And now it was that emptiness in his torso he felt watching the etheric dance of the symballein pair: his missing heart; the unfolding mystery that was Alyce.
The mist and shadows drew toward Nim like a magician slowly pulling away a diaphanous curtain.
In the amorphous realm of the Veil, the verge was a sculptured modern art shape that seemed to have expanded in all visible directions and taken on a disturbing new life. Among the layers of gray, Technicolor glimpses of the outside world surfaced in the glass orbs studding the bony feralis husk.
One aperture showed the Ferris wheel spinning with unnatural speed. The riders’ faces distorted from laughter to slack-jawed screams. Behind the park, the midway lights glimmering on the Crystal Gardens flamed into etheric bonfires. Fiery silhouettes of salambes climbed the building’s steel cross braces, seeking escape. The virulence of their emanations melted the windows in widening holes while molten glass dripped down onto the broken bodies of the crowd within. Already, the ferales were shredding the dead, claiming the corpses for their own hideous creations.
Amiri swore and spun for the ladder.
“It’s not happening,” Alyce said. “These passages are how hell sends evil to torture us, but not all the ways are open, not all the nightmares will come to pass. That one is dread, not truth.”
Sid grabbed her arms and spun her to face him. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
The pale violet of her eyes was another window reflecting the tenebraeternum’s portals of projected horror. “My demon remembers.”
Once he’d touched her, it was impossible to let go. The tough resistance of the leather sleeves only emphasized the slender fragility of her under his grip. His breath faltered. “Alyce, when you said you loved me once …”
“Don’t.” She shrugged him off. “That wasn’t real either. Just the last of my delusions evaporating.”
He wanted to howl, some wordless cry of denial. Because what could he say now that would reach her through the demons, the threat of death, his own dumb oblivion? With every dictionary at his disposal, where were the right words?
“Look!” Amiri shouted. “It’s the rest of the league.”
Another altered orb dripped coagulating ether as if salivating. Between the droplets, it showed Liam, with Cyril Fane and a half-dozen others behind him, racing through the oblivious crowd. Their expressions were as uniform as their black clothes, worried and grim. Against his white shirt, Fane’s expression was darker yet.
Jonah kissed Nim’s temple. “Dare we hope that one is real?”
“It’s not just a hope since we did call them,” she said practically. “Let’s make sure that vision becomes reality.”
All around them, the orbs revealed nightmare visions—worse, they were the passageways through the flawed Veil where hell’s darkness had the chance to leach into the world. Sid pressed his fingers to his forehead. “Thorne has an angel’s sword. If these portals are tuned to places and possibilities that might draw the tenebrae, the sphericanum’s blessing on the sword could mask him.”
“That’s a problem.” Nim swatted her knife through the mists in frustration. “I don’t think these televisions get decent reception of the Goodness and Light Channel.”
“Then he needs to feel some dread too.” Sid glanced at Alyce. “Can you do it?”
“Summon the fear?” Her eyes clouded, and she nodded slowly. “I’ve done it before. Not with Thorne, of course.”
Her icy gaze fixed on him. He was the only one she’d ever frightened off.
When he put his hands on her shoulders, her stiffness shocked him. He’d wanted to focus the aimless little Alyce who’d found him in the alley, but he’d never meant to sharpen her to this brittle point that went through his heart. Beneath his thumbs and forefingers, where the neckline of the leather bustier left her collarbone exposed, her skin was so cold.
“You did terrify me,” he said softly. “But not anymore.”
Her cold stare gave him no quarter. “Maybe you’ve just forgotten.” Despite her frozen facade, she swayed with a barely perceptible shiver.
He should be focused on finding and stopping Thorne and ending the potential catastrophes unveiled in the portals. But every part of him wanted to stay in the here and now, with her. He dropped his hands and stepped back before even his demon could determine whether she’d swayed away … or to him.
“Thorne doesn’t need to be terrified. Look at the talyan. They’re just barely on the far side of freaked out. If you can inspire the same in Thorne, maybe we can get a lock on him through the verge.”
“He’s so much stronger than we are,” Alyce said.
“Evil always is,” Jonah said. “Annoyingly.”
Alyce lowered her head, twisting the ring. Violet sparks burned between her fingers, and her hands flared open in surprise. “Little things,” she murmured. “He won’t notice the little things.”
She lifted her head. When she straightened, the chevron knives along her spine flared like tiny, delicate wings. “I can find him. And the verge will take me there.”
CHAPTER 26
Sid had thought he had run away from his heart. But he found it now. It was lodged in his throat. He choked on it, and Alyce was already extending her hands before he forced his voice around the objection.
“Wait,” he said. “Not you.”
“I’m the least,” she said. “Nothing I do will distract him. Until it’s too late.”
Too late. The words mocked him. “I’ll go with you.”
She shook her head. “You can’t. You’re too big, too strong, too bright. It’s not …”
“Not my place,” he said softly.
She glanced away. “Not with me.”
The rejection pierced him. And the regret. He must be lighting up the tenebraeternum switchboard like a disaster. Of course, he couldn’t follow her. He’d never been able to give her what she needed.
She held her hands out, as Nim had, but instead of flowing toward her, the shadowy mists stilled.
“They like Nim,” Alyce murmured. “They fear me.” Following her shooing gesture, the ether curled backward, retreating like a wave in reverse slow motion. She pursued.
“Wait,” he said.
But she didn’t. The rivet flared on her finger, more violently than he’d yet seen, and she snatched at the fleeing etheric wave. The energy flared and caught Alyce in the backwash. She arched with a pained cry, eyes wide and ice blind in shock.
Her hands flung outward, as if reaching for something, anything, even the unforgiving steel table of the asylum.
Sid ran forward, reaching for her in return.
But the energy collapsed around her with a flash, like bared teeth, and she was gone.
“Alyce!”
He tripped over the place where she’d been. Beneath his nose, the ground wavered between the damp earth of the diner crypt in the human realm and an undulating gray surface. As he scrambled to his feet, his fingers closed reflexively around the only solid thing.
A ring. Alyce’s ring.
He groaned. What balance she and the teshuva had regained was concentrated in the rivet, and it had been knocked loose.
Jonah and Nim were beside him, lifting him.
As soon as he steadied, Jonah gave him a shake. “Why didn’t you go with her?” His voice was rough, accusing.
“She wouldn’t let me.”
Jonah snarled. “Never let that stop you.”
Nim touched her mate’s arm above the sword cuff. “It takes time.”
“It’s too late to take time.” Jonah shook his head.
Sid refused to hear him. “How can I follow?”
“The power is hers, but you are connected.”