The Night Sheriff, page 25
“Why aren’t you dead,” she mutters. She reaches out and smacks the sword that is still lodged within me. It really hurts. “Obsidian.” Surprise washes over her ruined face. “That foolish creature used an obsidian sword—not cold iron at all! But even so … the sword struck true, wielded by the hands of the first-born son and heir; it still should have worked. Why …”
Her eyes go wide. She lunges toward the ashes of the Wendigo and gives a deep snort. When she turns towards me, her eyes glow red with rage. “A trick,” she shrieks. “This is not Mortimer Zenon at all!”
She gives the blade a kick. I almost pass out. “Where is he? I felt him …” She looks at me blankly. “Your office. Whatever is left of him is still in your miserable office!”
She makes a claw-like motion with her hand and drags it upwards through the air. I see Zoiden jerked to his feet. “Wake up, you moron!” She slaps him three times before he tries to pull back.
“I’m up, Ma,” he mumbles. She releases him and he drops to the ground. But he is awake now, and staggers to his feet under his own power. His mother grabs his arm. “Come! I must find the remains of your father before something else happens, and I need you to get me in.” She looks at me with annoyance. Zoiden looks back at Vandy and myself. “They’re not going anywhere, and he will not die,” Polina says. “As for the girl …” She holds the crumpled nametag down before my face. “She is not dead yet,” she snarls, and they hurry off.
I try to push the sword back out, but the dratted thing appears to be lodged on something inside me. I grit my teeth and try to lower myself to the pavement to push it out—but as soon as the tip of the blade touches the ground, a jolt of what feels like electricity arcs through it. I scream, I think. Things blur a bit.
I feel Bone Cat patting my arm. When I open my eyes, I see him dancing from one foot to the other, frantic with worry. “Can I trouble you to pull this sword out?” I rasp.
“I’ll try,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea, boss.”
He bounces back and I feel him grab the sword—and another burst of lightning burns through me.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he mutters. “This is all tied together with the very nature of the land or something. I’m a part of it, y’know? I … I can’t affect the outcome.”
“That’s disappointing,” I whisper. “How is Vandy?”
Bone Cat hesitates long enough that my heart sinks even further. “Not good. That dame did a real number on her.”
“Damn it, why did you let her come back? She was free!”
Bone Cat wrings his paws in distress. “I had to,” he whines.
“Got a phone call.” Vandy’s voice is weak, but cognizant. With a terrible effort, I manage to swing myself around. Bone Cat was being uncharacteristically delicate. Vandy looks like a doll that has been crushed by a freakishly strong eight-year-old. She’s looking at me in such a way that I can tell that she’s in shock, which is a small blessing. Then her words penetrate.
“You got a what?”
“Got a phone call,” Vandy says again. Her voice is beginning to drift into a dreamy cadence. “Her name was Celeste. Said she was a friend of yours. She seemed nice.”
I look at Bone Cat, who nods. “It was her, all right.”
“She is a … colleague.”
“Thass cool. Figured she was a magic person ’cause she had my number. Didn’t even give you my number, Sheriff. Wanted to give you my number. Wanted you to call me …”
“Vandy!” It hurts to shout, but she is starting to drift. “What did Celeste say?”
She rolls her head so she is looking at me. “She said I wouldn’t understand it. She said …” Suddenly Vandy shudders and her eyes go blank. Her mouth opens and Celeste’s voice rolls forth.
“The witch bargained away her youth in order to live. She will do anything to save herself. Zenonland is a unique Place of Power. If she gains control of it, ownership of it, she will have the right to bargain with it. To legally surrender it. It and everyone inside it. For a place this powerful, for that many innocent souls, she could ask for eternal youth, riches, power—whatever she desires.
“The balance of the worlds seen and unseen would be thrown into chaos. You must deny her this. By whatever means necessary.
“I am on my way.”
Vandy’s head slumped to the ground. Her eyes opened and I saw that she was herself again. “She said you had to know,” she whispered.
Ah. This made things much clearer. No wonder Polina was so desperate to carry through with this scheme. No wonder Xochemilchic had betrayed me to try to horn in on it. I smiled sourly. Magic is a filthy business. Oh, Polina may have indeed had “other plans,” but once she had committed to this spell, all other venues were closed to her until it was either completed or definitively thwarted.
I gave a series of painful wheezes. Bone Cat stares at me. “Are … are you laughing? What the hell is so funny?”
“A couple of things. If Xochemilchic had used the iron sword, I would have died, and the witch would have lost everything. But I am still alive.”
Bone Cat looked at me. “Ha ha?”
“There’s more. The witch is still wrong,” I whispered. “She truly did sense the Zenon blood in my office. But it was not from Mr. Mortimer, it was from the head of Bartholomew Zenon, his brother. In the freezer? Right below the Wendigo?” Bone Cat stares at me and nods slowly. He still doesn’t seem to find it as funny as I do.
I wonder what will happen when they force me to destroy poor Mr. Bartholomew’s head? It’s been quite a while, but it is not inconceivable that the actual specter of Mr. Bartholomew will return, once his remains are removed from their resting place. But I fancy that will be someone else’s problem, as I fear that neither Vandy nor myself will survive. Polina will use the correct sword this time. Oh, they swore to not kill Vandy, but that leaves a lot of wiggle room, and I will not expect Polina to be terribly concerned about her comfort, except negatively.
I look at Vandy again and my heart breaks. The damage is too severe—and it was inflicted by magic. Magical damage is forever tainted by the malice behind it, and under normal circumstances, never heals properly—if at all. I crawl closer, until our faces almost touch. Vandy is breathing heavily, and there is a liquid quality to it that I try to ignore. I gently touch her face and her eyes open. When she recognizes me, they soften with a happiness that fills me with fury. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?” Her voice is soft.
“Yes. It is really bad.”
“See,” she says softly. “That’s what I found so cool about you. You never lied to me. About anything. That makes you so special …” A tear wells up and rolls down her face. “I don’t want to die. I mean, I haven’t even gone to Zenonland Tokyo.”
“Me neither.” I look at her and I feel my heart freeze. No. I should not allow myself … “You don’t have to die,” I say hesitantly. “I can … I can turn you.”
She looks at me so blankly that I feel a rush of terror that she has already died. “Which way?” she finally asks. I roll my eyes.
“I can make you the same as me. But … it will not be pleasant.”
“Will it be worse than dying?”
“I couldn’t say. I’ve never died.” I paused. “Maybe.”
“But I’m all fucked up.”
“You will be healed.” I looked at her wounds. “Almost instantly.”
“Soon enough that I can punch that bitch in the face?”
“I’m rather counting on it.”
She closes her eyes and a small shudder runs through her. I cannot tell if she is dying or laughing. “Let’s do it.”
“This will be … unpleasant.” I hesitate. “You will hate me for what I am about to do to you. You will hate me so much that you will kill me yourself.” Her eyes widen, and I put a finger to her lips. “And that’s all right,” I say gently. “That’s how it is with our kind. I killed the one who created me, and now it is my turn, and I want you to know that saving you—Saving you will make it all worth it.”
I reach out and hold her head in my hands, and … there’s nothing. I’m looking for fear, something I can latch onto so as to begin, but there’s nothing. She trusts me completely. That won’t do at all. “Vandy, I …” She looks at me and her eyes are full of acceptance and what I assume is her idea of love. “This is going to hurt.”
She closes her eyes. “I figured.”
“Everything you have ever known is going to be different.”
She smiles adorably. “That happened when I met you.”
We don’t have time for this. I was trying to ease myself into it, but I am afraid there is no kind way to do this, which is why I never have. I grip her head hard, allowing my claws to prick her skin. This elicits a sharp intake of breath and her eyes fly open, and she sees my true face, the one without glamour, without any disguise, the one designed to help me feed—
And she screams and the fear erupts from her, and there is so very much of it. I pry my way in and amplify every fear I can find, ripping them from their hiding places in her conscious mind. With a sneer I smash open her subconscious, exposing the things she dreams about and noisily begin sucking them dry, while continuing to burrow downwards, snapping up the fears that try to flee before me. I encounter her ego, and it is strong, very strong, and when it begins to buckle, the fears I find here are dark and sweet, flavored with horror and a growing despair. Her body is thrashing now. She would be screaming, but she has run out of air and is too terrified to suck in more.
The growing fear of suffocation, one of the most ancient of fears, strong and primal, allows me to ride down, down, down into the realm of her id, where the animal fears are buried. I uproot them one by one, cracking them free and pulling them into myself, but only with a great effort. I am choked and bloated with her fears now. Normally I would have to skim the fear from dozens of people to collect this much, but a human is a machine made of meat that is driven by fears when you get down close to it, and I’m so close that she can feel my breath hot upon her neck.
When I kill a person via fear, it’s more of a riding roughshod over their heart and mind. I extract the important things in such a way that it does a lot of damage on the way out. With Vandy, I scour every nook and cranny of her soul until I discover that last little kernel of self, the brave little bit that believes it’s immortal, because we cannot allow ourselves to believe otherwise, and I enfold it and prepare to crush it out of existence, and that last little bit feels my claws around its throat and it finally knows that this is it: The final death from which there is no return. And, with a small whimper, it surrenders, and by doing so … moves beyond the Fear of Death.
And then … then I hold her. Everything that motivates and shapes and makes Vandy the person I know and would recognize no matter how many times she incarnates—I hold that within myself until I can hold it no longer—without consuming a drop—while her mind and body begin to dissolve from within, because with absolutely no fear, a being has no purpose. No structure. No reason to go on …
And then …
And then, with a great exhalation, I release it all back. Every iota that I have stolen goes roaring back where it belongs … and finds that it no longer quite fits, and to make it fit, she changes. She desperately tries to reassemble herself, cramming everything that is Vandy back where it belongs, back where it needs to be, back holding her mind and self in place, and she begins to realize, even as the last wisps of her fears slide back into place, that it is not enough. That it will never be enough, and that her body now knows how to harvest more. Eagerly she attempts to drain it from me, but against me her will splashes like a wave against a granite mountain, and she pulls back into herself—
And collapses to the pavement, gasping, and I am no longer alone in the world. She spasms in place, and for a moment I think she will vomit, but she sees me, and a look of rage fills her face. With a snarl, she smashes her hand across my face, and a newly grown set of claws rip furrows into my flesh. I expected that.
“What did you do to me,” she screams. In a single flowing movement, she is on her feet, and she draws her leg back to deliver a kick … And she remembers that her arms and legs were shattered. She staggers slightly as she looks at them in wonder. She stares at her hands, and seemingly without effort, they again form into elegant, needle-tipped claws.
While she is staring at them, I blink, and realize that what can only be Death stands behind her. I can see it clearly now. It looks confused and rather annoyed as it reluctantly pulls a great black sword out from her body. Vandy gasps as it pulls free with a final snap and drops to her knees. With a growing fury, the huge dark figure slowly turns and looks down at me. It gives a great smile of anticipation and that terrible sword swings upwards …
I focus back on Vandy as she remembers that I am here, and again the memory of what I did to her burns through her brain. She snarls, and I see her teeth lengthen most alarmingly.
This is the way it is with us. It is the only truth about our kind that we are born knowing. That the one who created us must be punished for doing something so horrific.
I only faintly remember the carnage after my mysterious girl found me bleeding and torn on that mountain road so long ago and transformed me. She had never liked being what she was, and I am convinced that she had just been waiting for the chance to pass it along. I have always wondered if she had somehow set those bears upon me, but I never examined the circumstances too closely, as, long afterwards, I wanted to remember her fondly.
And now it is my turn. I had known this would happen, but Polina and Zoiden will not be expecting her. More important, they have no hold over her now. The spell using her nametag may be potent, Polina is certainly one of the most powerful witches I have ever known, but it cannot stop her now. Vandy is no longer the person that tag represents. In any sense of the word. After she has drained them of their fears and left them as mere husks, she will be free. Free to wander the world as I no longer could.
Vandy screams one final time and comes at me.
I only wish—
And suddenly, Bone Cat is there. He plants himself before her and the roar he gives forth almost splits his head in half. The wind of its fury pushes her back, and suddenly, I see a glimmer of sanity in her eyes. Bone Cat now leaps forward, latches himself onto the lapels of her shirt, and gives her a huge, sloppy kiss. “Happy birthday, toots!”
She spends several entertaining minutes spinning about, trying to dislodge him, but it’s almost impossible to do, as I can well attest. Even if you sweep your hand through him, scattering his bones, they simply tumble back into place. However, this does seem to serve as an excellent way to burn off her initial fog of rage and betrayal, and eventually she is standing there, panting, for a moment more annoyed at Bone Cat than she is at me.
“You okay?” Bone Cat peers closely at her face, and then nods in satisfaction. He then turns towards me. “I think she’s as sane as she ever was, boss.”
This rouses Vandy, and she looks at me. “I hate you,” she hisses.
Bone Cat shrugs. “Maybe even saner.”
“Thank you,” I tell him.
He snorts. “Hey. I told you, I got no idea what would happen to me if you die.”
I’m at a loss, frankly. I hadn’t expected to be still alive this long after Vandy had come into her power. Death, if that is what I saw, has vanished. As I am not ripped into bits, I can concentrate on other things. Like this sword sticking through me. I jerk a thumb towards my back. “A little help here?”
Vandy strides over and glowers down at me. “Does that hurt?”
“Yes.”
She gives the sword a kick. “Does that hurt more?”
“Oh, yes.”
She leans in. “Why shouldn’t I make it hurt even more?”
“Because then you will be assisting the people who made it necessary for me to do this to you. Remember them?” A legitimate question. One of the horrible things about the process that Vandy has just undergone, as I remember it, was that, subjectively, it seemed to go on for days, and when one undergoes an experience like this, a lot of things about your life that seemed very important suddenly seem rather trivial or, indeed, you dismiss them from your memory altogether.
However, Zoiden and his mother are apparently unpleasant enough that their memory can still inspire action, as Vandy now reaches around, plants her foot on my back, and yanks the sword out.
With a groan, I roll over onto my back, and we look at each other. She examines the sword, and obviously considers reburying it in my chest. I am honestly not sure what would have happened if Polina and Zoiden had not chosen that moment to reappear. Zoiden is carrying the canister that contains Mr. Bartholomew’s head, and they are arguing fiercely, which explains why they don’t see us until they are rather close.
Once they do see us, Polina wastes no time, but makes a show of holding up the nametag, and visibly crushes it. Vandy screams and drops to her knees, and I can hear her bones cracking. Polina laughs and comes close enough that when I pick up her magical iron sword and hurl it at her, it easily passes through her midriff, stopping her cold. Zoiden takes one look and dashes off, proving himself smarter than I had given him credit for.
Meanwhile, Vandy pulls herself together, rubs her hands along her arms and laughs in wonder. She then flows towards the witch, grabs her face in one hand, and secures her hands in the other. She looks back at me. “So how does this work?”
I find I can stand up and walk over beside her. “Ah. First you want to find out what they’re afraid of.” Vandy looks at Polina and sees her as I do.
Oh, there are many things swirling about her. I’m sure that in time, Vandy would be able to pick her apart without problem, but I remember the confusion of my first few times.
