Screams diluted by a head full of cotton fought with light that wasn't there for command of my senses as I struggled against a weight across my chest.
"Tom!" someone yelled, or maybe they didn't. Nothing felt real. Pale arms reached out and helped roll aside the weight above me and I sat up, brilliance fading into fog, revealing the ghostly white face of Becca close over mine.
"Are you okay?" I asked, or tried to. Something had happened, something bad, but I couldn't pull the details together. Another scream. It might have been an echo of the first, or a memory, or something else entirely. The fog began to fade as the sound became a ringing in my ears. Becca mouthed words without noise, eyes fixed on my lap and I followed her gaze down.
The next scream was mine.
Katherine lay face up, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, blood trickling from her mouth and nose, as a red bloom spread across her abdomen.
I must have cradled her in my arms and cried, but I don't remember. I don't remember standing up or laying my girlfriend gently down. I don't remember Becca's trembling, terrified embrace, or the talk that immediately followed, or footsteps at the door and raised voices in the hall. I heard about all of that afterward and the information passed for memory, but none of it was ever mine.
I do remember Rachel. She sat limp against the wall, the gun loose in her hand, her eyes as blank as Katherine's, but she didn't have a hole in her belly. And I remember the words that finally clawed their way into my mind and brought back a piece of my sanity.
"Thomas! We must hurry!"
Miss Gold wasn't herself. Deep concern flooded her expression and she looked more human than I'd ever seen her.
"Rachel tried to shoot me." I said, my voice too relaxed in my own ears.
"She would have succeeded had Katherine not placed herself between you," she said quickly, "I have summoned aid, but you must help me now. Where is the Glim?"
Becca ran to the living room and retrieved it from its place beside the sofa.
"Thank you, Rebecca. Lay it on the table. I am no healer, but we will do what can be done." Miss Gold knelt beside Katherine and gestured. The book opened by itself, pages fluttering rapidly.
"She's dead," I said in that horrible, calm voice.
"She soon will be if you do not assist. I cannot both read and attend to her."
I said nothing, unable to take my eyes from the second body I'd seen bleeding on my kitchen floor in two days.
"Thomas!" Miss Gold shouted.
"Ma'am?" Becca spoke up, "Can I help?" She held the hagstone in both hands, waiting for instructions. Miss Gold paused for less than a second.
"Read it aloud."
I don't recall any of the words, but Becca continued to recite, receiving instruction and correction from Miss Gold, while the latter bent over Katherine's body. Several minutes passed and I remained frozen, locked in the cage of inaction I'd built for myself. Finally, Miss Gold sighed and sat upright.
"It is all we can do, thank you, Rebecca."
"It's just Becca, ma'am," she replied quietly.
My godmother stood up, took me by the arm, and led me into the living room while I stumbled along passively. "Thomas, you have no time to mourn."
"Katherine—" I began but I had no words to put after it.
"Her heart beats weakly, but it beats. She needs care I cannot give and herbs I do not have. You are unable help her further now, but the other girl will also die without aid."
"Becca?" I asked, finally rising out of my stupor. Whatever you might hear, compassion is stronger than grief.
"She means Rachel," Becca said, and Miss Gold confirmed it with a curt nod.
"I cannot be certain, but I believe she has received your father's kiss."
"My father? Is he here?" Adrenaline erupted in my chest as I spun around to peer through the open door.
"I do not know how he managed to find you, but you are fortunate—"
I stared at her in disbelief and managed a choked shout. "What part of this is fortunate!?"
The care in Miss Gold's face retreated behind a cold veneer. "Had it been the Queen's general he would not have relied upon trickery and you would have perished before you knew they were among you. The Court is a house divided, and that is the only advantage now left to us."
I'd trained for years to control my emotions, to remain passive when they roared in my mind, and that morning the only thing I knew how to do was stand idle while rage and grief and feelings I couldn't name savaged me from within. I could clearly see Miss Gold struggling to remain patient as she gave me a moment to understand.
"What about Rachel?" I asked, forcing my eyes off Katherine's body and feeling a measure of strength return.
"She cannot be saved from your father's poison."
"What can we do?"
"We? Nothing. If Rachel has any hope it lies with you. You share your father's gifts, Thomas."
"Gifts?" I asked, but my confusion rapidly faded, "You want me to kiss her. You want me to trap her like Katherine and Becca."
"I wish you to free her. Your attack has disabled her mind, or she would even now be attempting to end your life."
"I didn't attack her, she tried to shoot me."
"You overpowered her will. While it was a clumsy assault, there is little doubt it was effective. Her mind would have simply shut down, but I have stabilized her, and she will not die by your power. When she wakes, she will remain the pawn of Caratacos, and her aim will be your end unless you act, and quickly."
I looked to where Rachel sat against the wall, eyes now closed but with a tension wrought in her face and posture. I was surprised that I felt no animosity. She'd been a victim from the start, and much of that was my fault. My father and I had a lot to answer for.
"And if I do this, it'll save her?"
"Perhaps. I cannot say for certain, but I believe it is the only solution. The alternative will be to bind her until her body and mind fail."
"Until she dies."
Miss Gold nodded.
Becca watched in silence as I crossed the room, walking wide around my girlfriend's still form, and knelt in front of Rachel. It felt like a violation, hovering over her body while she lay unconscious, but my thoughts went to Katherine. They were best friends, and that son of a bitch made Rachel come into my home with her gun and...
There wasn't a decision, only a need, so I pressed my lips against hers. The kiss was one sided, but that didn't matter. I stayed, pouring my frustration and sorrow and pain into it, and nothing happened.
Not at first.
A black ocean washed against the edges of my mind and I imagined it was full of bodies, and the sound of wind was only the hollow wailing of the dead. I imagined my father's victims in that sea, dragged down where not even light could follow. My mother was down there, sacrificed to a cannibalistic perversion of love, and maybe Rachel would be next. Maybe Katherine. For the first time in my life I tasted the bitter wine of hate. And I spat it out.
I wasn't that kind of monster. I was the kind that stood by while people I loved were hurting and dying, but I wouldn't yield what light I possessed to those dark depths. My father, the gean canagh, had taken too much already, and I refused to give him my heart too.
That idle power surged once again and floating lights winked open one by one, vibrating as if afraid. I emptied myself into them and they blazed like tiny suns, burning away the sea until the world was only white, hot light. Then nothing. Rachel's body shivered briefly and went still.
"Oh my gosh, I felt that..." Becca whispered into the silence.
"Indeed," said Miss Gold, and I turned to see her cradling Katherine in her arms. "Thomas, there are steps that may be taken to render this apartment safe, but we will require further aid to implement them, and we do not now have the time. Can you carry Rachel?"
I nodded, but in the end, I needed Becca's help to lift her. We carried the two girls downstairs and out the front door where an old V.W. microbus idled in my former parking space.
"Place her inside," Miss Gold instructed, and I set Rachel gently in the back of the van, then she laid Katherine carefully beside her. A squat, stout man sat in the driver's seat, and all I could see on the passenger's side was a tousled shock of copper hair.
"Make haste, Finola," my godmother hissed, and shut the door. The van sped off and vanished around a corner.
"Where did they go?" I asked.
"You must trust me, Thomas. I cannot tell you where they have gone—"
"I'm sick of your secrets, Miss Gold, or whatever your name is! People almost died today!"
"And others have," she barked sternly, "one of them a quarter hour ago just there," she pointed across the street, "and your interruptions have prevented none of it. I cannot tell you because I do not know, nor will I ask. You have seen a scarce few of the dangers in our world. There is safety in secrets."
"Ma'am? Miss Gold?" Becca said at my side, "what about us?" My godmother acknowledged her question with a nod, then turned to me.
"We shall need your car, Thomas."
"My car is a cube of metal in some junk yard by now." I didn't care how rude I sounded and it showed. She stared back as if it took all her power to avoid tearing my head off.
"What about the Jeep?" Becca asked, and Miss Gold turned to face her.
"What Jeep?"
"It's Rachel's," I said.
Becca's brow knit uncertainly, "Um... she's not really using it now, and she's going to have to move in with you—with us—right?"
"Yeah I suppose she will."
"Okay," Becca said, then ran back inside before anyone could stop her. Miss Gold gave me a dirty look and moved to follow when she came bouncing back down the stairs, Rachel's purse in one hand, a set of keys in the other.
"It won't be like we're stealing, right?"
I started to object. Intellectually, I agreed with her, but remained locked in indecision. Miss Gold spared me the effort.
"Thomas, go and bring us this Jeep. Rebecca and I will retrieve the artifacts."
"I don't—"
"Caratacos is powerful and he is very clever, but so am I. By sending Rachel he has revealed himself unwilling to risk a confrontation until he knows your strength. This gives us a window of opportunity and I suggest you do not waste it. You are not ready to face him."
"It'll be okay, Tom," Becca said quietly.
I nearly shouted. The words were there, spelled out across the front of my mind. Nothing would ever be okay again. When I turned to face her they wouldn't come out. Becca had put her faith in me and I wanted to deserve it. I couldn't do that while spinning my wheels.
I nodded instead and looked back to my godmother. "If I don't pass out on the way to the dorms I can be back in fifteen minutes."
"Make it twenty and try to remain conscious. A weapon has been discharged, and I will need the time to address that complication."
"Is that why the street is so empty?" Becca asked.
"My associates have delayed interference from the police, but I must attend to the tenants." I didn't want to know what she meant by that, so I set off down the street while Becca followed Miss Gold inside.
I pushed my body like I hadn't since the week before, when I responded to an anonymous email that upset the course of all our lives. At the start of my third semester at BAU, Katherine and I spent almost a full day together, enjoying a rare break from school. We'd fantasized about life after college and careers in our respective fields. We were going to revolutionize medicine and therapy, bringing hope to those who needed it most. We said we were going to change the world. I wished I'd told her then how little any of it mattered as long as she was part of mine.
Several lengthy blocks put me on Jackson Avenue, across the street from the Fine Arts building, and I ran down the long driveway past the old health and human sciences block ignoring the stitch in my side. That was where Katherine had entered the Mall with Gloria and Kennedy, where I asked her for directions. Shortly after, I passed Stewart Hall, wishing I could will it to become the anonymous structure it had once been.
For a few hours every Sunday morning, the quad was empty and I didn't meet anyone as I sprinted along the concrete paths, past the Student Center, across another street, and into the parking lot of Katherine and Rachel's dorm. While my lungs burned and my legs ached, the exertion began to clear my mind. It set nothing right, but purpose blossomed where before there had been only feeling.
Willy was right where I'd parked it and I let myself in, ducking down at one point to avoid being seen by a pair of girls entering the building. I didn't have time to answer questions, and didn't want anyone telling the police some guy had stolen Rachel's ride. I keyed it to life and drove as quickly as I could without drawing attention to myself, parking outside my apartment only a few minutes later.
My heart was still pounding when Becca trotted down the steps with a plastic grocery bag in each hand, followed by Miss Gold, easily carrying the heavy trunk on her own. Once everything had been stowed, my godmother slid into the passenger seat and Becca nimbly crawled in behind her.
"The enchantments will soon break and the police will arrive," Miss Gold said. "When they do, the reports of a gunshot will implicate the building next door to your own."
"Won't someone else get in trouble for that?" I asked.
"Perhaps, but It does not matter. If your neighbors are innocent of wrongdoing the worst they shall suffer is inconvenience. The truth must not be exposed."
I sighed, lacking the strength or the breath for an argument. "Where are we going?"
"Into the city. There is a place by the river where you may be hidden, but it is not yet secure and I must attend to that as well."
"What about Katherine and Rachel?"
"As I said, I do not know where they have been taken, but you will see them tomorrow. Their caretakers are aware of their needs."
She gave me vague directions as if she only knew the general location, but I finally turned Willy around and drove away from campus, watching my school, my home, and my life recede in the rear view mirror.