Labyrinth of Stars(79)

Jack paled, teetering so far sideways he had to lean against the rail. “Where did you hear that?”

“It was you.” I stood, feeling the boys tug on my skin, harder now, on the edge of sunset. “You, designing ways to kill, with the Devourer right there at your side.”

“You don’t know anything,” he whispered.

“You lied to me. Your family.”

“I had to.”

“Bullshit! All this time, I’ve been searching for answers, and you stood there and said nothing!”

“I had to.” Jack’s gaze burned wild. “I don’t care that you know I designed the poison. That was war, my dear. You watch world after world be ravaged and cannibalized, then tell me what you wouldn’t do. You’ve had the privilege of control and peace. You’ve had the blessings of not seeing babies cooked.”

I leaned back from him, staring. Jack followed me, pressing his knuckles into the porch. I’d never seen him so angry. “You’re a fool, Maxine. You’re going to kill us all.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Grant warned.

“My apologies, lad, but even you’re not worth the price. Anything would be better than the arrival of him.”

“You’re sounding like an insane old man,” I said.

“If you think I’m insane, wait until you meet him. Dearest child, I’m keeping you, and your Grant, and billions of other fools, alive. Normally, I’m all for extinction events, but one must draw the line somewhere. That is why I lied to you. There is more at stake here than our cozy little family. More at stake than, say, Grant.”

“Jack,” I warned. “It’s not just Grant. Our daughter, too. Your great-granddaughter. What about her life?”

I had to give it to him—he actually looked ashamed. “I haven’t forgotten her.”

“Could have fooled me. You’re the one who’s going to kill us all—with that disease you designed.”

“A drop in the bucket,” he said, grim. “I don’t know who has cloned my life, but even that means nothing compared to the larger danger.”

The Devourer, I almost said, but the look on my grandfather’s face made me swallow that name. He said, “Something unexpected happened when I used the skull to spy on my kind. I had a vision—of the future.”

Fire flashed through my mind, the ominous heat and presence of that creature beyond the flames—staring at me, implacable and hungry. Full of menace, hate.

The darkness inside me was as hungry, and just as remorseless—but it felt different. Cleaner, somehow. Primal, a force of nature. Or maybe I was biased because the darkness was mine, on my side—my personal, inherited monster.

“We’re waiting,” I said.

Jack held my gaze, clear and unwavering. “I saw you undoing the chains that will release someone who would be best left chained.”

Grant stared at him. “I’m dying, Jack. We’re all sick. We don’t have time for this crap. Who is this you’re so afraid of?”

Death, I wanted to say, still feeling the crackle of heat. Remembering, too, another vision: my body, dismembered by fire, torn apart like a doll.

Jack didn’t look away from me, as if he were afraid I would disappear, or charge at him. He’d been so distant these past few days that having him present, focused on me, was unnerving.

He cleared his throat. “Let me set the scene: Imagine an eternity of the void. Imagine a million years, two million, three—spent in that terrible place. Imagine what that was like. And then, suddenly, imagine you are flesh again. Not just flesh, but any flesh you desire and can imagine for yourself—accompanied by every sensation. Endless water after an endless drought.”

His gaze ticked left to my husband. “Some might hoard that water, despite its eternal qualities; some might drink themselves to death, over and over. Some might drink to excess for a while, until realizing that is no way to live; while others, a few small others, might abstain entirely, except for the smallest sips, to draw out the exquisite pleasure.”

Jack smiled again, weakly. “But that one . . . his hungers were always a little too outré even for us. We reacted in different ways to having sensation. Some made the transition without suffering prolonged obsessions; some did not. Pleasure was one form of addiction; but for him, pain was the pleasure.” My grandfather coughed, and it occurred to me that he looked a bit feverish himself. “I remember, over the course of a thousand years, watching him pick himself slowly apart in the most terrible ways imaginable. His self-torture was unappetizing, to say the least. In the end, there was nothing left of his body—he had stretched, beyond any expectation, his ability to live. And still, the pain was not enough.”