“You’re okay,” he said softly; and then: “There’s something you need to see.”
It was not as difficult to move as I had thought it would be. I was not weak, merely tired, and Grant tugged on my hand as I scooted out from under the covers. I wore sweats and a tank top. My arms were pale and bare, and my right hand glittered. I took a moment, staring. The armor had grown again. A third vein of quicksilver curled from the wrist cuff to my ring finger, but tendrils of it seemed to lace out like roots, ending halfway across the back of my hand.
I glanced at Jack and Grant, and found both men staring at the armor. Neither said a word, but the old man seemed especially thoughtful. I closed my hand into a tight fist.
“Oh, what the hell,” I muttered, and got out of bed.
There was a small crowd in the living room. Killy and Father Lawrence sat on the couch. He and the woman were not touching, but they were sitting close together and looked exhausted. Rex leaned against the arm of the couch—in his human body, red knit cap askew. His aura flickered when he saw me, but except for a brief, knowing nod, he said nothing, and went back to watching the television.
I had little time to feel relief that everyone was together, in one piece. The late-evening news was on, and the newscaster cut to a fuzzy video that seemed to have been captured on a cell-phone camera. Hard to see details, but the picture was clear enough to show that it had been taken from inside a vehicle. People were screaming as a skinny man in black repeatedly charged at the car, crashing into the door and window with such strength the glass cracked. His mouth was full of teeth. His eyes were crazed.
He gave up after several seconds and ran away, in silence, with incredible speed.
I stared, breathless, hardly hearing the newscaster as he laughed weakly, and called the creature a vampire. Police, he said, were on the alert for someone playing a prank. And then he laughed again, clearly creeped out.
I did not laugh. It was not a prank.
Killy closed her eyes. “Change the channel.”
Father Lawrence grabbed the remote, hitting the buttons until he found a rerun of Cheers. Norm was sitting at the bar, and Sam was making googly eyes at some blond chick. Mundane, normal, and everything I wished life could be. My brain felt dirty from seeing the news clip and all those sharp teeth.
“We killed all of them we found,” Rex said, giving me a hard, careful look. “None escaped.”
“He would have set some loose. Other creatures, too. Just because.” I looked from Jack to Grant. “What about those who were imprisoned in the ice?”
“I made some calls,” Father Lawrence said quietly, his single red eye burning crimson and sharp. “They’ll be cared for. With Cribari dead, there won’t be any trouble. Not for a little while.” He looked from me to Jack and frowned with such uneasiness my skin crawled.
Killy twisted around, staring at the priest, who was no longer as round or bumbling as I remembered; his stomach tauter, his cheeks not as soft. Her eyes narrowed with displeasure. “And you? What kind of trouble will you be in? You can’t go back there, not to the Church.”
Father Lawrence hesitated, again tearing his gaze from her face to glance from Jack to Grant—and then to me. He started to speak, and Killy made a small, exasperated sound, shaking her head. “No, that’s stupid.”
The priest sighed. “Stay out of my thoughts, please.”
“Stay out of mine,” she snapped, though her ire crumpled into pain. “Jesus, my head.”
Father Lawrence stared helplessly. He began to reach for her—stopped, staring at his hands—and pulled back. Or tried to. Killy grabbed his wrist—just for a moment—and then let go as though burned. Both of them, burned. Byron, standing beside me, watched the young woman with his dark, quiet eyes. I ruffled his hair, and he tore his gaze from Killy to look at me.
“It’s only just starting, isn’t it?” asked Byron softly, and my hand fell from the boy’s head to his shoulder—my right hand, covered in armor—my heart filling with both grief and resolve. I started to tell him it would be okay, and stopped, swallowing hard. I fought for words—anything, anything to give him. Until Byron, gently, reached up to touch my hand. As if he was the one who needed to reassure me.
“You’re not alone, either,” he said.
My breath caught. Byron pulled away from me and walked to the couch. He plopped down between Killy and Father Lawrence, and the young woman, after a moment, patted his hand with a sigh. Cheers played on.
I needed some distance. I went into the kitchen, leaned on the counter—staring into the living room at all these people in my life. My nomad life, setting down roots.
Grant joined me. Mary stayed behind, watching him—and Jack watched her, in turn. Her, and the others, his fist pressed against his stomach, as though he hurt. He looked very old and alone, and it broke my heart. Pained me even more to think of my grandmother with that same look on her face—sitting in a bedroom in Paris. Time, I realized, was a thin veil—the thinnest of them all—but it did no good to know that. My grandmother and Jack would never see each other again. He would live on, as he had lived after her death, and his daughter’s. And mine, when it was time.
Grant brushed close, and gave me a faintly bitter smile. “Think maybe we’ll live to see morning?”
I kissed his shoulder. “The odds are good. But I’ll be gone by then.”
Grant flinched, and his heart shuddered inside mine, as though our pulses merged, momentarily, to beat twice as strong. The sensation made me sway, but only because of the consternation that followed it. Not mine. His.
I grabbed the front of his sweatshirt, leaning in with the same urgency I had felt, clawing him from ice. Such a surreal thing to think of now. Ice and men with wings, and death. Like a dream.
“I meant,” I whispered roughly, staring into his eyes, “that I needed to go hunt that creature. I’ll be back. I’m not leaving you. You’re stuck with me.”
“I know,” he said, slightly hoarse, his thumb caressing the corner of my mouth. “But I wasn’t certain how you felt about that. What’s between us now is different, Maxine.”
“Is it?” I asked him simply. “I don’t think so.”
Grant closed his eyes and pressed his brow against mine. I heard the television behind us, and soft voices, but it might as well have been another world. Me and my man, inside our own labyrinth.
“I still don’t know what I am,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t steal my lines,” I replied softly, and kissed his mouth. “Don’t be afraid.”
Grant’s arm tightened, and he leaned us both against the counter, taking the weight off his bad leg so that he could put his cane aside and use his other arm to hold me. His fingers wound through my hair. Dek and Mal purred.
“I never had a plan,” he told me, so quietly I could hardly hear him. “I had power, and I used it. I took it for granted. I pretended it was harmless.”
He stopped, staring into my eyes. “It’s the same thing, isn’t it, what was done to Father Ross? What I do to demons, how I alter them and others against their wills? There’s no difference.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “Not in a million years could you compare the two.”
“But if I were a million years old?” Grant smiled bitterly. “Older, even? What would I be like with this gift, Maxine, if I lived too long? As long as an Avatar? Would I become like Mr. King? Is that what the power to change people does?”
Is that why the women in my family live such short lives? I wondered, briefly. Because we are corruptible, and the boys are ruled by our hearts? Because power needs to be given and lost, and not hoarded?
I looked down and saw Zee peering around the kitchen counter. Raw and Aaz were with him, baseball hats tugged low, their teddy bears still dragging behind them. My boys. Sweet and deadly.
Zee gave me a toothy smile, and I laughed, clutching a fistful of Grant’s sweatshirt and dragging him even closer. I stood on my toes, and stared
into his eyes, savoring the heat between us, the light in my heart that curled around the darkness.
“You’re a good man,” I told him fiercely. “You’re going to die a good man, a long time from now.” I reached out and brushed my fingers over his cheek. “Maybe in a bed, in my arms. You old, ancient man.”
Grant’s gaze never wavered. “I could live for that.”
And so could I.
Also Available from New York Times
Bestselling Author
Marjorie M. Liu
THE IRON
HUNT
“The boundlessness of Liu never
ceases to amaze.”
—Booklist
Demon hunter Maxine Kiss wears her armor as tattoos, which unwind from her body to take on forms of their own at night. They stand between her and her enemies, just as Maxine stands between humanity and the demons breaking out from behind the prison veil. It is a life lacking in love, reveling in death, until one moment—and one man-changes everything.
penguin.com
Darkness Calls Page 29