PHOEBE'S BROTHER'S expression didn't change. Z.J. carefully began to reach for one of his concealed stiletto blades.
"My sister is going to be strong. He's going to change her."
Z.J. realized what Theo meant. "Are you out of your goddamn mind?"
Theo rose, smiling and inhuman. "Phoebe and I are descended from a Greek hero. We'll be a king and a queen--"
"You know"--Z.J. had hold of the stiletto sheathed at his back--"I always thought Greek heroes were kind of assholes."
Theo grinned and flung the glass ball away. It vanished over a corrugate wall.
Z.J. lunged at Theo, intent on hamstringing him enough so that he wouldn't be a problem. But Theo was gone in a whisper of movement. "I'll leave you to the minotaur, taltu."
Shaking, Z.J. pushed to his feet, his back against the wall.
The Jack hadn't found the fishing line. Z.J. breathed out and squinted in the dark. His eyes would eventually adjust to the gloom. He could see an emerald light beneath the corrugate wall. He just needed to get to the other side and get the light back.
The minotaur won't change Phoebe. He'll eat her.
His heartbeat became louder than his breathing as he forged through the maze. He couldn't seem to find the light ball and realized he'd have to leave it--he could see in the gloom well enough.
When he heard something snuffling on the other side of he corrugate wall, his guts heaved.
--he remembered lying on the cement floor, and all the blood. He hadn't been able to save her.
He'd been fourteen.
He heard a girl cry out and ferocity swept through him. He ran toward the cry, zigzagging through the maze of metal. He scarcely felt the cuts and bruises he received whenever he struck something.
He burst into a room with a cement floor patterned with stains that seemed black in the moonlight pearling through a broken skylight.
Phoebe stood in the middle of the room, her head down. She was drenched in blood.
Adrenaline shot through him, along with terror. "Phoebe."
She didn't move. He couldn't hear anything, not even her breathing. It had been like this with Ivy, who had been propped there by the minotaur, blood-soaked, dead.
The minotaur struck him hard. Z.J. flew back against the wall. It came at him, quick, still in its mortal guise of a young man with white hair and a blood-streaked grin. It grabbed Z.J. by the throat.
Z.J. drove a stiletto into the minotaur's right eye.
He was dropped. The minotaur reeled back, then raised its face, half of which had cracked to reveal a horror beneath . The shadow of one bull horn spiraled from the brow. One malignant eye glinted like a pool of toxic green.
It came at him, too swift. Z.J. avoided a slash of one hook-nailed hand.
"The mistletoe!" Z.J. yelled. "Where--"
"I smashed it." The minotaur circled Z.J., careful of the knives in Z.J.'s hands. "You came without a proper weapon, taltu."
He slammed Z.J. against the wall. Z.J. plunged two stilettos into the minotaur's chest. It laughed, then began pressing a clawed hand over his heart. "Haven't you learned anything? You need the heart of a queen, boy, to kill me."
Z.J., fighting for air, spoke as a shadow rose over the minotaur, "Then have a heart, you fucker."
The minotaur froze.
Phoebe slammed the wooden heart pendant with its sharp point into the back of the minotaur's skull. The minotaur's mouth opened, and continued to open, grotesquely, until its face was a black hole. Its body cracked like dry earth. Darkness spilled out in glittering ribbons.
Then there was only its clothing and a broken bull skull and a scattering of human teeth.
Phoebe sank to her haunches and gazed at Z.J. through a mask of blood. He sat up. He said hoarsely, "Is that your blood?"
She shook her head. "Other . . . victims." Her voice broke. "He saved their blood in wine bottles. I'm going to puke--"
"Don't. Breathe. Just breathe. That's it. Keep getting in air." He hunkered beside her and patted her on the back as she did as he instructed.
"My brother . . ." There was no grief in her voice, only rage. "You were right."
"I'm sorry. It was just...I had a feeling."
She looked at him. "You are bashed up something fierce."
"It wasn't after you. It was after me. Your brother made a deal with it. He's not himself anymore, Phoebe."
"I know I've lost him." Her voice was ragged. "I have to let him go and it hurts."
"I know." He lifted the wooden heart. Acacia wood, he recognized it. One of the rarest and most powerful woods in the world. And she, Clementine, had placed her heart inside of it. He traced it with his fingers. "Letting go does hurt. Where did you get this from?"
"It was my brother's."
***
Clementine sat in her chair in the courtyard and watched as Z.J. and Phoebe--cleaned up but battered--walked toward her. Phoebe held up the acacia heart. "You gave this to my brother. Your heart."
Clementine accepted it. "I thank you, Phoebe."
Phoebe stepped back. "I still don't trust you."
"But you will. And that will be a greater gift than what you have returned to me today. You will stay?"
Phoebe glanced at Z.J. "I'll stay. Z.J." She reached out. "I'll see you."
"Are you sure?" he asked, low-voiced.
"Yes. Don't worry."
Z.J. glanced warningly at Clementine, then said, "Good luck," and strode away.
Clementine was waiting for hi at the gates leading onto the street. He halted and grimaced. Clementine, her arms folded, regarded him with a stern look that was unsettling on her young face. She said, "You're not going to see her again." It wasn't a demand--it was a guess.
"Well, since I might have to kill her crazy, homicidal Jack of a brother..." He shrugged, but his chest was tight with regret. He didn't plan on seeing Phoebe anymore.
The Queen of the Beautiful House walked toward him. "I can take it all away, all of those memories. The Black Scissors will respect your choice. You can be ordinary and happy. Or a hero and...well...are heroes ever happy?"
He narrowed his eyes. "You people think you made me what I am, playing at being gods like you do? You didn't. and, you're right, I don't need to be like this. I'll see Phoebe, even if I have to deal with you lot and hunt a Jack..."
Clementine vanished in a sweeping, gauzy darkness.
Z.J. sighed. Even though he'd won, he still felt as if he'd been swindled somehow. But not in a bad way.
He found himself smiling as he pushed the gates open and strolled down the street, away from The Beautiful House.
The End
