Hunter Kiss: A Companion Novella (13 page)

I hear a whisper, just behind my ear. I cannot turn to look. Too much pain, not enough leverage. I wait, and a moment later a body floats around me, preceded by a wave of darkness: tentacles, shivering, writhing like underwater fronds of seaweed, massive enough to block out the sea and surround, cocoon, weave me into a darkness absolute, where all I know is what my hands know, what my feet know, crushed as they are by another set of small hands that refuse to let me go.

From the darkness, a face emerges, golden and wide and round. Like a doll's head-a simulacrum. Not human, but a rough attempt, and totally devoid of expression. Black eyes, no lids. Slits for nos
trils. A small red mouth.

I swallow hard, fighting down fear, focusing on Grant. Grant, who I have not heard make a sound since opening my eyes in this place. His body is so still.

"Hunter Kiss," says the face, a melodious voice, a song of soft vowels and cruel charm. The voice of a queen. Blood Mama. Her lips barely move. "Give him to me, Hunter."

Make me, I
tell her silently, and Grant is tugged, sharp. I cry out, but my hands do not slip, not even when a tentacle snakes around my throat, pressing. Dek and Mal, nestled in my hair, attack with hisses and muffled growls. Blood Mama shows no reaction, but a moment later the boys are torn away from me. I scream, watching helplessly as they fall past Zee through. the opening in the veil.

Zee howls. Red foam bubbles at the corners of his mouth. Blood Mama's head tilts toward him.

"Little man," she murmurs. "Still paying penance?"

"Get away from him," I snarl, tears running down my face
from the pain, the effort to hold on, my own sense of helplessness. My fingers slip, but only just. I bite back a cry.

"Let go," Blood Mama says again, squeezing my throat. I grit my teeth. She could take him if she wanted, but she has not. She wants me to release him, which is wrong; it must mean something.

"You think too hard," whispers the queen. "Little girl lost. Your mother was never so aimless, nor her mother. Not any woman of your line. Warriors, merciless. Beautiful adversaries. True Hunters. And now you. Soft. Adrift. Letting grief unhinge your life, when the simple truth remains that everyone dies, everyone loses, and your pain is no more special than any other."

I remember my mother wearing a stupid frilly apron, a rare mo
ment of whimsy, singing Happy Birthday. "You killed her."

"I ordered her death, yes. As I have ordered the death of all the women who came before you. As I will order yours, when the time is right."

My throat burns, but not from the tentacle. Blood Mama laughs, quiet. "You want to kill me. You think you
can
kill me."

I think I can try.
The darkness around us deepens, folding close against my skin; warm and sticky. Blood Mama's imitation of a face floats so close I can see myself reflected in her black pitiless eyes; shark eyes, doll eyes, glassy and empty.

"Try," she breathes. "Try and we will
all
die. Stupid girl. You

wonder why I hunt this man. He is no threat to me. But with his power . . . "

She wants to use him,
my mind whispers.
Possess him.

"Yes," Blood Mama breathes. "Alive, he would never accept me. His mind is too strong. Dead, or close to, he would have no choice."

"Why?" My heart is breaking, right along with my body. "Why would you want his power? There's no one here for you to convert. You can't even leave your prison."

"Can't I?" Blood Mama sways close.
"Can't
I,
Hunter?"

I stare, stricken. "Then why haven't you? Why haven't you torn down the veil?"

Her face remains smooth. "There are worse things than my kind, Hunter Kiss. You think you are the only one with a covenant? You think you are the only Hunter?"

My fingers weaken. Grant's leg twitches. I close my eyes, pouring all my strength and will into my hands. Blood Mama's warm breath touches my cheek.

"The veils are weakening," she whispers. "All the veils. And if they break, as they most surely will in time, all will be lost. There are demons who have no love for us. They do not
need us,
in the same way we need you. They eat only death."

The First Ward,
I think.
World Reapers.

"Yes," she breathes. "They will destroy us all."

I have lost the strength to speak out loud.
There must be a way to stop them. They were locked away. Someone did that.

"And where is that someone?" Blood Mama's eyes glitter. "No, we are alone. All of us. We must fight or die."

I believe her. But that does not mean I want to help her.
Give me Grant.

"No."
Her voice rises-with frustration, perhaps, though I can barely imagine it, not with her power, not with our vulnerability. "The man will serve me here, alive or dead. I will use him against the First Ward. Perhaps he can turn them in the same way he has begun to turn

my kind. If not, I will send him back to your world and turn his gift to darkness. Open doorways for my kind into the hearts and minds of humans. Power, Hunter. I need power, if I am to hold the veil."

Grant's foot twitches again. I have trouble breathing.
I f
you want him that badly, why haven't you taken him from me? Why haven't you tried to hurt me?

Silence. Zee says something in a language I do not understand, words tumbling from his sharp mouth, running almost into song. Blood Mama looks down at him. She barks back a single word, and Zee begins to laugh. The queen snarls. I hear a cracking sound, like a lash; her tentacles, snapping against the air.

A moment later, Grant begins to descend. It happens so slowly I believe it must be my imagination-until my arms bend and my joints scream with another kind of pain. I hold my breath, trying not to shake as I clutch his ankles, my hands sliding up his legs to his waist as he moves past me. I hug him close, pressed belly to belly, shaking against his chest, savoring its slow rise and fall. I will him to wake. He must speak.

The tentacle around his shoulders and head loosens, as does the shadow constraining my neck. Blood Mama presses close. "Take him. Go."

I stare, stunned. "You'll try again."

"No," she says, the edge of a scream in her voice. "No, I cannot."

Zee tugs on me. I glance down at him, still disbelieving. "Why?"

"Promises," hisses the queen, and a tentacle snakes between Grant and I, pressing hard against my lower belly. "A promise I should never have made."

I do not feel us move, but I feel something wet against my legs and look down again. Zee is gone. Grant and I are knee-deep in the eye of the veil. I glance back at Blood Mama, whose face hovers like a terri
ble golden moon above my head, her body blocking out sky and sea.

"The First Ward," I say quickly. "When?"

Her masks fractures; an actual crack splitting down the middle of

her face. A terrible screaming wind surrounds us, abrading my skin, tearing and cutting. I squint, still trying to watch the queen, listening hard.

If she answers I never hear. Grant and I slip into another world.

open my eyes to rain. My cheek
is
pressed against cobblestone.
My body aches. Grant is on his back beside me, still breathing, soaked to the bone. I push myself close. It is difficult. My body does not want to move, but I get there, tasting tears.

The boys gather around, Dek and Mal curling warm against my throat, purring. I swallow a sob. "Everyone okay?"

"Same question, same answer," Zee says softly. "Your heart's too big for us cutters."

"Big enough, bad boy." I brush Grant's hair away from his fore
head. A hot flush steals over my body, joy mixing with heartache. I try to speak, but my voice breaks. I try again, and this time I choke the words out. "What happened up there, Zee? What did you do?"

"Reminded her."

"Of what? What promise was made?"

"Protection," whispers the demon, sharing a brief look with Aaz and Raw. "Protection she tried to steal from you. Hard earned, hard fought, by those long dead. Protection for those you mark."

"I never marked Grant."

"Yes." Zee places his small hand over my heart. "You did."

Headlights cut the rain. I try to stand, but my body refuses me. So I lie in the road, trusting the boys, too tired to care if they scare the hell out of anyone who sees them.

The car stops just in front of us. A door opens, followed by foot
steps. I roll over and look up into a familiar face. Rex.

"This is not a promise," he says, then bends down and grabs Grant's shoulders. Other hands take hold of my body.

The zombies drag us to the car and take us away.

Eiaht

An hour before dawn, Grant still sleeps. I can stand on my own.
Zee, Aaz, and Raw are curled on his sofa, sucking their thumbs, watching
.
Yogi Bear
on the television. They regress, sometimes. I de
cide to go for a walk. After a moment, they come with me.

It has stopped raining. I see stars scattered through breaks in the clouds. I crane my neck, staring, but what I remember is red sky, red ocean, and the face of a pitiless doll, a demon, a queen.

A queen who must keep her promises. Whatever those might be. Zee has more explaining to do. Just not now. I am tired. My mind and body hurt. I do not know how my heart feels.

Around the corner of the building, I see a man sitting alone on a bench. I recognize the red hat. In his hands, a bottle of beer.

I walk softly and sit down beside Rex. No warning. The demon

inside his body flinches, but the human host never moves a muscle.
Zee and the others prowl the shadows; Dek and Mal lean on my ears.
"I suppose you know what happened," I say to him, wondering

just how long a human personality can be suppressed by the demonic before being lost forever. I wonder, too, who this grizzled old zombie was before being possessed-and whether I will ever meet him.

Rex grunts. "Our queen is not in the habit of sharing informa
tion with her people, especially those who have rejected her."

"You came to get us. I assumed that was a request on her part."

He says nothing, which is all the answer I need. I stand back up. I miss Grant. Absurd, I know-it has been less than five minutes
but the ache is strong, the need, powerful. Like I have to go reattach a limb-or maybe my heart. I walk away.

"I won't be coming back," Rex calls after me. I give him the finger.

Grant is standing in the middle of his apartment when I open the door. He looks terrible, hollow, and when he sees me he stares like his heart is breaking. Takes me off guard, stabs me right down to the core. Grant only manages two steps before he goes down hard, off
balance. No cane. I run, dropping at the last moment and skidding to him on my knees.

"When I woke up. .." Grant whispers, then stops, shaking his head. "Sorry. I was worried."

I brush back his hair, still breathless from the grief lingering in his eyes. "You thought I was gone. That I left you."

"Or that you were hurt. Dead." He closes his eyes. "I don't re
member much of what happened."

So I tell him, and as I talk we lie down on the cold hard floor, curled inside each other's arms. Grant does not ask many questions. What he does ask, I cannot answer. He holds me tight, burying his face in my hair. "This isn't over, is it?"

"No," I murmur, tracing circles against his shoulder. Grant shifts, looking into my eyes. His gaze is solid, strong, warm with compas
sion. He looks at me like he can see my soul, and I suppose he can.

He untangles himself and slowly stands, tugging on my hand. "Come on. I want to show you something."

Leaning heavily on my arm, we walk to a door built into the

back end of his living room. Outside is a fire escape, and we climb the wide metal stairs to a flat expanse of rooftop, the center of which is covered by an immense ragtag array of pots and planters and bird fountains. It is not the most beautiful garden I have ever seen, but it is the most heartfelt. In the center of it are two white plastic chairs facing east. I see a glow against the sky, a sliver of light beneath a line of dark clouds.

We sit down, both of us sighing with relief as we ease our various aches and pains. The boys melt from the shadows and lean against my legs. Grant reaches out and takes my hand. He kisses it, and I scoot my chair closer, close enough to bump, and still that is not enough. I gently dislodge the boys and crawl into his lap. Grant cradles me.

"Another day," he murmurs. "Anything can happen. Something wonderful, Maxine."

"You believe that?"

"We're still here, together. That's miracle enough for me."

"Man of faith," I murmur.