But that didn’t explain why I was tolerating the presence of a demonic parasite. Or why it felt natural, as though it was the right thing to do.
Conversion.
The word filled my head.
Conversion.
I gave Grant a sharp look.
Demons. Grant can change demons. Alter what they are.
I closed my eyes, glad for the doorway I was leaning on. I sought out memories of Rex, and other zombies who inhabited the Coop. Possessed men and women who came and went, but often stayed. Always uneasy around me but willing to take the risk. Because they were . . . they were . . .
Converts. Breaking themselves to become something new. Feeding, not on pain, but . . .
I opened my eyes. Rex was staring at me. So was Grant, but there was only compassion in his eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at me with such acceptance, as though it was okay, I was okay: who I was, what I did, was
okay
.
Should have bothered me, just out of sheer contrariness. Should have scared me, because he was a strange man and I was a strange woman, and there was a very strange history between us I didn’t remember or understand.
But I was past that. I had bigger problems.
And I liked the way he looked at me.
I inclined my head toward the gun in Rex’s hand. “Expecting trouble?”
“Just you,” he said, aura flaring. “I don’t like the look in your eyes. Makes me feel like I should start running.”
“Maybe you should. Get away from the boy.” I pushed myself off the doorway and walked to the bed. Rex stood and got out of my way. I ignored him. Byron’s eyes were closed, his breathing steady. I touched his brow. He was warm, but his color was better.
I wanted to wake him up and forced myself to back up a step. “What is all this?”
“Rainbows,” Mary said, tweaking a strand of purple yarn.
Rex rolled his eyes and slid the gun into the waist of his jeans. “She said there was trouble coming and made me bring the boy down here. Told me to stand guard while she went to go cut a motherfucker.”
Grant studied the boy, and frowned. He said, absently, “There was a fire. The entire second wing burned down.”
Rex stared. Mary tore a marijuana leaf off the stem and jammed it in her mouth. “Forced gate,” she muttered, chewing hard. “Labyrinth burns when torn.”
The Labyrinth.
It always came down to that place. That
road
.
Demons were not of earth. Demons weren’t even really demons—not in the biblical sense. Just a name that suited creatures that hunted and fed on humans—in the same way that the zombies I hunted weren’t movie zombies but simply human puppets, possessed. Names were conveniences only.
Demons, like the Avatars—and humans—had traveled to earth via a network of interdimensional highways. A crossroads between here and there—a place beyond space, or time, or anything that I could possibly comprehend. Only that it was the Labyrinth, the quantum rose, a maze of knotted roads between countless worlds.
Earth, being one of them.
I thought of the dead man in front of Byron’s door. “You’re saying she exited the Labyrinth inside the Coop itself?”
“She comes with a need, and needs make gates.” Mary tapped her chest and pointed to the boy. “She hunts the Old Wolf. And his skins.”
“Byron’s not a skin,” I said firmly.
“Everyone’s a skin,” Rex replied. “What’s going on?”
“Stop.” Grant held up his hand, tearing his gaze from Byron. “Who was that woman? Why would she want Jack?”
Faces and names flashed through my mind. Ahsen. Mr. King. Avatars, both of them insane. Too dangerous to live.
I could hear their screams. I remembered killing them. The first with my bare hands. The second . . . with someone else.
Who was just a hole in my memories.
I looked at Grant. “She’s come because of those two Avatars who died. Jack’s kind felt their murders and sent her to bring him back.”
“Back.”
“Two of your own get murdered, you don’t come yourself. You send someone else to investigate.”
“Someone who can control an Avatar.” Grant glanced at Mary. “That woman and I share the same gift. How is that possible? I thought there were no others.”
“No
free
others.” Mary reached out and tenderly brushed his hair from his face. “Babies stolen into chains, raised in chains, modified and cut and slaved in chains. An army in chains.”
I gave up trying to stay away from Byron. I sat down on the bed, balls of yarn falling to the floor around my feet. The boy never stirred. He breathed, but his sleep was so deep. I touched his wrist, feeling his pulse. Strong, steady.
“I remember,” I said. “I remember Jack talking about this. But the details are so unclear.”
“Probably because it has to do with me.” Grant sighed, rubbing his face. “I’m not from this world, Maxine. My mother brought me here when I was a baby. We came through the Labyrinth.”
“You were escaping the Avatars.”
“Yes.” He gave me a cautious look. “What else do you remember?”
I remembered only what I had been told by Jack. But that was enough. I could still hear his relentless, urgent voice.
The Lightbringers and the people they watched over were the first humans. Found on one world. One distant, now-dead, world. All humans, my dear—every human—is descended from them.
We stole their bodies. We bred them, molded their flesh. And when a particular breed of human was conceived, a world was found through the Labyrinth and seeded with that strain of flesh. Allowed to evolve, and become. Time moves differently in the Labyrinth. What took millions, billions, of years, we could have instantly, merely by opening and closing a door.
Worlds, seeded with life by the Avatars. Worlds, used as playgrounds and castles in the sky. Worlds upon fantastic worlds, linked together through the Labyrinth, that maze of infinite possibilities.
Humans had been brought to Earth as proteins and molecules.
Part of the lab, the farm,
my grandfather had said.
The grand experiment. A reservoir for bodies.
Bodies descended from the Lightbringers. The first humans.
I finally remembered hearing that name, in its proper context. Jack, speaking of Lightbringers in desperate tones, calling them guardians, judges, truth-sayers, warriors. Hunted and murdered because of their ability to manipulate energy. And, by extension, the Avatars.
Blood Mama was right. I didn’t know if the demons could be any worse.
And if Grant
was
a Lightbringer, then that meant . . . that meant . . .
I closed my eyes, trying to focus. “What matters is that . . . woman . . . saw you. She recognized what you are. We can’t let her leave and tell anyone she’s found a Lightbringer here.”
“She might have already left this world,” Grant said.
Mary plucked at the yarn and shook her head. “Not without Wolf. Slaves obey.”
“She wants Jack, which means we have to find him first. We have to protect him. We have to stop
her
.”
Grant made a frustrated sound. “I hate this.”
I stood. “What can we do to protect the boy? She was drawn to him before. Probably because of Jack’s connection with him.”
Mary pushed aside the blanket. A golden pendant lay heavy on Byron’s chest, a compact disc that was nothing more than a tangled coil with no end, no beginning, just layers of roped metal that knotted together in a design that tricked the eye. When I looked at the pendant, its center seemed impossibly deep and far away, as though I could touch it and find my hand swallowed. Looking at it made me dizzy.
But the design was familiar. I had just seen something similar embedded in Mary’s sternum.
“That’s my mother’s,” Grant said.
“Masks his mark,” Mary replied, with a sly smile. But that was all she said. I heard a clanging sound outside the room and the echo of voices.
“Police,” Rex muttered. “Shit.”
Grant tightened his grip on the cane. “I’ll take care of this. Watch the boy.”
He limped out of Mary’s room. After a moment, I followed.
Men were coming down the stairs with flashlights. I hurried ahead of Grant, moving silently in my soft-soled shoes, and flipped the switch on the wall. Lights came on. I heard grunts of surprise, and peered up at three men in uniform—one police officer and two guys from the fire department. The police officer had a familiar face, but I couldn’t remember his name. I was bad with names.
“Sorry,” I said. “We’re so used to this place, we don’t really need the lights.”
I’m not sure the men believed—or heard—me. They seemed to be too busy staring at my bald head. I had forgotten my missing hair. Didn’t know how. My scalp felt light, cold. I almost touched it, self-conscious.
Grant limped close, drawing their gazes. “Ralph. Were you looking for me?”
The police officer, a lean man in his early forties, flashed him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Father Cooperon. One of the ladies said you come down here sometimes to, um, take care of one of residents.”
“Yes,” Grant said, with surprising composure and authority. “I planned on finding you after I was done calming her. Has something else happened?”
Ralph’s expression of regret deepened. “I know this has been a tough morning, Father, but I need you to look at a . . . a body . . . we pulled from the fire. Just one,” he added hastily. “A white male, maybe in his twenties. No ID. We’re hoping you’ll recognize his face.”
I barely heard him. My brain was finally catching up to something he’d said at the beginning.
Father Cooperon. Father Cooperon.
As though Grant was a priest.
Ralph glanced down at me. “Ma’am. You cut your hair.”
“Burned it all off in the fire,” I said weakly, which got me a laugh. I glanced at the other men. “How are your guys who went into the building?”
They hesitated, glancing at each other. “Fine.”
“Bullshit,” muttered Ralph, climbing up the stairs. “McKenzie is having a nervous breakdown. Says he saw a monster. Pansy.”
One of the guys gave me a lopsided grin. “No face, he told us. Covered in scales. Snake lady.”
I pretended to shiver. And then shivered for real when the other man gave me a long look, and said, “Except for the hair, you look just like the woman McKenzie went in after. We still haven’t found any trace of her.”
Ralph, now at the top of the stairs, turned around. “Leave her alone. You hear a cough, you smell smoke on her? Jeee-sus. Anyone who went into that hell is gonna need a morgue for being too stupid to live.”
Grant coughed. I gave him a dirty look. A faint smile tugged the corner of his mouth, and he tweaked my hip as he limped past. I flinched. He ducked his head, brushed his mouth against my ear, and whispered, “You look beautiful, snake lady.”
He was insane. I kept telling myself that as we climbed the stairs.
It had stopped raining. Most of the people still hanging around outside the Coop were volunteers. Some of the homeless regulars had disappeared, but I blamed the presence of the police for that. I didn’t feel comfortable being near them, either. I had broken too many laws over the years.
Grant had no trouble with them. I hung back, watching for stress fractures, tension, but every person in uniform looked at him with deference and respect. Just a man, leaning on a cane, dressed in faded jeans and a thick flannel shirt. Just a straightforward, unruffled, man.
Big, sexy man,
I thought, unable to help myself. A man who looked like a wolf compared to everyone around him, something a little
other
, a little sharp around the edges.
Not born on earth. Able to manipulate people with his voice. Able to change a demon, down to the core of its being.
Capable of killing an Avatar.
I didn’t remember that, but I knew it was true. Who knew what else he could do.
You had a taste, with Blood Mama.
Blood Mama. A demon queen. And, even though I couldn’t remember Grant, not before this morning, I recalled those Avatars, Ahsen and Mr. King, who had been afraid of something, someone, around me. Afraid, and hungry.
Of him.
And of something inside me. The darkness, that slept so lightly.
“Lightbringer,” I breathed to myself, tasting the word. It didn’t stir memories, but for some reason, I felt compelled to touch my chest. Listening for that sixth heartbeat.
I stopped, after a moment. I didn’t want to think about that. Scared me. Even Grant scared me. He was dangerous. My mother might have killed him for nothing more than the
possibility
he could go bad. There wasn’t anyone alive who should have that kind of power.
Including me.
I joined Grant as he was led to a body bag. One of the cops, a woman, gave me a quick once-over, followed by a tight smile. “Donate your hair to charity?”
“Yes,” I lied, and saw behind her the fireman whom I had rescued. He sat on the end of an ambulance, staring into space, a blanket over his shoulders and an oxygen mask on his face. I turned slightly, so my back was to him.
Ralph donned latex gloves and unzipped the body bag. I wasn’t surprised to see the man I’d found outside Byron’s door. Burned yes, but not as much as I would have expected. Even the fragment of clothing I saw appeared minimally charred.
What bothered me, though, was that his features were disturbingly bland, even for a dead man. As though someone had taken an eraser and rubbed out everything but a mouth, nose, and eyes. He looked . . . unreal. Like a doll.
“Never seen him before,” Grant said grimly. “I can’t imagine why he was up there. Was he the only one?”
“Thankfully.” Ralph hesitated. “Know anyone who’d want to burn you out?”
“No.” Grant looked him dead in the eyes. “I hope this was an accident.”