Rampant, Volume 2

by Amy Lane

  I was not strong enough to help her through the next part. And she was strong enough to send me to my lover and make sure that I was treasured and cherished and cared for.

  She kissed me again and gave me one of those game, painful smiles, and then I turned her toward the door to the small terminal and gave her a little push. She trotted away, looking barely legal in her denim shorts and girl’s white T-shirt, and I wondered idly how many people thought we were deeply in love the way any normal human couple would be.

  I was deeply in love with her—but we would never be normal, and the closest I would ever have to human was the werecoyote who was apparently waiting for me in Texas.

  The closest she would ever have to human was the man-god brooding about her in the car. It was complicated and difficult, and I was tired of complicated and difficult, and she’d given me exactly what I needed before I even knew I needed it.

  And I was still hurt, more than a little, that she wouldn’t insist that I be there for her, as she eviscerated herself out of love for our world and duty to our people.

  Goddess, what a mess.

  So, yeah—I used to love the kids’ table on holidays. Now I knew why.

  Cory: Meeting the Dawn

  GREEN WAS waiting outside for us in the coolness of the hill. Until we pulled along the graveled drive and I saw him standing there, beautiful and strong and worried, I had managed to keep my unbounded joy at seeing him again tight and secret in my chest.

  As it was, Bracken had to stop short to let me scramble out of the SUV and into his arms.

  “You’re okay?” I asked, meaning at least six different things. I’m ashamed to say that the first one was You’re not mad at me? There had been a silence in my head on his end since the moment of magnesium brightness in the dank wine cellar.

  “No,” he said into my hair. “No, I’m not okay. Luv… Goddess… luv—the things you do….”

  But that was all—my articulate, cultured Green got no further than that as he held me and held me and held me, and I squeezed him back with all the strength in my fragile, mortal body.

  He stepped back first, held his hand up to my throat, and made a little keening noise, closing his eyes so tightly shut that silver tears leaked out the corners. I followed his hand and felt….

  “Another scar,” I apologized. He narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head and held me all over again.

  “I can feel Bracken’s anger in my blood,” I told him after a few moments, and that was odd enough to break the moment.

  “Really?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “What in the holy blue fuck?”

  I managed a weak grin. “It’s cold,” I said. “Or maybe it’s hot, and it makes me cold like a fever does. But when he’s mad, when he’s thinking pissed-off thoughts, I feel it.” I tried to smile about this—but the fact was, I was frightened. Bracken and I, we thrived on our own friction. He grew frustrated at me frequently. I didn’t know how I would deal with his anger surging through my blood at the drop of a hat.

  Green frowned, which meant this thought had occurred to him as well, and he patted my shoulders lightly. “Well, hopefully it’s not permanent. It could add one more challenge to an already challenging situation, couldn’t it, beloved?”

  I leaned my head on his chest again and sighed. “And, uhm… speaking of challenging….” It was the lamest segue of all time.

  “You don’t have to do this, luv,” he said. But I looked at him, and although I didn’t know what he could see in the light of the lowering moon, it was something he knew to look for in the first place.

  He laughed a little, and I held my hand to his face. “What am I saying?” It was an honest question, asked almost to himself. “Of course you do. What I should be saying is ‘You don’t have to do this alone.’”

  Bracken emerged from the garage then, and I looked at the sky. It was a breath away from growing lighter. “What do we have, about twenty minutes?”

  Green nodded. “About that. I warned Grace—she’s ready.”

  Which translated, I saw, to “Grace has been sobbing her heart out on Arturo’s shoulder, but she’ll woman up and be stoic Grace for us when we walk into the nursery.” It wasn’t hard to figure out—Arturo’s shoulder was sopped through with the brine-blood tears of his beloved.

  We stood at the steel vault door for a moment, looking inside at the destruction. About a month ago, Gretchen had given up all pretense of doing anything with the books but ripping them up, so they’d been removed unless we went in with one. Many of the toys had been broken, and anything resembling a humanoid had been beheaded. She’d spent psychotic hours with the Legos, though—building wall after plastic wall—until her room was lined with multicolored prison walls, better than tapestries against the chill steel.

  When we got there, she was sitting on Grace’s lap, her whirling eyes tracking aimlessly around the colors of her Lego walls. Grace was singing to her—some hopelessly sad Bruce Springsteen song about Independence Day—and Gretchen was humming tunelessly along.

  Green, Bracken, and I could only watch sadly until the song was done.

  “It’s good you’re doing this now,” Arturo said softly. Gretchen was beyond hearing anyway. “She almost killed Leah today—I had to tackle her and pry her jaws open. There’s barely enough of her left to say good-bye to, and that would be a shame.”

  As reassurances go, it wasn’t bad, and I smiled a little for Arturo’s peace of mind. Then I remembered one of the other reasons I’d been driven to come home this night, when my heart and mind and body would have been so much happier with rest.

  Carefully I looked to see if Green was paying attention to me, but he had spent a great deal of time with Gretchen himself—he was busy saying his own good-byes.

  “Arturo, I’m—I’m probably going to sleep late. You, uhm, wouldn’t want to wake me up tomorrow, would you? Around one or two? Brack and I can take care of that other thing, if you want.”

  Arturo grimaced. “That’s a rather full day after a helluva night, Corinne Carol-Anne. Are you sure you can’t wait another day?”

  I looked at Gretchen, who had spent two months in this pink prison cell while her brain rotted between her ears with nothing she could do about it. I swallowed.

  “I’m done putting things off and hoping they get better,” I said through a dry throat. He nodded sagely, his copper-lightning eyes searching my face for signs of hope, I guess. Whatever it was he was searching for, I don’t think he found it.

  He put a hard hand on my shoulder and squeezed, then walked into the little room and gently detached his beloved from the little girl I was about to kill.

  “Heya, Gretchen.”

  She looked up at me, those unfocused eyes suddenly trying to fix themselves on my face. “I know you,” she said. Then her expression turned into a scowl. “You said my mom and dad were coming.” Well, at least she forgot I killed her cat—but I didn’t mention that.

  Instead, I looked right at her and thanked the Goddess I wasn’t an elf. “Your parents are coming,” I said softly. “In fact, I’ve come to take you up to meet them.”

  “Here, honey,” Grace said, her voice as natural as it had been a week ago when she had helped me pack, “here’s your sweater. Make sure your mama sees it—she’ll think it’s awful pretty.”

  Grace had knit that sweater herself, in blinding shades of purple and blue, but I didn’t guess anyone here was going to need it. The smaller members of the hill propagated like lemmings, but they were Barbie Doll small. The werecreatures could only have babies with their same species. You’d be surprised how very often that mating pair didn’t happen on Green’s hill. The sylphs had their own enclave, like the Avians, away from the sexually charged atmosphere of the hill, and all in all, nothing human sized had given birth since… well, probably since Bracken.

  Besides, I don’t think Grace could have stood to put the damned thing away after we left the room.

  Grace bent down and gave the little gi
rl a kiss on the cheek, and Gretchen leaned into it just a little. She looked at me with flat, unfriendly eyes, and I was grateful. It would be worse if she loved me, trusted me. I was glad, so glad that I’d chosen to do this.

  I was really the only one who could do it cleanly.

  I took one hand—not small, but not grown up either—and Green took the other. Gretchen smiled happily into Green’s eyes, and my heart dropped. Green had loved her, as much as she would let anyone. Green wouldn’t be spared. No, I had it easy. Green would suffer more, and for us both.

  Together, with Bracken behind us, we walked up to the house proper and then up the granite stairs behind the living room to the trapdoor leading to the Goddess grove. The sky was just edging toward gray, and we picked the easternmost crown of the hill. That was where the cross-country running trail came out, and it was shy a couple of trees.

  “Let’s sit here, Gretchen,” Green said, and I followed suit. We weren’t too close to any of the vegetation, which was a blessing. I planned to do this with a heavy power shield between us, and it was easier not to worry about the trees.

  Gretchen sat, and I was surprised when she laid her head on my shoulder. With a little scoot, her head fell sideways to my lap, and I smoothed her hair back from her face. Grace had put it up in a ponytail, so there was very little muss, but I knew I liked it when Green did that to me, so I did it for her.

  “My parents are coming?” she asked dreamily, and I looked to where the sky was turning red under the gray.

  “Yeah, sweetheart,” I said with a clear voice. “Just look through the trees—you’ll see them as soon as the sun comes over the hill.” Because when the sun broke through the trees, it would land on us. Gretchen had known that, squatting in a cave and running on instinct. Three months ago, she’d been able to keep herself alive.

  Today, with only the promise that she’d see the same family she’d ripped to ribbons, she forgot what she knew about how to live and lay quietly in my lap, waiting for golden, sunshiny death.

  The tingle of my shield as it edged our skin didn’t even bother her. She just stared at the trees and talked to herself. “Do you think Marvin will bring me a doll? He used to spend his allowance on dolls when I was mad at him. Mom always gave him extra so he could buy cars for himself.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” I told her. My shield tickled the webbing between my fingers, but I had never felt less like laughing.

  “I want to hug my mom,” she said quietly. “And I bet my daddy has a scratchy beard.”

  “You’ll have to see,” Green said. Our eyes met, and it suddenly didn’t matter who had been closer to her—this pain was all ours, all on the surface, all in our skin and our bones.

  “I’ll tell them you were nice to me,” she said, and then the top of the trees turned gold.

  I drew power, and then some more, to insulate us from the searing heat of her conflagration. Behind me I heard Bracken swearing softly, praying that we would be all right in the heat and magnesium light of a vampire meeting the dawn.

  In a heartbeat, maybe less, we were all right—we were just fine, in fact—and the soul-wind of her passing blew the ashes out over the hillside, leaving Green and me sitting side by side, glowing in my shield, neither of us touched by either the flame or the ash.

  My power bled out of me like tears, and I heard someone take a great gasping sob. My chest tightened to the point of pain, and I realized that it was me.

  Arturo: Bishop Danced

  ARTURO LOOKED at the clock on the wall above the television cabinet and then jittered nervously around the front room.

  It was after one in the afternoon, and he knew without checking that Green’s door was still locked. Cory, Bracken, and Green were all in there, and whether they were sleeping, making love, or ripping the sheets to shreds in a psychotic fugue, the last thing he wanted to do was disturb them.

  Lambent sauntered in and eyed him sardonically. “What, mate—you’ve got nothing to do? Isn’t that, like, against your superpower or something?”

  “You’re a complete asshole. Did anyone ever tell you that?” Arturo asked sourly, then watched as the minute hand clicked over again.

  “Frequently—our little Goddess being one of the most vocal. Seriously, what’s got your knickers in a twist?”

  Arturo sighed and flopped down onto the love seat, scrubbing his face with his hands. “If you must know, you limey bastard, she was going to go kill someone today—but I really don’t think she’s up to it. And even if she was up to it, I don’t know if it’s even right to ask her to go do it. But it needs to be done.”

  Lambent’s eyebrows hit his fiery hair, and his ruddy face went even redder in amusement—and something else, something almost reassuring for Arturo to see. “Sweet mother of morning, it’s like watching the family cat stand up and order breakfast. I’ve never seen you this… flapped!”

  Arturo blinked. “Flapped?”

  “Yeah, mate. Usually you’re completely unflappable!”

  Arturo’s copper-lightning scowl was dark enough to make even Lambent back up a step. “Do you have any idea what she went through last night?”

  And suddenly Lambent was all serious, and all on his side. “Yeah,” he said, giving a furtive glance down the hallway. “Maybe even better than you.”

  “Care to explain that?” Arturo kept his dark hair at shoulder length, and today it was in a queue—or it had been, because now he ran his hands through his hair and snapped the band across the room.

  “There were kids—feral vampires, abominations of the Goddess—whatever the fuck you care to call them, brother. Four of them, locked in Rafael’s wine cellar.”

  Arturo’s entire attention was now locked on the slight-figured fire elf, who was looking hesitantly to see if he could come back into the room. “Goddess…,” he breathed. “Goddess. Was this before or after she almost killed herself?” Jack had called from the summer rental cottage where the werewolves had been flown after Teague had been tended to. Teague would be fine in a week or so, if his mates didn’t throttle him for being the world’s worst patient, and Jack could barely mention Cory’s name without cracking his voice all over the face of the stupid planet.

  “That was after.” Lambent shuddered, then gave up his flame-in-the-wind impersonation and settled down next to Arturo. “Bracken’s blood, it wasn’t sitting well with her at the time. She wasn’t sure she could do it clean, so she asked me.”

  Arturo gave a hard shiver next to him. “Fucking wonderful,” he grated. “And then she came here, and… and….”

  “And sentenced another child to death. Yup, guvnor—that would put a crimp in any girl’s social whirl, you know what I mean? So who’s she supposed to kill?”

  The damned clock was not moving any faster. “Nolan Fields,” he said glumly. Max came walking through the hallway in a pair of cutoff sweats and a T-shirt just in time to hear the name.

  “That bastard who’s trying to blackmail the hill? What about him?” Max prodded restlessly at the contents of the refrigerator, taking stock “Banana, chocolate—there we go, caramel…” while he waited for the answer.

  Renny came in behind him, wearing one of his T-shirts and not much else, and said, “Chocolate.”

  “But you said caramel! What about Nolan Fields?”

  “The caramel was for you,” she replied, taking the chocolate cream pie out of his hands. “And wasn’t Cory supposed to kill him today?”

  Arturo watched them both and tried—once again!—to get his head around the fact that Copfuck Max himself was now eating pie and in on the family’s secrets. What a difference two years made. “Yeah,” he said in response to Renny’s question. “She was.”

  Max spoke through a mouthful of pie. “That’s asking a bit much, even for Cory.” The two of them had been in the living room with Arturo as Green had carried her into his bedroom. She’d been sobbing so hard Green had needed to bespell her just so she could breathe.

  “We could
do it for her,” Renny said blithely, eating her own pie and trying to get the whipped cream off the edges of her mouth with her tongue, like a cat. Max sighed and got the dollop off her nose. She gazed at him with a cat’s fascinated adoration, and his slightly crossed blue eyes gave her the same regard, like an addled Siamese.

  Lambent and Arturo exchanged ironic glances, and then Renny’s words sank in.

  “We could,” Arturo said thoughtfully. Actually, before Cory came along, he’d been the enforcer, as well as Bracken when some extra muscle was needed. Cory was deadlier, just by the nature of her power and her ability to come up with a plan and act on it for better or worse—sometimes for worse, but she was young yet—but that didn’t mean Arturo couldn’t handle a simple takedown, especially if….

  “We could what?” Mario asked. LaMark was hard on his heels, dressed nattily in slacks and a cerulean button-down dress shirt, and he was looking supremely glad to be back. He was a self-confessed cosmopolitan bird—of all Cory’s entourage, he’d been the least happy to be camping by the lake.

  “We could kill the cockroach turd who’s trying to blackmail Green!” Lambent said gleefully.

  Mario said, “Without Cory?”

  There was a silence, and everybody’s eyes met.

  “Last night sucked large,” LaMark said into the silence.

  “Anyone hear from the werewolves?” Mario asked tentatively, and Arturo filled them in.

  “Renny’s right,” Max said after they all relaxed—just a little—in relief. “I mean, she’s awesome and all, but, well, we’re all pretty deadly.”

  “And it would be really wonderful,” Renny said quietly, “if we just didn’t have to bother her with this today.”

  “Too right!” said Lambent with enthusiasm, and Mario and LaMark both said, “I’m in!” and Arturo found himself looking up at five hopeful sets of eyes. Well, he thought with a shrug, why not?

  The magic that locked Green’s door when he was busy was not particularly powerful, but that didn’t mean Arturo would break through it lightly. First he listened with his power—a thing he never did, simply because not doing such a thing meant giving the inhabitants of the hill as much privacy as possible. This time, he deemed the intrusion worth it—especially when all he heard was Cory and Bracken’s even breathing of sleep and the click-clack of Green’s laptop as he did business while sitting in bed to watch them.