by Cat Adams
A pair of gunshots. Kevin screamed. I smelled blood and worse and my stomach heaved even as the glands at the back of my mouth tightened hungrily.
That finally pissed Vicki off. Kevin wasn’t her favorite person, but there was no way in heaven or hell that she was going to let Emma be tortured by a demon.
In the space of an eyeblink the temperature dropped and a pressure vacuum sucked air upward so that it was hard to breathe. The fire guttered in an instant of utter stillness before gale-force winds drove sand and debris into a swirling vortex that blotted out the night.
“Noooo!” Eirene screamed as she hit at the wind uselessly. Apparently she’d realized what I already had: in order to banish the spirits, she’d have to drop the spell circle. Of course, she couldn’t do that and still raise the demon, so she was quite literally screwed.
Dirt and debris peppered my face and arms, slicing away most of the hair on my skin like an electric sander. I had to narrow my eyes to slits or risk being blinded. The world had become a painful, seething brown soup inside a pressure kettle. I could barely hear Eirene’s scream of rage over the howl of the sand-laden winds that staggered her like a blow. Through slitted eyes I watched her reach into her pocket, knew what she intended to do.
“No!” I gasped as I launched myself forward. Grabbing her ankle, I pulled with every ounce of vampire, siren, and human strength I possessed. She went down and I saw the disk fly from her fingers before her body slammed against the unforgiving earth hard enough to stun her. I used that precious instant to crawl on top of her. Sand blasted against my skin as I pulled her gun from its holster. Heavy objects were being blown now, too—sticks, rocks, and chunks of cactus slammed into my body. I could barely see. Tears were streaming down my face. But I switched off the safety and pointed the gun between those startlingly beautiful eyes.
I saw her start to regain her strength, saw realization and consciousness flow back into her eyes. And as I watched her gather herself for one last desperate fight I thought of Bruno.
Of him singing in the shower. Her shower.
Of him in her bed, having sex, looking down at her and smiling.
I gathered every image I could imagine of the two of them together, focusing them, making them real, until jealousy filled me like water fills a cup.
It took just a second too long. She fought with the desperation of the doomed and damned. She began clawing, kicking, and biting: raining blows on my body, bucking and squirming. She screamed out nearly unpronounceable words and I felt the barrier surrounding the encampment go down. The sudden release of pressure hit me hard, the equivalent of a pocket of turbulence on a plane ride. The wind rushed out and the sand with it.
She struck.
I cursed as she knocked the gun from my grasp. In a hand-to-hand struggle, we were almost perfectly matched. I still had the advantage; I was on top, and despite her best efforts, she couldn’t get out from under me. I felt her call in my head as she tried to summon the men to her aid. I felt them responding, trying to get to her, despite the fury of the tornadic winds that tried to kick up the storm again. Vicki was really doing herself proud. If this didn’t kill her, I’d buy her something nice. There must be something that a ghost needs.
But first, I had to survive. If Eirene succeeded in taking control of the minds of every male here, it was over: for me, for Emma, and for Kevin.
Fuck that.
I gathered my will, using everything I’d learned on Serenity to throw out my own call. Yes, it was the caw of seagulls versus the sweet melody of songbirds. But there is something very compelling about gulls and I used it to my advantage. I used the energy of my rage, hurt, and fear as fuel to power it. My mind met hers in a battle for the hearts and wills of the men we could reach. The fight was every bit as desperate as the physical battle we were fighting. I didn’t feel Kevin, and even angry as I was at him, I hoped he didn’t feel this, that it wouldn’t control him. In fact, I only felt some of her men. Were the others dead? Gone? I didn’t know. I only knew I couldn’t let her control those who were left.
The power of our clashing wills was too much. I felt their minds flicker like candles in the wind, felt their sanity and will snuffed out.
No! I didn’t mean to—
“You’re weak, Celia!” She said the words out loud, saving her mental energy for the struggle. “You actually care for these pitiful humans.” She considered my guilt a weakness and tried to use it against me. That was a mistake. Yes, I would have to live with the knowledge of what we’d just done for the rest of my life. But Eirene made the mistake of putting a person who’d been a victim in a corner. Every survivor has already been faced with a life-or-death decision and chosen life. Nothing else matters once that choice has been made.
I dived off of her, reaching for the gun.
She scrambled to her feet, but I lashed out in a vicious kick of my bound feet to her knee. Even over the wind I heard the grinding wet pop as it bent backward and tore. She screamed in agony, swallowing sand as she did.
I had the gun. I turned, watching as she crawled away from me as fast as she could manage.
It was hard to see but not as hard as it had been. The winds were dying down. Vicki and Ivy had worn themselves out. I could see Eirene well enough to aim. So I did. I aimed my weapon and thought of Bruno locked in a postcoital embrace with her. I embraced my jealousy. Then I pulled the trigger.
26
I lay on the ground for long minutes, utterly exhausted. The barrier was down. Which meant I could call for help. If only I had the energy. But my mind was as exhausted as my body. My head hurt and at the same time felt strangely empty. The power I’d come to recognize and use these past few weeks was gone. Maybe forever.
I looked around the encampment. Moon- and starlight illuminated a strange and eerie scene. Everything was coated with dust and debris. The dome tents had been pulled up from the ground to roll where they would. One of them was upside down, pressed up against a rock outcropping.
One of the men was lying on his back, breathing but utterly limp, his eyes wide open and empty staring at the night sky. Another sat up, drool tracking from his mouth through the coating of dust that covered a face that was vacant of any semblance of intellect.
I felt a new wave of guilt and my stomach lurched. I did that. At least part of it. I didn’t feel guilty about killing Eirene. But this, oh, God, yes.
Movement and moaning to my left. I turned to see Kevin struggling to free himself of the enveloping sand, some of which was wet and stained dark with his blood. His motions were getting slower with each beat of his heart. Not far from him, Emma stirred. She was coated with dust but not buried, whether from a trick of the winds or by Vicki’s and Ivy’s deliberate action I had no clue.
I didn’t have the energy to stand, even if my feet weren’t still bound. But I had to try to help. Yeah, I was mad at him . . . furious, in fact. But it was his sister he’d been trying to save.
So I started dragging myself toward him. I was halfway there when I heard the sound of a helicopter approaching fast.
Help? I hoped so. I didn’t have any more fight left in me.
I was digging out a very limp and barely breathing Kevin with my bare hands when the chopper landed. I shouted for a medic and was rewarded by running footsteps. Men in blackface and camo pushed me out of the way so that more men with medical equipment could get to work.
Someone knelt beside me. It took me a minute to realize it was Creede. Pulling a knife from his pocket, he sawed silently at the tape that bound my legs. How had he gotten here? Wasn’t he supposed to be at the visitation?
He answered my questions before I could even voice them.
“When things went south, Warren called Bruno on his cell. We worked together with Dottie to find you. Bruno refused to come with us at first. Said he couldn’t face you.” His voice was flat and inflectionless, but his eyes told a different story.
“Thanks.” Not for making Bruno come but for . . . oh, hell,
he knew what for.
We sat and watched as Kevin was loaded onto a stretcher. They seemed to know what they were doing. They already had a couple of IVs hooked up to him and were rushing him toward the helicopter, Warren running beside him. He was a werewolf. Bad as it was, with the right medical attention he could probably heal it. Of course he’d be outed at any regular hospital. Which would mean a life sentence in the state facility.
Another medical type was kneeling next to Emma. At a murmured word from Kevin Warren left his son and hurried to where she lay. Warren took her in his arms, holding her close, tears streaming down his face. At first she didn’t react at all. Then her arms moved, snaking around his neck.
“Are you okay?” Creede was looking at me oddly. Had he been talking to me the whole time? Maybe. Probably.
“Hell, no.” I sounded weak, damn it. I forced a little more energy into the next line: “But I will be.” A thought occurred to me. There was something terribly important that needed to be done right now. “John, I need you to do something.”
“What?”
“Eirene had a disk to summon the demon. She dropped it in our fight. Can you use your magic to find it? We need to recover it, get it to the priests. I don’t trust these other guys not to take it, maybe even use it.”
He started to swear. “I’m on it.” He folded his knife, putting it back into his pocket, and rose. “Approximately where should I start?”
I pointed in the general direction of where I’d seen it fall. I watched his face still, taking on an expression of calm concentration. Power washed across my other senses in a surprisingly gentle wave. Then again, he wasn’t trying to do anything, just sense the latent magical energy contained in the disk. I watched for a few minutes as he paced back and forth.
I was still watching when I felt Bruno approach.
He stopped a couple of feet away, squatting down so that we’d be eye-to-eye if I looked at him. He waited for me to look. Willed me to do it. And while I didn’t want to, in the end I gave in.
“Are you all right?”
Stupid question. Did I look all right? But it’s what you say. Hell, it’s what Creede had said just a minute ago. So why did hearing it from Bruno make me angry? Because I was angry. So very angry.
“I will be.”
“Celie . . .” Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. I just didn’t. I couldn’t talk to him right now. I was too hurt, too raw from everything that had happened, from everything I’d done. Maybe if he’d rushed over and taken me in his arms like they do in those stupid, romantic movies. But he hadn’t. He’d gone to Irene’s body. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to notice, but I did.
I knew Bruno loved me. Loves me. But he loved her, too. It was plain in the anger and hurt in his face as he’d looked back at her and then at me. And I wasn’t ready to deal with that.
“Don’t, Bruno. Please. Just . . . don’t.”
I don’t know if he would’ve listened if Creede’s voice hadn’t interrupted us. “I’m not finding it. DeLuca, get your ass over here.”
Bruno rose to his feet in a smooth movement. He didn’t say anything, but the look he gave me promised that we’d be having a long conversation soon. Maybe we would; then again, maybe not.
I didn’t watch them any longer. Turning away, I saw Warren holding Emma, an echo of the pietà. I hoped she’d be all right. Hoped it was all worth it. Because the cost had been so hideously high. Eirene needed to die, I truly believed that. But those men . . . and I didn’t even want to think about Kevin and what would happen at any hospital they might take him to. Even if they saved his life, he’d be put in the state asylum. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
I knew why Kevin and Warren did what they’d done. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. What a frickin’ mess. There were bound to be legal repercussions; I doubted even Kevin’s “company” could sweep this much crap under the rug. If they didn’t, I was so screwed.
In the distance I could hear the chopper coming back. A little bit of dust stirred and I shivered, more from memory than cold. Although, come to think on it, it was a little chilly.
One of the medics finally made it over to me. He squatted down a little ways from me, much as Bruno had done. “How you doin’?” he asked in a voice that was pure Jersey. It was even worse than Bruno’s cousin Little Joey, which was saying something.
It made me smile, for no reason at all.
“You with me? Having trouble focusing?” The medic flicked a penlight in my eyes. It hurt and I found myself hissing.
He saw the fangs and jerked back his hands. “Sorry.”
“S’all right.”
“You’re Graves, then. My name’s Gaetano. We were told you’ve got vampire healing?” He made it a question.
“Yeah. But I do better when I’ve eaten and it’s been a while. I need to eat more when I push myself, too.”
“You had a pretty tough time here. You having any bloodlust?” He sounded so calm about it. Matter-of-fact, as if he dealt with that sort of thing all the time. How bizarre.
“Not yet.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “I’d like to keep it that way. Let’s get you out of here so you can get something to eat.” He rose, extending his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. With his help, I was able to walk to the helicopter.
27
I sat on the front porch of my grandmother’s . . . no, wait, my house, watching the sun set. As always, Gran was in the old metal rocker. I’d brought out one of her kitchen chairs. We were drinking margaritas strong enough to knock a mule on its ass. I’d never known my gran to drink. But she hadn’t needed directions to make the drinks. We’d agreed to get together and celebrate the sale of the house going through
She’d been oddly quiet for nearly an hour now. Well, maybe not so oddly. She loves this house. She and Gramps had moved here right after they got married. But it wasn’t as if she were moving out. I wouldn’t do that to her and I’d told her so.
“I spoke to your mother this morning.” Gran took a long pull of her drink. She sounded odd. Sad. Of course she’d been like that a lot lately, as the realization sank in that Mom’s case was pretty much hopeless.
“She told me she’s taking the plea bargain. She doesn’t want me spending any more of my money on her defense.”
I stared at her. I know my jaw was hanging open. I shut it and stammered a little, trying to wrap my head around the implications of what she’d just said. “B-but . . . if you knew that, why did you sell? We could’ve canceled it.”
She shook her head and then patted my hand like she had when I’d first asked her about dating—that little pat that said, There’s so much you don’t understand, sweetie. “You need a place to live, Celie. A solid place of your own where you can settle in and feel safe. This house isn’t anything fancy, but you can hear the ocean in the mornings and its always been a safe place for you. Right now you need that.”
Really, I couldn’t do this to her. I couldn’t. “But Gran—”
She talked over the top of me. “This old place was getting to be too much for me anyway. I can’t hardly keep up with the yard work and you just can’t find kids willing to mow or pick weeds like you used to. Used to be kids wanted to earn money. Now they just spend their parents’.” She shook her head and took another drink.
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think. She was leaving? Was she sick? “I was talking to some of the other church ladies and there’s a real nice senior apartment complex over on Sherman Road. It’s got a shuttle to church every Sunday and once a week to the grocery stores and the mall. It’s right on the bus line, too, so I still can get out and about if I want to. And no, I’m not sick.”
Was she telepathic? Or did she just know me that well? “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
She nodded. “A bit. Since before Lana got in trouble this last time. But I didn’t want to give up the house and I . . . well, I know it’ll sound silly to you, bu
t . . . I wanted her to have a home to come back to if she needed it.”
It didn’t sound silly. It sounded sad. Heartbreaking. My throat got tight just hearing her say it. I couldn’t talk and I blinked back tears. She saw that and gave me a sad smile.
“You haven’t talked much about Bruno these past couple days. Still haven’t ironed things out?”
It was my turn to stare out at the flowers for a long moment. A thousand thoughts and emotions ran through me. “I’m not sure we can.”
“She lied to him, Celie. She was a siren; she befuddled his mind and she lied. That’s not his fault. He was trying to do the right thing, the honorable thing.”
“Yeah, Gran, I know. But that’s not really the problem.” I’d figured out what was really bugging me. “It’s that he didn’t include me in the decision. We’d been thinking of a future together, planning to give it another try. When she told him, he could have called me. It’s not like I hadn’t known there might be someone else in his life. We could have tried to come up with options, tried to work something out. Maybe adopting the baby, my being a stepmom. Or me moving east so he could be part of raising the kid. Oh, I know Eirene wouldn’t have gone along with it, even if there had really been a baby. But I would’ve been part of the process. Instead, he made the decision by himself and walked away. He thinks that’s okay. Maybe it is for some people. But not for me.”
She sighed. “I understand. But I hate to see you hurting, punkin. I really do. Have you at least talked to Kevin and the Professor?”
It was my turn to sigh. Kevin had survived and wasn’t in a cage. The men who’d rescued us were from his employer and they’d taken him to one of their private medical facilities. Emma had told me. She’d thought I’d want to know.
“No, Gran. I haven’t talked to them. And I’m not going to. I’ll visit Emma. None of this was her fault. But not Kevin and not Warren. That’s over.”
