“You were able to get two birds on short notice at six in the morning on a Sunday?”
She shrugged. “I know a guy. Come on.”
I followed Bethany down the sidewalk. Just past the white brick funeral home was a tall, wrought-iron gate that covered the mouth of an alley. Running along the top of the gate were the words NEW YORK MARBLE CEMETERY, INCORPORATED 1831. Through the bars I saw a long brick alleyway lined with fire escapes and windows with air-conditioning units, and at the far end, a glimpse of the cemetery in the form of a green sliver of grass. Bethany handed the birdcage to me and glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching. While I studied the starlings and wondered who exactly could supply birds to the needy at odd hours, she pulled a key from her jeans pocket and used it to open the padlock on the gate. She opened the gate quickly, and we went through. As soon as we were in, she closed the gate again and reached through the bars to squeeze the padlock shut. It was clear she didn’t want anyone following us inside.
We walked down the alley, the sound of my boots echoing back at us from the brick walls. “How do you have the keys to this place?” I asked. “Your bird man give you those, too?”
“I borrowed them,” she said, “from the Library of Keys.”
I stopped walking. “There’s a library of
She didn’t break her stride, just shook her head and grinned. “I keep forgetting you’re new to all this. Tell you what, if we get out of this alive, I’ll take you on a tour of the
“So I’m learning,” I said, catching up to her. “A tour sounds good. I’m going to hold you to that.”
We walked on, neither of us saying anything, though I imagined we were thinking the same thing. Time was running out, and even if the oracles told us where Stryge’s body was, the odds were still stacked against us. By this time tomorrow, it was likely there wouldn’t be a New York City left to tour.
Another locked gate stood at the end of the alley. Bethany pulled out the key and opened this one, too. Once we’d passed through, she made sure to lock it again behind us, just like before. She took the birdcage back from me. I looked around, expecting to see a cemetery, but it looked more like someone’s backyard. A meadow of neatly cut grass, a few shrubs and trees, and some plastic outdoor tables and chairs, all fenced in by stone walls. There wasn’t a single headstone or monument anywhere. Either the bodies were buried in unmarked graves or they’d been interred in the walls, behind the engraved marble tablets affixed to the stone.
We continued walking, making our way to the far end of the lawn. “I always wondered what was back here,” I said. “I must have passed this place a hundred times, but the gate was never open.”
“You weren’t meant to know what’s back here,” Bethany said. “No one is. It’s too dangerous.”
“Because of the oracles?” I asked. “Are they really that bad?”
“If you believe the stories, yes,” she said. “They say hundreds of years ago the elder of a vampire clan got some bad news from the oracles. It upset him so much he sent assassins to kill them. The assassins never returned. The entire clan disappeared. Just wiped out, like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Ever since, no vampire has been allowed inside. More to the point, no vampire has dared enter.”
I’d seen the way Philip reacted, and he was certainly no shrinking violet. It was the only time I’d ever seen the vampire scared of anything. Maybe the stories were true after all. But even if the oracles were badass enough to frighten vampires, I still didn’t know what to make of them. I’d seen too much suffering and injustice to believe in destiny or prophecies. And yet, the oracles kept coming up, and so did their prophecy about an immortal storm. Even if they were charlatans, it had to mean something.
At the far wall of the cemetery stood a low, corbel-roofed stone structure covered in moss and vines. It looked like the tower battlements of a castle, if that castle had sunk deep into the ground a long, long time ago. A heavy iron door was set into the side facing us.
Bethany turned to me. “When we get down there, let me do the talking, okay? This is a very tricky situation, and the last thing you want to do is tick off the oracles.”
“What makes you think I’ll tick them off?”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “Who
I shrugged. “Fine.”
She pulled opened the iron door. Inside, a spiral staircase descended into the darkness.
“Oh, before I forget, I have something for you.” Bethany pulled an amulet out of her cargo vest and handed it to me. At the end of a silk cord hung what looked like a slab of quartz, so thin and fragile I was worried it would shatter if I stared at it too hard. A vein of light pulsed inside it.
“A charm?” I asked.
“I’ve been giving some thought to your … condition,” she said. She started down the steps, using her mirrored charm as a flashlight, and I followed her. “Remember the shock Gabrielle experienced when she tried to read your mind? And what happened when the Black Knight tried to kill you? I think they were both the same thing, a kind of magical feedback. In some ways, magic is like electricity. It can flow from one source to another. The power inside you isn’t magic, or at least it isn’t like any magic we know, but it obviously works the same way, taking the life force from one source and giving it to another. So why can’t it be channeled the same way we channel magic?”
“You’re losing me,” I said. Our footsteps echoed off the close walls as we descended. I wondered how deep we were going. The staircase seemed to spiral endlessly downward.
“Okay, let’s put it a simpler way,” she said. “What if you could come back from the dead without anyone else having to die in your place? What if we could create a circuit that captures your own life force as it leaves your body and lets the power inside you simply take it back? A feedback loop, essentially. You wouldn’t
I lifted the amulet to look at it again. It was so delicate I couldn’t believe it could be capable of something so monumental. “This can do that?”
“You told me you were tired of all the death. I figured maybe we could do something about it, starting with your own.” We reached the bottom of the steps at the mouth of a dark, musty corridor. She turned to me and said, “It’s made from the shell of a giant volcanic ammonite. Their shells are known for their conductive abilities, especially with magic. There’s also a stasis spell inside the charm to trap your life force before it escapes, but I had to tune the charm specifically to you to keep the circuit whole.”
“How did you do that?”
“It’s got your DNA in it,” she said. Then she turned quickly on her heel and started walking down the corridor.
“Wait, what? How did you get my DNA?” But even as I asked, the answer came to me. Back at Citadel I’d watched Bethany clean my blood off the carpet with a tissue, then pocket it. I hurried after her again, half shocked and half revolted. “The blood on the tissue?”
She sighed. “I know, it’s disgusting, I don’t even want to talk about it. Look, just be careful with the amulet. No one has ever engineered one of these before. It’s utterly unique, and giant volcanic ammonites are extremely rare. There are only two of them left in the world, and I don’t have any more shell on hand, so don’t lose it and don’t break it.”
“Are you sure it’ll work?”
“There’s no way to test it short of killing you, and right now I need you focused and upright. So even when you’re wearing the amulet, try not to die, okay?”
I slipped the silk cord around my neck and tucked the amulet inside my shirt, letting it rest against my chest. It felt unexpectedly warm. I thought of the little boy in the crack house, and the homeless man in the CHILD OF FIRE T-shirt. If the amulet worked, Bethany had given me a way to put an end to all the needless death. No one would be in danger from the thing inside me anymore.
“Thank you,” I said. The words sounded embarrassingly feeble, unworthy of the gift she’d given me, but I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe she was right about me being better with my fists than my words.
“Let’s just hope you never need it,” she said.
I watched her walk in front of me, silhouetted by the glowing charm in her hand. There was no way I could ever repay her, not for something this big. I owed her so much, this stranger who’d befriended me from the start, who’d fought beside me and forgiven me for betraying her. I had the overwhelming desire to pick her up in my
