by Faith Hunter
“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 approach 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 stop
ped 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.
“I knew, logically, that there wouldn’t be time, but I had hoped to make a run at the house, disable all his vamps, and be in position before he got here. I guess we’ll play the hand we’re dealt. Come on.” I gestured toward the house where Jack Shoffru was getting out of a car, a body over his shoulder.
Ideally, now would be the time to take Eli back, but before I could figure out how to attack five vamps and as many humans, they were inside, the door closed. “So. We’ll do it the hard way.”
Getting into a house, finding a hostage, rescuing him, and getting out again without casualties was usually a job for a big, well-trained force. We had me. And a few charms Big Evan had put together for me. I had a look-away charm, a feel-better charm, an obfuscation charm—the closest thing to invisibility that witches could make—and a pain charm, what witches called a curse, one that gave pain instead of relieved it. I carried spelled and silver-plated knives, silver shot in my weapons, flashbangs, and some old holy water. Holy water had worked well one time against vamps, but it seemed to have an undeclared expiration date. One day it would work; the next it stopped, without warning. It wasn’t something I could depend on.
My biggest advantage was Eli himself. He wouldn’t do anything stupid to make my job harder. He would help if he could. And I wasn’t smelling his fresh blood on the night air. That had to be good. It had to be.
Observing the house from the driveway next door, hidden behind a Hummer painted a horrid hue of warning yellow, I adjusted my coms unit on my head and ears. Tapped the mic. “Kid? Can you hear me?”
“Copy, Jane. Bruiser is on the way over. He can hardly stand, but he says he’s coming for moral support. And before you ask, Tia and I are watching the babies.”
“Yeah, okay. That means no rolls in the hay. Eyes and attention on the job at hand.”
The Kid laughed evilly, and I rolled my eyes. Teenagers can make double entendres out of anything. “Rescuing your brother,” I enunciated.
“I know. I’m just yanking you. According to the house specs, online with the builder, the ground floor is an open plan, with the exception of a kitchen and a safe room in back. The second floor has a game room at the top of the stairs, four bedrooms, three full baths, including one Jack-and-Jill-style. Master bedroom is up the stairs, to the right, at the end of the wide hallway. There’s a spiral staircase from the master bedroom down to the safe room on the first floor near the kitchen. The stairs can be wheeled away, sealing the upstairs opening. The first-floor entrance to it is from the laundry room, off the kitchen, and then out along the shed in the backyard, through a narrow hallway along the garage, where another safe room is set up. This one leads into the garage where a vamp could get away in a vamp-mobile, even in the daytime, as long as he had a driver.”
A car moved silently down the street and into a driveway, seven lots down. My gut did a little somersault as the MOC glided out of the car. Bruiser, who had been riding shotgun, also got out, moving like the walking wounded. The driver was Derek Lee, who was wearing black camo and who weaponed up fast as I watched. From the passenger side of the back, Gee DiMercy emerged and melted into the night. A sense of relief washed through me. I wouldn’t be doing this alone.
“Surprise,” the Kid said. “Backup. They all know what you know.”
I chuckled softly. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember this at bonus time.”
“Pony ride on your birthday?”
I heard Tia giggle in the background.
“Sorry,” I said. I hadn’t been aware that she could hear. I was pretty sure I’d embarrassed my partner. Dang it. Social skills zero. The Kid gave a long-suffering sigh.
The men slid through the dark like wraiths and up to me, and joy like the morning sun rose in me. We could save Eli. With this group, I could do anything. I smiled at them, and it must have been a brilliant, really good smile, because Bruiser and Leo both hesitated midstep.
Bruiser was dressed all in leather, bristling with weapons. Leo wore a long sword at his side and two short swords. And several knives strapped to his thighs. Derek looked the way he always did—one of Uncle Sam’s finest—but I was still surprised to see him here.
I flipped a hand at him in question, and he said, “I always did wanna save a Ranger.”
“Ah. So you could rub his nose in it.”
“Forever. Ooh-rah.”
“Just so long as your priorities are straight,” I agreed, grinning. To the group, I said, “The downstairs shutters are closed. We have magical assistance in the tree out back and in the golf course. Don’t shoot them. Molly”—I pointed at the house under renovation—“is trying to see if she can pinpoint Shoffru. She sent a search and locate spell inside a bit ago. Since it’s dead magic, Shoffru might not notice that magic is being used against him. You know—undead flesh and all that. No offense,” I said to Leo.
“None taken, mon petit chaton avec les griffes.”
I had learned what the phrase meant. “I’m not your kitten.”
“Perhaps. But you hold my soul in your claws, mon coeur.”
Which could not mean that he knew about the binding. No way. Could not. Oh, crap. Did he know? Something else to deal with later. Much later. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever.” Gee DiMercy slid up to me in the dark. I said, “There’s a back entrance. Make sure Shoffru doesn’t make it to the garage. And maybe you could also puncture his tires?”
“I would be mortified to be assigned such mundane tasks,” Gee said. “I will simply kill anyone who tries to escape. Except your human.” He slid back into the darkness.
“Okeydokey.” Working with supes was weird. “Leo, can you get Shoffru’s attention and hold it for a while?”
“Of course. Contrary to his vow to me as his master, he attacked one of my people. I am within my rights to demand a Blood Challenge.”
“We don’t need to be getting into the middle of a sword fight until Eli is safe. I’d rather you trash-talk him for a while instead.”
“You wish me to discuss the garbage industry with him?” Leo was confused and I wanted to chortle but had to settle on a mangled cough. I needed him too much to make fun of him. When I got myself back under control, I said, “Ummm . . .”
“I’ll explain,” Bruiser said, putting a hand on his master’s arm. His former master. Weird. Weird-er. Maybe not weird-est.
“Bruiser,” I said, “once you explain, can you hang with me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Hey, Marine,” I said to Derek Lee, as Bruiser explained trash talk to a five-hundred-year-old fanghead. “I got a rocket launcher in the back of the SUV. It’s been modified to toss flashbangs. You up to finding a weak spot in the downstairs windows or doors?”
“Hell yeah.”
His delight at mayhem and destruction was a bit unsettling, but I nodded anyway. “Whatever. After I reach the second floor, count to ten, then fire. If you can find openings, start left to right. I’ll enter the far right room. Oh. There’s a headset in the SUV too.”
“Copy. Hey, cute dragon, Puff.” With an expression of wicked delight, Derek merged into the shadows toward Eli’s SUV. Guys and stuff that goes bang I’d never understand, but the reason for that might be as much physiological as anything el
se. I was also gonna be stuck with a new name. Puff the Magic Dragon, courtesy of the T-shirt. Great. Just freaking great. But not my biggest problem.
As plans went, mine wasn’t much of one. Mostly it was distract, make a lotta noise, some bright lights. Evan and Molly outside, one in front, one in back, with their magical woo-woo stuff. Bruiser and me inside, with Leo close behind.
And then I heard the muffled scream. I caught a whiff of something. I was smelling blood on the night wind. I opened my mouth and drew air in over tongue and the roof of my mouth. Eli’s blood. I could hear his pained breath, and soft, female laughter. Eli was hurt. Eli was dying. Someone was torturing him. And that someone was enjoying the process.
CHAPTER 23
Hey, Bitch! You Want Some of This?
“Come on, Derek,” I said, hearing Eli’s ragged breath on the night air. Derek had used some of Eli’s fancy equipment to tell me that the Ranger was in a second-floor room, with a human and a vamp. Even without electronics, I knew which window the sounds were coming through. I could smell the blood and hear the pained breath of my partner. I could tell he was gagged. I could smell his pain and fear. “Come on, damn it!” I snarled.
Over the headgear, which the Kid had routed into all of our cells, I heard the others checking in. Big Evan was ready. The girls in the tree were ready. Molly and her niece were ready. Only Derek was left.
“In position,” Derek said over my earpiece. “But you’ll have to open the shutters or doors. I’ve been all around the site and there is no, repeat, no, access on ground floor without use of explosive ordnance.”
“No bombs. No explosives,” I said.
“Copy. But you ain’t no fun, Legs.”
I knew he was trying to lighten the tension, maybe as part of some battlefield routine, and for the sake of my team, I forced a tight smile onto my face and countered his gibe. “Not the first time I’ve been told that.”