Pride and Poltergeists

by H. P. Mallory

  The officials who weren’t onsite when Meg launched the attack arrived quickly, moving into a large tent on the front lawn—a temporary office until the building could be cleared, the photos taken, and all of the bodies carted away. The rubble from the walls and ceilings and busted mirrors also had to be removed. Everybody was talking with Canadian officials, trying to decide how to repay their kindness—but maybe not in so many words. A whole cupboard of diplomatic implications and consequences could result from this impromptu aid, and we had to be prepared for anything.

  A man named Simon Richmond was particularly miffed about the whole thing.

  “How did this happen?” he railed, pacing the length of the tent. Kent uncovered a bottle of something, which might have been rubbing alcohol from a paramedic kit—and he kept taking shots every time Richmond repeated himself.

  “Somebody helped Meg get her people inside,” Casey insisted with a shrug, like that much should have already been apparent.

  “You can’t just replace senators and reps with shapeshifters,” Richmond balked.

  “True,” Casey replied. “Meg already tried to, but the shapeshifters she employed didn’t know enough about anything to be convincing. When she learned that lesson, she resorted to less extreme measures.”

  “Really? Those measures being?” Richmond asked.

  “Bribery, blackmail, and threatening to slander every government official until they agreed to look the other way while Meg blazed her murderous path through every agency in the country. Those officials who didn’t join her, died for their cause.”

  “Our people would never take bribes or allow themselves to be blackmailed,” Richmond protested huffily.

  Judy snorted. “Have you met, like, any of your coworkers?”

  Judy, Casey, Kent, and I were the only ones still here! Bram and Ezra had vanished almost immediately after Meg disappeared, and Dulcie was in the hospital, along with President Odyssey. Rowena was lying on the lawn, being treated by paramedics for what amounted to a moderate stroke.

  I had no idea where Knight was. At the hospital, maybe, getting his head examined. He hit it pretty hard when Meg’s dragon threw him against the wall. Hopefully, he’d found some pants too.

  After giving our statements to every agency that requested them, and running through our stories, we were asked to describe the dethroning of Melchior O’Neil. Apparently, we hadn’t done nearly as good a job at covering up as we assumed. Even if the ANC proved innocent of corruption and conspiracy to commit treason, we expected some kind of legal trouble.

  “Who’s missing?” I asked. “Excluding the White House employees. What people who would have had the pull to call for replacements?”

  Richmond shrugged. “We don’t know yet. Half a dozen secretaries, some speech writers, who might have been persuaded not to go to the media … Senator McCarthy, a big, federal reform guy, the secretary of state … and we won’t know the identities of the dead or missing until the building’s been emptied.”

  A man in a black jacket with FBI stamped on the back in bright yellow letters stepped into the tent—Agent Thompson. He was only one of many people taking notes about all the trouble we’d caused.

  “If you’ve given your statements to everybody, then you are free to go,” he said, eyeing me in particular—the only one without a scrap of government clearance. I really shouldn’t have been inside the tent at all, but Casey insisted. Keeping me close to his side, he was trying to guard me from any jumping shadows or angry teeth that might have barreled out of the ether.

  Casey looked at me now with gentle concern. I smiled at him.

  “I really should go see Dulcie anyway,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “We can escort you to the hospital,” said Agent Thompson.

  “That’d be great,” I said. Casey reached over and squeezed my hand, smiling.

  “I’ll be done in a bit,” he said. “Wait at the hospital, and I’ll come find you.”

  He’d probably be here for hours, I guessed, since he was directly overseeing the whole mess.

  “Okay,” I said, wondering what his reports would say about me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Knight

  “Dulcie?”

  She looked up. Sitting in her hospital bed, she slowly dressed herself in her normal clothes. Her honey-blond hair was pulled into a ponytail and her eyes were as green as summer, but I noticed a heaviness in them now that I hadn’t seen there before. The weary expression of someone who’s seen too much tragedy, or witnessed too much pain. The expression of someone haunted by unpleasant memories and images that never abandoned her.

  She froze when she saw me, turning still as stone. A vampiric paralysis she’d never displayed before.

  “Hi,” she said with a timid smile as she glanced down at her small hands.

  For a long time, we just stared at each other. Watching. Trying to come up with any kind of issue to discuss. Some words to describe what happened. It wasn’t just her being possessed or the crimes she committed under Meg’s direction or because the ANC was in very deep shit; we all were mired in very deep shit. The conversation at the top of both of our minds was what could have happened between Meg and me and Sebastian and her.

  There didn’t seem to be any good way to introduce it.

  “Dulcie,” I said, fighting the urge to move onto the bed, grab her in my arms and kiss and hold her, but I couldn’t. Dulcie kept staring at me with broken-spirited, doe eyes, looking more than fragile, almost skittish—as if I came any closer, she could start screaming.

  “I’m … I’m so sorry.”

  “I know,” she said shakily. “Knight …”

  “I don’t …” I pursed my lips, my heart pounding before folding in on me like a house of cards in the wind. “I don’t know why I didn’t … stop … her. I tried, and you must believe that I tried. I tried with all of my power and strength, but it was no good.”

  “Meg’s power exceeded everyone’s imagination,” she answered softly. “I, of all people, should know.” She took a deep breath. “There was no way you could have defeated her. She was basically invincible.”

  “Just so you know,” I started as I tried to clear my throat. “I don’t blame you for anything that happened while you were … you know, under her influence.”

  She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I can’t believe the death and destruction,” she said as she shook her head. “All in my name. At my hands.”

  “That wasn’t really you,” I nearly interrupted her.

  “Me,” she said with a rough snort. “I don’t know who me is anymore. I don’t know what I am.”

  “I do, you’re Dulcie,” I said simply with a shrug and a little smile.

  But she shook her head and looked up at me with wide, sad eyes. “No, I’m not,” she started. “I’m not the me I used to be, and that’s for sure. Everything about me is different.” She flexed her fingers and focused on them for a few seconds. “I have powers and abilities I never had before, and I discover a new one almost every time I turn around.”

  “Then consider it a wonderful gift,” I said.

  “A wonderful gift?” she asked me, her eyes narrowing. “How can you call this curse a gift?”

  “Because what else can you do?” I asked as I breathed in deeply. “You are different, just as you said you were. But that doesn’t have to mean it’s bad to be different. You can realize all your newfound abilities and use them however you choose to. It’s up to you to embrace the new you or despise it. But one thing I can tell you is this: your life will be a hell of a lot easier if you simply accept what you are. You can only be stronger for it.”

  “You sound like a sappy after-school special,” she said with a smile, but I could tell she didn’t feel it.

  “I know we need to talk about what happened between Meg and me,” I started, dreading the conversation but recognizing its necessity, all the same.

  “I’ve really tried not to think about i
t,” she started.

  “But you can’t stop thinking about it, I’m sure,” I interrupted. “Just like I can’t stop thinking about it. Or seeing you with that vampire.”

  “Sebastian.”

  “Right. At least, for me, I didn’t have to see it.”

  She nodded and exhaled heavily. “And I did.”

  “Can you forgive me?” I asked hollowly, afraid of her response.

  She faced me with tears in her eyes and smiled. “I want to, Knight, I really fucking want to.”

  “But you can’t?” I asked, and my stomach dropped all the way to my toes.

  “I don’t know,” she answered as her gaze settled on her fingers again. “My head is such a mess right now, I don’t even know what’s up and what’s down.”

  “You’ll need time to make sense of it all, and process everything that happened. That’s natural.”

  She nodded. “I just keep asking myself how we come back from this,” she said as she glanced up at me again. “How do we forgive each other, and more importantly, ourselves for what we did?”

  “Because we both have to realize we weren’t in our right frames of mind.”

  “I tell myself that until I look at the facts and then I … I just want to throw up.” She was quiet for a few seconds and focused on the scenes outside the window along with all the devastation beyond it. “Do you know how glamours work?” she asked quietly.

  I had to admit I did. You have to truly want whatever you’re being glamoured into doing, I thought. At least a little. I said nothing for a long time. And then replied, “Yes.”

  Dulcie pressed her lips together, shutting her eyes, like she was fighting back the urge to scream. Then the words came spilling out of her, released before she could think better of it or try to retrieve them.

  “Knight, that means you let Meg have sex with you,” she said quickly.

  “No,” I started, shaking my head.

  “There is no way she could have glamoured you into doing that, not unless there was a small part of you that wanted it.”

  “Did you want to kill all those people and destroy everything you did?” I demanded, throwing my arms across my chest.

  She laughed and shook her head. “I’ve thought about that too. Of course I didn’t want to, but I did it all the same, and Meg managed to glamour me into doing whatever the hell she chose. That thought keeps haunting me and won’t let me go. I keep asking myself if it means I really wanted to do those things.”

  “No, it doesn’t mean that,” I countered. “All it means is that Meg was one sadistic fuck who happened to be incredibly powerful. She forced us both into doing her bidding, not ours.”

  She started sobbing and I reached up instinctively, stopping myself before I could touch her. I sat there, staring at her, trying to think of what I could do, something useful that wouldn’t feel wrong. I didn’t know why but I felt dirty, tainted. Like my tryst with Meg was tattooed on my forehead. If Dulcie didn’t feel like the same person she was before all of this, I was right there with her.

  After a moment, she looked up. Not at me but the wall, staring with red, puffy eyes at a watercolor painting of a purple flower. Her voice was rough as sand and coarse as iron.

  “I can’t be around you right now,” she said. “I can’t. I can’t even look at you, and I know, I know that’s not fair, but … I can’t.” She shook her head and sighed. “I feel like I’m caving in on myself and drowning in all of this and I can’t take it anymore. I just need some space to think, and breathe.”

  Silence. A tangible mass of it wedged between us, stifling us. For a while, I didn’t say anything but just looked at her. Dulcie, my beautiful Dulcie, who couldn’t even look at me anymore. I understood what she meant, because I couldn’t look at me either.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Sam

  The hospital was crowded. Full to bursting with people and creatures, burnt and blistered, electrocuted, half-drowned, some who were thrown off buildings, or through glass, or pounded by slabs of concrete. Conversations, along with screams and yelps and crying and laughing all blended together, refusing to let one travesty overshadow another. The smell of antiseptic was everywhere, only slightly more powerful than the smoke drifting in from the outside and clinging to the skin of every patient that was brought in. The waiting rooms were crammed with people, patients with shards of glass in their hands or cuts on their arms. The ones who could afford to wait slightly longer were standing next to the parents and friends of the ones who couldn’t. Every fourth step, I heard a doctor say, “I’m sorry,” and the crying in the room would grow louder.

  Our fault, I thought. This was entirely our fault. This should have been a contained conflict, a blip on the ANC’s radar. No more than a “we had some trouble, but it’s fine” scribbled hastily at the bottom of someone’s final report.

  Instead, we had this. A massive blunder on the scale of a natural disaster. A supernatural disaster. A small part of my battered brain almost found that funny.

  When I got to Dulcie’s room, I started to walk in, until I caught Knight’s voice. He was almost whispering, his voice breaking like small waves against a ship.

  “I’m … so sorry, Dulce.”

  “Madame White?”

  I squeaked my surprise, whirling around and almost punching Dagan in the face. He caught my fist and lowered it slowly, grinning.

  “Apologies,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Oh, sure, is that why you snuck up on me rather than announcing your arrival like any normal person?” I asked, pulling my hand back.

  He shrugged, turning his ear to the room with a grimace. “Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” he said.

  “It’s none of your business,” I said sharply.

  Dagan held up his hands. “Forgive me, I only wanted to see that everyone managed to make it out all right.”

  I narrowed my eyes, crossing my arms. Doctors bustled around us, jostling Dagan and me when one of us strayed too far from the wall.

  “Honest,” he said. “I haven’t quite returned to the totally immoral, decadent soul you’re so fond of and familiar with.”

  Fond wasn’t the word I would use. “Why are you actually here?” I asked.

  “Checking on my friends,” Dagan responded. “As I said.”

  “You don’t have any friends.”

  Dagan grinned, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “Says who?”

  “Says me and literally everyone who’s ever met you … ever.”

  “Sam, I’m hurt,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. “I’m a changed man. Need I remind you that I saved your life—and, by extension, the entire world?”

  I hesitated and sighed. Point taken. Trying to relax, I ignored my temporary irritation and sleepiness, reaching in my heart for the undying gratitude it required to thank a demon, even if I weren’t convinced by his explanation. The day that Dagan became a good, law-abiding citizen was the day I bought a bridge in the desert.

  “Thank you, Dagan,” I said. “Really. You’re a very peculiar kind of guy and I don’t know why you helped us, but we really appreciate it.” I cleared my throat. “And I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before you tell me exactly why you did help us and exactly how much it’s going to cost the ANC.”

  Dagan grinned lasciviously at me. “Of course I will wait until the ANC is back on its feet before sending you my bill,” he said, in a voice as slick as oil. “Say, but if you ever find yourself wanting to really thank me …”

  “I’ll put you on my Christmas card list,” I said, rolling my eyes. And for a second, Dagan’s smile looked halfway genuine again, almost playful. Bordering on innocence, or whatever he thought innocence could encompass.

  “I will—” he started.

  “Not send me a damn thing,” I said, thinking immediately of a long list of unsavory toys Dagan might have taken it upon himself to give me. I had no intention of waking up anytime in December to find an X-rat
ed Christmas card contaminating my other correspondence.

  “Very well. Adieu, Madame White. I pray we meet again.”

  After he vanished in a puff of red smoke, I could only wonder to whom a demon might pray.

  ###

  Knight walked out of the room a minute later. He didn’t acknowledge me as he passed. I turned to watch him wiping his eyes and figured he didn’t want an audience. After waiting ten seconds, I walked in.

  Dulcie was … okay. Mostly. Sitting on her hospital bed in street clothes provided by the FBI, she was getting ready to leave and vacate the room for somebody else. Patched up by stitches and staples as well as pinches of Christina’s fairy dust, only a couple of persistent bruises and a general sense of dread were left to show for her ordeal.

  “Hey,” I said, knocking lightly.

  Dulcie looked up and smiled weakly, wiping tears from her eyes. “Hey.”

  I sat down on the bed, looking at the door. I waited another moment before I said anything. “How are you?”

  “Great. Except I feel like I got roundhouse-kicked by a fucking elephant.”

  I laughed. “That’s better than bad?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Dulcie sniffed. “Sam, I am so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Trying to kill you,” she answered. “And blowing up the ANC—and for all the other horrible things I did.”

  “Dulcie, no,” I said, “no, don’t you dare apologize.” I hugged her head and began rubbing her back. “You were glamoured; you didn’t know what you were doing.”

  She sniffled, holding back tears. “Sam, I … I called her Mother. She wanted me to believe she made me …” She trailed off, taking a deep, shaky breath. “Sam, glamours only work if you want them to work. Even just a little … and I must have wanted … Well, I mostly wanted my mom back. So badly that I almost killed you.” Tears streamed silently down her cheeks, her lips trembling—and she tried not to make any noise.

  “It’s okay,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Really. Meg was at least a hundred years older than Bram, and she was drawing on abyssal magic like I’ve never seen before. We’re shocked you could break away from her control long enough to think, let alone shoot yourself in the head.”