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  He faced me, but his eyes kept jittering toward the chaos god, who now studied us as if we had done something interesting. “I can’t help it. I want to do what he needs so bad. It’s worse than I have ever wanted anything before. Food, sex … anything.” His eyes slid completely away from mine. His voice became strangled, like the next words hurt him to say. “Even more than I want you.”

  “Do not fear, Acolyte. I will not take the sacrifice from him. He could not withstand it. There is another way.”

  I turned. The Man in Black stood in the same place, his arms were wide, red right hand gleaming in the incandescent light of the entranceway. The fingers twisted, wrapping around each other as if they had too many knuckles or no knuckles at all. Watching them move made my head buzz. The tail of his coat shifted, stretching and rolling, becoming longer, long enough to curl and rise in inky tendrils of utter darkness. Its shape changed, transmuting into something with jagged curves and spiky points. A tendril rose in a corkscrew, turning as it lengthened to a needle-thin point in front of Nyarlathotep’s face. He nodded once, a sharp up and down, and the needle tendril turned. It hung for a moment, a long moment, before driving itself against the discolored air.

  It struck with a sharp CRACK! and the air splintered.

  Three things happened. One, the air discolored, crackling where the coat stabbed with energy the sickly greenish color of a still-healing bruise. Two, my nose clogged with the stench of spoiled bacon cooking.

  And three, my head filled with singing, a weird alien song not made by a human voice. It boomed into my mind, a choir of ill children, frantic, urgent, and desperate.

  The coat screamed, and I could hear it.

  My hands clamped the side of my head, but it did no good. I could still hear it, still feel it ringing in my ears, splinters of sound pricking the membrane of my eardrum. I watched the needle tendril spread, displacing the fogged air, pushing it wide, roiling into a bigger space. The screaming grew louder.

  “Stop, you’re hurting it!”

  The Man in Black’s voice was cold. “This is the sacrifice that must be made, Acolyte. Something must take the agony of the wards. It will not be me.”

  “I’ll do it then. I’ll take it if you will just stop hurting the coat.” The screaming broke, crumbling into a desperate, whining mewl. A sound full of anguish and sorrow. A sound of hopelessness. I knew that sound. I’d made that sound. Memory rose, a physical thing moving through my body, coating my bones with lead. I knew the kind of pain it took to force those sounds from something. Fighting past it I said, “I’ll be the one.”

  “You cannot. You are a mere mortal. The wards would burn you to ash.”

  His words were callous, uncaring.

  The coat changed where it stabbed the air, morphing itself into an opening that kept widening. Curls of smoke lifted off it, and the darkness that made it quivered and shook. Inside my head I could feel the coat weeping in despair. It rang across my mind, sorrow rising up like floodwater. I knew what it felt like to be in pain so unrelenting that all you want is the grace of death, the peace that must come from giving up, lying down, ceasing to be. Pain that convinced you that whatever came on the other side of that door had to be better than what you were going through in that very moment.

  Nyarlathotep’s indifference cut through that, striking the chord of anger that ran through me, the chord that had been struck after that long-ago night. Rage, the deep and abiding rage that lived inside, boiled up in a conflagration. My hand lashed out, reaching for the coat to pull it free.

  Daniel grabbed my arm.

  “Charlie, don’t. Don’t make him angry.”

  Angry? Make him angry?

  I was so furious that Daniel’s words were a buzz. Temples throbbing, blood hot in my veins, I looked at his hand on my wrist. “Let. Go.”

  “Calm down. You have to be cool.”

  I swung the stick at his head.

  He ducked, his high-school wrestler reflexes still intact, and leaned back. His hand came off my arm. Fury boiled behind my eyes, making me headblind, only able to attack without thinking. I lunged, stick heavy in my hand, raised to swing. Daniel stepped in and wrapped his arms around me, crushing me to his chest, trapping me against him.

  The anger doused cold with instant panic.

  TrappedstuckcantmovecantgetfreeohgodohgodOHGOD …

  I froze, my mind melting down. I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t escape the feel of his face pressed against mine, the smell of man.

  I drowned.

  He lifted me, my feet off the ground, and my stomach sickened with the feeling of motion; panic made me blind for a moment, my sight washed black. Forever seemed to pass before he set me on my feet, his arms disappearing from around me. My knees gave out. The ground hit hard on my hip and shoulder, driving out the breath I had been holding, jarring me out of panic with sharp pain. My vision swam clear in time for me to see the Man in Black step toward us through the hole in the air his coat had made. Once he was through, the coat collapsed behind him, falling to the ground as if soaking wet. The end of it lay in tatters, long and limp around his feet.

  The coat fell silent inside my head.

  15

  “WHAT THE HELL was that?” Daniel asked this time, yelling at the Man in Black. I sat up on the grass, still shaky from my panic attack. We were inside the wards.

  “Apparently my coat and my Acolyte are forming some type of bond.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The Man in Black looked down. His voice was sharp, a scalpel cutting through a clenched jaw. “You forget yourself, minion.”

  Daniel thrust out his chest, his hands knotted tightly into fists. “You have to stop hurting her.”

  “I have to what?” The Man in Black’s voice burned hot. “Kneel before me.”

  Daniel’s spine straightened with a jerk. I couldn’t see his face—he stood between me and the Man in Black—but every muscle in his back quivered against his shirt. Narrowing his black eyes, the Dark God continued to stare at Daniel. Coldness seeped around Daniel’s body, brushing over me. My breath curled in white wisps of condensation as the temperature plummeted. My mouth went sour with the taste of dark magick. Daniel took the brunt of it, the focus of Nyarlathotep’s attention.

  I wanted to grab Daniel and scream at him to stop, just stop, before the Man in Black hurt him. I wanted to cheer him on. I wanted to give him my strength.

  I wanted to kiss him for trying to protect me.

  The magick rolled off the Man in Black, heavy and oppressive. Bricks stacked on a sheet of glass.

  The Man in Black’s hand, his red right hand, slipped out of his coat raw and glistening against the inky fabric.

  The glass shattered into a million pieces.

  Daniel’s knees bent, slamming into the ground at the feet of the Midnight Man. His head dropped to his chest. “I am here to serve you, Master. My place is at your feet.” The words came out in a strangled whisper.

  “Forget again, and I will have you flayed, salted, and hung in my bedchambers for my entertainment.”

  “Yes … Master.”

  The Man in Black stepped around Daniel. I scrambled to my feet so he wouldn’t loom over me. My knees were still weak, but I dragged myself up. I didn’t want him standing over me while I sat on the ground. Horror lay heavy in my stomach.

  What are we dealing with?

  “Your mind is your own again. Good. We need to seek the elder god who is here.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not up for another teleporting act.”

  Daniel stood. He caught my eye and shook his head. I took it as a sign to let go of what had happened to him. I didn’t know what else to do about it, so I did.

  For now.

  “Ashtoreth’s gift will not be necessary to take us there.” The Man in Black’s head tilted slightly. “Now pick up the firebrand and follow me.”

  I picked up the burnt stick as he turned and began walking through the empty lobby. Daniel mov
ed beside me. As one we followed the chaos god and his trailing, tattered coat.

  I had a very bad feeling in my stomach.

  16

  THE EAGLES’ “HOTEL California” played softly through the elevator’s sound system. The cheap speakers made Don Henley’s voice sound hollow and karaokesque, turning the soft-rock masterpiece into something haunting and melancholy, a splintered bow drug across the violin strings of my nerves.

  I hear you, Glenn. I can check out anytime I like, but I can never leave.

  “Hey.”

  I looked over at Daniel. We were standing against the opposite walls of the elevator. The Man in Black watched the numbers count up, ignoring us. My back pressed hard against the little handrail that ran along the walls. I was still jumpy, still jittery. I wasn’t flexing my hand; I wasn’t panicking again; but I could feel it skritching at the edges of my brain. Normally I had distance between me and full-on meltdown mode. It took years of therapy to get it, but I had it. Now, after the small episode in the lobby, I wasn’t even inches away. No, once I had one I was left raw and exposed, all my defenses torn away.

  And the music wasn’t helping.

  Daniel’s whisper filled the small, square space. “Did you know this is a Satan song?”

  I blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yeah, it’s true. This song is all about Satanism.”

  “‘Hotel California’ is about Satan?”

  He nodded vigorously. “An evangelist came to my mom’s church and told us all about it.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “He did come to my mom’s church. Brother Hank something-or-other. I was fourteen at the time.”

  This was a good distraction. I went with it. “I believe a guy came to the church. I don’t believe Hotel California is about the Devil.”

  “You just have to listen to the evidence. I didn’t believe it either when I was told, but now…” His eyes slid to the Man in Black, then back to me.

  Ah.

  “Explain it for me then.”

  Anything to keep my mind occupied.

  Daniel moved over beside me. I watched him. His hands still shook slightly, but he had the easy grace of an athlete, every movement made with confidence. He leaned next to me and talked out the side of his mouth so we could both watch the Man in Black. His fingers ran through thick hair, pulling it forward in a cute, boyish, unconscious habit.

  “Okay, it’s like this. The song starts out with this guy on a highway, and he sees this hotel. When he gets there, he finds a girl who tells him it could be heaven or hell. Well … it’s hell.” Daniel’s eyes were big, really wanting me to believe what he said. “Then he calls for some wine, and the guy tells him they haven’t had that spirit there since nineteen sixty-nine. Guess what was founded in nineteen sixty-nine.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “The Church of Satan! In a hotel that Anton LaVey bought in California.” His hand grabbed my arm, emphasizing the fervor in his voice. “Wine is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. That hotel really wouldn’t have had it since sixty-nine. And if you look on the album cover, guess who’s on it, hidden in an archway?”

  “Satan?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Anton LaVey.” He nodded as he made this point. “I saw it myself.”

  “Who’s Anton LaVey again?”

  “The guy who started the Church of Satan.”

  I looked sideways at him. “That’s pretty thin.”

  His eyebrows creased together. It was kinda cute. “Then how about this. There’s a line about stabbing the Beast with knives, but it won’t die. The Beast is another name for the Antichrist, and in Revelation he gets stabbed in the head but doesn’t die.” His hand still lay on my arm.

  I smiled. I hadn’t expected it, but his enthusiasm for this explanation was contagious and … charming. This was the Daniel I knew. I pushed that out of my head, holding onto the balance the conversation brought to me, running with it. “I don’t know. That’s pitchy.”

  His hand moved away, his arms crossing over his chest, a playful pout on his face. “You don’t believe it?”

  “You do?”

  His eyes cut meaningfully at the Man in Black’s back. “Even more than I did before.”

  “I get that.”

  “I can hear you.” The Man in Black didn’t turn around. His voice echoed inside the elevator.

  “So, is it true?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “John’s Revelation has not happened yet.”

  “Was that a yes?”

  The elevator chimed. The doors split open, and the Man in Black stepped through them without answering.

  Neither of us said anything as we followed him, leaving our glimmer of a good mood eviscerated on the floor of the elevator.

  17

  WE STEPPED INTO a recovery ward, closed off behind a nurses’ station. Behind it sat a pleasantly plump woman in a gleaming white uniform. Hair the color of a new penny frothed under a nurse’s cap straight out of the fifties. Her skin had the shape and shade of uncooked biscuit dough, making the hair look brassy and fake. Not like a cheap dye job, but the color and consistency of fine copper wire.

  “Can I help you?” Her voice was chipper and high pitched. Pushed through a wide, saccharine smile, it squeaked like a dog toy.

  Immediately my nerves were on edge.

  Nyarlathotep stepped to the counter in a swirl of midnight coat. He stood in stark contrast to the nurse, sinister and saturnine against her gleam. Looming, his head tilted slightly, he spoke. “Stand aside.”

  A hand fluttered over pillowy cleavage. “Now, you can’t just barge in here! There are rules, and our patients need order.”

  My fingers tightened on the charred stick I held as tension clamped across the back of my neck, making the vertebrae grind. I looked around, stretching while I did. My neck popped and cracked and felt better. Studying the reception area put the tension right back where it had been.

  I’d been in ICU, a recovery ward, and a psych ward. This place looked nothing like any of them. Those all had things in common. The same bland, abstract paintings on the wall, nonspecific track lighting to diffuse the atmosphere, pastel colors to set visitors and patients at ease. None of that could be found here. Everything gleamed as white as the nurse, unadorned and blank. Harsh light cut from bulbs set into the ceiling, striking the floor in bright pools. Only one painting broke the stark whiteness. It hung down the wall, angled just out of my direct line of sight. I could see it was abstract, but it wasn’t bland. The colors slashed across the canvas like claw marks on bare flesh. I leaned back, trying to look at the painting, to study it, but my eyes kept sliding to the left, going out of focus until a headache started to black-hornet buzz behind them. I turned. “What kind of wing is this?”

  Before the nurse could answer, the Man in Black’s voice whip-cracked at me. “Do not speak to her.”

  The nurse looked up at him, a wide clown grin plastered on her face. Daniel nudged my arm. He pointed at a sign over the automatic doors leading to the rest of the ward.

  ONCOLOGY RECOVERY.

  That explained a lot.

  I don’t just hate hospitals because of what happened to me. No, my hatred of them goes way back. Long before that night, at a time where my memories are lost in the fog of childhood, my dislike of hospitals had been cemented into who I am.

  My grandmother died when I was seven.

  She’d been old my whole life. In my child’s memory she’d been ancient, not even human, just a collection of sticks wrapped in sagging, wrinkled skin. I have no memory of her other than the hospital. I don’t remember when she got sick with cancer, or what she was like before.

  I’ve seen pictures, a pretty woman who looked a lot like my mom, but that’s not the image in my head. No, I remember her as a sad, inhuman thing lying in a bed, curled in pain. She moaned, low and constant, the undulating rhythm of low-yield agony broken only by the sucking in of more breath. I
remember the smell of her, moist and decaying, the scent of her body betraying her bit by bit, strong enough to cut through the astringent bleach and medication smell that all hospitals share.

  I love my mom. I really do. Caught in the sorrow of losing her mother, she had no idea what she did by making me go with her to keep vigil. As an only child, she didn’t have a choice; there was no one else to be with my grandmother and no one else to watch me. So I went with her, every day, all day that summer, until my father came to rescue me, taking me home and leaving my mom behind to stand watch and witness the slow dying, the ebb of life with each thin, tortured inhale and exhale.

  I was there the moment my grandmother died.

  I can still feel it clearly. The very moment the moaning stopped and didn’t start again. The machines hummed and beeped and whirred, but there was a hollowness in the air, a desolation scooped from the atmosphere as my grandmother ceased to live. My mother sat up and looked at me. Both of us were frozen, locked in time by what had just happened between one breath and the next. Neither of us moved for a long moment. Then my mother’s face twitched and cracked and broke, tears spilling down her cheeks, running off her jaw, and splashing her shirt. She slipped off the chair, crumpling to the floor with a sob that turned into a scream.

  I was a child. I didn’t know what to do. I stood there, locked in fear, until strangers rushed in the room and shoved me away.

  “Move aside. I will not tell you again.”

  Nyarlathotep’s voice broke through the memory, snatching me back to what was happening here and now in front of me. His red right hand had slipped out of its pocket. It hung beside him, skinless fingers slightly curled. He looked almost casual, indifferent and unconcerned, but the air crackled with tension.

  “Sir, I will not allow you to disturb our patients.”

  The nurse stood now. Her uniform puckered at the buttons as the fabric strained across a generous middle and spongy breasts the size of my head. Self-conscious, I hunched my shoulders around my own modest B-cup. The nurse’s smile was still in place, cheeks pulled high, stretching lips tight against teeth that were so very white.