“That’s right. Anyone, even you, can teach the Death Collector to die. You can lecture me all you want when you’re prepared to face him yourself. Until then, shut up and let me think.”
Okay. So the scream was gone. She still had her shadows. She couldn’t kill the demon, but maybe she could rescue Adam’s sorry—but mighty fine—ass. He rescued her, once upon a time. In that alley in Arizona, he’d pitted himself, weaponless, against a wraith and they’d come out alive. She could do the same for him now. Damn him.
The taxi traveled down West Seventy-ninth, dipped under an overpass rumbling with traffic, and turned into a wide circular drive surrounded by trees, presumably the lethal Riverside Park. The black ribbon of the Hudson River glimmered beyond, the city lights twinkling on the water. Its smell infiltrated the cab, yeasty and rotten.
Goose bumps spread up Talia’s back and across her scalp.
“Stop here,” Zoe said. She gestured to a break in the concrete barrier. “Down the steps. Keep to the sidewalk. You’ll want the Charon—it’s moored at the dock on the far right. The deserted one, you know, as in deserted because everyone knows to stay away. The ferryman will take you to the Styx, but please don’t make me go. I’ve seen what the wraiths do. I want to live.”
“If you’ve left anything out…” Talia began hoarsely.
“I haven’t. Go on and die now, if you want, just leave me here.”
“Fine.” Talia got out and slammed the door.
“Lady?” The driver asked, leaning out his window. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Talia didn’t look back as the taxi pulled away. She followed the concrete road to the steps, and then jogged down those to the center of the lower level of the concrete circle. A deserted café was dark and shuttered. The place echoed with silence.
Though deep in her shadowy cloak, Talia’s heart hammered as she traveled down the sidewalk and across the jog path. The gate to the pier was open, as if the ferryman were expecting her.
Something knocked against the planking with a lonely, hollow sound. Exactly the sound her heart was making in its own mooring.
At the end of a walkway, a man stood, leaning on a staff. She couldn’t make out much about him, but by the hunch of his shoulders, he seemed very old.
Talia released her cloaking veils as she approached.
He blinked up at her sudden appearance, but didn’t stop chewing on the gristle of his white-bearded chin. His face was weathered and wrinkled like a brown paper sack. The faded plaid shirt he wore was far too warm for the summer night.
“Hello,” she said.
He chewed.
Talia frowned. “I need to get to the Styx. I was told you could take me.”
The old man chewed his whiskers again. “It’ll cost you.”
Damn it. “I don’t have any money with me, but I will come back tomorrow and pay you whatever you ask. I promise.”
The old man grunted. “I’ll take you to the Styx for a lock of that gold faery hair.”
The man seemed out of myth himself; Talia was not surprised that he could name her origins.
“A lock of hair?”
He nodded and gestured to a boat with an open-air seating area in the back. The interior was dirty, with a crust and smear of brownish red covering the rear seat. Probably blood.
Talia’s stomach rolled with nausea. “Okay.”
The old man pulled a pocketknife out of his pants pocket. He held the wood handle, glossy with age and handling, and flicked open a blade. He reached up and cut a curl from the mass on Talia’s shoulder.
“Done,” he said, sniffing at the curl. “Climb aboard.”
Talia scrambled down into the boat, sat at the edge of the malodorous filth, and held on for dear life.
The old man went to a grimy control panel and started the engine roaring. He angled out of the slip, away from the hum of the city, and into the lurching dark waters of the river.
No going back now.
TWENTY
THE Charon left the glittering banks of the Hudson behind. Talia tensed her body against the deep vibration of its engine and the choppy bounce of its progress on the water. Her nerves already had her stomach roiling. She couldn’t afford the extra encouragement of the boat’s movement. At least the speed of their passage brushed away the onboard smell of decay and whipped her hair in a sweet wind of revitalizing water spray.
They angled into dark waters spotted by the gleam of other boats, small and large. In spite of the considerable haze of the city’s light pollution, the sky above was brilliantly starcrusted, as if heaven had finally brought its attention to the goings-on of Earth.
Faster, faster, Talia urged.
The shoreline fell behind. All hope of safety dimmed as the lights grew smaller. They traveled into an ocean of rippling darkness, as if toward the end of the world. She sought no refuge now, no hiding place from monsters or herself. All that was in her past. Running away was not an option, not when everything that mattered—good and bad—lay in front of her.