Red Queen

  Herme nodded in resignation. “Do what you have to do.”

  “Herme, move aside,” James said with sudden authority. Taking my hand, still holding our daughter in his other arm, he stepped forward. It was confusing but I felt like I was seeing him for the first time. His face shone with the light of a confidence I had never seen before. Looking at Syn, he added, “Leave.”

  Syn acted bored as she used her pants to wipe Kendor’s blood off her knife. “I’m afraid I’ve lost interest in you.”

  “What are you doing?” I whispered to him.

  James made sure my hand was touching Lara’s as well as his. “She can’t hurt us,” he said. “Not if the three of us are together.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because of the light and the music. It was there when we first made love, and when Lara was born and I first held her. It comes from a place greater than her silly red sphere.” He added, “That’s why I had to come to witch world tonight. To remind you of that fact.”

  “But how do you know?” I insisted. It seemed a reasonable question. But an answer, or at least a partial answer, came to me before he said another word. The love I had felt when I had stared into Lara’s eyes returned. It washed over my chest and seemed to heal the very thing Syn had placed inside my heart within the red sphere. Pain might lead to pleasure but Syn had lied when she said it could ever bring joy. Only love could do that and only love could heal the grief she had exposed me to.

  Suddenly, staring at Lara and James, I felt encased in armor. A shield of light and compassion and empathy. All the good things that made it possible for people to be good—if they tried. I saw then I had made a conscious decision to enjoy the pleasure. Now I had to reject that choice and embrace my family instead.

  I did it. I just did it. I chose Lara and James.

  Meanwhile, James did his best to answer my question. He gestured to Syn. “Try using your black magic on us,” he said.

  “If you wish,” Syn replied, raising the knife and pointing the tip of the blade at James. “Pain,” she said softly, and I knew it was a curse and that in a second he might start writhing.

  But all that happened was that Lara began to coo softly, and when Syn tried to take a step toward us, she cooed louder. The armor was not imaginary. We were protected. Syn shook her head, baffled.

  “What the hell,” Syn whispered to herself.

  “Leave,” James repeated.

  Syn smiled and poked the tip of her finger with her knife, causing a trickle of blood to flow into her palm. “So your kid can neutralize my abilities. Impressive. But I’m afraid I don’t need them to make you suffer.” She shook the knife in James’s direction. “Do you know what it feels like to be skinned alive?”

  My newfound faith began to falter.

  James didn’t have an answer to her question.

  Syn stepped over Kendor’s body and strode toward us.

  Whip grabbed the hem of her pants and spoke in a voice that dripped venom. “It’s my turn, Mommy, let me sting them. Please?”

  Syn reached down and patted her son’s head. “All right. Do them all, even the baby. She’s more trouble than she’s—”

  Syn was not given a chance to finish. Whip’s stinger swung up and pierced her chest. The poison went into her heart. Her eyes froze open in shock, then she keeled over and lay beside Kendor.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I couldn’t even begin to understand what had happened.

  “Why?” I gasped. Why did her son kill her?

  I looked to James for an explanation.

  “Whip went through the death experience with me,” he said.

  “Huh?” I mumbled.

  “This Whip has our Whip’s memories.”

  I shook my head, too dazed to comprehend.

  “You know how it works,” James said. “At first you can only carry the memories of the world in which you were connected. So this Whip you see is really our Whip.”

  “And you killed him in the real world?” I asked.

  “I killed both of us. I had to.”

  I shoved James in the chest. “How could you let a child risk his life like that?” I cried.

  James smiled. Or was it Jimmy? “Whip had a fatal illness in combination with an inactive healing gene. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Of course I let him join me.”

  I couldn’t take any more in. It was all happening too fast. But I certainly couldn’t celebrate, not with Kendor lying on the floor. Stepping to his body, I knelt near his head and stroked his beautiful dark blond hair. He lay on his stomach, his face turned my way, his eyes closed. After such a long life, it was impossible to believe he could be dead. But the pool of blood around his heart said otherwise.

  Herme knelt across from me, beside his mother. He put a hand to her head, and we stared at each other through a film of tears.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “There’s no need,” he said.

  “I shot your father. I lost control. I—”

  “My mother shot my father. You were just the vehicle. Trust me, you did nothing wrong.”

  “But if I hadn’t weakened, Kendor would still be alive.”

  Herme stared at his dead father. “Even though he came here to kill her, I don’t think he could have lived with himself if he had succeeded. In a strange way, you did him a favor.”

  “You’ve lost both your parents. It’s not fair.”

  Herme sighed. “It happened. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or not.”

  Whip came over and hugged me, trying to comfort me. With his hands—not his tail, thank God—he brushed away my tears. “Jessie,” he said, and I realized he could speak because he had his twin’s voice. “I love you.”

  “Oh, Whip,” I said, embracing him. I stroked his back but was careful not to let my hand stray too low. His heart might have been pure but his stinger still gave me the willies. Squeezing him hard, I added, “I love you, too.”

  Love, I thought. The word felt so fitting, perhaps because love had been the answer all along. The one thing that could stop Syn.

  I looked up at James. “The transformation—how did you do it?” I asked. “When did you do it?”

  “You forget Herme’s a drug salesman in real life,” James said. “He gave me and Whip what we needed, right after you fell asleep in my arms in the hotel room.”

  “But you fell asleep with me,” I said.

  “I pretended to,” James said. “I was really waiting for Herme to return from his walk with Alex.”

  “We had planned it all out earlier in the evening,” Herme said. “After you two interrogated poor Al, but before you guys went to dinner. Whip was with us. It really was his decision to go through the death experience.”

  “You did all this without the Council’s approval?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Herme said. “I only spoke to the Council after I met with my father for the first time in centuries. That was the next day, so to speak, in witch world. Hatsu brought me to see him. Hatsu was the one witch who knew my true identity.”

  I stared down at Kendor’s body. “Why did you hide from your father for so long?” I asked.

  “Next to Cleo, he was the most high-profile member of the Council. The Lapras had spies everywhere.” Herme paused. “I couldn’t risk seeing him.”

  And now he wouldn’t get to see him at all, I thought. Herme’s words had been kind but I still blamed myself for Kendor’s death.

  I spoke. “You joined in the fusion with your father. You were prepared to kill Syn. You must have gone to the Council at some point.”

  “My father and I both went to the Council tonight, in witch world, an hour before you met with them. By then we had decided we had to risk everything in order to save you and your daughter.” Herme added quietly, “And, of course, Whip and James.”

  “And the Council agreed?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Herme said.

  “Thank you,” I said. br />
  Herme nodded. There was nothing left to say.

  Kissing Kendor on the head, I stood and hugged Lara and James together. My daughter kicked her legs with delight, and once more the room seemed to fill with light.

  “So it’s over?” I said to James.

  My boyfriend kissed my lips. “It’s over,” he promised.

  But I didn’t fully understand what he meant. Not when we went back to the hotel and gave Lara a bath and a bottle and put her to bed. Not even when we lay beneath the sheets and held each other so long and so tight I believed the music and the light would come to us again.

  No, it was only when I awoke in the morning, back in the real world, that I understood what Jimmy had sacrificed to protect me and Lara. Because as I yawned and reached over to kiss him, I felt how cold his skin was, and noticed that he wasn’t breathing.

  He hadn’t survived the death experience after all.

  The needle was still in the vein in his arm.

  He had gone to sleep in this world so he could be with us in witch world. When we needed him the most.

  My Jimmy.

  EPILOGUE

  TWO DAYS AFTER WE RETURNED home from Las Vegas, Jimmy was buried in Apple Valley. It was a Thursday as the real world counted time. Of course in witch world he was still alive, but for the two hundred mourners who came to his service, that didn’t mean a thing. Especially for his sole remaining parent, his father, who I believe secretly blamed me for his son’s death.

  Kari was listed as missing, although the police had been to my house numerous times to question me about her disappearance. So far I had done an excellent job of hiding Huck from them, and since Huck was supposed to be dead, no one was pressuring me about the boy.

  Certainly no one was interested in Whip. I found it curious that my new role as the mother of two kids had raised no alerts, while the loss of two of my classmates had everyone talking. Then again, no one but my mother and father, and a few friends, knew I had the children. It was not as if I allowed Whip to play in the neighborhood or at the park, except late at night.

  In regards to Jimmy . . . the prevailing theory was that he had gone back to Kari, and I had spotted them in bed together without their knowledge. Then, later, when the three of us were hanging out, I had enticed them to try a hit of some morphine I was secretly addicted to and they had fallen for the ruse because I was after all Jessie Ralle, a sweet girl with no police record, an A-minus average in high school, and someone who was known to most people in Apple Valley as the pretty but quiet girl who worked at the local library.

  Go figure.

  The police assured me that I wasn’t a suspect, while privately they kept telling Jimmy’s father and Kari’s parents that they were going to break me if it was the last thing they did in this life.

  To hell with them, I thought. I was going to be leaving soon to live with my father in Malibu. The plan was for him to hire help to look after the kids so I could go to UCLA full-time. Not that I needed financial assistance. It seemed that Russ had left me ten million euros in a Swiss bank account. My father told me Russ used to love to play twenty-one at the European casinos whenever he went on vacation.

  My mother was also moving to Malibu, to a nearby condo, and was talking about going back to school to study to be a nurse. Naturally, she assumed my newfound wealth was a result of my father’s sudden generosity. She knew about the kids but not about witch world. Perhaps she never would.

  Despite the legal suspicions that lay on me, I was allowed to say a few words at Jimmy’s funeral. I kept it short and sweet.

  “I know my presence here is uncomfortable for some, but those who know me, and better yet those who knew Jimmy, will realize that the bond we shared was magical. It was perfect. All my life I dreamed of having a boyfriend like Jimmy, and when he finally showed up, he was a thousand times better than any fantasy. Because he was real, and such a genuine person. Without trying, he somehow cared for everyone. I know because of how much he cared for me. Jimmy didn’t die of a drug overdose. Jimmy didn’t even smoke pot. His death was far more noble than that.

  “I loved Jimmy with all my heart, and I have a feeling that I’m going to go on loving him forever. For you see, he hasn’t left us. He’s close, closer than any of you can imagine. Every night I go to bed, I see him. He was a great guy, my Jimmy, and I believe I’m going to continue to see him until the day I die.”

  After the funeral, Herme and Alex stopped by to see how I was doing. It seemed in all the drama of the last week no one had bothered to tell me that my best friend was also a witch, one who possessed the healing gene. It wasn’t coincidence she was my best friend. After all, the Council had schemed to put us all together.

  Herme planned to connect Alex at the next full moon. She said she was ready for the experience but I could tell she had misgivings. When I questioned her, she agreed she was scared.

  “When I hear about everything you went through the last few days,” she said, while Herme played with Whip in the other room and Huck slept on the chair beside me, “it makes me wonder if I don’t have enough problems in this world to deal with. What do I need with another one?”

  “Witch world exists whether you’re aware of it or not,” I said. “You’re already there, playing your usual bad girl. You might as well see what it’s all about.”

  Alex considered. “The only reason I agreed to let Herme do it is because I want to see you and Jimmy together again.”

  “You mean me and James,” I corrected. She was exaggerating. She wanted to be a witch because she wanted what we all did—the magic.

  “Isn’t it the same?”

  I shook my head. “It’ll never be the same. Jimmy is James, sure, but there are differences. Everything I said at his funeral was true, but to be honest, it doesn’t make me miss him any less. At least when I’m in this world.”

  Alex hugged me. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said as she held me. “When I’m here, I have Whip and Huck to keep me company. And James and I get to play with Lara in witch world. In a way, I’ve gained more than I lost.”

  Alex let go of me and gestured to sleeping Huck. “Is it weird taking care of Kari’s baby?” she asked.

  “I thought it would be but it’s not. I guess I see him as belonging to Jimmy. I hardly think about Kari unless someone brings her up.”

  Alex looked concerned. “But you’ll turn him over to Kari’s parents one day, won’t you? I mean, Huck’s DNA, if the police do a test, they’ll discover that he belongs to Jimmy and Kari.”

  “My father told me the same thing. I guess one day I’ll have to leave him on Kari’s parents’ doorstep, with a note, and ring the bell and run like hell.” I stopped. “But I’m not ready to give him up. He meant too much to Jimmy.”

  “Do the Las Vegas police have any idea what happened to Kari?”

  “No.”

  “But they keep questioning you?”

  “Sure. But what can I say? I act like she just wandered off into the desert and disappeared.”

  Alex ground her teeth. “Shit! The more I think about all this, the more crazy I get. Two worlds, two of each of us. You know, I can’t look in a mirror these days without feeling that some crazy chick is staring back at me.”

  “She is. It’s you.”

  “What’s it like taking care of Whip?”

  “He’s never a problem. Since he woke up to who he is, his health has rapidly improved. He has the healing gene. My father says he should make a full recovery.” I added, “And he’s begun to talk a little.”

  “That’s great.”

  “It’s fantastic. He’s so damn smart. He’s always cracking me up. Really, it’s no sacrifice to take care of him.”

  “But he was a monster in the other world. As those memories come back, won’t he change?” Alex asked.

  “I know what you’re afraid of. My father and I have talked about it a lot. But the Council’s found that the world in which you go thro
ugh the death experience usually sets the tone of a person’s personality. Since Whip ‘died’ in this world, the positive side of him should stay in control. So, no, I’m not worried that he’s going to murder me in my sleep.”

  Alex stared at me. She went to speak but stopped herself.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re thinking how much I’ve changed. How I’m not the sweet and innocent Jessie you once knew.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Alex protested.

  “It doesn’t matter, it’s true.” Huck began to stir, and I lifted him up and held him to my chest. At moments like this, when he was near my heart, I felt closest to Jimmy, and knew beyond any doubt that he was his child, never mind the uncertainty Kari had tried to plant inside me.

  My bitterness toward the Lapras had not faded. It was only because of them that Jimmy had been forced to take the risk that had killed him. I would never forgive the Lapras for that. One day, I was confident, I would make them pay.

  “Jessie?” Alex said, puzzled at my last remark.

  The name Jessie felt strange to me. I worried if it was because I identified more with Jessica, the powerful witch. I was not sure if I admired that person. She was, after all, a killer.

  “It’s nothing,” I said.

  I heard a sound at the front door, the mailman stuffing our box with next month’s bills. I got up to check if there was any news from UCLA. Because I had been accepted late—with my father’s help—it looked like I was going to have trouble getting the classes I wanted. But I wasn’t worried—I was just grateful a part of my life was returning to normal.

  In the box I found a red letter addressed to me, with no return address. The stamp said it had been mailed from Las Vegas. I tore it open in front of Alex. She must have seen my face fall.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  I held out the letter so we could both read it.

  I needed to read it twice to believe it.

  Dear Jessie,

  I pray this note finds you well.

  You put on a wonderful show in the desert.