A Wild Light (10 page)

Blood Mama glided around her zombie children, red heels clicking on the floor. Her smile was sly. But when she looked into my eyes, she froze—and that smile slipped like a cut ribbon.

“You’re not yourself,” she whispered, and the human skin she wore seemed to wither away under the force of her possession, flesh sucking into hollows, shadows, growing gaunt and tight against the bone.

“Maybe I don’t want to be,” I replied, barely able to speak, shivering uncontrollably as the thing inside me unwound a little more; and my hunger grew, a little more. A terrible hunger, not for food, not for anything I could name—except for the spark that made the living, burning at the root of a heartbeat, or a thought.

“Lady Whore,”
I breathed, two words that did not come from me. I had not thought them, did not know them, and the voice that spoke them hardly seemed born from me.

But Blood Mama flinched, fingers twitching, and something terrible entered her gaze: fear, maybe, or horror. She almost bowed her head—almost, I saw it—but her spine stiffened, and that aura flared, and she braced herself.

“Even you, dreamer, know the meaning of a promise,” she said, each word forced out between clenched teeth, speaking at me, but not
to
me. “You will not use me again. Not now. Not
ever
.”

Not ever,
echoed a soft voice in my head, filled with distaste and disdain, and that endless reaching hunger.

I closed my eyes, fumbling for my right hand, pressing my fingers into the armor. I thought of good things, things I loved, my mother and Jack, and Zee, the boys. I thought of sunsets, and the open road, and the stars. And I felt a golden thread tug on my heart, outward, ever outward. I thought of Grant, even though I didn’t want to.

And slowly, ever so slowly, the darkness settled.

I exhaled and opened my eyes.

The air of the bar felt too bright, tinged with blue—as if air could have a color—and even the shadows beneath the tables seemed to glow around the edges, pulsing like heartbeats.

Blood Mama stared at me, her face stone hard. I licked my cracked lips and tasted blood. “Grant. Killy.”

“Here,” growled a low voice, and some of the zombies shifted, revealing Father Lawrence. I had no clue when he had entered the fracas, or how he’d freed himself from his chains, but his claws were slick and dripping with blood, and the brown fur covering his body stood out on end, bristling over the contours of his arms and chest.

Behind him, Killy sat on the floor—leaning over Grant. My vision blurred again when I saw him, but not enough to block out the stain of blood on his collar, or his stillness. He was so still.

“Get out,” I whispered to Blood Mama, fighting the chill that raced through me. It was always like this, afterward. Shock, adrenaline pouring out of me. I needed to sit down.

Blood Mama’s aura trembled, but not the rest of her—human eyes flinty, jaw set. “Your mother was
such
a fool to let you live.”

“Maybe.” I walked toward her. “Lady Whore. What, I wonder, does that mean?”

Her mouth tightened. “I want to know what Jack told you.”

I stopped in front of her. “What is this thing inside me? How do you know it?”

“Jack,” she whispered, with a hint of desperation, aura straining against the bonds of her flesh. “Tell me what Jack said.”

My eyes narrowed. “You came here for that.
Just
that. Jack.”

“He told you something.”

“Jack’s a big talker. Why don’t
you
tell me what you think he said if it’s so important.”

Blood Mama lifted her chin, ever so slightly. But instead of answering, she walked toward me, gliding gracefully, with a sway to her hips and her heels clicking sharp on the floor. She did not stop, or hesitate—simply held my gaze as she walked past me, our shoulders brushing. She showed nothing on her face as we touched, but her aura shuddered away from me.

“I was so certain,” she murmured. “I felt the call. We all did.”

I grabbed her arm. “Who killed Jack?”

“Jack’s body, you mean.” She looked into my eyes, her gaze flat, dead. “You must have been there. Don’t
you
know?”

I leaned in close, tasting the heat of her breath, which smelled like coffee and roses. “Tell me.”

I could count on one hand the number of times I had spoken with Blood Mama, and not once had she shown anything but cold cruel calm. But this time, again, her aura pulled away from me, and unease flickered in her gaze. It didn’t give me any kind of thrill. Just dread.

“Hunter,” she whispered. “The Old Wolf was, and always has been, a canny beast. If he let his body die, it was because it was time.”

She pulled away from me. I let her go and stood aside as she walked on to the door. She stopped, though, with her hand on the knob, and looked back at me. “Take care, Hunter. There are knots unraveling, and you are . . . most certainly one of them.”

“What am I, then?” I tapped my chest, and the armor tingled, as did the boys. “What is this . . . thing? No one will tell me.”

A faint smile touched her mouth, but it was wry, and bitter, and even a little sad. All of which I found disturbing.

“You’ve been told, in so many different ways,” said Blood Mama, opening the door.
“No one is more terrible than the leader of the Hunt. No one is more feared. Her desire is her outcome. Her wish, is the command.”
She stepped outside, and closed her eyes against the breeze that ruffled her hair. “Jack’s words, if I’m not mistaken. I think you know them.”

“Just a riddle.”

“Riddles are safer. Poor minds that puzzle merely give the riddle-maker a chance to run.” Blood Mama’s smile widened, just a fraction. “So take your time, Hunter.”

She let the door close behind her, but it didn’t stay that way. Zombies shuffled out, some calm, others pushing, a few who were injured dragging themselves, others carrying those who were unconscious.

I stepped in front of the zombie mother. Her baby still cried, but she wasn’t doing a thing to comfort it. The gun had disappeared into her purse. She reached for it, but it was too little, too late. I slammed my tattooed hand against her brow, murmuring words my mother had taught me in a language that might have been thousands of years dead.

The parasite inside her screamed.
She
screamed. Her aura struggled to free itself from its bonds of flesh, but I kept chanting through gritted teeth, and the boys, my hungry boys, tugged in that fucker like a fish on a line.

Until the parasite was gone. Eaten. And the woman was free.

I caught her before she fell. Father Lawrence helped, and we settled her into a chair. She was unconscious, but her baby wasn’t, and continued to scream. Father Lawrence made a shushing sound, and swept his furred hand over the baby’s head. The kid stopped crying and stared up at him with huge eyes.

I turned around. All the zombies were gone. I smelled sweat and fear, and burned flesh. A little bit of wet dog. Killy was staring at the exorcised woman, muttering to herself.

Grant still wasn’t sitting up. But his eyes were open, watching me.

I walked to him, and knelt. Glass crunched beneath my knees. Sometime, during the fight, those coffee cups had gotten smashed on the floor. Coffee soaked through my jeans, but the boys sucked it up, and within moments, my denim was dry again.

“Someday,” he said, like that word was an old joke, just between us. And for a moment, I wanted it to be. I was desperate for something good, and warm.

“You don’t want me to remember you,” I said, as close to begging as I’d ever been in my life. “Not when it means this. This violence.”

He did not smile, but somehow I felt it rise out of him. I felt the heat in his eyes and in the brief touch of his fingers against the back of my hand, and I began to believe how it was possible I might have fallen for this man. Maybe, just a little.

Grant struggled to sit up. This time I helped him. I didn’t think about it until it was too late, and his arm was looped over my shoulder. His rough cheek rubbed against mine. I closed my eyes.

“You always say things like that,” he whispered. “But I’m still here, Maxine. So don’t remember me. Don’t remember. Just remember me from now on.”

“I will,” I said.

K
ILLY didn’t want our help cleaning up her bar. I didn’t blame her. I seemed to have a bad habit of bringing violence into her establishments.

Grant and I drove back to the Coop. The rain beat down hard against the windshield, drowning out the radio until all I heard were drums and snatches of melody. Grant stared out the window, humming to himself. I could not place the song, but I could hear him more clearly than the rain and radio, and his voice rolled through me, over me. The boys stretched and shivered.

“Stop,” I said.

Grant looked at me but didn’t play dumb. “There are things I need to tell you.”

Father Lawrence had warned me about this. I hadn’t believed him.

Why did you forget this man?
I asked myself.
Why him?

“Your voice,” I said, frowning uneasily. “What you did to Blood Mama, the things she said to you. She called you something.”

“Lightbringer.” Grant fiddled with his cane. “It’s a name I’m uncomfortable with. But it
is
a name that’s mine. In the same way that the demons call you Hunter.”

Lightbringer.
I had heard that name before, from Jack. The context was fuzzy, but I felt it resonate inside my heart.

I pulled into a gas station and parked. Listened to the rain on the roof, the windshield wipers, the radio busting a move with “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I listened to the lyrics and could imagine the boys singing along, inside my head.

I left the engine running and got out of the car. Grant, this time, did not follow. Inside the station, the aisles were clean and the air bright with artificial light. A girl in a dirty brown sweatshirt watched me from behind the counter. I ignored her and went straight to the hot food. I hardly looked at what was there. Just grabbed hamburgers wrapped in foil, juggling them in one arm while I walked quickly to the freezers for ice-cream bars. I picked up sodas, too. Some of the hamburgers fell on my way to the counter, but I didn’t try to pick them up. I kicked them across the floor like soft hockey pucks. The girl watched me like she wanted to hit her security alarm. I wondered if there was blood on my face from the fight. Or maybe I smelled like burned flesh. My clothes were a little charred.

I paid for the food, and she threw it in a plastic bag. When I slid back into the car, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was still playing. Grant watched me, silent.

I grabbed a hamburger and shoved the rest of the sack toward him. He peered inside and, after a moment, removed an ice-cream bar. It was hard for him to unwrap it with one hand bandaged, but he managed.

“You know,” he said, “the first night we met, we went to a McDonald’s for ice cream and hamburgers.”

I choked a little.

Grant watched me finish off the hamburger in three bites and reach for another. “I thought you were never going to eat again.”

“I thought you were going to become a drunk.”

“Mmm,” he said; and then: “Ask.”

“I don’t know how.” I finished the second burger. Cheap, but good. I hadn’t eaten one of these in a long time. I had gotten used to real food, not road fare. I unwrapped the foil from a third hamburger. “What you did, what you seemed to be doing, shouldn’t have been possible.”

“What did you think I was going to do?”

I stopped eating and put down the hamburger. “Possess her. Kill her.”

“Possession,” he echoed thoughtfully. “We’ve never called it that. But yes, more or less
that’s
true. I would have . . . changed her.”

“She brought all that extra muscle for you. Not me. In case you tried.”

Grant touched his bandaged hand against the lump swelling just at his hairline. “If there hadn’t been . . . interference . . . I might have managed something permanent. Maybe. I’ve never tried before, with her.”

He said it so easily. Possessing a demon, no big deal. Controlling the queen of them, an interesting experiment.
Managing something permanent
, as though he’d have her trading red high heels for bunny slippers, or eating chili peppers instead of souls. I couldn’t imagine it.

“I don’t have horns,” he said, and I blinked, coming back to myself, staring at him. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning, either. His eyes were just . . . warm.

“Not yet,” he added.

“I didn’t say anything,” I replied.

“We’ve had this conversation before. History isn’t exactly repeating itself, but close. You’re not as grim as you used to be.”

“Grim.”

“You had good reasons.”

I looked away, out the window. Watched a man pump gas into his truck. Ordinary, everyday. He wasn’t a zombie. A woman walked past him into the station, head down against the rain, tugging fretfully at her tight pink sweater. He never looked at her. Both of them in their own little worlds, alone.

“When did we meet?” I asked.

“When do you remember coming to Seattle? Where did you stay? Where did you go?”

His questions irritated me. “Almost two years ago. I stayed at the Hyatt. I was going to leave that night, but I went to Pike Place Market for a walk . . . even though I knew it was trouble. The prison veil is weak there.” I looked at him, frowning. “My next memory is . . . later. Moving into the Coop.”

“But you don’t know why.”

“Stop,” I said wearily. He did, and ate his ice cream. I watched the girl in the pink sweater come out of the station, still tugging on her sweater and carrying a gallon of milk. She looked miserable, lonely, like someone had stomped on her dreams this morning and told her to go sit in a ditch and die.