“Walrus,” the creature said, ignoring my soft singing. It switched its sightless gaze to staring between us. “Where do you go?”
Before I could say “Across the river,” Darius said, “East shores, regio Festum.”
“I really need to look at that map,” I said softly, then snapped my mouth shut, in case mentioning a map was as much of a tell as pointing a huge arrow at my head with spy written across it. It wasn’t like this was a theme park and people went around handing out maps.
The creature reached out with a bony hand—and I mean bony, as in “not covered with skin”—and unstrung the rope. The boat calmly drifted away from the pier, but I felt a subtle rocking and bumping that didn’t match the smooth expanse around us. But I’d seen what these waters really looked like; the magic was strong to keep us this level.
“Do you ever throw anyone overboard?” I asked the creature.
It didn’t answer.
We drifted away from the dock quickly, reminding me of the fast-moving current I had seen. No other docks showed themselves.
“Because you lot don’t seem impressed with strangers,” I continued, analyzing it. The eyeholes weren’t gory. They reminded me of a doll’s eye socket after the marble had fallen out. Creepy, sure, but not necessarily icky. “If someone died in that fog, you’d get up and toss them over, wouldn’t you?”
It continued to stare.
The nose was tiny, a little button that wouldn’t be much good for smelling. The lips, full but leathery, curved halfway across its face, the mouth too big. When it threw on a smile, if it ever did, the effect would no doubt be startling.
The dock fell out of sight and the fog evaporated into the air. Barren beaches seemed to stretch on forever on either side under the limitless gray sky. The boat hung in visibly motionless water, yet I continued to feel the minuscule bumping and rocking.
My body said, You are floating. My eyes said, You are sitting still. My social perception said, Mr. Undertaker is making things awkward.
A drop of liquid splatted against the creature’s forehead. As though we had run into it. As though we were going at high speed.
It didn’t react to the projectile water splat. Like it had never happened.
“I feel like I’m dreaming, but I know I’m awake, and it is really stressing me out.” I leaned forward and stared at my feet. “Is this a long journey?”
Just like before, I received no answer.
Darius reached over and took my hand. Like a hound dog salivating over a bone in its master’s hand, I watched his thumb trace across mine. Then slide back. Over. Back.
It wasn’t the touch that was a comfort, so much as seeing his finger move while feeling the movement. That made sense.
I had to keep myself from looking around at everything that didn’t make sense.
“The boatmen are insane.” I jumped when a drop of water hit the back of my head. “They have to be. I’m well on my way, and I haven’t been here long.”
You will get used to this, mon ange. Have patience. New vampires go through a similar mental culling.
Mental culling?
I didn’t ask for specifics. It wouldn’t help. I needed to get out of this damn boat. It was bending my brain in terrible ways.
Time ticked by. Too slowly. I watched Darius’s thumb and focused on the movement, until I noticed a change. It was subtle at first, a slight movement in my peripheral vision. Shortly thereafter, I noticed we were drifting closer to the opposite bank.
Hell, maybe the bank was drifting toward us. Anything was possible in this horror show.
I looked over my shoulder, relieved to see a pier like the one we’d left. The boat stopped at the end, waiting patiently for Mr. Undertaker to come to life and refasten the rope.
The creature’s head turned to me. “Safe travels, Egg Man.” Then to Darius, “Safe travels, Walrus.”
“Goo goo g’ joob,” I said miserably.
“No fog,” Darius said as we walked along the pier. Was it me, or did I hear relief in his voice?
“I’m apparently pretty powerful, regardless of how well I know my magic, and still you felt a lot of pain going through. How could someone bonded to a lesser-powered demon make it?”
He shook his head and looked back the way we’d come. Mr. Undertaker was still there, staring straight ahead. Waiting. “I can’t say. It might have something to do with age. I doubt Moss would’ve been able to cross, even with the bond, and if he had, he would’ve needed to recoup for much longer.”
Ah. So while I’d been stalling with the chatting, he’d been shaking off the fog burn. Interesting.
“So, maybe Ja was just that much older.” We neared the end of the pier. Oh, goody. Another never-ending beach.
“That’s the thing. She wasn’t much older than I am now when she went into the Dark Kingdom. She didn’t seem overly concerned about the fog when we talked.”
“On average, women do have a higher threshold of pain. Maybe you’re just a wimp.”
He frowned at me as we reached the end of the pier.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. There was no telling how long I’d have the opportunity. “Let’s get through the illusion veil. Once we’re inside, we’ll hunker down and take a look at that map. I need a game plan. Then we’ll run at Agnon and the sect that’s got him, kill them all, and get the hell out of here. And so help me God, if the damn ceiling drips on me in there, I’m going to punch someone.”
“With whose fist?” Darius’s lips quirked into a lopsided grin.
Another thing I would never live down.
I stepped off the pier and jolted as my foot sank into the ground.
Correction: I jolted as I stepped onto hard mud that shouldn’t have had the give of wet straw.
My vision warred with my sensory perception as I forced myself forward. My boots shone at the tread, indicating wetness that went with the soggy feeling of sinking. By sight, we still traversed hard, dried mud.
A few moments later, we stepped through the invisible line. The barrenness of the beach disappeared, and a new scene took its place.
I stopped dead for a moment as my brain tried to adjust. And failed.
Darius didn’t prod me forward, but grabbed me around the waist and hurried out of sight.
Chapter Seventeen
An enormous circus tent rose in front of us, blasting neon from every surface. We had a side view of a gigantic green Ferris wheel with a big grinning face on the spoke, rolling over and over. Flashing lights outlined a loop-de-loop roller coaster, which seemed to emanate screams. Fireworks exploded in the distance, pinks and purples and greens and blues.
The pathway leading up to all this strobed color in little squares, blinking quickly. Above it all, permeating everything, was the bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom of circus music.
“I don’t like this,” I said with a dry mouth.