Hexed (15 page)

“You once stood on the shores of the Abyss amidst the slaughter of deities and demigods,” the Harlot said. “Yet you survived. Becoming my heir was a condition of that survival.”

“Okay, two things,” Lucifer spat. “First, I was in the middle of that mess because you put me there. You orchestrated the whole damn thing just so you could mark me, so don't make it sound like you did me a favor. And second, that was a condition I never agreed to. I never wanted to be your heir. I'd rather be eaten by rabid badgers than spend eternity here, going insane from all the secrets bouncing around inside my head. But you forced it on me. And now my life is one giant carnival of magic-covered suck.” Lucifer gave the Harlot a thumbs-up. “Thanks for that.”

“Are you quite finished?” the Harlot asked. “If I hadn't marked you as my heir, you would be dead. Or worse. So, you're welcome for that.” The Harlot gently held Lucifer's chin in her fingers. “You are a gifted young woman, and it would have been a waste to simply let you die, your potential unfulfilled.”

“So now I'm the ‘chosen one.' Hurray for me.”

The Harlot laughed. “Darling, you were the one foolish enough to steal from me. Had you not made me aware of your existence, you would have died in that favela and I would have found another to be my heir. You chose yourself.”

“Is that really true?”

“More or less.”

“Well, don't hold your breath waiting for a thank you. On second thought, go ahead. Hold your breath. Hold it as hard and as long as you can.”

The Harlot turned back to the book, ignoring the insult.

Lucifer said, “So what you're saying is that if I hadn't robbed you, I wouldn't have this stupid ‘h' on my back.”

The Harlot turned and gave Lucifer an incredulous stare. “You are marked heir to the Keeper of Secrets. A station that predates English script by several thousand years. Why would you possibly think the symbol is an ‘h'?”

“You know . . . for ‘Harlot' or whatever.”

The Harlot shook her head and turned back to the book.

“Why do they call you the Harlot, anyway?” Lucifer asked. “Or would that cost me my happiest childhood memory?”

“You have no happy childhood memories.”

“If you don't want to tell me, fine. But you don't have to be a dick about it.”

“Is that really the secret you came here to learn?” the Harlot asked.

“Of course not.” Lucifer stood next to the Harlot to look at the book on the pedestal she was leafing through. The pages were completely blank. “I have to get to Witchdown,” she said. “A girl, Gina, is there and I have to save her.”

The Harlot produced a large quill from her sleeve and began to write in the book, her scratchings a collection of jagged lines that somehow formed words. “Why do you want to save this girl?”

“Uh, she was kidnapped by a witch. And I could be wrong, but I don't think it was just so the witch could have someone show her how to update her iPhone.”

“But why you? Why are you so focused on saving this girl?” the Harlot asked.

“Her dad hired me. I'm getting paid.”

“You are a skilled thief worth ten times your weight in gold. You don't need money. So I will ask again. Why?”

For a moment, Lucifer didn't speak. The only sound in the great library was the Harlot's quill scratching across the paper and its echoes disappearing in the dark.

“Her dad, Buck,” Lucifer finally said. “You should have seen him, Harlot. Such a proud, powerful man. But he was broken. Desperate. When his daughter was taken, he was
destroyed
. Gina must be somebody special.”

Lucifer looked up from her thoughts when she noticed the Harlot had stopped writing. The Harlot was staring off into the dark, her voice barely more than a whisper. “All daughters are special,” the Harlot said.

“Not everyone thinks so,” Lucifer said.

The Harlot turned, pulled from her reverie and said, “No. Not everyone does.” She turned and brushed a strand of hair away from Lucifer's eyes and said, “But everyone should.”

Lucifer wanted to push the Harlot away but just stood there instead.

“So you wish to get to the fabled town of Witchdown,” the Harlot said, turning back to her book. “Witchdown is in the Shade.”

“I know.”

“Yes, you do. Thanks to poor Helen Peltier. I'm sure she didn't mind being woken from her eternal slumber and forced to crawl back into her corpse just to satisfy your curiosity.”

“Please, don't, Harlot. I feel bad enough as it is.”

The Harlot closed the book and hid the quill inside her sleeve again. “Good. Mrs. Peltier was a kind and gentle woman who sought to make the world a better place. You shouldn't have disturbed her with your petty resurrections. You should have come to me instead.”

“And how much would that have cost me? Huh? Seriously, you'd think that being your heir would at least get me a discount!”

“Contrary to what you might think, I help you as much as I'm allowed.”

“So you'll tell me how to get to the Shade?”

“That is a secret I cannot share for free. I'm sorry, Lucifer.”

“But there's a way. You're telling me there's a way.”

“There is, but only for those rare individuals born with the gift of magic. And even then, it is a deadly proposition. It's only been attempted a few times before and successful even fewer. Most recently, a sorceress of incredible power was able to travel there, though only for the briefest of moments and not without suffering . . . consequences.”

“Will she help me?”

“If she were able, I believe that she would. But she is consumed with helping her nephew at the moment. That poor boy has even worse luck than you, darling.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Lucifer said. “But what about me? I'm a thief, not a sorceress. How can I get there?”

The Harlot shook her head. “The price for that secret is more than you would be willing to pay.”

“Try me,” Lucifer said.

“Emotions.” The Harlot spat the word as if it were sour in her mouth. “If you wish to know the secret of traveling to Witchdown, you will give me your emotions.
All
of your emotions. You will give me your capacity for love, hate, sadness, joy, empathy, sympathy, pathos of every stripe. I will turn you into a husk devoid of any and all feelings. A homunculus incapable of experiencing anything endemic to the human condition.
That
is the price of this secret.”

Lucifer scratched her head. “Okay, is that just a fancy way of saying I'd never be happy again?”

“No, darling. It is a very plain way of saying you would never even know if you were. Do we have a deal?”

“Of course not.” There was a part of Lucifer that liked the idea of not feeling anything. A life without experiencing sadness or regret would be wonderful indeed. But no joy? No happiness? She couldn't agree to that, no matter how rare those moments were.

Lucifer had hoped that being the Harlot's heir might have some benefit when it came to learning secrets, but she should have known better. Hope was not a plan. “Then is there anything you can tell me? Anything at all? I have no idea how much time Gina has, or if she's even still alive.”

The Harlot took a deep breath and placed her hand on the closed book. “I cannot tell you how to travel to the Shade without exacting a price. There's nothing to be done for that. What I can tell you is that there are others who may know.”

“Others?”

“The Shade is a realm of death, yet Witchdown is an oasis in that desert of life. An oasis created by witches.”

“Yeah, I already know that.”

“Then why do you insist on playing the dimwitted child when the solution is obvious? If you seek secrets from the province of witches, ask a witch.”

“But you're the only witch I know—” Lucifer snapped her mouth shut. She wished she could take the words back, but it was too late. She herself hated being called a witch because she knew very well the horror one had to embrace to become one. And though there was no doubt that the Harlot was a monster, she wasn't
that
kind of monster. At least, as far as Lucifer knew.

The Harlot faced her without turning around. She seemed to fold in on herself until she was looking directly at Lucifer, wisps of shadows bleeding off of her like black steam. The swirling darkness of her eyes stilled and swallowed the light around her.

“Harlot, I'm sorry, I just meant—”

“
SILENCE!
” The Harlot's incredible shout hit Lucifer like a wave from a blast furnace. The sound echoed through the library, kicking dust from the ancient shelves and creating a bilious fog that rolled into the dark beyond. “I. Am not. A
witch
,” the Harlot said, her voice filling Lucifer's ears with a dull ache. “You wish to know the benefits of being my heir? Here. Allow me to introduce you to the last man to have insulted me so.”

The Harlot grabbed the book she had been writing in and tossed it at Lucifer's feet. When Lucifer was finally able to look away from the Harlot's terrible gaze and at the book, she noticed that she had been wrong earlier. This one
was
bound in human skin.

“If you can't hold your tongue, I will hold it for you.” The Keeper of Secrets stepped forward, the delicate sound of her footsteps whispering like distant thunder. “The Seven Sisters of Witchdown were vile, monstrous creatures powerful enough to find refuge in the Shade. If you want me to tell you how, you know my price. If you will not pay, then ask someone else. Now if you will excuse me, I currently find your presence distasteful and wish to be elsewhere.” The Harlot breezed past her, the smell of cedar and ash clouding Lucifer's senses as she passed.

Before the Harlot disappeared under the great arch, Lucifer said, “I don't care if you can see the future, Harlot. Or how many secrets you know. Because, I can promise you. I'm not going to kill myself.”

The Harlot stopped. Without looking back she said, “For Gina's sake, I hope you're wrong.”

CHAPTER 15

Lucifer stepped out of the mirror and into the dark of her apartment. The dull orange light from the flickering streetlamp that illuminated the alley bled through the spaces between the window blinds, leaving thin bars of sickly light across the wall on the far side of her bedroom. Lucifer grabbed a crumpled sheet from the floor and tossed it over the standing mirror before collapsing on the mattress in the corner of the room.

Sleep pulled at her like pale hands clawing from the depths of a dark sea. Lucifer wanted more than anything to let it drag her under, but she was still buzzing with adrenaline from her encounter with the Harlot. She had told Lucifer that she was going to kill herself. That she would toss herself from a window just like that man, Karl. The horrible thought worked itself around inside her head like an impossible puzzle trying to fit its pieces together. She didn't care that the Harlot could see the flow of time and knew how events would come to pass. Lucifer wasn't suicidal. It wasn't going to happen.

Lucifer pulled her blanket over her head to shield her eyes from the light leaking through the blinds. She hoped the darkness would calm her mind, but it only seemed to focus her thoughts. She always felt a powerful mix of rage and sadness whenever she spoke with the Harlot. It was hard not to feel sorry for a woman who was driven insane by the constant rush of information being magically forced into her brain. But that woman had also condemned Lucifer to the same fate by choosing her as her heir. The Keeper of Secrets had manipulated the events of Lucifer's life to her liking, moving and positioning outcomes to her will until Lucifer was caught in her intricate web. Lucifer was given absolutely no choice in the matter. And for that, she hated her.

She knew she should be poring through her books and her copious notes to find the information she needed, but Lucifer was simply too tired to move. When sleep finally came, it was full of nightmares. They were nothing new to Lucifer. In fact, she couldn't even remember a night she didn't have them. Most of her bad dreams just left her unrested and cranky the following morning, but a few had been so bad that she had woken up to find herself scribbling protective runes on the wall.

In this dream, Lucifer was back in the Aether with the Harlot, watching the Keeper of Secrets sit in her chair and sip her tea with a long, elegant hand. She was entertaining a client. Only instead of some lonely old man looking for lottery numbers, it was David. He calmly sat across from the Harlot, his letterman's jacket looking anachronistic against the neglected Victorian decor of the Harlot's sitting room. Lucifer tried to call to him, to tell him to get as far from her as he could, but her voice was nothing more than a whisper. When she tried to move, the floor fell away and she was falling through the orange hellscape of the Aether's sky. Karl was next to her, shouting obscenities over the roar of wind rushing past them. As they fell, Karl's angry face pulled and twisted against itself until it was David falling next to her, his perfect mouth tilted in that half-smile that made her knees go weak. David reached out and took her hand, but just as he started pulling her close, Lucifer looked down to see the blasted ground rushing up to meet them. She looked back up to David to warn him, but David's expression was blank, almost as if he suddenly didn't recognize her. He pulled his hand away, and Lucifer fell past him. She tumbled away, faster and farther while David hovered above her, calmly watching, getting smaller and smaller until he was nothing more than an indifferent dot in the ruined sky. She called out his name but was brought short when she slammed into the ground.

Lucifer woke with a start. She was sitting upright on her mattress and shivering. Her fingers ached where they were clutching at her sweat-soaked sheets. The harsh light from the lampposts had been replaced by the warm glow of the morning sun.