by E. A. Copen
“Would you be against having Reed present?” I asked.
Reed and I may not have seen eye-to-eye on everything since I’d come to Paint Rock, but he had wanted to be there. If shit hit the fan and I needed someone else to jump in, Reed was as good a backup as any. Never go in without backup. Sal would be busy performing his spell and I’d be dead. Someone had to watch over my body so I could come back to it safe and sound. Reed wouldn’t hurt me. Besides, he deserved to have some resolution. Marcus had played him, too, and for that Mia had suffered. I owed him one for saving my bacon with LeDuc. Letting him sit in would make us square.
“So long as he doesn’t try to interfere with the ceremony,” Sal said with a shrug. “As far as magick power on the rez goes, you, me, and him are the heavy-hitters now. It’ll be good to have back up.”
I fished my cell out of my jeans pocket (with some help from Sal, who somehow managed it without swerving) and dialed Reed.
“Judah,” the priest said after a brief greeting. He sounded exasperated. “I heard something happened at the hospital and rushed back to see you, but by the time I got there, you were already gone. I would have been there sooner but the hospital snagged me to do a confession and last rites. Please tell me Marcus is fine?”
“He’s up and moving. As much of a pain in the ass as ever.”
“Thank God.” He yawned in my ear.
“Listen, Reed, there’s been a change in plans.”
I told him everything, or at least the important parts. The signal kept cutting in and out like it does in the stretch of desert between Eden and Paint Rock, so we eventually resorted to text messages. Sal communicated through me the things he needed, minus the body parts, since we both agreed Reed would be morally opposed to collecting any of Emiko’s remains. For those, we’d call on Marcus. If anyone should be disturbing her grave, it was him. I didn’t mention the drugs either. Reed was a good man and a priest. I did my best to keep priests out of Hell if I could help it, even though I wasn’t religious myself.
We pulled into Sal’s driveway long before I finished furiously texting Reed. Sal spent the time on the phone with one of Marcus’ lackeys, trying to leave a message. Whoever he was on the line with was intentionally cryptic and vague concerning his master’s whereabouts and whether he could be reached.
“It’s probably because Cynthia is still out there,” I reminded Sal when he hung up and finished cussing out the idiot on the other end. “She did try to kill him today.”
“And before,” Sal agreed. I’d brought him up to speed along with Reed. “When she shows up again, I get to kill her. She’s the one who made Mia sick.” He gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“Hey,” I said, reaching over to pat his leg. “We’ll get her.”
He released some of the tension with a sigh and lowered his head. After a moment, he leaned on the steering wheel, looking at me. It was dark. On his face was the dim light of the nearly full moon. “You seem to be moving around better.”
“Still a little light-headed, but I don’t feel like I’m made of Jell-O. More like dough, now. That’s a little better.”
He got out of the truck, stretched, and came around to get me. I swayed a little when I put my feet down but I was mostly able to support myself. The stairs were still difficult but I managed.
The house was dark and cool. The faint, sugary scent of cupcakes had faded and, instead, the kitchen and living room smelled of dish soap and dust. Sal ushered me to the sofa where he sat me down and then sat down next to me. “First, your ears,” he said, placing his fingertips on either side of my head, just below the earlobes.
The faint but pleasant hum of his magick worked its way into my aching head like a massage. The tension I was carrying on my shoulders and neck relaxed and I closed my eyes. I must have gone to sleep because I woke up groggy a minute later to the sound of Sal’s chuckling.
“What?” I said rubbing my eyes.
“You snore,” he said with a playful wink.
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do. And you snore better than you sing.”
I gave him my best pouting face when he stood and offered me a hand. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. You feel well enough to stand?”
He pulled me up and I almost fell back down. “Why am I still like this,” I growled at him. “What the hell is happening to me?” Sal helped brush some hair out of my face so it wasn’t in my eyes and mouth. Usually, his healing left me feeling better and stronger, not weaker.
“Whatever you did to the ghost, you powered it with your own aura, Judah,” he said gently. “You might as well have tackled a grizzly bear or thrown yourself at an oncoming train in no more than football pads for all the damage you’ve done to yourself. If you could see it, you’d know that.”
“Well, I can’t do magick tomorrow like this. I need to be better.”
Sal nodded and brushed his thumb along my chin. “I can help with that, but it’s not a quick thing. It takes time and...” He trailed off, his eyes traveling down my body. After a long moment, he closed his eyes and whispered, “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Do what?”
The muscles in his throat worked. “Kill you.”
I reached up to touch his face. At least, I meant to. My arm didn’t want to cooperate once it got to shoulder level, so I just brushed his bicep instead. “Hey, it’s not like you’re putting me on an altar and stabbing me with an obsidian dagger, Montezuma. I’m coming back.”
“But what if you don’t? I can’t do all of this alone.” Sal sank to the sofa, which meant I did too, because I still couldn’t stand unsupported. He put his hands over his face and breathed into them. “Jesus Christ. I’m a father. I’ve got a daughter. How do I do that? And the pack, they need me to have my shit together. I don’t. I’m so far from having my shit together, it’s like I left it on another continent. I can’t do it alone.”
“Sal, you’re not alone,” I said forcing my hand onto his knee. “Even without me, you’ve got the whole pack behind you now. You’ve got the Kings. You’ve got friends, people that love you. The world doesn’t end if I don’t come back from this. You’re strong. You’d figure it out just like you always have. But it’s all a moot point. I’m coming back to you.”
He took a deep breath and lowered his hands and his gaze drifted to the window. I followed it. The sky was a deep, bruised black with glittering stars. From where we sat, I couldn’t see the moon, but its light pooled on the small patch of cheap linoleum just inside the door.
This might be my last night on Earth, I thought. I hadn’t wanted to subscribe to Sal’s way of thinking, but there was a very real possibility that I wouldn’t come back from what we were planning. I didn’t know what would be waiting for me once my spirit left my body, or how long I would have to find Emiko and beat her. Even if I won the battle, I could lose the war if I took too long. Without oxygen, my brain would shut down. Sal had enlisted Doctor Han to help keep my body alive, but there were never any guarantees. Once Sal gave me the powder and spoke the words, I would be dead. The only thing tying my soul to my body would be a thread of the finest spider silk, and even that relied on Sal doing some amazing magick work with a spell he’d never used before. Chances were good that I wouldn’t come back.
I put my hand in his. “Help me up.”
He did and I leaned into him. “Where we going?” he asked.
“Take me to the bathroom.” He shifted as if to make for the bathroom down the hall but I pulled back. “Not that one. The one with the big shower.”
Sal gave me a doubtful look. “How are you going to stand in the shower? It’ll be easier in the tub.”
“I guess you’re going to have to help me.”
He studied me for a minute, unsure until I wrapped my fingers around his and pulled on him. I wobbled but managed to stay upright rather than going down.
The bathroom next to Sal’s bedroom was the bigger of the two, done up in rustic brown and pine
green. The countertop was a deep shade of slate gray with intersecting white lines that were meant to look like cracks. It was littered with all the trappings of the private, mundane parts of Sal’s life: shaving cream, razors, aftershave, nail clippers, toothbrush, toothpaste. Any other day, I would have passed it all by and not cared but, that day, those moments, everything felt important.
I stood, leaning against the sink, studying my face in the mirror while Sal went to turn on the shower. I didn’t look like the person I felt like inside. Inside, I was fierce and strong, a slayer of ice giants and wendigos. I was proud of my strength, even if all it ever bought me was trouble. On the outside, I wore a face of tiny scars and broken capillaries. The yellow halo of a healing bruise on my chin framed the left side of my mouth. In the milky light filtering through the dust-covered lightbulbs above the sink, it looked a dingy shade of brown. Half rings of purplish-black highlighted bloodshot eyes. I was the most unattractive I’d ever been.
Sal’s face appeared in the mirror behind mine. We didn’t speak as we looked at each other in the mirror. His fingers reached up to brush against my ears. Magick lit up under his fingers, a barely noticeable light of pale blue. It felt like sunlight on a cool afternoon, and I closed my eyes to enjoy the sensation. The pressure in my ears changed as they knitted back together, but it didn’t hurt.
He touched his fingers lightly under each of my eyes and pressed his nose into the mangled mess that was my hair. The dark lines faded under my eyes, too.
Sal kissed my head. “Where else?”
I turned away from the mirror to face him, which took less effort than I thought it would. The steam filling the room made everything hurt less. He moved closer, holding me up with the weight of his body, even though I was sure I didn’t need for him to do that anymore.
In answer, I reached down and pulled my shirt over my head, dropping it to the floor beside us. My bra had gotten lost in transit or maybe ruined at the hospital when they pulled everything off me, leaving me to stand there bare-chested against him. Cold air swept in through the open bathroom door and my skin prickled at it. Sal kept his eyes locked with mine, and I watched as gold streaked into his honey-brown irises. I lifted the hand he’d been using for healing and pressed it to the sore spot on my ribs that he’d been working on before. His fingers trembled. “Here,” I said.
The magick in him was a little slower to respond, probably because so much of his attention was focused elsewhere. I didn’t need any enhanced senses to tell me how his body was responding to the touch. He leaned down and pulled my mouth to his.
It started out gentle, hesitant, fingers brushing skin, searching exposed flesh for scars and bruises. Both of us had them. The bite marks Hunter had left on Sal’s arm were still tender, almost as sore as the pain he found in the back of my neck. When we realized that both of us were already broken and that anything we did together would be more healing than hurting, the pain became its own form of primal pleasure.
I bit down on his lip and he responded with a growl, sliding his hands under my butt and lifting me onto the sink. Half of the items that had been there clattered to the floor. With an angry swipe of his arm, Sal pushed the rest aside and pressed against me, biting back. The back of my head hit the mirror on the medicine cabinet just right and it broke, sending glittering shards of silver glass raining down all around me.
Sal leaned back away from me and checked my head. “I’m fine,” I insisted and I was. It was just how I managed to hit the glass. I have one hell of a hard head. I looked down at the glass around me. “But there go seven years to bad luck.”
His answer was a growl. I made a small sound of surprise as he picked me up and carried me into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him. We ripped away the last remnants of clothing and crashed to the bed. Somehow, I landed on top, but he didn’t make any move to protest other than to adjust the way I’d landed so that my hips were against his.
The first time was hard, fast, and full of anger and a satisfying sort of pain. All the words we might have said couldn’t have been as healing. Even though it hurt to be so vulnerable for the first time after so long, it felt good, too, knowing that, whatever came next, at least we had each other.
When it was over, and we lay together, listening to the rain on the window and the thunder roll in, I wondered why I had waited so long. I thought of all those missed moments, the times when I could have been with the people I loved and, instead, let time slip through my fingers. If I came back from this, I couldn’t let that happen again.
Sal snuggled closer and rested his chin on my shoulder, throwing an arm over my stomach. “Quit squirming and go to sleep, will you?”
I smiled at that and settled in, relaxing to the steady sound of his breathing.
Chapter Thirty-One
Dawn came, rainy and gray. The gentle tap of raindrops against the glass of Sal’s bedroom window almost lulled me to sleep, but I forced myself to stay awake. At some time in the night, Sal had turned over. I pressed my nose harder into Sal’s back and inhaled his scent. Warm and salty with an undertone of earthy sweetness, like fresh fall leaves in the rain.
He shifted away and I wiggled closer, pulling the blankets higher to seal in the warmth. One of the benefits of being a werewolf is an abnormally high body temperature, which meant he was happy to sleep without heat and blankets. I, on the other hand, was freezing.
Sal stirred when I moved against him a second time and lifted his head from the bed. “Hey,” he said in a groggy voice, squeezing me and burying his nose against my shoulder. “You’re still here.”
“Didn’t have much of a choice. I would have turned into a human popsicle the minute I got out of bed.”
“I was worried it might all have been in my head for a minute.” Sal turned over and kissed my neck with intention.
The sensation made me shiver. But I couldn’t stay there, not even if I wanted to. “You’re supposed to be at the hospital in a few hours,” I said gently and turned over onto my back.
He frowned. “You’re really going to go ahead with this, huh?”
“You want to try and talk me out of it? It’s Mia’s life at stake.”
“I’d say I wish it wasn’t you, but I don’t. I have to believe it will work. I trust you. I know it’s not in you to sit on the sidelines when someone you care about is hurt.”
“That’s me,” I said, grinning. “I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress. Too bad you didn’t get tied to a railroad track in front of a speeding locomotive. I would have grabbed you up months ago and had my way with you.”
He sat up and reached for the pack of cigarettes sitting on the nightstand, collecting it and the lighter. “If we’re going to do this, we’d better get cleaned up,” he said, placing one in his mouth. The end was slightly bent but it lit just the same. “Go on. I’ll give you a three-minute head start.”
I turned the heat on in the trailer as I passed it by and made a mental note that, if I survived the day, Sal and I should work out an arrangement that didn’t involve me turning into a Judah-cicle every time I stayed over.
The second bathroom was more cramped, but I didn’t want to waste time sweeping up the glass. I turned the hot water all the way up and stood there, letting the steam warm me until Sal came in. We showered wordless, neither of us wanting to ruin the moment with talk of what was to come. His touch was tender as he washed my back and helped me wash my hair, working his fingers through the mats and tangles. We stayed in the shower until the water ran cold and our skin wrinkled. Then, we got out and dressed.
From the laundry that Sal had cleaned the day before, I selected a comfortable pair of boot cut Levis and found my favorite shirt, a deep red tank top. Buried at the bottom of the laundry, I found a black button up. It felt appropriate to wear black, so I threw it on over top. In the bathroom, I braided up my hair and took it down three different times before I gave up and just decided to leave it down. I needed a haircut.
For a moment as I
stared at my reflection in the mirror, I considered makeup. There was still some eyeshadow and lipstick in my purse, which I’d rescued and brought to Sal’s place. If today was the day I was going to die, maybe I ought to dress my best. I swiped my fingers across the fog of the mirror and pushed away from the sink. Anybody who cared how I looked when I bit it could kiss my ass. I wasn’t there to impress anyone. I had a job to do and, dammit, I was going to do it. No one else was going to die on my watch.
My last meal was a cup of bitter, black coffee. Sal made me eggs and toast, but my stomach was too busy doing somersaults to eat. He didn’t eat, either.
The necessities of the body taken care of, Sal sat me down in one of the kitchen chairs he’d pulled away from the table and went to work.
Whether they realize it or not, all living things have an aura. It’s part of what makes us who we are. It’s the energy that people like me, magickal practitioners, tap into to do magick. I absorb energy from the things I take into my body, including everything I eat and drink. That also includes the things I self-generate. The emotional pain, stress, frustration, anger, love. All of it feeds into the aura like melting snow into a mountain stream.
Sal’s healing magick allowed him to spread the negative aspects over the surface, replaced underneath by the calm and quiet I was supposed to be focusing on. He took the negative energy on himself and transferred it into something else that he would dispose of. Today, the vessel receiving all that negativity flowing from me into him was a hunk of cheese he’d pulled out of the back of the fridge. When he brought the cheese out and placed it on the table, the surface was white and scaly. When he was finished, it was a sickly shade of corpse green and partially melted. He scooped it into the garbage disposal, followed it with lemon juice and salt, and flipped the switch, grinding the tainted cheese into nothing.
