Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  Chase.

  Chase had killed Longland.

  “I recognize him,” Longland said, as if she’d spoken out loud. Maybe she had. She began to shake. It was cold. It was just so cold. “It’s his fault that I’m here now. It’s his fault that I’m powerless.” He turned on her then, and she saw the knife he carried, saw the blood that darkened every crease in his exposed hand. “I don’t intend to kill you, but I’ll need you to stand between us for a few minutes.”

  When she blinked, he grabbed her arm and dragged her around—as he’d done once before. This time she wasn’t carrying a baby. She was carrying a knife. And the knife was just as helpful in the end as the baby had been.

  Chase was sprinting across the snow. He was bleeding; there was a cut across his forehead and his left cheek. His hair, which had barely recovered from the last bout of green fire he’d been forced to endure, was singed and blackened. He carried two knives, and the woman he’d been fighting lay facedown in the snow. The fire that burned around the hedges dimmed; the hedges themselves began to wither.

  Longland lifted his knife to Allison’s throat, and she let him. He didn’t explicitly threaten her; the gesture was enough to stop Chase dead.

  “I resent having anything to do with the preservation of your life,” Longland said, in his chilly, even voice.

  Chase looked above her head at Longland’s face. With the guttering of the fires—both white and green—Longland stood in shadow, Allison his shield.

  “Not half as much as I do,” Chase replied. “Let her go.”

  “Put down your weapons.”

  Chase knelt and placed the daggers in the snow, where they became less visible with passing seconds. He rose. “Let her go.”

  “When we’ve finished our negotiations. I don’t intend to harm her unless you attempt to harm me. If I’d wanted her dead, I wouldn’t have intervened.” She couldn’t see Longland’s face and didn’t try; she watched Chase. “I wanted you dead.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “You’re not dead, I note; given the nature of your injuries, you’re unlikely to die immediately. And given the risk the girl took, I doubt I could kill you without harming her first, which would defeat the purpose. I won’t harm her if you—”

  “If I what? Give you my word I won’t try to kill you?” Chase laughed.

  Longland didn’t. “Yes.”

  “You know what that’s going to be worth.” Chase spit. “As much as yours would have been in similar circumstances.”

  “I’m already dead,” Longland replied. “Which you understand, even if the girl doesn’t. If you destroy my body, there’s nothing keeping me here; I’ll return to the City of the Dead at the command of my Queen, and I’ll reach her side instantly. Nothing I know—nothing—will be hidden from her.”

  “You’re hers—”

  “I’m hers, but I’m not bound the way the dead are; I can’t be and be reanimated in this fashion. You know this,” he added again, his voice sharpening. “I don’t wish to inform the Queen that I took a personal interest in preserving the lives of the people she ordered killed. I have a measure of freedom if you don’t damage me so badly I have no physical anchor. And I assume you have an interest in keeping the knowledge of tonight’s events contained for as long as they can be.”

  Chase hesitated.

  Merrick glanced at the corpse to one side of his feet. “He didn’t see who killed him.” He nodded in the direction of the woman. “She didn’t see anything but you. They can tell the Queen only what they witnessed—and only when she summons them.”

  “She summoned you.”

  “Not exactly. She found me. But I could be more easily found when I was not reanimated. I’m not alive; I exist in a half-world between the living and the dead. If she calls me, and I am compelled to return, I must resort to pedestrian means: planes, cars, trains. If you attempt to destroy me—and you succeed—I will be at her side instantly.”

  “Why did you interfere?” Chase asked. Some of the rage and the fear drained from his face, although he didn’t exactly relax.

  “Emma values this girl. I preserved her for that reason.”

  “And if—”

  “What Emma did once, she can do again. I want her to open the gate. I want to escape this place. Without Emma, we don’t stand a chance.”

  “We?”

  Longland laughed bitterly. “The dead. You don’t understand what it’s like. The Necromancers who died tonight didn’t. They will now,” he added, with a strange mixture of both malice and pity. “To do what she did the first time, your Emma—”

  “She is so not my Emma.”

  “Emma, then—she gathered more power than the Queen of the Dead has ever held. And what did she do with it? If rumor is to be believed, she used it all to pry open a door for a few precious minutes. Not to make herself immortal. Not to consolidate her own power in the face of her rivals; not to better her position in Court.

  “I don’t understand her. I try—but I don’t. And it doesn’t matter. What she did once, she might do again, and if she does, I want to be there. I’ll give her everything I have—everything I’ve managed to retain—in order to be the smallest part of the lever she uses to open that door again.

  “I’ll kill if I have to. I’ll save lives—even yours—if that’s what it takes to convince her that I’m worthy of that privilege. I’ll return her friend to her. I’ll tell her everything I know, teach her anything I’ve learned—”

  “She doesn’t need to learn anything you learned,” Allison said, breaking into their discussion for the first time.

  Longland stiffened; Allison thought he would argue. But in the end, he didn’t. “Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t have survived my first week at Court if I hadn’t learned some of it. But this isn’t that Court, is it? And it can’t be that Court, or I’ll never be free. I have nothing else to offer,” he continued, speaking once again to Chase.

  “What were they planning to do to the rest of them?” Chase countered.

  “The Necromancers came to this girl’s house because they knew she knew.”

  Chase cursed.

  “The others are in less danger.”

  Allison was frozen for one long moment. “What do you mean, less danger?”

  “There are no Necromancers with them.”

  “But people were sent—”

  “Yes, they were sent. You do not want our existence made public; you will force the Queen’s hand. If pressed, she can usher in a new dark age. It’s not without risk,” he added, as Chase opened his mouth. “And it’s possible she’ll fail—but hundreds of thousands will perish before she does, with no guarantee that she’ll be stopped.”

  Allison swallowed. “My family—”

  “Most of your family is unharmed. They weren’t concerned with your family; they wanted you. And the hunter, when they realized he was present.”

  Most. Most of her family.

  Longland shook her and then let her go. He stepped back. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “You survived. There was nothing you could do there but die.”

  She glanced at Chase. “There are worse things than death.”

  “If you’re dead, there’s no chance at all that you can make people pay for what they’ve done to you.”

  Allison turned to Longland, but before she could answer, he lifted a hand. His expression was hard to read. She didn’t try for long. Instead, she turned to Chase. He hadn’t moved. His shoulders had relaxed, but he was watching Longland; he made no move to retrieve his weapons. Allison did; Longland didn’t tell her to stop.

  “I told you to run,” Chase said, voice low.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “Because I couldn’t make myself believe
there was nothing I could do.” She lowered her gaze. “But you were right. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t—” She bit her lip. “I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t just stab him without warning. I—”

  He exhaled. “You’d better clean up before you see Emma again, or she’ll kill me.”

  “You? Why?”

  “You are covered in blood, and she’s going to assume it’s yours.”

  “But that’s not your fault—”

  “No, it’s not. Fault isn’t going to matter much.” He reached out then and pulled her into his arms; he rested his chin on the top of her head, emphasizing the difference in their height. “I didn’t tell you to kill and run. Not even I would be that stupid.

  “You’re not a killer. You’re not Eric. You’re not me. You’re halfway Emma and your ridiculous friends.”

  “But not Amy?”

  Chase chuckled. “Amy could have killed him.”

  Allison didn’t laugh. “I don’t think even Amy could have just slit his throat.”

  His arms tightened. After a moment he said, “No, probably not.”

  “You could have.”

  “Yes. I learned. I don’t want you to have to learn what I did. I don’t want you to need it the way I needed it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if it didn’t break you, it would change you. I happen to like who you are right now.”

  “Even if I do something stupid.”

  “Even then. Maybe especially then. And you were right, for the wrong reasons. I’m not dead. They are.”

  “Chase—”

  “We need to find the old man. We need to get back to Eric’s.”

  “I want to go home.”

  He released her. “Old man first. I don’t know if there were other Necromancers.”

  “There weren’t,” Longland said, in a tone that implied he should have asked. “But I wouldn’t say it’s safe. If I didn’t think she’d go with you, I’d send you.”

  “I wouldn’t let him go alone,” a familiar voice said.

  Allison turned, as Eric stepped around the trunk of a tree. He was carrying a gun. Not surprisingly, it was aimed at Longland.

  * * *

  Allison was shaking. It wasn’t the cold. “He saved my life,” she said.

  “I heard.”

  “So please don’t kill him.”

  He looked past Allison to Chase, and her gaze followed his. Chase grimaced but nodded.

  “Amy is not going to like this.”

  “We don’t have to tell Amy,” Chase countered, which made clear just how little he knew about Amy Snitman.

  “No problem,” Eric said. “But she’s at our place.”

  “. . . Our place? The old man let her in?”

  “I think he’d’ve been happier not to, but she’s Amy.” Eric glanced at Longland. “You have somewhere you need to be?”

  Longland shrugged. “I have someplace to go. It won’t last.”

  “Were they sending reinforcements?”

  “Not yet. The two you killed a few nights ago weren’t high in the hierarchy; the two you killed tonight were more significant. She’ll call them home.”

  “The way you were called.” It wasn’t a question.

  Longland nodded. He watched Eric for a long moment as Eric turned back to Chase. “Emma and Michael are also at our place.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Allison’s wasn’t the only home hit.”

  Allison froze. Had this been the nightmare she desperately hoped it was, this is the moment that horror and adrenaline would have forced her to wake. Her heartbeat was a physical sensation, it was beating so quickly, but she was still standing in the snow in a ravine that was now up two corpses.

  “Was anyone—was anyone hurt?” Allison managed to ask.

  “We don’t know,” Eric replied. “But we know who their actual targets were. You’re not going home,” he added. “I’m sorry. Amy apparently packed a suitcase the size of a small freezer; we’re leaving town.”

  “But our parents—” Allison swallowed. Her parents. Gunshots. Guns.

  Chase slid an arm around her shoulder; she couldn’t tell if he meant to hold her up or not. “I’m sorry.” His voice was soft at the edges. It was cold at the core. “Their best chance of survival is your absence. Even if they worry. Even if they go out of their minds with worry. Even if they call the police and report you missing—it’s better than going back. For them.”

  He didn’t add, This is why I told you not to get involved. She was grateful for that. To her surprise, he said, “It’s not your fault. Never believe it is.”

  “You warned me.”

  “Yes.” He surprised her. He smiled. His teeth were slightly red—with blood. His. He didn’t seem to notice. “But a question for you, and I want an honest answer.”

  “I’m not a liar.”

  “Not a good one, no.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?”

  She was silent.

  “Think about it in the car,” Eric told her. “If these are the last two Necromancers, we’ve bought ourselves a bit of time—but not a lot.”

  * * *

  The car was warmer than the air, but not by much, at least not for the first few minutes. Longland sat in the back—beside Chase. Chase had opened the front passenger side of the car and all but pushed Allison into it. He didn’t trust Longland, but that was fair; Eric didn’t trust him either. Allison was surprised that they’d chosen to take him along with them.

  But she knew what Chase would say if she asked: Better to know where he is and what he’s doing. Better to have him in easy reach; if necessary, we can kill him at any time. Even if, she thought, what he’d said about being dead was true. He didn’t look dead to Allison; he didn’t sound dead.

  She met Chase’s steady gaze in the mirror and looked down at her lap. What could she have done differently? If she’d known about the break-in, she could have started a fire and forced her family out of the house in time. Maybe. But that wasn’t what he meant, and she knew it. She couldn’t control what the Necromancers chose to do. She couldn’t control what they wanted.

  The only thing she could have done differently was take his advice at the very beginning. Walk away from Emma. Abandon her best friend.

  She hadn’t. She didn’t know if all of her family was unharmed. Most of your family is unharmed.

  Had she traded one of their lives for her friendship with Emma? Is that what she’d done? And if she had, and she could somehow go back, would she preserve that life and turn her back on friendship?

  If a man had held a gun to her mother’s head and offered her the choice, in that moment, she could have done it. Speak to Emma again, and your mother is dead.

  She closed her eyes.

  * * *

  And opened them again. “No,” she told Chase. “I wouldn’t.”

  He was silent.

  “Love is a weapon.”

  “Yes. In other people’s hands. It’s a weapon. It’s a weakness.”

  “But, Chase—without it, what’s the point? If love can be used to force us to abandon everything we value, what do we become, in the end? If we turn our backs on our friends, on our beliefs, on anything else we also love—what does that make of us? Cowards?”

  “Survivors.”

  She was silent, thinking of the Necromancer—the man she couldn’t just kill. Cowards, she thought, and survivors. “It’s a stupid question.”

  “They’re my specialty.”

  “I can’t change the past. I can’t change my decisions.”

  “I only wanted to know if you would.”

  “Why?”
>
  He shrugged and looked out at the passing night. And then he smiled. He looked tired. He was always pale, but his eyes were dark, and his skin looked slightly sunburned. Or windburned. “Because I don’t want you to give up on me.”

  “We were talking about Emma.”

  “Yes, and I was thinking about hypocrisy. I’m—I’ve been—angry at her for putting your life at risk. But if she didn’t—if she hadn’t—I wouldn’t have met you, either. I don’t want any more regrets. But I don’t want you to be saddled with regrets like mine.”

  “People have regrets all the time, Chase. It’s just—it’s just a people thing. People who regret nothing have probably never tried anything. In their lives. Does this mean you’ll stop hating her?”

  “I won’t hate her any more than I hate myself.”

  “So that’s a no?”

  Eric chuckled. “Hold out for something better than that,” he advised.

  “Pay attention to your driving,” Chase shot back. “Or the entire discussion will be moot.”

  “It might be moot anyway. Amy wasn’t happy.”

  This time, Chase didn’t ask why Amy’s happiness was a concern.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  EMMA WAS ALREADY ON HER FEET when she heard the front door open. Ernest was seated; he glanced up at the sound, but not in a way that made it a threat to anyone in the room.

  She held her breath; if Ernest didn’t rise to greet whoever was making an entrance, she couldn’t; it wasn’t her house. But she listened for the sound of voices. She heard footsteps instead.

  And when Allison—when Allison, spattered in blood—walked into the living room, she almost wept with relief. Margaret was in the middle of saying something to a less and less happy Ernest when Emma cut her off and ran across the room.

  Allison said, “I’m fine.”

  And Emma replied, “Yes, but are you okay?”

  Allison laughed. “No, not really.” She let her forehead drop until it rested on Emma’s shoulder, and then, she shook. She might have stayed that way for a long, long time, but Michael had come to stand to their left, and he was agitated—if silent—while he waited.