Bloodstone (35 page)

Tina handed it over, her eyes thoughtful. “What’s wrong with your aunt? The last time I saw her, she didn’t look so . . . I mean, I knew she was old and all. That’s how she got all that awesome demon-fighting experience. But she didn’t look
old
old. How sick is she?”

“She’ll be better in a couple of days.” I’d make sure of that.

“Whew, that’s good. ’Cause I thought she looked like . . . I don’t know, like she was about to die any minute or something. She didn’t sound that way, though. Um . . .” Tina ground the toe of her boot into the carpet. “Did she say anything about me?”

“Right now, Mab and I have other things to talk about.”

“Oh. Sure. I guess you do. I mean, she’s visiting from another country and all.” Tina picked up a discarded pizza box. I held open the trash bag, and she dropped it in. “Well, I guess I’d better get home. I have to clean my room��that whole orderly environment thing.”

Making Tina’s home environment orderly would probably require a bulldozer and a hazmat team, but if the kid wanted to clean her room, good. It would keep her out of trouble for a month or two.

“Where’s Killer?” she asked, looking around. “I want to say good-bye to him.”

I made a point of not looking toward the kitchen. “Probably sleeping. We took a long walk.”

“Oh. Well, rub his tummy for me, okay?”

Heat rose in my face as my color turned beet-red. Any tummy-rubbing I gave Kane would have to wait until things were back to normal. And it would not be on Tina’s behalf.

Tina headed for the front door. I picked up
Russom’s
from where it lay on the coffee table. “Wait a second,” I said. “Mab did mention you. She said you needed to work harder on the individual species of the
Inimicus
genus.”

“That’s what she told me, too.”

“So I guess you can hang on to my copy of
Russom’s
a little longer. I’m not using it right now.”

She grinned and reached for the book.

“But,” I added, pulling back slightly, “we need to be clear on one thing. I’m still not taking you back as an apprentice. You do understand that, right?”

Tina nodded, her eyes on
Russom’s
like it was a container of butter-pecan ice cream and not some dry old textbook about demons. “Yeah, sure. I understand. I just want to, you know, brush up.” I let her take the book, and she hugged it to her chest. “If you need somebody to stay with your aunt again, give me a call, okay?” She let herself out.

Wow. Tina offering to do somebody a favor. I stood and stared at the closed door like maybe another miracle would happen. I could use one right about now.

 

 

I WENT TO BED BEFORE DAWN, BUT FOR A LONG TIME I LAY on my back on the sofa, unable to sleep. When I did drift off, I found myself in my usual dreamscape, an endless space of soft twilight. Sort of how I imagined it would feel to float in a warm ocean at midnight. Empty and restful.

Something stirred in the darkness, a small pulse in the air like a soft sigh. It pulsed again. As I watched, it took on form and color, becoming a small pink cloud. The cloud hiccupped and grew a little larger. Sky blue streaks swirled up among the pink.

I peered through the colors to see a young face peering back at me.

“Hi, Maria.”

“Yes! I did it!” She pumped her fist. “I called you.” My niece stood in the middle of a vast, colorless dreamscape, like an actor on an empty stage.

“You certainly did. But isn’t it a school night?”

“Nope. Tomorrow’s an in-service day. That means the teachers have to go to school, but the kids stay home.” She did a little happy dance. “I really called you! It wasn’t too hard, either.”

“It gets even easier with practice. For example, you can fill in your dreamscape with whatever scenery you want. You can make it look like you’re in your bedroom at home, or you can make it look like you’re a princess sitting on a throne in a big castle.”

“Princess stuff is for little kids.”

“Well, whatever you want.”

“Can you show me how?”

“Sure. Start by closing your eyes.”

“My eyes are already closed. I’m sleeping.”

“Inside your dream. When you’re getting started, imagining is easier with your eyes closed.”

She screwed her eyes tightly shut.

“Relax a little. Believe it or not, the harder you try, the more difficult it gets.”

Her face smoothed out as she let some of the tension go.

“Good. Now, think of somewhere you’d like to be. Somewhere fun.”

“The beach.” Each summer, the Santinis spent a week’s vacation on Cape Cod.

“Good choice. Now, imagine you’re there. Feel the sand under your toes, the warm sun on your back. What do you hear?”

“Seagulls. And the waves coming into the shore.” She turned her head a little and sniffed. “Vicky! I can smell the salt water!”

“Perfect. Hold all that in your mind.” As she did, a seascape sketched itself around her. Colors and shapes filled in—a beach umbrella, a plastic bucket, a sandcastle decorated with shells. “Ready? Open your eyes.”

She did, and her eyes went wide with amazement. Her pajamas had changed to a bright pink bathing suit, and pinkframed sunglasses perched on top of her head. She spun around, laughing, and ran to splash in the water. “It’s cold!” she shouted. “Just like at the Cape!”

“You can warm it up if you want. It’s your dream.”

“Really?” She closed her eyes again. Then she opened them and threw herself into the water. She dived into the waves, arcing through them like a porpoise. Briefly, a gleaming porpoise superimposed itself on her as she swam. I saw both Maria and the animal she’d be if she shifted right now.

Interesting. Maria’s shapeshifting abilities might be developing faster than we’d realized.

But when she ran back up the beach, water streaming from her hair, she was all Maria, an eleven-year-old girl having fun. She looked around for a towel, but there wasn’t one. She closed her eyes, and a towel patterned with seahorses draped itself around her shoulders.

“That’s what your mom and I were talking about when we said you’re in charge of your dreams. Eventually, you won’t even have to close your eyes to make things happen.”

“Cool!” She sat down on the sand and tipped her head back to look at the clear blue sky. “Thanks for teaching me, Aunt Vicky.”

“I think that was a pretty good first lesson. Now we should both get some real sleep.”

Maria drew lines in the sand with her finger. Studying them, she asked, “What did Mom tell you about my great-aunt? When she made me go outside.”

One thing Gwen was right about—Maria shouldn’t hear that story. I did my best to answer without answering. “Your mom is a good person. Aunt Mab is a good person. But there’s a misunderstanding between them that probably can’t be fixed. It’s sad, but sometimes things happen that way.”

“If it’s a misunderstanding, can’t you talk to Mom?”

“I don’t think it would help. Not after all this time.”

“Aunt Mab’s colors were so pretty. And she wanted to help you. I don’t believe she’d do anything bad.”

“She didn’t. But you still have to obey your mom. When she says that she and I are the only people you can talk to on the dream phone, you listen.” In her current condition, I didn’t think Mab had the strength to use the dream phone, and I didn’t want Maria trying to call her.

“Okay. But maybe Mom will change her mind.”

Not on this issue. Not unless she could travel back in time and turn around at the right moment, to see what Mab had saved her from.

“Now I’m going to show you how to hang up the dream phone. You know what you did to call me?”

“I thought about your colors.”

“Do that again.” She immediately closed her eyes. “In your mind, make them rise up so it looks like I’m standing in the fog.” As she concentrated, her own colors rose up around her where she sat in the sand. They swirled around her waist, then her shoulders. When the pink and blue tendrils of mist touched her face, I said softly, “Good night, Maria.”

My dreamscape returned to its empty, dim twilight. I heard the faint cry of a seagull, and then Maria’s voice, like an echo from far away, bidding me good night.

WHEN I WOKE, IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON. I REMOVED THE splint from my wrist and moved my hand. It was a little weak, but it felt fine. I crept down the hall to check on Mab, who slept. I couldn’t see her in the darkened room, and I didn’t want to wake her by turning on the light, but I listened to her breathing for a while. Slow and even, punctuated from time to time by a tiny snore. No wheezing or struggling for air. Mab was hanging on. It was the best I could hope for right now.

I pulled the bedroom door shut and went back down the hall. I brewed a pot of coffee and turned on the TV to see what the press was saying about the Reaper murders. Mostly, it was what you’d expect: shots of the latest murder site, a profile of the victim (Mack had been in his fifties, unmarried, and a member of Humans First), and a summary of the other murders. CNN aired an interview with a motorist who’d been traveling on Storrow Drive and claimed to see a “monster” through the trees at the time of the murder.

“The thing was about fifty feet tall,” he said, stretching a hand way above his head. “It looked like the devil, with horns and everything. Like a monster out of a nightmare.”

Kane jumped up on the sofa beside me and growled at the screen.

“It was Myrddin,” I said. “I shot him, and his injuries made him change into his demon form.” The demon had been closer to twenty feet tall than fifty, but otherwise the witness gave a pretty good description.

But the problem was his use of the word “monster,” and not just because Kane found it politically incorrect. A press conference held by Police Commissioner Hampson came on.

Hampson stood at a podium, tugging at his necktie and reading from a prepared statement. “For the next forty-eight hours, an emergency containment order will be in effect on all paranormals throughout Massachusetts.”

Kane and I gaped at each other. A containment order meant that all residents of Deadtown had to be present and accounted for within its borders by sundown on the day of issue. And they had to stay in Deadtown until the order expired.

“In addition,” Hampson went on, “a curfew will be enforced on Designated Area 1 during that time. All residents of that designated area must be off the streets between ten p.m. and four a.m. during the period of the containment order. The Joint Human-Paranormal Task Force will conduct random compliance checks.”

Hampson’s curfew covered the times the murders had been committed, but slapping a curfew on Deadtown in the middle of the night was like shutting down the norms’ business district between eight and five on a weekday. Hampson had put all of Deadtown under house arrest, sending out the Goon Squad to knock on people’s doors and make sure they stayed home.

The containment order would make it harder, but not impossible, to get myself into position at Boylston Street tomorrow night. It would mean sneaking out again. Myrddin wanted my life force to complete his ritual, but he’d make do with that of some random victim if I wasn’t around. And I wouldn’t let that happen.

Kane paced the length of the living room, growling, and I realized that Hampson’s containment order was a bigger problem for him. He couldn’t be accounted for, not without revealing that he was stuck in wolf form. The very idea that a werewolf could change when the moon wasn’t full would send the norms into a panic. I could already hear the speeches calling for a mass werewolf internment, permanently restricting the entire species to the secure retreats.

“Kane,” I said. He paused in his pacing and looked at me. “The night you and Mab rescued me—did you go through the checkpoints when you left Deadtown?”

He nodded.

“And then we sneaked back in. That means there’s no record of your reentry. So as far as the authorities know, you’re still outside Deadtown.” That didn’t matter for the containment order—not if he was thought to be in Massachusetts. All paranormals would have to report to one of the state’s designated areas: Deadtown, a werewolf retreat, or one of the smaller paranormal-only sections in cities like Worcester and Springfield. If another murder happened, any “monster” who wasn’t accounted for would be a suspect.

But maybe we could convince them he was out of state.

I dialed the number for 24-Hour Copy.

“Vicky,” Carlos said, when he came on the line, “don’t tell me you need another ID already. I’m going to have to start offering you a volume discount.”

“Nope, I’ve still got the last card you made for me. But I thought maybe you could help me with another little problem.”

He chuckled. “Your ‘little problems’ are usually big news for my bank account. What’s up?”

“You’ve heard about the containment order?” He had. “I need to come up with evidence that someone left the state a couple of days ago.”

“And stays out of state for at least the next forty-eight hours. Gotcha. Where?”

“D.C.” Kane had rented an apartment there when he’d been working full-time on his Supreme Court case. The lease hadn’t yet expired. I explained as much as I could without telling Carlos that Kane was currently a wolf.

But Carlos was never one to ask for inconvenient details. “Here’s what I can do,” he said. “I’ll call a norm I know who might be willing to take a quick trip to D.C. on Kane’s ID. All expenses paid, of course.” Of course. “Guy I have in mind has the right height and build. Just needs to dye his hair. I can . . . Let me see, what time is it? Less than two hours to sunset. Damn, girl, you’re not giving me much time. Okay, if my guy can make the trip, he’ll drive down as himself—you know, as a human—some time tonight.” The states didn’t keep records of the humans who crossed their borders, only paranormals. “I’ll get busy with the state databases to add a few records showing that Kane drove down . . . you said a couple of days ago. When, exactly?”