A Wild Light (26 page)

FROM the void, into a room filled with golden lamplight, the smell of coffee and chocolate chip cookies; the shine of the hardwood floor, and the thousands of books that lined the loft walls. The piano. The motorcycle. The Turkish rugs, scattered, along with teddy bears and knives, and empty bags of M&Ms.

The world had not fallen down. I was still standing.

So was home. So were the people I loved.

I took my pleasures where I could get them.

Jack’s corpse was gone. Rex was down on his hands and knees, scrubbing the floor. Mary perched on the kitchen counter, still wearing my clothing—holding those butcher knives in her hands. I smelled bleach.

I was surprised to see the zombie. That, and the wildness of his aura took me off guard—frayed at the edges, fluttering as though a thousand little hearts were straining to break free. It was like seeing a demon suffer palpitations—or an imminent nervous breakdown.

Rex straightened quickly when we appeared in the room. He watched me, not the others.

I spread my hands. “Boo.”

He did not relax. “Fuck you.”

“Get in line,” I said. “You know about the veil, don’t you?”

Rex’s aura flared wildly, then shriveled down to hug his human skin. “We all felt it. We felt
them
.”

“And yet you’re cleaning blood off a floor instead of running.”

Rex settled back on his heels and looked from me to Grant, who was standing quietly, watching us both. Mary joined him, her gaze fierce as she twisted her hands in an idle, graceful motion that made the knife blades reflect a lethal light.

Not a Lightbringer, but a soldier for them. Loyal to Grant’s mother. The Erl- King had called the old woman an assassin. I remembered all of that when I looked at her.

“Safer around you both,” Rex said gruffly, drawing my attention back to him. “And that skinner corpse was stinking up the place.”

“He just doesn’t want to admit that he likes us,” Grant said. “Where’s the body?”

“I’m a demon. I know people.”

Grant stared at him. Rex said, “Fine. I stashed him in the tub.”

Grant continued to stare. “We use that tub, you know.”

“Good thing you’re practically family.” Rex glanced back at Jack. “I hope you appreciate this.”

“I don’t,” said my grandfather, who walked through his dried blood toward the bedroom.

I followed him, watching the boys scatter, tumbling under the bed and through the shadows to drag out toys and food. Dek and Mal cheered when they saw the life-sized cardboard cutout of Bon Jovi.

But Zee sat on the bed, claws clasped, legs swinging as he stared at the bathroom. Solemn, thoughtful. A little uncertain.

Jack was already in the bathroom. The air smelled bad—like death. I glimpsed a wrinkled waxen hand hanging over the rim of the tub, and that was it. I stayed just beyond the door, standing at an angle that let me see the mirror—and Jack’s reflection as he stared down at his former body.

“Life is too short,” he said. “I liked that skin.”

“I liked it, too,” I told him, unable to speak above a strained whisper. I cleared my throat, and did a little better when I added, “You could have . . . made it immortal. Like you did Byron.”

Jack sighed, leaning against the sink. “Byron was a mistake. And making skins immortal is a mistake. It’s a peculiar prison, my dear. The Erl-King . . . he wore human bodies like new sets of clothing, and the ones he wanted to keep he placed on ice so they wouldn’t rot without a life to keep them going. But even he didn’t make them immortal. No one wants the same thing forever. Even my kind . . . change.”

Jack gestured toward the tub. “If I wanted to move on with my life, what would I do with this skin if it never died? I took it from the womb. I am . . . him. Without me, there would be no mind, no will. He would exist in a comatose state. A long sleep, forever.”

“Sleeping Beauty,” I said.

My grandfather bent down and disappeared from the mirror’s reflection.

I said, “You’ve never explained Byron. How he came to be.”

“There were extenuating circumstances.”

“Like what?”

“Like the boy was going to die. I saved his life.”

Behind me, Raw snorted. I glanced at him and found the little demon watching Jack with narrowed eyes.

“I found him living in a cardboard box, Old Wolf. He’s scared of men. I think he turned tricks to stay alive. Sounds to me like his immortal existence—which he
doesn’t
recall—has been pretty miserable. If I were in his shoes, I think I might have preferred death.”

“You weren’t there. And hindsight is cruel. I did my best.”

“And have you always slipped into Byron’s skin after dying somewhere else?”

Jack did not say a word. Raw scratched himself, watching the bathroom. Zee still hadn’t moved.

I edged closer and saw my grandfather’s reflection in the mirror. He stood still, staring at his hands—an expression of incredible sadness on his face.

I wondered how many regrets he lived with. How many were too many, before the burden became too much to bear.

“Your kind fear going insane,” I said softly. “You fear it so much. What
does
it feel like, being nothing but energy? Do you think you’ll just . . . fly apart . . . if you’re not inside a body?”

Jack said nothing. I leaned against the wall, pressing my forehead against the cool smooth surface. “You made yourself a way station, someone to go to between death and rebirth. That’s what Byron is. What he’s been, all these thousands of years.
Temporary
living.”

Deep silence radiated from the bathroom. Until, in a very soft voice, Jack said, “That was never my intention. But there are some things that cannot be altered once done, no matter how much we wish otherwise.”

Zee hopped off the bed and ventured closer to the bathroom, staring—I presumed—at the corpse in the tub.

“I remember,” Zee rasped, rubbing his head. “I remember killing.”

I bowed my head, grieved. I couldn’t see Jack anymore, but I heard his voice.

“It was to be expected,” he said, gently. “You were protecting her from me.”

“Old Mother told us to,” said the little demon, leaning hard against my legs. I stroked his head. “Protect the good heart.”

“For it is the heart that leads,” Jack murmured.

I heard the sounds of clothing being ripped. I started toward the bathroom door, and stopped. I really didn’t want to know what was going on in there.

Grant peered into the bedroom. “Visiting hours?”

I heard a thump, followed by a low curse. Grant raised his brow, and limped close. “Do I want to know?”

“I’m not that brave. Are you?”

“That’s what I have you for.”

“I’m terrified,” I replied, and heard a wet sucking sound inside the bathroom.

Grant winced. “That can’t be good.”

I walked to the door, Zee loping ahead of me. For a moment all I saw was the slender back of a teenage boy—sitting on the edge of the tub—and then I looked a little harder and saw that boy digging his fingers into the forearm of a corpse, trying to pull bone free from flesh. A sheet, thankfully, had been tossed over the rest of the body.

Which smelled. Really, really smelled.

I must have made a sound. Jack looked up—froze—and said, “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“It looks like you’re mangling a dead man.”

“Technically, I
am
the dead man, so I’m merely mangling myself.” Jack grimaced. “I could use some help, though.”

“In more ways than one.” I walked into the bathroom. “Oh, God.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Is that—”

“Yes. It’s what I need.”

I gritted my teeth, studying the bone tattoo that had been, literally, embedded in the old man’s arm. I had seen it once before. It was the symbol of Father Lawrence’s cult, it was the symbol that Jack used to signify my bloodline, it was a symbol of some future apocalypse—and it looked
exactly
like the scar beneath my ear.

“Why?” I managed, afraid I would vomit.

“Because I forget things,” he said enigmatically.

Grant entered the bathroom. He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. I turned around, pushed past him and Zee, and walked into the bedroom. I didn’t stop there. I entered the living room, ignored Rex and Mary, and headed for the stairs that led to the rooftop garden.

It had stopped raining, but only just. I sloshed through puddles, past the giant planters filled with roses, and stood at the edge of the roof. Downtown Seattle glittered within the low-lying clouds, a concrete citadel of gray hearts. I could see the pallor, I could feel the gathering shadow, and it was everywhere, like the rain, or the ghosts in my breath every time I exhaled.

The winds were strong. My head felt cold. I’d forgotten, again, that I was bald. But almost as soon as I had the thought, Dek and Mal slithered over my scalp, gripping my ears and eyebrows—blocking the chill air. My little demon helmet.

Zee leapt onto the waist-high wall that lined the roof’s edge. His eyes glowed, and the spikes of his hair rose and fell, gently, with each breath. I touched his hand, then kissed his brow.

“Would you know if any Mahati have come through the veil?” I asked him.

“None have flown,” he answered, after a moment. “But feel them straining. Boil- like, with pus. Ha’an will not hold them long.”

“You know him. You remember.”

“Good honor.” Zee thumped his chest. “Good fighter.”

Dek and Mal chirped, as though in agreement. I patted their heads. “Why would you need to fight? What could possibly have stood against any of you? Maybe the Avatars could make creatures that put up a struggle, but—”

“Universe, large,” he interrupted. “Labyrinth, larger. Armies not born with swords. Armies got to form. For a bigger need. Badder enemy.”

I studied his eyes. “So what would scare a Reaper King?”

Zee stiffened. Dek and Mal shrank against my skull and, seconds later, trembled.

Inside me, deep, the darkness stirred. Lazy eye opening in my mind. I gripped the edge of the wall, trying to push it down—but the spirit, the creature, whatever it was, rose into my throat to rest upon my tongue.

“Some pain does not ease,”
it said, through me.
“Memories do not cease of what was lost.”

Zee glanced sideways, sharply. “Mistakes made. Too many. Like you.”

“Took more. Stole.”

I clawed at my throat, feeling as though my head were made of glass, ready to break.

Zee grabbed my arm. “Give her, free.”

Fuck it. I clenched my right hand into a fist and slammed it against my chest. White- hot light burst from the armor, sending a shock wave down to the bone, and beyond. I went blind, but in my head saw the vastness of night and listened to the rub of scales, and a hiss that was a sigh as great as the wind, and cold as some vast track of space beyond the light of stars.

We are beyond the stars,
whispered the darkness, but it shuddered away into that nook within my soul, leaving me my voice, and control.

I sank to my knees. Zee crowded close, and Aaz was there, and Raw. Dek and Mal licked the backs of ears, but their purrs were ragged, weak.

“What,” I asked slowly, “was that about?”

“History,” Zee muttered. “Bad things.”

“You fought another war before your conflict with the Aetar.” I rubbed my throat. “This thing possessed you five. You weren’t born with it. You let it in, because you thought you needed it.”

Zee said nothing, but looked at the other boys. All of them, with their large eyes. Raw started sucking his claws—stopped—then started again.

“What was so terrible?” I whispered. “Who was the enemy?”

“Don’t ask,” Zee muttered. “Gone now. Gone.”

I wanted to know. I needed to. But there was such pain in their faces, and loss. I couldn’t bring myself to keep hammering them.

“Okay,” I said. “So why doesn’t this . . . force . . . just take me over, fully? Make me lead the army? Make me do whatever the hell it wants?”

“Not like that,” Zee rasped helplessly. “Power
is
.”

“Is what?” I wanted to shake him.
“Zee.”

“Told you,” he said, with misery in his voice. “Choice.”

I blew out my breath. “Right. Just like that.”

“Always,” Zee said. “Even us, we choose. Choose wrong, choose right, choose to hold our mothers, bright. We changed. Choices changed.”

“Even with this . . . thing . . . inside you?”

Zee pressed his claws over my heart. “Takes as much you give.”

I covered his hand. “What the fuck is it?”

Raw sucked his claws a little harder. Aaz closed his eyes. Dek, Mal, rested their chins against my ears and began massaging my scalp with their tiny claws.

“Old,” Zee breathed.

Old. Powerful. Inside me.

I covered my face. “I need a drink.”

Moments later, Aaz tapped my shoulder and pushed a cup into my hand. Not hot chocolate, this time. Hot cider, instead. Burned my mouth, but I sipped it down, trying not to shake.

Remember who you are,
I told myself.
You’re Maxine.

I heard footsteps echoing up the stairs, all the way from the other side of the roof. The steady click of a cane accompanied that heavy tread.

Grant faltered when he saw me, but only in his gaze—deepening with that raw glint I knew so well: intense, thoughtful, not at all gentle. I recalled what it felt like to see that expression fresh, as a stranger would. Surreal sensation. Grant, I tended to forget, was an intimidating man.

“Hey,” he rumbled. “What scared you?”

“Not even going to pretend?”

He grunted and settled down beside me with a wince. I handed him my hot cider, pulled his bad leg into my lap, and began massaging his thigh just above the knee. Raw scooted close to work on his calf, long claws searching out pressure points. Dek and Mal began humming Billy Joel’s “She’s Got a Way.”