So what do we do now?" I shrug the pack from my shoulders.
We're in the gloom of the tower, in a space that shouldn't be. We're somewhere between worlds-a bubble of time and space, its surface marbled with possibilities, and far too many of them are grim. Whether I succeed or fail has never mattered more than now. The walls of the tower are marked at regular intervals with glowing brace symbols. No Stirrer could enter this place.
The air is rank with a back-of-the-throat burning odor of cat piss and vomit. Magic door and what not, it still bloody stinks. There's crushed up fast-food wrappers and soft-drink cans cluttering the floor, and a used condom opposite the door-hardly a clinical place for what I imagine is about to be done. But then maybe that's the point of it. Maybe it has to be rough and raw, and there's certainly something in the air, a little like the quiet expectancy of the doorway to Number Four.
The rain is loud against the metal walls, and the trees outside sound like they are thrashing in the storm as though the riverfront's become some giant's moshpit. Inside the tower, everything rattles and creaks and groans. What's more, there is a bell tolling in the distance: really bloody portentous. I feel like I'm on some sort of carnival ride, one that is exceedingly fast and poorly maintained.
"It's going to hurt," Lissa says. "More than the knife through your hand."
"I know it's going to hurt."
"No, you don't. You just think you do."
"Look, are you trying to talk me out of this? If that's the case I would have been more open to persuasion before we made our way through the storm, before I fell in the mud and was nearly struck by lightning, and before being almost kicked to death by Tremaine. And just where else are we going to go anyway?"
"Have you got that marker and the craft knife?" Even now in the dark, with me scared and sweating, she can't help but smirk. Somehow, it helps.
I dig around in my pack and pull out the marker. The knife is clenched in my hand.
"So you're a Pomp, right," she says. I nod. "Well, you're going to have to be your own conduit. You're going to have to pass through yourself into the land of the dead. Well, to its edges, anyway. You don't want to go too far in-the further you go, the harder it is to come back."
"I'm going to the Underworld? I'm sure every Stirrer I've faced could have sent me there much less painfully."
"And much more permanently," Lissa says.
"Then how am I going to draw Mr. D out? If he's still around."
"He'll be around; he's trapped or hidden somewhere. This ceremony will not only bring you firmly into the Underworld, it'll also break through whatever's holding him. It's essentially a summoning ceremony, but one where you show a real commitment."
"Mr. D won't be happy. You know what he's like."
"Yeah. But trust me, he will be impressed. Do you have a handkerchief or tissue?"
I feel in my pockets. Nothing.
"Then you'll have to use your shirt. You're going to need to soak it in blood."
"All right then." I take off my shirt.
Lissa whistles and I give her a look. It's not like she hasn't seen it all before. But it breaks the tension, and then she's all business.
"You need to cut here and here." She points to two points on my shoulders. "It's absolutely necessary that you sever the arteries there, and only those arteries. They're the portal wounds. I'm sorry, Steve. You've got to bleed for this to work. Profusely. Mark those points with your pen."
I shiver, my skin is all gooseflesh. She reaches out a hand to touch me, and stops just before contact. I look into her eyes and can see her recognition of my fear.
"You'll be all right. The binding ritual went perfectly. Just don't forget that shirt."
The binding had been a quick wank-a little messy, but hardly fatal. I've never felt as close to death as I am now. The precipice is before me and I'm the one who has to step off it. If I look too intently at the edge I know I'm not going to do it.
The adrenaline from the fight and the stabbing of my hand is fading. All I have to do this with is me, terrified and tired me. If I die, at least it'll be on my own terms. That has to mean something.
I mark the two spots Lissa has pointed to. The first one is going to be easy, if driving a knife into your own flesh is ever easy. I click the knife blade free of its plastic sheath. It glows dimly.
Everything is silent. I can't hear the storm. My entire universe has narrowed down to this. There's such a thrumming tension running through me that I could snap. Then all of a sudden my head is pounding, beating time with my heart. This is more horrible than I could have thought, and I haven't even started. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.
I take a breath, and push the knife into my flesh. It's hard to apply the right amount of pressure. My hands don't want to do it, and a lot of me agrees with my hands. Most of me in fact.
But, shit, I need to.
I push and cut. At first there is no pain. That doesn't last.
"Oh, God." Blood spurts, ridiculously and vividly. I drop to my knees.
"Breathe," Lissa says, as though I am giving birth, somehow. I feel naked before her, stripped down to my essence. "Breathe. I'm here with you, Steven. I'm here."
I never realized just how far blood could jet from a wound, and its bursts are fast and forceful because my heart is racing. I'm shaking. Part of me is wondering just how much time I have before I lose consciousness, but that isn't going to get me anywhere. I clamp down on my thoughts with whatever will I have remaining, because there's only one action left to me.
I drive the knife into the shuddering meat of my other shoulder, my hands sticky and slippery with my own blood.
"The shirt," she says.
I've dropped it. Christ, I've gone and dropped it!
A bell is ringing. Ha! The voice of Eric Tremaine is rattling around in my head. How the hell did you survive this far?
I swing my head left and right, searching for the shirt. I'm clumsy, drunk with the loss of blood and the pain and the shock. My vision is spotting, narrowing down. There it is! Away from the mess of my wounds, untouched by blood. Definitely unsanguine. How the fuck did that happen?
It's you, Tremaine says, buried in my head somewhere, a new voice for my own self-loathing. You. Derek's there too, and they're both laughing, having a right old time, slapping each other on the back like the old chums they are. See you in hell.
I scramble desperately toward the shirt, through the blood that was once part of me and that is still pouring from me, though with less and less urgency now. The well is dry, gentlemen. The well is dry. I reach out one bloody paw and grab the shirt. "Lissa-"
Darkness smothers me like death.