THE KEEPERS WERE DEAD. THE MAGIC ELITE OF Atlanta celebrated, right outside the fallen MSDU headquarters. Food appeared as if out of thin air, bonfires flared here and there, and a couple of Calydonian boars had been carved into chunks for a barbecue. Mages, the People, witches, and shapeshifters reveled in the simple glory of being alive. We all knew that the next morning the alliance would fracture and old rivalries would rear their heads, but for one evening, we celebrated and watched the cops and the MSDU from neighboring cities try to sort out the wreckage. The law enforcement agencies were none too happy with our impromptu cookout, but given that we had just cracked their best fortress like a walnut, they didn't make any waves.
The Keepers had brought as many of their members as they could muster. The MSDU lost forty people; the rest had been herded into an underground bunker--the Keepers didn't want to waste the ammunition. The rats found them and let them out. Andrea's friend didn't make it.
I wandered past the tables. Smiling faces, lots of food, the hum of excited conversation. Ghastek came walking toward me, carrying a plate. "Humans are fickle creatures," he said. "Three days ago I bet none of these people would have found a cause to throw a party. Here we are celebrating, when all we've done is return things to normal."
"Nothing like a great tragedy to make you appreciate life," I told him.
"Indeed. You aren't celebrating, Kate."
Hard to celebrate when visions of your kid in a hospital bed keep floating through your head. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm thrilled."
"Rowena came to visit you this morning," Ghastek said. "Why?"
Ha! "Remember how I asked you to get the information from that navigator who fainted and you blew me off? Go screw yourself."
I walked away.
A lone figure sat away from the bonfires, hugging her knees. I came closer and saw pale hair. Jennifer. I came to sit by her. She stared straight ahead. I wasn't sure she even knew I was there.
We sat for a long time, looking out at the base swarming with cops.
"I don't even have a body to bury," she said.
"You'll have his child," I said. She rested her hand on her stomach. Her voice was bitter. "And if I am very lucky, I won't have to kill her."
"Jennifer!" A woman came up to us. She had Jennifer's lean, long body and pale hair. One of her sisters. "Here you are. Come with me. We have a table set up."
Jennifer didn't move.
"You need to eat," the woman said. "You're eating for two, remember?"
Jennifer rose slowly.
"That's it," her sister murmured. "Come on. Let's take care of that baby."
She led Jennifer away. I sat alone.
Curran dropped next to me. "Hey."
It's hard to jump while sitting down. I still managed. "Why do you sneak up on me like that?"
"It's funny."
"It's not." I leaned into him and he put his arm around me.
"It's hilarious. It's almost as funny as your snoring."
"I don't snore."
He nodded with a wide grin. "It's a quiet peaceful kind of snoring. Like a small cuddly Tasmanian devil. Kind of cute when sleeping, all claws and teeth when awake."
"You snore worse. At least I don't turn into a lion in my sleep."
"I only did it once."
"Once was weird enough, thank you."
He looked at me. "You're still going through with the Julie thing?"
"Yes. Why do you keep asking me?"
"I keep hoping you'll change your mind."
"I won't."
He sighed and pulled me closer to him.
"YOUR BLOOD AND ERRA'S BLOOD ARE BASICALLY the same," Doolittle told me. I rubbed my eyes. I hadn't slept much the night before, and I had spent all morning trying to get a sample of shapeshifter blood to respond to my magic. I'd accomplished exactly nothing. The blood sat inert in the small plastic dish. It didn't help that Curran had insisted on watching me and spent the past three hours sitting in the corner, looking pissed off. There was the aftermath of the Keepers chaos to deal with and shapeshifters returning to the Keep, but no, he put it all on hold so he could sit here and watch me fail.
"The only difference between you and her is the concentration of magic," Doolittle continued.
She'd had thousands of years to accumulate hers, while I'd barely had a quarter of a century.
"I believe this is getting us nowhere," Doolittle said. "And don't be giving me dirty looks, my lady. I didn't say we should give up."
"I think we should," Curran said.
"What we need is an anchor. Something in Julie's blood that would respond to your magic." Doolittle took a syringe from the table and let a single drop from the syringe fall into the blood. Foul magic tugged on me.
"Vampire blood." I felt it, felt the undeath shoot through the blood in the dish.
Doolittle nodded. "Try it now."
I concentrated and pulled.
I could do this. I should be able to do this.
Sweat broke on my hairline.
The blood rose from the dish about an inch, curling into a globe of red. I held it there and stretched it into a disk. It flowed, obedient and pliant.
"How did you know?" Curran asked.
"Erra has traces of vampirism in her blood sample," Doolittle said. "Not in a virulent form. It's a very odd thing, almost like a dormant precursor to the virus itself. Our lady does too, in smaller concentration."
I let the blood drain into the dish.
"I would venture a guess that most navigators of the dead also possess the same, probably in much, much smaller quantities. When I have some spare time, I want to look at your blood in greater detail." Doolittle frowned.
"What, we have it, too?" Curran pushed up from the floor. "It reacts to magic," Doolittle said. "Perhaps it's an evolutionary adaption to the world where magic was a constant presence. I would have to run more tests, but for now we must deal with the problem at hand. We need the vampiric vector."
"Are you telling me I have to infect Julie with vampirism?" This was crazy. Vampirism was irreversible. But then so was Lycos-V.
"I wouldn't presume to tell you anything," Doolittle said. "This whole scheme is an exercise in insanity. However, if you persist in this harebrained, ill-advised endeavor, this is the only way for you to mold her blood."
"How about we just don't do it," Curran said.
I took a deep breath. "Can you tell me with absolute certainty that Julie will go loup the moment she wakes up?"
They both answered in unison. "Yes."
"Then I have to do it," I told them. "I have no choice."
THREE DAYS LATER I TRAVELED TO PERFORM THE Arez ritual deep in Sibley Forest. The witches were there, and somehow Grigorii and his brother were there, too. I had never quite gotten to the bottom of how they'd solved their differences, but I decided not to look a gift volhv in the mouth.
We chose a spot on top of a lone quartz boulder, thrusting from the forest floor like a miniature version of Stone Mountain. Kamen operated the device we'd taken at Palmetto. The witches stood around me in a circle, while Julie lay in front of me on a stretcher. Her sedation was wearing off, and muscles and bone bulged and moved under her skin as if they had a mind of their own. Derek and Jezebel stood on both sides of the stretcher, waiting.
Kamen opened the device. Magic spilled from it in a dense cascade of pale glow. The witches strained and then a flood of power hit me, so cold it felt like my muscles froze. It spread through me, flowing from cell to cell, saturating my blood, setting my nerves on fire.
The witches kept feeding me power, more and more and more. The ice turned into agony, shaving at me from the inside, scraping layer after layer from my core.
In the haze of magic Doolittle took a step toward Julie. The syringe in his hand rose. The needle touched her skin and the Immortuus pathogen entered her body.
In a normal victim, it took seven hours for full colonization of the body. Seven hours from the infection to full-blown vampirism. The process was irreversible. We didn't need seven hours. We just needed one minute for the vampiric blood to fully circulate through Julie's body. More magic came. My hands and feet dissolved into pain. Every instinct screamed for me to stop. End it. Just end it and the pain will stop.
Julie's body began to glow. It beckoned me, like a swamp light, drawing me closer and closer. She kicked and convulsed on her stretcher, muscles and fur bulging.
I was almost there. A little more magic. A little more pain.
A searing blast of magic smashed into me, pushing me over the edge.
Julie snarled. Her restraints snapped and she shot up, her flesh boiling. Grotesque jaws thrust from her face, She stood hunched over, half human, half lynx, but whereas a shapeshifter's warrior form was streamlined, Julie's body was a mess of mismatched parts. Her left arm was huge, her right leg had a knee that bent backward. Fur sheathed her stomach, while human skin stained her back in pale patches.
She stared, mesmerized.
I felt the blood sliding through her veins, flowing in a current of tiny particles of magic.
Julie opened her mouth, her monstrous face uncertain.
Derek clamped her in a bear hug and Jezebel sliced her neck, severing the jugular. Blood shot in a pressurized spray and I grabbed it with my power, gathering each precious tiny drop, condensing, turning, spinning it into a globe of brilliant magic.
All sound faded, except the beating of my heart.
I kept pulling it, drawing it out of the container of flesh, until I had taken all of it.
The creature who had owned the blood before me toppled to the ground.
I beckoned the sphere and it floated toward me, settling in the palms of my open hands, so alive, so bursting with magic.
Something was wrong with it. It was corrupted, tainted somehow. But it was so breathtakingly beautiful.
A distant presence tugged on me, coming from impossibly far, stretching toward me across distance or time, I couldn't tell. It peered inside me, permeating my magic, examining the blood in my hands.
I was supposed to do something with this blood, wasn't I? Or maybe not. It sat in my palms, so warm and throbbing with power.
The presence watched me. I watched it back.
A thought formed in my head and it wasn't my own, yet somehow it also was. "Well done." At the creature's body another creature was screaming at me, her face contorted. A third creature stared at me, an expression of pure horror stamped on his face.
Odd, this blood. All wrong. I had to do something with it, but I wasn't sure what.
I held the blood out to the presence. "It's dirty."
"Then you should clean it," the presence suggested gently.
I had to clean it. Yes, that was it.
"Let your blood flow," the presence murmured.
I sweated blood. It poured from my pores, bleeding magic.
"Now bind them together," the presence suggested.
I molded my blood, stretching it in thin filaments to the glowing core of the creature's blood in my hand, wrapping my magic around it, piercing it, cleansing.
"That's it. That's it," the presence told me. "Excellent. Now return it."
"It's mine!"
"You must give it back or the child won't survive."
"But it's mine!"
"No. You only borrowed it. If you keep it, you'll kill its vessel."
The creatures were screaming.
I didn't want to kill anyone.
I held the sphere for another long moment, savoring it, and thrust it back into the creature's body. It flowed into her, rushing through, filling her collapsed veins and arteries.
The creature didn't stir.
"You must will her to live," the presence told me gently. "She needs your help."
"Mine," I told the blood. "Obey me. Live. Survive. Obey, obey, obey ..."
The creature drew a hoarse breath, jerking. The wound on her neck bled. Her body whipped, gripped by spasms. The others lunged to her.
The world careened on its side, went dark, and all was still. I OPENED MY EYES. CURRAN SAT NEXT TO ME, HIS gray eyes watching me.
Julie...
"She survived," he said. His quiet voice gained a rough growl. "If you think that I will ever let you pull that fucked-up shit again, then this thing between you and me is done. We are fucking done."
We made it. We made it through in one piece. He didn't die, Julie didn't die, I didn't die ... It was some kind of bloody miracle.
"I thought you loved me and would never leave me."
"That was not you. That was fucked up."
I put my arms around him and kissed him. Curran clenched me to him. My bones groaned. "Never again."
"Never again," I promised. "I give you my word. Never again."
"I'm so glad you woke up."
"Aha! The shoe is on the other foot."
"Shut up." He kissed me, and I pulled my personal psycho into bed with me.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER I WAS EATING CHICKEN soup. It was the best soup I ever tasted. "How long was I out?"
"Three days."
"That's nothing. You were out eleven."
Curran shrugged. "Three was enough."
"How's Julie?"
"Freaked out and under house arrest, but okay."
"Why under house arrest?"
Curran shook his head. " `Oh no, I killed Kate. Kate is dead because of me. If she dies, I'll kill myself.' And other stupidity along those lines. I ordered her locked up so she doesn't do something idiotic. Doolittle says she's healing well. No trace of Lyc-V. No vampirism." Curran focused on me. "I thought I lost you both back there." "I think you might have. I was really confused at some point. I think I hallucinated. I can almost swear I heard somebody."
"Who?"
"I don't know. I promise, never again. I don't think I can survive another one like that."
Curran sighed. "I suppose you'll want to see the kid now."
"Yes."
Curran roared. "Barabas!"
The door opened and my nanny stuck his spiky head inside. He saw me and his face split in a sharp grin. "My lord, my lady, may I say that I am delighted that my favorite alpha is feeling better. Why, you'll be running recklessly into danger against overwhelming odds anytime now."
Curran growled. "Shut up. Bring Julie."
Three minutes later Julie stepped into the room. She stopped at the entrance, a pale, skinny wraith. I waited, but she didn't come any closer.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey," she answered.
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know." Julie swallowed.
Oh boy. "What's the problem?"
"You did something to me." Julie hesitated. "My magic looks like yours."
I glanced at Curran. "You didn't tell her?"
"Oh no, that's your mess. You can have that job. You go right ahead."
I sat up straighter. "When Leslie bit you, she infected you with Lyc-V. I used an old ritual and cleaned your blood with mine to save you."
Julie blinked a few times. "So what does it mean?"
"It means that you are now immune to Lyc-V and vampirism. You might develop some new powers. It might be strange for a while, but I will help you through it."
Julie swallowed. "So I am like really your niece now?"
"Something like that. I almost died saving you. Am I going to get some sort of hug or what?" She took a step, broke into a run, and hugged me.
Curran shook his head.
I stuck my tongue out at him. Whatever. She was alive. I would deal with everything else as it came.
"You can never tell anyone," Curran said. "What Kate has done for you can't be done to anyone else, do you understand? The Pack is full of desperate parents whose kids might go loup. You can't go around telling people that Kate cured you of it. If anybody asks, you pulled through on your own. Your magic was so strong, your body rejected Lyc-V. Julie, answer me."
"Yes, sir," Julie said in my arms. "I pulled through on my own."
A knock sounded and Barabas stepped back into the room, carrying a narrow blue vase filled with flowers. "Happy reunion. Also, these came for you, Kate. I put them in a vase. Not quite sure what these flowers are, but they smell pine."
The vase held a dozen small flowers, their petals pristine white, like small stars solid black at the center. I froze with Julie still hugging me.
Morgan's Bells. I knew these flowers; I had made them. They'd sprouted during the flare on the spot where I'd cried my eyes out, holding Bran's lifeless body.
Next to me Curran was very still.
I willed my mouth to move. "Is there a card?"
Barabas nodded and passed me a small white rectangle folded in half. I flipped it open.
Congratulations on your victory, Your Highness. Looking forward to our next meeting. Hugh COMING DECEMBER 2011
THE END