Vicki Pettersson - The Taste Of Night

Now I was sure Joaquin had done something to piss off the Tulpa. Because dear ol’ Dad, fond of intricate puzzles and mental games, was playing with both of us. Hopefully that would unnerve Joaquin enough to have him second-guessing himself into fatal distraction. Even so, I still had to get in…and there was no telling how many electrified walls I had to touch just to find the entrance.

Deadly to the player who enters but doesn’t exit , Hunter had said, talking of this maze. And I’d stepped into the game the minute I ran out of Valhalla. Question was, how would I make my way to Ian without getting zapped with enough volts to power a small city? The first jolt still hummed in my brain like a hive. And how would I get a mortal out of this thing without frying him like butter on a griddle?

“You jump,” Hunter said, when I called him on my cell phone and gave him the condensed version of events. The urgency in my voice must have convinced him not to waste time questioning me.

“Jump,” I repeated, as visions of green-faced children winging through the air popped into my mind.

“Just keep your legs together so when you land you don’t straddle a wall and get the ride of your life.” He paused, before adding. “By default, that is.”

“Glad you can joke at a time like this.”

“Was I joking?” he deadpanned. “Besides, I’m just trying to keep you loose. Relax, okay? And focus. Remember, sight is your least valuable tool. Try to tap into your sixth sense.”

Focus, I thought, and took a deep breath. That’s what Tekla had repeated during our sessions together-the need for clarity of mind, the harnessing of intention. Never mind that I’d never managed to break down even one of her glass walls. I swallowed hard. “You stay on the line, okay? I might need you to-”

“Talk you through it?” he finished, when I couldn’t. I nodded, realized he couldn’t see it, and made an affirmative noise. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t want to die alone.

The sound of feet pounding across asphalt kept me from getting too self-reflective. I whipped out my conduit, fired an arrow through the open doorway, heard a halting scuttle, and fired a second shot just to buy myself a little more time. Turning back, I spoke into the phone. “Hold on.”

Intention, inshmention-I just leaped. I expected the up-swing to be just fine, and was already bracing for the fall when I slammed facefirst against a barrier a good thirty feet in the air. The blow knocked me back another ten, and as I dropped, my legs ricocheted off a second wall, flinging me backward so I landed on my spine. I came to a stop against yet another wall, and scuttled away from it as its jarring power combined with the previous two. I felt like an electrified pinball.

The commotion, of course, brought Joaquin sprinting inside.

“Ah. The maze,” he said, looking at the three panels my graceless flight had lit up. He didn’t sound surprised or impressed. That couldn’t be good. I kept my eyes on him-once they could focus again-and as he sauntered to the right his mouth moved like he was counting, and he paced in steady, measured steps.

No, I thought again, that couldn’t be good at all.

I closed my eyes, and cursed, because I suddenly knew exactly what the Tulpa was doing.

If she can be killed by the likes of you, I don’t want her .

Those words alone should’ve told me he wasn’t just going to give me a head start and let me waltz away with the cure for the virus. Nope, every time I touched one of these walls my power and energy were sucked back into the maze. Back, I thought, into the Tulpa. No wonder he hadn’t killed me. My power would’ve reverted to my mother, just like Stryker’s had reverted to Tekla. Our lineage was matriarchal…but this way he could claim it for himself.

Ian, meanwhile, had begun screaming again at the sight of Joaquin, words pouring over one another as tears and sweat rolled down his face. I tried to shush him, to let him know he was only fueling Joaquin’s ego with his fear, but he was too panicked to listen. Not that I blamed him.

Joaquin finished his pacing and halted with his hands on his hips, regarding Ian sourly. “What a pussy.”

I shot him a look of pure hatred as I gained my feet, steady despite wobbly knees, and checked my phone long enough to determine my connection with Hunter had gone dead when I hit the electrified barriers. “Well, what do you expect when you kidnap him, beat his face to shit, and tie him up?” I said, tossing the phone to the ground.

“But I didn’t beat him at all, did I, Ian?” He blew Ian a kiss. The crying escalated. “No, I was real sweet to your boyfriend. In fact, after he decoded your computer for me, we had ourselves a real nice party. Didn’t we, honey?”

Ian whimpered again, and this time I made out what he said. Don’t hurt me anymore .

“You rancid bastard.”

Joaquin smiled my way. “A couple more minutes and I’ll let you say that to my face.”

And he stepped forward, counting again. I didn’t need a wall to light up to know he’d entered the maze. Panic must have shown on my face because Joaquin’s eyes remained fixated on me as he counted off five paces, before pivoting left as he spoke again. “He always starts on the right.”

And he face-planted into a stinging sheet of balled energy. I’d have laughed as his eyes rolled into his skull, except my own had probably resembled slot reels only seconds before. The energy pulled from Joaquin into the maze zipped like a current through the rest of the walls, and I followed it with my head as it crackled past me, realizing I could track it to move another few feet either way without getting zapped. Question was, which way was forward and which way was back?

“Ian. Hey, Ian!” I snapped my fingers, and when that brought no alertness to his vacant stare, clapped my hands as hard as I could. “Ian, you have to help me here. I need you to count for me. Count the number of steps I take, and remember the directions I turn. You can do that, right?”

He cocked his head to the left, but the glassy look was slowly returning to his eyes.

“Ian?” I yelled, which had him blinking again.

“I-I don’t know.”

My gut tightened. I couldn’t do this alone. “I need your help if you want me to get you out of here. I’m going to be too dazed from hitting walls I can’t see. I won’t remember the path to the center of the maze, and I sure won’t remember how many steps I took along each corridor. I need you to focus for me, okay?”

His brows knit together and his eyes welled up as his head jerked. No. I sighed. “I can’t.”

“You can, Ian. Just concentrate on the numbers.” But I was losing him. I could practically feel the icy fear rending him immobile, freezing his thoughts, causing him to anticipate death. “Look, what’s math, anyway, but one mental pathway leading to another? Follow the path, and you get to the answer, right?” He nodded, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, well, you’re the answer. I’m coming to get you. Just keep track of how my footsteps add up.”

And before he thought I was giving him a choice, I paced to my right, keeping my steps as uniform as possible. I hit my next wall only three paces away, and this time controlled my direction as I was repelled away from it. An ache started in my jaw, an old filling I’d forgotten was there until now. I pressed my tongue to it, hissing through my teeth when I burned the top of it. I knew I was going about this all wrong-there was another way around this maze, something I was supposed to remember or know how to do-but I couldn’t jump as the walls obviously arched all the way to the ceiling, and I didn’t know how to anticipate what I couldn’t see.