by Jim Butcher
He didn’t say anything. As soon as he changed into the clothes, we left.
“The cops,” I said. “Are they following us?”
Andrew had shut his eyes—fighting back pain, I could feel it—but he opened them as I turned the car out of the driveway and scanned the street. “Don’t see ‘em,” he said. “Don’t mean they ain’t around, though. Since we’re bait in the trap, they’d like your killer to have room to breathe, seems to me.”
I hoped the police would follow us, but I couldn’t wait to find out. Time was running out.
On the way, I remembered to call in sick to work—not that keeping my day job was the most important thing in my world, but it was normal life, and I desperately wanted to believe that there would still be a normal life, after today.
The sun was on the rise as we navigated morning rush hour, heading for Lottie’s neighborhood. She had a place in an upscale area, one story but sprawling. It was the kind of place that was deserted by day—working families out from seven to seven. The only sign of life along the street was a lawn service truck in the distance, and a couple of guys on riding lawn mowers.
Lottie’s driveway was empty, so I turned in and parked in the back. Yellow police tape fluttered here and there, but they’d finished their work in the yard. An official-looking seal was on the back door, and a newly installed padlock.
Andy opened the trunk of the car, took out a rusty tire iron, and popped the padlock with a single wrench. He had to stop for a moment and brace himself, and I felt the swirl of darkness between us as the inevitable tide rolled over him.
“Andy,” I said. He shook his head.
“Let’s just get it done,” he said. “This ain’t nothing yet.”
He was right. It would get a lot worse. That didn’t mean it wasn’t bad, though, bad enough to drive most men to their knees.
The death-tide was pulling him back. Pulling him away from me.
I ripped open the seal on the door and stepped into Lottie’s kitchen.
There were few signs of violence in here—neatly ranked pots and pans, shelves of supplies. I quickly rummaged through them, breathing easier with every single thing I found. Yes, yes, yes....
I opened the refrigerator door, and inside saw not just a few bottles, but a gallon jar of swirling silver liquid.
A gallon jar.
Andy joined me, alerted by my expression. “Why’d she make so much?” he asked. I shook my head. There was absolutely no reason for Lottie to do a thing like that—the expense was enormous. Unless she’d found an effective way to really store the stuff—no, when I wrestled the gallon jar out of the refrigerator and onto the counter, I could tell that it was at least a week old, probably two. Not bad, but not fresh, either.
In another week, it would be useless. It was a foolish waste. Why the hell did Lottie brew it like this?
“She’s been up to something,” Andy said. He might have been reading my mind. “Makes you wonder why she wanted me back, don’t it?”
I dipped up a cup of the potion, sniffed it again, and tilted it this way and that in the mug. “I don’t trust this,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right, Andy. I just—”
He held up a hand to silence me.
“What?” I whispered.
“I think maybe someone’s here,” he said.
I sealed up the jar and hefted it. We’d take it with us. It’d have to serve until I could brew my own.
Andy turned his eyes back toward me, and there was something dawning in his expression, something grim and terrible.
He lifted the mug I’d filled and poured it into the sink.
“What are you doing?”
“Somebody’s been studying up.” Andy didn’t bother to keep his voice down. “Used this same trick myself, long ago. Made up a batch of poisoned brew, left it for the revenants to drink when they came looking. Did for quite a few that way, back in the wars.”
Poison. I looked down at the jar and let it slide out of my hands back to the counter.
“Come out,” Andy said. “Face to face. You want us dead, you do it barefaced.”
“All right,” said a smoke-strained, whisky-rough voice from the hall, and a big, red-headed man stepped into the light. There was a gun in his hand, pointed not at Andy, but at me. “How’s this?”
Sam Twist. I’m just the dispatcher. “Sam—” I wet my lips. Andy stepped between me and the gun, and I heard three loud pops in quick succession.
Andy just stood there and took the bullets, shook himself, and said in a voice I didn’t even recognize, “You all done, Irish, or you want to reload?”
I slid slowly along the counter, angling for a view of Sam. He was calmly holding the gun at his side.
“No need,” he said. “I was just softening you up a little. No question, you’re one hell of an opponent. That’s why I tried to get Holly to take a pass on bringing you back again.”
“Mine,” scraped another voice, and the thing that shuffled into view next to Sam... if it had been born human, it hadn’t stayed that way. Misshapen, malformed as a dropped lump of clay, but roped with muscle. Dead gray eyes. Pointed teeth displayed by lips that had been cut or ripped away. Sam was a big man, and this—creature—topped him by a foot or more. Its shoulders were broader than the doorway.
I remembered the photographs of the cops. Beaten to death. Necks snapped.
Andy had never looked fragile to me until that moment.
If he was worried, or even startled, it didn’t show. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, eyes fixed on Sam’s monster. “Well, ain’t you pretty?” he said, cool and quiet. “Your momma must be real proud.”
The thing swayed, but didn’t move. Its blind-looking gaze strayed from Andy... to me.
A low growl started in its throat, a diesel engine running rough, and I felt Andy’s whole body tense. “Get behind me,” he said. “Holly, dammit, do that right now.”
I did, but not before I got a glimpse at the blood soaking the front of his shirt, and the tattered flesh beneath. Dead men could die, and they could feel pain, and no matter how focused and tough Andy was, he couldn’t overcome this monster.
Not alone.
“Who is he?” I whispered. Sam couldn’t have brought this creature back, not on his own.
“He was my brother Donal,” Sam Twist said. “Before Lottie got hold of him.”
He was Lottie’s. But Lottie was dead. Wasn’t she? “She—brought him back?”
“He got knifed in a bar fight,” Sam said. “Strongest man I ever knew. I begged her to help, and she did. She brought him back. But I didn’t know what she’d do with him.”
Sam moved over to the side, edging to where he could once again see my face, and line up a clear shot. Andy didn’t move. He clearly thought it was better to stand between me and Donal.
“What did she do?” I was acutely aware now of the blood pooling at Andy’s feet, of the waves of darkness vibrating the air between us. Death was coming, and coming no matter how hard he pushed against it.
“What does it look like she did, you bitch?” Sam spat, and the sudden raw fury in him exploded like nitro. “She used him. My own brother. She told me she put him back to sleep, but she didn’t. She set him to fighting other dead men like some trained bear, and brought him back, kept dragging him back until there was nothing left. She took bets.” Sam swallowed hard. “But he remembered. He heard my voice on the phone, and he remembered.”
Sam’s face was red, distorted with anguish, and his eyes were glittering with tears. I swallowed hard to clear the lump from my throat. “He came to find you,” I said. “Oh, Sam, I’m sorry.”
He sneered at me. There was no more sanity in his eyes now than in his brother’s. “Keep your pity,” he said. “I don’t want it. I’m putting you down, bitch. I’m putting all of you down.”
Lottie wasn’t dead. Lottie couldn’t be dead, if Donal was still alive. Sam had her somewhere, under lock and key, maybe drugged or worse, but still b
reathing.
She was Donal’s only vulnerability.
I was still partly blocked from Sam’s view. With my right hand, I dug my cell phone from my pocket, flipped it open, and hit and held the speed dial number I’d assigned to Detective Prieto. I had to hope he’d answer, or at worst, that his voicemail would give him the clues he needed after the fact to put it all together. “You kept Lottie alive,” I said. “Right, Sam? To suffer.”
“Damn straight,” he said. “When I’m done with you, I’ll take out Annika, and we can move on to the next town. You have to be stopped, all of you.”
“You’re using Donal just as much as Lottie did,” I said. “Let him go, Sam. God—please, let him go!”
“No,” he snapped. “Not until every single one of you is dead. Don’t move, Holly. I want you to watch what happens next.”
He knew. He knew about Andrew; he’d heard how traumatized I was when I’d lost him before.
He wanted me to watch him die again.
~
Donal was fast, but Andy was faster. Even wounded, he was as lithe as a cat. He dodged Donal’s roaring charge, tripped the twisted giant, and bashed Donal’s skull hard into the marble counter. I backed away, dodged behind the fighting men, and screamed into the phone, “Prieto, it’s Sam Twist, find Lottie, Lottie’s the key—”
Donal’s hand slapped the phone away from me, and it bounced and broke into scattered pieces against the far wall. A bone snapped in my hand, and I choked back a scream, then another as I felt Andy’s torment surge stronger. He was feeling my pain, too.
He’d do anything to stop it, and that was so dangerous.
I needed the gun Sam held.
I settled for grabbing a cleaver from the block next to the stove. Lottie, like all good cooks and witches, kept her tools in order; the cleaver had a wicked fine edge, a silky deadliness that vibrated the air.
I kept Donal between me and Sam as he sought for a clear shot. Andy slipped in his own blood; his strike at Donal’s massive throat lost its strength, and Donal’s huge gray hands closed on his shoulders.
I felt Andy’s arm being wrenched out of its socket. I screamed. He grunted and pulled halfway free, but Donal bunched up a fist and drew back—
I threw myself to the floor and swiped the cleaver through Donal’s Achilles tendons, and he toppled, howling, like a tree. The table collapsed under his impact. Andy squirmed free, panting, and I felt the tide coming faster, deeper, all that darkness swirling and clouding the air between us as he tried to get to me...
Sam fired twice. One shot hit Donal’s flailing arm and kicked a fist-sized chunk of flesh out of it. The second shot....
The second shot took Andy in the chest as he lunged to cover me.
“No!” I shrieked, and took his weight in my arms as he collapsed against me.
There was no fighting the emptiness that rolled over me now, the call of endless peace, and I felt Andy slipping away.
I felt him find some small, impossible anchor in that tide, and his body shuddered against mine, holding me tight against him. He can’t. He can’t make it. Even the dead had to die.
But Andy refused to go.
He pulled back, and his eyes were liquid silver, the color of the potion I’d dosed him with in the morgue. His skin was as pale as paper. Most of his blood was poured out on the floor, an offering to harsher gods than I could ever worship.
But he stayed standing.
He took in a deep breath, and closed his eyes. “Potion,” he whispered. “Give it to me.”
The jar behind me on the counter.
Poisoned.
“No,” I said. “No, Andy.”
Another shot struck him. I screamed something at Sam, I don’t even know what, and he bared his teeth in response. Donal was crawling toward us across the floor. He couldn’t stand, but he wouldn’t give up. He wanted me dead as much as Sam.
Andy reached behind me, fumbled the gallon jar of silver liquid, and looked at me with the most heartbreaking plea. “Help,” he whispered. I felt the tide roaring in again, stronger this time. He couldn’t resist that, not even for me.
I helped him lift the jar.
One swallow.
Two.
Sam’s next bullet hit the jar and exploded it into a shower of glass. The potion coated us both and swirled in thick silvery streams in the blood on the floor.
But it worked.
I felt the black surging inside of Andy fall away, and the sudden pulsebeat of life took over. For just an instant, his eyes locked with mine, and I saw a promise there.
An acceptance, too.
Donal’s huge hand swiped at his feet, but Andy sidestepped and waltzed me with him. He put me gently out of the way, and turned to Sam Twist.
“You got plenty of cause to hate,” Andy said. “Your brother’s been used hard. But you took it too far, mister. You got no quarrel with Holly.”
“She’s a witch.”
Andy’s smile turned wolfish. “So am I, mister. And now you got a quarrel with me.”
Sam fired again, and hit Andy. The bullet wounds didn’t seem to matter at all; with a bellow of rage, Sam rushed forward, still firing. Andy moved like a bullfighter, avoiding the attack, and swung his arm around Sam’s throat from behind. He threw his weight into the motion. Sam’s feet slipped in the blood, and his neck snapped with a muffled dry crackle. It happened too fast for me to really take in, and then the life was leaving Sam’s blue eyes and his body falling in that utterly empty way that only the dead can fall as Andy let him go.
Donal howled, and it hurt me to hear it. Andy turned toward me, and our gazes met again.
He’d taken two steps toward me when Lottie’s poison took hold. Andy’s fearsome strength of will might be able to deny bullet wounds, but this was different. Very different.
His legs folded, and he fell to his side, panting. His pupils grew huge, no longer silver but black, black as the death that was coming for him.
“Next time,” he whispered.
I dropped to my knees beside him and put my hand on his forehead as he began to convulse.
I tasted poison on his lips, and I wondered in a black, desolate fury if it would be enough to finish me. It wasn’t.
The universe wasn’t quite that merciful.
~
“Miss Caldwell,” Detective Prieto said. I raised my head slowly, every muscle aching and hot. Part of it was Lottie’s poisonous mixture; the other part was a collection of injuries I hadn’t realized I’d accumulated until the heat of battle was past. I was back in the hospital. They’d taken Donal away in a massive steel prison truck, still fighting. They’d taken Andy away in a coroner’s wagon, along with Sam. I’d screamed about the two of them riding together, but the cops thought I was out of my mind.
Maybe I was.
I looked at Detective Prieto wearily, too exhausted to care about the pity in his eyes. “Did you find her?”
“We did,” he said. “She was drugged. Chained up in a room underneath Sam Twist’s house.”
I nodded. “And the others?”
He just looked at me. Sam hadn’t needed the others, of course. He’d only needed Lottie to keep Donal alive.
Perversely, Lottie still lived, like the cockroach surviving nuclear winter. And so did Donal, for all the good it did him.
“You okay?” Prieto asked. It was my turn to stare, and he turned away from what he saw in my expression. “Lottie’s down the hall, I hear. They say she’ll make a full recovery.”
With that, he pushed open the door to the grim little hospital room and left. It hurt too much to stand up, but I did it anyway, and shuffled to follow.
Prieto was getting into the elevator when I emerged, but he caught my eye and jerked his chin down the hall. “Four down,” he said.
The doors shut.
Carlotta was a lovely woman with the soul of a pig. I’d always known that, but I’d never really known.
I’d never seen the depths. Now I couldn’t
get out of them. Not without climbing over someone else.
She’d do.
Carlotta was asleep. She was an older woman, with black hair threaded with silver and lines on her face. Could have been someone’s mother, someone’s grandmother. Asleep, you couldn’t see the real person.
Her eyes opened when I dragged a chair up next to her bed—dark brown, as confused as any soul dragged back from the dark. Except she’d been drugged, not dead, and the softness cleared from her in seconds.
“Holly.” She nearly spat my name. “I should have known he’d spare you. Sam always liked you.”
I didn’t answer her. Somewhere, in the coldest part of me, I was seeing the agony of Andy’s last moments, and I was realizing how much Lottie would have enjoyed it.
“The others?”
“Dead,” I said. My voice sounded soft and distant. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Bringing back the dead and fighting them like dogs. For money.”
Lottie’s bitter brown eyes narrowed. “Don’t you judge me, you narrow little bitch. We all bring them back for profit.” She smiled slowly. “I’m just creative.”
The room looked red for a few seconds, and I had trouble controlling my breathing. My hands ached, and realized I’d clenched them into tight, shaking fists.
“Creative,” I repeated. “Why’d you ask Prieto for Andy?”
“I knew somebody was stalking us,” she said. “If anybody could stop it, Toland would have been the one. Besides—” She was still smiling, and it had a sharp, cutting edge to it. “—he’d have made me a lot of money, after. A lot of money.”
I shuddered. It was hard to stay in the chair. Hard not to put my hands around her throat and squeeze.
“You’re done,” I said. “I’m going to make it my personal mission to see you’re finished.”
“How?” Lottie’s laugh broke on the air like ice. “You’re a stupid girl. I’m the victim. You counting on the Review Board? Better not. So many resurrection witches gone? They might give me a fine, but they need me. Now more than ever.”