by Liz Ellor
“Katrina!”
The clipped, disapproving tone echoed in her ears, striking her like a mallet on a bell. Damn. She straightened to find a short, thin white woman with a greying bun standing near the bar. A sweater and slacks made Lisa Franklin stand out like a sore thumb. Retirees. I forgot Shawn could have called in a favor from one of them.
The past few years had softened her face, but Katrina would know those moist blue eyes anywhere. She’d seen them every day in training and every day after Indigo had sent her back to Washington. They watched her from the balcony as she sparred, waiting for her to fail. Katrina had passed all her classes in spy craft with flying colors, but agents worked in the field, and they needed to be able to take on a powerful Descendant with their bare hands, if necessary. So she’d spent hours bulking up in the gym, learned three different martial arts, and chopped off her hair so no one could grab it or light it on fire.
Lisa thought the best advice she could give a female agent was to get a desk job, now, before a werewolf rips out your uterus and no man wants you. Practically, Indigo had always used female agents. Women had always formed the backbones of intelligence networks, and magic made both sexes equally strong. But Katrina embraced the work, despite lacking magic. She did not fit in Lisa’s worldview.
Lisa had made Katrina one of her projects, selflessly sacrificing hours of paperwork to stalk her, assuring Katrina that there was nothing wrong with wanting to protect humanity—women were made to protect, to guard their children with their lives—but Katrina would never be as good as a magic user—it’s just a fact, honey—and she should find a nice normal man and have his babies, and everything would be just fine. Looking at her, Katrina glimpsed the sterile walls of a hospital, smelled disinfectant, felt a thick cast around her leg. Lisa stood above her. I told you this would happen. Why can’t you be grateful you don’t have magic?
Indigo had recalled her to desk duty until she recovered, and never got around to declaring her fit for action. A year and a half she’d spent as an analyst, hearing sloppy, inattentive, but oh-so magical agents be praised to the high heavens. Miriam Arnold. Miriam’s flashy sparring style and elegant control of flames made her an Indigo darling—never mind that she’d never caught a single criminal. A liquor-fueled Katrina had held a knife to her neck at a Christmas party, just to show she was strong enough, that she could kill a Descendant if she had to.
They’d fired her on the spot, of course, but she’d realized by then Indigo would never, ever, give her a posting where she could prove herself. Lisa had escorted her from the building. This is for the best. You can’t change what you are, Katrina. You’ll be happier as just a normal woman.
Utter bullshit.
“Shawn sent me to look after you,” Lisa said. “He told me about your … little problem. What’s wrong with you, Katrina? Why can’t you just behave? Like a normal adult?”
Rage boiled in her stomach. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with me.” She grabbed a lonely shotglass from the bar and downed it. It burned, and the burn filled her with warmth. “Tell Shawn he can go fuck himself. I do what I want.”
Lisa paled. Aiden tapped Katrina’s shoulder. “Do you know this woman?”
“Yes. She wasn’t invited.” She smiled so wide she thought her face might split.
Aiden motioned for the bouncers. Oh, the irony. They each took one of Lisa’s arms and marched her towards the door. Passive aggressive in, passive aggressive out.
“Your brother babysits you more than you babysit me,” Kyle said. He waved at the bartender. “More Mai Thais!”
Hers tasted like freedom.
The next two hours passed in a blur. Kyle’s hand rested constantly on her shoulder, but a wonderful lightness filled her chest, tugging her upwards like a balloon on her wrist. She danced until her feet blistered and laughed until her lungs hurt. Why had she denied herself this for so long?
“So you’re a Republican?” Aiden asked. Both of them were leaning on the bar for support. Katrina gripped a cocktail glass full of red and orange ice that swirled as she flicked the paper umbrella from side to side. “I should call the bouncers on you.”
“You’d have to throw out Kyle, too.” She pointed across the floor, to where three men had picked Kyle up and started passing him over the heads of the crowd. “Believe me. Emma Winters is the best canni … canda … person in the race.” She hiccupped. Her thoughts swirled like the colors in her glass, momentarily incapable of venturing anywhere even remotely unpleasant.
“If I don’t vote for Roberts, they’ll cut up my bi card.”
“Nah. Jay Roberts is scum. Trust me.”
Aiden didn’t look like he did.
“Are we talking about Roberts?” Kyle asked, staggering up to the bar. His eyeshadow had started to run from all his sweat. “Asshole. You know, his campaign headquarters are only a block away. At street level. Let’s go piss on his walls.”
“Agreed,” Katrina said. Whenever the name ‘Roberts’ came up at work, it meant headaches and staying up until midnight to counter whatever new dirt he’d come up with.
“You two aren’t going anywhere but home,” Aiden said. “Let me call you a cab.”
Nope. She sloughed her drink on him.
“Bitch!” he shouted.
Some part of her thought that might have been rude, but she couldn’t feel concerned. “I make my own decisions.” She threaded her elbow through Kyle’s and decided she’d never liked the pair of stilettos she’d abandoned on the floor. “And I’m not drunk.”
The cold sidewalk soothed her blistered feet as she and Kyle staggered along. Autumn wind hit her bare skin, but the cold felt miles away. She had her own little fire glowing in her stomach to keep her warm. A man huddled in a doorway they passed suggested she should let him squeeze her ass. She flipped him off. Kyle laughed.
Roberts’ headquarters were another block away. Posters of his smiling face hung in the well-lit windows. Their piss steamed as it hit the walls. Kyle managed to direct a stream on one of the posters.
“Let’s go!” she said, pulling up her skirt, giddy energy rushing through her veins.
The police caught up with them a block away and handed out a pair of pink tickets. They made it into a taxi before Kyle’s phone started buzzing. His face turned the color of a piña colada.
“There were still staffers at work,” he whispered. “They took photos and tweeted them from the campaign account.”
Something told Katrina this was bad. “Take us to Brooklyn,” she told the driver, suddenly aware she might not be welcome at the staffers’ apartment. She hoped she could remember where Shawn kept his spare key.
Light forced itself between her eyelids. Katrina sat up, unwillingly, and rubbed her eyes. Gunk and eyeshadow covered her hands. Something wet touched her leg.
She’d thrown up in Annie’s bed.
Oh, no. Oh, no. Heat filled her cheeks. Her stomach churned. She threw up again, soaking Annie’s old teddy bear in vomit. Oh, no.
She started crying as she dragged the sheets down to the washing machine. Shame she could handle, shame she could hide. Crying was so ordinary, such a mark of weakness—but she was weak, wasn’t she? Just a stinking alcoholic. A human wrecking ball. Fucking up my family, hurting everyone I touch.
She knocked over some of Annie’s comics as she stumbled back into the room to grab the comforter. Hesitantly, she picked one up.
In the 1930’s, some crafty bastards had used the medium to start telling stories about men with supernatural strength and agility. Indigo had shut them down fast, but co-opted the medium to record stories of its own greatest triumphs. Katrina’s father had brought new ones home for her every week. She’d devoured them like candy, drinking in the message: the noblest act of all was to bend one’s magic to the protection of mankind and the protection of the Seal.
Her fingers lingered on the newsprint. The story was new, but the themes remained familiar: a brave warrior fighting selflessly to protect
a group of children from a crazed Descendant who wanted them dead. She’d imagined herself filling those heroic shoes, as a child—you goddamn drunk, you’re so weak, you’ll never be that that warrior. She dropped the comic before her tears could ruin it. Indigo made them fragile on purpose.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at her phone until noon, after she’d showered, fixed the bed, thrown up again, and swiped some clothing from Anaïs. Fifty new texts and emails awaited her. The media wanted interviews, her coworkers hated her guts, and the one she dreaded was at the bottom.
Fired. For the third fucking time. It felt like a punch in the gut. What did you think would happen, Katrina? You think you deserve a job? You’re the one who keeps screwing stuff up! Part of her wished she’d told Winters about her drinking problem back when she’d been hired. The other part suspected Winters wouldn’t have hired her if she’d known.
The world spun around her. Nothing felt quite real. She sat on the sofa and buried her head in her hands, but being alone with her thoughts was too much to bear. She flipped on the TV. Five minutes later, a picture of her with a blurred circle over her genitals popped up on CNN. She flipped it off.
Her phone rang. Senator Winters. She ignored it and poured herself a glass of Shawn’s orange juice. Then she threw up in the sink. Senator Winters called her again. She let it go to voicemail.
Then came a third call.
Katrina realized that the solitude she was cherishing did not contain Kyle, who she vaguely remembered stuffing into Shawn and Anaïs’s bed.
She stumbled up the stairs. The bed was empty.
“Shit.” She wanted to curl up into a ball and vanish. Or find some way to turn back time.
Her phone rang again. This time, she picked up.
“Katrina?” Senator Winters gasped. “Where’s my son?”
Kyle had left a note at his mother’s hotel: ‘I’m sorry’. Tears streaked the ink. He’d tossed his phone out on the pavement. His mother still had access to his bank account, which said he’d rented a car. The police had been contacted. They’d flagged his car speeding through a tollbooth, streaming northward. Officers in Hamilton County had also been alerted. Katrina had called and tried to describe the old hiking trails as well as she could, but she doubted they could find it.
The Winters had bought the better portion of the Harris land back in the eighties, when her father had sold it to pay off his debts. They’d build a mansion on the hill and spent every summer there. Kyle had been the only kid her age in a five mile radius. And if it hadn’t been for that connection, you miserable drunk, you’d never have gotten hired by Winters to begin with. She and Kyle had spent months wandering those woods. If Kyle was feeling … sad … he’d go to their spot.
Shawn had left his car behind. She grabbed it and raced north. The radio kept telling her that the Winters’ campaign was dropping in the polls. One conservative commentator shouted about how you couldn’t trust a woman who couldn’t even control her family, suggesting that maybe Tea Party Prescott was the proper heir to the cause. It might have meant something, or it might have meant nothing. Senator Winters’ campaign could still recover … oh, Kyle, we don’t know what’ll happen, it’s too soon to blame yourself!
Especially when what had happened was all her fault. You filthy dirty addict. She’d promised Senator Winters she’d watch out for Kyle. She’d had every reason in the world to stay sober. Hadn’t she grown out of ruining her life? Your picture on the news. You’re the joke of the 2012 election. The Monica Lewinsky who can’t get laid. She’d never get another job in politics. Maintaining the family house and renting the apartment in the city had wiped out her savings. Shawn would give her money, but it’d eat at his marriage even more. Did he hate her for all the trouble she caused him? She couldn’t blame him if he did.
The sun set quickly. Tall hills covered in fall leaves vanished into the grey sky. Shadows wrapped around her, as if she was driving into a tunnel that grew deeper every mile.
Four hours passed. She made a beeline for the Winters’ mansion. The three story Tudor-style house loomed over the valley below. Lights glowed from the Harris house across the lake. Kyle’s rental car sat in the driveway. The front door hung open. Katrina left Shawn’s car running and sprinted inside. “Kyle! Are you in here?”
Warm light shone from the living room. Inside, she found the gun safe hanging open. Kyle’s Glock was missing.
Oh, no.
Gravel spun from beneath her tires as she drove to the trailhead at seventy miles per hour. Anaïs’s too-small sneakers pinched her feet as she sprinted up the hill. “Kyle!” The dense pines wove tight nets around the trails. An old chunk of slate that used to support a bench caught at her foot. Her lungs burned by the time she reached the lightning-scorched trunk. Her eyes strained to see through the night as she turned left onto the old deer track. “Kyle! Come on! Kyle!” Thorns whipped out and tore her pant leg. She gasped, but kept moving—and then she crested the bluff, and saw Kyle’s silhouette against the moon, and froze.
He was pressing the gun to his chin.
“Hi.” She kept her voice low, like she was trying to tempt a stray dog. “Can we talk?”
“There’s nothing much to say, is there?” He didn’t turn to face her. His eyes remained locked on the moon. “And don’t say it’ll get better. It won’t.”
She took a tentative step forward, aware she was walking on a tightrope. Her hands shook. “Why do you feel these way?”
“I’ve failed at everything I’ve ever tried to do, and now I’m ruining up my mom’s life, too! Don’t try to tell me it’s not my fault, because the common denominator is always me!” A sob escaped along with the words. He lowered his voice. “You should go. I don’t want you getting in trouble on my account. That’d be just like me, right?”
This is all your fault. You failed him. Failed him mom, failed yourself … so many fucking times. You’ll never be an agent again. Never have any power. Never be who you wanted to be. And here was Kyle, alone, burning with pain, and she would give anything to make it better.
“What if I go with you?” she blurted out.
Now he turned to face her. His eyes widened. “You can’t! You have—”
“I have nothing, okay? No job, no money. My family hates me. You think you hurt your mom? I’m an alcoholic, and I can’t control myself. I hurt everyone and everything I touch. You’re the only friend I’ve got left, Kyle. I don’t want to live in a world without you!”
He reached out and took her hand. “Kat …”
“I’ll go first.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Remember those old games we used to play? You always let me go first.”
He didn’t say a word as he passed her the gun.
She gripped the cold metal. The hole in the end of the barrel drew her eyes like a magnet. No more hurting people. One quick flash of pain and everything’s okay forever. She could pivot and throw it off the overlook before he could stop her. Was that why she’d asked for it? Would she really go through with it?
Her gun hand went up as she gripped Kyle’s wrist. Her heart fluttered like a canary trying to escape a cage in a coal mine.
A shot echoed from deeper in the woods.
The spell broke. Years of drills took over, and she dropped into a shooter’s crouch. Kyle reached for the gun. A thousand revelations fell on her head. She threw the gun from the overlook. It vanished in the overgrown shadows of the cliff.
“How could you—”
She pivoted and slapped him, hard. Shawn, Shawn’s in the woods. The valkyrie must have run. Indigo was chasing a fugitive. Bullets would fly, and they didn’t care who they hit. “We need to get off the mountain, now!” Her hand tightened around his wrist. He didn’t resist as she dragged him down the trail.
Katrina scrambled through the bracken. The trail had vanished in the darkness, leaving her plummeting freely downhill, arms wheeling, nearly tripping over every hidden root and stone. Dogs barked through the trees. Anot
her gun went off.
A running figure stumbled out of the trees and collapsed in front of them. “Help me!” gasped a female voice.
This one’s too short to be a valkyrie. Katrina paused. The woman’s breaths were hitching, uneven. The darkness concealed most details, but the woman’s hands clearly cupped her stomach.
“Were you shot?” Katrina asked.
“Yes.”
Stomach wound. She’d die if she didn’t reach a hospital soon. Unless— “Are you a Descendant?” The body of a high-generation Descendant could mend the wound if the bullet was removed. If she’s a Descendant, then she got shot for a reason.
“A what?” the woman gasped.
Just a hiker. An accident. She stripped the woman’s jacket off and pressed it against the wound while Kyle stared in horror. “Hold this steady. We’ll get you to my car. It’s just at the bottom of the hill. Can you stand?”
The woman nodded.
“Good. I’ll drive you to the hospital.” She turned to Kyle, who watched with his eyes open wide. “Kyle, come grab her arm.” He didn’t move. She raised her voice. “Kyle!”
That shook him out of his stupor. He ducked under the woman’s shoulder, lifting her up. Katrina took the other shoulder.
A deep howl rolled through the trees, and the injured woman shuddered violently. “Wolves?” Kyle gasped.
Indigo brought a werewolf to hunt. With the moon nearly full. Transforming now was risky enough. The scent of blood might send them into a frenzy. It risked lives. It risked the Seal. What makes one lone valkyrie that important? There were few enough valkyries left in the world, and those remaining tended to work as muscle for hire. Who does this one work for?
The headlights of her car glowed from the trailhead. Katrina’s heart leapt at the sight. The engine still purred—she’d left the keys in the ignition. Quickly, she and Kyle lowered the injured woman into the back seat and slid into the front seat. Katrina gripped the wheel.
“Keep the pressure on the wound!” she ordered Kyle. He twisted in his seat. Dark shapes appeared in the rear-view mirror. Katrina stepped on the gas.
