City of Shadows (30 page)

Those who blocked me, I cut down, my daggers finding their flesh easily enough. Samuel was the key. He'd opened the path, and he could close it. Everything else hinged on him. I needed to find Samuel, to drive my daggers through his heart. For the lies, for the bodies left to rot in that room, for Becky.
For revenge.

I carved through the crowd, my thoughts serene, as I followed the glittering lifeline in my mind that would lead me straight to Samuel. Draíocht rippled overhead, and occasionally licked over me, and each time it did, the killing calm strengthened. Arachne lived in me. But she didn't own me. I wasn't afraid, not anymore. I knew what I was. One of the Three, made flesh. A construct who shouldn't be alive. A walking manifestation of Faerie.

I gripped my daggers tighter. I had everything I needed clasped in my hands. Should I wish it, I could devour the shadows, take it all into me, and—

A shiver rippled through the crowd, and all eyes turned toward the path. Four fae stepped through, and I knew instantly who—what—they were. The Hunt.
Refined.
Lethal. Their shimmering images dissolved into ghosts as quickly as they'd appeared, but their presence had changed the air. Chaos turned to terror.

I had to get the path closed. Shay, Kael, and whatever remained of the FA would push the crowd back to Faerie. I wasn't designed to save lives, but I could take them, take Samuel's. I opened my heart and my head to the thing inside, and with each step, each cutting slash, the spirit of Arachne spilled into my veins. I wasn't alone. I'd never been alone. She was there. And I was ready to embrace her. To let her fill me up but not control me. Never that. I had control. I was finally, and perfectly, complete.

The crowd parted to reveal Samuel standing beside one of the two huge Trafalgar fountains. Raw draíocht rippled off him. With his arms spread, draíocht vapor dripped from his fingers. And his smile, it was the smile of a man content. “You cannot stop this,
Construct
.”

“As a construct, no.” I flashed a slash of a smile right back at him and lifted my bloodied daggers. “But that's not all I am, Sam.”

His smile gave a reluctant tick, a falter. He snatched his daggers free. “You're not real. You're the ghost of her. An imprint. Do you know what I am?”

I started to circle around him. “Oh, I know you. You're the same as all the other parasites feeding on the life of London.”

His lips curled in a snarl. “Elders are gods.”

I laughed, and the sound of it rattled across Trafalgar. Not entirely Alina's, but not entirely Arachne's either. Something new. My own. This new, complete me. “You do not belong here. None of these fae belong here. Return through the path you have woven or die.”

“
Die?” His brow lifted. “And who's going to kill me? You? Do you think you could, Alina?” He matched my strides, circling with me. “It was my idea to beat you. You deserved every blow. I was there. I saw you whimpering and weak. And then you turned to me with your pathetic human needs. So easy to ensnare. I couldn't bespell you, but I might as well have. So desperate for love, you threw yourself at my feet.” He wet his lips, and green licks of draíocht danced in his violet eyes. “I used you, no less than I did the human girl whose journal brought you to me. But now, here, I am fae and you are nothing. Do you truly believe a worthless creature such as you can best me?”

Once, his words would have cut through me. But I found I barely heard them and certainly didn't care what he believed. I knew him now. Just a forgotten fae, an elder's son, seeking approval from those who'd tried to have him killed.

Cool mist from the fountain settled against my face, light and clean, like draíocht. “The Hunt is here. And I don't think they're here for me.”

Fear snapped him upright and wiped the smile off his face.

“You wanted reinforcements. Well, you've got them. Only, I don't think they're pleased the boy they failed to kill all those years ago has dared open a path back home. Do you?”

Samuel's gaze skittered about the crowd, now standing well back from us and watching—waiting.

I turned my dagger in my right hand, clasping it by the blade instead of the handle. “Close the path, Samuel. Do it now before all of Faerie comes through and brings their war with them.”

His wide eyes settled on me. “They know. It won't end here. This is the beginning.”

The
path rippled—open and inviting. The creatures had stopped pouring forth. Some, driven by fear of the hound, passed through from this side to Faerie. But while it was open, the worst was yet to come. I knew it, felt it coming, like an approaching storm. The path had to be closed or Faerie would swallow London. “You've proven your point, but you don't need approval from the elders, Samuel. You don't need them. You're an elder, right? Do the noble thing. Make peace here. Close the path.”

“What do you know of the old ways, Construct? You cannot possibly understand. I will bring them here, show them what we have, and they'll accept me among them. They'll have to. It is my birthright, my bloodline!”

I almost pitied him. The ache of loneliness was something we both shared. “You already had a family, Samuel. Before all this. Kael, Nyx, Scaw, the FA. They respected you.”

“It's not enough,” he snarled. “London will never be enough. Faerie is where we belong. I will not be left to rot here. I am meant for more.” He turned to the crowd. “We are all meant for more than this gray place. This is not our world, our city. These people are nothing to us, nothing but food. And now they seek to control us, to shove us into the dark, hide us away.” Murmurs rippled through the hundreds. “We will not be controlled.” His voice sailed across the square. “Not anymore. Not by people, and not …” His amethyst eyes found me. “And not by you.”

A ripple passed through the air and stirred the crowd. I flicked a glance at the path, feeling something tug on my thoughts.
Welcome home
, it promised.
Come back.
Samuel lifted his head. His attention slipped from me, toward the path.
Come home. Be where you belong.
Over and over the whispers filtered through the madness and pulled. Cut grass and wet leaves, fresh, clean, and alive. I could smell
home,
not mine, but Arachne's. And it was that part of me that moved toward the pathway. Others had already come forward and were stepping into the light, answering the sweet voice.
Come home
, Faerie called.

A snarl rippled through the quiet. The hound came through the parting fae, head bowed. It padded slowly, dragging its heavy paws, scraping its claws along the ground. As it strode by me, prickles of fear dashed against the sweet promises in my mind, plucking apart the compulsion.

Shay caught my hand and yanked me backward until we both fell against a fountain. “Stop him.” Splatters of blood dashed her pale face. “You must stop him. He can't go back. He can't.”

Fear. I could taste it in the air, feel it tight against my skin. Mine, the hound's, Shay's. They were all so terribly afraid.

“It's a compulsion, Alina. Please, he can't help himself. The harpy, she calls to us all. We'll go, and we'll die. Stop Reign, you must. Stop Cu Sith. He must not be allowed to join with the harpy.”

“The harpy … ?” The terror that filled the skies and blotted out the sun, the moon, the day and night. The last of the Three. The last ruler of Faerie. I knew her, Arachne feared her. She was the true Nightmare, and now she called to her subjects.

Shay's open-palmed slap rocked me sideways and nearly knocked me clean off my feet. “Get him back. Now! I did not come here, to this horrible world, to live without him!” She spat the words out and slumped over the fountain's edge, her shoulders heaving.

The
entire side of my face burned, but the pain grounded me back where I belonged. A reality where the London fae were walking toward what would surely be their deaths. The hound included.

I could hear her. The harpy. So filled with sweet promises.
Come back. Come home
, she called. But Faerie wasn't my home. It never had been. I was Alina O'Connor, born in London; the trainee reporter who asked all the questions. I dug down inside my own mind and gripped all that it meant to be me, dragging my control back to the surface and clearing my head of the toxic whispers. “You can't have the hound.” I reached out a hand and with it pulled along the tether of life connecting the hound to me. “Find Samuel,” I called back to Shay, keeping my eyes on the hulking mass of hound as it paused by the pathway's entrance.

I closed my outstretched hand into a fist and willed the hound back but the stubborn beast wouldn't move.

Come home, come back to us.

That sweet voice was a mask, a deception. Behind it, terror waited, her talons like scythes.

“Alina, please … quickly.” Shay's words distracted me, plucking at my focus. “Don't let him go. Bring him back to me.”

It wasn't working. My link wasn't yet strong enough. “Reign, goddamn it.” I broke into a run, feeling the sweet promises spill over me with every step. The closer to the pathway, the stronger her compulsion became, until it pulled at my body like invisible hands. But the hound had stopped at the threshold. It waited for something or someone. I shoved through the mesmerized fae, skidded in front of Cu Sith, and spread my arms wide.

“
Hey!” Up close, draíocht peeled off its thick fur in flickering tendrils. Its jaws could easily close around my head and break my neck. I gulped hard and stood my ground. “Reign, you stubborn son of a bitch, I know you're in there. You told me to bring you back. So here I am. Answer me, damn you.”

So close, step through, sister … We could rule again. All Three. Three as it was meant to be.

Lies, it was lies. Her promises couldn't mask the sense of terror choking the air.

The hound lowered its head and speared me with a gaze laden with threat. It raised its upper lip in a rumbling snarl.

“You know me …” I tried not to let my tone waver but doubt unsettled it all the same. I could do this. I could control him. I had to. “Reign.”

The hound's growl bubbled up from inside its bulk.
The hound won't suffer a weak little construct pulling on its reins.
The fear in Reign's eyes, maybe it hadn't been for him. Maybe it had been for me. Cu Sith's red eyes blazed. There was no sign of that fear now, and nothing of Reign bled through that glare. Whatever power the hound recognized in me before, it didn't see it in me now.

“Reign!” Shay's cry shattered the quiet.

Go, Shay
I thought.
Get away. Go, just go! He can't hear you. It's me he hears, here and now. I'm all he knows. Not you, Shay. Never you.

The hound whipped its head around. Tension coiled in its muscles, cinching them quivering tight, and then it charged. Not for me, not for the fae, or the pathway—but for Shay.

“No!” I bolted forward. Shay froze atop the National Gallery steps. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. “Run!” I yelled, but she didn't move. Palming a dagger, I poured everything I had into my sprint. Breath rasping across my lips, legs
pumping,
but I wasn't going to reach her. I let the dagger fly. It sliced across the hound's hide but the beast didn't slow. On thundering paws, it closed the distance.

“Shay, run!”

Her eyes glittered, her face frozen in terror. She forgot her short sword, even as she lifted a single hand, as though she could hold back a force of nature.

The hound leaped.

My unreal heart stuttered.

The hound tore into her, every bite sharp, every tear vicious. I didn't want to see the blood soaking her white dress, how her head lolled to one side and her glassy eyes seemed to focus on me while the hound ripped into her with tooth and claw.

Come back to me
…The promises still poured forth but they fell on my deaf ears.

An arm hooked around my waist and dragged me backward. A voice I recognized yelled for me to control him, to stop him, before Reign turned on us all.

“It's not Reign,” I mumbled.
Did I do this? I'd wanted her gone. I'd wanted her out of the way. Did my intent turn the hound on Shay?

Nyx clasped my face with her hands. “He won't stop at her. Own him, Alina.”

Nothing owned the hound.

“Consider this a warning, little construct.” This voice, this was old and new to my mind. It dragged like razor blades through my head, and when I turned to find its source, a vast winged figure filled the pathway entrance. My first human thought was
angel
, but she was no angel. Dark peeled off her feather tips and pooled around her taloned feet. Claws tipped her hands where her fingers should
be,
and her face was a contorted combination of unnaturally sharp cheekbones and jutting chin. Hideous, and yet when she lifted her hand, I lifted mine. I
wanted
to go with her. The fae around me drifted forward.

“
You are worthy to contain my sister, and perhaps for that I should be grateful,” she said, sweeping her black-eyed gaze about the square; searching. Her glare returned to me, and the quick slash of a smile revealed vicious needle teeth. “The elder will be found. Have the hound, if you must. Should you weave a path once more, I will come, and I will take. I will own. You do not control my subjects, I do. All of Faerie and her children belong to me. A construct built of Arachne's whim and the undisciplined Cu Sith?” She laughed, and it sounded like breaking glass. “You are no threat to me. Wilt and rot here, as you were destined to.” She stepped back, and the glittering flow of draíocht collapsed in a thrilled rush of energy that surged over those remaining in the square, simultaneously flooding us with life, and ripping it away in the next breath.