Through the fire, p.23
Through the Fire, page 23
Lauren's gaze went past him to the slender young woman sitting in the corner of the bond office, then came back to him. "What is she, like, a White Walker? Susceptible to dragon glass or something?"
"Um, something like that, yeah."
Lauren's eyebrows rose and she shrugged. "I'll let them know. Dunno if it'll do any good, but I'll try."
"You be careful with her around. You start getting any dark thoughts or going on an emotional roller coaster, either hit her in the head or get out of here."
A faint smile pulled at the corner of Lauren's mouth. "You're serious."
"As a heart attack, okay?"
She studied him a moment, then nodded. "All right, kiddo. Let me get you your check, in the meantime. Then you and that brother of yours look like you could use some sleep."
"Yeah." Chris cast a glance toward the van, where Nick had been way too quiet for a long time. Hopefully he was sleeping already, but Chris kinda doubted it. He'd had that look he got when he was studying, except the only thing Chris could figure for him to study was Kayleigh's grendel power, and that just seemed like a bad idea. "Thanks, Laur."
"Not a problem. You boys are my favorites, you know." She handed the check over a couple minutes later with a promise to call when she had another bounty, and Chris went back out to Lucille, where, yeah, Nicky was in the passenger seat, thumping a rhythm on the dashboard and not sleeping.
"Talk to me, Nicky." Chris pulled Lucille's door shut behind him and slumped in the seat. "What'd you learn from that girl?"
"I can do what she does." Nick sounded light, almost hollow. Almost thin. "It's not that hard, really. Emotions just roll out, you can push them around w—"
"Yeah," Chris said, "so the thing is, every freak I've ever—grendel, god damn it—every grendel I've ever heard about, they could do, like, one thing. Like Kayleigh in there fucks with emotion, okay, I'd never met that one before, but…" He shuddered, trying not to remember the freezing wash of water into his boots as the lake started to rise through cracks in the ice, and how he'd been willing to just let the ice break and the cold water take him. He would have said he'd never do something that fucking dumb, but she'd found some part of him that was ready to.
The worst part was, if he let himself linger on that realization, it wasn't really much of a surprise. It took effort to shove that away, and he felt Nick's gaze slide toward him, like his little brother was wondering if he could fuck with Chris's mind, too.
"So they're strong," he said harshly. "Or they can mind-fuck you, or they can turn invisible or whatever, but they can't mind-fuck you and use telekinesis and thunderclap and get a bead on somebody else's power and figure out how to use it themselves."
"I'm special," Nick said in a falsely bright voice. "Must be the family legacy of demon blood. Lucky me."
"Are you okay, man?"
"Sure." Nick sank into his seat. He'd abandoned the neon snowsuit as soon as he could and looked thin and tired now, in ordinary colors after a long day. "It'd just be so easy. I see why she did it. And I'm a lot smarter than her. You could get away with murder, easy."
"Not exactly what you want on your doctor resume, Nicky. 'Gets away with murder easily?' Yeah, no, I don't think so."
"Make catching bounties easier. Frogmarch them into custody with my mind, that was pretty cool, wasn't it?"
"Dude, I'm glad we got her, but no, it wasn't cool. It's freaky, and not like grendel-freaky, like freaky-freaky. And what she did to me was worse, but that doesn't fucking excuse it, okay?" Chris sat up, glaring at Nick uncomfortably. "Like, she just about killed me, you get that, right? You can't really think using a power to fuck with somebody's emotions is okay."
"I bet I could get Stephanie back," Nick said almost distantly. "Bet I could. Be really easy. Wouldn't make her forget, you know? Just kinda smooth it over. Remind her of the good times. Make sure she focuses on those."
"Jesus, Nicky, are you hearing yourself? Rapey incel much? What the hell, man? You can't coerce your girlfriend into coming back to you, what the actual fuck!"
"No, I'm not—" Nick flinched upright, offended, although the offense slid to horror after a few seconds, and then to sick-edged paleness. "I don't know what that was."
"That was the fucking power! That shit is not okay! It's screwing with your mind, never mind mine or Stephanie's or whatever. Dude, man, I thought you were like, incorruptible, but what the actual fuck!"
"They say everybody's got a price," Nick said thinly.
"And yours is getting your girlfriend back? Seriously, I thought better of you. What the hell, Nick!"
Nick, in the same thin voice, said, "I think something's wrong with me," and somehow all of Chris's anger and disgust vanished into worry.
"Yeah. Yeah, fuck, um. Okay, look. It's gonna be okay, Nicky. We'll figure it out. Look…"
"I better stop using the power. You told me that in the first place. Just get a handle it, that's what you said, but I'm out here experimenting and shit. I broke their door with it. And then she went after you and it was like I could see it, so I copied it, and…I shouldn't have done that." Nick leaned forward, making himself into a ball that didn't really fit in the passenger footwell. "I can see the eyes and the fire in the power. The wings. It feels like Saboac, Chris. I think I'm in trouble."
"It's gonna be fine," Chris said again. He could hear his own big brother voice, calming Nicky, even if it didn't work on himself. "Okay, look, I think we should get out of Denver, okay? And then maybe find—a church, I think, yeah? Priests should know about demon stuff, right?" He tried for a little grin, felt it fail, and pushed it harder. "It'll be okay. What churches ordain women? We'll get you a hot priestess exorcism or something."
To his relief, Nicky's shoulder's twitched with amusement, if not exactly laughter. "I think the only people who call them priestesses are witches or druids or something."
"Okay, so, we'll find a coven or something. I'd hate to spoil your chances of finding the light with the holy thirteen, right?"
"Dude, you are…" Nick lifted his head, a mortified smile on his face. "I don't even know. Incorrigible."
"If that's anything like encouragable, I'm good. Seriously." Chris lifted his chin, indicating Nick's phone. "See what you can find about churches around here, on the outskirts, maybe, that deal with exorcisms or demons or whatever, okay? Churches or covens or circles or whatever the hell they call how druids worship. Somebody's got to have some answers," he said more softly, "and in the meantime, probably being on consecrated ground's worth something, right?"
"Man, how can you just take this in stride?" Nick took his phone out like he was told, but his voice broke. "I'm all fucked up, Chris, and you're just chill."
Chris put the van in reverse, getting out of the parking lot, and headed north, figuring home lay that way, at least, and if push came to shove, there were churches in Sterling. "Fucked up is the one thing I'm good at, Nicky. Fucked up is my whole life. That's all."
"It's not, you know." Nick didn't say anything else, though, at least not about that, and Chris didn't want to argue with him. After a while, he did say, "There's a little old Orthodox church I think maybe nobody's using anymore up north toward the mountains. There's hardly any town there anymore."
"Orthodox? Yeah?" Chris glanced at him. "You feeling that vibe, or something?"
"I always liked the onion tops," Nick mumbled. "And if nobody's there I can't…"
"If nobody's there we can't ask questions," Chris said, but it wasn't much of an argument. "But if it's quiet, maybe we can sit this out for a while, figure you out. Good thing is you've obviously got more control than you had, right? You wouldn't be able to copy her if you were just flailing around in the dark."
"I'm not sure that's comforting."
"I'm doing my best here, man."
"Yeah." Nick chuckled roughly. "Yeah, I guess so. Sorry. Look, we're going a couple hours north here, can we get food first?"
"That's a really good idea. And…maybe if we need to hide out we should go that far up, but I kinda really think we need to talk to somebody who's got, I don't know, a direct line to God or something."
"Fine, just pull over at the next church then, I guess." Nick banged his head back against the seat, winced, and pressed his lips together. Chris, grimacing, kept an eye out for either a diner or a church, and found the second one first.
"Ten minutes," he promised. "We can just ask if they have anybody who knows about…"
"Demonic possession?" Nick asked sharply. "Like that's not gonna get some funny looks?"
"They're priests. I bet they get weirder questions than that every day." Chris pulled into the parking lot of a white-walled church that looked to him like it had been picked up out somewhere in South Carolina and replanted halfway out of Denver on the north road, columns around the door and a white steeple and all.
"I bet they're pastors, here, not priests," Nick mumbled as they got out of the van.
Chris shrugged. "It's all the same thing, isn't it?"
"Dude, how do you know nothing about church hierarchy?"
"You were the one telling Stephanie how I skipped out on Sunday school."
"I think I was telling you how you did that."
"Well, whatever, it's not like you went either, so how come you know the difference between a priest and a pastor?" Chris took the couple steps up to the door in one step and turned to wait on his brother, who had stopped abruptly at the leading edge of the first step. "Come on, let's go."
"I can't." Color blotched Nick's face, red and white patches underwritten by queasy yellow. "I can't step up."
"What, you hurt your knee with all that stomping through the woods? You're still practically a teenager, dude, shake it off."
"No." Nicky's voice rose and broke. "I can't. It's like there's a—wall."
Chris barked laughter. "You telling me you can't walk on holy ground?"
The laugh dissolved into sickness as Nick's wild-eyed gaze rose to meet Chris's own. "Holy shit, you can't walk on holy ground?" Nausea plunged through him, breaking a cold sweat on his skin as he took the couple steps back down to the ground. "Nick, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a dick, but—seriously?"
"I'm fine here in the parking lot," Nick said hoarsely. "But if I try to step up…" He did, pushing his foot forward like he'd take a normal step, but just couldn't. He lifted both hands, pressing them forward until they reached the edge of the step. Chris saw the strain in his arms and throat as he pushed forward, and a brightness of panic in his eyes as he leaned into the effort like a mime going all-in on his performance. "I can't. I can't!"
"Stop." The word came out harder than Chris meant it to, as he grabbed Nick's arm and pulled him back a couple of steps. "Come on, Nicky, stop it. You're gonna hurt yourself."
"Why can't I go in a church, Chris?"
"I don't know." The nausea in Chris's belly felt like it was trying to get out but couldn't decide which way to go. "I don't know, but we'll figure it out. Just not here, okay? Right now we're gonna go get some food and give you a chance to breathe—"
"I don't want to breathe! I want to know why I can't go in a fucking church!"
"Probably because God doesn't like you using that kind of lan—" Chris's head snapped back with the impact of a punch he didn't even see coming. A punch he wasn't sure Nick had used his fists to throw. He staggered, catching blood from his nose, and stared disbelievingly at his brother through a haze of pain and tears. "Man, if you just broke my fucking nose—!"
"Oh, you're too goddamn vain about your face anyway." Nicky lashed out again, and this time Chris saw the movement, but his fist didn't connect. Just power did, catching Chris right in the gut, shoving him backward another couple steps.
"At least." It took two tries to get enough air to get beyond that. "At least my face is worth being vain about. I'd'a broken up with you too, if I had to wake up to that every day."
Nick bellowed and Chris bolted back toward Lucille, skidding on patches of snow and hoping that Nick just chased him instead of remembering he could probably grab Chris by the ankle with his mind and smash him around the pavement.
As luck would have it, Nick just chased him. If getting tackled by an angry, linebacker-sized brother counted as luck, anyway. Chris hit the icy asphalt with a bounce that did another number on his nose and howled with pain. "Dude! My nose!"
"Screw your stupid nose, you—"
Chris flipped over and threw a handful of snow in Nick's face, hoping the cold would at least startle him into calming down for a second. Nick flinched away, clawing at the bits of gravel that stuck in the snow, then fell backward, confused dismay beneath the melting ice on his cheeks. "What the…what am I…"
"We're getting you a burger," Chris grated. "Or six. You gotta get grounded." He got up, afraid to touch his face, and offered his brother a hand.
Nick stayed where he was, sprawled on his ass on the half-frozen pavement. "I hit you."
"Twice. Get up."
"Are you gonna hit me?"
"Not while you're expecting it." Chris tried a smile, hoping it would show that he was kidding, but it sent a stab of pain up his nose into his brain and he grimaced instead, trying to bite back a snarl. "Man, I think you broke my goddamn nose."
Nick, almost writhing with guilt, climbed to his feet without Chris's help. "It's swollen," he reported miserably. "Don't touch it. Get a doctor to look at it in a couple days."
"No? Don't do the…" Chris made a motion like they did in the movies, although he didn't actually grab his nose for fear he'd pass out.
"No! No, it doesn't really work that way and it's hard to tell if a nose is broken until the swelling goes down. I'm sorry, Chris."
"Just get me an ice pack from the van and…" Chris hesitated. "I was gonna say you drive, but…"
"But I'm going off the deep end," Nick said with a tight smile. "Can you see okay?"
"Sure, except for the tears." Chris tried to make a face and the world spun dizzily. "Ow."
"It looks like it's almost stopped bleeding," Nick offered. "That's a good sign."
"Oh good." Chris braced himself and tried one more time to move the rest of his face. It worked better when he was prepared for the pain, although tears sprang to his eyes again. "I swear to God, if you broke it…"
"Then you'll be ruggedly handsome instead of picture perfect." Nick went to the van and got the ice pack Chris had asked for, and he spent a few wincing minutes holding it to his face before he dared look in one of the van mirrors to assess the damage, which looked a lot better than it felt.
"But that's good," Nick said apologetically. "It's probably not broken. And it stopped bleeding and there's no clear stuff coming out—"
"Of my nose? What clear stuff would there be?"
"What clear stuff usually comes out your nose?"
"Snot, I guess." Chris touched his nose, trying not to cry again, and mumbled, "It doesn't feel like anything's moving, and I can see if I don't touch it, so let's go, I guess. I want you to be fed and sleepy. Like a hibernating bear. There's a diner about a block up from here."
"You want to walk or drive?"
Chris squinted painfully, then sighed. "Walk, I guess. Probably the longer I wait for this to calm down, the better." He put the ice pack back on as they headed down the street, muttering, "'course, this look isn't gonna help me charm an extra cup of coffee out of the waitress or anything."
"Coffee refills are usually free," Nick said. "Don't tell me you've been putting 'getting extra refills' on your scoreboard."
Chris sniffed and regretted it profoundly. By the time the pain faded enough to say, "A gentleman never tells," it wasn't as funny anymore, and they were at the diner. Nick at least had the decency to hold the door for him, and the first waiter inside it said, "Oh, you poor thing, what happened?" and led them to a table right away.
"Slipped on the ice and caught myself with my face."
"Ooooh." The pitch of the waiter's sympathy practically vibrated through Chris's nose. He wanted to cry, or worse, vomit, but the idea of that much extra pressure in his head made him want to cry even more. He tried to smile as they sat down. It hurt. He stopped.
Nick muttered, "I bet he'll give you free coffee," as they sat.
Chris snickered after all, regretted it even more than the sniff, and tried not to have any expression at all. "I'll take it, I'm easy. I wonder if he's got any aspirin."
"You can ask when he comes back." Nick picked up the menu at the side of the table, but frowned over it at the diner. Chris followed his gaze, clocking mostly older people at the free-standing tables and the bar counter, and a handful of families in booths like the one they sat in, with old dark grey pleather seats and heavy ripples in the backing. The staff were busy but not yet overwhelmed, and Chris checked the time—pushing 5pm—to see if they'd probably be expecting a rush soon.
"Think we got here before it got busy?"
"Huh? Nnh." Nick shook his head and frowned at his menu instead. "No, I just feel creepy, but it's probably me, not the diner. I've been in much creepier diners."
"Remember that one in—"
"With the gold fixtures and the clown in the bathroom?" Nick shuddered and Chris laughed even though it made his nose hurt.
"The part I remember was the stains on the floor. I was only like twelve but I was frickin' sure that was blood—"
"Dude, it absolutely was. It absolutely was. The clown killed somebody, man. The clown killed everybody."
Chris laughed again, then whimpered and tried to keep himself from hiding his nose under his hands. "God, that really hurts. Stop making me laugh."
"You brought up the creepy clown diner!" Nick looked up, worry cutting lines into his forehead before he stood. "Something's wrong, Chris. Something's—get out!" He lifted his voice, drawing attention as he braced himself. "Everybody get out! Now!" The last word carried power, enough power that Chris found himself on his feet, ready to bolt for the door.
