Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Ilanded on my ass on the top of a dune and slid into a shallow valley.
Light from an unforgiving sun beat down on the golden slopes. Strong winds reshaped the dunes and frosted the sand in spots where water had formed. Sand granules scraped and scoured every inch of my exposed skin, and I barely felt it.
My brain kept groping for the temperature. Was it cold? Hot? It was like trying to gauge the climate of a room from the pervert side of a two-way mirror.
Hey, uh, Demon Betty? I know you’ve been fully integrated—part of the whole, so to speak—but if there’s a chance you might be able to help out the way you did before, I’m cool with it. I mean, you know, in case you were waiting for an invitation.
She didn’t respond.
I was utterly alone. In fact, alone was the only thing I appeared capable of feeling.
The sound of something disturbing the sand above my head drew my attention.
“Fennel?”
The cat surfed down the side of the dune and padded over to me. He gave his fur a good shake but didn’t do his usual cleaning regime. Instead, he remained on all fours, head on a swivel, watching. Waiting.
I sighed. There was no point in being angry that he’d ignored me. Maybe, subconsciously, I’d even wanted him to follow. Wanted not to be alone in this lifeless, alien place.
Fennel’s purr sounded like a motor echoing from the end of a long tunnel. He looked different here—bigger, his black fur coarser, his ears pointier, his teeth…
He bounded over and nudged me behind him with his head, which was now the size of a Labrador’s. To be clear, he wasn’t a panther, or even a tiger. He was still a large-to-medium-dog-sized domestic cat—a sleek, black, golden-eyed, kitty-ador. Labra-kitty?
Golden-eyed, which meant his magic was gone. I stared at the portal. It had shrunk to the size of a dinner plate. From this angle, I couldn’t see anything but the dusty bedroom ceiling.
“It’s just us here,” I said. “Demon Betty isn’t answering. Why do—”
He shook his head. One sharp shake. Shut up.
I pressed my lips together, nodded.
Fennel led the way, showed me how to climb back up the dune I’d slid down. Once there, I turned in a 360-degree circle using the portal as a point of reference.
The view was discombobulating, a claustrophobic topsy turvy where the sky dripped sunlight like blood onto sand that continuously flowed in a river beyond the horizon.
“Where is she?” I mouthed.
Fennel pointed with his forepaw at a bubble suspended in the air above our heads. Bronwyn lay sleeping inside. She appeared unharmed, unaware.
The bubble rode the air currents, bobbling and bouncing, just out of our reach. It seemed impossible not to have seen it, but there had been so many other things to absorb.
I chanted a simple retrieval spell. One Abuela Lulu had used for picking lemons off the trees in her backyard. I knew it wasn’t going to work, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. Magic was impotent in this hopeless place.
Bronwyn’s bubble floated tantalizingly close. All I’d need to do to break it was jump up and rake it with a fingernail. I’d very likely go ass over teakettle down the hill when I landed…but go big or go home.
I crouched and stared up at the bubble, trying to time my leap. Fennel swatted my leg and gave me a look that I understood immediately.
Don’t.
His mouth grew Cheshire Cat wide, unhinging at the jaw. He rasped like he was horking up a fur ball, and the chains I’d last seen in Cecil’s bottomless hat landed at my feet.
I picked up the chains, expecting—wrongly—that they would be covered with cat slobber. Power hit me like a slap, and the next breath I blew out was so hot it burned my tongue. The air I inhaled was wintry cool, soothing. Thankfully, Margaux’s tincture was still holding back my pain.
“Lilibet.”
I stiffened. The voice was as startling as it was familiar.
The hooded man appeared in stages of visibility, like a wraith to a human. His hands worked over a chain identical to the one in my hands. I was warily happy to see him.
“You’re back,” I said.
He began chanting.
“Can you help me?”
The chanting stopped abruptly. The chain froze in his hands. He lifted his head, and the hood slid back, revealing more of his shadowed face while still hiding most of his hair.
He was demon again, powder-gray skin, graphite lips, sunken eyes, orange eyes like hot coals burning into his face. The scar on his right forearm glowed like his eyes.
“Help you?” His ghostly, bass drum of a voice beat into my head. “The last time you were here you wanted to help me.”
“This time I’m asking instead of giving.”
“Why?”
“Because my friend needs me.”
“Friend or coven sister?” He raised a brow that was more shadow than hair.
“She’s both, but if you’re asking me to choose one, I’d say friend.”
I wanted to ask how he knew about the coven, but I remembered the figure in the cemetery, the one I’d thought was the ghoul, and realized he must’ve been watching me. Why?
“That’s not what I’m asking you to choose, Lilibet Lennox.”
He began chanting again, and as the witch song flew from his lips and the chains worked through his hands, the gray pallor began to melt away. It was replaced by white skin, sculpted bone structure, and silver eyes.
There was something familiar about those eyes.
“Do the chains allow you to hold onto your human side?” I asked. “Is that why you gave them to me?”
The chains continued moving, but he stopped chanting to reply. “Yes. No.”
I glanced up at Bronwyn, who hadn’t moved since this conversation began. She was curled up like a sleeping puppy in the bubble and appeared content. The lines of tension in her face had smoothed over, and she looked for all the world like she was taking the best nap ever.
“Why’d you give them to me then?”
“They’re yours,” he said.
“Mine?”
The man lifted his shoulder slightly. “His.”
I wanted to walk up to the man and shake the answers I needed out of him, instead of slowly drawing them out. Bronwyn might look content, but any time spent in this place, wherever it was, couldn’t be good for her. Demon Betty had intimated as much when she’d told me to get Ronan out.
“Did you influence the necromancers to bring my friend here? Because I don’t think this is where they intended to send her.”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
“She did not belong in that place.” A chuckle that made the Mad Hatter seem sane burbled out of him. “But they did—do.”
I shivered at the implication that the Gibson sisters were in Hell. They’d made their own choices, but I didn’t wish that place on anyone—except for Floyd Pallás. Hell had been created for people like him.
Fennel slapped his tail on the dune, dislodging a shower of sand. He was now the size of a Great Dane. Still a house cat.
“Why is my partner growing like this here?” I asked the hooded man, who’d gone back to his chain rattling and chanting.
“Ask him. He chose that form.”
“Chose it?” I gazed into Fennel’s intelligent eyes. “Why? How? You’re not a cat?” The questions flowed out of me. Every time the man answered me, he created more of the damn things.
Fennel meowed, and it sounded like he’d swallowed a tuba.
“He’s a cat—in spirit.”
“Are you saying he’s a spirit? Is this Purgatory?”
“Yes and no.” The chains sped up, though the man didn’t resume chanting.
So Fennel was a spirit in cat form, and I wasn’t in Limbo.
“Am I … there?” I pointed down, figuring he’d pick up on what I meant.
“You’ve seen Hell.” He stared hard at me while the chains rotated. “You know the answer to your own question, Lilibet.”
Fennel head-bumped into my leg. Normally, I’d have swayed slightly. Since he was now the size of a small horse, the push sent me sprawling. I remained atop the dune only because he nipped my shirt collar with his teeth and whipped me back onto it.
I glared at him. His ears drooped in apology.
“Get on your feet. You can be knocked down, but you must never let them see you stay down. It’s inadvisable,” the man said.
“Who’s them? Where am I? What are you talking about?” I felt like I was losing my mind.
“They are them. You are here with me. I am talking about the them that aren’t here with us.”
Mad Hatter, indeed. The man talked like someone out of a Lewis Carroll story. The Caterpillar with the hookah.
“Oh good. I was afraid you’d give me a straight answer.”
The chains flew through his fingers. “You have a coven and a pack. Why did you come here alone?”
“I didn’t. Not really.” I pushed to my feet, edged toward the portal opening. “They’re close.”
“Close?” He raised the chains, and the portal behind me widened. He nodded at Fennel. “Take the sleeping witch back.” He looked at me. “You stay.”
The bubble floated low enough for Fennel to pop it with his claw. Bronwyn tumbled out, landing half in my arms, and half on top of Fennel. She immediately woke up.
“B-Betty? Fennel?”
I climbed to my feet—you must never let them see you stay down—and motioned to my partner.
“Do it, Fennel,” I said. “Get her out of here.”
“Betty? What’s happening? Why does Fennel look like Marmaduke?” Worry lines appeared around her eyes and mouth. “What is this place, and why doesn’t my magic work here?” She wrung her hands. “It won’t let me cast a protection spell.”
“Go with Fennel,” I said gently. “He’ll take you home.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” she said.
The hooded man made a ticking sound, like a clock, not a bomb. Same difference?
I helped her up and walked her to the portal. “I’ll be right behind you,” I lied.
Fennel widened the portal with his enormous paws and nodded for Bronwyn to jump through. When she was on the other side, he gave me a soft-eyed stare.
“You, too,” I said. “Cecil’s probably freaking out.”
“Meow.” He’d already begun to shrink to his normal size.
“Make sure he doesn’t blow up anyone who doesn’t deserve it.” I scritched him between the ears then whispered into one of them, “It’s okay. I think I need to do this part alone.”
He meowed softly, head-butted my hand, then leapt through the portal.