“Long day, buddy,” I said, scratching Blue’s furry head. His tail thumped appreciatively against the carpet.
I laughed at myself. Long day? My entire precinct was slaughtered by a crazed, magical something-or-other and I dared to call it just a long day?
Part of my brain wanted to give a more descriptive answer, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant self-conversation, so I just plunked myself down on the couch and turned on the TV. I needed some background noise. It was already turned to the news. Nothing had been mentioned yet about the precinct, or the magical creature that was definitely responsible, or the infamous fairy’s deployment and subsequent survival of the magical catastrophe—but it probably hadn’t come up yet.
Hades, this was a disaster in every sense of the word. They had to think it was me, and it was no secret that I hated basically everybody there. Sure, they hated me first, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t physically there, but rumors abounded of my alleged ability to be in two places at once, and my presumed hatred for the human race.
Dulcie O’Neil, that crazy shadow monster from the news? She’d totally be down for mauling her coworkers into globs of Jell-O like a sociopathic bear. Just another day at the office.
Happy thoughts, Dulcie, happy thoughts.
Okay, I thought, okay, get up. Go shower or something. Don’t just sit here or you’ll go crazy.
I dragged myself through the apartment to the bathroom, staring at the carpet as I walked stiffly. Off-white, it was new enough to still feel squishy. I made it to the bedroom, kicked off my shoes, shrugged off everything else, and stepped into the bathroom. I smelled like smoke, blood, stale air, disinfectant, latex, and the metallic tang of busted computer parts.
I turned the shower on and stepped under the flow when the water was still cold. I didn’t care. I just stood under the nozzle for a long time, letting it wash away everything that insisted on clinging to my skin. I shampooed my hair until apple-cinnamon was the only thing I could smell and the mirror fogged up three times over. I stood in the comforting steam for what felt like hours, just staring at my fuzzy reflection and trying my best not to think about the most recent images my brain received. My stomach hurt like a bitch and I was crazy light-headed.
I dried, dressed, and staggered back out into the living room, running my hand through wet, tangled hair. Blue was at my heels as I made my way to the couch and plunked myself down on it. He rested his head on my knee and wagged his tail, whining softly.
“Hey, sweetie,” I said, patting the couch beside me. Blue was up in a second, licking my face before settling down in my lap, and draping his fluffy tail over the edge of the cushion.
I scratched his head and stared at the wall, ignoring the muted television beneath it. The weatherman was bemoaning the perpetually warm California summer and pointing eagerly at the one day this year when it might actually rain. For most of the state, the forecast was inaccurate—there were only ten square miles that might see a water-spritzer drizzle. So everyone was prepared for more drought and heat. More than half the roads within a hundred miles of Splendor were basically just dirt and rocks, ever open to the harshest elements.
Blue stuck his nose in my stomach and sniffed me. Then he buried it in my shirt, possibly trying to figure out why the hell the new cinnamon flavor was all over me. Somewhere underneath the cinnamon, the energy from the precinct still clung to me like the odor of sweat. It faded the further away I got from work, but it was still there, seeping into my clothes and hair. The shower couldn’t do much to counter the stench. It wrapped around my stomach and squeezed me like a vice, sitting in the back of my throat and tasting of sour medicine. I recognized it; it was really familiar like a face from a nightmare, but I just couldn’t place it—
Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
My emotions swept through me like a cold wind. My skin prickled and turned hot. My vision blurred, focused, and faded in and out. My heart was pounding while my lungs busily sucked in air until they burned. Bones frozen in place, they cracked like spring ice when I moved.
I was beginning to experience one of the nastiest side effects of having too much monster blood pumped into you.
She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s supposed to be dead.
Darkness, sour air. The conspicuous absence of color. The absence of anything combined with the undeniable presence of something, and a stubborn cold that burrows into your bones.
Hades, I’m so stupid, of course she’s not dead.
I stood up from the couch, and the room spun around me before I fell forward onto my hands and knees. Breathe, I thought as I crawled to the end of the couch where I dropped my phone. I picked it up and unlocked it. Fingers trembling, my stupid bloodstream sensed my panic and made the phone twist before setting it on fire, as if it were daring it to scream.
I called Sam.
She answered in two rings.
“Hey, hon,” she said sweetly. “What’s up?”
I took a rasping breath. My voice came out in spurts. I had a minute, maybe two, before this got really bad. “Meg is alive,” I said. “And I think she just killed everybody in my precinct.”
FIVE
Dulcie
Supernatural duality has quirky side effects. To say the very least.
There’s only so much a single body, even a magical body, can handle—vampirism and fae blood alone don’t mix well… less like oil and water and more like fire consuming all the air and leaving an endless vacuum of dead space.
Maybe it was due to the realization that Meg was still alive and worse still, that she was responsible for what happened at the precinct but suddenly, I wasn’t doing so hot.
Every part of my body was trying to burn, strangle, or drown every other part. Mix that kind of dissonance with Draconian, Lycan, and Dryadic bloods and vapors, not to mention, a host of other simmering fluids that really shouldn’t have been in my bloodstream, and you wind up with a murder-mystery cocktail, capable of exploding like a nuclear facility and leaving me with the worst hangover.
Add a fair dose of fear, a general sense of doom, and the self-conscious hesitation of a fourteen-year-old girl, and you get… well, you get this. It had happened a few times since D.C., every time I got too angry, irritated, frightened, or worried. If an emotion got out of hand and manifested in my blood, it relentlessly began pulling every other urge and impulse from my body until one of them reigned supreme. I would have to surrender to the emotional integrity of a teenage werewolf, and the depressive sloth of a vampire with too much time on her hands, and the bloody thirst for vengeance that most people connected with the drakes.
Right now, I was the angry teenager. Adrenaline pumping through me, every part of my brain was ablaze and bright red. Angry, angry, angry! Scratching the carpet, I left deep gouges in the wood beneath. The only thing I lacked were big headphones and a Jonas Brothers poster…
There was also lots and lots of fear, but werewolves are prideful creatures, so hell if I dared admit that, even to myself.
By the time Sam got to my apartment, I was a mess—and by that, I mean, I was in complete emotional meltdown. Sitting in the middle of the living room, I was trying really hard not to tear everything in the building to shreds—including some of the people who lived in it and their unsuspecting pets. I could hear a cat on the lower floors mewing quietly, ostensibly sensing all the hostile werewolf hormones my body was pumping into the ventilation system. Even poor Blue was huddled in the corner of my bedroom on the other side of the apartment, growling and baring his teeth.
The door opened and closed before Sam sat on the floor beside me, her hands on my arms, shushing me softly. I jumped when she first touched me.
“Hey, hon,” she said softly. “It’s Sam.”
Samantha White. Short, brown hair and sand-white skin. Academic wicca extraordinaire, a witch formerly in the employ of the Association of Netherworld Creatures—chiefly in the business of potion detection and neutralization. She identified all the bad potions and played a
large part in the long, arduous process that ultimately destroyed them. She was also our primary medic. Currently, she was working in a government research facility with witches, warlocks, and human scientists, all seeking solutions for the influx of scary problems with too-many-teeth—the least of which was me.
“It’s Sam, Dulcie,” she repeated.
I nodded. I wasn’t that far gone.
“Don’t worry. I’m right here. You’re going to be just fine. Can you hear me okay?”
I nodded again.
“Good. That’s very good. I’m going into the kitchen, okay?”
Another nod.
“Good,” she repeated as she stood. I heard her unzip a bag and pull something out, which she set on the counter with a loud clink. “Look around and tell me five colors you can see.” She popped the lid off something powdery, emitting a garlicky puff that made her sneeze.
“Red,” I said, my voice guttural, like it was being dragged through a bed of angry regret and rusty nails.
“Okay,” she said casually and conversational. She began opening more jars filled with leaves and stones and wings and reptile legs; basically she was equipped with all varieties of classic arcane supplements. Everything smelled earthy and wet. “Four more.”
“Four more what?”
“Four more colors,” she replied. “Can you do that for me?”
I looked around. “Red,” I repeated, squinting at the room. Everything was the color of blood, including the couches, carpet, walls, curtains, window and the black sky beyond… Wait…
“Black,” I said, locking onto the sky. “Black. Black.” The word seemed heavy in my mouth. Fuck, she’s alive, Meg’s alive and she’s back. She’s no doubt looking for me; that has to be why she was at the precinct at all.
“Good,” she said. “I like black. It’s very slimming.” She dropped a handful of clacking items that looked like scales into the glassy bowl. It was the blood-spiral bowl she used for creature-specific healing potions. There was a small explosion. “Three more?”
Three more, I thought.
“Dulcie? Can you look at me?”
I stared back at her. My breath sputtering out of my lungs on rattling tracks.
“Good,” she said, smiling. A thin haze of purple surrounded her, shining softly. Glitter hung in front of her eyes like stars. “I want you to push all the air out of your lungs. Can you do that for me, hon?”
“What’s that smell?” I asked as my nose turned up to sniff more.
“Bleeding heart flowers, eggs, cloves, and plasma,” she said. “Can you push all the air out of your lungs?”
All the air. I nodded as I exhaled.
“Slowly,” she said. I blew the air out through my teeth, almost whistling. She nodded and smiled. “Perfect. That’s exactly right, you’re doing great, sweetie. Is all the air out?”
I nodded;
“Okay. I want you to breathe from your diaphragm,” she said. “Inhale very slowly until it hurts. Can you do that for me?” Another small explosion, this one accompanied by a blue flash of light.
I nodded and started to inhale. My stomach ballooned out, then my chest as my shoulders rose. Inhaling until I couldn’t anymore, and my lungs were close to bursting, I waited for the next step.
“Hold it for three seconds,” said Sam. “One… two… three… Now exhale slowly. Blow it out gradually through your lips, and that’s it.”
The air left me, and the red started to fade from my vision. The couch was grey again, the walls were blue, and the curtains a transparent beige.
“Can you tell me three more colors you see?”
“Yeah,” I answered, “beige. Blue. Grey.”
“Where are those colors?”
“The curtains, the walls, and the couch.”
“Awesome,” said Sam, “That was great! Can you take another really big breath for me? Blow all the air out, then suck it back in like we just did. But very slowly, okay?”
All the way out. All the way in. Hold for three seconds, blow it all back out. Behind me, Sam was chanting something under her breath—Latin or Sumerian, one of those ancient languages people only used when they cursed the laws of the natural world. Not something she used very often.
“Now tell me four things you can hear,” she instructed.
“Ceiling fan,” I responded. “Your breathing. Your heartbeat. My heartbeat.” Like thunder over the savannah. The resting heartrate of a werewolf is three times faster than that of an average human—and I had enough adrenaline inside me to run from here to Florida and back again and still manage to murder everybody within a hundred miles of my apartment complex. And probably their dogs too.
“Good,” she said. “Can you listen to my heartbeat?”
I nodded. Thump… thump… thump…
“Can you still hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good. Can you tap out its beat on the floor for me?”
Tap… tap… tap… tap… Her heart was slow, steady. Calm. Sam remained always perfectly controlled even during a crisis.
She broke something open that smelled like ice cream and pine, spices and winter.
Thumpity thump thump, thumpity thump thump, look at Frosty go, I thought, and I started drumming that out instead.
“Good,” she said. “Take another deep breath. Yes, that’s fine, that’s so good… Now tell me three things you can touch.”
“My shirt,” I said slowly. “The carpet. My hair…” It was matted to my forehead with sweat. Reeking too, but maybe only to my werewolf acute sense of smell.
Sam sat down next to me, a tall glass of raspberry-pink slush in her hand. “Here. Drink this.”
I sniffed it and recoiled as an honest-to-Hades growl escaped my throat. “All of it?”
Sam nodded, her expression placid. “All of it,” she said, holding out the glass to me.
I took it, afraid I might crush the glass and spill the suspicious pink smoothie on the plush carpet. I didn’t need to be yelled at by the landlord—who was already more than unhappy to lease his property to a dangerous fairy-monster hybrid in the first place.
“Drink,” said Sam.
“Right,” I answered and I drank. Slowly. Whatever she put together was sickeningly sweet. It looked and tasted like Pepto-Bismol. I gagged and she patted my back softly.
“It’s okay,” she said, “you’re doing great. Just keep drinking it. That’s right.”
I handed the empty glass back to her, swallowing hard when the aftertaste lingered. It sat heavily in my stomach for a moment, and I worried I wouldn’t keep it down—but a moment later, the feeling vanished, and my stomach turned icy cold.
“Tell me five colors you can see,” said Sam.
On and on she went, talking me through deep breaths, anchoring me to the room. Slowly but surely, she pulled me out of my stupor. It might have been minutes or hours, but eventually, I looked up and all the red was gone. My heart was still hammering, but it was running at its own pace, and I could feel the adrenaline dissipating, leaving me trembling.
“Dulcie?” Sam asked as she studied me intently. “How do you feel?”
“Good,” I answered slowly. “I’m back to myself, I think. I’m… I’m pretty good, Sam.”
She smiled. “Great. I’m going to get you a glass of water, okay?”
“Okay.” My throat was raw and my voice sounded so quiet.
She got up and walked to the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and turned on the faucet. She came back a second later with a tall, cold glass.
“Drink it slowly,” she said, and I did. When it was all gone, I set it on the carpet, sighing. Sam observed me for a long time, her arms wrapped around her knees. Not saying anything, just listening to me breathe.
Eventually, she said, “Can you talk now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s start with what you told me on the phone.”
I nodded. “My precinct was attacked.”
“Yeah
, I saw it on the news.”
“I don’t know by what. But blood was all over the place. And… everything was broken. Including computers and windows and tables. Everything was totally destroyed.”
Sam nodded, looking at me attentively. Clearly desperate to ask me about Meg, but holding back, and letting me walk myself through the worst of it.
“Okay,” she said when I stayed quiet.
I swallowed. “And there were eyes missing. And teeth and arms pulled off. Just like that shapeshifter all over again.”
If that description spooked her, she didn’t let it show. Fagen—the first shapeshifter’s victim—wasn’t a friend to either of us, but a ruthless mauling like this could evoke pity in anyone.
She blinked and gave me the smallest nod, waiting for me to continue.
But I couldn’t. I stopped and stared at the carpet, seeing the red spatters in everything. Empty sockets and gaping red mouths, arms and legs thrown across the room, discarded and inconsequential. Everything was doused in the odors of rust and vinegar. The captain’s face, angled at mine, saw nothing, but accused me of the one crime I hadn’t committed…
“Dulcie?”
I looked up. Sam reached for my face, wiping away tears I hadn’t noticed falling. I blinked them away, rubbing them off on my sleeve.
“It’s okay,” said Sam. “Take your time.”
I sighed. It was a long while before I could inhale regularly again.
“Let’s go back,” she said. “What happened before the precinct was attacked?”
“Before,” I answered slowly. “Before I left with my partner, I was waiting for him. Henry. Henry Cotton. New kid. Young and gullible, but… you know, he seems nice. He just has a long way to go.”
“That’s nice to hear,” she said. “We need more good people. Go on.”
What Screams May Come Page 6