Hellforged

“WHERE’S ROSE?” I ASKED AS WE ENTERED THE EMPTY KITCHEN.

“At the cottage. She and Jenkins are preparing for a shopping trip to the village.” So they were giving us privacy to talk. “Rose brewed a pot of coffee for you.”

After yesterday, my stomach clenched in rebellion at the thought of more coffee, but the delicious aroma won out, and I poured myself a mug. I was starving. I toasted two slices of bread, then slathered them with butter and Rose’s homemade strawberry jam. Mab watched me, sipping tea. She never drank coffee.

Plate in one hand, mug in the other, I sat in my usual place. My aunt watched me intently, her clear eyes— amber like mine—never leaving my face as I took a big bite of toast. Mmm. Rose made the world’s best strawberry jam.

“So,” I said, swallowing, “tell me about Pryce.”

“First, child, you must inform me of everything that’s happened since autumn. How long since you bound the Destroyer to yourself?”

She fixed me with her patented Mab stare, which blasted all thoughts of arguing. Okay, I’d go first—but she was going to answer my questions, too. “Nearly three months. It was the only way I could think of to send it back to Hell. I thought I’d defeated it.” Blood rose in my face. “Now I know that was dumb. But for months, it stayed away. For the first time in years, my demon mark was quiet.”

“No rages?”

“None at all. That’s why—”

“You should have told me, child.” Her voice sounded wistful, nothing like the reprimand I expected. I looked up in surprise. Mab had never gone easy on me. Not once. Now, her expression showed something like compassion. “If I’d known, we’d be better prepared, that’s all. But one can only begin from where one stands.” She blinked, and the brisk, no-nonsense Mab I knew was back. “You said the Destroyer spoke of Uffern, yes?”

“That’s right. You told me it means Hell.”

“Yes. The Destroyer is using your dreamscape to expand Uffern’s territory.”

Uffern overspills its boundaries. “That’s why it could appear in my dreams even though I banished it to Hell.”

“Precisely. And that’s also why it was so important for you not to sleep until I could give you that tea. Your dreamscape has been breached.”

Remembering yesterday’s exhausting journey sent a wave of tiredness through me. “You couldn’t give me the recipe over the phone?”

Mab tutted. “Is there an aisle in one of your American-style supermarkets where you can buy comfrey leaves gathered with a sickle-shaped silver knife on the east slope of a hill during a cloudless night of a new moon?”

You could pick up a lot of essentials at Star Market, but no, that wasn’t one of them. The witch-supply stores in Brookline weren’t even that picky about their herbs.

“It’s not just the Destroyer showing up in my dreams and creeping me out.” I told Mab about the three zombies who’d died. “Each victim was the last zombie I’d spoken to before I had a dream-encounter with the Destroyer. But their deaths were nothing like how the Destroyer kills.” I described the scene I’d encountered at Creature Comforts and in the lobby of my building and told Mab about the lab guy’s report.

She pursed her lips. “So it’s true. The Morfran is gathering.”

I glanced nervously at the teapot, then at the old cooking fireplace. The last time I’d tried to ask about the Morfran, Mab’s kitchen had filled with smoke. Today, though, not a puff.

“The Destroyer mentioned that,” I said. “ ‘ The Morfran emerges.’ What does it mean?”

“Morfran comes from two Welsh words that mean ‘great crow.’ The best way to describe it is …” Her eyes went vague as she thought. “As a spirit of insatiable, destructive hunger. For centuries, most of the Morfran has been imprisoned, only wisps of it loose in the world. Sometimes, one of those wisps of Morfran will possess a human and drive that person to commit terrible, destructive acts. Serial murderers, for example, are usually possessed by the Morfran.”

“No.” I shook my head. “That can’t be it. There’s no way a norm could have done that to those zombies.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right. But I hadn’t finished. It seems that Boston has attracted enough free-floating Morfran that the spirit doesn’t need to possess a human.”

“Why?”

“It’s your zombies, the walking dead. Crows are carrion-eaters. And the essence of the Morfran is hunger.”

It was like Daniel’s lab guy had said. T.J.—and by extension, Gary and Sykes—had been eaten. I closed my eyes, remembering the horror of black goo and leftover scraps of flesh. It must have been a real feeding frenzy.

There was one thing I didn’t understand. “The zombies have been around for three years. Why is this happening now?”

“There’s been only a very small amount of the Morfran free in the world, although I suspect that has changed in recent weeks. Even so, it would take time for enough free Morfran to find its way to Boston, coalesce, and consume one of your zombies. Presumably, wisps of the Morfran have been feeding on previously deceased Bostonians all along—an unexplained hole in a face or limb, a finger or toe missing.”

Yeah, we had zombies like that. Medical researchers labeled the condition “leprosy-like necrosis.” They thought it was an aftereffect of the virus. Wouldn’t they be surprised to learn it was a hungry spirit gnawing on zombie flesh?

Mab continued: “The Morfran cannot act on its own. It’s a feeling, a hunger, and it needs direction. The Destroyer used you as a lens to focus the Morfran’s destructive energies.”

Guilt stabbed at me. It was all my fault. Difethwr needed a bridge to send the Morfran after those zombies, and I’d lay down and said, Hey, why don’t you just walk over me?

Mab sat in silence. I figured it was time for me to get some answers. “Who’s Pryce?” I asked. “Why does he call himself my cousin? And how could he be descended from Ceridwen and not be Cerddorion?”

“Where did he approach you?”

I gave her a long look to show I knew she was avoiding my questions. At least she was addressing the topic, sort of. “At the train station. I thought you’d sent him to pick me up.”

“I didn’t know when you were arriving, or I’d have been there to meet you myself.”

“I tried to let you know. I called before I boarded at Euston and left a message with the cleaner at the Cross and Crow.”

“No message arrived here; Cadogan usually sends along any phone messages with the postman. So Pryce intercepted it, probably by chatting up the girl at the pub. He can be quite charming when he wants something.” She pulled a notebook and pencil from her pocket and made a note. “He must be staying there. I’ll ask Cadogan to keep an eye on him.”

“Pryce doesn’t live around here?”

“No. But I’m not surprised he’s arrived. Or that he tried to influence your first impression of him before I could warn you.”

No hurry there. It was like pulling teeth trying to get her to say two words about Pryce. “Well, now’s your chance.”

“Don’t be cheeky, child. I promise you’ll understand before the morning is done. What I can tell you now is that yes, I expected Pryce to come here. I’ve expected it ever since the Destroyer interrupted our communication.”

“They’re connected? The Destroyer and Pryce?” Somehow that didn’t surprise me. Something about Pryce— his dead eyes, maybe—suggested he’d be at home with Hellions.

Mab nodded.

“What is he, a sorcerer? Because my bond with the Destroyer takes precedence over any sorcerer who tries to command it.” That was how I’d stopped a power-crazed lunatic from flattening Boston last October.

“Pryce is no mere sorcerer, child.”

“Okay, so he’s not a sorcerer. He’s not my cousin. That’s two things he isn’t, but I still don’t know what he is.”

“You will, and soon. Today.” Something in her tone, something almost like pity, hinted that I’d end up wishing