Caine, Rachel-Short Stories Read online

  We got back in the car, and I broke speed limits on the way.

  Andy was all business when we pulled into the drive. Although he'd never worked as a bodyguard, at least not that I knew of, he made me stay in the car with the motor running and the garage door open as he went into the house and checked it out. I waited tensely, imagining every second that I would feel an echo of something through the bond… I'd lived through the sickening spiral of his torment and death once already, and I knew what it would feel like.

  I nearly screamed when he popped up next to the car and motioned for me to get out. I closed the garage door, shut off the motor, and followed him into the house.

  "Locks?" he asked. I turned them, and then set the security alarm for instant alarm. If any door or window opened, we'd know, and so would the police. My heart was hammering. I thought about Lottie, evidently surprised in her sleep. Monica, taken in the evening as she was getting ready for bed, bathwater gone cold in the tub. "They come at night," I said. "Don't open any doors or windows. The alarm will go off."

  "Fancy."

  I smiled faintly. "Normal, these days. We live in scary times."

  "Ain't nobody ever lived any other time." Andy, not content with the electronic alarm, was roaming around and testing doors and windows, engaging all locks. "You set this magic watchdog when you left today?"

  "I didn't know I was being stalked."

  Andy stopped and looked at me, hands gone still on a windowsill. "They didn't tell you." I shook my head. "Why not?"

  "People all that fond of resurrection witches, back in your day?"

  That earned me a full crooked grin. "Not enough so you'd blush. Stay here, I'll check the other floor."

  I watched him take the stairs, then went to the kitchen and put away the ritual pots I'd washed. I fixed myself a sandwich. Spellcasting took a lot out of me, and despite everything, I was feeling a small, significant drain of energy through the bond with Andy. Needed to keep my strength up, through the magic of carbs and protein.

  I was just swallowing the last bite when Andy walked into the kitchen. "Never got to see your house last time," Andy said. He sat down at the kitchen table and looked around. "Big place. Warm. You live here all on your own? What about your family?"

  "My parents and my sister live in New England. You going to tell me a woman can't live on her own?"

  "I'd never dare," Andy said. " 'Specially not one who holds the keys to life and death. Then again, that's pretty much any woman, so I'll just keep my peace about it. Besides, I don't know your world all that much, 'cept it's about as full of villains as the time I knew. Could be women tell men what's for now, strange as that would seem."

  "Andy–"

  His blue eyes stopped surveying the granite countertops and focused on me, and wow, that packed voltage. "I'm not sorry," he said. "Stupid for a man to fall in love once he's dead, but I've done it, and there it is. But at least you know I'll do everything in my power to keep you alive, Holly Anne."

  I couldn't even speak. What do you say to that? A dead man falls in love with you, and there's no chance for a future together. I knew that every minute, every second of this was limited. I wanted to take him straight to bed, but I didn't know–I didn't know for certain how that worked. Or even if it did. The subject of the sexual performance of dead men had never been included in my apprenticeship–probably deliberately. The potential for abuse of resurrections was huge, and our limits were strict. It was part of why we maintained such emotional distance.

  Andy sensed my internal struggle, and he brought out his gentlest smile. It did great things to his face, put a devastating sparkle in his eyes.

  I stood up, barely able to feel my legs. "I'm–going to bed. Do you want–?" My throat closed up, and I had to clear it. Embarrassing. "Do you want me to make up the spare bed?"

  Andy kept smiling. "No. I ain't sleeping, am I?"

  He had a point. Bodyguards didn't, and neither did the dead. I felt flushed and awkward and out of control.

  "Okay, then," I said. "Good night."

  He nodded, and watched me as I left the kitchen.

  A hot shower and a pair of silk pajamas later, I retreated to my soft, lonely bed and tried to sleep. It was getting on toward the wee hours of the morning, but I didn't feel tired. I felt anxious, and achy, and relentlessly squirmy.

  I could hear Andy roaming around downstairs. I wondered what he was doing–looking over my bookshelves? Examining my pictures? Getting intimate with me in ways that didn't involve climbing into bed with me?

  Shut up, I told myself when my brain started to run wild with images. The man is dead. He's here to do a job, and then he's gone. And that's it.

  Except it wasn't, and Andy had said he loved me, and I knew I loved him. No getting around that. Bringing him back a second time–no, for him it was the third–had been cruel, and unnecessary, and wrong, and if I'd known what Prieto wanted him for, I'd have said no even at the cost of my own life.

  I didn't want Andy dying for me.

  I'd drifted off into an uneasy half slumber when something woke me up. I felt a tingle inside, and opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling. I knew that feeling, all too well. No chance of sleeping now.

  I slipped out of bed, wrapped myself in a silk robe, and went downstairs.

  Andy was standing at the windows, looking out. He didn't wait for me to ask. "I'm fine," he said.

  "You're not." I'd carried my black case in from the car, and now I flipped it open and reached for the second vial of the stepped dose.

  It felt light.

  The bottle was empty.

  I stared at it in stupefied horror for a few seconds, then dropped it back into the holder and pulled the third. The fourth.

  The bottles were all empty. I began yanking the rest out to check. Empty, empty, empty!

  Andy turned at the sound of my labored breathing and the rattle of glass. He frowned. "What?"

  "It's not–someone sabotaged my case." Breathe, I told myself. Come on. Think. The case had been with me, and completely full, at the morgue. All the time? No. I'd set it in the corner of the viewing room, and we'd both gone with Detective Prieto to look over files. The case had been left unattended. "The potions. They're gone."

  Andy took a step toward me, then stopped. His blue eyes widened, just a little. "All of it?"

  "Everything."

  I abandoned the case and raced into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator.

  The four doses I kept on hand for emergencies were gone. I found the bottles in the trash, empty.

  "Oh, Christ," I whispered. Andy's hands touched my shoulders, and I felt him behind me, solid and real.

  "It's all right," he said. "I don't need it yet."

  "It's not all right. It takes hours to brew, and–" A terrible thought struck me. I opened the pantry, where I kept all my supplies.

  Gone. I'd been cleaned out.

  I felt a numb horror go through me. "There's nothing. I can't even get the ingredients until tomorrow morning at the earliest, then it takes all day to brew the base–"

  "It'll be all right," Andy repeated.

  I turned on him, suddenly furious. "It's not! Don't you get it? I know you're in pain already! It's going to get worse, Andy, and if I don't let you go–"

  His hands closed around my face. "Pain, I can handle. I ain't leaving you alone. They've been here. They were in your house."

  "Who?"

  "Somebody who knows you," he said. "Somebody who knows what you're afraid of."

  I was afraid of hurting him. Again.

  He smoothed my hair back, and kissed me. It was soft and cool and gentle, but I sensed how much restraint it took for him to keep it that way.

  "I can handle this," he said. "I will. You believe me, Holly?"

  I gulped and nodded convulsively. "Okay."

  I didn't, and it wasn't. But he wasn't finished.

  "Get dressed and pack a bag," he said. "We're going."

  I pulled a suitcase fro
m under my bed and threw a few items in. Then I opened a drawer and took out a pair of pants, a dark shirt, underwear, shoes, and socks: his own clothes, from the last time I'd brought him back. Somehow, I'd never been able to get rid of them. I put them on the bed, and Andy, standing at the door, gave me a long, measuring look that told me he understood why I'd kept them. Why they'd been so close.

  He didn't say anything.

  "Better change," I said without looking directly at his face.

  "Holly–"

  "Not now."

  As soon as he changed into the clothes, we left.

  No matter how tough you are, nobody takes pain well when it comes on slow and cold, with nothing to cushion it.

  I kept dialing phone numbers, trying to get somebody on the phone who could help as we drove. Sam Twist wasn't answering–not his phone, his cell, or his secret emergency number. I tried Annika. No answer there, either. I tried Detective Prieto, but it rang directly to his voice mail.

  I thought about calling 911, but what was I going to say? I have a dead man here who needs his medicine?

  I had no idea what to do. I could feel Andy's pain, black and constant and growing, and I was helpless to prevent it from getting worse.

  "Holly?"

  I took my eyes off the road for just a second. His lights shone silver, unreal in the dashboard lights.

  "Why'd you bring me back?"

  Of all the questions I'd expected, that had to be last on the list. I held his stare for a long few seconds, then blinked and focused on the road. "Lottie," I said. "They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to let Lottie–I couldn't let that happen. I thought maybe it would be better for you if it was me, that's all."

  "That's all."

  "Yes."

  "You're a liar. Pretty one, but a liar."

  And he was right. I was lying not just to him, but also to myself.

  I loved him. I'd grown to love him during that first resurrection, and I'd lost him, and it had hurt me. Having him back was a painful barbed-wire ball of a miracle, because it contained the seeds of its own destruction.

  My hand left the steering wheel and touched his, and his fingers closed warm and strong over mine.

  "Where we going?" he asked.

  There was only one place, really. The other witches had been abducted, dragged out without warning, which meant that their supplies would have remained intact.

  I needed to make him some potion.

  Lottie's house was the closest.

  "The cops," i said. "Are they following us?"

  Andrew had shut his eyes–fighting back pain, I could feel it–but he opened them as I turned the car out of the driveway and scanned the street. "Don't see 'em," he said. "Don't mean they ain't around, though. Since we're bait in the trap, they'd like your killer to have room to breathe, seems to me."

  I hoped the police would follow us, but I couldn't wait to find out. Time was running out.

  On the way, I remembered to call in sick to work–not that keeping my day job was the most important thing in my world, but it was normal life, and I desperately wanted to believe that there would still be a normal life, after today.

  The sun was on the rise as we navigated morning rush hour, heading for Lottie's neighborhood. She had a place in an upscale area, one story but sprawling. It was the kind of place that was deserted by day–working families out from seven to seven. The only sign of life along the street was a lawn-service truck in the distance, and a couple of guys on riding lawn mowers.

  Lottie's driveway was empty, so I turned in and parked in the back. Yellow police tape fluttered here and there, but they'd finished their work in the yard. An official-looking seal was on the back door, and a newly installed padlock.

  I opened the trunk of the car and took out a rusty tire iron, which I handed to Andy. He weighed it in his hand for a moment, then nodded and popped the padlock with a single wrench. He had to stop for a moment and brace himself, and I felt the swirl of darkness between us as the inevitable tide rolled over him.

  "Andy," I said. He shook his head.

  "Let's just get it done," he said. "This ain't nothing yet."

  He was right. It would get a lot worse. That didn't mean it wasn't bad, though, bad enough to drive most men to their knees.

  The death-tide was pulling him back. Pulling him away from me.

  I ripped open the seal on the door and stepped into Lottie's kitchen.

  There were few signs of violence in here–neatly ranked pots and pans, shelves of supplies. I quickly rummaged through them, breathing easier with every single thing I found. Yes, yes, yes…

  I opened the refrigerator door, and inside saw not just a few bottles, but a gallon jar of swirling silver liquid.

  A gallon jar.

  Andy joined me, alerted by my expression. "Why'd she make so much?" he asked. I shook my head. There was absolutely no reason for Lottie to do a thing like that–the expense was enormous. Unless she'd found an effective way to really store the stuff–no, when I wrestled the gallon jar out of the refrigerator and onto the counter, I could tell that it was at least a week old, probably two. Not bad, but not fresh, either.

  In another week, it would be useless. It was a foolish waste. Why the hell did Lottie brew it like this?

  "She's been up to something," Andy said. He might have been reading my mind. "Makes you wonder why she wanted me back, don't it?"

  I dipped up a cup of the potion, sniffed it again, and tilted it this way and that in the mug. "I don't trust this," I said. "It doesn't feel right, Andy. I just–"

  He held up a hand to silence me.

  "What?" I whispered.

  "I think maybe someone's here," he said.

  I sealed up the jar and hefted it. We'd take it with us. It'd have to serve until I could brew my own.

  Andy turned his eyes back toward me, and there was something dawning in his expression, something grim and terrible.

  He lifted the mug I'd filled and poured it into the sink.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Somebody's been studying up." Andy didn't bother to keep his voice down. "Used this same trick myself, long ago. Made up a batch of poisoned brew, left it for the revenants to drink when they came looking. Did for quite a few that way, back in the wars."

  Poison. I looked down at the jar and let it slide out of my hands and back to the counter.

  "Come out," Andy said. "You want us dead, you do it barefaced."

  "All right," said a smoke-strained, whisky-rough voice from the hall, and a big redheaded man stepped into the light. There was a gun in his hand, pointed not at Andy, but at me. "How's this?"

  Sam Twist. I'm just the dispatcher. "Sam–" I wet my lips. Andy stepped between me and the gun, and I heard three loud pops in quick succession.

  Andy just stood there and took the bullets, shook himself, and said in a voice I didn't even recognize, "You all done, Irish, or you want to reload?"

  I slid slowly along the counter, angling for a view of Sam. He was calmly holding the gun at his side.

  "No need," he said. "I was just softening you up a little. No question, you're one hell of an opponent. That's why I tried to get Holly to take a pass on bringing you back again."

  "Mine," scraped another voice, and the thing that shuffled into view next to Sam… if it had been born human, it hadn't stayed that way. Misshapen, malformed as a dropped lump of clay, but roped with muscle. Dead gray eyes. Pointed teeth displayed by lips that had been cut or ripped away. Sam was a big man, and this–creature–topped him by a foot or more. Its shoulders were broader than the doorway.

  I remembered the photographs of the cops. Beaten to death. Necks snapped.

  Andy had never looked fragile to me until that moment.

  If he was worried, or even startled, it didn't show. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, eyes fixed on Sam's monster. "Well, ain't you pretty?" he said, cool and quiet. "Your momma must be real proud."

  The thing swayed,
but didn't move. Its blind-looking gaze strayed from Andy… to me.

  A low growl started in its throat, a diesel engine running rough, and I felt Andy's whole body tense. "Get behind me," he said. "Holly, dammit, do that right now."

  I did, but not before I got a glimpse at the blood soaking the front of his shirt, and the tattered flesh beneath. Dead men could die, and they could feel pain, and no matter how focused and tough Andy was, he couldn't overcome this monster.

  Not alone.

  "Who is he?" I whispered. Sam couldn't have brought this creature back, not on his own.

  "He was my brother Donal," Sam Twist said. "Before Lottie got hold of him."

  He was Lottie's. But Lottie was dead. Wasn't she? "She–brought him back?"

  "He got knifed in a bar fight," Sam said. "Strongest man I ever knew. I begged her to help, and she did. She brought him back. But I didn't know what she'd do with him."

  Sam moved over to the side, edging to where he could once again see my face, and line up a clear shot. Andy didn't move. He clearly thought it was better to stand between me and Donal.

  "What did she do?" I was acutely aware now of the blood pooling at Andy's feet, of the waves of darkness vibrating the air between us. Death was coming, and coming no matter how hard he pushed against it.

  "What does it look like she did, you bitch?" Sam spat, and the sudden raw fury in him exploded like nitro. "She used him. My own brother. She told me she put him back to sleep, but she didn't. She set him to fighting other dead men like some trained bear, and brought him back, kept dragging him back until there was nothing left. She took bets." Sam swallowed hard. "But he remembered. He heard my voice on the phone, and he remembered."

  Sam's face was red, distorted with anguish, and his eyes were glittering with tears. I swallowed hard to clear the lump from my throat. "He came to find you," I said. "Oh, Sam, I'm sorry."

  He sneered at me. There was no more sanity in his eyes now than in his brother's. "Keep your pity," he said. "I don't want it. I'm putting you down, bitch. I'm putting all of you down."

  Lottie wasn't dead. Lottie couldn't be dead, if Donal was still alive. Sam had her somewhere, under lock and key, maybe drugged or worse, but still breathing.