Emerald City Dreamer (49 page)

"
They've come back," Sandy whispered.

"
Ja. I hope you got some milk while you were out. Because we're not going anywhere for a long, long time."

JINA HAD SPENT THE PREVIOUS day alternately trying to reach Sandy, trying to break the spell, and trying to stay warm.

Only minutes after Jett left the bed, she started to shiver. She threw the covers off, knowing that the insulation couldn't keep her warmth in - it could only keep the room-temperature air
out
.

To her, the room felt warm, like slipping into a hot tub. She shivered again. It wasn't warm enough. She heard Jett in the shower, so Jina slipped down the hall into her own room. She cranked up all three of the space heaters and ran downstairs to make a quick cup of coffee while her room warmed up.

She'd written half a dozen songs, a dozen chants, and even drawn an incredibly detailed picture of the sun. Abundant glamour surrounded her, and she shaped it, but the windows were still dark, and her bones still cold.

Yesterday, she'd borrowed Kenny's computer to research hypothermia, which happened when a body's internal warmth couldn't keep up with external cold. In Jina's case, she suffered from the exact opposite. Her cold came from within.

While Jina waited for the coffee, she turned on a burner and warmed her fingers over the element. Once the shivers started, she knew she was
really
cold.

She'd been taking her temperature, and knew her symptoms didn't completely map out to known hypothermia symptoms. Mild hypothermia set in when body-heat fell to ninety-five degrees, and that's when she should start shivering. She got the racing heart, the flushing, but not the shivering. It did no good to stay fed, like traditional hypothermia first aid recommended. Whatever her body normally did to keep warm wasn't working. Jina's blood wasn't keeping itself warm.

At least she didn't have to worry about afterdrop, a condition some websites warned against, where re-heating the body too quickly from the outside could draw warm blood away from internal organs.

Jina shivered now, which meant she was getting too cold. If she had a mirror, she suspected her lips would already be turning blue. She glanced at the coffeemaker. Only a few more minutes. If she stayed this cold too long, she'd start to get confused and lose coordination. Then she'd get sleepy, and after that, it would all be over.

She'd been surprised to learn that her body temperature could drop as low as sixty-eight degrees before she died, which seemed like a wide margin. Yet she had to keep herself sweating on the outside to feel normal on the inside.

Yesterday, she'd turned her bedroom into a sauna, to the point where the leaves curled in the heat. Between that, hot baths, hot drinks, and staying hydrated, she could keep her skin at ninety-seven degrees or higher, and under her tongue at ninety. Hot water bottles helped, if she could press them against her neck and under her arms.

As long as she had plenty of external sources of heat, she would live.

The coffeemaker beeped. She chugged a few swallows directly from the pot. Her tongue didn't burn. Instead, it felt warm for the first time since she'd gone to sleep against Jett's body the night before. The warmth spread through her throat and chest like tiny little fire spiders. With another few swallows, her stomach and chest thawed, leaving only her arms and legs frozen stiff.

She filled a large thermos with the liquid and didn't bother cooling it with milk and sugar. The flavor no longer mattered.

She bumped into Ramon on the way back to her room. They had settled into an uncomfortable truce. They each faked smiles at one another, and kept going.

Back in her bedroom, she dialed Sandy again and paced around the bedroom, the moss giving under her feet. She had to duck every time she passed under a pine bough. After the third ring, Sandy finally answered.

"
Hey," Jina said, smiling.

"
Jina! After all this time, you got away! You got to a phone!"

"
Away?" Jina asked. "From where?"

"
From the fae."

"
Yeah, he almost got me, but I'm safe now at Jett's place. Sort of."

"
He? I'm talking about Jett."

Jina stopped her pacing. "You think she... no, Sandy, I came here on my own after our fight. She's sheltering me now, from Pogswoth."

"
No. I can't accept that. She's bewitched you."

Jina wondered that for the hundredth time. Her love felt genuine enough. And at this point it hardly mattered. She took a sip from the thermos.

"
It's true that Jett is difficult," Jina admitted. "And things here are... complicated. Could I say that if I were under some spell?"

"
I don't... uh... If that's true... I need you here. We're surrounded by faeries, and for each one we kill, three more replace them."

Jina gripped the phone hard in her hands. "I'm sorry, Sandy. I tried to stop her. I'm still trying to stop her."

"
It's getting really bad. We can't leave the house. We've tried to order food online from Amazon Fresh, but what comes is all wrong. We chose the usual stuff on the site, milk, eggs, macaroni, chicken. Instead we got twelve jars of spaghetti sauce, twelve bottles of maple syrup, and thirteen pints of durian. Can you imagine... Durian! I tried to eat some, but it smells terrible."

Jina wondered what all the fuss was about. Sandy had only been in there for a day. Long enough, but all this concern over food supply seemed a little overblown.

"
Someone has left anonymous groceries on the doorstep, which helps. Was that you?"

"
No," Jina said. "I haven't had time."

"
Oh..." Sandy said. "Have things really been that busy for you?"

"
Yes," Jina said, blowing on her fingers. Her breath came out cool, so she stopped. "I've got a problem. Remember Scarf? He's cursed me. I never see the sun, but worse, I'm getting colder. I have to constantly drink hot fluids to stay alive."

"
How do you know it wasn't the elf?"

"
No, it was him, I'm sure of it. It's the same thing he tried on Trey, before I stopped him."

"
You can't see the sun, you say?" Jina recognized Sandy's shift in tone. Thinking always calmed her down. And she could really use the studious, problem-solving Sandy right about now.

"
He said day would be as night."

"
Yes," Sandy said, pausing for thought. "The stories talk about korrigans doing that to people when they complete the days of the week. They either curse them, or give them a gift."

"
I read that story, too. I didn't say any days of the week around him. I don't think."

"
And you say you're cold all the time?"

"
Yeah. That's not in the stories."

Sandy made thinking noises on the other end of the line. "You're faestricken."

"
That's what Jett said."

"
It's a little more than a curse. It's magic that affects your body. The word 'stroke' comes from the idea that ailments were caused by angry faeries. Paralysis, arthritis, bruising, cramps, depression, tuberculosis, psoriasis..."

"
I don't have any of those things. I have hypothermia cancer, which isn't even a real disease." Jina paced under a pine bough and took another gulp of coffee. It was already starting to make her jittery.

"
This is bad, Jina. Your body itself has changed in some fundamental way."

Jina groaned. "So how do I beat this thing?"

"
If it were curse, like Jett's stupid spell, it might be broken by some secret specific action like kissing a toad or eating raw walnuts in the light of a full moon."

"
What if we killed him?" Jina asked, hoping.

"
I was thinking something like that might solve my problem. In the tales, sometimes that works."

"
Sandy, don't you dare kill Jett."

"
Why not? I'm a hunter. So were you, once."

Her words were intended to cut; Jina didn't let them. "I never wanted to stop fighting the fae. So let's do it. This is what we've prepared for all these years. With Jett's backing, we could take Pogswoth."

Jina heard Sandy's phone fumble on the other end. "You're not the only one who's cursed. I can't even leave my own house, Jina. I don't... I can't."

"
I'm trying to persuade her to set you free," Jina said. "You have to be reasonable, too. You just need to convince Jett you're not a danger to her brugh, and she'd call off the fae. She has a lot to offer you, centuries of firsthand knowledge beyond anything in your dusty old books."

Sandy started to interrupt, but Jina cut her off. "I know she would let you keep hunting unseelie. And we all want Pogswoth dead, right?"

"
It's too much, Jina. I will never make an agreement with her."

Jina sighed. She didn't understand why people need to make everything so complicated. People and fae.

"
You can't be effective in battle if you're suffering from old wounds," Jina said. "At least talk it over with Gretel and Hollis. I'm the recruiter, remember? An alliance between Jett and yourself, well, you'll never need recruits again."

"
I said never." Sandy's voice held the cold finality Jina had become used to over the past year.

"
Even when you're sober," Jina said, "you avoid dealing with your shit, and run like crazy from every attempt I've made to help you." She hesitated before reaching for a cigarette. Nicotine increased chances of frostbite.

"
This has nothing to do with me. She's
taken you captive
, and you want
me
to offer
her
peace? No. I don't know what's really going on, but this is something she's cooked up, to get me to leave the safety of my home."

Jina slowly shook her head. The conversation reminded her of talking to her crazy uncle from California. When everything led to a conspiracy, there was no way of reasoning. That wouldn't be possible. Not today.

"
Come home," Sandy said.

"
I can't leave, Sandy. Even if Jett let me, Pogswoth is out there, waiting for me."

"
So we're both trapped. But I've got another plan."

"
What is it? What could you possibly do?"

"
Anything I tell you is the same as telling Jett."

"
I have a huge decision coming up, Sandy. If you know something I don't, I need you to tell me."

"
I can't trust you anymore," Sandy said.

"
How-- Never mind. Just... Can you hold on a minute?"

Jina pushed the phone away from her face and pinched cool tears out of her eyes with numb fingertips. She briefly considered, again, what it would take to fight Pogswoth on her own.

"
At least tell me where to find him," Jina said, returning.

"
No."

"
Why not?"

"
It's dangerous to go alone."

"
No shit!" Jina spat. She sat quietly on the line until she managed to stop seething. "Do you at least want me to send you anything? I could get Trey to bring you groceries."

The line was quiet for a while, and Jina glanced at the face of her phone to make sure Sandy hadn't hung up. Then her voice came very softly, "Yes... we're out of Scotch."

Jina bit her lip. She almost promised to send Scotch, but that would enable her addiction. Alcohol wouldn't help either of them.

"
If you want Scotch, you can brave the goblins and go get it yourself," Jina said. "Give me a grocery list. Food."

There was another silence, cut by Sandy's hostile voice. "I don't need your stupid help."

"
I'm sending Trey anyway. Tonight."

Then the line went dead.

Jina frowned and looked at her phone. She fought down an urge to call back.

For now, she needed to take care of herself. She would not try to force her help on someone who was hell-bent on destruction: destruction of others, or destruction of herself, whichever came first. With reluctance, Jina gripped her cellphone tightly and slipped it into her pocket.

She had three options left. Wait for Sandy to come to her senses. Give up her life to Jett in order to save it. Or go after Pogswoth herself.