Chapter 84
Luvic crouched in the monster under the bed’s tunnel, sniffing the musty, old-mattress air.
His eyes glowed an eerie orange, reflecting the marrow-white and red tunnel walls.
He cocked his head and listened to the low, sloshing hum of the spongy walls.
Above our heads floated the underside of Luvic’s conjured bed.
I stared at the opening, waiting for the horror to slip beneath the bed, but it didn’t come. Maybe the stone floor was closed to it. That meant it was still in the Clarks’ catacombs. Or it had already escaped into the city.
The sticky, mudflat-like floor pulled at my shoes, and I sank a few inches into the glowing surface.
I tugged at them, shifting over the sploshy floor.
Above us, an endless row of the undersides of beds lined the ceiling.
Muffled, distorted voices carried over the tunnel’s humming, and every now and then, a dream spark popped in and out of existence.
Last backed up against the marrow-white wall and then flinched away when the spongy surface sucked at her.
“Are we in the monster under the bed’s home?
” Her voice was high and trembled like a child who’d just woken from a nightmare.
Her face was pinched, and her gaze darted nervously over the pulsing tunnel walls, the floating dream and nightmare lights, and the beds lining the ceiling.
She looked, for the first time, like she was a small girl in need of a comforting hug.
She’d once said the monster under the bed had terrorized her as a child. Was she still afraid of him?
“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly. Last wouldn’t want comfort or pity from me.
I wiped the tears and the blood from my cheeks and took a deep breath. Now that the horror was gone, the stranglehold it’d had on my emotions had loosened. I could breathe again. I could think.
“Have you met him?” Last asked, flinching as the walls moaned and a red nightmare light screamed.
“No.” I turned to Luvic. He was whispering something—talking to Cora, I think. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end at his predatory jackaltooth posture. The way he stood, the way he moved, was becoming more jackaltooth every day.
“Luvic?”
His gaze sharpened and focused on me.
I pointed to the underside of the bed. “The horror isn’t going to stop with the Smiths. It might not even get to them. It wants to consume the city.”
Luvic pressed his hand over his heart, comforting Cora. “Not just wants. It needs to. Did you feel it?”
I nodded. I’d felt it. “Do you want to stop it?”
Please say you do. Please.
He stared at me, weighing my expression. Then he gave me his old familiar “let’s make some mischief” smile. “Do you?”
“We aren’t stopping it,” Last interrupted.
She shivered as the floor sucked at her feet.
Then she kicked at the spongy floor and shook off her childhood fears.
“No. There is no stopping it. That was the point. This is it. This is the moment Primus has been working toward. He’s going to kill the Smith.
Our monster is going to make it happen. You, Mari, are going to go up and help him, just like the leggerock promised you would.
You”—she pointed at Luvic—“are also going to join Primus. If the city has to be sacrificed so he wears the crown, so be it.”
Luvic ignored her, studying my features in the red light. “Mari?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember the bee sting?”
I nodded. I wouldn’t readily forget Luvic jabbing me with an object of power. Especially a diamond-studded bee brooch. Luvic had entwined us when he’d pricked our fingers and joined our blood. I just wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
“Tell me you want me to stop the horror.”
“I want you to stop the horror,” I said quickly.
Luvic grinned. “Oh, good. Me too.”
“No! You will not—”
Luvic flicked his hand, and Last dropped to the spongy floor, her hands bound and encased in water. Her feet were tied. Her mouth was gagged. She twisted and writhed and attempted to conjure. He’d locked her tight.
“I have a Silencer,” Luvic said.
Last screamed behind her gag. There was hate rolling off her in violent waves.
“What do you mean you have a Silencer? The Merchant said he’d already sold—”
Luvic smiled.
“You have to be kidding. You were the one who bought it right out from under us?”
He’d been with us that day. He’d pretended surprise when the Merchant said he’d already sold it.
“It was you?”
“Of course it was me. You don’t think I’d let Jagger have a Silencer.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Okay.” This could work.
A Silencer was an extremely powerful weapon.
It had two modes. First, it could encapsulate an object or an area in silence so the mortal world couldn’t see, hear, or feel it.
For instance, if the conjurers were having a battle but didn’t want humans to know about it, instead of using illusion, they could silence it.
Or, if there were creatures—figments, water spirits, lures—that were making a nuisance or attracting human attention, the Silencer could muffle them so humans couldn’t see or hear them anymore.
The second mode was even more powerful. The first mode was for defense, but the second mode was a weapon.
It permanently silenced beings. When aimed at a creature and fired, it “silenced” it by pulling its essence out of reality.
When silenced, a being became nothing. It had no past. It had no present.
It had no future. No trace of it remained.
No spirit. No figment. No nothing. It was a horrifying weapon.
No one knew its origins. No one knew how Silencers were made. They were extremely rare and only worked once. I was surprised the Merchant had had one, although I shouldn’t have been. He’d been alive a long time and seemed to have the ability to procure anything.
“You get the Silencer,” I agreed, “and I’ll . . .”—I nodded to Last—“take Last and find Primus.”
Luvic’s lip curled at the edge. “Off to help him kill Finn? Win the crown?”
“It’s what I’m supposed to do.”
His small smile turned into a grin. “You know, you’ve never been one to do exactly what you’re supposed to. I’ve always liked that about you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I smiled back. “Get the Silencer and meet me . . .” I narrowed my eyes on Last’s livid face. Where would the horror go? Where would Primus and Finn meet?
“I expect,” Luvic said, “we’ll meet wherever things are craziest.” He clicked his tongue and looked at Last. “I know you’re upset, but I’m not breaking the contract.
The Bards said they would help Primus take the crown, not destroy the city.
I happen to like this city. I like bagels.
I like riding in taxis. I like how New Yorkers adore me. They do, you know. They all love me.”
Last tried to kick him, and he stepped aside, smiling. He was still smiling when his eyes hardened.
“I won’t let the Clarks destroy something good. At least, I’ll do my best to stop you. Primus can have the crown, but he can’t have my city.” Luvic turned to me. “How do I get out of here?”
I pointed down the row of beds. “Just climb up. You’ll pop out under someone’s bed. Don’t go too far—the tunnel doesn’t follow normal geography.”
He nodded, then he gave me a quick wink and sprinted down the tunnel. Shortly before disappearing around a bend, he leaped up, grasped the edge of the wall, and pulled himself out from under a bed.
Last grunted and kicked at me again.
“Well,” I said, swallowing down a pulse of fear, “we’d better hurry and find Primus. I’m going to untie you . . .”
I gathered Luvic’s butterfly knots in my hands and unlooped them. The water binds unraveled from Last’s hands and legs. Her gag disappeared.
“How dare you!” She jumped up, her arm held back.
“Try it, and I’ll leave you down here forever.”
Her arm stilled. Then, with a flicker of fear, she dropped it to her side. She lifted her chin. “Primus will be at the Smiths’.”
“Then that’s where we should go.”
I tried to decide which way was east, but I gave up and chose a random direction. Thirty seconds in, Last’s sloshing footsteps stopped. I paused and turned to see why she wasn’t following.
“What . . .?”
She lifted her finger to her lips. She nodded behind her. I shook my head. I didn’t understand. There were floating nightmare lights. A figment kicking from the ceiling. The low, wheezing hum of the walls. But I couldn’t see or hear anything else.
Then, so softly it could’ve been the remnants of a dream right after waking, I heard the sound of a man’s discordant humming.
Last’s cheeks paled, and a tremble worked itself over her.
“It’s him,” she whispered. “He’s coming.”
There was only one “him” it could be.
The monster under the bed had found us.