Susan Dennard - A Darkness Strange and Lovely

What do they know of the friends who avoid you on the street or laugh behind your back?”

A sob shuddered through my chest. Everything she said was true . What did the Spirit-Hunters know about me? About what I had lost?

“Nor,” she continued, “can they see the fine line you walk between life and death. The Hell

Hounds await you—still these guardians hunger for your blood. You must use your necromancy to stay alive, but these Spirit-Hunters cannot see that.” Her voice grew louder with each word—and my conviction, my hurt, grew too. “So tell me what the Spirit-Hunters actually know about you at all?

“I will tell you,” Madame Marineaux declared. “The Spirit-Hunters know nothing. Their lives have gotten better, while yours has spiraled into pain and hate and memories best forgotten.”

Madame Marineaux bent to me and whispered in my ear, “I feel your pain as strongly as my own, Mademoiselle. I know what it is to be denied what you deserve. To have everything you love taken from you.” She dipped her pointed chin and watched me from the tops of her eyes. “I am unbound yet unfree. How is that any different from you, who are far from home yet never able to escape it?”

“What—” My voice cracked, but I tried again. “What do you want from me?”

“Oh, it is easy.” She brushed my hair lovingly from my face. “My master—my overseer—expects me to meet him in Marseille, but you can free me before then. We can get your friend, the Chinese girl, back from him, and together we can crush him. You, Mademoiselle Fitt, could become my true master. A woman worthy of my magic and my devotion.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Don’t!” Daniel roared. “Empress, don’t!”

Madame Marineaux twirled around, and I realized with a start that Daniel and Joseph were both free now . . . that Daniel was running toward me.

But then a bolt of light flew from Madame Marineaux’s hand and blasted Daniel in the chest. He toppled backward, flipping over like a rag doll to crash into the stone altar.

And for several heartbeats I only watched. Completely indifferent . . . until a noxious wave pummeled into me—a shock wave from Madame Marineaux’s spell that was filled with complete wrong. And like a hypnotist’s snap, it jerked my mind back to reality.

“Daniel!” I pushed off the wall, trying to skitter around Madame Marineaux. But she was faster—

so much faster.

She lifted me up and slammed me against the wall. Pain cracked into my skull, and sparks raced through my vision. I reached for her, tried to scratch at her face, but she merely straightened her arms —and somehow her arms were suddenly longer than mine. Much longer, and my fingers reached nothing but air.

So I punched her elbow.

Her arm shuddered, and a wail broke from her lips. “After all I have offered and given, this is how you repay me?”

“Offered?” I croaked. “By sacrificing les Morts? By building an amulet of compulsion for your precious Claire’s brother—”

“An amulet for the Marquis?” She gave a giggle. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“His cane. I know what it is.”

Now her giggle became a howl of laughter. “How quaint! You think his cane is an amulet. But it is not; it is a far more powerful artifact than any amulet. I told you I found it in India, did I not? I have no need for silly compulsion spells. My venom compels anyone I want. Why, a drop of venom in your wine, a drop of venom on your dress— Mademoiselle, you were my puppet.” She stepped in close, and her claws poked into my skin. I held my breath—if I moved, if I breathed too heavily . . . those razors would slice me. “Perhaps you are not as clever as I once thought. As I told your friend, the Marquis had no idea what I was up to—no idea what I really am.”

Her claws dug deeper. She wanted to poison me. Wanted to overwhelm me with her visions . . .

“Then why did you need sacrifices?” It took all my strength to stay still. To fight the shudders racking inside me. “If you can compel and you had wealth, why sacrifice all those people?”

“Those were not for me. Though the blood was nice.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “My master was the one to sacrifice. There is someone who requires compelling, and a single spell will not suffice.”

Over her shoulder, I saw Oliver hauling Daniel to his feet. Satisfaction—triumph, even—washed over me. At least Oliver and the Spirit-Hunters could get out alive. Now, I was the only one who had to walk the fine line between life and death. . . .

And with that thought I recalled Madame Marineaux’s comment: Nor can they see the fine line you walk between life and death. The Hell Hounds await you.

The Hell Hounds. If there was one thing a demon—even one as powerful as a Rakshasi—could not face, it was the guardians of the spirit realm. And thanks to Marcus’s spell, I knew just how to call them here.

I creased my face into a sneer—a victorious smile I could not contain. “Why would your master,”

I crowed, “want compulsion spells? I thought, Madame Marineaux, that he could simply make you—

make his slave—cast a compulsion spell for him.”

She gritted her teeth, her nostrils fluttering. “He wants a spell that lasts days. Weeks, even. Mine only maintain for hours at a time.”

“Because your magic isn’t good enough? Is that it? He does not think your magic is strong—”

“Stop!” she screeched. “I see what you try to do, Mademoiselle. You wish to rile me, and that, I fear, will not do. If I cannot have you, then no one shall, and so it is time for you to die.”

“Oh?” I lifted my eyebrows as if this piece of information were utterly uninteresting. “Perhaps you ought to wait a moment, Madame. I have something you might like to see.”

Her lips pursed into a smug smile. She waited.

“Oliver, remove my hand. Take it back.”

“Oliver?” Her eyes thinned. “To whom do you speak?”

With my own wicked grin, I screamed in her face, “Sum veritas!”

Instantly she released me, rearing back. “Another demon?” She twirled around, her nostrils sniffing the air wildly.

Then she spotted the Spirit-Hunters, standing on the opposite side of the cavern with the crystal clamp and pulse pistols trained on her. I saw no sign of Oliver.

A scream ripped from Madame Marineaux’s mouth, inhuman and ear shattering. “Veni! Veni!”

She bolted for the Spirit-Hunters, her skirts and feet barely skimming the ground.

Daniel fired his reloaded pistols. Madame Marineaux slowed but didn’t stop. Two more shots cracked out, and this time Madame Marineaux did halt.

But it was not because she was hurt. It was because, crawling out of the dark tunnel behind the

Spirit-Hunters, was an army of corpses. The skeletons from before.

“Behind you,” I shrieked just as Daniel twisted around, his next pistols firing.

I dove forward, desperate to help, but all at once pain sliced up my arm. Phantom pain. I glanced down. My hand was gone. It was just a stump once more. Instantly, Marcus’s spell took effect.

First came the wind—so fierce and so cold. It blasted through the cavern, winking out half the torches. Then the stench of grave dirt assaulted me.

Madame Marineaux whirled toward me, disbelief—and betrayal—in her eyes. She knew what was coming. Knew there was no escape from the Hell Hounds.

Crack! Electricity lashed through the air as Joseph blasted skeletons away. He and Daniel were holding off the Dead, but only barely.

A howl tore through the cavern, and the pain in my missing hand screamed. Stars blurred across my vision. The Hell Hounds were close—so close—and all I had to do was keep Madame Marineaux here.

I staggered toward her, reaching frantically for any piece of her I could grab. But my right hand flared blue, blinding in its agony. Madame Marineaux’s eyes locked on it.

A grin swept over her face, and I knew she understood that the Hell Hounds were here for me, not her . Her grin shifted into a frown. “I am sad,” she said. “This is no way for a girl with your talent to die. Yet, you made your choice—and it was not me. Too bad, too bad. If you had only seen things my way, then they could have lived too.” She waved disinterestedly toward the Spirit-Hunters. Their backs were to the wall, and an ocean of skulls and groping fingers surrounded them. But they weren’t defeated—not yet.

“But c’est la vie, Mademoiselle. The bad choices— c’est la vie. And now I must wish you adieu. ”

She surged for the gaping black tunnel in the right corner. It was the only way out now that the left tunnel was swarming with Dead. Before I could even try to lunge into her path, she swept around me, soaring for the exit.

“Ollie!” I screamed. “Hold her! Sum veritas!” Then I launched after Madame Marineaux, sucking in all my power. Every ounce of soul in my body I drew into my chest, and in a wave of heat that scorched through me, I let all my magic loose.

“Stay! ”

Madame Marineaux froze only feet away from the exit. I could feel her pulling, pumping her own magic into a counterspell.

“Stay, stay, stay!” I shouted, and from the other side of the room, Oliver bellowed, “Mane, stay!”

A thunderous roar filled the cavern. All the torches whipped out, leaving only the electric blue of my magic and Joseph’s crackling attacks to see by. Not that I could see—not now. The agony in my hand was too much. I toppled forward, my arms windmilling and all focus on my spell lost.

The Hell Hounds had arrived.

Time seemed to slow. I heard the Hounds’ monstrous jaws snapping behind me, coming closer each fraction of a heartbeat. I felt each throb in my hand and each tiny gust of unnatural wind.

“Bring back my hand, Oliver,” I whispered, still falling forward, still trying to regain my balance.

“Sum veritas.”

A body hurled into me, screaming in Latin. I crashed down, and the squalling Hounds boomed over us. In that instant the pain in my hand ceased. It was its usual phantom limb—flesh and blood—once more.

Yet the Hounds did not stop their frenzied chase. They blasted straight into Madame Marineaux.

Her body rose up and up, and the Hounds swirled around her in a tornado of blue flames. Her shrieks pierced the cavern, shaking my soul.

I am not ready. Not ready . The thoughts cleaved into my brain. Her thoughts—her fears. Claire! she yelled into my mind. Claire! Help me—save me! I am not ready. . . .

And then finally, a thought that nestled so deeply into my heart, I knew it was meant only for me:I was wrong about you. You will topple him. An image flashed next—the cane . . . no, only the ivory fist. Then the vision shifted to a gray Oriental fan on a low shelf in Madame Marineaux’s sitting room.