I could hear sounds from behind some doors, and shadows danced beyond the bars of others, small windows set at face level. I saw fangs, twisted features, skulls without skin and shrieking vapors without form.
“This is odd,” Spider said. For the first time, she didn’t sound as if she were two breaths away from mocking me. “This place … this is for the worst souls, murderers and the kinds the king wishes to keep under close observation.” She turned her eyes on me. “You didn’t withhold the fact that your Dean is some kind of bad boy, did you?”
“Dean shouldn’t be here,” I said. I was starting to feel frantic. This was worse than I’d thought. If the king kept souls that he particularly wanted here, why was he keeping Dean? And what price was I going to have to pay to release him?
“And yet, he is here,” Spider said, coming to a stop. Her long, tattered skirt whispered around her feet, across the stone floor. “Right here, in fact.” She raised her hand to point at the ragged 63 painted above the door.
I flew across the space, all of my senses leaving me. I felt my body collide with the iron door, felt bruises blossom, but at the same time didn’t really process any of it. My eyes searched the cell and found only darkness save the tiny cube of light projected from the window.
“Ian!” I shouted, desperate. “I need light!”
“All right, all right,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. He squeezed, and I knew he was trying to calm me. I was trying to calm myself but was having no success.
The light penetrated each corner of the cell, until it finally lit on Dean. I let out a sob of relief, and banged my fists against the iron. Only Ian grabbing my wrists got me to stop.
Dean looked up, his gray eyes silver in the dim light. “Aoife?” he said softly. “Aoife … are you dead?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “Sort of, but not really. But that doesn’t matter, Dean. I’m here to get you out.”
“Not now, you’re not,” Spider said, looking over her shoulder. I heard a whisper close by, the sound of a soft foot over stone. “Faceless,” she said. “We have to leave, now.”
“No.” I grabbed the bars, reaching for Dean. “I’m not leaving without him.”
“You stupid girl, there’s nothing we can do!” Spider snapped. “Unless you plan to seek an audience with the king himself and bargain for the boy’s release, he’s here to stay.”
I turned on her, feeling the slow-burning fury in me turn volcanic. “You said you would help me.”
“And I could, if he were a regular soul!” Spider shouted. “But he’s not! For whatever reason, the king’s taken an interest in him, and there’s nothing I or you or anyone can do about that.”
She grabbed for me, but I wrenched my hand free. “I’m not leaving.”
“We must!” Ian hissed. “Or the Faceless will apprehend us.” His face blanched. “I’m not going back, Aoife. I’m not staying here, not in this rancid city. Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me?”
Dean blinked, as if he’d just been woken from a dream. “Aoife, I never thought I’d see you again.…”
“Don’t worry,” I told Dean. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“Forget her!” Spider shouted, dragging Ian farther down the tunnel. “She’s done for!”
I heard them, but it was as if they were already far away. I was far too focused on Dean.
“I’m sorry, Aoife …,” Ian started, but the shadows of the Faceless had penetrated the tunnel, and he turned and ran.
I stayed where I was, waiting for the silent hooded figures to approach. They surrounded me, and it took a moment before I could speak.
“I know that your job is to exterminate me,” I said. “It’s what you must do. But before you do, I seek an audience with your king.”
The Faceless tilted their heads, and I knew they were staring at me even though I couldn’t see their eyes.
“Aoife, no …,” Dean said from his cell. “No, don’t do this. You don’t know what he’s like, what you’re getting yourself into.…”
“I do,” I said. “I’m doing what I have to.”
Looking back at the Faceless, I put on my bravest expression. At least, I hoped it was brave. Or merely foolhardy, instead of terrified. “I know you can talk,” I told the closest Faceless. “I know you can understand me.”
“And if we were to take you to the king,” it hissed at me, its voice like steam scalding skin, “what would you have to offer?”
“That’s between me and the king, don’t you think?” I snapped. “I don’t deal with minions.”
The Faceless hissed as one, but then they parted and gestured for me.
“Aoife, no …,” Dean said again, but I held up my hand to stop his arguments.
“It’s all right, Dean.” If this was the way it had to be, I’d do what I had to. I’d talk to the king, and I’d find a way to give him whatever he demanded for Dean’s release.
I walked to the center of the Faceless, and was surrounded by them as they led me to the mouth of the tunnel.
“You must think you’re very brave,” said the Faceless in the lead.
“No,” I said. “Not brave. Just determined.”
“Come, then,” another said. “Come with us, and see the one who waits.”
12
Across the Bleak Plain
THE FACELESS TRAVELED on foot and kept their circle tight around me, until I felt as if I’d smother.
As we left the city behind, I tried to move out of the tight knot of black robes, but the nearest Faceless hissed, sounding more like a serpent than a thing that was even remotely human, and I shrank back. “I’m sorry,” I said.
As we walked, the sun grew lower in the sky, a violet sunset that cast all of the land in a strange purple glow. I sped up my stride to get closer to the figure in the lead.
“How far are we going?”
“Two day’s walk from here lies the domain of the Yellow King,” said the Faceless.
“I am human,” I reminded him. “I need rest and food and water.”
“We will stop when it reaches full dark,” said the creature. “At the edge of the Moaning Marsh.”
“I can’t tell you how excited I am about that,” I muttered under my breath, but I resigned myself to walking until the Faceless were good and ready to stop.
The land flattened out, the short grass and scrub giving way to dense thickets and underbrush, and the land at the edges of the road growing wetter. The smell of decay and the whine of insects permeated the air around us, and I slapped at every inch of bare skin. I still ended up covered in welts.
I envied the Faceless their cloaks, and their lack of faces.
Finally, when I was just about to collapse and refuse to go any farther, the group circling me veered off the path. I saw a rough camp set up, a fire pit and some battered lean-tos. The stink of the marsh was all around us, and I realized that I’d be lucky to get any sleep.
“Here,” said the leader. He was a bit taller than the others, but that was the only way I could differentiate him. “We rest.”
The robed figures left the road and re-formed their circle, hunkering down on the ground like crows coming to roost. Their cowls drooped over the voids underneath, and after a time I could hear nothing but a slight wind through the reeds of the nearby marsh.
The ever-present cold of the Deadlands soon found its way into my bones, and I made my way back over to their small group and nudged the leader of the Faceless. “I’m cold.”
I got no reaction, and when I waved my hand in front of their cowls, nothing stirred. At least that left me free to go build a fire, if I could find anything to burn.