by Cate Tiernan
My head was pounding. I closed my eyes.
“Darling, how well you look.” Incy’s voice, warm and friendly, made my eyes pop open again. He was sitting in a sleek modern chair, white brocade and dark wood, in what looked like the living room of a hotel suite. I thought I recognized it—was it the Liberty Hotel in Boston? A heavy silver tray sat on the glass-topped coffee table in front of him. “Tea? No—you’re getting enough tea these days. Coffee, then.” He poured me a demitasse of espresso and dropped one cube of white sugar into it. “Remember in Russia? We drank hot tea through sugar cubes in our teeth?”
My hand, as though disembodied, reached out to take the china cup. I nodded. The Russian tea had been strong and bitter, explaining the custom of sipping it through a sugar cube. It had taken several tries before I’d quit making slurping sounds or had tea dribble down my chin.
“What are you doing here?” My voice sounded as though I were hearing it through tissue paper. I still felt hazy, foggy-headed.
Incy leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs, elegant in black Armani trousers and a custom purple silk shirt. “Come to see you, of course.” He smiled and sipped his own coffee. “You see, I’m rather dependent on you.”
“Why?” My throat tightened and I forced the coffee down. It left a heated trail and kicked up some acid in my stomach. Why was he here? How had he found me? I’d tried to disappear, thought I was safe at River’s.
Innocencio shrugged and examined the oil painting over the side console. “I thought I’d just gotten used to you,” he said slowly. “But actually, it’s much more than that. You and I are soul mates, two sides of one coin. There can be no me without you.” His face changed, darkening, and his eyes were glowing coals when he looked at me. “And there can be no you without me.” His smile was beautifully cruel, and I shivered as if icy fingers were drumming down my spine. He was saying everything I was afraid of, everything I wanted to not be true.
“We’re not soul mates, Incy,” I said. I drank some coffee to show how unconcerned, unconvinced I was, and almost gagged on it. “We’re not lovers. We were best friends for a long time. But I think… I need to take a break.”
The room grew dark, as if suddenly covered by an eclipse. Incy’s face was thrown into sharp relief, the room’s small fireplace flickering ever-changing shadows across his symmetrical features. He got to his feet, looking at me, then threw his cup against the wall, where it smashed. Coffee ran down the yellow wallpaper like a bloodstain. My heart throbbed irregularly and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“No, Nastasya.” His voice was tightly controlled. “No, Nastasya. No, Sea.” Sea had been my name before Nastasya. “No, Hope. No, Bev. No, Gudrun.” He was scrolling through my identities, going back in time, decades. “You see, Linn, Christiane, Prentice, Maarit—we belong together. You remember, Sarah? You remember when we met? And I was…”
“Louis.”
“Yes. I was Louis to your Sarah. Then I was Claus to your Britta.” He pronounced it the German way: klows. “Then I was Piotr to your Maarit. And James to your Prentice. Then Laurent. Beck. Pavel. Sam. Michael. Sky. Remember when we were the Sea and the Sky, together in Polynesia? Now I’m Innocencio to your Nastasya. And you are. Not. Taking. A. Break. From. Me!” He ended with a roar, kicking over the table, swiping a crystal lamp off the sideboard. He stood right in front of me, chest heaving, eyes bloodshot, and he looked totally out of his mind, like a junkie, like—
Like he was a junkie. Like he was addicted… to me.
It was a stunningly clear realization, one that I wish I’d had, say, eighty years before.
I got to my feet, trying to project strength. He had never hurt me in a hundred years. It was hard to believe he would physically harm me now. “We’re not soul mates, Incy,” I said, feeling my own anger finally igniting and squashing my fear somewhat. “I’ve never thought that—I don’t know why you would. And of course I can take a break—from you, from everything. I’m going to rest up, hang out for a while, and then maybe we can get together in Rio or something. In time for Carnaval.” Throw him a bone—Carnaval was in February.
“I don’t think so, Nasty,” Incy said with a hard smile. “I don’t enjoy being alone. And given the price of leaving me, I’m sure you’ll change your mind.”
He made a graceful gesture to the right, as if demonstrating what was behind door number one.
I glanced over, and my whole body jolted in shock. It took seconds to comprehend what I was actually seeing. There were… heads sitting in a thick pool of dull blood that was scudded over and clotting. It was hard to see the features as human—but I saw past the drooping gray skin, half-open eyes, and slack mouths, and recognized Boz’s face, and Katy’s. A pasty hand showed from behind the couch—their bodies were there. Incy had killed them.
And then Incy was holding a huge, curved blade, like a scimitar. Blood had dried on its edge. He was smiling as he walked toward me. The fire in the fireplace had gone out, and a thick, oily black smoke was coiling through the room. I could smell it. I could smell the suffocating, coppery scent of the congealing blood.
“Come here, Nas,” Incy said softly. “Come here, darling.”
I stood stock-still, frozen. I hated crazy Incy—wanted fun Incy back again. The smoke was choking me; I was wheezing, sucking in air, suffocating—
And then Incy was standing over me, eyes glittering as he raised the scimitar. I couldn’t make myself move, couldn’t leap out of the way, couldn’t attack him—
And with a smile, he brought the blade down hard.
Then I was jackknifing up, bolting awake so fast that I tumbled out of bed to land on the floor, my shoulder and hipbone thudding painfully into the chilly wood. I lay there, still and quiet, as if moving would make Incy materialize right in my room.
I inhaled slowly, silently, then checked all four corners of my room. Same room at River’s. Empty except for me. Window closed. Door closed and spell-locked? I couldn’t remember. Inhaling again, I smelled only the lavender we put in the laundry water and a trace of the white vinegar we used on mirrors and windows. No blood. No choking black smoke.
The floor was cold. I pulled myself into a sitting position, flicked on my reading light, then collapsed again and leaned against my bed. My face and back were damp with clammy sweat. I brushed my hair off my face with a trembling hand.
What was wrong with me?
This had started at New Year’s… at the New Year’s circle. Laughably, I had committed myself to being good, making Tähti magick. I mean, I had—oh my God. I had cast off darkness. What if—what if I had only released darkness, unleashed it? What if I had sent my darkness—which was considerable, given my family history—out into the world? Now it was coming back like a rabid dog, nipping at my heels, scaring me with threats of so much worse.
Then I had another bad thought. I crawled under my bed and used my fingernails to pry out a piece of loose floor molding. There was a small space behind it, chipped out of the wall plaster. Reaching in, I grabbed a colorful silk scarf, all wadded up. I pulled it out and leaned against my bed again. Still feeling trembly, I unwrapped the object inside.
The ancient, burnished gold gleamed at me, warm in my hand. It never felt cold. It was half of the amulet that my mother had worn around her neck always. To find it, possess it, was why raiders had stormed my father’s castle, killed everyone except me within. But they’d found only half of it. I still had the other half. I’d picked it out of the fire, wrapped it in a scarf and tied it around my neck so I could run with my hands free. It had burned through the scarf, burned its pattern into the skin on my neck, the design, the symbols, everything. That burn had never healed—just as the one Reyn had on his chest had never healed.
I’d kept this my whole life—it was the only thing that I had from my family, my childhood.
But it was a tarak-sin: the ancestral object that helped channel tremendous magick for my parents, the rulers of one of the eight great houses of
immortals. Each of the houses has or has had its own tarak-sin. It didn’t have to be an amulet—it could be almost anything. Some of them have been lost. I hadn’t had a clue about any of that until I’d come to River’s Edge. I’d also learned that everyone believed that the tarak-sin of the House of Úlfur had been lost forever.
I had no idea if this broken half still had power, could still magnify my own power. For 450 years, I’d kept it solely because it had belonged to my mother.
Now I held it in my hand, wondering if it was the cause of my darkness, my failures. It had channeled dark magick for centuries, for who knows how long. Was it intrinsically dark itself? Was my carrying it around one of the reasons—the main reason—my life had, for the most part, sucked?
It was the one thing I had of my mother’s. The one thing I had from a life that had literally been wiped off the face of the earth. Of the several fortunes I’d gained and lost over hundreds of years, this secret thing had always been my greatest possession. And maybe the key to my eternal downfall. Maybe an inescapable source of evil.
It was possible that the one thing I most valued was the one thing I couldn’t have.
CHAPTER 13
I stayed awake till it was light, then replaced my amulet in its hidey-hole in the wall. I traced a quick sigil for invisibility over the molding, not that anyone would look at the floor molding behind my bed. Several weeks ago, I’d had the insight that I wanted to claim my heritage as my mother’s daughter, my father’s heir. Somehow I had missed the inescapable inevitability that I would reveal myself to be just as dark as they had been.
I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, as if I were glowing with the plague and everyone would be able to see it. People were laughing in the dining room as they set up for breakfast. I didn’t want to be around people. Goddess knew I didn’t want to be in the barn or the chicken coop. Going to a class this morning would be awful, and what would happen the next time I made magick was anyone’s guess.
I just needed—
I had no idea what I needed. But I had to move, had to do something. Fortunately my hair-trigger impulsiveness was still part of the Nasty mosaic, and it told me to put down the broom, grab my keys and my coat, and slog through the snow to my little car. Which I did, immediately, feeling a sense of relief at the thought of escaping these undark people, this undark house. I desperately needed to be somewhere else, doing something else, not talking to anyone.
Ice on windshield, hard-to-start engine in frigid weather—here’s a time when some magick would come in handy, you know? Did I know any useful spells? Why no, I sure didn’t. But go on, ask me the Latin name of, like, foxglove. Digitalis purpurea. You’re welcome.
Crap! My car skidded all the way down the long unpaved driveway until I reached the secondary road, which, thank God, had been plowed. From there it was another couple miles to the also-plowed main road that led to town.
Yeah, because the town held so much for me, right? There was the combo Chinese food/falafel joint, the abandoned buildings, the place I had been fired from twice…. There was one yucky bar, one grocery store, one rundown Laundromat. Main Street was four blocks long. I’ve been to museums bigger than four blocks long.
But where else would I go? I’d taken a few steps forward and fifty steps back. My stomach rumbled and clenched, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten anything yet. I drove past MacIntyre’s Drugs and of course couldn’t resist looking in. The store was lit, the OPEN sign was up, but I saw no one except a woman standing at the empty front counter, looking around as if hoping someone would come help her.
I bet Old Mac was sorry he’d fired me now.
Main Street petered out, and a quarter mile down the road I was back to empty lots, the occasional small house, an easement for the big electrical lines.
I turned around with a sigh. Maybe I would go get something from Pitson’s, the one grocery store, and then return to River’s Edge. It was barely eight in the morning—what else was I going to do? As I drove past MacIntyre’s Drugs again, I saw the woman leaving the store, her hands empty. No one had waited on her. Hadn’t she called to Old Mac? He should have been back in the pharmacy.
I rolled forward and, without even really meaning to, came to a gradual stop at the curb.
I sat there for a minute, not thinking, not doing anything, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. Then I got out of the car, locked it, and walked to the drugstore. The bell over the door jingled with a deceptively cheerful sound, as if trying to make me believe I wasn’t entering my personal hell. I looked down each aisle but didn’t see Old Mac. Tentatively I walked to the back. The pharmacy door, always kept locked, was open, a ring of keys still in its lock. The light was on, but Old Mac wasn’t there. I’d never seen that.
I locked the pharmacy door and pocketed the keys. Old Mac wasn’t in the supply closet on the store’s back porch, but footprints in the fresh snow led to the small storage building by the side fence. The door was open, and I crept up, afraid of what I would find. I’m so totally not the hero type, but I could call 911 with the best of ’em.
Then I saw him. He was standing inside the shed, leaning his head against a cardboard box on a shelf. He was muttering to himself. Was he praying? Had he gone crazy? I mean, crazier? This was not good. I decided to give him a couple minutes, see if he snapped out of it. I retraced my steps back to the store. I’d lost many people in my life, of course. I’d lost a son myself. The son that Reyn had found, that time, so long ago. It really had been a long time ago—I’d lived many lifetimes since then. And yet when I closed my eyes, I could still smell my son’s babyfresh scent, still hear his laugh that always made me laugh, too….
It had been in Norway. I was married. My husband was awful and I hated him, but back then young women didn’t live on their own. My son had been a miracle. He’d been fat and cuddly, his perfect health a shining contrast to the high infant mortality rate back then. His hair was thick and fair, and his eyes were the blue of a crisp spring sky. I’d called him Bjørn, which means “bear,” because he was like a little bear cub. He made everything worthwhile: my husband, our poverty, how hard everything was. I used to put him in a woven basket and carry him around with me as I hung laundry out, milked the goats, picked blackberries.
Bear’s gurgling laugh, the way he played with his toes—everything was fine then, in my world. We were so poor—my husband drank up the few coins I earned by selling eggs and goat’s milk, and cow’s-milk butter in the summer. When he was sober, he farmed unenthusiastically, borrowing our neighbor’s ox to break up the hard, stony ground. Each year our anemic crops of barley and oats got smaller and smaller. He could have earned more by trapping animals and selling the skins, but that would have involved actual effort.
Still, I was happy with my lovely Bear, and it was mostly me and him, day in, day out, in our rough house with the thatched roof.
Then the raiders came. One of Reyn’s men had buried an axe in my husband’s head. I found him just outside the empty pens, where my goats and one milk cow had been. The Butcher of Winter had taken every animal in our village, every store of grain and ale, almost every wheel of cheese. The pathetic store of money I’d managed to hide from my husband was worthless, for there was nothing to buy within ten leagues.
It had been horrible, the way my husband had died, but also a relief. I was glad to be a widow, for it to be just me and Bear. Then Truda, a local girl orphaned that day, came to my door with nowhere else to go. Having escaped from being forced into whoredom or slavery, she was thrilled to come live with us and be my helper. God knows she worked harder than my husband ever did. My life was good.
Bear had gone on to become a bright, sturdy toddler, always laughing, getting into everything. I managed to raise a small crop of oats, and we ate them as porridge and bread and ale. Then a flu epidemic swept through the town. The starvation that the winter raiders had caused had weakened everyone, and many people died. Truda had died, at thirteen years old. And Bear had died, even
though half-immortals are often able to fight off illness. I would have gladly given my worthless immortality to him, gladly died in his place. Instead I bathed his hot little body, tried to get him to drink water. Anyway. He had died. I’d never had another child after that. Would never go through that again.
“Oh, there you are.” The voice startled me, and I realized I’d been standing just inside the door, lost in my thoughts. I took a shaky breath and wiped my hand across my face. A woman was waiting by the pharmacy counter. She was a regular—Meriwether had called her Mrs. Philpott.
“Oh—” My mouth opened to explain that I didn’t work here anymore, but Mrs. Philpott said, “I’m glad to see you—I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’m on the way to the airport, and I realized this morning that I needed to pick up my prescription. I’ll run out before we get back.”
“Um—Mr. MacIntyre is… unavailable right now,” I said. “Maybe in five minutes?”
Mrs. Philpott looked concerned. “I’m so sorry. I don’t have five minutes,” she said firmly but not rudely. “I’ve got Eddie’s cab waiting.”
She pointed out the window and I could see the local burgundy-colored taxi, its lights on.
“Okay, let me check.” I went out back again, hoping to see Old Mac storming toward the store. But he was still in the shed, his head against the cardboard box, and now it looked like he was crying.
“He’s still unavailable,” I said. “Maybe you could get your prescription refilled where you go?”
“I can see my bag right there.” Mrs. Philpott pointed to the rack behind the counter. She still wasn’t being rude, which was amazing, but she had a determined no-nonsense quality that probably defeated most people. I could feel myself crumbling.