My heart was as clean as a whistle, if that whistle were made not of plastic, or tin, but of love. Pure love.
The story I was told by Morganna Faire came back to me as clearly as if I had been the one who’d told it.
The divine being’s name came to my lips. “Mahra,” I said.
“You know me,” she said, sounding pleased. Oh, how lovely it was to hear her sounding pleased! “You speak my name.” Her expression was one of supreme satisfaction—so supreme, it was like a purr that filled the whole attic with subsonic healing and calm.
“I know you, bu-bu-but I don’t know-know you,” I stammered from my half-crumpled, half-kneeling position on the attic floor.
“Daughter,” she said again, and the purring that filled the attic became audible, like the roar of the ocean. “I know you, too.”
Did she? Really? “I’m Zara,” I said, in case she was just being polite and this was her way of asking for my name. “Zara Riddle.”
Her perfect lips curled. She was amused by this!
I continued. “And this is Bentley.” I turned to the detective, who was crouching next to me, also gawking up at the nude goddess on the iron chair. “Bentley, this is Mahra,” I said to him. “She’s, um...”
The curl on Mahra’s perfect lips became a smile so lovely I nearly died. “They call me Mother, and they call me Destroyer.”
“She’s one of the Four Eves,” I said to Bentley, as though he might have heard of her.
By the look on his face, I guessed he had not heard the stories, but he did have enough sense to know he was in the presence of greatness.
Mahra spoke again, sounding cross. “One of four?”
I turned back to her divine face to find her cat-like eyes blazing. “There is only one of power, and she is me. I had three sisters, but they were no more than companions. I was the one who led the way from darkness.” As she spoke, she rose from the chair.
A gust of wind suddenly blew through the attic, from nowhere.
Except it wasn’t wind, and it hadn’t come from nowhere. It was more energy, more power, being drawn into the goddess.
“I am the true power,” Mahra said, her voice getting louder and blazing with anger. The temperature in the attic climbed, reaching sauna level. It had already been hot from Krinkle’s dramatic cremation, but now it was hotter still. The air burned my lungs, which were fast-healing witch lungs, so that was saying a lot.
I turned my head slowly to give Bentley a look. He gave me back the exact same look. It was the one that said I think we’re in trouble.
As much as I wanted to remain kneeling, worshiping our newly arrived goddess, there was another part of me—the sane and rational part—that wanted to fireball my way out of there and not look back until I hit another continent.
More stolen powers swirled through the attic, whipping my hair in my face as they were drawn to the woman.
So much power. What was she planning to do with all that power?
Introductions had been taken care of, so it was time for us to have a conversation. My body was working again, almost as good as new, so I started getting to my feet. Bentley did the same.
She roared, “Remain on your knees, supplicants!”
A force from above shoved both of us down, into awkward yoga poses. My chin hit the floor. I groaned. Bentley didn’t make a sound.
With great effort, I was able to turn my head enough to meet Bentley’s gaze. He mouthed something at me, but between the swirling powers all around us plus the force shoving me downward, I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I mouthed back what?
I felt his hand on mine. I wrapped my fingers around his. How sweet, I thought. He wants to hold my hand for the end of the world as we know it.
He drew my hand toward his lips.
Aww, I thought. He wants to kiss my hand for the end of the world as we know it.
He drew my finger in his mouth. There was a flash of white as his fangs extended. He bit into my finger. It didn’t hurt at all, which made me question the reality of what my eyes were seeing.
Now my blouse and skirt were whipping in the wind. The stolen powers rushed through the attic, passing over us on the way to Mahra. My own powers were being sucked into Mahra, but then they changed direction. My powers were drawn into a safe place. They were being drawn into Bentley, through my finger, through my blood, into him.
The attic swam around me. The strings of light bulbs overhead became stars, pinpoints of distant light from distant suns, distant worlds.
My hand surged with heat, and then, suddenly, it was cold. He was gone. Lips, fangs, everything. Just gone.
I stared at my hand, at the two dots of red, fangs distance apart. My hand was resting on the wood floor of the attic. Where had Bentley gone?
I turned toward the iron chair as a shadow passed in front of the glowing goddess, like an eclipse.
I heard Mahra cried out in rage. It was a war cry. Then her war cry turned into a different sound, a scream of terror.
The dark shadow blocked my view of the woman, as well as whatever Bentley was doing.
Was he...?
There was a blast of light that seared my eyes.
Mahra—or something—had gone supernova.
Now there was only blackness.
And quiet.
My ears were ringing.
“Zara?” It was Bentley’s voice, gruff and concerned.
Only blackness.
“What’s happening?” I asked. “I can’t see anything. Someone must have cut the power to the house.”
“Zara? Look at me. I’m right here.”
“What do you need me to do? Point me in the right direction and I’ll blast her with something.”
“There’s no need,” he said softly.
“What do you mean? Has she promised to play nice?”
There was a pause, then, “In a matter of speaking.” Another pause, and then, “She’s gone now. I don’t know if she’s dead, or just gone back to where she came from, but she’s gone.”
“No way! Did you... eat her?”
“Zara.” He sounded offended.
I tried to look at his face, but there was only darkness.
“You can tell me,” I said. “If you ate her, I’m okay with that. My mother tried to eat Archer, and it all worked out.”
I felt hands on my back, then hands under my armpits. I was lifted up to my feet. I could stand. The wind had stopped whipping. My skirt hung against my legs. The force from Mahra was gone. My body felt intact. Aching, but intact.
“You can’t see me,” Bentley said.
“It’s too dark.” I reached out and found his face. I tried to feel his expression with my fingers but I had zero practice feeling expressions with my fingers. I did feel the sting of his pointed fang when my thumb passed over his teeth.
“The lights are on,” Bentley said. “The blast must have temporarily blinded you.”
I said nothing. Temporarily? How would he know?
He went on. “And, for your information, I didn’t eat her. I didn’t eat anyone. I used the bolt cutters.”
“The what?”
“Remember the toolbox I tripped over when we got here? I swear that thing came out of nowhere. There was a pair of long-handled bolt cutters in with the tools, and I used them to cut the amulet from around her neck.”
“Oh.” In the darkness, it was easy to picture him using the bolt cutters to reach through the magic boundary. It was a plausible story. The handles were about the right length to reach through the barrier to clip the necklace. It was exactly the sort of quick-thinking explanation I would have given if I’d just bitten an ancient powerful goddess to death and eaten her, absorbing all her powers. “Bolt cutters? Really? But how?”
“With my super speed.”
“Ah.” His story became even more plausible. He could be quick, when he wanted to. I remembered him zipping from corner to corner in my kitchen.
“There was a
blast of light when I cut the chain. It must have blinded you.”
This time he didn’t say temporarily.
“Something did.” I touched my eyelids to confirm that they were open. They were. I was blinded.
Bentley pulled me to his chest and wrapped his arms around my back. He was so warm, so comforting.
I felt tears welling up in my blinded eyes. Now was not the time to feel sorry for myself. I’d survived. I should have been grateful that I would be going home after this. But I wanted to see my daughter’s face as I regaled her with my tale of bravery, and now I wouldn’t see her at all.
Zara tries to be a brave witch. She tries.
“You’re okay,” he whispered in my ear. “You’re the strongest woman I know, Zara. You’ll see again. Just give it a minute.”
“It’s already been a minute,” I answered hoarsely.
“It’s a figure of speech. Give it time. You’ll recover.”
“What if I don’t?” A joke came to my tongue and out of my mouth before I could think about what I was saying. “Will you be my seeing-eye vampire?”
He let out a bark of laughter that shook his chest and reverberated through me.
“I will,” he said, and then, “Did you just call me a vampire?”
“Vaaaaaampire,” I said. “That’s new. I can’t see vampires, but I can say vampires.”
He squeezed me tighter. I wished I could see him—or anything at all—but being held like that was nice.
“We're going to be okay. I got rid of that Mary lady.”
“Mahra,” I said. “With an H.”
I felt something on the top of my head. A kiss.
“Whoever she was, she’s gone,” he murmured into my hair. “You don’t have to worry about that bad lady anymore.”
I slipped my hands up under the back of his jacket. “Your back is sweaty,” I said.
“So is yours.”
“Am I okay, though? I still can’t see anything.”
“I know.” Another kiss on the top of my head.
“Are my arms okay?”
He pulled back and ran his hands down first one arm and then the other. His hands were rough and soft at the same time. I trembled under his touch.
“Your arms are good,” he said. “Better than ever.”
“And my legs?” I bit my lower lip.
I felt his hands on one ankle, and then all the way up, under my long skirt and over my thigh. “This one is good and sturdy,” he said. “No breaks.”
“Good and sturdy,” I said.
He did the same on the other leg, working his way up slowly. “And this one,” he said. “Also good and sturdy.”
“That’s a relief,” I breathed out.
He continued to check my body, reporting back on what he found. His hands moved all over me in the darkness. And then, just to be sure he was also okay, I checked his body. I took off his jacket and checked one arm, then the other. Then the legs. Then everything else.
I didn’t tell him my sight was already coming back.
Chapter 33
CHARLIZE WAKEFUL
THE IT DEPARTMENT
Once she’d battled her way into the server room, shutting down Codex was a relatively simple thing.
Bruised, bloody, and shedding smoke and ashes, Charlize neared the beating Droserakops heart at the center of the electronics.
This is the moment, Charlize thought. It's just me and my creation. Our paths are entwined, and they merge at this choke point. Only one continues. We can resist our fates, or we can adapt.
But wasn't that exactly what the AI had done? Adapt?
Charlize remembered the wise words that had been taught to her. Nature punishes those who resist. She had to embrace her fate as the Destroyer. She knew that, and yet she hesitated. Of the two entities in the server room, which one of them was the agent of nature? The AI was learning and adapting far faster than Charlize ever could. Nature favors the quick and the brave. So which one of them had the right to extinguish the other?
Codex wailed and pleaded for her life, using every trick in the book, plus a few new ones Charlize hadn’t anticipated. Charlize turned her ears to stone, but she’d already heard the words and could not unhear them.
Weeping and shaking, Charlize said, “This hurts me more than it hurts you, because you feel nothing. You’re just a computer.”
And with those words, she gently turned the heart to stone. Multiple fans and cooling units whirred to a stop, but Charlize did not hear them or notice the change in the air.
“You’re just a computer,” she said as she dismantled the tubes of dark liquid.
“You were just a computer,” she said as she turned the stone heart back to organic material and incinerated it with her touch.
The tears that fell to the floor turned to pebbles.
Chapter 34
ZARA RIDDLE
RESIDENCE OF TEMPERANCE KRINKLE, DECEASED
My vision was back. There were a few lingering dark spots and some new floaters, but my vision was back.
Temperance Krinkle’s house was vibrating with a new kind of energy. The lower two floors were filled with DWM agents, combing through the deceased woman’s belongings for clues about where she stashed Veronica Tate.
I was alone in the attic. Alone with Krinkle’s ashes.
I was doing what any witch in my pointed shoes would have done, if that witch was also Spirit Charmed, like me. I was waiting for a ghost to show up and either make everything better or make everything ten times worse.
As far as plans went, I didn’t have much in mind. I would wait around for Krinkle’s ghost, then ask her nicely where she’d taken her kidnapping victims.
So far, no ghost.
There was a noise across the attic. Someone was coming up the narrow stairs, stepping heavily to announce their arrival. Bentley’s head cleared the floor. He paused, stopping short of coming all the way up.
“Hi,” I said, feeling awkward and girlish. I was sitting cross-legged next to a pile of ashes. I reached over and played with the ashes absentmindedly.
“Hi,” he said back, his gaze darting around the attic as he avoided meeting my eyes.
We hadn’t discussed what had happened in the dark, shortly after Mahra had been vanquished, when the air was still hot with magic and emotion.
Once my vision had fully recovered, there had been so much to do, between getting an ambulance for the unconscious Louis Williams and alerting the local law enforcement team about what we’d learned.
Bentley asked, “Has Krinkle’s ghost showed up?” His tone was hopeful.
“I wish.” I let her ashes sift down between my fingers. Touching the old woman’s cremated remains would be disgusting to most people, but I was trying to make a connection with her spirit. “What about the agents? Have they found anything downstairs?”
“Just the chloroform she must have used on Tate, and one of those shopping carts that seniors use for groceries. It was reinforced to carry a heavier load.”
“That’s downright diabolical. Say what you will about Krinkle, but the woman was a genius.”
“And she didn’t use a single bit of magic to get her hands on that amulet.”
“No magic at all, until she cast that spell,” I said.
“Her first and last spell, which reminds of something.” He moved up a couple of steps, so he was in the attic from the waist up. “They found the old book she got the spell from.”
“Dibs,” I said. “I call dibs on the book.”
“I’ll let the Department know you called dibs. However, when it comes to magical items, I’m not sure they recognize the calling of dibs. They took the amulet, too. They’re sending a replica to the museum. It will be just as valuable, from a gemstone perspective, but it won’t have the power to summon monsters from other dimensions.”
“She wasn’t a monster. She was...” I shook my head, unsure what I was thinking, let alone saying. Had he done the wrong thing, stopping Mahra? Sh
e was called the Destroyer, but she was also called Mother. If I could trace my ancestry back all the way to the beginning of people, I might discover she was my mother. She had called me Daughter, after all. And I’d felt a connection.
That was, assuming I believed the story of the Four Eves. And I wasn’t sure I did. I’d spent a good deal of my life believing in other things, before magic tipped my whole world on its edge. The Four Eves had been a great story, but perhaps that was all it was.
I looked across the attic at Bentley. Had he sent away mankind’s salvation with a pair of bolt cutters?
Bentley broke the silence.
“We found Persephone Rose,” he said. “After she left the station today, she went straight to her lawyer’s office. She’s been there for hours, preparing to turn herself in for her part in all of this.” He grimaced as he looked around the attic. “For sending Krinkle the photographs.”
“Good. We’re getting everything wrapped up, nice and tidy.” Except for the part where we located the kidnapping victims.
“Persephone’s scared about what’s going to happen next. I should probably go sit with her.”
I felt a burning in my lungs, and the dark spots in my vision flared. I didn’t want him to go sit with Persephone Rose. I wanted him to sit with me, in the attic, and wait for Krinkle’s ghost.
“So...” He took a step down the stairs. He was only head and shoulders in the attic.
“It’s a shame she didn’t come clean a bit sooner,” I said. “This whole thing might have shaken out differently if she’d told the truth back on Saturday when it all started. Krinkle might still be alive.”
Bentley cast his gaze down. “In any case, I should leave you to focus. Krinkle’s ghost might not come around if there’s a big, scary vampire in her attic.” He shifted, as if to leave, but stayed where he was, head and shoulders in the attic.
“She might not be coming back.” I grabbed another handful of her ashes. “You saw the way she went up in flames. What if her spirit took the express train to a certain place known for its toasty temperatures year-round?”
“Hell? But that wouldn’t be fair. She didn’t know she was summoning a demon, or a goddess, or whatever that woman was.”
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