The Labyrinth of the Dead Read Online Free Page B

and
demons. Doesn’t your kind hunt demons? Oughtn’t you know that?" She made her
way to a small stair at the rear of the building. "Come on up, we’ll be safe
here."
    Hesitating, Portia opened the front
door a crack and peered outside. The heavy fog had puffed and plumed into tall
thunderheads, bruise-purple against the black sky. A hollow wail reverberated
between them and a distant roll of thunder answered. Within the shadows of the
buildings, darker shapes skittered and writhed. At first there was no
discernable pattern to their movements, but they soon seemed to scent her and
migrated toward the ramshackle jeweler’s shop. Claire had certainly not
mentioned this.
    "Shut the door!" Kanika’s
sharp cry jolted Portia into action, and she slammed the heavy oaken door on
the approaching gremlins. A pale blue sigil carved into the door flared to
life, and she could hear the shadow creatures move away, although the storm
broke with ferocity above them. "Didn’t I warn you? Now, come on upstairs, it’s
quite comfortable, I assure you."
    The loft above the shop was indeed
cozy. A feather mattress lay alongside the least crumbling wall and a wobbly
table bore up a chipped pitcher and basin. A small hand-cranked generator
connected to a bare light bulb mounted on the wall by way of a thick braid of
cords that stretched across the floor.
    "Not so close to the light—the floor
there is not sound."
    "That explains what the genny is doing way over there, then. Do you live here?"
    "Just when I need a safe place to sleep
at night, which isn’t always, but most of the time." Kanika settled into the
bed, rolling the flattened pillow under her neck. "There’s more bedding and
some clothes in the trunk," she said, pointing to the battered steamer chest
near the foot of the bed.
    "Where does all this stuff come from?
How does it get here?"
    "You sure ask a lot of questions! I
don’t know how it gets here, only that it stays. I think things fall through
the ether, you know? Like when you are missing just one stocking? Or just one
earbob? You never find it again, even though you had it just a minute ago and
now it’s just gone. It ends up here. And some things get sent here or brought
here. Mostly by the necromancer and demonomancer
types."
    Portia gazed at the assemblage of
books, knick-knacks and bits of familiar technology like a typewriter and an
electric tea kettle. "How do you come by it? Do you pay for it?"
    The girl nodded. "With this." She held
out her hand, and sitting on her palm was a small, rusty grey disk. It looked
like a very old, very weathered copper penny. "This is shadow-gold. And in case
you were wondering, it isn’t gold at all! Go on, feel it!"
    She dumped the coin into Portia’s hand
and it scalded as it touched her flesh. It fell to the floorboards with a
leaden sound, and Portia backed away. "What is that?"
    "In the shadow-side, it is the only
thing of any real value. It is made with the scraps and remnants of souls, all
bonded and compressed into a single, perfect coin. Everything else here is just
frivolous dross." Kanika fetched her coin back and cradled it in her hand. She
ran a finger along its edge and cooed, "Imogen? Are you in there? Im-o-gen?" Then bent her ear over as if to listen for a
reply.
    Portia was disgusted. "If you don’t
mind, my dear, I think I must be going. I will take my chances with the storm."
    "No, no, don’t go! I’m sorry. That was
awful of me, wasn’t it?" Kanika stashed the coin away and looked up at Portia
with eyes gone wide and weeping. "I get so lonely, and sometimes, well,
sometimes my mind thinks things are funny when they really aren’t. I oughtn’t
have said that; it was cruel. Please forgive me? Besides, you promised you’d
help me!"
    A peal of thunder rocked the building
and was answered by a chorus of hungry-sounding howls. "Just don’t do it again.
Don’t say anything like that again. Imogen is whole and she is somewhere safe,
just like we