She Dies at the End (November Snow #1) (44 page)

“Yeah, so did I,” she said.  “Until he showed me my eyes by fairylight, and which point I freaked the heck out.”  She grabbed his hand.  “Turn off the light,” she commanded.  Ilyn raised his eyebrows again.  “Humor me,” she said, and he complied, flipping the switch without moving a muscle.

She pulled the lantern out of her pocket and lit her face with it.  “There,” she said.  She looked at him, chin tilted up, eyes open wide.

A slow smile snuck onto his face.  Rather than recoiling from her, as November had feared, he bent to look more closely, gently sweeping her hair back from her face.  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.  “I thought I’d seen everything.”  He laughed with a child’s delight.  Finally, he pulled away and she broke the moment.

“I take it other people’s eyes don’t do that?”

“No, they do not,” replied the dumfounded vampire.

“So, yeah, not completely human, then,” she summarized.

“Do you remember these supposed other lives?” he asked, full of childlike curiosity, just as he had been back in Oakland looking through her binders.  He looked like he was bubbling up with questions.

“I’ve been having a lot of visions about them recently, and I’ve seen some of the same women throughout my childhood.  I thought they were ancestors, or maybe just random visions.  I didn’t realize that they were somehow
me
.  Luka claimed Savita also remembered some things, that he told her of his theory centuries ago.”

“Why didn’t Savita tell me about this?  I can’t believe I didn’t notice that about her eyes after all these years,” he said, shaking his head.  “Even with our sharp senses, we look but we do not see.”

“Apparently, the light has to be just so, only fairy light,” November replied.

“Savita?” Ilyn called softly.  “Come to me.”  He reached out to summon his daughter.

A half-breath later, Savita opened the door.  She stood, a shadow framed in the doorway, lit from behind by the hallway light.  Observing Ilyn and November on the bed, the fairy lantern between them, she sighed.  “Well, now you know,” she said quietly before shutting the door and joining them on the bed.

“Oh, darling, why did you not tell me?” Ilyn asked, reaching toward her.  His daughter’s eyes were no longer their familiar deep brown but rather a swirl of ruby and gold, lit from within.

“I simply didn’t want to believe that Luka could be correct about what I am.  It means I am even more of a monster than I even knew.  It means that even when this life is over, there will just be another one to ruin.  There’s no escape at all, no peace.  Not for me.  Not for my sister.  Besides, what difference does it make?” Savita replied hopelessly.

“We’re not monsters,” November countered.  “It’s not as though we asked to be born this way.  There must be a reason we exist.”  She shook her head.  “I wish you would have told me.  So I didn’t have to find out from Luka of all people.”

“I wanted to spare you.  Knowing didn’t make things any easier for me,” Savita replied, looking down at the coverlet.

“You’re not evil, either one of you,” Ilyn stated flatly.  “I’ve seen evil plenty of times, believe me, and neither of you qualify.  Besides, the ancient Greeks didn’t think
daemons
were evil.  In Islam,
jinns
can be good or bad.  There are good
asuras
, too, according to your own countrymen, Savita.”

“You were the one who staked Juana, weren’t you?  When Luka tried to turn her?” November asked, giving voice to what she had suspected for days.

Savita nodded.  “I hated to betray my brother, but I feared how Luka would use her . . . you.  I wanted to save you from him, even though I loved him.  I feared what he would make you into.  And I thought . . . what if you were my sister?  I never saw Juana’s eyes by fairy light, so I thought, maybe . . .”

“But I’m not?” November guessed.  

Savita gazed downward, looking like she was about to cry again.  “No.  I wasn’t sure, at first, of course.  Not until I saw your eyes in the fairy light, at the garden party.  I’m not sure if I was disappointed or relieved.”  She shook her head.  “I should have told you.  I just couldn’t.  I told myself that it would do no good, your knowing.  And then Luka took you again, and I thought we would be too late to save you, too late for me to confess what I withheld—“

“But you weren’t.  I’m fine.  And the truth is out.  We just have to figure out what it all means.”  November reached out a hand to her.  “And you won’t have to stake me the next time I get turned into a vampire, because it won’t be by Luka.”

“You still think that can’t be prevented?” Ilyn asked.

November shook her head.  “I’m going to get mortally wounded, somehow.  The choice will be to let me die or change me.  I’ve decided I want you to change me if it comes to that.  I wasn’t sure before Luka took me, but I am now.  Look, I don’t want to be born again not knowing what I am or how to handle my gift.  My childhood was a nightmare until I got some control over the visions.  I don’t want to have to fumble through it all again, all alone, in constant danger from Luka without even knowing it.  Luka needs to be stopped, and I need to see that through.  Dead and reborn as a crazy infant, I can’t do that.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” the king replied with sad eyes.

“There’s a first time for everything,” November replied, not feeling very optimistic.

The three of them emerged to find Hazel and William deep in whispered conversation in the hallway.

“Well, then, what do
you
think we should do with the pup?” William asked, sounding exasperated.

“It isn’t our responsibility.  Hector should make arrangements for him once we get to California,” Hazel replied.  “Put him in touch with the local packs.  It’s not as if I don’t have enough to worry about right now.”

“What about Zinnia?” November interrupted.

“What
about
her?” Hazel asked, confused.  “This is a werewolf matter.  I mean, she can’t possibly keep him!  When he hits puberty and the transformations begin, he’ll want to rip her throat out.”  Her phone rang yet again, and she excused herself.  “Birch, dear one, what’s the word?” she demanded, zipping down the hallway.

November turned to the three vampires.  “I don’t know if separating them is such a good idea,” she said.

“There’s no avoiding it,” Ilyn replied.  “Every fairy she meets will reject her if she tries to raise this child.  Every werewolf will reject him.”

“What if they’re, you know, bonded already or whatever you call it?” November demanded.

“That’s impossible,” Savita said, not sounding quite as sure as she intended.

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately,” November said.  “Her mom just died, right?  Maybe it leaves her open to it?  I mean, just look at them.”

They returned to the living room, standing in the doorframe as they watched Zinnia and Carlos.  They were curled up together on the sofa, Zinnia reading to him patiently as he ate a huge bowl of ice cream.  The connection between them was strong enough to nearly be visible.   Judging by everyone else’s concerned faces, they could see it, too.

***

Luka pulls a hatchet out of Willow’s head.  Light pours out, blinding.  A red-haired fairy drops to her knees to heal her sister-in-arms.  Willow’s wound closes and her eyelids flutter open.  A young Spanish girl is dragged from her bed.  The President stands at a podium.  Ilyn fills William’s grave with dirt, Marisha at his side.  Agnes falls to dust.  Savita screams, covered in blood.             

Exhausted, November had returned to bed, but she found little relief there.  Without fresh vampire venom in her veins, sleep was a pitched battle and November lost.  She didn’t get more than a half hour’s rest at a time before something awful trespassed in her head.  At one point, her screaming woke up every sleeping person in the house, and Zinnia had a heck of a time getting Carlos to go back to bed.  He insisted on coming in November’s room to make sure she was okay first.

Ilyn was there to comfort November every time she woke until dawn came.  “I would offer to bite you,” he told her quietly at one point, while she tried to stop shaking from a vision of Luka. “But you lost a lot of blood yesterday.  I don’t think it would be wise.”  She nodded her understanding and closed her eyes, praying for sleep.  Ilyn left her side reluctantly as dawn kissed the sky.

November finally gave up mid-morning, showered to wash off the cold sweat from her disturbed sleep, and dressed.  She pulled once again from the top of the box of discarded clothes, not really caring how she looked, grabbing blindly.

At the bottom of that box was a blue party frock.  It was over a decade old, but classic and chic enough to still be worn in decent company.  It was a lovely cocktail dress, as out-of-place in that ramshackle house as an orchid in a pigsty.  That’s probably why Neil’s wife had bought it: the dress was exactly as out of place there as she had been.  She’d only worn it once or twice.  They hadn’t exactly gone to a lot of parties.  

November never found the dress, buried as it was under all the other clothes.   Even if she had, she might not have recognized it, all clean and pressed and folded neatly.  It looked a lot different on a corpse, stained with blood.

Similarly, November didn’t recognize Neil’s garden when he gave her a tour that morning.  It looked so different in the light than it had in her many visions of her nighttime burial.  It was a desert garden, planned to survive Neil’s long carnival absences in the summertime.  It was about what she would have expected, mostly cacti and succulents.  There were some lovely old trees planted by his parents and grandparents and carefully tended until their roots had grown deep enough to find water on their own.  It was handsome and austere and practical, rather like Neil himself.  By day, it had none of the gothic beauty it possessed in her visions of it.  Perhaps November's exhaustion also contributed to her inability to see what was right in front of her.  So fresh from peril, perhaps her mind tried to protect her from seeing the new danger she faced.  Whatever the reason, no premonitions cast shadows on that bright and sunny day: her last day.

“So, what are you going to do?” November asked Hector after she returned from her promenade in the yard.  She was sitting with Pine on the back porch, eating a muffin, drinking coffee, and watching Zinnia play tag with Carlos.  Neil had found some work to do in the garden.

“Don’t know,” Hector answered tersely.

“You should come with us,” Pine advised.  “No pack is going to want to take you.  They will wonder why you survived when every other wolf in Arizona perished.”

“I’m aware of that,” Hector replied in a voice more like a growl.

"Also, we like you," November piped up.

“Also, we like you.  Plus,” Pine continued undeterred, “with us, you’ll be on the inside of any fight against Luka.  You’ll get your chance to help get justice, protect your people.”

“That argument I find more persuasive,” the werewolf allowed with a quick flash of his teeth.

“Then there’s him,” Pine said, gesturing to Carlos.  “He needs a wolf around.  Maybe no one else besides us has noticed that Zinnia’s bonded to him, but our betters are going to pick up on it sooner or later.”

“Ilyn, William, and Savita have noticed.  Hazel seems intent on pretending not to,” November interjected.

“Well, there you go,” Pine said.  “And a fairy raising a werewolf?  Not going to be popular.  They’re going to run into a lot of trouble on all sides.  And the kid’s going to need a wolf role model.  No other wolf will accept him now, even if they did separate.”

“It is not possible for a fairy to bond with a werewolf,” Hector insisted.  He sounded like he was trying to persuade himself as much as anyone else.

“Yeah, well, someone forgot to tell them,” Pine countered.  “There seems to be a lot of misbehaving fairy magic lately.”

“None of this is my problem.”  By now Hector was grinding his teeth.  “It cannot be,” Hector stated flatly, then fled into the house.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Pine commented drily.

“He’s been through a lot,” his friend replied.

“Speaking of which, so have you.  How are you doing?”

“Okay, I think,” she answered honestly.  “I assume you heard about the whole demon thing.”

“It made the rounds.  Don’t possess me.”

She threw a pillow at him.  “Not funny.”

“A little funny?” he asked, giving her a hopeful puppy look until she relented and smiled.  “Seriously, though, you must be kind of freaked out.”

“Not really.  I was, at first.  But I’ve sort of accepted it now.  The whole thing does kind of explain a lot: the psychic business, my sense of otherness.  I mean, I always felt sort of old.  I never acted like a kid, even as a toddler, according to my grandmother.  It weirded people out.  The church nursery refused to keep me.”

“It’s always the quiet ones,” he said with a smile.

“Besides, whether Luka is right nor not, it doesn’t really matter what I am.  What matters is what I choose to do,” November shrugged.

Zinnia and Carlos joined them on the porch.  Pine tossed the boy a snack and a bottle of water.  Carlos smiled shyly but kept his distance.  He was still understandably leery of the vampires and fairies, Zinnia excepted.  Neil turned up as well.  They sat companionably as the sun began to go down.

Neil suddenly piped up.  “If any of you need a snack, there’s some coyotes north of the main road could use clearing out,” he commented nonchalantly as he sipped a beer.

Everyone slowly turned to look at him, silent and astonished.  “What, did you think I was blind as well as stupid?” Neil asked.  “In close quarters, it doesn’t take long to see you’re not ordinary people.  City people have an easier time pretending you’re not real, but out here in the country, we’ve all heard about bloodless carcasses, or sheep turned to black husks.  My grandparents had stories to curl your hair. ”

“We could make you forget,” came Hazel’s voice from the doorway.  She’d been holed up in the house all day, thinking and consulting with Birch on her third throw-away cell phone of the week.  Everyone tensed.  “But I don’t suppose it’s necessary.”  They all relaxed.  “You have been a good friend to us.  It would hardly be fair to repay you thus.  No one would believe you, anyway.”  She came and sat down on the steps.  “Good news: we’re cleared to fly.  We leave for the airfield at midnight.”

“That is good news, but I admit, I’ll be sad to see you go,” Neil said.  “It’s nice to have a full house again.”

“Much thanks for your hospitality,” Pine replied, everyone then murmuring their agreement.

“It might be best if you left before we do,” Hazel suggested delicately.  “Perhaps go to your brother’s house for a week or two.  If our enemies have tracked us, the most likely time for them to try to attack will be tonight, when we are on-the-move and more vulnerable.  I would hate for you to be collateral damage.”

“I’m not running from my own home!” Neil protested.

“It’s just for a few days,” November said.  “Please, enough innocent people have died over me.  I couldn’t stand it if you got hurt, too,” she pled, sounding close to tears.

The prospect of November crying was more than Neil could take, of course, so he agreed to the plan. He packed a bag and pulled out just after sunset, after saying his heartfelt goodbyes and giving Hazel the key to the gun cabinet.

“Thank you for everything,” November called out, waving as he stood near the door.

“You’re welcome,” he said in a worried voice.  “Be careful.”

“I will,” she promised, knowing that she could be as careful as she wanted without making herself much safer.  Judging by the look on his face, Neil knew that, too.

The vampires rose, but no one went hunting.  They’d fed well the night before, and they worried about being seen or smelled in the surrounding country.  The living ate their fill from Neil’s larder, and everyone hunkered down to nervously pass the time until the scheduled departure.  Carlos turned out to be very fond of board games, soundly beating Hector, Pine, and Zinnia at Candy Land.  William and Hazel argued strategy for the coming struggle.  Ben brooded, per usual.  

November drew, pouring out the images from recent days, visions that had filled her to bursting.  She sat on the couch, her back against the arm of the sofa and her legs bent to hold a sketchpad she’d dug out of Neil’s daughter’s desk.  Ilyn sat beneath her bent knees, watching her and her paper with an intensity that would probably have been uncomfortable had November possessed enough spare attention to notice it.

The psychic’s right hand flew across the page, sketch after sketch appearing beneath it.  Some were of the hotel, its destruction, and those who perished.  Luka’s werewolf prisoners appeared, as did some of the humans dying of poison.  A number of her antecedents appeared as well.  She’d taken to calling them “The Octobers” in her mind, since they came before November.  Ilyn’s eyes widened in surprised recognition when a silver-haired fairy with a jeweled crown appeared, but he said nothing.  Eventually, November ran out of steam and out of paper and simply sat quietly, her eyes closed, enjoying a precious moment of calm and safety.

Eventually, the moment arrived.  It was time to go.

***

Wooden bullets with a silver core are the ammunition of choice for most supernatural bounty hunters, since properly aimed they worked on all supernatural creatures and humans besides.  Forster followed this convention, but he was unusual in that he preferred to do his killing at a distance.  Most vampires enjoyed a close kill, but Forster’s weapon of choice was a long-range sniper rifle fitted with a scope that doubled as a video camera to record evidence of his success as proof for his employers.  Under certain circumstances, getting a sample of the ash as proof was unwise.  

This seemed to be one of those times, as the target was surrounded by an unexpected bounty of friends.  Or, perhaps, as seemed more likely, he was their prisoner.  There was the smell of werewolf, too, which struck him as odd.  No matter.  Downwind and well-hidden, Forster’s presence was undetectable even by the sharp senses of those he hunted.  Had the tow-headed boy vampire been alone, Forster might have merely injured him and tried for the live capture and the higher price, but surrounded as he was, a simple kill was a safer bet.  

The crowd gave him pause, and he considered bailing.  Going for the kill was risky.  They might pursue.  A wiser man would have changed his plan.  Forster, however, was a bit of a risk junkie; moreover, he didn’t know when he would get another chance, and he really needed the money.  He also had no idea that Luka’s lost prize psychic was present.  Nor did he know that telekinetic Ilyn was in their midst.  Forster wasn’t much for keeping up with politics.

Forster had been waiting, silent and motionless since sundown, calm with a vampire’s preternatural patience.  Finally, the front door opened and individuals began to emerge.  As expected, to Forster’s consternation, they were clumped together for protection.  He decided that firing a few rounds might be a useful way to flush out a youngling.  In his experience, they tended to react rather foolishly to danger.  So, he took a shot, aiming at the little werewolf pup.  Just before he pulled the trigger, the human girl cried out, turning to look for danger and throwing herself in front of the boy, thus alerting the rest of them to the threat she had sensed.  

While the more experienced of the group hit the dirt, the blond boy turned to look in the direction of the shot.  He was rewarded with a bullet to the chest.  He looked down and back up again, in either confusion or relief.   He collapsed to dust before he could even cry out.  Forster then began shooting at the others, hoping to thin out the group and lessen the risk of pursuit.  Unfortunately for him, Ilyn was now on alert and caught the bullets in midair.  Forster fled, job well-enough done, or so he hoped.  As he ran, he texted his successful report to his employer.

Down at ground level, Carlos was fine, huddled under both Zinnia and November.  November lay unmoving with her face in the dirt.  Zinnia turned her over with a cry of alarm.

Once the supernatural creatures were certain there would be no more shots coming, everyone began standing up around her.  She lay motionless on the ground, looking up at the sky.  She touched her stomach, and her hand came away wet.  She looked for Carlos and Hector and was overwhelmingly relieved to see that they were whole.  “It’s mine, right?” she asked weakly, holding up her bloody hand, just to be sure.  All was stunned silence for a moment, as various combinations of horror, anger, and pity swirled across the faces above her.  Then things began to happen very quickly.

“In the house, now,” ordered Ilyn, “In case he is foolish enough to come near.  Keep away from the windows.  William, Greg, Savita: Go.  Find him.  Bring him.”  He sounded as dangerous as November had ever heard him, even more terrifying than he had sounded on New Year’s Eve.  

His son and daughter disappeared in a flash.  Greg, his face full of regret, took a moment to squeeze November’s hand before speeding off behind them.  Zinnia and Pine hesitated, wanting to stay with their friend rather than go in the house.  Carlos had his arms wrapped around Zinnia’s leg, hiding his face in her trousers.  Hector had a wild look in his eye.

Ilyn looked at them, standing frozen.  “The boy doesn’t need to see this,” Ilyn said to them with uncharacteristic gentleness.

“Take him inside.  It’s okay,” November whispered.  They complied.

Ilyn and Hazel knelt beside November.  “Does it hurt?” he asked, pulling a stray lock of hair out of her mouth and tucking it behind her ear.

“I can’t feel anything,” she whispered.  “I’m numb below my ribs.  Thank God for small favors.”

“Hazel?  If we get her to a hospital, can she make it to dawn?” he asked with desperate hope.

She shook her head as she continued examining November.  “I think it hit her spleen before it severed her spinal cord.  She’ll bleed out before we get there.  She’s got, maybe, half an hour at the outside.”  She turned to November, “I’m sorry, child, there is nothing I can do for you.”

Ilyn’s face was motionless, but tears of blood welled in his eyes.  “Since moving can’t make things much worse, let’s get her inside where it’s warm,” Ilyn said decisively, needing something to do to delay facing the inevitable.  

He and Hazel gently lifted her and carried her into the living room, laying her down in front of the fireplace and covering her with his cloak before kneeling once again at her side.  The others had taken Carlos to the kitchen. November could hear Zinnia trying to comfort him and explain what was happening. Hazel started a fire going.

Unfortunately, November could also hear Pine and Hector arguing.  “If he changes that poor girl without her permission, so help me God, I will kill him, I don’t care how old he is,” the werewolf declared.

“I’m telling you, he wouldn’t!  And if he did he’d have problems with me, too.  Now calm down, man, you’re going to freak out Carlos even worse,” Pine replied, trying to talk him down.

Hazel went to inform everyone about the unfortunate prognosis, giving Ilyn and November a much-needed moment alone.

He looked down at her, helpless for one of the few times in his long life.  “Oh, little one,” he said softly, “I am so sorry.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said, honestly.  “I’ve known this night was coming since I could walk.  But I did think I had a little more time,” she admitted, tears filling her eyes.  “And I am scared of what will come after.”