CHAPTER 31

“Faye!” My scream tasted like blood. My own blood, not the hot splash of crimson that spattered my face and hands as Faye’s eyes widened in shock and she began to topple. I grabbed her forearm and the back of her head, trying to bring her to the ground gently. Power bubbled in my stomach for the first time in days. I wanted to close my eyes and hit my head against something. For the first time in days. For the first time since Judy had come into my garden. For the first time since I’d let myself be led down a bitterly wrong path. I had been a massive fool, failing to see the warning signs at every turn. No wonder Little Coyote hadn’t responded to me. I deserved to have to dig my way out of this mess all by myself Rage and self-directed fury lent all that power focus as I fumbled for the knife buried in Faye’s throat. I was afraid to pull it out and didn’t know how the hell I could heal her with it still in. It was like slapping a patch onto an inner tube I couldn’t afford to lose any air from.

Lousy analogy, but it would have to do. I wrapped my fingers around the bone hilt, focusing on the idea of patching the tube. Around the blade, under my hand, Faye’s skin felt sticky in a way that had nothing to with the blood. More like it was covered in inner tube glue. The analogy was apparently working, even if it made me want to let go a hysterical giggle. “You’re gonna be okay, Faye,” I whispered.

Her eyes rolled back in their sockets until she stared at me. I pulled up the best reassuring smile I had, still fixated on her throat. There were so many layers to patch, and they had to be done all at once. I held my idea of patches in place, building up layer after layer of silver-blue glowing power around the knife. I would have one chance to seal the wound after I took the knife out, and I was willing to take a few extra seconds now to make sure the patch would be airtight.

Or not, given that it was her throat and airtight would make her suffocate to death.

Shut up and concentrate, Joanne.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I whispered again.

The knife stuck when I tried to pull it out in one swift motion. Not badly, but it was harder to remove than I thought it would be. I wondered, very briefly, if removing the sword from my lung back in January had been as difficult, and then I slapped my patch into place, layer after layer of cellular rehabilitation.

And encountered resistance.

The “glue” I’d imagined, edges of cells and skin and muscle softening to be melded back together, refused to stick. The silver-powered patch slid away like I’d never held the idea, leaving the bloody gash in Faye’s throat spilling red wetness over my fingers. I jerked my eyes to hers and met a gaze of hard determination and ultimate victory.

“Faye, no.”

She took the last air from her lungs and spat a mouthful of blood at me. Then her head rolled to the side and I felt, with sickening clarity, the life leave her body. A clammy chill swept over me, like I’d stepped from the muggy Seattle heat into shadow sixty degrees colder. I looked up so fast it made me dizzy, honestly expecting to see Faye’s spirit slipping away into the sky.

Instead I saw the serpent, bellowing like a bull elephant gone mad. The sound hit me like a wall, as if my hearing had been shut down while I concentrated on Faye and now was playing catch-up for everything I’d missed in those few seconds.

The coven had gone absolutely insane. Marcia and the Elder had their hands locked together and were screaming at the tops of their lungs. I could see it in the mottled color of Thomas’s face and in the strain in Marcia’s throat, but I couldn’t hear them over the sound of the serpent’s trumpeting to save my life. Roxie and Sam were both on their knees beside me, Roxie shrieking so loudly that I could hear her, tears streaming down her face as she reached for Faye’s body, then stopped, then did it again. Sam didn’t move, just sat there staring at Faye without comprehension. I knew exactly how the poor kid felt.

I could only see two others. Garth was trying to reach Colin, who still stood with his head flung back and his arms spread wide, gaze of ecstasy on the serpent as it reared up, towering above the trees in the Hollidays’ front yard. And Duane was only a few yards away, helping Mel. Everything else was blocked by the serpent’s huge body rising higher and higher until it seemed to blacken the whole solstice sky.

Holy sweet Christ, I had fucked up.

I shoved the thought away as violently as I pushed to my feet. There was still no time for it. It seemed that there was no time for anything, anymore. I needed to see clearly, and I needed to do it right now.

I’m not any good at this, a little voice inside my head protested. I crushed it, not with anger, but simply because I had no time for a crisis of faith. The last time I’d deliberately looked at the world with two sets of eyes had been back in March, when Morrison asked me to. I’d barely been able to hold on to the power then, but the world as I knew it hadn’t been about to end. Desperation brought out the strength in me.

I was going to have to work on that.

But not right now. Right now I set my teeth together and reached for the coil of energy inside me, all too aware of its lack of response lately, and the reasons why it had failed me. But the sky behind the rearing serpent was hot summer blue and the monster itself gleamed black the way it had in the Dead Zone, which boded well for seeing clearly. I closed my eyes, feeling the sting of windshield wiper fluid washing over them as I fell back on my car analogies.

When I opened them, I could see in two worlds. The physical world was almost a distraction, but I didn’t want to let it go. The other world was translucent and made of astounding colors that meshed and melded and slammed against one another.

Mel was okay. I could see her life force entwined with the baby’s, both of them much stronger than I’d feared. Mel’s good-natured personality shone through, butter yellow that deepened to an intransmutable golden core. The little girl she carried inside her glimmered with the color of dark pink roses, soft and sweet and probably hiding thorns. For a moment it was all I could do to keep my feet as relief staggered my heartbeat.

Only for a moment. There still wasn’t time to relax. I turned my Sight on Thomas and Marcia. Power roared off them, pulled up from the earth and drawn down from the sky to mix together into a spell. Marcia’s power was graying out, the color blanching, as if she was drawing too much too fast. I grabbed Roxie’s arm and pulled her to her feet. “Take your place! Everyone! All of you! Get in place around the circle! The elders need you!” My own voice thundered through the racket the serpent made, sending Shockwaves of sound bouncing around the overheated air. Roxie stumbled away, but Sam gave me a look of despair.

“We can’t. We can’t do anything, we don’t have a full coven. Faye’s dead.”

“Go!” I yelled. “It’ll be all right!” I had absolutely no freaking clue how it was going to be all right, what with missing the Maiden, but I couldn’t tell Sam that. His eyes widened with trust and he ran for his place.

I could see through the serpent’s bulk again, though it was no longer because the creature itself was only partly manifested. It was my own power lending semitransparency to solid objects and giving my vision depth. On the monster’s other side, coven members were tottering into place, strength seeming to come to them as they reached their points around the pentagram. Only Garth was still trying to get to his brother. His movements had a viscosity to them, as if he tried to slog through tar in order to reach Colin.

And Colin, a few feet beyond Garth’s reach, was wrapped in black. There was no hint of life to his aura, no neon glow that made him beautiful and unique and one of many, but matte and flat and deadly, pressing in to him without the slightest protest from the slim blond boy. The snake I’d brought back from the spirit realm tightened around his shoulders and began unfurling like a cloak, becoming Virissong’s strong, slender spirit. I wondered if anything I’d done in the spirit worlds in the last few days hadn’t been wholly orchestrated by one Virissong aspect or another.