by VK Fox
Dahl had gone very still, the cigarette burning down to the edges of his fingers. “I want to take him home. I want him to be brilliant and argumentative. I want him to know…” a huge shudder heaved from the center of his body. “Who I am.”
They sat on the makeshift bench. Fitz carefully poked straw into the snow. Jane prayed silently while Dahl whispered the names of dozens of gods in a broken voice. Maybe he was praying too.
Back in her cozy room, Blue and Jane sat in bean bag chairs while the girls dozed.
“What was it like?” Blue couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of her words.
“Weird.” Jane sighed. “I was pretty freaked out the whole time, but there were beautiful moments. I wish I could have been there and explored without worrying that we were going to die and I’d never see my babies again.”
“Maybe now that you’re back you’ll remember the beautiful things more and the scary things less. Happy endings make the adventure easier, right?”
“I don’t know.” Jane frowned. “I think that’s what we tell ourselves because we can’t handle the next adventure otherwise. I’m sorry, I’m being a wet blanket. There’s a cloud over everything and I don’t know why.”
“I know, but it’ll clear. Sunshine soon.” Blue reached over and squeezed her hand. “Hey, I have a teensy confession.”
“Okay.” Jane’s mind scrambled through the possibilities of Babysitter Blue at Camp Nowhere. Had she made a teddy bear golem? Stolen baby hair for some nefarious purpose? Gotten in a fight with Jane’s mom?
“I nursed Ida. I know I should have asked you first, but when I woke her up to eat she wouldn’t take the bottle and I panicked. Ian had joked about me being a wetnurse if you needed help or whatever…”
“Let me guess,” Jane rubbed her forehead. “Thousands of years, hundreds of cultures?”
“Yeah, something along those lines, and I kind of lost my cool and took it as permission. I hope you’re not mad.”
Jane shrugged. “It’s weird, but I get it. Baby crying trumps everything. Thanks for helping her.”
“Whew!” Blue’s dimpled grin rounded her cheeks. “That makes the second part of this way easier.”
“Ummmm… the second part?” The rug was coming out from under Jane’s feet again. It had happened enough that Jane could tell when she was about to get knocked on her ass, but it never helped her guess why.
“Yeah, so check it out.” Blue unburied her arm from under Ida’s gauzy swaddling and extended her hand. Where she’d worn a collage of Band-Aids this morning was healthy, fresh skin.
“Holy shit.” Jane grabbed her fingers and turned them in the mellow light. Perfect. No scar, nothing. “Ida did this?”
“Sure did.” Blue giggled like champagne. “I didn’t see a light or anything, but maybe she has a different indicator? Or I didn’t notice? Or since she was born with it maybe it works entirely differently?”
Jane’s ears were ringing. “No, not entirely anyway. Blue, she sleeps all the time. When the doctor looked me over the day after surgery, she said my incision was healed…” She shuffled to get feet, laying Beth in the cradle. “I have to go find Ian.”
Blue nodded. “Okay! I’ll hang out here.”
“Hey sweetie, how are things?” Jane’s mom called from where she was sitting with Sister Mary at the Grit Room table with mugs of tea when Jane shuffled in.
“I don’t know.” She did not have the energy to deliver a polite lie. “I guess we did good. Have you seen Ian?”
“He stepped out a few minutes ago, but said he’d be right back.” Jane’s mom patted the chair next to her, and Jane walked over to it but didn’t sit. Her feet were antsy, and she kept darting glances to the door.
Jane’s mom was watching her. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Umm…” Jane studied her mom’s face for a few heartbeats. Smooth, questioning; not entirely comfortable, but she was offering. The room smelled of rising yeast dough and chamomile, dish soap and 409. Jane’s mother held her mug in calloused, hard-work hands. “I bet Dahl would appreciate help with Fitz. He’s exhausted and could use some sleep. If you’re up for it.”
“I’ll go.” Her mother stood and squeezed Jane’s elbow. “I haven’t spent much time with Fitz. It’ll be fun.”
Jane nodded and chewed her lip. “Hey, Mom…” The woman paused in pulling on her boots and coat. “Thanks a million. Really.”
She smiled a real smile, not a tight-lipped social smile, and went out the door.
Sister Mary thumped Jane on the back. “You did good out there. I’m proud of you. Let me know what I can do to help too.”
“Yeah, thanks, I will.” Jane couldn’t pull her eyes off the door. “Did Ian say when he was coming back?”
“I’m not sure. I think he was helping Allison get settled. They came in here to grab beer and sandwiches, and he was going to show her to her bunk.”
“What?” Jane absently picked at her chipping nail polish. “Where’s she staying?”
“They were going to take an air mattress from your block and put it in the heated part of the garage.” Sister Mary chuckled. “We’re like sardines in a can here.”
“Wow, I can’t believe she’s up and walking around.” The cage had been awful. How long had Allison been stuck in there? Did time work the same in the space between realities? Jane shifted as her stomach fluttered uneasily.
“Everything okay?”
Jane rezipped her coat. “This is silly, but will you come with me? I just… I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but…”
“Sure. Say no more.” Sister Mary was already in motion: boots on, coat in one hand and the Davis family, pump-action shotgun from the wall in the other.
They were in the yard when lightning struck block B. Above them the sky went from an even slate gray to roiling dark clouds. The bolt hit with a noise like a skyscraper collapsing, and Jane threw her hands over her ringing ears even as she sprinted towards it. She slammed open the door to her room, charging towards the baby’s bassinet only to be greeted by ferocious canine snarls erupting from her wolf crouching over Ian on the ground.
Blue was nowhere to be seen. Ian was on the mattress, unmoving, his belt half undone and shirt ripped to shreds. Allison Card was stumbling back from the wolf, pressing a bleeding hand to her chest, her face ever so slightly not correct. Twisted into a furious snarl, her features were askew—like the skin didn’t lay quite right across the bone and musculature underneath. Sister Mary fell in next to Jane, her nose dribbling thick red blood down her chin and onto her combat habit.
“Allison, back the fuck up.” Jane projected in the most even voice she could muster. Allison slowly, evenly, turned her head without moving any other muscle in her body until their eyes locked and an insidious chill climbed in through Jane’s pupils, down her optic nerve, and into her brain stem. Allison drew herself to full height in the thick, lightning-flavored air.
“But he’s such a pretty man.” Allison’s voice nearly ruptured Jane’s eardrums. “Strong and delicious. He’ll fill my… needs quite well.”
“Listen, dipshit.” Jane hissed. “This is not a negotiation. There is no fucking way I am going to let you touch him.” Jane’s focus bore into the woman’s as her face slipped farther when she frowned, the tug of her lips pulling on the skin where it separated on her forehead. No blood or tendon: the face was loose over smooth, pale nothing underneath. They’d let the wrong one in, and now the Crone was free in Jane’s reality.
And she’d had bread and beer.
Wild desperation thrashed in her lungs. “You are going to leave before I do horrible things to you in the name of protecting the people I love. “
Sister Mary pulled the trigger. Shooting between Ian and the cradle, a solid slug exploded through the Crone’s center of mass: crumbly gobbets dusted the wall behind her in a gritty corona. She clutched at the hole right through her body as red sand poured out like a busted bag of sugar, spilling onto the floor.
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br /> The Crone lifted an elegant hand and stroked the edges of the hole for an instant, covering her fingers in red grit even as the wound began to close, sealing to a puckered slit, then a small blemish, then nothing at all. The Crone’s laughter bubbled as Sister Mary dropped to her knees and began to pray. The words were unintelligible at first, an incessant chant under mind-bending mirth.
“Idiot woman, you think shooting me will matter? Such a simple mind, made for abject obedience and nothing more.”
Jane ground her teeth and grabbed the shotgun from Mary’s hands, pumping the slide and chambering another bullet with a metallic shink. The Crone’s amusement faltered infinitesimally as Jane reached for her impossible power, infusing the gun with white light. Mary’s voice grew stronger, and she finished her prayer with a resounding shout.
“In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. Now get out!”
“I warned you.” Jane shouldered the gun, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
The slug ripped through the Crone’s belly in a splatter of meat and blood, forcing her a few steps back but she didn’t fall. In a horrible instant the Crone covered Allison’s stolen face with one hand, tore it from the blank flesh underneath, and stuffed it into the bullet hole like a stopper in a dam. The wadded skin fused to the cavity, sealing it off, leaving her visage unspeakably smooth, pierced only by two naked eyeballs wobbling in loose sockets.
Jane’s right hand was agony. Glancing at the phantom wound, a hole straight through her palm, made her sour stomach clench and the world go cool and light. She wobbled, trying to get a grip on her churning gut.
Almost lazily, the Crone flicked the grit from her fingers at Jane and Sister Mary. Jane’s skin surged with extranatural light and another puncture wound opened in her shoulder, but the steadfast nun withered on the spot.
It started with the tip of her nose: sun-worn and leathery, turning black like frostbite and ash spreading to eyes shriveling in their sockets. Crow’s feet and smile lines became deep crevasses of desiccation around sharp, abrupt bones until her short silver hair flaked away like ash from the edges of her bandanna. Black rosary beads tumbled to the floor from spoiled hands.
Jane was screaming. The babies were screaming. Ian stirred on the mattress. The door slammed open and a pistol barked three times while new, gritty bullet holes opened on the Crone’s body: two in the chest, one in the head. The gaping wounds shrank to wrinkled dimples, then fresh skin almost as quickly as they opened. Dahl was through the door an instant later, Joyeuse drawn and blazing electric blue. Jane tried to scream a warning as the Crone raised her hand, not flicking sand this time, but in an unmistakable Stop gesture. Dahl stumbled to a numb halt, gorgeous blade clattering to the floor.
“Now here’s a boy.” The Crone’s voice came from somewhere in her chest, vibrating through the room with sickening dissonance. She sauntered to Dahl’s side, petting his hair, gripping his muscular shoulder, grabbing his crotch. “Younger, full of fire, fewer inhibitions.” She glanced at Ian’s prone body with a snarl, and Jane’s heart seized at the twitch of her red-dusted fingers, but Dahl gasped and his eyes rolled and she didn’t take her hands off of him. “Oh, I like you. You’ll take what’s given and beg for more.”
Dahl shook his head as if to clear it, but his eyes smoldered up and down the length of the Crone’s body, his nose gushing blood over pierced lips teasing at a grin.
“Goooood.” She purred. “I can feed your hunger. You’ll be whole again.” A cackle swelled from her belly. “I can see you’ve always preferred older mates—no need to be coy. Tell me, are you clever? Will you make me… laugh?”
The Crone trailed seductive fingers across her body, shrugging boney shoulders out of her shirt, exposing wrinkled breasts and wide, heaving ribs. Dahl was desperately captivated: molten eyes locked on her grisly form.
“Love.” Everest’s voice wavered. “Come back to me.”
Neither Dahl nor the Crone acknowledged him. Jane snatched the babies from their cradle and rushed to the safest spot she could find: inside one of the empty storage bins against the wall. She tucked them away, as far out of harm’s reach as she could get. The wolf followed, taking a protective post while Blue crawled out from her hiding spot in the play nook and silently reached Ian, face nervous and tight. An instant later the ammonia tang of smelling salts pierced the air and Ian stirred, Blue whispering a rush of words in his ear.
The Crone had laced her boney fingers through Dahl’s hand. He jolted when she touched his bare skin, swaying for a heartbeat before vomiting huge gouts of semi-concealed mass—clotted, tendony chunks in a wet, red wash. The sound of it hitting the floor was unbearable. Jane had her eyes shut tight enough to make her face ache after the first gore-soaked instant, but she couldn’t entirely block out the plopping, bursting splatters.
Rustling behind made Jane open her eyes. Ian, in his ruined and disheveled clothing, his face a mask of fury, was edging around the wall. He paced out measured steps with a silent tread while the Crone’s seduction continued as she shed her pants and restlessly twined Dahl’s fingers, heated desire in her lidless eyes. Everest edged forward from the doorway, haunted eyes on the floor.
“Come on, love.” Everest’s cheeks were painted with tears, and his nose was bleeding. “You promised me the rest of your life.” He was shaking so hard Jane prayed he wouldn’t fall. “Focus on your toes.”
The color was receding from Dahl’s hand where his fingers interlaced with the Traveler’s—flesh-tone retreating up his arm and leaving the limb pale and pale and petal pale. Joyeuse lay at his feet like an ultraviolet heartbeat, and Everest approached slowly from the back, wrapping tremoring arms around Dahl’s waist.
“Can you hear me?” Everest’s voice was a murmur, intimate and unguarded. He laid a tear-wet cheek against Dahl’s back, soaking the shirt. “Let go.”
“Ridiculous creature, who would listen to you?” The Crone spat. “You pathetic, sniveling discard—you betrayed my dearest. Now we will leave you to live out your miserable life alone. You will spend decades devastated in the ruins of your mind, your only clear memories failure and loss. Remove that disgusting blade and leave.”
The air was smokey and dark. Jane clenched her fists as Everest obediently stooped to retrieve the sword, studying Joyeuse as if he could reason out a solution from the weird weapon. Thick red tears dribbled down his chin, and blood stained his ears. The colorlessness in Dahl’s arm spread to his shoulder, up his neck, across his heart.
“I am here this time.” Ian’s deep voice filled the room like thunder as he activated the circle with a wash of mercury light. Inside the ring he’d paced out along the edge of the room, silver waves played across the floor. He began to step away, but the circle flickered, quicksilver going pale. Ian’s brow creased, and he took a knee and laid his hands in the stream of magic, antlers blazing as, again, the light swelled. In the cool, pulsing spectrum Jane could see the Crone for what she was: a nightmare, not a god.
Dahl shook his head again, blood flying, hunger replaced by a ragged determination. His golem arm shot behind him, grabbing Joyeuse around the blade.
The Crone slapped her thigh with her free hand, shaking with laughter. “Sweet man: you can’t change. Anger and lust and insatiable hunger—that’s why my son chose you and it’s why you will choose me. Would you fight who you are every day for the rest of your life?”
Dahl’s clear eyes flicked to Ian, and for a moment he shone with joy. When he spoke, his voice was clear and practiced, reciting familiar words. “Why would I want to be the lover of a flimsy door that the wind blows through, a crumbling foundation that topples the wall, tar that blackens the hands of the workers, a water jar full of holes that soils its bearer, a battering ram that shatters the gate of a friendly city, a shoe that mangles the foot of the man who wears it? Which of your men did you love forever? Who could satisfy your desires?” The Crone’s blank face betrayed no emotion as Dahl leaned in. “Why should I eat this…” his eyes flick
ed up and down her one more time, “rotten meal of yours? What can you offer but the bread of dishonor and the beer of shame? If I became your lover, you would treat me cruelly.” The practiced tone dropped, and his words became sharp and natural. “You said you loved Mordred, but I felt him cringe and suffer. You did that. You used him and robbed him of his life, not me. So am I going to fight to be a good person every day until I die?” Dahl’s eyes glittered and his lips lifted in a radiant grin. “Fuck, yes. That’s what it means to be human.” The color was still in his face, flushed with adrenaline-blunted pain, blood flowing from his ears and staining his bleached-white shirt. He released the blade back to Everest’s trembling hands. “Everest, don’t let her take me, and don’t you dare use magic again. You’ve made promises too.”
The Crone shifted, placing Dahl squarely between her and Joyeuse, wrenching her hand free as Dahl caught it with his golem arm mid gesture.
“Stay.” The Crone snarled through a haze of black smoke as she yanked the resin appendage with an audible crack, the clear arm clouding, butterflies falling apart. Dahl’s nostrils flared and he was panting hard, dazed and unfocused, frozen in place, while Everest brought Joyeuse up, pausing with the tip between Dahl’s shoulder blades. His eyes were dark, calculating, and just a little too wide.
“Do it!” Dahl’s voice was almost lost under Ian’s commanding shouts of NO! and Jane’s inarticulate scream. A fierce grin split Everest’s lips as Joyeuse’s weak light flashed off a silver and black rectangular dog tag hanging down Dahl’s back.
“Dahl!” The word from Everest’s lungs was like an epiphany, an oath, a benediction. With the tip of the black light sword, he scratched shallow marks through the saline-anointed fabric into Dahl’s back. “You said it didn’t matter, but this is the name you gave yourself. You are free to decide who you are and make your own choices.” Everest’s eyes locked on the Crone, hard and contemptuous. “You can’t take that from him anymore. No one can. Now get out.”