Halfway Dead (21 page)

I smelled the darkness on its breath, and realized my hand would not rise in time to cast anything other than a friendly wave. I felt my guts go to water, my skin turn cold as ice, and the hair of my neck dance in a stiff refutation of the inevitable. I thought of Gran, and Gus, and why I simply hadn’t backed up when something this big was coming at me, and then the shadow of Jim Dietrich was in front of me. He’d jumped to intervene with a gesture of such pure courage that I gasped with respect. Jim Dietrich’s instincts were distilled heroism, and I began chanting low to pull whatever power I could in the fastest manner possible.

His lean frame cast a long shadow as he began firing again, but his gun fell silent as a tomb after only three shots. Jim landed, both feet kicking grass into a spray of green, and he looked straight ahead at the maw of the wyrm as it descended upon him.

In a movement like quicksilver, Jim pulled another clip, gave me a half smile, and decided to die. He shot his gun hand forward, firing directly into the skull of the wyrm as its slimy gullet slid over him with a wet splat. The distant banging of his gun going off inside the beast sounded like a gong being hit with frozen steaks; it was a muted testimony to the violence happening right in front of me, but so far away that I could do nothing. The wyrm’s teeth shattered on the bare earth at impact, cutting into the ground as Jim’s shoes vanished and the horrible creature began to twitch in the ecstasy of death.

I screamed, long and raw, and began hurling vicious, untamed magic at the thing that had Jim inside its gruesome hold. After two spellstrikes, bones began to show. After five, my power began to wane, but not before I’d blasted the carcass apart in a shower of charred Everafter that stank like an untended grave.

Jim was gone. There was no body, no evidence, just a gun, smeared with Stars knew what, and still hot to the touch. Acid had scored the metal, leaving it oddly cheerful in the muted sun under the canopy of the chestnuts. I kicked the gun with one foot, and bit my lip hard enough that the coppery flood in my mouth snapped me back to reality. I would not cry from fear, only anger. I cried for loss, not shame.

I shook my bracelet loose, feeling the chill metal against my sweating skin, and decided that I had one last salvo in me. I could not surmount the moat, now visible, due to the failure of the glamor. I assumed that Wulfric was raining hell upon Haldor, but that didn’t help me with the physical barrier of a deep pit that might be filled with something far worse than the wyrm I—I mean
we
—had just dispatched.

I needed a little help.

“Bindie!” I called, impatient enough for a response that I was instantly readying another shout when the Wisp drew to a hover before me. She pulsed repeatedly in excitement, but I waved her off. “I need over yon ditch, and I need it now. Whatcha got?”

Bindie emitted a piercing squeal, like a smoke alarm that was having a bad day. I flinched and cursed richly, until I noticed the air begin to fill with more Wisps . . . and fae of all sizes, although none larger than a robust pigeon. In seconds, the whirring of tiny wings filled my ears like a wind an intermittent windstorm, the fae dust swirling around me in spiraling columns that vanished upward in the green gloom.

Iwas seized by the shoulders and launched in a series of lurching shoves that kept my feet inches above the ground, and, after emitting a most unladylike series of noises, deposited safely on the other side of the moat. My body, if not my pride, was intact.

“Thanks, friends. Okay, time to squash this fool.” I squared my shoulders, picked a path toward the grunting and swearing, and sallied forth into the underbrush to go kill an undead wizard.

It wasn’t hard to find them; I just listened for the nearest thousand-year-old Vikings cursing while they beat each other to a pulp. In a few steps, I was looking down at a wide patch of forest floor that resembled the sands of the Roman coliseum. The ferns and grass were green smears in a circle of divots and impact craters. Vikings were, I decided, enthusiasts when it came to brawling.

Haldor was in the process of strangling Wulfric, who wasn’t letting such an event prevent him from spitting curses in ancient Nordic. Haldor was also being beaten senseless with the half-blood’s vicious elbow, which rang the wizard’s skull like a bell made of bone. I stepped quickly toward the pair, grabbed Haldor’s foot, and sent a bolt of power shimmering up his leg with a single word.

Wulfric smiled, his teeth and gums streaked with blood, and whipped his other elbow into Haldor’s stomach with a savage grunt. The wizard lifted comically skyward—that vampire was
strong
—and crashed to the earth as they separated in a wheezing cacophony of listless demands for each other’s surrender.

I thought the prudent course of action was a second, third, and fourth spell, all delivered into the wizard’s pale gut, but he was faster than I imagined, given the pummeling he’d been receiving. He lashed out with a hand and electrified my ribs with a curse made of icy death; it was the same magic that made the wights he’d been building in that cesspool of a spring.

“Not a killing blow, scumbag,” I told him, as I began to rise.

His lips stretched back in parody of a smile as the first fingers of chill began to close around my lungs. My eyes went round as I realized the nature of his curse; he didn’t need to kill me, he could freeze my heart and chest with his undead magic. I’d be unable to breathe, and no amount of my own spells could work. I was silenced, and he knew it. His smile seemed to grow as my dread took hold.

Wulfric saw the naked fear in my eyes and redoubled his efforts. “Free her, fiend!”

I really do love a man who speaks in archaic dialect. It’s just so chivalrous, despite the fact that I could use a nice, deep lungful of air more than the declarative of a would-be knight. Wulfric backed up his sentiment with the kind of punch that spawns legends; his fist connected with Haldor in the small of the back, and the wizard screamed in pain.

I couldn’t shout, but I could whisper. In a silent hiss, I called for the wind to serve me, and a trickle of air crept into my chest just as spots of red and black began to float across my vision like balloons gone astray at a whimsical funeral. As Haldor began to topple, I realized I had a choice. I could breathe, or I could cast a spell.

I could not do both.

I had to live to fight, even as Wulfric and I were fighting to live. Haldor regained his feet in a last effort fueled by sheer hatred, eyes gone white in their sockets as his body began to shake with furious magical vibrations. He opened his mouth to cast something that would be rather unpleasant, I was guessing, but the spell never emerged. Haldor’s mouth was suddenly filled with a giant Viking fist, as Wulfric’s next haymaker connected in the sweet spot between nose and chin.

I watched the wizard fall. He collapsed without a sound, face forward, and did not so much as twitch.

I looked at Wulfric, who stood with a smile of exhaustion. “Told you he was weak.”

Wulfric knelt before the body in silence. Tears fell from my eyes in a quiet confirmation that once this had been an innocent boy.

The wyrm, now dead from my magical attacks, had reverted to its proper form. It was Erasmus. He’d been tortured into the shape of a monster over centuries, and I wept openly at what he must have endured. Limitless pain and fear, but what bothered me most was that he thought he was alone.

“You were never alone, cousin,” I said.

Wulfric lifted the small body, the face finally at peace, and followed me as I walked to the stone piles at the edge of the chestnuts.

“Place him just there,” I said, then waved at the earth too take her child to safety. Erasmus vanished into the soft earth with a gentle rippling, and a carpet of soft, new grass began to cover the spot instantly. “Thank you,” I said to no one and anyone. “Please watch over him.”

Soft voices seemed to answer me from below, but it may have been the dozens of fae watching from a hover at a respectful distance.

“Do you hear?” Wulfric asked, his body leaning with concentration.

I do. Indistinct voices grew stronger, a chorus of soft comfort, each mellow tone repeating the phrase “
sister, we will watch over them”
in an overlapping song of reassurance. I wiped another tear, grateful at the kindness being shown to me by the fae. “If ever you need me, come to my home. You are most welcome there,” I said to the forest, and the flickering lights of the fae told me my message was well sent and better received.

“What now?” I asked Wulfric. “Will you follow me, and see if we can carry out Jim’s avenue to your freedom?”

He looked into the failing light, a slight smile on his generous lips. “I would like that more than anything. To be
free
,” he said, and there was wonder in that word. “I will need to gather many things, and we shall have to pray that there are no rains for at least a week. I don’t know if I can do the job on my own. It is rather ambitious.”

“I think you’ll have help.” I looked up meaningfully at the growing cluster of fae, who touched off a kaleidoscopic tribute of light to the idea of helping Wulfric with anything. “You must succeed. For Emilia’s sake, if nothing else.” I carefully avoided his eyes. I wouldn’t place a newfound attraction ahead of his child. I mean, I was tempted, but I know the value of family.

“I hope that my human half is warm enough to be a good father. I don’t want the chill of the afterlife robbing us of our vitality.” Wulfric placed the slightest emphasis on
us
, and I looked up to see him staring at me with unapologetic hunger. He leaned down to me, and I took his face in my hands, welcoming him.

Our lips touched, and I felt my mouth open to him, our tongues playing like lovers who have been apart too long. Heat rushed into my vision in a dangerous curtain. His simple presence was dizzying. I looked at his eyes and realized he felt the same. There was a feral sense of wonder that made him look surprised and coy. I liked it.

“I’m warm enough for both of us,” I said.

He shook his head lightly, as if surfacing from a dream. “You are.”

Those two words were enough.

I called to Bindie, telling her to take me home, before looking up at the man who I wanted so much more after that simple kiss. “Settle your life. See your daughter. Then, if you want, come find me,” I told him. The sun faded as my steps took me back into the woods and, in a moment, I could no longer see the grove, or the spring, or the shadows.

It took two and a half hard days of travel to go home. Bindie left me at my porch as the sun rose on the third day, having guided me through the night like a beacon. I was exhilarated with the completion of a grinding task, even if it had ended in the kind of sorrow that left me conflicted and empty. A heavy dew beaded the rich green of my lawn, and I kicked at the jewels of water in frustration. I’d won, but I’d lost. It was maddening.

Then I saw the footprints.

They were too round to be distinct, and I’m no tracker, but I knelt to put my hand in the circular outline. I looked at the smears in the dewy grass and followed them to my door. They were cat’s paws, huge and round, and they stopped just before the welcome mat that lay askew on my threshold. I’d had a visitor.

The letter was written on a torn envelope in a blocky scrawl. I read it, frowned, and felt the heat rising in my face. Like I’ve said before, I hate games. There were only three lines, and each one made me angrier than the last. I imagined it in Anna’s playful voice, her lilting words free of care or compassion, and the rage that welled inside me bordered on something volcanic.

He wasn’t supposed to live, and neither were you. The pack needs lands without a guardian, so we must move on. Emilia goes with me, tell Wulfric his services are no longer required.

“That bitch,” I said in a hiss, and wondered how I would tell Wulfric that a scheming Werepanther had stolen his daughter away in the night.