by Ким Харрисон
Vertigo hit me, and I clutched at the edge of the table. This cannot be happening. "Who?" I rasped, and Piscary smiled like a benevolent, savage god. "Who killed him?"
"How pathetic," he said, then cocked his head. "Or do you really not remember?" he said in speculation, dropping his bloodstained handkerchief and focusing intently on me.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out. Horror that he might be speaking the truth numbed me. I couldn't think. My arm throbbed under my fingers, and when he leaned closer, I did nothing, too shaken to respond.
"You were there," he said distantly, reaching out to take my jaw in his hand and tilt my head so the light hit my eyes. "You saw. I can smell Kisten's final death all over you. You breathe it out. It lifts from your skin like perfume."
I was sleeping in the church, I thought in denial, then felt my world shift with a nauseating spin as things added up. I had woken sore and hurt. I had a cut on my lip. The kitchen had smelled of candles and lilac—the materials for a forget potion. My damned foot was so swollen that I couldn't wear anything but my boots.
What had I seen? What had I done?
I stumbled back when Piscary took a step forward. I didn't believe this! I had given him the focus for what? Kisten was dead. Tears prickled. Oh, my God, Kisten is dead. And I was there.
Piscary reached for me, and I, flung my hand up to block, only to have him capture my wrist. Fear spiked to my middle, and I froze. The room seemed to waver as the people in it drew their breath, and Piscary breathed deep, scenting me. Relishing my fear.
"You're stronger than Ivy let on," he said softly, almost introspective. "I understand why she's fixated on you. Perhaps there's a use for you, if you can walk unscathed from a room where one undead vampire met his end and another barely escaped to see another night."
I jerked away, my frantic gaze going to Edden. Tension crept along my spine as I backed up. There had been another? I didn't remember it, but I had to believe him. What have I done to myself? Why?
"Or maybe… you're too dangerous to be allowed free range, anymore. Time to break you to the bit, perhaps."
Disoriented, I did nothing when Piscary put a golden-skinned hand around my throat. "No!" I shouted, but it was too late. My word escaped with a gurgle. Adrenaline flamed through me, and I struggled as Piscary backhanded Jenks with a slow nonchalance. The pixy shot across the room, hitting the wall and falling to the floor.
God help me. Jenks… "I gave you the focus! "I rasped, toes brushing the tile when he lifted me. "You said you'd leave me alone!"
Piscary pulled me closer. "You put me in jail," he said, his breath smelling of blood and burnt amber. "I said I'd keep you alive, but I owe you some serious pain. You'll only wish you were dead." He put up a warning hand when Quen moved, and the elf stopped.
Horror trickled through me. This isn't possible! "I saved your life!" I rasped when his fingers let up so he could hear me beg. "I could have let Al kill you."
"Your mistake." He smiled at me with sin-black eyes. "Say good-bye, Rachel. Time to start your new life."
"No!" I screamed, then tapped a line. I pushed at him, willing the energy to flow, but it was too late. Crushing me to his chest, Piscary savagely sank his teeth into me.
My shriek of terror filled my ears. My heart hammered as if trying to find a way out of my chest, but my muscles had gone slack. Pain flowed, and I couldn't move. It was agony. I heard my breath come in gasps, pushing my blood into Piscary all the faster.
A dark shadow approached like fast water, and Piscary backhanded Quen without breaking from me. I heard a thump and a pained grunt.
Just kill us, I thought, wanting Quen to blast us both to hell with a ball of ever-after. How could it end like this? It wasn't supposed to end like this. It couldn't end like this!
"Piscary!" Ivy pleaded, and my heart leapt at the emotion in her voice. "Let her go!" she cried, and I saw her slim hand take his shoulder, gripping with fierce intensity. "You promised. You promised if I came to you that you'd leave her alone!"
I groaned as he pulled from me, his teeth ripping tears in my neck. I couldn't… I couldn't move!
"It's too late," Piscary said, and I hung in his grip, unresisting. "This has to be done."
"You said you wouldn't hurt her." Ivy's voice was heavy, as gray as morning fog.
Piscary held me upright, one arm crushing me to him. "You've been careless," he said flatly. "This is the last time I'm going to pick up after you. You should have bound her to you when I told you to. By rights I have to kill her. An unpredictable animal needs to be culled."
"Rachel would never hurt me," Ivy whispered, and I tried to speak, feeling my heart break. I took a breath, seeing my sight graying at the edges. I was slipping. I couldn't stop.
"No, Ivy girl." Piscary's face was gentled in concern as he leaned over me and touched her face with false love, leaving my blood on her jawline. I could hear Skimmer crying in the corner, adding to the travesty. "That's both their lure and their downfall. I'm going to kill her for you. If I don't, I'll only use her to torture you, and I've tortured you enough. It's my gift to you, Ivy. She won't feel a thing. I promise."
Ivy stared at him, her face lost in terror as Piscary bent to me again, making a small sound of pleasure when he licked the blood leaking from my neck, wallowing in it. She stood beside him, struggling to overcome a lifetime of conditioning. Her eyes filled, spilling over. My vision blurred, and she touched Piscary's shoulder lightly.
"Stop," she said before his teeth could find me again, but it was a whisper. "Stop!" she said louder, and hope struck through me. Piscary hesitated, his grip tightening.
"I said no!" Ivy shouted. "I won't let you kill her!"
Backing up a step, she swung her foot in a roundhouse to hit Piscary's head.
It never landed. Piscary hissed, dropping me to collapse between their feet. I took a raspy breath, and my fingers searched my neck. I was dizzy, weak. He'd bitten me. How bad? How bad was it?
"Ivy girl?" the undead vampire questioned from somewhere above me.
"No," Ivy said. Her shaking voice was determined, but even I could hear her fear.
"No?" Piscary said lightly, and I tried to push away, to get out from between them. "You aren't strong enough to best me."
My heart pounded, and I managed to find the wall, fingers scrabbling weakly as I turned to sit with my back to it. Lee's body was gone from under the mirror, and I found that Trent had dragged it to the door, his tux's coat covering him like a blanket. Lee is alive?
In the space between the table and mirror, Ivy dropped into a fighting stance. "Then I'll die trying, and kill you myself. She's my friend. I won't let you hurt her."
A smile of satisfaction blossomed over the older vampire's face. "Ivy," he crooned, "my sweet Ivy. You defy me at last. Come here, little fish. It's time you leave the weeds and swim as the predator you are."
No, I thought in horror, seeing that everything—the terror, the pain, the agony—had all been meant to manipulate Ivy into standing up to him, completing his vision of finding an equal in her.
"It will hurt like the sun," Piscary warned, arms open to embrace her as she backed away, face white. "Your last blood will be sweet in me."
Edden, again conscious, scrabbled to me, and I slapped weakly at him as he tried to look at my neck. "Shoot him," I breathed, almost vomiting when I reached up and found my neck ripped open. "He's going to kill her," I whispered, but Edden didn't seem to care. Ivy had defied Piscary. He was going to kill her so they could live an undead existence together. "Ivy, no." I said, louder since Edden wasn't listening. "You don't want… this."
Piscary raised one eyebrow. "Patience, witch," he said, then reached for Ivy.
Terror overcame training, and Ivy backpedaled. She screamed, high and shrill, and the sound struck through me. He had her against the mirror, his mouth on her neck as he dug deep to end it fast.
She didn't resist him. She wanted to die. It was the only way she could fight him
and hope to save me. She was letting him kill her to save me.
"No," I sobbed, trying to rise, but Edden had my arm. He wasn't letting go. "No!"
A blond shadow darted to them. Grunting, Skimmer swung the arm of the paper cutter like an ax against the back of Piscary's neck. It hit his flesh with a meaty thump.
Piscary jerked. He drew away from Ivy, showing her neck bloodied and torn. Blood flowed from her. He had bitten deep, a death bite.
Crying in fear and her fury, Skimmer swung again. My stomach churned at the thunk as it met the front of Piscary's neck this time. His hands slipped from Ivy, and Skimmer swung yet again, screaming in a blind frustration as she angled to hit him in exactly the same spot.
The blade went through the third time, and Skimmer stumbled and fell sobbing to her knees as Piscary collapsed. The bloodied blade still in her hand rang as it hit the floor.
"Sweet mother of God," Edden swore, his grip falling away.
Slumped against the mirror, Ivy stared at Piscary in disbelief. His severed head looked up at her, his eyes blinking once before the pupils turned silver black and empty. He was dead. Skimmer had killed him. Thin stream of red blood pooled from the ruin of his neck, slowing to nothing.
"Piscary?" Ivy whispered like a forgotten child, then collapsed.
"No!" Skimmer shrieked. Crying, she crawled to Ivy. Her hands went red as she tried to stop the blood from flowing from Ivy's neck. "God, please, no!"
The door crashed open, the sound of the drill they used to open the door, fading away as people rushed in. Two fell on Skimmer. She fought them, but her movements were blind and easy to overcome. Three more descended upon Ivy, and I heard the rhythmic chants as they started CPR. Oh, God. She was dead. Ivy was dead.
I crawled under the table, forgotten as feet rushed about to pull Trent from his corner and escort Mr. Ray and Mrs. Sarong out. A sheet was draped over Piscary. Both parts of him.
Ivy was dead. Kisten was dead. Jenks…
"No," I whispered, eyes filling as I slumped. Jenks, I thought in despair, throat heavy with an immovable lump. Where's Jenks? Piscary had hit him.
The pain was easing, the heartache wasn't. Jenks. Where was Jenks? My neck was cold, and I wouldn't touch it. My breath escaped me in a sob. Oh, God, I hurt. From under the table, I saw shiny dress shoes and three people kneeling before Ivy. Her hand lay outstretched as if looking for her salvation. As if looking for me. She was dying, and nothing could stop that.
But Jenks was somewhere, and someone might step on him.
I crawled to the back of the room, looking for him. The focus lay forgotten on the floor in an open box amid the nest of black tissue paper. I shoved it out of the way to find the shimmer of fallen gold beside my bag.
My heart seemed to cease. I felt nothing but pain. It was all I was. "Jenks," I croaked. Please, no, I thought, tears blinding me as I hunched over him. My hands, sticky with blood, tumbled as I picked him up. He wasn't moving, his face pale and one of his wings bent.
"Jenks," I sobbed, the release shaking me as I felt him light in my hand. Jenks was dead. Kisten was dead. Ivy was dying. My would-be protector had tried to kill me, only to be killed in turn. I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing. There were no more choices, no more options, no more clever ways out of a tough situation. And the rush, I realized in a brutal wash of despair, is a false god I've chased my entire life. One that cost me everything in the blind search for sensation. My entire existence amounted to nothing. Running from one thrill to the next with no regard to what really was important.
What in hell is left for me?
Everyone I had cared for was gone. It had taken me too long to find them, and I knew deep into my soul that their like would never come again. I had come too far from my beginnings, and no one else would understand who I really was—or, more important, who I wanted to be— under all the crap my life had become. I was now something no one could trust, not even me. I openly consorted with demons. My blood kindled their curses. My soul was coated with the stink of their magic. Every time I tried to do good, I hurt myself and those who loved me.
And those I loved, I thought, the tears blurring my vision.
Well, the hell with that, I thought as I fumbled for the open box with the focus in it. There was one final way to find an end to this, and now… now I had no reason not to.
A profound feeling of apathy took me, hollow and bitter, and my fingers shook as I wiped my face and pulled the hair from my eyes. Past the edge of the table, feet moved and voices were raised in urgency, but I was forgotten. Alone and apart, I pulled the focus out of its open box, knowing what I was going to do and not caring. It was going to hurt. Probably kill me. But there was nothing left in me except pain, and anything was better than that. Even oblivion.
Watching my hands as if they belonged to someone else, I scribed a circle encompassing most of the tile under the table with my metallic chalk. My heart felt like ash, unstirred by the power of the ley line as I touched it to make a shimmering black sheet bisect the table above me.
"Where's Morgan?" Trent said suddenly, his voice cutting through the excited babble. I could hear the CPR chant, but I'd seen Ivy's neck. She would die, if she wasn't dead already. She had wanted me to save her soul, and I had failed. It was gone, as if she had never been, never smiled, never taken joy in the day.
Edden's work shoes moved restlessly. "Someone check the bathroom."
Cold despite the warmth of the line running through me, I clenched the focus to me and scribed three more circles, intersecting them to form four spaces. I was crying, but it didn't matter. I was inside the circles. I was inside the circles.
"Morgan," Trent accused in a tired voice, and he bent at the waist, finding me. "It's over. You can come out of your bubble now."
I ignored him. My fingers hummed with force, and from my bag I pulled the candles I had bought for my birthday. Why, God? What in hell did I ever do to you? Trent's face went pale, and he sat down when the Latin spilled from me as I lit and placed them. First the white one, then the black, and lastly the yellow one, the yellow one that would represent my aura. There was no gray, so I put a second black one in the middle, confident that because my soul was the color of sin, the magic would work. This one I left it unlit. It would burn when the curse was twisted and my fate was immutable.
Quen tried to pull Trent up, and, failing, he bent to look himself. "Bacchus save us," he whispered, knowing what I was doing. The focus no longer had a protector. Everyone knew I had it. I couldn't give it to Piscary—the bastard was dead. I had to get rid of it another way. Just because I had screwed up, that was no reason to send what was left of the world into war. The blackness on my soul would have no meaning if there was no love, no understanding, no one to share my life with. I just wanted it to all go away, to stop. And because I didn't think I was going to survive this, it was all to the better.
Edden bent at the waist, swearing when be reached out to find that the shimmering black shadow between us was real. From the hallway came Mrs. Sarong's complaining voice, going faint as she was led away. "What is she doing?" Edden said. "Rachel, what are you doing?"
Killing myself. Numb, I set the focus in its spot and myself in the other. The third space where my ring of hair would go was empty. I was in the circle; I didn't need a symbol of connection. My chest clenched, and I drew my will together. Jenks's body lay outside my circle. Ivy's was beneath the mirror. Kisten was dead. I had no reason not to do this. I had no reason at all. Piscary had ripped everything from me in less than twenty-four hours since his release. Not bad. Maybe he was a little more pissed than I'd thought.
"Rachel!" Edden said, louder over the chants of the EMTs who had arrived to push the FIB officers away. "What are you doing?"
"She's getting rid of the focus," Quen said tightly.
"Why didn't she just do that in the first place?" Edden said, his expression annoyed. "Rachel, come out of there."
Quen's voice was empty. "Because it will take
a demon curse to do it."
Edden was silent for a moment, and I jumped when I felt his fist hit my bubble. "Rachel!" he exclaimed, then swore as his knuckles met my bubble again. "Get out! Now!"
But I couldn't stop and I didn't want to. Almost having forgotten, I touched my finger to my oozing neck, and, using the blood, I scribed a figure on the unlit black candle. I still didn't know what the figure stood for, and now I never would. Silence ached through me when the EMTs knelt before Ivy, their heads bowed as they slowly put their things away.
Tears spilled, and I started to get angry. I touched the interlaced circles, willing energy to fill them. I didn't even need to use my trigger word—it happened just as I willed it.
Edden swore again as the tainted bubbles rose about me, and I wondered if he knew that the arcs of gold where the circles intersected were what my aura was supposed to look like.
"Will it kill her?" Trent whispered.
Let's find out, I thought bitterly, not believing I could hold the power of a demon curse. And when they killed me—which they would for working demon magic inside a public building in front of credible witnesses—the power of the curse would die with me. Problem solved.
Except a small part of me really wanted to live. Damn it, hope is a cruel god.
Fingers still shaking, I knelt in my tiny space and clasped my hands, willing the trigger words back into my memory. They came. Exhaling, I said harshly, "Animum recipere."
Quen's breath hissed, and he pulled Trent back.
The power of the curse flowed into me, warm like sunshine. I stiffened as the scent of burnt amber coated me, tasting bittersweet, like dark chocolate. It felt good. It tasted sweet. My thoughts wailed in despair. What in hell have I become?
