Magic Burns kd-2 Page 8

  Julie made a sad kittenlike noise.

  What do I do now?

  I scooped her up, blanket, pillow, and all, and scooted her close to me. She sniffled. “The People probably turned her into a vampire.”

  I petted her hair. “No, Julie. The People don’t just grab women off the street and make them into vampires. That’s illegal. If they started doing that, the cops and military would exterminate them in a blink. They have to account for each vampire and they only want specific people for it. Don’t worry, your mom isn’t a vampire.”

  “What if she is?”

  Then I’ll walk into the Casino and there will be hell to pay. “She isn’t. If you want, I’ll call the People tomorrow and check on it.”

  “What if they lie to you?”

  Boy, this kid had a major hang-up on vampires. “Look, you have to remember that vampires are mindless, like cockroaches. They are just vehicles for the Masters of the Dead. If you see a bloodsucker and it’s not ripping everyone to shreds, there’s an actual human being riding that vamp’s mind. That human being has a family, probably has kids, cute little Master of the Dead babies.”

  She swiped a tear and tried a weak smile.

  “The People have dozens of vampires. The People don’t need to kidnap anyone. They have an applicant list a mile long.”

  “Why would anybody want to be a vampire?”

  “Money. Let’s say you have an incurable disease. Vampirism is caused by a bacterial infection, which transforms the victim’s body so much that a lot of those diseases become irrelevant to the final vampiric organism. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you have colon cancer—your colon is going to shrink into twine after a month of undeath anyway. So you apply to become a vampire. If you’re selected, you’ll be offered a contract that authorizes the People to infect you with the Vampirus Immortuus. Basically, you let the People kill you and use your body after death. And in exchange, the People will pay your beneficiaries a fee. A lot of poor people think that it’s a good way to leave their families with a little bit of money after they are gone. It takes a week and a stack of paperwork to make a vampire, and the whole thing is reported to the State Undeath Commission. Making a vamp against a person’s will is illegal, and they won’t do something that would land them in prison for just one vamp. Listen, why don’t you tell me about your mom? It might make it easier for me to find her.”

  Julie hugged the pillow. “She’s nice. She reads books to me sometimes. Just the booze makes her tired and I leave her alone. Go outside or something. She’s not like an alcoholic or anything. She just misses my dad. She only drinks on weekends, when she doesn’t have to work.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “Carpenter Guild. She used to be a cook, but the place got closed down. She’s a journeyman now. She says once she makes carpenter, we’ll see real money. She said that about the coven too and now she’s gone. She always worries about money. We’ve been poor for a long time now. Ever since Dad died.”

  She drew a little circle on the pillow with her hand—the circle of life. Something the shamans did when they mentioned the deceased. Picking up Red’s habits.

  “When Dad was alive, he used to take us to the coast. To Hilton Head. It’s nice there. We went swimming and the water was really warm. My dad was a carpenter, too. A piece of the overpass fell on him. Just squished him. There was nothing left.”

  Sometimes life just kept punching you in the teeth, no matter how many times you got up. “The pain gets better with time,” I told her. “It always hurts, but it gets better.”

  “People keep saying that.” Julie did not look at me. “I must be unlucky or something.”

  One of the worst things for a child is to lose a parent. When my father died, it was as if my world had ripped open. Like a god dying. Part of me refused to believe it. I so desperately wanted to put things back the way they had been. I would’ve given anything for another day with my dad. And I was so mad at Greg for not being able to wave his hand and make it right somehow. Then little by little, it set in: my dad was gone. Forever. No turning back. No amount of magic would fix it. And just when I thought the pain had dulled, my mind would betray me and bring Dad back to life in my dreams. Sometimes I didn’t realize that he was dead until I awoke and then it was like a punch in the stomach. And sometimes I knew in my dream that I was dreaming, and I woke up crying.

  But back then, I still had Greg. Greg, who dedicated his life to making sure I would be fine. Greg, who took me in. I didn’t have to live on the street. I didn’t have to worry about money.

  Julie and her mother didn’t have that luxury. Qualified carpenters were paid well, because woodwork was magic-proof. The death of Julie’s father must have destroyed their lives. It knocked them down and they just kept sliding lower and lower. It would’ve been easy to keep rolling until they hit rock bottom. I hugged Julie to me. Her mother must’ve loved her a great deal, because she picked herself up and she started climbing. She had fought her way into the Carpenter Guild, which couldn’t have been easy with all the competition out there. She became a journeyman, which was a hard step up from apprentice. She was trying to keep her daughter off the street.

  “You never told me your mother’s name.”

  “Jessica,” Julie said. “Her name’s Jessica Olsen.”

  Hold on, Jessica. I’ll find you. And I’ll keep your baby safe. Nothing will happen to Julie.

  As if sensing what I was thinking, Julie squirmed closer to me and we sat quietly, cloaked in the warm night.

  “Tell me about the coven. Was your mom in long?”

  “Not long. Couple of months. She said they were worshipping a great goddess and we’d all be rich soon.”

  I sighed. When we found Esmeralda, she and I would have a nice long talk. “You don’t really get rich from worshipping. Especially not Morrigan.”

  “What kind of a goddess is she?”

  “Celtic kind. Old Irish. There are a few versions of her, so I’ll tell you what I think might be close to the truth. Morrigan is three goddesses rolled into one. She changes depending on what she wants to do. Kind of like putting on different outfits. It’s called having divine aspects. Sometimes she is the goddess of fertility and prosperity and her name is Annan. I’m guessing that’s the aspect your mom worshipped. Annan also guides dead people to their resting place in the Otherworld. That’s the place where the Celtic dead live. The second aspect is Macha. She oversees kingship, governance, and horses. The third aspect is Badb, the great battle crow.” I paused. In light of Julie’s missing mom, mentioning that the Badb drank the blood of the fallen and reveled in the slaughter was not a good idea.

  “I’ve forgotten what the first one is called.” Julie’s voice gained a slight sleepy thickness. Excellent. She needed sleep and so did I.

  “It doesn’t really matter. They’re all Morrigan.”

  “Who did she battle?”

  “Fomorians. That’s the thing to remember about gods: they always have someone to fight. Greek gods fought Titans, Viking gods fought Frost Giants, and Irish gods fought Fomorians, the sea-demons. Morrigan kicked a lot of butt, and finally the Fomorians were driven into the sea.” My Celtic mythology was a bit rusty. I’d have to brush up the first chance I got. Nobody could hope to remember all of the mythological heavyweights, so the trick wasn’t to know everything. The trick was to know enough to figure out where to find the rest.

  “So why can’t you get rich worshipping her?” Julie yawned.

  “Because Morrigan doesn’t grant wishes. She makes deals. That means she always wants something in return.” Only fools made bargains with deities.

  She closed her eyes. Good. Sleep, Julie.

  “Kate?”

  “Mmm?”

  “How did your mom die?”

  I opened my mouth to lie. The response was automatic: I hid my blood, I hid my magic, and I hid the truth of where I came from. But for some odd reason, the lie didn’t come out. I wanted to tell her
the real story. Or at least a part of it. I never spoke of it and now the words itched my tongue.

  What’s the harm? She was only a child. It would be like a twisted good-night story. She would forget it by morning.

  “I was only a few weeks old. My father and mother were running away. A man was chasing them. He was very powerful and evil. My mother knew that of the two of them my dad was the stronger one. She was slowing him down.”

  My voice shook a little. I didn’t expect the words to be so hard.

  “So my mother gave me to my dad and told him to run. She would delay the evil man as long as she could. He didn’t want to go but he realized it was the only way to save me. The evil man caught my mom and they fought. She stabbed him in the eye, but he was very powerful, and she couldn’t kill him. And that’s how my mother died.”

  I tucked the blanket around her.

  “That’s a sad story.”

  “It is.” It’s not finished, either. Not by a long shot.

  She patted the afghan still on my lap. “Did you make this?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s nice. Can I use it?”

  I put it on her. She kicked the blanket off and wrapped herself in the afghan, like a little mouse nesting. “It’s soft,” she said and fell asleep.

  * * * *

  A voice spread through the apartment, pure like a crystal bell, sweet like honey, soft like velvet. “Girl…Want girl.”

  I opened my eyes. The magic was up, setting the bars on the windows aglow with ethereal bluish light. I saw Julie slip into the hallway, a ghostly, silent shape in the darkness of the night-drenched apartment.

  “Girl…” It was coming from the outside.

  My fingers found Slayer’s textured hilt. I took it, rose, and followed her.

  “Need girl…Girl…Want girl…”

  Outside the kitchen window, a pale shade floated an inch from the glass and my ward. Female, with a delicate, almost elven face and a heartbreaking body, she looked into my house with lavender eyes. Her skin glowed with a faint silver radiance. Improbably thick, long hair streamed from her head, coiling like tentacles. “Giiiirl,” the creature sang, stretching her arms to the window. “Neeed…where, where?”

  Hi. And what kind of screwed-up beastie would you be?

  On my kitchen table, crouched atop a crumpled curtain, sat Julie. She had worked the window latch open and was trying to pry the mechanism securing the iron grate.

  I put Slayer down and took Julie by her waist. She clutched at the bars.

  The creature hissed. Her jaws unhinged with reptilian flexibility, baring rows of anglerfish teeth in a black mouth. A strand of her hair whipped at the window, aiming for the kid. The ward reacted with a pulse of angry carmine. The creature jerked in pain.

  I pulled on Julie. “Julie. Let go.”

  Julie snarled something wordless and charged with fury. I dug my heels in and pulled harder, throwing all of my strength and weight into it. Julie’s fingers slipped and I almost crashed to the floor. She kicked, struggling like a pissed-off cat. I dragged her off into the bathroom, dumped her into the tub, and slammed the door shut behind us. With a howl, Julie launched herself at me. Her nails raked my arm. I grasped her by the back of the neck, forcing her down into the tub, and opened the cold water tap. She writhed under my hand, spitting and biting. I dunked her under the stream and held her there.

  Gradually her convulsions subsided. She whimpered and went limp.

  I shut off the water to a trickle. Julie drew a long shuddering breath and sobbed. Slowly tension leaked from her muscles. “I’m okay,” she gasped. “I’m okay.”

  I pulled her from the bathtub and put a towel on her head. She trembled and hugged herself.

  I opened the door and glanced out. The lavender-eyed thing hovered by the kitchen window, her eyes fixed on the door. She saw me and hissed again.

  “Girl…Come…Want…”

  Julie sank to the tile, squeezing into the narrow space between the toilet and the bathtub, chopstick legs sticking out. “She was in my head. She’s trying to get back in right now.”

  “Try to shut her out. We’re safe behind the wards.”

  “What if the magic falls?” Julie’s eyes widened in pure panic.

  “Then I’ll cut her head off.” Easier said than done. That hair would grab me like a noose. It’s hard to cut hair unless it’s held taut.

  “Girl?”

  “Shut the hell up!”

  Why Julie? Why now? Was that thing her mother, turned into something by the coven’s magic?

  “Julie, does that thing look like your mother?”

  She shook her head, locked her arms over her knees and began to rock. She could only move an inch or two squeezed into that narrow space. “Gray. Muddy, sliding, shifting, nasty purple gray.”

  “What?”

  “Gray like the skeleton. Nasty…”

  “Julie, what’s gray?”

  She looked at me with haunted eyes. “Her magic. Her magic’s gray.”

  Oh God. “What color is a werewolf’s magic?”

  “Green.”

  A sensate. A living m-scanner, who could see the magic, very rare, very valued. I had her with me the whole time. I knew there was something magic about her, but between metal dogs and infected boyfriends, I never got a chance to ask. “That thing, she’s gray and purple? Did you say purple? Like a vampire?”

  “Weaker. Pale purple.”

  Purple was the color of undeath. If the creature was indeed undead somehow, she had no consciousness. Someone had to control her, the way Masters of the Dead controlled the vampires.

  “Julie, you have to come out. I can’t protect you if you’re here hugging the toilet. Get up.”

  “She’ll get in. She’ll kill me. I don’t want to die.”

  “You will die if you stay here.” I held out my hand. “Come on.”

  She sobbed.

  “Come on, Julie! Show that bitch you have some backbone.”

  She bit her lip and took my hand. I pulled her up.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Use it. It will keep you sharp. In the Honeycomb, why didn’t the magic grab you?”

  It took her a second to shift gears. “I blended. I made it think I was the same as it was.”

  “Blend with me, then.” Mimicking a different type of magic would camouflage Julie’s mind, forcing the creature to concentrate on the magic object instead. Like hiding a weak light in the flare of a strong one. That thing couldn’t target her mind if it couldn’t sense it.

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve tried already. Your magic’s too strange.”

  Shit. Another side effect of my screwed-up heritage. It wasn’t enough that I had to burn my bloody bandages so nobody could identify me, but now I couldn’t even shield a little kid. What did I have that she could blend with? There were a half dozen enchanted artifacts in Greg’s collection but nothing that exuded enough magic to hide her.

  Slayer.

  “Stay here.”

  I dashed to the kitchen, swiped Slayer off the table, and sprinted back to the bathroom. Julie’s face had gone blank. I thrust Slayer into her hands and barked, “Blend!”

  Awareness snapped back into her eyes. I felt the magic creep to the blade. Julie’s breath came out in ragged gasps.

  A barely perceptible change took place within the magic field. She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  The creature screeched in frustration.

  I hugged Julie to me. Physical danger I could deal with, but having Julie turned into a zombie would’ve screwed things up beyond repair. As long as we could keep that bitch out of my kid’s head, we had a chance. She clamped the sword with both hands, face pinched, concentrating on the blade.

  I steered her to the doorway. “Let’s go.”

  We stepped from the bathroom. The creature’s lavender eyes focused on Julie. It licked the ward, burned its tongue on the crimson, and recoiled.

  I
tried the phone. Dead. Why me?

  “Giiirl. Want, want, need…”

  “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  The magic crashed. I took Slayer from Julie and tried the phone again. Still dead. Fuck me.

  The creature’s hair fell lifelessly about her. She clutched onto the bars to keep from falling. Yeah! Choke on tech, you piece of crap. No tentacle hair for you.

  The creature thrust her legs against the wall and heaved. The bars bent with a long, tortured screech.

  Julie darted into the bedroom. Now wasn’t a good time to hide. First rule of bodyguard detail: know where your “body” is at all times.

  The creature heaved again. The bars parted.

  I stepped into the kitchen. First I’d deal with my lovely new window ornament and then I’d go and dig Julie out from under the bed.

  Julie reappeared with her knife in her hand. Her fingers shook, making the point of the dagger dance. She planted herself behind me and bit her lip.

  They would not get this girl. Not today. Not ever.

  Boom!

  Something hit the door with a solid thump. Julie jumped.

  “Steady. The door’s solid. It’ll hold.” At least for a few minutes. I stepped deeper into the kitchen and moved a chair out of my way, giving myself space to work.

  At the window, the creature tasted the air with her tongue like a snake and thrust her head into the gap.

  Boom!

  I jumped onto the table and sliced her head off in a classic executioner stroke.

  The head thudded on the table and rolled to the floor. The body froze halfway through the bars. Thick reddish slime slid from the stump of the neck in a slow gush. An oily stench of rotten fish and bitter, stale seawater spread through the room.

  I picked up the head by the tangle of hair and stuck Slayer’s point into the left cheek. The flesh sagged a little, liquefied by the saber’s magic. Nothing as obvious as what the blade would do to a vampire, but Slayer’s magic affected it. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the saber’s blade. Julie was right. Definitely an undead, but not as undead as a vampire. Perhaps, she was just mostly undead. Could you even be mostly undead?