No medical degree was required to tell me the woman was dead. She just hadn’t finished dying yet. Her trauma was too extensive, and she had been left untreated for too long. She would never make it down the mountain. Even if we got her medevacked, I saw this going one way. And that sucked. Really sucked.
The fever burning her up had warped her sense of time, a small mercy, but her clock was ticking down fast.
“Shh.” I took her hand, mine sweaty and unsure, but I let my conscience guide me. “You’re okay now.”
Shifting my weight, I withdrew my wand and pressed it gently into her side as I began a syphon spell.
The instant her pain hit me, my phantom wounds mirroring her real ones, I grunted from the unbearable burden she had endured since the attack. I jerked my hand back on reflex, desperate to sever our link, but I had underestimated her. She clung to me with more strength than I had credited her, equally desperate for respite.
A soft exhale parted her lips, a surcease of pain that left her weeping with relief, and I found my resolve.
“We’ll protect you.” I sat down when I started getting woozy from spending so much magic. “Just rest.”
“Thank you.” Fresh tears cut tracks through the dried blood on her cheeks. “You’re an angel of mercy.”
No.
I was a stone-cold killer who had developed too many cracks in my psyche to continue with the life.
This was an act of mercy, yes, but it was a calculated one. I could afford to be kind, given we had already decided this was our last stop for the night. Otherwise, I would have put her out of her misery with a cut of my athame across her pale throat. Maybe a quick death, the ultimate mercy, would have been kinder.
For both of us.
Settling on the ground behind me, the daemon ceded control to Asa, who wrapped his arms around me. He couldn’t share in the syphon spell, but I could tell he wanted to help, and having his solid presence at my back was the next best thing.
I had gone so long without anyone to lean on, I had trouble relaxing into him, but only for a moment. As always, I couldn’t resist what Asa offered, and that easy trust, the eager dependency, scared me spitless.
While he and I held vigil, Clay stood watch to ensure the zombigo didn’t circle back to finish the job.
Predators often kept caches of dying prey to finish off at their leisure, and I didn’t want to be dessert.
Hours later, as pink and orange clouds streaked across the sky, sunlight hit the woman’s cheeks, and she expelled a shuddering breath. A smile of utter contentment bowed her pale lips, and then she was gone.
To witness her end clenched an undefinable thing in my soul that wept knowing she had ascended some place worth smiling about while my parents were both dead and gone. For good. Forever. For always.
One day I would join them in that void of nothingness, the lack of consciousness a blessing in the ether.
Unlike this woman, I doubted I’d die with a smile. Probably a grimace. Or a scream. Hazards of the job.
“You really have gone soft.” Clay clucked his tongue to gentle his scolding. “You held vigil for a human.”
“We all deserve a hand to hold at the end.” I kicked out one leg to pocket my wand. “I might also need a hand now.” I slumped back against Asa. “I can’t feel my legs.”
Behind me, Asa rose with a soft grunt that told me I wasn’t the only stiff one. Hooking his hands under my arms, he lifted me onto my feet. Fingers trailing around my waist while I regained my balance, he circled in front of me and drew me into an embrace that squeezed out tears for a woman I hadn’t even known.
“Clay is right.” I sniffled against his shirt. “I have gone soft.”
To model this new identity after humans I respected might have been a step too far.
Full of life, yes, but also full of feelings. Most emotions eluded me, they were too nuanced for my ignorant heart to decipher, but I didn’t want them if they left me soggy and puffy.
“To grieve the loss of a life is no small thing.” He brushed his lips across my temple. “You offered her comfort in death. You took away her pain.” He breathed me in. “You are becoming, and I’m honored to witness it.”
“I thought I already became.” I withdrew to wipe my cheeks. “Growing pains suck.”
Black witch to white witch. White witch to…? I had to know what I was to know what I would turn into.
“You’re fighting against what you’ve been taught your whole life. It’s changing you, shaping you. More now that you’re back on the job. With a familiar.” Clay continued to keep watch. “You’re engaging in a lifelong battle against yourself, Dollface. Polish up your armor. You’re going to need it.”
Arms cinched around my middle, I held myself tight. “Things were easier when I ate my feelings.”
Clay, trying to get a laugh, winked at me. “You mean hearts.”
“Okay, fine, hearts.” I had to steel myself against the scent of blood on my skin. “Man, am I hungry.”
That outburst was proof positive I wasn’t fully rehabilitated, or else I wouldn’t be smelling death settle on the human I had eased into her next life while clenching my gut to keep my stomach from rumbling.
The pit of magic in my core, always ravenous, snarled and snapped at my denial. But I was stronger.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t practice common sense and move upwind to remove any temptation.
Thankfully, she was human, and her heart held no gain for me. That helped me resist too.
“The Chattanooga team is on their way to clean up this mess,” Clay told us. “Ready to head back?”
A nod was all I had the energy for as I accepted the hand Asa offered to lead me to the cabin.
And if I twined our fingers, it was only to give me a firmer grip, not because I couldn’t help myself.
7
The sounds of battle greeted us when we entered the cabin. Over the chaos, a confident voice barked an impressive string of orders. I had no idea what they meant, but Colby’s friends understood her murder-y shorthand, and soon fresh cries of agony bounced off the walls as the gamers vanquished their enemies.
Seriously, what had those poor orcs done to deserve The Blade of Doom kill formation or the Eyeball Gusher finishing move?
“Potty break,” she told them. “Pick off the stragglers. I’ll be back in five.”
After gliding down from the loft, she lit on my head and leaned over to examine my expression.
“Rough night.” I scratched her back. “How was yours?”
“I leveled up, finally beat this stupid orcon, like a dragon and orc combo, that’s been guarding a hoard I wanted to plunder, and I stole a new pet off one of the corpses of my enemies. He’s adorable. An orange kitten in a suit of armor that came with the expansion pack someone wouldn’t buy me but everyone else has.”
Whoever thought of paying real money for virtual items? Genius. And the bane of parents everywhere.
“You stole a kitten off a corpse.” I replayed that in my head. “I don’t know if I should be proud or disturbed.”
“Proud.” She fluttered her wings. “I’ve almost collected all the expansion pack extras from my kills.”
A person like me had no business raising a kid. Colby wasn’t a kid, and I wasn’t trying to be her mom. More like the fun aunt who let her get away with too much and loved her unconditionally. But I had to wonder if it was a good thing that I had created a cyber serial killer on the prowl for rare treasures.
Colby lived a virtual life in so many aspects, and I fully supported that. It gave her a safe way to connect with others her age or those who shared her passions. All without revealing her nature. Or her location.
But maybe I ought to put on my faux-parenting hat and give her a talk about why serial killing was bad, even if your victims had cool stuff you could pickpocket off their dead bodies.
After all, she had me for a role model. I was, at best, a reformed homicidal maniac.
“I’m
going to wash up, and then I’m going to cook breakfast.” I twitched my shoulder to send her on her way. “Have you eaten yet?”
“My five minutes are up.” She buzzed Clay on her way back to the loft. “I gotta go.”
That was not the same as telling me she had eaten her breakfast, but she was old enough to come down and fix herself food when she got hungry. I ought to be thankful she wasn’t a teenage boy I had to nag about showers. Moths were tidy creatures.
The bedroom I had chosen stuck with the overall cabin theme. The bed, dresser, and nightstand were made of logs the color of the walls. Without the quilts in gorgeous colors and patterns breaking up the sameness, I wasn’t sure I could have navigated the room. It was too much like a funhouse with mirrored walls, floors, and ceilings. The effect of so much wood stained the same color was dizzying.
Aiming for the bathroom, I discovered more of the same. At least the tub/shower combo was white.
Under the hot spray, I washed off the woods and the camper’s blood. Forehead resting on the cool tile, I asked myself why I had been moved to sit with her until she passed when I could have expedited her departure and beat the sunrise to the cabin.
The knowledge it was the right thing to do sprung into my head, fully formed, leaving me without doubt.
The right thing to do.
It felt weird to just know and not to have to ask for a second opinion or look to others for an example. Maybe my plan to act like a good person until I figured out what that meant for me was manifesting in real changes after a decade of faking it.
That thought bolstered my mood as I dried off and changed into pajamas to cook in, since I planned on retiring to my room as soon as I had a full stomach. Entering the kitchen, I found Colby and Clay with their heads bent together over his phone.
“What’s so funny?” I started rooting around the cabinets. “You’re both snickering.”
“I’m showing Clay some of my favorite kills,” she explained, “just the ones I’ve uploaded to Twitch.”
Oh, yeah.
Definitely having the serial killer talk with her.
Once I spotted a bowl full of fruit on the counter, I knew what was on the menu. “Where’s Asa?”
“Perimeter check,” Clay murmured to me then refocused on his screen. “Shorty, the day Pacific Rim becomes our new reality, you are on my team. You and I will pilot a Jaeger together. Catch my Drift?”
Colby burst into laughter then explained to me, the idiot in the room. “The pilot mind link is called Drifting.”
“I knew that.”
I totally did not know that.
“Mmm-hmm.” She shared a glance with Clay. “Rue prefers books to movies.” She cut her eyes toward me. “Romance novels.” Her antennae quivered. “The last one was about a snake shifter and an eagle shifter.”
“That explains so much about you and Ace,” he said thoughtfully. “So much.”
“Very funny.” I rolled my eyes. “Both of you. Seriously. You should take your act on the road.”
At her mental age, Colby still viewed boys as cootie farms whose main export was, well, cooties.
For that, I was grateful. I would never have to give my little moth the talk about the birds and the bees.
“I’m making quick and dirty bananas Foster pancakes.” I thumped Clay’s nose. “People who mock my taste in reading, or men, get none.”
“From the heart of my bottom, I apologize for any rudeness on my part.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I shouldn’t have said what I said about you and Ace. It’s not your fault romance novels have led you to believe the reformed bad boy is where it’s at.”
“Romance novels, which you got me hooked on, have taught me valuable life lessons.”
Clay rubbed his nape and avoided Colby’s smug grin as she filed away that tidbit.
The sword cut both ways, and he better remember it. She had an excellent memory when it suited her.
“Name one.” Colby squinted at me. “What have you learned except kissy stuff?”
Put on the spot, I now had to articulate a truth I hadn’t realized until Clay teased me.
“How relationships work.” I chose a few bananas to slice. “Not the kissy ones, but the rest.”
Expression pinched, Colby thought it over. “You read them to figure out how to make friends?”
That made me sound all kinds of sad, didn’t it? That I had to turn to fiction to grasp the friendship ideal.
But I was pretty sure that was the reason why Clay hooked me in the first place. He wanted me to read normal relationships, to glimpse normal lives, to experience normal problems. It was a secondhand life, not much different than Colby’s virtual one, if less interactive, but it did help me see there was more to living than blood and death. There was also improbable shifter romance, which was my latest addiction.
“I wasn’t raised like a normal kid.” I pulled down the other ingredients and started measuring and mixing my batter. “I wasn’t taught how to socialize or how to interact with others in a casual setting or…how to make friends.”
Until Clay took an interest in me, I had no one and nothing.
Except the director.
So, like I said, I had nothing.
“And.” I flicked my fingers at her, dusting her in flour. “I like the kissy stuff.”
While Colby digested that, Clay went back to his phone, and I started heating a pan on the stove.
A long howl raised the hairs down my nape, and I drifted outside to pinpoint the source in the distance.
The scents of sweet tobacco and juicy green apple filled my head as Asa joined me. “He’s up late.”
Asa might have leaned against me until our shoulders brushed, and I might have leaned right back.
The innocent contact shouldn’t have spread chills down that arm, but even my fingers were tingling.
“Based on the direction,” he murmured, “I would guess he’s aware we’ve located his food cache.”
The campers, his fresh kills, not the cave, which appeared to be his pre-zombie digs.
“If that got his boxers in a twist, that zombigo has more self-awareness than I would like.”
“Zombigo?” He huffed out a soft laugh. “Wendigo zombie?”
Inordinately pleased with him for putting it together, I flashed him a smile. “Exactly.”
His gaze snagged on my lips, and I resisted the urge to wet them, as my romance novels suggested I do.
“I made a gift for Colby, but I wanted to show you first.” He eased back a step. “To get your approval.”
“Color me intrigued.” I ignored how my heart turned to mush at his thinking of her. “Whatcha got?”
At the SUV, he opened the rear hatch, hesitated, then pulled out a flat white box. “It’s not much.”
From his tone, I could tell he believed that. Otherwise, he would have brought it up sooner.
In gifting Colby her laptop early, I must have ruined his surprise, which made me want to kick myself.
“I’m sure she’ll love it.” I removed the lid while he held the box. “Oh, wow.”
A knitted blanket in shades of green sat neatly folded inside. Raised leaves gave a 3D effect to the design that blew my mind. I had no idea knitting could be this intricate, or that he was so gifted at his craft. It fit with her bedroom’s forest theme at home, and she would love the velvety soft yarn he used to create it.
“It’s gorgeous.” I was afraid to lift it from the box, but I could tell it was Colby-sized. “She’s going to flip.”
“It’s not tech, so I wasn’t sure she would like it.” He frowned into the box, as if he only saw flaws where I only saw beauty. “The thing is…” He put the lid on it. “The throw has a gift I wanted to discuss with you.”
“I thought the throw was the gift.”
One I would steal for myself in a heartbeat if she neglected it for one single minute.
“I mentioned while you were recovering that I practice Tinkkit.” He shrugged it
off like mastering ancient fae crafts were no big. Maybe he was embarrassed? Knitting wasn’t mainstream for guys. For daemons? Unheard of. But it fit this dae well. “You were overwhelmed at the time, so you might not remember.”
“The sight of you knitting, in glasses, is etched onto my frontal lobe.”
That jerked his gaze straight to mine, and his bright eyes burned crimson.
“The yarn was green,” I recalled, willing him to forget my lobe. “You were working on this even then?”
Rather than admit it, he fiddled with the lid. “It repels bad dreams.”
“Are you serious?” I stood there, mouth hanging open. “How are you not a billionaire?”
If I could imbue that type of magic into a practical piece of art like this, I would be the Queen of Etsy and spend my days Scrooge McDucking through my vault of gold coins. Or maybe not. I always thought that would hurt when I watched the cartoon. I would go with dollar bills. Those I could wad into balls to make my own money vault/ball pit. I bet Colby would love it.
And…I had been fantasizing a beat too long if the concern tightening his expression was any indication.
“I don’t sell these.” He clutched the box against his chest. “The magic only works when freely given.”
“I meant no offense.” I rested a hand on his arm. “This is incredible. Truly. Thank you.”
“Would you mind?” Slowly, as if convincing himself it wouldn’t end up on Etsy, he held it out, his request clear. “I’m not sure how she would take it from me.”
“I do mind.” I hooked my arm through his. “She likes you, and she’ll love this.”
Dragging his feet, he entered the house behind me, earning us a curious glance from Clay.
“Asa made you a gift.” I hauled him over to her. “Want to see?”
“You made it?” Her wide eyes shifted between us. “That’s cool.”
“You don’t have to use it,” he said under his breath, “if you don’t like it.”
He set the box on the counter before her and kept easing away until I had to grab him again to keep him from slinking to his room to escape her reaction. Used to fading into the background, I worried he would disappear under scrutiny. That was the reason why, I told myself, I held on tighter.
Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau Book 2) Page 9