Thicker Than Blood

by Annie Bellet

  “Jump,” she called up to someone.

  The jaguar came next, the twins diving in head first and landing with a heavy thud as they shoved off the ladder with their back feet.

  “Sal,” she yelled up.

  More gunfire and then he was there, sliding down the ladder much the same way Kira had.

  “Button,” he said, gasping. “Close the hatch.”

  I looked around wildly and saw a panel near the door with the lever. It had two buttons on it that both looked exactly alike. I dashed toward it and hit the top one.

  The hatch started to slide shut with a grinding protest. Something ugly and misshapen, its form backlit by the grey sky, stuck its head in. Kira shot it right between the glowing red eyes and it reared back. The hatch stopped grinding and slid shut with a clang.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Kira said.

  “Nice shooting,” Salazar said. He leaned against the ladder, still panting, his gun dangling in his hand.

  “I’ve spent lot of hours playing Left 4 Dead.” Kira grinned. “Never thought it would translate to real-life zombie killing though.”

  “Alarms are going, we have to move,” Salazar said. He pulled a white keycard from his suit pocket and held it out to me. “This is yours. The room you want is in the blue section, number forty-two. Can you remember that?”

  “Life, the universe, and everything, blue. Got it,” I said, talking the card. My hands were shaking, my fingers numb with cold and buzzing with adrenaline. I was soaked from my spill into the snow and starting to feel the cold.

  “God that’s a horrible sound,” Kira muttered. She checked the clip in her gun and nodded to Salazar.

  “I don’t hear anything,” I said.

  “Alarms are pitched for the shifters that patrol the corridors. Come on.” Salazar moved past me and opened the door.

  The door opened into a wide hallway that stretched to the left and right, curving away. The wall had a green stripe painted on it. From Salazar’s diagram, I had pictured a single hall running in an infinity sign. This corridor was wide, but had other openings in it, hallways that led off to wherever. It was more like a strand of DNA, I guessed, than a real figure eight.

  “Jade, this will lead you to the blue corridor. Go right, then hang left when it turns. Find the hallway opening with the blue stripe. Good luck.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I hesitated, looking at the three of them.

  A shout rang down the hallway and I heard boots slamming down on metal.

  “Take care of my brother,” Kira said, giving me a somber nod. “Time to go make some noise.”

  They took off running to the left. I turned my back on them and started up the hallway to the right. I unzipped my wet hoodie and pulled out my dagger. I had no idea how to use it, but it seemed like a better option than the possibly-not-exploding spell notes I had folded in my jean’s pocket. I was quite sure the blood ink had been damaged by me face-planting into the hill. My clothing was soaked. Small consolation that the spell probably would have failed. No sour grapes here, nope.

  The blade was warm and pulsed in my fingers. Its weight was comforting, though I knew that must be magic or psychosomatic illusion. I had no idea how to use a knife, not really. A few lessons with Alek did not a master make. Being able to see again was also comforting. I hadn’t quite realized until was over how nerve-destroyingly awful being blind like that had been.

  I turned the corner. The hallway I was in bent in a wide turn, continuing left. The roof and walls were the same copper-looking metal the room had been, but the floor was made of metal grating, like the kind you see on a footbridge. Faint blue light glowed up from under the grates. I tried not to wonder too much about it. No time. Three halls opened off it to the left. I sprinted down the corridor, looking at each side passage as I went by. First one was red. No go. The second was painted a dark purple.

  Boots on metal rang out ahead of me. Putting on the last bit of speed I had, I bolted for the third hall. The paint was blue, the color of sky and hope and everything good. At least at that moment.

  I hung a hard left and started looked at the doors. Salazar was right: they weren’t cells, but rooms like in a hotel, complete with a keycard reader on them. Only with a bulletproof glass window in each door. A Stephen King type of super-creepy hotel.

  This hall stretched on forever, it seemed, though the light was dim here, making it difficult to read the numbers. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. On and on. I heard a shout somewhere behind me but didn’t dare to glance back.

  Forty-two. I reached the door and shoved the card into its slot, swiping it so quickly I got an error and a red light for my trouble. I did glance down the hall and saw a large wolflike creature glide past the opening to the green corridor. It didn’t seem to see me. I swiped again, more carefully.

  The light flicked to green and the door slid open like a barn door on a track inside the thick wall. I dived into the room and pulled it shut behind me, dropping down below the level of the window as it closed.

  My heart in my throat and my lungs threatening to go on strike, I leaned against the cool metal and looked around. The room was about ten feet by ten feet, with a toilet and sink in one corner opposite me. On the right was a television bolted into the metal wall. A bed stretched along the left wall with a small side table bolted to the floor next to it.

  The only light in the room was from a soft yellow bulb above my head. There was enough to of it to illuminate the figure asleep in the bed. I crawled to the side and stood up, still pressed against the wall, hoping I was out of sight in anyone looked in. I doubted they’d be searching the rooms, but I had used a card. They might notice this door had been opened.

  No idea how much time I had. I took a deep breath, and went to wake up my father.

  He was half covered in a grey blanket, one arm thrown over his graying head, the other propped on an ample belly. He looked old, tired, and dead to the world. His hair was iron grey, cut short like it had been in the diner. His face was brown and lined. He looked seventy, at least, and fat, very fat. I guessed his weight at three hundred pounds or more. So very different from my vision. A small bubble of spit grew and popped from his half-open lips as I approached the foot of the bed. He smelled like musty old grass. It reminded me of the smell in a hayloft that hasn’t been swept enough.

  I took a deep breath and sheathed my dagger. No point waking him up with a knife out. Might give entirely the wrong idea. Then I reached down and shook his leg.

  “Must be new,” he mumbled, not even opening his eyes. “Leave the tray on the table.”

  “I’m not here to feed you,” I said. “You have to wake up.”

  “I’m tired, girl. Go away.” He rolled over, pulling the blanket up to his chin.

  In all my mental imaginings and rehearsals of this scene, I’d never pictured it going anything like this.

  “I’m not a girl, I’m your damn daughter. I need your help.” I reached down and shook his leg again.

  “Don’t have a daughter,” he mumbled.

  “Oh for fucks sake,” I said, trying to keep my voice down but totally failing. We didn’t have time for this shit. For all I knrw, Salazar and Kira and the twins were out there getting shot or ripped to pieces and I was in here arguing with a half-asleep idiot.

  “Ash,” I tried again. “Get up. I am your daughter. My name is Jade Crow. I am the daughter of Pearl Crow, who you fucked like almost fifty years ago.” I gave his leg a very hard shake and dug my fingers in.

  “Pearl?” He opened his eyes and finally looked at me. His eyes were dark brown with none of the red flecks I’d seen in the diner. “I remember her. Beautiful woman. Oh, how she could sing.”

  My mom can sing? I tried to remember if she ever had. I shoved the thought away. Not the time for reminiscing.

  “Yes. You slept with her. She got pregnant with me. I’m your kid.”

  He squinted at me and heaved himself into a sitting position. “No. Unlikely I’d even have a chi
ld. Anyway, my kid would be a sorcerer. I don’t sense any magic on you.”

  That stung. I had hoped that whatever had happened, it was just a matter of time until my power came back on its own. Hopefully this guy was wrong.

  “I time-traveled,” I said, going with the truth, as crazy as it sounded. “It burned out my power. That’s why I need you. You showed up in a diner a few days ago and told me to come find you.”

  Okay. That definitely sounded insane. Great.

  “Come here,” he said. Intelligence glinted in his eyes and he looked far more awake.

  I walked around the bed and crouched down. “I don’t want to be seen from the door,” I explained. “I kind of broke in here and they are looking for me.”

  He chuckled. “I broke in here, too, I think. A long time ago.”

  Ash held out his hand and I took the hint, placing mine in it.

  “If you are really a sorcerer,” he said, “this will probably hurt.”

  His hand closed tightly on mine before I could respond and pain sliced into my head at my temples. The world went black and I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to pull away or start punching him or something, but I made myself hold still. Whatever he was doing, I had to hope it would confirm who I was. He was my ticket out of here, after all. He was the golden ticket to everything, in the end.

  So I breathed through the intense pain and silently recited the litany against fear from Dune.

  Then, as quickly as it had come, the pain was gone, leaving me gasping. I opened my eyes to see Ash staring at me and smiling.

  “Shit on a stick,” he said, his voice taking on a slight drawl. “You really are my kid. Kind of fucked yourself up good, didn’t you?”

  Maybe I’d inherited my potty mouth. That thought almost got me to smile. No time for smiling. Right.

  “Yeah, I did. Can we get out of here and discuss it somewhere else?” I glanced back at the door as I heard boots and someone yelling something down the hallway. Whatever was happening out there, they still seemed to be looking for me.

  “How are we going to get out?” Ash asked.

  “What? You are supposed to get us out. You can do that,” I said. I stood up and glared down at him, willing him to start being more useful.

  “Who told you that, exactly?” He pushed the blanket off his legs. He was wearing a vast tee-shirt that said “Beer is Good!” on it and a pair of red sweatpants. His feet were bare.

  “A vampire,” I said. “He helped me break in here. It’s complicated.”

  “You listened to a vampire?” Ash shook his head and chuckled again. “Guess I better get you out. I’d like more sleep, but I suppose time is of the essence etc etc and so on?”

  “Very,” I said, glancing at the door again.

  “Help me up,” he said.

  He swung his tree-trunk legs over and I grabbed his hands, pulling him to his feet. He closed his eyes as he reached his arms overhead in a long stretch. I struggled not to growl with impatience as his joints popped and crackled.

  “Up it is,” he said after a moment, opening his eyes and looking at me again. “I’ll just have to carry you, I reckon. Get on my back and hold on tight.”

  I did as he said, using the bed to boost myself up. He was just about six feet tall but with shoulders like an ox, broader than Alek’s or Yosemite’s. I wrapped my legs around his middle as best I could and clung to his thick neck. The wet hay smell was a lot stronger now.

  He took a big breath, his ribs expanding enough that I feared my legs would unclamp. Then he threw his arms upward again. A wide circular portal opened directly above us, revealing a clear and star-filled night sky. With a wild yell, my father leapt into the air, flying upward like a superhero, taking me up, up, and away.

  The sky we flew up into wasn’t a South Dakota sky. Looking below, I saw lights as though we were passing over a town, not the dark forest and receding prison I had expected. The air was freezing and we flew so quickly I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I felt my tears turning to ice on my cheeks and put my entire remaining energy into staying on Ash’s back.

  We flew long enough that after a while I figured falling off and dying might not be so awful. I’d be warm again or at least not care about the hypothermia and frostbite that was surely setting in. As though sensing my suicidal thoughts, Ash dropped out of the sky at the same terrifying speed at which he’d flow up into it.

  He landed in a field that was blissfully clear of snow. I had no idea how far we had come or where we were. I guessed still Northern Hemisphere, because the air, while not the biting cold from before, was still winter. I spied the Big Dipper in the sky as I lay on my back and tried to learn how to breathe again.

  “I think my limbs fell off,” I muttered. I felt the tingling pain in my feet as blood started to circulate again. I risked wiggling a toe.

  “Bullshit,” Ash said. He stood beside me. He held up his hand and white light coalesced around his fingers, illuminating the area. “No kid of mine is going to die of a little cold air.”

  “That was freezing,” I said. I pulled my hoodie sleeves down over my icy hands and started rubbing them together vigorously. “Where are we?”

  “Oregon. About ten miles from the ocean. Now, where did I put it?” He started walking in a spiral out from where we’d landed.

  Oregon. Not so far then, at least, from Wylde and my friends. I sat up, wondering what part of the Oregon coast. It stretched for over three hundred miles, if I remembered correctly.

  “Ah, here it is. I’ll leave you the light,” he said. Ash fixed the glowing sphere into the air.

  I remembered keenly when magic had been so simple for me and sighed.

  “Wait,” I said, as his words sank into my frozen and exhausted brain. “Leave me?”

  “Back in a jiffy.” He laughed and sank into the ground, disappearing from view before I could get another word out.

  Yep. This had gone exactly how I imagined. Not.

  I stood up and walked to where he’d left the glowing sphere. I jogged in place to warm up, re-zipping my hoodie after checking that my dagger was still in place. Noah had been right about it, apparently. Now that it was joined with its other half, it had abandoned its former habit of falling out of wherever I put it and trying to get left behind.

  The ground shook. Then it shook again, harder, tumbling me off my feet. I crawled to my knees and reached under my hoodie for the dagger hilt.

  A huge snake uncoiled from the ground. Its eyes glowed with infernal red light and its scales were gold and silver, patterned like a diamondback rattler.

  “Ash?” I said, not knowing what to make of this thing. Had he somehow transformed?

  The snake reared back and flaps like a cobra’s opened on its neck as it hissed at me, a tongue flickering out. Its fangs were as long as my body. It was like a dire-cobra crossed with a late night SyFy movie creature.

  I drew the dagger, keeping my eye on the hissing snake as I got to my feet. It was pitifully short and small in my hand. Why couldn’t Noah have given me a spear of prophecy instead?

  Even as I thought this, the dagger glowed blue and elongated, transforming into a sword. Not a pole-arm, but slightly better.

  “Thanks, totally not creepy knife,” I muttered.

  The snake coiled and struck. I threw myself to the side and slashed with the sword, my tired body remembering Alek’s combat lessons.

  I wished I had my magic so badly it hurt almost as much as coming down on my ankle wrong. Which I did, like a total boss. I felt something pop and my leg gave out.

  I rolled and dragged myself up to my good leg, putting as little weight onto the other as I could manage. The snake hissed and circled. I turned in place, waving the glowing sword in front of me.

  “Back, shoo, go away,” I yelled at it. “Bad snake.”

  At least I was about to get eaten without any witnesses to my terrible one-sided “I’m about to die” banter.

  The snake struck again, its scales grazing me as I
leapt to the side. I lashed out with the sword but the serpent was too quick and dodged my wild swing. It slithered away beyond the circle of light.

  Staying on my feet sucked, but I managed. I turned slowly, my eyes searching the shadows beyond for any sign of movement, any flash of gold or silver or glowing red eyes. The night was deadly still.

  “Ash,” I yelled. “Ash, damnit, help me.”

  Of course, I was still working on the desperate assumption that Ash wasn’t the snake. My father was clearly a powerful sorcerer, so who knew what he could turn into. This was not my night. This hadn’t really been my week. Or my year.

  Eyes flickered like ruby stars in the night, warning me. The snake rushed me again, rearing back and striking down. I was already moving, limping sideways as I tried again to slice the fucker with my sword. No dice. The snake recoiled quickly. At least it seemed afraid of my glowing blade. That was something.

  Not afraid enough to stop trying to eat me. No luck there.

  I kept staggering out of the way, my movements getting more painful and sluggish. My arm felt like I’d been swinging a lead bar, though the sword probably weighed only a couple pounds. I wasn’t going to win this fight. There was no sign of my father. I was alone and I was going to die here, on this random fucking hill somewhere only miles from the Oregon coast.

  Die. I reeled from another dodge and fixated on that word. I wasn’t able to use magic, but I’d been healing just fine. I’d been able to read the books in Noah’s library, too.

  I was still a motherfucking sorceress.

  I couldn’t die. The only way to kill me was to be a sorcerer and eat my heart. As long as this thing wasn’t my father in some kind of mega-evil snake form, I was probably safe from the whole death thing.

  New tactic time. I clenched my jaw, gritting my teeth. This was going to hurt.

  “Hope you are right about this blade,” I muttered as I stood and waited for the snake to strike again.

  It did, predictably. This time I didn’t dodge. I let its jaws close around me, one giant fang jabbing and slicing right through my abdomen. It lifted me into the air and shook me as though to knock me loose from its fang.