So that’s what the eye of a goddess looks like.
She looked past us and raised her hand to point over my shoulder. Chains clanked. “Come!” I recognized the voice: I had heard her in my head.
Red peeled himself from the pile of trash. I had known he was there for a while. He had crept in when the fight was almost over, followed me, and waited there in the garbage, while I sat by Bran, numb. Probably biding his time for a good chance to stab me in the back.
Julie startled. “Red!”
I caught her by the shoulder and kept her put.
“You desire power…”
Red swallowed. “Yes.”
“Serve me and I will give you all the power you want.”
He trembled.
“Do you accept the bargain?”
“Yes!”
“Red, what about me?” Julie broke free of my grip. I didn’t hold her too hard. This was her last chance to be cured.
“I love you! Don’t leave me.”
He held his hand out, blocking her. “She has everything I want. You have nothing.”
He stepped over Bran’s legs and trotted to Morrigan’s side like the dog he was. It had come full circle: from the ancestor who had broken free of Morrigan, through countless generations, to the descendant, who willingly put on her collar.
Bran’s body had barely cooled. She showed no signs of grief.
I looked at her. “You recognize me.”
Chains jingled in agreement.
“We meet again, and I’ll kill him.”
“Fuck off. She’s too powerful for you. She’ll protect me,” Red said.
“The blood that flows through me was old when she was but a vague idea. Look into her eyes, if you don’t believe me.”
“We won’t meet again,” Morrigan promised.
Behind her, mist swirled in a solid wall. It slunk along the ground, licked at Morrigan’s feet, wound about Red, and swallowed them whole.
The tech hit, crushing the magic under its foot. Julie stood alone in the field of dead bodies and iron, her face numb with shock.
Epilogue
In the morning, when the witches came for Bran’s body, they found it sprawled among white flowers. Blazing like small white stars, with centers as black as his eyes, the flowers grew overnight, sending a spicy scent into the air. By the time the day was over, the flowers had been christened Morgan’s Bells and a rumor floated person to person that Morrigan was so distraught over her champion’s death, she had wept and the flowers sprang forth from her tears.
Bullshit. I was there and the bitch didn’t shed a tear.
The witches buried Bran in Centennial Park and built a cairn over his grave. I was told I was welcome to visit him anytime.
The next two days were spent next to Andrea bent over the reports to the Order. We’d plugged every hole, smoothed every bump, and routed out every inconsistency, until she was pure human and I was just a blade-happy merc.
It didn’t help that without magic in the world for the next few weeks, we had to resort to conventional medicine. I had a half dozen cuts, a couple deep enough to be bothersome, and two cracked ribs. Andrea sported a gash across her back that under ordinary circumstances would’ve healed with embarrassing quickness. Postflare, it took its time. She wasn’t accustomed to pain and she popped painkillers by the handful.
After Red left, Julie had retreated deep into herself. She gave noncommittal answers and stopped eating. On Thursday I dropped off the last report together with a leave of absence request, loaded her into my ancient gas-guzzling Subaru, and drove down South, toward Savannah, where I kept my father’s house. Andrea promised to smooth things over with the Order when the knights returned.
The drive took forever. I was out of practice and had to stop to take a breather. We passed the turnoff to my house and kept driving down along the coast to a small town called Eulonia, until we reached an old restaurant called Pelican Point. The owner owed me a favor or I wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
The restaurant sat on the edge of the river, just before the freshwater found its way through the reeds and mud islands to the Atlantic Ocean. We sat in the gazebo by the dock and watched the shrimp and fish boats meander through the maze of salt marshes and then unload their catch. Then we went inside, to a small table by the window, and I took Julie to the seafood buffet.
Faced with more food than she had ever seen at once, Julie went stiff. I loaded her plate, got us some crab legs, and led her back to the table. She tried the fried shrimp and the blackened tilapia.
When I cracked the second cluster of crab legs, Julie began to cry. She cried and ate crabmeat, dunking it in melted butter, licked her fingers, and cried some more.
On the drive back, she sat sullenly in her seat.