Chapter 12 #3
The move took me by surprise, and I lurched backward.
Pain ripped up my leg, and I stumbled, falling down onto one knee, barely raising the knives in time to catch her blade in their center.
She screamed and lashed out with one foot, the blow thudding into my side with surprising force.
Something within broke, but it wasn’t agony that rose, it was fury.
The wind surged, screaming around us, but I resisted the urge to attack her with it.
Instead, with Carla’s blade still caught between my knives, I rose to my feet.
She tried to withdraw her weapon but the lightning rolling between the two blades had it caged, and it wasn’t going anywhere.
She swore again, released her knife, and then spun, aiming her boot at my gut.
I jumped back, caught her leg with the wind, and pushed her, as hard as I could, away from me.
She stumbled backward, flailing to keep her balance on the steps, and then fell in an ugly mess of arms and legs down to the bottom of the stairs.
I uncrossed my knives, releasing Bia’s Blade, and then followed her down.
The need for revenge pulsed through every bit of my being, a force that was almost a living thing.
The skies above compounded the inner fury, filling my mind with whispers that begged me to give in to the darkness, to take the revenge I so desperately wanted.
The urge was so damn strong that I actually knelt in front of her and raised the knife.
The only thing that truly stopped me was the blood curse.
That, and the fear I saw in her eyes when she opened them.
She might as well have thrown cold water in my face. I pushed away from her, landing hard on my butt, my heart racing so hard it felt as if it were about to tear out of my chest.
No matter how deeply, how badly, I wanted to find my mother’s killer, I could not follow the siren call of darkness and claim the life of a woman who’d already said she was not responsible for Mom’s death.
That may or may not be the truth, but if I did what the storm and the voices that raged within it wanted, if I killed her like this—when she was unarmed and broken—then that inner darkness would claim me, and I would become the warrior my father wanted me to be.
If I was going to emulate anyone, it would be my mother.
I shoved my knives back into their sheaths, then crossed my arms, my fingers clenched against the power that pulsed through them, through me, dangerous and demanding.
Carla groaned and tried to get up; a scream tore up her throat and echoed across the raging night. I had no idea what she’d broken—whether it be her back or her hip—and I didn’t really care. I might not want to give in to the darkness, but that didn’t mean I had sympathy for her current plight.
“Where is your phone, Carla?”
“Fuck off,” she growled, though her voice held little strength, and her face was pale and sweaty.
I sighed, leashed her arms so she wasn’t tempted to attack me, then leaned forward and patted her down. I found it in her jacket pocket. I hit the ON button, shoved it in front of her face to open it, then said, “Tell me where we are so I can call you an ambulance.”
“And why would you fucking do that?”
“Oh, trust me, there’s a large part of me that really doesn’t want to, but I’m doing my best to be more like my mother than my father. Who, by the way, is screaming for your death because he believes it will hinder your boss’s movements, at least until he can find a suitable replacement.”
“I cannot be replaced.”
“Everyone can be replaced, Carla. Where are we?”
She hawked and spat rather than reply. I went into the settings on her phone, changed the access to me, then tucked it into my back pocket.
The sound of sirens began to cut through the night, and I glanced up.
In the distance, blue and red lights flashed, growing ever closer. Not one car, but multiple.
The tracker obviously worked.
I returned my attention to my captive. “If you can’t tell me who killed my mother, then at least tell me why.”
“Why should I?”
“Because the bastard who killed her will undoubtedly kill you, and this is perhaps your only means of getting a little posthumous revenge.”
She considered me for a moment, her eyes narrow slits of anger and pain. After a moment, she said, “In my phone, you’ll see a number for a Delores Collins. When I am dead, ring it, and tell her Brídín sent you.”
“And what will she tell me?”
“Nothing, because she is not truly of this world and cannot speak. But she will give you the records I have been keeping for centuries. If you read them carefully enough, using the key you already have, you will find the man you are looking for. Kill him for me.”
I opened my mouth to ask, “What key?”, then remembered the code I’d found in the trinket box. “What do mean, she’s not truly of this—”
I stopped. Carla’s eyes had closed, and her body seemed to have collapsed in on itself. I reached forward and pressed two fingers against her neck. Her pulse was there—too thready, too fast—but there.
An odd mix of emotions ran through me, but I ignored them all and cast her blade—Bia’s Blade—deep into the heart of the storm and quickly created a convergence that would keep it up there, and safe, until I was ready to deal with it.
Then I sat back and watched the red-and-blue lights draw ever closer. Unsurprisingly, Sgott was the first to arrive, and the first to come striding toward me.
“Lass, you look a goddamn mess—and is all that blood soaking the left side of your shirt yours?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And are you hurt anywhere else? Where is your shoe and sock?”
“Question of the hour, I’m afraid. As to the first part of that question, my head hurts like a bitch and there’s a thick bandage around my calf, so I think it’s likely gashed.
” I waved a hand to the woman in front of me.
“Meet Carla Wilson; real name, Brídín, and no longer a shape shifter. My knife killed her inner magic.”
“And did it kill her?” he asked sharply. Worriedly.
“No. She lives, although probably not for long given she’s got what amounts to a kill-switch in her brain.”
“And your knives? Their ability to kill magic doesn’t affect the switch?”
“I honestly don’t know, but if said switch is magic, then it’s likely already dead, because I used the knives to kill her inner ability to shift shape.”
“Ah. Good.”
More cars and several ambulances stopped beside Sgott’s vehicle. He glanced their way, motioned several officers over, then knelt beside me. “Come on, my girl, let’s get you to hospital.”
“I’ll be—”
“Fine, yeah I know, but humor an old man and just let me take care of you.” He scooped me up in his arms and carefully lifted me, and the memories of him lifting me in the same manner when I was a kid and had fallen over and scraped my knees rose, making me blink back tears.
Making me glad I’d resisted the darkness.
I wanted to be someone he could be proud of, too.
I rested my head against his big chest, just as I had all those years ago, and felt safe and loved.
The darkness might remain, but I’d at least beaten it for now.