“Oh, I like her.” Lil brightened. “She gives me any bodies her people want to get rid of.”
I forgot what I’d meant to say for a moment, then shook it off. “If you tell her this,” I said, gambling, “I’m sure she’ll give you more bodies.” There would be many dead New Lights by the time this business was done, I hoped.
“Maybe,” she said, suddenly calculating, “but what will you give me to go to her?”
Startled, I tried to think. I had no food on hand, nothing else of value. But I could not escape the feeling that Lil knew what she wanted of me; she just wanted me to say it first.
Humility, then. I had prayed to her, made her my goddess in a way. It was her right to demand an offering. I put my good hand on the ground and bowed my head. “Tell me what you want of me.”
“Your arm,” she said, too quickly. “It’s useless now, worse than useless. It may never heal right. Let me have it.”
Ah, of course. I looked at the arm dangling at my side. There was a swollen, hot-to-the-touch knot in the upper arm that probably meant a bad break, though fortunately it hadn’t come through the skin. I had heard of people dying from such things, their blood poisoned by bits of bone, or infection and fever setting in.
It wasn’t the arm I preferred to use; I was left-handed. And I had already decided that I would not need it for much longer.
I took a deep breath. “I can’t be incapacitated,” I said softly. “I need to… to still be able to run.”
“I can do it so quickly that you’ll feel no pain,” Lil said, leaning forward in her eagerness. I smelled it again, that fetid whiff of breath from her real mouth, not the false one she was using to coax me. Carrion. But she preferred fresh meat. “Burn the end so it won’t bleed. You’ll hardly miss it.”
I opened my mouth to say yes.
“No,” snapped Shiny, startling us both. Leaning on one arm, I nearly fell as I tried to whirl around. I could see him; the magic of his resurrection was still bright.
Dump’s girl yelped and scuttled away from us. “You was dead! What the demonshit is this?”
“Her flesh is hers to bargain with!” Lil said, her fists clenching in thwarted anger. “You have no right to forbid me!”
“I think even you would find her flesh disagreeable, Lil.” I heard wood rattle and dust grit as he climbed out of the alcove. “Or do you mean to kill another of my children, Oree?”
I flinched. My demon blood. I had forgotten. But before I could explain to Lil, another voice spoke that chilled every drop of poison in my veins.
“There you are. I knew your companion would be alive, Lady Oree, but I’m surprised—and pleased—to see you in the same condition.”
Above and behind Liclass="underline" one of the tiny, marble-sized portals that Dateh used for spying. I had not noticed it, not with Lil in front of me as a distraction. Too late I realized the sounds of battle in the distance had faded into silence.
Lil turned and stood, cocking her head from one side to the other, birdlike. I scrambled to my feet, leaning heavily on the broomstick for balance against my deadweight arm. To the girl, wherever she was, I hissed, “Run!”
“Now, Lady Oree.” Dateh’s voice was chiding, reasonable, despite the strangeness of it issuing from the tiny hole. “We both know there’s no point in your resisting. I see that you’re injured. Must I risk hurting you further by taking you into my Empty? Or will you come quietly?”
From my left, a startled cry. The girl. She had run—and been caught by the people converging on us from that direction. Many sets of feet, ten or twelve. There were others moving around the other end of the junkyard row. The New Lights had come.
“There’s no need for you to take that child,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. So close! We had almost done it. “Can’t you let her go?”
“She’s a witness, unfortunately. Don’t worry; we take care of children. She won’t be mistreated, so long as she joins us.”
“Dump!” shouted the girl, who was apparently struggling against her captors. “Dump, help!”
Dump did not appear. My heart sank.
“You’re the one!” Lil said, suddenly brightening. “I tasted your ambition weeks ago and warned Oree Shoth to beware of you. I knew if I stayed near her, I might meet you.” She beamed like a proud mother. “I am Lil.”
“Lil.” I gripped the broomstick. “He has powerful magic. He’s already killed several godlings, and”—I fought back a shudder of revulsion, which might’ve been enough to touch off my nausea again—“and eaten them. I don’t want to see you join them.”
Lil looked at me, startled. “What?”
Shiny’s hand gripped my good shoulder; I felt him move in front of me.
“I don’t want you anymore,” Dateh said, cold now. To Shiny. “You’re useless, whatever you are. But I have no qualms about going through you to get to her, so step aside.”
Lil was still staring at me. “What do you mean, eaten them?”
My eyes welled with tears of grief and frustration. “He cuts out their hearts and eats them. He’s been doing that to all the missing ones. Gods know how many by now.”
“Lady Oree,” Dateh said, his voice tight with anger. All at once, the hole doubled in size, tearing the air as it grew. It drifted toward us, a warning. There was no suction—yet.
“You didn’t say they were being eaten. You should have said that in the first place,” Lil said, looking annoyed. Then she turned on Dateh’s hole, and her expression darkened. “It is bad, very bad, for a mortal to eat one of us.”
I felt the suction the instant it began. It was gentler than that night in front of Madding’s, but still enough to stagger me. In front of me, Shiny grunted and set his feet, his power rising, but it dragged him forward, anyway—
Lil shoved both of us roughly aside, stepping in front of the hole.
The suction increased sharply, to full force. Shiny and I had both fallen to the ground; I was sprawled and half sensible, as the fall had jarred both my head and my broken arm. Through a haze, I saw Lil, her legs braced, her gown whipping about her scrawny form, her long yellow hair tangling in the wind. The hole was huge now, nearly as big as her body, yet somehow it had not claimed her.
She lifted her head. I was behind her, but I knew the instant her mouth lengthened, without seeing it.
“Greedy mortal boy.” Lil’s voice was everywhere, echoing, shrill with delight. “Do you really think that will work on me?”
She spread her arms wide, blazing with golden power. I heard the buzz and whir of her teeth, so loud that it made my bones rattle and my spine vibrate, so powerful that even the earth shivered beneath me. The whir rose to a scream as she lunged at the portal—and tried to eat it. Sparks of pure magic shot past us, each one burning where it landed. A concussion of force flattened me even more and shattered the piles of junk around us. I heard wood splintering, debris tumbling, the Lights screaming, and Lil laughing like the insane monster she was.
And then Shiny had my good arm, hauling me up. We ran, him half dragging me because my legs would not work and I kept trying to vomit. Finally he scooped me into his arms and ran, as behind us the junkyard erupted in earthquakes and chaos and flames.
16
“From the Depths to the Heights”
(watercolor)
I grayed out for a time. The jostling, the running, and the blurring cacophony of sounds proved too much for my already-abused senses. I was vaguely aware of pain and confusion, my sense of balance completely thrown; it felt as though I tumbled through the air, unconnected to anything, uncontrolled. A blurry voice seemed to whisper into my ear: Why are you alive when Madding is dead? Why are you alive at all, death-filled vessel that you are? You are an affront to all that is holy. You should just lie down and die.