The Silver Mask (Magisterium #4)(34)

Call didn’t know how to answer that. Instead, he said, “Tell me what you remember last.”

“We were in the woods,” Aaron said. Some color was starting to come back to his face. His eyes were still plain green, the way they always had been, no hint of spinning color. And no Chaos-ridden could talk, Call reminded himself. Not like this, in full, normal sentences. “We were looking for Tamara….”

Aaron crinkled up his nose in thought. Call let his hands go, and Aaron flexed his fingers. Normal hands, normally flushed skin, normal pulse in his throat … Call’s heart was banging wildly. He’d done it, he’d brought Aaron back, he’d accomplished the impossible …

“And then Alex turned on us,” Aaron went on. He was frowning more deeply now. “He was the traitor, all the time. He had the Alkahest. He made us kneel down …”

Wait, Call realized. This was about to get bad. “Aaron, it’s all right. You don’t have to —”

But Aaron had begun to shiver. Not small shivers as if he were cold, but shivers that made his whole body flinch. He clutched at the edge of the gurney. “We knelt down,” he said. “There was a blast. You were knocked away from me. I saw the white light of the Alkahest. It filled the sky. Call …” He raised haunted, green eyes. “What happened? Please tell me it wasn’t what I think.”

Call could only shake his head. Aaron was staring at his own hands. They were pale and looked ordinary to Call. But Aaron seemed to recoil from them.

Call realized what Aaron was looking at, then: His nails had grown long and ragged. Nails and hair grow after death, Call remembered. Aaron’s hair was too long, too, curling past his ears.

“Call,” Aaron said. “Was I — was I — ?”

Call cut him off desperately. “There’s no time. We have to get out of here. We have to move before someone finds us. Aaron, please.”

Aaron hesitated — then nodded. The desperation in Call’s voice seemed to have broken through his suspicions. He slid off the metal table, landing on his bare feet.

His legs gave way instantly. He crumpled to the ground and rolled over, groaning. Call leaned over him, as Aaron curled into an agonized ball. His hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat. “My legs — they’re burning —”

A laugh cut through the room. A loud, incredulous, harsh laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Call straightened up. It was Alex, in another one of his black outfits, standing in the doorway. Call’s heart sank.

Aaron pushed himself up onto his hands, kneeling. He’d gone a sort of waxy white color. “Not you,” he said. “You can’t be here. No.”

“I never thought you’d do it.” Alex swaggered into the room. “I never thought you’d have the nerve, Constantine Junior.”

Call flung himself between Aaron and Alex. “Stay away from him — from us,” Call said.

“Sure,” Alex drawled. “I’ll just wander off and pretend you didn’t just raise someone from the dead, which literally no one has ever successfully done before —”

Aaron screamed.

It was an awful noise. Both Call and Alex flinched back as the inhuman howl tore out of Aaron’s throat. He clawed at the ground, shoulders shaking, but there were no tears on his face. He wasn’t crying.

“Aaron!” Call knelt down. “You have to calm down. Please calm down.”

Aaron went limp. “I’m dead,” he whispered. “I died. That’s why everything looks gray and — and awful —”

The doors flew open. Master Joseph burst into the room, followed by Jasper and Tamara. His hand was raised, a core of fire burning in his palm. He’d come in response to Aaron’s scream, but now he went still, staring at Aaron in shock. He suddenly looked much older, his skin too tight, his mouth pinched into a line.

“My God,” he said.

Alex gave a bitter laugh. “Nothing to do with God here.”

“Get him up,” said Master Joseph hoarsely. “Get him on his feet. I need to see he’s alive.”

Call swung around to protect Aaron, but Alex was already there, hauling Aaron into a standing position. Aaron raised his face, looking past Master Joseph, seeing Tamara and Jasper there in the doorway. Jasper’s face was a mask of surprise, but Tamara — Tamara looked as if she’d fallen a long way and knocked all the air out of her body. Like she couldn’t breathe.

“Tamara,” Aaron whispered.

Tamara threw both her hands over her mouth and took a step back, almost slamming into Jasper, who caught her by the arm. She was shaking her head back and forth, her dark braids whipping across her face. Call felt a wave of sickness pass over him. “Tamara,” he began.

“Be quiet,” said Master Joseph. “All of you, be quiet.” He was staring at Aaron as if Aaron really were a ghost. As if he’d never imagined his plan could actually work. As if he’d never thought Aaron would live again.

“You did it,” he said. His gaze was on Aaron, but he was obviously speaking to Call. “I was right. I was right to leave the task of raising the dead to you, Constantine. You did it!”

“Call.” Jasper’s voice had sunk to a flat whisper. “You did this?”

Call realized he should have planned this a lot better. He shouldn’t have raised Aaron without a way to get him out of there — without a way for them all to escape together the way Tamara had hoped. He should have found a way to do it when the commotion wouldn’t have woken up the whole house.