Shadow Rites

I turned my Nicaud-bloodied blade across my body and cut through the Nicauds’ ward, stepping up to Marlene. Pressed the point into her neck, just deep enough to draw blood and make her gasp when she felt it, I wrapped my other hand around her waist and pulled her in. She left real time and entered the bubble with me.

“Move, try a spell, and I’ll cut through your neck and out the other side.” My voice had become a growl in the half form and my mouth felt wrong, making it hard to form words. “Then I’ll cut out, forward, and take out your esophagus, trachea, jugulars, and carotids. You’ll bleed out in seconds.” Marlene swallowed, the sound loud in the odd vibrations of bubbled time. She spread her fingers and raised her hands.

“What dis is?” she asked. “What you do?” Her tone changed and she said, “You stop time!”

I pulled her even closer. “We’re going out the front door. You are going to be quiet. Totally silent. You are going to walk the whole way without stumbling or tripping or trying to get away.” I took a breath and caught the scent of her blood.

I’d miscalculated. Maybe a lot. Before I could exhale, Marlene shoved back against me, allowing the blade to slice through her flesh. Her blood splattered over me, and into her working. The magics whipped out black and brilliant blue, the bolo spell. It shouldn’t have worked in the bubble of time. It should have been inert. Instead the black strands wrapped around me, and the electric balls pressed to my spine. I stopped. Just . . . stopped.

Marlene kept one hand on me and swiveled her head, staring through the energies of the Gray Between. But when she spoke, it wasn’t about my magics or the fact that time was stopped. She said, “You de one what hurt my boys.”

“Yeah,” I said, not backing down even though it might be smarter to keep my mouth shut. “They raped that girl. They deserved way worse.”

My arms were bound tightly against me. My fingers began to tingle as the bolo did its work, tightening, its magic binding into me, despite the magics on the leathers. My sword slid to the floor. Guns didn’t work in the Gray Between. I couldn’t get to a bladed weapon. But I had my claws. . . .

“Dey. My. Boys. Unnerstan? Mine!”

I nodded, unable to do anything but agree.

“You like de one what kill my Antoine. Evil like dat . . . dat animal.”

Yes, I thought. Skinwalker. But not spear-finger or liver-eater. Not u’tlun’ta.

Marlene slid one of the sterling stakes out of my hair and pulled me across the room, my feet following an unspoken command to obey her actions, the bolo spell forcing me to comply. But my body wasn’t acting with a normal sense of balance and I tripped over something on the floor. Swayed drunkenly.

Marlene stabbed Grégoire with the silver stake. “No,” I tried to say, but the word was stuck in my throat with the gathering tears. They filled my eyes and I blinked against them. She removed a second stake and stabbed Ming. She pulled me to Leo and repeated the motion. “Hem you pick up,” she said, patting my arms, releasing the binding on them. But before I could react, the bolo tightened on my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

Unable to refuse, I bent at the knees and lifted Leo over my shoulder. My breath whooshed out of me in a pained grunt. My belly tore again. Leo made a soft breathy sound, too low for anyone but me to hear, and went still, his blood trickling down my back. But he didn’t move or resist.

Worse, I had a feeling I was bleeding internally. The working was leaching away my energy. I was dead on my feet. Leo and I were both in bad shape.

Lastly, Marlene pulled me to her daughter and took my hand, forcing me to touch her. I nearly fell to my knees as my strength was depleted. Bubbling time for two—four now—was not a wise move.

Tau gasped and looked around. “What—? Mama?”

“We gots what we come for. Let’s go.”

“What is that?” Tau pointed at me.

“Dat dere a monster carrying a monster. We use dem both.”

Together we four walked out of the burning room, out of the house. The three security types who I had positioned on the front porch before the ward went back up were frozen in real time. Ro Moore, Brenda Rezak, and Wrassler, facing the front door, armed, holding weapons. I tried to reach out and touch one of them, but I didn’t make it before Marlene grabbed my knobby fingers and yanked back on them. Dislocating my fingers. I dropped to my knees and vomited all over the porch and dropped Leo with a thump that sounded slow and basso. I landed on him. The bolo spell bound me tighter, cutting into my skin where it touched. I smelled my blood on the air. Marlene didn’t let go of me or my fingers or her daughter. She kicked me, her foot finding the torn place in my belly with unerring accuracy.

I retched and tasted blood, but used the time to assess my options. I was still tied up in the bolo spell. I didn’t know what the working did, other than cut into me and make me agreeable to most anything they ordered, which was bad enough, but could become a lot worse, fast. I didn’t have the blob anymore. But I did have the brooch. And Leo’s blood. And the bolo might work differently in no time. Like, maybe I could get out of it. Somehow.

Marlene studied the witch ward and laughed. She said to her daughter, “Don’ let go of dis monster. But put out your hand. Break dis ward. Dis nothing for you power.”

I lifted the hand on the witch’s off side—the not broken hand—and checked for the brooch. Still there. Then I eased my fingers between Leo’s body and mine and got two fingertips and my thumb around the silver stake. His belly was in bad shape, numerous cuts, punctures, and what felt like intestines (assuming vamps have intestines?) pushing up at the nexus of the wounds. The stink of silver-tainted vamp blood assailed my nostrils, revolting on my tortured stomach.