With a fairy-tale element that I’d thought was rarer than platinum until I’d hit high school and found a brownie hiding under my desk because he didn’t want his wife to discover he’d been out drinking al night. Which was when I realized how much humans silently agreed not to see or discuss so that they could live happy, comfortable lives. And when I knew that I could no longer be one of them.
So I acknowledged how weird it was to feel the wind of the Thin blow the hair back from my face as I rode toward the absent king’s torture chamber, while the king himself, or at least the most important part of him, remained imprisoned inside my own skul .
Beyond walking the length and width of his cel , Brude had been quiet since his last outburst.
Too quiet. Which let me know that he knew the score. Maybe he could smel his castle, coming closer with every giant step of his spirit-crusher, the scent of despair coming to him through my own nostrils. I knew the stil ness within my brain wouldn’t last forever. He’d know when we reached his base. He’d try like hel to escape. And it was entirely possible that nothing I could do would hold him back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I’l give blemuths this much, when they want to cover ground, they can
Al around us I felt the soft wisps of passing spirits, most of them moving too quickly to be caught in the net of the Thin. They made the air feel hotly humid, as if the exhaust of their flight influenced the climate of the place Brude wanted to fashion into New Hel . Had that been the reason he’d chosen it? For the heat? Or because every once in a while some poor schmo did get caught, and then we found them dangling in the tops of the trees or slumped against a boulder, exhausted from the fal ?
Then the blemuth would set them on their feet and motion for them to fol ow. Like a fluteless Pied Piper, al he had to do was crook his gore-caked talon and they stepped in line behind him. By the time we reached the gray stone castle that Brude had built on a plain of salted ground we had a parade of fifteen spirits trailing us.
I glanced over at Vayl. “This has got to be the most
He grinned at me again, possibly breaking his record for most fang revealed in a single day.
And reminding me, once again, that parts of him were pure predator. “
He sprang to his feet and pinched the blemuth’s neck. “Do you want the stinger out of your foot?” The blemuth moaned in agreement. “Then take us inside and pretend we are your prisoners.
Straight to the dungeon with you.”
Which was when I felt Brude stir inside my head, his movements coinciding with the first pangs of a headache. “He knows we’re here,” I whispered.
Vayl brushed his hand over mine and the pain in my head receded. “Can you handle him?”
“I think so. But if it gets bad, you may need to… do something.”
“Al right.” We stared at each other. Neither of us quite knew what that would be. We were just hoping we’d be able to figure it out if the situation came to that.
Vayl leaned forward so he could see Raoul and Aaron. “Soon,” he told them. “Wil you be ready?”
Raoul nodded and dragged Aaron to his feet. I heard him tel Junior, “There’s nowhere to run that won’t get you into worse trouble here, understand? These spirits can sense weakness, and as soon as they do, they attack. So you need to at least pretend to be tough.”
“When I’ve never been more scared in al my life?” Aaron asked.
“Do you want to see your own intestines today?” Raoul said.
“No.”
“Then find a way.”
Aaron swal owed hard and pressed his hand against his stomach, like he was promising his entire digestive system he would do everything in his power to ensure it remained intact. He kept it there the entire trip through the castle, while the spirits of Brude’s army howled at the blemuth, demanding news of the patrol, information about us, and above al else a taste of our delectable flesh. A couple of reminder pinches to the ear forced him to ignore them al and even smash a few of the more persistent ones against the mold- covered wal s.
Those wal s were lit, as I’d remembered from my first visit to Brude’s castle, with stacks of burning skul s set in wal brackets. It didn’t seem like they should give us that clear a view as we wound our way to the lower levels. But we had no problem picking out members of the king’s personal guard lounging against the wal s, throwing dice, playing find-the-wench’s-giggly-spots, or tearing out each other’s hearts over a minor disagreement regarding the bloodline of the hound lapping up the fluids dripping from their everwidening wounds.
I heard Aaron whisper, “I think I’m going to be sick,” and Raoul reply, “Are you ready to die so soon?” before the blemuth reached the bottom of the winding stairs.
The hal s had been built wide enough to hold a Sherman tank, tal enough to make a herd of elephants feel comfortably cozy. The blemuth stil had to squeeze to get through to the dungeon, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I suspected that twinkle in his flat yel ow eyes was pure glee as he viewed the havoc Brude’s forces had wrought among the realms of the Thin and, occasional y, Brude’s own people.
In hel , spirits are forced back into physical form. This in itself is torture for a soul that has, at least for a while, experienced pure freedom. It also aids in further tortures as the various demons and devices of hel become inspired with increasingly malicious ideas. Brude had fol owed his master’s lead to a degree. But rather than
