That cold, sick feeling swelled and began to spread even more. I found myself shivering. Dear God, she was right. She was exactly right. I hadn’t meant any of it to hurt anyone, but did that really matter? I had made a decision to do something I knew was wrong. I bargained my life away to Queen Mab, promised her my service and loyalty, though I knew that the darkness of the mantle of the Winter Knight would swallow me, that my talents and strengths could be subsumed into wicked service for the Queen of Air and Darkness.
My little girl’s life had been on the line when I made that choice, when I had acquired power beyond the ken of most mortals.
I thought of the desperation in the eyes of Fitz and his gang. I thought of the petty malice of Baldy and those like him. Of the violence in the streets.
How many other men’s daughters had died because of my choice?
That thought, that truth, hit me like a landslide, a flash of clarity and insight that erased every other thought, the frantic and blurry activity of my recent efforts.
Like it or not, I had embraced the darkness. The fact that I had died before I could have found myself used for destructive purposes meant nothing. I had picked up a red lightsaber. I had joined the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
I had become what I always fought.
There was no denying it. No chance to correct my mistake. I suddenly wanted, desperately, to simply drop back into the grave and seek out the quiet and peace I had found there. Dammit, but I wanted to rest.
I folded my arms and stared at Inez. My voice came out ragged and harsh. “You aren’t the ghost of a little girl.”
Her little face lit up with another smile. “If I am no ghost, why do you look so haunted?”
And then she was gone. No sound, no flash, no nothing. Just gone.
If I were living, then the headache I felt coming on would be typical of this kind of situation. Cryptic supernatural entities go with the territory in my line of work.
But, man, I hate it when they get in the last word.
“An insufferable entity,” murmured a slow, deep, redolent basso voice behind me. “Her soul is made of crooked lines.”
I stiffened. I hadn’t sensed any kind of presence the way I had with Inez, and I knew exactly what could happen when you let someone sneak up behind you. Even though rule number one for dealing with supernatural beings—never show fear—is simple, it sure as hell isn’t easy. I know the kinds of things that are out there.
I turned, very calmly and slowly, reminding myself that I didn’t have a heart to pound wildly, and that there wasn’t really any sweat on my palms. I didn’t need to shiver from fear any more than I needed to shiver from cold.
My self apparently found its own assurances unreliable. Stupid self.
There was a tall and menacing figure floating in the air behind me, maybe three feet off the ground. It was swathed entirely in a rich cloak of patina, its hood lifted, creating an area of completely black shadow within. You could see the dim suggestion of a face in the blackness. It looked like the old images of the Shadow, who clouded the minds of men. The cloak wavered and billowed slowly in a breeze with the approximate viscosity of a lava lamp.
“Um,” I said. “Hi.”
The figure drifted downward until its feet were resting atop the snow. “Is this preferable?”
“Aren’t we literal?” I said. “Uh, yes. That’s fine.” I peered at it. “You’re . . . Eternal Silence. The statue on Dexter Graves’s monument.”
Eternal Silence just stood there in silence.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said. “I guess you aren’t really just a local statue. Are you?”
“Your assumption is correct,” Eternal Silence replied.
I nodded. “What do you want?”
It drifted slowly closer. The deep voice—and this guy made James Earl Jones sound like Mickey Mouse— rumbled out. “You must understand your path.”
“My path.”
“That before you. That behind.”
I sighed. “That’s less than helpful.”
“It is more than necessary,” Eternal Silence said. “It is essential to survival.”
“Survival?” I asked, and I couldn’t help myself. I chuckled. When you’ve faced off with enough Grim Reaper wannabes, it gets kinda routine. “I’m already dead.”
It said nothing.
“Okay,” I said, after a minute. “Survival. Of who?”
It didn’t answer for a long moment, and I shook my head. I began to think that I could probably spend all night talking to every lunatic spirit in this freaking place and never make sense of any of them. And I didn’t have all night to waste.
I had begun to focus my thoughts on another series of Nightcrawler hops, when that deep voice spoke—and this time, it wasn’t something I heard. It just resonated in my head, in my thoughts, a burst of pure meaning that slammed into my head as if inscribed on the front of a cruise missile:
I staggered and clutched at my skull with my hands. “Agh!” I stammered. “Hell’s bells! Is it too much to ask you to turn down the volume?”
I actually discorporated at this full-on assault of thought. My freaking spirit body spread out into a giant, puffy cloud of vaguely Dresdencolored mist. And it hurt. I mean, that’s the only word I can think of that really applies. It wasn’t like any kind of pain I’d felt before, and I’m a connoisseur when it comes to pain. It wasn’t pain of the body, the way I had known it. It was more like . . . like the way your head feels when you hear or see an image or concept that flabbergasts you so hard that the only thing you can say about it is, “That is
That. Times a million. And not just in my head, but full body.
It took a full minute for that feeling to fade, and it was only then that I could see myself coming back together again.
“Don’t explain!” I said, almost desperately, when I looked up to see Eternal Silence hovering a little closer to me. “Don’t! That hurt!”
It waited.
“We have to keep this simple,” I stuttered, thinking out loud. “Or you’re going to kill me. Again.” I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead and said, “I’m going to ask yes or no questions,” I said. “For yes, stay silent. For no, indicate otherwise. Agreed?”
Nothing. Eternal Silence might not have even been there, except that his cloak kept rolling and billowing, lava-lamp fashion.
“Is your cloak red?”
The hood of the cloak twitched left and right, once.
“Fantastic,” I muttered. “Communication.” I mopped at my face with my hands and said, “Okay. When you say everyone, are you talking, like, everyone I know?”
Twitch.
“More than that?”
Silence.
“Um. The whole city?”
Twitch.
“What—more?”
Silence.
“So . . . you mean . . . like . . . everyone-everyone. Everyone. The whole planet.”
Silence.
“And me understanding my freaking path saves them?”
