29 Call of the Void
In the time we had been underground, Rome had turned even colder, and the fog had thickened. We emerged into a chaos of sirens and screaming. Across the city, I could hear detonations and gunfire.
Mistry ran beneath the marble colonnade that surrounded the Piazza di San Pietro, which the Buzzers had strewn with limbs and heads. With unsteady hands, he unlocked a door and led us up a flight of steps, to an elevated path. My breath came in white puffs as I ran between its battlements, staying ahead of Pleione and Arcturus.
The Buzzers were no longer magnetically drawn to the basilica, but I could feel them nearby. If we were quick and quiet, the Passetto di Borgo would allow us to avoid their notice.
We stopped at the sound of planes overhead, impossible to make out through the fog. It took every ounce of my strength to keep moving.
‘Mistry,’ Nick said, ‘any idea who our visitors are?’
‘They’re most likely Italian. Beatrice had planes at the ready,’ Mistry said, ‘but the French have an airbase and a missile launch facility on Corsica. They could be supporting the attack.’ He stopped. ‘Underqueen, give me that device on your lapel. I’ll contact Beatrice.’
I passed it to him and looked between the battlements, clutching a stitch.
On the streets, the Buzzers were reorienting. Most of them stood upright, their heads turning. It was as if they were using an internal radar to find the latent Rephs. Even if we were one misstep away from being spotted, I had never been so relieved to be off the ground.
‘There are so many of them,’ I murmured.
Pleione came to my side. ‘Another lamentation has ceased. Now there is but one.’
‘I think I know where. Cade said he was going to face me at the Colosseum.’
We pressed on, trying not to draw attention. I stopped when gunfire came from below. Sensing a dreamscape I recognised, I looked back over the edge.
Eliza was down there, cornered by three Buzzers.
She handled a rifle with more assurance than I had anticipated. In the gang, she had generally avoided conflict, but more than nine months as interim Underqueen, living under martial law, had clearly hardened her. When one of the Buzzers stalked closer, a poltergeist drove it back.
‘Ah, there’s my Martyred Muse,’ Jaxon observed unhelpfully.
‘Eliza.’ I grasped the balustrade. ‘Pleione, can you bring her up?’
She vaulted between the battlements. As she landed, the spirits around her gave a hum that raised every hair on my arms. The Buzzers retreated, hissing. Pleione dumped Eliza over her shoulder and climbed back up to the passageway, pursued by Jean the Skinner, who returned to Jaxon.
‘Eliza.’ I helped her down. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘In the fullness of time, you will pay for your treachery,’ Terebell told her. ‘You broke my trust, interim Underqueen. Do not think I will forget it.’
She strode after Mistry again, leaving Eliza even more shaken. When she clutched her right arm, I saw that a Buzzer had slashed away most of her sleeve, leaving gashes.
‘Paige,’ she said, ‘it clawed me.’
‘You weren’t bitten.’ I ushered her in front of me. ‘You’ll be fine. Come on.’
Another plane flew past. To my right, part of a building exploded, spraying dust and masonry. I wondered if Sala might really be willing to fire on her own city to destroy the Buzzers.
The fog was so dense, I could barely see Eliza in front of me. The Passetto let us bypass the fighting around the Vatican, though we now had three hungry Buzzers on our tail. The Italian soldiers were fighting back with all their might, their guns drowning out the shouts of panic. Eliza faltered as the poison threw her balance off, making her sweat rivers. At my behest, Pleione picked her up and carried her under her arm like a rag doll.
Eliza Renton was the closest thing I had to a sister. No matter what she had done, I was not leaving her behind.
The corridor ended at the Castel Sant’Angelo. Mistry tried the door, but found it locked. Terebell smashed through it with ease, taking it right off its hinges.
‘I could get used to having you around,’ Mistry said, with a weak chuckle.
‘We have been around for two centuries,’ Pleione said. ‘Expect us for a good deal longer.’
Castel Sant’Angelo was a blur. We slammed every door we could in our wake, stopping the Buzzers from following. I had avoided their claws, but their presence was still tarnishing the ?ther, even outside the Vatican. I resisted finishing the vial of fortified ectoplasm, wanting to save the last few drops to bolster me against Cade.
‘You went after Fitzours,’ I said to Eliza. ‘Where did he go?’
‘We lost him,’ she answered. ‘A bunch of Rephs got him away. They were too quick for us.’
Pleione went ahead once more, following the lamentation to the final grave. Once we had broken out of the building, we crossed the Tiber. Some of the angels’ wings had been chipped, caught by shrapnel or bullets. When Pleione was tuned into the spirits’ voices, her eyes brightened. She led us on with confidence, heading towards the Forum.
Arcturus had fallen to the back of the group again. When I turned, I saw him leaning on a balustrade, Terebell beside him. I rushed back to them.
‘Nick,’ I called, ‘we need a car.’
‘I’m on it.’
I reached Arcturus and looked into the eyeholes of his mask. ‘Can you keep going?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I will be able to … seal the last cold spots, if they have appeared in the Colosseum.’
‘Take my aura.’
He didn’t put up a fight. Terebell watched as our auras twined, turning his eyes red again.
‘You cannot sustain this for much longer,’ she told him. ‘Any more alysoplasm will turn you.’
‘There’s just one grave left. We can stop this,’ I said. ‘Scion wasn’t expecting the Italians to know what hit them.’ Nick got a truck going and beckoned us. ‘We’ll follow you again. Arcturus, you come with us.’
We climbed into the truck. Nick locked the doors and followed the Ranthen off the bridge.
‘The others must have dealt with the Rephs under the Trevi Fountain,’ he said. ‘That’s why Pleione stopped hearing the song, right?’
‘Let’s hope so,’ I said.
‘Is this what you’ve all been doing since you abandoned London, my company of intrepid heroes?’ Jaxon asked, his tone almost pleasant. ‘Putting your lives on the line to defend the amaurotics? Trying to save the world from Scion, all for hidebound fools like Cardinal Rocha?’
‘Put a sock in it, Jax,’ I growled.
Eliza had a hand pressed over her arm. It wasn’t bleeding much, but she looked ill.
The Colosseum had stood for nearly two millennia. The ruin was thronged with old and new spirits, still drawn to a place of death. It was close to the Forum – close enough that you could almost throw a stone between them. If we defended it, we defended the Council of Kassandra. As much as I resented their meddling, I didn’t want the Forum to fall.
I focused on the ?ther. Suddenly I could sense Cade, a lighthouse among the other dreamscapes.
He was right ahead of us, exactly where I had known he would be, waiting for his vision to come to pass. If the ruthless bastard wanted a fight, I was more than happy to give him one. It ended here.
As Nick drove after Pleione, a shadow fell across the street in front of us. He braked when two massive crates hit the ground, parachutes deflating around them.
‘A supply drop.’ Mistry got out. ‘Beatrice has sent help.’
We ran to the armoured crates. Inside was almost everything we could possibly need, including medical supplies, sacks of gritting salt, several rifles, and a submachine gun. I helped myself to a couple of hand grenades, while Pleione and Errai took charge of the salt.
‘Paige!’
Maria came towards us with Ver?a and the rest of the Ranthen. The Rephs were streaked with ectoplasm, Lesath bleeding from his chest. From his blue eyes, Maria had dealt with it.
‘Ver?a was right.’ She grasped my shoulder. ‘We found the Rephs under the Trevi Fountain.’
‘Well done, Ver?a,’ I said. ‘Are they sequestered?’
‘Yes.’ Lesath had the blade. ‘All of them were Ranthen.’
The Buzzers were moving south. Abandoning the truck, we followed their trail of destruction. Lesath slowed to help Arcturus. I hung back to cover them, letting Pleione lead the others.
We turned at a rumble from above. The fog had thinned above the Tiber, and I saw a distant flash of wings. I hadn’t known a thing about military vehicles when I was in the gang, but I had familiarised myself with the entire fleet of the Inquisitorial Air Force as Underqueen, wanting to know what sort of firepower the Mime Order was up against. From what I could make out, this resembled a strike aircraft, used for close air support.
It was heading straight towards us, its engines roaring. Hundreds of people ran to get out of its way. For a terrible instant, I thought it really was a Scion plane, coming to punish us for our defiance. Then I looked over my shoulder to see another swarm of Buzzers.
I covered my ears as the plane opened fire. A spray of bullets mowed down the street, followed by two missiles in quick succession, which collided with the swarm, exploding with enough force to shake the ground. The plane soared upward and vanished into the mist.
‘Paige.’
Arcturus steadied me. I leaned into him, reminding myself that he was there, that I didn’t have to find him.
Some of the Buzzers were still moving, their limbs reaching out of the smoking pile. As I gazed at the devastation, I began to understand the full implications of this day. This had been planned. Nashira had always been ready to show her cards when the right moment arose.
Scion must have realised that people were catching wind of the Rephs, and now, for the first time in two centuries, it was revealing the power of the Netherworld. It was showing us all that it possessed a weapon like no other, something that its enemies would never understand. If we had thought to steal a march on Scion, we had failed.
There was no coming back from this. Whatever the outcome, everything was about to change.
We kept running and skulking towards the Colosseum. Every last Buzzer would now be converging on this ruin, making it nearly impossible to sequester the latent Rephs.
Not all of us would get out of this alive.
More Buzzers raced ahead of us. Maria and Eliza took shots at them, as did every soldier in the vicinity. One of them hefted a flame-thrower, and a jet of flame roared towards the Buzzers. Crafting a spool, Maria sent it through the fire. One after the other, the spirits ignited, carrying her numen, and the spool burst apart in all directions, lighting up at least half of the monsters. The flame seemed to protect the spirits, allowing them to avoid being sucked into those terrible dreamscapes. Errai watched, his mask reflecting the glow.
‘What sort of beings would create such weapons?’
‘You’ll be grateful for them in a minute.’ I pulled the ring from a grenade. ‘Stay back.’
I hurled the grenade at the Buzzers. The explosion shattered the pavement around them, setting off another round of unearthly screams. Another spool came spinning over my head and sent a Buzzer up in flames, right as a missile shot from the fog and clipped a nearby building. I coughed as dust covered us all.
We passed the Forum. Nick helped Eliza, who was short of breath and slowing.
‘Eliza,’ he said, ‘go to the Council of Kassandra. You can’t do anything against Fitzours.’
‘No. I’m not letting you—’
‘If all three of us die, Jaxon is the only one left with a right to the Rose Crown. We can’t risk that,’ I said, speaking over a barrage of gunfire. ‘Please, Eliza. Stay here.’
‘Are you going to fight the other dreamwalker?’
‘I’ve not much choice.’ I gave her a light push. ‘Go on.’
She relented, running towards the Forum.
Ahead of us, the Colosseum loomed from the fog. The failing sunlight bestranged it, turning its many arches into lidless eyes. We stopped at the entrance, finding no guards to stop us.
‘It was here?’ Nick said. ‘Why didn’t we go here first?’
‘I cannot always judge the distance,’ Pleione said. ‘But there are many latent Rephaim within these walls.’ She turned her yellow gaze on me. ‘Do you sense the other dreamwalker, Paige?’
‘Yes, he’s here. So are Castor and Kornephoros, and—’ My blood iced over. ‘Shit. It can’t be.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Gomeisa.’
I had missed his dreamscape, with the contamination in the ?ther. The Reph who had personally overseen the conquest of Ireland. As a child, I had glimpsed him on the streets of Dublin. He and Hildred Vance had plotted the Imbolc Massacre together.
‘The Rephs are probably beneath the Colosseum,’ Ver?a said. Her face was smudged with dust. ‘The hypogeum, the underground level. It’s concealed by a modern floor.’
As she spoke, her voice shook a little. She must have seen Lesath behead all the bodies.
‘Warden needs to go down there,’ I said. ‘Are you okay to lead him, Ver?a?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maria, you go with them. You can torch the Buzzers.’
‘With pleasure,’ Maria said.
Arcturus would need fire more than I would. Lesath joined him with the blade. As the four of them headed into the arches on the ground level, Arcturus stopped to look back at me, and I met his gaze, knowing it might well be for the last time. I nodded once and turned away.
‘We need to keep Gomeisa and his lackeys busy. There might be more of them than I can sense,’ I said. ‘Will the Buzzers leave the city once it’s done?’
‘Not with this much flesh to feast on. They are in a feeding frenzy,’ Terebell said. ‘They will need to be driven from Rome by force.’
‘I’ll tell Beatrice,’ Mistry said. ‘The troops will be ready.’
‘Good. I can handle Cade,’ I said to the Ranthen. ‘You deal with the Sargas loyalists.’
‘Gomeisa can use apport to lift anyone he sees fit,’ Terebell warned. ‘You will sense his intent if he targets you, but you will only have moments to break his line of sight. If he succeeds in levitating you, move as much as possible. It will make you harder to hold.’ She looked at me. ‘The pendant will shield you from his power, Underqueen. Do not remove it.’
‘Okay.’ I checked my weapons. ‘Let’s do this.’
I entered the Colosseum.
Cadoc Fitzours was a tiny figure in the middle of the amphitheatre, standing in a circle of salt. I walked towards him across a wooden floor overlaid with sand.
I had expected Cade to appear in a stolen body, but it was becoming clear to me that he was too cocksure for his own good. Only someone with notions would presume they could survive among the Sargas. In any case, the jump had the most power when it stemmed from the dreamwalker, not a host. I had pinballed between dreamscapes before, losing momentum each time. No, Cade wanted to defeat me himself, in his own body, to prove he was superior.
As I got closer, I noticed the bulletproof vest over his doublet. Maybe he did have a drop of sense left.
Gomeisa Sargas stood on an upper level, overseeing the scene, while Kornephoros and Castor guarded their dreamwalker. I stopped a good distance away, flanked by my own defenders. I had no armour, but I didn’t expect anyone to shoot me. Nashira would still prefer to capture me alive.
Kornephoros sized up the Ranthen. They must not have realised there would be enemy Rephs here. All we had on our side was my gift, one sword, and the element of surprise.
‘Paige,’ Cade called. ‘I knew you would come.’
‘Cade.’ I kept my voice as steady as I could. ‘There was me thinking you were an oracle.’
‘I can send and receive visions. It’s what protected me in Oxford,’ he said. ‘Most voyants only receive one gift, but rarely, some of us get more.’
‘Lucky you.’ Behind me, Jaxon had entered the arena, trailing his poltergeists. Mistry stayed back, a phone clamped to his ear.
Gomeisa kept watching. Always the spectator, keeping his distance. I had seen him so rarely, but whenever I had, it left a lasting impression. Like when he had murdered Liss Rymore.
‘I’m curious.’ Cade raised a smile. ‘How did you escape the H?tel Garuche?’
‘Oh, your man there let me go.’ I pointed. ‘Did he not say?’
Cade glanced up at Kornephoros, whose eyes flamed. That ought to create some marital discord.
‘I assume you were planning to give me to Nashira,’ I said. ‘I really can’t work out why you’d join her, after seeing how she treated me in Oxford.’
‘I made a bargain with her, like the Vigiles do. She can kill me after thirty years, if she doesn’t get you first,’ Cade said. ‘It works for us both. She understands the dangers of our gift; how it pushes us to breaking point, even when we train our hardest. Why take the risk of absorbing my spirit, when she can have me at her side and reap the exact same rewards?’
‘She could change her mind at any moment.’
‘Any of us could die any day, Paige. We’re mortal,’ he said. ‘Better to go for a good cause.’
‘What could possibly be good about her cause?’
Nick poured salt around us. The Ranthen stepped out of the circle at once, approaching their enemies with just one useful blade between them. Castor sneered at Lucida.
This entire confrontation felt artificial in a way I didn’t like, down to the stage. The Rephs were the audience, and Cade and I were the players.
‘Nashira wants to make sure humans obey her rule,’ Cade said. ‘And we need that, Paige.’
I stood my ground. ‘Why?’
‘Because humans are broken. Even knowing the ?ther, we voyants fight and kill and torture each other for nothing. Scion has insulated you from reality, but Nashira showed me the depths. I’ve experienced it myself. I told you my family died in a house fire,’ Cade said. ‘Some bastard did it for—’ He paused, face tight. ‘He did it for fun, because humans are fucking insane. We are as monstrous as the Buzzers, and we’ll never stop. Not without gods to control us. This place fell centuries ago, and humans are still just as brutal.’
‘The Rephs use violence against innocents, too,’ I said. ‘I was only six when I saw that in Ireland.’
‘Nashira uses our methods against us,’ he said, ‘so we’ll see the folly of them. Don’t you get it by now?’
I have done nothing to you that you have not done to yourselves.
While I kept Cade talking, I tracked the others. Ver?a and Maria had stopped – probably waiting in a safe place – while Lesath was pausing every so often. I imagined him and Arcturus hiding from the Buzzers, waiting for their moment to approach the latent Rephs.
Cade was noticing. His gaze drifted towards the floor.
‘You talked about our names in Paris,’ I said, regaining his attention. ‘Are we related, Cade?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Join us, and I’ll tell you everything I know.’ He held out a gloved hand. ‘I can protect you from Nashira. I promise. Don’t you want a family again, Paige?’
Once, an offer like that would have tempted me. Of course it would.
But over the last four years, I had learned that family was more than blood or names. It could be chosen.
‘I can’t do that.’ I planted my boots. ‘I know about Operation Ventriloquist. I have to stop you.’
‘Stop me, and there will be more death, like there was in Dublin,’ Cade said. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘There will be death either way. You know what Scion does to voyants. And to anyone who fights.’
Another swarm of Buzzers had reached the Colosseum. I could sense that most of them were making their way underground, but some crawled over the ruined walls. Gomeisa surrounded himself with a shield of apport, while the other Rephs prepared to fight.
‘Once Nashira has the world, I promise you, she’ll stop all that. She was only afraid that we wouldn’t hear reason,’ Cade said. ‘She had to make the amaurotics fear us, to make sure they would never weaponise us against her. She had to cull our numbers so we couldn’t pose a threat.’ I huffed in disbelief. ‘But when it’s done, she’ll raise us to power. She’ll teach us to purge our human instincts, and then we’ll rule over the amaurotics, as we always should have.’
‘Cade, listen to yourself. You’re deluded,’ I said. ‘None of what you’re saying makes sense.’
‘Not to you. You’re in too deep with the Ranthen.’ His mouth thinned. ‘You really won’t listen, will you?’
‘I was never good at that.’
Kornephoros took a step forward, his gaze predatory. Terebell moved in front of me.
‘Let the dreamwalkers do battle,’ Gomeisa commanded his loyalists. ‘Do not interfere.’
I raised my eyebrows. He really had lured me here for a demonstration.
‘Defeat the dreamwalker.’ Terebell only had eyes for her cousin. ‘We will draw his protectors away.’
‘Nick,’ I said, ‘when Cade jumps, his body is vulnerable. If I can’t kill him, don’t let him leave.’
He drew his pistol. The two hulking Rephs closed ranks around Cade, who widened his stance. I could sense the ?ther changing as his spirit prepared to dislocate.
‘Sure you want to do this, Paige?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Shall we get on with it?’
He clenched his jaw. I schooled my expression, so he wouldn’t suspect the depth of the anger I was hiding. Every instinct told me to rip his throat out for what he had done, but I couldn’t reveal what I knew. Not without endangering Arcturus, alerting them to his escape.
What I could do – what I did – was pour all of that rage into the jump.
Our spirits clashed in the ?ther. I had never made direct impact with a spirit outside a dreamscape before, and the collision was seismic. It felt like I had hit a brick wall at breakneck speed. We shoved each other with all our might, then ricocheted into our own bodies.
Both of us had kept our balance. I fed the pain to my gift, my heart pounding at my breastbone.
Cade was as inexpressive as a Reph. Terebell charged towards Kornephoros, who swung a massive club against her sword. Errai and Pleione joined her, while Lucida fought her own cousin, Castor. Another five Sargas loyalists entered the fray, outnumbering the Ranthen.
The short distraction cost me. Cade beat me to the jump by a split second, driving his spirit against the barrier of my dreamscape. My eyes watered, and I clenched my teeth.
I had rested as much as I could in Orvieto. My barrier was keeping Cade out, but only just. My head throbbed from the blow. He swooped at me a third time, and I flew into the ?ther to meet him.
Once again, Cade deflected me before I could touch his dreamscape. When I returned to my body, my stomach pulled at the root, nauseating me. He took a few deep breaths.
On the other side of the arena, Terebell duelled Kornephoros. It shook me to see the size of him in comparison to her. Terebell was nearly as tall as Arcturus, but her cousin was a behemoth. Errai backed her up with spools. Kornephoros held them both off with ease.