by Faith Hunter
CHAPTER 22
The First Day I Woke Up Dead
Molly was nowhere in sight when we got to the address we thought Jack Shroffru was using as a lair, but I knew we had the right place as I walked around the house, looking it over from a distance. The foliage was dead and shriveled and wisping in the wind. There were no bird sounds, no stealthy motions of mice or rabbits or feral cats. There was no smell of anything live anywhere except the far-off stink of skunk.
As Beast and I reconnoitered, the Kid stole in to the security system and disabled the important parts—like the part that sounded an alarm. And the part that called the police. Everything still worked. Everything still showed little green lights on the monitoring system. It just wasn’t going to do the occupants of the house any good for a while. Go, geek—electronic hero in SpongeBob SquarePants flannel pj’s. I really was gonna buy him a cape and tights.
And the best part came in three pieces. First, Molly was no longer inside—her scent and footprints running off out of sight, downwind. Second, the place reeked of vamp and magic and lizard. And third, it was poorly defended. Shoffru believed the numbers of vamps he had brought with him kept him safe. He was about to learn a painful lesson.
The house was two stories of stucco and tile on a tiny lot that barely qualified for the designation. I could smell water from everywhere, pools, bayous, and the scent of rain on the air. Fertilizer stink came from the golf course, adding to the pong of vamps, human blood, and the prevalent skunk smell. I realized it was mating time for skunks and wondered if it was possible to lure skunks into a house. With their superduper noses, vamps would likely asphyxiate. Except for the fact that they didn’t need to breathe. Yeah. That.
The house was equipped with electric vamp shutters that worked as well for hurricanes and security as they did for keeping the sunlight out of a lair while vamps slept. It also had a three-car, pull-through garage, pool, gated yard, and golf course access. I imagined a foursome of vamps in plaid knickers and those white shoes with frilly collars golfing at night by the light of a full moon. Tams on their heads. A mental picture that made me inappropriately giggly.
I smothered my reaction and went back to work. The first-floor shutters of Shoffru’s rental house were closed, leaving the best access on the second floor, where the shutters were open and doors leading out onto the balcony were open as well. I didn’t have a ladder, but I had Beast strength and I was betting on her lending me enough power to jump, grab the railing on the second floor, and pull myself up. Well, except for the shoulder. Which was nowhere near a hundred percent.
I had perched Rachael behind the house on the golf course side, in a short tree, within whip length of the back door. Bliss, terrified and uncertain, but determined to stay, was with her. I didn’t want them so close to any potential action, but it was give them a real job or have them pick a job for themselves, probably one that included them going into the vamp lair. Rachael was strangely eager for that, and it would surely result in injury or death for them.
Big Evan was positioned on the golf course, upwind, so that when he played, even the air itself would assist his spell. Unfortunately the skunk smell was coming from that general direction, and I wondered how well he was dealing with the stink. And the amorous skunks for that matter.
With everyone in place, I headed back where Shiloh waited. It was across the road and down the block from Shoffru’s house, about a hundred feet away, in a vacant house that was being remodeled from the first floor up, including the windows and doors. Shiloh was sitting at an open space where a door would eventually go, on the second-floor porch, Eli’s gun on a tripod that she had assembled like a pro. Southern country girls are no pushovers even before they acquire fangs.
I chuckled under my breath and nodded at the rifle and scope in Shiloh’s hands. “Keep an eye on the house. Once the action starts, any vamps who try to escape, you shoot. Humans you can let go.” I paused. “You can tell the difference from this distance, can’t you?”
Shiloh gave a ladylike snort of derision and repositioned her rifle. “I could do that the first day I woke up dead. Prey don’t just smell different, they look different.” I wanted to shudder at her casual use of the word prey, but she added, “They look beautiful and desirable and tasty.” Her voice went dreamy and dropped into a lower register. “They look like something you want to protect and love and savor as you drink them down. It’s just a matter of deciding how to blend all the desires into one, and then take control of that desire.”
There didn’t seem to be much left to say to that one. “Ick” seemed counterproductive to keeping her balanced and useful to the plan. I settled on “All righty, then.” I didn’t know her well yet, but already Molly’s niece gave me the willies.
A human form was moving slowly down the road behind the house we had appropriated. At this hour, it was either a dog walker, a sleepwalker, or Molly. “Gotta go,” I said. One-handed, I swung off the second-story porch and landed on the walkway below.
Pulling on Beast’s speed, I skirted through backyards, swung over low fences, and up to Molly. She stood for a moment, staring at me, lit by a security light from a house nearby.
She had cut her hair, and wild red curls danced in the night breeze. Her skin was pale in the dim illumination of security lights. She had lost weight. A lot of weight. She was wearing skinny jeans and a dirty T-shirt with a way-too-big sweater. She looked afraid—shaking, her hands trembling, her heart rate too fast and uneven. Molly stood there, waiting. And I pulled on Beast’s eyesight to see her magic. It was no longer vibrant and spangled with motes of power, like rainbows on steroids with diamonds. It was black and dense and pulled tightly to her, as if she wore a black cloud. Flashes appeared within the cloud, like lightning, but clutched close and well contained. For now.
“Jane?”
“I’m here,” I said.
She looked toward my voice and smiled, her face looking lined and more wrinkled than I remembered. “I’m glad I got to see you again.”
What? I analyzed that short statement and came to a conclusion I didn’t like. “Why!” I huffed out. “Because you intend to end things tonight?” I steeled myself against my next words. “As in jumping off a bridge or something? Because that’s just selfish, Molly.”
She turned her head to the aside, and I knew what she intended. No! Beast screamed, the fear echoing inside me.
Molly turned her head to me, wrapped her arms around her body as if from an inner chill. Quietly, she said, “If I . . . stay around.” She chuckled as if that was funny somehow. “I’ll keep killing people. And I will eventually kill my husband. My children. I have no choice, Jane. You know all about choices, about sacrifice. After all”—her voice went gruff and cold—“you sacrificed my sister. And my friendship when you killed her.”
The wind changed directions and I smelled Molly strongly. And Jack Shoffru, his scent on her, mixed with hers. And I realized she was trying to make me mad, trying to make me go away and let her do herself harm. I didn’t respond to her hurt, but to her intent. “Don’t be an idiot,” I spat. “Because I’m not dumb enough to get mad at you.”
Molly dipped her head and looked at her arms wrapped around herself. The smell of shame filled the air, overriding the stink of vamp and blood.
“I also know about running away,” I said, “when staying around is so much harder. And I know the happiness, the”—I searched for a word and had to settle on—“the joy when sticking around and fighting things means I get to keep the people I love near me.”
Molly seemed to hear that, her head lifting a fraction. “I’ll help you figure this out. We all will. But”—I took a deep breath that ached all over at what I was about to ask—“I need your magics, your death magics, now. I need you to drain most of the life out of a vampire for me. I need you to find a way to use the magic that you have right now. I need you to accept it, control it, and use it. For good. For the light.”
Molly made a choking sound. “No,
” she whispered, strangling. “You can’t use death magics for the light. I have to end it tonight before I do something horrible.”
Claws scored my gut and I grabbed myself, holding my middle as I broke out into a hot sweat. How was I going to fix this? How? And how did death magic react to the death of the magic user? Would it even let her die? Or would it take her over? Stop her? Force her to drain others to sustain itself? Did witch magics even work that way?
Deep inside, Beast growled and leaped to the forefront of my brain. Crouched. Padded forward. I could feel her, pawpawpaw. She stopped and extended her front claws, pressing them into the place where she and I joined. Beast is not prey to Molly.
My breath hitched as I tried to figure out what she meant. You can protect us from death magic?
The I/we of Beast can do many things. Cannot change her magic. Cannot bring back earth magic. But can keep Molly alive for kits. Can protect the I/we of Beast.
I wasn’t exactly sure what Beast was talking about, but I had paused too long already. I’d have to fly by the seat of my pants. “Molly, Magic 101,” I said, making my tone demanding even though I was breaking inside at the thought of her taking final steps to protect others. “If you don’t use your magic, what happens to it?”
“It dies. It shrivels. It becomes inert,” she whispered. “Or . . . or it goes off, feral magics everywhere around you.”
“Like your magic is doing,” I said, “like it started doing to the woods behind your house, to the flower in your hotel room.” She snuffled agreement. “And it may not let you die,” I said baldly.
Molly went still, considering my statement. “No. Oh. No . . .” She shuddered hard.
“You have to use it, Mol. You have to drain something or it will kill everything and everyone around you, even from a distance, like it did the two vamps, like it did the humans who got sick and had to be healed. You have a choice. You can practice on the vamp who stole you and hurt you. The witch vamp who wants to kill Leo and take over New Orleans. The witch who wants to use the blood diamond, which probably means he’ll reinstitute blood sacrifice, probably of witch children,” I said carefully, still piecing it all together. “You can take the steps you’re talking about, and let Shoffru win. Or you can help stop him. Your choice. Run”—I meant die—“or play the hand you were dealt. Bring good out of the evil.”
Molly took a breath that sounded painful. In the dark, I couldn’t see her tear-streaked face, but I saw her hands fist in her dirty shirt. Deep inside me, Beast’s claws eased out of my gut. I was able to rise straight. I caught my breath as Molly thought about what I was offering her.
“And if I kill him?” she asked. “If I turn him into a pile of ash like the plants in the hotel room? Like the plants I passed in the yard as I ran away tonight?” She gusted out a sob. “What if I lose control?”
I remembered the wash of blood on the wall, the splatter made as Shoffru lifted Eli and tossed him over his shoulder. It had been shaped like a swan’s wing. And I remembered Aggie One Feather’s words. Women had the right and the power to claim prisoners as slaves, or adopt them as family and kin, or condemn them to death, “with the wave of a swan’s wing.” Part of an ancient ritual. But Molly wasn’t ready to hear that she was about to become a War Woman.
“If you start to do too much, I’ll bonk you on the head and knock you out,” I said softly.
Molly stuttered a laugh. She managed a breath that sounded like tires on wet earth, grinding. “Ah, hell.” I blinked at the swearword. Molly never swore. Of course, she never killed two vamps either. “I’ve missed you, Jane. Okay. Okay. I’ll do it.”
I had a single heartbeat to worry. Beast, you better be able to do what you said.
Beast sniffed and looked away, bored.
Boots crunching on the ground, I walked toward Molly. “Don’t get too close,” she said, the fear making the lightning of her magic flicker around her, the shadows wavering and splintering on the ground.
“Nah. I’m not worried,” I said. “We’re gonna do a little experiment.” I pointed to a container full of flowering plants. “Without killing anything but that, I want you to kill every plant in it.”
“That’s someone’s property,” she said instantly. I sighed, pulled a twenty from my back pocket, and set it under the edge of the pot. “Kill it. Just that. Nothing else.”
“I’ve never done this—”
“Do it!” I snarled.
Molly jumped, glared at the container, and her magic coiled. Like a spring-loaded, compound archery bow, it aimed, released, and exploded with power. Lightning flickered, hot and fast. Everything in the pot shriveled and died and turned to ash. It took maybe two seconds. Maybe one and a half. Molly let a breath out with a whoosh, as if she had been holding it for days. The lightning around her settled into a slow pulse, and I realized that her magic was synced to her heartbeat, her adrenaline, her very life force.
“Impressive,” I said blandly. “How did it feel? To use your magic?”
Molly closed her eyes, her mouth pulling down in a frown. She turned away, crossed her arms again, and gripped them in her hands as if holding herself together. “You know how it felt.”
“Yeah. I do,” I said gently. “Say it. Accept it. Own it.”
“I.” Her voice shuddered. “Don’t.” Her grips tightened. “Want. To.”
“Tough. It’s yours. Deal with it.”
Molly whirled on me. “What do you know about it? What do you know about anything?” The lightning flickered, gaining strength from her emotions.
I hooked my thumbs into my jeans waist, going for moxie and guts over kindness and compassion. This story was getting told a lot tonight. Soon I’d have no secrets left anymore. “My grandma gave me a knife when I was five years old,” I drawled. “She took my hand, holding that knife, and helped me kill my first human.” Molly stepped back once, her eyes going wide, her mouth in an O. “She was trying to make me into a War Woman. A woman who could kill when needed. Who could go to war with her husband or in his place if he fell in battle. Who could protect her children and her tribe. Who could use wisdom and violence as needed. She succeeded.
“Life is trying to remake you too. So. How did it feel, Molly, to use the magic that kills?”
“It felt good. You know it felt good. You could smell it on me.”
“Yep. Now kill that.” I pointed to a small tree. “I’ll pay for it.”
Molly bared her teeth at me, and Beast looked up, interested. Molly pointed at the sapling. Her magic coiled. The instant she released it, I stepped in front of the burst of death magic. And took it.
It was a gamble. A big one. And if part of the willingness to step in front of a burst of death magic was the knowledge that living without Molly in my life had sucked, and living with her permanently gone would be unbearable, well, I’d have to live with the knowledge that I offered my life to her on a silver platter. Or be dead, if Beast was wrong.
The death magic hit me in the solar plexus like a great big honking fist. I fell to my butt on the grass, rocking back, booted feet in the air. The darkness wrapped around me, burning and tightening, sucking the air out of my lungs.
“Jane!” Molly whispered, dread in her voice. Horror.
“Oops,” I gasped. My heart stuttered. And stopped. Agony sat on my chest like a pink elephant. My vision started to go dark. Maybe this wasn’t so smart.
Beast reached out a paw and swiped, claws bared, catching and hooking the death magic. With an underhanded toss, she pitched the magics away. They landed on the driveway, where they sizzled and burned the white concrete. Flame licked up. And then it was gone.
My heart beat. It was so painful I thought I’d rather go ahead and die anyway. Then it beat again. And I took a breath. And it hurt as if I really had died and come back, fatally wounded. “See?” I grunted, breathless, aching. “Not a problem.” Inside I was thinking, That officially sucked scummy pond water. But I didn’t say it.
Molly didn’t appr
oach me. Didn’t kneel at my side. She just stared at the blackened place on the white concrete drive. I rolled to my side, and somehow to my knees. All without screaming, grunting—too much—or throwing up. That last one was a near thing.
When I reached my feet, moving like an arthritic eighty-year-old human, I looked at the blackened place. It was shaped like me. I didn’t know if that was because it had already latched onto me and shaped itself to fit what and who I was before Beast ripped it off, or if the magics shaped themselves as they were thrown, before they even hit. “Yeah. Like that,” I said, as casually as I could manage between gasps, “except with more control, because I’d like him weakened but still undead.”
“Are you insane?” she demanded, eyes wide.
“Probably,” I groaned. “But now you know you can’t kill me with your death magic.” I managed a breath that almost didn’t hurt. “And now you know you can control it. Instead of hiding from it.”
“Insane. Totally insane.”
“You aren’t the first person to suggest that.” I managed to stand upright.
Molly pivoted and studied another sapling. Pointed at the tree. Her magic was slower this time. More controlled. The tree wilted, leaves drooping, young branches sagging. But it stopped dying at the early-wilt stage. I figured that with enough care, the tree might survive.
“Oookaaay,” I said.
“Evan?” she asked. She sounded uncertain, worried, and with the vamp stink on her, she probably had reasons to be worried, reasons I didn’t really want to know about.
I shook my head. “He’s in place already. You two lovebirds get to make up later.” I described to her what I wanted her to do and when she agreed, I finished with “Let’s go kick us some undead butt.”
She nodded, but halted the action midnod. Her head whipped across the darkness. “He’s here,” she said. She licked her lips and I could almost feel the desire for blood kicking in. On top of dealing with death magics, Molly was addicted. Just freaking great.