C.E. Murphy - Thunderbird Falls

And her face split in an ugly grin. The corners of her mouth tore open wide and bloodless, stretching around her head. Pieces of her face fell away, dropping in fleshy chunks. It continued down her body, over her shoulders and breasts, exposing a new shape beneath them. Virissong’s passion-lit features appeared, mouth pulled wide in a sneer.

“You were so easy,” he whispered. His shoulders broadened, wrists thickening. I kept my grip, even as the power of his transformation made my palm scream in agony. I was afraid blood from it might spill onto him and bind me to him again, but my hold was so tight I imagined it bloodless, and in the garden of my mind, imagination trumped reality.

“I was.” I held on to anger and pushed embarrassment away. There’d be time to be humiliated later. Right now I’d screwed up so monumentally that I couldn’t afford to kick myself about it. “I was,” I repeated. “I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. And so did the coven. How did you do it, Virissong? How did you keep Faye’s power pure enough that it couldn’t be detected by the rest of the coven, while you corrupted her?”

He laughed, staccato sound that lifted the hairs on my arms. “Ask yourself, Walkingstick .” He hissed the name, searching for chinks in my armor. I only grinned down at him, rictus of forthright fury that made an impenetrable shield.

“You shouldn’t have involved Mel,” I whispered to him. “I would’ve gone all the way. I had faith.” Another bolt of light shattered through me, making me laugh breathlessly with anger. “Faith. That’s why our power wasn’t corrupted. We thought we were doing the right thing. Faye thought she was doing the right thing. God, what power faith brings you,” I whispered. My laughter disappeared and left me trembling with rage all over again. “ I want your name !”

“Oh, no, Walkingstick. Not when I’m this close. It’s not going to be that easy.” Virissong set his teeth together in an openmouthed grin that bordered on a snarl. Power surged through him, hot and volatile as electricity. I clamped down on his wrists, struggling to hold him as my hands burned. He got one foot under himself, then the other. I shoved forward, trying to knock him off balance, but he stayed in his crouch, then shoved to his feet, stronger than I was. I thought, inexplicably, of Morrison. Strength shot through me and I squeezed Virissong’s wrists harder, trying to bring him to his knees again.

He kneed me in the crotch.

I couldn’t even tell if I was hurt. I was so astonished I loosened my grip, which was all he needed. He skipped backward, breaking free of my hold, and winked out of my garden. I set my teeth, too angry to even swear, and followed.

Good news: when I fell back into my body, I could see in full, glorious Technicolor. Bad news: getting hit in the crotch still hurt a lot, and my vision swam with tears as my eyes crossed. Semigood news: that was something to concentrate on instead of Melinda’s terror. The time inside my garden had passed with no noticeable correlation in the outside world: Faye still stood behind Mel with an enthusiastic grimace. Zealot’s smile. The rest of the coven hadn’t had time to react; the serpent still loomed hungrily over Colin. Concentrating on the pain from being kicked made it easier to stagger to my feet. As I did, Faye’s expression twisted in anger and dismay.

“You can’t—”

“ Shut up !” I loosened my grip from around the bone knife and backhanded Faye with all my strength, knocking her away from Melinda. I heard a tiny squeaked sob and wasn’t sure if I’d made it or if Mel had. It wasn’t Faye: she flew to the side and hit the ground, bouncing up again so fast it looked inhuman. She snarled, lips pulled back from her teeth like a wild dog’s, and leaped for me.

I vaulted Mel’s wheelchair, my left hand screaming with injustice as I put my full weight on it. My knees hit Faye in the chest. The wheelchair tilted under my weight. Melinda screamed. I shoved the chair as I landed, hoping to right it before it spilled Mel. Faye hit the ground and bounced up again, launching herself at me, her hands extended for the knife I still held. I reversed the blade, snapping it back so it lay along my forearm, and met her attack with my elbow driven at her throat.

It was luck, not skill, that let her deflect the blow. She lifted her head to scream and I hit her collarbone instead of her throat. It slowed her, but wasn’t debilitating. She made claws of her hands and raked them across my arm, reaching for my face and eyes. I grabbed her wrist, dropped the knife, and twisted her arm down and back into a half-nelson. She screamed again, in pain this time, and I brought her to the ground with my knee in the small of her back. They’d taught me how to do that at the police academy. I could tell that later on I was going to be amazed it worked. I leaned forward, keeping her arm twisted between her shoulder blades. “Faye, goddamn it, this is crazy. You’re crazy. You’re being used.”

In retrospect, I was pretty sure they also taught me in police academy not to get my head that close to a violent suspect’s, but I’d stopped moving like a cop and was trying to bring somebody back from the edge. Faye, it turned out, was perfectly happy over the edge. She popped her head back with as much force as she could, slamming the back of her skull into my nose. Blood and tears went everywhere as I toppled over backward, clutching my face. Faye sprang forward, lunging at the bone knife. I flung myself after it and missed; she came to her feet over me, brandishing the blade.

“I’m not going to let you fuck everything up,” she snarled. I leaned back a few inches, my hands spread, watching her warily as I got to my feet.

“Come on, Faye. Let’s talk about this. This doesn’t have to end this way. We can fix all of this.” The rest of the coven was finally moving, leaving their appointed places to watch the fight. I felt like they were absurdly slow, but knew they were moving in real time. Time for me had stretched.

“Fix it?” Her laugh skirled high and sharp. “I’ve done all this to fix it, Joanne! You think it was easy, killing Cassie? But we needed you , and she was too dedicated, she’d never leave the coven!”

“What?” There was nothing to my voice, just a whisper of shock.

“He sent me the dreams of you! Cassie was in the way! My best friend, and I had to kill her so we could get you! You can’t stop now! I won’t let you!” She flung herself at me, the knife raised high. I fell backward, catching her wrists numbly. I had the advantage of reach and strength, dulled by shock. Faye twisted and kicked my shins, screaming with rage.

“You killed Cassandra Tucker?” I felt like my mind had been dipped in a vat of glue. Time wasn’t moving slowly anymore: it was stuck. Faye sneered at me, furious.

“She had a congenital heart problem. The autopsy told you that, right?” Her arms trembled with the effort of bringing the knife down, but I held her fast, leaning into her in order to keep her hands held aloft. She smiled, wide-eyed and manic, her teeth still bared. “Crafting a spell to make the hole a little bigger wasn’t so hard. Just a little bigger, and the heart can’t work anymore. Know what was harder?” She sneered, then lunged like she’d tear my throat out with her teeth. “Your old friend. His heart was healthy. It took a lot of work to damage it. I’d show you the scars, but—” She writhed in my grip, proving that she was too well-caught to be able to show me anything. “It took a long time, but witchcraft can do a lot with little things like that.”

Emotion so cold I had no name for it slid through me, utterly quelling the power centered in my belly. Faye’s skin felt shockingly hot under my hands, so hot that I thought if I let go there would be blue marks around her wrists from my fingers. “Gary?” I honestly didn’t know if I’d said the name out loud, but Faye heard me anyway. “You gave Gary a heart attack?”