Kin

by Lili St. Crow

  What was that? A crunching noise? Something lost under more thunder, walking closer in great big steps across the sky? Like the feytale about Jath and the Giant, where as fast as Jath ran the Giant was only a step behind, swinging his axe.

  No. Something else.

  Ruby uncoiled, leaping from the rock and flashing through the undergrowth. No branch snapped underfoot, no leaf whispered at her passing—not until she heard it again.

  A choked cry.

  Someone’s in trouble. Her speed doubled. Heedless, uncaring of her maryjanes, the luckcharms on the straps jangling discordant music now, she tore through brambles and crushed bracken. A weight in her throat was the silver-thin cry of Help, the kin calls for aid, but she denied it. If it was Thorne and she called a howl, things would probably get so bad she’d wish she had never—

  Stinging pellets against her skin. The wind rose suddenly, thrashing in the treetops, as the poised storm trembled over New Haven. She burst into a small clearing, hail scattering and bouncing in tiny pinpricks, her gorge rising hot as the smell slapped her in the face.

  The shape didn’t make sense, especially with the branches heaving back and forth and the hail bouncing. Whiteness, spattered dark fluid like chocolate syrup, smooth knobs of knees flung wide, a tangled shock of hair.

  A flash drenched the clearing. Pitiless white light, burning every detail into Ruby’s brain. It was a girl, her hair dyed feyberry red, lying on her back as if asleep. Her face was tilted toward Ruby, slack and peaceful, her mouth a little open and her open eyes vacant.

  Great gouges had been ripped out of the rest of her. She wore a public-school uniform, it was impossible to tell which one because the blazer was shredded, the skirt torn straight through. The dark fluid was blood, a brighter crimson than her dyed-red hair. Slashes—something had hacked cruelly at her middle, and her bare legs were striped with long claw-marks. She’d lost a shoe—not a maryjane but a scuffed brown loafer, and her foot slumped brokenly inside a filthy white sock.

  The lightning-flash vanished. Ruby blinked, hot steaming sourness filling her mouth. She bent over, the remains of the apple she’d bolted between homeroom and History splashing onto a carpet of white hail. It even got into her nose, stinging and blocking that awful, brassy, nasty red smell she now knew was violent death.

  No. Please no.

  She could still see it, imprinted on the darkness when she blinked. A sound so massive it was almost silent rolled over-head, and the storm broke. The hail mixed with quarter-sized drops of smoking rain, a blurring silver curtain.

  Ruby whirled, the maryjane strap on her left foot loosening dangerously, and ran.

  She did not see the gleam behind her. Blind with panic, she pelted through the woods, and the low whistle of a blade cleaving air was drowned in the noise. Lightning crackled, and her pursuer flinched, spinning aside into the shadows, a low gleam of eyes near the ground as it crouched.

  At the edge of the Park the strap snapped, and the chiming sounds of the silver bugle luckcharms scattering on pavement was lost as she flashed through the rain and stutter-bursts of lightning.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE SEMPRENA CREPT INTO THE GARAGE THROUGH foaming rain, right next to Gran’s crimson sedan. Ruby cut the engine and just sat there for a few seconds, shivering. Crystalline beads on the windshield, dewing the windows, but Gran’s car was dry. She’d been home a while, then.

  What am I going to tell her?

  Later, every second she spent staring dully at the door to the utility room weighed on her. Each tick-tock a separate little bead of guilt, a bracelet of please, no, please, no.

  Finally, something occurred to her. She could see into the utility room, the corners of the washer and dryer stacked atop each other, the wooden slats of the flooring. The corkboard near the door to the kitchen, full of fluttering paper and the glimmers of spare keys, each neatly labeled.

  Why would the door be wide open? The garage door too, she didn’t even have to hit the opener.

  The thought propelled her out of the car, wincing as her left foot slid inside the broken-strapped maryjane. More luckcharms fell off, small bits of Potential popping as they hit the floor.

  “Gran?” Someone else was using her voice again. Someone about five years old, and scared of the dark. “Granmere?”

  The utility room door creaked a little as she passed. The chill wind pouring through would have been a relief if she hadn’t felt so cold, her mouth sour and her nose still stinging.

  She’s not home. She went for a walk. Oh yeah, in this weather, sure. Maybe she was out in the garden, sitting under the pergola as she often used to, in an ancient, wooden, heavily repainted rocking chair. The squeak-thump of that rocker used to be the sound of long summer evenings, while Ruby chased fireflies with the cousins under Gran’s benevolent gaze.

  “Gran?” The kitchen light was on, warm yellow in the gray the day had become. Ruby’s breath came high and harsh, the air had turned to glass. She couldn’t drag enough breath in. Black flowers bloomed in her peripheral vision, soft and choking. “Are you home?”

  The kitchen was just the same. Faded red linoleum squares, the cozy crimson countertops, the tomato-colored fridge under its layer of coolcharms humming away. A black enamel kettle on the stove, ticking as it cooled. A familiar smoke-edged breath—Lapsang Souchong, Gran’s favorite tea. Drinking fire makes you strong, she said, but Ruby never . . .

  A shattered porcelain cup, painted with delicate blue flowers. A curled hand, and a sob caught in Ruby’s throat. She knew that hand, even though it looked so small and defenseless now. Unpolished nails, an old white scar, long healed, near the base of the thumb.

  She took another step. The stool was knocked over, and a teapot stood sentinel on the narrow kitchen island dividing cooking space from eating space. Its spout was still steaming, and Ruby caught a whiff of something acrid under the smoke. She couldn’t place it, because her nose filled up afresh, hot droplets sliding down her cheeks. Her hair dripped, too. She was wet clear through.

  Her knees met the linoleum, her teeth clicking together painfully. “Gran? Gran, wake up . . . Gran . . .” Scrubbing at her nose with the back of her hand, everything blurring. It was a nightmare, again, and soon she’d wake up and Gran would be just fine, standing in the kitchen and frowning a little, abstracted, while Ruby ate breakfast and swung her legs, occasionally kicking her schoolbag. Back before everything got so horribly, awfully messed up.

  A faint exhaling sound. Gran’s hand twitched.

  She’s alive!

  “Ruby.” A low voice, male, familiar.

  She craned her neck to look up. Everything inside her slammed painfully together, continents colliding. “Get the phone. Dial 733.” I sound like Ellie now.

  Conrad just stood there, staring down at her. Those sun-eyes looked vacant, the tiny image of herself on her knees next to her grandmother’s curled-up body vanishing and reappearing as he blinked. He was soaked too, dripping onto the kitchen floor. Little rivers of rainwater, and his boots were caked with mud and moss. The clancuff at his wrist was dark with water, a line of red rash along its upper edge, rubbing at his forearm. His arms, bare because he only wore the blue T-shirt, steamed slightly.

  Gran made another weak little movement, her hand clutching at empty air. Ruby grabbed it. “Get the phone! Now!”

  He did, moving too slowly, as if in a terrible dream. Ruby threaded her fingers through her grandmother’s, hoping she wouldn’t bruise her. How could she look so fragile? What was going on? Some sort of attack? Kin didn’t have heart attacks, or strokes . . . but kin didn’t fall on each other and eat, either. Or on mere-humans.

  “Move it!” she barked, the shift blurring inside her, and Conrad snapped forward as if compelled. It was dom-voice, Ruby’s will flexing inside her brain and breath, forcing him to do as she said. “Dial 733. Tell them to hurry.”


  He picked up the phone, fumbled with the numbers, but in a few moments Ruby heard the crackle of a live connection.

  “733, what are you reporting?”

  “Something’s wrong.” Conrad licked his lips. “Uh, we’re in Woodsdowne. One Woodsdowne Place. She’s not moving. She’s on the floor. I think she’s dead.”

  Don’t say that! Ruby ignored him, sliding her wet knees along the floor and slipping her arm under Gran’s shoulders. The old woman seemed bird-light and too heavy all at once, her head lolling strangely. Ruby pulled her close, and maybe it was just the rain all over her, but Gran’s skin seemed strangely . . . cold.

  She threw her head back, the sound swelling inside her throat, and it burst out of her on a long trailing silver scarf. The howl bounced around the kitchen, spilling out through the utility door and the open front door—because Conrad, for some reason, hadn’t closed it—and flashed through the rain outside. Everything in the cottage rattled together, and Conrad hunched his shoulders as the 733 operator cursed, a feedback squeal mottling the connection.

  It ended, and Ruby sagged over Gran, savage exhaustion filling her to the brim. She inhaled to howl again, but faintly, through the rain, she heard an answering, double-edged cry.

  Kin hear you, and are coming.

  So she held the old woman close and kept repeating the only thing she could.

  “Please, Gran. Please be okay. Help is coming. Please, please be okay . . .”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TRUEHEART MEMORIAL WAS A SOARING GRANITE PILE, one of the few buildings in the city that had survived the wrack and ruin of the Reeve. There were stories about people barricading themselves in there as the wild Potential roared over everything, changing and reshaping, the Great War drowning everything in fire and blood at the same time. Those who could found a hole to hide in, fighting off the Twists and the roaming packs of nightmare creatures, minotaurs and other, darker things boiling forth once the Age of Iron had ended.

  Ruby hunched in a black plastic chair, hugging herself. They’d whisked Gran off and told her to wait, Oncle Efraim had disappeared with someone to do paperwork, Oncle Zechariah was on the phone at the nurse’s station, making calls. Tante Sasha was at the cottage cleaning up; Conrad had stayed behind too. The cousins were all in school, and the adults busy, so Ruby was left to sit and shiver in a rundown waiting area with year-old magazines and two dying houseplants. Fluorescent light scoured her eyes, and she sometimes rocked back and forth, little nips and growls of pain all over her.

  Shuffling footsteps, people hurrying. Low-voiced conversations. The whole place was alive with the smell of disinfectant and hopelessness. Her head ached, too. Her hair hung in her face, wet strings, and no matter how hard she tried to think of what to do next, nothing sounded even close to helpful.

  The elevator at the end of the hall kept dinging. Each time, the sound hit Ruby on the skull like a hammer. It was annoying, to say the least, because she would just about get herself pulled together, ideas moving below the surface of her conscious mind—and then that little ding would go off and she’d lose it.

  The light in here never changed, and she was hungry. But they’d told her to wait, so she waited, occasionally glancing down at the nurse’s station. Oncle Zech disappeared between one look and the next, probably gone to find Oncle Efraim. Who else would be here? Tante Rachael, maybe, or Hunter’s mother . . .

  Ruby winced. She had to tell someone about the body. But who? Who would listen, and not immediately start making assumptions?

  “Miss de Varre.” He wasn’t looming over her, but it was close. “Ruby, right?”

  She looked up, and her heart lodged in the back of her mouth.

  Detective Haelan smiled. It was a kind expression, but it only made him look more tired. “I saw you the other day.” Very gently, like he was afraid she was going to start screaming. “Can I sit down?”

  She shrugged. Knock yourself out.

  Same sport coat, same bloodshot eyes, same graying hair. Cheap harsh cigarettes and metabolized whiskey, a sharp, brooding scent somehow familiar, too. The chair next to her creaked as he settled into it, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. It made her think of Conrad. For some reason that just made her stomach turn over a little more.

  “You’ve had a hard day,” he observed.

  She was suddenly conscious that her hair had dried into a wild mess, her bruised and scabbed legs were striped with bramble-thorn scratches, and her muddy maryjanes had clearly seen better days, especially the left one. Her Juno blazer stank of wet wool, the shirt underneath it still damp with sweat and rain, and her toes felt raisin-wrinkled because her socks were wet. Her nose was red, because she’d been scrubbing at it, and her cheeks were probably chapped and inflamed.

  I look like shit. A bitter little laugh jolted out of her, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to catch it. If she started now, she wouldn’t stop until she was screaming, and nobody here needed that.

  The cop didn’t look at her, staring down toward the nurse’s station. “They don’t know what happened, but they think they have her stabilized.” He swallowed, an audible click. His throat was probably dry as a bone. “They’ll figure it out. She’s strong.”

  You weren’t there. She was so light, and . . . Ruby peeled her hand away from her mouth. Her voice cracked. “Who’s Katy?”

  Haelan closed his bloodshot eyes, briefly. Rubbed at the bridge of his nose with two fingertips, hard enough that the skin reddened when he took his hand away. “Mithrus. They don’t even say her name around you?”

  What could she say to that? It was impossible to explain the kin to outsiders. “Who is she? Is she still alive?”

  “They never told you. Edalie never told you.” He exhaled, hard, and she shifted nervously. “Katrina Rufina de Varre.” Very quietly, and she got the idea he’d said it a lot. “You look a lot like her. The eyes, and your hair.”

  “My . . . mother. Right?”

  “Yeah.” He stared down at his scuffed brown wingtips. “She was . . . she was something.”

  I guess. “What did she do?”

  “It’s not what she did. It’s what they did. To her.” Another heavy exhale. “Look, this isn’t . . . I shouldn’t say anything. Edalie—your grandmother, she had reasons for everything. Some of them were even good ones. Sometimes I think they fought so much because Katy was just like her. Stubborn, both of them. Both thinking they knew everything.”

  Gran does know everything. That was a kid’s thought, though. What Gran didn’t know about Ruby could fill a book, especially these days. “So she is dead. What happened to her? My moth—Katy.” The name felt weird. But it was better than the word mother, because that one was empty. There was more comfort in Gran. Now there was a syllable to nail the world into place and make everything right again.

  Except Ruby was suspecting nothing would ever be right again.

  Haelan finally spoke again. “You really should ask Edalie.”

  “I don’t think she’d tell me.” Nobody else will, either. “I want to tell you something, though.”

  “What?” Now he looked at her, but Ruby kept staring straight ahead, pushing herself up out of the chair.

  Maybe there was a cafeteria here, or something? Eating wasn’t going to happen, but some limon would be nice. Tart, cold, and fizzing. It sounded like just the thing. “Thorne—you call him Danel. He didn’t do it. He couldn’t do it.”

  He was silent again. Just like an adult, not listening. There wasn’t a damn thing Ruby could say. And if she told him about the body now . . .

  A person. A redhaired schoolgirl. Someone was waiting for her to come home, probably worried because of the weather and the tabloids and . . . Ruby opened her mouth, closed it, hated the rock in her throat and the roaring in her head.

  “Ruby!”

  She looked up, dully, and blinked.
It made no sense, and her immediate baffled response made no sense either. “You’re supposed to be in school.”

  Cami, high hectic color in her cheeks, bent over and threw her arms around Ruby, squeezing with hysterical strength. Behind her, Ellie skidded to a stop, similarly flushed, her blazer askew and her wavy platinum hair ruffled. Both of them were gemmed with rain, and ambling in their wake was Nico Vultusino, looking years older than he should in a charcoal summerweight wool suit, his dark hair combed down for once.

  He’d grown up. When had that happened?

  The Family boy came to a stop and examined the cop next to Ruby, smiling that small, chilling little grin of his. “Haelan. Ministering to the victims again?”

  “Vultusino.” The cop didn’t sound pleased. “I know the family.”

  “You know both Families. Funny how that works out.” Nico stuffed his hands in his pockets. “What are we looking at here?”

  “Waiting on toxicology screens. Woodsdowne’s in an uproar. Caparelli’s going to do something stupid before long.”

  “Must burn that he got promoted over you.”

  The detective tensed, but his words were crisp and even. “Well, the Canisari own him anyway, so no harm done, right?”

  Nico’s little smile intensified just a fraction. “Observe the proprieties, Detective. La Vultusina is here.”

  “Are you all r-right?” Cami barely loosened up enough for Ruby to breathe. “Nico got m-me out of class. Talked to Mother Hel, too.”

  Great. She couldn’t say anything—Ellie had arrived, and put her arms around both of them. “Mithrus Christ,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Rube.”

  Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Instead, she curled into Cami’s comforting warmth and shut her eyes.

  “Nico.” Cami stroked Ruby’s tangled hair. “We’re gonna t-take her home. Let Mrs. Fletcher know, okay?”

  “Sure. Which car you taking?”

  “Mine.” The quiet note of pride almost hurt to hear. “Can you—”