Into the Woods Read online

  The two vampires looked at each other, and as their master howled, they levered themselves back out through the ceiling. There was a faint thump of feet overhead—and they were gone.

  “I think I’m going to pass out,” I said, breathless, and Pierce eased me to the carpet. My head lolled, and the edges of my sight grayed. “I’m sorry,” I started to babble, feeling light and airy. “I shouldn’t have come down here. I’m no good at this.”

  “You are exceptional at this.” Pierce held my hand and fanned me with a magazine. “But please, Miss Rachel, don’t pass out. Stay with me. At least a little longer. If you succumb, your circle might fall.”

  “That’s not good,” I mumbled, struggling to keep my eyes open, but damn it, I had overtaxed my body and it was shutting down. When the adrenaline had flowed, it had been fantastic. I had been alive and strong. I felt normal. Now all that was left was the ash of a spent fire. And it was starting to rain.

  “Rachel?”

  It was close, and I pulled my eyes open to find Pierce had cradled my head in his lap. “Okay,” I breathed. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he said, and I smiled, snuggling in so I could hear his heartbeat. Maybe it was mine. “Stay with me,” he said. “Just a few minutes more. They’re almost here.”

  Distantly I heard the sound of thumping feet overhead and loud voices. The heater clicked on, and the warm breeze made my hair tickle my face. Pierce brushed it off me, and I opened my eyes, smiling up at him blissfully.

  “Holy shit!” a deep voice said. “There’s a hole in the floor.”

  The girl revealed us with a little sob. Standing under the hole she peered up, screaming, “Get me out of here! Someone get me out of here!”

  “My God, it’s the girl!” another man said. “Damn, he was telling the truth.”

  “Just a little longer, Miss Rachel,” Pierce whispered, and I closed my eyes again. But an icing of fear slid through me, almost waking me up when my mom’s voice cut through the babble, high-pitched and determined.

  “Of course Robbie was telling the truth. You smart-assed agents think you’re so clever your crap doesn’t stink, but you couldn’t spell your way out of a paper bag.”

  “That’s my mom,” I whispered, and Pierce’s grip on me tightened.

  “Rachel?” she called, her voice getting louder, then, “Get your sorry ass out of my way. Rachel! Are you down there? My God, she circled a vampire. Look what my daughter did! She got him. She got him for you, you lazy bastards. Ignore my kids when they come to you, huh? I bet the news crew would like that. You either drop the charges on my kids, or I’m going out there and give them what they want.”

  I smiled, but I couldn’t open my eyes. “Hi, Mom,” I whispered, my breath slipping past my lips. And then to Pierce, I added, “Don’t mind my mother. She’s a little nuts.”

  He chuckled, raising my head and rocking me. “I expect a body would have to be to raise you properly.”

  I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t, so I just smiled. There was the brush of wind against me as people moved about us. Someone had finally gotten Sarah out of here, and the sound of two-way radios and excited chatter had replaced her blubbering. “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like I’d failed them. “Someone needs to circle him. I’m passing out.”

  “Rest,” Pierce whispered. “They have him. Let your circle down, Miss Rachel. I’ve got you.”

  I could hear a faint call for an ambulance and oxygen, and I had a fading thought that I was going to spend the last half of my solstice in the hospital, but we had done it.

  And with that, I let go of the line and let oblivion take me, satisfied to the depths of my soul.

  EIGHT

  They say when you’re ten, you think your parents know everything. At sixteen, you’re convinced they know nothing at all. By thirty, if you haven’t figured out they really did know what they were doing, then you’re still sixteen. After watching my mom work the I.S. like a fish on a line, I was suitably impressed that she knew everything in the freaking world.

  Smiling, I tugged the wool blanket tighter around me and scooted my folding chair closer to the small fire Robbie had started in the backyard. My mom was beside me, pointedly between my brother and me as we toasted marshmallows and waited for sunrise. I hadn’t been outside very long, and my breath steamed in the steadily brightening day. It was a few hours past my normal bedtime, but that’s not why my arms shook and my breath was slow. Damn, I was tired.

  I’d fully expected to wake up in the hospital or ambulance, and was surprised when I had come to in the back of my mom’s car, still at the crime site. Wrapped in an I.S. blanket, I had stumbled out looking for Pierce to find myself in a media circus. Robbie and I had stood in the shadows and watched in awe as my mother worked a system I hadn’t even known existed. Through her deadly serious threats disguised as scatterbrained fussing, she not only managed to get the charges against me for willful destruction of private property dropped, but got them to agree that I didn’t have anything to do with their doors being blown out, much less fleeing their custody with an unknown person. The I.S. personnel were more than happy to give my mom whatever she wanted if she would keep her voice down, seeing as three news crews were within shouting distance.

  Apparently the vampire I’d helped bring in had a history of such kidnappings, but because of his clout, he’d been getting away with it for years. I hated to go along with the shush work, but I didn’t want a record, either. So as long as my mother, Robbie, myself, and the girl kept quiet—her parents being placated with enough money to put Sarah through the university and therapy of her choice—the vampire would be charged with kidnapping, not the stiffer crime of underage enticement.

  It didn’t bother me as much as I’d thought it would. He was still going to jail, and if vampire justice was like any other kind, he’d probably wake up one night with a wooden spoon jammed through his heart. Vampires didn’t like pedophiles any more than the next guy.

  So Robbie’s and my trip to the I.S. had been dulled to an anonymous tip, making the I.S. out to be the heroes. Whatever. Along with the notoriety went any charges they might file against me. Mom had grounded me, though. God, I was nearly nineteen and grounded. What was up with that?

  Of Pierce, there had been no sign. No one remembered seeing him apart from my mom.

  A sigh shifted my shoulders, coming out as a thin mist catching the pink light of the nearing sunrise.

  “Rachel,” my mom said, reaching to tug the blanket closed around my neck, “that’s the third sigh in as many minutes. I’m sure he will be back.”

  I grimaced that she knew where my thoughts were, then searched the sky and the strips of clouds throwing back the sun in bands of pink. I’d known he’d be gone by sunrise, but I wished I’d had the chance to say goodbye. “No,” I said, bobbing my marshmallow in and out of the flame. “He won’t. But that’s okay.”

  My mom gave me a sideways hug. “He looked like he really cared. Who was he?” she asked, and a hint of alarm slipped through me. “I didn’t want to ask in front of the I.S. because he rushed off as if he didn’t want to be noticed.” She huffed, taking my stick with the now-burning marshmallow. “I don’t blame him,” she muttered as she blew the little fire out. “They would have probably tried to pin the entire kidnapping on him. I don’t like vampires. Always shoving their nastiness under a rug or onto someone else’s plate.”

  Fingers gingerly taking the burnt marshmallow off, she smiled, her eyes brilliant in the clear light. In witch years, she wasn’t that much older than me, always dressing down to make herself match the other moms in the neighborhood. But the morning light always showed how young she really was.

  “So was he someone from school?” she prodded, a small smile dying to come out.

  I gestured for her to eat the sticky black mass if she wanted it, and while she was occupied, I glanced nervously at Robbie. He was ignoring me. “Just a guy I met at the square,” I offered.

  My mo
ther huffed again. “And that’s another thing, missy,” she said, but it was Robbie who got the thwack of the back of her hand on his shoulder. “You said you were going to the concert.”

  Robbie shot me a black look. “Aw, Mom, I had to scalp the tickets to get your solstice gift.”

  It was a lie, but she accepted it, making happy-mom sounds and giving him a marshmallowy kiss on his cheek.

  “That’s where we met Pierce,” I said to give some truth to the story. “If we hadn’t helped him, no one would.”

  “You did the right thing,” my mom said firmly. “If I toast you a marshmallow, will you eat it, honey?”

  I shook my head, wondering if she knew exactly how we had made his acquaintance. Probably, seeing as by the time I got into the kitchen, all evidence of my spelling had been boxed up and was back in the attic.

  Robbie took the stick and put a new marshmallow over the fire. He liked them so light brown it was almost not worth doing. “So, I imagine your little adventure has cured you of wanting to go into the I.S.?” he asked, and my head jerked up.

  Shocked he would bring it up in front of Mom, I stared at him from across her suddenly still figure. “No.”

  Silent, my mom eased back into her chair and out of the way of the coming argument.

  “Look at you,” my brother said after a cautious glance at our mom. “You passed out. You can’t do it.”

  “That’s enough, Robbie,” Mom said, and I flicked my gaze at her, surprised at her support. But Robbie turned in his seat to face her. “Mom, we have to look at it logically. She can’t do it, and you letting her believe she can only makes it worse.”

  I stared at him, feeling like I’d been kicked. Seeing me floundering, Robbie shifted awkwardly. “Rachel is a damn fine witch,” he said, suddenly nervous. “She stirred a level eight hundred earth magic arcane spell. Mom, do you know how hard those are? I couldn’t do it! If she goes into the I.S., it’s going to be a waste. Besides, they won’t take her if she passes out at the end of a run.”

  It had been an arcane spell? He hadn’t told me that. Surprise kept my mouth shut, but it was that damned fatigue that kept me in my seat and not pummeling him into the snow. He’d told her. He never said he wouldn’t, but it was an unwritten rule, and he had just broken it.

  “You put a level eight hundred arcane spell in front of her?” my mom said crisply, and I paled, remembering her equipment used without her knowledge.

  Robbie looked away, and I was glad I wasn’t under her angry expression. “I can get her into a great school,” he said to the ground. “The I.S. won’t accept her, and to keep encouraging her is cruel.”

  Cruel? I thought, tears starting to blur my vision. Cruel is throwing my hopes in the dirt. Cruel is giving me a challenge, and when I meet it, telling me I lose because I fell down after it was done.

  But he was right. It did matter that I had fainted. Worse yet, the I.S. knew it. They would never let me pass the physical now. I was weak and frail. A weak prissy face.

  I sniffed loudly, and my mom glanced at me before turning back to my brother. “Robbie, can I have a word with you?”

  “Mom—”

  “Now.” Her tone was sharp, brooking no complaint. “Get in the house.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Pissed, he stood, dropped his marshmallow and stick into the fire, and stomped inside. I jumped when the screen door slammed.

  Sighing heavily, my mom took the stick out of the fire and rose. I didn’t look at her when she handed the marshmallow to me. It was all out now, and I couldn’t even pretend I had the ability to do what I wanted, do what made my blood pound and made me feel alive.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “I was saving these for the sunrise, but I want you to open them now—before the day begins.”

  Her thin but strong hands drew from her coat pocket a card and small present, which she set into my lap.

  “Happy solstice, sweetheart,” she said, and a single tear slipped down my cheek as she followed Robbie into the house. I wiped the cold trail away, heartbroken. It just wasn’t fair. I had done it. I had summoned a ghost, though not Dad. I had helped save that little girl’s life. So why was mine in the crapper?

  Setting Robbie’s marshmallow to burn, I took off my mittens and ran a cold finger under the seal of the card. Eyes welling, I opened it up to find my I.S. application, signed by my mother. Blinking furiously, I shoved it back in the envelope. I had permission, but it didn’t mean anything anymore.

  “And what are you?” I said to the box miserably. “A set of cuffs I’ll never get to use?” It was about the right size.

  I stared at the brightening pink clouds and held my breath. Exhaling, the fog from my lungs seemed to mirror my mood, foggy and dismal. Setting the envelope aside, I opened the box. The tears got worse when I saw what was in it. Cradled in the black tissue paper was Dad’s watch.

  Miserable, I glanced back at the silent house. She knew what spell I had done. She knew everything; otherwise why give me the watch?

  Missing him all the more, I clenched Dad’s watch in my hand and stared at the fire, almost rocking in heartache. Maybe things would have been different if he had shown up. I was glad he was at peace and the spell wouldn’t work on him, but damn it, my chest seemed to have a gaping hole in it now.

  A warm sensation slipped through me, and startled, I sniffed back my tears and sent my eyes to follow a small noise to the side yard. A pair of hands was gripping the top of the wooden fence, and as I wiped my face, a small man in a long coat vaulted over it. Pierce.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, wiping my face in the hopes he couldn’t tell I’d been crying. “I thought you were gone.” I dried my hand on my blanket and folded my hands in my lap, hiding my dad’s watch and my misery all at the same time.

  Pierce looked at the house as he approached, boots leaving masculine prints in the snow. “After seeing your mother at that spawn’s house, I had a mind to heed the better part of valor.”

  A faint smile brought my lips curving upward despite myself. “She scares you?”

  “Like a snake to a horse,” he said, shuddering dramatically.

  He glanced at the house again and sat down in Robbie’s spot. I said nothing, noting the distance.

  “I couldn’t find your home,” he said, watching the fire, not me. “The drivers of the public carriages . . . ah . . . buses, won’t be moved by pity, and it took me a space to figure the Yellow Book.”

  I sniffed, feeling better with him beside me. “Yellow Pages.”

  Nodding, he looked at the still-burning wad of Robbie’s marshmallow. “Yes, Yellow Pages. A man of color took pity on me and drove me to your neighborhood.”

  I turned to him, aghast, but then remembered he was over a hundred years dead. “It’s polite to call them black now. Or African-American,” I corrected, and he nodded.

  “They are all free men?”

  “There was a big fight about it,” I said, and he nodded, eyes pinched in deep thought.

  I didn’t know what to say, and finally Pierce turned to me. “Why are you so melancholy, Miss Rachel? We did it. My soul is avenged and the girl is safe. I’m sure that when the sun rises, I will go to my reward.” A nervous look settled in the back of his eyes. “Be it good or bad,” he added.

  “It will be good,” I said hurriedly, my hands gripping the watch as if I could squeeze some happiness out of it. “I’m thrilled for you, and I know you will land on the good side of things. Promise.”

  “You don’t look thrilled,” he muttered, and I scraped up a smile.

  “I am. Really I am,” I said. “It’s just that—It’s just that I tried to be who I wanted to be, and I—” My throat closed, as if by admitting it aloud, there was no way it could happen. “I can’t do it,” I whispered. Fighting the tears, I watched the fire, forcing my breathing to stay even and slow.

  “Yes, you can . . .” Pierce protested, and I shook my head to make my hair fly around.


  “No, I can’t. I passed out. If you hadn’t been there, I would have passed out, and he would have gotten away, and it would have been all for nothing.”

  “Oh, Rachel . . .” Pierce slid to my mother’s chair. His arms went around me and he gave me a sideways hug. Giving up my pretense, I turned into him to make it a real hug, burying my face in his coat. I took a shaky breath, smelling the scent of coal dust and shoe polish. He had a real smell, but then, I’d heard most ghosts did.

  “It’s not bravery you lack,” he said, his words shifting the hair on the top of my head. “That’s the most important part. The rest is incidental. Real strength is knowing you can live with your failure. That sometimes you can’t get there in time and that your lack might mean someone dies. It was cleverness that captured the vampire, not brute strength. Besides, the strength will come.”

  It sounded so easy. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so bad, it made my chest hurt. “Will it?” I said as I pulled back to see his own eyes damp with tears. “I used to think so, but I’m so damned weak. Look at me,” I said derisively. “Wrapped up like a baby, my knees going shaky when I get up to turn the TV channel. I’m stupid to think the I.S. would want me. I should give it up and go out to Portland to be an earth witch, set up a spell shop and . . .” My eyes started to well again. Damn it! “And sell charms to warlocks,” I finished, kicking a snow clod into the fire.

  Pierce shook his head. “That’s the most dang fool idea I’ve heard since having ears to hear with again, and I expect I’ve seen and heard a few fool things since you woke me up. If I might could talk to the dead, I’d ask your father, and I know what he would say.”

  His language was slipping again; he must be upset. I looked up from where my kicked snow had melted, dampening out the fire to show a patch of wood. “You can’t know that,” I said sullenly. “You’ve never even met him.”