snake’s. His breath was hot and reeked of decay as he spoke.
“You are small, Eugenie Markham, but you are lovely and your flesh is warm. Perhaps I should beat the rush and take you myself. I’d enjoy hearing you scream beneath me.”
Ew. Had that thing just propositioned me? And there was my name again. How in the world did he know that? None of them knew that. I was only Odile to them, named after the dark swan in Swan Lake, a name coined by my stepfather because of the form my spirit preferred to travel in while visiting the Otherworld. The name- though not particularly terrifying-had stuck, though I doubted any of the creatures I fought knew the reference. They didn’t really get out to the ballet much.
The keres had my upper arms pinned-I would have bruises tomorrow-but my hands and forearms were free. He was so sure of himself, so overly arrogant and confident, that he paid no attention to my struggling hands. He probably just perceived the motion as a futile effort to free myself. In seconds, I had the clip out and in the gun. I managed one clumsy shot and he dropped me-not gently. I stumbled to regain my balance again. Bullets probably couldn’t kill him, but a silver one in the center of his chest would certainly hurt.
He stumbled back, half-surprised, and I wondered if he’d ever even encountered a gun before. It fired again, then again and again and again. The reports were loud; hopefully Montgomery wouldn’t do something foolish and come running in. The keres roared in outrage and pain, each shot making him stagger backward until he was all the way against the circle’s boundary. I advanced on him, retrieved athame flashing in my hand. In a few quick motions, I carved the death symbol on the part of his chest that wasn’t bloodied from bullets. An electric charge immediately ran through the air of the circle. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I could smell ozone, like just before a storm.
He screamed and leapt forward, renewed by rage or adrenaline or whatever else these creatures ran on. But it was too late for him. He was marked and wounded. I was ready. In another mood, I might have simply banished him to the Otherworld; I tried not to kill if I didn’t have to. But that sexual suggestion had just been out of line. I was pissed off now. He’d go to the world of death, straight to Persephone’s gate.
I fired again to slow him, my aim a bit off with the left hand but still good enough to hit him. I had already traded the athame for the wand. This time, I didn’t draw on the power from this plane. With well-practiced ease, I let part of my consciousness slip this world. In moments, I reached the crossroads to the Otherworld. That was an easy transition; I did it all the time. The next crossover was a little harder, especially with me being weakened from the fight, but still nothing I couldn’t do automatically. I kept my own spirit well outside of the land of death, but I touched it and sent that connection through the wand. It sucked him in, and his face twisted with fear.
“This is not your world,” I said in a low voice, feeling the power burn through me and around me. “This is not your world, and I cast you out. I send you to the black gate, to the lands of death where you can either be reborn or fade to oblivion or burn in the flames of hell. I really don’t give a shit. Go.”
He screamed, but the magic caught him. There was a trembling in the air, a buildup of pressure, and then it ended abruptly, like a deflated balloon. The keres was gone too, leaving only a shower of gray sparkles that soon faded to nothing.
Silence. I sank to my knees, exhaling deeply. My eyes closed a moment, as my body relaxed and my consciousness returned to this world. I was exhausted but exultant too. Killing him had felt good. Heady, even. He’d gotten what he deserved, and I had been the one to deal it out.
Minutes later, some of my strength returned. I stood and opened the circle, suddenly feeling stifled by it. I put my tools and weapons away and went to find Montgomery.
“Your shoe’s been exorcised,” I told him flatly. “I killed the ghost.” No point in explaining the difference between a keres and a true ghost; he wouldn’t understand.
He entered the room with slow steps, picking up the shoe gingerly. “I heard gunshots. How do you use bullets on a ghost?”
I shrugged. It hurt from where the keres had slammed my shoulder to the wall. “It was a strong ghost.”
He cradled the shoe like one might a child and then glanced down with disapproval. “There’s blood on the carpet.”
“Read the paperwork you signed. I assume no responsibility for damage incurred to personal property.”
With a few grumbles, he paid up-in cash-and I left. Really, though, he was so stoked about the shoe, I probably could have decimated the office.
In my car, I dug out a Milky Way from the stash in my glove box. Battles like that required immediate sugar and calories. As I practically shoved the candy bar into my mouth, I turned on my cell phone. I had a missed call from Lara.
Once I’d consumed a second bar and was on I-10 back to Tucson, I dialed her.
“Yo,” I said.
“Hey. Did you finish the Montgomery job?”
“Yup.”
“Was the shoe really possessed?”
“Yup.”
“Huh. Who knew? That’s kind of funny too. Like, you know, lost souls and soles in shoes…”
“Bad, very bad,” I chastised. Lara might be a good secretary, but there was only so much I could be expected to put up with. “So what’s up? Or were you just checking in?”
“No. I just got a weird job offer. Some guy-well, honestly, I thought he sounded kind of schizo. But he claims his sister was abducted by fairies, er, gentry. He wants you to go get her.”
I fell silent at that, staring at the highway and clear blue sky ahead without consciously seeing either one. Some objective part of me attempted to process what she had just said. I didn’t get that kind of request very often. Okay, never. A retrieval like that required me to cross over physically into the Otherworld. “I don’t really do that.”
“That’s what I told him.” But there was uncertainty in Lara’s voice.
“Okay. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, I guess. I don’t know. It’s just…he said she’s been gone almost a year and a half now. She was fourteen when she disappeared.”
My stomach sank a little at that. God. What an awful fate for someone so young. It made the keres’ lewd comments to me downright trivial.
“He sounded pretty frantic.”
“Does he have proof she was actually taken?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t get into it. He was kind of paranoid. Seemed to think his phone was being tapped.”
I laughed at that. “By who? The gentry?” “Gentry” was what I called the beings that most of Western culture referred to as fairies or sidhe. They looked just like humans but embraced magic instead of technology. They found “fairy” a derogatory term, so I respected that-sort of-by using the term old English peasants used to use. Gentry. Good folk. Good neighbors. A questionable designation, at best. The gentry actually preferred the term “shining ones,” but that was just silly. I wouldn’t give them that much credit.
“I don’t know,” Lara told me. “Like I said, he seemed a little schizo.”
Silence fell as I held on to the phone and passed a car driving 45 in the left lane.
“Eugenie! You aren’t really thinking of doing this.”
“Fourteen, huh?”
“You always said that was dangerous.”
“Adolescence?”
“Stop it. You know what I mean. Crossing over.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
It was dangerous-super dangerous. Traveling in spirit form could still get you killed, but your odds of fleeing back to your earthbound body were better. Take your own body over, and all the rules changed.
“This is crazy.”
“Set it up,” I told her. “It can’t hurt to talk to him.”
I could practically see her biting her lip to hold back protests. But at the end of the day, I was the one who
