by Rider, C. P.
"It's okay. Elijah is dead," I said. "He can't hurt you anymore."
He shook his head, slowly, sadly. Lifted a bruised and blotchy arm, and pointed behind me. Where there had once been a dark, blank wall, there now stood a doorway.
Guillermo was showing me how to go deeper inside his head. Worry flashed, and I hesitated. He could be sending me into a trap.
But he could be asking for help.
Swallowing my concern, I walked through the door and entered a sunlit garden. A clean, crisp breeze brushed over my face, bringing with it the scent of jasmine and fresh cut grass. Music played in the background. Not a tune I recognized, but lovely nonetheless. After drawing in another clean breath, I began searching for the essence of the man among the flowers and trees.
Curled up at the base of a weeping willow huddled a little boy with golden eyes, light brown hair tipped blond from the sun, and brown skin tanned dark from playing outside in the summertime. The child appeared to be around five or six.
Oh no.
Whatever Elijah had done to Guillermo to break him, it had been brutal enough to have caused a powerful alpha wolf shifter to seek refuge in his childhood hiding place. I had been inside a lot of damaged minds, but I'd only seen this level of abuse once before, inside the mind of a serial killer I'd—anonymously—helped the police find. In that instance, the man had projected his pain outward onto the world. Guillermo had chosen to turn his inward, so that the person he hurt the most was himself.
I'd alternately feared and hated the dire wolf, but now all I felt was heartsick pity.
I reached for the boy and stumbled, my legs going out from under me. He drew away, watching me through eyes wet with fear as I crawled under the tree with him. The energy I'd taken from the shifters was gone. I tried to draw more, but something was blocking me. Or someone.
"Are you Guillermo?" I croaked.
The child blinked up at me, nodded.
"I'm Neely." I was so weak I could barely form words. Even my own energy was nearly depleted.
"The spiker?" He said this so matter-of-factly, it threw me for a moment. Then I remembered that while Guillermo currently looked like a child in here, he had the memories of the man in the hospital bed.
"Yes. How did you know what I was?"
He scooted closer, set his small hand on my shoulder. "You're like me. You're Legion."
"I'm not part of Legion, Guillermo. I'm here to help you."
"How?" As the child spoke, the sky darkened as if a storm were rolling in. Would it rain? Did it rain in imaginary gardens?
"If you know I'm a spiker, you know I can help your brain. I'm going to help you sleep so your brother can take you home and keep you safe." I widened my eyes in an effort to keep them from closing. I was so tired.
"You have to hide. They're coming. There's no way to escape, but hiding sometimes helps. Only the abejas … they always find me." He looked around. "Even Auntie Gert's garden isn't safe, and this is where I always hide when I'm scared. Usually, Auntie Gert, my dad, and Johnny come find me. They aren't coming, though."
"Yes, they are. They're here with me. And you don't have to be afraid. I made Elijah go away. He can't hurt you anymore."
"No, you didn't." The child poked at the grass, shook his head.
I was too tired to argue with him. "What did Elijah do to you?"
"Hurt me," he said.
Rage heated my blood to boiling. Intellectually, I knew Guillermo was a man, but Elijah hadn't been content to only harm the adult. He'd gone after the child inside him, too. The child here with me, the one kicking up all those protective urges I tended to get around kids.
I was suddenly very glad I'd spiked that evil old man dead.
"Guillermo—"
"Gil. My family calls me Gil. Friends, too."
"Gil, we need to—"
"Shh." The boy's eyes widened as he peered at something behind me. "Can't talk. They're back. Hurry, Neely. Hide."
Chapter Twenty-One
Two men and one woman approached the weeping willow. The woman reminded me of Lewiston. Average height, average weight, her skin and hair the same shade of pale beige, which matched her clothing. She was bland to the point of invisibility, and if she hadn't been striding toward me with a cardboard box, I would have ignored her completely in favor of the two men.
There was not the slightest hint of a smirk on her mouth as she held out the box. Not so much as a twitch of the lips. And there was no need to tell me what was inside the box. I could hear the buzzing.
"Who're you?" The words tumbled over each other as they left my mouth. I was so weak. There was no way I could spike Guillermo to sleep now. Despair shook me like a fever chill. I couldn't save him. I wasn't sure I could even save myself.
"You killed Ewan, spiker." One of the three, a bald white Irish man with a scar across his forehead, pointed at me. "He was one of our best."
"Elijah," I corrected.
"Ewaaan." He drew the name out. "Are you daft or hard of hearing?"
Neither. My brain had fizzled out. I was empty.
"You're an illusion," I managed.
"The world's an illusion when you get right down to it. A painful dream." The man behind the white guy smiled down at me as he spoke. This man was of average height with short black hair and Japanese features. "You hurt in the real world. And you hurt in this one, too." He lifted a size eleven hiking boot and stomped on my knee. I screamed.
Then he did it again.
And again.
My kneecap cracked and hot pain rocketed up my leg, stealing away my breath. Tiny arms wrapped around my neck, and a small voice said, "Stop hurting her." Into my ear, he whispered, "Go now. Leave me. While you still can."
The bald male motioned to the female, who set the box on the ground. Guillermo squeezed me tighter. His breath jumped out of him in staccato bursts. "Go," he repeated. "Hurry, Neely."
Was that the moment? In the future, I knew I would look back on the situation and try to identify the precise instant when everything about the spike changed for me. Was it after hearing the words of a scared little boy trying to save the person who had come to save him? Was it after laying eyes on the hideous faces of the people standing over us, hands and mouths overflowing with hate and cruelty? Or was it when that bland bastard woman kicked the lid off the box of bees?
All of the above, but also it was the scream that tore from Guillermo's throat. No longer the scream of a child, but of a man in terrible pain.
"Go," he gasped. The arms around my neck had thickened. The child behind me was gone, replaced by a man with the strength to endure the pain the child could not.
I had nothing left. My well was empty, and no energy was forthcoming. But I wasn't going anywhere. I might not be much help, but I wouldn't leave him to face it alone.
"No." I clasped the arms around my neck. "Not going."
"They can hurt you here," he whispered, as bees flew into my face, stinging my eyelids. "They've drained you."
"Not leaving you," I mumbled, dragging myself in front of Guillermo, my hurt leg screaming at the movement.
"Just one bee could kill him," the knee-kicker said. "But we like to make sure he's good and dead before we bring him back, so we unleash hundreds. They sting, he dies, we bring him back, he heals, and we do it all over again."
"In this way he was broken and rebuilt," the bland one said. Her monotone voice grated on my nerves. "He was poured into the hand of our leader, sifted into his furnace. As with lightning-struck sand that becomes glass, he is forever changed, metamorphosed into his true form."
That sounded familiar. They were almost the same words Guillermo had said outside the Dusty Cactus. The beige bastard kicked the box again, and more bees flew out. Why they didn't sting her, I had no idea. She was the one doing the kicking.
Behind me, Guillermo was panting. His hands tightened on my shoulders, and as I watched, red raised patches appeared on his flesh. It wasn’t long before his breath had degenera
ted into a whistling gasp.
"You're killing him," I tried to yell, but my voice was too weak to convey my fury. I reached outside of me, searching for energy and finding nothing.
What was happening with the wolves out there? Didn't they realize how close I was to bringing their family member home? Why were they blocking me? How were they blocking me?
I tried to tap into the things happening around my physical body, but I was in too deep. From time to time I'd caught sensations and snatches of conversations, but even those had faded. I had lost contact with my physical body. This had happened to me once before, when I dove into Lucas's witch spell dream world to save him, but that had been on purpose and aided by witch magic.
"Don't worry. I always come back," Guillermo wheezed into my ear. "It hurts, but I always come back."
"He'd already be gone if she wasn't here," the bald one said. "He's fighting it."
Knee-kicker grabbed me by the hair and dragged me away from Guillermo. A tearing sound that rattled my teeth, and a stinging burn on my scalp, told me he'd pulled out hair in the process.
"Still fighting," Ms. Beige said flatly.
From my new vantage point, I could see the dire wolf as he truly was—a younger, lighter version of his brother, the handsome cowboy who had strolled into the Cactus, ordered a beer, and played an old song on the jukebox.
Guillermo rose to his knees and bowed out his back, hands pushing against his thighs. The skin around his mouth was gray and the veins in his neck protruded and seemed bluer. He gasped, mouth working as he tried to suck air into his lungs.
Frantic, I reached outside me again. Nothing. I tried pulling energy from the three monsters in the garden. It didn't work. If I could spike deeper into them, the way I'd spiked Elijah or Ewan or whatever his name was, I could draw some, but I was far too weak for that.
"Please, stop." Tears rolled down my cheeks. "Please."
They paid no attention to me. Or maybe my words were so faint they couldn't hear them.
"Guillermo," I whispered.
He didn't hear me either.
My knee throbbed, my eyes were nearly swollen shut, and knee-kicker had pulled a chunk of hair from my head. I was done.
"This is the part I like," Ms. Beige said, a satisfied smile curling her lips. "The wordless begging for air."
Guillermo reached out blindly, not to her or any of them, only as a reflex. Fur rippled on his arms, his teeth elongated along with his nose and mouth. He tried to howl, but his airway was still blocked. Less than before, though. It appeared the wolf was fighting for his life.
The bald man shook his head and laughed. "Not this time. This time you pay for your failure." He slung a silver chain over the wolf's head and used his fist to punch the charm inside the wolf's chest. Blood poured over the man's hand. "This time, you don't come back."
The wolf's fur retracted as he shifted back to human. He toppled over, chest heaving.
The charm. I had to get to the charm. Had to get it off him so he could change and heal without dying. If my guess was right, that's what the charm was for.
Charm. Barney the mystic said I was wearing a healing charm.
I glanced down at my chest. Sure enough, all three were hanging there. I tucked them into my top against my skin.
A pleasant warmth radiated through me. My knee hurt less—my head and eyes, too.
I had to get the charm to Guillermo. My strength hadn't improved, but I might be able to get to him on desperation and pure stubbornness.
Knee-kicker's entire focus was on Guillermo. I would have one shot, and boy was it going to be of the long variety. I was at least eight feet away from Guillermo. There was no real chance, but I'd regret it forever if I didn't try.
A prayer and a deep breath later, I eased into a sprinting position as best I could with my jacked-up knee. Took one more deep breath, then leapt, throwing everything I had into it, and landed … four feet short. I scrambled the rest of the way, desperate to reach him as I clawed through the wet grass and soft soil. I fell on my side and inch-wormed my way to him. My fingers brushed against the silver metal of my charm—and someone grabbed my ankles and jerked me away.
Ms. Beige.
I snapped at her, snarled, and tried to bite. The word feral floated through my mind. Was that what I was? A paranormal gone feral?
"What are these?" Knee-kicker worked the three charms over my head. Pain exploded down my leg and my eyes began to swell up again. "Healing charm is my guess." He threw the necklace down, crushed it under his boot. "What's this one for?" He held up the star charm. "Some kind of spiker thing?" He tossed it to the bald guy.
"If so, it isn't working so good, is it?" He laughed as he crushed the charm under his shoe.
"The moon one is interesting," Ms. Beige said. "Looks like a shifter charm of some sort. Is she also a shifter?" She raised her voice. "Are you a shifter too, spiker?"
Even if I could have answered, I wouldn't have said a word.
"What she is, is ours. The leader will be pleased," the bald one said. "We did what his precious dire wolf couldn't do. We took down the spiker. Now all we have to do is collect her body."
He stomped through the grass to where I lay, lifted his foot, and drove his heel into my head.
* * *
My body folded in on itself, bones crumbling, until I was nothing more than a pile of ash. I stayed in that position, peace moving through me like a warm Texas wind, my heart slowing, my breath settling. If this was dying, it wasn't so bad. I'd expected more pain.
The silence was thick and heavy as it dropped over me, blanketing me in white nothing darkness. I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed. I didn't even know if I possessed sight anymore. Where before I had smelled soggy grass and damp clean earth, now there was—there was no word for it, really. I'd never smelled absolutely nothing before, not even during my worst head cold, but this was it.
My hearing was the last sense to go, right after taste—which was a relief, since I had been tasting bees and blood in my mouth up until then. The sounds around me, voices filled with hate, cries soaked with agony, and the gentle whoosh of the wind though the branches of the weeping willow faded, as if somewhere a god was lowering the volume on a celestial remote control.
I was alone. Truly alone, the way beings can only be in death. Was I dead? Fear trilled through me like the mournful song of a trapped bird, but faded quickly. I wound down, down, down, and stopped.
A spark.
In the thick white darkness, which felt as impossible as it sounded, a single spark flickered in the … distance? Forefront? I was unsure. There was nothing here, no point from which to calculate the amount of space between the flash and my perception of it.
The spark grew. It beckoned me closer, urged me to fan its tiny flame. Unsure if air moved here, or indeed if there was any such thing as air at all anymore, I went through the motions of pursing my lips and blowing. I did this gently, aware that the same oxygen that encouraged fire could also snuff it out.
The spark grew into a flame, much like the tip of a lit match, and I continued encouraging it with breath and intent, because I understood now. This was no ordinary flame. This was my life light. This was the spark that connected me to my ancestors, to my mother and father, to my beloved tío, and to Lucas.
The moment his name came to mind, the flame blossomed into a torch and his voice echoed through my head. I'm sorry. I'm coming for you. Don't be afraid. I love you.
Sorry? I don't understand.
Familiar energy trickled into me, not a lot, but enough to begin to pull myself out of the white nothing darkness. I gasped a grateful breath because if I could fight the white darkness, I was alive. Lucas had to be lending me strength, sending me his energy.
Scared and lost, I did as he instructed and reversed the spike. I used the energy he sent me, thrusting it into my light, growing the torch into a fire that climbed inside my body and boiled my insides, the steam building a pressure within me I did
n't recognize.
Except…
This wasn't my spike.
I tried to back away from the pressure, but it was relentless. Quickly determining that the only way to get through was to go forward, I pushed everything I had into it, gritting my teeth against the pain as I mentally walked against the wind.
The moon broke through the white darkness nothing sky, and though I couldn't see it, I knew it was there because it heated my skin. Moon magic. I'd never felt it before. It was scary and soothing in equal measure.
The moon was the only thing I had to hold on to, so I embraced it even as its magic boiled my blood. My insides were a furnace, pressure surging, building.
Bursting.
A million shining stars exploded inside me. I, too, exploded, my body and mind spiraling through the air, floating, flying, a feather on a breezy day, whipping, thrashing, a speck of dirt in a windstorm, my consciousness blown this way and that.
Opposite to how I'd eased into the nothing, I awoke from it all at once.
Muffled shrieks rent the quiet, the coppery scent of blood flowed into my nostrils, the taste of it spread on my tongue. My fingers tore into the earth, peeling away the layer of grass, digging into the dirt. My eyelids sprang open, and at first I could not believe that what I was seeing was real.
Blood. Rivers of it surrounded me. Clothing, hair, and chunks of fatty flesh floated and wobbled in the red soup. I lifted my head. The three tormentors, Ms. Beige, Bald-guy, and Knee-kicker were huddled together inside a leafy green bush. The leaves they touched turned brown and crispy, and sailed to the ground where they crumbled into dust.
Knee-kicker stared at me, terror in his gaze. "You were to be remade. Torn down to ashes and poured into the hand of our leader, sifted into his furnace. You were meant to serve the cause."
Slowly, I turned, my head almost too heavy for me to move. My body felt off balance, clumsy and wrongly bent, and heavy. I tried to speak, but my tongue twisted in my mouth and I couldn't get the words out. There was a half-second where I was exhilarated to see I was alive, followed by a crashing drop as I stared at Guillermo's human form, skin blotched with red and swelled to bursting, lungs sucking in wheezing sips of oxygen.