Chapter 37
Amaya woke in a haze. Rays of yellow light shot spears to the back of her skull, radiating pain through her head. She squinted, trying to open her eyes properly. When she did, the gray room was spinning and a single dangling lightbulb split into three.
“Amaya!” A female voice pierced through fuzzy white noise. “Are you awake? Are you okay?”
The answer to the first question was up for debate, but Amaya knew her answer to the second: no. She groaned, lifting her hands to block out the light and soothe her pounding head . . . but her hands wouldn’t move.
A distressed whimper escaped her then, her injuries taking a back seat as the memories flooded back.
She remembered the sensation of falling. The macabre sight of corpses strewn about the Goldridge property. Lockwood snarling at her. Grace screaming. A gunshot.
Grace. Where was Grace?
Amaya let out a strangled cry and tried to move again, only to find her limbs locked in place.
She inhaled, but her lungs would hardly expand.
Something restricted her chest, painfully tight.
The discovery only exacerbated her distress, causing her airways to burn as she desperately inhaled every molecule of oxygen she could, ignoring the scent of mildew and smoke.
“Amaya! Amaya, hey, it’s me.” The voice again.
“Grace?” Amaya’s eyes finally adjusted to the single, swinging light, but her head still throbbed, requiring her to take in every new sight and sensation one at a time.
She sat in a chair, her arms and legs strapped to it. Another length of rope wrapped around her chest and torso, and when she leaned back, she met the soft cushion of Grace’s springy curls.
Amaya nearly wept from the avalanche of relief.
“You’re not hurt?” she asked Grace.
“No. I think he drugged me; I feel all tingly,” Grace said. “I was worried you’d never wake up.”
“Where are we?”
Their surroundings resembled an abandoned warehouse. Boards covered the few windows, and no other furnishings decorated the space except for a couple of broken chairs and splintered crates.
“I have some ideas, but I’m not sure. Like I said—drugged.”
“What happened after he shoved me out the window?”
“Mrs. Stone came. There was some shouting, and then he . . .” Grace swallowed thickly, then shuddered. “It was awful.”
Amaya bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted the metallic tang of blood.
Lockwood had killed Mrs. Stone, then, all because Amaya had tried to raise an alarm. Mrs. Stone was dead, and how many of their watchmen? All of them? What about the other servants? What about her father?
Amaya’s throat went dry, her tongue like sandpaper in her mouth.
Lockwood had snapped, like a guitar string wound too tight and worn too thin.
What she didn’t understand was why.
Eyes dancing around the room, Amaya realized she didn’t see their captor anywhere. That infuriated her even more, driving her to pull at the bonds.
“Lockwood!” Amaya shouted into the void. “Where are you,
you . . .” She struggled to think of a sufficient insult. “Traitor!”
“Struggling is pointless.” Lockwood’s gentle voice came from a shadowed corner on the far side of the warehouse. A long pipe flickered to life in a dark corner, illuminating his face. He leaned against the wall like he hadn’t a care in the world. “So is screaming. Save your strength.”
The way he spoke so calmly made Amaya want to throttle him.
“Save it for what? What’s going on?”
Lockwood stepped closer, his boots tapping on the concrete in a slow, steady rhythm.
“It’s none of your concern, Miss Amaya.”
“You kidnapped us, drugged Grace, and tied us up in the middle of nowhere. It very much is my concern.”
Behind her, Grace’s breaths were ragged and anxious. It only spurred Amaya on; Grace didn’t deserve this.
“Why?” Amaya demanded.
Lockwood’s dark eyes flashed as he exhaled a puff of smoke.
“I have questions. Questions that my captain is unwilling to answer.” He regarded her coolly, though Amaya perceived a glimmer of regret hidden within the deep lines of his face. Or maybe it was pity. “I struck a bargain, and unfortunately, you are the price.”
He’d sold her out. Grace was collateral damage, a loose end found in the wrong place at the wrong time. Amaya’s stomach began to sink.
“Lockwood . . .” she said, not sure if she truly wanted the answer to her question. “Who did you strike a bargain with?”
Pity. It was definitely pity.
“I believe you know who, my lady.”
She did. The confirmation sparked a fire in her core. She struggled against the bonds again, wincing when the ropes scraped her skin raw.
“I’ve already told you, struggling is pointless,” Lockwood said wearily, taking another drag on his pipe.
Amaya gritted her teeth. “Fighting back is never pointless.”
He couldn’t make her stop. Her senses were dull and her skull pounded, but she still tried to survey her surroundings for anything helpful.
All the while, her gaze kept flickering to the door, fearful Alastor Graven might walk through at any second. Amaya had a distinct feeling he no longer languished in the Coil waiting for his execution.
But Alastor Graven was not the first man on the scene.
“Hands up, in the name of the king!”
Amaya jumped at the voice, startled by fleetmen bursting through the side doors with their guns at the ready. Victor led the way. Though a limp interrupted his gait, he barely let it slow him down as he charged into the warehouse and aimed a pistol at Lockwood.
Amaya briefly wondered how Victor had found them so quickly—or perhaps the right question was how long she’d been out—but she’d never been so relieved to see Victor Westbrook in her entire life.
“That’s my fiancée you’ve got, asshole,” he said. “Let them go, or we open fire.”
Lockwood’s lip curled. “I don’t remember inviting you.”
Victor cocked his gun. “I won’t ask again.”
The fleetmen moved to create a perimeter. Amaya screwed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the barrage of gunfire.
But it never came.
Instead, another door creaked on its hinges, and a new voice rang out from the darkness.
“Lieutenant Westbrook! What an unexpected surprise.”
All warmth fled Amaya’s body, her blood chilling to ice in her veins. Even without seeing him, even having never heard his voice, she knew its owner beyond a shadowed doubt.
“But you know what they say,” the voice continued. “The more, the bloodier.”
Alastor Graven emerged from the night, flanked by two giant automatons and wearing a wicked grin.
The illustrations in Edmund’s books were a poor representation of the fearsome man stalking toward her now.
Graven’s silhouette was imposing enough to challenge the likes of Ford and Crowe.
His clothes hung ragged and bloody on his frame, but the mechanical hand grafted to his left arm—Stormfist—was pristine, crackling with purple sparks that threw an eerie glow around the room.
Stormfist’s sparks illuminated a tangled beard, leathery tan skin, bushy eyebrows, and one eye so dark it looked black. His other eye wasn’t an eye at all, but a piece of machinery embedded in his skull and affixed with a swerving orb that flashed blue with unsettling precision: Nightmare.
Amaya had expected the first two relics, but there seemed to be a third: a pulsing, rusted clockwork heart in the center of Graven’s partly exposed chest, surrounded by rotting flesh and blackened veins.
The grotesque sight made Amaya’s stomach churn for more reasons than one.
Was that Genesis?
Everything they’d been working for fell apart in that instant.
If Graven already had Genesis, that meant Ronan Pearce couldn’t be using it to keep himself alive in the Skyvault.
And if Pearce wasn’t inside the vault . . . what was?
Graven lowered Nightmare’s piercing glare to Amaya. Blue dots spotted her vision as he winked at her—at least, she thought he winked. It was hard to be sure.
“Markus, you didn’t mention you’d be bringing friends to our rendezvous,” Graven crooned.
“Lord Graven, this is Grace Hargreeves,” Lockwood said, a tremor in his voice. “She saw too much. I had to bring her, too.”
Graven snarled. “You should have killed her.”
Grace whimpered, and Lockwood’s expression turned pained.
“She . . .”
“She what?”
“She reminded me of my daughter. I couldn’t.”
Apparently Lockwood still had a conscience, however distorted.
Graven, however, wasn’t impressed. “I might have known you’d be too soft for the job.”
The Sky Lord moved toward Amaya, every step echoing the thunder in her heart. She glanced away as he approached, finding Nightmare’s bright light unbearable, but he hooked one cold, metallic finger under her chin to realign her gaze on him.
Amaya winced and closed her eyes against the laser-like stare, crackles of energy surging through her body like a prolonged electric shock. The effect was paralyzing, not that she had much mobility to lose.
“We’re going to go on a trip, you and I,” Graven said, his baritone thick and oily. Amaya shuddered. “How does that sound?”
“Don’t you dare touch her!” Victor shouted. “Hands up. We’re taking you back into custody.”
When he received no response, Victor fired a shot at Graven. The bullet punctured his shoulder and Amaya flinched, but her reaction was greater than the Sky Lord’s.
Graven looked down at the new hole in his jacket, his mouth twisting into a toothy, self-satisfied grin that shouldn’t be allowed outside the trappings of horror stories. It was like he didn’t even feel the bullet.
Amaya let out a shaky gush of air when he stepped away, giving her space to breathe again.
“And where do you intend to put me, Lieutenant?” Graven asked coolly, turning to face Victor. “Your quaint little prison was on fire last I saw it.”
“We have other prisons.”
Amaya caught a subtle, but telling tremor in Victor’s voice.
“Oh, delightful. Higher security, I presume? I do enjoy a challenge.”
“Put your gun down, Westbrook. It won’t do any good.” A new voice—one that made Amaya’s heart leap.