“—switched the body out with a fake and smuggled it back home for a spot of necromancy?”
I sigh. “Yeah, that.” I stay leaning back in the chair for a while longer. I don’t want to open my eyes and see Lilith’s face. “…You going to tell anyone?”
“You really think that I, of all people, would rat you and your sister out to the Council over a pile of burnt planks?”
I crack one eye open. “Then why did you ask? If you’re not going to blackmail me with the information, there isn’t much other use for it.”
She shrugs. “I was curious. And I can afford to use questions on satisfying my curiosity. Every time you lose the bet I’m going to get another question. And another, and another, and another.”
“What if I just quit?”
Amber fire burns in her eyes. “We both know you won’t.”
Well. She’s not wrong.
A little jump of her eyebrows. Suddenly her gaze is focused intently on the left side of my throat, the one without the scar. My hand twitches with the urge to close my coat over myself, and I barely resist a shiver sneaking up my spine. “What?” I demand loudly.
She’s blinking rapidly. “The lovebites I left on you are all gone.”
I tug the collar of my shirt down to check; she’s right. “Huh. Luce must have healed them.”
“And she didn’t say anything about why you were covered in teethmarks and bruises?”
“She’s seen worse from me.”
Lilith’s lower lip sticks out in a plaintive pout. “I left those on you on purpose. You were supposed to keep them.”
“Just like I’m supposed to damn myself and be yours forever in some dank little corner of Hell?”
She tilts her head. Grins. “Would that really be so bad? Belonging to me?”
I actually think about it. I’ve always been terrified of Hell—I was raised Catholic, after all. But it’s not like I’ve balked at the opportunity to unquestioningly follow sadistic women in the past, even if it was an unhealthy coping mechanism. And who says Purgatory would be any better than Hellish torture and servitude? For witches, “Purgatory” is just a placeholder that means “The Ooky Spooky Unknown.” Why risk that, when I could go with a devil I know?
I guess the real question is, how well do I know Lilith? And if I did, say, fork over possession of my eternal soul… who says she’d keep it out of the hands of other devils I’ve known?
Lilith and I stay with our eyes locked for a while longer. A standoff with no discernible goal. Her tail waves lazily back and forth behind her.
I get up.
“Well, we’re done here. The ward didn’t work, you asked your question, and I need to get back to work.”
She snorts. “You mean, you have to go back to getting shot in parking garages?”
My eye twitches. “Yeah, that.”
I speedwalk to the rust-crusted sink in the bathroom to tidy myself up. Through the mirror I see Lilith behind me, flopping back on the bed to make the impression of a snow angel in the sheets. She and Tuxedo may not get along, but they do share some mannerisms. Once I’ve convinced myself that my appearance is thoroughly unfixable, I make a brisk beeline for the door.
I’ve got one hand on the doorknob when Lilith calls, “Seeya, sweetcheeks!” I stop and twist around.
“This isn’t over, you know. You haven’t won anything.”
She only giggles in response. I sigh, then open the door and walk out.
CHAPTER TEN
Incognito Mode
The first thing I do outside is let my hair down. Then I find a street vendor selling scarves and buy a bright pink one for five bucks, which I wrap around my neck, nose, and mouth. It's amazing how differently people perceive you when you tweak your gender expression a bit. There's not much I can do about my height, but I do substitute my hole-ridden coat for a long beige cardigan. Beige is the most boring color in existence; you never notice people when they're wearing beige.
The same could be said for people who wear gray, I suppose. As long as they're not actively shooting at you.
I call Isabella. She says she and Nikki are both out of the hospital, and they’re staying at Nikki’s apartment for the time being. When I get there, it’s Nikki who opens the door.
“Oh,” she says, blinking at me. “Uh, hi.” Her face isn’t ashen anymore, but it’s still lined with a few wrinkles and dark circles. She flushes coral. “Um, Izzy’s asleep right now. After your call she kind of… conked out. I guess she’s really tired.”
“I would’ve thought you’d be more tired,” I say, raising an eyebrow. “That was some impressive screaming I heard over the phone.”
She turns redder. “Um, actually, about that—can we talk? Privately? Here, my sisters are gone, we can use one of their rooms—”
She scurries off, and I follow her. The bedroom she leads me into has walls entirely plastered with band posters and a confusing tangle of Christmas lights draped over the headboard of the bed.
“Jessica’s still in college,” Nikki explains, waving her hand at the decor. I stand at the center of the room while she hurriedly closes the door, then comes over to stand in front of me with her arms hugging her own chest. Well, the arm that’s not still in a cast and sling. Her free hand sneaks up to fiddle with the choker around her neck; she must have repaired it somehow. And when she speaks, her voice has that hushed, disappearing quality again. “Look, I—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I just—I wasn’t sure if you would—”
I softly shake my head, and she trails off. “Nikki, it’s okay. I don’t care if you’re a witch, non-human, or something else entirely—you protected Izzy, that’s all that matters. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
She blows out a huge breath, and her shoulders drop three inches. “Oh, thank god, I was worried you’d be weird about it. It’s just that, like, witches, they’re either super chill or super not-chill about monster stuff, and the not-chill ones I’ve met are… really fucking scary.”
I crack a grin. “Ha. You’re telling me.” I tap the scar on the side of my neck. “Demon blood experiment, corrupted me and my magic for life. Council almost voted to execute me at a trial I didn’t even attend.”
“Ooo, owch.”
“Yup. So, now I’m curious—and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but—what exactly are you, magic-wise?”
Her hand trails from her choker to toy with a small knot in her hair. “Well, see, I’m Irish by my mom’s side. She’s from a lineage of banshees.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Banshees? Whoa, that’s rare.”
“I know, right? I found an online support group for us a couple years back, but it’s shut down since then.” She hooks her finger under the colorful threads at her throat and lifts her chin, showing them to me. “This choker, it’s an enchanted one from Joy. It keeps me from doing the… loud… thing. Back when I was with my ex, my anxiety got so bad I was convinced I could lose control anytime, anywhere, and hurt everyone around me. I couldn’t go out in public, I couldn’t talk louder than a mumble—but more than anything, I was terrified of hurting him. That’s pretty messed up, isn’t it?” She gives a humorless laugh. I puff a little air out of my nose, but can’t bring myself to smile. “Yeah, so I went to Joy. At first she insisted I blast his eardrums out, but I told her why I couldn’t, and she understood. I mean, yes, I was scared of hurting him, but also—banshee screams were never meant to be a weapon, you know? They’re like… ceremonial.”
She’s doing this cute thing where she pushes her lower jaw out into an underbite as she thinks, and I can’t resist ribbing her a bit. “Sounds like a loud-ass ceremony.”
Nikki waves me off almost grumpily. “Don’t take that at face value, I don’t know how it works either. I was supposed to know, but my existence is complicated in all sorts of ways—I’m the prophesied seventh daughter of a seventh daughter because of a curse broken with another curse, it’s a whole thing. Except I was assigned m
ale at birth, so my mom junked her ‘How to Raise a Banshee’ manual and didn’t realize her mistake ‘til I started screaming my head off as a kindergartener while the neighbor had a stroke in his bathtub. Funny how fate works, isn’t it?”
Huh, no wonder Nikki has such stalwart faith in Joy’s prophecies. She’s living proof of their effectiveness.
“…Anyway,” she continues, “I didn’t lie to you back at Joy’s place. The rest of the stuff between me and my ex happened exactly as I said it did, including this.” Grim-faced, Nikki raises her plastered arm—then squeaks, winces, and gingerly lowers it. “A-and back at Isabella's, when my choker broke and I did scream—that wasn't exactly, um, intentional. I mean, I didn't want to hurt anyone, but Isabella was—she was—I-I don't know why, but it’s just easier to do something when there’s someone else hurting and not just me, you know? Like, it j-just came out—”
I raise my palms in the “it’s cool” gesture. “It’s okay, Nikki, it’s okay, you did good. There was a crisis, you acted, and you stopped a lot of seriously bad shit from happening to Izzy. Thank you so much. I’m only sorry I didn’t manage to catch the guy.”
Nikki lets out a shaky breath. “I know, you told Isabella about that over the phone.” She worries her lower lip with her teeth. “Do you think he’ll be back?”
I cringe. “I... I really don’t know. Hopefully, he won’t see Izzy as a priority target anymore now that he knows she's got a ferocious banshee watching her back.” Nikki beams at that. “But he also has friends, and those friends have guns.” Nikki’s face falls. “Could you scream again? If you had to?”
Nikki’s eyebrows knit together. “I’m not sure? Last time it was spontaneous, but if I have to prepare for it I might freak out, and then it might not work at all…”
“Do you know when your sisters will be back?”
“Uh, tonight, probably?”
“Try to keep everyone in one room. Non-magical mercs with guns are generally more cautious about avoiding witnesses.”
Nikki nods fervently.
I scratch my head, finally getting around to the question that’s scaring me a little. “So, what exactly did you do to the guy, anyway? You said banshee screams aren't meant to be weaponized, right? Did he just get a ruptured eardrum, or...?”
“Oh yeah, I marked him for death.”
I choke on my spit. “You did what?”
“Sorry, bad phrasing. I basically announced that he was going to die. ‘Cause banshees don't really go screaming willy-nilly all over the place—it’s supposed to be a special occasion thing, for when someone’s kicking the bucket, you know? I mean, he’s going to die... eventually. That counts too, right? It’s cheating, but, well, I grew up with six older sisters and we played Monopoly every weekend. Sometimes, cheating and surviving are the exact same thing.”
I chew the inside of my cheek, digesting the information. Nikki looks around at the posters on the walls. “Is there anything else you need? If you’re hungry, I’ve got some leftover lasagna in the fridge.”
“Oh no really, I can’t—” My stomach grumbles. Loudly. I feel blood rush to my face, and Nikki laughs.
“Stay for a bit, just long enough to eat. Okay? If Izzy wakes up, you can check on her too.”
“That sounds—amazing. Thank you.”
The lasagna is fantastic. Izzy does wake up while I’m eating, and she comes to the kitchen to join Nikki and me. She’s looking much better than she had in the morning, and she’s got enough energy to gripe about having to use a replacement chair from the hospital while her regular one gets a wheel fixed. “Everywhere I go, I smell old people farts,” she says. When I reply to her, she squints, cups her ears, and asks me to repeat myself.
“Are your ears going to be alright?” I shout.
Isabella gestures for Nikki to answer; Nikki’s cheeks color as she speaks. “They’ll be okay within a month, based on my, um, experience.”
I nod. “I might be able to get you something to help with that. My sister’s a great healer, a bit busy at the moment, but she can probably whip up a quick ointment.”
After I'm finished eating, I offer to help wash the dishes, but both Nikki and Isabella start shooing me out the door. “You still have to catch the bad guy, remember?” Isabella says. “I still don't understand what’s going on, and frankly I don't want to try—but that asshole broke my goddamn TV! Do you know how lucky I was to find a 4k Samsung LED with the wrong price tag at Best Buy? You better fuck that guy up, alright?”
I promise to do so, and then I’m promptly booted out into the hallway. When the door closes behind me, I stand around a little awkwardly and try to figure out my next move. Where else can I go? Well, Jenny’s place is surprisingly close to here. And if I’m checking up on people, that might as well be my next stop.
***
...I don’t know what I was expecting, but Jenny does not look good. She stares at me with red-veined eyes through her doorway and says, “Oh. It's you.” I immediately regret coming.
“Sorry, I know this is a bad time. But something shitty just happened, and I’m checking up on people. You alright?”
“Yeah. I guess.” She can’t meet my eyes.
“Oh, um, alright. I guess the violence isn’t projecting in your direction. Which is good. Sorry, I know this is uncomfortable for you, I’ll be leaving now—”
A hand clamps onto my arm. Shit, ow, Jenny’s got a good grip—what did she say her job was again? Personal trainer?
“Actually, I need to talk to you. I need to explain what you saw. Between me and Dick.”
She lets me in. Since there’s no couch, she and I sit side by side on the edge of the bed. The same bed where she and Dick were... eurgh. I can’t erase that image from my mind. I unwind my scarf and place it on the sheets beside me.
Jenny’s head is bowed, strands of blond hair straying from her bun to fall over her face as she speaks. “Dick told you I was the one who invited him over, right? That wasn’t a lie. I didn’t really have any intentions—not at first, I guess. I was just upset. I…” She pauses. Sighs. She bends over further, reaching under the bed for something. When she brings the object up so I can see it, I nearly have an aneurysm.
“That’s—is that a—”
“Yes, it’s a pregnancy test. And don’t worry, it’s negative.”
The emergency sirens in my head abruptly stop. “...Oh.”
“Yeah.” Jenny fiddles with the thin plastic, rolling it over and over and over in her hand. “I threw up this morning. I didn’t think much of it at first, but then the possibility hit me—I’ve been on the pill for years now, but even those fail sometimes, and I just—I don’t know exactly what I was feeling, I just ran to the convenience store in a complete panic. And then this.”
She stops rolling the test and fixes her eyes on the little blue minus sign.
“I was relieved at first. Obviously. But then I thought—what if David—what if he’s really gone? Then this could have been my last chance to have something left of him. But no, all I have of him now are those stupid pastries in the freezer. And those are rotting. anyway.”
She takes one more look at the test. Then she tosses it onto the floor, where it lands with a clatter. In that moment, I finally pay attention to her left hand; in place of her engagement ring is a faint tan line, and nothing else.
“When the test came out negative and I was thinking all that stuff, I—I just—I suddenly felt this certainty that he must be dead. Everything before had been denial and stubbornness, but it all piled up and it was like a dam broke, I just couldn’t pretend anymore. It hurt too much. So I called Dick. And I already knew he was attracted to me—not to sound like a manipulative bitch, but I’m way more than out of his league. A few low-cut tops and some hammy acting, and I knew he was going to work my case like it was his last.”
Ah, that explains the weeping and wailing. Give the woman a godsdamned Oscar.
“…and I guess he’s charming, in his own way. A
nd he’s always been here for me when I needed him the last couple of weeks…”
She trails off. Stares out the window that takes up most of the back wall. Her right hand covers her left, obscuring the tan line of her engagement ring.
“Or maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe I really hated David all along, and I just didn’t have the guts to admit it until he wasn’t around to hear it. Maybe the universe decided to grant my wish like some fucking genie in a bottle, and now everything’s going to hell. David…everything would be simpler if he were still here. I wouldn’t have to think about any of this. I hate it, I hate it all, I just—I just want my boyfriend back.”
Her eyes shine with water, but they go dry when she blinks. This time there’s no hysterics, no snot-blowing. Just an angry, it’s not fair sort of exhaustion.
I’m shit at navigating emotional minefields like this—Hell, just ask my exes. I try to word my response as carefully as possible. “Jenny… it’s not your fault he’s not here. That’s a bullshit lie your brain is telling itself because it doesn’t like feeling helpless. And I know it doesn’t help much, me saying that, because knowing is nowhere near feeling. But the facts are: we haven’t found a single dead body. That means David is actually super duper likely to be alive. You can’t throw that hope out the window because you’re afraid it’ll be dashed. So just hang tight, okay? Hang tight for a bit longer, and I’ll get you the answers you need. And, um, maybe don’t cheat on a kidnapping victim anymore. ‘Cause that’s kind of totally what you were doing, and I’m the worst person to judge stuff like that, but it cannot be good for your karma. Okay?”
For a moment, I can’t tell if she’s listening to me. Then she closes her eyes, tilts her head, and gives a shattered sort of laugh. “Alright, if you say so.”
I give a cautious smile. Then I open my mouth to speak again—but Jenny cuts me off with, “By the way, you know that whole ‘noble lesbian defender of women’ vibe you’ve got going on?”
Bloodbath Page 12