The Mortal Bone Read Online Free PDF Page A

he wanted to believe that, I wouldn’t stop him. For him, for any child we had, I would fight. I would fight to my last breath to stay alive and be with them.
    My mother , however, was dead and buried. Dead, now . In the present.
    But not in the past.
    And the Labyrinth was slippery when it came to matters of time.

    WE could have taken a plane, like normal people, but the airport was two hours away, and the flight we needed left in an hour. If we had been normal, we would have waited until the following morning—to sit in a metal box at thirty thousand feet, contending with airsickness, pressure sickness, and the uncomfortable suspicion that I might be claustrophobic.
    We were not, however, normal people.
    Byron was waiting for us on the porch when Grant and I walked down off the hill. He did not comment on my missing tattoos. He never had though his gaze skimmed my pale arms and lingered on the two serpentine demons coiled over my shoulders. Dek and Mal gave him toothy grins, and started humming Heart’s “The Road Home.”
    Byron cleared his throat, and in a voice that was only slightly strained, said, “Grant told me we’re going back.”
    “I thought you’d stay here,” Grant told him, with the same reluctance and conflict I was feeling. We had talked about what to do in moments like this and never come up with a good answer. “I’ll ask Killy—”
    “No.” Byron shook his head, and gave us a hard, grim stare. “No.”
    “Okay,” I said, struggling not to argue with him. I could just leave without the boy, but he would never forgive me for abandoning him. It wasn’t some teen-thing, wanting to be in on the action. I wished it were that simple.
    He had been abused, so deeply, for so long, that he felt safer, and more normal, with us —in the middle of all our craziness—than he did on his own. Like the monsters, the demons, were safer than humans.
    Grant and I shared a brief look—and then I suffered a soft pang as Byron reached behind him on the porch chair and handed me my leather jacket—which was really my mother’s. Like armor, inherited after her death. In his other hand were my knives: a shoulder rig, modified to sheathe a dozen razor-sharp blades, meant to be handled by someone whose skin could not be cut. Good weapons for daylight hours.
    I dressed—all of us quiet, tense. Behind the boy, Raw and Aaz lingered in the farmhouse doorway, watching with big eyes. Somewhere, they had found baseball hats and were wearing them backward over their heads. Spikes poked through the cotton. Little punks. I tried to ignore them as they poured motor oil down their throats. The plastic containers followed, crunched and swallowed in seconds.
    When Raw reached into the shadows and pulled out an ax and a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup, I had to look away. Watching him nibble nervously on a candy-coated blade was making me nervous.
    Zee stood beside them, staring at the bowling bag in Grant’s hand. Then he looked at me. Red eyes blinked once, filled with old, hard memories. Not for the first time, I wished I knew what went on in his head. Just a glimpse of the fire that made him burn.
    My boys. My heart, wrapped around theirs. Once, I would have said that I knew where I began and ended, but not anymore. Grant, even Byron, others who were not here—all of them, holding my heart, giving it a home after years without one.
    Home, I thought, flexing my right hand, with its quicksilver shimmer of armor buried in my forearm like a ragged cuff. I wondered how much of my body I would lose this time.
    “Hold on,” I said, grabbing the front of Byron’s shirt. Grant stepped close, and I wrapped my other hand around his waist, meeting his solemn gaze. The bowling bag bumped my leg. Dek and Mal purred thunder in my ears. Zee, Raw, and Aaz hugged us, releasing their hot breath in three long sighs. I smelled chocolate and burning metal.
    I rolled my right hand into a fist, and the armor tingled.
    A moment later, we