by Annie Bellet
“You cannot do this, honey-child. Ever. God wills what happens and what does not.” Gran takes the bird from Tess’s hands. “We’ll give him a proper burial.”
Later, sitting at the hearth and watching Gran spin in the waning light, Tess gets the courage to ask.
“What was happening? I felt all cold, and the world started to spin and spin.”
“It’s your gift. Like your mama before you. You have a feel for time, for the way the world and stars and all the heavens move.” Gran sighs and stills the drop spindle, setting it in her lap.
Tess stays quiet. Gran never talks about Tess’s mama. Not ever.
“She had the sight, which has passed you by, I pray to Jesus. Your mama saw the devil coming and she tried to change the future. Look at me, child. No one can change the future. Only God can stand up to the devil. But my baby tried.”
Gran’s eyes left Tess’s face and focused on something Tess couldn’t see, a distance she sensed but did not understand.
“She gave her life to you,” Gran said after a long, long silence that left Tess fidgeting and wondering if her Gran had fallen asleep with her eyes open. “Like Jesus dying for us, she tried to give her life to you, to die for your sins.”
“I’m a good girl,” Tess said, distressed. She said her prayers every night. She walked all the way to church twice a week, and she always asked God to forgive her when she had bad thoughts about the mean Camberly boys.
“You are,” Gran agreed. “But you must never turn back time. Your mama tried it, the night she died. I can’t say for sure if she managed, but I’ve never known a woman able to survive what she did. A baby, neither.”
“How did she die?” Tess whispered. She had an idea, a vague memory that was impossible. A beautiful woman with long brown hair leaning over her, whispering in a language Tess did not understand. Telling her to eat, to remember, to live.
Telling her to fight the devil.
“She gave her life for yours,” Gran said. Her grey braids bobbed as she shook her head. “That’s enough woolgathering. Go wash your hands and say your prayers.”
Tess knelt by her bed. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the beautiful woman.
Words tumbled from her lips, but they weren’t her usual prayers.
“Lucifer has golden eyes. The man comes, mama. The devil is coming to burn and burn us all. The devil is going to end the world. Lucifer will wake the dragon.”
I awoke with strange words and memories on my lips, shaking myself out of Tess’s memory, or her dreams. It was hard to tell them apart. Tess stayed silent in my mind, her ghost weeping softly at the edge of my consciousness. She was terrified.
I didn’t blame her. I was in the barn, up in the loft. Alek’s warm body was pressed against my back. Light filtered in through the bullet holes. It was still daylight.
“Hey,” I said, not sure if he was awake.
He was. “You want water or clothes first?” he asked.
“Water,” I said. My mouth tasted of ash and blood.
My left arm was still pink and raw, but healing. I splashed water over it after taking a deep drink. Minimal pain, just the sting, no worse than a papercut but less annoying. My fingers flexed fine. I’d live.
“What happened in the fire?” Alek said as he handed me my clothing.
“Some kind of magical snake thing. Like a Salamander without legs, I guess. Lava snake? Who knows. The important thing is that it tried to eat me and I kicked its ass.”
I was filthy, covered in ash and soot. I wondered if the hose still worked but was too tired to climb down and find out. It was probably frozen sold anyway. All I’d do would be to make myself wet, dirty, and cold. So I sucked it up and pulled on my clothing. At least it was dry, warm, and less dirty than my skin.
My hair was unraveling from its braid. I did what I could with it, twisting it into a thick knot at the base of my neck. I was halfway tempted to tell Alek to chop it all off, but it could be saved with a hot shower and conditioner. A few hours with a brush and a lot of patience wouldn’t have hurt, either. I had none of the above, but I still had my vanity. I loved my hair. It was staying, itchy and annoying though it was at the moment.
“Where are Ezee and Levi?” I asked, looking around. “How long was I out?”
“A couple of hours. They are getting supplies. It’ll be dark soon. We’re going to stay here for the night and head to the grove at first light.”
“Do the others know? If we don’t come back, they might come looking for us.” I knew that Harper would. She was stubborn that way. Given Ezee and Yosemite’s relationship, there was a good chance he’d go with her. Then we’d be all split up again, ripe for picking off. I didn’t like that idea at all.
“Yes. Ezee called Harper. Cell phones are magical, aren’t they?” Alek smiled gently at me.
I felt my jeans pocket. My phone was missing. “Don’t suppose you know where mine is?” I asked.
“Dead somewhere along the way,” Alek said. “That’s my guess. It wasn’t on you or in the clothes you handed me.”
“Damn. Not again.” My life was hell on phones. And clothing, for that matter. At least this time I’d saved my shirt, and Harper’s jacket.
Alek raised his head, listening, his body tense. He relaxed quickly as the sound of a car crunching on ice and gravel reached my less sensitive ears.
“Twins?” I asked, though his posture already told me he recognized the vehicle.
I wrapped my hand around my talisman just in case. It had survived the fire just fine, but I kind of figured it would. The D20 was as much a part of me as Wolf.
Shit. As Wolf had been. I sucked in a deep breath to quell my grief. For a moment I’d forgotten.
“Hey,” Levi called out.
“Up here,” Alek called down to him.
They had backpacks full of granola bars, jerky, and dried fruit. We ate a quick meal, nobody talking much for a while as the sun faded away. I hated winter. It got dark so early and it felt like the sun took its sweet time rising, too, like it was too cold to get up and it just hung around considering not making the effort.
“Town didn’t burn, I heard,” Ezee said after a while. “Thanks to a crazy naked woman.”
I gave them the cliff-notes version.
“Shit, lady.” Levi grinned at me, his teeth white in the growing gloom, his face in shadow, only his piercings catching the light and glinting silver.
“I know I can’t talk Harper out of her revenge,” I said, burrowing into one of the sleeping bags and leaning back against Alek. “But you two should take Rose and Junebug and get the hell out of here. This is my fight.”
“Fuck that,” they said in unison.
“Samir came here, burned our town, killed our friends, and is trying to destroy the rest of our friends. We aren’t abandoning you,” Levi said.
“I’d be insulted you are even asking us to, but I know your heart is in the right place. Stupid, but in the right place.” Ezee pulled a blanket around his shoulders and moved a mound of hay to help pillow his head.
“I don’t know if I can win,” I murmured. I barely said the words aloud, but my friends had preternatural hearing, so it didn’t matter.
Alek’s arms tightened around me and he nuzzled my ear.
“You are the strongest person I’ve ever met,” he said. “And you are not alone.”
“Damn straight,” Levi said.
“Correct, but never straight,” Ezee added. I heard the smile in his voice even as the light faded too much for me to make out his features. It was an old joke among us.
“I feel like we’re always behind. I can’t pin Samir down. I don’t even know what his real game is, what he really wants. He could have killed me by now.” At least, I was pretty sure he could have. Maybe Wolf had been more of a deterrent than I thought, but it seemed like Samir was up to more than just toying with me. That, or I truly didn’t comprehend the depths of his evil. Little from column A, little from column B?
>
“It’s obvious what game he’s playing,” Levi said with a snort. “Human Occupied Landfill, live action version.”
“What?” I said. I hadn’t thought about that obscure game in a long time. I’d had a copy in the game store, but mostly as a novelty item.
“Think about it,” Ezee said. “How do you start a live-action game of HoL?”
“Set a couch on fire in someone’s basement?” I tried to think, remembering something along those lines from the back of the book.
“Exactly.” Levi chuckled.
“If we’re playing HoL,” I said. “I guess you all took the ‘running blindly into eternal damnation because you think you can win’ skill, eh?”
“I think we all took that skill at char gen,” Ezee said.
“Except Alek,” Levi added. “He took the ‘make sharp things go through soft things that scream and bleed’ skill.”
I managed a laugh at that as Alek nuzzled my cheek with a soft chuckle. Laughing felt good, a little painful, but cleansing.
“I like this skill,” Alek said.
He was right, I wasn’t alone. I was loved and surrounded by those I loved.
That’s what terrified me. I had so much to lose. And I didn’t want to lose anymore.
There had to be a way to protect them all. I closed my eyes, but it was a long time before I slept again. Samir would come at me again. He would finish me himself, I was certain of that. He was hands on, he’d want to see the life leave my eyes, watch me die as he bit into my heart and stole my soul. Watch the pain in my face as he destroyed everyone I loved, as he broke me before the end.
He would come to me.
I had to be ready. So I spent most of the night taking a tour of the memories in my head. Thinking about power, about magic, and ley lines, and how to save the people I loved.
When dawn came, I was tired, but determined. And I had a terrible, terrible plan.
We arrived at the grove to find that Freyda and the Wylde wolf pack had beat us there sometime in the night. At a glance, the Alpha of Alphas didn’t look like much. She was tall and lean, with pale skin and wheat-colored hair. Freckles dotted her nose, giving her a younger, cuter appearance that almost mocked the worry line in her forehead and the deep knowledge in her blue eyes. She was holding the wolf pack together, and had beaten all challengers to her role. Underestimating Freyda was not something that anyone did twice.
“Not what I had in mind when I told the Sherriff to tell you to get out of town and get to safety,” I said after we exchanged cautious greetings.
“You think we would run? There are strange wolves here, invading my territory without asking for passage. A man who smells of death and old blood leads them. He tried to hire some of my people.” She spit into the flowers, then glanced at Yosemite where the big druid lurked near the hut and inclined her head in apology.
“As though we would fight against the woman who saved us all,” she continued.
“Jade thinks everyone should run away and let her fight Samir all alone,” Harper said with an exaggerated eye-roll.
I glared at Harper and sighed. I was done fighting with everyone over who could stand with me. Freyda had been around a long time. She wasn’t stupid. I hoped she would realize when enough was enough and vanish when the time came.
“You may stay,” I said, pretending it was my decision. I could cling to the illusion of choice and control, right? “But the sorcerer is mine. I’m the only one who can kill him. If you want to keep the mercenaries he brought with him off my back, I’d appreciate it. I won’t interfere with that.”
Freyda looked me over and gave a small shake of her head. I could only imagine how I appeared. Dressed all in black, filthy from the fire, my black hair tangled in a halo around my probably exhausted-looking face. From her expression, she didn’t think I could kill a flea, much less Samir, but she had the intelligence, or at least the grace to not say so.
We worked out that the wolves would set up in the forest around the grove. They would be the early warning system and try to pick off Samir’s men before too many reached us. Working as a pack, we hoped they could drive Samir and his people toward the grove. Yosemite was strongest here, and the thick brambles would limit the effectiveness of guns, hopefully edging the fight into melee range where the shifters and I could have a better chance of engaging the foe.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but when you break eggs, you have to make omelets.
After that, it was a waiting game.
Know something else that druid hovels don’t come with? Showers.
I heated water over a propane camp stove and ran a washcloth over my face and neck. The tan cloth turned instantly black, as did the water as soon as I dunked it again.
“Hey,” I said to Rose as I gave up on cleanliness. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m healing,” she said. Her expression was grim and lined with grief. “As for the rest, well. Max isn’t the first baby I’ve lost. It don’t get easier.”
I shivered at the hollow pain in her voice. “I’m sorry, Rosie,” I said softly.
“Don’t start that again,” she said, looking at me with fever-bright eyes. “You just promise to keep my Azalea safe. And you kill that devil who took my Max from us.”
Devil. Her use of that word echoed Tess’s dream memory and ran a different kind of shiver down my spine.
“I promise,” I said, meeting her gaze without flinching. “I am going to keep you all safe. Nobody else dies. Not on my watch.”
With that said, I left the hut and went to find the druid.
Yosemite was at the edge of the grove, watching me approach as though he’d been waiting for me. Knowing the unfathomable ways of druids, he probably had been.
“Iollan,” I said, using his given name instead of his nickname. I continued in old Irish, so that Harper, Ezee, and Levi, who were all sacked out on blankets on the other side of the clearing wouldn’t be able to understand us if they overheard.
“That tree teleportation thing you did when we were fighting the Fomorians,” I said. “Do you have to use trees? Could you teleport more than one person at a time?” We’d leapt into a tree portal, voluntarily and with haste. I had something else in mind this time.
He was silent a long time, his eyes fixed on my face as though it were a book he could read. Then he sighed and ran a hand through his thick red curls.
“I would say it is not possible, but we are in my grove. Here, many things might be possible.”
“Because we are on the biggest node I’ve ever felt?” I asked, curious if he could feel it, could maybe even tap its power.
“Partially. There is a reason the Eldertree grows here,” he said, gesturing at the huge oak. “You want me to take people away from here?”
“Yes,” I said simply. “When the fighting reaches us, when Samir shows up, I want you to get everyone out. Everyone,” I repeated. “Except me.”
Yosemite turned away and ran is fingers along a blackberry cane, tracing lines and thorns. The cane went from winter brown to summer green as I watched, then faded again back to dull, dormant.
“This is a hard thing you ask.”
“I cannot watch them die,” I said softly, glancing back to where my friends rested. “I need to be able to fight Samir without worrying. This is not their battle anymore. Please, Iollan. Please help me.”
“Will they forgive me?” he asked, more to himself than to me. “Will he?”
I had no answer for him. I knew he and Ezee had a troubled relationship. Ezee had described it as a bird loving a fish once, but they’d grown closer over the last month. Turmoil does that, I suppose. Some people it rips apart. Others, it binds together, paring us down to our core values and desires, showing us just how damned important the ones we love are, how important that love is all by itself.
I was counting on his love for my friend. Counting on his own desire to keep them from dying, using it to get my way. I would have felt worse about manipulating the druid
like this, but I needed to save my friends.
Harper wanted her vengeance, but she couldn’t have it. It would only get her killed. I wasn’t sure I could defeat Samir, but I’d hatched a plan.
“Do you have a plan?” Yosemite asked, almost as if reading my mind.
I looked up at him. He’d stepped back toward me and I’d forgotten how huge he was. He had a good six inches on Alek, who had a nearly a foot on me. For a moment Yosemite seemed as old and solid as the oak above us.
“I do,” I said. “I need to know they are safe, or I won’t be able to do what is necessary.”
“Does your plan involve destroying my grove?” A dark glint of humor lurked in his eyes and the corners of his mouth twitched beneath his beard.
Maybe he could read my mind. Damnit.
“Possibly,” I said. I didn’t really know. It had a good chance of it though. What I planned wasn’t subtle.
“Will you survive?”
“Samir won’t,” I said with more conviction than I felt. That was all the answer to Yosemite’s question I was planning on giving.
“If you do, you’ll have your hands full apologizing,” he said, the smile gone.
“I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it,” I muttered. Alek would forgive me. Eventually.
“All right, Jade Crow. I give you my oath. When the fighting starts, I will take them away.” He sighed heavily and shook his head. “What about the wolves?”
I repressed my feelings of triumph. This was not something to celebrate, but just knowing that I had Yosemite helping me, that my friends had a chance to escape and live, lifted a weight from my shoulders, unbending my spine.
“Freyda isn’t an idiot,” I said. “She’ll do what she must out there against the other shifters. If it gets too dangerous, she’ll pull back the pack.” That I was sure of, more or less. She was a survivor, and her skin in this game was thin. She loved Wylde and felt duty-bound as the Alpha of Alphas, but she wouldn’t risk her pack on a suicide mission. She was happy enough to leave Samir and the true war to me.