Vicki Pettersson - Cheat the Grave

“I’m mortal too.” I hated how injured my voice sounded. I hated to beg for information about my own mother.

“She knows, and she’s still working on your behalf. She still…believes in you.” While Skamar’s tone said she clearly did not.

“Then why won’t she-”

“She doesn’t tell me why.”

“So make her!”

She turned her gaze back to the panel where the floors ticked by. “I don’t care enough to make her do anything.”

I angled myself before her, putting myself in potential danger when those doors snicked open. “If you thought I was the Kairos would you care?”

“If you were the Kairos,” she said, using one finger to push me aside, “I wouldn’t be here.”

The bell chimed at our floor and the doors opened. The hum of empty air stretched, and trailing Skamar, I thought maybe this would be a nonevent.

That hope died as soon as the giant French doors swung open. “Oh my God.”

The phone nearly slipped from my hand as I stared at the gleaming foyer, the remnants of Olivia’s physical life strung over it like confetti. Skamar whizzed from room to room, leaving a whistle in her wake, but I simply pushed the door shut and slumped against it.

Every item Olivia had collected on vacations, sprees, and whims…destroyed. The Swedish crystal she valued for its thickness and curves was smashed on the marble floor. The built-in shelves housing them were carved up, symbols scratched into the surfaces, though it was mostly a cross-hatching of random, furious scrawls that left wood shavings scattered among the broken glass.

The antique scrolled daybed in the room’s center was dumped on its side, the gorgeous wood equally bladeraped. Its silken throws and pillows hadn’t been spared either, and soft down, cotton, and wool lay in destroyed puffs and strips. Graffiti marred the entire room-glass tops and walls, ceiling and marble floor-though it wasn’t paint scrawled over every surface, but the mark of that deadly blade. Each score was a warning even though the damage was already done. I didn’t know what sort of strength was needed to make marble scream, but knew if Mackie had his way, there was a death cry waiting in my body too.

Lifting my head, I stared at the floor-to-ceiling windows revealing the penthouse’s money shot-an unobscured view of the famous Strip. It was an even better view now, I thought sadly. Because every plate-glass window bore a jagged hole the size of a doorway in its empty middle. Cold air rolled in uninvited, though that wasn’t what had me shivering as Skamar returned to my side.

“Check the ledge outside, please.” Mackie could literally be hanging there, waiting in ambush. I’d once traversed that ledge as well.

While Skamar investigated, I repocketed the phone and forced myself into action, stepping over shattered picture frames, littered flowers-already wilting-and vases near impossible to replace. Every step forward was an invitation to panic, so I deliberately slowed my breathing to match my footsteps, not daring to release any strong emotion. Mackie could be close enough to scent it. He’d return eventually, and of course Tripp was right. The monster wouldn’t stop until I was dead.

Something inside of me lifted its head at the thought. It was as if logs were being thrown on a newly lit pyre, and each one choked back a scream. I held my breath even as my heartbeat quickened-panic attack, I realized, bracing my weight against a wall. That’s what people had when they were up against something far stronger than themselves. Shuttering my eyes, I tried to ignore it, but it flared behind my lids in a blinding orange-red, and heat struck at my heart.

“Joanna?”

Skamar’s voice was as airy and far off as she’d once been, like she was still stuck in another world.

I rubbed at my eyes, the fire in my chest building. My rib cage began to ache, and I stumbled into Olivia’s bedroom. Not a whole lot more to destroy there either. The same definitively careless lacerations scored every surface. I bumbled through the upturned furniture, tripping in my blind panic, and cut myself on the fragrant perfume bottles littering the floor.

“Joanna!” This time a hiss. My blood and panic must have reeked.

I ripped at linens and sheets, searching, the fire mounting, before I clamored over a halved mattress to the closet I’d fitted with a false back. Clothing-ripped, slashed, slit, torn-designer labels, and remnants of beauty mocking me with false value. I pushed it all aside, along with leather shoes and boots now made of fringe…and finally found Luna, wide-eyed, in a corner.

“No.”

Was that my voice? I wondered. Or an echo too from another world?

“No, no, no…”

Ah, that was keening. A death wail that straddled worlds. I recognized it because I’d lost loved ones to violence before. But never a being so innocent and small. Never a pet.

I hadn’t thought wardens could be destroyed. Conduits only made them stronger, larger, and fiercer. Mackie’s soul knife wasn’t a conduit then, because Luna had faced a reduction-her form removed along with her life. I only recognized the feline face because of those great, unseeing eyes. Gathering the rest like kindling in my arms I folded over the fur and bone, wrapping it around her like a blanket, trying to put her back together.

And then she blinked.

“Oh God, oh God…” It wasn’t me this time, but it was just as unnatural. Beings imagined into existence generally didn’t pray. “Come. Let’s get you out of here.”

But I couldn’t leave my warden. After all, she had never left me. I curled my own body around her as I was lifted in turn. The pyre in my chest flared, Luna and me caught in its center, bloodied fur and raw emotion mingling like our biology and spirits were one. Yes, I thought, a small piece of me dying.

“Hold tight,” Skamar whispered raggedly, but instead I tucked into myself and just let go. She jumped from the rooftop, Olivia’s condo dropping away in a roller-coaster dip. Then the air pressed me back against the tulpa, her flight a shuttle takeoff. I curled in tighter. Burning on that pyre, I let go all the fear and sadness and horror I’d been trying so hard to keep from being scented by those in the underworld. The wind whipped away my screams before doing the same, eventually, with my manic laughter. I imagined Mackie crazed on the ground, trying to track those cries, but only stopped when my throttling gasps extinguished the fire behind my lids. Gradually the air lessened against me, and I slumped in those slim, tenuous arms. For a moment I could almost imagine Luna was warm, curled in my arms, purring and whole. Then Skamar landed. And the world was cold again.

My mind was clenched, registering only tunnels, darkness, beneath the city… but eventually a face appeared. Again, just eyes, though unlike Luna’s, these weren’t framed in a broken body. The skull housing them wasn’t crushed. And they remained fixed on one spot, willing me into coherence.

“You could crush me like that,” I said, voice so flat it could’ve been ground beneath Mackie’s boot too.

“Anyone in our world could crush you,” Skamar replied, truthfully. I winced, but didn’t hold the lack of sentiment against her. She wasn’t born like me. She didn’t have a past, so how could I expect empathy to be part of her makeup? It had to be learned, gained through experience. Skamar had never been weighed down with a personal history. No family or allies to betray her, while I’d had both. “But not like that,” she added, almost to herself.

So keeping a being alive beneath a pulverized body was a skill unique to Sleepy Mac. I swallowed hard, and though Skamar didn’t move, imagined her doing the same.

“Help her.” My voice came out knotted. Hearing it, I had the urge to resume my wailing, but I squeezed my lips tight. That’s how I held myself together.