CHAPTER 21
I CHARGED UP MY APARTMENT STAIRS, SLAYER in hand and my sweatered demon spawn in tow.
My apartment door. In one piece. No sign of a break-in.
I forced myself to slow down, slid the key into the lock, and swung the door open. The poodle trotted in. I followed softly on my toes.
Kitchen. Clear.
I nudged the bathroom door with my fingertips. Clear.
My living room. Clear.
Library/Julie’s room. Clear.
Clear. The apartment was clear.
I had to hide Julie.
I scanned the apartment. Too much. I could throw away the pictures, but signs of her were all over my place. Clothes, teddy bear with vampire teeth, half-painted black bedroom with a big KEEP OUT stenciled on the wall . . . Sooner or later Erra would make it into my apartment, and she would find something I’d missed. She would look for Julie, and if she found her, she would kill my kid and she’d do it slowly to torture me with it.
Think. Think, think, think . . .
I grabbed scissors, marched into Julie’s closet, and pulled out her favorite Goth dress. Two snips, and I had two pieces of black ribbon. I snatched glue out of the utility drawer and fixed black ribbon over the corner of two photo frames.
Funeral pictures. That was what Voron did when Larissa died. She was a wererat, who traveled with us for a while, and when she died, he fixed the ribbons on her photo. I had a kid, but she died and I kept her funeral pictures in plain sight.
I pulled the paper drawer open, took the folder with Julie’s school papers, and pushed the books off the woodstove. A bit of kerosene, some crumpling, and two minutes later Julie’s school records went up in flames.
Okay. I had the phone number of the school memorized. There was no record of it. And if Erra thought Julie was dead, she wouldn’t look for her. I grabbed the phone and dialed the school’s number. In ten seconds I was patched through to security and gave detailed instructions: Julie was not to leave the grounds. She was not to contact me until I contacted her.
I ended the call, dialed the Order, and hung up. If Erra knew how to use redial, it wouldn’t lead her to Julie either.
The papers burned to ash. I sat on the floor and stared at the flames.
I beat her. If she broke in now, Julie would be safe.
Grendel wandered over to me and whined softly.
“Give me a minute,” I told him.
All my life had been focused on avoiding this moment. My family had found me. Even if I killed her, which was a huge “if,” it wouldn’t exactly go unnoticed.
I had to go. I had to grab my shit and take off into the wilderness, where she couldn’t track me. I knew where to hide. Voron and I had planned out several escape routes years ago.
What about Julie? She was safe at the school but she wouldn’t understand. She would think I’d abandoned her. Taking her with me was out of the question. Julie wasn’t me. I could take a knife, melt into the forest, and come out on the other side weeks later, leaner, but no worse for wear. Julie wouldn’t be able to handle it. The responsible thing would be to leave her where she was.
She’d run away and go looking for me. She’d run away in a heartbeat.
All I could do would be to send a message to the school and tell them that I had to go and she had to stay and trust them to keep her there.
No good choices. When you care about people, they tie you down.
Suppose I did take off and Erra lost my trail. The Pack would be her next target. She would demolish the shapeshifters. Once she was done with them, she’d have the city to play with. If she really did what she was famous for, Atlanta would become the land of diseased corpses.
Erra was made out of my childhood nightmares. For the first time since I reached adulthood, I wanted my dad to be alive, in the way a child wants his parent to come into a dark bedroom and turn on the light. Except Voron was dead. Besides, I knew what his response would be: Run. Run as fast and as far as you can. I had a window of opportunity now, before she found me again. Once I let it slip, my avenue of escape was gone forever. Show over.
I picked Slayer off the floor and dragged my fingers across the blade, feeling magic nip at my skin. The need to run gripped me. The walls closed in, as if my apartment had shrunk.
This wasn’t me. I didn’t panic. I needed to be sharp for this.
I closed my eyes and let it all go. I pictured the worst possible scenario. Julie dead, her little face bloody. Curran dead, his body broken, gray eyes staring into nothing, all of the gold gone. Jim, Andrea, Raphael, Derek, dead, their bodies torn apart.
My hands turned ice-cold. My pulse raced. My heartbeat thudded in my ears, too loud.
Atlanta dead. Corpses on the streets. Vultures that circled but wouldn’t land because the corpses were poison.
I soaked it all in. It hurt. Sweat broke out on my face.
A long moment passed.
Gradually my heart rate slowed. I breathed in deep and let it out. Again. Again. Fatigue rolled over me in a sluggish wave. The poodle licked my hand.
I’d tricked my mind into thinking the worst had happened and I had lived through it. Everyone was still alive. I still had a chance to shield them.
My breathing evened out. Dread and fear fell away from me. Fear drained resources. One could be afraid only so much before the body shut it off in self-defense. I’d overloaded the circuits. Calm came. My mind started slowly, like a rusty clock. “I had my fun. I made friends, adopted a kid, fell in love. It’s time to pay the piper.”
Grendel tilted his head.
“Besides, the bitch killed Marigold. We’ve got to nuke her. Are you game?”
The poodle turned around, trotted into the kitchen, and brought me his food dish.
“What happened to your altruism? Fine. I’ll pay you in meat if you help me kill her.”
The dog barked.
“You’ve got yourself a deal. Here, let’s see what we can scrounge up.” I grinned and pushed off the floor. Everything hurt. I was spent. The power word and the fight had cost me and the wound didn’t help. It felt like I was dragging steel chains.
My invisible chains and I made it into the kitchen. I opened the fridge, tossed the undead head into the garbage, and tried to find something to eat.
A knock sounded through my apartment.