by A. J. Aalto
“Stake,” Batten barked. I heard wood cylinders hit the linoleum, the hollow clattering of multiple lengths of hand-whittled rowan. Handmade stakes had far more power if the one who made them believed they would work. Batten was old hat, he showed no doubt. He stood in show-down mode, a stake in both hands, some sort of pointy silver contraption I'd never seen before in a belt sheath; this was what he lived for. For a moment, I accepted that he was pretty damn awesome in his own right, and if I ever needed a monster killed, I knew who I'd ask first. I touched Batten's quivering bicep, dug my fingers in until I was sure he felt it.
“Back off, hunter,” I cautioned. “Down, boy.”
“Look.”
Wesley was laying out on the dock, face down in the stirred wet slush, his long blond tangles wrapped with what looked like frosted lake weeds. He wasn't moving. His drenched clothing hung across his narrow shoulders and skinny legs like a shroud.
Seconds later the surface of the lake exploded and Harry's dark figure rose straight up like he'd been jerked by a bungee cord. Aburbling otherworldly menace, a sopping, black-clad creature, skin pale and drawn, he looked nothing like the Harry I knew. He landed hard on the dock, boots striking sure and solid in a wide-legged stance. Gregori's remnants were still powdering the snow curves and ice clumps on the wintry dock like icing sugar on a half-eaten donut, and I winced, physically flinching, as Harry's dripping boots ground into the ash-laced slush. A scolding frantically galloped through my brain: Don't trample your elders! And on its heels: Mind the dead guy! And if I hadn't pinched my lips together and swallowed hard, I might have erupted into a hysterical giggle.
Disoriented and still showing the after-effects of Ruby's spell, Harry bared his fangs at the yard, and found us with his gaze. I touched open the screen door, put one sock foot on the back step, and waited to judge his reaction. He watched me steadily with eyes so piercing-silver they faintly glowed in the dark like a cat's catching headlights. But Wes didn't move, Harry didn't rush me, and nothing else moved in the night.
I heard Batten shift into motion behind me and warned him back with a soft noise. He made a protesting grunt and I told him, “Stow the ego, vampire hunter. Watch and learn.”
I stepped all of the way out of the house, flicking my gaze down to make sure Wes wasn't moving yet. The cold wood of the back steps bled through my socks, but I was Ked-less, having scorched my only pair. I had high heels close by, but heels and pajamas? In the snow? Please.
Wes’ pale hand lay in the scrambled snow at the end of the dock, fingertips half-buried like he was clawing his way under. Did they just move? A young revenant turned feral would not be as easily cured. An older, Bonded revenant had blood memories of connection to his human to draw upon, whereas the new dead did not. Another inch closer to them. Is Wes moving? My toes curled in anticipation inside my socks, which now had snow stuck to their fluffy soles. I should have peed before coming out here. One more step. I pulled up short, needing to get closer to my Cold Company, not daring to push it too fast.
There was no recognition in Harry's blank, hungry stare, but neither was there aggression. I started again slowly toward the revenant—no, I thought, this creature is Batten's vampire—holding out my injured hand, feeling no pain. Logic told me that no matter what happened, I'd only feel the pain for a second before it was whisked away to my dhaugir, but that didn't make my hand stop shaking midair. Harry caught the scent of blood in the air and his lips parted. His eyes locked on the wound on my palm.
I didn't see him move; in a rushing blur he was on me, my back crushed into the trampled snow, the impact hard enough that my molars clacked together. Jagged compacted ice-shards heaved under my shoulder blades. I wriggled, my robe gaping as I tried to avoid getting a face-full of mad, aimless fang. I heard Batten inhale sharply.
The back door slapped open but I shouted, “Back in the house, Kill-Notch!”
Harry's hand tore my robe aside at the shoulder. He struck suddenly, savagely, for my jugular. Fangs sank in hard and deep. I didn't mean to cry out; when I heard it, I choked it off. Blood pulled forcefully from my carotid, tugging, making my neck tense and ache. I made a whimper of complaint and put one hand on each of his shoulders to push him back slightly. It was like trying to shove a mountain out of the way. I'd never had to ask Harry to be tender, before; ever the gentleman, he'd always been soft and hesitant with his feeds. I whimpered, and started saying his name quietly over and over, hoping he was hearing it, praying that our Bond would defrost his addled mind.
“Come back to me, my Harry,” I whispered, shoving my hands into his hair and contracting my grip. “Harry, you're hurting me.” His arms were trembling bad, the flesh I could see where his collar gaped was so pale it looked blue. The sound of my voice made him pause before continuing his drawing, so I continued saying his name, dizzy, wondering if this is how I'd meet my end, in the cold snow under the one person I trusted more than anything, drained to empty.
The feed became tentative. His cool, inquisitive tongue flickered out to lick and explore the wound. His grip on me loosened, and when it did, my stomach unclenched. Relief roared through me, filling my eyes with the hot sting of tears. System overload. I shuddered and wrapped myself around him tightly. There was a snap of smoking-hot molasses, and a curious moan, like a man coming awake from an erotic dream.
Harry pulled his face up out of the crevice of my neck, licking the corner of his mouth with a bewildered expression. His cashmere grey gaze scanned my tousled robe, my naked shoulder, my pale thighs bared to the night wind. He shook his head with familiar exasperation.
“Oh, my only love…” he said with a cluck of his tongue. “So inappropriate to the weather.”
FIFTY-SIX
Before I could crawl into bed, there was one last thing I had to do.
On my knees, the crusted ice on the dock felt like shards of broken glass through my jeans. Dust pan in one hand, brush in the other, I scanned the peaks and valleys of ash-covered snow, gazing at a long life now lost. I tried to imagine all the things that Gregori Nazaire had seen the beginnings of, all the inventions, the revolutions, political upheavals, social changes. I was so taken with my train of thought that I barely noticed Batten's heavy boots trudging through the snow, though the sound of the snow crunching ran out across the lake. The night was as still as I'd ever seen it. I could hear Batten's hot exhale behind me. He didn't tell me how late it was, or how cold; he just waited for me to talk.
“Didn't seem right to leave him out here,” I said quietly, my glance daring him to argue.
I didn't think Batten would get that, but it had to be said. It was the same way I'd felt about turning from the cemetery after Grandma Vi's funeral. How could I walk away? She had to stay. The ash along the ground was all that remained of fourteen hundred years of life, damned now to Hell, gone to the air, as easy as a single swing of my arm. My first staking; hopefully my last.
Kill-Notch crouched beside me, his broad shoulder close to mine. He took the lid off my Kermit the Frog cookie jar and peeked into its empty interior. “I'm not going to pretend to understand what you're doing out here.” He stared out at the lake past me. “Come inside, get warm.”
“I will… soon as I'm done.”
After a moment of speculative silence, Batten got down on his knees and held the dustpan for me.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Squinting into my bathroom mirror didn't help make the reflection any prettier. Neither had a layer of mascara, a swipe of lip gloss and a handful of mousse run through my spiky locks. Now I just looked like a fem-version of Billy Idol. Maybe it didn't look as bad as I thought? I made big kissy lips and did rock-on finger motions in the mirror. Nope, not cool enough to pull it off. Needed some black leather and a studded collar.
I went to grab my blush and noticed with dismay a small square envelope on the marble countertop. The gold ink said: Asmodeus. The sight of the Overlord's name made my innards sink.
Hot damn, I'd done it, though. I'd g
otten rid of both ghouls, the fourteen hundred-year-old poet and the crazyass old lady. I'd kept Kill-Notch from staking my companion, brought Harry back to his senses, and together we'd all helped ease Wes back into normalcy. It had taken three pints of B positive and a couple of earth-rocking backhands from Harry that would have KO-ed a human, but it had worked.
I opened the envelope. In flowing script, the demon king reported: Due to the construction of Our new casino in Las Vegas Nevada We have postponed Our appointment until a time better suited to Our schedule.
Postponed? Not cancelled… postponed. The Banker at the Baccarat Tables of Hell was busy in Sin City, so he had—my brain settled into an unhappy pool of goo at the base of my skull and I let my head fall back to study the bathroom ceiling, hoping for a Get Out of Demon Meeting card taped above.
I abandoned my morning preening and stomped out to find the Feds still occupying my kitchen. They looked far more well-rested than I felt. I went to the pantry for… no, I'd made a vow. A hasty vow, but a vow nonetheless. I had promised the Lady that if she got Batten's hot ass safely out of this mess, I'd give up cookies. For good. Boy, I promise some dumb things.
“What happened here?” Batten indicated my hair. “Wind storm?”
I patted my wild, tangled mop. He didn't need to know about my misadventures with mousse, so I distracted him by taking the mug of coffee out of his hands and sipping it. And was immediately sorry.
“This is probably the worst coffee ever made.”
Batten accepted his limitations with a shrug. “Gonna be okay?”
“Of course, it's just coffee,” I said.
“I mean, once we're gone?”
“Are you kidding? With you two nosey cop-types out of my house, I can be alone for a while. Hunker down like a hermit.”
“Should I run to Mum's Market and grab you a stockpile of cookies?”
“I don't think I could eat em,” I sorta-confessed.
Batten crooked his finger at me. The motion both irritated and aroused me in a mingling goulash of emotions, but I accepted this with defeat. Mark Batten was probably going to annoy me until the day my consuming lust for his hot bod finally killed me. I followed him into the hall, and while he put his boots on and shrugged into his coat, I watched his butt. Frankly, if I had to give up cookies to save his ass, I should be able to look at it whenever I want.
“Hood's giving me a lift to the airport.” He lowered his voice. “Do something for me?”
Hell, yes. “I doubt it, but there's no law against you asking.”
He sucked his teeth and his eyes narrowed. “Just check on Gary for me, once in a while?”
“Oh sure, stick me with nerd-sitting duty while you go play hockey up north.” I smiled. He answered with one of his own rare smiles, complete with deep laugh lines and a glimmer of straight white perfection. My heart lifted like someone had pumped it full of helium. Those teeth had once teased along my jaw line to toe-curling results. I couldn't believe I wasn't going to have the pleasure again. Life was so unfair.
Batten grabbed his duffle bag and his grandfather's tan belted hunting kit and hovered with one boot on the bottom porch step, looking like he had something final to say, some last goodbye. Like the hero at the end of a black and white drama before he heads out of the heroine's life forever. Maybe he'd put some thought into it. Maybe it was going to blow my socks off. Or, maybe it would make us both incredibly uncomfortable. Or downright miserable. I headed him off.
“If you take much longer, I'm gonna have you arrested for trespassing,” I warned.
“Ran those pills to the lab while you were sleeping in,” he said. “They came back as…” He checked his hand, where he'd scribbled it in pen, and sounded the word out a syllable at a time. “Bremelanotide. Treatment for hemorrhagic shock. Considering the stab wounds, that's not odd.”
It wouldn't be, I thought, if Harry had just started giving them to me, but I'd been taking these same little white “vitamins” for a decade. “What else are they used for?”
He smirked, as though he knew a secret. “Erectile dysfunction and sexual arousal disorder, nothing that applies to your injuries.”
Why the hell would Harry want to make me hornier and then refuse to sleep with me until absolutely necessary?
“Good working with you, Snickerdoodle. It's been… interesting.”
“I kicked ass,” I said flatly. “Don't you forget it.”
Batten took a long, shrewd look behind me into the cabin then flashed a second smile that nearly brought me to my jelly-filled knees. “Whatever you say. See you in a few weeks.”
I watched his ass until it was stowed in the passenger side of Hood's truck. Then I heard it: weeks?
Cutting my eyes back at the threshold, I watched Chapel come to give a two-fingered salute goodbye to Batten. “What the hell did he mean by weeks?”
“He's going to Costa Rica for three weeks. He needed a break.”
“And then Michigan…” I let it hang so he could fill me in or correct me.
“No, Boulder. Mark turned down the promotion. He's staying with me at the new head office.”
Lost in my boggling, I tried to ignore the soaring ridiculous hopes of my idiot heart.
When I didn't reply, Chapel continued, “Mark said the winters in Michigan would, quote, ‘kick his ass.’ Funny, I thought he grew up there. It's what he's used to.”
We stood watching Sheriff Hood back out of the drive, and long after the Ford F150 was out of sight, we stood listening to the sound of it bounce back from the gravel road. Then even the sound was gone, and all we had left to keep us company out there was the cold wind that the trees were sheltering us from. He can't do this. Batten living in Colorado? My Colorado? What the hell for?
“Is he touched in the head or something?” I finally said.
“Touched,” Wesley snickered, joining us from the kitchen, dressed in his usual plaid button down flapping open over a white t-shirt, and threadbare jeans. The lake's depths had tangled his dreads with dull, winter greenery and I'd been forced to chop a few of his long dreads off. He had a strange gap on the left side of his head, and didn't seem bothered by it one bit. “Touched is one word for it.”
“When did he decide this?”
“Last night, after a long talk with Harry, oddly enough.” Chapel offered, looking away. “I should get my things packed.”
“When you're up to it,” I said. “Don't push yourself. If you're still weak, just crash here.”
He cleared his throat, considering Wes and me over the tortoiseshell rim of his glasses: the new revenant, and the klutzy DaySitter whose physical pain he channeled. “I think I'll get out of your hair. Will I be seeing you Monday?”
I hadn't officially accepted his offer. Working for the PCU (especially now that I knew Batten would be at the Boulder office) sounded like work. Yuck. Part of me would really rather lounge around with Harry and do whatever it was the idle rich did all day.
“I'll be in touch,” I promised him, and watched him go upstairs to pack.
Wesley said, “That Batten dude's teeth look like they belong in a damn Colgate commercial.”
“Wes, please.”
“It's Wasp.” And then, “Big ole Tom Cruise mouth when he grins. Should have seen him last night; after they smoked some cigars and Harry gave him the Bugatti. I thought he was gonna do the jumping-on-couch thing.”
My mouth went dry, and while I struggled not to show it, I knew damn well my brother the fledgling telepath was hearing all the questions skittering in my brain. I turned to search his Nordic sled dog eyes as he wolfed down a second Oreo. He seemed to be enjoying watching me squirm.
“Harry did what?”
Wes shrugged. “Just before the sun came up. Harry told Batten he'd store the car until he got back from vacation, but after that it was all his.”
My brain did some painful gymnastics. A four hundred thirty-five-year-old man does not just give away a two million dollar sports car to a vampi
re hunter. What kind of deal had they hashed-out, exactly? Wes scarfed down another Oreo. I wasn't allowed to eat Oreos anymore. My eyes narrowed to slits.
“Do me a favor, Bumblefang,” I snipped. “Before you eat any more real food, Google: eight hundred pound Fat Dracula.”
Wes gave me an alarmed look; Point: Marnie. He read from the archives of my brain everything I knew about adipose tissue and revenant physiology in a split second then tromped muttering towards the pantry.
I heard the phone, and hoped Harry would pick up on his line in the basement. I didn't want to talk to anyone who would call my home line. After seven rings, Harry hadn't picked up, so I went to the office, trying not to see the burn marks, the stains from ghoul scum on the rug, the desecrated pentagram and the black ink fangs on my frogs.
My sister Carrie. I slid into my office chair and started spinning it in circles, laying my head back against the rest.
“I found Wes,” I told her. “He's gonna hang with me for a bit.”
“Is he broke?”
“Broke?” I smiled in spite of myself. “Understatement of the year.” Gulping cold coffee I winced at the bitterness of Mark Batten's awful brew. I gave Carrie a quick update of my love life, such that it was, because that's all Carrie's ever interested in. I left out the bondage with Harry, and how my struggling turned him on. I didn't wanna give her nightmares.
“So what should I do about work?” I asked her.
“Concentrate and ask again.”
I thought I heard someone in the kitchen. My voice dropped to conspiratorial. Pulling a light blue Moleskine around and scribbling on the inside cover little doodles and hearts and then starting a Pro and Con list about my future sans cookies. “What should I do about working with Mark?”
“It is decidedly so.”
Decidedly so? “Do you think Harry bribed him to go, or to stay? I mean, why the hell would Harry want Mark Batten to stay?”
“Most likely.”