“You knew I tried to protect them?” If so, that was a hell of a lot more than I knew. Not that I was about to volunteer that piece of information. “How?”
“Video,” Daniel replied. “Each team member had a camera in their helmet. That’s standard procedure now. It took a while, but we pieced together what happened from going through the videos. Of course, we need your version of events as well, given that you’re an eyewitness.”
That might be tricky, since the whole fight was still a black hole in my memory. I didn’t know how to tell him that.
“We have video of you entering the room,” Ramón continued, “and attacking that Old One.” He grinned. “Nice hit, by the way. Sliced that ugly head right off. You must have been as surprised as we were when the Old One picked up his head and reattached it.”
Surprised wasn’t the word for it. But I didn’t like the implication: The Old Ones were getting closer to their goal of true immortality—and therefore harder than ever to kill.
“After that,” Daniel continued, “you disappear from the videos. All of them. Did you go for help? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I was . . .” How do you explain Limbo to a couple of norms?
“We can take your statement later,” Ramón said. “The important thing is that we have irrefutable evidence of what happened to each and every team member. You’re in the clear.”
In the clear. What beautiful words. Kaysi would feel vindicated.
AFTER PROMISING TO MEET WITH DANIEL AND RAMÓN THE next day, I was free to go to Mab. She lay on a stretcher, her face pale. When she saw me, her lips stretched in a thin smile.
“I don’t know how to address you,” she said. “Lady or child?”
I took her hand in mind. Her fingers felt thin and cold. “My name’s still Vicky.”
She lifted my hand and turned it back and forth. The glitter that coated it sparkled in the light, and her smile broadened. “So it is.”
“Mab,” I said. “Your bloodstone. It’s . . .” I didn’t know how to tell her. “It’s gone.”
“Of course, child. How else could Ceridwen return?”
I stared.
“For all these years,” Mab said, “for more lifetimes than anyone should have to endure, I kept the bloodstone for her. And now she has made use of it.”
“But what’s going to happen to you?” The bloodstone had always been the source of Mab’s vitality.
“At long last, child, I’ll be able to rest.” She must have seen the stricken look on my face because she added, “But not yet. The battle isn’t over. Much work remains for both of us.”
The EMTs stepped in then, saying that they had to get Mab to the hospital. She squeezed my hand, said, “I’ll be fine, child,” and then was gone.
Before I went home, I walked past the corralled zombies. The cops were starting to load them into vans. I scrutinized each face, but I didn’t see anyone I knew. As far as I could tell, Tina was still missing.
I MADE IT HOME WITHOUT INCIDENT. WHEN I CALLED MASS General, the nurse told me that Mab was in “fair” condition and admitted for observation. She put me through to my aunt’s room, and Mab forbade me from coming to visit. “I’ll be out tomorrow,” she insisted. “Stay home and sleep, child. You need it.”
So I did. Maybe a better niece would have needed more convincing, but I was exhausted. If only I could get some sleep, everything that had happened would make more sense. And I’d wake up strong enough to face the next battle, whatever it might be.
Yet as soon as my body relaxed into sleep, Ceridwen woke up. Her presence flamed into my dreamscape, lighting up the usual darkness with sparkles of silver and gold. The light swirled. It solidified into a female shape, and she stepped forth. She was beautiful, with golden hair, rosy skin, and dark eyes. She wore a simple gown, belted at the waist, its hem brushing the ground.
My greeting to her: “Go away.”
I expected, maybe even hoped, to annoy her, but the goddess merely tilted her head and laughed. Shimmering, iridescent butterflies formed from the silvery sound and fluttered around her head, alighting like ornaments in her long, golden hair. They reminded me of Butterfly, the only Eidolon in history to sacrifice itself for its host, and for a moment I felt an inexplicable sadness.
Get over it, Vicky, I told myself. You’re better off without that demon. It was a pain in the ass.
A pain in the ass who saved yours, I told myself back in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Butterfly’s.
I’d never know whether Butterfly had deliberately led me into Pryce’s trap at the empty factory. That made me a little sad, too. I’d almost enjoy listening to its sputtering self-justification. But I couldn’t forget that fact that Butterfly had prevented Kane and me from killing each other.
I couldn’t puzzle out the Eidolon’s motives now, though, because Ceridwen spoke. “One freely invited is not so easily dispatched,” she said. Her voice rang softly, like wind chimes.
“You call that ‘freely’? I was desperate.”
“Still, you could have refused. And do not be ungrateful for the gifts I have given you. For one, I saved the life of our servant, Mab.”
“Mab is no one’s servant.”
Ceridwen tilted her head, her brown eyes puzzled. “It’s no insult. She has served me faithfully for many years. What else would you have me call her?”
“Just Mab.”
She shook her head like I wasn’t making sense. The butterflies in her hair made a shimmering cloud around her head, then settled again. She continued her litany of gifts. “I restored the life of your lover. I transformed Mallt-y-Nos, although that was a just punishment for her overreaching. She misused her power appallingly. Still, she’ll no longer hunt you before your time, so I count that as a gift.”
“What will happen to her?”
“She’ll remain a hellhound. I expect by now she’s found her way to Uffern to join the other demons there.” Her voice sounded bored, as though the transformed Night Hag was of no further interest. “But we haven’t mentioned my greatest gift to you.” She inclined her head toward my glittering right hand. “A share of my power. With time you will learn what that means, but one benefit you’ll see immediately is that it will help you control your demon mark.”
Maybe. I’d felt the Destroyer’s power push against Ceridwen’s back in Fenway Park. I didn’t want my body to become their battleground.
“Look,” I said. “You’re right. I can’t even begin to express my gratitude for what you did tonight. You got the Night Hag off my back and saved the two people I love most in the world. But this is my body. No offense, but there’s no room for two inhabitants.”
“You invited me freely,” she insisted.
“To save Mab! I let you in only for that. You’re acting like somebody who gets invited over for dinner and moves in permanently. Who does that? Nobody!”
Ceridwen held out a finger and studied the butterfly that alighted there. She didn’t speak.
I looked at my glittering hand. I’d washed and scrubbed, but it hadn’t come clean. It sparkled in shades of gold, silver, and scarlet. “These are fragments of the bloodstone, aren’t they?”
“They are. Fragments imbued with my power.”
“What will happen to Mab? That bloodstone kept her young and strong.”
“She will now live out the normal life span of a Cerddorion woman aged forty. Yes, her vitality will fade, as must happen with all mortals, but gradually. She’ll not feel the effects of her three centuries. That was my gift to her.” The butterflies began to circle Ceridwen, creating a shining cloud. “You’ll find that I’m a generous goddess . . . to those who serve me well.”
Energy flashed. Ceridwen and her cloud of butterflies vanished. But her words lingered in my dreamscape, fading slowly like the afterimage of a fireworks display. Somehow, they sounded less like a promise of generosity than a threat.
38
THE DAY OF GWEN’S COOKOUT DAWNED GRAY AND overcast, but by noon the sun had pushed apart the clouds. I sat beside Kane as he drove west on the Mass Pike toward Needham. My hand rested on his leg, above the knee. From time to time he put his hand on mine and gave a gentle squeeze. Since our reunion after his full-moon retreat, we hadn’t talked about that night. We hadn’t felt the need to. What we did need was to touch each other. I’m not talking about passionate embraces and hungry reclaiming of each other’s bodies, although there was that, too. I mean holding hands, sitting thigh-to-thigh, brushing fingertips against an arm or cheek—the sorts of small gestures that say I’m here, I acknowledge you, we’re together.
Soft classical music—Kane said he put it on for Mab, who sat in back, but it was a piece I’d heard him choose many times—played through the car’s sound system. No one said much, and I had time to think about the events of the past few days.
Pryce was dead. Really dead. The corpse Daniel showed me when I went in to give my account of the SWAT raid looked like a thousand-year-old mummy, shrunken and desiccated. The Destroyer had done its job thoroughly.
“But why?” I’d wondered aloud to Mab after I picked her up from the hospital. She’d healed her injuries herself by shifting into a mouse, frightening a nurses’ aide in the process. When the doctor could find no trace of Mab’s former injuries, he had to discharge her.
“Why would the Destroyer kill Pryce? Think, child.” Although I’d never liked it when Mab implied I wasn’t thinking hard enough, it was miles better than hearing her call me Lady.
“Well, Butterfly told me they were fighting. And Hellions don’t like to answer to anyone. So when the Destroyer saw its chance, it turned on Pryce.”
“Those things are true, certainly. But think also of what the Destroyer said after the Lady came forth.”