“By your name I bind you,” Idéa Smith shouted, and I felt her will trying to take hold, trying to find some purchase on the implacable wall that was the Graveyard Child. “Puer Mórtuus, I bind you.”
The Graveyard Child shrugged, picked up the chair my father had been tied to, and swung it against Idéa hard enough that the oak splintered. Rhodes paused. I saw him begin to breathe in, gathering his will, preparing the Oath of the Abyss. The Graveyard Child ran to him, moving so fast it was like watching a film with a few frames missing. It drove its knee up into the man’s crotch, grabbed his head as he crumpled over, and casually ripped off an ear. Rhodes fell to his knees, his eyes open but unseeing. Ozzie was barking again, her yellow teeth flashing in threat. She could as easily not have been there.
The Graveyard Child tossed the ear to the floor, put its hands on its hips, and grinned.
“Well, that was something, wasn’t it? I mean, goddamn, right?” Its eyes fixed on me, the irises contracting as the pupils dilated. “They almost had me fucked. You have got to respect that effort.”
With a shout, my little brother grabbed a carving knife from the counter and flung it at the Graveyard Child. The blade sunk into its arm. The rider smacked its lips, plucked the blade back out, and with a perversely reflective expression dropped the knife to the floor.
“All right. Where was I?” it said. And then raised a single finger. “Oh. I remember. The hard way.”
chapter twenty-two
I fought my way to my feet. My knee felt loose, limp. I was afraid to put my weight on it.
“Face me,” I said. “You wanted the body in exchange for them. Face me and take it.”
“Jayné!” Ex shouted from behind me. “No!”
It shrugged, smiled at me mildly, and brought a foot down on Eduardo Martinez’s throat. I wasn’t trapped behind my eyes anymore, but I wasn’t alone either. Together, the Black Sun and I pushed forward on my good leg, rising up through the air, then striking out hard with my heel. I felt the Graveyard Child’s nose break, and it stepped back. I landed on my good leg and both hands, going still as stone as soon as I touched the floor. I’d pushed the rider back a step. Martinez groaned. Not dead, then. I was good with not dead.
“You will leave this house, Satan!” my father roared, and three rapid pistol reports came with the words. I took a look back toward the TV room. Dad and Ex were both there. My father held the pistol in both hands, steadying it. As I watched, the muzzle flared again, and I heard the hiss of air after the bullet passed by my ear. Ex had Chogyi Jake’s shotgun in hand, but he wasn’t shooting. “You will leave my house and my family. In the name of Christ Jesus, I command you begone. Begone!” He fired again.
The Graveyard Child clapped a hand over its chest and stumbled backward. Its eyes went wide. Dark blood spilled over its wide fingers and it blinked in confusion.
“Dad?” it said in Jay’s voice. “Dad, you . . . you shot me.”
My father’s face was a mask of horror, shock, and regret. He lurched up the steps toward the Graveyard Child, and the rider slapped him across the face hard enough to knock him against the wall.
“Just joshin’,” the Graveyard Child said, then turned to me. “Honestly, sis, I don’t think anyone understands this family but us. And us pretty much means just me.”
It turned toward Curt and Mom with a sigh.
“Stop!” I screamed, but it only moved them gently aside and ripped the stove out from the wall, tossing it on the prone body of Idéa Smith. Ex came up the steps to stand beside me. My father was crawling on his hands and knees. Blood streamed down the side of his head, falling to the floor with a steady drip, drip, drip. I heard a hissing sound that I didn’t understand until I smelled rotting eggs.
“Seriously,” it said. “There are some conversations that I just won’t be able to have with anybody once you’re gone. I mean, except for Carla. But I think she just agrees with me to make me happy, don’t you?”
Ex racked the shotgun. The Graveyard Child looked at him incredulously.
“How many times have you tried shooting me with that thing? It hasn’t actually done anything yet, and you just keep going. You’re adorable!”
“Ex,” I said. “Get them out of here.”
“Ex,” it said, imitating me. “Die in a fire.”
The Graveyard Child lifted its hands, and blue flame whooshed through the room. Curtis screamed and tried to pull Mom out of the kitchen. I didn’t have time. I rushed at the rider, trying to push it back into the flames. It shrieked with laughter and pulled me close in a bear hug. It was small but terribly solid. It wrapped its arms around me and squeezed, shaking while it did like a terrier worrying a rat twice its own size. The heat of the fire was intense. Bright yellow flames were crawling up the wall, fanning out across the ceiling with ripples like the surface of a lake from below. I tried to get my hands up around the thing’s throat. It had been Jay. It had been my brother. I didn’t think about that, only the need for air and to get the others out. It twisted and I lost my balance, tried to catch myself on my wounded knee, and crashed to the floor. It writhed against me, its gums bared with effort, and I felt my ribs creaking from the strain. It was going to crush me like a grape, shatter me. Craning my neck, I saw Rhodes and Chogyi Jake helping each other out the front door. A fire alarm was sounding from somewhere close by. I didn’t remember it starting. My mother was still lying on the floor, Curtis beside her, weeping and plucking at her.
Get out, I thought. Everyone get out.
I tried to center myself, tried to pull my qi together into a force I could use. I imagined the thin blue ball at my heart and I tried to push it out, expanding, but the Graveyard Child pressed in, compressing me with an invisible force that felt like nausea and despair. My breath grew shorter and shorter. The rider’s hatred and rage battered at me, but for the moment the others were forgotten. It wanted my death enough to be distracted by it. I didn’t need to live. I just needed to not die long enough for the others to get out. The gas that had fed the stove was torn at the floorboards, and a plume of flame billowed from it. I could smell my hair burning. The pain from the heat was powerful, but the Graveyard Child ignored it. Its wide mouth came close to my ear, whispering obscenities and threats. Even the veneer of humor was gone, and all that was left was raw, vicious evil.
I looked up again. Ex was pulling Curtis away. The flames were in the living room now. The Christmas tree would go up like fireworks, I thought. Another argument in favor of Hanukkah. A few candles, but no kindling. I was aware vaguely that I’d blacked out for a moment. That I was dying. Ex got Curt out. I smiled.
I win, I thought. Curt’s safe. It’s okay if I die now.
Only there was my mother, still on the floor. Still with her hands clasped to her ears, her eyes squeezed closed.
“Mother,” I called, but it hardly came out as a groan. Help me, I thought. Help me this one last time. And the Black Sun, exhausted as I was, brought its will to bear. I took a breath, the superheated air searing my lips and throat.