Jay flinched. Jeremy had said nearly the same thing, but all
Jay had felt was his concern for Caryn. Suddenly Jay could feel the creeping fog of
the illness, and for the first time, a more personal terror seeped in.
What if
I’m
sick?
Jay wondered.
Would I notice?
He was struggling against exhaustion and panic. He felt like he had been kicked in
the gut and then punched a few times. Was that just fear, or some microscopic malady?
He forced himself to Caryn’s side and took her hand. Humans got sick all the time,
and they were still brave enough to work in hospitals, or even retail locations or
schools where disease was easily passed on. Jay refused to be too much of a coward
to approach his own cousin.
“Control yourself, witch,” Rikai hissed as Jay paused again, pushing back the black
spots that tried to claim his vision. “You’re not ill. Control your breath, and you
will force your body to calm. You need to be calm.”
Jay had lost track of Rikai in the face of this pestilence. Jeremy asked sharply,
“Who is this?”
“Never mind me. Try to help your cousin,” Rikai prompted Jay. For a moment, he thought
she was being compassionate, but then he realized that she was gazing at Caryn like
a scientist dissecting a rat.
Jay turned all his focus on his cousin and the snarled energies within her. It had
been easy to encourage Jeremy’s human immune system to respond to an invading illness,
but Caryn’s body had never needed to fight off disease. It didn’t know how. He did
what he could for her, but then he needed to pull his magic away or risk doing more
harm than good. He was struggling
to put her into a deep, healing sleep, when someone in the hall shouted. Jay didn’t
catch the words, but he felt the lash of fresh anxiety like a slap.
Jeremy turned gray. Shot to his feet. Froze. Stared at Caryn. Turned toward the door.
Turned back and grabbed Jay’s arm. “Come,” he ordered, dragging Jay after him.
The human’s emotions had gone beyond anything Jay could comprehend. They were grayed-out
in panic, and the only explanation Jay had was the echoes of “Code blue!” that the
nurses in the hall were still calling.
“What does that—”
Jay didn’t get the question out before he and Jeremy were in another room, this one
crowded with confused and overwhelmed medical staff. The volunteer with the gardenia
perfume was sitting in the corner, her knees up at her chest, her mind echoing with
a single, looping thought:
This doesn’t happen here
.
“Get out of the
way
!” Jeremy shouted, pushing volunteers aside and trying to decide if anyone else in
the room had ever been trained for—
This
. Jay finally saw the shapeshifter on the bed. He hadn’t realized she was there before,
because she was dead.
Jeremy was trying to give CPR, thinking,
We’re not equipped for this kind of crisis here
. And,
Jay, if your magic can help, now is the time
.
Jay couldn’t help with
dead
. Could anyone help with dead?
Jeremy seemed to think Jay could.
“I can’t.”
He backed out of the room, running into Rikai, who had followed like a shadow once
again. As his hand brushed hers, her pain slipped past his already strained shields.
Not just now-pain. Memories. Stretching, falling, wrenching, burning, stabbing, slicing … and
she had been so innocent then, so young.
And now her body was riddled with enough scar tissue that it was remarkable she could
walk. Her power was still holding some of the worst injuries back, but it was taking
all her energy to do so.
She yanked her hand and power away from his with a glare, as he gasped, “I’m sorry.
How—”
He didn’t finish asking the question, because the answer came to him: Inquisition.
Most of Jay’s ancestors had managed to flee the church’s deadly fire, but this woman
had been caught in it. She had still been human. Worse, she had once been absolutely
faithful to the church. She was one of the rare few the inquisitors had never broken.
She had been certain that lying to stop the pain would damn her forever, and so she
had never confessed, never named the names they’d demanded in order to make the pain
stop.
Jay gagged, trying to shove her memories away, trying to push aside the panic the
nurses and volunteers and people who worked here were feeling because normally witches
dealt with the scary cases and everything else was okay. Jay ran from the poor little
nurse who was doing her best to take over for Jeremy, though she was thinking,
This is why I left New York?
Back down the hallway.
Block out the fear, the fever dreams, the shuddering weakness, the—
Rikai grabbed his hands, and pain shot through him like lightning—but this time it
was intentionally given, not accidentally shared. It cut through the emotions he couldn’t
seem to block out, and momentarily cleared his mind.
“You. Need. To. Focus,” she snapped. “You—”
A faint buzz interrupted her. Letting go of one of his hands, Rikai reached into her
pocket and retrieved a slim flip phone, which she opened with clumsy, stiff fingers.
“Yes?”
Her expression never changed as she listened for a few moments, but she dropped Jay’s
other hand as she said, “Pick me up from SingleEarth Haven Number Two.”
She closed the phone, looked at Jay, and said, “My power comes in part from the same
elemental who gives us all our magic, but beyond Leona, I have made deals with entities
darker than your deepest fears. If Xeke dies, and you are responsible, then know I
will see you devoured by creatures you cannot begin to comprehend.”
“Xeke’s sick?” Jay asked. How could a
vampire
get sick? Unless he was like Brina. Jay hadn’t even thought of her since arriving.
Was she sick, too? He should check on her.
Rikai shook her head. “He is as he has been, but he feeds and feeds and cannot staunch
the bloodlust. He nearly killed his lover this evening when he woke.”
“Please,” Jay whispered. “If you have any idea what is happening—if you can
help
—you need to tell me.”
“I should think it would be perfectly obvious,” Rikai replied infuriatingly.
“Well, it’s not!” The only thing that was obvious was that she was standing in the
middle of a sick ward that could too easily turn into a morgue, and she didn’t seem
to care.
“Fine. The elemental you helped, the one you thought offered to attack Midnight, has
chosen to start a little higher on the chain of command than the slave traders or
the trainers,” Rikai answered. “The Shantel elemental isn’t going after vampires.
She’s going after
Leona
.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rikai laughed, but the sharp, barking sound barely seemed to indicate amusement. “You
probably don’t want to understand, little witch. Because if
I
understand right, you caused this.” She made a sweeping gesture encompassing all
the chaos around them. “You’ll live through it, as long as you stay out of the way.
The Shantel elemental has marked you, and her power will protect you. But when elementals
war, civilizations
burn
.”
I didn’t want this
, Jay thought desperately as Rikai turned on her heel and headed toward the door.
Please. I didn’t want any of this
.
A
WAILING BABY
. People coughing. Red blood left behind on a white handkerchief.
I will get us out of here. I swear to you, I will get us out of here
.
You’re dead, Daryl. You can’t help me now
.
Brina woke with a violent shudder, hoping to discover that the entire previous day
had been nothing but a surreal nightmare.
No such blessing.
She opened her eyes to find herself back in her tiny, sterile room. The smell of antiseptic
stung her nose, and the lingering drugs had left her mouth dry and her head foggy.
Wisps of dreams and memories kept seeping into the waking world, confusing her further.
Angelica, please don’t cry
.
Brina couldn’t get the memory of that baby’s wail out of her head. At the end, of
course, it hadn’t been a wail but rather a wheeze, as little Angelica’s skin had darkened
and—
No! Don’t think of that
.
Brina stared at the door, summoning the courage to stand and try to open it. She didn’t
want to know if it was locked and guarded.
Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly, and the lambs play
.
They put chains on the doors. Painted red. Guards outside.
We shall be safe, dilly, dilly, out of harm’s way
.
She was going mad.
Last time, Daryl had saved them. He had told her that he’d bribed the guards to leave
their posts, but Brina suspected he had killed them. She hadn’t ever asked him, and
certainly hadn’t blamed him. It was the only way they could have gotten out as anything
other than corpses. The plague had already taken Mother, Father, the maid, and finally
little baby Angelica, who had died in Brina’s arms. Daryl had done what he’d needed
to do. He always had.
Brina stood and started toward the door, stumbling when her head spun from the abrupt
movement. She touched the cold doorknob, twisted it, and yanked so hard that she nearly
fell when it opened. She hadn’t expected it to.
Once it had, she wasn’t sure what to do. People were shouting, coughing, and crying
all around her.
She took a step forward and spied a familiar figure down the hall, but stopped when
she realized he had tears on his pale face. Her witch. What was his name?
He turned and saw her. Relief and shock battled on his face as he hurried to her side,
reaching out to her. She dove into his arms, remembering how comforting they had been
last time he had held her. This time, though, his breath was fast and his heart was
pounding.
“B-Brina,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I never meant to have you wake up alone, but I
didn’t ever imagine this.…” He trailed off, and then said, “You shouldn’t be exposed
to this.”
“Exposed?” Brina echoed, aware that her voice was shrill as she lifted her head.
Jay touched her face, lifting her chin so she was looking directly at him. “You’re
hungry,” he said. “I’ll get you something to eat, and then we’ll figure out what—”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child!”
Brina shouted, loud enough that she startled even herself as she shoved against his
chest. He was as bad as Kaleo. “I am
not
an infant. I want to know what is going on here, and why, and I want to know what
you did to me, and I want to know when you’re going to put things back the way they
were.”
There
. She put her hands on her hips and stared down at him. A true lady knew how to look
down at
anyone
, even a man a foot taller.
He stared at her with no little surprise. She prepared herself for him to try to dismiss
her questions again, as if coddling her could make her ignore everything going on
around them, but he didn’t. He spoke carefully, obviously struggling to get the words
out past his own emotions.
“I don’t fully understand what power made you human,”
the witch said, “and I don’t know how to undo it. Something is happening right now
that is causing power and magic to change. A lot of people are in trouble.”
“That is a great many unknowns,” she responded. “
What
is happening right now?”
The witch flinched, his gaze averting. Even Brina could recognize guilt when she saw
it so blatantly displayed. He blamed himself for what was going on. Was he right?
“Shapeshifters and witches are sick,” Brina said, trying to start the story for him.
“Did you do a spell?”
“No!” he shouted, the protest echoing through the hall. “No,” he repeated. “I just
wanted to help someone. I—” His voice quieted, until in a wavering whisper he asked,
“What do you know about your, um, housemaid? Who she used to be?”
Was he trying to distract her? No. He was too serious.
“She was a witch and a shapeshifter,” Brina answered. “I never saw any evidence of
special power, though she must have some. Only the magic-users can live so long.”
She frowned. “
She
caused this plague?”
“Yes—no, not directly, I guess, but—” He shook his head, and admitted, “I don’t understand
elementals.”
You gave me time. So I will give you time
. Brina had thought those words had been a product of the drugs, but now she understood
them. If Daryl had not taken command of Pet when he had, the once-
sakkri
would have died when Midnight had burned. Instead, Daryl had hidden her, intending
to present her to Brina as a surprise that night. As a result, she was one of the
only slaves who had survived the slaughter.
“Rikai said the Shantel elemental should be weak, but she was wrong, so wrong,” Jay
said, the words falling out of his mouth now like a boy at confession. “Whatever I
did trying to help the shapeshifter made the Shantel elemental able to attack Leona.
And that is making people sick. And I don’t know what to do.”
The last words were a pathetic whisper. A plea.
Brina’s first instinct was to step back. No one had ever looked at her like that,
desperately seeking an answer they both knew probably didn’t exist. Ever since childhood,
people had treated her as something that needed to be sheltered and indulged. Now
this witch looked as if he would like to drop the weight of the world on her shoulders,
if only it would help get some of the weight off his own.
“So.” She didn’t know what to do. Fine. She would do what she always did—pretend.
Stand straight. Look proud. Speak confidently. “We need to fix this.”
“It’s not as easy as just wanting it done,” he snapped. “The problem involves powers
way beyond either of us. Elementals, battling.”
Her arm flew of its own accord, responding to the shrill, panicked tone in his voice.
After the sharp
crack
made by her palm against his cheek, he stared at her with obvious shock.