“Thank you for this,” she said. “You gave me a chance to say good-bye. You did right by me, by them.” She kissed Joey again on the cheek. “Please get him to a hospital.”
“I will,” I said and stepped away. I knew what was happening, and I knew she didn’t have long.
“I love you,” Joey said. “I’m sorry I got mad and—”
Caern kissed him again to quiet him.
“You know in your heart how much I love you,” she said. “You are the only man who ever kept all his promises to me. I want you to be happy and take good care of our boy. I know you will. I love you, Joey, and I always will.”
Garland was crying, the sobs shaking his whole body. Caern lifted him into her arms and wiped the tears away. “Don’t go, Mamma, please!”
“We don’t get a say in that, Garland,” Caern said, kissing his eyes and tickling his tummy. “Don’t let that make you sad, or angry inside, honey, please try. Life’s beautiful and it’s a present, every day you’re here. Mamma wishes she had more time with you and Daddy too, but I’m so grateful for every second I had with you. Think about what you have, Garland, not what you lose.”
Again, my grandmother’s words in my ears. I understood Garland’s panic, his fear and how that simmering fear could boil into a lifetime of anger and resentment. I wish I had listened harder to what Granny had tried to teach me.
“Promise Mamma you’ll try to not get sad inside? It’s okay to be sad inside sometimes, but don’t let it eat you up, baby. You end up hollow and Mamma never wants that for you.”
“I promise, Mamma,” Garland said, wiping his own tears away. He hugged her neck tightly. I knew he was smelling her hair, trying to remember every bit of this moment to sustain him for the long years to come.
“Daddy will help you,” she said, “and Ballard too. They’ll be there for you when it gets hard and they’ll understand.”
Caern kissed her boy one last time and set him down. She was already fading, losing detail. Garland clung to his father’s leg and hip; he didn’t seem to notice the blood. Joey didn’t seem to feel his wounds in this moment. Caern became caught in a swirling mass of tiny, indigo lights like fireflies as the tulpa continued to fade away. “I’ll find you in dreams,” Caern Ankou said to her family. “I love you two. You’re the best thing that ever happened…” She was so thin now you could see through her like glass. “… to me.”
She was gone. Her two men, Joey and Garland, stood silently, lost in their thoughts and their pain.
“Your mom’s right,” I said to the boy as I picked him up. “Don’t let all that yucky bad stuff stay in you, kid. You’ll end up like that asshole … that bad man, Brett.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Garland asked, sliding one arm around my neck.
“Something like that,” I said. “Don’t end up like me, be like your mom.”
“Mom liked you,” he said. “I like you too, but you smell like smoke.” The kid scrunched up his face and pinched his nose. “Yuck!”
I looked to Joey. “You can walk a little farther?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You never have to thank me for a damn thing,” I said. “Come on, let’s get you some help. I know a street doc that can patch us both up.”
We made our way back through the wrecked kitchen and out the broken back door. I was still carrying Garland in spite of the pain and the dizziness. Just a little farther. All three of us stopped at what was waiting for us in the yard.
I counted at least ten of them that I could see, the whole contingent here in L.A. The most powerful wizards in all the worlds, they all had spells ready, boiling at the tips of their fingers. I could sense them and their energies now since Gida was dropping the masking glamour she had been running to keep me from sensing their approach. Dragon was at Gida’s side. To everyone else she might look pissed, but I knew Lauren better than most and she was dying inside with sadness and conflict.
“Laytham Ballard,” Gida said, “you are under arrest by the Order of the Nightwise for your heinous crimes within our city. By the power of the Silver Seals, and the Compact of Shiva, by the sacrifice of the Bodhisattva, by the secret saint, Alice Weinstein of Fort Worth Texas—destroyer of monsters and guardian of life—by the Court of the Uncountable Stairs, you are bound to stand down.”
“I didn’t kill those women,” I called out to the faceless shadows of my mage peers, ready to destroy me if I made a false move. “You know that, Gida.”
“You’ll get to have your say at the tribunal, prior to execution or banishment,” Gida said calmly. “Now step away from the boy and his father. I’ll make sure they are cared for.”
“The hell you will,” I said. I looked at Dragon. “The Maven is part of the Dugpa cult that has been operating under your noses for a long, long time. They have been committing the ritual murders, and she’s been covering for them since before she became Maven. She’s sold you out!”
Dragon’s frown deepened. There was a murmur from the assembled Nightwise, but not a single destructive spell wavered in its focus on me.
“Ballard, you’re not helping yourself here,” Lauren said. My former partner took a step toward me. “You’re injured, badly. Release those two so they don’t get hurt in this. You just … you need … you need to come along quietly.”
“Never a day in my life, darlin’.” I said to Dragon. “Handing Joey and Garland over to the Maven is the same as giving them to the Dugpa.”
