Authors: Kim Harrison

Tags: #Hallows#10

A Perfect Blood (53 page)

What if I kill her?

Ceri went to Winona, tears in her eyes as she gave her a hug. “I’m going to miss you,” she said as she pulled back, disentangling Ray’s grip from her horn. “After you’re normal, you’re going to leave!”

“I’ll come back for visits,” she assured her, tears welling and spilling over and making dark tracks on her cheeks. “Ceri, you’ve been so kind to me. I’m going to miss the girls. Trent, thank you!”

Al sat back against the table and checked his watch again. His eyes met mine, and he made a “get on with it” gesture.

“I need some space,” I said, and Ceri wiped her eyes. Giving Winona a last hug, she whispered something in her ear, and backed off, coming to stand beside Al, looking beautiful next to him, Ray on the hip farthest from him.

“Isn’t this marvelously exciting!” Al said, and Ceri gave him a dry look.

I was starting to shake, and I forced my jaw to unclench. Smiling sickly, I put my hand on Winona’s shoulder and closed my eyes. I didn’t need to shut them to work the curse, but I didn’t want to see her pain if I did it wrong.

I renewed my grip on the ever-after, letting it pour into me. I could feel it pushing on Winona, and I whispered, “Touch the line. Let it flow through us both.”

She took a shaky breath, and then the blockage eased and the energies between us balanced. “Don’t pull back,” I said, and when I felt her nod, I yanked more of the line into me.

She gasped at the increased flow, and when I felt her soul tremble, I touched the demon collective
. “Uno homo nobis restituted rem,”
I said, praying that I hadn’t forgotten anything and that Winona wouldn’t be paying the price for my stupidity. I’d picked out the trigger words myself, and though they didn’t need to make sense grammatically, I hoped they did—or I’d be the laughingstock of the ever-after.

Winona made a gasping gurgle, and my eyes flew open. A wash of expected ever-after covered her, a bright gold from my aura stained with demon smut. She began to crumple, and when I felt the magic start to backwash into me, I let go, whispering that I took the price for this before the imbalance could even rise.

“Al?” I said, backing up as I watched her convulse on the slate. “Al! I did it wrong!”

“Wait!” He grasped my shoulder and pulled me back when I went to help her. His eyes were fixed greedily on her. “Wait,” he echoed himself, softer. “You did it right.”

It didn’t look like that as she jerked and gagged, covered in my aura and a reflection of my smut crawling over her slumped form. Ceri had retreated to stand by Trent; they both looked worried. Ceri was holding her breath, and she let it out in a gasp when the ever-after shimmered a pure gold . . . and ran down from Winona, back into the ground like rain.

My heart thudded. She wasn’t moving. Al’s grip on my arm tightened, and he wouldn’t let go as the woman took a deep breath. Winona had fallen with her back to us, and she slowly sat up. My shoulders slumped in relief and I exhaled. I couldn’t see her face, but it had worked.

Her back to us, she looked at her arms, running her normal hands down her faultless skin. They were smooth, not covered in fur. Her bare feet poking out from under her skirt were white, with ten toes. Tugging her sweater straight, she turned to us, elated, and my mouth dropped open. “How do I look?” she said, then put a hand to her throat, recognizing that her voice was higher. “Did it work?”

Sort of?
Swallowing, I looked at Ceri, then Al. His hand fell from me, and he shrugged.

Lightly curling brown hair framed her normal-looking face. Her chin might have been a shade more pointy than I remembered, but it was still normal. She had high cheekbones, a beautiful complexion, and a turned-up nose. Though subtly different from the young woman I’d first seen in the cage under the observatory, she looked human. Except that her eyes behind her long eyelashes were still slitted like a goat’s.

“Well?” she said, feeling her face and thinking that it had been a success.

“Um, it’s close,” I said, and then, at a loss, I scrambled for my shoulder bag, digging until I handed her the small compact mirror.

Winona scrambled to her feet, wobbling as she came closer to the light, her attention on the mirror. Her eyes widened as she saw herself, and she put a hand to her face, feeling the new outline of her jaw. Al grunted when she stuck her tongue out, and Winona smiled when she saw it was normal.

“Close enough,” she said as she felt behind herself. “Thank God that tail is gone.”

“Are you sure?” Al purred. “Should we check?”

“Stop it,” Ceri muttered, her jaw clenched in the dim light.

Close enough?
“What about your eyes!” I exclaimed. “I don’t understand. They should have changed. Why didn’t they change?”

She looked at me and burst into tears.

“Oh, Winona,” I said, reaching out for her and starting to cry myself. “I’m so sorry. I’ll try again. I’m sure I can fix them.”

“No,” she sobbed, stepping back. “It’s okay. I’m crying because I’m happy. I don’t care about my eyes.” She looked at Al fearfully, then back to me, starting to cry even harder. “Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. I never thought I’d have feet again. I don’t care what my eyes look like!”

I patted her back, glad she was happy with the results and horribly relieved that I did the curse right—mostly—but I was still puzzled about the eyes. “Are you sure?” I asked again, and she pulled back, taking the linen handkerchief that Ceri handed her and wiping her nose.

“Absolutely,” she said and sniffed, her face glistening in the dim light from the lantern. “I kind of like them.”

“I thought you might,” Al grumped, checking his watch again as he sat down at one of the chairs before the table. “You women are all demons in disguise.”

Ceri gave Al a long look, up and down, reading the tells a thousand years of servitude had given her. “He didn’t know how to do it, either, did he?” she said, and Al frowned.

“No.” I felt good, and I began to smile, feeling the fear of the last month finally start to dissolve. I’d been hiding from myself for a long time, thinking that by ignoring the parts I didn’t like and couldn’t change, I could deny them. Even when I’d admitted they were there, I hadn’t accepted them. Only now, when I understood who I was and took responsibility for my mistakes, did it all feel balanced, and as I looked at the faces around me, I felt a kinship that I’d never felt before—even if I didn’t trust Al.

I had stopped a human hate group from gaining demon magic and the potential threat that had been. I’d found a way to work with the I.S. and the FIB both, though they were still yammering about that stupid list. I had saved Winona. With Trent’s help, I’d even found the courage to tell Al I was alive and that I would fix the damage I’d made in the ever-after. Hell, I’d even discovered a new secret force and gotten on their watch list. Ivy and Jenks were slipping from me, but we had right now and I was going to hold on to that as long as I could. But perhaps what made me smile was the simple pleasure of having had pie with Trent—it felt good knowing that there would always be someone ready to do risky things with me, right down to taking on HAPA or the-men-who-don’t-belong.

There was a slight tug on my jeans, and I looked down to see a fairy holding up a small bit of cloth. I carefully bent to take it, smiling at her as she backed up and vanished into the ferns.

Al’s eyes were on mine, a pleased smile on his face, not knowing that I was happy for a lifetime of no’s turning into yes. He took in my mood, and then his expression shifted as he turned to Trent, still sitting at that bench with Lucy.

Lucy, though, wasn’t with him, and I tensed as I saw the little girl wobbling her first steps toward her mother. Trent was on his knees behind her, ready to catch her if she should fall. His face was a curious mix of delight and pride as he stretched his hands out. Fatherhood was sitting well on him.

“Ah, little girls,” Al said as he tucked his watch away and bent to see her better. “All the best things wrapped up in sweet innocence and a will of iron. Escaping her father to play with the demon.”

“You!” Ceri said, and then her face became alarmed when Lucy shrieked in delight, her pace bobbling as her path became clearer. She was headed for Al, not Ceri.

Trent’s hands spread wide in dismay as he hovered behind her, not wanting to ruin her first steps, but not wanting her to touch Al, either.

“Me,” Al said. “The big bad demon.”

“Begone, demon,” Ceri said, her expression holding fear as well as delight at Lucy’s success. “Your work here is done.”

Al smiled, the dim light making shadows where there should be none as he leaned toward Lucy while she squealed in delight and tipped forward. Trent lunged, but it was too late, and Al calmly reached forward and caught her as if he’d been doing it all his life.

“Done? No,” Al said as Trent snatched her back, but the damage had been wrought, and the girls were clearly not afraid of him. “I do believe that it is just the beginning.”

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my agent, Richard Curtis, and my editor, Diana Gill, without whom the Hollows would be but a small dream.

About the Author

New York Times
bestselling author Kim Harrison was born and raised in Michigan, and has recently returned there to escape the South Carolina heat. Her bestselling Hollows novels include
Dead Witch Walking; The Good, the Bad, and the Undead; Every Which Way But Dead; A Fistful of Charms; For a Few Demons More; The Outlaw Demon Wails; White Witch, Black Curse; Black Magic Sanction
; and
Pale Demon
, plus the graphic novel
Blood Work
. She also writes the bestselling Madison Avery series for young adults, including
Once Dead, Twice Shy and Early to Death, Early to Rise
.

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Also by Kim Harrison

Books of the Hollows

Pale Demon

Black Magic Sanction

White Witch, Black Curse

The Outlaw Demon Wails

For a Few Demons More

A Fistful of Charms

Every Which Way But Dead

The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Dead Witch Walking

And Don’t Miss

The Hollows Insider

Unbound

Something Deadly This Way Comes

Early to Death, Early to Rise

Once Dead, Twice Shy

Holidays Are Hell

Dates from Hell

Credits

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY LARRY ROSTANT

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A PERFECT BLOOD.
Copyright © 2012 by Kim Harrison. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-195789-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-06-212818-8 (international edition)

Epub Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 9780062101020

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