by Ann Aguirre
“Butch!”
The dog popped out of hiding, tail wagging so his whole body looked like it might tip over. He cocked his head. Yipped once. Yeah?
“Great job.”
He lifted his muzzle at me, just about grinning, and his enthusiasm was contagious, despite the circumstances. I said to the others, “Grab your stuff.”
Following my own instructions, I got my purse and put Butch in it. He settled in with no protest, so I guess he’d had enough excitement, tormenting the Hazo and all. Twenty demons watched through the shield with malevolent eyes, waiting for the moment when our time ran out.
That’s not happening, bitches.
Ninlil directed me to a mirror on the far end of the hall. I double-timed it over there with Shannon and Chance close behind. It didn’t look like a portal, but I don’t know what I expected, either. A glowing red pool of light? The demon queen had known, but her knowledge didn’t feel like mine anymore. Her disappointment had forced a gap between us, as if we were two separate beings again; she’d crawled into a corner of my mind and gone ominously silent. It was different than it had been.
“Is this it?” Shannon asked.
“Yeah.”
Chance canted his head. “How do you activate it?”
“Shh. I’m asking.”
They both stared at me as if I was crazy. Ninlil drove me to step up and set my palm on the glass. That should do it. Only nothing happened. It remained a flat silver surface with no way to pass through.
“How long is it supposed to take?” Shannon sounded scared.
Yeah, twenty Hazo waiting to remove our heads would frighten anyone. A thrill of terror wormed its way down my spine, curling into my kidneys. I repeated her question in my head and received blank puzzlement.
“It should work,” I said. “It only requires my touch.”
Chance made a muffled noise. “Oh, God.”
“What?” I turned to him.
“I think Nin means her touch. But you’re not her…at least not in her body.”
I gaped at him. “But the gates opened for me. They knew me. My energy.”
Shannon offered, “Maybe the portals are more personal.…They had a physical component factored into the spell.”
“So we came all this way for nothing?” Frustration boiled in my veins.
Without waiting for an answer, I limped along the wall, touching each silver mirror to see if any of them responded. Nothing. Just more flat metal.
“We’re going to die,” Shannon whispered.
Her gaze fixed on the shield. I saw that the energy had started to thin. In a few more minutes it would be down entirely. Tonight, riding high on triumph, the Hazo wouldn’t care that Oz was dead. Zet might figure he could take the city for his own, the first warrior king. I saw the end, then, and I clenched my fists in utter rage.
Then Ninlil offered the solution. The knowledge rose, fully unfurled like a rose; in my head, I saw it with perfect clarity. She didn’t want to do this. Neither did I. But it was better than the alternative.
At least the ones I loved would live.
“There’s another way out,” I said softly.
I closed my eyes, making peace. In the end, I would have done what I set out to do: rescued Shannon from Sheol and Chance would get out safely. They should live, if I couldn’t. Perhaps that would count for something. If there was an afterlife, I hoped they wouldn’t punish me too harshly for the things I’d done. I always had valid reasons for my bad choices, but there was a saying about hell and good intentions.
Either way, it was time. There was nowhere left for us to run.
I cannot come with you. It was the first time she’d spoken in a while, other than flashes of insight or intuition. When you leave this place, it will mean my death.
What’re you talking about? You’re part of me. I wasn’t exactly excited about bringing her back into the world with me, but the defeat had weakened her. I didn’t expect to be riding shotgun in my own head anymore. Oddly, I was the stronger one, despite her ancient soul and her great power. I had more experience being knocked down and getting back up again.
When the archangel summoned me, he placed a geas on me. I can never return to the human world as a living creature. He cursed me to survive only as a parasite on the Solomon line, dormant until one of your lineage returned me home. Here in Sheol…this is the only place I can exist now.
Chance had told me about a war between demons and angels, and how according to Ninlil, the angels weren’t even necessarily the good guys. Even if she was telling the truth, I couldn’t let it affect my decision.
I do not tell you this to change your mind, Binder. The queen sounded sad, weary beyond belief. Only to prepare you for the pain.
Pain?
“What?” Shannon nudged me, breaking my communion with Ninlil.
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t raise the dark lady again. She’d gone back into isolation in my head, where she could wallow in failure. I strode over to the fountain, knowing I couldn’t explain the solution to Shannon and Chance. They’d never let me do it. With a growing sense of resignation, I put my hand on a palm print etched into the stone of the fountain’s rim. The water bubbled merrily, hiding the grim purpose this artifact served. Not even the demon queen’s most trusted advisors knew why the palace had been built here, or why this water feature must never be removed.
I knew.
With my other hand, I raised the athame to jab it into my heart.
But I’d forgotten Chance’s speed and his preternatural need to protect me. He caught the blade as it hovered millimeters from my chest.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
The shield faded more. In less than a minute, it would be gone. The Hazo roared in preparation for their victory.
I spoke quickly. “This isn’t just a fountain. It’s also a gate to our world, but you know the price. It requires a soul to open. That wasn’t a problem for the demon queen, back in the old days.”
“Hell, no,” Shannon snapped. “I’d rather die with you, fighting, than let you kill yourself for me. That shit’s not on. I wouldn’t have had a life without you anyway. They’d have gutted me in Kilmer.”
“Shan, no.” Tears streamed down my face, and I fought for the athame, keeping my palm in place. “Let me do this. Let me make it right. The two of you can still get out safely. It’s my fault you’re here in the first place.”
“Give me the knife,” Chance said softly.
“No.”
We struggled as time ticked away. He was stronger. First he shoved my hand away from the point of contact. There was an indent where a soulstone could be inset, but a living being worked as well, if you weren’t squeamish. Sobs choked my damaged throat as I lost ground. My fingers slipped on the knife.
“It has to be this way,” he said desperately. “Look at how your luck’s turned since we’ve been here…the trouble in the city. Maybe the portals would’ve worked if I hadn’t come with you. It’s all because of me, love…and I can’t be without you again. It almost broke me last time, but you’re stronger. You’ll be all right.”
“No.”
I wouldn’t be. I’d rather die here with him. We’d go down fighting. Greydusk’s broken body haunted me. He’d given his life so I wouldn’t have to live without Chance. That couldn’t be for nothing.
Chance wrenched the athame, and with my fingers beneath his, he rammed it into his chest. “Take Shannon and go. Live for me.”
“No.”
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I always meant to be the sacrifice, to pay the hidden toll. I’d known this journey wouldn’t be accomplished without cost, but it should never have been him. He was special, born of Yi Min-chin and the Japanese small god, Ebisu. I remembered the story he’d told me about his parents and the cherry blossoms, and for a brief second, I smelled them in the air instead of the coppery sweetness of his blood.
The pain stole his voice. For a few seconds his l
ips moved without sound. I leaned toward him, resting my face against his hair. It slid like black silk against my cheek. Then his words came, softer than a whisper. “This isn’t the end, my own. Have faith. Even death will not keep me from you.”
He tried to lean forward, to hold me one last time with the arm not resting on the palm print, but he collapsed against me. I cradled him, the hilt of the knife between us, digging into my chest. It should’ve been me. Should’ve been me. Never you. Oh, Chance. I brushed my lips against his. His breath barely puffed, but he returned the kiss. Tears burned behind my eyes. Trickled out from the sides like salt in a wound.
The first Hazo pressed through the doorway. Charged. The rest would be on us soon. No more time, no more, no more.
I didn’t want to believe he’d taken a mortal wound, but I saw the placement of the blade. Desperate with rage, with grief, I screamed as I never had before, past pain, past sanity, and I pulled the knife out, but it was too late. His red, red blood gushed over the rim of the fountain and into the water. A shuddering shock wave of magick exploded out from the water, tinting it crimson, as I remembered from the first time I passed through. The water gate formed in an unnatural swirl overhead, and Shannon pulled me toward it.
I tried to carry him with me. I tried. But I wasn’t strong enough. My leg buckled. His body fell against the fountain. The stone that had been my father’s heart flared bright as sunrise at my throat, and a flare of heat staggered me.
The Hazo thundered toward us.
“We have to go,” Shan shouted, “or this is for nothing. He died for nothing.”
Weeping and blind, I dove through the gate and howled as half my soul ripped away.
Collateral Damage
The gate dumped us in an alley—a one-way trip—it must have snapped shut behind us, leaving the enraged demons to maim Chance’s corpse. I fell in a boneless pile, still clutching the athame slick with his blood. His sacrifice. I hugged the blade to my chest and wept in bitter, wracking bursts. On some level, I knew I had to get myself under control—that if anyone spotted me crying with a bloody knife in my hands, it would mean trouble.
Bad trouble.
For Shannon, I had to get my shit together.
But I couldn’t. The tears wouldn’t stop falling, and then I felt her beside me, arms going around my shoulders. She rested her cheek against my hair and stroked my back as if I were a child. Now and then, Shannon choked back her own sobs as if she knew it wouldn’t serve any purpose for us both to lose it. She was so damn strong.
Oh, Chance, no. Not like this. I can’t live through this. I can’t.
“He loved you,” she was whispering. “So damn much.”
The words meant to comfort only made it worse. I’d never wanted him to love me so much that he died for me. There was so much blood….
Stop. With imperfect self-control, I fought the anguish down, even though I had never been this broken. First my father, and now Chance. It was too much; I could not bear it. I leaned like so much rubbish against a broken brick wall. The darkness of the wrecked building loomed behind me, and from this angle I could almost see the other side, could almost touch what I’d lost. A great yawning hole echoed inside of me, as if I’d had more than my heart ripped out in the last thirty seconds. I was…empty. Incomplete.
I sat away from Shannon and brushed the damp hair away from her cheek; it was sticky with sweat or tears or both. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she said, her voice thick. “He shouldn’t have—”
“I know.” I didn’t say he’d done it for me, for us, but she understood. I’d asked the question of myself before, but now I had my answer. Sometimes the price of survival was too high; I had been ready to die beside Chance, but he’d inflicted upon me a role ten times harder—making me fall in love with him again and then forcing me to live without him.
“We’ll make the most of his sacrifice.” Using my thumbs, I wiped away my tears and blotted my face on my sleeve.
I glanced down to see how bloody I was, and then I realized the black I’d preferred as the demon queen didn’t show the stains. The fabric simply swallowed them, as if it hadn’t happened; he hadn’t died. Shaking from head to toe, I pushed to my feet, and then offered her a hand. Together, we were strong enough to survive anything. Even the unthinkable. Even this.
Fortunately, Shannon had gathered our things before pulling me through the gate. Otherwise, I’d be injured, exhausted, brokenhearted, and stranded wherever we were without any recourse. I couldn’t think about Chance. Had to focus on one minute at a time, one heartbeat. Thinking about the future was impossible. With effort, I turned my mind to practical matters. After taking my purse from Shannon, I opened it to hide the bloody athame and Butch popped out.
“You made it,” I said in relief.
The little dog sniffed me with puzzling suspicion and then licked my cheek, kissing away my tears. At least I still had Butch…and Shannon. For now.
First order of business was to figure out where we were.
I picked up my belongings from where Shannon had dropped them—all I had left of Chance—and spun in a slow circle. The buildings were old, shoddy brickwork and rickety fire escapes clambering up the sides. Across the way, bright graffiti had been sprayed all down one side, but it was in a different style than what I’d encountered in Mexico City. Plus, the air was cool and damp, the sky overcast.
“Where do you think we are?” I asked. Not because I expected an answer, but because I thought she needed the question, giving her a reason to separate from the trauma and think of something else.
I could do it, one minute at a time, but I had never wanted those minutes less.
She took her own inspection and then shrugged. “I’m not sure. Nowhere I’ve been before.”
“Let’s find out.”
I strode from the alley onto a narrow street with vans and cars parked untidily along the curbs. The shops were small, with advertisements posted in the windows for products I didn’t immediately recognize. But all the signs were in English, which limited the options as to where we’d ended up. I noted the faces of passersby, a good mix of colors; we’d landed in an interesting, culturally eclectic neighborhood.
“England.” Shannon grabbed my arm. “It must be. Look inside the cars.”
The steering wheels were all on what would be the passenger side in North America. Given the other clues, I agreed with her. “Good eye.”
Chance brought me here once. Memories of that trip pelted me like small, fierce knives: laughing in the rain, a kiss on the stairs leading to the metro station, and the posh shop where he bought me frangipani perfume. Those memories became diamond-hard in my heart because nobody who still lived in this world could remember them with me. Mine alone.
Alone. I could die of that word, a cold so deep it became fever.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Shannon said huskily.
I couldn’t either. But he’d said, Even death will not keep me from you. Perhaps those had only been words to drive the grief away, but I’d cling to them. I’d look for him. Find him again, somehow.
We strolled in silence, Shannon distracted by the new sights and me numb. People stared at my bruised and swollen face and then hurriedly swung their eyes away, as if abuse might be contagious. The street market we passed reminded me of the ones near my shop, and a wave of homesickness swept over me. My gaze lingered on the variety of goods, though we had no local currency. People milled and bickered. Now that we were in the throng of shoppers, the prevailing accent was a dead giveaway. I wondered how Shannon and I looked, if we seemed like exhausted tourists or whether people thought we belonged.
“I should find a phone,” she said softly. “Call Jesse.”
It was a good idea. As we walked, I glanced around and didn’t find one. Pay phones had just about gone the way of the dinosaurs since everyone carried cells these days. Mine was a paperweight, though; there hadn’t been any outlets in Sheol.
&nbs
p; “We might be better off buying a travel charger.”
She nodded.
A few blocks down, I went into a small electronics store. The man behind the counter looked up from a magazine. He was tall and thin with a crop of ginger hair that looked as if he hadn’t combed it in a week, and his face was covered in freckles. He greeted us with a broad smile and a thick accent. “What can I do for you, ladies?”
“My cell phone died. I’m looking for something to juice it up quick.”
“An instant travel charger, eh? What model have you got?”
I checked. “I have a Nokia.”
As I recalled, she’d left her phone at Jesse’s house, so she didn’t have one in her backpack. Yet thinking about them together roused fresh grief. Not because I wanted Jesse—because I’d lost Chance. Shannon interpreted my expression correctly; she looked so sad and tentative that it broke my heart. Which didn’t take much doing, as it was already smashed into tiny pieces. But I didn’t mean for her to feel she had to hide her happiness or walk on eggshells around me.
So I asked, “Where’s yours again?” My tone was teasing, for the benefit of the man behind the counter, but it gave Shan the proper message.
It’s all right. Really.
Her smile bloomed. “I have a Samsung Infuse at home. It was a gift from Jesse.”
“So you could stay in touch better while he’s working?”
The sweetness of it was so Jesse Saldana. Shannon was a lucky girl, but I didn’t have even a whisper of regret that things had turned out this way. At least she had him, waiting for her to come home.
I didn’t. The man in my life, the one with the infernal luck, had died for me. Good fortune wasn’t enough to save him; or rather, he wouldn’t let it. After so long in Sheol, I needed a cleansing, but I didn’t know any practitioners here, and likely none of them would help out if they got a good look at me with their witch sight. Plus, I swallowed a scream at the idea of erasing any part of Chance, even the bad stuff. I wanted to keep him close; I wanted to remember. Anguish boiled up in a hot rush, filling my eyes with tears again, and I blinked them away as the clerk sorted through his inventory. He didn’t react to my bruised face, which I appreciated.