When I came to again, I tried to talk and couldn’t.
I looked at him. And they don’t know why?
He shook his head. I think the Phantasm took it. You still have your voice, but your Wraith power is back.
I held up my left arm and looked at the weaving handprint there—just as it had been before. Joe had already told me the streak in my hair was back and thicker than ever. I don’t understand it. I’ve tried calling out to Archer several times, but he hasn’t answered.
But he has to be there—right? I mean, otherwise, how is it you’re you again?
I shook my head. I don’t know. Unless this is all part of being an Irin by birth and a Wraith by accident. I straightened up. What is it you’re not telling me? You said everyone was fine.
As fine as they can be.
I touched his arm. Is it Dags? Is he still in a coma?
Yes. When Phanty threw him, he threw him hard. Knocked his head pretty good. Rhonda’s keeping an eye on him. Sits with him all day.
I didn’t say anything. Guilt was a good governor, ya know?
You do realize how she feels about him?
I nodded.
And how he feels about you?
I nodded again.
He got really quiet. So I figured I’d ask. What about Daniel?
I felt something drop out from under me. I was yanked out from inside of Joe so quickly my Wraithy head spun. I didn’t go back into my body directly but waited for Joe to open his eyes. Now that I’ve overshadowed him, I should be able to hear him, right? Since waking up, I’d discovered that the little connection I’d had with him before was gone. It was kinda like a reboot. “Tell me—what about Daniel?”
Joe’s lips thinned before he said, Daniel’s—You need to forget about Daniel, Zoë. Dags tried to warn you not to bring him back.
I blinked.
“Why? What is it? He hasn’t come to see me, and I saw through your eyes that he wasn’t harmed. There was no sword wound. Not a scratch. So he has to be healthy, right?”
Joe pursed his lips. I did not like his expression. Zoë, Daniel’s healthy in body—but not in mind.
I frowned. “What?”
Girl—he remembers everything. Every life the Horror made him take. Every emotion the Horror had. Everything. Can you imagine what that kind of guilt does to a man? To a cop? Hell . . . to someone as gentle as Daniel was?
Was?
Zoë—I can see it in his eyes. He told me himself through a plate of glass. If there is one thing in this world he wants, it is the very last thing the Horror wanted.
I put my hands to my lips.
“He—he wants me . . .”
Dead.
I wanted to throw up.
Joe moved away from the bed. I sensed frustration and turmoil in him. He’s insane, Zoë. Clinically, legally, and medically insane. He’s tried slitting his own wrists; he attacked a fellow patient that looked like you. He ran his fingers through his hair. What you did to him—it wasn’t a favor. It’s not the Daniel you knew. Not the one you loved. He paused. Or that loved you.
Daniel’s words on the roof came back to me.
“So beautiful, Zoë. I’m s-sorry. I was . . . in love with you.”
Was.
Was in love with me.
Yeah.
He was.
36
MID-MAY, Joe Halloran was officially declared a mute by his doctors—who still had no idea why he couldn’t speak. His vocal cords were fine. In fact, they were better than before. I sort of kept waiting for the day when my own voice would go.
TC showed up—had his own voice. And he had his full power back—what he’d achieved before I used my banshee wail on his ass on the roof when he’d killed Daniel. I think he was afraid I’d yell at him again. And I still didn’t trust him.
Dags woke up. Rhonda was with him, and I went to see him before I was released. He looked bad, and he wanted to sleep. Maureen and Alice assured me they’d take care of him, and Rhonda promised to go by and see him every day.
Which might be why he bailed two days later. Not a whisper since. Not even a card.
Mom came home, only a little worse for wear. She was also a bit thinner—except for the boobs. Which, of course, she swore still made her look ginormous. But she’s not. She’s Mom. Mom’s supposed to be fluffy and warm and comforting to hold.
Only—I wasn’t as eager to hold her as I had been.
My insides were a jumbled mess—so much so even I didn’t want to tangle with them. I moved slowly around the shop, helping where I could. But Jemmy insisted on doing everything herself, and Rhonda was back again, and back to the emo/goth self I was used to. Which also assured me the world was sort of back to “normal.”
Define normal.
Mental note: . . . Don’t have any. There’s nothing left to say. Joe and Rhonda stopped being a pseudo-item—though I’d kind of known that wouldn’t last. Rhonda was stuck on Darren McConnell. And in a way, Joe’s heart was still undefined, I think. He became not only the cop fixture but the handyman, which didn’t upset Mom any. I think she liked having him around in his tight jeans and tee shirts.
And as for Daniel? He was under psychiatric treatment locally—they wouldn’t tell me where.
I had Mom back. I sort of knew the mystery of my dad and sort of understood that he was with me on some level. Rhonda was back, and I wasn’t mad and she was rich. Joe was here.
I wished Dags would just e-mail.
You know, you figure when you sleep with someone you’d at least get . . .
I pursed my lips.
Get what, idiot? Besides complications?
I missed him. A little bit more than I wanted to admit.
IT was May 30, and Rhonda and Mom were busy making the shop smell like a florist’s. Wreaths of flowers over the door, garlands along the front-porch banister. Fresh-cut flowers all over the shop and botanica.
I kept sneezing and finally succumbed to a netty-pot rinse, careful not to inhale as I poured the solution through one nostril and then the other.
Mom opened the shop later than usual, and she and Jemmy prepared the usual spread of eggs, bacon, toast, sausage, pancakes, biscuits, croissants, butter, honey—the “usual.”
I settled in with a cup of chai and looked at the ads in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, still dressed in my plaid loungers, an oversized tee shirt with Duran Duran on the front, and my black bunny slippers, though they were looking a little worn.
Joe came in, waved at everyone, and grabbed a cup of coffee before sitting down and taking the sports pages. Jemmy was already at the table with the crossword. Tim and Steve were busy with Mom, looking at the Style section, ooohing and aah hing over the McMansions now in foreclosure.
Rhonda came in, dressed in a black Abney Park tee shirt, black capris, and black flats, with her hair pulled up into pony-tails. In her hands she had even more flowers and yesterday’s mail, having dropped by the post-office box. Shop mail came directly here, but personal mail we had delivered to a post-office box.
She went to the kitchen, grabbed vases, slid water and flowers in, then put one of the vases at the center of the table before handing me an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Mail, doofus,” she responded before taking up a seat between me and Joe.
I looked at the front. Had my name and the right address. The postmark was for two days ago, Savannah, Georgia. Unsure, I grabbed my unused butter knife and opened it.
Inside was a card. The front bore a beautiful painting of two angels—one with dark wings and robe, the other with white wings and robe. I immediately knew who it was from and opened it. Inside were handwritten pages. Two of them.
Zoë,
Sorry I left so abruptly—but when I came to my senses, I was overwhelmed with so many emotions. Not just my own but Maureen’s and Alice’s as well. What I felt was too overwhelming. I also got a phone call about a problem I had to take care of in Calgary, so I went there first
.
I hope this finds you well, and you still have your voice. I heard about Daniel, and I’m sorry. But I can’t help but think in the end it was better he passed on. I knew from your voice and from how you looked at him—that’s not a place I’ll share in your heart.
Please don’t think I’ll hold our lovemaking as something permanent. We both needed the comforting at the time—and I won’t ever fool myself into believing I’ll hold a place as special in your heart as Daniel does. I’m sorry any of this had to happen to you—I’ve admired you since I first got to know you, when Daniel was in the hospital, and I’d always hoped I’d find someone who loved me as much as you love him.
I’m around, and if you need me, call. But for now, I think it’s better for my own heart to live here, beside the water.
I love you.
Darren
I folded the pages and put them back in the card.
“Zoë?”
I looked at Mom. Her expression was priceless. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“Who’s that from?” Jemmy asked.
It’s from Dags, isn’t it? Joe said in my head.
I glanced at him but didn’t answer. No one could hear him but me.
“Who?” Rhonda said.
Mom said, “Zoë—maybe you should take some time off. Get out of Atlanta? I have a few contacts at the Harbor Inn down there—maybe a few days on the river?”
I shook my head. I didn’t see any reason to complicate matters any more than they already were.
“Am I missing something?” Rhonda said as she buttered her biscuit.
And I felt it was time for certain things to be said. I didn’t want any more surprises in my life. I set the card on the table, beneath my plate, and cleared my throat. “I need to know something,” I said in a very even tone. I looked at Joe and Rhonda. “I need to know from you how Dags became a Grimoire.” Then I looked at my mom. “And then I need to know from you why you felt the need to keep the truth about my father from me.”
Well, that was a conversation stopper.
Rhonda turned dead white. Not bone white. Dead white.
Mom cleared her throat. “Would it make any difference?”
I looked at her. “For me, yeah. I spoke to Dad—in a way. In that in-between world. And I’ve got pieces and snatches of who he was. I want you to tell me.” And I looked at Rhonda. “Both of you.”
Rhonda’s color didn’t get any better. “How?”
I watched her. Waiting.
Finally, she leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “A lot happened to Dags in a very short time—and it started with his involvement with the Cruorem.”
That much I knew.
“You know how the familiars were put in place—because of Bonville’s botched spell.”
Yes.
“And you know that Dags coded one night in the hospital. You, he, and Daniel were all there, and Nona and I had been moving between rooms. But I’d already gone home when it happened.”
Yep. I remembered it. Mom had told me that Dags had said he couldn’t see Rhonda in a romantic way—that he wasn’t ready. Though . . . had he? I remembered I was on my way out of body to see Daniel—but then I’d felt Dags—slipping away—and I’d gone to him, all full of Abysmal juice.
“But he survived—his heart stopped. He should have lost that connection with the familiars when his heart stopped. But something happened. In that single instance, he was different. And then he checked himself out and disappeared.”
I nodded. I kind of knew all this. Knew he’d sort of dropped out of sight, and then I’d seen him again with Joe at the hospital, with Joseph, Dr. Maddox’s long-deceased son, in the room.
She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “A few days after Rodriguez was arrested—I was getting things settled within the Society. I was living at the new house, getting the construction on my uncle’s old house under way. I’d decided not to think about you, or about what had happened. I had things to occupy my time. And I had to decide what to do with my life.”
I listened and refused to feel guilty for telling her to leave on that afternoon. She’d betrayed me. And nothing would change that.
Rhonda picked up her fork and toyed with the croissant on her plate, flaking off the top. “I got a phone call from Francisco. He was out of jail and said he was leaving the country. He said he would leave you in peace as long as I gave him the Bonville Grimoire. Naturally, I said no. And he hung up. That started worrying me, so I sent a few of our members out to do a bit of intel.”
Nice power there. I felt it suited her.
“What they had to say frightened me. He’d moved away from his home, but he wasn’t out of Atlanta. They also found he had a lab set up and was once again gearing up to start experiments, using the Eidolons.”
Mom put her hands to her face. “He had Dags.”
Rhonda nodded. “At first I didn’t know about Rodriguez’s connection to the Cruorem. That didn’t come till later. And from what I could piece together, he learned about what had happened to Dags from Klinsky—who felt slighted that he hadn’t received the power. He’d tried to become an initiate so that he could be chosen to be an initial Guardian in Bonville’s plans to bring his wife and her lover back from the dead. But Bonville had refused him. And for that I couldn’t fault him—Klinsky was insane.
“I didn’t know he had Dags. I just started looking at missing persons cases for the appropriate age and found three. We gathered some folk—including Joe—and we were able to infiltrate his lab. That’s when I found out that one of the ones kidnapped was Dags.”
“You got them out?” Mom said.
“Not then,” Rhonda said. “Not all of them. One of them died.” She sat forward and rested her arms on the table. “We were able to get the Eidolons and a few other items that Rodriguez didn’t need to have by using the red Eidolon, the Destruction stone. We weren’t able to get to Dags. And that’s when Rodriguez threatened to kill him unless I gave him the Grimoire.”
I didn’t move. I just listened.
Rhonda swallowed. “I knew he couldn’t have it—that’s not a man that should ever be allowed control over anything so powerful. And I knew there were spells inside that could summon a Symbiont that might restore a bit of the man’s original power.”
Yikes.
“I didn’t think—I just acted. I had brought the book, but I’d had it hidden away in a Veil.”
I remembered her demonstration from before in that apartment. Pulling that book out of the air.
“He’s—he’d tortured all three of them—Dags as well as the two familiars—kept them apart. Had used some of Randall Kemp’s inventions to keep their power dispersed. Dags was barely alive. Alice was little more than stone. And Maureen—”
I leaned forward.
“Maureen seemed to be his favorite. He had her contained and had somehow infused her with shadow. He was trying to create—something. We never really understood what. I was able to convince him to release Dags—”
“Wait, wait,” Mom said. “How could they have done such a thing to Dags? He’s so strong.”
Rhonda cleared her throat. “The Darren McConnell you’ve gotten to know recently isn’t the same man—or the same power level,” she said. “Dags was dying. Because of the spell Bonville did—the familiars are fused with him. He can’t live without them. But that bastard was ripping them out—I was surprised he hadn’t actually cut off Dags’s hands.”
I wanted to throw up. I had no idea any of this had ever happened.
Rhonda continued. “Joe had Dags, and I made sure Alice was freed. But Maureen . . . something was wrong with her. She stood beside Rodriguez, almost like a feral bodyguard. I could feel power emanating from her and knew she was drawing it directly from Dags. But I couldn’t stop her. Rodriguez ordered her to get the book from me.
“I—It all happened so fast.”
I looked from Joe to Rhonda. “What happened so fast?”
“I ha
d the book in my hand—” she said and held out her hand. “And Joe was beside me, holding Dags. I could feel Dags dying, slipping away. Alice was moving slowly—toward us. And then Maureen was there—” She swallowed. “I don’t know what made me do it, or why I thought I could. But I just knew that I could not let him have the book.”
She paused. “So I did something stupid. And foolish. And to my delight—Dags survived.”
I was about to point at her and tell her to spill the beans when Mom said, “You used the same spell. You fused the book to them, to Dags.”
!!!
A tear fell down Rhonda’s cheek. “I didn’t know how else to prevent him from getting it—and still save Dags’s life.”
“That could have killed him.”
She was nodding, and I noticed that my mom was mad.
Not irritated or disappointed. But mad.
“Nona—I only had a split second. I brought the book’s soul into its base form and shoved it into Dags’s chest. It was a partial fusing and a partial Veil.”
Now it was my turn to look and feel completely wigged out. “What the fuck?”
That’s what I said, Joe commented.
“There was a flash of light, and I could hear him screaming. I could hear Maureen and Alice . . . all of them screaming. And when I could see again, the girls were gone and Dags was whole. He was . . .” She held out her hands. “He was healed. There weren’t any burn marks, or bruises. And he was . . . different.”
“Because you changed him. You rewrote his entire DNA. You idiot!” Nona nearly shrieked. “That’s a misuse of power—you had no right to do that, Rhonda. You were taught better than that.”
“What was I supposed to do—let him die? And he would have died even if we’d gotten the book away from Rodriguez. I could hear his heartbeat slipping away.”
“So you bound his soul to the Grimoire’s.”
I stared at Rhonda, my mind flashing back to those moments on the roof. When Dags had told me not to save Daniel. That it was better to let him go. And now Daniel was insane, unable to blend back into society. Locked up in a cage like an animal.
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