Blood and Magick

by James R. Tuck

  I shouldered Larson out of the way, sliding my arms under Kat. She was dead weight, limp and heavy. I tripped and fell to my knees. They banged the floor in a sharp crack of pain that ran up the bones of my thighs. Magick spiked, driving pain, then fell. I shoved, pulling my legs under me to stand. Kat’s head lolled against my chest. The thin cotton of my shirt soaked through with her blood. One foot in front of the other, I pushed to the door.

  Magick spiked, pain drove, magick fell.

  Special Agent Heck held the door for me, waving me through. A glance over my shoulder showed Boothe disappearing through the curtain toward the back of the club.

  He’s going after Josh.

  I knew it was true. If Tiff had been in the back of the club, I would have gone that way too. I kept running through the door, holding Kat in my arms. Special Agent Heck slammed it shut behind me.

  I took twenty steps before Polecats exploded, throwing flames into the night and me ass over teakettle into the parking lot.

  41

  I shoved Larson out of the way. He banged against the side of the Comet with a thunk. “I’ve got her! Go get prepped!”

  Raw, red anger flashed across his face. His mouth twisted in a snarl. Whirling on him, I snarled right back, a low, wet, animal sound that pulled from my gut. Jerking up, he shook himself and ran to the door of the clinic, pulling keys out of his pocket with a jangle.

  No hospital, not with a damn vampire bite to try and explain.

  I leaned in the backseat of the Comet, heart in my throat.

  Kat’s eyes were filled with a wild, animal panic. The only color in her face was the bruised purple hollows under her eyes. Her breath was shallow gasps, sips taken by a drowning woman. The blood slathered on her throat and chest had begun to congeal, turning into a burgundy jelly that coated her from cheekbones to waistline.

  My hands went around her. Gentle as I could but still hurrying, I slid her across the leather interior and pulled her into my arms. It put my face close to her throat while I lifted.

  The wound, the fucking wound on her neck was deep, edges ragged. It looked sticky, coated in syrup, like that cheap gunk they use to make fake blood for special effects. This was all too real. It didn’t smell like candy and red food coloring number forty.

  It smelled like rust and iron and meat.And cut just under the edge of that was the musky, reptile taint of shed skin and venom.

  Kat was limp, heavier than she looked. Her weight was all dead, bones disconnected in her skin. She flopped and I held her tight to my chest, hurrying across the lot, up the ramp, and into the clinic. Each footstep jostled her head against my chest, making her eyes flutter.

  “Stay with me, Kat. Just hold on.”

  She didn’t respond. A twitch started in her. I could feel it under my hands as it ran up her spine and into her neck, making her head jiggle and her wound chew open and closed.

  God, I know I said I owe You, but don’t You fucking take her. Don’t make her my price.

  I moved through the lobby and down the hall, steps getting faster, stride getting longer. Hurry. Fucking hurry. I stepped into the exam room and went straight to the table where Larson was frantically pulling equipment. I laid her down. Larson grabbed her arm before I could pull away and deftly sank a needle into the waxy, pale skin. A thin plastic tube coiled off it, flushing red as he twisted a clamp; blood began to flow freely through the IV.

  He was working with a level of concentration that kept his hands from shaking, but not the tears out of his eyes. They spilled, running down freckled cheeks, soaking into his goatee and making it darken. He came around the table, ramming into me with his hip. His fingertips held round, sticky pads.

  His voice was a strangled growl. “This is my area, get out of my way.”

  I stepped back, letting him work. He pressed the pads to Kat’s chest, clipping thin bundles of wires to each of them. The heart monitor kicked on with a shrill beep that sliced me to the nerves making me jump.

  It began beeping and tracing little mountains on its screen. The green peaks and valleys were slow coming, long stretches of flat green between them. The beeps that marked her heartbeat were erratic. They staggered around, sometimes clumping into a short, tight group, then stretching out and coming very slowly. The ones that stretched out seemed to be getting longer.

  One one thousand, two one thousand, beep.

  One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, beep.

  One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, beep beep beep.

  Larson pulled over a tray full of shiny instruments. He snatched up a big yellow flashlight, shoving it toward me. “Shine this here.” He pointed at Kat’s wound. “I need more light and I have to get her sewn up or she’ll just pump out any blood I give her.”

  The flashlight was heavy, full of D batteries. My thumb pushed the button and white light seared out. It bathed the wound on the side of Kat’s throat, harsh light stripping away some of the color, making the blood look almost blue. Larson took a bottle from the tray and squirted the wound. My nose filled with the smell of saltwater and blood as the stream washed gore away, leaving just the wound. It still bled, just a dribble, but now it looked like what it was, mangled torn flesh.

  Larson shoved his fingers in Kat’s neck, one hand was empty but the other held a curved needle threaded with thin black filament. He began sewing together edges inside her wound. The thin needle flashed, weaving in and out.

  Kat’s eyes rolled. I watched them focus on me with the familiar crease between her eyebrows. The same crease she always got when she was concentrating on something. Her jaw moved a fraction of an inch, and she made a small sound in the bottom of her throat.

  I kept my voice soft. “Shush, Kat. You can’t talk, Larson is working.”

  “Have to . . . tell you . . .”

  “It can wait. It can wait until you’re better. Let Larson work.”

  “No . . . now . . .” Her words slid off in a whisper. Her hand lashed out, latching on to my arm, jerking the light down. Her hand was like ice from blood loss. She pulled, lifting herself up. Larson moved the needle away a second before he would have rammed it all the way into her neck.

  Kat’s eyes were wild, full of fevered pain. Her words came through clenched teeth. “I’m . . . sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t . . . tell you . . .”

  A convulsion struck, twisting her body like someone wringing a washcloth. Her eyes rolled back in her head under fluttering eyelids.

  The machine began a long, plaintive wail of a flatline.

  Larson grabbed my arm, pulling me over Kat. “Start CPR!”

  I put my hands on her chest, her skin icy under my palms. Twenty or thirty? I couldn’t remember how many times I was supposed to push in her chest. Start! Go until it feels right! Driving the heel of my palm into her sternum, I pushed, counted off twenty, then kept going. Each push bounced her on the table. Her arm slid sideways, dangling off the edge of the table, fingers loose. The heart monitor continued its shrill alarm.

  I pulled away at thirty and slipped my hand under her neck, thumb brushing through crusted blood. Her mouth fell open. I sealed my mouth to hers. Her lips were spongy and ice-cold. I blew air into her lungs, making her chest rise. The corner of my eye saw a tiny spot in her wound where air bubbles made of blood hissed. A fang had pierced her trachea. I blew another breath into her as those little bubbles stacking on top of each other filled my vision, becoming my whole world.

  My heart was a brick in my chest.

  I pulled back, the air I had shoved down her throat and into her lungs leaked back out. Larson crashed into me, hands full of humming defibrillator paddles. Wires trailed off them, dragging a square hunk of machinery closer to the bed. I stepped back, stumbling against the rolling tray of equipment. My eyes cut away for a split second and when they returned Larson had the paddles shoved against Kat’s rib cage. His thumbs hit the buttons and Kat’s body arched at the spine, drawing her up like a bow.
The crown of her head was on the table and so were her heels, but nothing in between. He jerked the paddles away, cutting the current. Kat slammed back down on the table with a bang.

  The monitor continued to scream its flatline.

  Larson’s scream of anguish drowned it out.

  The paddles banged back against Kat’s chest. Veins corded on Larson’s arms. His face a mask of red, freckles standing out like burned spots. His thumbs hit the buttons on the paddles again. The buzz of them climbed into a CRACK! as they jolted electricity through Kat, lifting her off the table again. He pulled them away and she fell as if her strings had been cut.

  Larson’s mouth began to move.

  The words fell like stones in a pool of poison, splashing corruption into the air. Guttural and harsh, they slapped out. Magick filled the room, my taste buds seared with the flavor of raw honey and spoiled meat.

  Larson was casting a spell over Kat.

  My fingers hit my empty holster.

  I had lost every gun I had at the club. I drew out the teninch knife that was still there.

  Larson turned to me. His face was contorted in anguish, red blooming to purple in his pain. Tears sheeted his cheeks with saltwater, dripping off his goatee. His eyes were wild, wide with panic and pain, the whites shot through with blood. They bounced from the knife in my hand to my face.

  “Let me do this! Let me save her!” His chest hitched, a sob jerking out of him. “Please . . . she’s dying. It’s Kat and our baby, Deacon!”

  I stopped. “What did you just say?”

  “It’s what we were going to tell you at the restaurant! Kat’s nine weeks’ pregnant.”

  His words slapped me. Kat? Pregnant? With Larson’s baby? Everything that had happened tonight rushed back at me. The doctor that checked her out at the crime scene, the way she and Larson held back when the witches attacked . . . it all made sense in one giant click, the snap of a bone break.

  It was so sharp it almost buckled my knees. My hard words to her fell on me like a ton of bricks. The things I had said to my friend. I hadn’t known . . . There was no way I could have . . . not at the time. But that didn’t make one damn bit of difference.

  “Let me save them. It’s Kat! You love her as much as I do!” He choked, voice strangling down to a whisper. “I can do this, if you’ll just let me.” His eyes were raw, full of pain and anguish. “Please, I can’t live without her.”

  God forgive me, I stepped back and let him.

  42

  Larson stood over Kat, hands on her face. The air was clotted, curdled with magick. It hung around us like a fog, laying on my skin, sticking to me. The words he said weren’t in English. Hell, most of them didn’t sound like they were in human. They ripped out of his throat in noises like an animal being gutted, splatting out and gushing through the air to fall on Kat’s slack face.

  My nerves were on fire, my power reacting to the sorcery despite every effort to shove it down and hide it away. Acid scorched the thin lining of my esophagus, splashing up from my roiling stomach.

  I hate magick. I truly fucking despise it. Magick was the reason my family were killed. Magick was the reason my club was burning in the night. Magick was the very reason Kat lay on that table.

  But if it could bring her back.

  I loved Kat; I had for a long time. I loved her stubborn streak that made her stay after a task until, by God, it was complete. I loved her even personality, sometimes up, sometimes down, but mostly just steady and calm. She could be annoyed, but she rarely got mad. I loved her wiseass remarks about almost everything; her sense of humor dry, but sharp.

  For a few years it had been me, her, and Father Mulcahy fighting the good fight, killing monsters, keeping people safe. There’d been many nights of talks, many of laughing, some of crying. We had shed blood together, both our own and others.

  She was my friend.

  Hell, she was my family. The sister I never had and, in some ways, replacing the daughter I had lost. There’s the family you are born with and then there’s the family you choose, but it’s all family nonetheless.

  Larson stuck his thumb in his mouth, wetting it with a gob of saliva. A rope of spittle hung as he pulled it free and used the body fluid to paint a symbol on Kat’s forehead.

  The magick closed like hands around a throat.

  Kat’s eyes flew open, her mouth coming apart like she was gasping for air, but no air was drawn in. The heart monitor continued its long, lonesome wail, the green beep a steady flatline.

  She sat up in a smooth motion, hinging from the waist. Larson threw his arms around her, pulling her tight. Tears still streamed down his cheeks, but his mouth was a wide grin of joy. He whispered into her hair as he held her tight. “It worked, baby. Thank Acheron, it worked. I’ll never let you go again.”

  The nerve under my eye started to twitch.

  Kat sat there, being held by Larson. She stared at me, eyes wide and empty. She wasn’t blinking, just staring. The suture needle hung by the black thread in her neck wound, laying like a baitless hook against her shoulder, bouncing as she twitched. Crimson boiled, spreading from the corners of her eyes. The pupils dilated out, covering the iris completely.

  My hand clamped on Larson’s arm. Kat’s head snapped back, fangs bursting from her gums in twin spurts of blood. I yanked Larson away as she struck. Her fangs clacked together as she missed.

  In a blink, she was crouched on the table like a feral animal. Shoving Larson behind me, I stepped forward. Holy light flared as I yanked my St. Benedict medal from under my shirt. A long hiss rolled out of a mouth full of murder.

  Kat blinked, shying back from the light. Her voice was shaky, lisping through extended fangs. She looked confused as she scooted away from the light of the saint medallion.

  “Deacon?”

  “Kat?” I lowered the medal, still keeping it between us, but moving the light out of my line of sight. “Do you have control of yourself?”

  Larson pressed against me, pushing toward Kat. “Of course she does! Look at her!” My hand balled in his shirt. I shoved him backward, harder than I had the first time. He stumbled before catching himself. I pointed back in his direction while keeping my eyes on Kat.

  “Kat, is that you?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. A tremor ran through her body, shaking her hard enough to make teeth rattle. When she spoke, she had to draw in air deliberately to do it. “It’s me.” Her face twisted around a mouthful of fangs and pink, blood-stained tears began to run from her eyes. “I think it’s me.”

  Her fingers went to her mouth. They trembled, hanging in the air before slowly and softly touching her teeth. Her fingertips moved across the fangs. Horror, naked and raw, crawled over her face. “No, no, no, no, nononononononono.”

  “Kat, keep it together.”

  “What did you do to me?”

  Larson spoke up. “Baby, I can explain . . .”

  “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!”

  This time the words came in a roar that shook the skin on my face. My power flared. Icy needles jabbed my skin. The cold, dead tingling you get when your arm falls asleep, but over my whole body. My nostrils went painfully dry, cracking deep in my sinuses with the smell of shed skin and tainted venom.

  Kat threw herself off the table. She flew farther than a human could have. Especially a human with a fist-sized chunk of meat gone from their throat. She hit the far wall high up over the cabinets and stuck there, clinging like a lizard. Her tears were streams of red pouring off her face.

  She fell off the wall to the floor with a thud. Scrambling, she pressed herself into a corner trying to fold in on herself. Knees to her chin, arms wrapped around her legs, she rocked back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. A low-pitched mewling slithered from deep in her chest.

  My bones weighed a thousand pounds, too heavy for me to carry. My chest was hollow, scooped out.

  Larson stood next to me. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s stuc
k. You kept Kat here, but she still turned anyway.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Fuck you. Being impossible doesn’t stop shit from happening.”

  I’ve seen people rise as vampires. When they come back, the person is completely gone. It’s just a body that’s been reanimated as an undead bloodsucker. The vampire inside them uses their brain as a template, accessing memories and even personality traits, but it is a completely new entity. A demonic, bloodthirsty, vicious entity.

  “But it’s still Kat?”

  “Seems to be.”

  A smile lit his face. “Then the spell worked. She’s still alive.”

  I whirled on him, driving my forearm into his chest, ramming him back against the heavy metal table. The knife blade in my hand gleamed as it lay across his throat. “Do you not know anything about her? About her past? About what happened to her?”

  He gulped. The movement cut a small slice across the skin of his throat. It was tiny, barely a nick. A bad mosquito bite.

  The second his blood hit the air the noise from Kat switched to a high-pitched keening.

  She rocked faster, slamming her back into the wall behind her. I pointed at her with the hand that held the saint medal.

  “You see that? That’s what I’m talking about.” I pressed closer, my face less than an inch from his. “I was there. I saw what the vampires had done to her. The spell worked?” My voice jumped an octave. “The spell worked? You sonnuvabitch, there’s nothing you could have done to her that would be worse than turning her into a vampire.”

  Anger boiled low in my guts, a snake twisting in on itself, coiling and uncoiling in a whisper of slick-scaled skin. It would be so easy. Pull the knife. Slit his fucking throat.

  I shoved off him, pushing away before murder took root in my mind. Slowly, carefully, I walked toward Kat. Each step the snake twisted harder. I knelt in front of her, St. Benedict medal loose in my hand. The holy light of it spilled between us, her just on the outside edge.