by Gary Jonas
Is this where I say it’s not your fault because you were young and panicked and blah blah blah?
“So when I saw her in that class. I couldn’t look her in the eye. I already saw her eyes in every nightmare. Filled with sand, dead and staring at me. But she forgave me, Kelly. Even tried to help me. She wasn’t lost in the sandstorm. I was, every single night. I couldn’t leave her behind this time. I’ll never leave anyone behind again. I hope you understand.”
Lina moaned again. Her voice sounded muffled.
I allowed emotion to creep into my face. Starting with the eyes, which I let go teary. Then I turned the corners of my mouth down, made sure my bottom lip trembled ever so slightly.
“Do you understand now?” His voice was barely above a whisper.
I nodded. A tear slipped down my cheek.
His smile was made of pure joy and relief. I head-butted it hard enough to break his teeth.
The deadliest weapon I keep is me.
I pushed his unconscious body off mine and would have finished him then and there but for Lina. I ran into the bedroom in time to see the last of the healing happen.
The cocoon was gone. Daphne was curled up asleep in Lina’s arms on the bed. She looked the same as she had the night she cozied up to Brand, down to the neon face paint. Similar pattern, but the opposite of camouflage. I couldn’t hate her. She had no idea and never asked for this. Brand hadn’t either, but that’s how it goes.
Lina, though. Oh, sweet Lina. She’d gone stiff, eyes rolled back in her head, dark brown skin shiny. Too shiny in the mid-morning light coming through the window. She’d taken on the monster thinking she could heal it, but it stopped her midway. The cocoon thickened over her skin as I watched, sped up by Lina’s own magic, I suspected. In another minute, I’d lose sight of the face of the woman I considered my adopted mother.
“Lina? Can you hear me?” I knelt beside her and tried to take Lina’s hand. Her fingers had fused together under the shell hardening around them. She heard me though and tried to hold my hand. The shell crackled like cellophane as she closed her fingers around mine. My skin thickened and I realized she was trying to heal me even as she lay dying.
“No!” I pulled my hand away. The tears that rolled down my cheeks were real this time.
“Let me help.” Ramona’s Grandma knelt beside me, her kind face close to mine.
“Can you save her?”
The doctor ran her hands over Lina’s arm up to the shoulder. “She’s very strong. Determined. I can help her save herself. She just needs a little push forward and some time.” She smiled at me, wrinkles creasing like waves around the deep pools of her eyes. “I love it when they live.”
I sprang to my feet. “I’ll get Daphne out of your way.” I picked up the unconscious woman still curled up in Lina’s arms. Kess called my name from the hall. Brand was waking up. I looked out the door to where Kess stood looking in.
“Go ahead, Kelly. Do what you need to do out there. We’ll be fine,” Grandma said. As I watched, her hands glowed with power and she laid them on Lina. The cocoon seemed to thin out. I took a deep breath, believing Lina would be all right.
I carried Daphne to the front parlor, stepping over a groggy Brand as I went. Kess followed me. Her high heel found Brand’s palm.
“I know he doesn’t feel pain, but it felt good to do that,” Kess said. She sniffed the air, now redolent with cinnamon just on the edge of burning. “I think Lina’s breakfast rolls are done. I’d better go check on them.” She followed her nose to the kitchen, where Lina almost always had something good cooking.
I laid Daphne down on the couch. She murmured in her sleep. When I turned around, Brand stood at the parlor door.
“I’m surprised you haven’t killed her. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. This woman didn’t do anything that merits death. You, on the other hand….” I drew my katana.
Then, bam! Got hit with déjà vu. All over again, to paraphrase Yogi Berra. The first time I’d felt it, Brand and I were about to square off in a death match at DGI. My time twin did kill a different version of Brand Easton.
“I feel like time’s trying to right itself. Like you’re destined to betray me – whoops, looks like that already happened – and that I’m destined to kill you.”
“Oh, here we go with the woo-woo layered time thing again.” Brand rolled his eyes. “Look, if you’re mad at me, I get it, okay? I wasn’t entirely truthful with you, I’ll admit—”
“There’s an understatement.”
“But why don’t you try owning up to your actual feelings for once, okay? Instead of pawning off your actions on destiny or layered time or whatever bullshit gets concocted in your empty excuse for a heart.”
My empty excuse for a heart clenched. We stared at each other across the silence. Brand broke first.
“God, I’m sorry, Kel. I didn’t know that was gonna come out. I don’t really mean it.”
“You know what?” I laid my katana down. “I’m not going to kill you. You’re right. Fuck fate, fuck time, whatever. Just get out. You don’t belong in Lina’s house.”
“Please, Kelly. I love you.”
“No. You got exactly what you wanted by using me. Just take your little girlfriend and get out. Now.”
Brand opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything. He walked to the couch and picked up Daphne. She roused a little, saw who it was, and curled into him. She looked pale and weak in his arms. Nothing like him. Nothing like me.
“Let me get the door for you.” I opened it, and watched Brand walk past me and down the porch steps. He didn’t look back.
I closed the door, then leaned back against it and took a deep breath. With that breath, I took in the eternal tranquility generated by Lina’s house. Same peeling paint, same comfy old furniture, same good smells coming from the kitchen. Lina’s always felt like the warm, fuzzy home I never had.
So I didn’t kill Brand when I had every reason to. He came this close to taking away all the warmth and safety I felt at Lina’s, taking away the closest person I had to a loving mother. The old me would have killed him for less, but I was different now. I wrapped my arms around my body.
Because DGI changed me against my will, I had to embrace what I became, or hate myself. That was an easy choice. So why was it so scary, now that I was the one making the changes?
Chapter 28
I don’t know how long I stood leaning against the door with my eyes closed. Too many feelings. If this was how it felt to be human, I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep going down that road.
“Kelly?”
The smell of cinnamon was stronger. I opened my eyes. Kess stood in front of me. She offered up a frosting-drenched roll from a beat-up pan.
“Do I smell my rolls are done?” Lina’s voice practically roared from the back bedroom.
I grabbed the pan from Kess and raced down the hall. Lina and Grandma sat next to each other on the bed like two old friends catching up.
Lina laughed at me. “Slow down! Don’t go sliding and falling on your ass, Shug. Be a shame to drop those rolls before I get one.”
Grandma took the pan as I hugged Lina. I felt like the little girl I never had the chance to be. I looked out the window at pink and white blooms the size of my open hand. Magnolia bushes normally didn’t do well in Denver, but this one was tree-sized. Everything thrived under Lina’s care.
“I’m okay, Shug.” She whispered exactly what I needed to hear. “Now. Give over one of them rolls. They’re my own recipe.” Lina took a cinnamon roll out of the pan and set delicacy aside. She was always ravenous after a healing. This one had to be especially taxing.
Lina offered me a roll. Nothing ever tasted so good. And Brand wasn’t there to have a bite. That made it even sweeter. Petty, I know.
I studied Ramona’s Grandma, the woman who brought about this miracle. She smiled back at me and I felt a prickle go up my spine. “Lina needs her rest. Let’s go chat in the other ro
om.”
Fresh coffee and more cinnamon rolls waited for us in the parlor. I heard Kess humming as she cleaned up the kitchen. Lina would be happy. Nothing cleaned as thoroughly as a ghoul.
Grandma poured the coffee. I got right to the point.
“There’s something about you. Even beyond the weirdness I’m used to meeting.”
The old woman sat back with her coffee. “What is my name?”
“It’s…it’s Grandma.” But that was ridiculous. I tried to remember everything Ramona had said about her. Oh, right! “Got it. It’s Doctor…Grandma?” Wow. Mad deductive skills there, Kelly.
Grandma laughed and slapped her knee. “Oh, that’s better than most people in your position do, little warrior. I like you. You remind me of my grandsons, also warriors. But they’re funnier. You’re a little dry in that department.”
I gulped my coffee, strong and hot the way I liked it. “You would have liked my friend, Jonathan.”
Grandma nodded. “I may still meet him. He’s only dead, after all. Hardly an excuse not to meet.”
That prickle started up at the back of my neck again. I couldn’t look Grandma in the eye. Too much in there. Whole worlds floated behind her pupils.
“You’re a goddess. You’re Grandmother Spider.”
She blinked and I could look her in the eye again. “I knew you’d name me.”
“Ramona doesn’t know, does she?”
“She does, but she won’t let herself realize it. For all her research and questioning and scientific method, my granddaughter is good at hiding the truth from herself.”
“If she’s your granddaughter, does that make her a goddess?”
“Not yet.”
Not yet. I thought of Gloria. And, reluctantly of Daphne, so recently changed back to normal. “So…Ramona’s transforming, too.”
Grandmother Spider laughed. “You say that like it’s something unique, and something bad. Everyone transforms, all the time. Even you, Kelly Chan. Especially you. Why are you afraid?”
No use pretending I’m not afraid. She sees me. “Sekutar are made to be strong. I’m made to be strong. But if I’m changing…I don’t ever want to be weak.”
“Then don’t be weak.” Grandma shrugged. “Transformation can make you feel powerless, but that’s the illusion. You choose what you want to be. I think you will find new ways to be strong.”
Her words comforted me. “You’re different from other gods I’ve met.”
“Let me guess. Selfish, vain, aloof.”
“Fixated on their hammers.”
“Oh, so you’ve met Thor?”
I grinned. “Guilty. Or, rather, not.” I’d actually flown away on a dragon before that party could get started.
Grandma laughed again.
“But like I said, you’re different. You’re—”
“Helpful, I hope you’re going to say? Some of us gods haven’t forgotten we’re meant to serve.”
“—down to earth. Relatable.”
Grandma pursed her lips in consideration. “Relatable, no. Because you don’t know me well enough, you only think I’m relatable. But I’ll claim down to earth.”
“I disagree. You’re an immortal I can understand.”
Grandma raised an eyebrow. “Do you? Then let me tell you something about myself and see if you still understand.”
She straightened up. “My body is a cleft rock that juts out of the earth. It was a joke my grandsons played on me and the selfish men who once tried to follow us. My grandsons changed my body to stone and now every man who passes the rock has to stop and copulate with it.”
She spread her hands, indicating her body. “But as you can see, I’m also right here. I was born, I grew up, I went away to college in Seattle and became a doctor. I married, had babies. I saved the lives I could save and cried for the ones I couldn’t. My hair turned white and I retired. One day this shape will go back to the earth. But I’ll still be here. I’ll be my granddaughter. I’ll be Ramona.
“And one day she’ll tell someone her body is a cleft rock that juts out of the earth. She’s not ready to accept that yet. But she will be, in time.”
I bowed my head. “You’re right. I don’t understand. You’re Grandmother Spider. A goddess. They live forever.” I thought about my last encounter with a couple of immortals. “Well, unless I come along and help kill them. So, did your spirit pass from the rock to another body? Will it pass to Ramona’s next?”
Grandmother Spider shook her head. “There is only one body. You weren’t listening, little warrior.”
“Fine, don’t explain.”
She chuckled. “Do me a favor?”
“What?”
She looked out the window, considering her words. “Let Ramona down gently. She’s not ready for that, either. My granddaughter’s rarely fallen in love. Nothing could be harder.”
Don’t I know it? “I wasn’t trying to lead her on.”
“No. But sometimes we have to fix the problems we didn’t mean to create.” Grandmother Spider looked back at me. “Like this problem I created with Kokopelli.”
I set my coffee down hard. “You? How? Ramona said you lived on the west coast. You weren’t even here.”
“That’s the problem. Too long away, and my children get into trouble.” She poured herself more coffee. “Will you help me fix my problem, Kelly Chan?”
“You saved Lina. I’ll do anything you want.”
Grandma reached out, squeezed my hand and smiled. “I may ask for more than you want to give.”
“That’s a gamble I have to take.”
She tilted her head. “Funny that you put it that way.” Grandmother Spider glanced down at her coffee. She nodded to herself. “Yup. Too long away. But I do love the ocean so much.” She looked back up.
In her eyes, the sun and moon danced in a dark night over a rain-slicked rock. A man approached, stopped.
I looked away.
Chapter 29
My phone vibrated. It was Amanda.
“Are you near a TV?” Her voice was low, like she didn’t want to be overheard.
“Actually, yeah.” Kess walked into the parlor and I put Amanda on speaker phone so we could all hear her. I set the phone on the coffee table and I reached for the remote sitting there. I turned on the TV to the midday news. A perfectly-sculpted newscaster talked about last night’s emergency evacuation by the CDC.
“Awesome. Ramona’s friends came through.” Munching accompanied Amanda’s commentary.
“Are you eating popcorn again?”
“Can’t look at a screen without it. I’m like Pavlov’s dog.”
“Why are you whispering? Are you at DGI?”
“Mmm-hmm. Back of the conference room. The meeting just broke up but people are still here watching the news. The vamps left before dawn, but we kept talking. Big stuff going down.”
The newscaster sent his best wishes, as choice tweets from family and friends scrolled across the bottom of the screen, asking for prayers and speedy recoveries.
Munch munch. “Fat chance on that one. Juke called and told me they’re all exterminated. He got to kill two by himself. It took three Sekutar to take down the vampire bug. How come you and Brand aren’t there? Juke said—”
I shushed Amanda. Pictures of DJ Trixster 13 and DJ 11th Hour came up, with the words “Benefit Concert” under them.
The newscaster continued. “—Will be hosting, or rather, DJ-ing, a benefit concert to support the victims and their families tonight at—”
Amanda stopped chewing. “The magical sound equipment from Tally’s. Ravenwood predicted this.”
I shushed her again so I could hear the chiseled man name the venue. I didn’t know but I’d put down money that it was within hearing distance of a cemetery.
“—And Cheesman Park.”
“Oh, shit,” we both said. I heard knowing groans from the other wizards lingering in the meeting room on Amanda’s end.
“What’s wrong with Cheesm
an Park?” Grandmother Spider asked.
Amanda spoke up. “Nothing at all. It’s a lovely green carpet surrounded by upscale apartment buildings, like a mini Central Park. Oh, and it used to be an eighty-acre cemetery.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.
“And they didn’t quite move all the bodies when they knocked down the markers to make the park,” I told Grandma. She raised her eyebrows.
“Is Brand there, too?” Amanda asked.
“No. How many bodies are left in the park?”
“Hang on, let me ask.” She held her phone away from her face. “How many…oh, you already…” She came back on. “Bill from accounting says approximately two thousand. Mostly criminals, the poor, the sick…there was a smallpox hospital on the grounds where they pretty much dumped anybody. They called it the pest house.”
“Two thousand bodies. But, they’ve got to be pretty decayed by now. Even though they still run across bones whenever they dig a hole for a new tree or whatever. How much of a threat can this really be?”
“A big one,” said Grandma. “Kokopelli doesn’t need a whole body to make a zombie. The earth will clothe the bones that rise.”
I came so close to giving Brand a fist-bump at the prospect of slashing through thousands of zombies, that I raised my hand before remembering he wasn’t there. Fuck.
Amanda went silent. Not even a chomp. I heard a man’s voice speaking – smooth, a slight but unplaceable accent.
“Yes, sir.” The slightest tremble in Amanda’s voice. Then her tone grew formal. “Kelly. Blake Ravenwood would like to speak with you.”
“Really? Tell Voldemort to shove it.”
“Kelly.”
“I’m serious. Sauron can stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
Kess snorted.
“Kelly. Please.” I heard the smile in Amanda’s voice. She was trying not to laugh and covered it up by grinning at the CEO of DGI. “I know there have been misunderstandings in the past between you and Mr. Ravenwood.”
