Reckoning

by Lili St. Crow

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  By the time I reached Biloxi I was about ready to lay down and die from exhaustion. The second time I almost veered out of my lane after blinking, I decided it was time to find a hotel. My eyes ached, the rest of me wasn’t far behind, and my mother’s locket flared with alternate ice and molten heat.

  Plus I felt like I could eat every trashy bit of fast food I could lay my hands on. With the cardboard it was wrapped in. And the bag. Extra fiber, yum.

  I should have driven further. But really, wrecking the Jeep was so not an option. The sun was westering, dipping behind an inky veil of clouds, weather moving in from the Gulf on indigo wings with furnace underlighting. Looked like a storm, and a doozy too. But it would probably make things fresh and clean in the morning. I found a Walmart and used up some of the cash from the cache—the bills smelled of mildew but were otherwise all right—to buy jeans. Panties. T-shirts, a couple tank tops, a couple sports bras I was sure would fit me now, and a couple pairs of cheap sneakers. And, finally, some elastic bands for my stupid hair. If I could just stop losing all my luggage things would be swell. Or at least, better.

  Still, better losing some gear than losing my life. Right?

  That silver lining was wearing away right quick.

  The Comfort Inn had palms in the driveway and a sleep-eyed clerk who didn’t even glance at my fake ID. Which was a relief, since I looked nothing like the picture anymore. The Dru on the ID Dad had put in the second ammo case had darker, almost-frizzed curls, a different-shaped face, and a shy young smile that didn’t quite believe it was being photographed. She was twenty-one according to the birth date.

  I was getting older all the time.

  I ever catch you usin’ these to buy booze, Dru-girl, I’ll tan your hide.

  He sometimes threatened that, but he’d never swatted me even once. Neither had Gran. It was just something they said. And seriously, the threat kept me in line.

  I know better than to make waves when someone can just disappear on you.

  I’d looked at the little plastic-covered card and felt a funny sensation all over my skin, like I was vanishing.

  I rubbed my thumb over the picture before I stuffed it back in the cheap wallet Dad had packed with it. As if it was my mother’s photo in Dad’s billfold—the only picture of her we’d had, and gone now.

  Sergej probably had it. And I was so tired I didn’t feel anything at the thought.

  I thanked the sleepy clerk kindly and took my room key with a tired flourish. At least I only looked road-grimy, and smelled bad but not bad enough for a normal person to notice.

  The lobby was done in the particular type of pink florals that will give you a headache unless you’re an eighty-year-old bleary-eyed grandma who thinks overstuffed couches are cute, but the rooms weren’t bad. Quiet, at least, and the sheets were clean. The water pressure was decent too, and I stood half-asleep in the shower for a long time. The clothes I’d been wearing were useless; I tied them up in a plastic Walmart bag and would dump them in the morning.

  It was weird to be alone.

  At the Schola I’d had to work to get some time to myself; driving with Graves and Ash meant I was always listening to and anticipating them, and traveling with Christophe meant I was always following him around.

  You can hide from them, but not from me.

  Was he dead? Possible. Not very likely, Christophe was tough . . . but still. He’d either meet me in Houston or he was on my trail right now. And Graves, his eyes turning darker and darker, tied up or . . .

  I tried not to think about it. Failed miserably. How deep was Sergej’s hold on him? Why hadn’t I known?

  Dru! Dad’s voice barked, and I jerked, my hand hitting the side of the shower. Quitcher woolgatherin’! You’re asleep on your feet like a mule. Come on, now.

  By the time I was in a clean T-shirt and underwear, yawning and scratching and standing in front of the microwave while a Hungry-Man dinner revolved inside, I was well on my way to fretting. Sometimes it gets that way when you’re tired—nothing stays in any sort of proportion.

  Of course, I had a bunch of vampires trying to kill me and everyone who hung around me for any length of time got blown up or tortured. Even if I was losing some of my sense of proportion, I figured I had cause.

  I had to eat with my fingers. It didn’t bother me much, except it’s hard to do with mashed potatoes. I turned on the television and watched the news while I polished off two more frozen dinners, scooping up the taters and licking them off my fingertips like icing, tearing chunks off the slices of processed turkey. The marionberry crisp was soggy and cold on the first two trays by the time I finished the third, but I ate it all anyway.

  I left some of the corn. Never been big on corn.

  Nothing on the news about explosions or suckers or sorcerers in Atlanta. That didn’t surprise me much. The air conditioner made a racket, so I turned the TV up a bit. Not a peep about shenanigans in Georgia. Just the regular cavalcade of crime, human interest, and a weather report saying “expect a thunderstorm.” Well, any fool could look out the window and see that.

  Rain started in spatters as I brushed my teeth. I spent about a half hour checking the gear from the cache, and when I went to bed I had everything stowed away nice and shipshape.

  And I had a loaded baby Glock on my nightstand, carefully pointed away from the bed. I’d cleaned and checked it just like Dad taught me, and everything seemed to be all right. I’d pick up more ammo tomorrow. I was working through soup by then, so tired the urge to yawn just about threatened to crack my jaw. I held off—you shouldn’t yawn while cleaning guns. Then I dragged my sorry carcass up and warded the walls. It took a while. I had to start over two or three times because my concentration kept wavering, the thin fine blue lines slipping through my mental grasp. By the time I finished, I was actively yawning more than I was breathing, the aspect smoothing down over me in soft blurry waves.

  I wondered sleepily why warding was blue, and the hexing I’d seen was blue and red. Gran would’ve been interested in that. I felt like I was missing something, but damn if I could think of what. I was just so tired.

  The last thing I did was fish the diamond earrings out of my bag and put them on. Just because . . . well, I figured it couldn’t hurt. Nothing could, at this point.

  I was ready for anything.

  Or so I thought.

  The long concrete hall stretched away into infinity. I saw him, walking in his particular way, each boot landing softly as he edged along, and the scream caught in my throat. Because it was my father, and he was heading for that door covered in chipped paint under the glare of the fluorescents, and he was going to die. I knew this and I couldn’t warn him, static fuzzing through the image and my teeth tingling as my jaw changed, crackling—

  —and Christophe grabbed my father’s shoulder, dragged him back, away from the slowly opening door. The sound went through me, a hollow boom as the door hit the wall and concrete dust puffed out.

  BANG.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  By the time the long roll of thunder faded I was on my feet, scooping up the gun. The touch flared inside my head, and in the flickering blue-white glow from the muted television I sensed more than saw the brushed-metal doorknob jiggling.

  The touch spilled free of my skull, but told me nothing much. There was something weird—interference. Odd static fuzzed over the TV screen, swallowing the black-and-white movie that had been watching me while I slept. The white noise filled my skull, bouncing around like a pinball.

  What the hell? I pulled back, shaking my head.

  I ghosted to the wall partitioning bedroom space off from hall-and-bathroom space, gun held low and fingers locked outside the trigger guard. Thunder boomed again, filling the sky, and the thin blue lines of warding in the walls shivered. They were reacting to whoever was outside the door. And not in a good way—whoever-it-was smelled like cloves and sand, and their mental fingers picked at the wards like a kid
undoing a sneaker lace.

  My mouth tingled, the faint taste of oranges filling my throat and a chill sliding down my spine. I knew that chill.

  Brace yourself, Dru. Shit’s about to get weird.

  There was the gun. Was I actually going to shoot whoever was coming in?

  Fine time to be doubting that, Dru.

  The warding sparked, resisting. I almost thought of grabbing hold of it from my side and giving whoever it was a snap, like popping a rubber band hard against their mental fingers. If you hit someone just right like that you can give them a helluva headache. Maybe even knock them out.

  But if they could unravel wards like that, they were probably more skilled, and I’d be the one with the headache. My best bet was keeping the touch inside my head and using the damn gun.

  Better be ready. Do it like Dad taught you.

  The door opened, silently. The wards unraveled, whispering off into nothing like smoke. Soft regular thudding; my ears picked it out. Two of them, and I was hearing their heartbeats.

  Well, isn’t that useful. My own heart was in my mouth, warring with the ghost of citrus and the tooth-aching cold. Why just two of them, if they could spring a trap with a rocket launcher on top of a building a couple states away? An advance team? More coming in the windows or watching the hotel?

  Now, Dru. It was Dad’s voice, or I might have moved too late. They’re walking right into your angle.

  At the last second, the gun jerked down. I got lucky—the first one folded when the bullet shattered his knee. A one-in-a-million shot, and Dad would’ve yelled at me for not taking the body shot. Don’t point that thing if you ain’t prepared to kill somethin’!

  The roar of the gunshot was lost in a thumprattle of thunder, lightning lit up the room, and the television screen flashed. The second guy—tall, dark-haired, gold glittering in his ears and at his throat—pitched forward, his hands flying out and the hex sparking red and blue like a firework.

  There’s a few different sorts of thrown hexes; this was one of the flat fizzing Frisbee types that make a zshhhhht! noise and go whirling.

  My left hand flashed out. In a hex battle, you’re either quick or you’re toast. Dad and I had run across several practitioners over the years, and once or twice it’d been Gran’s careful training that saved both our bacon.

  So it was Gran’s owl, now, filling itself in with swift streaks, that burst into being as the hex singed my fingers. The owl hit the second guy in the face with a crunch, and the red and blue hex spun as I caught it like a nail-studded baseball, sharp edges biting my skin.

  As long as I wasn’t going head-on, I had a good chance of bending the hex around. Like t’ai chi—stepping aside from the force of the punch and deflecting it, instead of meeting it with equal strength.

  I may not be brawny, but I’m fast.

  My left arm came back, I whipped it forward as if I was tossing the Frisbee back at him, and the guy lost his hold. Which was another miracle, because generally it’s harder to wrest control away from someone who’s taken the time to build such a pretty, malevolent piece of work as a really good hex.

  And this one was a lulu. But I guess the guy was having a hard time focusing with his face full of talons and feathers. The owl exploded, a rain of white down popping out of existence just before his bleeding face came up—

  —and his own hex crunched squarely into his lean midriff.

  He folded up just like a spider flicked into a candle flame and was actually flung back into the hall, golden electric light shining off a spatter of blood that hung in his wake right before there was another photoflash of lightning and the power failed. Darkness like a wet bandage pressed against my eyes, and in the aftermath of another huge roll of thunder I heard ragged breathing and someone muttering cusswords.

  “Bitch!” A boy’s voice, breaking. “You shot my knee!”

  He sounded fifteen, tops. Where were the adults who were supposed to handle this thing? Did they even exist? Was he old, too, and trapped in a young-sounding body?

  You’re goddamn lucky it wasn’t your head. I said nothing. The emergency lights came up, a dull orange glow, and the hex in the hall was still sparkling and digging into a prone form. Hot acid boiled up inside my throat. He wasn’t looking to leave me a Christmas card. Get moving!

  The guy on the floor kept cussing while I stepped into my jeans and boots. I buckled my malaika harness—a trick to do one-handed while you’re covering a squirming guy on the floor. He could have had a gun too, but if he hadn’t shot me by now, I didn’t think he would.

  Duffel in one hand, gun in the other, I made it to the wall near the window. Let out a long, shaky breath.

  “What did you do?” The boy on the floor had stopped cussing. I wasn’t sure I liked it. He was sounding mighty sharp and focused for someone who’d been shot. “How can you do that? How can you use the jaadu?”

  I’m not going to hang around and chat with you, you know. The touch slid free of my skull, little invisible fingers questing for danger. He choked, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. No rain against the windows—it was heat lightning; no wonder everything was all staticky.

  Three-floor drop. You can make it easy. I didn’t want to get trapped inside the rest of the hotel, and I didn’t know if these guys had backup. Maybe they were expecting me to go out the window; I didn’t know.

  But I also wouldn’t have gone out into that hall, and stepped past that body and the crackling, nasty hex, if you paid me.

  “Wait.” The boy on the floor was moving, rolling around. “Rajkumari, wait. For God’s sake, wait—”

  Too late. Glass shattered, the stifling hot night full of ozone, wet heat, and the smell of Gulf rot closed around me, and I was gone.

  Thank God I hadn’t been stupid enough to park the Jeep in the hotel lot. I still had a couple of bad moments getting to the side street I’d left it on. I kept jumping at shadows. Can you blame me?

  The rain started just after I threw the duffel in, hard quartersized drops thudding into dirt and concrete. More lightning played in the billowing clouds like huge veined hands.

  I was getting awful tired of thunder. But at least there was nothing unnatural about this storm. My left hand hurt like hell—I wrapped it up in a chunk of fast-food napkins. I didn’t smell blood, but it was weeping, and it burned like I’d held it in boiling water for a while.

  And I’d only touched that hex for less than a second. What would it have done if it hit me? For a couple seconds I braced my forehead on the steering wheel while my ribs heaved with deep ragged gasps.

  But Dad’s voice inside my head was pitiless. Move it along, honey. You ain’t out of the woods yet.

  I flipped the wipers on and got out of there. Seven and a half hours later I was in Houston. But by then things had already gone even further to hell.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Finding the Houston Schola wasn’t hard. I mean, yeah, I stopped on the outskirts of the city and bought a map, a bag of peppermints, some boiled peanuts, and some dental floss, and made a quick and dirty pendulum from a wrapped peppermint and the floss while I munched the peanuts and drank some warm Yoo-Hoo. The pendulum gave me the general location—a wedge of the northern part of the city, a slice of expensive real estate if the tingle in my good right-hand fingers told me anything. Close enough, and I was sure I could find it from there.

  As it was, I could. But it was a matter of getting close enough and following the sirens while a column of black smoke billowed up. Traffic was snarled, and we slowed to a crawl. As a result, I got a good eyeful.

  The good news was that the Houston Schola was kind of still there.

  The bad news? Was the kind of. If by kind of you mean “shells of charred and smoking buildings arranged around a scorched quad that might have been pretty gardens if someone hadn’t taken a flamethrower to them.” Emergency personnel were still swarming, and black smoke hung everywhere.

  The Jeep crept through heat shimmering up from
the pavement and the traffic snarl created by a bunch of what Dad would call lookie-lous, cars slowing down to gawk.

  I stared. Little crackling strands of red and blue hexing crawled over every surface. The knots that had held them fast while they did their dirty work were unraveling, and I could almost see how they did it, how they pulled the two strands together and made them work. Gran had never told me about anything like the red strands, and if I just knew a little bit more about the Maharaj I could probably take a stab at untangling it. Or even duplicating the effect.

  The touch hurt whenever the red strands got too close, like sunshine on already-burned skin. My left hand throbbed, blistered and raw. I’d disinfected it and wrapped it in gauze, and the rawness didn’t look to be spreading. It was only my left hand; I’d deal.

  The main building of the Schola here had actually faced a city street without a lawn and a wall. Its long colonnaded front now looked like a bomb had gone off. Even the wall enclosing the rest of the property was scarred and pulled down in places. There were other buildings, but they were all smoking and laid waste too. At least, all the ones I could see.

  “Goddamn,” I whispered, under Jerry Lee Lewis on the radio making his way through High School Confidential.

  Dad had always made a face when I turned that song up. The sound track of my childhood is the oldies stations you can get all over America. No matter where you land, Casey Kasem is rockin’ ’em up and countin’ ’em down. He’s a cottage industry. Long live rock’n’roll.

  I was almost past the Schola. Traffic was horrible. I had half a tank of gas and I had to think.

  It took me an hour to get to the freeway. Heatshimmer bounced off the pavement, Houston like a big dozing concrete animal ready for another long guzzle at the oil teat. The touch jumped like a nervous animal, my brain stroking at the problem of the red and blue threads.

  What am I gonna do now?