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  His face. His name.

  It was Lucas's one solo effort. Recorded in that brief space of time after Paula's suicide and before his own return to Mexico. Released the same week Kurt Cobain killed himself. It had sold few copies.

  But this kid had it.

  Lucas pushed open the bathroom door, stepped inside.

  The boy was on the blue tiled floor, slumped against the tub. His face was slack and blissful. Lucas knew before looking what he would see: the boy's arm tied off, the needle in his flesh like a cigarette hanging off a lip. The boy's eyes rolled towards Lucas. "You," he croaked.

  "Yeah," Lucas said. "Me."

  He removed the needle and dropped it in the sink. As he knelt beside the boy he couldn't shake the feeling that he was looking at himself, some other version of himself.

  "You are so cool," the boy said.

  Lucas touched the boy's hand. And he sensed—the same way he had sensed the boy's presence behind that closed bedroom door—the fury of heroin storming through the kid's bloodstream. Too much, too much. But better to die this way, than at the hands of the young woman—

  —Demon—

  —Downstairs, who had slaughtered both parents in minutes.

  The boy said, "My dog? He's out back…"

  "No one's going to hurt the dog."

  The boy's eyes fluttered closed. "You're so cool," he said again. And the power of speech left him.

  Lucas stayed there, cradling the boy as he died.

  * * * *

  He thought: There is no salvation for me now. This is darkness.

  And yet, amazing how easy it was, how natural, to rejoin Asha and walk back outside. The yard quiet and dewy with night. The teenage girl was standing in the driveway, next to Asha. She looked at Lucas and said, "Where's my brother?"

  Lucas shrugged.

  She said again, louder, "Where's my brother? Where is he?"

  "Hush," Asha said. "You have to pack. Time to go."

  Her eyes were wide. "Go where?"

  "The desert. With the others. Join the others."

  "I'm not going anywhere without my brother."

  Lucas blew out air. "He's dead."

  For a moment the girl didn't say anything. Then: "What?" The bones in her face seemed to dissolve. She looked to Asha. "What did he say?"

  Asha shrugged. "Get your things together. It's time for the desert."

  "No," the girl said. She stepped back. "I'm not going anywhere without my brother. Where's my brother?"

  "Such defiance," Asha said mildly. The girl took another step back, her head bowing as if Asha's gaze were a crown too heavy to bear. But her eyes took on a hard, shiny look.

  "I'm not going," she said again.

  Asha said, "You want to be with your brother?"

  The girl nodded.

  Asha grabbed the girl's head between both hands and wrenched it across the right shoulder. The sound was like a thick branch snapping. They watched the girl's body slump to the driveway.

  "Asha," Lucas said.

  All his unease, his guilt, breaking open in the syllables of her name.

  Asha grinned at him, small teeth gleaming. "Get on your knees."

  He stared at her for a moment. "What? I—"

  "I have a gift for you."

  He did as he was told. Best to do that with Asha.

  She lifted a hand to her mouth. Something began to emerge from between her lips, something long and slender and gleaming, undulating into the air, weaving itself through her fingers. A serpent, patterned in red and gold.

  "A gift for you," Asha said again, and lowered the snake to his mouth.

  He saw the sleek, diamond-shaped head, the eyes like black crystal beads.

  "No," he said. "No—"

  The creature darted through his mouth with such force that he felt two teeth break against the inside of his cheek; felt the long choking slither down his throat. He fell into damp grass and gagged and gagged again. And then the snake, or whatever it was, transformed into something else, tasting of smoke and sand and ash: filling up his lungs, expanding through him; his blood, his heart, the churn of his brain in his head.

  He wretched and spat into the grass; he got to his knees, then doubled over and spat again. "What the fuck was that?" He had the blind animal urge to rise up and strike her down, rip her throat out, tear her to shreds.

  "It was a little piece of my heart," Asha said, and laughed. "I think you'll like what it does for you."

  He turned away from her. He could still feel her moving inside him: he was infected and invigorated at the same time. He could feel something in his brain starting to change. You're a marked man now, a little voice said inside him. You belong to her. She's moving all through you.

  Staggering just a little as he walked round the side of the house, he whistled to the dog in the backyard and then fumbled open the gate. The dog was medium-sized with some black Lab in him and fringed, feathery ears. "He's coming with me," Lucas said, offering his hands for the dog to sniff and lick. He had never owned or wanted a dog before, but he remembered his promise to the dying teenager in the upstairs bathroom and suddenly believed the only thing keeping the ground from opening up and dropping him into hell right now was this one goddamn stupid promise, this one goddamn dog.

  The animal pressed its head into his hands.

  "No worries," Asha said. Another saying she'd gotten off the television. She even spoke it with a slight Australian accent. "I have no taste for canines."

  Chapter Twenty

  "Jessamy," Kai said quietly. "Follow me."

  He led her through hallways and rooms. She had no sense of how this house was designed; it had no design. From the outside, it looked finite and contained, like any other structure—but the interior seemed to ramble on forever, extending its wings deep into the landscape. The light angling in through the windows could have been passing through from another world.

  He took her to a small, sunken, high-raftered room empty of furniture, the floor layered with rugs. Kai went to the windows and drew the blinds. A pass of his hand lit the candles in the alcoves. The air took on a faint perfume that was pleasing, soothing. Kai said, "Close your eyes."

  She did.

  He said, "Del should have given you some kind of training image. A vision of caves, or tunnels, or hallways—"

  "One hallway," she said, surprised. "Lined with doors." The image was fresh and vivid as if it had never left her mind, merely waiting for her to go back behind her eyes. The hallway careening off to its vanishing point, the staggered, tilted doors that lined either side, the fierce winds whistling past her.

  "Doors," Kai said. His voice sounded far away, although she knew if she opened her eyes he would be right beside her. "And some of them are beginning to open?"

  "Some of them."

  Opening only slightly, with different tints of light—yellow, purple, pale blue—spilling through. She felt heat flickering over her, breathed in the faint scent of ash.

  The demon's voice came riding the winds:

  Remember, one of these doors is mine. So give credit where credit is due… It is my gift to the prince. And my gift to you.

  Her eyes snapped open. The dream-hallway was gone. Back in the chamber with the silk rugs and candlelight.

  Jess said, "I heard Del. In my mind. He's still in my mind."

  "No," Kai said.

  "He's still in my mind."

  "Often during a quickening the student's mind produces its own guide-figure," Kai said. "This guide can take the form of a loved one, or someone the student has never met but admires, sometimes even an old enemy. But it's just a deeper part of your mind talking to you, Jess, helping you figure things out." Kai paused. "Like in a dream."

  "A dream."

  "There is nothing in you of the actual demon himself."

  "Del said he gave me something," Jess said, looking at him directly. "Something that you could not foresee or predict."

  "He's a trickster and a liar, Jess."
>
  She remembered his cry, refracting off the cold stone walls: You owe me for this! Remember, remember, sweet prince!

  "All he did," Kai said, his voice hardening, "was unlock the power that belongs to you by birthright. The hallway, the doors, this is your training image. It will help you visualize the magic as it now moves freely through you, as you learn to channel and control it. Do you understand, Jessamy? You are a spellcaster now. Like me. Like the others. Only—"

  She saw the flare in his amber eyes.

  He said, "Only with the potential to be much more powerful."

  She heard the rattle of wind at the windows. There were no chairs, so she sat cross-legged on the layered rugs.

  Kai crouched beside her, keeping his eyes level with hers. "The magic takes a different form, a different language, with everyone. Your magic will emerge naturally from inside you. You only have to let those doors open, let each spell rise up through you cloaked in the symbol of its choosing. Try it now. Close your eyes and find the boy."

  She looked at him.

  He said, gently, "Jess. Close your eyes."

  She did.

  She stood at the beginning of the uncanny hallway.

  "Think on the boy." Kai's voice was soft in her ear. "Can you hear him?"

  "No," she said, but then saw a door swinging open down the hall. The light that spilled out was tinted army green. She stepped into that light, spread her arms and lifted her face.

  She breathed in, very faintly, the smells of beer, cigarettes, fried meat.

  And then a voice:

  —I'm looking for this guy calls himself Lizardking?

  She whispered to Kai, "I hear him," catching the bright thread of amazement in her voice.

  "Good. You've located your psychic connection to him. If you can only—"

  "Quiet," Jess said.

  —… Only name I have for him. He gave this address.

  The boy's voice suddenly paused.

  And then:

  —Did somebody else just come in here?

  Jess felt cold wind blow across her face, and then silence. In the hallway of her mind, she stepped forward again, deeper into the light, listening for the boy's voice. Listening. Moments passed, stretched into minutes, and then another fragment:

  —I wanted to go see a band with him…

  But then the boy's voice cut out completely and she heard the song from her dream instead, flooding through her mind, chasing away the light and any trace of the boy's presence. I can't believe/I'm getting away with this/ Junkies' parade through lover's town…

  The door slammed with such violence her bones reverberated.

  She opened her eyes and looked at Kai.

  "I lost it," she said.

  "It takes practice. Each time you tap into the Binding, the connection will last longer, go deeper."

  "No," Jess murmured. "No. It's not just lack of practice…"

  She remembered the way the expression on his face, when he saw her in the parking lot, turned from bewilderment to terror.

  "He's scared of me," Jess said. "He's fighting me. Whatever this Binding is, this connection you keep talking about…"

  She remembered what the boy had said to her… I was promised my release.

  "Kai. He recognized me. He knows me. And he doesn't want anything to do with me."

  Kai stood up. "Mina will have some lunch prepared. Then we'll return here, and continue."

  "What are you not telling me?"

  He whirled on her and said, so sharply she took a step back, "I'm telling you what you need to know when you need to know it. When I trust that you can handle it. All right?"

  She said nothing.

  "Now come," he said.

  He was already at the door. But instead of following she stayed where she was. "What happened between you and Mina?"

  "What?"

  "You two have a history—"

  "For crying out loud, Jess—"

  "Romantic?"

  He blew out air, shrugged. "Hundreds of years ago."

  "Did you love her?"

  "I don't know if you'd call it love, exactly."

  "Have you ever loved anyone, exactly?"

  "Why are you asking me this?"

  "I need to know more about you. I need to feel like I can trust you."

  "But you do trust me."

  "That could change," she said.

  He was silent. He seemed to be pulling inside himself, then said abruptly, "After seven hundred years, love and grief seem synonymous." Then added, as if offering her something: "Mina was my first."

  "First love."

  "Yes. But now we look at each other and see—We remind each other of everything that went wrong," Kai said. "We were careless, destructive, without realizing it. We were part of a much larger blindness—we were why Bakal Ashika and her followers achieved so much power so quickly. No one thought to watch them the way they were watching us. We were much too fascinated with ourselves—" Kai paused, waved a hand, as if to cut himself off. "It's an old, familiar story."

  "And so they brought down the Labyrinth."

  "It might have been dying anyway," Kai said, "although we don't talk about that. But they took it and killed it and turned it to sand." His expression softened a little. "What did the demon take from you, Jessamy? What memories?"

  Now it was her turn to be startled.

  Kai said, "Memories of love? Love fascinates them—they find it so strange, so exotic. Memories of someone who made you happy?"

  She suddenly didn't trust herself to speak.

  Kai answered for her. "Gabe. Your boyfriend in New York."

  "Yes," she said. "I didn't know you knew—"

  "And so how do you feel about him now… after that transaction?"

  She called up Gabe's face and felt detachment, as if watching a movie that no longer held interest. I love this man, she said to herself, but the words meant nothing.

  She said, "He no longer feels real. I mean, obviously he still exists—"

  "But not for you. Not like he did before."

  "That sounds so harsh."

  The candlelight leaped and flickered in the alcoves, tinged the air with their perfume and sulfur.

  "Jess. He wasn't for you."

  The expression in his eyes did not match the certainty in his voice. She realized that, within what seemed to be a statement, he was actually posing a question.

  They watched each other.

  "I know," she said. It was her answer.

  She could hear the wind beating on the windows. She cleared her throat and said again, "The demon gave me something—"

  "So he claimed."

  "He did. I can feel it. It's like this pulse inside my brain, very cold but hot at the same time."

  "Del plays tricks," Kai said. "Games, mind games. Confusion delights him."

  "And if he was telling the truth?"

  "Then sooner or later, his so-called gift will make itself known."

  "That's not reassuring."

  Kai's smile was both gentle and grim. "It isn't."

  Jess looked down at her hands. A thought occurred to her. "Make sure there are some paints or markers in my room. Something I could…" She heard the fear again, knock-knock-knocking: if she let it in, it would paralyze her. "Something happens when I sleep. I write things. They're like these… coded messages, from my sleeping self to my waking self. As if this other self knows things I don't—"

  "It does," Kai said. "It always has."

  * * * *

  Another morning, Jess told him: "There's someone in my dreams."

  "What?"

  "I'm not talking about the boy. Someone else."

  "Sometimes Ashika is capable of—"

  "Not her."

  "But this person is a recurring dream element? And he feels—real—to you?"

  "He feels familiar," Jess said. "Like someone I knew long ago."

  "It could be someone you share a Dreamline with."

  "How does that work?" />
  "When we refer to the Dreamlines, we're talking about the space in between. In between worlds. In between life and death. In between life and life, for those souls compelled to return."

  "Reincarnation?"

  He shrugged. "A Dreamline is like a pathway of light and energy that cuts through the border-realms, these places of in between. But Dreamlines also link souls."

  She frowned. "You mean like… soulmates?"

  "Some of these links can be forged through deep magic. My Pact, for example—we bound ourselves to each other, as was the practice then, in order to become more powerful as a group than we could be alone." He paused, then said, "And some souls become linked—share Dreamlines—for other reasons."

  "Such as?"

  "I don't know, Jess. It's one of the mysteries. And maybe sometimes, in the end, there is no reason—maybe it's just a random quirk of the universe."

  * * * *

  Time passed. Her watch had stopped. There were no clocks in any of the rooms. All she had to go by was the light outside, shading from day to night and back again. But even that did not coincide with her felt experience of time: how distorted and elongated it seemed, inside this strange rambling puzzle-box of a house.

  During her training sessions, it seemed that nothing much was happening. She felt herself relax into the vision of the hallway of doors—could feel that dream-wind against her face, hear laughter in the distance. She knew it was Del—or whatever her mind was presenting as Del. She couldn't shake the unsettling suspicion that Kai was wrong, that Del had, during their time in his underground chamber, sloughed off some part of himself in her head.

  She couldn't bring herself to think too closely on it.

  Eventually she would tire, and she ended each session exhausted, discouraged, unable to look at Kai, half-convinced and half-afraid that this was useless on both their parts. But when Jess returned to her own room she realized she felt…

  Exhilarated.

  More than that. She felt charged with electricity, attuned to the life in her veins; when she looked in the mirror she saw someone slightly… altered. Her nails were taking on an odd, metallic tint.