Authors: A.J. Aalto
“What the—”
I said, “Totally edible.
I think
. I mean, I can't be sure… who could be sure? Bet they're nice in a salad, though. They'll only grow during a headache, but you'll have a lot of those in the coming years.” I paused, drew another ounce of psi from the Earth, drummed up my pink web spell again, only this time, I focused on the glint of keys in the moonlight. “
As I will it, shall it be / Bright your arching path I see.”
A faint light flashed through the dark. I wondered if the mundane eyes saw it, too, but it didn't matter. I stomped past him in that
direction, bent to retrieve his keys, stared down at them, turning them over and over in my bare hand, ignoring the mushrooms that sprang from the Prior's scalp to peek over this hairline.
His fingers grasped them and pulled; they crumbled, as fresh mushrooms are wont to do, but more sprouted in their place.
I tossed him his keys. “You come back and visit me anytime. You're a real fun guy.” Look, I'm not proud at the best of times. When I'm pissed off, horny, and have just been deprived of some Goddess-infused sexy violence with a side of this spicy flunky slagging both my Cold Company and my sex life, I'm going to resort to absolutely shitty puns.
He made no attempt to catch the keys; they hit his chest and dropped down between his boots. His mouth worked angrily but futilely. I waited for him to reply, lifting my brows and imitating Harry's politely-inquiring blink. When it was clear he wasn't going to recover the power of speech any time soon, I marched back in the direction of the cabin with an equally-speechless Fed on my heels.
“Don't know what the fuck you did back there,” Batten's big legs tromped vines and bushes beside me, “but don't do it again.”
“What, hump a flunky?” I asked. “That fucknozzle is going to grow mushrooms from his scalp every time he has a headache. Big ones. Forever. I know that won't help Wes at all, but it makes me feel better.”
“We don't need your weirdo powers.”
“In case you've forgotten, your goddamned femur was sticking out at the Fur party, which I mended with my quote-unquote weirdo powers. By the way, you're fucking welcome.”
“I'm fine without your help,” he insisted. “You've got enough trouble taking care of your own ass.”
“Well, if you'd take care of my ass…” I trailed off, not wanting to commit the double-whammy cliché of playing the victim and turning an argument into sex. I held up my hands. “Fine. I'll never help you again.”
“If he presses charges…”
“For what? Farming without a permit? Assault with a magic fungus? Come on, we've got to get back to Wes,” I said, worry rushing back to fill in the void left by frustration.
“Will Harry be able to fix it?”
I didn't know the answer to that, so I didn't try. The last thing I wanted to hear was doubt in my own voice.
* * *
When we hurried back into the house, Declan was still kneeling over my wailing brother in the hall beside Harry, with his doctor's bag open on its side, contents spilled on the floor. I quickly forgot Batten and the Prior, moving to grab Harry's shoulder.
Harry rasped, “Doctor Edgar's salve is not working. Someone get the pantry door,” and heaved my rigid brother up in his arms. Wesley's body contorted against him but Harry managed. I raced ahead of him to throw the pantry door open, took the stairs three at a time, using the railing to vault down the last five. I burst into Harry's bed chamber with my shoulder; in two loping steps, I was at my brother's casket.
Harry was right behind me. With both hands I flung the halves of the lid open. They banged against the wall with a crack, but I'd worry about that later. Harry rolled Wesley into the satin confines of the casket and said hoarsely, “Blood, silk, grapple plant, white wax. Hurry, love. Dr. Edgar, hold him firmly by the shoulders.”
I charged up to my office, not questioning the requests, pushing past Batten's bulk. Wesley's shrill howl followed me up the stairs, an air raid siren pushing me faster. The grapple plant was easiest: I always keep the herb otherwise known as devil's claw in the terrarium atop my herb cabinet. The white candles were accessible enough, though I had to jump to reach them on the bookshelf. The blood was in the fridge and the silk I grabbed from my bedroom, a dark chocolate-colored nightie. I hit the pantry at a sprint, nearly took a header down the stairs, righted myself in time but dropped my armful down the staircase. Batten stooped to help me collect everything at the bottom, and we hurried to Harry's side.
Harry's voice was unnaturally augmented to speak to Wesley over his cries. “Cleave to your inner strength, now, lad, for the cure will be no more pleasant than the injury, I'm afraid.”
Harry looked up at me. The naked terror in his eyes hadn't come across in his voice but it hit me now. Things were worse than my hammering heart could comprehend. “My lighter. Quickly, pet.”
I snatched it from his dresser and he went to work, holding it under the candle's length to melt the wax. He tore a hole in the bag of blood with his teeth.
“What's happened?” I asked, but no answer was necessary. Only one thing caused a revenant this type of trauma. I didn't wait for him to ask; I tore the silk into strips and soaked them in the cool blood.
Harry held a pale hand out. It trembled. “Grapple plant?”
I handed him the leaves obediently, one at a time, my own hands shaking as much as his.
“Now, love, while Declan holds him down, I need you to part your brother's hands from his face.”
Wesley's wail had settled into a constant, repetitive whimper, like an injured animal crawling into a culvert to die. His forearms hardened as he resisted my touch. If he didn't let go, I'd never be able to pry them apart; I'm no match for revenant strength.
“Wesley, let me take your hands,” I said gently. His little noises flooded my eyes with unwanted tears. I blinked them away. “Let us help you, Wes. Come on.”
He moaned a negative, tried to roll away from us onto his side, hitching and swallowing painfully.
“You'll have to do it, Harry,” I said, but Harry shook his head.
“Only another immortal may apply the remedy. Manage him,” he said sternly, coating the hairy white undersides of the grapple plant leaves with melted wax. “Do what you must.”
I set my teeth together and reached into my back pocket for Chapel's folder knife. I didn't think about it, because I knew what Harry meant; with a decisive jab I opened the flesh at my wrist and thrust it against the iron grip of Wesley's knuckles.
His swiftness shocked me into a squeal; Wesley's vice-grip hands clamped down on my arm and his suck was tremendous as he sank his fangs into my arm like I was a life raft in the rapids to Hell. The pain was astonishing; another cry leaked from my throat. Batten made an unhappy noise beside me. Declan held Wesley down more firmly.
Wes's parted hands had revealed the runny crater of his ruined face, spotted with hardened black crusts, and there was nothing left of him, nothing left but a penny-red gelatinous wasteland surrounding split-crackling black lips and the white shock of fully extended fangs. Exposed veins stood out across the meat of his face in sharp relief, laid like throbbing strings wrapping a side of beef.
I slammed my head to one side and it found reassurance against Declan's shoulder. I buried my face there so I wouldn't have to watch as Wes fed, staying still as his mouth worked greedily at my shuddering wrist.
“Harry, do it,” I ground out. “Hurry the hell up!”
Harry said softly, “Brace yourselves,” and laid the first blood-soaked strip of silk across Wesley's forehead.
The fangs in my wrist dug deeper, shoved in so far I thought they might come out the other side. I shouted through my pain. A low growl started purling up from deep in the back of Wesley's throat.
“Easy, young one,” Declan soothed, repeating it in a low, comforting tone.
“Wesley, I know you hurt, but could you let up?” I grunted, panting. “Wes, please!”
Wesley's grip loosened and his hand started rattling against mine. Soft granules of ash that had once been skin dusted his fingers. They slid across my knuckles and I pinched back a horror-struck sob. Harry laid strips of waxed leaf in quick succession atop the bloody silk on Wesley's injuries, drawing more barely-recognizable sounds from my brother's throat. The sucking pull at my wrist lightened enough for my face to unclench and I breathed in deep, finally letting the tears fall.
“He gonna be all right?”
I jerked my head around. Batten stood at the threshold of the room, as far as he could get from us and still watch, his face unreadable. I'd forgotten he was even there. I shook my head helplessly.
“Simply put, Agent Batten, no.” Harry's voice was flat. “Wesley will never be the same.”
C
HAPTER
19
HARRY CUT ANOTHER BROWNIE
and slid the plate across the table at me. “You should not hold hope to the contrary. Wesley is going to lose the left eye.”
I grimaced and pushed the plate away with my gloved hand. Harry frowned, put two pale fingers on the plate, and pushed it adamantly back in front of me. I let him win, but made no move to dig a fork in it; at this moment, with my brother looking worse than Two Face downstairs, I couldn't possibly eat without it coming back up. I stared dazedly at the brownie, visually dissecting its ingredients, like I had seen the makings of my brother's face. Muscle and fat and vein and tendon and bone. Skin makes us beautiful. Without it, we are walking horrors.
The cup of espresso macchiato Harry had insisted on brewing was cooling in front of me, similarly untouched. A matching cup was in front of Declan, and a beer Batten hadn't bothered to open sat near my elbow. Harry continued to pile edibles before us, fussing around the kitchen. Condensation from Batten's beer bottle puddled on the aqua blue Formica and crept toward the chrome seam of the table leaf.
“Won't the eye regenerate?” Batten finally asked, toying with his cell phone, waiting for Chapel's call back.
Harry huffed bitterly. “You'll forgive us, Agent Batten, if revenant powers only extend so far. Flesh, yes. Eyes? I think not.”
“I've seen revenants heal a helluva lot of damage,” Batten offered. I heard him use the R-word and was grateful for it.
Harry's hand through the air brushed this away. “You do realize, of course, that this disfigurement was meant for me, as this so-called
delivery man asked for me by name. It was a personal attack, and I mean to discover from whence it came.”
“Is it because the eye is a complex body part?” Batten persisted. “Is that why it won't—”
“Stop!” Harry barked, then softer, “please, Mark, I can bear no more.”
Harry had never used Batten's first name before. It shut Batten's mouth with a snap.
“The boy took, I estimate, half a liter of holy water full in the face,” Harry said. “He is fortunate his mouth was closed when the bulk hit him or his voice might have gone.”
“Did you catch him?” Declan asked Batten. When he didn't answer, Declan prodded, “Agent Batten?”
“It's not a crime to throw holy water on a revenant,” he said. Though his face was matter-of-fact, I could hear a new kind of regret in his voice; for once in the hunter's life, I thought he saw the unfairness of the law.
“Did you at least see the guy? Could you ID him?” Declan asked.
“It doesn't matter. Everyone knows we can't do sweet fuck all about this,” I challenged. “It's not against the law to melt a revenant's face. Heck, if I was in a bad mood, I could light Harry on fire and dance around the ashes. Law couldn't touch me.”
“Dumpling,” Harry winced. “That you could even envision such a thing wounds me grievously,
grievously
.”
My shoulders went slack. “I'm sorry, Harry, you know I'd never hurt you. I'm making a point. It's just that Wes looks so pitiful. Is there nothing we can do?”
Batten turned his phone around to show Declan the digital picture he'd snapped; a fairly good shot of the blond Prior in the act of throwing his leg into the driver's side of a van with a Shield logo, his face in profile. Harry came around my shoulder to look and I got a whiff of his faint 4711 cologne as he bent closer to me. He made a concerned noise low in his throat.
“Harry?” I asked.
Harry surprised me. “Let your agents handle this.”
“What?” I said.
Batten's brows shot up.
“Agent Batten will act within the confines of the law,” Harry retreated to the sink. “Did you run facial recognition software on it yet, lad?”
“Sent it in.”
“And?” Harry prompted.
“Got a hit right away,” Batten nodded.
“Of course you did. You will have discovered that his name is Kyle Roland and he acts in the name of the Grand Prior, George Ansell, and perhaps by extension, John Spicer.”
Batten agreed. “I'll handle it.”
“You'll do nothing,” I said sourly.
“No,
you'll
do nothing,” Batten said, raising his voice, “and that's an order.”
His navy searchlight gaze nailed me in place across the table. I opened my mouth to object when Harry mused aloud, “ ’Tis rather a drastic distraction, this. What Mr. Spicer is hiding must be quite serious, indeed.”
Batten thought about this. “Spicer isn't really after you?”
“He'd like you to think that he is, certainly, but half a liter of holy water is meant to maim, not kill. Mr. Roland could have just as easily had a stake in his hand as a bottle. This is foul misdirection, and I would not be a bit surprised to find John Spicer behind it. As I have said, he uses evil to fight evil. He wants your attention here, on Wesley, or rather on myself, as I was the target. Which begs the question: where
should
you be looking? Not here, no.” Harry leaned his hip against the counter and examined his manicured fingernails. “I forbid you to shift your focus to our Wesley. I shall care for him myself. Is that understood?”
Batten finally opened his beer; the twist expelled a hiss that sounded too loud in the quiet kitchen. “I'm not the one you'll have to convince.”
“Oh, she will mind me on this matter,” Harry said sternly, glaring down the length of his patrician nose at my brownie meaningfully. “Won't you, ducky?”