The Myth Hunters (The Veil #1)

The Myth Hunters (The Veil #1) Page 13

She had the inescapable feeling that she had seen him before.

“The past is a dream from which we never wake,” he said, his voice a whispered scrape, like sleet against glass.

“No,” Collette whispered, shaking her head with the denial even as hot tears stung her eyes.

Eyes.

One of her father’s eyes was missing and the socket was red and raw, bloody tears streaking his face. Even as she entered and witnessed it all, even as the Sandman grinned at her, it used one knife-thin finger to pry out Max Bascombe’s remaining eye. It ripped out with a sickening sound, trailing the torn optic nerve behind it like a tail, and the creature placed the eyeball delicately in its mouth and bit down. Fluid spurted from the eye to moisten and darken the sand on the carpet.

Her father was limp. Dead.

Collette was numb. Her breath hitched as she tried to free her voice from the paralysis of terror that gripped her.

The gray cloak seemed to embrace the thing as it flowed toward her across the room. It gripped her in those skeletal fingers and she felt herself swept off the floor, lifted up by rough, gritty hands, and its cloak began to enfold her.

At last, Collette began to scream.

It lasted only a moment, and then all of the strength went out of her. Her eyelids fluttered and she fell down and down into sleep, descending from one nightmare and into another.

CHAPTER 6

Hot wind whispered through the Sandmen’s castle, scouring every surface. The sand moved with an almost living fluidity, a slow, inexorable crawl that, given time and a steady breeze, would erode and consume everything.

Oliver stared up at the remains of the diamond prism where the Sandman had been caged. The original Sandman, Frost had called him. The reference frightened Oliver because it was an unsettling reminder of how little he knew about the world beyond the Veil, and how much he had to rely upon the winter man if he was going to survive another night here, another day.

Kitsune was the first of them to move. She slunk amongst the bodies of the dead Bloody Caps, those ugly little goblins who had been torn apart by the Myth Hunters. Maybe goblin was the wrong word, but the classifications of the beings in this realm was something else he had to rely on others for. For a long moment Oliver watched the sunlight that streamed in the high windows of the elaborate sand castle shining on Kitsune’s red-fur cloak, and then he turned to Frost. Nervous energy thrummed in his every muscle and he was waiting for the winter man to speak or act, to do something to indicate what their next move was. Anything to get out of there.

Frost knelt and scooped a handful of diamond fragments into his hand. They were almost invisible against the blue-white ice of which he was comprised. Mist steamed from the corners of the winter man’s eyes and he seemed lost in thought. Oliver crossed his arms and glanced around again, bouncing one heel against the ground anxiously. Kitsune had paused in front of one of those tall, arched windows. In a crouch, she glanced over at them, her face lost in the shadows of her hood.

“We should go,” Oliver said. “We shouldn’t be here. How do we know the Hunters won’t come back?”

The winter man turned to him with glacial slowness, as though drawing his mind back from wherever he had allowed it to wander. “How do we know they ever left?”

Oliver’s throat went dry and he shook his head. He still clutched that long fang that he had picked up to use as a weapon and now his grip tightened. “Don’t say things like that. Grim and mysterious are not qualities I have much appreciation for.”

Frost’s brows knitted with an almost inaudible crack of ice, and he turned to peer into the ruin of bodies, the dozens of Red Cap corpses strewn around the room, as if he had heard something shifting there.

“Nor I,” said the winter man.

“We really should get out of here.”

“No. We should do as planned. Rest. Recuperate. Plan. If there is danger here, it will most certainly follow us if we should leave. If not, then we may still find respite. The Sandman was not killed like these others. I wonder why the Hunters would free him instead.”

Oliver watched Kitsune, who had started to move again. “You called him the original. What’s that all about?” he asked, without taking his eyes off their companion. “And all of these dead things. What is it that we have stumbled into here?”

There came from behind him the familiar chiming of icicles clashing and Oliver turned to see Frost crouching beside one of the Red Caps on the ground. The creature’s chest was a dry husk that had been cracked open, sand spilling onto the floor.

“They were not always like this. Red Caps. Bloody Caps. They were found all over Europe in times gone by, both in cities and in the country. All of them were mischievous, but some were savage and cruel. The nasty ones liked to hide in nurseries and orphanages and preyed on children’s flesh. The Sandman considered children— all children—his, so he waged a quiet war against the Red Caps and eventually forced them to swear allegiance to him.

“Your modern legends are quaint, but the Sandman was a monster, a creature who stole into children’s bedrooms at night in order to eat their eyes. If they were asleep when he arrived, he could not touch them. That was their only protection. Children all over the world huddled in their beds and hoped to be asleep when the Sandman arrived. Those that were unfortunate would never sleep again . . . or sleep forever thereafter, if the meaning suits you.

“With the Red Caps enslaved, he spread his influence, using them to harvest the eyes of children and to bring them to him. But the human world was changing. The Mazikeen and the Atlanteans were preparing to forge the Veil and these new little Sandmen did not want to be exiled forever from the castles and forests and alleys they loved. They knew they would be Borderkind only if they could alter the legend of the Sandman, make it something more benevolent, so that the stories would live on even after the worlds were severed by the Veil. They captured and imprisoned him . . .”

The winter man picked up a diamond shard and glanced up at the roof of that vast chamber where the Sandman’s cage had hung.

“He could not be killed, of course. Not by the likes of such creatures. But they could hold him for eternity, and such was their plan. The tales of Wee Willie Winkie and Billy Winker and the like grew from their efforts. Some of the dread surrounding the Sandman lingered, and lingers still, but their plan worked well enough that by the time the final magic had been worked and the Veil created, the Sandmen were Borderkind.

“Now the clever little Red Caps are dead, and the monster is free. The Hunters allowed him to live. I shudder to think why they would do such a thing.”

Oliver shuddered as well. He had never even seen the Sandman but the legends alone were enough to unnerve him. He took one final glance around the castle and then started back toward the entrance, wary of every shadow and every whisper of wind and sand across the floor.

“All right. You two stay. I’m going outside. I . . . I’d rather sit in the sun and wait for something to come kill me than be in here with all this death.”

The winter man said nothing as Oliver retraced their steps, but he had taken no more than a dozen steps when he stopped to look back. In this bizarre, impossible world, he was still the Oliver Bascombe he had always been, afraid to stay but even more afraid to leave. The realization of that sickened him, yet he could not pretend otherwise. He had saved Frost’s life and the winter man had pledged to protect him in return, here beyond the Veil. Somehow he had expected to be stopped, to be told what to do and when to do it, in order to stay alive. He had expected to be treated the very same way his father had always treated him.

His grip on the fang-dagger tightened, his knuckles whitening.

“Maybe I ought to stay,” he suggested. And then he nodded to himself. “I’ll stay.”

The winter man was focused on one of the many doorways on the far side of that vast central chamber and did not turn as he spoke. “That is probably wise.”

“Fine. But we’ve seen all there is to see in here. Let’s find somewhere else to rest. Somewhere with a door we can lock or barricade. If we’re supposed to get to Perinthia, there are some things we’re going to have to discuss.”

“Agreed,” Frost replied.

He lifted a hand and pointed a glistening, icy talon at the same door he had been studying before. It was at the top of a staircase sculpted from sand, an ordinary door— as much as any door could be ordinary in such a place— save that it hung slightly ajar.

“I have been here only once before, but I believe—”

From across that vast room came a noise like the surprised yelp of a dog. Oliver and the winter man reacted at the same time, twisting around and preparing to defend themselves. The sense of peril in this giant mausoleum was palpable. But the only thing moving in the castle was Kitsune. The lithe woman in her fox cloak leaped away from a small cluster of dead Sandmen and arched her back in the air. She landed on her hands and feet and quickly straightened up, eyes narrowed with suspicion, nostrils flaring as she stared at the dead creatures and then glanced at her companions.

“What is it?” Oliver asked, his voice low as he started cautiously toward her.

Kitsune paused a moment before taking several quick, almost delicate steps back toward whatever had alarmed her. She moved with a smooth grace that was not at all human, still sniffing the air.

“Something alive.”

Oliver stared at the place where Kitsune had been, even as she stalked toward it again. Frost hurried to join her, though this revelation seemed to have made him all the more wary of their surroundings. Kitsune approached that cluster of dead Red Caps and dropped to all fours, her cloak sweeping the sandy floor. Her back arched as she crept nearer and then she simply stopped and raised one hand to point at something Oliver could not see.

The sunlight outside the windows dimmed, taking on a diffused golden hue. Oliver told himself that it was a cloud passing in front of the sun, but he felt his skin prickling with doubt. The wind died and in that moment it seemed the Sandmen’s castle was an ancient tomb they had just unearthed, rather than the scene of a grisly slaughter that had occurred only hours earlier.

Frost paused a moment for one final glance around and then darted past Kitsune, who was on guard, and went to that cluster of bodies. Mist rose from his eyes and hands and when he reached for the nearest of the corpses, it crumbled at his touch, brittle as ancient papyrus. Oliver did not think it was from the cold. Frost scowled and shoved his hands beneath the remains, dragged the dead goblin out of the way.

“La Dormette,” he said, his voice echoing around the chamber.

Then he was clearing away the other dead Red Caps. Kitsune darted over to help him. Oliver could not tell what they had found there in the death and shadows and so he went to join them. On the floor was a woman clad in snow white, somehow unblemished even in a place such as this. If it had not been for the elegance of her features he would have thought her a girl of nine or ten, so slight was she. Her hair was as white as her gown and her flesh the color of sand.

When Frost reached for her she whimpered and pulled her knees up to her chest. La Dormette had no visible injuries, yet her body spasmed every few seconds as though she were near death and she was either unable or unwilling to open her eyes.

“What is she?” Kitsune asked.

“La Dormette,” Frost repeated. “An aspect of the legend of the Sandman. She was a nursery spirit for the children of France. The very opposite of her grim counterpart.”

His features were carved from ice and yet there was empathy in his blue-white eyes as he gently touched the shoulder of La Dormette. Her spasms ceased and she became rigid, eyes pressed tightly shut, as though she waited for the killing blow to come.

“Take heart, cousin,” the winter man whispered close to her ear, ice crystals forming in her hair. “You are not alone.”

Kitsune drew her cloak and hood more tightly around her and her jade eyes gleamed from within. “Why would they leave her alive?”

Oliver felt a vicious twist in his gut, a terrible certainty. “She’s Borderkind?”

“Of course,” Frost replied, still preoccupied with concern for the injured myth.

“Shit!” Oliver rasped, glancing around the chamber, at the dead Sandmen and the shattered diamond prison, at the walls and windows and doors and the dimming sunlight. “They wouldn’t, Frost! They’ve been set after you, all of you. They wouldn’t leave her alive. Which means they haven’t left. She’s bait!”

Kitsune darted back toward the center of the chamber. Still, nothing moved but the wind and the sand that rasped across the floor. Oliver felt his throat go dry, and his muscles felt paralyzed. He forced himself to glance around and saw a shadow move across a window not far from the door through which they’d entered. This was not a cloud across the sun. This was something in motion.

Frost scooped La Dormette into his arms. But as he lifted her up, she screamed in agony, eyes snapping wide as she shook in the throes of death. Oliver gaped at the winter man and the tiny myth woman he held. Her left side, where she had been lying on the floor, was torn open, and sand spilled out as though from a broken hourglass. It was tinted red, a gritty dust of blood. On the floor, lodged into the hard-packed sand that was almost like concrete, were two long shards of diamond that she had been impaled upon.

The Hunters had started the job. Frost had unknowingly finished it.

“Dormette,” the winter man said, voice heavy with regret.

“Kirata,” she sighed as the last of her life spilled onto the floor.

Kitsune shouted at them both. Oliver barely heard her. He was staring at Frost and the lifeless myth in his arms. But their companion continued to call their names, to urge them to flee, and he finally tore his gaze away to look at her.

“We must go now,” she said, and Oliver saw that she had no intention of leaving the way they had come in. Already she had moved toward the door at the far end of the chamber, the one that was partially open. The one that Frost had been staring at before.