I girded myself and climbed the rickety steps into the jitney. It had been cut in half by some explosive accident, and the back was built out of old doors, some with carved gargoyle faces, some made of metal bars, all covered in silken rags and clothes.
In front of them was a pile of filthy cushions, and on that pile sat a woman wearing a mourning dress, the full skirt, corset and bustle speaking to a distant, more refined time.
Her face was pale but much younger than I was expecting, and she peered at me from under a hat and veil trimmed in black raven feathers.
“You’re a sight, aren’t you?” she said. “In my day, a girl would never run about in trousers, with her hair unpinned.”
“In your day, you were still alive,” I retorted. “So I guess we’re even.”
Her face split in a wide grin, and she patted the cushion next to her. “Sit down, my dear. I rather like you. How did you find me?”
I sat, but not too close. “Ian helped me.”
“Ian
“He’s my uncle,” I said, deciding the direct approach was best, “and I don’t think he likes you much.”
“You’re correct,” she said. “But there was a time that he liked me very much indeed. When he was my eyes and ears aboveground, my enforcer, convincing souls to come and give up part of themselves so I could stay alive. We were in love, and then he ran. So many love stories end that way.”
I looked her in the eye. She had the same deep black voids as the spirits who’d attacked me in the Iron Land. “I know all about Ian,” I said. “I’m not shocked, so why don’t you and I discuss what I came here to do?”
Her smile vanished. “You know, suddenly I don’t think I like you so much anymore.”
“I don’t like you either,” I said. “There, now we agree on something. Can I ask my question and get your price?”
She bared her teeth for a moment, but I kept my expression stony. I wasn’t going to play games with this woman. She wasn’t any different from the petty students at the Academy or the manipulative care-parents I’d had to live with. As long as I didn’t show weakness, she didn’t have power.
“What’s your name, girl?” she said at last.
“Aoife,” I answered. I dared her with my gaze to make some comment one way or the other. “What do they call you?” I countered.
She brought back the grin, hungrier and less sincere. “My name is Ariadne,” she said. “In my time, there were legends of a maiden who led a hero through a maze to safety. That’s why my father named me so—a fair girl with courage and heart.”
“Looks like he went wrong somewhere,” I muttered under my breath.
“Now they call me Miss Spider,” she said. “No longer the way out of the maze but the monster at the center of it.”
I forced myself to keep sitting still, holding her gaze. “I’ve met a lot of monsters. I just want to ask my question and be on my way.”
“Ah,” Spider said, running a fingernail up my arm. Her touch was like fire. “But what do you have to offer me in return?”
“Whatever your price,” I said. “I’m willing to negotiate.” I decided to just plunge ahead and let it all out in one breath. “I’m trying to find a soul trapped here in the Catacombs. His name is Dean Harrison. He wasn’t supposed to die, and I need to find him.”
Spider tapped her chin, as if she were doing sums in her head. “To find one of the new dead among the clamoring horde … if he’s even still in one piece after the Faceless are done with him—”
“Don’t say you can’t do it,” I interrupted. “I know you can. Ian said if anyone could, it was you.”
“Ian always was a flatterer,” she said. “And you’re right, Aoife. I can do it. But I won’t. You don’t have anything that’s worth leading someone into the Catacombs. You don’t have anything that will make me go head- to-head with the Faceless.” She flounced her skirts and looked away. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“That’s crap,” I said loudly, standing up. “You can do it. You just don’t want to.”
“I’m a businesswoman.” Spider stretched out on the cushions, dislodging a cluster of roaches that skittered into the darkness. “And you’re just a sad little scrap with nothing I want.”
I had sworn I wouldn’t reveal what I was to anyone except Ian, but if this was the only way to Dean, I had no choice. “I’m not dead,” I told Spider.
Her black drowning-pool eyes grew by halves. “
“I’m alive,” I said. “Back in the Iron Land. I’m using a machine to detach my soul from my body and venture here. But I’m alive, so that has to be worth something.”
Spider stared at me, and I knew I had her. The pure hunger in her eyes was unnerving, the expression of a desperately starving girl suddenly within reach of sustenance.
“I suppose,” she said carefully, “that we might work something out.”
“You want memories?” I said. “My soul? What?”
“You’re eager.” Spider regained some of her composure, managed to rein in the starved expression in her eyes. “What’s this Dean boy to you?”
“Everything,” I said honestly. “That’s why I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
“Very well,” Spider said. “Your best memory. Your happiest moment. You want happiness back, I want what you hold most dear.”
I couldn’t remember a time I’d been truly happy or content. The joke was on Spider with this one.
“Done,” I said, and held out my hand. “Take it.”
“In time,” Spider said, rising from the pillows with surprising alacrity for a woman wearing such a heavy dress. “I always deliver on my promises before I take payment.” She came close, so close I could smell the heavy scent of dirt and decay wrapped around her as tightly as her clothing. “But I always get paid, Aoife. Make no mistake, and don’t try to cheat me.”
“I’m honest,” I said. “You give me what I want and you can pry whatever happy moments you like free from my brain.”
Spider gave me a bright smile and a pat on the shoulder. “That’s what I like to hear. Come now, let’s go meet Ian and find your boy before the Faceless chew him up and spit him out.”
Ian was pacing the dirt outside the jitney, and his face pulled tighter than a slamming door when he saw Spider.
“Look at you,” she cooed. “Poor Ian. Those months and years of being a Walker have been so unkind.”
She crossed the space between them and touched his cheek, sparing me a look as I stood by uncomfortably. “He used to have such a handsome face.”
Ian recoiled from her touch. “Don’t start with me, Spider. What’s between you and the girl has nothing to do with me.”
“She’s your blood,” Spider drawled. “And you have nothing to do with her?”
“Don’t listen,” Ian told me. “Spider will twist your ear as long as you let her, and twist your head in the bargain.”
“Oh, Ian,” she laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh. It was the sound a person would make as something sharp jabbed into her flesh. “You always were such a sweet-talker.”
Spider led us down another long tunnel, part of the sewers that were apparently a piece of what was inside my head. I wondered at what memory the Deadlands had drawn on, what kind of darkness inside me that it fed on. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
As we walked deeper, the muddy ground sloping beneath our feet, the sewers gave way to something older. The walls were studded with alcoves that held skulls, and the eyes lit up with a faint green glow as we passed.
“Just remnants of souls,” said Spider. “What’s left when the Faceless are done with them.”
I felt a plummeting sensation in my gut. “Dean’s not …”
