“The Black Cat. Skinned alive. You, or those kids, did the deed. I held the proof in my hands. Human skin, with those same tattoos we saw on her body. I didn’t imagine it.”
Disgust made her grimace. “Why would I do that? And don’t bring those kids into that kind of talk. That’s horrible.”
I slid my hands under my head, staring at the black mold on the ceiling. “I thought there must be a good reason. But it didn’t happen. Why would Winifred lie about that? And where else would Ernie have gotten that piece of skin?”
Jean said nothing. I had a feeling she had hardly heard me. Finally, though, she muttered, “I made a mistake today. I didn’t finish the job.”
I heard the echo of those same words crossing old-man Ernie’s lips, and suffered a chill. “Yes, you did.”
“I knew I would have to kill her when we went there. Discovering that she was possessed made it easier…until I learned what kind of host she was. So I told myself, ‘do it.’ It was the only way to be certain that everyone was safe. The only way.” She gave me a hard, stricken look. “It was one of the reasons I waited to engage her—long before you showed up. I could have used Zee or the others to assassinate her. I could have done it myself. Operations like that fall apart without a mind to guide them. Someone else would have stepped in, but it still would have been new territory. Old grudges gone. But I waited and waited, telling myself I needed her contacts, her information. And then, finally, when I had the chance—”
“Stop,” I interrupted. “You did the right thing.”
“No.” Jean breathed, closing her eyes. “My mother—”
She stopped. I said, “My mother would have put a bullet in her head without blinking. If for nothing else than being the kind of bitch who rapes boys and films it to sell.”
And my grandmother would have done the same, I thought. You, kid, in fifteen years or less, will be that woman.
And maybe so would I.
I stood, pacing, and then walked quickly to the door. I needed air. I needed to go back to my own time. Jean rose with me, and grabbed my arm. “There’s more. You may not agree with it.”
I waited, utterly silent. Her cheeks reddened, though her troubled gaze remained steady on mine. “I took precautions. That man at the bridge, the naked one. He works for Tai Li, chief of secret service for Chiang Kai-Shek.”
I must have looked clueless, because she blew out her breath and added, “Tai Li is called the Himmler of China. I’ve worked with his people in the past, including that man. I told him that the Black Cat had discovered something big about the war that she was going to sell to the highest bidder. Information that would change everything. And that if they wanted it, they’d have to get to her first.”
“You set her up.”
Jean clenched her jaw. “That woman is probably having her fingernails pulled out as we speak.”
I stared, stunned. “Jesus. And you were worried about not killing her?”
“I made these arrangements before I knew the woman had been possessed,” she replied sharply. “Now, death would have been kinder. Demon blood or not.”
I sagged against the wall, thinking about that. But less about torture and mercy than my own confusion. The future was still not adding up with the past.
Jean leaned on the wall beside me. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven,” I said absently.
She seemed surprised. “You don’t have a kid yet.”
“Is that a problem?”
“My mother was sixteen when she had me. I keep waiting for Zee and the others to force the issue.”
She looked so young. I hardly knew what to say. It was true, or so the family stories told, that if a Hunter waited too long to have a child, Zee and the boys would make certain the bloodline continued. One way or another. Lifelong celibacy was not an option, though I did not want to think about Zee condoning rape. I did not ever want to think about that.
“I don’t…” I began, and then started again, more firmly. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. You’ll have a child in your own time, when you’re ready. I’m proof of that.”
“I want love,” she said.
“You’ll have love.”
She gave me a sharp look. “Promise?”
I forced myself to meet her gaze. “Yes.”
Yes, you’ll have love, I thought. And he’ll love you. But you won’t stay together. You won’t grow old together. And neither of you will ever tell me why the hell not.
I could not imagine that happening with me and Grant. I could not—I would not—let it happen.
Jean looked away. I cleared my throat. “Do you have recent photographs of yourself?”
“Some. Why?”
I shook my head, unsure what to say. “I came back to save those kids from something that happens more than sixty years from now, and I don’t know if it worked. It all feels wrong. Winifred said—”
“Winifred?” Jean straightened, frowning. “You talked with Winifred?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “In the future. I told you that earlier.”
She shook her head. “Winifred is mute. It’s an actual deformity of her vocal cords, according to her family. She can’t talk.”
“Surgery?”
“I don’t know. No one seems to think so.”
She can’t talk. I swayed, light-headed. Sixty years was a long time. A long, long time to find a cure.
But if she hadn’t?
Then who the hell were we talking to?
“I gotta go,” I breathed, pushing away from the wall.
Jean grabbed my arm. “Wait.”
“I can’t,” I said, and flung my arms around her, squeezing so tightly she made a small grunt of protest. I had so much I wanted to say, but no time. It would take a lifetime. It would take more than I could spare, even though time was mine. The future was not going anywhere.
My clock, however, was running faster than the rest of the universe. I needed to see Grant and that old woman. Now.
I stripped off my glove, even as I stared into my grandmother’s eyes. “Write me a letter. Warn me. Keep warning Ernie to be careful. Same with Samuel and Lizbet. And Winifred. Make him promise to you, again, that he won’t come find me. No matter what.”
“I’ll try,” she said, and then her eyes went distant, and she began mouthing numbers. “That year you gave me. You’d be my—”
“Don’t,” I interrupted. “Just think of me as your friend.”
Jean hesitated. “Will I ever see you again?”
It was the same question Ernie had asked me, but this time I smiled and snared my grandmother in my arms, holding her tight.
“You won’t be able to get rid of me,” I whispered.
And then I pushed away, my eyes burning with tears. I could not look at her—I could not—but I did anyway, at the last moment. Soaking in her impossibly young face, those glittering eyes that were already grieving. My grandmother. Jean Kiss.
“Be happy,” I said to her, grabbing my right hand, thinking of Grant and the hospital.
And then she was gone—just like that—and the darkness took me.
Chapter 11
The journey felt shorter this time, or perhaps I was finally becoming accustomed to the weight of eternity collapsing around my body. When I finally saw light again, I was not sick. My head hurt only a little.
I was outside St. Luke’s. It was night. The same homeless man I remembered from before was still asleep on the sidewalk, in the same position. The girl with the Gatorade was walking away. It had not been that long. Not long at all.
The boys ripped free of my body, driving me to my knees. I started running, though, before the transition was entirely complete—shedding demons from my skin in smoky waves that coalesced into hard, sharp flesh.
I found the emergency room, and within minutes was directed to a quiet area in recovery. Grant was there, perched on the edge of his chair—his head tilted toward the door as though listening for something. Maybe me. I skidded to a stop when I saw him. He looked so normal. All of this, normal, familiar. But in that moment all I could smell was mildew, and all I could feel was the heat, and I remembered the sounds of Shanghai at night and the Nazis with their laughter as they smiled at my grandmother.