Chapter 13

After our shared passion, Jakob carried me into the bedroom, worried I was getting cold. Buried under the warm blankets, I cuddled close to him and fell into a relaxed cat nap. That sweet sleep never lasted long, but it always came with a feeling of bliss I adored. On more than one occasion I’d canceled everything we had planned to stay in bed close to Jakob, talking to him or watching him rest. He didn’t need the sleep but he stayed next to me letting me drink in the sight of him.

Tonight he wasn’t as indulgent. A devout Catholic for all the decades of his long life, he wasn’t going to let a little cuddling get in the way of mass on a holy day. I watched him dress, delighted to know I was wholly responsible for the smile on his face.

The service was my doing. As a vampire, Jakob couldn’t step into most Christian churches. Last summer I’d talked Danny’s priest into a service in Latin, an evening service without communion, holy water, or a cross, in short, a vampire friendly service.

It turned out several of the church’s older patrons enjoyed the old-fashioned mass. What I’d thought would be a sparsely attended private mass became one filled with gray heads and the scent of muscle cream thirty minutes before the Father arrived. Most of them came early to pray the rosary. I was still working on how to get one for Jakob that wasn’t holy enough to burn him.

I put on my black cashmere wrap dress, which would be tied tightly shut during the service but opened at the neck in a much less demure way for the party after it. I hoped I could get Jakob to take off his tie and leave his suit jacket in the car. I didn’t know what kind of a party E threw but I suspected it was a ton more casual than that. Jakob had packaged some gift up for E, sparing me the trouble of deciding what to get, and it rode in the car with us to church.

I’m not Catholic, probably never will be; after all, my mother raised me none of the above, but it mattered to Jakob, so I went. I liked the Latin, the way the words sounded, even though I didn’t know what they meant.

Danny usually brought his family, so I had an excuse to sit with Emma on my lap, the two of us generally listening to the church part of things and occasionally whispering quietly. I knew as a good babysitter I shouldn’t play favorites but Emma was my favorite. That hadn’t change now that I knew she was a selkie. If anything, it made her more of my favorite to know she was different like me.

The service let out and we joined the slow procession of people shaking hands with the priest on the way out the door. Emma wriggled free of me to run forward. The first few times we’d tried this Katie let them play in the nearly empty parking lot. The three girls giggled and screeched through games of hide and seek in the parking lot or catch on the sidewalk that went from the small rectory where Jakob’s mass was held and the big church where the girls usually worshiped.

The games kept them distracted while the adults said goodbye. It was an idyllic scene but not one that worked for the hellions. Three times out of four it ended in tears, ruined tights, and muddy dresses. After that, Katie instituted a new order; the grownups promised no more than five minutes of chatting and the kids stood quietly.

To seal the agreement, Nora, the oldest, received a watch with a timer. The three of them huddled around it off to the side literally watching the seconds tick down. When it chirped I helped hustle the girls into the car before Armageddon broke out.

When I got back Jakob was reliving the war with someone who fought near where he did. I didn’t ask what war. Most of the people who came to his church service were older than me, like three times my age. I figured Jakob balanced me out, what with him making the average age in our pew something like one hundred and two. Still, I was glad when we left and headed to E’s birthday party. I liked the idea of a conversation about events that happened after I was born.

****

E’s apartment sat across the hall from mine, but the identical doors concealed much different interiors. My half-floor loft with the bedroom and the only bathroom in the place on the second floor seemed more modern than her boxy dining room in front of the kitchen, living room to the side, bedroom behind it, set up.

It helped that I bought the model furniture while she decorated sparsely, letting the open spaces define things instead of having things define the space. Tonight that was a blessing; the apartment buzzed with the chatter of almost two dozen people.

The birthday girl herself hugged us at the door and immediately grabbed at the package Jakob held. After my own hug, I got a beer from the fridge and wandered, finding my way out to E’s balcony. Where my apartment had a wall of windows, hers had only a sliding door. Thanks to the raging fire in her fireplace the door was open. I went outside to join the others who sought a quieter, cooler spot.

“Enjoying the view, Miss Mallory?” Bess asked, her English accent making her sound like someone’s nanny.

“It’ll do.” Seeing Bess reminded me of the run we’d gone on and the man we’d found dying at the end of it. “Done any running lately?”

“After the last one, I thought I should—” She stopped as a tall man grabbed her from behind and held her at least a foot off the ground. Bess wasn’t small; in fact she looked regal to me, all tall and thin, but the man behind her didn’t seem to flinch.

“Oy! Put me down,” she demanded.

“Not unless you kiss me first.”

“Not until you tell me who the hell you are!”

“Ah, now you’ve crushed my spirit. Don’t you remember me?” He dropped her down and I could see the laughter in his wide face.

“Aaron!” She screamed. A second later I pretended not to watch the two of them kissing their hello.

“Mallory, meet Aaron,” Bess said when she came up for air.

“Pleased,” I said with a wave, wondering how I could leave the side of the balcony to the two love birds.

“He’s our air witch. Bastard always ends up getting me off my feet.”

“Because you know you want to fly, come on, just a little Bess, just a—” He grabbed her waist again and flexed his knees. For a scary minute I thought he was going to take off but instead she kicked backward, breaking his hold to stand close to me.

“Another minute and you will be flying,” she threatened. His eyes widened in shock and I followed his gaze to see the stone balcony slowly open itself.

“Bess,” I squeaked, trying to get air into my lungs. I might have conquered my fear of heights but I wasn’t ready for her to make a hole in the stone balcony twelve stories above the street.

“Put it back, Bessie, you’re scaring her,” Aaron pointed out, and suddenly I liked him a great deal. “Besides, I promise to be good.” He spread his hands wide in a gesture of submission.

She looked at him and then at me, her eyes solid green. Slowly, all too slowly for me, the stone of the balcony sealed itself.

“You okay?” he asked me.

I nodded and caught my breath for a second before I said, “Yeah, but I’ll never think of earth witches as gentle again.”

I’d meant it to be a joke, but a man I didn’t know on the other side of the porch laughed louder than he should have.

“Gentle? Not any of these guys. Not even Daniel and it’s his nickname.”

An inarticulate “huh” was all I could manage.

“Trevor.” H held out his hand. I took it, surprised by the firm grip and the solid body behind it. He’d faded into the shadows despite his size, thanks to skills I didn’t have, aided by the deep ebony color of his skin. His body looked hard, not quite sculpted, but the body of a man who worked hard every day.

“Good to see you, man.” Aaron grabbed him in a fierce embrace, leaving me left out. It must have shown on my face because Trevor smiled back at me.

“Let me sum it up for you. These two, for all their bullshit games, were more than happy to suffocate or induce heart attacks.”

“Hey, it was a war,” Aaron defended himself.

“Exactly, what were we supposed to do when we ran out of bullets, huh?” Bess countered good-naturedly.

“Wait for the Marines?” he asked and the two of them burst out laughing.

“Is that you?” I asked.

Short but powerful, he reminded me of Lieutenant French, of a fighter. Of course, all of them had been but he looked it. If they were bad he had to have been much, much worse.

“It is indeed, Semper Fi, ma’am. I’m the lowly MP assigned to work with these malcontents. I’m not even a witch.”

“But you work with witches?”

“All the time, I even play with them when I get the chance.”

“Which hasn’t been lately, no one could find you. What have you been doing?” Bess asked.

“Missing you, baby,” he replied, smoothly avoiding her question.

I left the old friends alone to reminisce and went inside for a piece of cake.

****

I ate my piece of cake and did my best to fade into the periphery of the party. Jakob was chatting with E’s parents and I didn’t want to interrupt. They were older than me. E was older than me. E’s brother, who was only eighteen, was far too much younger than me. The party had me feeling out of place. I searched for Puss, the fabulous ginger-colored tom cat E insisted only liked people of quality.

I was curious to know how he would judge this group, especially since he had a habit of disappearing when there was no one worthy of his affection. After two loops of the apartment I found Puss snuggled up in Mark’s arms. The cat dozed completely unaware that Mark was an anti-social vampire, while Mark carried on some deep conversation with another guest I didn’t know. I nodded my hellos but didn’t bother to interrupt. I looked back at the balcony and saw it was abandoned. I headed out, hopeful for a minute alone.

I got it, a minute and a few more. The idea that E’s troop of soldiers killed using witchcraft nagged me but I couldn’t fathom why. I’d known it, or at least I should have; I’d seen Anna kill with fire and she wasn’t a solider, just an average witch. It made complete sense, and yet still bothered me.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Trevor appeared from the shadows again making me wonder if the balcony was his hiding place.

“Oh you don’t want to know. I was thinking about work.” The words popped out of my mouth without any logic behind them. I wasn’t thinking about work, I was thinking about witches and how they could kill people. That wasn’t work, right?

“What kind of work?”

“I’m a detective.”

“Homicide? Narcotics?”

“SIU.” His look told me he didn’t know the acronym so I spelled it out. “Supernatural Investigative Unit.”

He gave a low whistle. “Beats the hell out of my job. What kind of case are you pondering?”

“A homicide, I guess, one that’s gone on too long.” I got lost in my thoughts again and then realized I wasn’t holding up my end of the conversation. “What do you do?”

“Well, I used to be an MP, a detective, pretty much like you, but lately the corps doesn’t have a lot of use for me.” He sat down next to me on one of E’s patio chairs. “Can I tell you a secret?”

I shrugged, wondering what secret you would keep from people who fought and killed with you but tell someone you just met. He looked at me and then pushed up his sleeve. What should have been smooth black flesh was bisected with thin bands of silvery metal holding inch long segments of muscle.

“Composite tissue?” I asked. I’d read about how they could grow muscles, nerves, and skin to replace lost limbs. The science wasn’t perfect, though; they only functioned in thin sections, something about how the nerves connected. The metal bands made the connection stronger.

“The war is officially over, but it’s not really over. We were cleaning out an illegal trafficking center in the desert and ran into a harpy. She took my arm off. I mean, just off. They found my hand a few hundred yards away. I spent six weeks with a hydro pack on a nub of bare bone and another six learning how to use this new stuff.”

“None of them know?”

He shook his head. “I can’t make up my mind to tell them about it. These guys, they’re all about strength, doing the impossible, never being afraid. I don’t want them to think of me as crippled.”

I looked inside at the party and could easily pick out the smaller group of soldiers from the rest. Something about how they carried themselves, about how they stood. Even E, who was maybe a hundred pounds, had a presence that stood out from the rest of the room.

“They are ferocious,” I said, seeing exactly what he meant.

He laughed. “The first time I saw them in a fight was the first time I felt helpless. It was amazing.”

“Tell me about it.” I’d been in a tough situation once with E; she made me feel all sorts of useless.

“They lay a hand on someone and the person starts coughing up their own water or fighting to breathe in a room full of air. Scary shit,” he admitted. “But I’m sure you see stuff like that every day.”

“And you didn’t? Being an MP can’t be all that different from my job.”

Trevor and I talked shop for at least an hour. I offered at least fifteen times to get him a job with the SIU, but he protested. While he was laughing and smiling about old times I could see his injuries scared him, throwing off his sense of self. It was too bad; he really knew his stuff. I promised myself I’d get his number from E later. If I had a choice in new hires to the department it would be more people like Trevor, not more people like Amadeus.

Jakob found me around midnight and I realized it was time to go. The party had dwindled down to E’s inner circle. They sat around the coffee table, relaxed in the way truly close old friends have, casually draped over each other, arms touching legs, body parts all mixed up. Ryan, who Mark had been talking to, was massaging Bess’ perfect foot, down the couch from him her head rested on Aaron’s lap.

They reminded me of the cliques I’d seen in high school, groups that dated each other so much they had all been lovers once. Maybe they had all been lovers once, somewhere between the fighting and bloodshed, or maybe the fighting and the bloodshed was enough. This group could have forged a friendship so strong that sex was a step down, making them closer than lovers.

Trevor followed us inside, and when E saw him she jumped up from the couch to squeal and hug him. This time when he was asked where he’d been he answered, “Collecting your presents,” and pointed to the table.

E left us to sit in front of the three boxes, eyeing them with glee. I noticed these were the ones from her friends, not Jakob’s present or Mark’s if he’d managed to get one. Intrigued, I wondered what they would have gotten her. The box on top was a small square, underneath it was a larger square, and at the bottom a rectangle at least three feet long.

“From you?” she asked him.

“From all of us,” he conceded.

“I can’t even imagine what all of you could agree on,” she marveled. Her fingers flew to the tiny box on the top but Daniel corrected her.

“Start with the bottom,” he said. In the flicker of the candles his blue eyes danced mischievously.

“It’d better not be a swimsuit,” E growled and all of them laughed in return. Her fear of water was somewhat legendary, but Daniel had been coaching her through swim lessons. I got updates on the lessons, how he had a pool in his basement small enough and shallow enough she could stand up and touch the sides. She still didn’t like it. She was conquering her fear though, and after the games out on the balcony I was more than impressed.

She untied the ribbon holding the three boxes together and then unstacked them. Pulling the rectangle in front of her, she lifted the lid slowly. A second later her eyes grew as a wide as saucers and a smile of pure joy broke on her face.

“Oh you guys, you totally shouldn’t have,” she cooed, pulling out a violin. The dark wood surface had been lacquered to a rosy brown color. The curves of the instrument were almost sensual.

“I didn’t know you played,” Jakob said softly. She answered him without ever taking her eyes off the rich dark wood.

“There was an old violin in the caves where we hid. I sort of taught myself.” She pulled it to her ear and plucked a string. Satisfied with its tone, she moved on to the others, talking and tuning at the same time. “It wasn’t easy but I had a lot of time. I got pretty good too. I mean as good as you can get without sheet music.”

“Open the second box then,” Bess commanded. E put the violin down reluctantly, and opened the second box revealing sheets of thin yellowing music stacked up.

“Wow, guys, really, thank you.” She sighed, fingering the thin vellum. I could see her lips move as she read the lyrics. E, tough as nails and always ready to fight, had tears in her eyes over her birthday present.

“Play us a song already. What was it Val used to say?” Aaron asked the room in general.

“Let’s leave him out of this, shall we?” Daniel’s voice carried a touch of an edge but E didn’t notice it. I looked at him, trying to understand the emotions on his face.

“Wait! No chin rest! All of this and you couldn’t get me a chin rest?” E did her best to sound put upon. “I guess I’ll take your undershirt again, Daniel.”

“The third box,” he replied with a smile.

Inside was a very neatly folded green undershirt, exactly the kind I would expect someone in the army to wear.

“But it doesn’t smell like gunpowder and sweat,” she complained, before he could say anything, she tucked the instrument under her chin. She played with her eyes closed, her short black hair revealing the long smooth line of her neck, looking vulnerable and strong at once.

The music started almost instantly, melancholy sounds drifting together, telling a story of regret. I didn’t know the name of the piece she played but like everyone else I leaned forward enthralled. Everyone else except Daniel; when I looked over at him he was leaning back in the chair, his eyes fixed on her face. It was obvious to anyone who looked how much he was in love with her.

****

The sound of E’s violin came through the wall we shared late into the night. Even as I drifted to sleep she was still playing, by then the music mixed with passionate magic. I hoped she played for Daniel, naked, the two of them having enjoyed their love, but I knew better.

I’d never seen E look at him that way. The romantic in me was a little sad at the idea but the cop in me was more interested in Trevor, something he had said, something in the whole conversation nagged at me. It held my attention until I realized it was Sunday, and not just any Sunday, but Superbowl Sunday. I squealed with glee, hopped out of bed and started the preparations.

I cleaned, grocery shopped, and organized a menu while Jakob slept. When he finally got up around two, we decided to open the windows. It was gray and cloudy out, a light mist falling in a way that said mud bowl to me but meant Jakob didn’t have to worry about a third-degree sun burn. I decided to leave the interior lights on; even with the shutters up the day was still dark. Two hours before kickoff and an hour before anyone was supposed to show up there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Simon looking chagrined.

“Hey you’re early!” I said with a smile.

“Early?” He looked perplexed.

“I’m having a party for the big game. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Uh, no, can I come in?” It was then I saw the regulation manila folder we kept reports and paperwork in. I groaned, but let him in anyway.

“I know you’ve gotten a bit of ribbing over the dog thing,” he started but I cut him off.

“A bit?”

“Okay, more than a bit. But I know you got yesterday off because of it too. So while it’s probably a long shot, would you be willing to look at some photos? It really does feel like Tiny is the only link to the representative’s attack.”

“I didn’t take any images from the dog.” I turned away from him to start on the cheese dip.

“I know, I know, but I’m up against a wall here, so would you just look?”

I started to tell him no, but a sudden burst of sympathy came to me. My case had been blocked a little while ago. Sure, I had some leads pick up this week but I could go back to being stuck any minute. Looking at photos wouldn’t kill me.

“Leave them on the counter,” I conceded and a second later my mind turned back to more important things. “So you gonna stay for the game?”

“Can’t. Sorry. Every year my church has a soup’bowl Sunday. We make soup from donated veggies and hand it out to the homeless.”

I frowned at him and his do-gooder ways.

“What? You know, we could use your help, Mallory.” The way he said the last made me positive he was reading me, using those spirit witch abilities to see how shocked I was someone would volunteer and miss the big game.

“Blasphemer! The only thing I’m doing today is what every American should be doing, watching the game.”

“You sure?” he teased on his way out the door.

“You’re lucky I don’t have something to throw at you,” I teased back.

Thankfully, the bulk of my friends weren’t as passionate about volunteering as Simon. They started arriving a few minutes late, as expected. Jakob must have let Lucas in; I found him near the food sort of hovering. Not wanting anyone at my party to feel as out of place as I had at E’s last night, I headed over to strike up a conversation.

“Simon was by?” Lucas asked the minute I got close enough. He was pointing at the folder sitting on my counter.

“He wants me to see if I recognize anyone from the er, construction site thing…”

“You mean the dog killer case?”

I fought not to roll my eyes. “Yes that.”

“Well?”

“I haven’t looked, it’s game day.”

“Yeah but…I mean, doesn’t being a cop come first? Before football?”

Clearly, I’d underestimated Lucas. He was one of those buy a trinket with the team colors on it but nothing else fans. I sighed loudly. “Fine, one glance, a look, but then the pre-game show is almost on.”

I spread the photos out on the counter, taking care to move aside chips and dip. The posed shots showed a colorful tableau of a work crew standing in front of earth movers and equipment. A sea of faces stared up at me, heads barely reaching the top of the wheel of the oversized tractor except for one man who must have been half giant.

He towered over everyone, a sledge hammer on his shoulder, Paul Bunyan. The rest of the workers were unremarkable. Sure, one of them could have left behind that taste of summer-time magic, but in the flat glossy photo there wasn’t anything close.

“Anyone I know?” A voice behind me asked.

“Nope,” I replied turning to find Ethan looking over my shoulder. I hastily stuffed the photos back into the folder. “And no one I know,” I told Lucas before switching back to Ethan. “So where’s Phoebe?”

“On the balcony taking bets.”

“What?”

“She decided since she doesn’t like football, running the gambling side of things would give her something to do.”

“Great.” I drew the word out to show my disapproval. So far, a handful of guests had arrived and none of them seemed to care enough about my Saints.

“So why are you looking at photos of people you don’t know?”

“Oh it’s a work thing,” I said, distracted.

“Really?”

“Uh, yeah, construction site vandalism, the perp left behind a magical trace but I can’t figure it out, so the pictures.”

“Huh, a magical trace?”

“Yeah see there was this dog and—” The doorbell rang saving me from telling the story. Isa and Ben blew into the room, and thank all the gods above, Ben adored football. We got caught up in the pregame show, discussing stats and arguing with the commentators. Lucas redeemed himself by having the life history of almost every player memorized; he joined the conversation with perfect facts.

While the rest of the party went on around us, the three of us focused on what mattered. Jakob hung out with us, mostly deflecting the non-fans who would have interrupted our game talk. Pre-game turned into kick off and I looked up to find my house nearly filled with people but only a few of them watching the game.

The game lasted long into the night, too long because in overtime the Giants won. I hated them and everything about their team but I couldn’t blame the refs; they’d played better. Of course, we’d also been playing in the rain on an unseasonably damp day. If it had been eighty-five and sunny, I suspected the Giants wouldn’t have succeeded so easily.

I said my goodbyes to everyone with a brave face, but Phoebe must have caught my mood since she offered me half of the money she’d won. When I glowered at her for betting against my team she only laughed, took Ethan’s hand and practically skipped out of the apartment.

I shut the door on the last of my guests ready to say goodbye to Jakob and mope in peace. He surprised me by offering to stay the night, in case I wanted someone around. I thanked him and as we cleaned up plates and dishes my mood lifted. We’d made it to the Superbowl; sure we hadn’t won, but it was a damn good game. Between the high of the game, the cheering, the shouting, and the final bitter end I was pretty beat. I fell into bed sure I’d sleep like the dead.

****

I was dreaming. I had to be. There was no other way to explain the primeval forest around me, filled with sounds of animals I didn’t recognize and dark with the limbs of trees taller than most buildings. It was night in the forest, a night alive with sounds and the rich scent of earth. Dirt, trees, leaves on the ground, the smell of flowers, so much to take in, so much that was just earth. It wasn’t a garden, wasn’t pruned and clipped; this was a place without man, a place apart from man’s influence. This was raw nature, life without civilization.

The thought scared me enough for the forest to know. The ground rustled beside me and I took off. I’d been running at a pace I was proud of but running in a dream is a different matter and while my heart raced and my legs pounded I went nowhere.

Branches grabbed at my hair, tearing at my arms and legs while the roots reached out to trip me. I went down, planting my face into thick dark dirt. It threatened to choke me, somehow growing into my mouth. I rolled over trying to get myself up but couldn’t move.

The forest stopped playing normal; it was alive and it wanted me to hold still. A vine wrapped around my other leg, then another around my waist until finally I was wrapped too tightly to move, a mummy encased in green.

My head was free but only for the moment. I tried to steady myself, to take a deep breath. It was a dream. It was my dream. Whatever else was going on, I should be able to control it. A vine snaked across my face, over the bridge of my nose and I panicked. All thoughts of control left me; what I needed was help.

I tried to call out to Jakob, to say his name or go to his mill, but another vine gagged me. I bit down and tasted green liquid, the blood of the plant seeping into my mouth. I panicked more, desperate for someone to help or some way to wake up.

“I’ll help you, death witch.” The voice was strange, a whisper of flames, a crackle of fire and the woman standing in front of me was stranger still, a body, a human shape made of orange fire. She knelt down to touch the vines around me and they sizzled and burned. “We can help each other.”

Her voice was seduction with a hint of demand but I wasn’t worried about that now. My thoughts were on her poor choice in places to start. She began burning at my feet, hands made of red fire turning the plant to ash but glowing blue on my skin. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation but she started too far down; I wanted my mouth free. I wanted to turn my head. Being able to wiggle my toes was cold comfort.

“Not cold, never cold,” she whispered and reached up to my waist. Oh yes, that touch was defiantly erotic. If she hadn’t been a woman…actually it was erotic enough that human would have been enough, but a body of fire, a flame shaped into a woman? I couldn’t get aroused by that.

She crouched over me, her hands drifting up my waist, freeing me with her touch, reading my mind. “Would this be better?” she asked but the voice changed. It was E’s voice and she was E above me, short, thin, boyish E with her dark hair cut so close to her skin. E’s hands covered my breast, coating them in blue flame. My body responded; it liked the feeling but my mind balked. I didn’t like girls the way E did, and worse my head was still tied down with vines.

“No?” it asked. The thing that had been fire, shifted again, putting its hands on either side of my face, finally freeing my mouth. I took great gulping breaths, desperate for air but she ignored my need and kissed me. Her lips pressed onto mine and her tongue teased my mouth, seeking entry, wanting to explore. She pulled me up, kneeling over my waist, her hands spreading blue fire along my body. When did I get naked? What was happening here? Even as I thought it I knew. I opened my mouth and her tongue searched for mine.

I pulled back, breaking the kiss. It wasn’t E I was kissing, not now. Now it was Anna, her long red hair draping over my shoulders, her tall body somehow wrapped around me. Anna who had a crush on me. Anna who held the fire goddess once because of me. The realization came to me even as she kissed me again. It wasn’t either of them; it was Her, Raya, the goddess both of them told me liked me.

I’d wanted help and I’d gotten it, in a very big way. A warmth spread through my breast as a hand filled with blue fire began to caress me there. It felt good but looking at another woman canceled the feeling. I pushed back.

“I’m sorry, it’s…I don’t…” There wasn’t really a good way to turn down a goddess, was there?

Her features melted from Anna back to flames, a face without eyes only dark sockets. “Maybe there’s something else we could share?”

The scene shifted, the forest was gone, and we were in front of a house. More importantly I was dressed. She held my hand but it was chaste, unerotic handholding. She smiled at me. “Maybe we could share this?”

The house exploded into flames. Red and orange licked out of the windows of the second floor. It had been a farm house, two stories, white paint, shutters decorated with cheerful flowers. Now it was an inferno. A dog barked inside and someone screamed, no doubt waking to catastrophe. I tingled, not with sex or fire, but with death. The dog and the screaming faded as my world narrowed. Five people were in the house in front of me and soon they would all die. The magic began to gather inside me, bringing pleasure with it. They would die and I would feel it, savoring the magic of their passing, the miracle of a person going from this world to the next.

I let the magic leave me and come back in whispers. This one was older, a grandmother maybe; she’d been close to death before the fire reached out for her. She fought it now, though, struggling to get to a child down the hall. Another child was taken in the flames; he slipped out of life without a whisper, dead before he woke up. The magic abandoned that side of the hallway to find more death. The master bedroom gave it.

That’s where the blaze had begun. Some other magic, some force I didn’t recognize told me there had been a candle on the bathroom sink, too close to a bottle of perfume. That didn’t explain the fire in front of me but I didn’t really care. I cared about the two people dying in that room. They were between death and life, lingering in terrible pain. I took them, willing the magic to help them pass, and they did. Flowery language aside, I killed them, my magic finishing the job the fire started.

“Oh yes, that’s precisely what I wanted us to share.”

I didn’t pay any attention to Her. Already my magic was racing back down the hall, searching for the other two, the last two who should have belonged to death. But I’d lingered too long enjoying the clean pleasure that had nothing to do with the physical world. I’d wallowed in the way it felt so very good while grandmother and grandchild picked their way down blazing stairs and out the front door. They spilled onto the wide wraparound porch, the old woman carrying the child who looked at us wide eyed.

“Can they see us?” I asked.

“What does it matter? This is only a dream for you,” the voice of fire and flame, a crackling noise that sounded like speech replied and I didn’t trust it. Caught between the house and the flame the old woman looked at us. Finally, she walked forward. My palms itched to take them both, to keep the high I was feeling going, but it was done, the moment was gone. They weren’t close to death anymore.

Magic interrupted I might as well wake up. There was a crash and the top story of the house collapsed inward. It turned the old woman from us to watch it. The child in her arms stared at me over her shoulder. The little girl pressed her lips together, tear tracks down her face. She was in shock, but it didn’t change the way she looked at me with such malice.

“I’m done,” I said to my companion.

“Oh no, just done here,” She whispered in Her breathy fire of a voice. The scene changed again; it was clinical, clean, no more wind, no more flames. I took a deep breath to clear my head. This new place was loud, and it smelled. Machines beeped, people laughed in the hall, and the room reeked of disinfectant and air that was too clean. There was no magic here, nothing to keep me from sensing everything around me. As always when the magic left me the world was too loud.

“There’s no death here,” I said, ready to be done with it, to wake up next to Jakob and start a day that would be a thousand times less interesting and better for it.

“There could be though.” She turned me from the doorway to the bed. We were in a private hospital room, the florescent lighting dimmed for sleep. The man swathed in bandages in front of us in a narrow hospital bed. He was half a face, a shoulder, and then a foot; everything else was blankets and gauze, covered. Naked, his foot looked almost sensual, clean and smooth. I wanted to touch it. “Go ahead, he won’t mind.”

Why not? Why not do what she wanted? I wanted it too after all, wanted to know if the figure was close to death. I let my fingers trail along the sole of his foot, walking along the pale skin there and back to the darker flesh on the top. I gave it my attention in a way I hadn’t before, my fingertips tracing the smooth skin. It looked almost like he’d had a pedicure, his toenails neat and trimmed, his skin free of callous. What kind of a man had feet like that? What kind of a man was in a hospital bed, so covered in bandages?

“A man who wants death,” she whispered. “Wouldn’t you? He’s horribly scarred. Going to be gawked at and shunned for the rest of his life. It would be a great kindness to release him.”

I wrapped my fingers around his foot. There was no death there. “Nothing I can do, he’s not going to die.”

“But you could make him, you can take a perfectly healthy person and wish them dead. You’ve done it before, haven’t you?”

“With Blue, with drugs and sugar maybe I could.” I hesitated, remembering the time I used Blue, a drug that made anything supernatural a thousand times more powerful. It nearly killed me, but afterward magic felt easier, like the drug opened a door I didn’t know was shut. Still… “I don’t have that much power on my own.”

“You don’t think so? Hamm.” Her voice trailed off, the fire-crackle sound was getting closer to human. “Such a pity for him to live so terribly. Maybe I could help?”

She came behind me, putting Her hands on my hips, embracing me. Power, raw magic flooded my system, waking the death witch part of me. Magic came to me without being called sometimes but never with that much force. It was like I was a glass and She poured the magic-water into me.

It was enough, enough to take him, and everyone else around him. He wasn’t meant to die for a very long time, decades at least, but I could help him along the way she asked. If that was what he wanted, and looking down at him what She said made sense. It made sense and She was offering so much power.

“Lady Raya,” the thing in bandages croaked. “I thought I felt you there.” Her hands flew from my hips but the power stayed. “I know I pissed you off, but this must sting even worse. Not a single spark, not a candle, nothing you can work with. How you gonna kill me now?”

I looked at Her, feeling betrayed, toyed with, and angry. “That’s it I’m waking up now,” I said and mercifully I did.