The tone was playful, but Indigo wasn’t taken in for a moment. The creature in Shelby’s form was wholly unpredictable. In the past few days he had threatened her, raged at her, cajoled her, bargained with her, pleaded with her. He had shown her many faces, though only occasionally his true one—that of a savage, bloodthirsty entity entirely without mercy.
Indigo was exhausted, but she tried not to show it. She and Damastes had pooled their resources to drag the three Androktasiai along the shadowpaths with them, and it had taken a hell of a lot out of Indigo. Exactly how much she wasn’t sure. Glancing at Damastes again, she saw that the Heykeli’s pout had become a leer.
“Feeling tired, little girl?” The voice the demon spoke in—Shelby’s voice—deepened and roughened on the last syllable, as if its throat had suddenly become filled with gravel.
Indigo felt a moment of panic, then one of anger. “Not too tired to do this!”
She lashed out with her mind, hitting Damastes like a tidal wave, swamping him, sweeping him back into the box and slamming the lid down hard. The Heykeli froze, its eyes glazing, its mouth dropping open.
Selene looked from Indigo to the murder golem, then back to Indigo. “What did you do?”
Indigo felt dizzy with fatigue. The mental energy she had expended along with her rage had taken more out of her than she was comfortable with. She forced a smile. “I’ve put him back in his box. He was being … disobedient.”
Megaira said, “You don’t look well.”
Less accusingly, Selene added, “This is taking a toll on you, isn’t it? Bigger than you’re letting on?”
Indigo scanned her subconscious for a sign that Damastes might be listening in, but she could hear nothing. Her sudden burst of rage seemed to have stunned the murder god into a sort of stasis. Taking advantage of the moment she nodded. “Listen. I’m on top of this whole Damastes thing, and I’m pretty sure that nothing will go wrong…”
“But?” said Selene shrewdly.
“But I have a contingency plan, in case things do.”
Quickly she outlined her plan to the three Androktasiai, who listened grimly and without interruption, as though instinctively appreciating that time was of the essence. When she was done, she said, “Right, I’m going to—” But before she could complete her sentence, she felt a surge of darkness inside her that sent her stumbling back against a tree.
All at once her head was filled with a booming, jagged fury that was not her own; a fury so vicious and uncontrolled that it took her reeling mind several moments before it could translate the maelstrom into words.
How dare you do that to me! Damastes’s voice was like thunder now, like an earthquake, like the earth splitting open. How dare you humiliate me in such a manner! If you attempt that again, there will be dire consequences!
For a moment Indigo was cowed, then she lashed right back at him. Don’t you dare threaten me!
But she didn’t follow it up. Because in this instance she hadn’t allowed Damastes out of the box. He had broken out of his own accord, had freed himself from her control, and that unsettled her. It unsettled her very much indeed.
She watched silently as he reinhabited the murder golem, its mouth shutting, its eyes blinking, then staring at her. For a moment, there was silence, a standoff. Then Selene, looking around, said, “Okay. I guess these are the woods. So where’s the cemetery?”
Indigo tore her eyes away from Damastes. She tried to look and sound casual as she took her bearings. She squinted up at the sky. There was still enough light for now, but the shadows were deepening imperceptibly between the trees. Dusk wasn’t too far away.
Hoping she was right, she pointed. “This way.”
Megaira took a long, deep breath, gripped the hilt of her sword, and said, “Let’s put an end to this.”
18
They moved like ghosts through the trees.
A large swath of woods surrounded the old cemetery in a remote corner of Pelham Manor, a piece of Westchester County, New York, that had been ideal in the 1950s but which now seemed quaint and faded. They’d passed through the town, but now the world of the living had been left behind. The woods were vibrant with autumn colors, though some of the branches were bare and skeletal. A breeze skittered leaves along the forest floor, but they were quiet, these women. No one would hear them coming.
Nora went first, keeping her human form for now, clinging to it as if it, rather than her shadow powers, was the strongest weapon she possessed. Her instinct told her this was true. Her fears shouted it.
Indigo was a thing of shadow. It—she—belonged to the same twisted world as Damastes. The same mad reality as the thing that walked behind her in a Halloween costume of her friend Shelby.
That was all wrong. So wrong. It was madness and Nora wondered, not for the first time, if all of this, if everything that had happened to her, was nothing more than a fantasy, as insubstantial as smoke? As unreliable as delusion?
It was a terrifying thought to carry into battle.
She cut looks around and saw the faces of the four women who were going to war with her.
Women. There was as much illusion as truth in that, too.
Selene, Megaira, and Xanthe were spaced out and fanned back, their faces set and grim, eyes searching the woods, weapons in their scarred hands. Sisters of Righteous Slaughter. Betrayed servants of a cunning murder god. And walking apart from them was the construct that wore Shelby’s face, a thing of shadows that embodied another murder god. Slaughter nuns and a murder golem.
“I’m insane and the world is insane and none of this is real,” murmured Nora. But she did not say it loud enough for anyone to hear.
Megaira bent low and ran ahead, taking point as they neared the edge of the forest. She ran for a few hundred yards and then stopped, dropping to one knee and holding a hand up. Everyone froze, and the forest itself held its breath, then Megaira waved them forward and patted the air to indicate that they should crouch beside her.
As Nora reached her, it was clear why the short nun had stopped. The grove ended at the edge of a small service lane that snaked its way south beneath the arthritic arms of ancient oaks. Across the road was a dusty gray stone wall whose sides had been cracked by tenacious creeper vines. Beyond the wall was a haphazard field of gravestones that were so badly weathered that the names were smeared to rumors. Many of the stones had been knocked over or stood broken, while some of the bigger monuments leaned down into the soft, wormy earth under the pull of their own weight. A threadbare crow stood on one headstone, its black eyes filled with madness. It opened its mouth and cawed softly.
Megaira pointed to the left side of an elm tree. At first Nora saw nothing, then a piece of shadow seemed to detach itself from the greater darkness: a man dressed in gray robes.
“Phonoi,” whispered Selene, who crouched beside Nora. “From one of the European clans.”
“He’s one of the Spanish acolytes,” supplied Megaira. “El Clan de Sangre. Very tough.”
Xanthe crept up and studied the man. “That’s one of the Garcia brothers from Madrid. They killed our sister Kaliope. Skinned her alive.”
“God,” said Nora, “why? Was it a blood sacrifice?”