Through the fire, p.19
Through the Fire, page 19
“How is that my fault?” Chris asked, outraged.
“I don’t know. It just is. Thanks for the cookies, Grandma."
"Don't thank me yet. They might turn out to be terrible."
"Unlikely."
"More unlikely things have happened."
Chris shot Nick another look at that comment. Nick bugged his eyes in return, shrugging. People said that kind of thing. It didn't necessarily mean anything. Chris cocked a skeptical eyebrow, as if arguing it didn't necessarily mean anything, but given how Grandma had gone still earlier about the 'maybe not dad's bullshit' line, it could add up to a pattern.
Nick, out loud, said, "Two points don't make a line," and Chris made a what-the-hell face.
"Dude, I'm the one who skipped half of high school, but I'm pretty sure two points exactly make a line, that's, like, the point."
"Or two points."
Chris threw a handful of soapy water at him and their grandmother barked a warning that made the dog stand up, bristling. Chris mumbled, "Sorry, Gramma," and cleaned up the mess he'd made while the dog licked his ear.
"Go put your things in the bedrooms," Grandma said sternly. "I'll call you two young men when the cookies are ready, assuming you can behave."
They both mumbled apologies and left the kitchen, although Chris's expression grew increasingly affronted. "What does she think we are, little kids?"
"We were kind of acting like it. Look, Chris, can't we just…she wants us to stay a couple of days. Can't we just stay tonight and tomorrow and talk about it all then?"
Chris eyed him, then sighed as they went out to the van to get their stuff. "I don't know, Nicky. How are you doing? Like, with, you know."
"It's still there. I can kind of ignore it if I'm trying to be really, I dunno, normal."
"Normal like hanging out with Grandma for a couple days?"
Nick nodded, and Chris sighed again. "Arright. Arright, Nicky, you win. We'll stay until Saturday, okay? We'll pretend everything's cool tonight, and eat cookies and get some sleep, and tomorrow we'll see what she knows. Just let me know if anything gets, like, you know. Weird."
"Thanks." Nick gave his brother a weak smile. "I will. Thanks, Chris."
"Yeah, well, I'm gonna eat more cookies than you, so that'll show you."
"What, exactly, will it show me?"
"I don't know, man, like how I get indigestion or something. C'mon." They brought their bags into the house. Grandma called them for cookies as Nick unpacked his stuff, and Chris, true to his word, ate enough of them to impress even Nick.
Also true to his word, he begged off half an hour later, looking queasy, and staggered to bed, which left Nick and Grandma grinning after him. "He's a good boy, your brother," Grandma said once he'd gone. "Looks after you."
"I know. Drives me nuts, but I know."
"Well, family's like that." Grandma considered Nick for a long couple of moments, her gaze thoughtful. "I know you boys want to get answers and get out of here, Nicky. Thank you for giving an old lady time with her grandsons. I do miss you kids, you know."
"I know. I'm sorry, Grandma. We're—"
"You're living your own lives," she said firmly. "Which is what kids should do. I might not have gotten on well with your father, but I can't put all the blame on him for us not having a closer relationship. I could've taken myself out of the back of beyond to come see you, too."
"Was it hard?" Nick asked quietly. "With Mom gone, and everything?"
"It was, and that's probably all the more reason I should have made an effort for you kids's sake. Sometimes it's too easy to let the years slip by up here. You're grown men now, for heaven's sake." She examined him critically again. "Grown men who need more sleep. Go to bed, Nick. There'll be more cookies in the morning."
Nick, surprised, laughed, then stood to kiss her cheek. "Okay, Grandma. Thank you for dinner and dessert. I love you, you know that?"
"I do, sweetheart. Now go on to bed. Sleep well."
"I'll try." He left her sitting in the living room with her book, and fell asleep faster than he expected to after doing more or less nothing all day.
Something woke him in the small hours of the morning, a coyote or maybe just the silence, and Nick went from asleep to hot fast tears before he knew he was awake. He rolled over, burying his face in the pillow, but couldn't muffle the ache of loss or regret, or the sobs that sounded loud as thunder to his ears. He got up, scuffing his shoes on at the door, and went out into the night without a flashlight or coat. Just about enough moon reflected off the snow to help him navigate, and he followed the only sound that wasn't wind: water, running above and below ice in the creek half a mile from the house.
It was too cold to keep crying, which was something, at least. The air cut his lungs if he breathed in too deeply or sharply, and tears smeared and froze, so he kept wiping his face until they were gone, and by that time, he'd reached the creek.
The log they'd crossed all those years ago was still there, or maybe another one had replaced it, but it made a dark, slick line across the iced-over creek. Nick could almost step over the water now, but it had seemed like a mile across when he'd been little. The water broke through the ice in places, spilling out onto the ice in narrow fingers before crawling back. The creek bed dipped on just that side of the log, dropping several inches in depth. It had felt like an endless fall, when he'd been six, even though he hadn't really gotten wet past his chest. Chris had pulled him out while the other kids screamed.
His chest ached like he needed to move, and after a minute he did. He crouched by the creek, pushing his fingertips against the ice. Water rushed past, bumping against the ice enough that Nick thought he could feel it from this side. He pushed a little harder, trying to make the ice crack. It wouldn't be hard to break through it, although with the way ice shattered, he'd probably overbalance and fall in. It had been deep enough to drown a kid in. Nick didn't know if it would be as dangerous to an adult. Part of him wanted to find out. He pushed harder, feeling it bend under the pressure. The ache in his chest swelled to fill his whole body, and the ice melting under his fingertips felt hot. It was stupid and risky and weirdly tempting to keep pushing. Nick shoved his hand down, not entirely sure if he was using his own strength or the aching magic inside him, but the ice cracked sharply, and freezing water engulfed his hand, the current trying to grab his fingers.
Familiar footsteps sounded, Chris's voice carrying over the squeak and crunch of snow. "What're you doing out here, Nicky?"
Nick yanked his hand out of the water, guilty, angry, relieved, and looked over his shoulder to see his brother draped in the Dodge's scratchy wool blanket. Chris's eyes were tired and worried. "It's two in the morning, bro."
"What are you doing out here?"
"Heard you get up. Followed you." Chris shuffled over and dropped the blanket around Nick's shoulders. He, unlike Nick, had a coat on beneath it.
"I didn't know you'd grabbed this from the truck."
"Hate traveling without it. It's the worst, it itches, it's stiff and doesn't bundle up good, but damn it's warm. Come on back to the house, Nick."
"In a minute." Nick stood and stuck his cold wet hand in his armpit, watching the water spilling by. Rivulets spun across its surface from where he'd broken the ice, clearing frost and snow so that the dark, almost invisible shadow rush of water was visible beneath it. His chest hurt less, but his heart crashed against his ribcage. Chris had pulled him back from something that he couldn't even recognize, much less name. Chris was always doing that for him. "I was six when I fell in, wasn't I? It was the summer after I crashed my bike and broke my arm."
"Yeah, I guess so."
Nick nodded. "Yeah, I thought so.” He took a breath. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I thought you pushed me."
Chris went still for a moment, then nodded. "S'okay. Thanks. C'mon, Nicky. You shouldn't be out here alone at this hour."
"I'm not. My big brother's watching out for me."
"Fuck, man." Chris rolled his head, looking the other way, but Nick caught a glimpse of a smile. "C'mon. There's nothing out here. You're not gonna learn anything standing on the riverbank."
"I dunno, I kinda already did."
"Ugh." Chris rolled his head again and turned away from the water, creaking back across the snow. "Fine, stay out here all night, whatever, I'm going back where it's not balls-freezing cold."
"Hey, wait up. Wait up, Chris. Wait for me." Nick turned and hurried in his brother's wake, obscurely relieved to catch up and fall into step with him. Chris knocked his shoulder against Nick's, and they walked back across the snow to Grandma's house in the dark.
CHAPTER 14
Chris woke to a pair of brown eyes gazing soulfully across the bed at him. After a couple of seconds, a regular thump started, then sped up as the dog became more certain he was awake. Chris chuckled and reached over to scratch the animal's ears, mumbling, "Bet Gramma would kill you for being on the bed, Bill. Shh, though. I won't tell if you don't."
Somehow Grandma, elbow deep in flour and shortening, still gave him a sour look when he went into the kitchen, Bill on his heels. "You let that dog sleep on the bed, didn't you, Christopher."
He raised his hands in a show of innocence. "In my defense, I didn't let him. He didn't ask. Nicky still sleeping?"
"Mm. You boys were out late last night." Grandma nodded toward a chair, and Chris sat to watch her putter around making biscuits.
"He was having trouble sleeping. I just went to make sure he was okay. Sorry if we woke you up. You need help, Gramma? I can cook."
"Somebody in your house must have been able to," his grandmother said with a sniff, then clicked her tongue as she dumped the biscuit dough onto the counter and kneaded it a few times. "No, I can spoil my grandsons for a morning or two. I'll let you cook next time, see if your bite is as good as your bark."
"Most ladies say it is," Chris said modestly.
To his relief, Grandma laughed. "You remind me of my mother, Christopher. She was a firecracker."
"I don't really remember her," he admitted. "I know there are a couple pictures of us, but I was really little."
"She was only a couple of years older than I am now when she died." She cut biscuits with an easy, habitual twist, dropping the dough onto a cookie sheet. "It seemed old at the time. To me, at least. Not so sure she felt the same way, now that I'm coming up on that age myself. How's your brother doing?"
Chris frowned at the table. "Okay, I guess. I was kind of a dick, telling him about Dad, so that sucked. I sucked."
"Most of us aren't at our best in that kind of situation," Grandma said, more gently than Chris thought he deserved. "What matters is you were both there for each other. Right?"
"Right. I guess."
"So why don't you tell me what's been going on?" The biscuits went into the oven and Grandma sat down across from him, dusting her hands.
Chris shot a look toward the bedrooms. "I dunno, maybe I should wait for Nicky."
"S'okay," his brother said groggily from down the hall. "Go ahead. I'll be there in a minute." The bathroom door closed, swallowing the last of his words.
Grandma looked expectantly at Chris. He sank into his chair, fingers knotting and tangling and drumming at the edge of the table until he realized he was doing it and made himself stop. "Grandma, I…look, if you don't already know about what I'm gonna talk about I'm gonna sound crazy."
"One of the wonderful things about being old is everything the younger generation says sounds crazy, or at least detached from the reality you knew as a child. Go ahead."
"Well, like—I mean, why do we have funeral pyres, Grandma? That's not normal. I mean, do you know why we do?"
Obvious weariness passed over the old lady, making her smaller and older before she took a deep breath, clearly preparing herself. "Are you asking me because you think I don't know, or because you don't?"
"I don't know! Or I—I know why Nick and I did it. I don't know if it's the same reason you had a pyre for Grandpa, or if…did Grandma Jean get a pyre too?"
"She did."
Chris stared at Grandma for a minute, then exhaled so long he thought he might cave in on himself. "Then either you guys think you're a bunch of Vikings or it's the same reason. We burned Dad's body because he was killed by vampires, Grandma."
His grandmother said, "Well, fuck," and got up to take the biscuits out of the oven. Chris sat in silence, watching her with his jaw dropped. No matter how many times he tried to crank it back up, it went back down. Nick came out of the bathroom, looked between them, and sat down to find out what he'd missed.
It took a couple minutes for Grandma to gather herself again, and it involved getting the biscuits into a basket, taking a pot of homemade cinnamon applesauce off the stove, putting it all on the table, and going back for everybody's drinks. Then she sat, stared at the breakfast food, and said, "Your god damn father was supposed to keep you boys out of all that. That was the entire point of…dammit. Damn that man! Eat," she snapped. "Eat. I can't think with you two staring at me like that."
Nick reached for biscuits at the same time Chris did and they spent a few seconds fighting over the one that had a little crescent in one side, where Grandma had overlapped two circles with the cutter. She'd always done that, not on purpose because there was only ever one or maybe two at most. On some level Chris believed those were the best ones, because they meant Grandma had made them by hand just for her grandsons.
He got the crescent-cut biscuit, then, with a surge of suspicion at the childhood memory that told him Nick always got those ones, he handed it to his little brother.
Nicky brightened like a kid, then, sheepishly, said, "Those ones are best."
"Yeah. I know." Chris took another one and they concentrated on buttering and applesaucing them until Grandma said, "It's been in the family as long as I've ever known. I don't even know what 'it' is, but my mother guarded me against it my entire life. Her wife, her friends, all of them, they went half crazy keeping me safe as a kid. Mom thought I might inherit it, but I guess it passed me by. It got your mother, though. It got my Ruth."
Chris's appetite vanished, although the food smelled amazing. "What do you mean, it got Mom?"
"Oh, honey." Grandma braced her head in her hands. "She believed in all sorts of nonsense that my mother wouldn't deny. Angels. Demons. Possessions. She used to see them, she said, and Mom—my mother—believed her. She taught her how to…she couldn't defend herself. Ruthie couldn't defend herself. Mom didn't understand that, she said she should be able to. It drove Ruth crazy, in the end."
"Grandma?" Nicky's voice cracked. "What happened to Mom?"
"She died," their grandmother said wearily. "Your father brought her to a—he called it a religious order. A cult. They said they could exorcise her. They couldn't. She died."
"What the—what the fuck, Grandma?" Chris pushed his chair back from the table, sick energy boiling through him. The horrible idea that this was what Nicky's grendel power felt like hit him, and he turned to his brother, who had gone sheet white and unmoving. "Why the fuck didn't anybody tell us that? Nicky, are you—are you okay?"
Nick didn't even really answer, just kind of shuddered, but he obviously wasn't okay. Chris didn't know if okay even existed anymore. He thought he was going to have to hit something, or throw up, or both, and he didn't know how to do any of it without falling apart.
But he couldn't fall apart, because then Nicky would. He dragged in a breath that felt like it should hurt, and it was awful that it didn't, like he shouldn't be able to even breathe anymore, and his hands were cold and his stomach kept twisting and his heart thumped like it needed to escape.
"Because the one thing your father promised after that was to keep you away from that whole world," Grandma said bitterly. "Even me, because I guess I was part of it, even if it skipped my generation."
"It didn't skip ours!" The words burst from Nicky like an eruption of power themselves. Chris pulled his brother out of his chair and got between him and Grandma, saying, "Nick. Nick. Nicky," until Nick's glazed gaze snapped to him.
"C'mon, Nicky, hold it together. I'm here, okay? I got you. It's gonna be okay. This explains a lot, man. It's shit, it's shit we didn't know, but this crap, it didn't come out of nowhere, we got a whole family thing around it, okay? So you're okay, Nicky. You're who you always were, all right? You're you, buddy. Okay? Nicky?"
The tremble of a nod was enough. Chris's knees damn near buckled, but he couldn't hold Nicky up if he fell, so he didn't. "Arright. Arright, Nicky. It's gonna be okay." Over his shoulder, to their grandma, he said, "We went to kill the vamps that got Dad, and got our asses hand to us by an angel. A fallen angel."
"Reporbate," Nicky said hoarsely, and Chris nodded encouragement.
"Yeah, that's right, reporbate. Not just fallen, but, uh, cast out, castigated! By God."
Nick managed a brief, weak smile. "Castigate means scolding. Desanctified's kinda worse, Chris."
"You and your fucking vocabulary, Nick. I thought I was doing pretty good there." He got a little nod for that, another almost-smile. "Yeah, so shut the fuck up, man. You okay? You okay?"
Nick trembled again, definitely not a nod or a yes in any way, so Chris kept his grip on his shoulders. "You are, though. You're okay. The thing woke some kind of power up in Nicky, Grandma. Like big power."
"Freak power," Grandma said, and Chris bared his teeth.
"We're calling it grendel power these days, but yeah. You know about that? What do you know about it?"
"My mother said it was demon blood in humanity. Or demon essence. Coming out in us. That there was more and more as she got older. She thought maybe it was because there was more of it that Ruth couldn't defend herself. It hadn't been that way when she was young, she said. She said back then there weren't many demons, but there were even fewer people who could fight them."
"So I'm demon-powered?" Nicky's voice cracked and Chris swore the whole house rattled with it.
Grandma snapped, "Sit down, boy, and eat. Get yourself grounded. It'll help."
