Caine, Rachel-Short Stories

by Rachel Caine

  She was Donal's only vulnerability.

  I was still partly blocked from Sam's view. With my right hand, I dug my cell phone from my pocket, flipped it open, and hit and held the speed dial number I'd assigned to Detective Prieto. I had to hope he'd answer or, at worst, that his voice mail would give him the clues he needed after the fact to put it all together. "You kept Lottie alive," I said. "Right, Sam? To suffer."

  "Damn straight," he said. "When I'm done with you, I'll take out Annika, and we can move on to the next town. You have to be stopped, all of you."

  "You're using Donal just as much as Lottie did," I said. "Let him go, Sam. God–please, let him go!"

  "No," he snapped. "Not until every single one of you is dead. Don't move, Holly. I want you to watch what happens next."

  He knew. He knew about Andrew; he'd heard how traumatized I was when I'd lost him before.

  He wanted me to watch him die again.

  Donal was fast, but Andy was faster. Even wounded, he was as lithe as a cat. He dodged Donal's roaring charge, tripped the twisted giant, and bashed Donal's skull hard into the marble counter. I backed away, dodged behind the fighting men, and screamed into the phone, "Prieto, it's Sam Twist, find Lottie, Lottie's the key–"

  Donal's hand slapped the phone away from me, and it bounced and broke into scattered pieces against the far wall. A bone snapped in my hand, and I choked back a scream, then another as I felt Andy's torment surge stronger. He was feeling my pain, too.

  He'd do anything to stop it, and that was so dangerous.

  I needed the gun Sam held.

  I settled for grabbing a cleaver from the block next to the stove. Lottie, like all good cooks and witches, kept her tools in order; the cleaver had a wicked fine edge, a silky deadliness that vibrated the air.

  I kept Donal between me and Sam as he sought for a clear shot. Andy slipped in his own blood; his strike at Donal's massive throat lost its strength, and Donal's huge gray hands closed on his shoulders.

  I felt Andy's arm being wrenched out of its socket. I screamed. He grunted and pulled halfway free, but Donal bunched up a fist and drew back–

  I threw myself to the floor and swiped the cleaver through Donal's Achilles' tendons, and he toppled, howling, like a tree. The table collapsed under his impact. Andy squirmed free, panting, and I felt the tide coming faster, deeper, all that darkness swirling and clouding the air between us as he tried to get to me…

  Sam fired twice. One shot hit Donal's flailing arm and kicked a fist-sized chunk of flesh out of it. The second shot…

  The second shot took Andy in the chest as he lunged to cover me.

  "No!" I shrieked, and took his weight in my arms as he collapsed against me.

  There was no fighting the emptiness that rolled over me now, the call of endless peace, and I felt Andy slipping away.

  I felt him find some small, impossible anchor in that tide, and his body shuddered against mine, holding me tight against him. He can't. He can't make it. Even the dead had to die.

  But Andy refused to go.

  He pulled back, and his eyes were liquid silver, the color of the potion I'd dosed him with in the morgue. His skin was as pale as paper. Most of his blood was poured out on the floor, an offering to harsher gods than I could ever worship.

  But he stayed standing.

  He took in a deep breath, and closed his eyes. "Potion," he whispered. "Give it to me."

  The jar behind me on the counter.

  Poisoned.

  "No," I said. "No, Andy."

  Another shot struck him. I screamed something at Sam, I don't even know what, and he bared his teeth in response. Donal was crawling toward us across the floor. He couldn't stand, but he wouldn't give up. He wanted me dead as much as Sam did.

  Andy reached behind me, fumbled the gallon jar of silver liquid, and looked at me with the most heartbreaking plea. "Help," he whispered. I felt the tide roaring in again, stronger this time. He couldn't resist that, not even for me.

  I helped him lift the jar.

  One swallow.

  Two.

  Sam's next bullet hit the jar and exploded it into a shower of glass. The potion coated us both and swirled in thick silvery streams in the blood on the floor.

  But it worked.

  I felt the black surging inside Andy fall away, and the sudden pulsebeat of life took over. For just an instant, his eyes locked with mine, and I saw a promise there.

  An acceptance, too.

  Donal's huge hand swiped at his feet, but Andy sidestepped and waltzed me with him. He put me gently out of the way, and turned to Sam Twist.

  "You got plenty of cause to hate," Andy said. "Your brother's been used hard. But you took it too far, mister. You got no quarrel with Holly."

  "She's a witch."

  Andy's smile turned wolfish. "So am I, mister. And now you got a quarrel with me."

  Sam fired again, and hit Andy. The bullet wounds didn't seem to matter at all; with a bellow of rage, Sam rushed forward, still firing. Andy moved like a bullfighter, avoiding the attack, and swung his arm around Sam's throat from behind. He threw his weight into the motion. Sam's feet slipped in the blood, and his neck snapped with a muffled dry crackle. It happened too fast for me to really take in, and then the life was leaving Sam's blue eyes and his body falling in that utterly empty way that only the dead can fall as Andy let him go.

  Donal howled, and it hurt me to hear it. He crawled past us and cradled Sam's broken body in his massive arms, small as a toy.

  I tightened my grip on the cleaver and swallowed hard. As I took a step toward him, Donal looked up at me. I knew he could take me apart.

  And I knew he was done fighting.

  Andy turned toward me, and our gazes met again.

  He'd taken two steps toward me when Lottie's poison took hold. Andy's fearsome strength of will might be able to deny bullet wounds, but this was different. Very different.

  His legs folded, and he fell to his side, panting. His pupils grew huge, no longer silver but black, black as the death that was coming for him.

  "Next time," he whispered. "You watch yourself, Holly Anne."

  I dropped to my knees beside him and put my hand on his forehead as he began to convulse.

  I tasted poison on his lips, and I wondered in a black, desolate fury if it would be enough to finish me. It wasn't.

  The universe wasn't quite that merciful.

  "Miss Caldwell," Detective Prieto said. I raised my head slowly, every muscle aching and hot. Part of it was Lottie's poisonous mixture; the other part was a collection of injuries I hadn't realized I'd accumulated until the heat of battle was past. I was back in the hospital. They'd taken Donal away in a steel prison truck, howling for his dead brother. They'd taken Andy away in a coroner's wagon, along with Sam. I'd screamed about the two of them riding together, but the cops thought I was out of my mind. Maybe I was.

  I looked at Detective Prieto wearily, too exhausted to care about the pity in his eyes. "Did you find her?"

  "We did," he said. "She was drugged. Chained up in a room underneath Sam Twist's house."

  I nodded. "And the others?"

  He just looked at me. Sam hadn't needed the others, of course. He'd needed only Lottie to keep Donal alive.

  Perversely, Lottie still lived, like the cockroach surviving nuclear winter. And so did Donal, for all the good it did him.

  "You okay?" Prieto asked. It was my turn to stare, and he turned away from what he saw in my expression. "Lottie's down the hall, I hear. They say she'll make a full recovery."

  With that, he pushed open the door to the grim little hospital room and left. It hurt too much to stand up, but I did it anyway, and shuffled to follow.

  Prieto was getting into the elevator when I emerged, but he caught my eye and jerked his chin down the hall. "Four down," he said.

  The doors shut.

  Carlotta was a lovely woman with the soul of a pig. I'd always known that, but I'd never really known.
>
  I'd never seen the depths. Now I couldn't get out of them. Not without climbing over someone else.

  She'd do.

  Carlotta was asleep. She looked older than I remembered, with black hair threaded with silver and lines on her face. Could have been someone's mother, someone's grandmother. Asleep, you couldn't see the real person.

  Her eyes opened when I dragged a chair up next to her bed–brown, as confused as any soul dragged back from the dark. Except she'd been drugged, not dead, and the softness cleared from her in seconds.

  "Holly." She nearly spat my name. "I should have known he'd spare you. Sam always liked you."

  I didn't answer her. Somewhere, in the coldest part of me, I was seeing the agony of Andy's last moments, and I was realizing how much Lottie would have enjoyed it.

  "The others?"

  "Dead," I said. My voice sounded soft and distant. "How long have you been doing this?"

  "Doing what?"

  "Bringing back the dead and fighting them like dogs. For money."

  Lottie's bitter brown eyes narrowed. "Don't you judge me, you little bitch. We all bring them back for profit." She smiled slowly. "I'm just creative."

  The room looked red for a few seconds, and I had trouble controlling my breathing. My hands ached, and realized I'd clenched them into tight, shaking fists.

  "Creative," I repeated. "Why'd you ask Prieto for Andy?"

  "I knew somebody was stalking us," she said. "If anybody could stop it, Toland would have been the one. Besides–" She was still smiling, and it had a sharp, cutting edge to it. "–he'd have made me a lot of money, after. A lot of money."

  I shuddered. It was hard to stay in the chair. Hard not to put my hands around her throat and squeeze.

  "You're done," I said. "I'm going to make it my personal mission to see you're finished."

  "How?" Lottie's laugh broke on the air like ice. "You're a stupid girl. I'm the victim. You counting on the Review Board? Better not. With so many resurrection witches gone, they might give me a fine, but they need me. Now more than ever."

  She was probably right, at that. Resurrection witches were a rare breed, and she and I were the only ones left working in the city. The Review Board would blame Sam. Lottie would get away with a slap on the wrist.

  Lottie would do it again, and I wouldn't be able to stop her. The police wouldn't act. The dead didn't have legal rights.

  I stood up. Lottie's dark gaze followed me as I crossed to the door. There was a thumb-lock on the inside, and I flipped it over.

  Lottie laughed. "You going to kill me, Holly? You going to spend your life in prison over dead men?"

  "No," I said. "Funny thing about comas, Lottie. You can slip back into them without warning. It's really tragic."

  A flash of something in her eyes that might have been fear. Her hand reached for the call button.

  I got there first.

  I held her down. She struggled, and snarled, but when my lips touched hers, it was all over.

  I was the best resurrection witch in Austin. One thing about being able to give life to the dead… you can take it from the living. It's forbidden, but it can be done.

  I didn't take all her life. Just enough.

  Just enough to leave her wandering in the dark, screaming, trapped inside her own head. Her body would live, mute and unresponsive, for as long as modern science could maintain it, but Lottie Flores would never, ever bring back the dead again.

  Not even herself.

  Andy was in the morgue downstairs, and I had to see him. What I'd done to Lottie had hurt me in ways that might never be right again, but somehow seeing his face, even in death, would give me peace.

  He was so lovely. And he was at peace, the way I knew he should be.

  I kissed him lightly. I didn't have any potion, and I put no spell behind it; it was just a kiss, just the brush of lips.

  But the emotion behind it–darkness and passion and need, so much need, it seemed to bleed silver from my pores.

  Magic.

  I felt him reaching for me, in the dark, and I couldn't help but respond. It wasn't my own doing. I wasn't this strong.

  I felt the connection snap clean between us, silver and hot, vibrating like a plucked string.

  His eyes opened, and he smiled.

  "You came back," I murmured.

  " 'Course I did, Holly," he said. "I'll always come for you."

  "I didn't–there's no potion–"

  "Don't need it," Andy said. He stirred, and the sheet across his bare chest slipped down, revealing raw bullet holes that were, before my eyes, sealing themselves closed. "Got myself some skills, you know. More than most."

  I kissed him again, tasting potions and poisons and my own tears. "How long can you stay?" I asked.

  He smiled. "Long as you want me."

  Forever.

  Duty

  An original short story by Rachel Caine

  Miz Grainger had trouble fitting the key in the lock, not because of any problem with either one. Her hands were shaking so bad that Olida had to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing the big brass keyring away from her. Miz Grainger had some kind of a silver bell on the ring that chimed and kept chiming like Santa’s sleigh, which did not lessen the heat of the midsummer day or make any of them believe for a second it was Christmas. Miz Grainger bit her lip with enough force to drag tooth-furrows through the field of her shiny peach-colored lipstick, muffled the bell with her palm, and finally got the brass key into the hole.

  Olida and Rita-Mae breathed a sigh of relief. Zenobia just rolled her eyes in their racoon-holes of dark green shadow. Miz Grainger hesitated a second, long enough to make Olida tense up again, then turned the key. They all heard the oiled snick as the deadbolt slid back.

  "Mary Mother of God," Miz Grainger whispered shakily, and turned the doorknob. It was a new one, shiny brass. Her fingers left damp prints on it as she released it and the door opened with a soft shhh of weatherstripping. "Oh. Oh. Oh, I can’t go in there, I can’t."

  The three of them looked at each other. Olida felt the weight of responsibility settle and stepped forward to tap Miz Grainger on the shoulder; she jumped with enough of a snap to dislodge stiff strands of hair from her carefully sprayed-together beehive.

  "Land!" the woman blurted, face as pale and gray as a corpse’s. Her eyes glittered with panic. "I told you, I can’t go in there. You go on, go do what I’m paying you to do. I’ll just wait here by my car. I’ll have your money ready when you’re done."

  "Ma’am," Olida said patiently, "It’ll be some hours. There’s a lot of work to things like this. Lotta cleaning. Now, we all done this before, and our new one didn’t show, so you don’t worry none and just go get yourself a cold drink. Sit and rest. You come on back in three hours or so and I’ll come out and tell you what we’ve done. That fair?"

  Miz Grainger, Olida knew, was not about to disagree with a five-foot-ten black woman. It only helped that Olida was about ten shades darker than any other black woman in Parker County, Nebraska, and therefore ten shades more frightening. Olida didn’t mind that at all.

  Miz Grainger nodded at her, a convulsive jerk that let loose some more of her beehived silver hair. She nearly backed off the steps until Olida caught her elbow and steadied her.

  That sent the woman immediately and hurriedly down the driveway to her Bonneville and peeling rubber out onto Montrain Street. Olida grinned. Rita-Mae and Zenobia grinned back.

  "Well, lay-dies, we gonna sit around and steal Miz Grainger’s money or we gonna do some work?" Olida asked. Rita-Mae promptly set her white trash butt down on the steps and lit up a Camel. Zenobia checked her eye makeup in a little cracked hand mirror. "You two are just as useless as ever. Rita-Mae, suck that thing and get in here. You, Miss War Paint, pick up that box."

  It was really just a game to loosen them up. Olida, Rita-Mae and Zenobia had been doing this for more years than any of them wanted to think about. Olida thought about quitting it, knew the oth
ers did two, but something kept pulling them back in, and it wasn’t just the good money.

  It was duty. They had a skill, and they had to use it the way God intended, or at least that was Olida’s thought. She had no idea what the other two thought, and didn’t care. For her, it was duty.

  And cash.

  "Well, thank Jesus, somebody left the air on," Zenobia said as she set her box down in the shadowy living room. "Won’t be so bad when it’s cool, will it, Lid?"

  "Yeah," Olida said absently, and flicked on a light. The carpeting blared to life, an orange-red that had probably seen the seventies in its middle age. She bent closer to look at it and noticed something odd. It was clean. Really clean. Somebody had taken the time and toil to shampoo it a lot, and rake it with one of them plastic rakes to get the shag to stand up. She’d left footprints in the deep pile. She looked at the furniture more closely, thinking again about her first impression of Salvation Army. It was all good furniture, not fancy but perfectly well-kept. The coffee table had a fine veneer of dust, residue of a couple of days of summer, but it still gleamed the kind of red-brown that only came from careful polish. The books lined up in the shelves were all carefully arranged, neatly ordered. Everything in the living room, from the little china dolls on the mantle to the shiny fireplace irons, had been placed there deliberately by somebody who liked everything just so.

  Olida felt a sudden chill. Her house looked the same. Oh, the furniture was different, the carpet green instead of orange, but she took care with her home.

  So had --

  "Lid, shit, we gonna work or sightsee?" Zenobia asked crossly. Olida snapped herself together and turned toward the kitchen.

  The smell coming from that direction was what had made Miz Grainger turn her beehive around and run. It was dark and sickly-sweet, with a faint undertaste of old copper. Olida breathed it in and sighed it out, feeling it spread through her pores like a second skin. No getting around it, this was going to be a long one.

  "Jesu Maria," Zenobia breathed as she peered over Olida’s shoulder. Olida snapped on the light switch and felt Zen’s muscles twitch in response.

  The kitchen screamed.

  The rust-brown stains splashed up from the baseboards, over faded chintz curtains, spidered across shiny white cabinets. There were splatters on the ceiling, looming over them like little red stars. The floor was a clotted lake, extending from the corner by the stained breakfast table to disappear under the refrigerator and puddle unevenly where the gold-flecked linoleum had buckled.