Thicker Than Blood

by Annie Bellet

  “Alek,” I said. Damn.

  “He passed judgment, as he does. It didn’t matter that the humans had wronged Daniel first. The only sentence he knows how to deliver is death. He executed Daniel right in front of me. I wasn’t strong enough to stop him. We haven’t spoken since.” Her mouth pressed into a tight pink line and her eyes were cold enough to slow global warming.

  I tried to think of anything to say, but my brain came up with dust kittens and platitudes.

  “So,” Kira said after an awkward, tense moment. She unclenched her fists. “He still have a stick up his ass?”

  “Guess how we met?” I said. “He walked into my game shop and accused me of murder.” My laugh was more nerves than humor.

  Her face cracked in a smile and she shook her head. In a blink the ice seemed to melt and I saw care and longing in her eyes, emotions I recognized easily. She might be angry with Alek for what he had done, but it was crystal clear in that moment that Kira also still loved him and missed her brother.

  “Sounds like Aleksei,” she said. “And now you are mated.”

  “We worked it out,” I said. I tried for a safer topic. “Why don’t you have an accent? He does.”

  “Because I don’t want one, so I worked hard to lose it,” Kira said. “I’m a six-foot-three muscular woman with a short temper. Getting work is already a bitch. Being a giant Russian as well? Not really something that would put my very American clients at ease.”

  “Murica,” I said.

  “Fuck yeah,” she finished.

  “I know that the Archivist is paying you, but I really do appreciate you all risking your lives to help me,” I said. We were on more solid ground now and I felt like the tension was fading. A truce had at least been called.

  “It’s what we do,” she said. Then she tilted her head to one side in a very feline gesture. “Why isn’t Aleksei here with you? He’s almost as good a shot as I am, and his tiger is stronger. My brother has his faults, but leaving his mate to face danger doesn’t seem his style.”

  Did I say solid ground? I meant hot lava. Awesomesauce.

  “I left him. Without magic I can’t protect him and I’ve got a giant target on my back. It’s me that Samir wants to kill, in the end.” I folded my arms across my chest.

  “So you don’t trust my brother?” she said.

  “I trust him. I just don’t want him hurt.” I pulled my legs up, wrapping my arms around them. It was a super-defensive posture, but I didn’t care.

  “Not enough to let him make his own decision about risks?”

  We were definitely back in “I want to punch Kira” land.

  “I watched him die,” I said. It felt weird to say it aloud. I’d told Yosemite the bare details, but nothing specific. There hadn’t been time even if I’d wanted to. “I was barely able to bring him back. I can’t go through that again. I’ll do anything to keep him safe.”

  “So your feelings matter more than his?” Kira said with an infuriatingly smug look on her face.

  “You don’t care about your friends? Want to keep them safe? Would you deliberately put them in danger if you knew it might kill them?” I said instead of answering directly. I could fight fire with fire.

  “Yes,” she said. “I am right now.”

  Oh. There was that. She was really good at deflating me. “You don’t worry?”

  “Of course I worry. I’m not a sociopath. But I trust them. Jaq, Cora, Alma… all of them are capable and intelligent people. They understand the risks of what we do and they can take care of themselves, and of each other. We watch each other’s backs; use our strengths to make the group better as a whole. That’s what a team is about, no? If I don’t trust them, let them do what they can, it’ll distract me. As worrying about me would distract them. It would make us all weaker.”

  She had a point. I let it sink in, growing more uncomfortable as I thought it over. Had I been stifling my team, minimizing what they could do? I’d been trying to protect everyone.

  “I let them help,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “And they all died.”

  “They aren’t dead now,” she said.

  “Because I brought them back,” I said.

  Kira raised an eyebrow at that and looked almost impressed. “So you protected them.” She leaned forward and laid her palms flat on the table. “I am a tiger, Jade. We’re as lone hunter as it gets in many ways. But I’ve learned the hard way over the years that everyone needs friends. We all have weaknesses. True friends are never a weakness.”

  I sighed. “Thanks,” I said after a moment. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, I guess.” I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to keep doing whatever I felt was right, but I wasn’t so pigheaded that I couldn’t feel the truth in her words. They stung because they were hitting their marks.

  “Don’t mention it,” she said, and pulled out another gun to resume her cleaning weapons and ignoring me routine.

  I dragged the box with the spell books and supplies out from under the bench and set a bamboo calligraphy brush and a folder of rice paper on the table.

  “Can I borrow a knife?” I asked Kira as I sat down next to her. The RV was moving, but there was no road shake. We might as well have been floating for all I could tell. I tried not to think about it too hard.

  “What do you want it for?” she asked, squinting at my supplies.

  Oh, you know. To cut myself so I can use the blood to write ancient Japanese spells I sort of remember that I learned from an assassin whose heart I snacked on. Probably not something I should say in my out-loud voice. Nope.

  “Magic stuff,” I said.

  The look on her face when I sliced open my arm and let my blood drip into the ink stone was worth it. I had no idea if the exploding papers I was trying to make would work. Haruki, the assassin whose power and memories I’d absorbed, had studied his whole life, using discipline and techniques drilled into him through intense practice to master this kind of magic. I was going to use incomplete memories and desperate prayers to reproduce it. It probably wouldn’t work, but it kept my mind off the trip and what lay ahead. That was good enough for me.

  Alek stared up at the darkening winter sky. The trees were wrong, the air a little too warm at only just below freezing, but for a moment the scent of snow and wet pine brought him back to his childhood roaming the Siberian forests. A slight breeze ruffled his thick fur. Night came on quickly in winter; the setting sun had left a gash of color in the sky, turning the edge of the trees to jagged wounds.

  His ears flicked around, his nose keeping watch as well. He had no desire to fight Samir right now, not without Jade, but part of him wanted a wolf or three to find them. He needed to sink his teeth into something and feel like he was doing anything at all to help.

  Even Harper had rescued herself, the crazy fox. She’d fallen off the unicorn half dead, covered in filth and blood from an unknown number of injuries. Yosemite said she needed rest but that he was sure she’d live. It was a morale boost they all needed, and hopefully she’d have information. Alek had worried that Samir had Jade, at least until they found Harper’s bloody shirt, laid out as obvious bait leading back toward Wylde. There’d been a big argument about following the trail despite them all being sure it was a trap. Rosie had said the trail led in the direction of a couple of old farms.

  Then Yosemite had been called away, disappearing the day before while they scouted out and tried to figure out if Harper was alive or not. Another argument ensued. Alek was damn tired of arguing. Rosie was distraught, Junebug still healing from being shot. They were all scared and exhausted.

  They were all looking to him. And he couldn’t find it in himself to admit he had no idea what to do. His whole life, he’d relied on the guidance of the Nine. On visions and purpose given to him. Before he had felt this was the One True Path, hadn’t questioned anything.

  The world, his world, had changed. Or perhaps, he thought ruefully, he’d finally just started to see it for what it
really was.

  Yosemite was back, though refusing to answer questions. It didn’t matter. Alek knew he’d gone to see Jade. He’d smelled her on the druid’s jacket. For a moment, he’d wanted to punch information out of the bigger man, but sense won out. If the druid wasn’t saying something, he likely had a reason.

  Besides, it was a comfort just to know Jade was alive and, for the moment, he guessed, safe enough. If she was staying away from them, she had her reasons. Stupid, overprotective, Jade Crow brand-of-special-logic reasons.

  He huffled out a breath and watched steam rise in the chill air. Trust. It was all he had.

  He heard Yosemite before the druid reached him though the big man made little noise even walking through snow.

  “Harper’s awake,” Yosemite said.

  Finally. Alek turned and followed the druid back into the camp. Druidic magic had woven a thick-branched dome around everyone, which kept the worst of the cold out and the snow off. They had no fire, but Freyda and the few survivors in her pack had brought them sleeping bags, food, and a small gas camp stove, so there was coffee and warm food at least. She’d left then, going deep into the wilderness to search for Soft Paw. Reinforcements.

  Not that they’d do much good without Jade. Nobody could kill a sorcerer except a sorcerer. Alek wouldn’t allow himself to think about how badly they’d lost the last fight. They would regroup, plan, and find a way. The only alternatives were terrible. Run. Or die.

  He preferred fight. Always fight.

  Everyone was huddled around Harper. Her face was still bruised, but at least it was clean now, and someone had found her a sweater. Her green eyes were brighter and less sunken than before. She even managed a smile as he entered the camp and shifted back to human.

  Ezee made room and Alek seated himself on a sleeping bag in the circle of friends.

  “Tell us everything,” he said, since someone had to say things like that and everyone was looking at him.

  She did, piecing together parts they had already guessed, like the trap with her bloody shirt, and explaining about saving the unicorn foal.

  “You escaped twice? That’s badass,” Levi said, giving Harper a mock fistbump.

  “I know, right?” she said with a weak grin. “Think they’ll get ScarJo to play me in the movie?”

  “Tell me again the part about Balor,” Yosemite said, cutting the banter short.

  Alek glanced at the druid and didn’t like what he saw. The man’s eyebrows were pulled into a single worried line, his ruddy cheeks pale, and fear scent wafted off him, putting Alek’s teeth on edge.

  “There wasn’t much, sorry. He said they needed Legolas, the colt, for Balor. That was I think the only time I heard the name, but I remembered it because of what happened before,” Harper said.

  “What is that look, Yosemite?” Ezee asked softly. All the shifters could smell the druid’s fear, see his tension. “That’s the ‘oh shit, I just remembered something really bad’ look, isn’t it?”

  “Is he going to open the Eye again?” Alek asked, trying to piece it all together. They’d dealt with Balor’s Eye before. They could do it again. The unicorns were safe this time, at least. For the moment. Alek shoved the dark thoughts away.

  Yosemite stood and paced the short length of the camp. He stared into the twisted branches, breathing slowly and deeply. Then he turned back. His face looked haunted now, cast in shadow since he’d walked away from the single electric lamp.

  “There’s a legend. It’s truly legend, mind you, but it is written in the book and was told to me by my master when I was young. Balor is not truly dead, that’s why his Eye is still dangerous. He could be raised back to life. It takes three impossible things, however.”

  Alek couldn’t suppress his growing sense of dread as Ezee asked softly, “What three things?”

  Yosemite closed his eyes and recited, with a cadence that suggested tales around campfires in the long ago and far away, “The first feather of the Phoenix. The last drop of blood from a dragon’s heart. The final breath of a unicorn.” He opened his eyes. “If he took the unicorn for that, we should assume he knows a way to collect or already possesses the other ingredients.”

  “Shit,” Ezee said, echoing what they were all thinking. “He said he was going to become a god, right? So he raises Balor, eats his heart, and presto, godhood?”

  “This is seriously the suck,” Levi said.

  “Wait,” Harper said. “That’s awesome.” She slid a hand into her sleeping bag and pulled out a small red vial. “Think this is dragon blood?”

  Yosemite crossed quickly to her and took it. “Perhaps. Where did you get this?”

  “I stole it off Samir’s neck. It seemed like he was attached to it, kept touching it all the time like a creeper. I figured if he liked it, I wanted to take it away.”

  “Is it like the One Ring? Or can we burn it or something?” Levi asked.

  “It can be destroyed,” Yosemite said, still holding the ruby-colored vial as though it might bite him.

  “Destroy it,” Alek said. He rose to his feet. “We cannot let him raise Balor.” If Samir ate the heart, he’d be well beyond Jade’s power to destroy. Alek refused to consider that he already might be.

  They risked a small fire just outside camp and burned the vial. The flames turned purple and roared upward for a breath before smoldering down. Only cracked smoky glass remained. They buried the coals and covered it over with snow and rocks.

  “What do we do now?” Rosie asked once everyone had gathered. She had been very quiet the last few days, but her color was better now that her daughter was back. Alek felt for her. She’d buried one child already this winter, and nearly collapsed in fear and relief when he’d brought the other back to her. But she was strong, holding together, making sure everyone was warm and fed, keeping busy and refusing to whine or openly worry. The woman was a rock. He prayed she wouldn’t crack. They needed her.

  “We can’t kill Samir,” Junebug said softly. Levi reached over and squeezed her hand.

  “Jade can,” Ezee said.

  “Jade’s not here,” Harper pointed out, her mouth going into a tight, angry line. “Where even is she?”

  “She’s safe,” Yosemite said. Every head turned to him. “I saw her yesterday.”

  “Thanks for sharing with the group?” Ezee said with a glare.

  “She asked me not to, I’m sorry. She’s…” He hesitated and sighed. “She told me she knows what she needs to do to beat Samir. It requires doing something else, getting a secret weapon or maybe someone who can help? She wouldn’t give me details, said it would just put us all in danger.”

  Alek bit his lip, repressing the urge to demand more answers. Trust her. It was becoming his new mantra. He wanted to go to Jade, find his mate, kiss or shake some sense into her beautiful, stubborn head. He looked around the group, seeing their hopeful, exhausted faces. They needed him more than Jade, as much as it hurt his heart to admit. So he stayed silent.

  “That’s Jade,” Harper muttered. “I wish she’d let us help. We’re going to anyway.”

  “We are?” Rosie asked. “How exactly? We have you back, sweetheart. We should get out of these woods. Find somewhere to hide.”

  “What if Samir raises Balor?” Alek said, shaking his head. Rosie’s plan was likely the safer one, the sane one, but Alek already knew the druid wouldn’t leave the woods, not with Samir hunting the unicorns. “We can hide well enough in the woods. We’re shifters and there are tens of thousands of acres here.”

  “I won’t leave the unicorns, and they won’t leave the Frank. If Balor is involved, the unicorns will try to fight and stop the pollution of their woods. They can’t help themselves; it is what they are here to do,” Yosemite said, confirming Alek’s thoughts.

  “We can’t kill Samir,” Harper said. She held up a hand as Levi started to interrupt her. “But we can fuck up his plans. Look what I did all on my own.” She managed a grin that had a lot of teeth in it. “Plus, if we
do somehow get him pinned, we can seriously damage him. String him up and serve his heart to Jade on a platter.”

  “I agree,” Alek said. He almost chuckled at how surprised everyone looked. “He found this dragon heart blood once. He might be able to get more. We have to prevent him from completing his plan.”

  “And buy time for Jade,” Ezee added, nodding slowly.

  “I’m in,” Junebug said, glaring at Levi as he turned to her and tried to protest. “This is about more than just us. Jade is trying to protect us. If that bastard eats Balor’s heart, he’ll gain too much power, and who will protect her then?”

  Rosie looked at her daughter’s angry, determined face. “I am in as well.”

  “Levi?” Ezee said, meeting his twin’s eyes.

  “So, to clarify this plan,” Levi said. “We’re going to run around the woods playing keep-away with unicorns, from a bunch of shifter mercenaries and a super-powerful sorcerer. Who, by the way, we can’t kill, and who totally kicked all our asses, like, seven ways from Sunday. We’re going to do this while buying time for our own sorceress, wherever she is and whatever she’s doing there, to come back with a person or weapon or cookies of death or whatever, in the hope she saves the day?”

  There was silence for a moment. Alek swallowed a chuckle and took a deep breath.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “That about sums it up,” Ezee said.

  “Fuck it, I’m in,” Levi said. “You all realize this makes Jade into Goku, right?”

  “Goku?” Alek asked. He was certain this was a videogame reference or something he wasn’t getting. That feeling was familiar and strangely comforting. Things might be dire, but at least he was among friends.

  “It’s a show. Where people spend a lot of time holding off bad guys waiting for the hero to power up and defeat them.” Harper did laugh now, wincing as though it hurt to do so.

  “Next time, on Running Around the Woods Beating Up Samir!” Ezee was grinning now as well.