Black Magic Sanction th-8

by Kim Harrison

  I hope not, I thought, wondering if Vivian had seen it all. "Where's the scout?"

  "Funny you should ask." She started back to the table, not answering my question.

  Pierce looked up from a conversation with the fairy that Jenks had almost killed in front of me. I wondered what the fairy was saying—his thoughts I'd almost permanently silenced. Not ready to talk to him, I looked to Ceri. Pulling my shoulders up, I reluctantly went to her. The pixies with her scattered at her soft word, and I sighed.

  "Don't talk to me," she said curtly as she tended the shrub. "I'm angry with you."

  Her hands were busy with the plant, and I knelt beside her, my knees getting damp again. "I'm sorry," I said, thinking it was weird to apologize for not killing someone. "I couldn't do it."

  Ceri pressed new dirt around the shrub. Her fair hair swung, but her motions were losing their sharpness. I handed her a twig to prop up a stem, and she snatched it. "Lee told me what the coven was doing," she said unexpectedly. "He said you'd be under siege, so I came to help. I left Trent to do it. Left Quen." She looked up, and I blinked to see tears in her eyes.

  "Trent won't let you come back," I said, surprised. Damn it, she had left her secure home and excellent care for her unborn baby to help me, and I'd thrown her help in the dirt.

  "I can," she said, her gaze on the dirt under her nails. "But I won't. I failed."

  Huh?

  Ceri took a deep breath and stood, still graceful despite her pregnancy. "Why do you think I was staying at Trent's estates?" she asked as I stood.

  "To be closer to Quen?" I guessed. "Trent's gardens? His hot tub?"

  Making a rude noise, she undid the ties, dropping the hem of her dress. "I was spying," she said wryly. "I was trying to keep you safe. It was what I was trained for." Her voice grew airy, almost sarcastic. "Educated by my mother to be married off to a rival family to spy on them and make sure treachery wasn't planned against us. Al used me as such, letting others borrow me on occasion. I was good at it." Her eyes flicked to mine. "At least I thought I was. When I finally find something worth spying for, I fail. I had no idea Trent was tangling you up. Not a hint beforehand, and none even after it happened."

  "I'm sorry. I should have tried harder to reach you," I said, and she shook her head.

  "You can't get through. Security has been tight since he decided to announce his candidacy for mayor this Friday, but it makes no difference. I failed."

  Her head dropped, and I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Don't worry about it. Trent's a tricky bastard. I'd be willing to bet he didn't tell Quen, even. How were you to know?"

  "Oh, they all knew," she said bitterly. "Anything Trent knows, both Quen and Jonathan know. It's like a bloody men's club. Worse than the demons. Rachel, I can't go back."

  Was it fear or shame? I couldn't tell. "Trent wouldn't hurt you," I said quickly. "Quen wouldn't let him."

  "No," she agreed so confidently that I believed her. "Trent wouldn't hurt me, even if Quen wasn't there." Her gaze went to her swelling middle, and she made a rude face. "But I should have known that you were in trouble. If Trent would let pixies in his gardens, I'd have a hundred eyes and maybe be of some help, but I've nothing. I'm useless."

  She sounded forlorn. Reaching out, I gave her a hug. The hint of ozone clinging to her mixed with something wild that might be her child growing within her. "You aren't useless. Ceri, don't be so hard on yourself. Trent is good at this."

  The clatter of pixy wings pushed us apart, and Jax darted between us, Jenks's oldest son shedding orange sparkles of discontent. "Ms. Morgan, what do you want to do with the wingless wonders? They're starting to stink."

  My brow furrowed as I turned to the picnic table. Giving Ceri a touch on her shoulder, I followed Jax back to Ivy and Pierce... and the fairies. Tired from a lack of sleep and the spent adrenaline, I sat beside Pierce. Before us on the old wood under a green-tinted sheet of ever-after were the survivors. Sixteen. That was it. The rest had "accidentally" died at some point between me destroying their wings and now. The scent of hot chitin and burning hair smelled faintly like a lobster boil, and it made me ill.

  I could tell the leader from the rest by the bandage around his head where Jenks had struck him. He looked proud, his long pale face stiff with anger. All his teeth were sharp, more savage than a vampire's, and they showed when he talked. His eyes were black and too big for his face. Fairies were a savage race, and without the softening of the wings, they looked like pale grim reapers in their flowing white, almost ragged clothes made from spider silk. All of them without exception had white hair, the men keeping it as long as the few women I could see. The women had smaller teeth and were somewhat shorter, but otherwise, they looked the same.

  The leader was staring at us, standing proudly even though he was clearly unbalanced by his missing wings. None of them had shoes, and the belts hanging tight around their waists were empty of their swords and bows. The last of the burnable weapons was going on the fire now, and I watched a young fairy snarl and throw an ichor-soaked wad of cotton at the barrier as presumably her weapons went on the blaze.

  Jax hovered beside me, his hands on his hips, looking a lot like his father. "You should have let us kill them," he said, worrying me.

  The leader lifted his chin. "You did that when you gave my sword to a pixy brat," he said, his words having a soft lisp and almost lyrical pacing.

  Jax rose up, shouting, "You're an animal! Destroying everything in a garden when a little care and precision enriches it. We have to fight you or you'd destroy everything! You leave barren lots and weeds! Locusts. That's what you are. Bugs!"

  The fairy looked up, hatred in his black eyes. "I'm not talking to you, maggot."

  Pierce waved his hand to get rid of Jax's heavy dusting, and the pixy darted up and down, wings clattering. "Are you the leader?" I asked, not surprised when the fairy nodded.

  "I'm not above anyone," he said, "but I made the decision to be here, and others followed. I'm Sidereal."

  "Sidereal," I echoed. "I'm Rachel," I said, "but you probably already knew that."

  "The name of a lesser soon fades." Sidereal corrected his slow tilt forward, a blush of anger coming over him at his own ineptness in maintaining his balance without his wings.

  "I wish you hadn't attacked us," I muttered.

  Sidereal began walking in a careful, slow circle. His balance was better when he was moving. "It was a good gamble. If we won, we would survive until the fall migration. If we failed, we wouldn't care." He stopped his pacing, hand against the barrier between us. "Keeping us alive won't give you a bargaining chip with the coven. We're tools to be discarded."

  My eyes widened. It had never occurred to me to use them as hostages. "You aren't tools," I said, nervously picking at the table. "And you're not hostages either. I broke the spell because there has to be another way. You're still alive. When there is life, there are choices."

  Sidereal turned, almost falling as he overcorrected his balance. "We are the walking dead," he said, huge eyes dark with anger. "Our wings won't grow back. My people are flightless. We can't migrate, and we can't fight. We were going to gain the land we needed or die in glory. Now we have nothing. Less than if we'd kept to our faded land and died as paupers. You've given us a very hard death, demon spawn."

  Pierce smacked the table to make everyone jump. "Don't call her that," he threatened, and Sidereal gave him a sour look.

  "I was the walking dead once," I said, and Ivy snorted. "I am right now, actually. But I try."

  Sidereal turned away. The stumps of his wings were covered, but pale ichor had discolored the gauze. My gut twisted. Pierce was right. Without their wings, they couldn't compete. Death, though hard, would have been a blessing. A blessing I took from them. Think, Rachel. "Maybe there's a charm to mend your wings?" I offered.

  Head tilted, Sidereal turned. "We still have no land."

  "Then maybe you can stay here."

  "Filth!" Jax shouted, wings a harsh c
latter and sword pointing. "Never. Never!"

  Ivy frowned, and Pierce looked worried. "There's got to be a way to fix this," I said.

  Sidereal strode forward, having to catch his balance with a hand against the inside of the bubble. "You'd make us live under the protection of pixies?" he snarled, showing his fangs. "You'd make slaves of us?"

  "They are backstabbing sneaks!" Jax exclaimed, drawing the attention of the pixies at the fire. "We'll kill them before letting them into our garden!"

  "What's the big deal?" I said tightly. "You don't even eat the same things. It's just a matter of agreeing to abide by the rules of courtesy. And it's not your decision, it's your dad's." Sitting straighter, I looked for Jenks. "Jenks?" I called, tired of Jax's adolescent intolerance. It wouldn't be easy to get pixies and fairies to coexist, but they were going to try.

  "They will destroy everything!" Jax exclaimed, red faced as hot glitter sifted from him. "You're an ignorant lunker!"

  Ceri was smiling with an I-told-you-so expression, her arms crossed to show off her middle, and I frowned. "Jenks!" I shouted, listening for his wings and hearing nothing. My gaze slid to Ivy, alarm trickling through me. "When was the last time you saw Jenks?"

  "When he told me of the scout," she said, rising fast.

  "Jenks!" I shouted, and even Ceri dropped her arms and looked into the trees.

  For five long seconds, we listened for his wings while fear wound tighter through me. Motions rough, I got up from the picnic table, hitting it hard enough to make my leg hurt. Ceri's hushed "Go find your father" to Jenks's kids made my chest tighten.

  "If you killed him, I will squish you myself," I threatened Sidereal, and he bared his teeth and hissed at me like a cat.

  "Looking forward to it."

  Jax was a flash of pixy dust, and he was gone, having flung himself forty feet straight up to do a rough visual.

  "Where are you, Jenks?" I muttered, seeing the darting sparkles of his kids making patterns in the bright sun as they searched. There'd be no reason for him to leave unless...

  My face went cold, and I looked at Ivy. "Matalina," I said breathlessly, and Ivy's face paled. I hadn't seen her since their last stand.

  Shit.

  Twenty-one

  "I'll check the church," Ivy said, then took the steps two at a time. She was gone even before the door slammed shut. The fairies watched in satisfaction as the entire feeling in the garden turned to fear. But it wasn't until I saw Rex that my panic almost swallowed me.

  The small orange cat was oblivious to the darting shapes, her ears pricked and her movements sure as she paced across the mown grass, let out when Ivy went in. With a little jump, she gained the small stone wall that separated the garden from the graveyard. Focus intent, she vanished into the taller grass.

  "Pierce?" I said, glancing from where she'd disappeared. "Watch the fairies, will you?"

  Nodding, he stood, face sad and head bowed.

  I followed Rex through the wet grass, moving as if in a dream. My tension eased when we passed the ring of burnt ground, and I felt even better when I found Rex sitting at the edge of a small, familiar plot, her tail curled around her feet as she sat in the sun and cleaned a paw.

  I knew this grave. The pixies frequently played around it despite—or maybe because—the site being snarled with the thorns of a rose gone wild. The marker itself was decorated with the statue of a childlike angel not much bigger than Rex, the chubby features somehow not destroyed by time. It was a child's grave, and innocence seemed to linger yet.

  Creeping forward, I exhaled in relief when I heard Jenks. Until I realized he was singing. Tears filled my eyes and I swallowed a lump when from behind the tombstone came a mournful, stop-and-go duet with heartrending gaps. Only one voice was raised.

  Dreading what I might find, I moved forward until I could see the base of the tombstone. Jenks was on the ground, his wings still and drooping as he held Matalina, cradling her, keeping her from touching the earth. Ringing them in the pressed grass were four dead fairies, their wings tattered but unburnt. Jenks's sword was in the nearest, the fairy still holding the blade as it punctured his middle. Arrows littered the ground, and the scent of broken green was strong.

  He looked up at me, his voice cracking and his wings lifting slightly. Moisture shined his cheeks, turning to dust as it dried. "Rachel is here, Mattie," he said, turning back to her, and hope jumped. She was alive?

  Jenks brushed her hair from her eyes, and the pixy woman took a pain-racked breath. "She can take you back to the stump in three seconds flat. And she can turn you big. Just for an hour. You can do that. Please, Mattie. No more arguments. You'll live then. The spell takes all the pain away. Makes you brand new. Please don't leave me." He was begging now, and I felt tears prick. "I can't be alone for the next twenty years."

  It confirmed something I'd been suspecting for the last few months as Jenks grew faster, while Matalina declined. The curse he'd taken last summer had reset his biological clock. Excited, I dropped to my knees beside them. I'd gotten my twenty years back that my childhood illness had stolen, but what caught my breath was that Jenks wasn't going to die. Matalina either.

  "Matalina," I said, bending close and making my words soft. "Ceri is here. She can make you well." They'd live forever, both of them. It was going to be okay. It was going to be okay! Finally something was going to be okay!

  I held out my hand to take her, but Matalina's soft "no" iced through me. No? What did she mean, no?

  "Rachel, do this for me," Matalina said as Jenks tried to hush her, but a sharp gleam came into her eyes and she put a small, beautiful, and deathly white hand to his mouth. Jenks kissed it, going silent as tears fell on it and he wiped his dust from her. "This is my decision," the woman said, her fervent gaze fixed to mine. "I only ask that you keep Jenks alive through it."

  My tears started, and I swallowed hard, grief rising from hope, seeming all the harder for the brief respite. No? Why?

  "Mattie," Jenks protested, and her bird-bright eyes fixed on his. She was seeing around corners. Damn it. Not again!

  "I don't want to start over, Jenks. I'm tired. But I'm proud of you, my visionary." Her hand shook as she touched his cheek, leaving a smear of blood. "For you to see the endings of what you've started is right, but I don't want to live beyond my children. I'm a mother first. You're a force, Jenks, and I thank my luck for having bound myself to you."

  "You can be a force, too, Mattie," he began, his voice breaking when she shushed him. There was an ugly stain of red seeping from under her, and I knew she had only moments. Still, she smiled, giving him her love to the end.

  "No," she said firmly. "I want you to stay when I go. Break tradition again, my love, and burn me alone in the home we built. I don't want you with me. You aren't done. You see too far ahead. You need to make the world in your thoughts a real one that our children can fly in."

  "Take the charm, Mattie," Jenks said roughly, "and we'll see the future together."

  "I'd rather hear it from you," she whispered, and my throat tightened as the tears slipped down. "I want to watch your eyes light up when you tell me. I'll wait for you under the bluebells. I'll be there always."

  "Mattie?" Jenks cried, pulling her closer as he sensed her slipping away. "I don't want to be without you. I need you!"

  Matalina's eyes opened wide, but I wasn't sure she was seeing him anymore. "Not as much as you... think," she said carefully. "Look what you've done. I'm going to die happy. All my children will survive. What mother can say that on her last breath? Thank you, Jenks. Sing to me? I'm so tired." Her eyes closed as she struggled to take a last breath, not to continue her life, but to breathe her last words. "I love you."

  "Please, Mattie!" Jenks cried, desperate. "We can do this together. We can do anything together! Please..."

  But she was gone, and he was alone though he held his wife, rocking her as he cried.

  Twenty-two

  I could do nothing, helpless as I looked down
on them. Jenks... My tears hit the ground beside him, and I struggled to do something—anything—but I was useless. I was too damn big. "Jenks?" I whispered, my hands corralling him.

  He blinked, the green of his eyes going deep into me. "She's not here...," he warbled, as if in shock.

  I was too big. I couldn't hug him. I couldn't tell him it was okay by holding him until he found himself. "Ivy!" I shouted, then dropped to my elbows, trying to get closer. Matalina's face was streaked with blood and a silver dust, making her look like a weary angel. "Jenks, I'm sorry," I whispered, my throat too tight for more. God, I'm so sorry.

  His eyes were wide, and the tears still spilled from him, turning to glittering sparkles as they dried. A smear of blood was on his cheek where Matalina had touched him last. "She went to guard the back door," he said as if dazed. "They must have been holding back," he said, and my chest clenched. "I should have sung her to sleep. She was so tired, and she wanted me to sing." Bewildered, he looked at me, his wings unmoving. "I'm alone," he said as if in wonder. "I promised to stay with her forever. And here I am. Alone. And she's gone."

  "You're not alone. Jenks, please," I said, unable to stop the tears from slipping down. Somewhere I'd heard pixies died of heartache when their spouses died. "It's going to be okay. You've got Ivy and me. We're here. We need you. Matalina told you to stay with us."

  The clatter of pixy wings came just before Ivy's footfalls. Rex hunched furtively. In a swirl of blood-stained silk, the entire clan dropped to the ground as a great keening rose. Unable to take it, the cat ran away. Ivy stood above us, and as I looked up, her eyes spilled over with tears. I could say nothing, my heart aching for his pain. Matalina.

  "Oh, Jenks," Ivy breathed as she dropped to kneel. "I'm sorry."

  He had turned back to his wife, trying to smile as he brushed her face and arranged her hair. "She's here, but I'm alone," he said as if trying to figure it out. "I don't understand."