Bred in the Bone #4
He did as she asked, hauling her to her feet despite her dizziness.
Emma was vaguely aware of the surrounding mundanes staring at them: They could only see Julian, who to them must have looked as if he was hallucinating.
She still had her hand around Julian’s wrist; she used her grip to pull him through the crowd until they were backed up against a wall, a good distance from the dance floor.
The abandoned corner smelled like sweat and stale beer.
“Emma.” Jules touched her face with a shaking hand. “I’m so sorry. I knew it was her, I knew I should have texted you, but I wanted to deal with it—”
“On your own. I know.” Emma leaned her face against his palm, which was cool against her throbbing cheek. “It’s her, isn’t it? That Emma.”
Julian nodded grimly. “It’s Endarkened Emma. The one from Thule. And I have no idea how she got here.”
—
They were on the move, both Emma and Julian glamoured now. Thanks to a healing rune, quickly applied, Emma was no longer bleeding, and her dizziness was gone. Now she was furious.
“What on earth is she doing here?” she demanded, as she and Jules circled the dance floor, looking for a sign that would tell them in which direction Thule Emma had fled.
Thule Emma. Emma who in another world and reality had lost her soul to the Infernal Cup, and her will to Sebastian Morgenstern. Who Emma had last seen collapsed over the dead body of Thule Julian. Thule Julian had been killed by Emma’s own Julian, right before he and Emma escaped.
“I don’t know,” Julian said grimly, as they dodged someone dressed as a glittery polar bear. “But she’s evil, so I’m going to guess she’s not here on a humanitarian mission.”
Revenge, Emma thought. That’s what she wants.
She kept the thought to herself; it scared her a little.
Not the idea of revenge, but the fact that she understood why Thule Emma would want it.
They’d killed the Julian in her world. And Emma knew exactly what she’d do if someone hurt Julian in this one.
She’d end them.
“How did this happen?” Emma whispered to Julian as they passed the bar, where watered-down drinks in pastel colors were being handed out to wristbanded club-goers.
“I was on my way to get that paint when I got a text message,” Julian said. “It was from a number I didn’t know, but it said to come to Psychopomp.”
“And you just…went?”
“They sent a photo, too, of you, on the dance floor here. Well, I thought it was you, but now of course I know it was her. At first I thought it might be some sort of prank—but I knew you would never come here voluntarily. Not after…what we saw. I was afraid you were in trouble. I was afraid you needed help.”
He slowed his pace, frowning. They were back in the beer-smelling corner, having circled the dance floor without a glimpse of Endarkened Emma. Where would I go? Emma asked herself. If it were me. Which…it kind of is?
She narrowed her eyes. There, along the wall, was a heavy pink velvet curtain. She’d thought it was just decoration, but…
She motioned to Julian to come with her. He did so without asking why, and watched silently as Emma tugged the pink curtain aside, revealing a dark warren of corridors beyond.
Emma took out her witchlight rune-stone, letting it flicker to life in her hand. “What did Bad Emma say when you got here? Did she tell you who she really was?”
Julian flushed, visible even under the wheeling colored lights. “Of course not,” he said. “But I knew. Immediately. Her eyes—they’re flat, dead. That’s why I said she was evil. She’s nothing like you.”
He spoke the last sentence so venomously Emma almost flinched. “But you felt like you had to go along with it?”
He nodded as they edged into the darkness beyond the curtain. The witchlight illuminated a maze of hallways, most of them water-stained, the paint flaking off the walls. Long pipes ran the length of the floors. The whole thing seemed like a probable building code violation.
“And you had to kiss her?” Emma said, her voice low. She hated herself for asking, a little bit. But still.
“I didn’t want to tip her off that I knew,” Julian said hoarsely. “I wanted to keep her talking, see if I could find anything out about Livvy.”
Emma’s heart winced inside her chest. She wanted to hug Jules, to tell him she understood why he wanted so desperately to hear about the version of his sister who was still alive.
Desperately enough to play along with someone who was little better than a demon.
“Did she tell you anything about Thule?”
He shook his head, clearly frustrated, as they walked past two werewolves in leather pants industriously making out against a grimy bathroom door that said employees only. “She kept talking in riddles. Like someone who’s spent time in the faerie courts. Or like someone stalling for time.”
Well, that’s ominous, Emma thought. “Do you think she’s here alone?”
“I didn’t get the sense she was with anyone else.
But it’s hard to get a read on her.” They’d reached the end of the main corridor, which terminated in a fire exit.
Julian cursed under his breath. “This place is a maze,” he said.
“If she’s in here, we’ll never find her.
If she’s outside, she’s gone. In the wind. ”
“I don’t think she’s outside,” Emma said, and when Julian shot her a curious look, she added, “It’s not what I’d do. I’d look for a place to hide. Regroup.”
“Ah.” Julian’s voice was neutral, but she could tell by his expression that he was feeling much the same way she was.
There was something awful about the idea that Emma could understand Endarkened Emma, that they were similar enough that she could look inside her own mind and match the pattern of her thoughts to the thoughts of someone so evil.
And yet—“Do you have any guesses where she’d hide? ” he asked.
She took his arm. “Come with me.”
They made their way back down the corridor until they reached the werewolves, still slurping at each other’s faces, oblivious to the world around them. Emma cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she said loudly. “I was hoping to get into the bathroom.”
The werewolves pulled apart slightly. “There’s a weirdo in there,” said the female werewolf, who had cute blue pigtails. “I think she’s got a knife.”
Emma felt her body go tense.
“I think that’s our weirdo,” Julian said.
The other werewolf turned around and eyed him more closely. “Shadowhunters,” he said. “Never mind. Go on in.”
Emma drew Cortana, and the werewolves stepped hastily aside. Julian already had a seraph blade in his hand; Emma hadn’t even seen him retrieve it. Witchlight in one hand, Cortana in the other, Emma shouldered the door open and slipped inside, Julian right behind her.
—
The bathroom, Emma had to admit as the door closed behind them, was exactly the place she herself might have gone if she was unarmed and feeling threatened.
A small space where she could control access, where there were doors that locked and heavy porcelain items that could be thrown, where she could hide, plan, attack, or escape.
The lighting in the bathroom was dim, tinted purple, the only decoration a dilapidated poster of a unicorn.
The Other Emma was crouched in the corner, head resting on her knees, her breathing harsh.
Her hair was a damp tangle around her face.
There’s something wrong with her, Emma thought, puzzled, but she didn’t lower her blade.
She might be pale and sick-looking, but Thule Emma was staring at Emma herself, and Julian, with a blazing hatred that could have powered a city block.
“Murderers,” she hissed. “Murdering traitors.”
“You should talk,” Julian said evenly. He whispered to his seraph blade, and it caught fire, blazing up like a spear of brilliance.
It illuminated his eyes: cold, steady. He would absolutely kill the Other Emma if he felt it had to be done; Emma had no doubt about that.
“Tell us why you’re here. How you got here. Now.”
Thule Emma tracked the sword’s light with her eyes, which were brilliant, almost feverish.
“You think I owe you answers?” she whispered.
In the light of the seraph blade, Emma could see that Thule Emma was deathly pale.
Like she hadn’t seen the sun in years. Which probably meant she hadn’t been on Earth for very long.
Not long enough for her skin to feel much sun, or long enough, Emma hoped, to stir up much trouble.
“After what you took from me, you think I owe you anything but blood?”
Emma remembered. Their last battle, in Thule, against the Endarkened.
Julian drew his hand out from his jacket; he was holding a throwing knife, small and sharp with red stones in the hilt; Emma barely had time to recognize it before he had flung it.
It whipped through the air, grazing Livvy’s cheek and sinking deeply into the eye of the Endarkened Julian who held her…
“That’s over,” Emma said. “If you give up your weapons and come with us now, we can guarantee the Clave won’t hurt you.”
Thule Emma rolled her bloodshot eyes. “Was I really ever this insipid?”
Emma tightened her grip on Cortana. Her hand was slippery with sweat. Being this close to the Other Emma was worse than disconcerting; it felt as if she were coming to hate herself, to hate her own face and voice.
If only they could get back to the Institute. Get the others involved. Find out what was going on.
“This universe isn’t like yours,” Julian said. “We still have the Law here. We will treat you with justice.”
“If not mercy, right? The Law is hard, et cetera? I remember. Pretty funny in retrospect.” Thule Emma laughed, a laugh that turned into a cough.
“Oh, all right. I’ll come with you.” She sounded annoyed more than anything else, as if she was agreeing to go to a restaurant she didn’t particularly like.
Julian exchanged a wary look with Emma.