Ex’s hand on my elbow was the only thing that kept me from collapsing on the lawn. A red mark around his left eye was deepening toward blue. When it was done blooming, it would be a black eye as profound as any I’d seen. Chogyi Jake came out of the house, shotgun still resting comfortably in his arm. His chin and neck were a single slick of blood.
“Have to go after them,” I said. “Where’s the keys?”
“We can’t catch them,” Ex said.
“They were here,” I said. “They attacked my family.”
“They’re on motorcycles. We’re in an SUV. Even if there was a chance we could catch up with them, which there’s not, none of us are fit to drive. We’re more likely to run into a light post.”
I sank down to the dead brown grass and let the chill of the air sink into my skin. My body was trembling uncontrollably with shock and the aftermath of the fight. Carefully, I probed my ribs and was pleasantly surprised not to feel the sharp pain that would have meant I’d broken them. Again. I let my head sag down onto my knees while Ex rubbed his hand against my back. The contact comforted.
“How bad?” I asked.
“I don’t think anyone’s hurt.”
I looked over at Chogyi Jake. He was wiping the blood off his face with the back of one hand. My nose felt wide and hot and solid with blood.
“Not badly hurt,” Ex said. “And anyway, it’s just us.”
Just us. Just me and him and Chogyi Jake. Not my family. Not civilians.
“Should put the guns away before the police get here.”
“Good point. I’ll get them into the trunk. We might be able to find something useful from them.”
I nodded. Exhaustion pulled me toward the ground. My breath was bright white plumes. I listened to Chogyi Jake and Ex talking. The sound of the SUV’s door opening and closing. There still weren’t any sirens. Not yet. I tried to stand up and staggered. The hand that steadied me was Jay’s. His expression was closed. I wouldn’t have been surprised by anything—shock, anger, even excitement—but he only put his arm around me and helped me back into the house. The front door was hanging from its top hinge, the lower two having been ripped out of the frame. I didn’t know when that had happened. In the living room, the Christmas tree seemed out of place and vaguely obscene, like a jaunty hat on a corpse. Mom was in the kitchen, sweeping up glass like it was just another mess, and her job was to clear it all away before anyone saw. The furnace was roaring, trying to cope with the icy air flowing in through the shattered windows. Jay angled me toward the good sofa and sat down with me.
“That was dramatic,” he said.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“You know what it was about?”
“No. Yes,” I said. “I’m not sure.”
He nodded. When I’d left, he’d already been living in an apartment with three other young men from church. He’d put on about twenty pounds and added the beginnings of wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. I’d missed a lot of the changes in his life, and he’d missed out on mine. Chogyi Jake came out of the kitchen with a dish towel full of ice and handed it to me. I pressed it against my injured nose and almost yelped from the pain.
“I think it’s broken,” Jay said.
“It is,” I said.
“So is this what you’ve been doing all the time you were gone?”
“More of it than you’d expect, actually,” I said, smiling weakly.
“Who were those freaks?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, “and I don’t actually know most of it. They’re . . . part of what I came home to find out about.”
He smiled, and for just a second I could see the boy he’d been.
“So you didn’t just come for the wedding,” he said.
I grinned. It made my nose hurt.
“Sorry,” I said.
Carla and Curtis came into the room. Two of the knuckles on his left hand were skinned raw, but other than that they looked okay. Physically, anyway. Carla’s eyes were wide, and her right hand was on her belly. She stepped toward us, hesitated, and almost collapsed beside Jay, her head on his lap. I thought there was more than confusion in her eyes. Fear. Sorrow. Love. She wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t blame her. She’d been getting ready for her wedding, not an armed assault. I didn’t know enough about shock and miscarriage, but even if she’d only watched her fiancé’s family get gunned down in front of her, I had to figure it wouldn’t be good for the baby.
My blood reddened the ice pack, and the throbbing pain slowed and widened until it felt like my whole face was beating in time with my heart. My mother came and collected Jay and Carla, shepherding them back into the kitchen. She didn’t meet my eyes either, and I didn’t rise to follow them. Curtis popped his head around the corner for a second, but he didn’t stay either. I coughed, and a blood clot that felt about the size of a dime came down from my sinuses. I spat it into the dish towel and then sat there, miserable, listening to the low sound of voices and the scratching of broomstraw against glass. I heard sirens in the distance, getting closer. We needed to get together and make sure our stories all matched. We needed to make sure the police had a version of events that would let them write the whole thing off and not get involved.
Chogyi Jake came back out of the kitchen with a fresh towel of ice, and we traded. He was mostly cleaned up, but his upper lip was a little swollen. At least it wasn’t bleeding anymore.
“This could have gone better,” I said, and he smiled, because it was funny and it also wasn’t.
“It wasn’t the conflict I’d anticipated,” he agreed.
My father stepped and put a hand on Chogyi Jake’s shoulder.
“I’m going to ask you to wait outside, sir,” he said.
Chogyi Jake smiled but didn’t move. He’d offered to hurt people for me before, and I knew he was entirely willing to stand his ground in my father’s house if I wanted him to. I caught his gaze and nodded. It was all right. I mean, what the hell? It wasn’t like he was going to shoot me. I chuckled a little at the thought, and Dad scowled at me.
“Of course,” Chogyi Jake said, as if it hadn’t been my decision. His step was careful as he walked out the shattered front door, and I wondered how extensive his injuries really were.
“Police are going to want to talk with you,” my father said.
“Yup.”
“It’s all right with me if they want to talk with you here. But once you’re done, I want you and your boyfriends out of my home. Forever, you understand? You don’t have a place here. This is my house, and my family. Any business you have, you can take up with me. And you haven’t got any business with me.”
I looked up at him, a sneer plucking at my lips. In the story, the prodigal son is the one who gets the fatted calf. I didn’t know what I’d hoped or expected from him or any of them, but the truth was the trip had failed before the enemy wizards attacked. It had failed the second my father and I had started breathing the same air. You haven’t got any business with me.
“Fine,” I said.
chapter four
The police came in the form of two very nice men who looked over the house with calm, practiced eyes. The way they held themselves and the tone of their voices as they interviewed us implied that they’d seen worse. My guess was they were just relieved it wasn’t a domestic violence case. There wasn’t much blood, and no one was demanding that anybody be arrested. I thought it was funny how little it took to make it count as a good day for them. They spent most of the time talking to my dad and Chogyi Jake. Dad because it was his house, and he was the head of the family. Chogyi Jake—I guessed—because he was a man, he was older. If they seemed a little suspicious of him; it was probably more the epicanthic folds than anything else.