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  We ran to the basement and found Vaybian in the storeroom next to where I’d been imprisoned. He looked up in weary resignation when we unlocked the door, but managed a smile when he realised it was us.

  ‘Amaliel?’ he asked.

  ‘Down here somewhere,’ I answered. ‘We must hurry.’

  We moved on, but something else had been left behind: the lingering smell of putrefaction.

  ‘Death is here,’ Jinx said, but there was a puzzled expression clouding his face.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  His brow creased in concentration. ‘I …’ He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I remember something, but … No … No, it’s gone.’

  The stench got worse the further along the corridor we went, and as we came to the last room, we discovered Amaliel’s parting gift. A wide smear of crimson decorating the far wall led us to the bloodied, crumpled figure slumped behind another of Amaliel’s wooden benches strewn with diabolical instruments.

  The bokor hadn’t died well. The back of his head was slick with blood and crushed from where it had been smashed against the wall. Impossibly large eyes bulged from the sockets and tight maroon lips were drawn back in a rigor grimace of fear and pain. Thick gouts of blood ran from between his teeth, which had bitten through his fast purpling tongue. I turned away and something else caught my attention.

  ‘What on earth—?’ Directly opposite me was a wet patch splattered across the wall. I walked over to take a look and something crunched beneath my feet. Shattered glass? I crouched down. No, not glass: crystal. I scanned the floor until I found a piece large enough to examine. I picked it up, turning it in my fingers.

  ‘What’ve you found?’ Jamie asked.

  I stood up, examining the fragment. ‘Amaliel had a crystal bowl – he took it from the mansion where you found me. I thought it meant something to him, but obviously not, if he smashed it.’

  Jamie took the glass from me and then looked up at the wall. His face creased into a grim smile. ‘Amaliel obviously received some bad news before he left,’ he said.

  I looked at him blankly, and then a memory floated into my head: Kerfuffle standing on a chair in my kitchen peering down into my best crystal bowl, talking to Kayla, who had returned to the daemon world. ‘Amaliel was communicating with someone in the Underlands?’

  Jamie and Jinx exchanged a glance. ‘Yes,’ Jamie said, ‘but the important question is, with whom?’

  As Jamie theorised, I studied the chamber – then I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye and I spun around, my heart in my mouth, hardly daring to look. But it was just shadows, that was all. My shoulders sagged with relief. Then I looked again.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jinx.

  ‘The shadows,’ I said, ‘they’re moving.’ I stepped towards them and they began to intensify. ‘Look,’ I said, pointing – and a hand shot out from the darkness and grabbed hold of my wrist.

  I screamed and started to struggle, but I was being dragged inexorably towards the pool of black that was dancing and swirling as if alive. I heard Jamie shout, ‘Lucky!’ – then the room disappeared and I was falling …

  *

  When I eventually came to a stop it was no surprise to find myself held in Amaliel’s bony grasp, and I knew exactly where we were: probably the last place my men would look for me. We were back in the second Sicarii stronghold, a subterranean labyrinth carved into the rock below a cursed, blackened wasteland. The place brought back horribly painful memories: this was where Kayla had died.

  Amaliel started to drag me across the cavern towards the dais at its centre. Although I struggled, my wrist could have been enclosed in an iron bracelet, so strong was his grip.

  Then from behind me I heard a cry. ‘Luuckky!’ And the stench of rotting flesh washed over me. ‘Luuckky!’ It lurched closer. ‘Luuckkyyyyyy.’ Then it let out a plaintive cry.

  The sound was so heartrending that I forgot the horror and looked closer. How come it could say my name?

  ‘Luuckky,’ it cried again as he stumbled one more step.

  Then I got it.

  The creature that once had been Philip Conrad limped towards me in a lopsided kind of stagger. The memory of the fire-door swinging closed and the strange smell in Philip’s apartment skittered through my brain. Was that why the Sicarii had been at Philip’s flat? Maybe he had given them the slip and they had been trying to find him?

  ‘Luuckky,’ he repeated, and lurched towards me.

  For a moment I was mesmerised by the horror he’d become. I’d seen terrible things in the Underlands, but this living, breathing man now reduced to a shambling reanimate was far more shocking than anything I could have imagined. The once-handsome man I remembered had been replaced by an abomination: a rotting caricature of his former self. Rancid yellow parchment-thin skin inscribed with lines of purple stretched impossibly tight across his bony skull. His cheeks had hollowed into blackening caverns. Jaundiced eyes peered out at me from sunken, bruised sockets. His professionally tousled hair clung limply to his cranium in lank, oily clumps, and dirty, broken fingernails tipped the clawed fingers outstretched towards me.

  ‘Philip?’ I whispered.

  Amaliel let out a gurgling laugh. ‘I see you have finally worked it out.’ Then he resumed dragging me towards the dais at the centre of the cave, Philip shuffling along behind.

  ‘Why did you do this to him?’

  Amaliel’s glowing eyes didn’t even glance his way. ‘It was an experiment: Persephone’s voodoo friend said it could be done, but I didn’t believe him. Turned out he was more powerful than I guessed. Quite remarkable for a human, actually, but he had ideas above his station. He thought only he could control Philip, having been the one who created him … I decided to prove to him that Philip was just as much mine as he was his. Quite spectacularly, as it happened.’

  When we reached the dais he dragged me up the steps, slipped a cable-tie around my wrist and locked me to one of the rings embedded into the stone altar. A cable-tie, for Heaven’s sake! I strained against the plastic for a moment, but it was pointless; there was a reason law enforcement agencies used this method to restrain people.

  Amaliel took a step away from me, gurgling happily to himself as he slipped his hand inside his robe and pulled out a very sharp-looking knife that glinted red in the glow from the brazier. I backed as far away from him as the cable-tie would allow. I’d seen how ruthlessly he’d cut Kayla’s throat: one quick slice and it was all over. Was that how it was going to be for me: a caress of a blade just beneath my chin followed by my life’s blood pouring down my chest?

  I was never going to have the chance to say goodbye to my friends. I was never going to tell Jamie and Jinx how very much I loved them one last time. It couldn’t end like this …

  Amaliel must have been able to guess what I was thinking as he laughed some more. Jamie was right – I would never make a poker player. ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘If you hadn’t been such a good little Soulseer and set free all the spirits my Sicarii friends had collected here, you might still have stood a chance.’

  I frowned at him. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The creatures you called upon to take the Sicarii down into the depths of darkness? They would have taken me if they’d had the opportunity.’

  Philip scrambled up onto the dais to stand by Amaliel’s side. ‘Luuckky,’ he said, and Amaliel cast him an irritated look.

  ‘I was going to kill you quickly, like I did your sister, but on reflection, I’d rather you suffered for a very long time.’

  ‘Luuckky,’ Philip moaned.

  ‘Oh, do shut up,’ Amaliel said. ‘You’re becoming tedious in the extreme.’

  Philip groaned, and there was something so pathetic about the sound that I forced myself to tear my attention away from the knife that was filling my vision and our eyes met. He made a strange mewing sound and looked down at himself, making a weird gesture like he was telling me to look too. And then I understoo
d. Oh my God, he knew what he’d become – there was still something of the Philip I’d once known trapped within that decaying corpse.

  ‘Philip, why don’t you show me what a good boy you can be? If you do, I might just get you that new body you’ve been hankering for.’

  ‘You can do that?’ I asked, trying to think fast; I didn’t like where this was leading one little bit. ‘I’d’ve thought you’d need the bokor for that.’

  Amaliel gave a hiss; I’d obviously hit a nerve. ‘You know nothing.’

  ‘I shouldn’t imagine that it’s that easy transferring a soul from one body to another.’

  He shoved the knife through his belt and reached into his robe and when his hand reappeared, dangling from his fingers was another of his gold chains. He lifted it up so I could see the ornate golden basket and its contents sparkling in the lamplight. The deep purple crystal was slightly larger than the others and had intricate designs engraved into the stone. It was truly beautiful. I was beginning to get the feeling that Amaliel had been very clever indeed.

  ‘It’s not much different to imprisoning souls within a crystal phial – not much difference at all.’

  My mouth went dry, but I had to ask. ‘Who …?

  ‘You surely didn’t think I would part with her so easily when I had spare phials to hand?’

  ‘My mother?’

  He ran a finger down the length of the phial in an almost tender motion. ‘Did you know that once Baltheza and I were the best of friends?’ He looked away from the crystal and directly at me. ‘No, of course you wouldn’t.’ He tucked the crystal back inside his robe. ‘When Veronica first came to court, not long after Baltheza wedded her sister, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.’ He gave a snort. ‘I made the mistake of telling this to my best friend, and of course, that was it. Baltheza had to have her.’

  ‘You loved my mother?’ I said in disbelief.

  ‘I wanted your mother – an entirely different thing altogether.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘That would have been the end of it, but he couldn’t just have her. He taunted me with her – she taunted me – and thereby their fates were sealed.’ He drew in a deep, gurgling breath. ‘Then you turned up and wrecked my plans. No matter; you will be joining Veronica shortly, although not before you’ve suffered a truly painful death.’

  My mind was spinning; my mother wasn’t yet lost to me! But any relief was short-lived, for Amaliel was moving towards me, pulling the knife from his belt and raising it up so it glinted in the torchlight. I couldn’t help but flinch away from him and he gurgled as he lowered the knife. ‘No, that would be too easy. I think I’ll let Philip play with you for a while. He quite likes getting bloody. He’s developed rather a penchant for fresh meat.’

  Philip made a strange mewling sound and I saw something in his eyes that made me wonder. He didn’t appear at all happy with his lot, that was for sure, but neither would I if I’d been condemned to inhabiting a fast-decaying body. I mean, what would happen when all the flesh was gone? Would he still be wandering around sightless, voiceless and deaf? An animated skeleton clattering around aimlessly, but still knowing what it was? Oh God, poor Philip – not even he deserved that.

  ‘Luuckky,’ he said again.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Amaliel said, ‘it’s Lucky, and in a minute you’ll get to play with her.’ He turned his attention back to me. ‘He has his uses. Unfortunately, he’s reached the stage where there’s no delaying the decaying process. Gaston said if we’d had him embalmed upon death he would have lasted considerably longer. As it is, I’ll be glad when the flesh has left his bones and he no longer stinks so.’

  I swallowed back bile and it took me two attempts to ask, ‘What happens then? Will he still …?’ I couldn’t bring myself to say, ‘Will he still be alive?’ as he was as dead as dead could be – anyone could see that. I suppose, ‘Will he still be?’ was actually the question I was trying to ask.

  ‘I’m not absolutely sure,’ Amaliel admitted, ‘but it will be interesting to see. Once I know, I might consider making an army of these creatures. Now I have the knowledge – another reason I no longer needed Gaston – it will be the simplest of things to do. It would be certainly less wasteful than the Sicarii way. Imagine it: an army of the dead invading your world. I could win the war by the fear they’d instil alone.’

  Philip made another of those pathetic mewling sounds and when I looked at him, he was clenching and unclenching his blackened fists. There was a flicker of something within his eyes that might have been anger.

  ‘So you see,’ Amaliel continued, ‘whatever happens, you really have to go. What good is an army of the dead when it takes just one stupid girl to release their souls into the afterlife?’

  Philip’s head swung around to look at Amaliel.

  ‘Now, enough chatter. Philip, be a good fellow and make Miss de Salle’s last moments as bloody and painful as you can. I want to hear her screaming for mercy before you’ve done with her.’

  Philip looked me directly in the eyes. ‘Doooo iiitt,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Amaliel sneered, ‘that’s what I said. Just get on with it.’

  Philip shuffled closer, lifting his hands and flexing his fingers as he did. ‘Doooo iitttt,’ he said, and as his fingers closed around Amaliel’s neck, I realised he was speaking to me. He wanted to be set free – he didn’t care if he was to be taken down into some terrible place; he just wanted this nightmare existence over.

  Somehow Amaliel managed to twist around to face Philip. I knew how strong he was, and they were now locked in a terrible struggle. Unfortunately, I had a feeling it was one Amaliel would win – Philip in death was strong, but he was literally falling apart. Amaliel tore at Philip’s face, ripping flesh from bone, then he began to tear at Philip’s throat, and the hands that were gripped around his own neck.

  ‘Dooo iiitttt,’ Philip cried, and I closed my eyes and visualised the doorway opening …

  Almost immediately, the atmosphere within the cavern changed, and when I opened my eyes, I looked down at the glowing ring upon my finger.

  Amaliel realised what was happening and with a roar, gave Philip an almighty shove, sending him tumbling from the dais and onto the rock below. ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded, his head whipping from side to side. ‘What are you doing?’

  Across the cavern the air was shimmering. A tear appeared very quickly, as if those waiting on the other side knew there was no time to waste.

  Amaliel stalked across the platform and grabbed hold of my wrist. ‘What trickery are you calling upon?’

  ‘Trickery?’ I asked.

  ‘I know you are doing something! Tell me what, or I will slit your throat this very instant.’

  ‘Noooo!’ Philip wailed as he tried to clamber to his feet.

  ‘Amaliel,’ a voice called. ‘Amaliel—’ Then another called his name, and another.

  He let out a hiss and raised both hands to his head, pressing his fists against where I assumed his ears would be.

  I’m not sure what he was hearing, but I doubted it was the same as me. The voices sounded wonderful, and had I been free, I would have found myself drawn towards them.

  But Amaliel was bent almost double, his claw-like hands clutching at his head. His knife clattered to the floor and I stretched out my hand towards it, but my fingers couldn’t quite reach. I got to my feet and stretched out a foot. The tip of my boot skimmed the handle, but it wasn’t enough.

  Philip was trying to clamber back up onto the dais, but he was having trouble, and when he finally did manage to drag himself up over the edge, I could see why: his right leg was bent at a very odd angle and a shaft of white bone was poking through. Even so damaged, he started crawling across the rock.

  The golden light began to dim as the angelic voices and the tinkling laughter faded into a discordant cacophony that really grated on my nerves – then it stopped abruptly.

&nb
sp; Silence reigned. A cold breeze caressed my skin and the lamps around the walls began to flicker and die. The tear in the fabric between this world and the hereafter blackened and twisted at the edges like burning paper; the inner light changed from gold to red, purple to black. Amaliel slowly straightened, his hands dropping down away from his head. He turned full circle, not even hesitating as his gaze passed across the gateway. The inky black void began to pulsate like a heart beating; I could almost believe I could hear its steady thump. Then I realised I could: a steady beat of a heart or a drum began to intensify until the whole of the cavern echoed to its hammering.

  Amaliel could hear it too; I was sure he could. While he was distracted I tried to reach the knife, but each time my toe touched the handle it spun a little further away.

  The pounding had grown so loud I could scarcely think straight. My only solace was that Amaliel was having just as much difficulty as he turned this way and that, his fists once more pressed against his head.

  I tried one last time to reach the knife, pulling against the cable so hard that it was cutting into my wrist and I could feel the sting as it broke the surface of my skin. My toe caught the edge of the knife and this time I managed to flip it towards me.

  Amaliel couldn’t have heard the clatter as it bounced across the stone – I certainly couldn’t, not over the beat of what sounded like a hundred hearts – but something alerted him to what I was doing as he suddenly bounded across the dais and snatched the knife up from the floor.

  ‘Bitch!’ he shrieked.

  I backed away as he stalked towards me, his bone-white hand raised, the knife glinting in the meagre light. I lifted my own arm up in the forlorn hope that it might protect my face – then the ring on my finger glowed, there was an almighty crack and Amaliel flew backwards across the dais and landed in a crumpled heap.

  The heartbeat stopped abruptly.

  Again there was silence, except for the pounding of my own heart and Amaliel’s gurgling breathing as he staggered to his feet. ‘Bitch!’ he repeated.

  As he took his first step there was a gruesome slurping sound from across the chamber and over his shoulder I saw something move. I squinted into the dark, and he glanced back. Something had emerged from the black pulsating membrane and was flowing across the floor like an oil-spill – then it solidified as it rolled into a ball, and in a blink of an eye the ball had elongated upwards into a pillar. Arms erupted from its sides and the bottom split open, forming long, gangly legs and giving it the look of some horribly distorted shadow. Before the figure was fully formed another glutinous mess broke away from the membrane, then another, and another.