by Lexi Blake
Sarah smiled briefly and shook her head. “God, Christine was right. He really is a magical battery. Someone should teach him to shield. I could pull magic off him for hours, and I doubt he would even miss it. So much wasted potential.”
The baby moved against me restlessly, and for the first time she seemed something other than perfectly happy. She understood we were in danger, and I found myself trying to soothe her. It would be all right. Any minute Neil would come in, and he would knock Sarah out until we could figure out what was going on. Something was wrong. Someone had gotten to her because this was not the Sarah I knew. This was not my friend, and I needed to figure out how to get her back.
“I’m sorry, Zoey,” Sarah said, quietly studying me and the baby. “Please understand I don’t want to do this.”
“Then don’t.” I wished Neil would show up. It occurred to me that lately I’d been really relying on either Neil or Daniel to show up and save me. I was far too used to having real muscle around me, and I was getting weak. I’d worked jobs before Danny and Neil. I’d worked some alone and managed to get myself out of some tight situations.
“I didn’t mean for things to go like this,” she continued as Dev stood there frozen in place. He seemed to still be breathing, the small motion the only way I knew he was alive.
“I know you didn’t. It’s going to be all right, Sarah,” I said in my smoothest tone. I turned the baby away from the gun. “Why don’t you ditch the gun, and we can talk about it.”
Her face turned down, but that gun didn’t waver. “I would love to do that, Zoey. You have no idea. I wish I never started this, but I can’t get out now. I have to see it through.”
“No, you don’t.” I kept looking at that open door. Where the hell was Neil?
Sarah must have seen my eyes dart toward the door. She shook her head. “He’s not coming, Z. He’s sleeping. I had to take him out, but I didn’t hurt him. I won’t hurt Daniel, either, even though I should. I need to get this done before he wakes up or I’ll have to get rid of him, and I don’t want to do that.”
I didn’t say what I was thinking. I was thinking she could try to take out Daniel, but she had no idea what she was up against. Maybe Daniel had been right to hide just how strong he was. I just wished he hadn’t hidden it from me. I stalled for time because it was what I did best. I asked the only question I could think of. “Why?”
Sarah rolled her eyes, but it wasn’t sarcastic. She seemed to be angry with someone, but I didn’t think it was me. “There are so many reasons, Zoey, and not a one of them really good. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Of course it matters.” It mattered to me.
She held her free hand out and the air around me ripened with magical intent.
“Tribuo mihi parvulus.” Her voice sounded older and more forceful than I’d heard it before. I hoped Sarah hadn’t been hiding her power the way Daniel had.
I winced and waited for something bad to happen. After a moment, I opened my eyes and Sarah was staring at me. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t know what that means.”
Sarah took a deep breath and tried again. This time her voice was even deeper, her eyes darkening. “Tribuo mihi parvulus iam.”
I shrugged, comfortable that whatever she was trying wasn’t working. “Again, sorry, I don’t speak Latin or whatever that is.”
“Give me the child.” The beginning of desperation was plain in her voice. “That should work. Why isn’t it working?”
“I don’t know, but maybe you should heed the warning.” I tried to be as calm and reasonable as I could. Her magic wasn’t working, but she still held that gun. “Maybe the universe is trying to tell you something. This is wrong, Sarah. This child isn’t yours. She isn’t mine. She’s innocent, and she needs to go home. We can stop this right here and right now. Let Dev go, and Dev and I will take the baby where she needs to be and everything will be all right.”
As she started to cry, I remembered that day we met. It had been sunny and bright, and I’d only planned on spending a couple of minutes seeing if she was the real thing. I was going to use her for one job. I was going to give her a cut and never see her again. My crew was a three-person crew, and that was all it needed to be. Until I sat with her for hours, and when I left, I wanted to see her again. It was a feeling not unlike a little crush. It was the first time I wanted a girl to like me, and she had. She wanted to be my friend and listen to my crap about Daniel. She answered the phone at two in the morning when I couldn’t sleep and needed to vent. She left her precious clubs to come to my place when I got drunk and called her crying.
She couldn’t be the person who shot me and gave a baby to a demon. She was Sarah. She was my friend.
I held my hand out. “Just give me the gun, and I promise you, we’ll figure this out. We’ll get through this.”
And that was the moment my friend, my confidant, the one who had taken me for my first pedicure and introduced me to Cosmos, that was the moment she pulled the trigger and shot me.
I can’t quite describe the way it feels to be shot. This particular time was the first time I hadn’t managed to dodge the bullet, but it certainly wasn’t to be my last.
First there was the sound, and while it only lasts a second, it blasts through the air. It felt like an eternity before I felt the burn of fire against my skin as my body bucked against the force. There’s an awful lot of heat in a bullet. This particular round hit my right shoulder, and I felt the instant my shoulder blade cracked as the metal passed through it. I fell backward toward the shower, and I heard more than felt the shower door break as my body hit it. I remember thinking I had to hold on to the child. I shifted her against my chest as I went down. I pulled her close and tried to protect her little head and then my own head hit the tile and the world around me went black.
* * * *
“Zoey,” I heard a sound but it was so far away I wasn’t sure I needed to pay attention. The darkness was truly blissful, and there wasn’t any pain here. If I listened to that voice calling me, I would have to go through a lot of pain to get to it.
“Zoey, wake up.” The voice was awfully stern, and there was the lightest of slaps attached to it. I moaned as I shook myself awake.
I was lying on the bathroom floor, and there was broken glass all around me, except it wasn’t glass. I shifted against it. It was some form of plastic, the kind that shattered into tiny, relatively safe pieces when you were unlucky enough to get shot by a crazy bitch.
“Zoey, are you all right? Can you talk?” Dev stared down at me. His green eyes were filled with concern and some form of warning. He was trying to tell me something without alerting Sarah.
I was disoriented for a moment. I was on the floor of the bathroom and the baby from the box was sitting on top of me while Dev cradled my head.
“It’s okay, Zoey. She let me out to check on you.” He leaned close to me and whispered in my ear. “The baby won’t let her near you.”
“Hey, no private conversation,” Sarah hissed but stayed close to the door. “Is she all right or not?”
Dev looked me over. He passed a hand over the hole in my shirt. I was surprised to find my shoulder was sore, but it didn’t hurt the way I thought it would. I grew very afraid that something was terribly wrong. I might not have been shot before, but I knew it was supposed to hurt. I learned a long time ago that if it was supposed to hurt and didn’t, I was usually in serious trouble. There also wasn’t anywhere near enough blood. It was there, but the blood on my shirt was already turning a dirty brown. There was none of the fresh, vibrant red one would expect when one was bleeding continuously.
Dev shook his head slightly, and I stopped my restless shaking. I actually didn’t feel bad at all. The baby tried to climb to my shoulder, but she kept slipping. She finally allowed Dev to pull her into his arms so she could pat my face.
“Mmmmbwaw.” She ran her hands over my nose and cheeks.
“Is she all right?” Sarah asked again, and I could hav
e sworn there was concern in her voice. She’d been the one to shoot me, but now she seemed upset I was hurt.
I was going to respond when Dev stopped me. He put the slightest pressure on my head, a warning to stay silent. “Of course she’s not all right. She’s been shot. She has a bullet hole in her chest. Sarah, she’s human. She’s not full of vampire blood. You can’t shoot her and expect her to heal up like a vampire.”
Except that I was—full of vampire blood, as Dev was subtlety explaining to me. I was full of Daniel’s blood, and that was why the bullet hole didn’t hurt. The bullet hole didn’t exist anymore. It healed before I hit the floor, but I stayed where I was because if Sarah realized I was fine, I was sure she would put Dev right back into mannequin mode, and I needed him limber.
“I am sorry,” Sarah said. “I didn’t want to hurt her. I…I really like her. I just need the child and I’ll leave.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do that,” Dev said.
“Pick up the baby or I’ll shoot you,” Sarah said. “I don’t know why magic isn’t working on the baby, but I doubt she can stop a bullet. Do you want to end up like Zoey? Don’t think I will hesitate on you, Dev. I just shot one of my best friends and put the other one in a sleep so deep I don’t know if he’ll come out of it. I don’t even like you much. I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”
“Oh, I know you’ll shoot, but I think you underestimate this baby.” Dev turned toward Sarah, but he looked the baby in the eyes. I started to pull myself up because Dev was putting the baby in the direct path of the gun. “I think she’ll hold her hand up and catch the freaking bullet because she’s not a baby, Sarah. She’s magic.”
The baby stared at Dev with huge green eyes, and for a moment I wondered if she understood. He spoke to her intently, as though she could understand everything he said.
“I warned you,” Sarah said before the room shook with the sound of gunfire.
And the baby in Dev’s arms held her hand up and the bullet stopped in midair. It just stopped and sat there until she giggled and pinched it with her little fat fingers and pulled it inevitably into her mouth.
“No.” I was unable to stay down any longer. I pulled the bullet away. “Why do you put everything in your mouth? Bad. Nasty.”
Sarah watched with her mouth slack-jawed with amazement. Dev was talking, not wasting a moment. He was the only one who understood what the baby was.
“You can protect us,” he said quietly to the girl. “Just think of a bubble. It’s like a circle. Reach in my mind, and you can see it. That’s right. Just like that.”
And I felt the air shift. When Sarah tried to move toward us, she was stopped by some invisible wall. She was forced to step back. The baby giggled at her trick. She touched the wall she made and laughed.
“She’s magic, Sarah. She’s faery magic, and she’ll learn quickly to protect what she loves.” Dev stroked my hair. He seemed much happier behind our protective wall. “She’s a part of Zoey. She won’t let you hurt her.”
“Fine,” Sarah said with an ugly, angry shout. “Let’s see if she will protect the things Zoey loves.”
Sarah turned and walked out of the room. I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach because Daniel and Neil were in the outer room, and they were completely helpless. Despite Dev’s pulling hands, I broke out of the circle and ran for the room.
Sarah stood beside the bed where Daniel and Neil lay. Daniel was still as the death his sleep emulated, but Neil was curled up at the end of the bed like a puppy taking a nap. He snuffled in his sleep but didn’t wake.
“You don’t speak Latin, Zoey, so let me translate for you,” Sarah said to me from across the king-sized bed. “Exuro. I’m going to hold my hand over the bed and put my will into it, and I’m going to say exuro. It means burn. This bed will go up in flames, and your vampire will go with it. Have you watched a vampire burn? It isn’t pretty.”
“Please don’t,” I begged. “Please, Sarah.”
“Do you think I want to do this?” She practically shouted the question. “I just want the fucking kid. I don’t want to hurt any of you.” Tears streaked down her face. She took a breath and calmed herself momentarily. “Stay back,” she said as Dev walked into the room.
“I’m sorry, but the baby wants to be with Zoey,” he said. “She’s quite insistent.”
She bit back a cry, looking right at me. “It’s all your fault. You’re the one who just had to sign a contract with a demon. You just had to have that money. It’s your downfall, that arrogant greed of yours.”
Anger burned in my gut. “Oh, I disagree. My downfall is obviously my shitty choice in friends.”
Sarah frowned. “I never wanted to betray you. I just want to save my sister. My mother contracted the both of us to Brixalnax before we were born. We have twenty-five years on this plane before we have to serve our master in Hell. I was told if I bring in the Light, he will let me and my sister go. She turns twenty-five next month. She isn’t strong. She can’t survive it. Please understand. I don’t have a choice.”
“So you’re willing to give up Daniel and me for you and your sister.” I finally understood the plot of the little drama I found myself in.
“Zoey, Daniel doesn’t have a soul. He’ll be fine. This is all about you,” Sarah said as though my naïveté was offensive. “I’m sorry, but she’s my sister. And Daniel will figure something out to save you. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. I’m counting on it. He won’t let you go. He really does love you. No one is going to help me or Lily. No one gives a damn about us.”
“I did. I would have helped you.”
Sarah sniffled. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I was put on this path before I was born. I just wish I hadn’t…I really liked being around you guys. I liked being your friend, and I am so sorry it has to end this way.”
“But it doesn’t.” Tears streamed down my face. “You trust Daniel. He is a smart guy, and he can get us out of this.” I tried to make it sound believable because I didn’t see how Daniel could think or muscle us out of the contract. I just had to make sure she didn’t torch that bed.
Tears streamed down Sarah’s face and the gun fell out of her hand. “What am I doing?”
Just like that all the tension in the room fled. “Nothing. You haven’t really done anything yet.”
“I shot you. Oh, god, I shot you. Zoey, you have to understand. He gave me a preview of what was going to happen.”
I’d seen that preview myself. I could only imagine what Sarah’s Hell had been like. And her sister would have to go first. What would I have done to save my father or one of my friends? “Just calm down. No one died. We’re going to be okay. So Halfer offered you a way out.”
Sarah nodded, her face mottled and red. “Yes. He came to me a couple of weeks ago. He told me if I found the box for him he would cancel mine and Lily’s contracts. I didn’t know it would have anything to do with you. I was going to ask you to help me the night you met with him.”
Dev kicked the gun away. “So Halfer wanted to cause some major chaos.”
“I don’t understand any of it. I don’t. I just know I don’t even recognize myself anymore. Do you think there’s any way out?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know, but I can’t sacrifice this child for you.” I could halfway forgive the crazy gun-toting act, but I was going to be immovable on this.
“I don’t know how you healed that gunshot wound unless you and Daniel had a bunch of fun last night. And if you did, and what I heard about you is true, then I was right and he won’t let some demon take you down. You’re his companion. The Council won’t let it happen.” Her hands were shaking as she touched Neil. “He’ll wake up in a little while. I love him, too, you know.”
I wasn’t sure the Council would care about me one way or another, but I needed to think up a way to help Sarah. First, we needed to get the baby to the faeries. We had a few hours, but I wouldn’t feel safe until she was home.
“Dev, will
you drive us back to the hotel?”
He frowned, still holding the baby tight. “Us? You really think I’m getting into a car with the crazy witch who just tried to kill us all?”
Such a drama queen. “She only really tried to kill me.”
“Dev, I was desperate. I’m sorry. God, you have no idea how sorry I am. I didn’t actually mean to hit her. I thought I would just scare her. You don’t know what he showed me.”
I didn’t have time for them to argue. “I’ll get the baby’s things. Dev, you go get her in the car seat. Sarah, follow him and try not to go insane on me again.”
They walked out, Dev’s suspicious eyes on Sarah. I gathered a few of the baby’s things and kissed my sleeping Daniel. Hopefully it would all be over before he woke up.
When I walked into the fading light of early evening, the first thing I noticed was that we were not alone in the parking lot. There was Dev, and he was kneeling with his hands up. Sarah was flat on the pavement, her arms behind her back. The baby was crying, wiggling in another woman’s arms. Two men stood guarding Dev. They all looked familiar, and I realized why. I knew in that moment that I wasn’t going to have to find the faeries. They found us, and they were armed. One of them looked straight at me as he held his weapon up.
And that’s the story of how I took my first arrow straight to the gut.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Is she going to be all right?”
“You’re going to have to explain to me why you give a shit, Sarah.”
“I already explained this to you. I didn’t want to hurt her.”
