by Chloe Garner
“Sam. Sam,” Jason said. “Do demons age?”
“No. They don’t carry the seed of life, their hearts don’t pump real blood, and their cells don’t split or age.” She said something harsh to the man, who tipped his head back and smiled.
“Nice to hear someone who remembers the old fighting words,” he said. “The new crosses have all of their fancy new language, like they don’t even remember those days.”
“Attack me,” Samantha said through clenched teeth. Lahn cut another searing pass through the still air. The demon smiled, wrinkles resettling into familiar patterns across his cheeks and chin.
“One with a code, then. Novel.”
Lahn came to a sharp standstill behind her.
“I ask him to, he’ll point a gun at you and put a steel bullet in your chest,” Samantha said. Sam thought it was obvious which of them she was talking about. The man looked at Jason for a long time.
“Yes, I can see that he would.”
Samantha bounced slightly on her toes.
“Attack me!”
“No, child.”
“Are you gray?”
“No. I drink more lifeforce off of humans than most demons have ever dreamed of.”
“Then attack me.”
“No.”
She looked at Sam and Jason with a sort of desperate fury, and he realized that, even in her blood thirst, she wouldn’t, wouldn’t attack without provocation.
“Search the house.”
Jason started to ask if she was going to be okay on her own, but Sam grabbed his shoulder. Obvious question. They went through the house room by room, Sam mapping out distances in his head to find hollow places in the walls, but found nothing out of place for an older man in a retired neighborhood in Florida. Except maybe the flippers, but those hardly seemed nefarious.
They went back to the front room, where Samantha was now pacing impatiently. She knew the answer before Jason said it - she had split her focus between the demon and Sam with a piercing attention.
“Nothing.”
She stomped on the floor.
“Cellar door outside? Hidden stairway?”
“Basement here would be underwater,” the man observed calmly.
“What do you do with the bodies?” Samantha demanded.
“I sell them,” he said. She cut across the room, leveling Lahn across his throat.
“To who?”
“Art dealers downtown,” he said.
She sat abruptly on the floor.
“Art?”
“What kind of freak artists have you got around here?” Jason asked.
“Art.”
Sam was bewildered. Samantha had solved something that had stunned her, but completely snuffed her anger. He had no clue. She started looking around the room, and he did the same. The walls were covered in paintings; much of the floor space was devoted to furniture for sculpture.
“Are you okay, child?” the demon asked with genuine concern.
“I’ve never heard of anyone making that work,” she said. He laughed.
“I imagine there are many things you’ve never heard of,” he said.
“I am renouch,” she said simply. He sat back in his chair.
“Well, well. This is an unexpected honor, then.”
“How do you do it?”
“Disdain for violence, love of life. My sect is long extinct on the other side, but we loved human striving. Factories had the hardest time capturing it. Still do, I understand. Why scuttle and hide to keep my kills secret, when poor young men and women will pour their blood, sweat, and tears onto a canvas and sell it to me for a song?” He smiled. “I have something of a reputation, in town. I make a profit on everything I buy, simply because I bought it. Kingmaker.”
She shook her head.
“Why are you the first?”
“I’m not, but I’m one of few. It takes patience my kind rarely cultivates.” He leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knee and contemplating her from behind his fingers. “Why are you empty? I’ve heard tell of how you glow, but I see nothing of the kind in you.”
“It’s gone, for a time,” Samantha said.
“And you replace it with death?” he asked.
“It’s my gift. If I cannot be happy, I may as well be useful.”
“Lie,” Sam said softly. She looked up at him and he came to sit next to her.
“Seriously? Story time with Uncle Demon? Either let’s kill him or let’s go. I don’t want the lady across the street calling the cops on us.”
“It’s not to be useful, it’s to be numb,” Sam said. She looked at him and sighed.
“It hurts,” she said. “Like an injury in a limb I amputated.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain it.”
“We should go,” Jason said. Samantha stood, then pulled Sam up.
“Yeah. It’s time to get back to work.”
“Explain to me what it is you think we’ve been doing,” Jason said. Samantha flipped Lahn behind her back up into her sheath and passed him into the kitchen.
“Pouting.”
Sam wasn’t sure if he preferred the stony, cold core she formed as she left the house over the frenzied, undirected energy of before, but Jason seemed relieved.
Samantha noticed his concern, putting her arm through his and leaning her head against his shoulder.
“You should e-mail Simon to let him know where we are. I need you guys to do what you do for a few days. I have the beginnings of a plan, but I need some time to get it worked out.”
“You’re okay?”
“Not even close, but we’re moving forward anyway. I’ve been irresponsible. It’s time to be a grownup again.”
<><><>
Sam, Simon said the moment he signed online. That girl is giving you bad habits. I almost had to let this one go. There was a pause. She isn’t reading this, is she?
No, Sam answered. But I’ll tell her you said she’s a bad influence.
Fine, whatever. Where are you?
<><><>
“That was a little anti-climactic, truth be told,” Jason said as Samantha sat on the bed across from him. Sam was booting up the laptop. “I’ve gotta say, I was enjoying the constant stream of demons to go after.”
Samantha grinned, digging down to the bottom of her backpack.
“Always on to the next conquest for you, isn’t it?”
“You’re the one who tried to throw yourself at me,” he said. She laughed.
“I guess I did.”
“Were you serious?”
She looked up at him, pushing her hair back behind her ear. He wished he hadn’t asked, after a moment.
“Do you ever think about marriage, Jason?”
“No.”
“You ever think about the rest of your life?”
“Not really.”
“You see anything that you expect would change what we’re doing, now?”
“Which part?”
“The three of us. Out, doing… stuff. Like we do.”
“Near death, ashing things, that stuff?”
“Sure.”
“What was the question?”
“What would change to make us split up?”
He thought, as she brought a bottle of ink out and blotted a brush on a cloth.
“I can’t think of anything. I mean, you and Sam having some massive fallout, maybe, but…”
“You and Sam are in it for life. I’m pledged to him, and I mean it. We don’t really have a retirement plan, but I don’t see anything that would split us up. Marriage is just about committing to making that the case. Not splitting up. Going through life together.”
“Marriage is about sex,” Jason said. “And not having it.”
She smiled. Lifted the bottom corner of her shirt.
“You mind?”
“What?”
“If I keep working?”
He tried to keep his eyes from widening.
“Whatever yo
u like.”
She stripped her shirt, revealing a halter top that was disappointing for how much it covered. Getting past that, he saw her skin.
“Geez,” he said.
“I’m going to have to switch to long sleeves,” she said, drawing a curve down the inside of her arm. “Marriage is about fidelity, sure. Absolutely. But…” she thought. “It was dumb and impulsive.” She closed her eyes. “I want something to pull my focus in, so I don’t have to pretend so hard that I’m not so completely broken. Sex seemed like a possible solution. As far as, was I serious about you and me?” She opened her eyes and shrugged, continuing to draw on her arm. “If you were willing to jump, I would too.”
“You trust me that much?”
She smiled without looking away from her design.
“You give your word, you follow through. I have no doubts at all.”
He watched her for a minute.
“What do they mean?”
“It’s stylized. Something I developed on my own because it made me happy. The symbols themselves are pretty simple. If I run out of skin, I’ll have to start second-layering them, at which point they start getting complicated.”
“That wasn’t the question I asked,” he said. She laughed.
“I know.”
“You don’t like tattoos?”
“No.”
“But henna’s okay?”
“It wears off. I can change my mind. More importantly, it isn’t permanent.”
“Will you do one on me?” Jason asked. “Here?” He pointed to the back of his shoulder. She tossed her hair.
“It isn’t a game. These are powerful ideas. You don’t play with them.”
“So give me one that helps protect me from Brandt.”
She looked at him, pulling her mouth to one side.
“I’m working on that.”
Sam, in the other part of the room, stood.
“Guys, we’ve got wraiths.”
<><><>
“Wraith. I…” Jason looked at Sam as he drove. “How do you explain them?”
“They eat bodies,” Sam said.
“So… Zombies. Which don’t exist.”
“They so do, too,” Jason said. “You got bit and they tried to convert you into one. The fact that you’ve got some scientific name for them doesn’t make them not zombies.”
“Zombies aren’t wraiths. Wraiths look like people,” Sam said.
“They’re smart, some of them,” Jason said. “Zombies are popcorn fare.”
“Popcorn.”
“As in ‘bring a bag of’,” Sam said. Samantha glared. “Look, we didn’t know they were people.”
Samantha shook her head.
“Either angels, demons, or humans,” Samantha said. “All of them.”
“Or aliens,” Jason added, grinning in the rearview and Samantha made a face back. Sam smiled to himself. The fact that Jason could tease her and get a reaction was a relief. “I don’t know what to tell you. Wraiths are a thing. We hunt them. Simon found a cluster of them in New Orleans, so we head to New Orleans.”
“How do you find them?”
“Usually they’re running a business that fails to deliver the bodies where they’re supposed to go,” Sam said. “Sometimes they work in morgues or at hospitals. Then, the bodies don’t go missing. Just the organs.”
“Or the blood or the skin,” Samantha said.
“Yeah.”
“And in this case?”
“Funeral home. Simon says that their outgoing expenses aren’t as big as they should be. He couldn’t find any contracts with embalming suppliers.”
“Cheery,” Samantha said. “How do you confirm them?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“Silver,” Jason said. “Anything else heals.”
“So… you just cut random people to see if it heals or not, and that’s your method of separating them out?” Samantha said. “And they don’t fight back in the meantime?”
“You don’t see if it heals, you see if it burns,” Jason said.
“Wraiths are always a mess,” Sam said. “They tend to keep to themselves, their grooming habits aren’t great, but there’s always a risk some of them will get away when you mistake them as human or that you’ll kill humans who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“So why do you hunt them?” Samantha asked. “They eat dead bodies, but finding them incurs the risk of exposing yourself or killing innocents. Why is that worth it?”
“They’re creatures. Unnatural. It’s what we do,” Jason said, when Sam paused. Sam felt the itching, scrambling torment rise in Samantha again, but she pushed it back away.
“Like werewolves?”
“Like werewolves.”
“And the demon with the art?”
“Sure.”
“But you let both of them live.”
Jason glanced at Sam.
“You make everything harder,” he said to her.
“Well, I’m flattered, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” she said. “No, seriously. These are important questions. A warrior needs to have some discretion, or else he’s just someone else’s weapon.”
“Oh, yeah? Whose weapon are we?” Jason asked.
“Just you,” Samantha said. “A psychic is a liaison, and even before he was a psychic, Sam was never a warrior. You’re Arthur’s weapon. If you’re anyone’s. You do have discretion. You just don’t think about it.”
Jason grunted.
“Okay, smartypants, why aren’t you pulling us off this one?”
“Same reason I approved of killing the zombies. They’re holding themselves above natural law. Making themselves immortal.”
“How is that different from a ventilator or medicine?” Sam asked.
“The gifts of the mind are our natural right. Free will. They can be right or wrong, but they are subject to men’s justice and God’s justice, not mine. Dark magic, though, the stuff required to keep you away from death. That stuff is for me to destroy, same as any demon. But I never kill a demon without being sure he’s a demon. With a thorough examination, I can separate an immortal from a human, one-hundred percent. You guys make me nervous, though. How many people have you killed or nearly killed by accident?”
Sam considered for a minute. She didn’t mean to be harsh. The feeling under her words was a raw, earnest passion that he respected, even as he felt a bit attacked by it.
“How’s your record?” Jason asked. “Do you know?”
“I’ve probably allowed or indirectly caused the deaths of more people than you’ve saved, all told,” she said. “Carter says it’s a ratio, and you get to count everyone they would have killed in it. I think that’s hiding from reality. Reality is, that blood is on your hands, best try or not. If you’re going to be honest with yourself, you have to accept it, and just make the promise to put everything you have into avoiding it. Things are going to go wrong. People are going to die. You do your best to know as much as you can, and - more importantly - know what you don’t know.”
“And kill the sonofabitch that started it,” Jason said. Samantha’s dark mood lightened slightly. She smiled.
“The burden of a shaman is knowing. The burden of a psychic is seeing. The burden of a warrior is dying. Consensus is that dying is the easiest.”
“Says the one who sits with the pile of books,” Jason said.
“Would you prefer the books?” Sam laughed.
“Not a chance in hell.”
Samantha’s mind stabilized and she sat up.
“Jason,” she said.
“Sam,” he said back.
“I am bonded to him. I pledged myself as his shaman to give him the tools to become the most powerful psychic he could possibly be.” She paused, trying to find what it was that she actually wanted to say. “In history, warriors need shamen more than psychics do. If Brandt is going to come for you, if I can’t stop him, I intend to see him choke on you. With your
blessing, rather than running and hiding, I want to power you up as high and as fast as possible.”
“Is this going to be like your tea parties with Carson?” Jason asked. Sam turned to look at Samantha. Her eyes were open, alive, planning things he couldn’t see, and her thoughts were whizzing around in her head with much the same linear speed they had when she had been hunting demons they day before.
“No. That’s magic training. I’m talking about warrior training. Everything I know that I can teach you in as short a time as possible.”
“Hell, yeah,” Jason said.
“How long do you think it will take Brandt to get himself together?” Sam asked. Samantha blinked and came back to him for a minute.
“Power demons are planners. They’re used to having hundreds of thousands of years to plan something on this side. And coming after Jason will be a risk. He’ll only want to do it when he’s most sure he’s going to win, because if he succeeds, I will come after him. Both of them. And it will be terrible.” Her eyes glowed. “I intend to see him choke on you.”
Sam found Jason looking at him. He nodded. Yeah, he knew about that.
“I don’t care how bad you think it is,” Jason said. “You don’t negotiate with him.”
Sam nodded.
“So we’re agreed, then?” Samantha asked. “We round up and eliminate your family of wraiths, then we head for New York?”
“What’s in New York?” Jason asked.
“All my stuff.”
He turned in his seat.
“What’s with the two big bags, then?” he asked.
“Oh, Beloved. You have no idea.”
<><><>
Samantha stood in the driveway of the house where Sam and Jason had gone in and were putting bags into the spare room. Samantha had shaken hands with the bald, older man whose home it was, the brother of a long-dead Ranger, and Jason had introduced her as Sam’s girlfriend.
She breathed the late-spring air, remembering the last few times she had been here.
If New York was the center of the demonic world, and it was, and if it was the center of the gray world, and it was, New Orleans was the center of the magic world. At least, outside of the far east, it was. Samantha had never kept up with the competing capital cities of magic.
There were two mages in New York. Samantha knew both of them well. There were a dozen in New Orleans. The number of sorcerers, witches, and white knights was mind-boggling. The air smelled of salt and green-rot and magic. She hated it. Hated it.
