black-tipped wings licking at the air. My hand throbbed in time to the pops and crackles of the embers. I felt like I was putting off more heat than the fire was.
Everyone else apparently felt like I was, too. No one stood near me. Several of them wouldn’t look directly at me. I wondered if I hurt to look at. I thought I probably did, because it certainly hurt to be me.
I didn’t know what Marcia and the others had done with the blood. I wasn’t sure I cared. All I could feel was the cut on my hand and the heat in my body. Everything was starting to make sense, in the heady, rushy way that came with heat exhaustion. There needed to be a sacrifice to initiate the change we were after. That was the real reason I was there: to apply what I’d learned from Judy. I was pretty sure I knew the sacrifice that needed to be made. I just hadn’t quite talked myself into doing it yet.
The coven took up their places around the fire. Marcia hesitated, then left me where I was. I was facing the wrong direction, or at least, I was facing a different direction than I had the night before, but I thought it was probably wiser to rearrange everyone around me. I wasn’t sure I could walk, for one thing, and for another, I was quite sure I didn’t want anyone touching me to guide me into place. It seemed reasonably certain that I was going to spontaneously combust at any moment.
Which thought distracted me while the coven began a chant, a different, deeper song than the night before. Did people who spontaneously combusted do something like I had? Draw heat off something and then be unable to release it? My vision swirled down to pinpoints while I struggled to follow that idea through. I was missing something there. There was something about this heat that was clear and obvious and…gone. My mind was too overcooked to hold on to the thought.
I closed my eyes, swaying on my feet. Maybe if I could direct all the heat to my head I would be able to lift off and fly away, like a hot air balloon. I concentrated on that for a few minutes. I succeeded in giving myself tiny fits of giggles that made the other coven members cast stern looks at me. I could feel the frowns even with my eyes closed, their irritation like cool points of pressure against my skin. Possibly if I annoyed them enough they would scowl hard enough that their cool anger would bleed off all the extra heat in me. I started a hopeful little dance, shuffling my feet around and waggling my hips back and forth. I lifted my hands above my head, squeaking in pain as my tank top shifted against my skin. More of them scowled at me, but it wasn’t enough to cool me down. I usually thought of anger as being hot. I wondered if they were actually coolly annoyed, or if I was just so hot that anger felt cold against my burning skin.
I giggled again, not because it was funny, but because it was a choice between laughter and panicked tears. The disapproval was stronger this time, hitting my skin in cool waves. I thought I could hear the hiss as it hit me and turned to steam, but I didn’t want to open my eyes to see if vapor was coming off my skin. It seemed like the precursor to the whole combustion thing, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to have my eyes open when that happened.
I could feel things starting, a low rumble from the belly of the earth. I thought my soles were shaking, though judging from the unbroken chanting around me, it was probably just my imagination. No one else seemed bothered by it. Still, I thought the ground might split open beneath my feet and spew out the bodies we were trying to call forth. I wondered if they would erupt upward in solid form, lions and tigers and bears, oh my! and then come crashing back down onto us. It would be an ignominious death, squashed by zoo animals. I wondered what the epitaphs would say. Morrison would probably write mine, and it would probably say, “Thank God.”
The earth groaned and stretched. I stumbled to the side, crashing into Sam. He caught me, a hand wrapped around my forearm. I made a high-pitched sound of pain, a squeal without enough air behind it. He let go as fast as he’d caught me, staring at his hand. To my eyes, his palm turned white, blood rushing up where I’d burned him. On my arm, where he’d caught me, there was a bleached black hand-print against the sunburn. The earth grumbled and I lost my balance again. This time Sam yanked his hands away, making sure not to touch me. I couldn’t blame him.
“Can’t you feel it?” I didn’t know if anyone else could hear me. I wasn’t sure I was speaking out loud, or if my voice was making it through the tight heat that clenched in my throat. “Can’t you feel it coming?” I didn’t know how they could miss the pressure building, the impatience buried beneath the land.
No one answered. I spun in a reckless circle, coming too close to the fire. It ripped my breath away, leaving my lungs empty and burning, too. Faye, across the circle, met my eyes. Her eyes were back to normal, but her gaze was sharp and intense, like it could flay the burning flesh from my bones. “You feel it,” I panted at her. She tensed and looked away, gaze skittering to the fire. I couldn’t tell if it was denial or encouragement. I swung to face the fire myself, and shrugged. My tank top scraped my skin and I found myself savoring the rough, painful feeling. It was the last time I’d ever feel it. I knew what the demanding earth beneath my feet wanted. I knew what the burning in my skin wanted. And really, I didn’t think I could hurt anymore than I did already. It might even be peaceful. I was ridiculously glad I’d met Judy and had learned enough in a few short days to understand what was going on, and what I needed to do.
I took one last look around at the coven and shrugged again. “Hell with it.” My voice was breathy and light, like flame itself.
I walked into the fire and let it burn.
CHAPTER 24
Exultation boiled through me, peeling the skin from my flesh. The fire gobbled its way inside me, meeting up with the heat I’d taken into myself. Together they tangled and tore me apart from the cellular level out, exploding my bones and my brain and leaving me in a floating haze of pain and delight. Breathing didn’t seem to hurt anymore. I had a vague sense of wrongness about that, like there ought to be pain in
I couldn’t hear the coven anymore; even the popping fire had faded into a song that rang high and sweet against my eardrums. It sounded like freedom, like bells calling everyone home. The stinging purity brought tears to my eyes, like liquid goose bumps, involuntary and a little startling. They heralded change and acknowledged me as the conduit. I tilted my head back, lifting my arms to embrace the old world and the ancient creatures that had roamed it. I invited them through me, the Mother, bound by blood and fire to the earth.
It was the utter opposite of the thunderbird. Wolves and bears, wild-eyed things I’d never dreamed of in my nightmares and gentle monsters with the light of hope in their souls fed themselves to me a hundred at a time. Some were malignant and dark, tasting of ash and tar. They came hand in wing with lighthearted, benign creatures that left the scent of clean air and roses in my throat. Some were tricky, and stuck like molasses, only to be washed down by the cool water and straight-forward dedication of their counterparts. I couldn’t name most of them even if I’d wanted to, but they fed me and grew fat on me, and through me were born out into the world.
I tore apart with the birth of a thousand creatures, feeling the earth tear with me. I didn’t think I cried out loud, but I didn’t need to: the earth itself shrieked and rumbled with the influx of things from the otherworld. I burned, no longer inside my skin, but in my core, spinning eternally, creating life. Time stretched and snapped and twisted until it was meaningless. I had no sense of age, no sense of purpose; I simply was, and would be until I ended. Nothing could change me, not the life I brought forth nor the death that inevitably cycled with it. I drifted in that complacency, warmed by my core and no longer worried about anything. The world went on. It always would. Birthing pains faded away. I felt nothing, no conscious thought or fear to disrupt me. I spun, bound to my own heat and nothing more.
Something tickled inside my ear.
I ignored it, then swatted at it, writhing with irritation. The tickle turned into a stab of pain and I clawed at it, feeling like I was trying to scrape a needle from my eardrum. The pain grew, wriggling and pricking and poking, until it became a fierce, furious shriek, like a raptor’s call.
