Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 27

  The old man looked them over, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. His lips quivered, and a dry, coarse sound stuttered out of his mouth. “You are?”

  Amanda’s breathing seemed to grow heavier. She eased herself off her stool and held out the canvas-bound volume. “My name is Amanda Lark, daughter of Lionel Lark, son of Charles Lark.”

  Something twinkled in the old man’s eye. “Charles Lark?” He craned his head to look at Kyle. His eyes were stained, bloodshot. After a long glance, he brought his gaze back to Amanda. The skeletal man’s bulging orbs grew even wider. His breath became loud, and a glint of moisture grew from the desiccated crevices of his sockets. “Speak you the truth?”

  She nodded.

  For a few seconds, the man just stood there. Shaking. Giggling. Then laughing out loud. “I can’t believe it,” he breathed between bouts of laughter. “I can’t believe I have a grandchild from the surface!”

  Amanda started. “Y-you? You’re my—”

  Before she could bite off the question, the old man wrapped her in a bony hug and pulled her close. “It is a gift from the Malefice. Praise to the Dawn! A-hai, Urn-ma Nemo!”

  She struggled and at last broke free, stumbling back a step. “You’re Grandpa Charles?”

  The man showed them all a broad grin; the teeth that remained were yellow, cavity-eaten, and filed to points. “Please. The name Charles belonged to another man. I am now Zurt.”

  “Zurt?”

  He turned from Amanda to Kyle, joy lighting his face. “You have grown into a fine man, Lionel.”

  Kyle stared blankly at him. “Excuse me?” Don’t tell me this weirdo thinks that I’m this girl’s . . . No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he caught Amanda’s gaze. She pursed her lips and shook her head. Eyes wide, she mouthed a single word that Kyle couldn’t read. He swallowed a gulp of stale air and coughed, shaking his head. “O-of course. Thank you. Father.” Father? Dad? What the fuck would this Lionel guy have said?

  The man calling himself Zurt smiled a wider and far ghastlier grin. “I cannot believe that you found us. Surely it is by the will of Raxxinoth that you came upon my old book, and by Her wisdom that you have come to us now. But a new age has come, and there are many things that must be understood if you are to join the Order.” He snapped his head toward the robes hovering at the doorway. “Leave us.”

  Without a word, they turned and disappeared into the hall beyond the vault door.

  “Now,” Zurt said, “we all have much to discuss. Of Raxxinoth, of the Malefice, and of the Dawn. Of the Yellow King, once our sovereign and now our enemy. And, of course, of your lives following my disappearance.”

  Chapter 20

  Persistence

  Spinneretta wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. The dry creek bed she and Kara had followed for the last two hours ended just ahead, where it ran up against a dense thicket of trees. When she tripped over a loose rock or root or rabbit for the eighty-ninth time that morning, she cursed and kicked a clod of dirt across the ground in revenge. Fuck nature. She’d never been one for camping before, but even the rare trip to Hedera Campland was better than this. Better than true nature in all its terrible beauty.

  “There!” Kara shouted.

  Spinneretta started and found her sister leaning between two crooked trees and pointing downslope with an anterior leg. Perched on her shoulder, even Cinnamon crackled in something like relief. Crossing over to where her sister stood, Spinneretta peered down the tree-lined slope. There was a clearing at the foot of the incline, only a few hundred feet down. She could scarcely breathe when she saw what her sister was gesturing toward. A small cluster of wooden buildings surrounded a concrete fire pit, ringed by a low fence fashioned out of raw logs. She’d tried to keep her hope in check as the scent of gasoline had grown nearer over the last two days. But now that they’d reached the edge of the park, the weight on her shoulders dissipated. “Oh my god, we made it!”

  “We made it, we made it!” Kara laughed and pulled Cinnamon from her shoulder, wrapping the startled Leng cat in a tight hug. She then stopped laughing abruptly. “Spins, can we stop at a motel or something when we get into town? I really wanna shower.”

  Spinneretta almost tripped again, and she kicked the offending rock onto its side. “Umm. Not sure. Money is going to be a bit tight. Although I could stand to bathe, too.” They’d stopped for a dip in a stream the previous day, but it was a half-measure without soap. Her hair was starting to feel too gross to keep going on like this, even in a ponytail. Then again, her hair didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

  “Come on,” Kara said, grabbing her hand and letting Cinnamon down upon the mulchy ground. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Spinneretta ripped her hand out of Kara’s grip. “Hold on a second. We’re not going down there until you get Cinnamon concealed. I don’t want a repeat of the bus, alright?”

  Kara frowned. “Oh, fine.” She slipped her backpack off her shoulder and unzipped it. “Come on, Cinny. It’s just for a little while.”

  The Leng cat looked up from where she’d landed upon the ground, her four eyes suspicious.

  Kara smiled and tilted her head to the side. “Please?”

  With a rattling growl, Cinnamon slunk over to the backpack and slithered inside, coiling her slender legs around her. Kara zipped the backpack up again, leaving a moderate gap for air, and then hoisted the pack onto her shoulders. “Ooph. You’re getting heavy.”

  Spinneretta showed Kara a nod of approval as she pulled Mark’s jacket back over her spider legs. “Alright. Let’s get the hell out of this terrible place.”

  As they came to the foot of the slope and walked out of the jumble of pines and shrubs, the small group of structures came into clear view. To the side of the largest building, an old-fashioned carved sign read Deer Crag Visitor Center. The concrete fire pit in the center was flanked on two sides by large, square signage bearing maps of the region. On the other side, the dirt path stretched on through a canal of trees, at the end of which she could just make out the dark shape of a fence against the vernal blur. Beyond that gate, she thought she heard the sound of a car speeding by. She breathed another sigh of relief. They’d made it back to civilization.

  Spinneretta locked her eyes upon the large map depicting the surrounding area. Long before she got close enough to read it, she could tell it would be of limited value; the surface was painted with green splotches of various shades, indicating either elevation or the density of the woodlands. The red You Are Here arrow was near the edge of the map, but she found not even a hint of the contents of the town. Can’t expect it to be that easy, she thought with a sigh. At least we’re out of the woods. Think we can find a bus on our own. All we have to do is spot one and follow it back to the nest.

  “Good evening,” called a voice from nearby. Startled, Spinneretta turned on her heel and found a lanky young man in a khaki vest and shorts standing under the awning of the visitor center. From beneath his wide-brimmed hat, he smiled a welcome at them. A thin, auburn mustache crawled across his upper lip like a caterpillar.

  Spinneretta froze where she stood, wary of his sudden appearance. “Hello,” she said in a jovial tone. Beside her, Kara wheeled about, defensive.

  “Are you alright?” the ranger asked as he walked over to them. “You’ve been lost, haven’t you?”

  The question surprised Spinneretta. She wasn’t sure exactly what the man was getting at, and had no idea how to respond. Was this area off limits? Or were visitors limited by permit or entrance fee? Slowly, and quite uncertainly, she began to nod. “Something like that.”

  The ranger put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest, as though he were proud of himself. “Well, it’s alright now. Everyone will be relieved to hear you’re safe. Let’s get you over to the office.” He tugged a walkie-talkie from his belt and lifted it to his mouth. A burst of static crunched under his thumb. “Hey, Frank, I found the missing girls at Visitor Center W
est. Any chance you could call Ms. Bordon and let her know? I’ll keep them safe and comfortable in the office until someone can come pick them up.”

  Spinneretta blinked at him. “Uhh, whoa, wait a second. I think you might have us mistaken with someone else. We, uhh, are just passing through.”

  He gave the two of them a puzzled look. “Really? You match the two girls’ descriptions exactly.” The comment seemed intended for himself, and after a moment his expression grew suspicious. “Aren’t you Elizabeth’s sisters?”

  She shook her head. “No, we’re—” The realization struck her like a torpedo. Her breath stopped in her lungs, and she felt a tremor slip down the length of her concealed appendages. “Elizabeth?” Ms. Bordon?

  The contradiction in her words and expression must have tipped the ranger off, for he nodded and drew a step closer. “That’s right. What did Frank say your names were? Melody and Sarah, right?”

  She withdrew a step backward. “Oh, shit.”

  Kara mimicked her motion, picking up on her aura of tension. They both stared at the ranger, and he stared right back at them, his forehead crinkled and eyebrows slanting upward.

  Spinneretta sidled another slow step backward, studying his movement. Her hand snaked out and clasped Kara’s shoulder. “Run!”

  The two broke into a sprint down the tree-lined path. A shout of surprise rang from behind, and soon pursuing footsteps pounded the dirt. They hurtled toward the fence leading out of the park. On either side, the groves of regal pines quickly began to thin. The cut of static from the ranger’s walkie-talkie cried out, and a glance over her shoulder found the man falling behind. Heart thundering, blood running hot through flushed skin and hidden capillaries, Spinneretta continued to sprint.

  The ranger chased them only halfway to the gate, giving up either from exhaustion or confusion. But Spinneretta and Kara kept running until the woods stopped abruptly at a river of asphalt just beyond the gate. They vaulted over the low railing, which was adorned with a laminated wooden sign reading Deer Crag State Park. On the other side, a sea of flat-topped buildings greeted them. Spinneretta had never been so happy to see the stained walls of civilization, nor so thrilled to smell the sting of exhaust and the distant, greasy aroma of fast food. The two halted for only a moment as a semi-truck screamed past them, and then they bolted across the street, where a tight cluster of stores formed a labyrinth of alleyways.

  They’d made it. They were back on track. But they had a new problem, now.

  After twisting and turning through a few alley corridors, Spinneretta stopped, short of breath. “Up,” she coughed. Her spider legs uncoiled from beneath Mark’s jacket, and she leapt into the white plaster wall of one of the stores. Her legs grappled the surface, and she flowed upward toward the edge. She heard a clatter from just below as Kara copied her, and a moment later they were both on the roof.

  Out of breath, Spinneretta rolled onto her back. Her lungs filled themselves with unsatisfying gulps of air. A bead of sweat snaked its way down the side of her neck. “Shit,” she choked out. “This is bad. Real bad.”

  Kara coughed a little beside her, shifting her backpack around to her front. “What is?”

  For a moment, she just let her chest fill and empty in an emerging rhythm. “You realize who Elizabeth Bordon is, don’t you?”

  Kara considered the question. “Isn’t she the girl who gave her father forty-one?”

  Spinneretta sat upright. “It’s Annika. It’s the name she used at the hospital back in Auburn.”

  Kara blinked at her. “Oh, yeah. I remember now.”

  “You know what that means, right? Not only is she looking for us, but she’s found us!”

  Kara unzipped her backpack, and Cinnamon pushed her head through the opening. The Leng cat looked back and forth, taking in her new surroundings with a low crackle. “But how did she know where we were?” Kara asked. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  Spinneretta hunched over and pushed her forehead into her knees. Her spider legs ruffled, clacking nervously against one another as her mind spun. “I don’t know. But somehow she must’ve figured out where we were headed. And that means . . . If she knows we vanished into the park, that means she must’ve heard about what happened on the bus in Carland, and where we ran to.”

  Kara hummed a note of understanding, one which quickly rang hollow. “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know, but if that was any indication, then the rangers are in touch with her. And if that’s the case, then it’s not going to take long for her to figure out we bolted from the park and are hiding out here somewhere.” She coughed and cursed in one unsatisfying exhalation. She’d always thought that Annika’s trench coat was just a dumb prop, but maybe that was the point. It was misdirection, a deliberate ploy to make people underestimate her, to conceal her skill with pomp and pretense. The woman was intelligent, that much was certain, and Spinneretta had, indeed, underestimated her. If Annika was smart enough to track them to this town that Spinneretta herself hadn’t known they’d be coming to, then that left little margin for error going forward.

  “There’s not much time,” Spinneretta said, rising to her haunches. “We have to move before Annika gets here and figures out where we’re going.”

  Kara nodded. “But where are we going?”

  “We’ll figure that out when we get there. The first step is going to be finding another bus stop.”

  Magic hissed around Mark. The buildings, the sky, the scenery—all were stripped bare as space twisted around him, burned through by the Flames of Y’rokkrem. The swirling kaleidoscope zoomed by, and Mark struggled to feel out the path before him. This time, he could hold the blazing barricade in place for only a few moments before the strain on his mind forced it into a premature collapse.

  The liquid world reformed. Trees and buildings and matter grew from nothing, and the Flames scattered in a shower of emerald sparks. He doubled over, panting, one hand on his temple. The jump had only taken him a few miles this time, and he was in desperate need of rest. He wasn’t sure where he was now, but the foliage was becoming sparser and less luxuriant. He’d need to ask for directions soon, but as long as he hadn’t hit the desert or the ocean he could keep heading west without missing his target. Or so he hoped.

  A small group of people on the street nearby were murmuring, pointing to where he’d emerged from his teleportation. But he was beyond caring who knew about it. Ignoring the tremor of pain running from the base of his neck to his forehead, he stumbled a step forward and caught himself on a nearby street light. Though he was exhausted from overuse of magic, he had no time to rest. He had to get to Manix. He had to find Spinny. He had to stop her from throwing everything away.

  But he didn’t even know how much further he could push himself. The space behind his eyes was burning, and each beat of his heart made him shiver from the throbbing pain that surged through his skull. He couldn’t rest until Spinny was safe. But as he began to reach and stretch his mind to again cast the spell of teleportation, a thought from out of nowhere completely halted his invocation and gave him pause.

  That purple-suited specter. The Cheshire Man. Why had he appeared to him that night in the hotel and shown him the message from the spider cult? It was for that reason alone that he knew where Spinneretta was headed, and that realization was a gateway to other questions for which he could find no answer. Was the Cheshire Man trying to help him? Or was the answer hiding in Alhazred’s razor? After all, what were the odds Spinneretta had just happened to see the same broadcast at the same time as him?

  He tried to push those ideas from his mind. The only thing that mattered was getting to Manix before Spinneretta did. If the pulse ripping through his head was any indication, he’d be cutting it close at best. Shaking off the agonizing caress of fatigue, he called the Flames to surround him again, and the world vanished into the aether.

  Arthr wasn’t sure he liked coffee. Even with two thimble-sized packs of sugar, it tasted
like scorching mud. He’d have killed for some of that kickass new dragon fruit energy drink, Psychopomp, but he was not eager to burden Annika with more requests. It had already taken a great effort to get her to stop for dinner, after all. The last thing she probably wanted to hear was him whining about another errand.

  The two of them sat in the car in the diner parking lot and spoke little. In an effort not to seem overly awkward, Arthr took to fiddling with his phone. He debated calling his mother. Then again, he was feeling crappy enough without hearing her scream about everything. And so for a long while, they just waited.

  The sun had nearly set when Annika’s phone finally began to ring. “Oh, God,” she muttered, snatching the device from her cup holder. “Way to keep a girl waiting.” She put it to her ear, cleared her throat, and then cut a loud sob. “H-hello?”

  Arthr held his breath as he watched and listened. The Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hands had long gone cold, but its taste sat and lingered upon his tongue. He hoped it was good news.

  Annika grunted and sobbed once more. “Y-you did? When did you . . . ” Her eyes widened, and at once the look of despair upon her face vanished, swallowed by a sharp glower that Arthr knew all too well. “Mmhmm. Uh-huh. Is that right, ranger? What time was it?” The muscles in her arms visibly tightened, fingernails sinking into the steering wheel. “Alright. Thanks for the information. If you hear anything else, let me know.” She swiped her phone off and growled as she shoved it into her pocket.

  Arthr breathed a small sigh of relief. At least she wasn’t crying anymore. “Well? What happened?”

  She slammed the key into the ignition and the engine roared again. “Rangers found them.”

  “They did? That’s great!”

  “And then lost them.”

  “What?”

  Annika cranked the transmission into reverse and backed out of the parking space so quickly that Arthr’s forehead almost slammed into the dashboard. “Looks like our fifty-fifty didn’t quite pay off. Came out in Rose Gulch after all, but it’s less than an hour away if we disregard all signs with numbers on them.” She stomped the gas.