Dying Is My Business

Thirty-four

Philip pulled the Escalade up to the curb on Second Avenue between Second and Third, just as Bethany had instructed. She was there already, leaning against one of the supporting poles of an awning, the faded words PROVENZANO LANZA FUNERAL HOME emblazoned above her head. With her bulky cargo vest and the morning sun on her face, she looked like a five-foot-tall jungle explorer waiting to enter the bush. All she was missing was a machete and a pith helmet. I opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Bethany looked up at me with a half-smile. I’d thought of her eyes as sky-blue before, but now, seeing the way they sparkled in the sun, I realized just how apt that description was.

“For someone who spent most of the night in a gargoyle cage, you don’t look any worse for wear,” she said. “Pity. You could stand to be taken down a peg.”

“I’ve spent the night in worse places,” I said. I turned back to the Escalade, where Philip watched us from behind the wheel. “You coming?”

He shook his head. “I told you, you’re on your own. Vampires aren’t welcome here.”

“You’re going to let that stop you?”

He looked up through the tinted windshield at the morning sky. “Even if I wanted to come with you, I couldn’t. Not everything you’ve heard about vampires is a lie. We have … issues with the sun.”

“Like the gargoyles,” I said.

“We are nothing like those mindless vermin,” he snarled, turning to me angrily.

“They’re not all like that,” I reminded him. “Besides, you were outside yesterday during the day. I saw you.”

He sighed and seemed to relax. “That was different. Storm clouds covered the sun yesterday. I won’t be so lucky today. But it doesn’t matter. Vampires can’t enter. I’ll wait for you here.” I nodded and started to close the passenger door, but he stopped me. “Be careful, Trent. If I were you, I wouldn’t trust a word the oracles say.”

“I don’t believe in prophecies. I don’t think the world works that way,” I told him. “But if they know anything that can help us, I’ll get it out of them.”

I closed the door and turned back to Bethany. She stooped to pick up a metal birdcage I hadn’t noticed down by her feet. Inside, two small starlings sat on the perch. They let out a few chirps as she lifted the cage, then sat quietly again.

“What’s with the birds?” I asked.

“Payment,” she said. “The oracles don’t work for free.”

“You were able to get two birds on short notice at six in the morning on a Sunday?”

She shrugged. “I know a guy. Come on.”

I followed Bethany down the sidewalk. Just past the white brick funeral home was a tall, wrought-iron gate that covered the mouth of an alley. Running along the top of the gate were the words NEW YORK MARBLE CEMETERY, INCORPORATED 1831. Through the bars I saw a long brick alleyway lined with fire escapes and windows with air-conditioning units, and at the far end, a glimpse of the cemetery in the form of a green sliver of grass. Bethany handed the birdcage to me and glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching. While I studied the starlings and wondered who exactly could supply birds to the needy at odd hours, she pulled a key from her jeans pocket and used it to open the padlock on the gate. She opened the gate quickly, and we went through. As soon as we were in, she closed the gate again and reached through the bars to squeeze the padlock shut. It was clear she didn’t want anyone following us inside.

We walked down the alley, the sound of my boots echoing back at us from the brick walls. “How do you have the keys to this place?” I asked. “Your bird man give you those, too?”

“I borrowed them,” she said, “from the Library of Keys.”

I stopped walking. “There’s a library of keys?”

She didn’t break her stride, just shook her head and grinned. “I keep forgetting you’re new to all this. Tell you what, if we get out of this alive, I’ll take you on a tour of the real New York. There’s a lot more to this city than the Statue of Liberty and Famous Ray’s.”

“So I’m learning,” I said, catching up to her. “A tour sounds good. I’m going to hold you to that.”

We walked on, neither of us saying anything, though I imagined we were thinking the same thing. Time was running out, and even if the oracles told us where Stryge’s body was, the odds were still stacked against us. By this time tomorrow, it was likely there wouldn’t be a New York City left to tour.

Another locked gate stood at the end of the alley. Bethany pulled out the key and opened this one, too. Once we’d passed through, she made sure to lock it again behind us, just like before. She took the birdcage back from me. I looked around, expecting to see a cemetery, but it looked more like someone’s backyard. A meadow of neatly cut grass, a few shrubs and trees, and some plastic outdoor tables and chairs, all fenced in by stone walls. There wasn’t a single headstone or monument anywhere. Either the bodies were buried in unmarked graves or they’d been interred in the walls, behind the engraved marble tablets affixed to the stone.

We continued walking, making our way to the far end of the lawn. “I always wondered what was back here,” I said. “I must have passed this place a hundred times, but the gate was never open.”

“You weren’t meant to know what’s back here,” Bethany said. “No one is. It’s too dangerous.”

“Because of the oracles?” I asked. “Are they really that bad?”

“If you believe the stories, yes,” she said. “They say hundreds of years ago the elder of a vampire clan got some bad news from the oracles. It upset him so much he sent assassins to kill them. The assassins never returned. The entire clan disappeared. Just wiped out, like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Ever since, no vampire has been allowed inside. More to the point, no vampire has dared enter.”

I’d seen the way Philip reacted, and he was certainly no shrinking violet. It was the only time I’d ever seen the vampire scared of anything. Maybe the stories were true after all. But even if the oracles were badass enough to frighten vampires, I still didn’t know what to make of them. I’d seen too much suffering and injustice to believe in destiny or prophecies. And yet, the oracles kept coming up, and so did their prophecy about an immortal storm. Even if they were charlatans, it had to mean something.

At the far wall of the cemetery stood a low, corbel-roofed stone structure covered in moss and vines. It looked like the tower battlements of a castle, if that castle had sunk deep into the ground a long, long time ago. A heavy iron door was set into the side facing us.

Bethany turned to me. “When we get down there, let me do the talking, okay? This is a very tricky situation, and the last thing you want to do is tick off the oracles.”

“What makes you think I’ll tick them off?”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “Who don’t you tick off? You act without thinking. You use your fists more than your words. Right now we need to be a little more respectful. So just leave this to me, okay?”

I shrugged. “Fine.”

She pulled opened the iron door. Inside, a spiral staircase descended into the darkness.

“Oh, before I forget, I have something for you.” Bethany pulled an amulet out of her cargo vest and handed it to me. At the end of a silk cord hung what looked like a slab of quartz, so thin and fragile I was worried it would shatter if I stared at it too hard. A vein of light pulsed inside it.

“A charm?” I asked.

“I’ve been giving some thought to your … condition,” she said. She started down the steps, using her mirrored charm as a flashlight, and I followed her. “Remember the shock Gabrielle experienced when she tried to read your mind? And what happened when the Black Knight tried to kill you? I think they were both the same thing, a kind of magical feedback. In some ways, magic is like electricity. It can flow from one source to another. The power inside you isn’t magic, or at least it isn’t like any magic we know, but it obviously works the same way, taking the life force from one source and giving it to another. So why can’t it be channeled the same way we channel magic?”

“You’re losing me,” I said. Our footsteps echoed off the close walls as we descended. I wondered how deep we were going. The staircase seemed to spiral endlessly downward.

“Okay, let’s put it a simpler way,” she said. “What if you could come back from the dead without anyone else having to die in your place? What if we could create a circuit that captures your own life force as it leaves your body and lets the power inside you simply take it back? A feedback loop, essentially. You wouldn’t need to take anyone else’s life force.”

I lifted the amulet to look at it again. It was so delicate I couldn’t believe it could be capable of something so monumental. “This can do that?”

“You told me you were tired of all the death. I figured maybe we could do something about it, starting with your own.” We reached the bottom of the steps at the mouth of a dark, musty corridor. She turned to me and said, “It’s made from the shell of a giant volcanic ammonite. Their shells are known for their conductive abilities, especially with magic. There’s also a stasis spell inside the charm to trap your life force before it escapes, but I had to tune the charm specifically to you to keep the circuit whole.”

“How did you do that?”

“It’s got your DNA in it,” she said. Then she turned quickly on her heel and started walking down the corridor.

“Wait, what? How did you get my DNA?” But even as I asked, the answer came to me. Back at Citadel I’d watched Bethany clean my blood off the carpet with a tissue, then pocket it. I hurried after her again, half shocked and half revolted. “The blood on the tissue?”

She sighed. “I know, it’s disgusting, I don’t even want to talk about it. Look, just be careful with the amulet. No one has ever engineered one of these before. It’s utterly unique, and giant volcanic ammonites are extremely rare. There are only two of them left in the world, and I don’t have any more shell on hand, so don’t lose it and don’t break it.”

“Are you sure it’ll work?”

“There’s no way to test it short of killing you, and right now I need you focused and upright. So even when you’re wearing the amulet, try not to die, okay?”

I slipped the silk cord around my neck and tucked the amulet inside my shirt, letting it rest against my chest. It felt unexpectedly warm. I thought of the little boy in the crack house, and the homeless man in the CHILD OF FIRE T-shirt. If the amulet worked, Bethany had given me a way to put an end to all the needless death. No one would be in danger from the thing inside me anymore.

“Thank you,” I said. The words sounded embarrassingly feeble, unworthy of the gift she’d given me, but I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe she was right about me being better with my fists than my words.

“Let’s just hope you never need it,” she said.

I watched her walk in front of me, silhouetted by the glowing charm in her hand. There was no way I could ever repay her, not for something this big. I owed her so much, this stranger who’d befriended me from the start, who’d fought beside me and forgiven me for betraying her. I had the overwhelming desire to pick her up in my arms and—

“You’re awfully quiet back there,” she said.

I took a deep breath and collected myself. “So, um, what are you going to call it? All magic charms have names, don’t they?”

“Most do,” she said. “Usually it’s a combination of the primary engineer’s last name and the function of the spell, like the Avasthi phalanx or the Mamatas silencer.”

I thought about it a moment. “I suppose the Savory lifesaver is out of the question?”

“Yeah, I think we can do better,” she said. “But I don’t care what they call it. I only care that it works.”

“You knew I’d come back,” I said. “Even though I told Isaac I wouldn’t.”

“Of course I knew. You’re like a bad headache, Trent. There’s just no getting rid of you.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you actually missed me.”

She barked out a sharp laugh. “Actually, I was enjoying the relative quiet in your absence. You weren’t gone long enough to miss.”

“But if I had been, you would have missed me.”

“Keep it up and I’ll put that amulet to the test after all,” she said.

We walked through an arched doorway into an enormous, underground Gothic chapel. We passed through rows of tombs arranged along the floor, stone sarcophagi with carvings of knights, kings, and queens lying in repose on the lids. In the light of Bethany’s charm, I saw more sarcophagi inside the numerous nooks carved into the walls. We went through a door on the far side of the chapel and descended more stairs. Once more I had the feeling we were descending into the depths of a great tower that had been swallowed by the earth. At the bottom of the steps, the corridor branched off in three different directions. Without a moment’s hesitation Bethany started down the passageway on the right, and I realized then what I should have from the start: Bethany knew exactly where she was going. In a dark underground labyrinth like this, with no map and no guide, that could only mean one thing.

“You’ve been here before,” I said.

“Once, a few years back,” she answered. “I had questions about my parents, who they were, why they abandoned me. I thought the oracles could tell me, or at least help me find them.”

“Did they?”

“They wouldn’t see me. They didn’t even open the door.” She stopped, shining her light on a pair of huge metal doors that towered before us. “Let’s hope this time they do.”

The doors stood nearly twenty feet tall, coming together at the top in a pointed arch. The knockers, two heavy bronze rings, hung low enough on the doors for someone of average height to reach. Bethany, not being of average height, had to stand on her tiptoes to swing one. The knocker fell against the door with a loud, deep noise that reverberated in my chest and echoed through the corridor. We waited. And waited. The doors didn’t open. Bethany knocked again, and again nothing happened.

She couldn’t hide the disappointment in her face. “They still won’t see me,” she said. She sounded ashamed, as if she were being punished for some imagined infraction. “Isaac was right, he should have come, not me. This is my fault.”

“The hell it is,” I said. I grabbed the knocker and slammed it hard against the metal. “Open the damn door!”

The doors opened this time, swinging inward on ancient, creaking hinges. We looked at each other, surprised. Even more surprising was that no one was waiting on the other side of the threshold. Apparently, the doors had opened on their own.

“Okay, that’s not creepy or off-putting at all,” Bethany said.

We walked cautiously inside. The doors swung closed behind us, once again seemingly on their own. The light from Bethany’s charm snapped off suddenly, plunging us into pitch-blackness.

“Turn it back on,” I whispered.

“I didn’t turn it off,” she answered. She cursed and shook the charm like it was a flashlight with dying batteries, but it stayed dark.

A moment later, the room lit up as the flames of dozens of candles sprang to life around us. We were standing in a circle of tall candelabras arranged in the center of a large chamber. And yet, despite the plentiful candles, everything outside the circle remained as black as night, as if the light itself refused to go there.

Dozens of birdcages were interspersed with the candelabras, hanging on hooks at the end of long chains that stretched down from the darkness above us. A few of the cages had birds in them, pigeons, warblers, and sapsuckers that hopped or fluttered their wings. The rest of them were empty. The chamber floor was carpeted with shed feathers, so many they could have come from whole flocks. They must have kept a lot of them as pets over the years.

A voice boomed out of the darkness, thunderous and echoing. “Speak.” It seemed to come from high above us, as though the oracles were up by the ceiling, or perhaps giants stuffed into the chamber somehow. I couldn’t see a thing, though. Looking up into the dark was like looking into a starless night sky.

A pigeon cooed nervously. Bethany cleared her throat. “My name is Bethany Savory—”

“We know who you are,” the voice interrupted.

“You are not of interest to us,” a second voice said, somewhere to the right of the first.

“Nor is the question of your heritage,” said a third, off to the left.

“I’m not here about me,” she said. I had to hand it to her. She was remarkably calm. It wasn’t everyone who could keep their composure after being told the biggest question of their life didn’t matter. “We’ve come in search of information.”

“You have questions,” the first voice said.

“Questions you believe we can answer,” the second voice said.

“Yet we answer no questions without payment,” said the third.

“I brought an offering,” Bethany said.

“Bring it forward.”

At the far edge of the circle of candles, a chain descended suddenly from the darkness above. On its end was a thick metal hook. Bethany walked to it, hung the birdcage on the hook, and stepped back again.

The darkness on the other side of the candles seemed to swell, billowing forward to envelope the birdcage. In the dark I heard the starlings struggle, flapping their wings in panic. Their shrill birdcalls were cut off a moment later with a sickening crunch.

I looked down and noticed the tiny bones scattered among the feathers on the floor. The birds weren’t pets. They were snacks.

The darkness receded, leaving an empty birdcage behind. Another, smaller circle of candelabras appeared suddenly, deeper inside the chamber, illuminating an old wooden table with an hourglass on top of it. As I watched, the sands in the hourglass began to fall.

“Ask your questions and we will answer,” a voice said. “When the sand runs out, we will answer no more.”

Bethany took another deep breath, steeling herself. “We seek the location of Stryge’s body.”

“You will find him to the north, in the same place where he fell in battle.”

“Stryge still sits upon his throne, entombed deep beneath the stones of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa.”

“And the stones of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert.”

“And Bonnefont-en-Comminges.”

“And Trie-en-Bigorre.”

“And Froville.”

Bethany shook her head. “Wait, I don’t understand. I don’t know those names. Please, we don’t have time for riddles. Can’t you just tell us where his body is?”

“We have answered your question already. We will not answer it a second time. Yet the sand still runs. Time remains for other questions, and other answers.”

Bethany swallowed hard and nodded. She thought for a moment, then said, “If we’re too late and Stryge wakes up, how can we kill him?”

“What you ask is impossible. Stryge is an Ancient.”

“A primal entity forged in magic and eternity.”

“You may as well ask how to kill the sky, or the wind.”

“But there has to be a way to stop him,” Bethany insisted. “Willem Van Lente managed to cut off Stryge’s head. How?”

“The answer to that question is shielded even from us.”

“Shielded by Willem Van Lente’s own will.”

“Perhaps you should ask him yourself.”

“We can’t,” Bethany said. “He’s been dead for centuries.”

“No. Willem Van Lente yet lives.”

“He’s alive?” Bethany demanded, incredulous. The oracles didn’t reply, presumably because they’d answered that question already.

I blurted out, “Where is he?” Bethany tried to stop me, but it was too late.

“At last, it speaks,” the first voice said.

“The mighty warrior has returned,” the second said.

“Returned in the guise of a man,” said the third.

“A man that is not a man.”

I stared up into the darkness. “What are you talking about? What does that mean?”

“It has forgotten.”

“It has forgotten what it is.”

“It remembers nothing of its past.”

“I’m not an it,” I said, growing angry. “And frankly, I’m tired of people treating me like one.”

“It does not even know what it is.”

“It is a threat, that is what it is.”

“No,” I said, “you’re wrong.”

“It is a danger to all who live.”

“You’re wrong!” I shouted up at them. “I have an amulet now. I’m not a danger to anyone anymore.”

The oracles remained silent for a long moment. I thought maybe I’d gotten my point across. Then, out of the darkness came a booming voice. “It thinks it has a choice. It does not.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded. “What am I?”

“An abomination.”

“A menace.”

“It is a combination of elements that were never meant to be combined.”

“As long as it walks upon this world, as long as it dwells among us, it puts us all in peril.”

“No, you’re lying!” I yelled. “God damn it, if you know what I am, tell me!”

“We have answered your question.”

“Like hell you have!”

“Then seek out the Mistress of the Dead,” the first voice said.

“The Mother of Wraiths,” the second said.

“She knows,” the third said. “She knows all who have passed through the dark that separates the cities of the living from the cities of the dead.”

“You mean Reve Azrael?” I said. “How does she know what I am? What’s the connection between us?”

“We have answered your question.”

“Tell me!” They remained silent, which only made my blood boil more. “Tell me, God damn it! You think I’m dangerous now? Keep pissing me off and you’ll see just how dangerous I can be!”

Bethany grabbed me by the arm. “Don’t,” she said. “You’ve got to keep it together. This isn’t why we’re here.”

I was beginning to understand why the vampire clan elder had wanted to kill the oracles. I wanted to wring their necks myself, but Bethany was right. This was getting us nowhere, and we didn’t have the time to waste. “They’re wrong about me,” I told her, but doubts were already starting to sneak into my mind. How could I be so sure? Everything about me was wrong, my aura, my scent, my memories. I was so wrong even death wouldn’t take me. What if the oracles were right? What if I really was something awful?

Bethany let go of my arm and looked up into the darkness. “I’m sorry about my friend. He didn’t mean it. Please, we need your help.”

“It is too late,” the first voice said. “The sands have run out.”

I looked over at the table. The sands of the hourglass had emptied into the lower half.

“No, wait, please,” she begged them. “If Willem Van Lente is still alive, you’ve got to tell us where to find him. He’s the only one who can stop Stryge.”

“Your time is up.”

“Your questions have been answered.”

The candles extinguished, plunging us into darkness. Behind us, the doors swung open on their own.

“Please, you’re our last chance!” Bethany cried into the dark. “You have to help us!”

No one answered.