by Amy Lane
Cory shifted her feet, this time stretching out her chest. “Right,” she grunted.
“Anyway, she said that one of the outbuildings there was a little chapel—or that’s what it looked like from a couple hundred yards out. Anyway, before everyone drank the magic wine and shit, these guys—what’d you call ’em, Cerise?”
“Matched set,” Cerise mumbled from Jefi’s chest. “They were like… like Bracken, you know? But two of them—twins.”
Cory raised her eyebrows. “Awesome. Twin elves.”
“We saw them,” Teague said soberly, remembering the garnet-glowing eyes and the hip-length ruby hair. “At the courthouse. We thought they took out the judge.”
Cory nodded. “Yes, I remember. I’m sure there’s some sort of power squared going on. They were….” She frowned. “The werewolves. That night I flew out and almost got her. The werewolves that I cooked—they were twitching when Bracken came and got me. So, twin redheaded bad guys. What did their glamour look like?” she asked, trying to peer around Jefischa’s wings.
Jefischa maneuvered himself and Cerise so they were both facing Cory, but he still had his arms around her chest. Okay, well, everybody in the house had somebody bigger and stronger to protect them—that’s just how it worked out. Teague had had Cory and Max; from what he could tell, Connor, Dylan, and Cami had Arturo and Lambent; and Cerise had landed herself two guardian angels.
Teague had certainly lucked out, and that so rarely happened that he gave a little prayer of thanks. Shep and Jefi would have driven him bugshit in short order.
“Their glamour?” Cerise frowned, and for once Teague felt like he knew something important.
“It’s their public face—the magic they use to look human.”
Cerise’s eyes widened. “Oh! Okay, I guess… yeah. Your man, he looks different here than at school—that?”
Cory nodded. “Yeah, hon. That.”
“Oh. Uhm… I dunno…. Oh! Redheads. They were both redheads, but the kind with that real pure skin. No freckles. Just this fire-red hair down their backs.”
Cory grunted. “If they’d been human, there’d be freckles. Always fuckin’ is.”
Teague looked at her as she rubbed on the tight skin of her belly. “Will your kids have freckles?” he said, thinking of his own. Freckles were supposed to be a sign of innocence, but he’d lost his innocence a long time before he’d lost his freckles. The thought of two little kids playing in and out of Green’s hill, freckled noses scrunched up in their mother’s no-bullshit squint—well, it just made Teague happy in an inexplicable way. It just fixed something inside him, that’s all.
“I hope so,” Bracken said, swinging out of the trapdoor in time to hear their last comments. “But we won’t know for a few months, so it’s time to come inside now.”
His tone brooked no argument, and Teague could tell by the furrows in his forehead that Green’s absence had left Bracken vulnerable and on edge. It must be terrifying to be on his own with Cory—Teague would just fuckin’ bet.
“Hold on,” Cory said, holding up a hand. “I’m almost done with my neck stretches, and Teague and Cerise were going to tell us why the elf queen has been in Colfax this entire time and we haven’t seen her.”
Bracken glowered at her—but he didn’t scoop her up in his arms and blur down the stairs, which he could have done. Renny came up behind him and rubbed against his calves, making Teague think they’d been calming each other down while Cory came up to the garden to stretch.
Teague brought his attention back to the task at hand. “They had a chapel,” he said. “But it wasn’t… I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one of these that’s really holy. I mean—”
“It was filled with bones. Practically made of them,” Cerise said, breaking through Teague’s ramblings. Well, she probably should have, because Teague didn’t know shit about the sort of magic that Cory and Green had been wielding. Yeah, it all sort of stemmed from touch, blood, and song, and Teague got that—but the rest of it? Such a tremendous stretch of thought from those three cornerstones to what Teague had seen happening with the werewolves.
Cory stood up straight and sucked in a breath. “An ossuary?”
Everybody but the angels blinked. “Is that a chapel with bones?” Teague hazarded.
“Yeah—an ossuary.”
Renny blurred into a naked human girl and said, “Why do you need an officer fairy? Max is straight.” Then she blurred back into a cat again, sat on her backside, stuck both legs out, and started licking her crotch.
Cory put her hands on her hips and stared at her girlfriend in shock.
“You came up here just to say that?” she asked.
Renny looked up, tongue half-hanging out, and nodded. Her legs still pointed obscenely, and Teague wondered exactly what had been going on to make Cory come out alone and Bracken and Renny team up and be pissed off.
“Don’t be a bitch,” Cory grumbled. “You want your fucking degree too.”
Renny growled and pulled all four legs underneath her. She hissed and spat and then just took off down the side of the hill. Teague wondered if there were any jackrabbits left around at all.
He turned to Max. “You going after her?”
Max shook his head and looked at Cory. “She’s got a point,” he said quietly. “They both have a point. There’s no law that says you have to—”
“When?” Cory asked, her voice wobbling. “I mean, when can I go back? And look—Teague just said ‘bone chapel,’ and I know it’s an ossuary. And I know they’re usually made by the most holy of the congregation in anonymity, and I know from the sidhe that they’re really fucking powerful, and I know from school, where I’d like to keep going, that they’re scattered through Europe. If we ask the elves, there’s probably some who remember those—the ones in Great Britain and the Czech Republic and shit—and they can tell us what they do. So the school has already done us a favor—I just need to….” Cory closed her eyes and wiped the moisture away with her fingers. “I just need to finish.”
She turned back to Teague, as though he’d be an ally in this fight.
“Just let me finish here,” she whispered. He found himself nodding, even though he was pretty sure he agreed with Bracken and Renny. “The thing is, any place made with as many bones as she’s saying is a big deal. I think the others were made with the bones of the believers. That would increase power, right? That would make you more powerful….” She started to pace just as he had—but she had her hands on her stomach, and instead of striding, she sort of waddled from one end of the garden to the other.
She looked around. “But what if your ossuary was made with the bones and blood of your enemies?”
“It would… wouldn’t it weaken you?” Bracken asked. She turned toward him, something like gratitude on her face.
“Yes. You could get power from it, but it would be fighting you. Remember? I saw her before solstice, and she was desiccated—down to flapping skin and hollow bone. So maybe it’s not just because she’s fighting Green’s mark and giving her power to her followers. Maybe she’s also fighting her power… focuser—the thing that’s focusing that power and directing it toward them. So it gives her power, but she needs more of it at every Goddess sabbat.”
“But why would you do that?” Max asked. “That’s like… I mean, why not build a temple out of her believers? She’s got no problem throwing lives away—”
“Yeah,” Teague said, disgusted, “but they’re not really her followers, anyway. As soon as the ritual wears off or we counter with blood, these people don’t know her fuckin’ name.”
“That’s why an ossuary,” Cory said, voice grim. “And that’s why she spent the summer going after the Dylans and Camis of the world. We thought it was just a side effect—and maybe it was—but I would bet she started importing the bodies for her fucking temple.”
“So those shape-shifters that went missing at the beginning of the summer?” Teague said sickly, and Cory nodded.<
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“Yeah—that’s probably exactly where they went. And… and any of the people that didn’t drink the elf blood, as it were. You know, the folks at the courthouse who didn’t fall in line, or any werewolf that balked at her bidding—enemies, enemies all.”
“So she built a tiny chapel with bones and used it to focus her power. Do you think that’s what she used for the winter ritual?”
Cory nodded and looked at Bracken.
“She must have been building it since we killed the fall equinox,” Bracken said grimly. “But she must have been planning for it since the summer.”
“So it’s got to be taken out,” Cory said decisively. “And then we can take out her lieutenants—and if it’s not just one of us alone, we can take her out as well.”
“Any capture?” Teague asked, as though it was purely theoretical.
“Fuck to the no,” Cory snapped out. “No. No, this… this bullshit has gone on long enough. I’m done. We offered her amnesty once, and she does this? Every werewolf who threw themselves at us until they were dead deserves justice. Every fucking one.”
Her voice was breaking again, and she paused to knead at the muscles of her lower back.
And that, apparently, was when Bracken decided enough was enough. With a grunt and a heave, he lifted her up into his arms and blurred down the stairs—the way, Teague would hazard, he’d wanted to do from the very start.
But he hadn’t. Because they needed her. Not the weapon, but the way she thought, the way she led.
And now Teague had what he needed to protect her.
He looked over to where Shep and Jefi were standing, chest to chest, with Cerise sheltered under their shoulders.
“Guys?” he said, getting their attention. They turned their heads only. “Guys, thanks. And thanks for taking care of her. Make sure she gets downstairs in time for dinner—I think Grace made her favorite.”
“Fuckin’ garlic,” Cerise mumbled. Teague laughed, feeling sad. That was actually Cory’s favorite, but she hadn’t been eating much, and what she had been eating was vampire blood on saltines.
Cory: Home Fires
GODDESS, I was tired. Not just from school, or from missing Green or worrying about the war.
I was tired of being at odds with everyone in my life.
Bracken strode into the bedroom, where I was lying on my side doing my reading. I looked up at him and cringed. What was it now? I was hungry, but I didn’t feel like going into the front room—not tonight. I was tired, but I was resting, dammit. Couldn’t he leave me alone? I was not going to quit school, and I was not going to stop trying to exercise, and I was not going to stop blooding with the vampires, and—
“Hey,” he murmured, crouching in front of me and moving my textbook out of the way. “What’s the matter? I haven’t even said anything yet.”
I was crying.
“Don’t be mad at me,” I wailed. “I’m so tired….”
“Shh…,” he whispered. Then he did this amazing thing. He sat on the bed, took me in his arms, and just held me. I didn’t come apart, really—I was done with it. Besides, sobbing was sort of fighting your body, and this was just… silent tears.
I finished, soothed by his big hand rubbing between my shoulder blades and the patient way he breathed in time with me.
“Have you eaten?” he asked when it was clear I was done.
“No,” I said, almost afraid I’d get another round of lecturing.
“Good. I’ll go get us some food. Stay right here.”
I looked up at him, naked gratitude written clearly on my face. “That’s it? No lecturing, no ‘the people need you,’ no ‘you’re too tired’—”
“No,” he said with a weary sigh. “I’m tired too.” A slight smile flickered over his drawn features. “I want to touch you, and say hi to the guys, and maybe make love to you—as much as we can do. I don’t want to worry about fighting anymore. You know why I think you shouldn’t go, and I know why you think you can’t quit, and you know what?”
“What?” I asked cautiously.
“We’re both right. And we’re both wrong. And I’m fucking done.”
I half sobbed and nodded my head, not wanting to leave his lap. He still made me feel small, when not much else could.
A subtle knock sounded at the door. Then Nicky came in, a tray of food in his hands.
“Oooh…,” I said, suddenly ravenous. That had been one of our bones of contention as well. Between school and the third trimester, the nausea had returned, but now nausea had a new friend—heartburn. Eating had been both necessary and horrible. I was always hungry—but after about three bites, the nausea would kick in, and about an hour after that, the heartburn would rear its ugly head. Grace had started giving me papaya juice with my saltines, because the little roll of papaya-enzyme tabs had apparently been too humanly processed for my delicate elf-infected system. In fact, everything was too humanly processed. I couldn’t just have bread, I had to have bread made from organic flour and baked here at Green’s hill. Apparently Grace and Katy had made a spreadsheet to see what I could and couldn’t eat, and even the yeast had to be homegrown.
Grace had started ordering things like organic rice, and she’d even planted a garden on the hill for my vegetables alone. I was starting to realize that all of those “fairy fruit” stories were not just analogous to fairy sex, as Green had first supposed. If you were carrying fairy offspring, your body was more the Goddess’s than God’s. I knew mine was becoming increasingly fragile, in spite of my efforts to convince Bracken otherwise.
Maybe that was why he was so angry with me when I told him it was all okay. He knew I was lying, and he couldn’t even lie to me and tell me it would be all right when he didn’t know that himself.
Nicky set the tray on the end table, and I moved to get off Bracken’s lap.
“No,” he said quietly. “Just… just stay.”
I nodded, and Nicky handed me a bowl of chicken with rice and veggies. I dug in gamely. Something about being in Bracken’s arms, not feeling the telltale chill that still lingered between us when he was angry, made my stomach not quite so tetchy. Go figure.
Nicky stood uncertainly while I ate, apparently taking in the intimacy of the two of us. “Do you, uh… you know. Want some privacy?”
I closed my eyes and leaned against Bracken. On the one hand, I longed for the two of us in bed together, me screaming out his name. I longed for the same thing from Green. But that wasn’t happening. Penetration was not going to happen, not for a while—and as much as I longed for it, that was how much I needed to put away the thought of it.
“No,” I said, holding out my free hand. “Just stay.”
Nicky sat down in the free chair and we spoke quietly about school, about the water class, which I loved, about how I missed working in the yarn store, and how I swore I wasn’t dodging my mother’s calls.
“We tried to explain that you were resting,” Nicky apologized. “But then she told me that whatshisname had asked about you, and I hung up.”
I laughed in surprise. “You hung up?”
“Well, yeah!” He threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t even want to tell her what we were thinking about doing to get him to leave you alone.”
I sighed, hating this discussion. “But… you know, he’s a doctor!”
“Yeah, so was Josef Mengele!” Nicky snapped back. “But everybody says he didn’t die soon enough.”
I thought about my WWII history. “He really didn’t,” I said, considering. “I mean… the guy really needed to die much sooner, and much worse.”
Nicky nodded. “I’m sayin’!”
“Well, this guy hasn’t performed any experiments on me yet,” I told him, disgruntled. I couldn’t even believe we were having this discussion.
“So we wait until he does?” Bracken said, horrified.
I took a dogged bite of organic protein and seasoned carbohydrates, hoping they would soothe my stomach. “How ’bout we just hope he
doesn’t?” I said, chewing. “Who wants to change the subject? All in favor say—”
“I think me and Bracken,” Nicky said, out of the blue. Goddess help me, I was so used to putting sex in the little box labeled Not For You that I didn’t know what he meant.
“You and Bracken what?”
“You know—me and Bracken. Do the thing.”
“Kill the doctor?”
Nicky growled and pulled out his phone. Tap-tap-tap, and boom! He flashed us a picture of two very nicely built, clean-cut young men, naked, sucking on each other’s cocks.
My giant maternity panties soaked through, like bam! And I knew they could both smell it too. Under my bottom, Bracken’s member got hard so fast he had to adjust himself.
“Give me the phone,” he ordered, and Nicky handed it over with a grin.
“Don’t look,” Bracken told me, a faint smile on his lean mouth. I closed my eyes and took an automatic bite of dinner. “Swallow,” Bracken commanded—and yes, there went a big pulsing throb to parts unmentioned—“and then look.”
I swallowed and looked.
There was a smaller man riding a much larger man’s cock. The big guy was fisting the little guy’s member, and the little guy was… given over. Utterly abandoned. Being serviced and enjoying himself.
I made a strangled, longing sound.
“You like?” Bracken asked, pleased with the picture.
“Very much,” I whispered. My only regret was that there wasn’t a girl in the picture about ready to be taken by both of them—because it would be nice to think that some girl was getting laid, even if it wasn’t me at the moment.
Bracken showed Nicky the phone. “Look at that and touch yourself,” he said, as though he wasn’t just autocratically talking about sex.
“You want me to—”
“Look at that picture,” Bracken said patiently. “And take off your clothes while she finishes dinner. Please be hard by the time she’s done.”