Minutes to Midnight (17 page)

Was I nervous? Yes. Scared? Terrified. Mike
and Raven left me in the car and never came back, and I couldn't
think of any reason they'd have stayed in the cemetery this long
unless something happened.

All kinds of horrible images played out in
my head of what I was going to find. And a mutilated or half-eaten
Mike was the worst. I wasn't as worried about Raven. She was a
Revenant, and they don't go down easy. Mike was just human. And
he'd been a friend when I really didn't think I had any left. So if
I got him killed looking into shit that was all my doing, I wasn't
going to forgive myself easily.

My little sun illuminated stone angels and
cast shadows of crosses on the path. I moved around the back toward
the shore where we first encountered the zombies.

"Mike?" I hissed, and felt stupid for doing
it. But I didn't have people-dar. I couldn't see or sense warm
bodies like a thermal imager. I was pretty sure I was close by, if
not standing in the middle of, where the zombies dragged me before
I blasted them. The little sun positioned itself in the best
possible way to avoid shadows. They were still there, though, just
beyond the perimeter of the light. I stood in front of a plot with
several large headstones. To the right stood a five-foot-high
cross, its thick white concrete glowing beneath the tiny sun. To
the right was a slab protecting a grave. The engraved lettering was
so weatherworn I couldn't make it out.

Just behind that stood a monolithic archway
built of two Roman columns and a half circle to top it off. The
concrete was worn with streaks and a bit of mildew and algae. The
air within the arch wavered. Not real obvious, and if I hadn't have
been trying to see the statue on the other side of the monument
through the arch, I probably wouldn't have noticed it.

I wasn't real sure, but I'd have bet my ass
I was looking at a gate of some kind. Not a Cairn, or a Coyote
Flame, but a door between this World and another one. But
which?

With the sword held up in my hands a spell
on the tip of my tongue ready to blast even a squirrel out of my
way if it said "Boo," I took the few steps from the slab to the
arch and saw one of Raven's boots. There was no mistaking it. I'd
admired the way they'd hugged her calves when she changed out of
her gi. I moved it with the sword tip. That's when I noticed the
bones, bits and pieces of what looked like flesh, and a lot of
brown streaks and smudges that was probably blood.

What turned my stomach and made my hackles
rise (yes, I have hackles) was that under my small sun the blood
looked fresh enough to possibly be—

A branch snapped behind me, just outside the
circle of light overhead. How cliché was that? I didn't have time
to wonder as a tall figure stepped into the light. The angle of the
small sun overhead cast deep, dark, long shadows on the features of
the man as he moved to the other edge of the slab. He looked maybe
thirty? Light blue work shirt with white cuffs, expensively cut
pants, no shoes, and no tie. He didn't have much of a neck because
someone had taken a nasty bite out of it. His skin was bone white,
much like a corpse. He had a long steel pipe in one hand and he
stood very still, smacking it rhythmically against his other
hand.

Zombie.

No…Lamia.

I turned and held the sword out in front of
me, the spell for fire on the tip of my tongue. Hopefully the
shadows hid how fast my knees were knocking. "Where are Raven and
Mike? Did you kill them?" I didn't really expect him to answer.

When he did actually speak, my heart dropped
into my toes. "No, I didn't kill them, Guardian. They followed me
home." He smiled, showing blackening gums. "I showed them a good
time."

I knew that voice. It was like Officer
Jones's voice. I re-steadied my feet, the arch behind me. "So you
found a new body, Rippin' Ja—. Have to commend you on discovering
reverse evolution."

"You're good at spotting me now. I'm
assuming that Revenant bitch told you what I am."

"Yep. And for my first wish, I'd like Mike,
Raven, and Stella returned."

"Doesn't work that way, Guardian. I don't
grant wishes. You pay for them."

I glanced back at the arch and the wavering
air between the columns. "So…Djins can create a gate between
worlds?" It was just a guess on my part.

The zombie nodded and I was a little afraid
he was gonna nod his head right off. "In a manner of speaking."

"So how come you never made one and got out
of the Peripheral?"

He growled…sort of. "We
can't make them
there
—only
here
.
It's why the Seraphim and Phantasm locked us in the Peripheral.
Ours is a power they cannot control."

Well, that explained how he'd brought me
into the Peripheral in that alley. "So tell me…if you can create
that kind of gate, why wouldn't the one who hired you just use your
power to make a permanent one?"

"Because it doesn't work that way. Our gates
can't be made permanent, and they can't be controlled by any other
creature but the Djin who made them." He stopped and what was left
of the muscles and flesh over his eyes narrowed. "Damn you,
Guardian! You made me tell a truth!"

Bully for me? "So your employer wants a gate
she can control herself."

"You're getting there." He swung the pipe
around and I took a step back. I wasn't exactly in the best
position to carry out a fight in such a visually small place. The
cross to my right wasn't big enough to hide behind, and I didn't
want to go through that gate.

Gabriel's threat rang in my
ears.
If you so much as put another foot
into that place, I will hurt
her…

And that was something I couldn't let
happen. Ever.

I couldn't just sneak in there to pull
Stella and the others out. That damned Cherubim had known I'd been
in there before; she would know if I went back in again. So I had
to think through a different plan.

"Why does your employer want me?"

"Can't tell you that. Won't tell you
that."

"All right. Fair enough. What's the price
for getting my own wish fulfilled?"

The question appeared to confuse him. "You
can't. One job at a time."

"So if you had me, then you'd be done with
this one?"

"Yes. But you'd have to be in chains. That
was part of the hire."

Chains? Again? I thought back to the
handcuffs he'd wanted me to put on before. "Steel chains?"

"Not anymore. They're iron now."

Shit. So Ripp'n Ja— 's employer did know
about the Faerie Blood. I still wasn't sure those bars in Jack's
basement had had any influence on my inability to focus while
behind them, but I didn't want to take a chance either.

But I still wanted to know why. Why would a
Revenant—any kind of Revenant—want me?

"And the price for the hire?"

"My name, Guardian, you have to know
my—"

I made a huge guess. "Rippin' Jack."

The zombie slash Djin stopped swinging the
pipe around. In fact, he went as solid as a stone for a few beats.
I took that opportunity to move around the arch and stand behind
it. That way we were looking at each other between the two columns.
I didn't know how long he'd be rebooting—'cause that's what it
looked like he was doing—but I wanted to be out of pipe-swinging
range.

In hindsight, though…I should have blasted
him. Shot the Djin right out of the zombie's body.

Dammit.

That's why I needed Mike back. He was so
much better at thinking on his feet. My thoughts always got tangled
around my tongue.

The zombie abruptly moved again, and when he
didn't see me right away, he made a full turn. "Guardian!"

Wait… maybe he
couldn't
see me. I hadn't
read everything in the Big Book of Everything about Djins, but I
wondered how much of their host controlled their physical senses.
Ole Rippin' Jack was in a dying, decaying body. So, maybe he
couldn't see me as well. And if the light was out… I lifted my hand
and whispered, "
Etu
."

The light winked out.

"Guardian!" Now he was pissed, and started
swinging that pipe at everything. He took off the top of the cross
and then pulverized a short palm-tree-looking plant.

I crouched down and started to move back out
of the way just as a hand slapped over my mouth from behind and
arms of steel pinned my own to my side. I struggled as they dragged
me into a nearby shadow.

This really wasn't my day.

STONE GHOUL

There are a lot of things I remember about
my childhood. But the most poignant memory, the one that changed
the course of my life, was burying myself in the hollow of an old
oak I used to call Grandmama. There are certain points of that
memory that are sharper than others. The feel of the moss growing
inside that trunk, soft and spongy. The feel of the bark as it
scraped my arm (I still have a scar). And the overwhelming feeling
of helplessness when the tree folded in and swallowed me alive.

That was the feeling I identified with the
most as whatever held me pulled me under a bush and dragged me into
an open mausoleum.

I heard my captor breathing,
and felt breasts heave against my back where
she
held me against her, a hand still
over my mouth, her other arm around my chest and arms.
"Mooareooh?"

"Oh, sorry." She removed her hand and let me
go. The mausoleum was small, no more than a ten-by-ten. Two walls
for coffins on either side, times two each. That left a long,
narrow space between the two.

I bumped her as I tried to move away. "I
said, who are you?" I couldn't make out anything more than a shadow
in the mausoleum. And something smelled awful. "Let me make a
little light."

"No!" She hissed and a hand grabbed at my
wrist. I might be able to see but apparently she could see me just
fine. "No light or it'll see us."

She had a death grip on me and I tried to
pull back. She was freak'n strong. "Ow…can you let go? I don't
think he can see that great while in that body."

The pressure on my wrist released but she
didn't let go. "So you know what it is. You know it's not a real
Lamia?"

"It's a Lamia possessed by something else."
I pulled at my arm. "Can you let go and please tell me who you
are?" Whatever I was smelling was getting worse. It reminded me of
raw meat left in a trash can overnight, or the alley behind a
restaurant. "I'll ask again; Who are you?"

She didn't let go. "I'm…I used to work for
the Society of Ishmael. You and I met once…but it I doubt you'd
remember me."

I shifted in the tight space. "You know
me?"

"Yeah. You're Darren McConnell. You…you were
the Wraith's boyfriend."

I half expected who ever this was to say I
was Rhonda's lover—which I apparently had been. But not… No one
other than Nona had actually come right out and told me Zoë and I
had been lovers. "You met me when I was with Zoë?"

"I was your doctor."

"My doctor?"

"Yeah…when you were in that vegetative
state. When parts of the book went missing because of your
Familiar."

I stared in the dark at her
shadow. I…what? "Miss…I…what vegetative state? What…what did my
Familiar do?" The curious part of me, the part that was desperate
to fill in the lost year, wanted to question her more. It wanted to
shake her for answers to things she had. But the survival side of
me—the one listening to the noises outside—suggested there would be
a better time for this. Like…
later
.

Then a beat later I
thought,
because of my Familiar? What the
hell does that mean? Parts of the book went missing?

Ripp'n Jack the Lamia roared outside and
smashed something with his pipe.

She gasped. "You really
don't remember, do you? I heard the rumor—before I left the
Society. Was it what
she
did to you, or what the Angel did?"

I pulled my arm again, but she kept a firm
grip. "Can you let go? You're cutting off the circulation."

"I wish I could. I really do." She cleared
her throat. "Can you tell me? Was it her?"

"Her?"

"Rhonda. The reason you can't remember?"

"No. It was the Angel. She wiped an entire
year away. I can't even remember Rhonda. Well I remember her and I
remember Zoë. It's just my memory of them cuts off when they helped
me at the bar with the Shadow People."

"Wow. That explains a lot, really."

Rippin' Jack made a large noise outside the
mausoleum so we both crowded around the small window. I could just
see him near the archway, still whacking at things with his
pipe.