Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology (16 page)

“Fancy.”

I smiled
faintly. “Normal, these days. We live in scary times.”

“Ain’t nobody
ever lived any other time.” Andy, not content with the electronic alarm, was
roaming around and testing doors and windows, engaging all locks. “You set this
magic watchdog when you left today?”

“I didn’t know
I was being
stalked
.”

Andy stopped
and looked at me, hands gone still on a windowsill. “They didn’t tell you.” I
shook my head. “Why not?”

“People all
that fond of resurrection witches, back in your day?”

That earned me
a full, crooked grin. “Not enough so you’d blush. Stay here, I’ll check the
other floor.”

I watched him
take the stairs, then went to the kitchen and put away the ritual pots I’d
washed. I fixed myself a sandwich. Spellcasting took a lot out of me, and
despite everything, I was feeling a small, significant drain of energy through
the bond with Andy. Needed to keep my strength up, through the magic of carbs
and protein.

I was just
swallowing the last bite when Andy walked into the kitchen. “Never got to see
your house last time,” Andy said. He sat down at the kitchen table and looked
around. “Big place. Warm. You live here all on your own? What about your
family?”

“My parents and
my sister live in New England. You going to tell me a woman can’t live on her
own?”

“I’d never
dare,” Andy said. “’Specially not one who holds the keys to life and death. Then
again, that’s pretty much any woman, so I’ll just keep my peace about it. Besides,
I don’t know your world all that much, ‘cept it’s about as full of villains as
the time I knew. Could be women tell men what’s for now, strange as that would
seem.”

“Andy—”

His blue eyes
stopped surveying the granite countertops and focused on me, and
wow,
that packed voltage. “I’m not sorry,”
he said. “Stupid for a man to fall in love once he’s dead, but I’ve done it,
and there it is. But at least you know I’ll do everything in my power to keep
you alive, Holly Anne.”

I couldn’t even
speak. What do you say to that? A dead man falls in love with you, and there’s
no chance for a future together. I knew that every minute, every
second
of this was limited. I wanted to
take him straight to bed, but I didn’t know—I didn’t know for certain how
that worked. Or even
if
it did. The
subject of the sexual performance of dead men had never been included in my
apprenticeship—probably deliberately. The potential for abuse of
resurrections was huge, and our limits were strict. It was part of why we
maintained such emotional distance.

Andy sensed my
internal struggle, and he brought out his gentlest smile. It did great things
to his face, put a devastating sparkle in his eyes.

I stood up,
barely able to feel my legs. “I’m—going to bed. Do you want—” My
throat closed up, and I had to clear it. Embarrassing. “Do you want me to make
up the spare bed?”

Andy kept
smiling. “No. I ain’t sleeping, am I?”

He had a point.
Bodyguards didn’t, and neither did the dead. I felt flushed and awkward and out
of control.

“Okay then,” I
said. “Good night.”

He nodded, and
watched me as I left the kitchen.

A hot shower
and a pair of silk pajamas later, I retreated to my soft, lonely bed and tried
to sleep. It was getting on toward the wee hours of the morning, but I didn’t
feel tired. I felt anxious, and achy, and relentlessly squirmy.

I could hear
Andy roaming around downstairs. I wondered what he was doing—looking over
my bookshelves? Examining my pictures? Getting intimate with me in ways that
didn’t involve climbing into bed with me?

Shut up,
I told myself, when my brain
started to run wild with images.
The man
is dead. He’s here to do a job, and then he’s gone. And that’s it.

Except it
wasn’t, and Andy had said he loved me, and I
knew
I loved him. No getting around that. Bringing him back a
second time—no, for him it was the
third
-- had been cruel, and unnecessary, and wrong, and if I’d known what Prieto
wanted him for I’d have said no even at the cost of my own life.

I didn’t want
Andy dying for me.

~

I’d drifted off
into an uneasy half-slumber when something woke me up. I felt a tingle inside,
and opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling. I knew that feeling, all too well. No
chance of sleeping now.

I slipped out
of bed, wrapped myself in a silk robe, and went downstairs.

Andy was
standing at the windows, looking out. He didn’t wait for me to ask. “I’m fine,”
he said.

“You’re not.” I’d
carried my black case in from the car, and now I flipped it open and reached
for the second vial of the stepped dose.

It felt light.

The bottle was
empty.

I stared at it
in stupefied horror for a few seconds, then dropped it back into the holder and
pulled the third. The fourth.

The bottles
were
all
empty. I began yanking the
rest out to check.
Empty, empty, empty!

Andy turned at
the sound of my labored breathing and the rattle of glass. He frowned. “What?”

“It’s not—someone
sabotaged my case.”
Breathe,
I told
myself.
Come on. Think.
The case had
been with me, and completely full, at the morgue. All the time? No. I’d set it
in the corner of the viewing room and we’d both gone with Detective Prieto to
look over files. The case had been left unattended. “The potions. They’re
gone.”

Andy took a
step toward me, then stopped. His blue eyes widened, just a little. “All of
it?”

“Everything.”

I abandoned the
case and raced into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator.

The four doses
I kept on hand for emergencies were gone. I found the bottles in the trash,
empty.

“Oh
Christ,
” I whispered. Andy’s hands
touched my shoulders, and I felt him behind me, solid and real.

“It’s all
right,” he said. “I don’t need it yet.”

“It’s
not
all right. It takes hours to brew,
and—” A terrible thought struck me. I opened the pantry where I kept all
of my supplies.

Gone.
I’d been cleaned out.

I felt a numb
horror go through me. “There’s nothing. I can’t even get the ingredients until
tomorrow morning at the earliest, then it takes all day to brew the base—”

“It’ll be all
right,” Andy repeated.

I turned on
him, suddenly furious. “It’s
not!
Don’t
you get it? I know you’re in pain already! It’s going to get worse, Andy, and
if I don’t let you go—”

His hands
closed around my face. “Pain, I can handle. I ain’t leaving you alone. They’ve
been here. They were in your house.”

“
Who?
”

“Somebody who
knows you,” he said. “Somebody who knows what you’re afraid of.”

I was afraid of
hurting him. Again.

He smoothed my
hair back, and kissed me. It was soft and cool and gentle, but I sensed how
much restraint it took for him to keep it that way.

“I can handle
this,” he said. “I
will
. You believe
me, Holly?”

I gulped and
nodded convulsively. “Okay.”

I didn’t, and
it wasn’t. But he wasn’t finished.

“Get dressed
and pack a bag,” he said. “We’re going.”

~

No matter how
tough you are, nobody takes pain well when it comes on slow and cold, with
nothing to cushion it.

I kept dialing
phone numbers, trying to get
somebody
on the phone who could help as we drove. Sam Twist wasn’t answering—not
his phone, his cell, or his secret emergency number. I tried Annika. No answer
there, either. I tried Detective Prieto, but it rang directly to his voicemail.

I thought about
calling 911, but what was I going to say?
I
have a dead man here who needs his medicine?

I had no idea
what to do. I could feel Andy’s pain, black and constant and growing, and I was
helpless to prevent it from getting worse.

“Holly?”

I took my eyes off
of the road for just a second. His
lights
shone silver, unreal in the dashboard lights.

“Why’d you
bring me back?”

Of all the
questions I’d expected, that had to be last on the list. I held his stare for a
long few seconds, then blinked and focused on the road. “Lottie,” I said. “They
were going to do it anyway, and they were going to let Lottie—I couldn’t
let that happen. I thought maybe it would be better for you if it was me,
that’s all.”

“That’s all.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a liar.
Pretty one, but a liar.”

And he was
right. I was lying not just to him, but to myself.

I loved him. I’d
grown to love him during that first resurrection, and I’d lost him, and it had
hurt me. Having him back was a painful barbed-wire ball of a miracle, because
it contained the seeds of its own destruction.

My hand left
the steering wheel and touched his, and his fingers closed warm and strong over
mine.

“Where we
going?” he asked.

There was only
one place, really. The other witches had been abducted, dragged out without
warning, which meant that their supplies would have remained intact.

I needed to
make him some potion.

Lottie’s house
was the closest.

~

Before we left
the house, I pulled a suitcase from under my bed, and took out a pair of pants,
a dark shirt, underwear, shoes, and socks.

His own
clothes, from the last time I’d brought him back. Somehow, I’d never been able
to get rid of them. I put them on the bed, and he gave me a long, measuring
look that told me he understood why I’d kept them. Why they’d been so close.

He didn’t say
anything. As soon as he changed into the clothes, we left.

“The cops,” I
said. “Are they following us?”

Andrew had shut
his eyes—fighting back pain, I could feel it—but he opened them as
I turned the car out of the driveway and scanned the street. “Don’t see ‘em,”
he said. “Don’t mean they ain’t around, though. Since we’re bait in the trap,
they’d like your killer to have room to breathe, seems to me.”

I hoped the
police would follow us, but I couldn’t wait to find out. Time was running out.

On the way, I
remembered to call in sick to work—not that keeping my day job was the
most important thing in my world, but it was normal life, and I desperately
wanted to believe that there would still be a normal life, after today.

The sun was on
the rise as we navigated morning rush hour, heading for Lottie’s neighborhood. She
had a place in an upscale area, one story but sprawling. It was the kind of
place that was deserted by day—working families out from seven to seven. The
only sign of life along the street was a lawn service truck in the distance,
and a couple of guys on riding lawn mowers.

Lottie’s
driveway was empty, so I turned in and parked in the back. Yellow police tape
fluttered here and there, but they’d finished their work in the yard. An
official-looking seal was on the back door, and a newly installed padlock.

Andy opened the
trunk of the car, took out a rusty tire iron, and popped the padlock with a
single wrench. He had to stop for a moment and brace himself, and I felt the
swirl of darkness between us as the inevitable tide rolled over him.

“Andy,” I said.
He shook his head.

“Let’s just get
it done,” he said. “This ain’t nothing yet.”

He was right. It
would get a lot worse. That didn’t mean it wasn’t bad, though, bad enough to
drive most men to their knees.

The death-tide
was pulling him back. Pulling him away from me.

I ripped open
the seal on the door and stepped into Lottie’s kitchen.

There were few
signs of violence in here—neatly ranked pots and pans, shelves of
supplies. I quickly rummaged through them, breathing easier with every single
thing I found. Yes, yes, yes....

I opened the
refrigerator door, and inside saw not just a few bottles, but a gallon jar of
swirling silver liquid.

A gallon jar.

Andy joined me,
alerted by my expression. “Why’d she make so much?” he asked. I shook my head. There
was absolutely no reason for Lottie to do a thing like that—the expense
was enormous. Unless she’d found an effective way to really store the stuff—no,
when I wrestled the gallon jar out of the refrigerator and onto the counter, I
could tell that it was at least a week old, probably two. Not bad, but not
fresh, either.

In another
week, it would be useless. It was a foolish waste. Why the hell did Lottie brew
it like this?