It Happened One Doomsday (35 page)

Now, instead of saying,
Crystal sorceress will help you in need
, it said,
Crystal sorceress needs your help
.

She blinked away tears and went back inside. Of course, she still wanted to help others. But what could she do? She had nothing left to offer them. Her store was empty of anything useful. Everything was broken. And so was she.

A palpable emptiness hollowed her out inside. She sat alone in an island of lamp light, waiting for the darkness outside to lift.

But it didn't matter. Greyson was gone. And he wasn't ever coming back.

It was a plain fact, clear and cold. Somehow, though, she refused to accept it. As if it didn't make sense. As if every part of her being utterly rejected the truth.

With her head leaned back against the hard wall, she listened to the quiet murmurs of the city, trying to find some calm center inside her. But every time she closed her eyes, she could see Greyson looking back at her.

Against her will, she kept slipping away into the weightless descent of sleep, only to jerk awake in horror, heart pounding. Even awake, she still felt as if she were endlessly falling and Hellbringer was tumbling end over end around her, carrying her through the fire.

Feverish snatches of dreams haunted her. She reached out for Greyson, but her hands closed on empty mist. He whispered her name, but every time she turned to look, he was gone.

The pale half-light before dawn brought heavy footsteps tromping up outside. Someone rattled the locked doorknob. Dru didn't have the strength to yell at whoever it was to go away.

With a splintering of wood, the door flew open, letting in the glare of the streetlight and the flickering red-and-blue neon lights of the all-night liquor store next door.

Dru didn't even look up. Whatever dark fate was heading her way, she felt she deserved it.

Heavy footsteps crossed the room. A woman's hand, with long, thick fingers ending in chipped pink fingernail polish, set down a ring on the concrete floor next to her, directly in Dru's line of vision.

The ring was pitted and blackened from magical feedback, but she would have recognized it anywhere. It was Greyson's titanium ring.

Dru looked up into Rane's worried face.

“I thought you might want it,” Rane said, her voice rough and deep. “To keep.”

Tears stung Dru's eyes. She bit her lip as she picked up the pitted ring and held it in the palm of her hand, cradling it as if it were a wounded bird.

Rane shoved some wreckage aside and sat next to her, bringing the mingled scents of pine trees, city streets, and sweat from her predawn run. She seemed so alive, so vibrant, so opposite of the way Dru felt.

Rane nodded her chin at the box of stale cinnamon Duffeyrolls sitting nearby. “So. Opal's been here. How's she doing?”

“Better.” Dru nodded. “I told her to stay home and rest, but she came by anyway, at least for a while. We hung out. Watched the handyman board up the windows. Mostly, I was useless.” Dru pointed to the cinnamon-stained box. “Want some?”

Rane shook her head. “Carbs city.” Then she seemed to think better about it. “Splitsies?”

By that, Dru took it to mean that Rane only wanted to eat half of a cinnamon roll. But when Rane opened the lid of the box, her eyes lit up. She picked up one of the miniature cinnamon rolls and sniffed it carefully, like a curious animal. “What's with the green sprinkles?”

“That one's Irish Cream, I think.”

“
Nice.
” Rane crammed the entire roll in her mouth and chewed. She pointed at another. “Mmm. That one?”

“Pecan something.”

“Mmm.” Rane bit that one in half, then reluctantly offered the other half to Dru, who waved her off.

After a minute of grunting and chewing, Rane nodded, satisfied. “I needed that.” She looked directly at Dru, suddenly serious. “How about you?”

With a sniff of a laugh, Dru stared off into the distance, seeing all of the wreckage around her and yet not seeing it. Everything was a blur of destruction. “I have absolutely no idea what I need.”

“Sure you do,” Rane said. “Dig deep down inside. Tell me what you need.”

“I need to be safe again.” The answer came bubbling up from somewhere deep inside Dru. She didn't even think of it consciously. It just popped into her mind. But it felt like the right answer. She said it again, savoring the taste of the words in her mouth. “I need to be safe. Secure. Out of harm's way. That's what I want.”

Rane snorted and grabbed another roll. “Whatever. Have one of these little guys. They're like
crack
.”

“I'm not kidding.” Dru fixed her with an earnest look. “I'm done. I can't do this anymore.”

Rane chewed. “Do what?”

“This.” Dru waved her hand to indicate the utter destruction surrounding them. “Everything is gone. Everything that ever mattered.”

“Hey,
I
matter. And I'm still here. What are you complaining about?” Rane grinned, but the light behind her smile quickly faded as she studied Dru. “Come on, dude. We can buy you new stuff.”

Dru shook her head. “I don't have that kind of money. I can't afford to start over.”

“I know some guys who can have your shop tip-top in a week flat. Besides, that's why you have insurance,” Rane said, then looked worried. “You
do
have insurance, right?”

“I'm pretty sure my policy doesn't cover Doomsday.”

“Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how many times the average sorceress has to cover up magical destruction? Just call it a gas leak.” Rane shrugged. “Works every time, trust me.”

Dru slumped against the wall and sighed. “I'm not cut out to be a sorceress.”

“You so totally are. And you're getting better. You opened that portal on your own this last time.”

“Wait.” Dru held up a hand. “Just let me finish. Before all this happened, I used to think that I was somehow stuck. That I was just going through the daily motions of life. Helping customers, answering the phone, trying to scrape up rent money.”

Rane tilted her head to the side and faked a snore. “Oh,
waah
. You're breaking my heart.”

“But maybe that's where I'm
supposed
to be. Maybe I'm not really meant for all this weirdness, this epic battle against demons and curses and everything else. Other people can handle it. Other people
want
to handle it. Like you. I mean, look at you. You were practically put on this planet to kick ass. You've got the attitude for it. The power for it. The body for it.”

“Dude, it's not easy staying this buff.” Rane arched one eyebrow. “But you need to do your magic.”

“Not me. Not anymore.” Dru shook her head resolutely. “I mean, before all this, I could do a teensy bit of crystal magic, and that was enough. But with him, there was just so much more. Everything turned out more powerful than I ever imagined. And now he's gone.” She squeezed her hand shut, feeling Greyson's ring dig into her palm. “Maybe I can do it on my own, but I don't
want
to. Not anymore.”

“So, what, you're looking for some sort of cosmic fairness? A quota? You get your ticket punched once, and you're set for life?” Rane looked unimpressed. “It never gets any easier, D. You just have to get better.”

Dru looked at her. “No. This is not my thing.”

“This
is
your thing. You have these powers for a reason.” Rane's voice turned urgent. “Only like one in a million people have any kind of magical ability. And there might be no one else on the
planet
who can do exactly what you can do. If you don't get it together, if you don't learn how to take this crystal thing to the next level on your own, you're not going to make it.
That's
how it works.”

“I can't. Don't you see that?”

Rane stared at her in disbelief. “Did those words really just come out of your mouth? Did you miss the part where you stopped the forces of darkness in their tracks? Seriously, D, we just saved the world!”

“But what's the price of that?” Hot tears flooded Dru's eyes, and her voice grew thick. “Greyson is dead because of me. I killed him.”

Rane surveyed the debris on the floor around them. “I miss him, too. You might not believe that, but I do. He was a good guy.”

“I should've found another way, besides the biotite crystal.” Dru sniffed. “I screwed up.”

“No.” Rane jabbed a finger at her. “You don't get to do that. You don't get to look back and blame yourself for saving the world. What happened, happened. You can't change it. You had a tough call to make, and you made the right one.”

Dru slipped Greyson's ring onto her thumb. She closed her fist around it, feeling the metal warm quickly against her skin.

“I loved him,” Dru whispered. “And I never told him.”

Rane caught her hand and held it. At first, it looked as if she intended to say something sarcastic, but her expression softened, and she nodded. “He knew.”

Tears streamed down Dru's face. She hunted around her for a box of tissues but found nothing and ended up wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

“Listen, you're just freaked out.” Rane patted her leg. “Don't worry. Best thing to do is get back in the saddle. Start some serious training. You know, when I first started transforming, I used a stopwatch. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. But I kept at it, and now I can go all day if I need to. You can do it, too. We'll find you a mentor. Someone who can teach you to build up your powers on your own.”

“Easy for you to say.” Dru let a sharp edge of anger into her voice. “You've been fighting all your life. But not me. I'm not going to risk getting anyone I love killed. Never again.”

“So what are you going to do? Close up shop, marry Nate, move to some beige subdivision, and start popping out kids?”

Dru sniffed again. She couldn't meet Rane's gaze.

“Oh, you have
got
to be kidding me.” Rane folded her arms. “Seriously? You? No way.”

“Well, not with Nate,” Dru admitted finally. “Never with him. That's done. But safety, security, what's wrong with that? Why put ourselves in harm's way anymore? Maybe it's time to go find someplace safe.”

Rane shook her head. “There's no safe place anywhere, D. Have you looked outside? The entire world is freaking out. The brimstone clouds haven't gone away. Maybe the lightning and meteor showers are over, but it's not like everything is all rainbows and puppy dogs. Something's up. It's like the world is waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Rane's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Somebody out there took the apocalypse scroll. Are you going to let them have it? Or are you going to take it back?”

Rane's words stirred something inside Dru. The desire to discover. Study. Analyze. Decipher. Put together the rest of the puzzle. Still, she shook her head. “I don't know. But we did destroy the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“Last I heard, the Four Horsemen came from breaking the first four seals. Right? How many seals does that scroll have?”

“Seven seals,” Dru replied hollowly.

“Yeah. So get it together, D. We've got work to do. Before the rest of the seals get busted open and things really go to hell.” Rane stood up and crossed over to the door. When she opened it, the first bloody rays of dawn spilled in.

Dru looked up, startled. “You think . . . you think this is all going to happen again?”

“
Again
isn't the right word.” Rane paused in the doorway, silhouetted in the tainted amber light that suffused the morning air, beneath dark clouds that promised a rainstorm later. “Maybe we slowed down the apocalypse. But we sure as hell didn't stop it.”

Dru climbed stiffly to her feet. The two of them locked gazes, and Dru swallowed. “I'll need a hand with these bookshelves.”

Rane smiled, teeth flashing in the fiery dawn light.

45

THE END OF THE WORLD, AS WE KNOW IT

By the end of the day, Dru had given up trying to sort out the debris and just focused on finding anything salvageable in the wreckage. As the rain pounded down outside, she dug like a woman possessed, carefully collecting every useful scrap she could find and setting it aside in a growing pile. Eventually, even Rane couldn't keep up.

Most of her inventory was destroyed or too far damaged to serve much use. But beneath one pile of broken bookshelves, scattered crystals, and shattered jars, she found a treasure trove.

Books.

The leather spine of
The Grimoire of Diabolical Consorts
was sheared off, and half its pages were ripped apart, but there was enough left to be worth saving. Beneath that, she found the only known copy of
The Cyclopedia of Fallen Angels
. She gathered up its pages, clutching them like the lifeline they were.

“You know what we need to do?” she said to Rane breathlessly.

“Take a nap.” Rane wiped sweat off her forehead.

“No, no. We need to make a wall. Like Salem did. These books are torn up anyway. We can take all of the pages and pin them up. Maybe we can figure out what we missed.”

“We missed lunch, for one thing.” Rane headed for the door up to Dru's apartment over the shop. “I'm going to raid your fridge, see if anything's left. You want anything before it's all gone?”

“But I just went to the store the other day.”

“You mean like a week ago? Trust me, you want anything, better claim it now.”

Before Dru could reply, the phone rang. It was Opal.

“What kind of bags you want again?” Opal said, sounding flustered. “Compactor bags?”

“
Contractor
bags,” Dru said. “The thickest you can find.”

“Can't find a single thing in this place. Doesn't help that the entire town is going bat-crazy. And it's raining,” Opal grumbled. “You should've sent Rane on guy-store detail.”