Blightmare (The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 5)

by A. J. Aalto

  Neither will like what you have in store for them, Remy assured me.

  And that was when my first bone snapped.

  Chapter 35

  The rest soon followed, breaking and reforming as Remy Dreppenstedt ushered in the sway of the moon to force my first shapeshift. I saw red, then the rusty brown of old blood, just before I lost sight entirely to visions flipping past in rapid succession, animals and monsters, hybrids, mixtures; no longer did I see a pale horse, but a creature with the body of a snake and the head of a horse reared up. I opened my mouth to shout but the shapeshift had stolen my voice, my breath — everything was lost to the agony of change. As the demon relinquished control of the battle to a bigger, uglier infernal, I gave up control of my body for the second time that night, letting the change come. The chimera visions kept spinning through my mind, urgent with anticipation, but I didn’t know what, if anything, I needed to do.

  Remy's thought was simple. Choose.

  My kneejerk reaction was to make a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man joke; as luck would have it, my mouth wasn't working. A low growl ran under the range of mortal hearing, though it was coming from somewhere deep inside me. There was no avoiding the mingling of Remy’s energies with mine, and no place to hide when she was already inside me, guiding my shift. But I wasn’t actively shifting into anything; my human shape was snapping to pieces in places I didn’t know I had pieces or places, but it wasn’t reforming into anything. I had the sense that I was supposed to do something. Images whirled and flickered without coalescing, but the one that caught my eye suddenly reminded me of Remy herself; the flash of wing, hovering mid-air, floating like a dark, incorporeal patch of mist, the whip of barbed tail. I thought, oh hells, yes, that’s one badass motherfucking critter, and before I knew it, my arms were crusting over with razor sharp scales the color of the abalone buttons on Harry’s best shirt, pearly white with streaks of pink and blue. My back gave a loud cra-crunk and a fwoosh-pop! A shuddering jerk later and my legs were melting together, knees fusing beneath a sheath of snakelike scales. What remained of my pants split and fell away as my mass doubled and then tripled. Remy called to the sky and to the ocean, and I felt like I was sliding bodily down, down, down into the icy depths of the ocean trench where the Sister of Worms reigned in her underwater tomb.

  My face felt like it was being pulled down toward the ground by invisible string, and when I tried to open my jaws, they felt massive. My barbed tongue ran along my new teeth, equally sharp, rows and rows of them. It took me a moment to realize what I had become, and furthermore that I had chosen to become it.

  Frost wyrm. I was a goddamn water dragon. I opened my mouth to shout, “Fucking A!” but what came out what a shriek that pierced even my ears. I swung about on both massive arms, my snake-like torso whipping about to welcome the new demon to the playground. Writhing, I stretched the kinks out, adjusting to the power behind massive weight-bearing muscles. Something white flashed on either side of my head and they were mine, my heads, three of them. Guess I can’t tease Azzy of being three-faced anymore, I thought reluctantly, but it was a small price to pay for being a fucking dragon. True, I was on land, and bearing an enormous load. Also, this shapeshift probably made my butt look big. I’d deal with the vanity repercussions of that later.

  Footer kicked the ground to gain space from me but stopped as far as the salt circle would allow. Not far away, Morgan Sally practically fell out of his SUV, helpless against the urge to come see what the hell was happening, close up and personal, gaping in disbelief. They were not my main concern.

  I didn’t know which demon, Jungcsezep or Taziel, appeared before me, just that he was slightly less ugly than Neenerpants, in that he was wearing a scrap-like skirt made of severed tongues to cover his dangly bits. I had his full attention, whoever he was. I lumbered forward, all three of my heads darting forward to snatch at him. He dodged me, spitting curses and sending flame and lust and all manner of filth my way. It did him no good at all. Inside me, Remy exulted, though my choice of the frost wyrm was not to her liking; she was cold again, and looking for that to be as temporary as possible. We celebrated that thought by dredging deep in my gullet and hoarking sheets and sheets of ice pellets at the demon, putting out all his fires. I raised a giant, clawed paw to swat at him, misjudged my balance, and went toppling onto my side, missing Eugene Yrul's prone form by a quivering hair. The demon pounced, pale skin searing my hide, darkening the pretty scales. I struggled to regain my footing, shifting my enormous bulk, which was extraordinarily difficult without the aid of back legs. Once I got the hang of using my coiling tail to propel me, I lurched up and shot forward, dislodging the demon and then diving at him bodily.

  I landed on him in a completely graceless serpentine belly-flop, wedging him beneath my considerable bulk like I was lying on a hot coal. He wriggled and writhed and I thought at Remy, Well, this is it, then. I’m just going to pork out here on top of him until he gives up and fucks off. The demon tried to buck, but he was only barely more physically substantial than a revenant shade himself, having form outside hell only provisionally and borrowing it from other energies. Neenerpants had sacrificed his body so that this demon could take form; I bet he was fucking glad he had. I felt the demon trying to burrow one hand beneath me and pinch and poke and jab, but my scales prevented any real damage; it was more annoying than anything else. I was far more troubled by how damn hungry I was. After a good ten minutes of futile struggling, the demon gave up, and with a curse and a whiff of brimstone, he sank into the earth beneath me, relinquishing his place and claim on Neener's mortal sucker. I waited to see if either of them would return. They did not.

  Damn it feels good to be a dragon, I thought smugly.

  I swung my long muzzle to the cabin to see Harry, Wes, and Umayma gaping at me openly from the office window. As I wondered how exactly I was supposed to un-shift from this form, Harry opened the front door and slid out into the night, adopting that blink-speed step of the immortals as he approached the frost wyrm on his front lawn. Umayma and Wes ran out behind him to see if Beau/Yrul was alive and to check on Rob Footer, huddling inside the salt circle and trying not to stare at me.

  Harry put one hand up like he was a rider attempting to soothe a shaken horse, and it hung in the air inches from my scaled snout. The look on his face was one of wonder and utter shock. For once in his life, he was speechless, and I kinda liked it. My other two heads, the ones I couldn’t seem to see through or control, gazed down at him, way, waaaaaay down. In frost wyrm form, I towered over him. He had to crane his neck to see in my eyes the DaySitter he needed, the girl he knew. He must have found me there, but he found someone else, too, and recognizing his mistress above all others, Harry took a knee and bent his head to submit his will to his queen, the Lichlady.

  I was sure I felt Remy smirking inside my brain goop, and with my promise to send Wes for a visit and her vow to return at her leisure for a longer, warmer visit, with a final snap-spark of burnt sugar and absinthe, she left me, too. I did not see her phantasm as it withdrew, but I felt it in every cell of my shapeshifted body as she spilled out. Her absence kicked off the agonizing process of un-shifting, a painful treat that I hadn’t paused to consider. Again, I was forced to endure the agony of each break and mend, from the tiniest bones to the femur-snaps that dragged howls from the mouth that once again obeyed my will.

  Too bad all I had to say was, “Folkenflik, you fucking furfaaaaaaace!”

  When it was done, I laid spread-eagle in the grass with Harry’s cool hand stroking my sweaty forehead. He removed his favorite jacket and laid it atop my naked body before he lay down on the grass beside me, spooning up against me, in no rush to get back inside.

  The grass was littered with torn clothing, discarded boots, and a hundred thousand scales. The Blue Sense had been thrown into high gear, and everyone’s emotions assaulted me at once; Umayma’s relief, Wesley’s awe, Harry’s concern, Footer’s overprotective rage, Morgan Sally’s why-the-fuck-d
id-I-move-here? What was absent was any trace of demon; I’d done it. I’d done it without using Ruby Valli’s grimoire. I’d asked for help and received it. I’d survived my first shapeshift. I’d discovered that I got to choose my shape. I’d reclaimed my wayward half-shadow and forced the Fetch into submission. I’d saved my client from the perverted monkey on his back. And I’d protected my own revenants.

  Not fucking bad for a day’s work. Too bad none of these moochers were likely to pay me for a job well done.

  Wes filled the silence by summing up what was bouncing around in all of our minds. “Well, besides the pain and stuff, that looked pretty fuckin’ rad.”

  “Dragon in the streets, dragon in the sheets,” I bragged, laughing weakly, and watched Umayma text Chapel to come arrest our multi-aliased, murdering, pimping, demon-colluding fuckup.

  Morgan Sally closed the distance between us hesitantly. “Ambulance?” he asked.

  I thought about it, checking in with my body, then shaking my head. I gazed up at the chief deputy, who was clearly questioning the wisdom of living in Ten Springs and wondering if perhaps Alaska was nice this time of year. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Chased this schmo for speeding, nearly wrecked at the bridge,” he said, motioning to Footer.

  Footer grumbled something about Beau infecting Solmes with the Blight, and the Blue Sense offered some insight; there was love there that I had totally missed, as much intimate partnership as Solmes harbored for him. Not just any love, either, but that squishy-hearted, mushy-songs-finally-making-sense, do-anything-to-protect-him love of new relationships. I resisted the urge to give in to what tiny, secret, romantic urges I had or squee, “Awwwww” at the guy. I barely knew him and it was none of my business. I smiled and said instead, “Ol' Beau here will be paying a hefty price for his behavior, Mr. Footer. And Solmes will be fine. I promise.”

  He crooked one massive eyebrow and it made his crown of thorns face tattoo tilt up. “You sure?”

  “You wanna go back to prison for beating up an unconscious pervert out on bail for murder in front of a sheriff’s deputy, have at it,” I said, aiming a thumb at Beau’s handcuffed, passed-out form. “It won’t be satisfying. Plus, Solmes will be pissed and do something stupid and he’ll end up in jail with ya. Then who’s gonna sell me cool shit at a discount price, Footer? Did you consider my needs in all this? I bet you didn’t.”

  Footer sat up in the grass, looked up at Chief Deputy Sally, and sighed, his meaty shoulders falling. “Guess you want me to go with you, officer.”

  Morgan rolled his eyes. “It’s a speeding ticket. Clocked you at eighty-five or so. Sound about right?”

  Footer’s head came up at the same rate as his eyebrows. I didn’t need any psychic Talents to know this man wasn’t used to getting a break from the law. “Yeah, yeah. Sure. Maybe eighty, yeah. Sorry, but you know, I was needed here and it was an emergency, like.”

  I piped up, “Yeah, total emergency situation, officer.”

  Morgan Sally considered me for a long beat. “What the hell am I supposed to write in my report about all this?” But he didn’t seem to be asking me; he aimed his question up at the moon, shaking his head, face pinched.

  “Well,” I began, “Sheriff Hood will understand if you just put ‘attended a crisis at number one Shaw’s Fist Road.' I told your punk ass I'm known around here when we met, Stretch.” I grinned.

  Wes and Umayma shared doubtful glances and Harry offered, “Hush now, dove, before you interfere in the young lad’s duties more than is strictly necessary.”

  Wes said, “I’ll just go in and get your bathrobe, eh?”

  Shivering, I nodded and watched Footer and Morgan Sally go to Footer’s car to get his license and registration. Eugene “Beau” Yrul groaned as he stirred, but I didn’t think he’d wake before Chapel got here; the demon extraction had worn him out. And if it didn't, I might just pop him in the back of the head after Morgan Sally took off to make sure he kept napping for waving his gun in my face.

  I boggled about the so-not-foxy shapeshifting; I would call Folkenflik in the morning. For now, I would cuddle, and plan a victory bubble bath, complete with candles and treats. I had earned them.

  We stayed that way until Chapel’s team arrived, and while we gave him a brief run-down of the only-slightly-preternatural activities – salt circles, incubi, the odd bit of stinky wind – the details of my first shapeshift would remain unspoken. If Chapel wasn't going to ask about all the new scale-shaped rocks in my yard, I wasn't about to bring them up.

  Chapter 36

  For most of the curse-banishing spell, Umayma sat on the floor in my home office patiently, cross-legged in the middle of my pentagram. She’d staked out my car first thing in the morning, ambushing me before I could head out for a run, holding the delivery from Thrice Around the Circle with the supplies we needed to remove the curse from her voice box. Wes and Harry had both known she was outside, courtesy of their preternatural hearing, and had shared a good laugh watching me leap back from the driver-side door with an undignified screech when I opened it to find her in the passenger seat.

  I moved around her, careful to invite the Watchtowers and take every precaution I had ignored the last time to make sure the spell would succeed in safety, including involving her in the spell so that that her consent was clear. Near the end, as the drops of crystalline liquid hit her upturned face and the spell sank in, she began to wriggle excitedly like a kid on Christmas morning, and the Blue Sense told me she was ready to be free, and she had a whole shitload to say.

  “Ready, Maim?” I said, kneeling in front of her to take her hand.

  She licked her lips tentatively and nodded.

  “You don’t have to nod anymore,” I reminded her. “You can say ‘yes’.”

  She shook her head. Yes wasn’t going to cut it; it wasn’t good enough. Her gratitude was deep, and she felt she owed me something bigger and better. “How about a ‘fuck yeah,’ then?” I chided her with a smile.

  She dropped her gaze and her dark eyes raced over the floor as though she were trying to find the perfect thing to say written on the floorboards. Her lips twitched, and I knew damn well she was considering some wonderfully filthy options. It made me chuckle.

  But then, resolved, she lifted her chin, smiling brightly. She touched my face, cupping my cheek with one hand, stroking me there briefly. People rarely touched me this way — most of the members of the Baranuik clan weren’t huggers and smoochers like Grandma Vi had been — but I Felt like this was natural for Umayma despite her rocky stint as a psycho’s DaySitter. She examined me, curious; her draw upon the psi floating in the room was a firm, tingling wave around me as she willed it to command her own formidable psychic Talent. And then, having some suspicion confirmed, she said, “I see great love in your future, Marnie. It’s not over.” Her smile grew more even as mine wavered.

  “What do you mean?” Hope rocked my stupid heart. “What’s not over?”

  She dropped her voice to barely a breath. “The man I shouldn’t name aloud.” She patted my face encouragingly. “The man who makes you crazy stupid with lust and passion. The man you don’t want to love anymore. That you never wanted to love in the first place. The man who fought loving you despite the overwhelming spark between you.”

  Batten, I thought dizzily. I sat hard, slopping from kneel to butt-flop. I was lucky I didn't land with a lit candle up my ass. I might not even have noticed.

  “That story’s not even close to being over,” she said, “and deep down, you know it won’t be. It can’t be. You are irrevocably bound.”

  Umayma was a Seer, and I’d never really had a clear estimate of the accuracy of her powers before. She didn’t like to use them. They reminded her of their source, Jeremiah Prost. Her powers were slowly slipping away like air from a punctured tire; were they still strong enough to see my future that clearly? Did I want to know more? My tongue hesitated. I didn’t have to ask.

  She offered,
“It won’t be now, Marnie. You have time. You won’t see him again tomorrow or the next day. But when you do, you will be stronger, bolder, and more powerful than ever. He is a force you cannot resist, no matter how much you fight it. Oh.” She paused to laugh a little, though her eyes shone with tears. “What amazing things I see for you there. What happiness.”

  With something akin to horrified hope, I whispered, “But what about my Harry?”

  Her smile didn’t diminish. “I see wonderful things for your companion, too, Marnie. A coming into his own true form.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I barely breathed.

  “Never you mind,” she said with a secretive smile. “But he will not hold you back. He will be—”

  “The fucking wind beneath my wings?” I drawled doubtfully.

  Umayma laughed, and it was a delightful bubbly sound. Her hand went to her chest, and she had a moment, marveling at her own joy, out loud, in her own unencumbered voice. “Please don’t be sad, Marnie. And when you feel that urge to go to him, go. Trust your instinct.”

  Impossible, I thought. I don’t even know where he went. He’s hiding out for decades. I suppose that made Umayma’s pronouncement a bit easier. It wasn’t going to be something I needed to worry about for a while.

  I heard Wesley snort-laugh from the kitchen as Harry’s phone began playing “Friends In Low Places.” Two could play the game of sassy-assed ringtone changing, so I'd set that as his for calls from House Dreppenstedt at Felstein. When the office door opened a minute later, I turned on my butt to see what was going on. My Cold Company stood in silence, face pinched, passing his phone from one pale hand to the other, back and forth.