Most of the arches filled with the pale white presence of the asetem-ankh-astet as they stepped into the verges of the light, their orange-glowing eyes dimming in the room’s illumination. The coil of yellow power around the edge of the room shivered and crept higher up the walls, closing the room in a protective circle. I looked toward the empty arch behind the platform where the voice came from.
A slender female strolled out of the darkness, dragging it with her like a train. Alice. She wore some kind of skintight black stuff that looked more like bandages or a winding sheet than clothing, leaving only her head, forearms, and feet uncovered. A bright red choker circled her throat, dangling ruby beads on glowing white skin. Her eyes burned from shadowed sockets above lips stained the deep wine color of a fresh bruise. Wine: that had been the color of her hair when last I’d seen her in Seattle—staked through the chest on the floor of the burning house. Now her hair had gone the dark auburn of dried blood.
“Imagine, trying to suborn my underlings like that,” she said. “Naughty, naughty,” she added, her voice resonant with pressure against the old geas between us. The geas was a magical compulsion between us; one I’d forced her into so she’d let me live if I let her get to Edward. It bound us both equally. I should have wondered harder about the lingering effect of the geas that kept me from speaking of certain things, or doing them, after I’d presumed her dead. But I hadn’t, and now I was going to pay for that.
A dark-haired, bearded man stepped out of the arch behind her and stopped a few paces back, watching the show. A phantom black strand of magic unreeled between him and Alice while another reached out to touch the spooky-eyed creature beside me. A third strand, white and heavier than the others, stretched between the creature and Alice, closing the unnatural triangle. The new man seemed familiar. He carried his own cloud of ugliness that boiled with glimpses of tormented, crying faces. Then I remembered where I’d seen him before. “Ezra?” I asked.
He gave a small, crooked smile and tilted his head. “Ah, no. But how would you know? I am Simeon. My apprentice left this world long ago. But he was useful in making me as you see me now. Before he died, we discovered a great deal about the making of clay men and the binding of souls, which has been invaluable in my work here. I’m wroth with you for destroying my golem. It was a masterpiece.”
He’d made the golem of Will. I cringed, thinking of what must have been done to make it so big, strong, and real. Real enough to fool Michael; strong enough to walk around for a week or more.
My stomach curdled and I tasted bile in the back of my mouth as more pieces fell into place. Blood and bandages, a sorcerer below St. John’s, and Alice up and walking where she shouldn’t have been. Alice must have been the creature in the jars filled with blood. I wondered how he’d done it, how he’d stitched her back together, and how—
The word slipped out. “How?”
Alice had strolled to Glick’s side and then half a step past him, eclipsing him. She raised one hand toward the silver-eyed creature beside me. “Kreanou,” she murmured. “Very good.”
Kreanou—was that a name or a title? — made a sound a lot like a growl and pinned his spooky gaze on her as if he would devour her in a single bite if he had the chance. But he didn’t move.
Alice smirked. She was on the dais, several steps above me, so she could look down at me. It was barely enough extra height: We were almost eye to eye.
“How did I survive the fire? The Pharaohn, of course. Wygan followed me to the house. But not for me, Harper. For you.” A minute sharpness in her voice gave her fury and bitterness away. “He wanted to be sure you’d survive whatever happened. You have no idea how often he’s looked over your shoulder, or for how long. Like a guardian angel.” She gave her mad giggle once again, her eyes glittering. “Or maybe I should say, ‘like a guardian beast’?”
I narrowed my eyes and kept my mouth shut over the urge to spit. Or vomit. Her aura had never been pleasant but it was a vile thing now. Twice dead, twice resurrected, blood-soaked, mad, and burning with her own fury, she was Hate walking.
“He took me from the fire. You and the others almost destroyed me, but he saved me. He bathed me in blood, soaked me in it, drowned me in it.”
I could see it as she spoke, like a film blazoned in fire on the glimmering, cold air. He dragged her from the house as Cameron had dragged Carlos and hid her in a place of cold stone and salt water. He did murder and let blood run like a brook. Her body, cracked and blackened like a cinder, drank the blood, swelling with it and healing itself, the pores of her skin like a million tiny mouths. For months he nurtured her on blood and the poison of his mind. Then, beneath the surface of a swelling pool of gore, he cut her into pieces.
“. and he put me into the jars, filled with the blood that kept me alive, healing my burns. I was just too. large to heal in a single piece, he said. But the blood would keep me and mend my flesh. He promised me Simeon’s help when I rose. How was I to know it would take so long? What could I do?” she added, her hand curled elegantly as she made a small shrug. Her black bandages rippled and hitched over her still-raw joints. “He owned me then. And I owe him. And what he wants is you.”
The mood was broken as I felt my phone vibrate in the small of my back. It stopped after one buzz. Then it started up again in a moment and went on for three more cycles. Michael’s signal at last. They’d located Will and were coming to meet me. I didn’t know if they had Will or not and I hoped they wouldn’t get too close or do anything stupid if I wasn’t at the rendezvous when they arrived. They may have had what they’d gone for, but I didn’t and I couldn’t just leave, not with Alice preening and purring in front of me.
“You didn’t have to take Will to get me. I was coming anyway,” I ground out as my guts churned and settled again slowly.
She made a pout. “Oh, you don’t think I believe that, do you? That you would come just for Edward? Oh, no. The Pharaohn-ankh-astet said to take the thing most dear to you. And here he was! I already had your picture from when I first watched you for Wygan and seduced that silly man to beat you. Simeon knew just how to use the photo to make you desperate to come here. Nightmares are so much more persuasive than pleas, aren’t they? How could I resist? When I’m done, I get Edward’s domain in London with the help of the asetem and Simeon, and all I had to do was take Purcell,” she said, waving dismissively at the trapped vampire behind Glick, “and your William. This great fool,” she added, flicking a scarlet-tipped finger toward Glick, “has been the last little cherry on my cake. And I’ll have done what Edward failed to do—hold all of London in my hand, all the vampires beneath my rule. Mine. Not his.”
I felt weak and dizzy. She hadn’t just followed me; she’d helped to kill me and she would push me farther into death for the sake of the debt she owed Wygan. I wondered what had become of my assailant once he’d left the courtroom the last time I saw him. Yet another thing I’d have to discover if I wanted to put my mind at ease or at least shut down the mental screaming that was threatening to overwhelm me.
Alice laughed, the sound purely insane and dangerous, rolling across the still room like an earthquake.
Glick stiffened. “For the Pharaohn? That filthy white bastard? You said they was breaking from the Pharaohn. You said it was for our advantage. Knew I shouldn’t have caved to the likes of you! You brought the asetem among us, you brought him—that Jew,” he spat with a glare at Simeon, “and you turned us on ourselves.”
Alice gave him a pitying glance with a lifted brow. Simeon didn’t react at all.
Glick took a step away from her, glancing at Simeon and picking a route far from either of them. “You lied to us,” he said, amazed. “A thing like you? Deceived me? Deceived the Brotherhood?”