Prison of Horrors (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 6) Page 12

My still-recharging spark went to work on the damage. I hadn’t even realized how dulled and closed off I’d felt without access to my magic. It was like I’d been told I would never walk again, and I’d accepted it … only to suddenly learn I could run.

  “Did it work?” Winifred said.

  “Oh. Yeah.” I made a mental note to grab my bag from the car on the way back. We could use the gun and the spelled dagger — and I could use a fresh shirt, at least. And my coat back. Maybe it would take the edge off the freezing. “What should we do with this thing?”

  Winifred turned and didn’t stare at the bloody, vaguely medallion-shaped gash in my chest. “I’ll keep it,” she said. “It may come in handy.”

  “Right. Let me wash it off for you, since I’m already soaked.” I shrugged and headed for the surf, then hesitated. “It’s not going to start hexing again, is it?”

  “Not as long as you don’t put it back on.”

  “Yeah, I think that won’t be a problem.”

  I rinsed the blood and bits of skin away, and then handed the medallion to Winifred. She put it … somewhere. I didn’t see any pockets in her dress, so I decided not to ask where. “We should get back,” I said. “There’s still a lot to do.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “We will, in a minute. There’s something else we need to discuss.”

  “What?”

  “The fact that you’re getting ready to die.”

  I shook my head and looked away. “Well, there’s always a chance,” I said. “I’m not just going to roll over and die, but—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Wow. I didn’t think you even knew words like that.”

  Winifred crossed her arms. “For a Fae, you’re a terrible liar,” she said. “You are planning to roll over and die. That’s what you were going to tell your lady friend.”

  I scowled. “You sure you’re not psychic?”

  “Empathy. Lots of it.” She heaved a sigh. “If you’re going to surrender before you start, you might as well be dead already. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  “Yeah, maybe it is. And maybe it’s the only way to beat him,” I nearly shouted. “Listen. That’s how it went down the last time,” I said. “Sybil told me all about it. Malphas pulled the copy-and-switch on her back in England, and then decided that 1700s Persecution City wasn’t the best place for a possessed witch. So they hopped the nearest ship to the New World and dragged the gate along. But her copy wasn’t good enough for him.” I closed my eyes and made myself calm down. “He had her tortured, trying to possess her. Just like me. And the only way to stop him was for Sybil to agree, and then jump back through the gate before he took full control of her body, while your ancestor closed it behind her.”

  “And you think that’s what you have to do,” Winifred said. “Let Malphas possess you, and then jump through the gate.”

  “I’m the one he wants!” The calm wasn’t taking too well, so I tried again. “Sybil mentioned that I have Fae magic, and they didn’t. So I might be able to do something different. But no matter what I do, I can’t think of anything that doesn’t end with me on the other side of that mirror — and dead whenever Malphas gets around to letting me die.”

  Winifred patted my clenched hand, and I flinched. “Which might be the end of it, if you were fighting Malphas,” she said. “But you’re not. We are.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, and happened to glance at my hand.

  My normal, human hand.

  “Glamour,” I said. “Winifred … do you think demons can see through glamour?”

  She flashed a smile. “I don’t know, dear. But if I had to make an educated guess, I wouldn’t think so,” she said. “They’re not very imaginative.”

  “Right.” I managed a smile of my own. Maybe no one else had to die here.

  At least, no one with a soul.

  CHAPTER 33

  It was time to let everyone else in on the plan, such as it was. I told them Sybil’s story, including how Malphas had used her copy to bribe Thomas Davenport with gifts of witchcraft and protection in exchange for saving his wife, and unspecified ‘loyalty.’ How he’d promised prosperity for the three founding families. And what happened when the demon decided that only the original Sybil would do, and set about trying to possess her. The parallels to what was happening now were impossible to miss.

  Frost was the first one to ride the logic train to the end. “You’re not sacrificing yourself,” she said in strained tones. “There has to be another way.”

  “Well, there might be.” I still wasn’t entirely convinced it’d work. The unknown factors outweighed the known, and a lot of the rudimentary idea relied on my magic, which was nowhere near full strength yet. But it was better than nothing. “Malphas can possess any of the copies without permission,” I said. “So even if we beat him, he might be able to body-hop into any one of them. That’s why we have to destroy them all … except for one.”

  “Wait a minute,” Quentin said. “Why leave even one? If we make sure there’s nowhere for him to go…”

  “Then he could just hang around without a body until I agree to let him in. And maybe kill more people in the process. We can’t risk that,” I said. “So here’s what we do. You probably noticed I’m not blue anymore, right?”

  “I did. And I’m glad, because you kind of scared me before.” He started to smile, but it wavered a bit. “Actually, you still scare me. Just not as much.”

  I knew it’d be pointless to try putting him at ease, so I didn’t bother trying. A little fear could be a good thing — scared people paid more attention. “The reason I look normal right now is glamour. It’s an illusion. Magic,” I said. “I can use glamour on other people, too. What I’m suggesting is we use one of the copies as bait. Make him look like me, convince Malphas he is me. And when he possesses the copy, we shove them both to the other side and shut down the gate.”

  I kept the endless possibilities for screwing up out of the simple explanation. Like how we’d ever get one of the copies to do this in the first place. I could force one to participate, cast a paralysis spell or something, but I figured Malphas would get suspicious. The demon wasn’t stupid. And then there was the distant chance that he’d see through the glamour, the question of whether he would know the person he’d just possessed didn’t have a soul, and the deceptively easy-sounding ‘shove them to the other side’ part.

  As if forcing a demon through a hell-gate was just like putting a cat out for the night.

  Quentin stood suddenly and started pacing an agitated half-circle. “This is insane. All of it,” he said. “Witches, demons, gates to shadow realms — I mean, this is a peaceful town! We’ve gotten along just fine, all this time. And then you show up.” He stopped, and his eyes burned into me. “A whatever you are, wherever you came from. A stranger in every way. Now we’re supposed to try this crazy plan of yours just to save your ass, after we’ve lost so many people already, when you could end it all in five seconds?”

  “Quentin, stop,” Pastor Lennox said quietly.

  “No! I vote for sacrificing him.” He pointed a trembling finger at me. “This happened because Malphas wanted him. Why should we risk everything for some guy who just wandered into town yesterday?”

  The pastor got to his feet. “Because it’s not his fault,” he said. “We started this — our families. Mine, yours, and hers.” He nodded at Winifred. “Yes, everything’s gone along fine all this time, and we’ve prospered here. On the back of a deal with a demon.” He took a step toward the constable. “I don’t know about you, but my soul can’t live with that.”

  Quentin went rigid for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped. “You trust him?” he said. “After what he did back there…”

  “Considering what he did saved our lives? Yes.”

  “I did what I had to,” I said, and waited for Quentin to look at me. “If it helps any, I’m just as connected to this as you are, and it goes way back.”

  “How could y
ou possibly be connected?”

  “Through Sybil Hadley,” I said. “Hadley is … was my mother’s family name. Apparently I’m directly descended from her.”

  Frost made a soft sound and took my hand in wordless sympathy. She knew at least some of the story about my mother, and she’d understand that I just found all this out. It was still a hell of a thing for me to consider.

  “You’re a Hadley?” Winifred stared at me. “Well. That’s one mystery solved,” she said. “Remind me that I have something for you when this is over, if I live long enough.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. I didn’t even know there was a mystery to be solved, but I’d worry about it later. “Look, I think there’s a good chance we can pull this off, but I need everyone on board. So … are you?”

  When I said everyone, I meant Quentin. And he knew it. “You know, out of all the crazy in this, the craziest thing is you being from Lightning Cove. Originally speaking,” he said with a half-smile. “I’m in.”

  “Good.”

  Pastor Lennox gestured for my attention. “These copies,” he said. “Are they actually us? What I mean is, do they know what we know … and feel what we feel?”

  “Yes, they do,” Frost said. “Speaking from personal experience here.”

  He nodded. “All right. In that case, we should use my copy as bait.”

  “Any particular reason?” I said.

  “A few,” he replied. “Mostly, because I think I can convince him to do it.”

  Holy shit. If he could actually pull that off, it would solve ninety percent of the possible complications.

  So now we just needed ten percent luck.

  CHAPTER 34

  The diversion wasn’t as massive as I would’ve liked, and it was all on Frost.

  She’d gone ahead to the town square, alone. The plan was to tell Malphas that Winifred and I had escaped to this side of the gate and holed up in the old lighthouse, and she couldn’t bring us both down alone. Ideally he would head up there with her, personally, and she’d empty a round of cold iron into him and push him off the cliff. It would take him a while to come back from that.

  Unfortunately, the ideal outcome wasn’t the most likely one. He wouldn’t kill her yet — she was a useful tool. But he probably wouldn’t buy the story. In which case he’d probably take her prisoner along with the rest of the town, and start torturing her too.

  Either way, he’d be distracted.

  Frost knew the risks. I hadn’t wanted her to do it, but it was the only option. Quentin couldn’t have pulled off playing his copy. Too much pressure for a small-town constable who wasn’t likely to have dealt with anything more dangerous than a couple of guys having too much to drink at the local watering hole, before he got a demon sprung on his town.

  She also thought she deserved it, no matter how much I insisted that I didn’t blame her for this.

  Meanwhile, the rest of us were headed for the guards at the bridge. Frost had dropped us off at Quentin’s personal truck, where the constable had a shotgun and a sidearm. Winifred had the gun I’d brought, and I carried the dagger. The guns we’d taken from the guards on the shadow side didn’t work here, so I had hope that my copied pendant wouldn’t either.

  Pastor Lennox was armed with a taser from Frost’s stash, since his target had to stay alive.

  Winifred acted as our living map, scrying the entire area to keep track of where everyone was. She’d verified that the fake Pastor Lennox was one of the guards at the destroyed bridge, and the remaining soulless minions patrolled the square.

  Every original resident of the town had been brought there. Nearly four hundred people — every man, woman, and child in Lightning Cove. Malphas was making them all watch each other suffer.

  So far, Nicholas Davenport had been his primary target for pain.

  Winifred moaned from the back seat, where Victor sat beside her. “That bastard,” she whispered. “Nicholas…” She drew in a controlled breath. “Everyone loves him. That’s why Malphas is making a show of this.”

  I half-turned to look at her. “How much can you see?”

  “Enough,” she said darkly. “He has a handful of people separated and bound, on display. Nicholas and Nova. Shane Lowry, Geoff Lancaster, Liberty Rogers.”

  Quentin’s hands tightened on the wheel. “He’s torturing Liberty?”

  “He’s targeting those with the most influence, the biggest impact. Half the people in this town are related to her,” she said. “Shane and Geoff are both selectmen, and they have a lot of friends.”

  “How does he know all this?” I said. “I mean, he’s possessing a copy of me. And I don’t know shit about this town.”

  Winifred paused and frowned. “Well, he can possess his creations at will. Correct?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He must have done that before you arrived here, while the gate wasn’t fully opened,” she said. “He created them on his side. And he would’ve had a full week with them to find out everything they know.”

  It sounded right. I figured he’d done it to Frost’s copy too — which was how the bastard found out about me in the first place. “How many people did he copy, anyway?”

  “He’s got forty or so with him, plus the four at the bridge and the … rest of them, on the other side.” Winifred looked away from me, but it wasn’t accusing. She knew how I felt about having to do what I’d done. “He made duplicates of every healthy, able-bodied adult in town.”

  Great. So once we got through here, we’d have to slaughter a small army and fight a demon. If the plan even worked in the first place. Then something else occurred to me, something about the adults in town. “How did he copy me, and Frost and her team?” I said. “We’re not from town.”

  “But you did come into town,” Winifred said. “He can copy anyone once they’re inside the barrier spell. Unless they’re a Davenport.”

  So that must’ve been the squeeze I felt when we crossed the bridge into town. Malphas making a copy. And Winifred mentioned they’d been waiting for me. “I’m the one who let him through,” I said. “He couldn’t cross the gate until I got here. Jesus.”

  “Now, don’t blame yourself. It was because you were the one he wanted to possess.” Winifred gave a sad smile. “The gate was partially closed, and the copies couldn’t get through unless their originals were standing in front of the mirror. At least until Malphas opened it completely — which he could only do from this side.”

  That was probably supposed to make me feel better. It didn’t.

  “We’re about there.” Quentin slowed the truck and pulled off the road. There was a curve ahead, and the faint glow of headlights from the vehicle barricade Winifred told us the guards had arranged in front of the bridge. “Just so we’re clear, Victor’s going in first. And you’re going to … glamour him.”

  I nodded. “He needs to be close to his copy when we take the other three out, so the fake Victor doesn’t have time to react,” I said. “And the rest of them won’t be suspicious. If we do this right, they’ll never even draw their weapons.”

  Quentin closed his eyes. “This just feels wrong,” he said.

  “I know. But it has to happen.” I stared through the windshield and smirked into the darkness beyond. “Believe it or not, feeling wrong is a good thing here,” I said. “A friend of mine told me that a warrior carves his guilt on his heart, and wears the scars proudly. It’s what makes you better than the monsters.”

  The constable shook his head, but he smiled a little when he looked at me. “Did your friend use that on you in a mess like this?”

  “Yeah, he did. And it worked.”

  “Huh. Looks like it still does.”

  I almost laughed. Uriskel would’ve been proud of me — or at least, he would’ve grudgingly told me that I wasn’t a complete thick-headed, useless dolt.

  The four of us climbed out of the truck, and I took a minute to stretch. I still wasn’t healed completely, but my spark was almost restored and
the moonstone was fully charged. It would have to be enough. “Okay,” I said to Pastor Lennox. “You ready?”

  “Not really.” He came close to smiling. “Will it hurt?”

  “No. You won’t feel a thing.”

  “All right.”

  At least it was easy for me to cast this particular glamour. I had to know what the illusion looked like, and I happened to be more familiar with this one than my own reflection. I closed my eyes, held a hand toward the pastor, and concentrated.

  You are Calla Frost.

  “Holy mother of God,” Quentin breathed hoarsely.

  That probably meant it worked.

  When I looked, my own heart lurched. It wasn’t easy to separate what I knew was the truth from what my eyes saw — Frost, staring down at herself in horror.

  “Sweet Jesus.” Pastor Lennox flinched at the sound of Frost’s voice. “This is…”

  Winifred was the only one grinning. “Nice work,” she said. “I’m a little jealous, actually.”

  “Yeah. Uh.” I stared at the ground. It was too disconcerting to look at Pastor Frost. “It’s temporary,” I said. “Even if I don’t turn it off, the glamour will fade by itself. But we only need a few minutes. Oh, and try not to say things like ‘sweet Jesus.’ That’s really not her thing.”

  The illusion Frost frowned. “Damn it?”

  “Better. You should go.”

  Without another word, the pastor climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck. He drove away after a brief hesitation.

  “Okay,” I said, looking at Winifred. “Now it’s our turn.”

  CHAPTER 35

  It was over fast.

  I’d used the two deputies I killed in the shadow prison for mine and Winifred’s glamour, to the best of my recollection. The illusion was good enough to make Quentin uneasy. I didn’t worry about the voices, because if all went well, we wouldn’t need to speak.

  We didn’t. When we walked into the half-circle of headlights, Not Really Frost had already pulled the fake pastor aside and was standing close enough to spit on him. The other three tensed when they saw us, but immediately relaxed again.