“It has to be this way,” he said desperately. “Look at how your luck’s turned since we’ve been here…the trouble in the city. Maybe the portals would’ve worked if I hadn’t come with you. It’s all because of me, love…and I can’t be without you again. It almost broke me last time, but you’re stronger. You’ll be all right.”
“No.”
I wouldn’t be. I’d rather die here with him. We’d go down fighting. Greydusk’s broken body haunted me. He’d given his life so I wouldn’t have to live without Chance. That couldn’t be for nothing.
Chance wrenched the athame, and with my fingers beneath his, he rammed it into his chest. “Take Shannon and go. Live for me.”
“No.”
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I always meant to be the sacrifice, to pay the hidden toll. I’d known this journey wouldn’t be accomplished without cost, but it should never have been him. He was special, born of Yi Min-chin and the Japanese small god, Ebisu. I remembered the story he’d told me about his parents and the cherry blossoms, and for a brief second, I smelled them in the air instead of the coppery sweetness of his blood.
The pain stole his voice. For a few seconds his lips moved without sound. I leaned toward him, resting my face against his hair. It slid like black silk against my cheek. Then his words came, softer than a whisper. “This isn’t the end, my own. Have faith. Even death will not keep me from you.”
He tried to lean forward, to hold me one last time with the arm not resting on the palm print, but he collapsed against me. I cradled him, the hilt of the knife between us, digging into my chest. It should’ve been me. Should’ve been me. Never you. Oh, Chance. I brushed my lips against his. His breath barely puffed, but he returned the kiss. Tears burned behind my eyes. Trickled out from the sides like salt in a wound.
The first Hazo pressed through the doorway. Charged. The rest would be on us soon. No more time, no more, no more.
I didn’t want to believe he’d taken a mortal wound, but I saw the placement of the blade. Desperate with rage, with grief, I screamed as I never had before, past pain, past sanity, and I pulled the knife out, but it was too late. His red, red blood gushed over the rim of the fountain and into the water. A shuddering shock wave of magick exploded out from the water, tinting it crimson, as I remembered from the first time I passed through. The water gate formed in an unnatural swirl overhead, and Shannon pulled me toward it.
I tried to carry him with me. I tried. But I wasn’t strong enough. My leg buckled. His body fell against the fountain. The stone that had been my father’s heart flared bright as sunrise at my throat, and a flare of heat staggered me.
The Hazo thundered toward us.
“We have to go,” Shan shouted, “or this is for nothing. He died for nothing.”
Weeping and blind, I dove through the gate and howled as half my soul ripped away.
Collateral Damage
The gate dumped us in an alley—a one-way trip—it must have snapped shut behind us, leaving the enraged demons to maim Chance’s corpse. I fell in a boneless pile, still clutching the athame slick with his blood. His sacrifice. I hugged the blade to my chest and wept in bitter, wracking bursts. On some level, I knew I had to get myself under control—that if anyone spotted me crying with a bloody knife in my hands, it would mean trouble.
Bad trouble.
For Shannon, I had to get my shit together.
But I couldn’t. The tears wouldn’t stop falling, and then I felt her beside me, arms going around my shoulders. She rested her cheek against my hair and stroked my back as if I were a child. Now and then, Shannon choked back her own sobs as if she knew it wouldn’t serve any purpose for us both to lose it. She was so damn strong.
Oh, Chance, no. Not like this. I can’t live through this. I can’t.
“He loved you,” she was whispering. “So damn much.”
The words meant to comfort only made it worse. I’d never wanted him to love me so much that he died for me. There was so much blood….
Stop. With imperfect self-control, I fought the anguish down, even though I had never been this broken. First my father, and now Chance. It was too much; I could not bear it. I leaned like so much rubbish against a broken brick wall. The darkness of the wrecked building loomed behind me, and from this angle I could almost see the other side, could almost touch what I’d lost. A great yawning hole echoed inside of me, as if I’d had more than my heart ripped out in the last thirty seconds. I was…empty. Incomplete.
I sat away from Shannon and brushed the damp hair away from her cheek; it was sticky with sweat or tears or both. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she said, her voice thick. “He shouldn’t have—”
“I know.” I didn’t say he’d done it for me, for us, but she understood. I’d asked the question of myself before, but now I had my answer. Sometimes the price of survival was too high; I had been ready to die beside Chance, but he’d inflicted upon me a role ten times harder—making me fall in love with him again and then forcing me to live without him.
“We’ll make the most of his sacrifice.” Using my thumbs, I wiped away my tears and blotted my face on my sleeve.
I glanced down to see how bloody I was, and then I realized the black I’d preferred as the demon queen didn’t show the stains. The fabric simply swallowed them, as if it hadn’t happened; he hadn’t died. Shaking from head to toe, I pushed to my feet, and then offered her a hand. Together, we were strong enough to survive anything. Even the unthinkable. Even this.
Fortunately, Shannon had gathered our things before pulling me through the gate. Otherwise, I’d be injured, exhausted, brokenhearted, and stranded wherever we were without any recourse. I couldn’t think about Chance. Had to focus on one minute at a time, one heartbeat. Thinking about the future was impossible. With effort, I turned my mind to practical matters. After taking my purse from Shannon, I opened it to hide the bloody athame and Butch popped out.
“You made it,” I said in relief.
The little dog sniffed me with puzzling suspicion and then licked my cheek, kissing away my tears. At least I still had Butch…and Shannon. For now.
First order of business was to figure out where we were.
I picked up my belongings from where Shannon had dropped them—all I had left of Chance—and spun in a slow circle. The buildings were old, shoddy brickwork and rickety fire escapes clambering up the sides. Across the way, bright graffiti had been sprayed all down one side, but it was in a different style than what I’d encountered in Mexico City. Plus, the air was cool and damp, the sky overcast.
“Where do you think we are?” I asked. Not because I expected an answer, but because I thought she needed the question, giving her a reason to separate from the trauma and think of something else.
I could do it, one minute at a time, but I had never wanted those minutes less.
She took her own inspection and then shrugged. “I’m not sure. Nowhere I’ve been before.”
“Let’s find out.”
I strode from the alley onto a narrow street with vans and cars parked untidily along the curbs. The shops were small, with advertisements posted in the windows for products I didn’t immediately recognize. But all the signs were in English, which limited the options as to where we’d ended up. I noted the faces of passersby, a good mix of colors; we’d landed in an interesting, culturally eclectic neighborhood.
“England.” Shannon grabbed my arm. “It must be. Look inside the cars.”
The steering wheels were all on what would be the passenger side in North America. Given the other clues, I agreed with her. “Good eye.”