“Why not?”
“Because you can’t just read a spell and make magic. Maybe someone can recite some”—I made air quotes with one hand—“‘cursed Latin’ or whatever in a movie and summon the dead, but in real life just having a spell is like just having bullets. You still need the actual weapon.”
“What kind of weapon?”
“Willpower. You have to have intention, and an elevated understanding of the forces you’re dealing with. Most of the time, that’s still not enough. Your most powerful magic—the kind that truly alters reality the way you want—needs a sponsor. Some being outside of our world.”
“A demon,” Niya said.
“More things live outside than we’ll ever know. But yeah, in some cases a demon. I know of some volumes that will point you in the right direction.”
“Me? Not us? I thought you were helping.”
“I’m still contemplating what constitutes as ‘help’ in a situation like this.”
“Let me clarify. Bringing back Earth’s protector is help. Our world needs the Garrison.”
That stupid name. “Even if he comes back wrong?”
Nothing to say. She’d been thinking about it too.
“Shit!” I said as Trenton Street sailed by. “That was my turn.”
“Sorry I distracted you with saving the life of our friend.”
More than a friend. For both of us. You know that, Mean Kitty.
The median on the street prevented me from popping a spontaneous U-turn, so I’d need to drive a couple of blocks before course correcting. Time I’d use to simplify this for the kindergartner in my passenger seat. “I’ve thought about this way more than you, Niya.”
“How? You didn’t know anything was wrong until I brought Jermaine to Meridian.”
“Because when I thought about it, it wasn’t for Jermaine.”
“So, who—?” She stopped short. Good. She got it.
“As you can probably tell, my mom’s not around. There are reasons.”
I waited for a reaction, prepared to deliver a stunning diatribe that I knew wouldn’t change anything. Niya’s attention was elsewhere.
“Stop the car,” she said.
We were passing a park. I peered through the passenger window into the inky night beyond its low border wall. “For what?”
“Stop the car! Someone’s in trouble!”
My brakes squealed when I mashed them. Niya ejected from her seat, hitting the sidewalk in a tight roll, then hopped the wall in a single bound before I came to a complete stop. She loped along on all fours for speed, and I lost her in the night.
Popping my trunk, I ran to the back of my car for the things I’d need. Armed, I sprinted into the park after her.
Screams and growls drew me toward the park’s center. I’d been working out some, but there’s not a ton of cardio in Historian work. I was huffing and puffing by the time I reached the melee.
Sprawled on the ground, pressing a hand to a sloppy gash on his leg and muttering incoherently, was a man I’d seen sleeping on various benches around town over the last couple of weeks. He scrambled away from the tornado of teeth and claws spinning in the center of a misshapen huddle. Niya was fully transformed, her dagger teeth protruding from her jaws, her fingers hooked, the tips rugged and sharp as serrated blades. She tore through a group of waxy-skinned beings with elongated limbs and stretched necks. When one whipped a tongue at Niya, slicing her at the shoulder, I recognized them as akanames. Filth lickers.9
Their nickname was a misnomer. They didn’t lick filth. They licked flesh. Right off the bone.
The new wound amplified Niya’s fury. She flipped over a charging akaname, ripping through the back of its neck while she was in the air. A few vertebrae skittered across the lawn like tossed dice as the akaname collapsed and melted into bubbling rot. She landed and rammed a hand through the stomach of another. When she flung it off her arm, it dissolved before it hit the ground.
One of the two remaining monsters went for another tongue wound. Niya slipped an escrima stick from a loop on her belt and put it between her and the deadly sinew. The creature’s tongue coiled around the stick, snapped it in half. As it retracted, taking a chunk of the weapon with it, the akaname didn’t account for the wooden shard it had left in Niya’s hand. She raced the tongue back to the creature’s snarling mouth and jammed the makeshift stake right through its eye.
I’d seen her in action before. Always knew how lethal she was in a fight. There was something more in her now. A rage and determination. There were five stages to grief, and one was anger. I knew where she was in the process.
While anger could fuel strength, it also dulls senses. Niya wasn’t aware of the akaname behind her, about to strike a killing blow.
So I tackled it. Awkward.
It hissed and writhed. The bones beneath its loose skin seemed to realign as it attempted to twist off its belly into the position better suited to bite my face off. Best not to give it the chance.
Pulling the ceremonial dagger from my bag, I drove it into the beast three times. Lung, lung, head . . . assuming I’d remembered its anatomy correctly. It still writhed, but weaker. The hissing became moist. I kept driving that dagger into its skull. Over. And over. And over. And over. And . . .
“Tat.” Niya snagged my wrist, stopping another downward swipe. She yanked me off the thing as it dissolved into a black puddle.
My head whipped about. The homeless man who had drawn us here hobbled off in terror. The hospital was nearby. They’d help him.
Niya’s face shifted back to her human form; the claw looping my wrist transitioned from rough pad to soft palm again. She let me go, and I lowered my arm, still gripping the dagger’s hilt hard enough to make my hand ache.
She panted, wide-eyed, excited. It’s been said her kind gets aroused by battle. “Damn, Tat. You whaled on that frog creep. Jermaine told me he’d been training you.”
I stiffened. “You two talk about me a lot?”
“No.”
That stung. I tried not to let it show, though her freaky cat ass could probably hear my heartbeat change or smell my disappointment.
From my bag I drew a bottle of water, passed it to her. “Here. Hydrate.”
Snatching it, she just about tore off the top and lapped it greedily. When half the bottle was gone, she angled the open end toward me, but I waved her away. Never believed that “cat’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s” stuff. “That’s all you.”
More greedy gulping. Then, “What were those things?”
“Does it really matter?”
“I’ve never seen anything like them before. Where’d they come from?”
“This is Glen Creek. Where does anything come from?”
Her breathing returned to normal. Her shoulders slumped as the weight of the evening returned. “Guess you got a point.”
“Let’s get going.”
Returning the bloodstained dagger to my satchel, I led her back to the car. To get this over with.
My house was off a main road, at the end of a rutted driveway. The path was bordered by unkempt cotton fields, where dingy white puffs blanketed acres and acres.
“Is this a plantation?” Niya asked.
“Used to be.”
“Is there some spiritual significance to the Historian living here? Something to do with the blood of slaves? The darkness of centuries-long oppression?”
I shrugged. “I think my grandparents just got a good deal on it.”
“Oh.”
I parked before the massive wraparound porch, and we climbed the plankboard steps together, wood creaking beneath our weight. When I gripped the door handle, I hesitated. “My grandma’s in here. She gets confused sometimes. Okay?”
Niya nodded and flicked her hand in a hurry-up gesture.
Inside, the foyer was so brightly lit that the pastel-blue walls seemed to glow. I went for the stairs, but Grandma rolled from the den, her motorized wheelchair humming.
; I said, “Hi, Grams.”
Her eyes fixed on me, bounced to Niya. Then, “Something’s wrong.”
“Everything’s fine, Grams. We’re just going to go upstairs and—”
She ignored me, maneuvered her chair closer to Niya, who said, “Ma’am.”
Grandma said, “Janet is in so much pain. I can tell.”
Niya’s eyebrows furrowed. I waved her along. “We’ll be in the study.”
I climbed the stairs, and Niya seemed to have an internal debate about leaving my grandma. I said, “It’s all right.”
Niya joined me, whispered, “Who’s Janet?”
“My mom. Told you, she gets confused.”
From the second-floor landing, we entered the study, and Niya got her first glimpse of the organized confusion that was the Historian’s library. Every shelf was crammed and bowed in the middle. Every horizontal surface was covered with dried-up pens, loose sheets, and legal pads. None of the visible paper was untouched by my careful, meticulous script.
The Cantankerous Cat Woman spun slowly in the center of the room, overwhelmed by it all. “You did all this? Why?”
“Elevated understanding. The Historian has to know this stuff better than anyone, and it’s dense. I have to rewrite many things for my own interpretation. Notes and footnotes,10 all the time.”
Bouncing between a few specific shelves, I pulled select volumes and stacked them on a desk. Little pastel tabs protruded from marked pages, and when I opened the books some of my Sharpie-covered Post-it Notes unstuck and littered the floor.
“How can I help?” Niya asked.
“Do you read ancient Sanskrit?”
She blinked. “I’ll sit quietly in this corner.”
“Thanks.”
That’s how we were for the next hour. Me jotting down more notes, her awaiting my recommendations for doing the thing she shouldn’t do. When the silence got to be too much, she said, “I’m sorry about how things happened, Tat.”
“Things?” I stopped writing, though I kept my eyes on my work.
“I didn’t come here to get between you and him.”
“I know. He explained. We don’t have to talk about it.” Please, stop talking about it.
“We do, though. It’s been weeks, and we’re . . . I don’t know. Coworkers.”
“What we do isn’t the late shift at McDonald’s. With all that’s at stake, I know how to manage my personal feelings.”
“Except that’s not true.”
Slowly I rotated my chair to look into her stony amber eyes.
She kept going. “I think you want everyone to see this cool, unflinching genius—and you are a genius. But no one’s as cold as you try to make us believe. I know he—we—hurt you.”
Raising my palm, I said, “Stop.” I snatched sheets from my notebook. “Come to the attic. The rest of what you’ll need is there.”
“Great talk.”
I left my chair, making sure my satchel was still with me, and the ceremonial dagger inside it. Crossed the threshold into the hall. Grandma was there.
Her chair whined as she positioned it before the door.
Niya, quicker than I ever would’ve given her credit for, said, “How’d she get that chair up here? Is there a ramp or something?”
No. There’s no ramp.
Niya kept walking, surely thinking Grandma would move, but stopped short when she collided with an invisible barrier a foot shy of the study door. She rebounded off what seemed like thin air. Pushing her hands forward, she pressed her palms against the unseen wall.
“Tatiana!” She slammed a fist into the obstruction. “What is this?”
I said, “Me correcting a mistake.”
Kneeling, with my satchel between my feet, I removed the dagger stained with akaname blood and held it out to Grandma with two hands. “I present the arcane blood of then, and the mortal blood of now.” Gripping the hilt, I drew the blade across my left palm, raising a hot red line that quickly spilled onto the floor.
Grandma licked her lips, and her flesh began to meld with her chair, organics and mechanics blending into a shifting, bulbous mass.
“No,” Niya said, clearly recognizing the creature my grandmother was becoming as she swelled, filling the hall. Shadows leaped from corners and eaves, drawn to her—it—like a cloak.
I said, “I request an audience with the Pall Merchant.”
“Again?” The voice had the timbre of a rockslide and seemed to seep from the walls. It did not come from any human mouth.
My grandma, who hadn’t really been my grandma for some years, completed the transformation into the thing Niya had struggled to describe back at the lair. The collector that had killed our lover.
“You did it,” Niya said. She flicked her wrists in a manner I’d seen a hundred times, when she exposed her claws. Only her hands remained human. She flicked them again, with the same result. Then she stretched her mouth wide, searching for animal incisors with her tongue.
I retrieved the bottled water from my bag, the one she’d drunk from in the park. Explained, “It’s an old formula. Suppresses mystical abilities for up to a day. Added bonus for being odorless and tasteless.”
“You bitch!”
“Name-calling won’t do you any good now.” I felt the Pall Merchant’s presence all around me. The creature filling the hall was an emissary of sorts. A pack mule. The real power didn’t bother to manifest fully here. That was okay. It was sort of like doing business over the phone.
The Pall Merchant said, “What is it, Tatiana of Earth Realm?”
“Another deal.”
“I’m excited to hear what you offer now.”
“I want one of the lives I offered you back.”
Niya said, “I’m going to rip out your throat, Tatiana.”
“Hmmm,” said the Pall Merchant. “My kind isn’t in the business of refunds.”
“Not a refund. Even exchange. Take the theri instead.”
The beast formerly known as Grandma shifted, its sides rustling against the walls. It had no discernible face, but it was definitely examining Niya in whatever manner it was able, somehow transmitting an assessment to its master.
“And which life is it you want returned?”
“Jermaine’s.”
“Not your mother?”
“No. I want him.”
The Pall Merchant chuckled. The sound made my nose bleed. “You always have, haven’t you?”
Niya threw her whole body against the barrier. Infuriated madness.
“Stop it!” I told her. “You’re getting what you wanted. Jermaine’s coming back.” I directed my query to the Pall Merchant. “Right?”
“For a valued customer? Deal accepted.”
The shadow mass spoke then, in my grandma’s voice. “Janet is in such pain. Now Niya will be too.”
It spilled into the study, through the invisible barrier, like water through a broken dam. Niya screamed for a long time.
THEN
We sat in the lair, and he kept putting things between us. A desk, chairs. He was nervous in a way that was new. When he told me Niya would be staying in Glen Creek indefinitely, his apprehension made sense.
“I thought her being here was a charity thing. Aren’t we supposed to be finding her family or something?”
“We found them.”
That “we” was not all-inclusive. “I don’t understand. When?”
“You went to New York for that college visit. We got a lead.”
The discussion had always been that Niya would find her family. Reunite with them. Leave. “And?”
“They’d been murdered by Gentleman Gaunt. Tat, did you hear me?”
I was supposed to respond. This was a situation where I should empathize. Or sympathize. I always got them confused. “So, she should find him. Destroy him. We can put her on his trail.”
He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“You should s
it down.”
“What is it?” I detected an echo. My shout bounced.
“I have feelings for her.”
Laughs. From me. Wild cackling. He looked startled. I stopped abruptly. “Feelings? I go away for a weekend and you have feelings? I’m back now.”
“That doesn’t really have anything to do with it.”
“I’m back now.” I crossed the room, slid onto his lap, cupped the back of his neck with one hand, then felt a stirring near my thigh. “Do you feel that?”
Jermaine stood, cradling me in his arms. I expected him to do what he’d done many times when we were alone and there was no immediate threat. I expected him to come back to his senses. I expected too much.
He set me gently on my feet. “We shouldn’t do that anymore. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“For who, Jermaine?”
“Any of us.”
He tried to leave, but he let me block his path. “You said it would be you and me. You said nothing would come between us. You said you would love me forever.”
“I know I did.”
“So . . . ?”
“Things change.”
That they do.
Weeks passed. We didn’t talk in school. In the lair, all we discussed were current supernatural threats. Somehow he arranged it so the three of us were never together in the Movie Meridian basement at the same time. And like a typical stupid boy, he thought that would be enough to make things right. Then I walked in on them, and nothing could ever be right.
He suited up to go on patrol—with her, though he tried to be slick and not say it flat out. Like I’m stupid. Me? Stupid?—I offered him a bottle of water. “Here,” I said. “Hydrate.”
He drank it all and thanked me. Part of me wanted to be there when his powers failed. To see him blindsided. Ruined. And maybe, before he took his last gasp of air, when he looked to the sky for answers, I’d lean over him and say, “Things. Change.”
But that would just be petty. Wouldn’t it?
NOW
My mouth, pressed to his. Jermaine’s lips were icy then. I didn’t flinch away, and soon the warmth bled back into them. Our bond, with the help of the Pall Merchant’s magic, pulled his essence back into his meat, knitting his wounds, refilling him. When he drew a ragged breath, taking some of the air from my lungs, I pulled away.
Three Sides of a Heart Page 22