Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 52 - CHOICE

Rayne's new form was a hooved, four-legged creature about twelve feet tall, but the antlers on its head and the spread of its wings gave it a much larger presence. The antlers were twisted in one smooth loop, pointing outward. The creature's neck, tail, wings, and beaked face were covered in layers of interlocking yellow plates, which I could only relate to the plates that covered the backs of some dinosaurs. It was like a dinosaur in some ways, with the long neck and tail, but in others resembled nothing I could put a name to. Its eyes shone a piercing cyan, whereas the rest of it was pale yellow and green.

Huang took a hesitant step toward the creature. "Rayne?"

"That's me, still. I think," she said, raising and lowering a hoof. There was a claw on the back end of it, pointing down.

"Wow," Katie gaped, also moving forward. "What the hell are you? You're like... a deer? A horse? A dragon?"

"Neither..." Rayne said, then took a step forward and shrank, seemingly effortlessly, back into her human form. Her eyes seemed sharp with clarity. "It's... well, it used to be, anyway, its own kind of creature."

"Are you okay?" Huang asked as she, rather casually, descended the staircase. She didn't seem to notice that our surroundings had changed, her eyes staring blankly as if at something else we couldn't see. "I thought you didn't... well, you didn't seem interested in helping us."

She frowned at him, putting her hands in the pockets of her coat. "It's not that, Joshua. It's just that I didn't... well, I didn't really understand that we had no choice."

"And now you do?" I asked. "What... just happened, exactly?"

Rayne cast a look around the new atrium, with its grand walls and impossibly high ceiling. "Wow, this place looks different. The, uh, the souls here. The echoes that are left. They communicated with me."

"What did they say?" I prompted her.

She sighed. "I guess... I guess they were trying to show me the reasons why they did what they did. I don't know. It wasn't like they were speaking to me in words, just... like I could sense the memories that had once been there. Jumbled together."

"Okay, but what did you see?" I asked again.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Maybe we can sit back down and...?" Huang started, looking around for our stabbed table and finding it nowhere. The wide island of tiled stone was bare. Rayne, though, started for the exit.

I hurried to catch up with her. "Why did you decide to transform?"

She shot me a look. "Not much choice, is there? Demons flooding the whole place, you three going on these missions alone. I finally just saw it for what it is. Take the weapon they give you, or die. Not much of a choice, but I guess it is one."

"I was telling you that the whole time, though," I hedged.

She shot me a glare as we stepped onto the walkway that took us to the wooden door, which presumably led back into the front hallway. The water of the moat lapped both sides of the path. "That's all well and good, but I didn't really understand it until now. That's all."

She picked up the pace, but I matched her doggedly. "You're not telling us everything. We're a team now, Rayne, we've been through what you've been through. We should talk about it."

She flung open the wooden door and I managed to avoid getting smacked in the nose. Beyond, the entrance hallway was the same as it had always been, plush carpet and stately windows.

Rayne let out a harsh sigh, seeing that I refused to fall behind, and turned to look at me. "All right, Camilo... Look, here's the thing—"

She fell silent as Huang and Katie joined us in the hall. I glanced at them and then back at her, quirking an eyebrow. Was there some reason she trusted those two less? Than me? We were really in trouble, here.