Derik's Bane Read online

  “I don’t know if messing with them when they’re in the middle of performing black magic is the best idea . . .”

  “True, but I don’t think anything good can come from trying to raise the dead. It’s, like, a philosophy of mine.”

  “Even if it is King Arthur who, you gotta admit, would be kind of cool to talk to. Okay.

  You stay here. On second thought, you come with me. Maybe if they try to stab me, you can give them a brain-bleed or something.” He gripped her hand, then loosened his grip when she yelped again, and started forward. “Hey! You guys! In the robes! Stop what you’re doing!”

  31

  “MODESA NOEKA BIRIENZA DOSEDA NOSEFTA KErienba modesa noeka—”

  “That’s totally the opposite of stop what you’re doing,” Derik said, and Sara almost laughed. What a day. What a week! Nothing was turning out the way she had expected. Was that a good thing, or a bad thing?

  A bubble, poison green and clear as glass, rose from the table, enveloping the chanters as it grew. With every spoken word, it got bigger. There was no pain when it enveloped her and Derik, and no smell. Suddenly, the world was green, and the bubble was still growing.

  Derik rushed forward, tossing robed fellows like red checker pieces, and as she hurried to help him, the lab table fell over. The screams of the Chosen Ones almost drowned out the glass breaking.

  The world was still clear green—it was like being trapped inside a mucous bubble—but now an ominous humming had started. Sara clapped her hands over her ears—the sound was so low it made her teeth hurt—but the sound went on, and she realized it was going on inside her head.

  “We did not finish! We did not finish!”

  “Let me guess,” she said, taking her hands down—what was the point? “That’s bad.”

  “The moGhurn! The moGhurn!”

  Derik was standing, brushing glass and blood off his T-shirt. “What the hell is a moGhurn? And where are all of you guys going?”

  There was something in the bubble with them. It was so sudden . . . one minute there was breaking glass and pandemonium and yelling, and the next she felt so heavy she had trouble breathing. The air had gotten heavier, or—it sounded dumb, but—her spirit had gotten heavier. Something had appeared, had been conjured up out of blood and despair and desperate hope, something the sect was trying to run from, but they were all trapped in the green bubble together.

  The moGhurn looked like a devil crossed with an elm tree. It had a face, of sorts, and eyes and arms, and was terrible, all terrible—she could think of nothing good to describe it. It swept up members of the sect in its—arms?—branches?—and dashed them to the ground, or pulled their limbs off like her mother used to pull the leg off a chicken, and for a funny thing, it made much the same sound, the sound of gristle tearing and parting from meat, and then she bent, and stared at the green floor, and worked hard on not throwing up.

  In the panic she had been separated from Derik, but now the dead gaze of the moGhurn fell on her, and it moved toward her with the rapid, inhuman speed of a snake. She backed up as far as the bubble would let her and she saw . . .

  . . . she saw . . .

  She saw the sect killed, all of them, heaps of robes everywhere. She saw Derik, dead. She saw the moGhurn reach for her, and then the bubble burst in a feat of amazing and unlikely luck—and the moGhurn, delighted to be free, forgot about her and moved out into the world.

  The moGhurn killed everyone in the Boston area, from the oldest man in the Chelsea nursing home, to the infant girl who was born forty minutes ago. This took the demon about two and a half hours. In a day, it had finished with Massachusetts; in a week, the Eastern seaboard. The more it destroyed, the stronger it grew—no magical green bubble to keep it in check any longer—and in a month, North America was gone.

  Except for her. Lucky, lucky Sara, spared by the moGhurn, who was distracted at exactly the right moment.

  And in another thirty days, she was alone. She was alone in the world. She had not meant to, but everyone was dead all the same, and the moGhurn was still hungry . . . this time, Morgan Le Fay had triumphed, and her reward was a dead world.

  Sara blinked, and the bubble was back. There were still bad guys running around in robes—though quite a few of them were dead. Derik was punching the bubble, trying to get out. Everything was green.

  She groped, saw what she wanted, leaped for it. An empty hypo amid the broken glass and blood. She pressed the plunger, then pulled it back. Right in the heart. Instant embolism. No more luck. MoGhurn stays put. Good-bye, cruel world. Oh, Derik, and you’ll never know how brave I was.

  Do embolisms hurt?

  No time like the present to find out. She slammed the needle forward, gritting her teeth, and then—

  “Ow!”

  Derik’s hand, protectively across her chest. Goddamn it! That spooky werewolf speed could be a real pain in the ass sometimes.

  “Derik, you idiot!” she shouted. “I have to!”

  He jerked the needle out of the back of his hand, then tossed it. “Like hell!” he shouted back. “Bad, bad, bad, bad plan. Bad Sara! No suicides today, please. If this fucking weird green circle thing ever breaks, you run like hell, Sara.” He kissed her hard, then thrust her back. “Run!”

  She wanted to scream after him but didn’t have the breath—it had been knocked out of her by what she was seeing. Derik was running right for the moGhurn, knocking Chosen Ones out of the way like bowling pins.

  “We’re supposed to be scared of a mutated oak tree?” he shouted, then leaped for the demon, who caught him and shook him like a doll.

  Shook him like a doll?

  Her Derik?

  Her Derik?

  “Get your tree limbs off him!” she roared, stomping toward the demon. “You piece of shit! You overgrown nightmare from a Tim Burton movie! You leafy motherfucker! Let him go or I will kill you, I swear it, I swear it!”

  She stomped through broken beakers, barely feeling the glass slice through her sneaker, her sock, her foot. “Right now! Not tomorrow now, not an hour from now, now, now!”

  It towered over her, and Derik was dangling, limp, from its awful grip. She was afraid, but on top of the fear was anger—true, dark anger, that anyone, anything should treat her love like that. The moGhurn tossed Derik aside like an empty milk carton, and she saw red. Literally, saw red. It was reaching for her and she knew she was no match for it, knew it would kill her—but that was okay because it looked like Derik was dead, too, so who cared?—and she did the only thing she could as it bent toward her: She kicked it.

  It screamed—horrid, awful, terrible noise—and staggered away from her. This was gratifying, if startling. It screamed, and screamed and shook, and knocked over Robed Ones, and ran around like an evil leafy tornado, and fell over, and twitched like it was being chopped down by a chainsaw, and then it shrank down into itself and disappeared.

  Then the bubble popped, and she realized her foot hurt like hell, was, in fact, bleeding pretty good.

  “Who cares?” she muttered, racing over to Derik, who was lying in the corner all crumpled and banged up. She skidded to her knees beside him, hesitated,

  I could . . . I could . . . I could hurt him more by moving him

  and then turned him over. He came into her arms with a loose, boneless feel that scared her worse than the tree demon had.

  “Derik,” she said softly, and cried at his dear, battered face, the way his head was tipped too far back in her arms—broken neck at the axis for sure, maybe the atlas as well—and the blood, all the blood. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t seeing her. She groped for a pulse, found nothing. Nothing. “Oh, Derik, you big dumb ass . . . you weren’t supposed to die. Me, okay, and the rest of the world—a faint possibility. But not you. Never you.”

  He’s only clinically dead, you dumb ass! What, you’ve got no training? Get to work!

  But his neck . . . his neck was . . .

  Get to work!

  Right. Sh
e set him down on the cement floor and started a closed chest massage. One and two and three and four. One and two and three and four. Oh, don’t be dead. Don’t. One and two and three and four. Oh, don’t you dare leave me. Don’t you dare. Like I could settle for an ordinary guy after this. Don’t. And one and two and three—

  “Sara . . .”

  “Now I’m alone,” she panted. And two and three and four. “Alone with a zillion people in the world, and where the hell am I going to find someone else like you?”

  “Sara . . .”

  “What?” she wept. She stopped pumping and pulled him back onto her lap. “What, idiot?”

  “Where’s the bad guy?” The whites of his eyes were blood red, and blood was even leaking from his left eye like dark tears.

  “I kicked him and he died,” she sobbed.

  “Way to make . . . make a guy feel . . . useful,” he gasped, and coughed, and now there was more blood, oh, God, like there wasn’t enough before.

  “Does it hurt?” she cried. Probably not, she realized clinically; shock would keep much of the pain at bay.

  “It’s pretty fucking excruciating,” he admitted.

  “It is? Oh my God, Derik, I’m so sorry, let me go pull some robes off these dead idiots, you must be freezing.”

  “I just want a drink,” he groaned. “Possibly ten. Help me up.”

  She almost burst into fresh tears—he had no idea how badly he was hurt. How he had minutes, at the most, to live. How he had already died, and she’d only brought him back through luck and some brute skill. The damage she could see was bad enough—she couldn’t imagine what had happened internally. Crushed liver. Collapsed lungs—it was a wonder he had the breath to talk at all. Oh, Derik. “Just—just lie still and the ambulance will come.”

  “Sara, it stinks in here, I’ve had a bad day, and I’d really like to get off this disgusting floor,” he snapped. “Help me up.”

  “Just lie still, Derik,” she soothed.

  He rotated his neck on his shoulders, irritably, like a man trying to work out a kink. She heard the crackling sound of air popping free of bones, and then he coughed again, wiped the blood off his chin with a grimace, and sat up in her arms. His left eye was still bloodshot. The right was entirely clear.

  “What a dump,” he said in disgust, looking around the chaos of dead bodies, scorched robes, broken glass, upended tables. “What a day! Let’s get the hell out of here. Stop it, that tickles.”

  She was feeling him all over. “Oh my God. Oh my God! So quick, it was so quick!”

  “Yeah, well, superior life form, baby. I told you this already.” He rubbed the eye that was still bloody, and when he quit she saw that it was now clear. “Doesn’t hurt that the full moon’s not that far behind me. And I think you had something to do with it, too.”

  “Me?” she gasped, feeling him.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to heal this fast normally. I think your power—your sorcery—I dunno, wrapped me up in a magical envelope, or whatever.”

  “Really? Let’s consider this caref—”

  “Later. Cripes, I’m sore. What a day.”

  “Shut the hell up.” She put her thumbs on his lower lids and pulled them down. The sclera of both eyes were a perfectly healthy pink. “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it! It was so fast!”

  “Like I said. I think I’ve got you to thank for that. I mean, I’m a fast healer, but that was extra special. Maybe your power sort of wrapped me up, like a lucky hug. Or something.” He grinned. “I’d hug you, but first I need a new shirt. And possibly new underpants—that tree demon thingy was scary.”

  “What about Arthur’s Chosen?” she asked, almost whispered. She’d never been in a room full of dead bodies before—not since nursing school.

  “What about ’em? They’re all dead. Luckily, the demon killed them all, and then you fucked him up before he could do anything else.”

  “You’re right,” she said after a minute. “I am scary.”

  “Scarier than taxes, babe.”

  He took her hand and led her from the warehouse she’d honestly thought was to become her tomb.

  PART THREE

  Mates

  32

  “I GUESS THE QUESTION, ‘WILL THEY BE SURPRISED to see us?’ has been answered,” Sara commented as they pulled up to Wyndham Manor. A huge banner reading GOOD WORK SAVING THE WORLD was strung across the front entryway.

  They got out of the car, just as a dizzying parade of people poured out of the doors of the house—mansion, really. Sara found herself picked up and hugged by Michael and several other ridiculously good-looking men she’d never met before. Jeannie was kissing and hugging Derik, and a petite, stunning blonde was climbing all over him like a monkey, laughing and saying over and over again, “You did it! I can’t believe you did it!”

  Then intros: Michael and Jeannie (whom she already knew), and their daughter, Lara, who had her father’s odd yellow brown eyes and her mother’s aggressiveness, and the petite blonde was Moira, and oh, several others that she lost track of, but she didn’t mind, because even though they were all strangers, it was exactly like coming home.

  “SO YOU TOLD THEM WE WERE COMING, HUH?” Derik asked.

  Antonia, who was just as ridiculously breath taking as the rest of them, shrugged. “Don’t get pissy. It’s what I do.”

  “Thanks for all your help,” Sara said.

  Antonia grunted. Sara had never known that someone who looked like a swimsuit model could be so sullen.

  “So, what’s next for you two?” Jeannie asked, picking up the pitcher of lemonade, pouring herself a glass, then promptly draining it off. They were sitting in a gorgeous sunroom, the remains of a glorious lunch laid out before them. “And why did I do that?” she griped aloud. “Like I don’t have to pee often enough. Pregnancy,” she finished in a mutter.

  “You’re glowing,” Michael said automatically.

  “That’s because of all the puking,” she retorted.

  “So?” Michael prompted. “You guys? What’s next?”

  “Um . . .” Sara said, because she didn’t have a clue.

  “Well, we’re getting married in a couple of days, and Mike’s going to give us an RV for a wedding present, and then we’re going to drive around the country looking for Rachel Ray.”

  “That’s the lamest marriage proposal ever,” Sara commented, while Antonia actually cracked a smile.

  “Yeah, but you’re gonna go along with it.” When she didn’t say anything, he dropped the cocky pose. “Right, Sara? Sara? Right? You’re gonna be my mate, right? Sara?”

  “Oh, Christ, tell him yes,” Antonia said, rolling her great dark eyes. “Before I pick up this fork and jam it into my ear, just so I don’t have to listen to any more of that.”

  “Actually, it’s a refreshing change,” Michael commented, biting the chicken leg in half and sucking out the marrow in one slurp. Sara managed to conceal her shudder. “Keep him on the hook, Sara.”

  “Never mind,” she told them, and then said to Derik, “It would have been nice to have been asked, jerk. But it sounds like a fine plan.”

  “Congratulations,” Antonia said, bored. Then she leaned forward and speared Derik with her gaze. “And before I forget, numb nuts, who told you to go to her house and kill her?”

  “Huh? I mean, you did.”

  “No, I told you to take care of her. As in, look out for her, so she could destroy the moGhurn when it manifested.”

  “What? Wait just a goddamned minute! You never told me to look out for her. You told me—”

  “Well, I knew you wouldn’t be able to ice her, but I wanted you to stay close anyway,” Antonia explained. “The world was saved because you were fated to love her, not because you were fated to kill her. Not to mention, you were fated to die . . . but not for too long. Dumb ass.”

  “Now wait one minute.” Derik was as furious as Sara had ever seen him. She clutched at his sleeve, trying to get him to sit down,
but he towered over Antonia and ignored Sara’s tugging. “You sent me there to—”

  “Take care of her—do I have to get out the hand puppets? Look, Derik, I couldn’t tell you the whole thing. We probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now if you’d known what I’d known. Not that you could ever be bright enough to know what I know—”

  “Goddamn it, Antonia!”

  “Oh, take a chill pill. Everything that happened this week, you guys had to do. It all led to the big showdown. High noon in Boston, so to speak.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Sara confessed. “The bad guys—Arthur’s Chosen—made the demon-thingy on purpose? No?”

  “No, it was an accident. You screwed up the spell. They were trying to bring Arthur back, remember? With your blood. But the spell screwed up—which anybody who watches Charmed will tell you—and then they were in over their heads. I mean, that’s the trouble with screwing around with black magic. You make one slip, and suddenly there’s a world-devouring demon in your warehouse.”

  “Which Sara got rid of,” Derik said, calming down. “You guys shoulda seen it.”

  Sara laughed, which calmed Derik down even further. “I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do. I think I kicked it—the whole thing’s kind of a blur. I guess my blood did away with it? Because my blood conjured it up?”

  “Do I look like I’m wearing a pointy Merlin hat?” Derik griped. “Track down your mentor, Dr. Cummings. Ask him. He can probably explain the whole thing.”

  “And this whole ‘everything is for a reason’ bushwah . . . you mean my car conking out was part of the big plan, too?”

  “The universe is a mysterious place,” Antonia said, popping the last cherry tomato into her mouth.

  Derik sat down. “Fucking miracle it all turned out all right,” he muttered. “Miracle.”

  “Oh,” Sara said, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. “My specialty.”

  “At least the alpha thing is taken care of,” Moira said. “Thank God.”

  “What alpha thing?” Sara asked.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Derik said, visibly uncomfortable.