A Snake in the Grass (23 page)

I may have blacked out for just a second, the
ache at the back of my head clearly revealing where it had met the
hardwood floor. What few lights we’d had were out, but I could hear
movement as the other four slowly stirred. “Sound off… Who’s
hurt?”

“I am here.” The kid’s voice came first,
followed quickly by Sveta’s. “Here.”

“Bloody hell.” Terrence was conscious, then,
but there was no response from Carlotta.

Something hit my foot and I kicked out
reflexively, but it was only the metal basin, now blasted into
shards like a wicked metal flower.

“Mamá? Mamá!” By the time I could crawl over
to them, Estéban had found his mother, her head cradled in his lap.
“Jesse, she’s not waking up.” There was barely contained terror in
his voice.

I found her pulse easy enough, rapid but
steady. Her skin was clammy under my touch, but we were all
splattered with rapidly cooling water, so it was hard to tell what
was what. “We need to get her into the house. Spell sickness is
going to kick in any second, and we don’t know what is going to
happen.”

Terrence was on his feet already. “You boys
carry her, I’ll get some things that may help.”

The kid and I managed to carry Carlotta with
as little jostling as possible, Sveta following along to support
her head. By the time we’d crossed the compound, the older woman’s
body was shaking with chills that were enough to almost knock us
over. “Hypothermia…we gotta get her warm.”

I glanced at Sveta and Estéban, and they were
both gray around the edges too. We had about ten minutes before
they dropped, they just hadn’t realized it yet. I’d seen this
before. It was hard to tell how the body was going to react to a
massive spell, to a giant chunk being cut out of the soul. I’d seen
Mira suffer from dangerously high fevers and equally
life-threatening drops in body temperature. Cameron had suffered a
seizure strong enough to stop his heart.

This was how spell casters killed themselves,
I knew. Most magic comes from the soul, the caster using their own
to power their spells. Most things were like taking tiny slices off
the surface, and the wounds healed over fairly quickly. The bigger
spells – things like scryings and explosions – were more like
taking an ice cream scoop to the soul, dipping out big hunks, and
those injuries took more time to fill back in. Sometimes, the high
of working magic overrode the spell worker’s need to rebuild what
they were ripping away, and they would just cast until they keeled
over dead.

“Get her on the bed. Get blankets, hot water
bottles.” We obeyed Terrence without question, though I kept an eye
on the old man too. He’d expended just as much energy as any of the
others, and he was older… So far, the only sign of his exhaustion
was leaning heavier on his cane, but it was just a matter of
time.

Estéban was the first to go down. He abruptly
whirled and ran out of the room, and we could hear him retching
into the toilet down the hall. Sveta just sank into a chair in the
corner of Carlotta’s room, her skin gone paper white. I checked her
temperature with my hand, and she didn’t even have the strength to
bat my touch away. Her skin was cool to the touch, but not
dangerously so.

“And…I’m done for, boy.” Terrence found the
other chair, dragging it over next to Carlotta’s bedside, and
collapsed into it. With a sigh, he rested his head on the quilt
next to her.

“What do you need?” Christ. With all four of
them down, this was the most undefended this place was ever going
to get. And there was no way to know how long it would take them to
recover.

“Nothing. Just rest. See to the boy. Me and
the crazy bint, we can watch here. Come back in half an hour to
change out the water bottles.”

Sveta’s eyes were open, staring blankly ahead
through sheer force of will, but I wouldn’t have counted on her to
be able to do much of anything. Still, she gave me a small nod, and
what else could I do?

“Kid?” I poked my head into the bathroom to
find Estéban curled up on the floor, knees doubled up to his chest
in pain. “Aw shit, kid.”

“Go…go away…” He tried to protest as I took a
seat near him.

“Nah, I’m gonna stay right here.” I rubbed my
hand up and down his back, just like I would for Annabelle if she
were sick, and despite himself, he relaxed a little. Hey, I’m a
dad. We know this stuff. “It’s okay, kid. It’s all gonna be
okay.”

I sure hoped I was right.

Chapter 15

What followed was like being witness to the
most epic hangover after the most colossal alcohol binge ever. I
managed to get Estéban shuffled onto my cot – there was no way I
was going to be able to manhandle his lanky butt up into his top
bunk – and left him there with a bucket in case he found anything
else to ralph up.

I checked on Terrence and Sveta frequently,
both of whom seemed to be dozing off and on, if you can call it
dozing when Sveta’s eyes never closed. Carlotta herself seemed
stable, her temperature slowly climbing every time we replaced the
warm water bottles under the pile of quilts. It was late afternoon
when she finally opened her eyes long enough to ask, “
Mi
hijo
?”

“He’s fine. Resting. You rest too, okay?” I
think she tried to smile before her eyes fluttered closed again. At
her side, Terrence sighed quietly, never raising his head where he
was leaned over on the bed. “C’mon, Terrence. You need to find a
bed. Your back is never going to forgive you for this.”

“G’way.” He swatted at my hands
half-heartedly, but finally allowed me to get him to his feet. With
a mental note to apologize to Rosaline either, I deposited him into
her bed, and came back out in time to see Sveta lurching her way
down the hallway.

“Whoa, whoa… Hey.” I quickly put my shoulder
under her arm, taking as much of her weight on myself as I could.
“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Someone must patrol the perimeter.”

“That’s fine, and someone will, but not you.
You’re going to patrol your way into the boys’ room and thoroughly
examine the bottom half of a bunk bed.” She gave me a withering
look that might have been more intimidating if she could actually
stand up on her own. “Yeah, yeah, kick my ass later. I look forward
to it.”

With the invalids cared for as best I could,
Rosaline and I managed to wrangle the kid-pack together and set
them at the task of preparing the evening meal. I’d expected more
resistance, or maybe just more screwing around, but the boys set in
with the precision of a team of line cooks who had worked together
for years. I was actually pretty impressed with the group of
hooligans.

Carlotta was propped up on pillows when I
brought her a small plate of food, and she smiled fondly when I
told her who’d done the cooking. “I made sure my boys would never
go hungry.”

Terrence was snoring loud enough to vibrate
the windows, so I just left him, and then brought plates to Sveta
and Estéban. The kid eyed his platter of plain tortillas like they
were poison. “Just try one. If it stays down, try another.”

Sveta just sat up and tucked in, mechanically
shoveling down food without tasting it. With her plate cleared in
record time, she handed it back, then lay back down, turning her
back to the room.

“Guess you’re welcome.”

And just so I wouldn’t be a liar, I even went
out and walked the perimeter around the property. Well, I walked
part of it. It was getting dark, and I didn’t have a flashlight,
and after the eleventy-billionth mosquito bite, I decided it wasn’t
worth it. If the Perez family wards weren’t enough to protect us,
then we had much bigger issues to deal with. Y’know, things like
what the hell tried to crawl out of that water basin, and how did
Paulito even
do
that?

Somewhere around midnight, when I dozed with
my head resting on the kitchen table, Terrence staggered out into
the light, making some grumbly noises that I took to be a demand
for tea. I put the kettle on as he slumped on one of the
benches.

“So. This might be a good time to explain a
bit more to me about blood magic and what the hell happened back
there.” I took the seat across from the old man, giving him an
expectant look.

Terrence shook his grizzled head, silent for
a long time, long enough that the kettle started whistling and I
had to get up to deal with that. As I poured the water, he finally
cleared his throat.

“We don’t know a lot about it, really.”

“We meaning who?”

“Good, God-fearing decent folk.” He took the
cup away from me, stopping just short of making the grabby hands
motion at it. “The kind of people who practice blood magic aren’t
generally invited over for afternoon tea.”

“Yeah, I get that.” I waited for him to sip
at his tea for a few minutes before I pressed him again. “How does
it work?”

Terrence shook his head, running a hand over
his wild hair. “Normal magic… Mine, Carlotta’s, the bint’s,
anyone’s… It draws from the soul, your own soul. With blood magic,
you draw power from other souls, other lives.”

“But Carlotta was using your power in there,
drawing from your souls.”

The old man shook his head, giving me a
scathing look. “It’s about the will, boy, about the intent. We gave
her our power willingly. With blood magic, it’s taken by force. For
some things, that’s more powerful, the hatred and anger that go
with it. You’d never want to set defenses with blood magic, they’d
be erratic, unpredictable. But attacks…or summonings…blood calls to
it.”

“Why don’t more people use it?” Unless you
counted my suspicions about the Korean sorceress that I’d dubbed
Mystic Cindy, I’d never actually seen a practitioner of blood
magic.

Terrence snorted. “Because your own blood
will only be sufficient for so long. Then you have to use someone
else’s. Then it has to be a death, just a small one, and then,
finally, only a human death will keep up the power you need. Once
people start dropping, the authorities tend to notice.”

I got the feeling that he didn’t just mean
the police. “The Catholic order… St. Silvius. That’s what they do,
isn’t it? They track down blood magic.”

“Mmph. Sometimes. Tried to get Ivan in on the
action about ten years ago, but he told them to get stuffed. Said
it was our calling to help lost souls, not to police our own. I
think he mostly didn’t like that they couldn’t tell him what they
were
doing
with the casters once they had them.”

“That’s…ominous.”

“Mmph.” He slurped at his tea. “But
still…we’re going to have to tell them. Short of killing the man, I
don’t think we have the ability to stop whatever he’s doing here.
If the Order has means…”

He was right, as much as I hated to admit it.
“I know a guy in the Order. I can make a phone call if we can head
down into town.”

Terrence shook his head. “I’ve got my own
contacts. I’ll handle it. Carlotta’s not going to take kindly to
giving one of her kin over to them. Best she be cross with me, not
you.”

“All right. When do you want to go?”

“Morning’s soon enough.” With a sigh, he
heaved himself up off the bench again. “I’ll get a bit more
shut-eye, then take the truck down once the sun’s up.”

“You can’t go alone.”

He snorted, raising one hairy brow at me.
“You’re no one to tell me I can’t, boy. I’ve been doing this longer
than you’ve been alive, and you still got all those other souls to
think of. You’re keeping your scrawny arse right here where it’s
safe.” He walked off into the house, muttering under his breath
about youngsters and their gall.

And once again, Jesse sits on the bench.
Literally, in this case.
I was getting damn tired of being
sidelined for my own good.

The scrying had been an unmitigated disaster,
and Paulito would be on guard now, watching for us. We still had no
idea why the demons were helping him, or what he intended to do
with the stolen armor and weaponry. And all I could do was sit here
and play nursemaid til everyone was on their feet again.

It ate at me the rest of the night, and what
little sleep I got was the opposite of restful.

The next morning saw both Terrence and
Estéban upright and functional, and out in the driveway working on
Miguel’s bike again. They’d worked for hours, only stopping briefly
for lunch when I insisted. Currently, they were both covered in
grease and grime, and had tools and equipment strung out for what
seemed like forty yards.

“So here’s the thing that bugs me.” I had
perched myself on an overturned bucket, handing them things as
needed, and largely thinking out loud about the events of the
previous day. Occasionally, one of them would make a noise in
acknowledgement, proving that I wasn’t actually talking completely
to myself, but for the most part, the small but intricate engine
was taking up their attention. Me, I just kept yapping, because it
helped to sort out what was going on in my head.

“The thing is, they’re not getting anything
out of it. The demons, I mean.” Estéban flailed a hand at me, and I
slapped a crescent wrench into it, whether that was what he needed
or not. “You said they’re not fighting for souls, they’re fighting
for their freedom, which they really already have. So why would a
creature like that voluntarily show up to get its ass kicked if
they’re not being paid? Something doesn’t add up.”

Terrence grunted in reply, and I handed him a
rag to wipe his greasy hands. “Think that might do it, boy. Let’s
try to start her up.”

With a pensive look on his face, the kid hit
the ignition, and was rewarded with the instantaneous sound of the
engine roaring to life. Well, buzzing to life. The bike wasn’t
really big enough to roar. Estéban looked up at the both of us,
grinning like his face would split. “We did it.”