what she'd done.

I caught a familiar scent on the breeze: iron and incense. It wafted over me like a puff of air exhaled by a newly opened tomb. I'd smelled it at Hawthorne's, when Lucy told Isaiah his pack deserved justice. The breeze shifted and the scent disappeared. What the hell was it? Some kind of strange Broken World magic, or a figment of my imagination?

The traces left by the shades didn't feel all that different from the dark magic I'd absorbed from Mira?. That made sense, because black magic included death magic, and the shades were death. Natural magic like mine, even blood magic, was life.

I had a sudden thought. Since the night of Mira?'s death, when Sean and I had absorbed the sorcerer's power, I'd thought of the dark magic as Mira?'s and treated it like some invading, alien force. Why couldn't I shape that power and make it mine? Magic was shaped by intent. Mira?'s intentions had been entirely evil, or nearly so. Mine weren't. So, as Tom had tuned my natural magic to the frequency of this world, could I not tune Mira?'s power to my own and command it?

No time like the present to find out. I took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled, clearing my mind of distractions.

"Rrrrr?" the cat-dragon asked.

"Hold on," I told her. "I'm going to try something."

I closed my eyes and reached out to the traces left by the shades. This time, I let my own dark magic connect with the remains of their energy. Power pulsed through me, heavy with death. My natural magic tried to rise, but I pushed it down and focused on the traces of the shades, seeking the ebbs and flows that would indicate where the shades had come from and where they'd gone.

The patterns were erratic and tangled, but the threads all originated from the same direction—and led to the same place now. Dark power thrummed at the end of those traces. The shades were nearby. All I had to do was follow those threads and I would find them.

I thought of Malcolm and the others. Should I let them know where I was going? No, I wanted this for myself. I was angry—angry at Valas for trapping me here, angry at Mira? for tormenting me and stealing my memories, angry at Moses for hurting Sean's company, angry at Daniel for refusing to come home with me, angry at Mariela, angry at Daisy and Lucy…angry, angry, angry. I needed to do something with all this anger, or I'd explode.

Malcolm would ream me for going off by myself. So would Lucy. I didn't care.

I started walking.

Using my Second Sight, with all my focus on following the traces of the shades, I walked across yards, over curbs, around cars, and through the ghosts of the dead. My cat-dragon stayed on my shoulder, her claws in my skin only a distant pain.

Following the trace took me to the locked gates of a cemetery. I manifested my earth magic whip and cut the chain in two. I pushed open the gate and entered the cemetery.

The moment I stepped through the gate, I knew where the shades were: a large above-ground mausoleum about a hundred yards away. In my Second Sight, it was black and so full of dark magic and death that I was surprised it hadn't crumbled. The shades had taken refuge from the daylight in the mausoleum.

I used earth magic to melt the metal of the gate and hold it closed. It wouldn't keep anyone out for very long, but I didn't intend to take long.

As I approached the stone building, my dark magic sensed the dead in the graves beneath my feet. Their decay felt like potential sources of power—which was unsettling, to say the least. I was used to earth, air, ley lines, and blood feeling like power, and even water now that I'd shared water magic with Malcolm, but never death itself. I hated the sensation, but I liked it too, just a little. Some part of my brain told me that was bad, but all I cared about for now was those shades. I'd worry about the rest later.

When I reached the doors of the mausoleum, they were closed and locked. Behind them were thousands of shades. Maybe I should have feared them, but I didn't. My dark magic surged along with my blood magic. I let both rise and spooled power around my arms. The cat-dragon arched her back and hissed. Not in warning—in anticipation.

In the distance, Lucy shouted my name. The cemetery gate clanged.

I reached for earth magic and placed my palms against the doors of the vault. "Discindo," I commanded. Divide.

My earth magic, only partially tuned to this world and therefore wild, blew the building apart. The shades erupted from the ruin. Thousands of them flew screaming toward me, full of rage and hunger that could never be sated.

With my blood magic and dark magic, I gripped them as if with talons and tore them apart. Their screams nearly deafened me.

When I'd used my dark magic whip to kill the werewolves at Hawthorne's, each death had transferred power and life energy from the shifter to me. The shades had no life energy, but they were full of power. As they discorporated, that power became mine.

I sensed other shades throughout the town, stranded in homes and other buildings like the one we'd encountered in the first house we entered. I tore them apart as well. Finally, no more shades remained anywhere within the radius I could sense.

I pulled my magic back. My skin and bones hummed with new power. I felt better than I had in days, because I'd let off steam and done what I could to keep the shades from harming anyone else.

Something warm bumped against my hand: Daisy's head, nudging its way under my palm.

"Alice?" Malcolm asked from somewhere behind me. He sounded worried.

With my back to them, I sensed rather than saw that Ronan and Lucy had their blades raised.

I turned, switching hands on Daisy's head. Lucy and Ronan stood about ten feet away. Malcolm floated between us, watching me.

"I found where the shades were holed up," I said, scratching Daisy's head. "Decided to just take care of that for you."

Lucy's blade didn't move. "You just killed thousands of shades by yourself."

"They were already dead," I pointed out.

"You know what I mean."

I lifted one shoulder—the one that didn't have a cat-dragon sitting on it—in a half shrug. "I told you I'm kind of a badass. What, you didn't believe me?"

"No, I believed you." She studied me, then lowered her sword. "Are there any shades left in Walliston?"

I shook my head. "All gone."

"Good. So now all that's left is to find that open door and close it."

"Yes," I said. And I would, but not until I found Mariela and dragged her back here to answer for what she'd done.

Ronan had watched me while Lucy and I talked, his face expressionless. When I said I intended to close the door, the shape of his glacier-blue eyes changed. He knew I wasn't telling Lucy the truth about what I planned to do.

Another emotion flashed in his eyes: comprehension. I wondered what he'd figured out, or thought he'd figured out. Then it was gone, and he was impassive once more.

Lucy glanced at him. "Something to add, Ronan?"

I wondered if he'd tell her what he'd realized about my plans. Instead, he returned his sword to its sheath on his back in a smooth motion. "I suggest we leave Walliston before you call this situation in to your superiors, or we'll be stuck here dealing with League bureaucracy."

Her eyebrows went up. "Where do you suggest we go?"

He glanced at me. "Alice?"

"We go to the door," I said. "We can't let any more of these things get loose up here." I took the obsidian rock from my pocket. Its dark magic called to me now more than ever, but I couldn't sense whatever trace Daisy was following. Someday soon I hoped to understand how Daisy was tracking the scroll, but that could wait.

I looked around at my cat-dragon, Malcolm, Lucy, and Ronan, then down at my wolf. "The Avengers are assembled, Daisy. It's time to take us to the door."

Daisy showed us her teeth, turned, and ran.