So why did I feel like I’d just as soon lie down and give up?
Maybe I should just let things play out. If there really was a God and he had some kind of plan for me, maybe I just needed to wait and find out what it was. Maybe I should just wait for fate to happen.
That sounded really smart in my head. I staggered over to the wall and leaned back against it. More pain leaked through the connection between me and the demon. It rippled down my nerves, lighting them on fire. I moaned and slid to the floor, putting my arms around my legs and burying my face in my knees.
God was clearly pissed at me. Law needed to hurry up and get this over with. I could use a rest.
“Don’t give up.” Tabitha. Her voice sounded shaky and frightened. “Don’t die. Don’t leave us.”
I made myself lift my head. It wobbled and I tipped it back against the wall as I opened my eyes. Only halfway. My eyelids were too heavy. The ghost-girl stood in front of me, her hands clenched together. Her eyes were wide, and her chin trembled.
“Maybe I won’t,” I said, barely a whisper. “Maybe I’ll become a ghost like you.”
Edna appeared just behind the girl, putting her hands on Tabitha’s shoulders. “That’s not funny. You need to get up off the floor. Stop this now.” She gestured toward the battle, sounding more angry than I’d ever heard her. In fact, I don’t know that I’d ever heard her get mad before.
I rocked my head back and forth in a negative shake. “It’s fine. Whatever happens happens for a reason, right? Isn’t that what everybody says? I just have to let fate take its course. God’s will be done. He’s got a plan for me, right?”
“Horsefeathers. You don’t believe in fate,” Edna said. “What’s wrong with you?”
I wanted to tell her the truth. I was just too damned tired and too sick of myself to fight back. I had really fucked up picking up the command stone. I’d bound myself to a demon. Technically I’d enslaved him. That by itself made me a monster. On top of that, even though right off I’d declared I wouldn’t order him around, I wouldn’t be a slave master, within minutes I’d done just that. I knew I’d do it again and explain it away with all sorts of good reasons. Except there was never a good enough reason and deep deep down where I couldn’t lie to myself, I knew it.
It was too humiliating to confess.
“This isn’t you. You’re not a coward,” Edna said when I didn’t answer. “You’re a fighter. Why aren’t you trying?”
I gave a wobbly smile and said the truest thing I knew. “Because I might win.”
There was the big pink elephant in my life. What if I did win? What would I be left with then? If I stopped the fight, if I lived, then I’d have to leave Law again. Six years and nothing had changed between us. Not for the better, anyhow. The crazy thing was I loved him more than ever. The idea of walking away again hurt far more than anything I’d endured this night. I barely survived the last time. I didn’t think I could do it again. I’d rather have a clean, quick end and not have to feel that endless torture of loss.
Edna was wrong. I totally was a coward.
Chapter 9
I let my eyes drift closed, which is why I don’t quite know what happened next. But suddenly the world stretched and snapped. Sound like dozens of hands scraping fingernails across chalkboards screeched through the cavernous workroom, and the temperature dropped down into the negatives.
I shuddered at the unearthly sounds and clamped my hands over my ears, opening my eyes at the same time.
Law and So’la were still at it. Law had the demon on the ground now, standing above him and pouring energy into the writhing creature. His face was almost expressionless, his eyes glittering with turbulent emotion. White frost rimed the floor, walls, and ceiling and even me. The ghosts circled above the battle, arms locked together as they spun. Their mouths hung open, making that unbearable noise. My skin prickled and I felt a pull on the tie holding me to the demon. It reached deep down inside me, tracing all along the intricate spread of roots anchoring us together.
My body arched and jerked forward a few feet. It didn’t exactly hurt, but it didn’t feel good either. More like someone had invaded. My gut reaction was to scrape at my skin and try to dig the feeling out. I clawed long divots out of my arms and neck before I caught myself, balling my hands into fists and holding them tight to my jaw as I got jerked again. I felt like one of those big bluefin tunas getting reeled up out of the ocean depths.
By this time, Law had realized that something was up. He glanced at the circling ghosts and snarled at them like a dog guarding a bone. So'la kicked weakly and twisted, trying to escape Law’s magic. Guilt assaulted me. I’d robbed him of the power to defend himself. Not that he couldn’t have tried to escape. I mean, was that all these two could do? Attack and kill, rinse and repeat?
I should have stopped it. For the sake of So'la, if nothing else. Even if I could have survived his death, I wouldn’t have been able to live with his death on my conscience. Better late than never, I supposed.
I got up on my hands and knees then staggered up to my feet, bracing my legs wide when my knees tried to buckle. I didn’t have near the power Law did. He was connected to the auberge and the magic running under it. That didn’t mean I was helpless.
Pain continued to snap through me in random explosions of fire and sparks. I pretended they were happening to someone else and made myself focus. The ghosts continued to distract Law with that awful cacophony. What could I do? The answer suddenly seemed stupidly obvious. I walked toward him. My bare feet ached with cold, then turned numb. Oh goody. I was going to end up with frostbite along with all my other aches and pains. I was having such a fabulous day.
Law snarled at the ghosts as they darted in to touch him. Little spots of blue and black pocked his exposed skin. I tried to hurry. At any moment he could turn on them, blast them into oblivion. I let out a little moan at the possibility. Without thinking, I flung a shield out around them then another around the demon.
The effort took almost more than I had at that point. I stumbled and caught my balance and kept going. Law started blasting the shield protecting So’la with furious bolts of pure energy. I couldn’t hold out against those long. Already I felt my spell retracting and thinning under the assault.
I was close now. Only a dozen feet away. I pushed my feet to move faster and lunged. In something between a controlled fall and a charge, I crashed into Law, plowing into his side and wrapping my arms around his waist.
He twisted, trying to keep his feet as he grabbed me. I’d committed to the fall. Gravity and dead weight were on my side, not to mention he was off balance. We hit the floor with me half under him. The breath exploded from my lips and my head knocked painfully on the slate. Stars spun around my head and I thought I heard birds twittering.
Before I could collect myself, Law had rolled away. No doubt to get back to his attack, damn it. I elbowed the floor, pushing myself onto my side. Before I could complete the move, Law had an arm around my shoulders and was angling me up to lean against his chest.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? I could have killed you.”
“You were doing quite a fine job of it already,” Edna declared in a prim voice. “Weren’t you paying any attention? The demon dies and so does Mallory. Or don’t you care?”
He gave a fierce shake of his head, his arms tightening around me. “The demon lies. It’s his nature.”
“Is it a lie?” Tabitha stood on the other side of me. She stretched a ghostly hand out and touched my cheek. I blinked in surprise. Her touch was warmer, like fire, and sent a burst of delicious heat through me. I let my head fall back.
“Thank you. That’s heaven,” I whispered.
“Christ,” Law said and he heaved me up into his arms and stood. “Why didn’t you tell me? God damn it. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be fine.” He sounded determined. He swung me around in a circle as if trying to figure out where he wanted to go then strode toward the
gaping doors.
“What about So’la?” I asked.
“We’ll worry about him later.”
I started to wriggle and kick. “He needs looking after. I’m responsible for him.”
Law stopped dead and stared down at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s true. He and I are tied together. He can’t refuse anything I want of him. That makes me responsible for him.”
Law started to shake his head but then went still, closing his eyes and breathing in and out before opening them again. “All right. Let me take care of you first; then I’ll come back for him.”
“Soon?”
His jaw tightened. “As soon as possible.”
I let myself go limp then, laying my head against his shoulder. I barely kept myself from nuzzling into his satin heat. “Thank you.”
He made a growling sound and started walking again.
Chapter 10
Law carried me upstairs, down various hallways, and through doorways. I closed my eyes, falling into an exhausted daze. I was conscious of other voices and the answering rumble of his voice in his chest, but I paid no attention to what was said. I didn’t care. I reveled in his strength and scent and his bare skin on mine. I wanted to stay in his arms forever.
The ghosts didn’t come with us. Maybe they stayed to watch after So’la. Maybe they didn’t want to get too close to Law. He’d not killed them, but he could always change his mind.
Eventually we reached our destination, which turned out to be his apartment. He carried me into an enormous bathroom and stripped me down before pushing me into the shower. It was glorious. Jets hit me from all directions, and a rain shower fell from above. Seconds later, Law joined me. He soaped me up and washed me with indifferent hands, pausing to swear now again as he encountered a bruise or cut. He lingered on the lich scar down my back and again on the Ammit demon scar curving through my scalp and behind my ear.
When I’d warmed up and he was satisfied that I was clean, he pulled me out of the shower and wrapped me in a bath sheet then toweled my hair. He swiped himself with a towel and wrapped it around his hips before swinging me into his arms again and carrying me into his bedroom. I didn’t get a chance to notice much of anything but dark woods and pale walls before he pulled back the covers and laid me on the mattress.
“Wait there,” he said and rummaged in his drawers, returning with a pair of sweats and a cashmere sweater.
I protested the latter. “It’s expensive. I’m wet. I’ll ruin it.”
“I like the thought of you in it,” he said and put them on me, tucking the covers around me before dressing himself in jeans and a sweater.
I’ll admit to disappointment that he didn’t crawl in with me, even though I’d practically begged him to go take care of So’la.
He came back to the bed. “How do you feel?”
I considered myself. “Like I’ve been used as a punching bag. Though definitely warmer,” I said. The warmth didn’t seem to reach all the way to the source of my chill. I frowned. “But still cold somewhere. And kind of numb. Like I’ve been hit with a massive dose of Novocain. Except not in my body. It’s inside but not in me exactly. If that makes sense.”
He gave a frowning nod. “You’ve likely overloaded your channels with the magic you expended tonight. Or possibly the connection with the demon is causing it.”
I gave a little shrug. Nothing much I could do about either one. He laid a hand on my forehead and another on my chest. Magic wreathed his hand and pulsed inside me. It burst into me like a puff of summer wafting through an open window. My body went boneless as a feeling of utter relaxation overcame me.
“Neat trick,” I murmured. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Sleep now,” he said, ignoring the question. “I’ll do what healing I can while you’re out.”
“And So’la?” I mumbled as my eyelids drooped closed, too heavy to hold up.
“The demon will be taken care of,” he growled.
It occurred to me that that sounded more ominous than I liked, but when I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, it turned into a yawn.
“Go to sleep,” he said. He bent and brushed his lips deliberately against mine. I decided not to think about what it might mean. Just thinking about us made my head hurt. I snuggled into the sheets, inhaling the scent of him wrapping my body.
* * *
I thought that maybe Law would have climbed into bed with me. Or maybe I just hoped. Instead I woke up with ghosts. They ringed the bed in silent vigil. I wriggled up against the pillows and looked around at them. All of them were there. Tabitha and Edna stood at the foot of the bed. Edna held the girl’s shoulders. All of them watched me with solemn, sorrowful eyes.
Instantly I was assailed with guilt. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I was totally irresponsible—”
“You’ve been kind and generous to us,” Ramona said, interrupting.
“You’ve let us stay with you and protected us,” Tag added. “We’re grateful.”
If anything, that only made me feel worse. I’d let them go after Law, knowing that they risked their lives, and I’d not tried to stop them.
“Tabitha wants to cross over,” Edna announced suddenly.
The words punched me in my stomach, and the room spun around me. I clutched the sheets beside me for balance. “What?”
“It’s time,” Edna said simply.
I looked at Tabitha. “Why?”
I didn’t really expect her to answer.
“I want to see my family,” she said.
“But—” There was no telling if her family still existed anywhere. I had no idea if there actually was a heaven or any place else for souls to go. I didn’t say it. She might have that kind of faith, and if so, I didn’t want to ruin it for her. I brushed the sudden tears that burned in my eyes.
She floated toward me, coming to kneel weightlessly on the bedcovers beside me, covering one of my hands with hers. The electric chill of her energy was as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. “I need you to send me home.”
I could only stare. “No.” It came out in a strangled whisper. “No,” I repeated, more loudly. “I’m not— You can’t—” I shook my head emphatically. “No.” What she meant was she needed me to exterminate her. I couldn’t. Not without knowing for sure I wasn’t sending her into permanent nothingness.
“It will be all right,” Edna said, her dark eyes heavy with sympathy. “God will take care of her. You need only open the door for Tabitha to go into his arms.”
I wasn’t sure I believed in God most of the time. I shook my head, pulling my hand away from Tabitha’s touch. “I can’t. You can’t ask me to.”
I launched myself out of the bed, uncertain where to go. All I knew was that I needed to get away from the beseeching demand in Tabitha’s gaze. “There’s got to be another way,” I said and strode toward the first door I saw. It led into the bathroom.
I shut the door behind myself and leaned against it. I glanced around. The room was enormous, done in grays and blacks. On the vanity were a few masculine toiletries. My dress was gone. Good riddance. I doubted it could be salvaged. I shivered, remembering that Law had taken it off me twice. Where was he? Where was So’la? How long had I been asleep?
I glanced down at myself, taking an account of my physical aches and bruises. There weren’t any. Mostly I felt hungry and thirsty.
I rinsed my face then filled the glass at the sink and rinsed my mouth out. It felt a little too intimate to use Law’s toothbrush. I blushed hotly at myself in the mirror. Too intimate. As if we hadn’t mauled each other in the restaurant manager’s office. The ache of that experience was gone now too, along with all the others. Maybe it was a sign. Pretend it never happened.
I bent my head, trying to think about last night. Or however long ago it had been. I’d told Law I loved him. He’d told me he’d been watching after me, waiting for me to come back to him. But he hadn’t said he loved me back. And he still
thought I was crazy at best, broken at worst.
I heaved a long sigh and straightened. I looked at myself again. “You can’t hide forever,” I told myself. I looked a lot like a deer in the headlights, poised to run but nowhere to go. Time to face the music. The whole damned symphony of it.
I swung open the door, half expecting to see the ghosts waiting in a wall. But most of them were gone. Tabitha held Edna’s hand, her other caught in Tag’s. She looked less haunted than she had before last night, as though reliving the night of her death and seeing So’la had somehow cleansed her. But no. That sort of thing couldn’t be cleaned. Maybe it had freed her from the memories so she could let go.
Let go of this world and go on to the next.
“I swore I’d never exterminate another soul again,” I said to the three of them.
“It is what she wants,” Tag said and he blinked to clear ghostly tears from his eyes. “You have given us the dignity of remaining in this world, of choosing what we will be. Let Tabitha choose.”
“She could be committing suicide,” I said. “With me as the weapon.” I gave a hard shake of my head and folded my arms over my stomach in a vague defense. Against what, I didn’t know. It’s not like they were going to attack me.
“It’s her choice,” Edna said.
Tabitha pulled herself free from the two adults and approached me. She looked up at me. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go. I want to try.”
I stared down at her. My chest caved in under a tide of grief and self-disgust. I was a killer. That was my peculiar talent. The worst part was it was easy. As simple as blowing dandelion fluff. It should have been harder, especially since only a few sorcerers actually could do it. Yet it took no more effort than cracking an egg.
The Incubus Job Page 13
