by Kit Jennings
What little air was left in Callie’s lungs leaked out in a hiss. “Brigitte.”
Brigitte cocked her head. “You haven’t many heartbeats left, child. Are you certain you’re ready for this?”
Callie would have laughed, but mirth threatened to punch a hole in the dam between numbness and pain. “I haven’t much choice, have I?”
Brigitte crouched, and took her hand. “You always have a choice. You could walk Eva’s path, and make it your own. Of course, that would do no one any good. But it would save you a great deal of pain.”
Callie shook her head, and her world spun. “Not an option.”
“Hmm.” Brigitte stooped to tilt her head up with two elegant fingers. “Then I will make you a deal.”
This time Callie did laugh, and regretted it. The throbbing started. “Of course you will.”
“Well, this is the Crossroads of Crossroads.” Brigitte straightened. “Can you stand?”
“Probably.” Callie struggled upright. She managed it on the second attempt. Agony had finished its coffee break and, refreshed, was on its way back to deal another round.
She caught her breath halfway through unfolding, but made it past the sticky bit where her ribs were concerned. “What’s the deal?”
Brigitte gave her an approving arch of an eyebrow. The woman was half-Brighid, half-Sulie. “Stay.”
“Excuse me?”
Brigitte stretched her arms to either side. “Stay in New Orleans. Be its protector.”
Callie nearly collapsed. “I’m not—”
“What? One of us?” Brigitte laughed. “It makes no sense, child. You risk your life, your very soul, in the saving of this city. It’s in your heart now.”
“And the End of Days?”
“Coming, and soon. But until then?” Brigitte shrugged. “I would not think to keep you away when the call comes. All I ask is that you act as guardian, as Liam acts as guardian, as Eva did.”
“And Chase and Donal?”
“They cannot be with you. One has betrayed, the other already lost in the betraying.”
The Loa interrupted Callie’s protest. “They are already gone. You have nothing left, child.”
“They’re still mine.” Callie’s lip curled. “I won’t give up on them.”
“Have it your way. If I am wrong, the deal is off and you may stay or go as it pleases you. But if I’m right?”
“Generally a deal involves something or other of mutual benefit.”
“If you stay, you keep him—Keeper.” Brigitte’s eyes gleamed. “You keep him, and have the Loa’s full backing in the days to come. You reserve the right to call upon us in need. With Keepers lost, I’m thinking you can use the help.”
She wasn’t wrong. “And if I turn you down?” Callie figured she may as well know the score.
“We will still help you destroy Yshotha, naturally. But after, you will be returned to a place outside the city. The Baron gave you permission to enter and remain as long as the demon was a threat. Only I can supersede his power. You will not see Liam again, for his place is here.”
Humanity’s freedom, or her own. Lose everything she knew and fought for, or keep it and lose Liam, lose humanity before the war even started. She’d been right—no choice to be had. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t propose a counter offer. She’d be a coward not to try.
“Well?”
Callie smiled. “If you’re wrong about Chase or Donal, then I get everything you promised as though I had stayed. I will come and go as I please in your realm, and so will Liam. And, whether you’re wrong or right, the Loa will help in every way possible against Maeve.”
“Agreed.”
“Then I suppose we have a deal.”
Brigitte reached her hand to Callie. Callie met her halfway, and their fingers touched.
“Hear me, champion. I am Brigitte. You know me. We have made a Crossroads bargain, and are bound, our destinies tied.”
Light flared inside Callie—the light she had been missing, and more.
So much it blinded her.
Callie came to in a rush, and when she did, she wasn’t alone. A buffer lay between her and her surroundings. She felt as though she were flying and on fire at the same time.
In the distance, lightning struck the rod atop the cathedral’s main spire, electrifying everything around her.
Laughter echoed inside her—laughter that wasn’t hers. It made her insides a bit fizzy. “Brigitte?”
Pay attention now, child. There be work ahead of us.
Callie felt Yshotha before she saw it. Giant charging footsteps shook the ground, pounded and echoed in her ears. She reached for her sword. It scraped off the gravel where it had fallen and whirled at speed right toward her. The grip smacked into her palm. She turned with its momentum and charged right back.
She was a child again, swinging as high as she could, gravity warring with the insatiable temptation to let go. This time she gave in and flew.
One leap threw her to chest level, where the Loa’s strength helped drive her blade deep into Yshotha’s sternum. She used its torso to push off, and sailed over its swinging, burning arm. She twisted in midair, hardly feeling the twinge in her ribs. Pain was a distant promise over the horizon.
Callie landed hard on the demon’s broad, rocky shoulders, her boots digging for purchase. She adjusted her grip and brought her sword straight down with everything she and Brigitte had.
Yshotha threw her off with a world-shaking roar. Callie turned again, bracing herself to hit the ground. Looking down, she saw a miniature Liam running toward her. When she landed, her knees bent and she somersaulted, over and over, until she slowed and rolled to her feet facing the demon once more with a hissing grin that didn’t come from her. She charged again, giving Brigitte full rein.
Brigitte threw her at Yshotha like a torpedo. She twisted feet first, tucking her elbows in so her sword pommel rested between her breasts.
She slammed into the demon’s torso. He fell like a mighty sequoia.
As the dust settled, she clambered over the demon’s facade, sword at the ready. This time when she brought her blade down it went through the demon’s throat, nearly to the hilt. Lava spewed, but she held on through the death throws. The leather grip of her sword pressed hard into her gloved hands.
Liam reached her. “Callie!”
“Stay back!” She was on fire, only Brigitte holding back the need to scream. Too much power in her, too much surrounding her. Too much.
Too late. Yshotha’s eyes swiveled to Liam, and the dying demon smiled. In her desperation, Callie dropped to one knee, leaning on the crossbar of her sword until she feared it might bend beneath her weight. “Die, you son of a bitch!”
Finally he did. The fire in Yshotha’s eyes extinguished, and he fell limp. A moment later, he began a slow crumble into cooling ash. Rank smoke permeated her, making her choke. She stumbled from the demon’s corpse into Liam’s arms.
“Callie?”
“Wait.” She coughed brimstone from her throat as he carried her away. It was getting difficult to gauge the most basic movements with Brigitte’s presence beginning to leave her, seeping from her pores like a fever. “She’ll be gone in a moment. When she is—”
“She? Who?”
“Brigitte. She’s here.”
Liam walked faster, grip on her tightening. “She’s—”
“In me. A part of me.”
“Riding you.”
“Yes.”
He expelled a harsh breath. “When she leaves, you’ll fall unconscious. You probably won’t remember a thing.”
She laughed. “I think I will. In any case, I’ll certainly remember the bargain I made with her.”
Liam stared at her. “What bargain?”
She stumbled again and almost fell. Brigitte’s answering mirth reverberated inside her. “I’ll tell you about it,” she whispered, as Liam swung her up into his arms. “Over a drink.”
“Sure you will, Keeper,�
� Liam agreed. “Just as soon as you wake up.”
7
Callie sat on the mossy stone rim of the murky fountain in Liam’s courtyard, the ice pack pressed against the worst of the burns scorching her skin like crude patchwork.
These were deep enough to never fully heal—she would be left with a few more scars for her collection.
Liam exited the back door, a glass of whisky in one hand, a small mason jar filled with a white substance in the other. “Those look nasty.”
Callie shrugged. “I’ll live. What’s that?”
Liam held the mason jar aloft in long, nimble fingers. “Something from Sulie. Smells like mint and eucalyptus, good for burns. Once those heal some we’ll rub sugar over them to help avoid scarring.”
Callie cocked an eyebrow. “Trying to keep me pretty, Irish-man?”
Liam chuckled. “Don’t have to try very hard, do I?”
“Cute, smart and silver-tongued. Is there anything you don’t do?”
“Windows.”
Callie sputtered on her whiskey, laughing. Liam sat next to her and opened the jar of salve. The heady mixture of mint and eucalyptus thickened the humid air further as he smeared it gently over her new battle wounds. “Want to tell me about this Crossroads bargain you went and made?”
Callie sobered. “Brigitte warned me Chase and Donal were already lost. So I bet her they could still be saved. If I’m right, all is well—we’re both free to come and go as we please. If I’m wrong, I’m bound to New Orleans until the call comes for the End of Days.”
Liam stared at her, blinking. “Even after one of them made that deal with Maeve, you would still save them?”
“I have to. Even if I knew now, right this moment, which of them it was, I’d still have to try.” She drained her glass. “They’re all I really have.”
“Not true.” He tugged playfully at her earlobe. “You have me.”
“Even if—”
“Even if. I’ll make another deal if I have to.”
Callie exhaled. The constriction around her heart eased a little. “I was worried this was temporary.”
Liam cocked his head, smiling, as he smeared a light coat of salve along a burn mark on her jaw. “What was temporary? This?”
When he kissed her, every muscle in her body immediately softened, relaxed. She had been beaten, burned and betrayed. Sometimes a girl just needed to be kissed.
“You’re staying?”
They pulled apart. Chase stood in the weak light offered by the open second story windows, a duffel bag hanging from one hand, shotgun in the other, braced against his shoulder.
Callie stood and limped to meet him halfway across the courtyard, but didn’t come closer. “I have to choose.”
“Who are you kidding, Callie? You made a deal with the Loa. You’ve already made your choice.”
“You made a Crossroads bargain?” Donal exited the building, grasping a supply box from which a bottle of whiskey protruded in one arm. His eyes were wide. “Why, Callie?”
“For Eva,” she said quietly. “And the people of this city who are down a guardian.”
She swallowed, heart thundering. She could feel the confrontation building. Now would be the moment she would learn the truth.
Donal’s eyes widened still further. Chase dropped his duffel and brought his shotgun round to ready position. Callie whipped around.
Liam stood a few feet behind her. His stance seemed perfectly relaxed, arms crossed.
But the hunter in Callie sensed otherwise. His head was lowered slightly, a secret smile on his face. He was a predator, scenting her out.
His eyes ignited molten gold with internal fire.
“Yshotha.” The realization hissed out of her.
Callie stepped forward, forcing her trembling knees into a semblance of stability.
She had no sword, no weapon of any kind. Except the puzzle pieces snapping into place with startling rapidity, a healthy dose of desperation, and her bare hands.
“No,” she gritted between her clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare make me fight him.”
“Get out of the way, Callie!” Chase leveled his shotgun, cross-footing to find a decent angle to fire from.
She launched herself at Liam first. He went onto his back, laughing. Callie knew why—there was no way she could take him in her condition.
They broke apart and rolled to their feet. Liam strode forward and snatched Callie into midair before throwing her into the fountain with an almighty splash.
Callie struggled to reach air. Thick, brackish water filled her nose and mouth. A shot rang out, strangely distorted by her underwater trap. Liam’s arm cleaved through the water and wrapped around her throat, holding her under. His grinning, beautiful face rippled above her.
Callie was losing air fast, water ringing in her ears. Her chest burned with panic, heart struggling. She clawed the squeezing vice grip at her throat with one hand, reached for his chest with the other, and yanked.
His head and shoulders landed on top of her. Her left hand clawed at his chest. The city pulsed around her; she felt its energy pumping in Liam’s heart. He was still in there, somewhere. She let the city’s Crossroads power in, fed it to her light. It was so easy, if she just let opened herself to it. The way she had opened herself to him. She gathered it, built it up, fed it to boiling. And spent it all in an explosive bid for freedom.
The world slowed, shifted. When she opened her eyes, she and Yshotha were between, with Liam the demon’s unwitting passenger.
Callie and Yshotha tumbled, still struggling, into the void. Callie straddled his torso.
Pushing him back with a hand on his chest to keep him immobile, she grabbed him by the throat and leaned close. Her smile as she looked deep into his eyes was feral, sodden hair dripping with graveyard chill.
“Welcome to my realm,” she said. “There’s no time here, no space. I leave you here, you’re not just vanquished. You’re destroyed. Just like Eva.”
Liam-Yshotha’s lip curled as he snarled and bucked under her with demonic strength turned all too human.
Callie never looked away, never blinked. “You thought you sensed unrequited love in him. It was really fear of unrequited love, but it was enough to let you in, in a pinch.
Problem is, you were wrong. He is mine.” Yshotha stared at her through Liam’s liquid dark eyes. “Mine.” she repeated. “And that is your destruction.”
“You would never leave him here. He would never survive.”
“Neither will I,” Callie said. “If I stay too long, I suffocate, and my soul is as lost as any other dead Keeper’s, with nowhere to go.” Already her breath came harsh, making her voice rough. “You have no idea what I would sacrifice for them, for humanity. It’s what I’m made to do. I have no choice. Liam knows and understands that, even if few others do.”
Yshotha glared from Liam’s beautiful eyes. It made her sick.
“Now here’s the sticky wicket, at least for you. Let’s just say, on an off chance, you survive Liam and me. That’s when your problems really begin. Because the moment my soul disappears to nothing, Brighid will find you. And not even Maeve or your precious damned Lilith can help you then. You take her Keepers, she returns the favor tenfold.”
Yshotha continued to glare. Callie continued to waste precious oxygen.
“I see you take my meaning. Now let me tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going leave him, and this city, alone. And if I hear of your presence in any other city, I’ll send the others to finish what I started. You lay low in the Underworld until the End of Days. And then we finish this on a proper field, at the proper time.”
There was a long moment of uncertainty where they stared one another down. Callie could already feel the air leaving her lungs. She would begin drowning on absolutely nothing instead of fetid fountain scum any moment.
But so would Yshotha, and the demon knew it. He nodded.
“Good boy.” Callie followed the thread of light back the wa
y she came, and pulled them out of the void, the world shifting. “Stay back!” she yelled, as soon as the courtyard coalesced around them once more.
Liam exhaled, eyes closing, and she felt Yshotha’s presence leave his body. She sagged with relief. It was nearly over. There was just one last thing to take care of.
Liam’s hands touched her bare arms. “Callie?”
She continued to sag until her head rested on his chest. “I thought I was going to lose you.”
Liam tried a low laugh. “Never going to happen, Keeper.”
The shouting started behind her, as she thought it might. Unfortunately, she didn’t react in time. She was simply too weak, between her two struggles with the demon and interactions with Brigitte.
Callie pushed herself to her feet, turning in time to see Chase level his shotgun right at her. “This won’t kill you permanently,” he said, “but at least I won’t have to see you anymore.”
He pulled the trigger. But not before Donal leapt in front of her. He went down without a sound.
Time slowed, almost stopped. Callie ran for Donal, screaming. Liam flew past her and shoved Chase against the nearest wall so hard Chase’s head slammed against it.
“Hang on,” Callie breathed. “I’ve got you, Donny. Just hang on.” She pulled his shirt open with frantic hands. There was so much blood—too much. His heart jackrabbited against her hand, pumping more out. Somehow, she would have enough left in her to heal him, even if it killed her. “Stay with me.”
Donal pushed her hand away from his chest. “Don’t.”
Callie stared at him. “What?”
“It’s okay.” His breath shook, but he smiled. “It’s not so bad, you know?”
She looked deep into his eyes, and knew the truth. “You really did forgive Eva.”
“I never blamed her. I don’t blame you.”
And then he was gone, soft as a sigh.
Callie looked up from her dead friend, from the hot blood washing her hands. Liam’s eyes were full of silent sympathy while he pressed his forearm across Chase’s throat.
How could she have not seen the truth before? Donny had forgiven Eva, but Chase had never forgiven her.