Labyrinth of Stars(49)

Wait, I wanted to say to him. What did you mean?

But the demon did not linger. His knifelike feet pushed off the ground, and he ascended through the tree branches like a ghost, making not a sound. Tracker forced a sardonic smile to his mouth, but not before I glimpsed a troubled look in his eye.

“Hunter,” he said, simply, and vanished from sight.

I stared at the spot, heart beating a little too fast. Zee rasped, “Could have done without Tracker.”

“No.” I leaned against a tree, exhausted. “We need all the help we can get. One more pair of hands could make a difference.”

Or get him killed, too.

Maybe. And there was still one more body I needed to recruit into this fight. Another set of eyes.

I pulled out my cell phone, could barely read the screen—vision blurry, head dizzy. It was hard to find the number I needed. My fingers felt fat, clumsy. My skin was hot.

Rex answered on the third ring. For once, I was happy to hear his voice.

He’d been the first of Grant’s converts. A parasite who sided with my husband against his own Queen. Which didn’t mean he was my friend. Just the opposite. But he was loyal to Grant, and that was all that mattered.

I heard laughter in the background, pots clanging—the distant melody of a show tune: something from Phantom of the Opera. Dinner was being made at the homeless shelter Grant had founded—and that he and I had lived above, in his nice little loft. I felt homesick for the place.

“What now?” Rex asked.

“I need you to tap your parasite network,” I told him. “Find out if anyone has seen Aetar on this world, and where. I’m going to assume Blood Mama already knows the answer to this question and is just holding out on us.”

Rex was silent a moment. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “Find me some fucking Aetar, Rex.”

He grunted. “Bitch. I’ll call you back when I have something.”

“Thirty minutes. That’s all I’m giving you.”

He swore at me and ended the call. I tried to put the phone back in my pocket, but fumbled, clumsy. Zee caught it for me, but I didn’t try taking it back. I sat down hard on the ground, lying back and feeling my body ache. My hands settled on my stomach. I held them there, sending good thoughts to my daughter. Pretending she was surrounded in light. Anything that would protect her from the disease inside me.

“I need to find who did this,” I said to the boys. “Can you track? Is there a scent?”

They looked at each other. Raw had reached into the shadows for a figurine of Batman and was chewing on its head. Aaz also reached into the shadows, but he pulled out a footlong sandwich: thick crunchy bread spilling over with meatballs and melted cheese. He put it in my hands, and the bread was hot and the hunger that washed over me, hollow and immediate and dangerous. I hadn’t eaten anything for almost a day.

I tore into the sandwich, while Dek and Mal hummed with satisfaction. Zee rasped, “Felt a pull, in dreams. Old history. But not enough poison to make a path. Not enough to see behind the mask.”

I swallowed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “So you needed to be more sick in order to track the source?”

Zee hesitated. “Like tracking a scent. Hunting memory. Some strong, some weak. Could eat poison, make sick, but won’t have same effect. Visions come from you. From healing you.”

I thought for a moment. “So . . . burning the poison out of my body . . . that connection between us is where you could track the disease’s origins?” I didn’t know how that worked, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. “What if I was . . . sicker?”

Dek and Mal squeaked. Raw’s jaws froze over Batman’s legs, which were sizzling and burning from the acid in his saliva. Aaz ripped a spike from his back and started stabbing himself in the eye with it.

“Okay, come on,” I said to him. “Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Zee was also staring at me. “Dangerous, Maxine. Risk much.”

I touched my stomach. If the Aetar won, what would the world look like? No demons, but no Grant, either. Maybe no humans, period. And Jack was right—they would never let our daughter live. Not with a Lightbringer’s powers.

They had almost killed her, still in the womb. After she was born, it would be even easier for the Aetar to take her life. Or just take her, period. There was only so much the boys and I could do to protect her.

Unless I took my own life. Gave her over to the boys as soon as she was born.

It had been done before. Still might not save her, but it was a better chance. Still meant, though, that someone would have to be around to take care of her during the day while the boys slept. Tracker had filled that role for one of my ancestors.