Authors: Laken Cane
But Lex wasn’t going to let anyone order her to become her demon.
By the time she arrived at the Annex, Fie was curled into a little ball on her bed, asleep.
Lex didn’t apologize, and Rune didn’t expect her to. She had nothing to apologize for. Her demon was her own.
Interrogating Fie was out of the question, so Rune pulled Lex back out into the hallway.
“I want you to stay away from Wormwood, Lex. That’s an order.” Because worse than the fear that she’d be taken was the fear that Lex would.
If Karin Love was there with Damascus, and if she had any say in it, Lex would be taken.
Lex shook her head, her braids flying, her eyes jerking. “No. If you try to sneak away someday I need to know where the portal is so I can follow. You’re never going to survive there without me. You just won’t.”
“You can’t come with me.” Rune hesitated. “Your mother…”
“Yes, Karin Love might be there. And I proved I can handle that bitch.” Then it was her turn to hesitate. “But don’t let the twins get involved.
They
can’t.”
Shit.
She didn’t want to risk Lex. But…
“Back to Wormwood?” Lex asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“The portal is there, Rune. We just have to find it. I can get us in—I’m sure of it.” She paused. “Pretty sure.”
“Lex, I don’t want to lose you.”
And I don’t want to go to that fucking world.
She had a bad, bad feeling.
Chances were high that she wouldn’t make it back.
Lex ignored her words. “He’ll be back.” She shot out her hand and wrapped her fingers around Rune’s wrist. Then, “He’s not lost to you.”
Rune’s stomach tightened. “I can’t imagine a world without the berserker.”
Lex hesitated, then blurted, “Some of the Others in the graveyard were sick.”
Rune shuddered and pulled out of Lex’s grip. “I know.”
“Do you think—”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything except Strad and Gunnar are missing and no matter what the fuck else happens…” But she didn’t know what to say.
Lex nodded. She kept pace with Rune’s frenzied stride all the way to the car, keeping whatever other thoughts she had to herself.
When they pulled up to the gates of Wormwood, Rune sat staring through the windshield at nothing. “I can’t feel him anymore,” she said. “I can’t
feel
him.”
Lex opened her car door and jumped out, then stuck her head back in to reply. “Let’s get him back and you can feel him all you want.”
“Yeah.” Rune shook her head once, hard, and then grinned at the little Other. “Let’s get him back.”
Jack, the twins, Owen, and Raze all stood outside Wormwood. She shot out her claws as she walked toward them. She gave Raze a sharp glance. “You said you were going to take care of Annex business. What the hell are you doing here?”
“We know you, Rune. And we’re not letting you do this on your own.” He looked at Lex. “Neither one of you.”
She wasn’t surprised. They were Shiv Crew, and they’d never once let her take on a job without them, no matter how risky it might be to them. “I’m not going anywhere—but I need to know where an entrance is. Just in case.”
They didn’t seem mollified.
“Watch out for sick Others, boys,” she went on. “I don’t know if their virus or infection or whatever the fuck it is makes them mean or just sick, but be careful.”
“So what are we looking for?” Raze asked.
“Lex thinks the way to Damascus is in Wormwood. I have no idea what to look for.”
“Don’t you think we’d have seen it by now if the door or window or whatever the hell it is were here?” Levi asked. “If you chase this thing down, you’ll be making a mistake, Rune.”
She stopped just inside the gates and turned toward them. Searching for the portal would keep her mind off the berserker. And the rot that even then might have been growing inside her. “Maybe we should look for Strad as well.”
She closed her eyes, wishing she could call the words back.
No one said a word.
“Fuck you,” she said.
“Strad can take care of himself,” Owen said, his voice bland. “If there’s a battle he needs to fight, he’ll fight it. Maybe he’ll win it. And if he wants to, he’ll find his way back. But Damascus. Even if she has your blood, or anything else, she’s not worth risking you over.”
“She can’t come back to you,” Levi said. “So she’s trying to lure you there. Leave her be, Rune.”
Denim stared down at her, his scar vivid against the paleness of his face. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to.
She knew they all believed she would be foolish to risk herself. And them.
And for what?
God, I wish I knew.
But she felt it like a poison in her veins. She needed to go.
That need got stronger by the minute.
It had nothing to do with want. She didn’t
want
to go.
“Besides,” Jack said, adding his voice to other naysayers. “There are battles here for you to fight. Leave Damascus to her world and worry about your own.”
But maybe that world
was
her own.
That
was the pull. That was the need.
To find herself.
Maybe, to go home.
Just for a little while.
But the part of her that felt the call was finally choked and smothered and kicked away by the part of her that viewed Damascus and the other world with terror. She didn’t want to leave the world she knew and those who loved her.
Those she loved.
No call was stronger than that.
Eventually she might be forced to go. But until then, she was staying the fuck put.
That decision made her feel a little better.
“Okay,” she said, and she almost smiled at their surprise. “Let’s get out of here. The Annex has some jobs for us.”
“We
can
search for Strad,” Lex offered.
Rune hesitated.
“No,” Raze said. “He’s on his own.”
“You’d do it if any one of us went missing,” Lex said. “You haven’t accepted the berserker yet. Not completely. You still don’t trust him.”
“And you do?” Levi asked her.
The twins were not over Strad’s part in their time on the mountain.
Lex nodded. “I do. The point is, he’s crew. He’s Shiv Crew. Unless he’s kicked out, you need to give him everything you’ve got. You’d do it for me and I’m Karin Love’s daughter.”
Raze gazed at her, almost, but not quite smiling. Raze wasn’t a smiler. “You’ve never given us reason not to trust you, girl. Strad Matheson has.”
He was right.
“Let’s fight for whatever we need to fight for,” Jack said. “I say we leave Strad to his shit. But if he comes back and needs us, then we’ll fight for the fucking berserker.”
Before Rune could reply, Lex gasped and spun around. “He’s here
,
” she said.
Rune’s heart leaped and she turned in a circle, trying to see what the blind Other saw. “Strad?”
“No,” Lex replied. She stood still and pointed toward the trees.
“Gunnar.”
And he wasn’t alone.
“Gunnar,” Rune cried, forgetting, for one brief second, the witch, the berserker, and the rotting sickness.
She loped toward the ghoul, who stood like a skinny, dark sentinel just inside the tree line.
A woman stood with him.
“Gunnar,” she said again, reaching him in seconds. She grabbed his thin shoulders and shook him a little too hard. “Damn you.”
“Your Highness,” he whispered.
Then she noticed his condition. She stopped shaking him and squeezed his shoulder. “Who has hurt you?” She dropped her fangs and looked at the woman with him.
“
I
didn’t hurt him,” the woman said, “and the only reason I’m not hurting you for laying hands on what’s mine is because he asked me not to. Because I owe him my freedom, you live.”
Rune stared. The woman was tall, blonde, and a ghoul. And obviously, she was either very stupid, or very powerful, with her careless threats and her cold gaze.
But Rune appreciated her loyalty.
“Who the fuck are you?” Rune asked, but immediately turned back to Gunnar. He’d returned. She really didn’t care about the female ghoul.
“This is Dawn,” Gunnar said, his voice weak. “She is my…”
“I’m his everything,” Dawn said, when Gunnar trailed off. “Which is why he brought me back.”
Gunnar wouldn’t meet Rune’s eyes.
And that told her that Dawn was lying.
Or maybe she was simply misinformed.
The crew gathered at Rune’s back.
“What happened to you, Gunnar?” Levi asked.
Lex shied away, unwilling to touch either ghoul.
Gunnar listed suddenly to the side, and Raze stepped in to catch him. The ghoul’s emaciated arm nearly disappeared in Raze’s huge fist.
“Lean on me,” Raze told Gunnar, his voice growly and angry.
“
You
are a hero,” Dawn said to Raze.
They all looked at her for a second, then dismissed her and put their attention back on Gunnar.
Gunnar would look only at Rune. “It was not my intention to worry you, or to be absent for so long. Or,” he continued, glancing down almost sheepishly at his battered body, “to take so much damage.”
Rune resisted the almost overwhelming urge to hug the wild-haired ghoul. “Tell me everything.”
“That would be impossible,” Dawn said. “He does not
know
everything.”
Rune lifted an eyebrow at the strange female. When she looked back at Gunnar, she could have sworn he was blushing. Or he would have been, if he’d been human. “Gunnar,” she prompted.
“I had to show you it was possible, Your Unbalancedness. I would not have you lose your faith when you fear all is lost.” His gaze sharpened. “And you will.”
Fuck me.
She couldn’t breathe. His words and the knowledge in his eyes snatched the air out of her lungs and she could not
breathe.
“God,” she finally said. “I knew something was coming.”
And once again, her body started to shake. Some part of her knew what he was saying, knew what he was warning her about.
She looked around, unaware that she searched instinctively for the berserker until Owen stepped up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Steady,” he murmured.
“Damascus?” she asked, ignoring the wobble in her voice.
Dawn shrieked and covered her face.
Gunnar didn’t even glance at her. “Yes. But not only Damascus.”
“How do you know this?” Jack asked. “How the fuck can you know anything?”
“Because he’s magic.” Lex slid a little closer to Rune. “Just as Rune is.”
“I retrieved Dawn from the clutches of all that is death,” Gunnar said. “
Damascus.
In her world, she is stronger than you are, Rune. Much stronger. You can’t become…” He frowned, struggling to find the right word. “Careless. You must not surrender.”
“Never give up,” Dawn said, peeking out at Rune from behind her fingers. “Be as I was. Keep a place inside your heart that knows the darkness will not last forever.”
“I liberated her from Damascus,” Gunnar said. “Though it took me a lifetime.”
“I always knew you would,” Dawn said, smiling at Gunnar.
Gunnar glanced at Rune, and then quickly away.
Rune smiled through the horror. “I am so glad you’re back.”
He tried to bow, and had it not been for Raze’s grip, he would have toppled over. He righted himself, heartbreakingly earnest in his obvious regard for Rune. “I have been without treats for quite some time.”
“If you’re able to walk,” she told him, “you’ll find candy all over Wormwood. I brought some every night since you’ve been gone.”
“He will recover,” Dawn said, puffing out her chest, “with me to nurse him. I will take care of him, and I will retrieve his treats.” She nodded at them. “Go away now.”
“Not yet,” Rune said. “Gunnar, are you saying I have to go there?”
“Fool,” Dawn said.
“Rune,” Levi said. “You can’t—”
“Be silent,” Gunnar said, so out of character the crew could only stare. “This is Rune’s path to follow. She will follow it.”
No one said a word.
“Listen to the echoes of Wormwood,” Gunnar said. “Open yourself to them. When you hear them, follow the path. It was always meant for you, Rune.”
“Lead me there, Gunnar,” she said. “If the time comes I have no choice but to go, come with me.”
“I cannot, Your Majesty. I would crumble into dust were I to attempt the journey again. But I have prepared them for you.”
She frowned. “Who did you prepare?”
“Your allies, Rune. You will not be totally alone.”
Then he motioned her to him, and leaned down to whisper quickly into her ear.
“The echoes of Wormwood are inside you. Listen. Prepare. It is time to heed them.”
He seemed suddenly so human, so different, that she couldn’t say anything.
But she understood.
Wormwood echoed.
She had only to listen.
And she was not fucking ready.
Because in her heart, she knew she might never come back.
“If you find a way in, you have to let us go in with you. We’re addicted,” Denim said, later, standing outside the Annex. “Without you, we’ll suffer until we die anyway.”
Fuck if he wasn’t right.
What could she do? Take them to almost certainly suffer and die, or leave them where they would unquestionably suffer and die, and maybe in an even worse way?
As Strad, alone in his addiction, would be suffering?
Berserker.
“We’re the original Shiv Crew,” Raze said, pointing at himself, then Jack. “There is nothing for us here. We belong at your side.”
“I would
rather
die than be left behind,” Ellis said, resolute. He’d been waiting outside the Annex doors when they’d arrived.
He squeezed the tiny bulge of the fang hidden beneath his shirt. “You’re my best friend. You’re my life.
Levi
is my life.” He released a quick sob. “The crew is my life.”
Owen shrugged. “I just like to travel.” He grinned at her.
But his eyes were dead serious.
Not one of her crew was willing to let her go running off to some other world alone, even though none of them believed she should go. And despite her fear that they’d die there, that she would be taking them into a Damascus-laden trap, she nodded.
She needed her crew.
Her friends.
So she nodded.
“Okay then,” Jack said. “Now how do we get there?”
“You heard Gunnar,” she said, walking with her crew into the building.
“Yeah, but he made no sense. Echoes? Paths? I need something I can see and feel. I can’t grab hold of some echoing shit.”
“Not you,” Lex said. “Rune. And she’ll lead you there.
We
will lead you there. Exactly like when we walked through hell to get to the lab.”
“I have a feeling that was a sweet little stroll over a pretty pink bridge,” Jack said, “compared with what we’ll face this time.”
Rune agreed. “If I’m not snatched up by the witch and taken there, we’re all staying put. I’m not losing you because Damascus is calling.”
Lex grabbed her arm and pulled her around. “Don’t enter Wormwood without us.”
“I won’t go there without any of you, Lex.” She put her hand over Lex’s.
She felt anxiety coming from all of them. They weren’t worried about what was waiting for them once they left their world. They were worried she’d go without them. She looked around at them. “If I’m forced to go, and if it’s within my power, you are going with me.”
“Then don’t take any chances,” Levi said. “Stay out of Wormwood until we’re all with you.”
“I won’t go into Wormwood without you,” she repeated.
She explained to Eugene, Bill, and Elizabeth exactly what was happening. Neither Bill nor Elizabeth argued when she told them she might suddenly disappear to go fight a personal battle in...wherever the hell Damascus was.
Maybe they just didn’t believe her.
Eugene, though, was not happy. “Your first duty is to this city, Rune. When I call, I expect you to come.”
“If I’m not in another world,” she said, dryly, “I will do my job here.”
And she would.
Fucking echoes.
Maybe she’d been hearing them all her life, but hadn’t understood what they were.
She was pretty sure that when she heard them, now that she knew to listen, the sounds would be as familiar to her as the constant sensations of her pain.
“Any updates about the Other sickness?” she asked him.
He steepled his fingers and sighed. “Not yet. I have two of the master’s bite junkies and two sick vampires. Once the infection is isolated, we’ll know more. I have to find out who cooked it up, and you know I’m going to need you here to help with that.”
She frowned. “You think someone deliberately created it to destroy Others?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “There are no naturally occurring viruses that Others can contract, Rune. You don’t get sick like humans. Of course this one is lab created. And it’s bad.”
When he said
“You”
instead of “
they,”
she took a second to acknowledge the fact that she only felt a tiny twinge of humiliation. And that was simply from habit.
She’d accepted her monster.
I am my monster.
And I’m proud of the little bastard.
“What’s funny, Rune?”
“Sorry?”
“You were smiling.”
“Nothing. How fast can your people create a cure?”
“I doubt they can. But they’ll work on an antidote—Others not yet sick will be able to get inoculated against this virus, we hope.”
“Like a flu shot.”
“Yes. Like that.”
“The ones already sick?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if we can help them. At least not in time. We’re working on it but it’s going to take time. Rune…”
“I don’t know if I’m sick. I don’t know.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“If the vampires can’t feed from humans, they will die.”
“And if they feed from infected humans, they will die.”
They studied each other for a long moment. “What’s going to happen, Eugene?”
“It’s too early. I don’t know.”
She got up. “Who do you think created it? The Shop? COS?”
He stared up at her for a long, long moment. “I think it was the Next.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“I’m not completely sure, but it’s…” He stood as well and began to pace, his fists clenched. “They’re the only group I can think of that might be capable of this particular nasty. I have to fix this,” he muttered. “I have to fix this once and for all.”
He wouldn’t tell her anymore. Honestly, she was surprised he’d told her that much. And five minutes after she left his office the speakers blared, directing Shiv Crew to Monitor One for a run.
Not Ellie’s voice—he was back at her house safe and sound, busy doing shit that kept her and her household running. Her stomach tightened and a dark lump of dread took up residence in her heart when she thought about leaving him.
Leaving Ellie.
She wasn’t sure she could.
But she was nearly certain she’d have to.