“What will it be? What will you pick?” She begins, in a sing-song voice. “Save three and spare one. Save a million but lose them all. Cut off the head and kill the rest. Wings and fingers. Ash and bone. Mix them together for the elixir of life.” She giggles, eyes glazed, and I sigh, gesturing for Christensen to follow me out.
Once we’re outside and the doors are locked he says, “I assume that’s why the Valkyrie needed a break?”
That and I tried to strangle her. “Partly.”
“Keep an eye on her. She may admit some truth in her delusions.” He stops in the stairwell. “I’m going to do a little research. See what I can come up with.”
“We can’t let her go back to the Morrigan. If she’s part of the three, then we need to keep her far away.”
He nods. “Her and you.”
I lean against the wall. “I have a feeling there’s little chance I’m avoiding a fight with the Morrigan, don’t you think?”
“Anita may be right. Certain moves may always come into play. You thought you could hold the Morrigan back by splitting her in three. You accomplished keeping her in the Otherside, but she still managed to slip her virus through before that. To stop it all you may have to all be bound once again.”
“And then what?” I’m trying to follow his train of thought.
He frowns, a sad expression that makes me not want to hear what he has to say next. “Morgan, you have to consider what Anita has already accepted.”
“What? That I’m batshit crazy?”
“No,” he shakes his head. I’m not ready for what he says next. “It’s possible that to achieve success and beat the Morrigan once and for all, you may have to embrace the Otherside and the Darkness that rules it.”
“You want me to join her?”
“No. I don’t want anything but to stop her. You’ve just got to figure out the best way to do that.”
He speaks in riddles—similar to Anita down the hall. I’m not sure what they want and I definitely don’t know if I can trust either of them.
“How do I embrace it—her?”
Again he answers, but in a most unhelpful way. “I suspect you’ll find out when the time comes. Do everything you can to be prepared for that moment.”
Chapter 10
Morgan
When Hildi doesn’t return that afternoon, I decide to go find her. I knew I’d been a jerk, (out of control, really,) but the Valkyrie is a fighter and it makes no sense for her to hold a grudge.
Dylan stays at The Nead, close to recovering the images on Sam’s camera. He asked his friend Marcus, a security guard at the Empire State Building by day and underground demon fighter by night (Snakehead is what I’ve come to call him,) to watch over Anita. I told him about our visit this afternoon and enough of it unnerved him to make the call to keep her on closer watch.
I didn’t tell him what Christensen said, about the possibility of my embracing the Morrigan and the Darkness in order to beat her. If I know Dylan as well as I think I do, he probably already figured it out.
They probably all already figured it out.
I have no expectations when I arrive at the address he gives me. These people live in a world beyond my understanding. From seedy bars to penthouses and mansions with secret dungeons, I have no idea what to expect when it comes to my new friends in the supernatural world. Where do they get their money? How do they survive? When you’ve been around for eons, maybe you’ve got investment money in Swiss bank accounts.
I’ve got bigger things to worry about.
I take the train to Brooklyn, noticing the distinct lack of subway riders. More masks. One woman dumps a massive glob of hand sanitizer in her palm and nearly bathes in it. A discarded newspaper headline declares people should work from home until the experts at CDC get a handle on the sickness.
Even though I suspect I’m immune, it makes me paranoid and I shove my hands in my pockets and try not to touch anything—anyone—on the way out of the subway. Two blocks later, I double check the address to make sure I’m in the right place. It’s a small, hipsterish community. Definitely not a mansion. I climb the steps and ring Hildi’s apartment bell.
There’s a buzz in return, the door unlocks and I step into the building. Hildi is in unit four, so I climb the first set of stairs. I knock, bracing myself for whatever anger she has after I lost my mind the day before, but when the door opens Hildi barely glances at me. Her brilliant blue eyes are rimmed with red. I can’t stop staring at the bruises on her neck.
“Can we talk?” I ask. She nods and I step into the apartment. I’m barely in when I stop cold. Sniffing the air, I catch the familiar scent. I instinctively cover my mouth and nose with my hand. “Oh my god, Hildi.”
“She’s got it—the virus,” Hildi replies, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I came home from your place and found her like this.”
“How? Do you know?” It doesn’t matter. It’s a stupid question. “How far along is it?”
“From what we’ve seen she probably has a few days. I’m not taking her to the hospital. I’ve seen the news, it’s a cesspool there.” She sighs, but it’s more like a shuddering cry. “I don’t know what to do.”
She leads me to her room. The bed is centered in the room. I’m sure Andi is a knockout in real life. I can tell that from her dark, red hair and the angles of her face, but right now? She looks like death. Actual death. Ashy face. Sallow skin. Her lips are pale and cracked. She’s asleep, or at least I hope she is. I notice heavy curtains cover the large windows and the lamps are all dimmed.
“Bright light hurts her eyes.”
“Hildi, I came to apologize. I am so, so sorry about what happened yesterday.” I reach for her hands and I’m happy when she doesn’t pull away and punch me. “I’m working on this. Figuring out what to do—how to save these people. People like Andi.”
“I’m not sure what you can do. It’s spreading rapidly. Half the businesses in our neighborhood are closed—either out of fear or actual sickness. I think it’s worse than what the news is reporting.”
The sinking feeling I’ve had since speaking with Christensen churns in my belly. What it will take to end the spread of the Darkness is possibly more than I can give. It’s a sacrifice. One after the other. It took one to get it rolling: Xavier, and it will most likely take more than one to get it to stop.
And if I go…Anita goes. We’ll have to get to the Otherside together. There I can free my guardians, if they’re even still alive, and we’ll kill the Morrigan. Hildi watches me closely. “What are you thinking about?”
“How to stop this. Anita says she knows how, but she wants to return to the Morrigan’s side. I’m going to have to take her.” I tell her Christensen’s theory about reuniting the three sides of the Queen to fully kill her.
The Valkyrie shakes her head. “No. There has to be another way.”
“Splitting her up only gave us a little time.” I glance at Andi, who takes a long, shuddering breath. “A slow spreading death instead of quick and total annihilation.”
“What if you go and it’s worse? What if she’s too powerful to stop?”