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Too soon, we arrived. The stone hallway that had tunneled so unceasingly before us suddenly bulged into a familiar cavern, its ceiling soaring at least a hundred feet above us, the only light from flicking oil lamps along the curved walls.
“Is this it?” Nyssa asked, hefting her tomahawk.
I nodded, not yet trusting myself to speak. The formation at the center of the cavern had only shown one gate when I had first encountered it, but now I counted four. They were evenly spaced in a circle and unassuming at first glance.
I blinked, bringing up my magical sight. An undulating kaleidoscope of colors swam in the space above each gate, like an oil slick. Just the sight made my stomach turn.
It would be easier this time. I knew what to expect.
“What do we do?” Zahar peered doubtfully at the formation. “Just... step inside?”
I glanced at Derek. He was already looking at me, his expression perfectly neutral, his body relaxed but ready. The firelight played on his scars, softening their edges. For a moment, he looked like young Derek again, smooth-cheeked and doe-eyed.
The effect was disorientating. I looked away.
“This is the Cave of the Divine Twins,” I said, my voice echoing slightly. “It refers to Ligalirra and Meslamtaea, Old Babylonian deities who were often associated with guarding gateways and the netherworld. The idea being that each of those gates you see there—” I gestured to the small stone formations— “would lead you to your death.”
Zahar regarded the stones with renewed wariness. “And we must pass through these gates?”
“It’s the only way to continue forward.” I nodded towards the other end of the cavern, a sheet of rock that rose into the gloom. “If we succeed, a door will appear there. Moloch’s palace is on the other side.”
“Where will these gates take us?” Derek asked.
That was the million dollar question. “It varies from person to person,” I said. “Generally speaking, each gate will show you what you love most. And then it will kill you.”
For a few moments, no one spoke. Zahar and Nyssa, professional badasses though they were, wore twin expressions of apprehension. Derek only looked grim.
“It is imperative that you remember where you are,” I told them, “and what is real. The gate will mess with your mind. If you don’t stay grounded, it will destroy you.”
Derek moved, slow and self-assured, to stand next to me at the cavern’s mouth. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were chips of iced amber, bright and hard.
“The longer we wait, the longer it’ll take,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”
As we made our way to the formation, I reached back and pulled out the two halves of my spear. The sound of them snapping together sent a familiar rush of fire through my veins. On the other side of the gate, I knew, was a war for my mind. But my spearpoint always aimed true.
We stood in a circle, waiting. I was directly across from Derek. What would his gate show him? His sister, maybe, or Curran, or Kate? Or someone I didn’t know? Eight years was a long time; it was selfish of me to think that I was still privy to his emotions.
Anyway, it didn’t matter who showed up, as long as he could kill them. I already had a good idea of who I’d see. She had come the first time, and she would come today.
“Close your eyes,” I called out. “The gate will open soon.”
I could already feel the magic building. As I closed my eyes, it rose and swirled around me, a cold rush more malicious than winter wind. It bit at my exposed skin and ripped at my clothes, and then it was gone.
The acrid scent of healing ointment mingled with bacon in my nose. A smile tugged at my lips, automatic, and I opened my eyes. Kate’s kitchen in Atlanta unfolded in front of me, the brown linoleum, the little gas stove with a pan of bacon perched on its grate. The fridge sat a little to my left, covered in sticky note reminders for Kate.
Get double cream, oranges, beer. Julie PTC Thurs 4. Call Jim.
My chest hollowed. After all these years, I could still get homesick like a little kid.
“Julie?” Someone called from the living room. “Is that you?”
No. Not yet. Please, not yet.
“Can you come here? I need your help.”
I closed my eyes, dread knotting in my stomach. This wouldn’t be any easier. It would be just as awful as the first time, just as heartbreaking, and there was nothing I could do to put it off. There was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Julie? Hello?”
“I’m coming,” I called back. My voice was trembling. “I’m... I’m coming, Kate.”
The air seemed to coalesce as I moved into the living room, taking on the viscosity of molasses. Kate sat on the couch, one leg extended in front of her, the other tucked under. A single dark brain hung over her shoulder like a hornet’s stinger, strands escaping and framing her narrow face. She was wearing her work clothes: cargo pants, black tank top, leather jacket. Her sword lay on the couch beside her.
The image was so achingly familiar I felt tears burn in my eyes. Oh, Kate.
“There you are,” she said, looking up from her leg. “What, you develop short-term deafness or something?”
Her face was younger, smoother, her eyes brighter than I knew them to be now. Her mouth was quirked in its usual sardonic expression. Flecks of blood and dirt speckled her face, which meant she had probably just come back from a job.
I nodded at her leg. My voice, when it came out, barely shook this time. “What’d you do?”
Kate sighed, an exasperated rush of air. “Tripped on the curb.”
“Seriously?”
“A whole line of cinder blocks on the curb, I lost my footing, and now I can see through to the bone.” She shook her head. “Didn’t get a scratch while fighting off six ghouls, but this is what fucks me up?”
Something that might have been a laugh bubbled inside of me, but I clamped it down. There was a high chance that if I laughed, I might cry. I couldn’t cry. Kate would notice and worry, even this fake Kate, and I couldn’t handle her comfort now. It would be too much.
I cleared my throat. “What do you need me to do?”
“Grab the big bandages from the cabinet, will you?”
She isn’t real. She isn’t real. I went to the first aid cabinet and pulled out the thick fabric bandages we always kept in high supply. She isn’t real. You have to end this. It isn’t real.
Kate grimaced as I handed the bandages to her, an expression more familiar and at home on her features than any smile. “If His Royal Furriness hears about this, he’ll never let it go.”
“My lips are sealed.”
She didn’t look up from her leg. “You’re a good kid, Julie.”
My eyes were blurring now, but I blinked the tears away. The spear was too long for this, too distanced and impersonal. I’d used a knife last time. Kate’s blood had spilled all over my hands and shirt, and it had hurt, and it had been right.
I leaned the spear against the couch and reached into my belt, pulling out a small gray knife. Its blade was notched and had long lost its shine, but I still kept it with me. It was a present from Kate.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Kate glanced up at me, her brow furrowed. “Sorry for what?”
I sank the knife into her throat, one neat motion, severing the carotid artery. Too fast for the False Kate to recognize the threat and attack me back, or appeal to my sympathy, or otherwise stop me. She died silently. Peacefully, as she had never done anything in her life.
Her blood slicked my hand and the knife. Slowly, I wiped both on the fabric of my T-shirt. It was over. It was done.
And the scene folded in on itself, disappearing into the rush of magic, and then I was back in the cavern again. Nyssa crouched on the stone floor next to me, anguish twisting her features. Zahar and Derek were still gone, their eyes closed, their bodies almost unnaturally still.
“You’re okay,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t real.”
She shuddered, tears streaking her face. “It felt so real.”
There was nothing I could do but give her time. After I’d first killed Kate, I’d curled up in fetal position and lay on the floor for almost half an hour before I could move on. The grief had paralyzed me. It still rang in my bones and sapped the energy from me, but I knew how to handle it this time.
To my left, Zahar’s eyes flew open, wide and manic. He sank to his knees, holding out trembling hands like he couldn’t believe they were his own.
Only Derek was left now. I watched him, half out of courtesy to Zahar and Nyssa and half just because I liked looking at him. He seemed so at peace like this, though I knew he was suffering the unimaginable. It wouldn’t be long now. He was the strongest of all of us, the most level-headed and aloof. He knew how to separate emotion from action.
Minutes ticked by, slower in the cavern somehow. Nyssa pushed herself to her feet, her face still a mask of grief. Then Zahar rose to his knees. He stared into nothingness, twisting his hands together, his muscles bunching and twisting under his shirt.
At last, he looked up at me. “Must we... do that again?”
I shook my head. “This is it. This is the worst.”
A tremor ran through his body. “I cannot... again... I would rather die.”
I glanced at the other end of the cavern, which still showed no door. “When Derek wakes up, we’ll leave this place for good.”
When Derek wakes up... I looked at him again, shadows from the firelight dancing over his body. He should’ve been out by now. The gate’s illusions were poor fighters; if you wanted to kill them, it didn’t take much once you got past the mental roadblock.
He was fine, right? He’d come out any second.
“Should it be taking this long?” Nyssa asked. Her voice was still hoarse, but concern had replaced some of the pain.
Unease soured in my throat. “Not usually,” I admitted. “We know he’s still alive, because he’s still in the gate. If he was dead, it would’ve relinquished its hold on him.”
Zahar struggled to his feet. “What if he can’t do it?”
“Watch your tongue,” Nyssa snarled. “That’s the Beta you’re talking about.”
Zahar blanched. “I didn’t—I meant—”
“Stay here,” I told the two of them. “I’m going to get him out.”
“How?” Nyssa demanded, but I ignored her and strode towards Derek. I wasn’t sure if the gate had a protective spell over it to prevent others from breaking in, but I would try regardless.
Closing my eyes, I let magic splay out of me. It sought the gate’s colorful outline, the swirling hurricane of magic that surrounded Derek, and probed gently. Yes, there was the barrier. Well-woven, flexible, but weak.
“Karsaran.”
Power tore out of me, punching through the barrier. I stepped through the tattered hole and let the magic sweep me into the gate, willing it with all my strength to carry me to where Derek was, not my own torment.
When I opened my eyes, I thought for a moment I’d failed. Kate’s apartment spread out in front of me, but it was night, and I was standing on the doormat instead of in the kitchen. The stairs to the second floor rose before me, the top disappearing into the gloom.
“Derek,” a girl’s voice said from somewhere to my right, and I turned.
Two figures stood in the living room, barely five feet apart. Derek’s back was to me. Whoever he was looking at, his body covered them from my view. On the floor by his feet, something glinted.
His knife. He’d dropped it.
I shifted to get a better look and inhaled sharply. The second figure was a teenage girl, barely over five feet, her pale legs bare under an oversized T-shirt. Moonlight streaming through the window haloed her dirty blonde hair, polishing it to an almost platinum sheen. She wasn’t spectacularly pretty, but her lashes were long and her eyes big, her cheeks fresh with youth.
I knew that face. I’d stared at it day after day, year after year, in pictures and mirrors and window reflections. It was mine.
Or, at least, it had been, before I took Moloch’s eye. It was the true face of Julie Olsen.
“Derek,” the girl—Julie—I said again. “I’ve been waiting for you. You said you’d be home before dinner.”
“I know,” Derek said, and I did a double take. His voice had lost its grating edge. He spoke gently, tenderly, each word suffused with warmth. Had he spoken like that to me when we were younger? I couldn’t remember. Surely I would’ve remembered him sounding like that.
Fake Julie crossed her thin arms. Her lower lip jutted slightly. Had I always looked so petulant? It was embarrassing.
“I haven’t slept for the past two nights,” she said accusingly.
Derek took a step forward. His entire posture had changed, losing its rigidness. Now he leaned towards her, soft, almost tentative, like he didn’t want to scare her off. “I’m sorry, Julie. I... got held up. But I’m here now.”
The way he spoke to her, full of so much fondness, so much longing... That was it, the quality of his voice: love. Derek loved the little girl who stood in front of him. Loved her so dearly, so desperately, that he’d lost his sense of reality.
He was going to her, I realized. He was going to hug her, or hold her, believing she was the real thing or not caring that she wasn’t. And as soon as he touched her, she would kill him.
I hefted my spear and moved quietly, soundlessly, the way Curran had taught me. There was no wind to carry my scent to Derek, but he could probably already smell me. My only hope was that he’d be too concentrated on Fake Julie to notice. If he really had forgotten reality, he would try to protect her from my attack, and I wasn’t sure I could win that fight.
“Were you trying to scare me with that knife?” she asked him. “When you walked in all wolfish waving it around? You should know better than that.”
Derek laughed quietly, a warm rumble in his throat. “I never could scare you.”
“Maybe you just aren’t scary.”
“I’m plenty scary. You just have no sense.”
Julie stuck out her tongue, then grinned. “I don’t need sense when I’ve got the Lone Wolf of Atlanta at my beck and call.”
“Is that right?” Derek folded his arms. “Beck and call, huh?”
“Yep,” she said. “Like this.” She opened her arms. “Lone Wolf, give me a hug.”
For a second, Derek was still. Then, with his own arms outstretched, he moved towards her.
I sighted, aimed, and hurled the spear. A whistle followed by a wet thud and crunch let me know I hit my target. Fake Julie stood there, drenched in moonlight, the silver shaft of my spear extending from her abdomen where I knew it had gone into her heart.
“NO!” Derek screamed, the cry tearing from his throat. He lunged forward, catching Julie in his arms before she could crumple to the ground. A dark stain spread through the fabric of her T-shirt and glistened on his hands and forearms. His body curved over hers, gripping it to him.
I let out a shuddering breath and walked over to him, pausing a few feet away.
“She wasn’t real,” I said. Then louder, “Derek, she wasn’t real.”
He said nothing, only held her tighter. The muscles that corded his arms and back tightened and went taut like steel wire.
“Derek.” He wasn’t listening to me. “Derek, that isn’t Julie. Julie isn’t dead. Please, Derek, look at me, Julie’s right here. She’s me. I’m right here.”
My voice was shaking by the time I finished, raw, desperate. “Please, look at me. I’m right here.”
Derek raised his head. His eyes were dry, but his expression was still tormented, and he seemed to stare through me for a moment. Then, his eyes focused. They met mine.
“Julie,” he said softly.
I swallowed the burn of tears in my throat and nodded. “It’s me.”
He let go of the body, gently, making sure the head was cushioned by the hair. Then he pushed himself to his feet. The blood was everywhere on him, but it was also on me. It was the blood of love. The blood of grief.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it.” He shook his head. “You had to kill your own... I’m sorry I put you through that.”
It hadn’t been hard to do, because I knew I was saving Derek, but it hadn’t left me unscathed either. Every few seconds the image of my younger self would flash before my eyes. First, she stood living and breathing, made brilliant by the moonlight, and then my spear was in her. I was sure it would take years of therapy to compensate for this.
“It wasn’t too bad,” I whispered. “She was a brat.”
Derek looked at me for a long moment, as if he were drinking me in. Then, he reached out and pulled me into him.
“You were my favorite brat,” he murmured into my hair. “I loved you at your most annoying. Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing.”
I rested my cheek on the ridge of his clavicle and closed my eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“I still do.”
“Hm?”
He exhaled, a rush of warm air brushing my ear. “I still love you. At your most annoying.”
“I’m not annoying. Not anymore.”
“Oh, believe me, you’re worse.”
The magic was beginning to rise again. I started to pull away, but Derek kept his arms around me, holding me tight. I sank back into his warmth as the world swirled around us.