“Oh yes,” Melanie said, her voice dripping venom. “You put him out completely. We’ve got him now.”
Malachi started to struggle, but Melanie whispered a word and he stilled.
Solomon squatted down near him.
“How do we stop what you’ve started?” he asked. “Those gates in Glittering Birch. How do we shut them down?”
Malachi started to laugh. Melanie frowned and muttered a word, yet Malachi continued.
“She can’t hold me for long, you know,” he said. “Even now, she’s slipping. Aren’t you? Then I’ll get free and this time—”
Melanie uttered a strange sounding word and Malachi’s words were cut off, apparently along with his air. His mouth worked, but no sound came out and the skin around his lips started to turn blue.
“I think you’re vastly underestimating her,” Solomon said. “Now. Do you want to answer, or should she let you pass out again?”
With a gasp, Malachi drew in a breath.
“You’re all fools,” he said. “You can’t stop it. Not now. There is no way to shut the gates down.”
“He’s lying,” Darius said.
Solomon glanced at him. “Do you know that? Or are you guessing?”
“I know it. Mel has him in control, I’m reading him. I can’t get deep enough to find out what we need, but I can tell if he’s lying.”
Malachi laughed again. “Oh, very good. Very good. With the two of you, and that one over there, the blood sacrifice would have truly made me unstoppable.”
Solomon lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know. You went down pretty easy.”
“He’s not lying,” Darius said quietly.
“Be that as it may,” Solomon said, “they weren’t here, and now you’re in our control. You’re lying about shutting the gates down. You have one more chance.”
“And then what?” Malachi sneered. “What will you do?”
“I’ll kill you,” Solomon said simply. “Why keep you alive if you can’t help us?”
He stared directly at Malachi as he said this and watched the belief dawn in the other man’s eyes. He should have believed him. Solomon was telling the truth.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” Malachi finally said.
Solomon shrugged. “Maybe. But not right now. If you cooperate.”
Malachi seemed to consider. “Kill me, then,” he finally answered. “You can’t shut the gates down.”
“He’s still lying,” Darius said, “but there is some truth to what he’s saying.”
Solomon thought. “Where are these gates? Only at Glittering Birch?”
“Yes,” Malachi spat.
“Lying,” said Darius.
“There are some here, then,” Solomon said. “Good to know. Mel, any way you can make him more forthcoming?”
“It will hurt him,” Melanie said, “so yeah, I can do that.”
Solomon got up and walked over to Willow while Melanie went to work. Behind him, he heard Malachi whimper, then silence. Normally, he abhorred such tactics, but all the evil that infected the Greenweald, from the Soul Gaunts forward, had been Malachi’s fault. Let him feel a little of what he so casually gave others.
Willow was sitting with her legs under her, her hands on her lap and hair hanging in her face.
“How is he?” he asked.
“He’ll live. He’ll be scarred. But he’ll be alive.”
Solomon placed his hand on her shoulder in thanks.
“If you can,” he said quietly, “Jocasta needs attention, too.”
Willow nodded tiredly. “In a moment.”
“Good enough,” he said and walked back to Malachi.
He looked at Melanie and raised his eyebrow. Whatever she was doing, she stopped, and Malachi let out a long, low groan.
“Where are the gates?” Solomon asked again.
Malachi raised one wavering hand and pointed at the bookshelves lining the wall. Melanie tensed as she let him do it, then clamped down again when it was done.
Without a word, Solomon rose and walked to the bookshelf. Of course, there was a secret door here. It was the work of a few minutes to find the book that opened it when pulled forward. Solomon almost laughed at the cliché of it.
Beyond, was a hallway, leading to a set of stairs going down. He took them, and came to a heavy, iron-strapped wooden door, exactly as in Dunfield. Unlike that one, this one opened easily, revealing an almost identical chamber.
Except the large gate filled with green and yellow colors in this one covered an entire wall, and instead of a few smaller gates around it, there were many. The one with the swirling grays of House Towering Oaks was near the greens of Whispering Pines in another. A muddy brown one that he felt led to Dunfield was on another wall. Others of various colors, all leading to different worlds.
And there. Solomon felt his blood run cold when he saw the blue and white swirls of yet another gate. A gate that he was sure led to the home of his friends Lacy and Luke, and of course, Daisy, the Hunting Hound who chose to stay with them.
This was evil on an inconceivable scale.
It was all coming from that large gate. Even standing this close to it was enough to make his stomach turn over. He saw now why Jocasta had reacted the way she had.
It was sickening. Not only the pure wrongness of the thing, but beneath that, the joy. Whatever this was, whatever was beyond it, feeding it, it was doing it with great glee.
Malachi was only partially lying. There was no way to shut the gates down from here. There was only one way, the way Solomon usually attacked problems.
Go to the source.
He was steeling himself to do that when he heard footsteps behind him. Jocasta entered, her color better, but her steps still stiff, followed by Willow.
“Everything still okay?” he asked.
Jocasta stared past him at the huge gate and the riotous colors.
“It is,” Willow said. “Darius and Melanie have put Malachi back to sleep and are discussing how to best keep him there. Even with what
