The Blood Keeper Read online

  At me.

  “Havoc.” It wasn’t a strong response, but my voice couldn’t push past the shock clogging my chest. “Hey, Havoc.”

  She growled again, her fur bristling. Valkyrie whined.

  “Havoc!” I snapped, lowering my voice and straightening my back. “Sit.” I chopped my hand down through the air.

  Her growl only strengthened. I stared at her, remembering when Aaron and I had gone to pick the puppies up. All ears and tongues, they’d been rolling in this massive pile of brown and tan and black inside a playpen made for toddlers. Five of them, all females. Barking their tiny little barks, and one of them growling so high and cute it sounded like a bumblebee. Their mom lolled on the grass next to the pen, worn out but with her jaws open in a grin. Aaron had knocked his elbow into mine. “Dig your hands in, find out who bites.”

  I’d knelt and reached into the pen for the growling puppy. Lifting her out with my hands around her ribs, I’d put her against my chest and stared down into those black eyes. Her growls tickled my palms.

  “That one doesn’t like anybody,” the breeder was saying. “She just growls and growls, though surprisingly shows no other signs of—”

  But Havoc-the-puppy suddenly stopped. Her ears popped up and she stretched her neck forward to sniff at my mouth. I laughed and blew gently at her. She shook all over, then curled up in my hands and fell asleep. I hadn’t put her down until we got home over an hour later.

  Now she was full grown, a hulking, sprawling beast of a dog who’d never so much as considered disobeying me. Who’d leaned into my thigh the entire four hours of Aaron’s wake while Val huddled in a corner.

  I knew I should grab her ruff and force her to the ground, should push in and remind her who was pack leader here, but I couldn’t move.

  Valkyrie hunkered down, head between her paws, and shifted her eyes from me to Havoc. “Val,” I said, slapping my thigh. “Come.”

  Neither dog listened.

  I tried again, but even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice. “Havoc?”

  She jerked forward, barking. It was like a punch in the gut, and I fell back. Havoc followed me, her bark getting angrier. I got out of the kennel as she took a swipe at my hand, and skidded over the grass to grab the door and swing it shut. It clattered into place and I threw the lock, put my back against it. Her claws scratched the wood as she slammed herself up. The wall of the kennel shook, but was solid. I closed my eyes, gasping for breath. What was wrong with my dog?

  Turning, I pressed myself to the fence and peered through the slit between two two-by-fours. Her front paws were up at chest height, and she barked hard again and again and again. “Havoc!” I yelled. Her voice hit me over and over, and Valkyrie joined in. I stepped away, slapped my hands over my ears. They sprinted back and forth inside the kennel, shadows flashing between the boards.

  I spun on my toes and ran inside, slamming open the back door and not bothering to close it. I dashed into the ground floor bathroom. The adrenaline surge felt like a strike of lightning. My stomach twisted and I glanced at the toilet, but I wasn’t that bad. I wrenched the knob on the sink and filled my cupped hands with water. I flung it on my face. The cold shocked me, and I choked in a lungful of air. Long, cool trails of water trickled down my neck, hung off my chin. I closed my eyes. Havoc.

  Trying to get a grip on myself, I put my hands flat against the wall on either side of the mirror. I blew a long breath and leaned in, all my weight on my arms like I was coming down from a push-up against the mirror. When my face was inches away, I stared at my own eyes. They were brown, with a thin circle of gray at the edge of the iris.

  At least, they were supposed to be.

  I reached behind me and flipped on the lights. I winced away from the sudden glare but forced myself to lean in again.

  Along the left border of my left iris was a very thin strip of bright red. Like my eye was bleeding.

  “It could be natural,” I whispered to my reflection. My breath fogged the glass. It could have been just like a bruise on my eyeball. Once a kid in my eighth-grade class on the Marine base in Okinawa had been in a bad bike accident, and he’d come to school with the white of his eye bloodred. But the whole side of his face was a giant bruise, too. I didn’t have any injuries to my head.

  This was too much. Something bad was happening to me, and it wasn’t some regular disease. What kind of virus made your devoted dog suddenly turn on you? All I knew was where this had all started.

  I only took time to run upstairs for my keys and cell phone before getting in my car and driving west for the prairie.

  TWENTY-TWO

  It should have been a slow, meandering, peaceful summer; my thriving garden offered more than enough for me to do. And I began experimenting with teas and soap and candles, taking the chore from you because of how much fun it was finding the perfect scent combinations, boiling tallow and dipping wicks, and adding just a hint of magic so that when we went to sell and trade for milk and meat, our neighbors clamored for our wares. I loved having my patient work bring sustenance to the land and our table like that.

  As it grew warmer into June, I frequently spent afternoons with tea and a book in the shade of one of the oaks. The only problem was the forest cut most of the wind down, leaving me with only a feeble breeze to wick the sweat from my brow. I decided to plant a linden tree at the edge of my garden, something to give us fragrant blossoms in a few years and shade nearer to the house, where the wind reached.

  But one afternoon Gabriel came charging out of the house, the screen door slapping hard. “Arthur!” He yelled, casting his voice over the whole land with his magic.

  I was on my feet, stumbling in shock. My book fell to the ground and I ran up, demanding he tell me what was wrong. His dark eyes darted east again and again, then he sneered, not at me but at whatever emotion churned inside him. “Trouble’s coming. I can smell her from here.”

  There was no other warning before we heard tires and the rumble of an engine making its way up the dirt road. We turned together to see a sleek but snub-nosed car push its way up the hill. The woman driving barely stopped the car before flinging open the door and leaping out. She wore an obvious red hat and a white sleeveless dress with red flowers falling down the left hip. Her golden hair curled perfectly under her ears, making me hate her just a little bit, and she tossed her sunglasses into the driver’s seat, covering her mouth with a bright grin. “Hello, there!”

  I don’t think I’d ever seen such a gorgeous, flamboyant woman outside a movie, or anyone less suited to our quiet hillside. There was nothing for me to say, and Gabriel kept to my side.

  She took two long steps toward us, strong and graceful as a lioness. “Is that you, Gabe?” Her smile shifted into something sharp, and I knew she didn’t like him any more than he liked her.

  How could this be a friend of Arthur’s?

  I lifted my chin. “Introduce us, please, Gabriel.”

  His fingers were tight on my elbow as he said, “Evie, this is Josephine Darly, a venomous, manic blood witch. Jo, this is Miss Evelyn Sonnenschein.”

  “What?” Josephine’s blue eyes widened. “No epithets for the girl?” She winked at me. “He only doesn’t like me because Arthur prefers me.”

  “Pities you, rather,” Gabriel snapped. His entire body was rigid.

  My horror at their bickering had no time to find a voice, for you came striding out of the forest, from the barn. You were behind her, but Josephine somehow sensed it, spinning on her toes like a little girl. “Deacon!” she chirped, which was a thing our neighbors called you, too, and then she dashed across the meadow, kicking off her red shoes and throwing her hat into the wind.

  You caught her hands with a charmed smile, and I saw something on your face I’d never seen before. Excitement. You were thrilled to have her, eager when she kissed both your cheeks, and you barely waved at us as she tore you away, running and skipping toward the south, past my garden and over the spot I’d imagined fo
r my linden tree. You took her careening down the hill to where the apple trees waited.

  I remained breathless and trapped in a sudden stupor. “Gabriel?” I managed to whisper.

  He rolled his eyes, shaking himself free of the same stupor. “They’ll be back when they’re finished.” He started back into the house, but I was frozen.

  “Finished what?”

  From the porch step, Gabriel twisted around. “Devouring the world.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  MAB

  While the living crows guarded Lukas as he slept, I brought the body of the dead crow down to the workshop, which was built like a barn, and maybe a hundred years ago had worked as one, too. Bits and pieces of refuge from the land crowded everywhere, piled and shelved and gathering dust. The hull of an old rowboat leaned against a stack of crates, and when I was little it had been my favorite place for watching Arthur create potions and sketch. Every year when we redid the runes on the outside of the barn, I’d drawn charms on the underside of the boat with leftover paint. Once, Arthur crawled inside with me, hunched over to fit his back against the curve of the boat. He’d brought a candle and said it was a good, safe spot. Together we buried a circle of silver wire around it, and sang blessing songs. We wove a mat of cattail leaves and soaked it in milk and blood and honey. “The only thing that would make you safer here,” Arthur said when we finished, “is if you had roots growing out of your knees.”

  At the long table, I set the crow’s body carefully down, pinning the wings to the much-marred wood. I plucked out his breast feathers, laying them back in the cedar box for safekeeping. With one of the knives from the butcher’s block, I sliced open the chest, glad his fellows had remained behind at the house. They would fly to me if Lukas needed me, and there was no need for them to watch as I carefully removed the long breastbone and cracked back the ribs.

  The crow’s heart was a burned husk.

  I peered at all the little organs, at the shriveled, blackened insides. This crow had died from fire. I would have guessed electricity, except that I remembered Lukas’s burning hands and the heat of the black candle rune.

  A sad smile tugged at my lips, and I caressed one of the crow’s long primary feathers, reveling in the sleek blackness.

  I sprinkled salt onto the crow, whispering a song of thanks and rest, then harvested the best of the feathers before wrapping the small body in a red cotton shroud. He would be burned, and perhaps Lukas would like to help me scatter the ashes.

  Afterward, I absently drew spirals against the table with my finger, over and over again, as I thought. The wood of the worktable was polished and smooth from years of use. Some bits were stained dark from spilled blood, but mostly it shone as rich as amber.

  There had to be a way to remove Lukas’s rune safely. Up at the Pink House were books with magical theory, mostly written by Philip Osborn, one of Arthur’s very first students. He’d been predominantly a healer, and so perhaps I might find insights in the pages of his rune journals and experiments. The thought drew a sigh out of my belly: I never enjoyed studying, most especially when I didn’t know where to begin, and when there was no one for me to discuss the possibilities with. It would be tedious work, but I had to, for Lukas’s sake.

  Except, I suddenly remembered, Silla had them. She’d asked to borrow all of Osborn’s journals last year, before she began writing some kind of thesis.

  Sinking to the packed-earth floor, I stretched out on my back. The rafters overhead glowed gently where sunlight found dust motes through the partially cracked southern edge of the roof. A trio of mourning doves nestled together, no doubt grateful I hadn’t brought the crows down with me to chase them away.

  I shut my eyes and imagined Arthur stood over me, sketching something onto one of his drawing pads. I’d used to sometimes lie here while he worked and ask him questions, staring at the easy slump of his shoulders, the sure way he moved his arms and hands. The scratch of pencil against paper would lull me to sleep, where I’d dream about drawings lifting up to life and flying around me like tiny fairies.

  What would Arthur do? I played through everything I knew about the black candle rune, everything I could remember about how they were created. It was a bond between a specific spell or witch and the marked thing. How to get rid of it without hurting Lukas? I could keep him bound, and maybe someday the rune would fade. Or I could change the rune itself, perhaps reinterpret the intention. But burning it away clearly hadn’t worked for Lukas.

  That single time I’d helped Arthur destroy such a rune, to protect Eli’s friend, we’d gone back after a year and a day had passed to the twisted, dead walnut tree.

  Frost had cracked beneath our feet as we stood beside the tree, and the sky was a sheet of thin gray clouds. The tips of my fingers grew numb from the cold as I clutched a bundle of beeswax candles in one hand, a lancet in the other. Arthur faced the tree, where the black candle rune crawled angrily across the bark. Just above, the hilt of a dagger thrust out: we’d stabbed it in the night before, and begun the cleansing spell with a song and the runes etched into the tip of the blade. Though the sky was overcast now, all night the full moon had shone down, and the dagger had leeched its power.

  For nine hours, the delicate magic had curled into the heartwood. We were here now to set the final bit in motion.

  Arthur said, “I feel it humming inside the tree.”

  Together we set out the candles in a circle around the tree. Nine of them, spaced equally, and each surrounded by an intricate rune of starlight that we drew with lines of salt.

  When the circle was set, we stood across from each other. Holding out our left hands, we cut our tattooed wrists and let blood fall. Pacing one another, we walked sunwise, dripping blood onto the earth in the center of each of the starlight runes. Power slid through my veins, splashing to the ground. The magic rushed together by the time we’d both gone halfway around the circle to replace each other on either side. I smiled at the cutting wind that lifted up pieces of my hair and rattled the dead leaves on the branches above us. Arthur stepped inside and gripped the dagger with a bloody hand. “By my blood,” he said, “cleanse this curse.”

  The surge of magic flared to life deep inside the tree and echoed in my chest. I held out my hands with my palms facing the earth. Arthur held tight to the dagger, and I watched his pale hair whip against his face in the wind.

  Fire spat out of the black candle rune in quick, sharp tongues, and then went silent. The tree shook as its branches curled downward. I breathed in long intervals, and watched as the spell tore out from the rune, blackening the tree up and down, turning the leaves into ashes and making the roots quiver.

  Arthur released the dagger, and the starlight runes flashed silver. For a brief moment I relaxed, but then I saw Arthur poised beside the tree trunk, fingers tense and his eyes on the ground.

  Looking, too, I saw it. The frost melted in a ring around the tree, as if the brown grass cooked from below. Arthur stepped back, but the ring widened, spiraling out slowly and steadily. The dagger spell must have soaked not only into the tree but through the roots and out into the earth. Arthur met me at the edge of our nine-point circle, and we watched together.

  Steam rose, thickening the air.

  I had assumed the cleansing would only pass through the tree, but this spell crawled through roots and rocks, under the frozen mud.

  It slithered under our circle, blackening the ground in its wake, destroying—no, cleansing—everything. If it escaped us, it might travel over the whole blood land, burning away all the magic!

  Arthur frowned the same moment I yelled in surprise. I spun around, searching for a way to widen the circle ahead of it, to cast a firm and solid barrier. “Arthur?” My mind whirled furiously. “How do we get our blood around it?”

  He watched me calmly. “What would you do if I was not here?”

  “We don’t have time! We have to save the trees!” I flung my hand toward the living forest, just yards away, where squi
rrels huddled in their winter nests and a red-tailed hawk gazed at us from the top of a pine, entirely unconcerned.

  “Think,” was all the Deacon told me.

  As the cleansing crawled nearer and nearer to my feet, I slashed my palm with the lancet and pressed the blood over my heart. I whispered, “My familiar,” and then “Reese.” My blood flashed hot and sharp on my chest, and I flung out my hand so that flecks of the blood arced out into the air.

  And he came—all twelve crows exploding over the forest so suddenly and silently the red-tailed hawk startled into the sky, too. It screamed its displeasure, but my crows only barked back and kept winging toward me.

  Falling to my knees, I dug a binding rune into the earth with the lancet in quick, slashing motions. Arthur backed away, and the crows landed around me. My breathing was too fast as I pushed again at the edges of the wound on my palm, spilling blood and power into the rune. “Come!” I said, and the crows crowded near me, dipping beaks and the tips of their wings in the pool of blood cupping in my hands.

  “Mab,” Arthur said quietly.

  I glanced up to see the blackening ground edging even nearer, the steam from melting frost lifting up thinly and delicately.

  “Bind the earth, with my blood,” I commanded, “bind the sky, with my blood!” The crows cried out in a single voice, and I yelled, “Fly!”

  They leapt into the air, the beat of their wings shoving wind at me. I knelt at my rune, pressed both hands down into the earth, and whispered my spell again and again while the crows flew hard and high, spreading into a wide circle. I chanted, and they flew sunwise, around and around. Arthur put his hands on my back and joined my spell, his hands sticky and hot with blood. His power rushed into me and his words echoed mine, over and over and over, a round with no beginning and no end.

  The string of my power thrummed between me and all the crows, pulsing with my heart and with their wing beats.