I still felt helpless. In a million different ways.
There was one option I hadn’t tried. I pressed my right hand into the blood. The armor tingled, a shimmer of light racing over the metal—and with it, roses, ghosting to the surface, then fading. Each time I used the armor it covered more of my skin. In a few months, my entire right arm might be gone. Eventually, I’d have to stop. If I could.
Find the one who made this, I thought hard, closing my eyes. It might work. What the armor responded to had always been mysterious—and how it chose to fulfill my needs, even more so.
But when I tried to send us into the void, nothing happened. Seconds passed, a full minute, and we remained exactly in the same place, crouched by the same dead body, surrounded by the dying.
The only difference was that I heard screaming.
I began to stand—Zee caught my hand and shook his head. I turned, and found Lord Ha’an drawing near, still holding that sick demon child.
“The Shurik and Yorana are fighting,” he said, just as the screams grew more agonized.
“Doesn’t sound like the Yorana are winning.”
“The Shurik have always been the most dangerous of our kind. The Mahati would not have survived against them.” Lord Ha’an shrugged, looking totally unconcerned. “They are . . . friendlier . . . now. Even I can admit Lord Cooperon has been a good influence.”
The screaming ratcheted into a higher, more frenzied pitch—absolutely desperate.
“Great influence,” I muttered, thinking about what I’d said to that little Shurik on Grant’s shoulder. I glanced at Zee and the boys. “Should I stop it?”
Raw looked at me like I was crazy. Aaz just smirked, and Zee nibbled on the tip of his claw, giving me the most uncommitted shrug I’d ever seen. On my shoulders, Dek and Mal began patting my ears in a fast rhythm and hummed an upbeat version of the BeeGees’ “I’ve Got To Get A Message To You.”
Fine. No aid. I glanced down at the armor and clenched my hand into a fist. The blood had absorbed, but I was getting no cooperation. I wasn’t entirely surprised—just disappointed, frustrated. The armor had been constructed from a fragment of the Labyrinth, the stuff possibilities were made of. But that also meant it had a mind of its own, and sometimes—at the worst times—it liked to tell me, in its own silent way, to fuck off.
So, this was going to get dirty.
I took a deep breath, slid my left hand along that cut arm—and licked the blood off my fingers.
It was still warm. My first instinct was to gag, but I forced myself to lick again, and again, and something shifted inside me—that dark hunger, that caress of power rising from below my heart. But no pleasure came with that awakening. Only dissatisfaction.
We are not scavengers, whispered the darkness. We do not eat death.
We are death, I told it. And this is a different kind of hunt.
I sat back. I didn’t feel any different—except sick to my stomach. I couldn’t blame that on the immediacy of any disease, though. I was disgusted at myself. I wanted a toothbrush and a finger down my throat.
I wiped my mouth and looked at Zee. “Enough?”
His ears and hair lay flat against his skull; several of his claws pressed against his mouth like he was going to be sick. This, from the demon who had once eaten otherworldly intestines like spaghetti. “Maybe too much.”
“I trust you.” I reached out to grab Zee’s wrist. Raw and Aaz hugged my waist. “Follow the trail.”
“Need daylight,” Zee said. “Need to be one with you.”
“Got it,” I said.
But we weren’t going anywhere.
CHAPTER 16
NEVER take magic for granted. The minute you do, it will fuck you up.
I have some pride. What good it does me. When I realized I wasn’t going anywhere, I used my own two legs and walked the hell away from the quarantine zone. I avoided all Mahati. I trusted the boys to keep other demons away. I didn’t think too hard about where I was going. Only one place on this land where I felt truly safe—and the dead were there, too.
The earth on the hill had been torn during the battle: everywhere, chunks of dirt and grass, and deep holes. Some darts were still in the ground, and broken pieces of spears. I smelled blood. Or maybe that was my breath.
I was relieved to see the old oak still standing, untouched. We’d been on our way to the farmhouse when the giants attacked, and the creatures seemed to have bypassed this spot. The grass around my mother and grandmother’s grave didn’t even look scuffed—and the boulder that covered them was still in place. I climbed on top of its broad, flat surface. Lay on my back, staring at the stars.