Huntress

by Christine Warren, Marjorie Liu, Caitlin Kittredge, Jenna Maclaine

  Numb with shock and disbelief, Aaron shifted his grip on the woman he’d first met only hours before and brought her into his lap as he sank to the cement floor. A thin trickle of blood seeped out from around the dagger blade and spilled into his hand, staining his skin an obscene liquid crimson. He felt it cooling rapidly in the open air and thought vaguely that here was the proof of the futility of blood sacrifice. Blood was only precious as long as it flowed inside the body of someone you cared about. Otherwise, it had about as much intrinsic value as tap water.

  The first stab of grief hit him with the force of a freight train. If he’d still been standing, he knew his knees would have buckled beneath him. As it was, he doubled over in agony, feeling as if he’d just taken a mule kick right to the kidneys. His heart and stomach clenched in unison and the only thought in his head was that after thirty-five years, he had finally found the woman he loved, and now he would be expected to live the rest of his life without her. He didn’t believe it was possible.

  What he was thinking in that moment, he didn’t know. He acted purely on instinct, which was likely what did it, because if he’d stopped to think, he’d have decided that what he attempted was impossible. Not even the most powerful sorcerer on Earth could bring life back to the dead. Death was the one finality in the universe, and spells that reanimated flesh could never restore the soul that had existed in the living being. So when Aaron placed his palm over the still-bleeding heart of the woman he loved and poured every ounce of energy he had and every ounce of the energy they had raised together into that tiny, cold muscle, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that his magic was bound to prove useless.

  Bending toward her, Aaron rested his forehead against Lilli’s silken hair and tried to remember how to breathe. More than his heart felt broken. He felt as if everything inside him had fractured, leaving a million tiny, jagged pieces behind, allowing the tears to seep out from between them.

  The first of them fell on her hair and glistened against the dark, shiny strands. Another followed close behind, then another and another until he was weeping for the first time in his adult life.

  Maybe the experience confused him so much that when he felt the first tiny movement, he wrote it off as something he had done. He had shifted or jostled her somehow and that was why it felt almost like her fingers had twitched against his leg.

  But then he felt a second twitch, and fear and hope began to war inside him.

  “Lilli?” he ventured, and his voice was hoarse and soft with grief and doubt.

  The soft moan that answered him was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

  Well, maybe the second sweetest, after the sound of her distinctly cranky voice saying, “Christ, do you think you can pull the knife out for me before it gets welded in place?”

  THIRTEEN

  Lilli felt as if she’d not only been stabbed in the heart by a lethally sharp assassin’s knife—which Aaron quickly removed, praise be—but as if said assassin had then hog-tied her, strapped her down in the middle of the African savannah, and allowed herds of zebra, musk ox, and elephants to stampede across her body. Repeatedly. Too bad she knew she had only herself to blame.

  “Lilli!” Aaron’s voice held a wealth of emotion, but it overflowed with hope and excitement as he shook her like a pair of dice and called her name repeatedly. “Lilli! You’re alive? You’re alive! Are you all right? Are you okay? What happened? God, baby, you scared me to death!”

  Clenching her teeth mostly kept them from rattling around inside her head, but she would have preferred not to have to put in the effort. “If you don’t stop shaking me,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “I am going to start having serious doubts about this relationship.”

  Immediately, the shaking ceased and Aaron’s arms wrapped around her, cradling her against his chest while he rained kisses down upon her face.

  “God, Lilli, I thought you were dead,” he groaned, his body shaking as he said the words. “I thought I’d lost you. Come on, sweetheart, open your eyes and look at me. Let me see you in there, baby, please. I thought you were dead.”

  Lilli sighed and took a minute to gather her strength before she could manage to drag her eyelids up and fix her gaze on his. “I’m pretty sure I was, but don’t worry about it. I’m feeling better now.”

  She saw his fear and nearly felt overwhelmed, but then the fear faded and was replaced by relief and joy that left her truly humbled. If she had planned to entertain any doubts about whether he felt as strongly about her as she did about him, they disappeared immediately in the light of those emotions. No one in her life had ever looked at her like that, as if the world would no longer exist if she left it. It kind of frightened her to think she could be that important to someone, but then she realized that was how important Aaron felt to her, and the fear melted under an onslaught of tenderness.

  “What happened?” he demanded, shifting her in his lap so that she could meet his gaze without craning her neck. His hands moved over her almost compulsively, as if he needed to touch her to reassure himself that he wasn’t imagining her with him. “I saw you stab yourself. I saw you die. What happened?” He paused and glared down at her, his eyes narrowing. “No, wait. Scratch that. First you’re going to tell me why you did it, then we can discuss what happened. Lilli, you killed yourself! What the hell were you thinking?”

  Lilli sighed. “It hit me when you were trying to convince me not to listen to Samael. You said something about the prophecy being fulfilled in one fell swoop and I realized that it was possible. Not to fulfill the apocalypse prophecy, but to thwart it and to fulfill the valiant knight prophecy all at the same time.”

  “Explain.”

  She shifted, feeling strength slowly beginning to return to her body. At this rate, she might just be able to get up and walk up the stairs to the kitchen by Christmas.

  “When I read the valiant knight prophecy, I got hung up on the idea that you were the knight,” she explained. “It seemed to make so much sense that it would be talking about you and your family, especially given your uncle’s role in all this. I had no reason to look at it any other way. But then Samael kept urging me to kill you and I knew I couldn’t do that. Not only could I never bring myself to hurt you, but there was a small part of me that feared you might be right and he was trying to turn you into the second sacrifice for the apocalypse. And that’s when you brought up the fell swoop.”

  Lilli paused for breath and sighed with relief when she realized that the pain in her side had lessened to a dull throb as the wound knit itself back together. She didn’t have to look at it to know that was what was happening; she could feel it. Plus, she knew she’d be dying again if a wound that serious stayed open.

  “It was like a bolt of inspiration,” she continued. “All at once, I remembered what you said about the way to avert the apocalypse being for a righteous demon to spill human and devil blood in one blow and I realized that I was the only person in this situation who could do that. My blood is both human and devil, because of my parents, and while I’m not going to claim to be a saint or anything, I thought there was a pretty good chance that I could qualify as a ‘righteous child of Hell.’ I mean, I try not to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

  Aaron squeezed her gently. “Oh, so I deserved to have my heart broken, did I?”

  Lilli stilled and watched him intently. “Did I break your heart?”

  He nodded. “But you’re doing a pretty good job of putting it back together now, so I suppose I’ll be able to forgive you.”

  She felt happiness warm her like an internal sun and let him see it in her beaming grin. “I appreciate that.” There was a short pause while she tried to remember what she’d been saying. “Oh, yeah. Anyway, when I realized that I could fulfill all the requirements for averting the apocalypse, I started to think that maybe the valiant knight in the dragon prophecy wasn’t you after all. Maybe it was me.”

  Aaron looked stunned for a moment, then his express
ion turned thoughtful as he mulled that over. “You have a brilliant mind?”

  “No, you do. And I got the book from you, in between falling ass-over-elbows in love with you. I think you just have to look at the words from a different perspective.”

  “I think you should forget my question. Your mind is definitely brilliant.”

  Lilli grinned. “So then it just seemed to make sense. If I paid the appropriate price, I might die, but Samael would be banished. And even if I was wrong about the valiant knight prophecy, my sacrifice could still prevent the apocalypse. It seemed worth it to me.”

  “Well, next time ask me before you decide on that kind of thing.” His voice was fierce as he issued the order. “You might have thought it was worth it, but it was a hell of a lot higher than the price I was willing to pay. I’m crazy-assed in love with you, no matter how long we’ve known each other. That means that the idea of living the rest of my life without you, believing that you killed yourself to avoid having to kill me, is not on the list of noble gestures that I can afford.”

  Lifting her hand, Lilli laid her palm against his cheek and smiled. “I think I’m in love with you, too,” she murmured. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I must be, since I think that’s what fulfilled the final part of the knight prophecy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “ ‘The magic’s in the seed,’ ” she quoted, grinning.

  He scowled, then sighed and gave her a raised eyebrow of inquiry.

  She repeated the entire line. “ ‘A knight is fall’n, a prince is fled, the magic’s in the seed.’ The fallen knight was me, clearly, having just stabbed myself and quite literally fallen, I assume. The fleeing prince was Samael. The payment of the price meant that he was banished back to Hell, at least temporarily. And the magic …”

  Lilli broke off to feather a kiss across Aaron’s lips, smiling when he returned the gesture with interest. It took several breathless minutes before she managed to tear her mouth away from his and another couple to catch her breath.

  “The magic,” she repeated, her voice husky with tenderness, “was what brought me back to you and healed my wound.”

  She watched as Aaron verified that for himself. He shoved her shirt up under her arms until he could see the round pink mark where Lilli’s misericorde had punctured her fair skin. It was the only remaining sign of her injury.

  “You know, my uncle once told me that love was the greatest magic in all the world.” Finally relaxing, Aaron cuddled Lilli close and asked about the final aspect of the prophecy. “But where was the seed?”

  “Right here.” Lilli pressed her palm against his chest, right above his heart, feeling its strong steady beat beneath her fingers.

  “And here.” Taking his hand in hers, she mirrored the gesture and laid his palm over her own steadily beating heart.

  “The magic was in the seed of the brand new feelings we have for each other.” She grinned. “It was pretty nice of the prophet to word it that way, actually. If he’d said we had to be fully, deeply in love, things might have gotten hairy. After all, we barely know each other.”

  In the dim light of the candles and the first faint traces of dawn that peeked into the basement from the open door at the top of the stairs, Lilli and Aaron gazed into each other’s eyes and knew that the seed they shared had already sent up a beautiful, leafy bloom. The prophets could say whatever they wanted; in the end, it was love that called the shots.

  “Right, that reminds me,” Aaron said, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “I know we’ve only known each other a few hours now, but what would you say if I asked you to go out with me? I know a place nearby that makes really killer waffles. We could head over there and have some breakfast. My treat. How does that sound?”

  Lilli laughed and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him with a burst of returning strength. “I’d say that sounds like one hell of a bargain!”

  ONE

  Maggie was too young to remember life before the Big Death, but she had a brain for books, access to books, a great deal of uninterrupted time on her hands with which to enjoy those books—and so had, over the years, pieced together a history of the world that she knew was, in part, fiction—but that, like most good lies, rang true. Not that anyone else was privy to her secret history: Maggie knew better than to draw attention to her eccentricities. It was enough that she ran the junkyard for Olo Enclave, and lived alone, and was twenty years old without a husband or prospect.

  She had been on her own for years. Her junkyard lay on the outskirts of Olo, which bordered what had been, and still was, the Ohio River. It was settlement number six on the government grid—six out of several thousand, scattered across the former United States—located smack-dab in the new territory of Inohkyten, an acronym of the states thrown together after the Big Death: Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Other territories had their own odd collective names, but when folks in Olo talked about the rest of the country, they just called those places what they had become: South, North, East, or West, with the Rockies, the Dakotas, and Alaska thrown in, all on their own.

  It was spring when the motorcycle man came looking for Maggie. Blue sky morning, with the dew glittering like diamond drops on the tips of the green grass, and the cardinals and magpies lilting full-throated on the naked branches of the oaks and maples, which threatened any day now to burst bud-first with leaves. Maggie, in the old barn workshop, had a clear view of the meadow. Junkyard business stayed on the other side of the building, but when Maggie worked the foundry and tinkered with her machines, she liked a bit of the world in front of her: the old world, the world she figured had almost reclaimed itself less than two decades past; a world that undoubtedly would swallow humanity, again.

  That very morning, Maggie was experimenting with clay flowerpots, which she had found years ago while scavenging for scrap in the burned-out garage of a home less than ten miles south. Up until now she had used the pots—in vain—to grow miniature roses and small pepper plants. But as no seed she touched ever seemed to reach the sprout stage, there was no loss in finding other ways to take advantage of the unique shape and material of a flowerpot—such as turning it into a furnace for smelting brass.

  So far, success. Just some brick to stand the pot upon, a long copper pipe fitted through the hole in the bottom—at the end of which Maggie tied the balloon of an old turkey baster to make the draught—and voilà (a word that she had appropriated from the tattered pages of her dictionary, and that seemed to fit her mood, most days). Charcoal was burning, the heat was intense, and the scrap of brass pipe she had tossed inside was quite obviously melting.

  I am, she thought cheerfully, a clever girl.

  Outside, the gate bell jingled. Maggie thought about not answering—brass was much more interesting than flesh and blood—but out here, folks would come inside anyway and start poking around until they found her. She never liked that much. Her grandfather hadn’t, either. Territory was a precious thing, especially now. And word of mouth carried far. You had to keep reminding people of what was yours, until the knowing went so deep that it twined and twisted into the fabric of a place. Until it became part of your identity. Something no person could ever steal.

  The bell rang again. Maggie maneuvered an old steel lid on top of the flowerpot foundry, caging the raging heat, and walked quickly through the barn. She shed her gloves, goggles, and a heavy leather apron along the way, running her fingers through her short-cropped hair, and picked up one of the old sledgehammers hanging neatly against the wall. She slung the tool over her shoulder, and ambled out of the barn into the yard.

  A man stood just inside the gate, fingering the string of steel bells hanging from the barbed wire wound around the old wooden rails. Maggie stopped in her tracks when she saw him, and not simply because he was a stranger. He was big and lean, dressed in black dusty leather that matched his eyes and long hair. He wore no shirt beneath his open jacket, and his skin was impossibly pale. Colde
r than ice, she thought. Cold as the winter sun, or the river at dawn. His presence cut her senses, and for one moment Maggie knew him, in the same way that she had known her grandfather was dead before ever seeing his body: with certainty, and dread, and vast terrible loneliness.

  The man looked at her sideways, tilting his head just so, away from the bells; an odd, graceful movement that affected only his head, so that the rest of him remained perfectly still. He had a piercing gaze, sharper than anyone Maggie had ever met; sharp like a hook in her gut, drawing her toward him. She wanted to take a step, more than anything, almost as much as breathing. But she was good at holding her breath, and did so now as she forced herself to stay rooted in one spot, sweat trickling between her shoulder blades and down her breasts. Her eyes burned from holding his gaze. She felt naked. But after a moment, the strange compulsion to walk toward the stranger eased, and she allowed herself to breathe again.

  The man frowned. “You are the fixer?”

  “You have something broken?” Maggie asked, surprised at how calm her voice sounded. Her hand felt broken, fiercely aching from squeezing the handle of the sledgehammer.

  His frown deepened. “On the road, yes.”

  Maggie hesitated. “Show me.”

  He had to think about it, which only made her more uncomfortable. She imagined her sledgehammer swinging toward his perfect face; her heels dug in and she was ready, ready, ready for anything. Maggie had not yet found cause to kill a man, but she had scared away several of them since her grandfather’s death. She had a feeling that this one would not take a fright all that easily.

  But work was work, and when strangers showed up on her doorstep needing a fixing, it never seemed right to tell them to go away. The nearest Enclave was over a day’s walk to the south, across the river. This was the only junkyard in the region to service all those folks looking for spare and rare parts—and she could not, in good conscience, tell anyone desperate enough to make the journey to mosey the hell off her spread.