The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)

Fighting meant surrendering Aric forever. How would I tell my kid that news? Yeah, I could’ve saved your father, but I gave up on him.

Lorraine said, “What would you like to know? Perhaps how to kill the Hanged Man? He’s taken control of your allies, hasn’t he?”

That settled it. I crossed to her throne. “Yes.”

“Damn it, no!” Jack snapped. “The Cups have got to be the ones coo-y?n warned me about—the bad dreamers. The Flash turned them evil. Everyone’s been hailing them like they’re good, but they’re not!”

“We do believe in dreams, Empress.” With a challenging glint in her light eyes, Lorraine said, “Perhaps you should deny me.”

Ignoring Jack’s protests, I shoved up my sleeve.

She raised her knife to my bared arm. “Very good, Empress.”

I winced from the slice. Lorraine and I both watched my blood pour, like two elevator passengers regarding floor numbers as they lit up. Almost there . . .

Once the chalice was full, she didn’t even glance at my blood before she said, “There is only one way for an Empress to defeat the Hanged Man: you must strangle him with a noose that has taken the lives of twelve murderous souls, his Arcana number.”

This was the weapon Circe had spoken of! All my waiting had paid off.

She gave a dramatic sigh. “Alas, the noose no longer exists. An Old West museum had one in an exhibit, but the Flash burned the rope to ash.”

My chest twisted. Then Aric was lost to me forever. “You knew it was gone, yet you still took my blood.”

“We know all the Majors’ weaknesses. I didn’t need to waste a blood offering.”

Bitch! “Tell me how to kill Richter.”

“Ah-ah.” She held up one finger. “A single query only. Now it’s my turn.” To do what? Lorraine gazed at my collected blood, swirling it like wine. Top notes of nightmares. “What secrets does the Empress harbor that I need to know?” She breathed over the rim. “Wait, what is this?”

The Lorraine mask began to slip.

Slipping . . .

Slipping . . .

Gone.

She jerked her gaze up, lips drawn back from her teeth. She threw the chalice against the wall, blood streaking the fancy wallpaper. “You carry his child! You’re pregnant with Death’s spawn!”

I gazed from one Minor to another, gauging their shocked expressions.

“You sought that noose because you want to save Death, so you can return to him as his wife!” Lorraine sputtered, “All but one Major must die or the earth won’t revive! Yet you want to live on with your Arcana offspring? Should the earth perish forever because of your selfishness?”

“My kid isn’t an Arcana. He’ll be a normal mortal.” Saying the words out loud almost made me believe it.

One guard said, “A union like that violates the dictates of the gods. We’ll all be punished!”

The King of Cups added, “You’ll bring down the gods’ wrath upon us all!”

Jack yelled, “Or she could save everyone!” One of the guards whaled a punch into his stomach. Jack doubled over, gasping.

The men holding him forced him against a column, cuffing his wrists together behind it.

I advanced on them. “Don’t touch him again!”

“Or what?” Lorraine cried. “I saw enough of your blood to know your powers are stifled.”

They knew I was a wreck. But I have a secret . . . .

Should I try to attack an armed suit of Minors? One bullet could end my kid, and they had Jack as their hostage. I caught his gaze as he grappled to get free of those cuffs.

Lorraine told the King of Cups, “Kill her.”

Two words I’d never wanted to hear again. “You’re not allowed to harm me.”

“We have no choice,” Lorraine said. “You’re pregnant with an abomination!”

I didn’t necessarily disagree. But Tee was my abomination.

Squaring her shoulders, she said, “You broke the rules; you no longer deserve to be protected by them.”

I had broken the rules. I wasn’t supposed to be with Death. Or to defy the gods’ dictates. Or love two men at the same time.

The king raised his brows. “Make her a sacrifice?”

Before Lorraine could answer, I said, “You really want to go there?” I might not be the Empress I once was, but I still had powerful friends. “Circe is my child’s godmother. If you throw me in the trench, you’ll suffer her wrath.”

The Cups murmured as one, “Abysmal.”

“Take her to the mainland,” Lorraine told the king. “Quietly. Then return with her head.”

My slitted eyes took in the guards’ expressions. These men looked excited by the prospect of beheading a pregnant teenager.

My God, it was never going to stop. Just like Jack said—the monsters would keep coming. Richter, Zara, cannibals, the Sick House, another Hal and Stache. And I’d been battling them all with one hand tied behind my back.

Faced with these assholes, I came to a startling realization: I’d rather risk the toxic well.

Jack bit out, “Fight, Evie! You’ve got no choice.”

I agreed. The red witch stirred inside me and blinked open her eyes.

Lorraine commanded, “Shut him up!”

A guard launched another punch, but Jack kept yelling. “Rise up or die! The little doll’s got teeth!”

My claws dug into my palms, bloody crescents. My breaths came in shallow bursts. They’d beaten Jack, they’d torpedoed my hopes of saving Aric, and they planned to end me. A disgusting old Cup wanted to behead me on a dark shore.

Tee would be no more. The red witch bristled at the idea. Protect what’s yours . . . .

“I’ll bring you back, bébé. I’ll always bring you back.”

Glyphs sparked across my skin, my hair turning colors. I told Lorraine, “One last warning: let us go—or you’ll pay the price.”

“And doom the earth for all time? Never!”

Then it’s done. Before I could surrender to my rage, she gave some kind of signal.

“Evie, look out!”

I turned in time to catch a rifle butt with my face.





39





Dizziness . . . pain . . . Jack’s yells . . .

I couldn’t seem to raise my head—or wrap my battered mind around what was happening.

My forehead throbbed, yet my cheek and nose also tickled. Blood running down my face? Yes, my hair was wet with it.

Guards cuffed my wrists in front of me. Another sliced my arm, spilling more blood into an awaiting chalice. Were they replacing the one Lorraine had splashed over the wall or further weakening me for my execution?

As if from a great distance, I heard Jack bellowing that I couldn’t lose more blood.

When the King of Cups lifted me into his arms, Jack thrashed like a madman, so the guards beat him some more. He landed a vicious head-butt against one, but without his fists . . .

Lorraine glided over to me, her gown swishing. In a soothing tone, she said, “You shouldn’t take this personally, dear one. Just consider today a reverie. Surrender to the dream, and it will be over soon.”

All you have to do is surrender, Gran had told me, draw on your hatred and pain. Become her: the Empress you were meant to be. I twisted against the king’s grip.

“Calm yourself.” Lorraine’s blissed-out voice sharpened as she commanded her guards, “Shoot the Cajun.”

Jack suddenly went quiet.

Oh, hell no. I sank my teeth into the king’s wrist.