Twenty Palaces (27 page)

But it was no use. All the Latin copies matched each other and the English translations. There was no spell to undo Jon's curse.

I stood and walked to the end of the dugout. In that spot, I could be seen from the street but I had to risk it, because the urge to tear all those pages apart was unbearable, but I had to take deep, shuddering breaths to control my frustration. I couldn't destroy those books. They contained power. They were tools, and bargaining chips, too, if it came to that. I'd have to find a safe place to hide them.

But they weren't going to help me save my friend. I didn't have any sure, safe, simple way to save my friend.

I drew the ghost knife out of my pocket. As stupid and awful as it sounded, I was going to have to cut the cousins out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The first thing I did was eat the rest of the oranges; they were delicious and they made me feel human again. Then I organized the copies and the notebook into the canvas bag, put on the helmet, and rode away.

There was a supermarket relatively close by, and it was busy enough even at this late hour that no one was likely to pay much attention to me. I parked Wally's motorcycle, hurried to the entrance and fished a handful of empty plastic shopping bags out of the bag recycling bin. By some miracle, they were dry. Stuffing all the bags into one, I trapped them under the mesh and rode off to a greenbelt a few blocks from my aunt's house.

There, I wrapped the canvas bag in several layers of plastic to bury it. I had to dig with my hands, because the ghost knife couldn't cut through the tree roots, but I dug deep and, after I filled it in, I covered the spot with a circle of flat stones. Maybe I'd be able to reclaim them someday. Maybe.
 

I climbed back onto the motorcycle, knowing it was past time to ditch it. Unfortunately, it was already after midnight, and standing out at some corner, waiting an hour for a nearly-empty bus would just get me busted. Walking was just as risky. What the hell. Everyone's luck ran out at some point. It was time to find out what how far I could push mine.

I pulled on the helmet. It was time to find Jon, Echo and Macy. They would need floor space to draw out that circle, and privacy, too, in case the society came after them again. I knew where I would do it, if I were them.

Barely fifteen minutes later, I pulled up outside the Hilltop Physical Therapy Center. I parked the motorcycle out front and slid the helmet into the mesh. Wally said he'd given the cure to Macy's friends, and she'd run off. I was willing to bet those friends were co-workers who wanted to cure a few more of their patients.

Ducking under the yellow police tape, I peered through the glass of the front door. It was pretty dark in there; I couldn't see much more than a dim hallway. I walked around the building and found a fire door beside the parking lot out back. It was also locked, but it was not readily visible from the street.

With my ghost knife, I cut a long, thin panel out of the center of the door. No alarm bells sounded, although the metal panel hitting the concrete walkway seemed as loud as a traffic accident in the quiet night.

I slipped into the dark building. My footsteps were nearly silent on the plush carpet, but if they were here, Jon, Macy or Echo had to have heard that panel. I side-stepped so I wouldn't be silhouetted by the parking lot security lights outside. The cold air blew gently through the opening. That meant I was upwind of them and their sensitive noses and there was probably no way I could sneak up on them now. Not that I wouldn't try.

And then there were Irena's gloves. I'd been wearing them for hours and they'd become a little rank. I held my ghost knife close to my body and extended my gloved left hand in front of me as I went down the hall.
 

Office doors on either side of the hall stood open. I stepped into the first one on the left. It smelled faintly of stale cigarettes, but it was empty. I checked the office across the hall. Also empty.

I crept to the next one and peered in. Another empty office. I realized I was holding my breath. Arne posted lookouts wherever he went, but I doubted Jon was that organized or experienced. Still, I wasn't about to underestimate him. I didn't want Echo or Macy charging at me from behind.

There was a housekeeping cart parked beside the next door. I figured that was a bad sign, and I was right. As soon as I stepped into the doorway I could smell the blood. Right there in the middle of the floor, a man lay stretched out on the carpet. He looked as though lions had torn into him.

I tried to work out a body count but I was too rattled to make my brain work properly, and thinking of the other corpses I'd seen didn't do much to clear my head. At least I knew they'd been here recently.

I proceeded down the hall, carefully checking each room, but I didn't find any more dead bodies. There were no super-powerful killers, either.
 

I reached the central reception area, which wasn't as central as I'd thought. The big glass front door with the motorcycle parked out front was just a short way to the left. Another hall like the one I'd come down lay ahead, and beside the reception desk was a bank of elevators and a broad, curving staircase leading up.
 

I crossed the reception area and walked down the other hallway, just in case one of them was hiding down here. Hell, they might even be sleeping off a big meal.
 

I wasn't that lucky. Only the first two doors led to offices. The rest were broom closets, bathrooms, tools, a small cafeteria and a padlocked and dead-bolted drug dispensary.

I considered breaking into the dispensary. A hefty sedative would make the upcoming "surgery" much easier, but I wasn't sure they would work on the cousins, which were not even completely physical. And the dispensary was likely to be alarmed.
 

I skipped it, went back to the reception area and crept up the stairs. I strained to hear a sound, any sound, that would warn me Echo was coming for me again, but everything was utterly still and silent.
 

The top floor was dark, too, but high, clouded windows along the far wall let in just enough streetlight to see the furniture. To the left was a wide parquet aerobics floor. To the right was a darkened nest of cable-and-pulley exercise equipment. Directly behind me was a row of small examination rooms.

I went toward the parquet floor and the huge sigil that had been painted onto it. I thought it looked very like the design on the floor in Macy and Echo's house, except that someone had added a cross, a star of David and the words "blessed be" to the outer ring.

There were blackened scorch marks in the five places where people were supposed to sit. The methods and goals of the Twenty Palace Society made more sense with every corpse.

"I can smell you."

I spun around. That was Macy's voice, but I couldn't see her anywhere. I squinted into the shadowy, complicated mass of equipment, but I couldn't see her.
 

"How's my Right Guard holding up?" I said, hoping her answer would give away her position.

"Terrible," she said from somewhere in the darkness. "Their hexes smell like rotting flesh and shit. You're covered with them."

I saw a shadow move in the darkness. Found her. I circled to silhouette her against the windows. As if she could sense what I wanted, she stepped into the light.

This was Jon's girl. If I was going to save him, I should save her, too. "Macy, what if I could remove your curse?"

She laughed. "If Wally can't, you sure as hell can't."

"I think I might have a way. Let me try to help you."

"What am I, a guinea pig? A trial run so you can perfect your technique for your boyfriend?" She laughed again and there was deep bitterness in it. "It's too late for me. Too late for everyone. You seem like a nice guy, Ray. You should go to Rio or Ibiza or something. Maybe you could have a couple happy months before the end."

"Echo's going to cast the spell again?" Of course I already knew the answer.

"And again and again and again until the world is overrun with my cousins and you humans are hunted to extinction."

I moved toward her, my gloved hand and ghost knife held out in front of me. "How could I enjoy Rio knowing that?"

Macy lunged at me. She was fast, so fast I didn't even have time to flinch, but she snapped short of her lunge like a dog on a leash. A bench press machine behind her wobbled.
 

She was bound by her ankle. I circled back and away from her. "Tied you up, did they? Why did they do that?"

"So I wouldn't be so squeamish about my food."
 

I looked past her and, for the first time, noticed a body lying at the base of the window. The dim light glinted off the worn reflective stripe of a firefighter's jacket. Annalise.

That's when I noticed a second body lying right at Macy's feet. Irena lay stretched out and torn open like a slaughtered gazelle.

"Oh, shit. You're eating them."

"The smell of their blood was irresistible. I'm getting used to the idea of making meals out of you people. How does Rio sound now?"

"I don't have a passport. And I can't just leave those bodies here with you."

"Whatever. You can be one of us or one of them. I can't bring myself to care the way I used to."

"What about those scorch marks back there?" I asked.
 

Her silhouette stiffened as if she was surprised by the question. After a pause, she said: "Once they meant everything to me. Now they're just wasted meat."

I tried to keep my voice calm. "Macy, it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to kill anymore. I think I can cut that thing out of you." Christ. How was I supposed to convince her if I didn't sound like I believed myself?

She lunged at me again. She was fast. Terrifyingly fast. The leash on her ankle jerked at the bench machine and toppled it onto its side.

She leaped again, yanking the machine several inches across the carpet. Then she did it again, dragging the machine behind her. Her mouth gaped wide--wider than any human mouth should be able to open.

I backed away, cocking my arm to throw the ghost knife. As long as I didn't hit her head, she should survive it, just like Jon. The spell would take some of the fight out of her, letting me close in and immobilize her with Irena's glove. It wasn't a great plan, but it was all I had.

Macy saw what I was doing and crouched down like a catcher. She clapped her hands then held them out, as though encouraging a child to throw a ball.
 

"Throw it here, Ray. Please. A nice slow-motion throw from a slow-motion human being. I know what you have there--I can smell it--and you know what?" She tugged at her bound ankle. I saw that she was tied with a metal cable. "I could use a good cutting edge."

My guts felt watery for just a moment. If she took the spell from me the way Callin had, she'd be all over me in an instant. How was I going to get close enough to help her?
 

I tried to sound reasonable and confident. "Macy--"

She leaped again and hissed. "Your voice is driving the cousin inside me wild." She grabbed her tether and pulled at it, dragging the machine over Irena's body.

I ran to my right and ducked among the machines. Macy tried to follow, but the bench machine wedged between two other pieces of equipment. She grabbed the machine and tried to pull harder but she couldn't budge it. She struggled angrily, desperately, like an enraged animal in a trap.

I stalked toward her. If she had carefully worked the machine free, she might already be tearing me apart, but was losing herself in an animal blood-lust, pounding furiously on it in frustration.

Several metal plates broke free and fell to the floor. Macy squealed with animal glee, picked one up and threw it at me.

It sailed past my ear and struck a machine beside me so hard the sound was like a gunshot.

I dropped low and scrambled for cover. More plates slammed against the metal equipment around me.

Macy leaped to the top of a lat pull-down machine and crouched low. She held a stack of metal plates cradled in her left arm and began throwing them at me, laughing.

I pressed myself against the floor behind a leg extension machine as plates clanged around me. One rebounded into the air and dropped heavily onto my legs. Another dented the metal post beside my head.

"Hey, Macy, is it too late to go to Rio?"

She laughed and threw all the plates into the air, making me scramble to a new hiding spot as they rained down around me. By stupid luck, none of the plates hit me.

Macy slid out the remainder of the plates, letting them clatter onto the floor. Then she lifted the whole machine.
 

But it was tangled with other equipment and she couldn't get it more than a couple inches off the floor before it snagged and stuck in place. She screamed with rage and shook the machine, making it rattle like an avalanche of ball bearings, then let it fall.

"Dammit! I didn't want to have to do this."

She bent down, folding her body like a piece of taffy. She twisted her bare, tethered foot, placed her heel into her mouth, and bit down.

Goosebumps ran down my back. "Oh, hell no."
 

She had to worry her head back and forth a few times, but then it was over. Her heel was gone. She swallowed it whole with a grotesque gulping sound.

My heart sank. Even if she was injured, I didn't have the speed or strength to take Macy in a fight. Hell, I couldn't even run. There was only one thing left to do.

I leaped to my feet and charged at her, ghost knife high and gloved hand out, screaming like a kamikaze.

Macy slid her bloody, mangled foot free of the tether. She smiled at me, glad that I was making it easy to get at her.

A shadow behind her shifted position, then the figure kicked at the lat machine. It toppled toward Macy, who spun and caught it with both hands before it could pin her.
 

At the same moment, I stabbed the ghost knife into her shoulder, splitting open her sweater. She seemed to wilt, and the lat machine fell across her throat and collarbone, pinning her.