Psychic Read online

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want to want it,” the girl told her, looking away.

  “I know.” Samantha paused. “I wish I could fix it.”

  The girl looked up at Jason.

  “You have a gun, don’t you?” The statement was flat, resigned.

  “I do,” Jason said, not moving.

  “You killed all of them,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And they made me like them by biting me.”

  Jason nodded.

  “And if I bite someone, they could become like me?”

  “Yes,” Samantha said. The girl looked at the weeping wound on her wrist, then up at Jason.

  “Shoot me.”

  Jason looked at Samantha, and the girl leaned forward onto her hands.

  “Don’t look at her. Shoot me. Shoot me dead. Just let me go. I don’t want to be this.” She looked at Samantha. “I’ve been fighting for months. Hoping some day it would just… stop.” Her head turned as she stared up at Jason. “Do it.”

  Samantha stood. Paced.

  “No. No, no. I won’t let it end like that. No.” She looked at the girl. Felt her throat close as she searched for some solution. The girl watched her with quiet, sad eyes. “No,” Samantha said again. “Not for nothing.”

  “Can we take her with us?” Sam asked. “Is there someplace safe we could keep her?”

  The girl put her hands over her ears.

  “She’s in my head,” she screamed. “She’s always there. She won’t leave me alone. Let me go.” She put her face on the floor. “Let me go, let me go, let me go.”

  Samantha knelt on the floor again and pulled her up to look into the girl’s face. Samantha’s mind was empty. Sam was on the verge of leaving, he was so unhappy watching. He knew what was going to happen. Jason knew what was going to happen. Samantha stared at the girl’s dark eyes.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Annie,” the girl said. Samantha closed her eyes.

  “Annie.” She focused, pulling everything she knew. She could fight the sorceress from inside her own body, but she couldn’t get at that magic, over there. Cutting off the arm wouldn’t work. The magic was resting in her core. Heart and brain. Dead heart, live brain. Gifted immortals could induce their hearts to pump, anyway, increasing the lifespan of their tissues, but Annie wouldn’t have learned anything near that complicated yet.

  If she could get at the sorceress. At Mother. She could… She stopped.

  “What happens if you kill Mother?” Sam asked. She wondered how specifically he was aware of her thoughts.

  “They all die.”

  “Kill me,” Annie whispered. Samantha swallowed around the swelling in her throat.

  “I will carry you with me always. I’m sorry I have nothing more to give you.”

  “Let me go,” Annie said.

  “I need you to do something, first,” Samantha said, taking hold of her resolve. Annie looked at her with watery eyes.

  “What?” the girl asked her.

  “I need you to bite me,” Samantha said.

  “What?” It was all three of them; she wasn’t sure of the order.

  “I can fight her if I can get a hold of her magic. The only way for me to do that is for you to bite me.”

  “No,” Annie said. “They turned me into… this. What am I?”

  “Wraith,” Jason said.

  “What is that?”

  “Apparently the same thing as a zombie, at the end of the day,” he said. She blinked.

  “I’m a zombie.”

  “Sorry, kid.”

  She dropped her head, then looked at Samantha, who was too stretched-thin to fight with Jason.

  “I won’t make you into one. I don’t care why. That’s why I want you to kill me.”

  “She can’t take me,” Samantha said. “I’m stronger than she is. She’s tried before. This time I’ll be ready for her, and maybe I can stop her. Keep her from doing this to anyone else.”

  Annie looked at her, and Samantha steeled herself again.

  “This is the right thing. I can’t save you, but maybe I can avenge you. Maybe I can stop it from going on.”

  “If she says she can do it, it’s the truth,” Jason said. Annie was staring at Samantha’s arms.

  “I won’t,” she said.

  “Taking isn’t the same as accepting,” Samantha said. She looked over her shoulder at O’na Anu’dd, standing among the bodies. He put away his sword and folded his arms, watching.

  “Hello, friend,” she whispered.

  “Her body rejects death,” he said. “Her soul feels the flesh rot around it. She hasn’t accepted it. If she does, she is lost.”

  Samantha looked back at Annie and shuddered a sigh, trying to hold off tears. Annie was crying.

  “You’re sure?” Annie said.

  “I will carry you with me always,” Samantha said, easing Annie onto her back. She looked at Jason and nodded, and he took his gun out. Thank you, she mouthed to him, and he nodded. She couldn’t do what he was willing to. Never. Not to save the world. Sam turned away. Samantha put Annie’s head in her lap, and rested her arm across the girl’s shoulders.

  “Just close your eyes. In your own time. Bite my arm, drink my blood. It will be the last thing you feel.”

  “I don’t want you getting hit with a ricochet,” Jason said.

  “I stay here,” Samantha said. He took a spot over her shoulder. Annie closed her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” Samantha whispered.

  The girl took hold of Samantha’s arm with both hands.

  “I don’t know how,” she said after a moment.

  “You do,” Samantha said. She whispered a blood-blessing in angeltongue. “Fight the death. This is not what you are supposed to be.” Annie looked up at her one last time, then closed her eyes again and opened her mouth, biting down tentatively on Samantha’s arm. Teeth found flesh and squeezed, then bit harder. Samantha bit her lips as the first puncture formed, willing her breathing not to change, blinking her eyes quickly with her head turned to flush the tears somewhere other than Annie’s face. At the taste of blood, Annie bit harder, and Samantha heard Sam, behind her, make a noise at the pain. Annie seemed oblivious. She pulled her teeth out of the wound and sucked. Jason stepped forward incrementally, and Samantha held up her free hand. Not yet.

  Not yet.

  Please, just not yet.

  She turned her head again, squeezing her eyes shut, and dropped her hand. The gun fired, and Annie went limp. Samantha choked on a sob. Sam came and pulled her away.

  “Get her back to the car,” Jason said. “Get her cleaned up. I’ll finish here.”

  Samantha leaned against Sam, shaking.

  She didn’t remember much of the next few moments. Her sunglasses made it back on her head, then there was bright sun, and then she was in the Cruiser. Sam was bandaging her arm.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m going to kill her,” Samantha said. “I’m going to kill her myself.”

  “I hope so,” Sam said. “This isn’t as much fun as it used to be.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Samantha closed her eyes and crossed, taking a deep breath of cool, sweet air. Green, blue, red, in vibrant tones greeted her as she looked up at the limestone cliffs. She looked down the waterfall and the stream down to the orchard, where pink blooms dotted the trees. She stood, feeling the breeze blowing her dress gently against her legs and playing through her hair, remembering Annie. She summoned an idea of the girl, as she would have looked with the flush of life in her, tan skin, shiny hair, bright smile. Samantha ran her fingers through the girl’s hair as Annie blinked, looking around with happy eyes.

  “Be at peace,” Samantha said, then let the image go. She walked up to the top of the hill where O’na Anu’dd was waiting for her with the real Annie.

  “Thank you,” Samantha said to her friend,
then turned to Annie, who looked confused and a little afraid. “I know that you can’t speak to me. That’s okay. This is a safe place for you for a few minutes, before you go to the next thing. Whatever happens next, nothing can change it any more. Take the rest you can get.” Samantha walked down the hillside a ways and sat where she could see the orchard and the pond next to it. Annie joined her.

  “Jason said he would clean up. That probably means he’ll burn the place down and take the security tapes. When you kill a demon, they turn to ash. It’s a lot easier to clean up.” Samantha looked at Annie. “Your body will be reduced to ash, all the same. It was too early, and it wasn’t fair, but you fought the corruption someone else put into you, and I’m proud of you for that.” Samantha stretched out her legs in front of her.

  “They’ll find your body in the ashes. I’d say they’ll probably identify it. Depending on how well Jason burns it, they may have a chance to calculate time of death. If they do, they’ll tell your family you died probably right after you disappeared. Most of the important markers will say you died when they bit you. It’s why you didn’t bleed so much, and why your hair started falling out. Yeah, I noticed. Sorry. But your parents won’t think you suffered. They’ll think it was quick. Maybe they’ll think a gunshot killed you, maybe they’ll think it was poison. I don’t know. But they won’t think it took all the time it did.”

  Samantha glanced at her.

  “If it were me, I’d rather they think that than know any better, so I’m not going to do anything to enlighten them. Believe me, they know that you loved them. Don’t take any of the silly fights with you as some big, last thing that you had with them. They know, same as you do, that you loved each other.” She paused for a long time, watching the valley below her. “I wish I knew more about you to be able to be more specific. I don’t have much for you. I’m going to do everything I can to get Mother and send her across. My friend there has been waiting on her, probably for a very long time.”

  Annie stood. It was the most she could have possibly done to tell Samantha anything. That was enough. She had done enough. Samantha stood and looked at O’na Anu’dd.

  “Thank you, my friend,” she said. He bowed to her, then reached his hand out to Annie. The girl took it and Samantha stood as they disappeared over the hill. She couldn’t follow. It was the one thing she couldn’t do here.

  She walked across the hillside to where she could see God, standing at the top of the valley. He was watching her. She dropped one knee to the ground then stood again.

  “Give me wisdom and grace,” she said.

  When she crossed back, her body was still in the visceral reaction to Annie’s death. She let herself cry. Sam was bandaging her arm. Her whole body hurt with grief and disgust and outrage. He echoed it back against her, though, as he had observed, it was merely an echo, not something that drove her deeper into her own anger.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder after he finished wrapping her arm. The blood seeped through the bandage to show a constellation of red dots where Annie’s teeth had been, but finally abated. Annie hadn’t severed anything of vital, mortal importance. He put his arms around her and they sat in the back seat of the Cruiser for most of an hour, just still, feeling angry and sad. Jason came back and got into the driver’s seat, tossing a handful of tapes into the seat next to him.

  “I’m sorry you had to do that on your own,” Samantha said.

  “Will you quit apologizing for everything?” Jason asked. “It isn’t your fault.”

  She closed her eyes and the tears came again as Jason drove away. She wondered for a moment about the bodies in the morgue, the ones that family members were expecting to memorialize and bury. It made her sick with grief to cause them more pain, still.

  “What did you do with the body they were working on?” Sam asked.

  “Put it in a freezer. They stand a good chance of making it through the fire. They’re nice freezers,” Jason said. Sam hugged her.

  “Am I that obvious?” she asked.

  “I thought it, too,” he said. “But yeah. It isn’t your fault.”

  “Back to Andre’s,” Jason said. “What then?”

  “To New York,” Samantha said. “I want to punish someone, and if I don’t catch Mother immediately, it may as well be you.”

  “Like winning the lottery,” Jason said.

  “What if she’s here?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t think she’s any more likely to be here than anywhere else,” Samantha said. “And I can fight her from anywhere. I just have to get a good strong hold on her.” She looked at the bandage on her arm. “I’m going to let her take me. Last time I fought her off too early. It was too easy for her to get away.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Sam asked.

  “Tell me it’s about Mother and not about Annie, and I won’t say another word,” Jason said.

  “Oh, it’s definitely about Annie.”

  “You’re not making good decisions right now,” Sam said. “I don’t think you should take any huge risks.”

  Samantha glared out the front window, pushing tears up her cheekbones and off her face.

  “She hasn’t got a clue what she’s gotten hold of,” she said.

  <><><>

  Samantha slept in the back seat after they loaded up what little they had unpacked at Andre’s. They were headed for Columbus; Jason had called ahead to let them know they were going to be there - late - and Samantha had been unwilling to wait for nightfall to sleep. She woke once when Jason stopped for gas, and Sam looked back at her with concern.

  “I can tell there’s something wrong,” he said. “It’s not a lot wrong. There’s just something off.”

  She could feel the tingle of magic as it was working its way into her, but it was still just in her arm, settling in there. She went back to sleep.

  She dreamed of beating hearts, blood, of a woman with a huge red mouth. When she woke up again, she could feel the heavy net of magic the sorceress had over her.

  “Take them and come to me,” the woman said. “I am your mother. I am the mother of all. I am Mother.”

  “Pull over,” Samantha said. Sam was staring at her. She ignored him.

  “What’s going on?” Jason asked.

  “Pull over,” Samantha said again. The tires crossed the rumble strip on the highway and he slowed to a stop. It was what she had thought. Her heart wasn’t beating any more. Sam could tell something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure what, just yet.

  She got out of the car, summoning patience. The two halves of her were in conflict. One half wanted to bite Sam’s neck and leave bloody teeth marks. The other one wanted to reach a fist across the thick magic rope Mother had tied to her and smash the woman. Neither was the right solution, her rational mind knew, but her animal brain was only inches from control, at which point, all she would be able to do would be look back and spectate retroactively to see which half won the cage match.

  She kicked gravel down into the ditch along the road, then stood next to the interstate, swaying in the pressure of air as cars went roaring past.

  “Are you okay?” Sam yelled above a car as he got out.

  “Stay back,” she yelled back. Jason got out as well and came to sit on the back bumper of the Cruiser, hand on the holster of his gun. Samantha noticing it made Sam notice it, and Sam’s temper flared. She appreciated that Jason was willing to do what was necessary if the wrong half of the cage match won.

  The two halves of her brain nipped at each other as she carefully drew the net down closer, whispering in the ancient languages most powerful to natural magic, then tying bits of magic together in hellspeak, getting a grip on the net. She impulsively pulled the bandage off of her arm, yelping as the scabs ripped out of the deep holes. Her hand was quickly wet with blood, and she held it up. Red reflected in the headlights of the next passing car, and she heard Jason yell something. She looked at him.

  “Turn around,” he yelled again. “Someone’
s going to freak out.”

  That was reasonable.

  She turned, resuming her focus. Sam’s mind was quiet, trying to stay out of her way as she worked. Eventually, she had dozens of threads wrapped around magical fingers, a grip that Mother wasn’t likely to pull loose easily, but it was as though she could feel the warm blood radiating through Jason’s and Sam’s skins.

  “Take them,” Mother said. “I offer you power and beauty and an eternity of freedom. Take them and stop looking over your shoulder. You are my pride. My joy. Nothing is as important to me as you are. If you love them, I love them. Take them, and come to me.”

  Samantha gave the magic a tug, drawing symbols in the air around her and pulling on the power within the symbols on her skin. Mother’s response nearly dropped her to her knees.

  Rather than pulling the net away, she sent a load of weight to Samantha, pushing her down as the hooks of magic inside her own body pulled taut. Samantha put her hands out, flat toward the ground, and closed her eyes, feeling about blindly for where her heart beat should have emanated. She spoke strong words of life, pushing away the particular strands that held her heart. Her mind was still an anchor. Mother couldn’t cast free without recalling the magic that held Samantha’s mind, and Samantha held that fast, but she needed her heart. She needed a heartbeat to win this fight.

  The magic pulled tighter around her heart, squeezing it as though intent on ruining it. The power in her skin felt worthless to defend her, but she calmed herself, remembering that she had known that the magic would bypass that layer of armor. She didn’t need it.

  The pain was becoming blinding. She opened her eyes to find that she only saw blotches of dark and stabs of light as headlights rushed past. She swayed and nearly tipped. Sam stood to steady her, but she pushed him away, losing focus on her spell to force him back. If he got too close… She snapped her mind back to the tug of war over her chest.

  The magic was forming tendrils that were radiating through her heart, her lungs, now even her ribs. Paralyzing her. She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth, and thought of Annie, laying on her back on the cold floor of the mortuary, tears running out of the corners of her eyes. Samantha found the cord of magic feeding the rest and severed it with a combination of ideas she had first seen in one of Lahn’s inscriptions. Mother jerked back and Samantha took a deep breath, using her lungs and abdomen to squeeze her heart. It wobbled, then beat again. She smiled darkly.