A Wild Light

by Marjorie Liu

  “Bullets aren’t better,” I replied, and drank from the last cup tested; a slow sip that burned my lips and the inside of my mouth. I glanced at the others. “It’s okay.”

  Grant’s mouth twitched into a faint smile, which took me off guard. So did the fact that I almost smiled back. Just a little. Like this was some game. Which it was, but nothing that should have inspired kicks and giggles.

  Don’t know you. Better off not knowing you, I told him silently as he picked up a cup. Killy tapped her foot a little harder and gestured with her chin toward the zombie who had brought the coffee. “Don’t. He just took a shit and didn’t wash his hands. In fact, he smelled them afterward.”

  Grant hesitated. I put down my cup. The zombie edged away from the table and Blood Mama, who also stared at her coffee.

  “Awkward,” I said.

  Blood Mama’s hand shot out and grabbed the zombie’s wrist. His aura sputtered like a flame, and sweat broke out on his pale forehead. He did not try to break free, though—frozen, frozen like a rabbit—and I sensed a shift in the other zombies, a hunger in their eyes that reminded me of a mob watching an execution. Horror and excitement, a strange arousal: the promise of a good feeding.

  “Bad child,” Blood Mama whispered. “I like this host. If I wanted it polluted with filth, I would find a sewer to roll in.”

  Her pale hand tightened. I heard a crack—bone, I thought—but that was the snap of the zombie’s breath in his human lungs as his head snapped back, mouth open, eyes rolling in his head. His aura flared once, brilliantly dark, like a prairie storm cloud—and then sucked inward until it was the size of a fist. A scream vomited out of him, choking off into a strangled sob. Grant pushed back his chair.

  “Stop this,” he said, deadly quiet. “Give him to me if you don’t want him, but stop this.”

  I stared. Blood Mama’s lips peeled back over her teeth in a grotesque smile. “Another pet, Lightbringer? No. This one’s mine.”

  She yanked hard on the zombie’s arm, and he fell on his knees, mumbling and weeping. His aura writhed, cut with streaks of frantic light. Blood Mama leaned forward and slammed her mouth against his. Not a kiss. A feeding. Her aura surrounded the other zombie in a storm of red lightning, and I thought—I marveled—that any human could be so blind not to see this, or feel it, or fear it.

  Grant reached for his cane, like he was going to stand. I grabbed his arm. He shot me a hard, haunted look—but it was too late for whatever the hell he thought he was going to do. I heard a popping sound. The human host collapsed on the floor at Blood Mama’s feet, still pricked by her aura. She kicked at the body with one red heel—and dabbed delicately at her lips.

  I knelt and touched his neck. Found a strong pulse. Just unconscious. He would wake with amnesia, and a host of sins on his shoulders—sins he’d have no memory committing. I felt completely sympathetic.

  “Mmmm,” she murmured. “I should do that more often.”

  “You ate your own child,” Grant said.

  “I’ll make another.” Blood Mama snapped her fingers, and a second zombie rushed forward to take away the coffee. “Now, what were we discussing?”

  “Nothing,” I said, returning to my chair—giving Grant a warning look. “Though it’s no coincidence you’re here.”

  “Why, did something happen?” Blood Mama smiled, still rubbing her lips. “Oh, yes. Jack.”

  “Jack,” I echoed. “Word travels fast.”

  “Depends on the word.” She glanced around the bar, her demeanor careless, relaxed. her fingers trailing up her leg, as though she couldn’t stop touching her stolen human skin. “You mentioned coincidence, but that’s merely a path finding its proper course. Call it destiny. And I am here, Hunter, because I felt something disturbing cross my path. All the way in the veil.”

  I leaned back in my chair, holding her gaze. “So you brought an army with you. Seems overdone. You and I both know we’re not allowed to kill each other.”

  She tilted her head, mouth quirked with either puzzlement or amusement—and I wondered what I had said wrong. I glanced at those zombies standing around the bar, none of whom could meet my gaze. Auras shrank when I looked at them.

  And when they looked at Grant.

  I sat up straighter. “Last time I saw this many demons in a bar, I was eight years old. I’m sure you heard about that encounter.”

  Her red lips thinned. “Your mother should have killed you when she saw what you were capable of. She was young enough to have another child. A safer child.”

  “But you got me.”

  Blood Mama waved a dismissive hand—but the glint in her eyes was anything but. “Let’s not waste time on the past. Your bloodline has always been an abomination. But a useful one. Even the war with those Avatar skins proved beneficial to me and mine. How else would we have thrived all these thousands of years while the rest of the old Lords were locked tight in their prisons?”

  She leaned forward, her aura dancing with such quiet violence, I felt the table vibrate. “You and I both know the veil is cracking. Only a matter of time before the inner rings break, and the army goes free. And now those Avatars . . . those skins . . . will be returning, as well. Drawn by the murders of their own kind, here on earth. At both your hands.” Blood Mama glanced at Grant. “Which is worse, I wonder? We, who want to eat you? Or those who wish to play with you?”

  I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t even certain I could look at Grant, but I did, wondering who the hell he was—what he was. And maybe I wasn’t careful, maybe I showed too much on my face, because I glanced back at Blood Mama and found her watching me with that same puzzled glint. And then, slowly, her gaze slid sideways to Grant.

  “I’m sure you have an opinion,” she remarked, softly. “Seeing as how you’ll be the first person the Avatars enslave.”

  “I think you should be more worried about yourself,” Grant rumbled. “Seeing as how I’ve made no bargains not to kill you.”

  “You talk so dirty. I don’t suppose you’re ready for me yet? I could do so much with your body.”

  “I could do so much with yours.” Every word he spoke hummed through me, low and sonorous, making the boys shift against my skin, stretching themselves as though they were cats wrapped around a fireplace. Tingling warmth settled into my bones—and in my heart. A tug, like something clung there, pulling outward, toward him. I didn’t know what it meant, but it felt real as a hand gripping my wrist, or the wind, or sunlight.

  Blood Mama’s eyes narrowed. “I did not come here for that. I will not let you control me.”

  “You won’t have a choice,” he said coldly. “I think it might do us all some good.”

  She bared her teeth, hissing. Grant barked out a single word—a word that sounded like a wild musical note—and the zombie’s breath cracked in her throat, eyes flashing wide in rage, shock. Her aura shuddered.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, even as Killy scrambled to her feet. One of the zombies grabbed a barstool and ran toward Grant, swinging.

  I swung off my chair and slammed into the possessed man. We tumbled hard into the bar, but I didn’t feel a thing except for the soft yielding sensation of my nails piercing wool and flesh, fingers sinking straight through fat like a hot knife in butter. Blood spurted, instantly absorbed into my skin.

  The zombie staggered away, holding his gut. It wasn’t lethal what I’d done, but it would require stitches, a hospital. More damage than I usually did to a human host—those blameless hosts. I felt ill.

  I got knocked off my feet, and hit the floor so hard I bounced. Wood cracked beneath the back of my skull. The boys howled in their sleep as zombies held me down: arms, legs, sitting on my stomach with hands around my throat. I smelled smoke: my clothes, burning. The boys, burning. Like sitting in water slowly boiling—the zombies didn’t know what was happening until they fell away from me, hands on fire, choking on their screams.

  I sat up, charred and smoking. Zombies stood between me and Blood Mama. I couldn’t
hear Grant. I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t—

  —feel him, came the unbidden thought, and the fear that ripped through me was startling and fierce, tearing straight into the core of me, beneath my ribs, below my heart. Darkness, coiled. Blinking awake from deep slumber. Leaving me breathless, unsteady, sick with dread. It had been some time since I had felt . . . the creature . . . inside me. A spiritual force so strong it might as well have been physical—separate from me, but of me—with a mind of its own.

  This was what Jack feared. This was what my mother had feared. Something inside me that no one could, or wanted, to explain. A force that slept, ever more lightly as time went on, and that seemed to be growing stronger with every terrible waking. It was connected to the falling of the prison veil—I knew that—just as I knew that if I let it, if I ever grew too weak to contain it, the thing would destroy all that I loved. Maybe even this world.

  Like my ancestor had almost done.

  I closed my eyes, ignoring everything around me. Focusing just on my heart, on quelling the ripening, throbbing sensation beating a drum in my gut: a body unwrapping like some worm made of endless night, stretching, unfolding like a butterfly beneath my spun skin.

  My muscles and bones grew warm, liquid as mercury, and my veins filled with a fire that licked my heart into a pounding scream. I would have screamed, but all I could do was choke, and choke some more, on hunger.

  No, I told the thing, fighting for control; afraid and sick, reminded again what it must feel like for those humans to be possessed. Not now. Not here.

  The zombie with the baby stepped forward. The infant squirmed, making wet, sobbing sounds. No dark aura over its head. Kid had a devil for a mother, aiming a gun in my face. Blood Mama, hidden, barked out a sharp word. The zombie’s right eye twitched, mouth twisting with displeasure—but she lowered the weapon and backed off, stepping around those possessed men and women who were clutching burned hands to their chests.

  Most demons would have abandoned their hosts by now, but they were holding on. Because of their queen. The minute she left, those humans would be shed like yesterday’s underwear, leaving them with headaches and palms that looked like hamburger.

  Blood Mama glided around her zombie children, red heels clicking on the floor. Her smile was sly. But when she looked into my eyes, she froze—and that smile slipped like a cut ribbon.

  “You’re not yourself,” she whispered, and the human skin she wore seemed to wither away under the force of her possession, flesh sucking into hollows, shadows, growing gaunt and tight against the bone.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be,” I replied, barely able to speak, shivering uncontrollably as the thing inside me unwound a little more; and my hunger grew, a little more. A terrible hunger, not for food, not for anything I could name—except for the spark that made the living, burning at the root of a heartbeat, or a thought.

  “Lady Whore,” I breathed, two words that did not come from me. I had not thought them, did not know them, and the voice that spoke them hardly seemed born from me.

  But Blood Mama flinched, fingers twitching, and something terrible entered her gaze: fear, maybe, or horror. She almost bowed her head—almost, I saw it—but her spine stiffened, and that aura flared, and she braced herself.

  “Even you, dreamer, know the meaning of a promise,” she said, each word forced out between clenched teeth, speaking at me, but not to me. “You will not use me again. Not now. Not ever.”

  Not ever, echoed a soft voice in my head, filled with distaste and disdain, and that endless reaching hunger.

  I closed my eyes, fumbling for my right hand, pressing my fingers into the armor. I thought of good things, things I loved, my mother and Jack, and Zee, the boys. I thought of sunsets, and the open road, and the stars. And I felt a golden thread tug on my heart, outward, ever outward. I thought of Grant, even though I didn’t want to.

  And slowly, ever so slowly, the darkness settled.

  I exhaled and opened my eyes.

  The air of the bar felt too bright, tinged with blue—as if air could have a color—and even the shadows beneath the tables seemed to glow around the edges, pulsing like heartbeats.

  Blood Mama stared at me, her face stone hard. I licked my cracked lips and tasted blood. “Grant. Killy.”

  “Here,” growled a low voice, and some of the zombies shifted, revealing Father Lawrence. I had no clue when he had entered the fracas, or how he’d freed himself from his chains, but his claws were slick and dripping with blood, and the brown fur covering his body stood out on end, bristling over the contours of his arms and chest.

  Behind him, Killy sat on the floor—leaning over Grant. My vision blurred again when I saw him, but not enough to block out the stain of blood on his collar, or his stillness. He was so still.

  “Get out,” I whispered to Blood Mama, fighting the chill that raced through me. It was always like this, afterward. Shock, adrenaline pouring out of me. I needed to sit down.

  Blood Mama’s aura trembled, but not the rest of her—human eyes flinty, jaw set. “Your mother was such a fool to let you live.”

  “Maybe.” I walked toward her. “Lady Whore. What, I wonder, does that mean?”

  Her mouth tightened. “I want to know what Jack told you.”

  I stopped in front of her. “What is this thing inside me? How do you know it?”

  “Jack,” she whispered, with a hint of desperation, aura straining against the bonds of her flesh. “Tell me what Jack said.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You came here for that. Just that. Jack.”

  “He told you something.”

  “Jack’s a big talker. Why don’t you tell me what you think he said if it’s so important.”

  Blood Mama lifted her chin, ever so slightly. But instead of answering, she walked toward me, gliding gracefully, with a sway to her hips and her heels clicking sharp on the floor. She did not stop, or hesitate—simply held my gaze as she walked past me, our shoulders brushing. She showed nothing on her face as we touched, but her aura shuddered away from me.

  “I was so certain,” she murmured. “I felt the call. We all did.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Who killed Jack?”

  “Jack’s body, you mean.” She looked into my eyes, her gaze flat, dead. “You must have been there. Don’t you know?”

  I leaned in close, tasting the heat of her breath, which smelled like coffee and roses. “Tell me.”

  I could count on one hand the number of times I had spoken with Blood Mama, and not once had she shown anything but cold cruel calm. But this time, again, her aura pulled away from me, and unease flickered in her gaze. It didn’t give me any kind of thrill. Just dread.

  “Hunter,” she whispered. “The Old Wolf was, and always has been, a canny beast. If he let his body die, it was because it was time.”

  She pulled away from me. I let her go and stood aside as she walked on to the door. She stopped, though, with her hand on the knob, and looked back at me. “Take care, Hunter. There are knots unraveling, and you are . . . most certainly one of them.”

  “What am I, then?” I tapped my chest, and the armor tingled, as did the boys. “What is this . . . thing? No one will tell me.”

  A faint smile touched her mouth, but it was wry, and bitter, and even a little sad. All of which I found disturbing.

  “You’ve been told, in so many different ways,” said Blood Mama, opening the door. “No one is more terrible than the leader of the Hunt. No one is more feared. Her desire is her outcome. Her wish, is the command.” She stepped outside, and closed her eyes against the breeze that ruffled her hair. “Jack’s words, if I’m not mistaken. I think you know them.”

  “Just a riddle.”

  “Riddles are safer. Poor minds that puzzle merely give the riddle-maker a chance to run.” Blood Mama’s smile widened, just a fraction. “So take your time, Hunter.”

  She let the door close behind her, but it didn’t stay that way. Zombies shuffled out, some calm, other
s pushing, a few who were injured dragging themselves, others carrying those who were unconscious.

  I stepped in front of the zombie mother. Her baby still cried, but she wasn’t doing a thing to comfort it. The gun had disappeared into her purse. She reached for it, but it was too little, too late. I slammed my tattooed hand against her brow, murmuring words my mother had taught me in a language that might have been thousands of years dead.

  The parasite inside her screamed. She screamed. Her aura struggled to free itself from its bonds of flesh, but I kept chanting through gritted teeth, and the boys, my hungry boys, tugged in that fucker like a fish on a line.

  Until the parasite was gone. Eaten. And the woman was free.

  I caught her before she fell. Father Lawrence helped, and we settled her into a chair. She was unconscious, but her baby wasn’t, and continued to scream. Father Lawrence made a shushing sound, and swept his furred hand over the baby’s head. The kid stopped crying and stared up at him with huge eyes.

  I turned around. All the zombies were gone. I smelled sweat and fear, and burned flesh. A little bit of wet dog. Killy was staring at the exorcised woman, muttering to herself.

  Grant still wasn’t sitting up. But his eyes were open, watching me.

  I walked to him, and knelt. Glass crunched beneath my knees. Sometime, during the fight, those coffee cups had gotten smashed on the floor. Coffee soaked through my jeans, but the boys sucked it up, and within moments, my denim was dry again.

  “Someday,” he said, like that word was an old joke, just between us. And for a moment, I wanted it to be. I was desperate for something good, and warm.

  “You don’t want me to remember you,” I said, as close to begging as I’d ever been in my life. “Not when it means this. This violence.”

  He did not smile, but somehow I felt it rise out of him. I felt the heat in his eyes and in the brief touch of his fingers against the back of my hand, and I began to believe how it was possible I might have fallen for this man. Maybe, just a little.