Undead for a Day (12 page)

Then, there was a thud in the center of her. Faint, but definitely there.

The sensation was both familiar and heartbreaking, because Dawn knew what it was. Her soul stain, coming back with the ending of Samhain.

But even as she wanted to cry, she knew what she had to do.

She thought about everything that had ever made her feel angry and betrayed—growing up with Frank as an alcoholic father, being rejected not once but twice by a selfish, egotistical mother, seeing Lilly open that box to capture Costin...

The last thought was the freshest of all, and the rage burned around the edges of her returning soul stain.

But something else was heating up in Dawn, too.

On her right side, she felt him. The dragon stretching awake, as if he’d been playing some great joke on her.

And he was ready to get to the anger that’d been nearly erased since midnight.

Just as she felt him gearing up to move, she opened her mouth and screamed with every frustrated, ugly piece of fury she possessed—her happiness, going. Lightness, going.

A better life...almost gone.

Her mind joined in with the anger, just as it used to, waking up with just as much force as the dragon.

Expanding inside her.

Flaring like a ball that was unraveling.

Psychokinetic energy, they used to call it when she got like this—anger, hurt, frustration, all coming out at once.

Now, as her soul stain grew, she tried to balance the good from the bad, fighting the dragon inside her while giving into the energy that just might save her.

She pushed with everything she had, nearly exploding as she lashed out at the world around her.

As her scream reached a peak, she pulled at her restraints, and they blasted off of the pallet, links and parts flying. At the same time, a flame like Dawn had never felt before roared up in her, taking her over, reaching across the inside of her body to grab her awakening soul stain.

She felt the dragon clawing, abrading her inside as she tried to push him back down.

Everything seemed to slow to a warped stretch then as she held the monster back. Her gaze had gone cloudy, but she could still see Amber and Lilly as they faced off to the side of the bonfire. Lilly was on her last legs, stumbling, but still fighting as Amber shouted more commands at her. Revolvers and weapons were on the ground, along with the dead, but the remaining live Meratoliages surrounded Lilly.

Dawn could hear herself breathing, could feel herself straining as she internally kept the dragon at bay, shaking, praying she would win.

Then everything went into fast motion.

The Meratoliages ran at Lilly like a pack of crazed dogs, piling over her, then lifting her up, finally heaving her into the bonfire as one group.

But Lilly wasn’t done. She rose up from the center of the flames, her cry nearly cracking the air apart.

Inside Dawn, the dragon laughed, pulling her every which way, breaking her down as she watched Lilly die.

Their gazes met during that last moment, and the keeper’s eyes actually rolled down into their normal place. She was back to being human but, worst of all, she seemed to know it was over as she was consumed by the fire, yelling all the while until...

Until there was no more yelling from Lilly.

Amber didn’t waste any time when she caught sight of Dawn standing on the pallet, the restraints dangling from her hands and ankles. She ran toward Dawn as she cast off her mask and smiled. The others did the same.

“
Is it you?
” she asked in that dark-magic foreign tongue.

The words were Dawn’s downfall, and the dragon crashed through, pushing her essence toward the growing soul stain, allowing the blackness to creep over her like dark, liquid fingers that folded around her.

Then the dragon sucked at the darkness, feeding until Dawn felt her actual body—the dragon’s body now—smiling at Amber, nodding.

The sky got even lighter, and the soul stain expanded even more, threatening to enfold her essence altogether. At the same time, Dawn could feel the stain rising, traveling toward the blood on the body’s face, intending to join the dragon in holy black matrimony.

But Dawn wasn’t dead yet. She still had a little time left before the soul stain got as dark as it’d been before...

With everything she had, she somehow tore the soul stain off of her and took control while she still could, forcing her body to step off the pallet, toward Amber.

The dragon stopped smiling with her body. It hadn’t expected this.

Amber, along with what was left of the Meratoliages, bent a knee and lowered her head to the person she thought was her dragon.

“Master,” she said, and the rest of the family repeated after her. Then she added, “We expected to have you out of
this
body, but she will do for now.”

The sky turned even lighter.

Dawn kept pushing at her body, forcing it into greater motion.

She felt it running at Amber now, and before the woman’s expression could change from worshipful to puzzled, Dawn bowled her over.

She’d seen where Amber had stored Costin’s box, and she reached into the woman’s robes, pulling it out, opening it.

“Costin—” she said with what she feared was her final breath as Dawn.

Wasting no time, he whooshed into her, exactly like he’d done at the beginning of every day for years now. As she spazzed to the ground, Costin crashed into the dragon’s blood, a flood of sparks nicking every cell, making them shudder and shake.

He kept ramming against the blood, weakening the dragon, who moaned with each attack. Quickly, before the dragon could recover, Costin tore through the nearby soul stain, too, banishing it back to the left side of Dawn’s body.

With a quaking pop, Dawn was fully back in the driver’s seat, gasping for air as Costin stayed inside her, a buffer between the two dark forces.

“Run!” His voice echoed through her.

The sun was rising as she pushed to her feet, stumbling away from the Mertoliages, finding her stride, running.

But she didn’t hear anyone behind her, and when she got to the trees, she took a quick glance over her shoulder to see why.

Something charred and awful had come out of the fire.

Lilly?

Dawn never knew what happened to the never-say-die keeper and Amber and the rest of the Meratolaiges after that. She just hauled ass into the woods, adrenaline keeping her going as her soul stain got darker with every unbalanced step.

Yes, the stain was back with the coming of the sun. Maybe she would cry later, when Costin was out of her, when she went back to the same dimmed life she had before. But maybe she wouldn’t cry, because, for one beautiful night, she’d felt alive again, and maybe there’d be another day like this in the future.

Maybe.

As peeks of light filtered through the trees, she fell forward with each step, losing the ability to run.

It was only a totally unexpected sight that made her skid and tumble to the ground, her fingers clutching dried leaves.

Off toward the edge of the tree line, she thought she saw a group of misty figures, all on horseback and led by a man with a blackened face. Some of them carried spears and blades. Other horses held bodies slumped over them.

Both the soul stain and the dragon wanted to go toward the surreal image, pulling inside Dawn to get to it, and Costin started clashing with the dragon again as Dawn dug her fingers in the ground.

If this was the Lord of the Otherworld finally showing up to get her and Costin, she wouldn’t oblige him. Fuck him, fuck the Meratoliages—they weren’t going to win after all...

The man with the frighteningly obscured face nudged his horse forward just as Dawn lost her grip on the ground, finding herself crawling toward him—

As sunlight blared through the trees, the image in front of her faded into the air, lord, horses, bodies, and all.

Without a sound.

Without a word.

Dawn collapsed on the ground as the dragon lost strength and Costin heaved him back to the right side of her body. She flinched at the final thud of battle, panted, rolling to her back, unable to move another inch while Costin spread himself through her, as if in relief that they’d avoided darker magic than they’d ever encountered before.

Or it could be that he was just taking advantage of the one last spot of lightness in her, embracing it as the sun beams broke through the trees and her soul stain got even heavier.

Finally returning to what it’d been before.

The Day After

Jonah and Kiko sat next to Dawn’s bed as she rested, all bandaged up and tended to.

“I’m never forgiving myself for this,” Jonah said. “We should’ve been there.”

She tried to smile but it took so much effort. “How could you have known that the Meratoliages weren’t on either property we’d identified?”

Kiko scowled. “I’m psychic. That’s how I could’ve known.”

The family had built their bonfire to the southeast of the beach house, on a ranch going toward Santee that the Meratoliages had rented, according to Natalia, who’d been working the computer the whole time. Kalin, who’d been as safe as could be after discovering that the Carlsbad property was empty, had been scouring the county for bonfires, traveling the air as Friends did. She’d found a fire, all right, and come back to report her findings to Jonah and Kiko, who’d been trying to track Dawn.

After Kalin had led them to the ranch, where they’d found Dawn and Costin coming out of the woods, they’d done some cleanup, getting a hold of a weapon or two that Lilly had evidently used during her attempt to stay unretired. From psychically reading the items, Kiko and Natalia had vibed that Lilly had indeed been exacting her own form of revenge against her family and seeing to her undead future. Dawn had been right about that.

Thing was, there’d been no other sign of Lilly nor the Meratoliages when the rest of the team had arrived. There’d been only a smoldering bonfire. It was an ominous sign that already had Costin talking about pulling up stakes and changing their location, just in case.

“Kik,” Dawn said, “you can’t know everything.”

He stayed silent, clearly disappointed in himself.

But Kalin had been lingering near Dawn’s bed, and the Friend spirit whooshed over to Kiko, as if to pat him on the shoulder.

“It’s a nice job you did,”
her voice said.

Then she made her way over to Jonah. As she blew against his short, dark hair, he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but near the spirit. Dawn guessed that it wouldn’t be long before he put the Friend back in her portrait for another few months as she waited for him to finally realize that he loved her. Which he didn’t.

Dawn didn’t want to think about who he thought he loved as his gaze locked to hers. She rolled her eyes and looked away, toward the spot where Costin was making an indentation next to her on the bed.

Natalia came into the room with a fresh compress and sat near Costin. There was a band of tension that stretched between her and Kiko that everyone was trying to ignore.

“How do you feel, Dawn?” she asked civilly. But Dawn knew that as soon as she was in tip-top shape, Natalia was going to hate her.

“Probably not as bad as Costin feels,” she said.

Next to her, the impression from his essence shifted. “I am...fine.”

Yeah, judging by his weak tone, he was also a liar. But she rested her hand on him. Her soul stain was trying to make her feel guilty about what she’d put Costin through last night, but she battled the dark thoughts.

She’d made a promise to herself—she was going to find a way to lift the soul stain again, one way or another. She’d experienced light, and she wanted to go back to it.

Inside her, the dragon grumbled. It seemed just as drained as Costin.

Aw. Poor woobie.

Dawn’s eyes started to close, but she battled to keep them open. Jonah rose from his seat, pulling at Kiko’s shirt. He shrugged him off, staying by the bed.

Jonah let him be. “Rest well, you two.”

As he left, Natalia pressed the wet cloth against Dawn’s head, then removed it, setting her nursing tools on the nightstand before joining Jonah on his way out the door.

Kiko put his hand on Dawn’s, his smile sad. She knew it was a goodbye gesture. Still, Dawn couldn’t help trying to spin that melancholy grin into a positive thing.

“
Au revoir
, my friend,” she said, hoping she’d gotten the French right.

Until we meet again, right?

“Later, Dawn.” His voice was rough as he lifted up her hand to kiss it, then left her alone as the others had.

But as the sun shone through the window, Dawn turned on the side of her that wasn’t wounded, laying her arm over Costin’s resting essence, loving that she still had him to hold on to.

For the first time in a long time, she fell into a peaceful sleep while looking forward to tomorrow.

THE END

Chris Marie Green is the author of the urban fantasy Vampire Babylon series from Ace/Penguin Books and now the GothicScapes group. As Christine Cody, she also writes the supernatural post-apocalyptic Western Bloodlands trilogy. She’s working on the Jensen Murphy: Ghost for Hire series for Roc and, as if that isn’t enough, she also writes under the pen name Crystal Green. When Chris isn’t knee-deep in creating fantasy worlds, she spends her time devouring all the pop culture available to her and avoiding international incidents while traveling. You can get a peek at all her personalities at:

www.chrismariegreen.com

or www.christinecody.net,

and www.crystal-green.com.

She’s also on Facebook:

(http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Marie-Green/1051327765 )

and Twitter: (http://twitter.com/ChristineCody ).

A Story of the Favored

by

Nancy Holder

Dear Reader,

It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Bridget and Colin Flynn, fire-haired siblings who live in Miami Beach. On Samhain—what we call Halloween—Bridget and her brother are sucked into a feud between two historic witch families that threatens to erupt into full-scale war. Twins with magical powers are precious and rare, and everyone wants to use the Flynns. On the second stroke of midnight, Bridget finds herself leaping through a bonfire to seal a year-marriage to a man she doesn’t know—only to wind up in an enemy graveyard battling the dead who have risen for Samhain.