by Gary Jonas
“Cool,” Brand said.
“Shut up, Brand,” Amanda and I said together.
He glared back. “Can we please get back to the plan now? Or do you want to fill us in on more delightful facts about the ghoul reproductive system?”
“We have to find Jiggs and Kess,” Amanda said. “They’re the only ghouls I trust right now. Any others could be working with Liz.”
Brand nodded. “So how do we do that?”
Amanda actually growled. “I don’t know. Send a message through other ghouls? Which we can’t necessarily trust.”
“Or we just draw out New Mother,” I said.
“How?”
“Bait, of course. Something she can’t resist.”
Brand leaned forward. “What’s that?”
“Us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Why us?” Brand asked.
“Since she was the one to place them, Amanda is the only one who can remove the no-kill buttons from the Sekutar ghouls. You, I and the other remaining Sekutar are, like you said, superfood.”
I saw uncertainty flicker across Amanda’s face – about her part or mine, I didn’t know.
I continued. “We need to put the word out that we’re going to protect Jiggs and Kess at any cost. Be their bodyguards. That might bring them to us. Or if we’re lucky, it’ll flush out Liz. Will the other Sekutar play along, Brand?”
“They’ll do anything to get a chance at the Sekutar ghouls. It’s more than revenge now. We know what they can do if they’re unleashed. I don’t know about you, but we like the world the way it is. Well, except maybe for Dire. He’s watched too much Walking Dead, thinks it would be fun to wipe out hordes of super ghouls and be the last man standing.”
“I admit, that does have a lot of appeal.”
“Kelly, can we talk?” Amanda looked at Brand. “Alone.”
Brand put his hands behind his head and sank into the couch. “I’m cozy here.”
Amanda shook her head and stood up. I followed her to the front porch. Outside, the sunset dyed the dirty snow orange while people walked up and down the sidewalk to or from work. An ambulance sang in the distance, probably taking someone to St. Joe’s. Lina’s home sat proudly in the Five Points neighborhood which tried its best to gentrify around it. An investor had recently offered Lina a good sum of money to buy her house. What he really wanted was the land. He’d scrape off her Victorian and build some sort of modern pile that was nothing but flat planes and sharp angles. But Lina would never move. She had deep roots here.
Amanda picked at a loose paint flake on Lina’s porch railing. Witches get fidgety when they aren’t pulling up magic. Also, it was a good excuse not to look at me. “I know your kill switch is still on.”
I love it when she gets right to the point.
“Yeah, so?”
“So you can’t be Sekutar warrior Kelly Chan right now. You’ll get yourself killed. Let Brand and me handle this one.”
“Like hell.”
Amanda peeled up a good-sized paint flake and studied it before dropping it onto the porch. “I can try and shield you. When I got promoted and transferred to the HISR department,” she said meaning Human, Inhuman and Subhuman Resources, “they did a little surgery so I that could pull up a lot more magic from the ley lines. Good stuff – it got rid of my crow’s feet, too. I’m hurt you never noticed.”
I glared at her and her damned lack of crow’s feet. “I don’t need your help or your pity.”
“My what?” It was Amanda’s turn to glare.
“Besides, shielding me will make the kill switch worse. Magic, remember?” I wrapped my arms around my body against the cold.
Amanda exhaled, her breath a white cloud in the frigid air. She peeled up another paint flake when the door behind us opened and Brand stepped out.
“I’m lonely and bored.” He leaned against the wall next to the door, his typical wicked smile crossing his face.
“I didn’t know Sekutar got lonely,” Amanda said, her eyes practically throwing daggers at me.
Brand shrugged. “Lonely, horny, same thing. I was hoping you guys were out here kissing.”
I looked at Amanda. “I think we should lose Brand.”
She smiled for the first time in a while. “Maybe, maybe not. So let me ask you a question, Brand.”
“Shoot.”
“Marvel or DC?” Amanda tossed her long dark hair forward over her shoulder.
A hair flip? I thought. Really, Amanda?
Brand smiled and lowered his chin, his eyes like lasers on hers. “Are you talking about the movies or the comic books, because I can make an argument for or against either depending on the medium.”
Amanda opened her mouth into a perfect circle and tilted her chin up and back to the side. She pointed at Brand. “Oh!” Still pointing, she slowly extended her arm. “Oooohhh oh oh oh ooohhhh!” She looked at me with the same idiotic expression while her other hand pointed at me. “Oh!”
I glared back. “English, please.” As if I couldn’t translate.
“No, we’re keeping him. Mmm hmmm.” She gave him another once-over.
“Fine,” I said. “So, Brand, you’re just in time to watch Amanda stop picking Lina’s porch apart and instead do something productive, like calling some ghouls to get the word out about our new bodyguard business.”
Amanda went back to acting pissed. “I’m just… never mind.” She pulled out her phone.
Brand smirked at her. “Maybe you should do something about Kelly’s kill switch, while you’re at it.”
Amanda nearly dropped her phone. “How did you know?”
“About the kill switch, or that Lina couldn’t zap it out of her?” He grinned at me. “Kelly got all soft like a kitten and told me about it – proof enough that it exists.”
“Asshole.”
“And now she’s out here shaking like a leaf in the cold. Ergo, the thing is still active, am I right?”
I dropped my arms to my sides.
Brand went on. “So we have two choices. Either Kelly sits this one out—”
“Not a chance.” I crossed my arms.
“—Or you fix it.”
“Guys!” I wondered if Amanda realized she’d put a little magical force into her voice. “I’m ahead of you both, believe it or not. While I have a ton of faith in Lina, I like to hedge my bets.”
While I was unconscious, Amanda had put in several calls to both her network of friendly co-workers and people who owed her favors. The second list was longer than the first.
Eventually, she reached the new CEO who claimed no knowledge of either a kill switch or the plan to deactivate me, but he promised to look into it. Amanda tried to light a fire under his ass by adding that the world depended on me being fully-functional within the next few hours or so, and that the world included DGI and the CEO himself. He thanked her for her concern, reiterated that he’d look into it and hung up.
“What’s his name again?” I asked.
“Ravenwood.”
“Noted.”
“Now, Kelly—”
“Noted.”
I had to either convince or force DGI to shut off the switch. I was leaning toward force, because it’s fun to chop wizards into little pieces, but Amanda was in favor of convincing. She gave me a quick lecture on how the real world works and that I shouldn’t always think with my sword, which sent Brand off into a series of juvenile jokes that don’t bear repeating, until she threw her hands in the air and went back inside to call a ghoul or two.
Brand studied her backside when she passed him.
“Before you think of tapping that, she’s already dating someone.”
Brand shrugged. “I’m not much into witches. Too many head games. Oh, and they can incinerate you.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “I’m more into the athletic type. I want someone who can keep up with me, physically.”
Which wasn’t me at the moment. I rolled my eyes.
&nbs
p; “I meant it when I said I’ll help you with Ravenwood,” Brand said. “The sooner you’re fully functional, well, the sooner you’re fully functional.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
I gave him another eye roll.
Away from the DGI practice room, I wasn’t hit so hard by echo memories of Brand. Still, the fading light did nice things to his face. I allowed him a tight smile with that eye roll.
“You still look cold.” He crossed the porch until he stood in front of me. “Now, where were we before Lina came in?” Brand ran a hand through my hair. I suppressed a shiver.
“You were pulling a late-series Scully and starting to believe in layered time.”
“Oh, yeah.” He leaned down to kiss me but I turned my face away.
“Something I said? The kitten remark?”
“No.” I started past him toward the front door, but he took me in his arms. I tried to break his hold but I was nowhere near his strength or speed anymore. I pushed my rising desire down. I didn’t want to feel the way I had when we fought in the practice room, every touch an electrical jolt. I felt diminished by my own physical weakness. Until I had my strength back, I didn’t want to start anything with Brand.
“Let me go,” I said. “We have work to do.”
“Nothing to do, until Amanda hears back.” He leaned down again and put his lips next to my ear. The side of my face tingled. “If you don’t want to kiss, maybe you want to wrestle?”
Thanks to the videos he’d watched, he knew most of my fighting tricks.
Most, but not all.
“Not interested,” I said, as I swept his feet out from under him, forcing him to let go of me.
“Still got it, kill switch or no.” He laughed. “That’s my girl.”
“I’m not your girl. I’m not your anything.”
“Really? You were leaning that way inside. And back at DGI. What about the layered time thingy? The other us?”
No longer in Brand’s arms, I started shivering again, hating the sensation. “Situations change, don’t they?”
“Some do, some don’t. Layered time or no layered time.” Brand’s lip curled at his last words. “I stand by what I said. You are no ordinary woman, and never will be. No matter the situation.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
His smile vanished. I pushed past him again and this time he let me go.
“You’re probably right. People like us just bring pain to the world,” he said to my back.
I disagreed. People like us could change, could use our violence to fight against the darkness.
“Come inside if you still want to help,” I said, closing the door behind me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Amanda was back on the couch, phone flying from hand to hand. I sat down next to her.
“I just had a revelation about myself,” I said.
“Really? What’s that?”
“I am terminally attracted to assholes.”
“Aw, Kel. It’s because you want to tame us. That, and we keep life interesting.” She set her phone aside. “I’m not really interested in Brand, I promise. He just knows how to flirt and that’s fun.”
“I’m not interested in him, either.”
“If you really think that’s true, then you’ve had the wrong revelation.” Amanda kissed me on the nose just as Brand walked in.
“Now that’s what I want to see!” Brand threw himself into the chair across from the couch and put his feet on the coffee table. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
Amanda snapped her fingers and Brand’s legs flew from the table and back to the floor. I flinched at the magic.
“Oh, sorry,” she said.
“Worth it.”
Amanda’s phone buzzed. Before answering, she looked at the screen and smiled. “What have you got for me?”
As she listened, her smile grew bigger.
“Awesome. Meet us at 24th and Clarkson in… hang on.” She covered the phone and looked at Brand. “How quickly can you gather the Sekutar?”
“This time of day with traffic? Forty-five minutes, at best. More like an hour or more.”
Amanda uncovered the phone. “We’ll see you in five minutes.”
She picked up her purse from the floor and dropped the phone into it. “We have a hit. But we don’t have time to wait for the other Sekutar. My ghoul says they’re about to have a big meeting, and Jiggs is rumored to be the featured speaker. It’s underground of course, but my ghoul will get us there.”
“Just Jiggs?” I asked. “Any word on Kess or Bliss?”
“He didn’t say. We’ll see when we get there.” Amanda stood. “Come on, the meet-up’s a couple blocks away. I didn’t want him to know where Lina lives or that we were here.”
“Do you think it’s a trap?” Brand asked.
“Probably.”
“Excellent,” I said. “More fun that way. Unfortunately, I lost my sword.”
Brand grinned. “Oh, baby, do I have a sword for you.”
Before I could shoot him a disgusted look, he moved into the next room. He returned with a beautiful, black katana, bowed deeply and presented it to me with open hands.
“Let’s party,” I said.
***
Post-sunset, the intersection at 24th and Clarkson was dappled in shadows. We stood under a street light, conspicuous. Amanda’s ghoul, Dobbs, could have been circling us and we wouldn’t know it. Any ghoul could have been, including Liz. I hoped she’d jump out so that I’d have the chance to shred her in front of Brand. Or maybe I just wanted to shred her to prove to myself that I was still strong, fast, and unstoppable.
Still me.
We waited long enough to get jumpy at every rustling sound or leaf blowing down the street. Then we waited some more.
“Is he coming or not?” I stamped my feet to warm them. “The other Sekutar might get here before he does.” Brand had called them before we left Lina’s. Amanda planned to ask Dobbs to send a second ghoul to wait for the Sekutar, then bring them in as backup.
“Let me call Dobbs again.” Amanda took out her phone, hit redial, and we heard a ring from one of the shadows cast by a cottonwood.
“Definitely a trap,” Brand said.
“Bring it.” I drew my katana.
“Sorry, sorry!” Dobbs emerged from the shadow, hands in the air. His phone continued to ring in one of his coat pockets. He was a skinny guy with a terrible black toupee. His no-kill button may have accounted for his skinniness, but there was no accounting for his terrible taste in hair-wear.
“That’s close enough,” Amanda said. She hit the hang up button and the ghoul’s phone went silent. He stopped walking.
“I had to take the long way. Lots of Kin on the move downstairs. And I just wanted to make sure you were alone.”
Dobbs looked up and down the street. “I checked out all the shadows. Can’t be too careful these days.” He looked at Amanda as orange flared in his eyes and disappeared so quickly that I wasn’t sure if it was him or the streetlight’s reflection. “Even with folks you think you know.”
Amanda exhaled, closed her eyes and opened them again. “Look, I get it. I’m not with Liz anymore. I’ve seen through her lies.”
Dobbs lowered his arms. “I know. My own wife took our kid and ran off after New Mother. My wife, she don’t even have the taste and our kid was fed good. We had nothing to lose.”
“We’re all going to lose if we don’t hurry.” I stepped forward and grabbed the ghoul’s hand. He yelped like I’d kicked him. “Take us to Jiggs.”
“And send another Kin you trust back here,” Amanda added. “More Sekutar are on the way and they’ll need help getting to us.”
“Roger. I’ll come back for ‘em myself.” Dobbs extended his other hand and Amanda took it. Brand grabbed his shoulder and we disappeared into the cottonwood’s shadow, bound for gods-knew-where.
***
Dobbs, Amanda, Brand and I stood outside a set of ornately carved doors somewhere unde
r Denver. Behind them was a forgotten ballroom, scene of a turf war back in the bootlegging days that left a couple dozen people dead. Mercifully, the ballroom was only a few shadow jumps away from where we’d been. If I thought shadow travel was disorienting before, it was ten times worse now that most of my magically-engineered endurance was gone.
Voices carried through the doors, a low murmur of discontent. The room sounded full. If Jiggs was in there, he had his audience. Now he just needed to win them over.
“Go on in,” Dobbs said. “I’ll head back for the others.” He slipped into one shadow as a group of three ghouls materialized out of another. They saw us and stopped. One started to say something when the noises inside quieted down and one voice spoke above the others. The ghouls gave us a last once-over before going inside.
“That doesn’t sound like Jiggs,” Amanda said.
“Doesn’t matter. We’re going in. Brand, you stay here and wait for the other Sekutar.”
“No. I’m going in, too. I’ll wait at the back.”
“Whatever.” We followed the ghouls.
I was right. The ballroom was packed with Kin of all descriptions. Some were well-dressed, others looked like they’d just crawled out of a dump. And maybe they had – a dump was an excellent place to hide a body. Some had no-kill buttons, but the vast majority did not. They all had their attention turned toward a ghoul speaking onstage, the warm-up act to Jiggs’ main performance.
“I’m going to add my own wards to the door and shadows, just in case Liz tries something,” Amanda whispered.
Brand stopped just inside the door. He spotted a rotting velvet curtain hanging along the back wall off to the side and stood next to it. Like me, he had his katana. But his hand went to the inside of his jacket. He winked at me and I realized he had a gun of some sort tucked away. So he had the back of the room sufficiently covered.
Then a funny look crossed his face and he stepped back as if startled. There isn’t much in this world that can startle a Sekutar, so I mouthed, “What is it?” He looked at me like I was crazy and pointed to something that wasn’t there, something right in front of him. I held up a finger for Amanda to wait and took a step toward Brand.