Carnival of Souls Page 11

  “I will shoot you,” Mallory threatened. She reached for her gun again.

  Simultaneously, the woman reached out and snapped the cord that held Mallory’s pendant. She cupped the stone in her palm and curled her fingers around it. All the while, she stared at Mallory as if a question had been left unanswered in the air between them.

  “That’s mine.” Mallory grabbed the woman’s wrist with her free hand.

  Across the street, the three black birds stood in a row on one of the cables that stretched between poles.

  Waiting for me.

  “I really don’t want to hurt you, but . . .” She resisted the urge to look at Kaleb. “You hurt him. If he’s not okay, I’ll kill you.”

  The woman looked heartbroken for a fluttering moment. She took Mallory’s hand and put the stone in it.

  Mallory backed farther away, not running—not yet—for fear of leaving Kaleb at the woman’s mercy. She eased toward him, hoping that she could reach him but unsure if it would do any good.

  The woman didn’t speak. Two of the three birds looked in opposite directions so that one was peering up the street and the other down the street. The third bird swooped toward Mallory.

  The woman lifted her hand. She stood with arm outstretched and palm open. The black bird touched down in her hand. As it did so, it disintegrated into ash and smoke. The woman lifted her cupped palm filled with silty dark ash while tendrils of smoke twisted above it. “Remember.”

  “What?” Mallory lifted her gaze, and as she did so, she realized too late that the bird-breathing woman had opened her mouth again.

  She blew the ashes into Mallory’s face. “To free your voice and your mind.”

  Mallory coughed as the dark cloud of ash hit her face with far more force than was possible from an exhalation—not that disintegrating birds or women breathing birds into being was possible either.

  Daimon. Daimons don’t do magic . . . but witches don’t exhale birds.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  The woman exhaled again then, and feathers cradled Mallory’s fall as she dropped to the ground unable to breathe or see—or stay awake to hear the answer to her question.

  WHEN SHE OPENED HER eyes again, Kaleb was crouched on the sidewalk beside her. He had one arm around her shoulders and was holding her chin with the other hand. He tilted her head, peering into her eyes as he did so. “Do you feel able to stand?”

  “I think.” She accepted his help and came unsteadily to her feet. She didn’t know what to say. Anything she could say would seem crazy.

  She looked around, confused. They were standing just outside the restaurant. No bird-breathing, weird-eyed woman stood anywhere in sight. Kaleb wasn’t tossed down the street. Everything was perfectly normal.

  “You hit your head pretty hard when you fell.” Kaleb slid his fingers through her hair. “I don’t feel any blood. I’m so sorry I couldn’t catch you.”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine.” Mallory was mortified; she tried to step backward but swayed a little as she did so.

  “The ground is uneven.” He lifted her into his arms and started walking toward her house. “Your father will kill me if you’re injured. Do you need a healer or—”

  “Healer?” she interrupted as she tried to get free. “Kaleb, I’m fine. You can put me down. Seriously, I hit my head, but my legs work fine.”

  “No.” His grip tightened as he held her closer to his chest. “I can’t let anything happen to you before we even . . . I need you to . . . We’ll go to your father, and tell him what happened, and—”

  “No, we won’t,” she interrupted. Then she softened a little. He sounded so frightened that she kissed his cheek. “I’m fine. Are you . . . did you . . . ? Are you injured?”

  He frowned and paused for a moment, but then resumed walking. “You hit your head, Mallory, and you’re unsteady. I can carry you.”

  Mallory smiled at him and then tentatively said, “Before I hit my head, there was a woman. . . .”

  “She startled you.” He stared in front of him as he walked, but he held her even closer. “I should’ve seen her. I didn’t expect . . .”

  “Expect what?” Mallory prompted.

  “Her.” Kaleb carried her down the street at a rapid pace. “If anything at all feels . . . damaged, you’ll tell your father?”

  “Sure.” Mallory closed her eyes. Her head really did hurt, and she felt like a complete fool. He could’ve been injured—was thrown down the street—because of her. She couldn’t date a human boy, not while daimons were pursuing her father and thus her. Unfortunately, she also couldn’t tell Kaleb any of that. If Kaleb knew about the daimons or witches, he’d run the other way. He should run. Even for her, what had just happened was unprecedented.

  Witches don’t exhale birds; daimons don’t work magic. And what was she talking about? What do I tell Dad? What do I say to Kaleb?

  When they reached the house, Kaleb gently lowered Mallory to the ground. Her father’s car was in the driveway. Kaleb looked at it, but he made no move to walk toward the door with her. “I need to go take care of some things. You’ll stay awake to make sure you don’t have a bleeding brain, right?”

  Mallory stared at him for a minute, and then said lightly, “I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before.”

  “I just want to know you’ll be okay,” he said. “I’m not actually sure when I’ll see you again, so I—”

  “I’ll stay awake,” she promised.

  The moment stretched awkwardly, and then Kaleb leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch you.”

  He won’t be back. He shouldn’t be back.

  She, at least, already knew they weren’t alone in the world. Kaleb was doing that thing most humans did: coming up with ways to explain the unusual. She still fought against that instinct, and she’d grown up surrounded by magic. He’s probably better off without me anyhow. Even as she thought it, though, she wanted to clutch him to her. Instead she stepped away and opened the door. She looked over her shoulder and said, “Good-bye, Kaleb.”

  “Good night.”

  The look of pain in his eyes made her feel like crying. Her bizarre and exciting date had turned into something awful, but she wasn’t sure what to do other than watch him as he limped away.

  She wondered if whatever had prompted Adam’s sudden desire to move had followed them here. Mallory went into the house and closed the door behind her. She was glad to be in her safely warded home.

  “Daddy?”

  No one answered.

  She walked through her empty house, checked her phone to make sure she hadn’t missed a call. He didn’t date at all, and he rarely rode with anyone.

  Mallory worried that they’d found him too. “Come home safe, please,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 15

  KALEB DIDN’T KNOW HOW the Watcher had found Mallory—or if the Watchers had always known where she was. Selah had been a Watcher, and the Watchers were peculiar in their trust of the witches. Even so, few daimons moved between worlds. To do so required both access to a gate and the knowledge to open it. He had a gate, acquired at great expense, and he’d been careful to avoid witnesses when he’d gone over to Mallory’s world. The only other way was to be summoned into a circle, and even Watchers weren’t likely to trust a witch enough to risk being trapped in a summoning circle.

  Up until now, Mallory had acted like she was utterly unaware of daimons, of witches, of anything other than the ordinary human world. Whatever bargain Selah had made when she’d hidden Mallory in the human world seemed to have kept Mallory herself unaware of what she was—or so he’d thought. This evening, though, she had faced one of the Watchers with no discernible shock. She was obviously more aware than he’d thought, but what that meant for him was unclear. Maybe after he was home safely, he could start to try to make sense of it.

  He slid through the gate and found himself in the tiny room where his doorway was hidden. He unbolted the door and
stepped outside. The dim purple sky overhead made The City appear to be nothing more than pools of shadows divided by the flickering lights that were mounted on poles or walls. This particular corridor had no such lights.

  In the center of The City, the Night Market glowed with pulsing lights, a beacon to anyone in city limits. The carnival evolved into an even deadlier version of itself in the wee hours, so much so that the denizens of The City had assigned it a separate identity. While even the ruling class might visit the Carnival of Souls, the Night Market was the domain of those who were without constraint or inhibition. Women of the highest caste and many of the women of the middle castes avoided the Night Market; those few who dared wander the Night Market were without recourse if they had unwanted encounters. Dallying in the shadows was always dangerous, but doing so in the Night Market was especially deadly. Several years ago, Marchosias had declared that what happened at the market was “unable to be held for judgment.” That ruling meant that neither murder nor kidnapping was forbidden after hours.

  If an elimination job was low paying, the market was the place to do it—or at the least where the body was dumped. Kaleb refused to accept any job that meant using the market’s lawlessness as an assist. It made him more expensive to hire, but it also told the buyer that he was good enough to finish a job without crutches.

  The dream was that he’d be able to stop taking black-mask jobs. He’d had enough of blood. What he wanted tonight was to lose himself in numbness for a few hours. Unfortunately, Kaleb was far from fit to venture into the Night Market in search of indulgences. The thought of something narcotic didn’t even lure him in. Being challenged was ever a danger, and tonight, he wasn’t sure he could handle a fight. At best, he’d survive but reveal how injured he was. Tonight, Kaleb felt like he’d been beaten, stabbed, and thrown down the street. Of course, between the fights and this evening’s encounter with the Watcher, he had been, but the combined effect of the abuse had hit him with what had to be more than the weight of all of the individual pains.

  By the time he reached the mouth of his cave, he had all but breathed a sigh of relief, so seeing Aya standing in the dark waiting for him made him wonder which god he’d pissed off. He was certainly in no shape to fight her—not tonight, possibly not for at least a week. He knew that tomorrow he’d feel even worse, although he wasn’t quite sure what worse could entail just then.

  “Do we have to do this tonight?” He couldn’t muster intimidating, but he tried for at least sardonic. “How about I give you a few free hits before I retaliate if we can postpone this?”

  “What were you doing out when you are in this shape?” She came over and half supported his weight with one of her shoulders under his arm and her arm around his waist. “If one of the others saw you, you’d be dead.”

  He snorted. “The only one who’s ballsy enough to come here is you, and unless this is an elaborate ruse of some sort that I’m too tired to follow, you”—he turned his head to look at her as they paused at his threshold—“seem to be helping me.”

  “I am,” she said. “My word: I mean you no harm this night.”

  “Then come into my home for this night, Aya.”

  At the words that allowed her entry, they stepped into the cave, and less than a heartbeat later, Zevi launched himself across the room.

  “Stop! I invited her in by choice, not under duress.” Kaleb took a faltering step away from Aya and was promptly lifted into the air by his now-growling friend.

  With a snarl that made Kaleb both proud and nervous, Zevi carried him toward the bed he should’ve been in hours ago. It was embarrassing to let one of his opponents see him in this state, but there was no help for it. After Zevi lowered Kaleb to the bed, he paused, sniffed, and looked at Kaleb with confusion clear in his expression.

  Kaleb held up a hand. “I’ll explain once Aya goes.” He pulled his arm out of Zevi’s reach. “Can you add something to the fire? I’m getting feverish.”

  Anger vied with worry in Zevi’s expression. Muttering to himself, he went over and stoked the fire, and then returned with one of the blankets from his bed. He sniffed Kaleb again as he spread the blanket over him. “Someone was against your skin, but you didn’t have sex.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Were you rejected?” Zevi’s gaze narrowed, and he ran over to Aya.

  Before Kaleb could speak, Zevi had bent down and pressed his nose to her crotch.

  “No!” Kaleb yelled. His exclamation was simultaneous with Zevi’s yip of pain and the sound of crashing.

  “I’m not up on cur customs, but I’m pretty sure that putting your nose there is not something you do with outsiders.” Aya had her foot on Zevi’s chest. “Don’t do that again.”

  Instead of replying to her words, Zevi stared up at her and asked, “Did you kill Verie?”

  Aya pressed her lips together and looked from one cur to the other.

  “Zevi, I told you I’d explain everything later,” Kaleb called. “Aya is our guest. No more. When I came home, she was outside, and instead of killing me, she helped me inside. She wasn’t with me when I was out.”

  Aya stared down at Zevi, who was looking at her like she was his new favorite snack.

  “Kaleb was right,” Zevi said. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “I’d rather not break your ribs right now” was all she said.

  Zevi turned his head and looked at Kaleb. “She smells nervous, not guilty.” Then he put his hand on Aya’s foot as if to keep it there and stared up at her again. “I’m glad you didn’t kill Verie.”

  “I never said that,” she muttered as she looked across the room at Kaleb. “Is he safe to release?”

  “He is.” Kaleb sighed and then winced at the sharp pain in his chest. “Zev, if you can stop provoking her, I need willow bark and some of those bandages you boiled earlier.”

  At that, Zevi rolled out from under Aya’s foot and was at the fire in almost the same instant. Aya stared at him with her mouth agape. “He’s incredibly fast. If he wanted to get away, he could’ve avoided me.”

  “Yeah.” Kaleb watched the realization settle on Aya. She studied Zevi as he moved from his medicinal boxes to the fire and back to the bed with the speed that made it seem that he was in several places at once. Kaleb still marveled at him sometimes, but seeing that dawning clarity on Aya’s face made him remember his first few years around Zevi. Quietly, Kaleb said, “I used to get dizzy watching him.”

  When Aya looked at him, he continued, “I’ve never seen anyone who can move like that.”

  “If he wanted to fight—”

  “Kaleb says no,” Zevi interrupted as he passed her. He went from blurringly fast to slower than even humans moved as he pulled the covers back and removed Kaleb’s shirt. “I attract too much attention when I forget to stay slow.”

  Silently, Aya walked over to the bed. She couldn’t seem to decide whether to look at Zevi or Kaleb. The bruises on his chest were remarkable in their colors and shapes, and Kaleb could see as well as feel the proof of his very obviously broken rib. On the journey home, a fragment of bone had pierced his skin.

  “Do you need help?” Aya asked.

  Zevi looked at Kaleb, who nodded. Then Zevi held out a metal box.

  “We need to adjust the bones first,” Zevi told her. He didn’t look at Kaleb. “Do you want to press or assist?”

  She looked at Kaleb in confusion.

  He said mildly, “She’ll want to assist. I’m guessing she’s never adjusted a cur.”

  Zevi frowned, then he shrugged, opened the box, and pulled out a handful of heated, oiled bandages. “Hold these while I—” Then he slammed the box down on Kaleb’s ribs.

  Kaleb screamed, swallowed, and tried to sound unaffected as he asked, “How about a little warning?”

  Aya looked like she might fall over.

  But Zevi was as calm as he always was when he was working. “You tense up if I warn you.”

  Kaleb winced as Zevi took
one of the bandages and smoothed it across his rib cage. “Then why do you warn me sometimes?”

  “So you don’t know when to tense.” Zevi took another bandage and methodically layered it over the first one. “Open the bin and grab me two more.”

  Without a word, Aya did as Zevi directed.

  “You, sit up.”

  Kaleb smothered a curse as he obeyed—and another one when Zevi grabbed his legs and dropped them over the edge of the bed. Humming now, Zevi wrapped bandages all the way around Kaleb.

  In a few short minutes, Kaleb’s chest was wrapped, and the pain-relief concoction in the bandages was seeping into his body. Zevi helped him to lie back. “I need to check the other wounds before morning. I’ll wake you.”

  As the blissful numbness hit him, Kaleb told Zevi, “Thank you.”

  Zevi nodded, brought over a mug with willow bark, poppy extract, and who knew what else, and then he walked to a pile of blankets in front of the fire. Without any seeming discomfort at resting in front of an outsider, he stretched and settled himself on the blankets. He was snoring before Aya could close her mouth.

  AYA HAD NEVER SPENT much time around the curs. They were, by nature, not very embracing of outsiders. These two acted like she wasn’t there, or maybe this was restrained for them. If so, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see them relaxed.

  She wasn’t sure what to do. Kaleb was a ferocious fighter, but he wasn’t cold or cruel here in his home. It was like he was a completely separate person from the cur she’d seen fight.

  Because he’s at home or because of Zevi?

  “Should I go?” Aya asked in a low voice.

  “You don’t need to whisper.” Kaleb’s gaze fell on the snoring cur. “Zevi will sleep unless the threshold is violated or I call for him. He’d sleep through the excesses of the Night Market right now.”

  “Is that . . . normal?”

  “For Zevi or for a cur?” Kaleb started to reach for the mug Zevi had left beside the bed, pursed his lips, and lowered his arm. “Or do you mean is the way he shoved my bones back normal?”