Red Queen (46 page)

“You mean it's totally up to you,” I said.

“You don't have a lot of choices, Jessica.”

I paused. “Then I can live with that.”

Susan turned to James. “You're welcome to stay here as well. But it's not the Lapra way to embrace a non-witch. To stay with us you must become one of us. Do you understand?”

He nodded. “I have to become connected. I have to activate my powers by dying.”

“Is that something you want to do?” Susan asked.

“Yes. With all my heart,” James said.

Obviously he was as anxious to become a witch in witch world as in the real world. But were his motives the same?

“No!” I interrupted. “He doesn't possess the healing gene. Chances are he won't survive the process.”

Susan gestured to a bag on the living-room table. “Do you forget I'm a physician? In my little black bag I have plenty of morphine to put James blissfully to sleep. So deep his breathing will cease and he'll be technically dead. But I also have a large assortment of drugs—adrenaline, ephedrine, and so on—to bring him back to life. And what a life it will be. James, you'll have access to five witch genes.” Susan paused. “It's your decision.”

He nodded firmly. “Let's do it.”

Susan clapped her hands together. “I think I'm going to like you, James. Besides being cute as hell, you've got balls. I can see us becoming good friends. Maybe something more. How would you feel about that, Jessica?”

“You're wasting your time if you're trying to make me jealous. You're also picking a bad time to try to connect James. Tonight is about Lara and me. Don't forget you need me to keep her happy.”

Susan acted offended. “Are you saying you're refusing to let your boy have what he wants?” she asked.

“Let me sting him,” Whip pleaded suddenly, jumping off the floor and approaching James.

Susan smiled. “I would, dear, except there's no antidote for your poison.”

Whip's tail went before him, coiling and uncoiling in midair, before it found James and wrapped around his waist, stroking his left arm, then sliding toward his face.

“He's big and strong,” Whip said. “Will I grow up to be as big as he is?”

“You're already a big boy, dear,” Susan said, standing and reaching for her black bag. I jumped up to block her.

“Stop!” I cried. “This isn't the place to experiment on him. If you're going to induce an overdose, do it in the real world. At least then, if he doesn't make it, he'll still be alive in witch world.”

“Don't fool yourself, that doesn't matter,” Susan said. “No one can cheat death. It comes when it decides. It's like a force of nature that destroys all that the rest of nature has given birth to. That's a gentle way of telling you that you can't stop what's going to happen here tonight. Try, and Whip might get the urge to sting you. And I warn you, even with all your powers, you would never be able to recover from that kind of venom.”

Whip moved onto my foot, where he sat on the floor and let his tail crawl up my leg. I felt as if I stood in a pool of octopuses. I stared at James, heartbroken. Why couldn't he see the pleading in my eyes?

“Please don't do this,” I begged.

James stood in front of me. “This had to happen, Jessie.”

Susan suddenly frowned. “What did you call her?”

Before he could respond, we heard a knock at the door.

Susan ordered me to answer. Not knowing what else to do, I obeyed. A figure dressed in black leather stood on the porch.

“May I come in?” Kendor asked, his ancient power clear in his voice and visible in his stance. Of course, the fact that he held an unsheathed sword in his right hand, one soaked in blood, didn't hurt matters.

Susan set down her doctor's bag and spoke from the far side of the room. “Why not?” she said.

Kendor strode into the house. Frank retreated to the corner, where he held Lara in front of his chest, using her as a shield. My daughter didn't cry out, but stared silently from his massive hands, as if lost in her own unfathomable thoughts. Susan stood beside me and James, and all the while she stared at Kendor with wonder. No, it was Syn who stared, and the voice inside my mind was no longer able to think of her as Susan.

“How have you been?” Syn asked.

“Fine. You?” Kendor asked. His sword continued to drip bright red drops on the wooden floor.

“The same.” Syn paused. “You look well.”

“So do you,” Kendor said. “I've missed you.”

“You should have cleaned up before coming. You're making a mess of my floor.”

Kendor didn't sheath his sword. “You have so many guards. I recall the time when you couldn't stand having others watch over you.”

“Did you dispatch them all?”

“Yes.”

“There are always more where they came from.”

Kendor raised an eyebrow. “Do you need them?”

She shook her head. “You must know by now that if your blade were a mile long, it couldn't touch me.”

Syn was speaking of bafflement, I thought.

Kendor glanced around the living room, studying it, perhaps searching for the best angle of attack. “That's why I brought more than a physical sword,” he said.

“A fusion?” Syn asked. “From your fractured Council? I'm sorry but I'm not impressed.”

“You should be. We've settled our differences. We're all of one mind.”

“When it comes to me?” Syn said.

“Yes. You have to go.”

Syn acted amused. “Oh, dear. Now I suppose I should run and hide.”

Syn was an excellent actress. However, the implication that
Kendor had the entire Council at his back worried her. She didn't show the fear in her face or voice; nevertheless, I felt it.

It was only then that I realized the Council had lied to me when we had met earlier in the evening, probably to throw me off guard so Syn herself would be unable to read my mind and know what they had planned.

I didn't know how the fusion worked but the fact that Kendor had come alone implied it only needed one member of the Council to be physically present to transmit its power. I also suspected that Kendor had finally revealed the true nature of Syn to the Council, probably in a final bid to get Cleo's support to attack the woman.

These things I didn't have to be told. My intuition gene was active. The facts seemed obvious to me. Just as it was clear that Kendor was willing to sacrifice his life to protect Lara and me.

“But I've been told to make you a final offer,” Kendor said. “If you agree to release Jessica, James, and Lara—you can leave here unharmed.”

“So after all this time they resort to a threat. Well, you know me. You know how I respond to threats.” Syn hardened her tone and gestured to Frank, who continued to hold Lara tight. “If the Council should so much as force me to blink, I'll signal Frank to tear the child in two.”

Kendor shook his head. “Frank isn't going to hurt Lara.”

“You're fast, brother,” Frank warned Kendor. “But not that fast.”

Kendor seemed to consider. “You're right.”

Behind me, it seemed as if the air suddenly thickened. There was a subtle stir, a wavering of the oxygen molecules we breathed. For some reason I could no longer see the white curtains that covered the windows, although they were only a few feet away. Something was blocking my vision, something invisible, which made no sense because if it was invisible I should have been able to see through it. Whatever was manifesting appeared to have the power to disconnect our brains from our eyes, or else our minds from our bodies. There followed a sudden flash of light that was probably more a product of shock than anything else.

James and I jumped. Syn stood firm.

A figure appeared out of nothing. Alfred.

He reached into the back of my pants and removed the nine-millimeter Glock I had hidden. He must have been familiar with the weapon, and he sure as hell must have known I was carrying it.

In a single fluid motion Alfred removed the safety, riffled a bullet into the chamber, and shot Frank in the forehead. The round flew with a soft whistle. Frank sank into the chair at his back, Lara still in his lap, his brains staining the freshly painted wall. His eyes still open, he let out what sounded like a surprised gasp before leaning dangerously to one side. I ran toward my daughter. Alfred beat me to the punch but quickly handed Lara over.

It was insane to celebrate. The Wicked Witch was still alive and deadly, and we had no house to drop on her head. Still, my daughter felt like heaven in my hands, her tiny body wiggling
in my fingers as she twisted her head up to gaze at me. Something happened in that moment as I gazed back into her blue-green eyes. It was impossible to describe, but I'll say it anyway.

I saw love. It was real, as real as her physical body.

It was what Lara was made of.

Every cell . . . Love, love, love . . .

From far away I saw and heard two different things.

Syn's shattered face. James talking to me.

All the blood had drained from Syn's skin. Her mouth moved but no sound emerged. Yet I could read the name her lips were trying to form. . . .

Herme . . . Herme . . . Herme . . .

James was closer, beside me, but his explanation also seemed to reach me over a great distance. I heard what he said—that did not mean I understood what he said.

“I saw you watching me as I delayed getting in and out of the limo,” he told me. “We were lucky Frank didn't notice. I was just trying to give Alfred a chance to move past me.” He paused. “Jessie?”

He kept calling me Jessie, not Jessica.

I shook my head to free it of Lara's mesmerizing gaze and Syn's devastated expression. My voice came out like a croak.

“He was sitting between us the whole way here?”

“I had to sit somewhere,” Alfred said, talking to me even though his eyes never left Syn. She shook her head as if trying to regroup. She was still pale as a ghost.

“Huh?” I mumbled.

“Even when invisible, I can't walk through objects,” Alfred continued, even though he was as distracted as I was. “If you had reached for James's hand, you would have bumped into me.”

Slowly my brain began to comprehend. Very slowly.

“How did James know where you were?” I asked.

“It's one of my many witch powers,” James said.

“But you're not a witch,” I protested.

James reached for my hand. He reached for Lara. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time, because . . . it was the first time. His eyes betrayed the truth. She was like a newborn to him. It took me several seconds to register what that meant. James, this James, was not from witch world.

This was Jimmy!

Somehow, he had gone through the death experience.

Now he was alive in witch world!

He was a witch! And he was with me!

“Herme,” Syn managed to say aloud, ignoring Kendor, her eyes locked on her . . . son? Yes, it was true, it was her child. Alfred
was
Herme, the person Kendor had told me about. That was why Syn was still ashen, still shaken. She had to struggle to speak to her son. “It can't be. You're dead,” she whispered.

Alfred—Herme—shook his head. “I'm here now.”

“Why?” Syn said, and the word could have stood for a dozen questions. Herme chose to answer the most important one.

“To put a stop to this madness,” he said.

Syn glanced at Kendor, her confusion swiftly changing to rage. “You knew our son was alive and you hid it from me?” she snapped.

Kendor shook his head sadly. “I only found out today.”

“You lie!” she shouted.

“No, Mother. It's the truth,” Herme said.

“Why did you leave us?” Syn demanded.

There was no apology in Herme's voice. “No one could see into your heart like I could. Even Father didn't know how you had changed, what you were becoming, and I couldn't bear to tell him. I felt it best just to leave, and I prayed you would find peace in your own way.” Herme paused. “But you never did.”

“I would never have lost my peace if I'd known you were alive!” Syn shrieked. “It was you, your loss, that broke my heart!”

“No,” Herme said. “By the time I left for the colonies, there was nothing inside your heart left to break. You are what you are, Mother, what you chose to be. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

Syn forced a frightening laugh. “So you have all gathered to beg me to behave. My lover, my child, the mother of the perfect child, even the ancient Council. And yes, I can feel the gathering storm of the Council's minds as they prepare to strike me down if I refuse to obey. But what none of you understand is that long ago I left your world for something far better. A realm of infinite pleasure where I can never again be hurt.”

“Mother?” Herme begged.

“Traitor!” she cried, snapping her fingers at him as if trying to make him invisible once more, before putting the same hand over the heart her son had told her was empty. She felt pain then, deep inside her chest, I could tell. But it was only then she turned away from Herme and cursed the rest of us. At last I could say she truly sounded like a witch.

“All of you, kill me with your petty fusion if you can!” she swore. “But I think you'll discover that it is you who will perish!”

Kendor didn't even try to attack with his sword. Instead he closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. Glancing at Herme, I was sure I would find him taking aim with my Glock. But he too had shut his eyes. It was clear they knew that no physical weapon would work against Syn's bafflement.

The living room flooded with strange energies, and began to change, although I'm not sure if the transformation was of a three-dimensional nature. I'm not even sure if I saw the change with my eyes or my mind, on the inside or the outside. For a time it seemed the distinction between the two disappeared.