Red Queen (49 page)

“I was joking.”

“Perhaps.”

She nodded. “I'm sorry.”

He shook his head. “It is I who am sorry. Herme explained what has happened to you. I know you can't help yourself.”

“Herme,” she repeated, although she didn't look in the direction of her son. Not even when he spoke up.

“No, Mother,” Herme called.

Syn pressed the blade closer. A line of red appeared on Kendor's throat. He didn't back up, he refused to even move his head.

“We cannot both live,” she told him. “Not in this world or the other. You know that.”

He nodded faintly. “It's all right, Syn.”

Strange, how she smiled right then, I actually glimpsed joy in her face. “You always used to say that,” she said.

“I meant it.”

“Kendor,” she said softly, and suddenly lowered the knife, and for a moment it seemed she would let him go. But then she yanked the blade upward, into his heart, a single quick thrust, before pulling it free. Without crying out, without any sound, Kendor fell to the floor.

Syn turned on us, Kendor's blood dripping from her knife. Her purpose was obvious. All her enemies would die tonight.
But whether she considered Lara and me to be among them wasn't clear.

Herme took the gun from my hand and pointed it at Syn. “You've done enough,” he said.

She was unmoved. “You should have stayed in the shadows, Herme.”

“I can't let you hurt these people,” he said.

Syn flicked her empty hand and the gun flew from her son's grasp. “You possess no weapon that can harm me. Kendor knew that, and so does your accursed Council.”

Herme stepped in front of James and me.

“You'll have to kill me first,” he said.

“You think I can't, dear son?”

“No.”

“Then you misunderstand me. I will kill you. It won't be so hard. Because years ago you forced me to kill you and bury you in my mind.”

Herme nodded in resignation. “Do what you have to do.”

“Herme, move aside,” James said with sudden authority. Taking my hand, still holding our daughter in his other arm, he stepped forward. It was confusing but I felt like I was seeing him for the first time. His face shone with the light of a confidence I had never seen before. Looking at Syn, he added, “Leave.”

Syn acted bored as she used her pants to wipe Kendor's blood off her knife. “I'm afraid I've lost interest in you.”

“What are you doing?” I whispered to him.

James made sure my hand was touching Lara's as well as his. “She can't hurt us,” he said. “Not if the three of us are together.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because of the light and the music. It was there when we first made love, and when Lara was born and I first held her. It comes from a place greater than her silly red sphere.” He added, “That's why I had to come to witch world tonight. To remind you of that fact.”

“But how do you know?” I insisted. It seemed a reasonable question. But an answer, or at least a partial answer, came to me before he said another word. The love I had felt when I had stared into Lara's eyes returned. It washed over my chest and seemed to heal the very thing Syn had placed inside my heart within the red sphere. Pain might lead to pleasure but Syn had lied when she said it could ever bring joy. Only love could do that and only love could heal the grief she had exposed me to.

Suddenly, staring at Lara and James, I felt encased in armor. A shield of light and compassion and empathy. All the good things that made it possible for people to be good—if they tried. I saw then I had made a conscious decision to enjoy the pleasure. Now I had to reject that choice and embrace my family instead.

I did it. I just did it. I chose Lara and James.

Meanwhile, James did his best to answer my question. He gestured to Syn. “Try using your black magic on us,” he said.

“If you wish,” Syn replied, raising the knife and pointing the tip of the blade at James. “Pain,” she said softly, and I knew it was a curse and that in a second he might start writhing.

But all that happened was that Lara began to coo softly, and when Syn tried to take a step toward us, she cooed louder. The armor was not imaginary. We were protected. Syn shook her head, baffled.

“What the hell,” Syn whispered to herself.

“Leave,” James repeated.

Syn smiled and poked the tip of her finger with her knife, causing a trickle of blood to flow into her palm. “So your kid can neutralize my abilities. Impressive. But I'm afraid I don't need them to make you suffer.” She shook the knife in James's direction. “Do you know what it feels like to be skinned alive?”

My newfound faith began to falter.

James didn't have an answer to her question.

Syn stepped over Kendor's body and strode toward us.

Whip grabbed the hem of her pants and spoke in a voice that dripped venom. “It's my turn, Mommy, let me sting them. Please?”

Syn reached down and patted her son's head. “All right. Do them all, even the baby. She's more trouble than she's—”

Syn was not given a chance to finish. Whip's stinger swung up and pierced her chest. The poison went into her heart. Her eyes froze open in shock, then she keeled over and lay beside Kendor.

I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't even begin to understand what had happened.

“Why?” I gasped. Why did her son kill her?

I looked to James for an explanation.

“Whip went through the death experience with me,” he said.

“Huh?” I mumbled.

“This Whip has our Whip's memories.”

I shook my head, too dazed to comprehend.

“You know how it works,” James said. “At first you can only carry the memories of the world in which you were connected. So this Whip you see is really our Whip.”

“And you killed him in the real world?” I asked.

“I killed both of us. I had to.”

I shoved James in the chest. “How could you let a child risk his life like that?” I cried.

James smiled. Or was it Jimmy? “Whip had a fatal illness in combination with an inactive healing gene. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Of course I let him join me.”

I couldn't take any more in. It was all happening too fast. But I certainly couldn't celebrate, not with Kendor lying on the floor. Stepping to his body, I knelt near his head and stroked his beautiful dark blond hair. He lay on his stomach, his face turned my way, his eyes closed. After such a long life, it was impossible to believe he could be dead. But the pool of blood around his heart said otherwise.

Herme knelt across from me, beside his mother. He put a
hand to her head, and we stared at each other through a film of tears.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

“There's no need,” he said.

“I shot your father. I lost control. I—”

“My mother shot my father. You were just the vehicle. Trust me, you did nothing wrong.”

“But if I hadn't weakened, Kendor would still be alive.”

Herme stared at his dead father. “Even though he came here to kill her, I don't think he could have lived with himself if he had succeeded. In a strange way, you did him a favor.”

“You've lost both your parents. It's not fair.”

Herme sighed. “It happened. It doesn't matter whether it's fair or not.”

Whip came over and hugged me, trying to comfort me. With his hands—not his tail, thank God—he brushed away my tears. “Jessie,” he said, and I realized he could speak because he had his twin's voice. “I love you.”

“Oh, Whip,” I said, embracing him. I stroked his back but was careful not to let my hand stray too low. His heart might have been pure but his stinger still gave me the willies. Squeezing him hard, I added, “I love you, too.”

Love,
I thought. The word felt so fitting, perhaps because love had been the answer all along. The one thing that could stop Syn.

I looked up at James. “The transformation—how did you do it?” I asked. “
When
did you do it?”

“You forget Herme's a drug salesman in real life,” James said. “He gave me and Whip what we needed, right after you fell asleep in my arms in the hotel room.”

“But you fell asleep with me,” I said.

“I pretended to,” James said. “I was really waiting for Herme to return from his walk with Alex.”

“We had planned it all out earlier in the evening,” Herme said. “After you two interrogated poor Al, but before you guys went to dinner. Whip was with us. It really was his decision to go through the death experience.”

“You did all this without the Council's approval?” I asked.

“Yes,” Herme said. “I only spoke to the Council after I met with my father for the first time in centuries. That was the next day, so to speak, in witch world. Hatsu brought me to see him. Hatsu was the one witch who knew my true identity.”

I stared down at Kendor's body. “Why did you hide from your father for so long?” I asked.

“Next to Cleo, he was the most high-profile member of the Council. The Lapras had spies everywhere.” Herme paused. “I couldn't risk seeing him.”

And now he wouldn't get to see him at all, I thought. Herme's words had been kind but I still blamed myself for Kendor's death.

I spoke. “You joined in the fusion with your father. You were prepared to kill Syn. You must have gone to the Council at some point.”

“My father and I both went to the Council tonight, in witch world, an hour before you met with them. By then we had decided we had to risk everything in order to save you and your daughter.” Herme added quietly, “And, of course, Whip and James.”

“And the Council agreed?” I asked.

“Yes,” Herme said.

“Thank you,” I said.

Herme nodded. There was nothing left to say.

Kissing Kendor on the head, I stood and hugged Lara and James together. My daughter kicked her legs with delight, and once more the room seemed to fill with light.

“So it's over?” I said to James.

My boyfriend kissed my lips. “It's over,” he promised.

But I didn't fully understand what he meant. Not when we went back to the hotel and gave Lara a bath and a bottle and put her to bed. Not even when we lay beneath the sheets and held each other so long and so tight I believed the music and the light would come to us again.

No, it was only when I awoke in the morning, back in the real world, that I understood what Jimmy had sacrificed
to protect me and Lara. Because as I yawned and reached over to kiss him, I felt how cold his skin was, and noticed that he wasn't breathing.

He hadn't survived the death experience after all.

The needle was still in the vein in his arm.

He had gone to sleep in this world so he could be with us in witch world. When we needed him the most.

My Jimmy.

TWO DAYS AFTER WE RETURNED
home from Las Vegas, Jimmy was buried in Apple Valley. It was a Thursday as the real world counted time. Of course in witch world he was still alive, but for the two hundred mourners who came to his service, that didn't mean a thing. Especially for his sole remaining parent, his father, who I believe secretly blamed me for his son's death.

Kari was listed as missing, although the police had been to my house numerous times to question me about her disappearance. So far I had done an excellent job of hiding Huck from them, and since Huck was supposed to be dead, no one was pressuring me about the boy.

Certainly no one was interested in Whip. I found it curious that my new role as the mother of two kids had raised no alerts, while the loss of two of my classmates had everyone
talking. Then again, no one but my mother and father, and a few friends, knew I had the children. It was not as if I allowed Whip to play in the neighborhood or at the park, except late at night.

In regards to Jimmy . . . the prevailing theory was that he had gone back to Kari, and I had spotted them in bed together without their knowledge. Then, later, when the three of us were hanging out, I had enticed them to try a hit of some morphine I was secretly addicted to and they had fallen for the ruse because I was after all Jessie Ralle, a sweet girl with no police record, an A-minus average in high school, and someone who was known to most people in Apple Valley as the pretty but quiet girl who worked at the local library.

Go figure.

The police assured me that I wasn't a suspect, while privately they kept telling Jimmy's father and Kari's parents that they were going to break me if it was the last thing they did in this life.

To hell with them, I thought. I was going to be leaving soon to live with my father in Malibu. The plan was for him to hire help to look after the kids so I could go to UCLA full-time. Not that I needed financial assistance. It seemed that Russ had left me ten million euros in a Swiss bank account. My father told me Russ used to love to play twenty-one at the European casinos whenever he went on vacation.