their lovemaking. His face burned, the first moment of heat in all that cold. Cadell had gotten him into this, where was the Old Man now? He seemed remarkably silent in his veins.
Mother Graine smiled, a grin more chilling than anything his skills could produce. “Now, David, I want you to know that this isn’t personal.”
“I’ve always considered death to be extremely personal.” He bit out at her hand, but she had already pulled it away, waggling a finger at him as she did so.
Mother Graine clicked her tongue. “Not for us, never for us.”
“What will happen to Margaret?”
Mother Graine blinked. “You really care?”
“Of course I do.”
“She will not be harmed. Unless she causes us trouble.”
“When doesn’t she cause trouble?”
“That personality type is encouraged here, David. Your idea of trouble and ours is different.”
Mother Graine fell forward, with a grunt. Margaret lowered her leg. “Not really,” Margaret said.
“You took your time,” David said.
Margaret nodded at him. Hands held him up.
“Did you just piss yourself?” Kara Jade asked.
He said, “Please get me down.”
“I’m doing my best,” Kara said, jangling keys. “You didn’t see which key they used to lock you up?”
“I was unconscious at the time, I’m afraid.”
Something clicked, Kara cried out triumphantly, and David almost fell into the puddle at his feet. “Gotcha,” Kara said, pulling him away.
Mother Graine had gotten to her feet. Her face had lost all its humour, but she did not look at all like a person who had been kicked to the ground. You, David thought, are a very dangerous woman, indeed.
Part of him knew just how dangerous, and even now found it thrilling.
“There's no escape for any of you,” she said. “Not a breath of it, I'll have you all hanging from iron.”
“Escape suggests that we’re going somewhere safe,” Kara said.
“Believe me, we’re not,” David said.
“I know what you plan.”
“And surely you can’t be against it?”
Mother Graine ignored Margaret. She looked at Kara. “It’s not too late for you,” she said. “You can still turn from this path.”
“The same goes for you,” Kara said, though her voice shook.
“You have no reason to fear me, daughter. I-”
Margaret struck her hard. Mother Graine stumbled. “I think it’s better if you don’t talk,” Margaret said, and turned to Kara. “Are you ready?”
Kara nodded, looked at David, still so unsteady on his feet.
He said, “Just get me out of here.”
Mother Graine’s eyes burned. “We will hunt you.”
“Then you better line up,” David said. “The problem, as I see it, is that everyone has different ideas how we should approach the threat of the Roil, or even who should approach it.
“Well, there is only one of me, and I’m not willing to sacrifice myself so that someone else can go and do what needs to be done.”
“We need only cut off your finger,” Mother Graine said.
David laughed. “Do not take me for naive. That would not be enough. Not nearly enough. This ring will not work on anyone else unless I am dead; dead, and having infected someone. Just who did you have in mind?”
Mother Graine’s eyes flicked towards Kara.
“You would have done that to me?” Kara demanded.
She'd have been a good choice, actually, David thought.
“We would have done whatever was necessary. This is the time of doing what must be done, and without hesitation. Do you think you would do this any differently?” Mother Graine said.
“Bloody oath I would.”
Mother Graine raised an eyebrow; Kara scowled and turned away.
“What must be done, will be done. You should have trusted me.”
“Trust is too rare a commodity these days.”
“And yet without it, we will all fail.”
“Well, you can trust me to punch you in the face if you don’t shut up,” Margaret said, stepping between David and Mother Graine.
David sighed. “Kara Jade can accompany me to Tearwin Meet. She and Margaret can see that I get this done.”
Mother Graine said, “But you are an addict-”
“Yes, this ring, and Cadell’s bite, has made me more than that, but whoever you had forced into taking up this bloody thing would have faced the same problem.”
“I still do not trust you.”
He looked over at Kara. “Do you trust her?” he asked Mother Graine.
“Yes, but-”
“Then it will have to do. She will be with me all the way, they both will. And at the end we will fail or succeed because of the strength we hold together. We have survived the fall of Chapman, the enmity of all that is powerful in this world. And yet we are still here. Even now, you sought to hold us, and yet we leave here on your fastest ship.”
“But before that,” Kara said, sliding a pistol from her belt. “Before we do a damn thing, you will show us the Mothers, whole and unharmed, or I will shoot you myself.”
Mother Graine led them down long cold hallways, lit by lights that sputtered and smoked, past shut doors behind which echoed the throbs of what David suspected must be engines. Once she demanded that they stop, her head tilted towards the ceiling, and above them boomed out what could only be titanic footfalls; the ground shook, the walls around them seemed to flex and contract. David covered his face with his hands, and whatever it was passed above and beyond them. Two hallways and three flights of stairs later, she hissed for silence and a bright light, buzzing softly, passed by. Mother Graine explained neither, only made sure they continued to descend. Several other times she stopped as though she was lost, but the pauses were brief.
Finally, at the end of a short hallway they reached a heavy iron door. Mother Graine nodded. In there. David reached out, touched it and He blinked, on his backside. Margaret and Kara were shouting at Mother Graine, all he could hear was the heavy thudding of his heart.
“I’m all right,” he said.
Every eye turned to him. He shook his head. “I’m all right.”
“I should have warned you,” Mother Graine said. “The door’s charged.”
“Yes, you should.” David tried to stand, fell back. “How much of a charge?”
“Enough to kill most people.”
“Wouldn’t that have been convenient?”
“Honestly, yes.” She smiled. “Quite frankly, I still can’t believe that you touched it and survived.” She gestured at the panel beside it. “It will only open to my touch, I am afraid.”
“Do what you have to,” Kara said.
The door opened to a room chilled to almost freezing. The room felt at once vast and small, it extended beyond sight in all directions from the wall, and there was something wrong about all that space. David could feel forces at work that warped reality.
Within a dozen yards of them was a cage made of cast iron. Inside, barely moving, seven women stood, their clothes torn and bloody. Despite the cold, David could sense it. Just as he had sensed it in Hardacre, only here it was stronger, almost choking in its potency.
A taste at once familiar and wrong. Here? he thought.
Kara let out a cry. “What have you done, old woman?” She spat, “What have you done?”
