And there was all the blood on her living room floor.
Yes, there was evidence here.
Taking a deep breath because there was nothing more she could do except hit the shower, she looked around the room.
It was Saturday, the beginning of the weekend.
And for her, it was the first time in her life that she didn’t know where she was supposed to go next, what she was supposed to do.
Everything loomed before her, open and exciting and scary. Her life was closing in just as it was ripening, full of possibilities for great success or abject failure. And those were just her career options, never mind if she chose poorly about her life.
And that thought put it all into perspective.
For the first time in her life, she took a moment to realize that the wealth she had been born into was not just a set of chains tying her to the easiest route through life. It was not just a system whereby her father wielded such great power and her mother such status that she would never be able to carve her own way and make anything of value of herself.
It was also a great gift. A gift that most didn’t have, and never would.
She had the chance to not look for work–to take time and decide for herself. What did she want to do? Did she want to work for someone else? For herself? In the same market? Or choose some other career path?
Katharine had no idea.
But, first, she needed to take the time to figure out what to choose. Everything rode on this one decision.
Feeling a bit too needy, but nevertheless grateful that she knew who to call, Katharine picked up the phone and dialed Margot’s number.
“Katharine!” The voice washed through her. Friend.
“Hey, how was last night? Oh my God! Is Liam still there? I didn’t even think I might be interrupting!”
“Ha! I told you. I’m not a total slut. He left last night.” But Margot was laughing in that pleased way.
And that made Katharine smile, and wonder. “Are you a partial slut?”
“Um. Yeah.”
Katharine laughed. It came from deep in her belly and shattered all the problems around her like thin glass. They would rebuild themselves again later; something would happen and it would all come back to her in full relief. But for the moment, the laughter was welcome and all-encompassing. “Want to tell me about it over lunch at the beach?”
“That sounds like a plan. And it sounds like you didn’t have anything too exciting last night then. Did the spell go well?”
Katharine sighed and waited a moment. “We’ll have to take the food down to the beach and I’ll tell you all about it. I should shower first, then I can swing by and pick you up in about an hour.”
It seemed, for once, to all go according to plan. No messages on the mirror. No one waiting in her living room when she got out. No animals. Nothing.
She dried her hair most of the way and decided to give up. Looking out into the distance, she whispered, “Sorry, Mom.”
It seemed she wasn’t her mother’s daughter, at least not the one her mother had intended her to be. And she wasn’t to be her father’s either. She had spent far too long belonging to everyone around her.
Katharine stopped dead in the middle of the room. She had apologized to her mother in that soft, to-the-ether way a thousand times before. But this time she spoke in her full voice and added: “Be proud of me, Mom.” It wasn’t a question. Though it was only to the air, for the first time, rather than simply agreeing with what her parents thought, she had told one of them what she needed. Another piece settled firmly into place.
She turned to her closet and pulled out a pair of Bermuda shorts and a soft white T-shirt. She slipped on a nice pair of flip-flops that were beaded and slightly elevated. She’d bought them a few days earlier, after seeing a similar pair on Margot.
Her closet looked as foreign to the old Katharine as the rest of her life did.
But to the new Katharine, it was starting to look familiar.
She made it to Margot’s right on time, and they swung by a sandwich place to get overloaded subs, grilled and melting in the bag.
As they walked to the beach, Katharine waited to tell Margot about the binding spell. About what Allistair had said.
Margot didn’t wait, though. “Do you know yet which is which? Did talking to Allistair help?”
“Not unless any of it becomes clear to you from what I repeat.” She sighed, enjoying the edge of salt that came in with the air. “What he said makes sense, but it violates so much of what everyone believes.”
She shrugged. The idea of his heaven and hell was so different from all she had been taught.
Margot nodded. “There’s something that feels wrong about going against eons of religion. Even with reason.”
“Yeah. And as good as it sounds, can I trust it?” But she answered her own question. “I’m not ready to trust either of them. They’ve both deceived me, and everyone who came in contact with them, just by showing up.”
She didn’t want to say more while they waded through the people crowding the cement trail along the beach. They watched for a break as the beach traffic went by, skateboarders, bikers, and rollerbladers who were far more skilled than the two of them put together had been.
But as the sand and waves beckoned from the other side of the trail, Margot found another tack while they waited for the traffic to clear in both directions. “I think I found something more. About how they come in. Remember I had that piece about changing color as they incorporated? How it depended on the level they were from? I think I have something that may get us more information.”
“Will it help me figure out which is which?” Katharine saw a gap in the flow of people and stepped onto the pavement.
Margot followed. “I hope so. But I don’t have it yet. Just an obscure reference that I found in another reference.”
“Both of them have been telling me that I’ll need to make a choice soon,” Katharine spoke softly as she walked. “It’s the one thing I think I can trust to be true, since they’re both saying the same thing about it.” Her foot passed off the opposite side of the walkway and sank into sand. The grains climbed up and over the soles of her flip-flops and under her feet. With each step, the sand shifted, creating new patterns as she went.
Margot joined her in the sand, somehow managing to kick off her sandals gracefully and balance her sandwich bag and her drink in one hand while she scooped the shoes up with the other.
Katharine must have been eyeing her oddly, because her friend immediately grinned and said, “I waited tables through college.”
Yet another skill Katharine needed to acquire. “Do you think you’ll find it soon–the information on the colors?”
“I’d guess it will take a good four days. A lot of the old stuff isn’t scanned and I’m waiting for it to be shipped.”
“Doesn’t shipping take longer than that?”
“Interlibrary loan is actually pretty fast.”
They walked toward the beach, Katharine trailing slightly behind so she didn’t have to pay attention to where she was going.
The sun came down on the day, giving it that glow that made L.A. famous. It was just hot enough to be obnoxious, but the breeze off the ocean made the difference. She felt the slight prickles in her scalp as her hair was lifted and played with by small winds.
There were sounds of people behind her, wheels going by on the walkway, the slap of sneakers in regular rhythm. There were voices, all mingled together in a single tide of sound that rose and fell in a pattern less regular than the waves before her.
She could see that the water receded just a little each time, not reaching quite as far, not coming quite as close to claiming her as it had in the previous wave.
Margot picked a spot and sat down, settling her sandwich bag in her lap and pushing her Coke into the sand to steady it. She didn’t even wait for Katharine to get situated.
“Talk.”
CHAPTER 25
S
unday had come and gone in reasonable disappointment.
Margot had given Katharine the update from the library, and sadly it was that there was no update. There was nothing new to learn about what was happening to her. Nothing happened at the library on Sundays. No interlibrary loans traveled. Hopefully, nothing would happen to her either. There wasn’t anything to do but wait until Monday.
She cast her protection spell again, this time prepared for the demon to visit. She worked the entire spell with her muscles clenched in anticipation of noises, fire, men breaking through the air in front of her, something, anything. But nothing happened.
Margot was busy. Katharine wouldn’t call her father. Where before she might have picked up the phone and called Zachary, or even Allistair, she now knew better than to do that.
So she’d spent her day online, trying to be the researcher Margot was–or even a tenth of the researcher Margot was. But she didn’t get anything they didn’t already know and she did get a lot that was patently untrue according to what she had already seen and learned.
Katharine tried to watch TV for a while, but wound up merely marveling at the amount of programming she had stockpiled on her TiVo. She usually spent some of her evenings just watching what she liked. But lately she hadn’t kept up. As bizarre as it had been, lately she’d had a real life. And she was finding herself willing to do almost anything to keep it.
She was ready to fight for what was hers. Willing to make a stand. And yet she was sitting around in front of her TV–there was nothing she could do about it with nothing happening.
She’d handed over everything she knew to Margot, and was waiting on whatever information her friend could bring. Unless Zachary or Allistair started something, there was nothing to do but wait. She tried to focus on the TV, but when even that failed–it was so much less interesting than the things swirling in her mind–she gave up and decided to at least try for a good night’s rest.
Katharine slept the night through, unencumbered by dreams or interruptions.
Monday, she got up late, thought about what she wanted to do with her life over a bowl of oatmeal, and then called her Dad.
He answered as soon as Sharon put her through. “Katharine! Did you change your mind?”
“No, Dad.” She walked a small, circular path around her living room. “I was actually wondering what happened with my trainee. The guy I was working with?”
“You were working with someone? Wouldn’t HR know about that?”
Yes , Katharine thought, except you gave him to me personally. “Oh, you don’t remember him? Allistair West?”
“The name doesn’t mean anything to me.” She could hear him shrugging in that way that discounted her when he didn’t understand. And that was it. He asked about her plans. Harrumphed when she said she was still figuring them out, and insinuated that it was stupid to quit a great job when she didn’t even know what else she was planning on doing. It was all so very typical, and this time Katharine didn’t kowtow to his wishes or let him reason her back into his way of thinking.
Katharine tried to let it all roll off her. She wasn’t as good at it as she’d like to have been. But she did try. And before she hung up, she flustered her Dad by saying, “I love you.”
But given her father’s almost non-reaction to Allistair’s name, she called Lisa, and then HR. No one seemed to have records or even any memory at all of an Allistair West.
For a moment, Katharine wanted to double-check her sanity. Though Margot believed her, her friend had never met either of the men and, at this point, probably didn’t want to either. That meant that Katharine was operating on a lot of information that absolutely no one could verify. She wanted to declare the whole thing a figment of a crazy mind and be done with it. Maybe even get some medication that would make it all go away. But she’d been down that road before. There was no shaking it. She’d see it through to the end.
All day there remained no word from Margot, and it seemed that Liam would have her friend’s attention for the evening. So Katharine watched a few more shows and, rather than be upset that she was by herself, enjoyed her comfy couch and the smooth slide of ice cream down her throat.
All in all, Monday had turned out dreadfully dull.
• • •
Zachary watched. Katharine was doing nothing.
Though he had made it clear that she would have to make her choice soon, she had spent the last two days doing nothing to move anything forward. She had told her father that she loved him. Maybe that was a last-ditch “just so you know, in case I die” kind of thing. But that was the only move of any value she had made.
It seemed, if things were left up to Katharine, she would continue this into her old age, watching TV and living off her trust fund.
It was going to be up to him to drive this forward.
He had to do something. And it appeared Allistair was about to make his own move.
• • •
Allistair stood at the edge of her living room, his human form feeling more his own than ever before. His heart beat within his ribcage as he watched Katharine sleeping on her couch, and he enjoyed the steady surge of blood through his veins. He was in more trouble than he could imagine.
Even if Katharine chose him and his, he was still stuck with all that had changed in him this time around. He’d not only done the one thing he wasn’t supposed to do; this time he was so tangled that he couldn’t stop himself.
In a purely human gesture, he walked across the room and scooped Katharine up from where she’d fallen asleep while watching TV. She rolled into him, her weight both a blessing and a burden. The soft sigh she let out as she curled further into his arms nearly undid him.
In her bedroom, he laid her down on top of her covers and straightened her out. Up until the very last minute, he only intended to leave her there. He meant to make her more comfortable and then walk away.
But as he looked down at her, he found he couldn’t look away. He’d been so wrong to get so involved with her. He’d left her messages, though he’d known she wouldn’t understand the words, and he’d tried so hard to get through to her. And somehow she had understood part of it. She’d gone out and proved herself resourceful. She’d found someone to help her. And she’d found a real friend in the process. He was proud of her, even though he shouldn’t be.
He was so many things he shouldn’t be.
In a moment of sheer weakness, he leaned over and kissed her sleeping mouth.
There would be no more.
No more touches from Katharine, and no more textures, scents, sounds, any of it. He had to get himself under control. He had to start pulling away. Had to let go of all the things that were so seductive to him and start the journey back to what he should be.
But he lingered, the taste of her on his human lips too sweet and too seductive to step back. He brushed her hair off her face and whispered a few words before kissing her one last time. He forced himself to turn away.
Walking a straight line in the opposite direction from where she lay, Allistair pushed himself straight through the wall in frustration at his feelings and at what he had to do. He went right through to the other side, only to find Zachary had been watching.
He stared his opponent in the eyes for just a moment.
Endgame.
• • •
Katharine awoke to several things at once.
Her phone was ringing, though it was clearly still the middle of the night.
She was on her bed, though she didn’t remember getting there. She was certain she’d fallen asleep on the couch.
And heavy footsteps were walking away from her bed. The icy chill of fear flooded her as she smelled the edge that clung to the air. Somewhere, just beyond her five senses, was the odor of rot and the soft lick of something evil. Not something that hated her or was after her. No, it was far worse. It was a feeling that this thing wanted … something. She was in its way. And she was completely unimportant other than that.
It would toss her aside, step on her, shred her as she screamed. And it would think no more of it in its attempt to reach what it wanted.
Katharine’s instincts had her sitting very still, breathing shallowly and trying to calm her racing heart like the rabbit that prays the hunter won’t see it.
But, like the rabbit, she gained nothing with her tactic.
She couldn’t see the creature, didn’t even see its outline or form, but she knew exactly where it was. There was a change in the air quality where it stood, even though there was nothing she could point to. She heard the footsteps slow and come to a stop near her doorway, but it was something else–some other odd sense that she’d never exercised before–that told her it had turned and was looking right at her.
Her breath caught in her throat and everything in her jerked to a standstill.
Though she couldn’t see it, smell it, hit it, anything, she knew it could do all those things to her. And worse. So she waited.
It continued to stare at her, for long enough that she began the long, gradual inhalation through her nose that would keep her from passing out. Once she had ever-so-slowly filled her lungs, she began to let the air out just as slowly. And still it stared. Katharine didn’t move, but continued her nearly invisible breathing and began to wonder what it was thinking. What it had planned, for surely it was planning something. She was just a rabbit. No, she was less than a rabbit. The rabbit was food to the wolf, and food was important. She wasn’t even that.
So she sat still and tried to give it no ideas.
Though she had no concept of the time it stood there, eventually it turned and walked away, the footsteps fading near her front door.
Even then, she waited to hear the door open and close, then remembered that the door wasn’t necessary; this creature wasn’t constrained by her human boundaries. She would have to trust her instincts that it was gone. Even so, she waited a full minute before she let out her breath and sagged on the bed, staring at her carpet, hoping not to see anything else. But when she did look up she saw that Zachary was striding through her living room, visible through the open bedroom door.
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