Touched

by A. J. Aalto

  I crammed my lids down and my lips tightened too, squelching a sob I hadn't known was building. Monster. I heard my mother's voice, and in that instant I agreed with her. Monster, she had pronounced, and this was why Harry was never to come back to her home. And now her only son, her baby, was wavering between trying to rip me open, or returning to the SUV for another hunt. Wes focused-in on my rapidly-jumping jugular and another high wail leaked from his throat.

  On shaking arms, I peddled backward, making distance, thinking as long as the revenants could see me right in front of them, Batten and Chapel were safe in the demolished SUV. Maybe they could even slip out, slip away, down the road to safety. I held onto that hope until my wrist encountered a foreign rubber obstacle. The obstacle moved, tapped up and down, jiggling my hand with it.

  I tilted my head back to look.

  “Hello, Marlene.” Ruby Valli beamed down at me, a toothy smile, eyes glistening with victory. She had my gun.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  I'm not sure I even thought about it. Must have been my lizard-brain at work. My lizard-brain is miles from ladylike. As I flipped to hands and knees, one arm shot up and I punched the old lady in the box.

  Ruby's air went out in a whoosh and she squeaked as her knees clamped together around her injured crotch. I scuttled past her on hands and skidding knees like a kid playing horsie as she popped her invisibility spell again, vanishing. The office door was awash with weird colors, flickering light, sickly green. I couldn't look, didn't have time. My skin crawled along one shoulder and I launched to my feet in a full-out run, arms akimbo, dripping blood from my palm, aiming head-long for the mudroom. A bullet popped in the kitchen, another, and lead zinged past me to hit the fridge with a metallic report. I scrambled behind the shadowy corner of the washing machine, using its bulk for a shield, pausing to think frantically, what to do, where to go, and also: damn shit fuck!

  Inside or outside? Inside, with the invisible lady, who might be training my own Beretta around the edge of the washing machine at my skull right this second? (My forehead skin crawled with the knowledge that it was highly likely.) Outside, to be ripped open by the sweet, loving revenant I trusted implicitly until tonight. The last thing I see being the mats in my baby brother's unfortunate Viking dreadlocks as he waited for his turn to lap at my vein juice? Lord and Lady, are those my only two choices?

  I heard the kitchen floor's tell-tale squeak and knew Ruby had crossed in front of the oven, skulking in this direction. Dread spilled cold acid into my churning belly. Ears perked for another sound, I worried I might be too late to make any choices. There were no shadows falling in the open doorway. Shouldn't she still cast a shadow? I waited, pulse rocketing through my veins, my brain screaming go, go now, just go but my body unable to so much as flinch. I was stuck, glued by indecision, trapped by doubt and unadulterated terror.

  A crash out front and an echoing snarl told me one of the Feds was visible to the revenants, distracting one or both of them. We were out of time. I was out of time.

  My eyes fell on Ruby's paintball gun. I'd taken it from her shop; its new home was my laundry room. Could you beat someone to death with a paintball gun, while she was shooting real bullets at you? I inched a hand toward it, but before I could commit paint-splattered suicide, the back steps resounded with thudding boots.

  Batten burst in the back door, and I bellowed, “GUN!”

  His instincts were damn good. He dove to the floor, rolled fluidly as Ruby fired. As his face came to mine, I pointed back out the mudroom door. One big hand hooked for me, but I was already in motion to tear after him into the back yard.

  We hurtled break-neck through the dark toward the boxy shadow of the boathouse. Trees loomed, inky branches swiping to stall our flight. Ruby's fourth shot went wide, breaking the old window to the left of the boathouse door. Mark's hand didn't falter on the door; he wrenched it open, grabbed me by the shoulder, and hauled me around into the cover of his body as he raked us both inside. The door shook as he heaved his broad shoulder to it.

  “Window's breached.” His hard breath fogged my forehead. “Revs are going to smell blood and be in here in two seconds. Any ideas?”

  Absurdly, my brain focused on, He finally called them revenants. Why now?

  Motion outside. We both froze, going utterly still and stone-silent. A second noise, something crunch-squeaking. Rubber boots on ice; it was the worst sound I had ever heard. I looked up, past Mark's whisker-stubbles. Blood was caked in the corner of his nose, and I had the insane urge to press pause on life so I could fix his boo-boo. Tears welled in my eyes and my vision blurred. Probably just residual gas fumes and roasted ghoul stink, right? In the near dark, his eyes were flung wide, darting, alive with urgency. Alive. Still alive, I thought. Dark Lady Above, if you keep him this way, I promise I'll give up cookies forever.

  I asked, “Chapel?”

  “In the spare tire well of the SUV, with both my guns, but the revs know it. Wes is trying to split the SUV open.” His breath huffed out, streaming hot jets down on my forehead. “It's only a matter of time before he makes a big enough gap. Bullets only slow them so much.”

  “Chapel shot them?” I cried, but instantly regretted even asking. “I need you to get to my office.” A plan drawn aloud before I could really scramble my mental reinforcements into formation, it was shaky at best. “Ruby desecrated my pentagram and my herb supplies, but we're going to use that.”

  “I don't know what to do when I get there.” He inched his neck up to the broken window to take a fleeting glancing outside, then ducked. “I'll get you to the office.”

  “Unarmed? Good luck with that,” I pointed out. “Once I'm clear of the back door, you go.” I touched his face to make him look down at me. “Can you listen to me?”

  “I'll distract Ruby,” he insisted.

  “No.” My voice came from between clenched teeth. “You'll go to my office, get out the pouch labeled lavender from the cabinet. Don't touch what's inside. What did I just say?”

  “Lavender. Don't touch.” He shook his head. “But you'll know what to do—”

  “You're mundane, so you can touch the pouch. Just don't touch the herb inside. Also, take out the big jar of salt. Now there are two ifs. Ready?”

  “I can't let you go out there.”

  “Mark: If there are red candles around the outside of the pentagram, kick them over, and dump the salt on them until the flames go out. If there are red candles floating in a bowl in the center of the pentagram surrounded by green votives, you need to dump the lavender pouch into the bowl, then extinguish each green candle in the liquid in the bowl before putting out the red candles.” I reached up to brush away the dried blood from his upper lip. “Say it again so I know you have it right.”

  He repeated what I'd told him word for word, not looking at all convinced. I nodded. “Ok, after you do this, go to Harry's room and throw his hatboxes out of his closet.”

  He had other plans. “I'll hook right along the edge of the water and draw her fire, while you go left along the property line to the neighbor's.”

  I let out a frustrated grrr. “You're not listening again,” I snarled. “I'm on deck. Right?”

  He shook his head no. I tried to make a fist out of my bleeding hand, winced as several not-so-impressed tendons didn't respond.

  “Fuck you. If you trust me, I'll owe you one.”

  “One what?” Something flickered in his dark, unreadable eyes, but as usual it was lost to me.

  “After you fuck the spell, go downstairs. There's an antique revolver in one of the hatboxes. Get it, then hurry to the SUV and help Chapel out.”

  “The revs—”

  “Will come-to, after you fuck up the pentagram.” I think. I hope.

  His eyes pitched from the window back to me, plunged into mine deeply like he was trying to divine the future, the outcome. If the answer was in my face, I sure as hell didn't put it there. He nodded once. “Lavender,” he breathed. “Salt. Hatbox. Rev
olver. Is it loaded?”

  “Should a revolver always be kept loaded?” At his nod, I said, “Then it will be.”

  He nodded again. “Get Chapel. Then?”

  “Get that hard ass of yours to safety.” At his doubtful grimace, I assured him, “I'll be fine.” Oh, what a lie, but I must have sounded confident, because he didn't argue.

  “Where are you leading her?”

  “Hell if I know,” I admitted. I hiked the paintball gun to my hip and half-stood, keeping low. “Ready?”

  Clearly there wasn't a sane answer to that and he didn't insult me by attempting one. The sound of rubber on ice again spiked my heart and I relinquished control on the part of my brain that was thrumming with the warning not to do any more stupid things.

  I lunged up, putting my shoulder to the door with a bang. Sprinting from the boathouse, making lots of noise. I like to think I looked dangerous, like a guerilla fighter storming up a Columbian coffee field, minus the camo and gear. Probably guerilla fighters don't whinny and gallop aimlessly like a badly-beaten donkey when they hear gunshots like I do, though. Falling wasn't an option if I wanted to keep the paintball gun. I clutched it with both hands and loped into the Stygian shelter of the woods nearby.

  I'd lost count of her shots, but there was no reason she couldn't have a spare clip from my room. Zigzagging through barely discernable tree shapes, I picked out a clump of even darker cover, a bush of some kind. I vaulted into it like a long-jumper, feet first, landing hard enough on my ass to jar my jaws together with a clack.

  I opened my mouth wide to gulp one deep breath then struggled to slow my breathing, quiet my panting, still my motion. My ears perked for sounds: rubber boots, ice or snow compression, the snuffling of ravenous revenants gone over to monster. I picked up labored breathing and let my instincts press me deeper into the woods.

  I sprang out of my hiding place, turning to fire off a few paintballs into the night to keep her attention, hitting only tree trunks. Muzzle flare lit up the forest to the left as the Beretta went off twice in quick succession. Bark erupted from the tree beside me as the second bullet grazed my collarbone. I slipped back in surprise, too shocked to scream, flailing into a prickly bush, its naked winter branches clawing me. No time for pain. I shoved myself to my feet, wresting my clothes from the bush's grip, and took off again, praying Mark remembered what to do, praying he didn't touch the monkshood in the lavender pouch, praying the revenants hadn't eaten Chapel and decided that the chase through the woods was interesting, appetizing enough to be next on their menu.

  I heard the lake before I saw its moonlit plane. Too exposed, I bled back into the undergrowth, getting down, dropping the paintball gun to explore my shoulder wound. I had to pinch my lips hard together not to cry out. Heart clobbering in my chest, I closed my eyes. This is how I die, I thought, but that's ok. Cut down by a villain is okay. Cut down by a villain makes sense. But tossed to my end by Harry's hands? Please, heavens, not by Harry's hands. I could bear anything but that.

  I knew I hadn't lost her. Even if she ran out of bullets, she had too much of an advantage over me to give up tonight. As far as she knew, the revenants would take care of the Feds, leaving her free to exact her final revenge. She'd keep coming. I knew I would, if I were in her rubber boots.

  I searched for an escape route. A boat would be great. Visible, under the high light of the moon on the empty lake, though if I got far enough before she started firing, Lord knows she seemed a crap shot, maybe I'd be okay. But there was no boat. No canoe. The water was giving off a warning waft of frigidity I could feel from where I lay. Harry had said it was about thirty-five degrees. I'd be dead in minutes if I tried to swim for it.

  There were plenty of thick, bushy arches along the water's edge. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I tried to hear past the thready thrashing of my pulse. I needed to hear her. I had to hear it coming. Abruptly, my toes tingled with the notion that I would die without warning. One unceremonious slug to the back of the head. My shoulders hunched down and my head darted from one side to the other, and that's when I saw it.

  One of the black forms along the edge of the water had a distinctly mechanical shape. A snowmobile, overturned, nearly toppled into the water. I gathered my courage, daring to belly-crawl with the paintball gun towards it like a soldier through No Man's Land, hesitating at every sound in the wintery night. What I wouldn't give for the cover of crickets and wild animals in full brush, or a nice noisy thunderstorm. Even gathering wind would be better than this too-silent calm. I crept another two elbow-lengths forward, wondering if the wetness down my front was melting snow or if I'd finally pissed myself. Too close to the snowmobile's cover for any more subtlety, I rushed the last ten feet on my knees. And nearly fell into the body of Neil Dunnachie.

  The chief deputy had been dead for a while; the cold had preserved the bloodless shock on his face, so he appeared to stare over at me as though demanding an explanation. Why had I shuffled into the solitude of his open-air grave? Probably my expression didn't match his. I wasn't the least bit surprised to see the unnatural turn of his neck.

  I was glad he was dead. This sentiment didn't surprise me either, though it did shame me. Despite the fact that Harry was right now trying to gain access to Gary Chapel's jugular, Neil Dunnachie had tried to kill us. For that, he got what he got. I knew immediately I was never going to report it. If I lived through the night, my first duty would be hiding this broken body where no one would ever find it.

  Forgetting Ruby for merely a minute, I pulled my right glove off, touched the exposed spine above the bulging vertebrae at the spot where his head didn't look quite attached any more. There was no blood, no gore, just shining white bone. The Blue Sense lurched into my mind, sending me off balance. I rocked against the snowmobile with my wounded shoulder, but only the vision held any importance. My brother's unnaturally strong hands, fleet and straining rage, depressing the bones, knuckles white, jostling Dunnachie's head in precisely the way it was never intended by nature to go. The instinctual feed that followed, Harry's urgent protests. I broke contact so I wouldn't have to see any more.

  I jerked my glove back on and scanned behind me, forgetting Ruby would be undetectable. Could I rock the snowmobile back to right, and was it even drivable? Would Ruby shoot me while I was up on it in the star's spotlight, trying to start it? Hell yes, my instincts reported. Stay low, and in the dark.

  Then two things happened at once. Rubber boots made a hasty retreat back in the direction of the cabin, startling me into a paintball-ready pose. And my cell phone trilled the Inspector Gadget theme song loud and jarring in the too-silent night, jolting my heart with panic. I whipped it out of my pocket to turn it off but saw my home phone number on the call display.

  I answered, “Fuck me!”

  “Spell's broken, revs down. But I think she's on her way back. I see her in the mirror—”

  The black-watch spell. If Ruby made it back to the office she'd shoot Batten and restart the spell and we'd be back where we started. “Harry's down how?”

  “Don't know. Ruby's fuckin’ fast…back yard…porch!”

  “Harry's gun,” I instructed, pelting back in the direction of my probable death. I held the paintball gun close to my chest as I ran, weaving in and out of the trees.

  Harry's shadow-stepping form leaped from nowhere, with Wesley on his heels. Harry's stern grabbing hand sent me out of my momentum and I spun to look at him. His eyes pleaded, horrified but in control again. For how long?

  “MJ, it is not over—”

  “I know. Get as far away from us as you can.”

  “No time,” he said hoarsely. With that he took three running steps toward the lake. The surface of Shaw's Fist was like a gleaming mirror under starlight, so dark it was almost sable. Harry launched in a graceful arch and plunged into the icy water.

  A shriek tore out of my throat before I could catch it. I vaguely registered Gary Chapel's boots beating the ground beside me as we moved in ta
ndem like a flock of gazelles to the dock. Gloomy water swallowed Harry's boots.

  Wesley surged ahead of us, slicing past me in pursuit of Harry's wake, curling up through the cold night air and plummeting also into the unknowable depths of Shaw's Fist.

  Pain ripped through me but only for a second. Chapel doubled with an anguished cry, gun dropped. The Springfield XD Tactical skittered across hard-pack snow, spinning away. I felt the hypothermic waters rush to surround my own head, though my feet remained planted on the dock. Gary lunged up to grab me hard from behind, encircled me in his arms. I guess he thought I was heading into the water after my companion, but I knew better. Two minutes in that water and I'd be a goner. Harry would be… well, not fine. But not dead.

  Harry settled in for a cold, hard rest, sliding down through the depths as the frigid waters slowed his brain waves. I could feel the cold silken water spilling across his skin, surrounding him so completely and inescapably as he languidly stroked down toward the deepest bowl-shaped cleft in Shaw's Fist, taking to his rest mournfully, regretfully, but with acceptance. Lower now, as the water became heavier, the lake's gurgling music louder in his ears. Black. Icy. Sleepy. I heard a moan and it was coming from me. As I wrapped around Chapel like he was the last dry land in a drowning world, the living-dead version of a diver's Rapture of the Deep overtook Harry, pulled his thoughts into the tremulously giddy zone, a panic attack on psychedelic mushrooms. Then Harry broke our connection.

  A cramp of loss tore through my guts; Harry wasn't resting. Harry was laying under the bitter water, alert, in wait. I felt him, and felt through him, and heard through him—all the glugging, sloshing sounds of his sanctuary—and heard his thoughts. I'd never heard someone's thoughts before, because that wasn't my Talent. Was Wes somehow transmitting, telepathically, in his own desperation? The loss of Harry was an unbearable emptiness in my belly. Chapel fell to his knees, dragging me down within his clawing arms. His knees made a hollow thunk upon the dock. The instant hypothermic pain that should have transferred from Harry to his proper DaySitter did not. The cold was spilling through our mended Bond, but quickly whisked away, constant but ephemeral. Like having one arm in a glacier-fed stream, the cold, aching pain was moving across me.