Promises to Keep

chapter 18


AS HE DROVE, the pain that Jay could sense coming from Rikai gradually built, until it was taking all his concentration to ignore it and focus on the slick roads. She hadn’t said a word or uttered as much as a grunt, but a few miles out from SingleEarth, Jay couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What is wrong with you?” he demanded.

“That remains to be seen,” she replied, voice perfectly level. All Jay knew about Triste magic was that it relied on total control of mind and body, regardless of pain or other physical ailments. That made it doubly concerning when Rikai’s next words—“We need to …”—faded out, replaced by a sharp hitch of breath. “Let me know when we arrive.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her rest her head on her hands on the window. He resisted the urge to drive faster, knowing that a patch of ice and a car accident could kill him just as surely as magical influences.

Why wouldn’t she talk to him? Was her pain related to what had happened to Brina?

His questions about Rikai were pushed aside by more pressing concerns as he reached SingleEarth and discovered that the parking lot was overflowing. Cars were parked wherever they could find space, many blocking others in.

“Looks like they’re having a party,” he said, feigning levity to cover his rising anxiety. “We’re going to have to hike a bit.” Jay stopped the car as close as he could get to the main building.

For the first time in hours, he got a good look at Rikai. Her face was pale and there were shadows under her eyes. More disturbing were the ropy scars he could see trailing out from her shirt cuffs to cover her hands. Another was starting to emerge from beneath her high collar, snaking up the left side of her throat to her temple.

He clenched his jaw against the echo of her pain and walked around the car to open her door. Rikai glared at him, as if she wanted to refuse his help, but then she reached up and took his arm. She leaned on him heavily as they began an agonizingly long walk to the door.

Halfway there, Lynx came bounding across the snow, his tufted ears back as if he had scented something foul.

What happened here? Jay asked.

Stinks like something spoiled, Lynx answered. Stay out here.

I need to go in to find out what happened.

Lynx hissed, and refused to follow as Jay and Rikai approached the threshold of SingleEarth Haven #2.

“What the hell?” Jay whispered as he stepped inside and discovered that the reception area had been turned into a triage unit. Nurses and volunteers were scampering among patients who had been laid out on blankets, towels, even yoga mats, while other workers made hushed phone calls desperately calling for more doctors. Though they struggled to appear professional, the panicky fear rising from the staff left a bitter taste on Jay’s tongue.

One of them glanced up, barely seemed to register his presence, and said, “Sign her in at the front desk. We’re trying to find space for everyone.”

“I need to put you down,” Jay said, warning Rikai but not asking her permission as he dropped the Triste and knelt next to the nearest patient. Rikai stumbled before she found her balance, but at that moment, Jay couldn’t have cared less if she fell.

The patient had previously been a receptionist at this haven. Jay couldn’t recall her name, but he knew she was a leopard shapeshifter. She shouldn’t have been able to get sick, but the moment he touched her, he could feel the illness racing through her.

“Jay.” He looked up when Jeremy whispered his name. “You shouldn’t be here. The shapeshifters are getting it worst, but witches aren’t”—Oh, god, how did I let her get that bad before I noticed?—“aren’t immune.” Jeremy’s voice hitched in the middle, and Jay’s heart leapt into his throat at the image that came along with the human’s hesitation: Caryn fainting, her fever 102 degrees and climbing.

“Caryn’s sick?”

Jeremy nodded. “Her mother and aunt, too.”

“Vireo?”

“Not as bad as some of the others, but he started sniffling a couple hours ago. How are you feeling?” Jeremy reached forward as he spoke, but Jay was barely aware of the human touching his brow and taking his pulse. “You’re chilled.”

“We had to walk in the snow to get here,” Jay snapped, jerking back. “Where’s my brother?”

“He went with a busload of patients to Center Number Twelve,” Jeremy answered. “They have more resources, so those well enough to travel have moved. Caryn’s still here,” he added, a note of desperation breaking into his voice as he fought an internal battle with himself. If he tries to help, he could get sick. He needs to help. I can’t ask it of him.

“Where is she?” Jay asked.

Jeremy didn’t have the willpower to say any of the sensible things he knew he should say as a doctor, and that was good, because Jay didn’t have patience for an argument. He was already trembling as they entered Caryn’s room and he caught the first reek of fever-sweat.

Caryn’s eyes opened but didn’t focus. She was flushed, and her hair was matted.

“Jay?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse. “No, stay back. You’ll catch it.”

Jay flinched. Jeremy had said nearly the same thing, but all Jay had felt was his concern for Caryn. Suddenly Jay could feel the creeping fog of the illness, and for the first time, a more personal terror seeped in.

What if I’m sick? Jay wondered. Would I notice? He was struggling against exhaustion and panic. He felt like he had been kicked in the gut and then punched a few times. Was that just fear, or some microscopic malady?

He forced himself to Caryn’s side and took her hand. Humans got sick all the time, and they were still brave enough to work in hospitals, or even retail locations or schools where disease was easily passed on. Jay refused to be too much of a coward to approach his own cousin.

“Control yourself, witch,” Rikai hissed as Jay paused again, pushing back the black spots that tried to claim his vision. “You’re not ill. Control your breath, and you will force your body to calm. You need to be calm.”

Jay had lost track of Rikai in the face of this pestilence. Jeremy asked sharply, “Who is this?”

“Never mind me. Try to help your cousin,” Rikai prompted Jay. For a moment, he thought she was being compassionate, but then he realized that she was gazing at Caryn like a scientist dissecting a rat.

Jay turned all his focus on his cousin and the snarled energies within her. It had been easy to encourage Jeremy’s human immune system to respond to an invading illness, but Caryn’s body had never needed to fight off disease. It didn’t know how. He did what he could for her, but then he needed to pull his magic away or risk doing more harm than good. He was struggling to put her into a deep, healing sleep, when someone in the hall shouted. Jay didn’t catch the words, but he felt the lash of fresh anxiety like a slap.

Jeremy turned gray. Shot to his feet. Froze. Stared at Caryn. Turned toward the door.

Turned back and grabbed Jay’s arm. “Come,” he ordered, dragging Jay after him.

The human’s emotions had gone beyond anything Jay could comprehend. They were grayed-out in panic, and the only explanation Jay had was the echoes of “Code blue!” that the nurses in the hall were still calling.

“What does that—”

Jay didn’t get the question out before he and Jeremy were in another room, this one crowded with confused and overwhelmed medical staff. The volunteer with the gardenia perfume was sitting in the corner, her knees up at her chest, her mind echoing with a single, looping thought: This doesn’t happen here.

“Get out of the way!” Jeremy shouted, pushing volunteers aside and trying to decide if anyone else in the room had ever been trained for—

This. Jay finally saw the shapeshifter on the bed. He hadn’t realized she was there before, because she was dead.

Jeremy was trying to give CPR, thinking, We’re not equipped for this kind of crisis here. And, Jay, if your magic can help, now is the time.

Jay couldn’t help with dead. Could anyone help with dead?

Jeremy seemed to think Jay could.

“I can’t.”

He backed out of the room, running into Rikai, who had followed like a shadow once again. As his hand brushed hers, her pain slipped past his already strained shields. Not just now-pain. Memories. Stretching, falling, wrenching, burning, stabbing, slicing … and she had been so innocent then, so young.

And now her body was riddled with enough scar tissue that it was remarkable she could walk. Her power was still holding some of the worst injuries back, but it was taking all her energy to do so.

She yanked her hand and power away from his with a glare, as he gasped, “I’m sorry. How—”

He didn’t finish asking the question, because the answer came to him: Inquisition. Most of Jay’s ancestors had managed to flee the church’s deadly fire, but this woman had been caught in it. She had still been human. Worse, she had once been absolutely faithful to the church. She was one of the rare few the inquisitors had never broken. She had been certain that lying to stop the pain would damn her forever, and so she had never confessed, never named the names they’d demanded in order to make the pain stop.

Jay gagged, trying to shove her memories away, trying to push aside the panic the nurses and volunteers and people who worked here were feeling because normally witches dealt with the scary cases and everything else was okay. Jay ran from the poor little nurse who was doing her best to take over for Jeremy, though she was thinking, This is why I left New York?

Back down the hallway.

Block out the fear, the fever dreams, the shuddering weakness, the—

Rikai grabbed his hands, and pain shot through him like lightning—but this time it was intentionally given, not accidentally shared. It cut through the emotions he couldn’t seem to block out, and momentarily cleared his mind.

“You. Need. To. Focus,” she snapped. “You—”

A faint buzz interrupted her. Letting go of one of his hands, Rikai reached into her pocket and retrieved a slim flip phone, which she opened with clumsy, stiff fingers. “Yes?”

Her expression never changed as she listened for a few moments, but she dropped Jay’s other hand as she said, “Pick me up from SingleEarth Haven Number Two.”

She closed the phone, looked at Jay, and said, “My power comes in part from the same elemental who gives us all our magic, but beyond Leona, I have made deals with entities darker than your deepest fears. If Xeke dies, and you are responsible, then know I will see you devoured by creatures you cannot begin to comprehend.”

“Xeke’s sick?” Jay asked. How could a vampire get sick? Unless he was like Brina. Jay hadn’t even thought of her since arriving. Was she sick, too? He should check on her.

Rikai shook her head. “He is as he has been, but he feeds and feeds and cannot staunch the bloodlust. He nearly killed his lover this evening when he woke.”

“Please,” Jay whispered. “If you have any idea what is happening—if you can help—you need to tell me.”

“I should think it would be perfectly obvious,” Rikai replied infuriatingly.

“Well, it’s not!” The only thing that was obvious was that she was standing in the middle of a sick ward that could too easily turn into a morgue, and she didn’t seem to care.

“Fine. The elemental you helped, the one you thought offered to attack Midnight, has chosen to start a little higher on the chain of command than the slave traders or the trainers,” Rikai answered. “The Shantel elemental isn’t going after vampires. She’s going after Leona.”

“I don’t understand.”

Rikai laughed, but the sharp, barking sound barely seemed to indicate amusement. “You probably don’t want to understand, little witch. Because if I understand right, you caused this.” She made a sweeping gesture encompassing all the chaos around them. “You’ll live through it, as long as you stay out of the way. The Shantel elemental has marked you, and her power will protect you. But when elementals war, civilizations burn.”

I didn’t want this, Jay thought desperately as Rikai turned on her heel and headed toward the door. Please. I didn’t want any of this.