“Trapped by her own rage, too,” said a friendly voice. The androgynous figure in the suit stood on Severin’s other side.
Severin snorted. “Imani? Never.”
“No? Then perhaps she’s been trapped by the silencing of her rage? I’m Capricorn, by the way! I’m here to help you.”
Severin gave Capricorn a sidelong look. Capricorn tilted their head and smiled. Branwyn was pretty sure more passed between them than a glance, but also sure that it had resolved peacefully because Severin merely looked back at Imani without trying to kill anybody.
“So she’s stuck?” inquired Charlie. “What can I do?”
“Call her,” suggested Severin. “She’s in there. She can find her way out for you.”
Charlie looked apprehensive. “But then she calls me, and I really want to go to her.”
Severin shrugged. “Say you can’t. Tell her I’m keeping you from her.”
Capricorn cleared their throat. “I don’t believe that would work out to Imani’s benefit. In fact—”
Suddenly Yejun was at Capricorn’s side. “Hey, Delicious, how do you feel about more mouse-wrangling?”
Charlie and Severin both looked at Yejun sharply.
“Mouse?” said Severin.
Yejun said, “Oh, uh. Stay tuned? I think I can pull the real Imani out of what’s holding her, but there’s a side effect and it may only be temporary anyhow.”
Capricorn carefully took off their hat and jacket and offered them to Branwyn. “Would you be so kind as to hold these, please?” Branwyn took them, bemused, and Capricorn glanced down at their polished shoes as they rolled up their sleeves. “No, I couldn’t stand it if I scuffed them,” they said decisively, and stepped out of them.
“What about a mouse?” said Charlie. “Do you mean me?”
Yejun looked at Charlie over his sunglasses. “Are you a mouse, too?”
“Um,” said Charlie, and fell silent, clearly out of her depth.
“Mouse is her nickname,” said Branwyn briskly. “Also apparently the form of the side effect. Are we all clear now? You’re confident about this, Yejun?”
“Uh, mostly,” said Yejun, and his eyes, still visible over his lowered glasses, darted to Severin. “It might be… a little upsetting but she’ll be herself when I’m done. It seemed to help last time. She’s stopped wailing about her work, anyhow.”
Branwyn could feel the softest creak in her chest. Then Severin looked at her, his expression twisted. She had the surreal experience of feeling his touch at the back of her neck while he stood in front of her.
Then Capricorn stepped between them to adjust the folds of the jacket over Branwyn’s arm. Softly, they said, “You have been acting as his filter recently, yes? But he mustn’t leave the child now.”
Branwyn opened her mouth to deny acting as Severin’s ‘filter’ and then paused as she remembered Severin stepping behind her when he wanted to kill the courtiers of the Court of Stone; when he was enraged by the Saint; even his sardonic remark in his space about using her as a distraction.
“Capricorn!” shouted the recording angel, above them. “Stop meddling.”
“It’s my job!” Capricorn called back, happily, before half-skipping out between Severin and Branwyn as if shoved.
At the same time, Severin said silently, First angel I’ve liked in a while, that one. I don’t want to… make things worse, cupcake. Her chest creaked again, and she saw his own breathing become shallow. I don’t want to overreact like the kid’s afraid I will.
Branwyn exhaled slowly. “You’ve got this.” Then she deliberately adjusted her position so she stood behind him. He watched her as she moved, until he was craning his head, watching her from the corner of his eye.
“Get on with it, Yejun,” Branwyn commanded, and then, more quietly, “Focus on Imani and Charlie, Severin.” She bared her teeth. “You can hide behind me again later if you have to.”
His eyes narrowed. Then his shark smile flickered across his face as he faced forward again.
Branwyn watched over his shoulder as Capricorn and Yejun both strolled up to Imani. The ghost paused her wailing to glare at them, a bloom of flame swelling around her. Neither the demon nor the young man seemed particularly intimidated by this, although Amber trailed after them in a protective sort of way.
Yejun began to do his magic, which looked from the outside more like Branwyn’s magic than Corbin’s. Capricorn stretched their clasped hands out in front of them, like they were about to engage in a light bout of tennis.
From somewhere, AT said, “But what is he doing?”
Brynn muttered, “It’s like he’s dissecting her. How can he do that?”
Severin’s shoulders tightened as Charlie asked, “Is this okay? I don’t know…” and Branwyn locked her own hands behind her back so she didn’t touch him, didn’t distract him.
“It’s okay,” she said instead, answering Charlie. “Yejun knows what he’s doing.” But as the ghost’s form began to shift toward something even more horrific, and Amber darted forward to hum a song that carried oddly in the crackling air, Branwyn wondered just how much of a lie she was telling.
Then Yejun ripped something faintly visible away from the ghost and tossed it aside. As Capricorn sprang toward the spinning magical mass like a dog after a tennis ball, Imani turned toward Severin and Charlie. She was once again the woman in jeans and a t-shirt, with wisps of hair flying wildly around her face.
She took one step toward them, and then blurred forward until she was kneeling in front of Charlie, tears streaming down her cheeks as she opened her arms to the little girl. “My baby.”
“Mom?” said Charlie uncertainly. “Can I hug you? I can see right through you, Mom.”
Severin lifted his hand from Charlie’s shoulder and reached out to pull Brynn in from somewhere nearby. While Brynn stumbled, she didn’t protest, instead kneeling down beside Charlie and Imani and putting a hand on each of their shoulders. Then, carefully, Imani hugged her daughter, like she was fragile porcelain.
A glint of red pulled Branwyn’s attention away from the touching moment. Back where Imani’d been and Capricorn still was, a crimson circle was extending tendrils in an unpleasantly familiar way. She drew in her breath sharply, but before she could say anything, the tangle of lines abruptly became an unpleasant-looking elephantine mouse.
Capricorn immediately put their hands on the mouse’s big head and began to talk to it very quietly. The mouse tried to shake its head, but Capricorn’s grip was like a vise and all the mouse managed was a full body shimmy and long claw-marks in the cinders of the school.
Then Imani stood up. She glanced once at Capricorn and the giant mouse, then crossed to where Gale still lounged on the ground near the swing set. “Get up,” she said to him crisply.
Slowly, his gaze burning, he rose to his knees.
“Up,” Imani repeated impatiently. “You’ve done far too much kneeling, and it’s accomplished no more than a baby sucking its thumb.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it and stood up. He towered over her, but as she put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to look up at him, she somehow seemed the larger one.
“You let me die,” said Imani quietly. “You distracted me from the danger around me and then let me die.” She paused, then went on. “That’s what I believed all this time, but I was wrong. You were wrong, too.” She reached up to trail her fingers along his cheek, and he flinched. “You wanted a story where you were in control. But that’s not this world, handsome god. Not even now.”
“It hurts,” he whispered.
“It’s going to hurt more before you’re done, Gale,” she said seriously, her hand curling against his face. “You didn’t kill Charlie, but you might have. You’ve got to pay for that. Not with blood and tears and regret, which don’t do anybody any good, but with work.” She inspected him sternly.
His mouth moved, but Branwyn couldn’t hear him.
Imani shook her head. “Even if it was possible;
even if your lord obliged you, what good does dying do? You’ve got lives to pay for. You can’t do that as a thunderstorm.” She dropped her hand from his face and turned away. “But it’s up to you. You can decide whether you made a mistake, or whether you were never more than a liar.”
Gracefully, she stepped away as he reached for her and finished turning her back on him. With another glance at Capricorn, whose discussion with the crimson mouse was growing more heated, Imani surveyed the array of observers.
When she met Branwyn’s eyes, Branwyn felt a jolt at the simple fact that the ghost was seeing her. This was a woman who could do that: look past her guardian and her daughter, look past the psychopomps trying to exorcise her haunt, and see the random woman in the background, just as she saw everybody else.
For the first time, a genuinely personal grief that this woman had been murdered hit Branwyn. She leaned her head against Severin’s back, thought of Rhianna, of her hammer, of sacrifices and love, and bit back the tears Imani and Branwyn both considered so useless.
Amber tried to split her attention between Imani, Gale and Capricorn, which meant Imani’s inspection flitted over her like a change in the light. Gale was swaying like a tree in a high wind. Meanwhile, Capricorn’s remarks to the mouse were increasingly urgent, but—and this mattered to Amber—was it her words or her supernatural strength holding the mouse back? Capricorn wouldn’t always be around, but there might be more monstrous mice in the Hunt’s future.
“Now what?” said Imani, her chin raised a little.
AT sighed. “It’s all still here.”
Brynn said, “The haunt is still holding the souls of the town. Won’t you please let them go, ma’am?”
“Why?” asked Imani. “Why are you doing this?”
“We don’t want to destroy you,” said Jennifer bluntly.
Imani laughed, and it wasn’t a happy laugh. “I’ve already been destroyed, lady. My life and death were both stolen from me and my work... all my research and writing about this town is now worthless.”
“Your death?” said Brynn, confused.
Imani spread her hands. “The story of this town, its life and death, has been silenced, and me with it. The injustice doesn’t matter as much as the peace.” She rolled the word around bitterly.
Branwyn raised her head and growled, “Umbriel. Umbriel and his cover-up.”
Brynn frowned. “Where is Rhianna anyhow?”
Jennifer cut across Brynn’s question. “Peace is what we’d like to give you, Imani. But you have to help us out.”
Imani crossed her arms. “I think peace is what you’d like me to give you. You’d like me to go quietly, just so you can sleep well at night. But I’m not going to lay down what little I have left just to make you feel better.”
Jen blinked in response to this, but AT and Brynn both flinched hard before bowing their shoulders. Amber shook her head in frustration and tried to add Severin to the people she was monitoring. He was standing very still, but Branwyn was at his back and the little girl in front of him and probably they’d slow him down if he tried anything sudden. Probably.
“Do you realize what will happen if we don’t resolve this?” demanded Jennifer harshly.
“You do what you have to, lady,” said Imani calmly. “But I won’t make it easy for you. I’m not going to show my daughter how to give up just because people like you don’t want to sweat.” She laughed again. “If I was that kind of person, I wouldn’t be dead now.”
She turned toward Capricorn and the mouse. Capricorn was now leaning into the ‘discussion’ with the mouse, her stocking feet digging into the ground.
“Wait,” called Cat, and Imani turned back, her eyebrows raised politely.
“What if there was another option?” Cat said. “Something between a nightmare and nothingness? Something with a voice. Would you release the haunt then?”
Branwyn stepped around Severin, her bright eyes suddenly sharp and attentive. She held her hammer tightly in the hand not holding Capricorn’s hat.
Imani studied Cat for a moment. So did everybody else in the Hunt, because unlike Amber, they probably had no idea what he was talking about. She chewed savagely on her lip and wondered if her little magic song could just put everybody to sleep while she thought things through.
The moment went on too long, that horrible space between looking at a clock and waiting for the first tick. At last, Imani shook her head and said, with a tinge of regret, “I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” asked Cat, unruffled by her refusal.
Lightning crackled across the dark sky and all the ghostly structures of the school and playground took on a malevolent glow. Brynn squealed and hugged her arms. Imani looked past Cat, then tilted her head. “Can’t, I’m afraid.”
“Why is that?” asked Cat, moving closer to her.
Imani opened her arms wide. “If I let them go, how could I be the villain of their story? No, they’re going to stay, just like they stayed in town when they were alive. And they’re going to keep me here, so they can be my victims, because in their story, that erases what they did to me.” She shrugged. “All I can do is take us out on my terms.”
Amber shivered. She could feel the hostility of the haunt all around her. It hated them. Although Imani truly had begun the haunt in her initial surge of ghostly wrath, it was maintaining itself now. It wasn’t, after all, going to be salvageable. They’d failed before they started, because they hadn’t understood just how twisted things had become.
And Shatiel had helped it happen. How could he—
Amber’s brief flare of rage was interrupted by Cat saying something softly to Imani. Amber couldn’t hear him, but she didn’t need to, not while they were all connected via the Horn. His exact words were lost, but he was offering her something wrong and terrifying.
All of Amber’s bad feelings came crashing over her at once, and she gasped, caught in the grip of a terror she hadn’t felt since her master had discovered her betrayal. Without conscious effort, she darted over to join Cat and Imani.
“Cat—” she said, anguished. She could feel the perturbation of the rest of the Hunt, but they didn’t understand, they didn’t really believe. They whispered to each other but what was the use of that?
Cat gave her a steady look. “Amber.” Then his face twisted into something that matched Amber’s own feelings and he said very softly, “Help me save her.”
Amber stared at him, feeling as if her heart was being wrenched out of her.
Imani glanced between the two of them. “I have to go now,” she said quietly. “I don’t have time to understand. But if you destroy me, save somebody else.”
Then she slipped away, just as Capricorn said loudly, “Well, darn!”
A flash of heat and flame surrounded Cat and Amber as they looked at each other. It rolled off them harmlessly. As it faded, Imani the Hellqueen reformed, gave both of them baleful looks, and then darted toward Branwyn and Charlie.
Brynn, who had been standing as if frozen, moved abruptly, catching Imani by the wrist as she passed, holding her as if Imani was flesh and blood and Brynn was steel. At the same time, Severin twisted, picking up Branwyn bodily and depositing her beside Charlie and behind him.
Bitterly, Jennifer said, “Well, we tried, kids.” She was holding the Horn. Darkness pooled around Severin’s feet as he took a step toward her and then stopped.
“Amber…” said Cat, and Amber winced.
Then she said, “Fine. Be that way. I never liked you anyhow.” His mouth quirked, and she added, “Don’t fuck this up.”
Then she darted over to Jennifer as the older woman raised the Horn. “Jen! Wait!”
Jen lowered the Horn and gave her a tired look. “We don’t have much time, Amber, and drawing this out is only going to hurt the kids more.”
“Absolutely,” said Amber. “Just… give me the Horn.”
Jen blinked. “What?”
Amber took a deep breath and used the bossiest
voice she could. “Jennifer, give me the Horn.”
And Jennifer handed it over. “What do you want it for?”
Amber held the Horn close to her chest. It had changed since she’d first stolen it from the original Wild Hunt. It was no longer malevolent. It was part of her, part of all of them. But the one who held it had responsibilities.
Breathlessly, Amber said, “I want it so you don’t have to carry it, Jen.”
Jen’s eyes widened. “What?” but behind her, AT was smiling through teary eyes.
Amber waved one hand airily. “Go work some magic or something. Do a job you love. Taking down this haunt isn’t your call anymore. It’s mine. I’ve got the Horn.”
In a strangled voice, Jen said, “It’s all of our responsibility, Amber. You can’t just….”
“Then why were you the one about to blow the horn, despite AT crying and Cat having an actual plan?”
Jen stared at her in consternation. Above them, Haliel laughed. “I think I’m still going to call her the Skipper, though. I mean, what else about her really stands out?”
Amber found herself treacherously wishing the Angel of Joy would use her powers elsewhere. But the remark shut Jen down completely.
She glanced at Cat, glanced down, and stepped back. “Fine. You want to carry the Horn? Be my guest. I’ll be here if you change your mind.”
Doubt attacked Amber. But suddenly Capricorn was beside her, and Jen’s hurt feelings had to be a problem for later.
“There is a plan!” said Capricorn cheerfully. “It sounds very dramatic. You’ll like it, Haliel!” The demon’s gaze went to Jen and her expression sombered. “I’ll even stay over here!” She glanced at Amber. “Go, go!”
Amber looked around, saw Cat talking to Branwyn and Severin and Yejun, and went to join them, holding the Horn close. It felt nice under her hands.
28
The Hard Work Of A Miracle
When Severin picked Branwyn up like she was no larger than Charlie and moved her behind him, she very properly resisted her instinct to kick him. But it was a bit of an effort. She liked her feet on the ground.
Fury Convergence Page 37
