“Okay,” she said. “So it could be a demon and a human. Could it be just one person on their own?”
He looked at the list of magics.
“I don’t know anyone who can do all of these, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. I should be able to find him in about ten minutes, though, if it is just one person, so I’d be very disappointed.”
She wanted to ask what he would do, then, but didn’t. Didn’t want to give him another opportunity to tell her how unimportant she was.
He pulled off the sheet of paper and started on the next page.
She waited for him to ask her a question. Or involve her at all. He didn’t. Finally, he tore off the next page and handed it to her.
“There,” he said. “Now go away.”
She looked at it.
He had astonishing penmanship.
In neat script, he had written a column of things to test. It wasn’t entirely clear how they were supposed to test for the characteristics, features, and behaviors that he had on the list, but she figured Dawn, Jackson, and Bella would understand. Next to that was a column of things to watch out for, and a third, a list of magics to protect against.
It was thorough, it was concise, and it was beautiful to look at. He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Thank you,” she said, standing. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Call Lange,” Carter said. “I can avoid him for a few days at a time, at least.”
She nodded and went to the door. Paused.
“It may not mean a lot to you, but I really am grateful,” she said. He waved a hand at her as he stood, going back to the kitchen without ever looking at her.
“We weren’t the ones to breed the Gypsy Vanners. They are new to history, both in the scope of the world, but particularly in the scope of the new world. I can name the men and women who brought them across the ocean to breed them for the Makkai, and I am not that old. All the same, their story is important to the Makkai, and so we keep it.
“Gypsy horses often live under challenging conditions, without shelter or predictable rest, but there are no horses in the world better cared for or healthier than a gypsy horse, because they have gypsy hearts, and they are a part of the family for any traveling gypsy, even in a world full of trucks and trailers.
“The Gypsy Vanner is an island horse, bred to pull a caravan wagon, bred to be well-formed, well-mannered, strong, resilient, and intelligent. We first bought them from Irish gypsies, not our own people, but people of a similar kind, who loved them dearly, and only let them go to us because we were of a kindred spirit, and we would care for them just the same. The first Makkai Vanner was called Henry, sold to a Makkai protector named Shaw in a period of time when motor-driven vehicles were not just prohibitive but non-existent. Henry pulled a wagon around England for ten years, and then he went to France, where he died at a good age on a farm that Shaw’s mother kept.
“Shaw loved Henry dearly, and he returned to Ireland to buy another Vanner, this time a matched set that he would breed, starting a line of Makkai Vanners that still exists all around Europe and parts of the middle east.
“It was this second pair of horses, though, that turned the Vanners from a beloved companion to a truly important part of the Makkai life.
“One evening as Shaw and his wife came down into a town where they planned to stay for the night, buying and selling unimportant goods and, if everything went to plan, meeting up with a tribe to see their daughter for the first time in several years, they heard voices, shouting, and Shaw left his wife with their wagon and the two Vanners to see what was wrong. He found a barn burning and a man and a woman standing in the center of a paddock, surrounded by screaming, slathering hooligans armed with cleavers and butcher knives. He could hear the animals in the barn, terrified and locked in behind closed doors, and he watched as one of the men caught hold of a dog and tried to strike it with a cleaver. The animal was too quick and escaped, but not before Shaw saw the manner of men that were there.
“Shaw had been a part of a tribe earlier in his life, and he recognized a demonic possession when he saw one, and though he was alone with his wife, he was not the type of Makkai to flee from danger, and so he went sprinting back to his wife, unhitching the horses and grabbing the first weapon he found in the wagon, a long, stiff rod he would have used for river crossings. He mounted up onto the Vanner bareback and, with but a few words to his wife, he went riding back to the little farm.
“Vanners are not riding horses, and they are but rarely accustomed to tack. Shaw had never broken his horses to a rider, but the stud nonetheless charged into the clearing where the farm was like a champion mounted charger, jumping the fence into the paddock and running rings around the couple while Shaw beat back the demon possessed men with his pole rod.
“In the meantime, Shaw’s wife came charging into the clearing, astride the mare, and she rode her Vanner straight up to the doors of the barn, where the mare turned of her own accord and beat down the doors with her great hind feet.
“With a great explosion of burning wood, the doors fell and some of the nearby animals came spilling out, but we all know that animals in the face of fire are often consumed with panic, and so Shaw’s wife and her Vanner horse went into the barn, chasing cows, sheep, pigs, and horses out into the yard, saving the great majority of them from the flames.
“In the meantime, Shaw had beaten back the attackers, but he was unwilling to do them real harm, as they were humans and not at fault for what had happened, nor for the intentions of the evil inside of them. The couple had managed to flee, and now he found himself and his Vanner stallion surrounded. The horse was fearless in the face of blades and madness, but they needed to react to the possession, now.
“Shaw’s wife threw him a bag she had prepared rapidly before she had taken to horse, and he opened it as the Vanner kept the possessed hooligans at bay, finding the things he needed to make a dispossession magic, but the possessed need to have the crystal shards cover them, for it to work, and with the amount of motion his mount had to sustain simply to keep Shaw away from the blades the possessed men wielded, there was no way he could manage it.
“And so he whispered to his horse.
“’You’ve done well, so far. Now is the time for you to finish it.’
“And he mixed the proper crystals with the accompanying ingredients and simply poured them out on the ground.
“The great Vanner horse kicked and churned and one by one, the men became covered and dispossessed, and fell away, stunned, afraid, and overwhelmed. Shaw’s wife dismounted and began recovering these men, helping them flee before their confederates found that they were no longer possessed and fell upon them with knives.
“And so it went, one by one, until the last man was dispossessed.
“And now came the time for Shaw, his wife, and the couple who owned the farm to evaluate their condition.
“The barn was a loss, as was all of the hay stored above it, an entire summer’s worth. They would have a hard time of winter, but their fortune of livestock yet lived, and they said the community would likely rally to help them rebuild their barn in time for the cold. Shaw’s mare had burns to her feet and her coat, and her beautiful feathers were charred and tangled, but it was nothing that a good Makkai couldn’t treat with common knowledge of horse care. The stud, though, was in dire shape. He had cuts to his legs almost as high as his shoulders, and embedded in his feet were the crystals that he had trod to save the men.
“And Shaw was greatly grieved, because a horse is nothing without his feet, and damage this severe was likely to cause his great Vanner stud to founder. As every Makkai child knows, the healing magics that work so well on humans are powerless on animals - the spark of life that is in them is simply too different from our own for the magic to heal them.
“And yet, he was determined to try.
“He spent the day cleaning the stud’s feet, bathing them in salt water and drawing each and every crystal shard from t
he soles of his feet. Despite great pain, the Vanner stallion stood calm through all of this, as if understanding the importance of what he had done and being willing to tolerate the consequences of it. Shaw’s wife treated the cuts, many deep to the point of life-threatening as well, and the stallion stood with his mare, quiet and calm. And then Shaw applied his magic balms to the stud’s feet and to his other wounds, and he waited.
“No one can say for sure why it worked in this time and not in so many others. Perhaps because of the heroic sacrifice the stallion had been prepared to make. Perhaps simply because of the great skill Shaw brought to bear on the poultices themselves. Perhaps for another reason entirely. But when he removed the bandages only hours later to check for inflammation, he found no sign of injury at all.
“Without hesitation, he applied the same bandages to the mare’s much lesser injuries, with the same miraculous result. And so it is said that a Gypsy Vanner is closer to the Makkai than any other animal, and that a Makkai who goes out of his way to save others will seldom reap disappointment from the effort.”
Becca returned to Colorado by plane, regretting that she couldn’t just buy a simple used car and drive it across the country, selling it when she got within range of where Jackson could come get her, the way her mother would have. Nora often made a profit, doing just that, and Becca had always admired it. But her mother knew cars, and Bella and Jackson needed Becca back as quickly as she could return.
And so she took the plane.
Jackson picked her up in Denver and they crawled up into the mountains in a line of traffic as the sun set.
“How was it?” he asked her. She shook her head.
“They are not Makkai,” she answered, and he laughed.
“No, they aren’t.”
“You’ve spent time in New York with Carter and the rest of them?” she asked.
“Not like you just did,” he said, “but I’ve met a number of them. Probably more than you have. And they aren’t Makkai. But you knew that.”
She nodded.
“They’re angry people.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“Gramma Bella warned me that they would be, but I’d imagined something more like Argo.”
He tapped on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the music on the radio.
“Argo has a very bland kind of anger,” Jackson said. “I’ve found Carter’s anger to be much more multifaceted.”
“What about the girl?” Becca asked. “Sam. They all talked about her, but no one actually talked about her.”
“We don’t know much about her at all. She changed Carter, but we don’t know why she was with him or why she left.”
“What was he like before?” Becca asked, mostly rhetorically.
“He wouldn’t have opened the door,” Jackson said. “He wouldn’t have helped. I’m certain of that.”
“You said that they were helping before,” Becca said. “Before Bella became queen. Who was helping, back then?”
“Others,” Jackson said. He looked at her with a frown. “There aren’t many of them around, now, who were doing this back then.”
“Retired?” Becca asked. He shook his head, looking back at the road.
“The ones I’ve known are all dead, now,” he said. “There’s only one of them I know of who’s been doing this since back then. The rest are all punk upstarts who got the job when the old guy died. Carter, too. He was a kid when his mentor died, maybe nineteen or twenty. Already as broken as he is now. More. Sam worked miracles with him. Lange will take Argo’s spot, someday not long from now, and then I would wager you are around to see the kid who takes Lange’s role, when Lange dies.”
Becca stared at the road. She heard Jackson breathe in again to speak.
“I don’t say it to frighten you or upset you. I just think you should know. Sometimes I think they keep everyone else at a distance because they know they’re going to die. Sometimes you have to protect yourself from stuff like that.”
She nodded, swallowing hard.
“You don’t think about it…” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “And most Makkai retire. We don’t lose a lot of people, when you take a step back and look at it. We hunt and kill things we know how to kill. Like hunting big game. So long as you’re careful, most everyone comes home alive, at the end of the day. The Gray aren’t like that. They’re fighting stuff that’s often a lot more powerful than they are. Immortal and angry. I heard one of them say, once, that their idea of a benediction is telling you that they hope you die in a puddle of warm blood.”
“That’s sick,” Becca said.
“It’s because the alternative is a puddle of cold blood,” Jackson said.
Becca put her hand over her stomach.
“They don’t act like…” she started, but failed to find words.
“No,” Jackson said. “They don’t.”
She nodded and watched the pass come at them, the point where the road just vanished, tipping up and over the low point between two mountains and back down the other side.
“Did you get good information?” Jackson asked. “Is he going to help?”
“Yes,” Becca said. “I don’t understand all of it, but I think Bella will.”
“Good,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what he would do, even with Lange willing to help you.”
She nodded, still troubled.
“We’re Makkai,” he said. “Don’t let it weigh you down. It’s not our way.”
She nodded.
“Get some good rest. Take Dozer out again if you like. He’s a good horse, and you seemed… happier, when you got back.”
“I don’t think Tabby likes me riding him,” she said. Jackson laughed.
“No. She’s rather attached to all of the animals. Thinks they belong to her, exclusively. Only just tolerates Mama Bella caring for them.”
“I don’t want to get in the way,” Becca said.
“Mama Bella would be insulted to hear you say that,” Jackson said. “I mean it. We had to fight her to let everyone sleep in trailers while we stay, because she has extra beds.”
“Why don’t you and Bella sleep in the house?” Becca asked. “With your girls?”
“Because we still have a tribe to care for,” he said. “Having two families isn’t easy, but we’ve always known it was where we were going. Bella was raised by her grandmother, and now her mother is raising her girls. If everything goes right, Bella and I will raise LuluBell’s children. It’s how things have been in her family for a long, long time.”
Becca sighed.
“Do you want to go see your mom?” he asked. “I don’t think we ever asked you that.”
She shook her head.
“Haven’t got a clue where she is,” she said. “No. This is family. I want to be here.”
He nodded.
“You sleep while you were gone?”
“Not much.”
He shook his head.
“I never do, either. Get some rest. There will be plenty going on when we get there.”
She nodded, tucking her head against the window. In the familiar smells and sounds, she drifted easily to sleep.
He was right that there would be stuff going on, but it was mostly stuff Becca didn’t understand. They let her sit at the table with them as they went through the list she’d brought back from Carter, but everyone had a better grasp of what it meant than Becca did - and she’d been the one to get it. Dawn might have had Jackson beat, Becca wasn’t sure, but it was always hard to tell with Jackson. He was always the one who spoke least and last.
And then they were working, and again Becca was out of her league. She wandered out of the house, going to sit by the char of a firepit and thought about getting it burning again. They didn’t like to burn wood just to do it, especially during the day, but it was still cold in shadow, and she felt chilled from her trip, yet.
While she was still thinking about it, Dawn came to sit next to her.
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“Tell me everything,” Dawn said cheerfully.
“Like what?” Becca asked.
“Like, is Carter as hot as Lange? What did you do? How many of them were there, there? Like at Argo’s, or bigger? Has Lange switched teams or something?”
Becca blinked quickly.
“Hot?” she asked. “I don’t know. Maybe. He isn’t the kind of person you look at and ask if he’s hot.”
“Everyone’s the kind of person you look at and ask if he’s hot,” Dawn said.
“He’s mean,” Becca said. “And completely empty. Lange is… different.”
“Okay,” Dawn said. “What about the rest of it?”
“We went to a club,” Becca said. “There were demons there.”
“Doing what?” Dawn asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Dancing,” Becca said. Dawn drew her head back.
“What?”
Becca nodded.
“They look just like people.”
“Were they possessions?” Dawn asked. Becca shook her head.
“I’m pretty sure they weren’t,” she said. “The Gray don’t tolerate possession, do they?”
“No.”
“They, Carter and Lange, acted like they were kind of at home there. I asked Carter how many real people he had in his life, and he got all touchy. I think that he mostly hangs out with demons.”
Dawn wrinkled her nose again.
“Why?”
“Funny thing,” Becca said. “He got angry every time I asked why anything.”
“You asked him why he hung out with demons?” Dawn asked.
“No, I asked him why someone would be coming after Bella,” Becca said quietly. “And he said he didn’t care.”
“Probably true,” Dawn said with a little shrug. “But he gave us a really good list. We’ll have to go shopping to get some of the stuff he’s recommending, but it’s all stuff we can do.”
Becca nodded.
“I’m glad.”
“So…?” Dawn said.
“What?” Becca asked.
“How many of them were there?” Dawn asked her. Becca shook her head.
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