“I am not here to bargain,” my voice said without me.
“Didja come to mud wrestle? Because I’m all for that shit. Of course you’re here to bargain. That meat suit you’ve got on is mine. I tailored it. You only got to borrow it for a while, and then you were supposed to give it back. I mean, honey. I’m your daddy, right? You wouldn’t steal from your own daddy?”
“I have no father,” the rider said, and I could feel the power of the words in my throat. “I am the Black Sun and the Black Sun’s daughter. You are no part of me.”
“Okay, not daddy, then. Favorite midwife. It doesn’t matter. The thing is, all my toys are tied to that meat sack. And I want ’em back. You can crawl up out of there and give her to me, then you can swim on back to the Other Side and all these poor bastards can fall into lives of denial and alcoholism, or I burn them all and you besides. Jayné Heller turns into that icky Ball Park frank that’s been in the cooker since last August, and her fortune goes to her only living relative, her poor brother Jay-bird.”
“I don’t fear you,” the rider said.
I didn’t see it move. It was that fast. The Graveyard Child was at the table, popping another cookie between its toothless gums, and then it was on me, its massive hand around my throat, banging my head against the kitchen wall with a violence that cracked the plaster. My hands dug at it, trying to find space between its finger and my flesh. Even with the strength of the rider, I couldn’t do it. I tried to join my will to hers, tried to help. I felt the plaster crack against the back of my head, the hot/cold trickle of blood coming down my scalp. I swung my leg out, hammering at the arch of its foot. It ignored me. I twisted, bringing my elbow hard across its throat. Nothing. It seemed to go on forever, slamming me like a rag doll. Its breath smelled like old meat. Somewhere, Ozzie was barking in a frenzy. Somewhere, Curtis was weeping from wide, horrified eyes. Somewhere else. The world went gray. It would keep doing this to me until it chose to stop, and there was nothing I could do about it.
It was dragging me across the kitchen floor. I didn’t remember exactly how I’d gotten there. Then, with a power that felt like it was wrenching my arm out of my shoulder, it hauled me up and deposited me in the chair it had been in. The plate of cookies was in front of me. It patted my head gently.
“I’m a reasonable guy,” it said. “And really, I think you’ll see it’s a pretty damn sweet deal I’m offering here. I don’t have to go through the extra waiting time while they do all the paperwork. That’s all I get. It’s not much. And look at what you get in return. Your freedom. And Jayné gets to save her whole family. Her poor mommy. Her kid brother. Her daddy who’s her uncle who’s her daddy. You ever see Chinatown? Great fucking movie. And you want a bonus? I won’t even kill her little playmates outside. Do you think she wouldn’t choose to do that? I know Jayné Heller. She’s a hero. She’d give her life in a heartbeat if it meant saving these people. You’d just be doing what she wanted.”
It nodded. Paused. Looked at me, then up at the clock on the wall, then back at me. The wall it had beaten me against was caved in. There was blood on it. Ozzie was pacing back and forth in front of the doorway, her teeth bared and her eyes anxious.
“Okay,” the Graveyard Child said. “You need to talk to me here. Communication’s a two-way street.”
Dad shifted. I could see him trying to move away, but he was bound too tightly to the chair. Mom’s eyes were closed, her nostrils flaring and pinching thin as she hyperventilated. My body ached. Something deep in my belly shifted in a way I was pretty sure wasn’t a good sign. My vision swam.
“I will not make this choice,” the Black Sun said through me.
“You’re gonna leave it to the meat? I like your style, kid. That’s classy. Okay. Bring the meat girl up and let’s have a little talk. Jayné? You in there? Hey. I don’t know if you’ve been following all this . . .”
I tried to speak, but all I could manage was to shift my jaw a little. I tried to sit up and the pain left me gasping. The Graveyard Child helped me sit forward. I coughed, and the phlegm came up bloody.
“Ooh,” the rider said. “That’s gotta hurt. You’re the kind of girl who really plays it rough, aren’t you? No curb too high for a rental car. That’s what I always say. So what do you think? Kill all your family or let ’em live. No pressure. Totally your call.”
I gathered the strength I could. We were doomed. There was no way I could beat this thing in a fight. Chogyi Jake had warned me once—a long time ago, it seemed. Things work until they don’t. Guns. Hordes of the possessed. Supernatural serial killers. I’d taken them all. This time I didn’t stand a chance. I could save them all, and all it would mean was giving my soul to this thing. I looked over at Curt. My little brother, Curtis, who hadn’t even hit Senior Prom yet. How could I take that away from him?
Okay, I thought. Fine. Take me. Just leave my family alone.
“Get him!” The voice wasn’t mine. I thought for a moment that it was the Black Sun, but it had been a man’s voice.
Ex’s.
The front door burst open, and then half a second later the back one. The report of the shotgun was louder than I remembered. The Graveyard Child reared up, its arms spread wide.
“Oh, come on,” it shouted, and there were storms in its voice. A depth like the deepest canyon. “I was almost done here.”
Chogyi Jake stood by the back door and racked another round. And then another man stepped in behind him. Not Ex. A thicker man, older, whose dark skin made the tattoos on his face only a little less legible. Eduardo Martinez lifted his palms toward us, and I felt the blow of his will. The Graveyard Child stumbled back, its vast eyes going wide.
“By your name I bind you,” a woman said from the front door. Idéa Smith, with Ex standing behind her. “Puer Mórtuus, I bind you.”
“Well, this is fucked,” the Graveyard Child said, and Jonathan Rhodes stepped through the door to the dining room. The power of his will laced with the others, pushing and pressing, fashioning a cage of information, meaning, and intent so powerful, it was almost visible. The Graveyard Child writhed back, twisting at the waist and clawing at Rhodes. The thin young man didn’t even seem to notice the attack.
“By your name I bind you,” he said, and the resonance of his voice made the walls themselves seem to sing and crack. “Abraxiel Unas, I bind you.”
“You know,” the Graveyard Child shouted, “there are other ways we could address this. God, you cocksuckers are—”
It dropped to its knees, and for a moment its skin seemed to run. I saw Jay, kneeling as if in prayer, his hands before him and his eyes pressed closed.
Yes, I thought. Fight it. Come back to us, Jay. You can do this.
“By your name I bind you,” Martinez said. “Graveyard Child, by your name I bind you.”
The house went silent. I could hear the tick-tick-tick of the clock. The soft hushing of the wind. Snow swirled in through the doorways, and the furnace clicked, hummed, and came to life. I tried to stand up but my knees wouldn’t support me. Ex limped over to me and took my hand.
“Hey,” he said. “Look what I found outside. Pretty cool, huh?”
I smiled. Jay lay on the floor in a fetal position. His eyes were closed. He could almost have been sleeping. Waves ran along under his skin. I couldn’t imagine what it was to be him just then. Worse than being trapped in the cage with the monster, he was the cage.
“Exorcism,” I said. “You have to get Jay back.”
“I will,” Ex said. “It may take a while, but it will happen.”
Chogyi Jake and Idéa Smith were to my right, lifting my still-bound father back to where he could sit up. There was blood running down past his ear and his breathing was hard and labored. But he wasn’t dead. He probably wasn’t even badly hurt. Rhodes came toward me, grinning. His teeth were ornately carved, and there were black tattoos on his gums, and despite all that, he looked like a kid who’d just gotten his first bicycle.
“How did t
his happen?” I asked.
“We followed you,” Rhodes said. “Nothing personal, but we weren’t entirely sure our conversation back at my hotel wasn’t a trick. When you left, we started surveillance. And when we got here, and you went in . . . well, that was kind of the acid test.”
“I told them it would be okay with you,” Ex said. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“You get a raise,” I said.
Chogyi Jake had untied my father’s hands and moved on to Curtis. Dad wasn’t looking at me or anyone else in particular. His gaze was fixed on the middle of the table, his jaw set and angry. I tried to imagine how this all looked and felt to him. This was his home. The one place he’d always been able to assert control. And now look at it. Filled with freaks, demons, and unholy magicians. His eldest son caught in the grips of Satan and his disgraced daughter and her friends wandering through the place as if it were theirs. He was humiliated, broken, and embarrassed, and I didn’t even know how to make it better for him. I got to my feet, still unsteady, and didn’t look at him. Pretending not to notice was all I had to offer him now. Mom was being untied, her freed hands fluttering around her like pigeons on strings, frantic and pointless.
“We’re going to need a space for the exorcism,” Ex was saying. “My guess is that thing had its claws pretty deep in your brother. It may take some time to do this right. I was thinking that if your dad’s garage—”
“Not here,” I said. “It needs to be done, and so we’ll do it, but not here.”
Ex raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“Whatever you say. You want me to start looking for decent ritual spaces? It could be kind of hard to find a place, with the holidays and all, but I can’t see leaving him like that until January.”
Jay, on the floor, twitched and shifted, his face distorting in something like a scream, only silent. His hands clenched and unclenched.
“No, you’re right,” I said. “We’ll find something. Maybe the church. Would that be all right?”
“Sure,” Ex said. “I can do nondenominational, if that’s what we’re working with. Just as long as you don’t have any amateurs who want to get in on it. I don’t have time or patience for that crap.”
“I’m sure we can work something out,” I said. “If nothing else, I’ll rent a warehouse and you can consecrate it.”
“Okay,” he said, and sat on the table with a sigh. “You know, I’m really looking forward to not having my foot hurt.”
“You caught a shotgun blast from one of the most powerful and dangerous riders I’ve ever heard of,” I said. “I figure you’re going to be faking a limp for decades.”
“Me? Never,” he said. “Years tops. Not decades.”
I walked to the living room. Ozzie was sitting on the rug, panting. Her tongue hung out of her mouth and her eyes were wide and distressed. I squatted beside her, scratching her with bent fingers.
“Hey, girl,” I said. “It’s okay. That was freaky, I know. But it’s over. Good guys won.”
Ozzie looked at me and then past me to the kitchen door. Her mouth closed and she growled. I rubbed her ears. They were soft and fuzzy, just the way dogs ears should be.
“You did a fine job,” I said. “You’re a good, good—”
It came like a detonation. There was no sound, no physical movement, no sign or signal apart from the overwhelming sense of vast power released. I stumbled, trying to get to my feet. I got to the kitchen too late. The Graveyard Child stood in the room’s center, Eduardo Martinez in its grip. In a fraction of a second I was in the small space behind my eyes, my body exploding forward. I dove, leading with my left elbow, and the impact actually made the thing lose its grip and stumble back. Eduardo lay on the kitchen floor, motionless. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. My mother huddled back against the stove, her hands up over her ears, her eyes closed. Curtis knelt in front of her, his fists at the ready like a boxer on his knees. Dad was in the TV room, turning away. Idéa Smith and Rhodes were running toward the rider. I kicked twice, hard. The first one connected, but the second time it caught my ankle and twisted. Something in my knee tore, and I fell to the linoleum. Chogyi Jake was over me, one foot on either side of my chest. The shotgun went off three times in fast succession and the rider let go of me, batting Chogyi Jake away and rushing down the steps and into the TV room, where he lay still.
“By your name I bind you,” Idéa Smith shouted, and I felt her will trying to take hold, trying to find some purchase on the implacable wall that was the Graveyard Child. “Puer Mórtuus, I bind you.”
The Graveyard Child shrugged, picked up the chair my father had been tied to, and swung it against Idéa hard enough that the oak splintered. Rhodes paused. I saw him begin to breathe in, gathering his will, preparing the Oath of the Abyss. The Graveyard Child ran to him, moving so fast it was like watching a film with a few frames missing. It drove its knee up into the man’s crotch, grabbed his head as he crumpled over, and casually ripped off an ear. Rhodes fell to his knees, his eyes open but unseeing. Ozzie was barking again, her yellow teeth flashing in threat. She could as easily not have been there.
The Graveyard Child tossed the ear to the floor, put its hands on its hips, and grinned.
“Well, that was something, wasn’t it? I mean, goddamn, right?” Its eyes fixed on me, the irises contracting as the pupils dilated. “They almost had me fucked. You have got to respect that effort.”
With a shout, my little brother grabbed a carving knife from the counter and flung it at the Graveyard Child. The blade sunk into its arm. The rider smacked its lips, plucked the blade back out, and with a perversely reflective expression dropped the knife to the floor.
“All right. Where was I?” it said. And then raised a single finger. “Oh. I remember. The hard way.”
chapter twenty-two
I fought my way to my feet. My knee felt loose, limp. I was afraid to put my weight on it.
“Face me,” I said. “You wanted the body in exchange for them. Face me and take it.”
“Jayné!” Ex shouted from behind me. “No!”
It shrugged, smiled at me mildly, and brought a foot down on Eduardo Martinez’s throat. I wasn’t trapped behind my eyes anymore, but I wasn’t alone either. Together, the Black Sun and I pushed forward on my good leg, rising up through the air, then striking out hard with my heel. I felt the Graveyard Child’s nose break, and it stepped back. I landed on my good leg and both hands, going still as stone as soon as I touched the floor. I’d pushed the rider back a step. Martinez groaned. Not dead, then. I was good with not dead.
“You will leave this house, Satan!” my father roared, and three rapid pistol reports came with the words. I took a look back toward the TV room. Dad and Ex were both there. My father held the pistol in both hands, steadying it. As I watched, the muzzle flared again, and I heard the hiss of air after the bullet passed by my ear. Ex had Chogyi Jake’s shotgun in hand, but he wasn’t shooting. “You will leave my house and my family. In the name of Christ Jesus, I command you begone. Begone!” He fired again.
The Graveyard Child clapped a hand over its chest and stumbled backward. Its eyes went wide. Dark blood spilled over its wide fingers and it blinked in confusion.
“Dad?” it said in Jay’s voice. “Dad, you . . . you shot me.”
My father’s face was a mask of horror, shock, and regret. He lurched up the steps toward the Graveyard Child, and the rider slapped him across the face hard enough to knock him against the wall.
“Just joshin’,” the Graveyard Child said, then turned to me. “Honestly, sis, I don’t think anyone understands this family but us. And us pretty much means just me.”
It turned toward Curt and Mom with a sigh.
“Stop!” I screamed, but it only moved them gently aside and ripped the stove out from the wall, tossing it on the prone body of Idéa Smith. Ex came up the steps to stand beside me. My father was crawling on his hands and knees. Blood streamed down the side of his head, falli
ng to the floor with a steady drip, drip, drip. I heard a hissing sound that I didn’t understand until I smelled rotting eggs.
“Seriously,” it said. “There are some conversations that I just won’t be able to have with anybody once you’re gone. I mean, except for Carla. But I think she just agrees with me to make me happy, don’t you?”
Ex racked the shotgun. The Graveyard Child looked at him incredulously.
“How many times have you tried shooting me with that thing? It hasn’t actually done anything yet, and you just keep going. You’re adorable!”
“Ex,” I said. “Get them out of here.”
“Ex,” it said, imitating me. “Die in a fire.”
The Graveyard Child lifted its hands, and blue flame whooshed through the room. Curtis screamed and tried to pull Mom out of the kitchen. I didn’t have time. I rushed at the rider, trying to push it back into the flames. It shrieked with laughter and pulled me close in a bear hug. It was small but terribly solid. It wrapped its arms around me and squeezed, shaking while it did like a terrier worrying a rat twice its own size. The heat of the fire was intense. Bright yellow flames were crawling up the wall, fanning out across the ceiling with ripples like the surface of a lake from below. I tried to get my hands up around the thing’s throat. It had been Jay. It had been my brother. I didn’t think about that, only the need for air and to get the others out. It twisted and I lost my balance, tried to catch myself on my wounded knee, and crashed to the floor. It writhed against me, its gums bared with effort, and I felt my ribs creaking from the strain. It was going to crush me like a grape, shatter me. Craning my neck, I saw Rhodes and Chogyi Jake helping each other out the front door. A fire alarm was sounding from somewhere close by. I didn’t remember it starting. My mother was still lying on the floor, Curtis beside her, weeping and plucking at her.
Get out, I thought. Everyone get out.
I tried to center myself, tried to pull my qi together into a force I could use. I imagined the thin blue ball at my heart and I tried to push it out, expanding, but the Graveyard Child pressed in, compressing me with an invisible force that felt like nausea and despair. My breath grew shorter and shorter. The rider’s hatred and rage battered at me, but for the moment the others were forgotten. It wanted my death enough to be distracted by it. I didn’t need to live. I just needed to not die long enough for the others to get out. The gas that had fed the stove was torn at the floorboards, and a plume of flame billowed from it. I could smell my hair burning. The pain from the heat was powerful, but the Graveyard Child ignored it. Its wide mouth came close to my ear, whispering obscenities and threats. Even the veneer of humor was gone, and all that was left was raw, vicious evil.
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