Weston slid into place beside her.
She put her hand into the sock and drew out the largest stone. At its touch, memory came to her. A dream.
The bloodstone gleamed in a dim light, full of portent and power. A power waiting to be unleashed.
Zee’s voice. “This is dark magic, are you certain?”
And then . . .
Zee. He was not crouched beside her. She peered out, to see that he stood directly in front of the approaching nightmare. Weston’s father in the lead, giant-sized now, with the gun in his hands. The rest of his murdered family trailed behind him. The Vivian Dragon Thing still lay dead.
And the other monstrosity had gotten itself free of the cave. It was the size of a small mountain and stank of brimstone and sulfur. Steam and flame erupted out of its nostrils with every breath. Vivian tried to encompass one small loving thought toward this creature born of her own soul, but fear and loathing was all she could manage.
And the creature grew larger.
They were doomed.
Weston’s father pulled the trigger. A crack like thunder from the gigantic gun. Vivian’s heart suspended beating, waiting for Zee to stagger or fall, but he stood unwavering. Beside him now, a small black-and-white form. Oh God, Poe.
Another shot. Rock fragments flew through the air with a sound of an explosion. A line of blood opened on Weston’s cheek.
Following an instinct she didn’t understand, Vivian lifted the bloodstone close to his face so that a drop of blood fell on it. The color of the stone darkened to almost black and it pulsed, once, as though it were alive.
Memory stirred again. “Zee!” she shouted. “To me.”
She feared he would not come, would have used the Voice on him at last, but there was only an instant’s hesitation before he raced toward them.
“Poe!” she screamed, but the penguin held his ground, right in the path of the dragon.
Zee slid behind the rock beside her and saw what she held.
“Dark magic,” he muttered.
“You know what must be done?”
“I remember.” He held out the blade of the sword toward her, as needed. Without her asking, he ran the back of his wrist against the edge. As his blood struck the stone, it pulsed once more, glowing now with an ominous, lurid light.
“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” Weston said. “This can lead to no good.”
“Hush, we have no choice.”
“What of Poe and the raven?” Zee asked.
“Poe!” she called again. He didn’t move so much as a feather, but stood undaunted, staring down a creature that could roast him in the beat of a heart.
“Can’t get rid of the damned raven, no matter how hard I try. They’ll probably find us.”
Vivian drew a deep breath and ran the heel of her own hand over the keen edge of the blade, watching the thin line of blood well up and spill over onto her white skin. She twisted her wrist, letting the bright drops fall onto the bloodstone.
The stone began to beat like an exposed heart, expanding and contracting, emitting an ever-increasing light with every pulse.
“Now what?”
“Hell if I know.” Maybe she was supposed to talk to it or something, but the only phrase that came to mind was Calgon, take me away. She gazed into the center of the stone, taking a deep breath and letting go of all her rational thoughts and preconceptions. Listening.
And then she spoke to it her deepest need. “Take us to the Gates.”
The world began to spin, the three of them at the center of a cyclone, whirling faster and faster, trees, water, walking dead, dragon monster, dark, repeating over and over until it was all one solid blur, all of the things joined into one and spinning around the beating heart at its center.
And then, darkness.
Thirty-four
Vivian was unable to see a single thing in a dark so intense that it pressed against her eyeballs. The bloodstone in her hand was quiet and inert. She shoved it into her pocket and reached out her hands to find Weston and Zee on either side of her. Poe pressed up against her leg. With a quick rush of joy to find him present and unharmed she bent to hug him but didn’t speak, still trying to get a sense of where they were and whether there was danger.
Little by little, sounds began to trickle into her consciousness. The liquid flowing of running water. Not the babbling of a brook or the noisy rushing of a stream, but the sound of a large river flowing between banks worn smooth by its passing. A murmuring and rustling came to her next, like a large group of people, hushed and waiting. Shifting position from time to time, asking a brief question, uttering a reassuring word.
A light appeared in the distance. “Come, let’s go closer.” She meant to whisper, but her voice seemed loud and harsh. Zee and Weston took her hands, one on each side, so as to stay together, and she took courage from their strength. Measuring her steps, testing each before she set it down to be sure she remained on solid land, she led them right up to the edge of the river, still invisible in the dark.
The light drew closer and brighter, until her eyes could make out the shape of a boat with a man standing in the stern, a long oar in his hands. He was cloaked all in black, with a hood covering his face.
“If that is who I think it is, I’m going to kill you,” Weston said.
“Hush. If this goes badly, you won’t need to.”
She should have been frightened, but she felt strangely easy.
The Ferryman’s head swiveled in their direction. His chin lifted. Out of the dark his eyes shone green like a cat’s. He altered his course, steering the boat around to come in close to where they stood, using his long oar as a pole to anchor him there while the boat swung about in the slow current.
“This is not the landing, nor are you the dead. What do you want of me?”
“Passage to the Black Gates,” Vivian said. “Can you get us there?” Her voice surprised her, rolling out strong and confident. Downriver to the right she could see, thanks to his light, the people who waited on the landing, cloaked in gray, huddled together for warmth or comfort.
“Passage to the Black Gates? That I cannot give, even if I would. I owe nothing to the living.”
“We have coin such as is hard to come by, in this land or in any other.”
“Even so. I cannot take you to the Black Gates.”
“You can tell me, though, whether there is a way to reach them across this river.”
“I might be able to tell that, if the coin were of sufficient value.”
She selected a small bloodstone from the sock bag and held it up to the Ferryman. “And this?”
His face went cold with desire. “Now that is rare coin indeed. Is it real?”
Vivian tossed it to him. He caught it neatly, held it up to look through, touched it with his tongue. His eyes glittered.
“Well?”
“There may be a way for one such as you. It lies across the river, and is dark and perilous.”
“So be it. Will you take us across?”
“If you pay me.”
“What is your fee?”
“Two of the stones for each human, one for each of the birds.”
“Done. I will give them to you when we reach the other side.”
“Or I can step ashore and take them now, and leave you stranded.”
“Their value will be lessened if you take them by force. Heart’s blood must be freely given. You know this, Charon.”
The words came from deep within, beyond knowledge, but she knew they were the right ones. They rang out in that dark place with a power long dormant.
He snarled. “You delay my true work.”
The throng of the dead pressed up against the river, sighing like a wind in the treetops.