Storykiller (49 page)

Tessa pulled the axe back and swung it with all her strength at The Monster, never breaking the gaze between them. The axe sailed through him, almost as if he wasn’t there.

There was a flash of bright light and then he was there before her on the stage.

Undone.

Split in two, and never to be put back together again.

It was done. He was gone. And with him, an important Story, a tragic figure that no one would ever know. Tessa felt the loss like she had cut off one of her own limbs. He had taken so much more from her than she had imagined.

She knelt down next to Wade to feel her pulse. She was unconscious but alive. Tessa looked at the far end of the tent to see her friends, badly banged up,
but alive—Micah, Brand, Robin, Grey, Shiki Jeff, even Snow, Tal, and Hecuba.

But Tessa couldn’t bring herself to feel like they had won. Everything inside her was hollow.

Inside the tent, some people were starting to come to and Tessa and her friends hobbled outside, aching and bleeding,

Outside was a bloody battlefield, the aftermath of nothing less than a small war.

“Oh God,” Tessa said, looking at the mess. “How are we—” And as if to answer the unasked questions, a crackling blue doorway appeared. Tessa’s heart sank with an inner cry of ‘What now?!’

Morgana stepped out of the doorway but did not close it. Tessa narrowed her eyes at the woman. “What are you doing here?”

“I was urged to come, to clean up your mess,” Morgana said.

“Yeah, thanks for showing up
after
the last curtain call,” Tessa snapped.

“It is in the best interest of Story that the Mortal world does not know of our existence, but you have made quite a mess, Scion, and so we offer our help. Do you want it or not?”

“Yes,” Tessa said, gritting her teeth and swallowing both anger and pride. “What can you do?”

“For starters,” Morgana said, casting a hand over the field. “A decent glamour. It will hold up to the casual observer.” And Tessa watched as the scene before her became a perfect green field again, free of blood and bodies, appearing as it had been just a couple hours ago. Innocent and clean.
Tessa blinked at it.

“And?” Tessa urged.

“The Draugr I can call home now that Circe is out of the picture. They do not want to be here, and have been unnaturally brought here, so that will resolve itself naturally,” she said, closing her eyes and lifting one hand that glowed faintly with power. The mindless Norse husks reappeared on the field, reanimated once again, and walked as if sharing one mind toward Morgana’s doorway, looking like weary soldiers headed home. As the last of The Draugr disappeared through the doorway, a small, unarmed army came through. Tessa gripped her axe more tightly, but they merely scuttled about the field cleaning up the creature’s bodies and taking them through the portal too. Tessa winced because some parts of those creatures were Mortals, but she couldn’t explain what had happened to them and she didn’t think seeing what they had become as corpses would bring anyone peace, so she bit her tongue.

“The human zombies should stay here,” Tessa said, thinking of all the empty mortal graves throughout the city. Thinking of Bishop.

“I agree,” Morgana said stiffly, and then adjusted her stance. “This is more difficult. It takes much power, and I must take it from somewhere. To ask something so great of magic, you have to give something as well. Magic is nothing if not a transfer of energy.” Her face set into a hard line and Tessa looked at her anxiously. She sensed she was about to be asked for something. Morgana stared Tessa down. “Fortunately for you, Scion, you have, much to my surprise, made a few friends along the way, and someone has offered to share her energies, to make such an ask possible.”

Tessa opened her mouth to ask who but knew it was The White Lady, and so she closed her mouth again and whispered a silent thank you in the hopes The Lady could hear her.

Morgana’s brow creased and sweat broke out across her pretty skin. Story words came out of her mouth in a series of melodic and then clipped sentences. Some of them sounded beautiful, some cruel. The bodies began to reappear gradually on the field, some grotesque and maimed, some as they had always been. And then slowly, one by one, they vanished, as if they had never existed.

“What did you—” Brand said, his mouth hanging open.

“I returned them to where they belong,” Morgana said, her voice breathy. The effort had clearly cost her, even with help. And now instead of looking power-hungry and mean, she seemed kittenish and sick. She raised her hand to the sky a last time and clouds gathered, fast and furious above them. “You have five minutes before a downpour the likes of which you have never seen fills this field. A cleansing rain, if you will,” she said simply, and then, turning to Robin. “I understand you are returning to where you belong.” Robin nodded curtly. Morgana didn’t answer him and only turned away. She looked at Tessa as she walked with effort to the doorway. “Don’t make such a mess next time, Scion. We will not always be able, or willing, to clean up your messes.”

Tessa felt a silent rage that Morgana was so powerful and yet had let them flail and struggle, alone. “Unbelievable,” she said under her breath.

“Excuse me, Scion? Something to add?” Morgana asked, seeming to gather her strength back to her.

“Damn right,” Tessa seethed.

“By all means,” Morgana said, clearly steeling herself for whatever was to come.

“Look at the power you have! Why didn’t you help us? You clearly could have made all the difference. Instead people have died while you, what? Did nothing?!?! I can’t believe you!”

Morgana hooded her eyes at Tessa. “You know why I didn’t help you, Scion? Why we all didn’t? Because it’s not our job. It’s not our destiny. It’s yours. And if you would take it more seriously, if you had let others help you when they first offered, maybe your body count would be lower.”

Morgana turned to go again. Tessa lunged forward, but Robin reached out and put a hand on her arm and then just wrapped her up into an embrace.

“You did so good,” he whispered into her hair.

Tessa opened her mouth to speak, to beg him not to leave, but nothing came out. Robin pressed something into her hand. She looked down to find a silver talisman on a heavy silver chain. An unfamiliar coat of arms was engraved on one side with some Story words on the other.

“What’s this?”

“You can use it to call Talia while I’m gone.”

Tessa scrunched up her face. “Talia?”

“Tal. Call her when you have a Story you need her to take home. Promise me. She won’t like it, but she’ll come because it’s the right thing to do.”

Tessa breathed deeply and then nodded in agreement. He pulled her into him again, kissing her head, breathing her in. “Please don’t leave me,” Tessa said, and a sob lodged in her throat made her voice sound awkward and strange to her.

“You’ll be okay, I know it,” he whispered.

“It’s too fast,” Tessa said, her voice breaking, “Way too fast.”

“I’ll come back. I promise.”

“Because you’re a hero,” she said, almost sullen.

“Nah, for love,” he said, smiling and squeezing her more tightly, burying his face in her neck. Tessa swallowed another sob. When she pulled away from him, he drew her back closer again and kissed her.

She tried so hard to pretend it wasn’t the last.

Tessa closed her eyes as he let go and when she opened them she caught a last glimpse of his face as walked backward through the glowing doorway. It snapped closed once he was inside with a finality that physically pained Tessa.

No sooner had the doorway disappeared then people started to come out of the tent, disoriented and confused. Detective Ripley and Captain West were trying to calm everyone down but looked easily as confused as the crowd even though they tried to hide it. A roll of thunder sounded far away.

“Gas leak, everyone! Please remain calm,” West shouted.

Ripley nodded, adding, “There are ambulances on the way to check everyone out.”

Tessa did, in fact, hear ambulances in the distance.

She looked at her friends. They were badly banged up. Brand was missing one of the arms to his dress shirt and was half-holding up Snow (wearing only Brand’s tuxedo jacket, which Tessa was definitely going to have to get the story on later); Jeff was curled up possessively on Micah’s shoulder as the tiny green gecko, and Micah held her broken glasses in her hand, her pretty dress torn rather to bits; Grey’s clothes weren’t in much better shape and he held his hand over a stomach wound that was healing with impressive speed. “Can you guys get home?”

Grey nodded, “We have my car.”

Tessa gestured to his wound. “Do you need a hospital?”

Grey smiled thinly and held up his hand. “No, it’s almost healed.”

Tessa looked at Snow and then up at Brand, “You can take care of her?”

Brand nodded and Micah joined him. “Yeah, we got it,” she said. “What about you? Aren’t you coming with us?”

“No, I—” Tessa looked back toward the tent. “I want to go check on Detective Wade.”

“Wade?” Brand wrinkled his nose.

Tessa kicked at the ground. “She’s the Advocate.”

“Holy shit,” Micah said, and everyone looked at her and smiled.

“Yeah. That’s about right,” Tessa said.

Everyone stood in shock for a moment, and then Micah reached up and hugged Tessa. “I know you did good. I know we can’t understand it all, because we don’t remember everything, because there’s a big black hole now where a bunch of knowledge used to be, but I know you did the right thing,” she whispered.

“Thanks, Mike,” Tessa said. Lightning flashed in the sky followed by a clap of thunder and Tessa looked up at the heavy low clouds. “Get out of here before it starts,” she said. They nodded and headed down the hill toward the park entrance, Snow balanced between them. Brand turned the three of them back to Tessa before they had gone too far.

“Pancakes at your house, tomorrow,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, smiling.

“Tomorrow,” they all said,
again.

Tessa watched her friends until they were out of sight. How she could feel simultaneously so lucky and absolutely jinxed she wasn’t sure.

“Battle?”

Tessa turned around to see Detective Wade standing in front of her. Just great, just what she needed tonight, to be arrested for murder. That would really cap the night off perfectly. Tessa wanted to snap at her, but now that she was her Advocate, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“Hello, Detective.”

“I—” Wade stopped short, as if unsure. Tessa looked at her more closely. She was different. Less aggressive. Maybe the unexplainable stuff she’d seen tonight had frightened her. Maybe she remembered that Tessa had saved her life. That seemed like too much to hope for. Wade examined Tessa, bruised and bleeding. “Are you alright?”

Tessa nodded, “I’ll live. Thanks for asking.”

Wade shook her head, and her face returned to bewilderment. “I think maybe we need to talk.”

“Okay,” Tessa was cautious.

Wade looked around uncomfortably, Ripley and West not far away. “Not here. Can I come by your house sometime?”

“Will you be arresting me when you do?”

“No. This will be about something else,” she said.

“Okay then.” Tessa said. She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out the necklace Bishop’s grandmother had given her. “This is yours,” she said, holding it out to Wade.

Wade shook her head. “That’s not mi—” and stopped short, her eyes flashing with something that was almost recognition. She reached out and let Tessa put the necklace in her hand. She stared at it. “You sure this is mine?”

Tessa watched her examining it. “Feels like it is,” she said. Wade nodded and started to walk away.

“Get home Battle, looks like it’s going to storm,” she said, walking away, staring at the necklace linked through her fingers.

“You have no idea.” Tessa said.

Wade looked up at the sky just as the rain began to come. She slipped the necklace into her pocket and ran the rest of the way to Ripley, West, and the crowds, slipping easily back into “cop mode.”

Tessa had decided after seeing The White Lady that she wasn’t going to foist this life on The Advocate when she found them, it had to be their choice. But Tessa hoped that Wade would want to know, would want to have her eyes opened. Tessa sure could use the help, not to mention another friend and ally, one that didn’t have complicated Story allegiances.

An adult that knew what was going on with her and cared about things other than disappearing dishtowels couldn’t hurt either.

Fat raindrops hit Tessa’s jacket and seeped into her scalp through her hair. Tessa turned to go home, but as she did she saw a pair of flashing yellow eyes in the woods.

Fenris.