Bloodbath

  “You’re—you’re so weird,” I choke out.

  “You love it,” she teases back.

  “I mean, yeah, but I’m a really bad measuring stick for ‘healthy’ or ‘normal.’”

  “I know. You’re like a goldfish when it comes to trouble.”

  My brain dings. My eyes pop open, the pain inconsequential. “Pardon?”

  “You know, goldfish don’t have stomachs, so they never know when to stop eating. That’s why they explode. You’re like that, except you never know when to stop pissing people off.”

  Goldfish. Goldfish. Joy’s prophecy, this is important, I need to remember—

  The timer on the sink trills loudly. I nearly fall out of the bathtub trying to turn it off, and I don’t realize how dizzy I am until that moment; I’m probably dehydrated from lapping up all that blood. I reach out of the tub to drag over the flip flops I prepared just for this purpose, clambering out onto the towels I laid out. I pause to lean under the sink faucet and gulp down some tap water, then wipe my mouth as I say to Lilith, “By the way, I made another ward. It’s the wrapped jar on the desk, and if it works, you shouldn’t even be able to open it. Want to test it out while I get this ritual together?”

  “Sure thing.” Lilith is still lounging in the tub, languidly licking stripes of crimson off her arm like a cat grooming its coat. “One thing: I want to change the conditions of this round.”

  I stop my sink-drinking. “Oh?”

  “When I win, I don’t want to ask a question. I want your coat.”

  My cheekbone bangs against the faucet. “My coat? The black one? Why?”

  “Because there’s nothing I want to ask you at this moment, and I know you’re going to miss it.”

  For a second, I wonder if this is Lilith’s way of punishing me for that moment in the bathtub when things got too real. Or maybe she just wants me to think that. I shake my head, too confused.

  “Fine, sure, whatever. It’s full of bullet holes anyway.”

  My flip flops slap slap against the floor as I drip drip drip my way across the living room. I hear sloshing in the bathtub as Lilith gets out. I make last-minute adjustments to the candle arrangements on the floor, crouching between them with a tape measure to make certain of the dimensions.

  “You must be the worst at wrapping Christmas presents,” Lilith says right behind me.

  “Jesus—” I nearly fall over in shock, then whip around to see her holding Pandora’s Jar in one hand and its metal lid in the other. She’s got my coat draped around her red-stained shoulders, and Tinkerbell is peeking at me over the lip of the jar as it nibbles the last remnants of the napkin-receipt. “Oh, come on! It was that easy?”

  “I don’t know why you’re surprised, it’s like you didn’t even try with this one.”

  Tinkerbell crackles like it’s agreeing with her. Then it does a suspicious little shimmy, and makes a flying leap out of the jar onto the floor.

  “Tinkerbell NO!” I yell, scrambling for it. “Get the little fucker, it ate my desk last time—”

  Lilith smothers the flame into the floor with a quick press of her foot. Her whole body shakes with laughter.

  “Tinkerbell? You named your little fire thingy Tinkerbell?”

  I flush all the way up my forehead. “It—it was supposed to be cute, alright?”

  “Oh no, I agree that it’s cute. Most things you do are.”

  Now I’m blushing down my chest too. I turn around quickly, pretending to fiddle with one of the candles so she can’t see. She walks away, presumably to put away Pandora’s Jar.

  “Why did you have to bathe in blood, anyway?” she calls from the desk.

  “Demon summoning ritual. There’s some metaphysical stuff I never quite got the hang of, but the gist is that Castitae will use the blood to manifest a proxy of himself on Earth. Kind of like a hologram call, I guess. Me being covered in the stuff gives him a flesh-and-blood location anchor, and also shows that I went through the trouble of performing his stupidly specific ritual.”

  I hear the mason jar drop to the desk with a heavy thunk. Lilith’s voice is quiet.

  “I’m covered in the stuff, too.”

  I wave her off, settling into the chalk circle with my legs crossed under me. “No worries, he won’t sense you as long as you’re outside the circle. That’s your big concern, isn’t it?”

  No response.

  I turn to see Lilith’s nowhere to be found, and the mason jar is rolling idly between a pencil and a roll of duct tape. “…Alright then,” I mutter, getting back to the ritual.

  I haven’t used a ritual circle in a while, not since the demon blood. There’s marked differences between this circle and the one I used back then; this one’s a basic scene-setting circle, keeping out extraneous energy while concentrating what’s trapped within. The one I attempted necromancy in was more a circle of exchange, a closed circuit. My life and magic thrummed through the lines I’d drawn in blood, Johanna’s corpse the filament of a lightbulb, burning bright with energy from my battery. I’d sewn the sleeves of her robe together, making a sort of straitjacket, and put a sheet over her whole body—even so, her dead muscles had jumped and twitched under the silk, her jaws snapping open and shut with the appalling noise of a too-big nutcracker. Animating the body was the easy part. Even without the demon blood, I could have easily made the corpse into a mindless, soulless zombie.

  But I didn’t want a zombie. I wanted Johanna. The real Johanna. My Johanna. And the demon blood I injected into my neck wasn’t just extra juice; I wanted what demons had, the ability to punch through planes to get from Hell to Earth and back, except I was going to punch a hole from Earth to Purgatory where I was certain, so certain, that Johanna’s soul was waiting for me.

  I close my eyes. Dead is dead is dead. And there’s no point in trying to change the past—that’s the attitude that fucked me over in the first place, fourteen months ago.

  “Castitae,” I say, projecting my voice to fill the whole room, “Castitae, Castitae.” I glance at the ritual instruction sheet on the floor to my side. It says to recite Castitae’s name three times, and then call upon him… using a nonasyllabic, poetic call. I squint, trying to see if I read that correctly. Does it actually say “monosyllabic?” No, it’s definitely “nonasyllabic.” Nine syllables, I think. I clear my throat noisily. “I call upon thee…” Five syllables, I need four more. “…motherfucker.” Nine syllables. That should work, right?

  The candles blaze as tall as me, like a circle of road flares, and the blood in the bucket boils and bubbles. Then it shoots up like a geyser—a pained scream echoes. The crimson liquid churns within an invisible framework, forming angles and edges, two veiny, humanoid feet leading up to skeletal legs with spur-like bones protruding at the knees, a bowed spine and unnaturally puffed-up chest, and… and…

  I blink. And I start laughing.

  “Insolent whelp,” the pigeon-headed demon coos down at me, beady eyes narrowed. He folds his wings over his featherless, nippled chest. “Thought you could summon me again by disguising that abhorrent face, didn’t you?”

  I stop laughing. “The Hell does that mean?” I don’t recall meeting this guy before. I think I’d remember a half-bird, half-humanoid demon with the hint of a Jersey accent.

  Castitae tosses his ovoid head to the side and barks an angry, disbelieving laugh. “I know it’s you, pissant. You were the one who failed to follow instructions, to uphold the purity of the ritual by numbers. My end of the contract has been long fulfilled, and it is pointless to come crawling back again and again claiming to have been cheated.”

  Hmm. This seems to be a case of mistaken identity. I could clear it up, or… I could roll with it. I get to my feet and place my hands on my hips. “The price I paid was falsely advertised. What I gave you is not what was in the contract.”

  Castitae’s feathers get ruffled. Literally. “You were the one who put up a show of offering your soul and having that lapdog volunteer to take your
place—was it a two-person con from the beginning? Or did he not know that you were using him? Or perhaps, he knows you do not care for him, and is simply flagellating himself with your attention?”

  I cock my head. “Lapdog? The blond one?”

  He flaps a wing impatiently at me, splattering my cheek with droplets of blood. “Yes, yes, the blond one. Who cares about the color of his hair? The point is, you promised me the soul of your beloved like it meant something. You deceived me. And I do not take that lightly, witch.” He stops. His eyes turn to slits. “…You could be deceiving me now, again.” His neck cranes upward with stuttering movements. Each of his eyes are pointed at opposite walls, and they jump from corner to corner. “This is nowhere close to where we met before. I do not sense the pressure of water and stone upon us—you are in the sky, not in the ground. There is… a barrier erected around this room. Not for me…” He goes deathly still. He lowers his gaze to me, orange eyes focusing forward, one by one. There are sharp teeth in his beak, making the ghastly illusion of a human smile on a bird’s face. “…For you. Ah, so the Council is aware of your crimes then, witch? You have crawled to me one last time for a way out?”

  I set my jaw. “The Council knows nothing.” Think, think, say something cartoonishly villainous. “…And I crawl for no one, much less a demon.” Good enough.

  He sighs, and the sound rolls in the back of his avian throat. “Yes, but they will know soon, will they not? I heard the Arbiter is on your scent—crafty old bitch, that one. Even I wouldn’t get on her bad side. Unless…” He cocks his head. “Ah-ah-ah. You just don’t know when to stop, do you?”

  I lift my chin and sneer. “I didn’t summon you for this useless lecture…” I wrack my brains for a good insult. “…birdbrain.” I almost cringe at how bad that was, but keep plowing on. “Will the spell work on the Arbiter?”

  Castitae’s eyes roll like cueballs, and his shoulders rise and fall in a quick, jerky shrug. “Line up the cattle again in that overpriced death-cave of yours and find out yourself. You are a woman of action, are you not? So impatient you couldn’t wait a paltry few hours for the thirty-third sacrifice. Sunrise, I told you, always sacrifice at sunrise and sunset! What did you think would happen? You bought a blood spell from a demon who lives by numbers, but you couldn’t even bother to do the math?” He throws his head back and laughs raucously, the sound a strange, rolling Koo-kooroo-kooroooo. I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off. “—And then of course, that horrifically impractical nonsense afterward—slaughtering your own child to escape the Council’s notice? A mortal like you, wasting your legacy like that? Koo-kooroo-koorooooo!”

  My blood runs cold. I feel the words slip from my mouth exactly the way I heard them before, while I knelt on the floor of the gutted church with an icy hand in my back. “Miklos. His name was Miklos. If you’re going to use him against me, at least say his name.”

  Castitae draws up, growing impossibly taller, spreading his wings to graze the edges of the ritual circle. “Who are you trying to fool, witch? You love nothing and no one and your lust for power is not even exquisite enough to lend itself to patience. You know what we call your kind in Hell? Amateurs. Whiners. Food.”

  I watch him loom over me, one hand still on my hip, the other dangling passively at my side. Then, I say:

  “Nádasdy, right?”

  The beady bird eyes blink at me. Castitae shrinks back to his original size. “You. What?”

  “Katlin Nádasdy. That’s who you think you’re talking to. Just wanted to confirm, because that’s the vibe I’ve been getting, but I didn’t want to be wrong.”

  The demon stares at me, hard. “…You’re not her.”

  “No, I’m really not.”

  I walk forward and kick the bucket of blood over.

  Castitae’s crimson form splashes onto the floor, ruining the chalk circle and reminding me that, oops, I’m going to have to mop that up. But through the pain in my toes and the thoughts of home cleaning, there’s a rage boiling in me.

  Nádasdy. Child murderer, kidnapper, grade-A bitch. She played me, she played Bautista, she played the whole fucking Council. I find some dry-ish towels in the bathroom and toss them onto the mess on the floor, then knock on my front door.

  The baseball-capped Enforcer opens it with a “Yeah?” She stops. I realize, belatedly, that I’m still fully naked (except for the flip flops) with blood crusted all over my body. The brim of the Enforcer’s cap bobs as she looks me up and down. “Did you just kill someone? If you did, I’m not cleaning it up.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone. I just need to talk to Bautista.”

  “Ah, good. I’ll get her on the line, just… stay there.” She pulls out her cell phone and starts typing into it, glancing back up at me every few keystrokes.

  I turn to go. “I’m just going to get a shirt—”

  “Uh-uh. Stay.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “You want me to stay naked? Thought you had a boyfriend.”

  She grins up at me as she puts the phone to her ear. “Looking’s not a crime, innit?” Then she’s distracted by Bautista picking up, and hands the phone to me.

  “Bautista,” I say, taking it, “we got played. Badly. Nádasdy kidnapped and killed all those people, tried to kill her competitors on the Council, and killed her son to cover it up.”

  I hear a sharp intake of breath. “Are you sure?”

  “Heard it straight from the demon’s mouth—which I know isn’t a very reliable source, but trust me on this. We got our killer.” I walk into the center of the living room, pressing down on the towels with my foot to soak up the rest of the blood puddle. Bautista’s response in my ear is hesitant.

  “That is… difficult. I could try to convince the rest of the Council of her guilt, but until I had some kind of evidence or a majority indictment, Nádasdy would be fully capable of fighting back. And she could just as easily pin the blame on me. Amadeus won’t indict without proof of guilt, and the families will accuse whoever they think will benefit them more, and in the meantime Nádasdy could take steps to shut me up.”

  “Can’t you go straight to the Arbiter?”

  “Same issue as with Luo. Won’t take decisive action without proof, and my pointing fingers could get me restrained and investigated instead. This would all be so much easier if she weren’t a Council member…”

  “I’ll take her on.” I’m surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth. But once they do, my mind is set. “We can end this tonight. We know Nádasdy was at home at the time of the last attack, or close enough that she could zip right back to murder her son while the Council was playing catch-up with the other victims. Castitae talked about it too, a ‘death-cave’ with the ‘pressure of water and stone’ upon it. That’s where the sacrifices are, I’m sure of it. If I get them out, we save Joy, we save everyone we’ve promised to save, and we have evidence—we can have the Council ransack her lair the way they ransacked the clinic, and all her dirty laundry will come spilling out.”

  “How are you going to get into her home? It’s an intensely secure mansion.”

  I rub my jaw. “I can figure something out. Magical barriers aren’t a problem for me. Technology and mercs… I might have to hire someone, maybe incur a favor or two, but it’s possible…”

  “Or, you could just walk in.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “I can help you. You could have a disguise.”

  “What kind of disguise would work on Nádasdy and dozens of armed guards?” I have a vivid vision of myself in a tweed suit and a bowler hat, a fake mustache glued to my upper lip. Actually, I think I’d look pretty good in drag.

  “Meet me and I will show you.” She hangs up.

  I hand the phone back to the Enforcer. She takes it, still carefully studying my body. I turn to go get dressed.

  “Freeze,” she says.

  I do. I hear her make a camera shutter click noise with her mouth.

  “Alright, you can go now.”r />
  “You’re giving me really mixed signals,” I call over my shoulder.

  “Listen, I sold my private life and individuality to the Council for slightly better dental and I regret it every bloody day of my life. Let me have my little pleasures.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I stay in the living room a moment longer, wringing the blood-soaked towels out into the bucket and leaving a more manageable mess for future-Harry. The dry blood on my skin is pinching in uncomfortable places; I get under a hot shower and scrub it off, steam amplifying the copper stench until my airways are choking with it.

  And then I dress for war.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Domestic Warfare

  I’m wearing a cloak that smells like old lady. I smell like old lady. When I look down at my hands in the light of the risen sun, they’re darker and more leathery than I’m used to. The guards at the gate dismiss me as they let me pass; what harm could a little old lady in a cloak possibly do? But the ones past the gates shift nervously and heft their rifles. I assume those are the ones who know that, in a world where magic exists, old ladies in cloaks can be the scariest thing imaginable.

  My crowbar swings silently against my leg under the cloak. My pockets are distressingly light, but I’m trying not to let it get to me—if my legs start shaking with adrenaline now, I’ll trigger the potion too early. I calm myself by going over the plan, everything Bautista and I relayed to each other when she met me in Joy’s apartment an hour ago.

  “What do you know about Nádasdy’s defenses?”

  “She has a lot of mooks with guns. They’re under the command of the mercenary, Jax. Civilian, as far as I can tell, but he knows too much about magic to not be a threat. And a vampire—but last I heard she’d disappeared, and I don’t think she cares enough about her employers to come back.”

  “Good. Put this on.”