Crackling lightning bringing a smell of ozone and rot flashed through the room and I ducked, clutching the gun. Icy flames met the hellfire, bursting in blue arcs from Raina’s sword as she clashed with the demon. They fought to a standstill, power against power, the demon moving too swiftly even for Raina’s deadly dancing blade. Desperate, I fired a shot that went far wide of either, but Paulie’s rage-filled face turned toward me for a moment at the burst of noise.
I raised the gun again, the metal heavy in my hand. The demon’s eyes flared with dull fire and I saw my end kindled in them.
Raina’s blade flashed, separating the demon from his head. For a moment, his body seemed to hover as his head collapsed in a smoking ruin. Then the rot and fiery red aura fled the room in a burst of cold that froze my breath into pale mist. Paulie’s body slumped with a thud, and left only silence in its wake.
I pointed the gun back at the cowering man, but my bloody finger slipped off the trigger as I stared into his fear-panicked eyes.
“Cass, give me the gun.” Raina’s gentle voice penetrated the haze of my mind. She pried the pistol from my ice-cold fingers.
“I saw her,” I said. “I know what they did to Mairi. I know where she is. He was part of it. He hurt our baby.”
“You’re no killer,” Raina said. She squeezed the trigger, the shot intensifying my already aching head as it cracked the heavy silence, leaving worse in its wake. The man’s body slumped to the floor.
“Help me up,” I whispered, not trusting my voice or my balance.
“I was waiting for nightfall to confront the demon,” Raina said. “Cassidy, when I realized, God I thought I was going to lose you forever.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but I clung to her arm and started pulling her toward the door.
“Let’s go get our baby.”
We found her up the mountain, Raina prying the boards off the old mine shaft I’d directed us to. They’d dragged Mairi here and chained her inside, then boarded it up and walked away.
Sunlight cast long beams into the small space, shining like a spotlight onto the grey-white bones jumbled at the base of a tarred and scarred length of wood. Her wrists were still in the manacles, the rusted metal holding them upright in a cruel parody of life, the bones of her hands laid as they would have been against the stone in supplication.
Mairi had died alone in the dark, struggling against the iron binding her, injured and drained of magic, slowly losing the battle with hunger and thirst and finally life. Locked in here, abandoned, her bones unmourned, her soul tied down by her tragic end.
Seemed that although she’d given up some of her humanity, Raina could still weep. We worked in silence, tears running down our cheeks, as we gathered our daughter’s bones into my bag, making sure to not miss a single one. Then we rode down the mountain, back to Alice’s garden, where she met us with concerned words and a flurry of help.
We buried Mairi there beneath the flowers her love and magic had seeded. As the earth was tamped down over her body, light that had nothing to do with the afternoon sun glimmered and formed a vague shape that became more and more solid as I clung to Raina’s arm, my tears flowing anew.
Mairi held out her hands to us with a smile on her face. Her ghostly lips formed words that I’d longed to hear and though no sound issued, I read them with my heart.
“I love you, too, baby,” I said, stepping toward her. Her hands were warm mist, light glittering on my skin.
“Mama’s going to take you home,” Raina said.
My ears popped and Alice gave a little shriek of surprise as the Nightmare stepped up beside Raina.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said when Raina’s gaze met mine. “Bring our baby to rest. I’ll catch the train.”
Raina sprang into the saddle and Mairi’s ghostly form leapt just as gracefully up behind her, glittering arms wrapping around Raina’s waist, mother and daughter long and lean and beautiful riding together one last time. Alice and I stood in the sunlit flowers long after the Nightmare and her riders had faded into the trees.
A week after I’d made my way home, I heard the creak of my porch steps. This time my heart wasn’t hollow and I went to the door, tossing the screen wide. Raina sat like a long shadow on my porch swing with her hat tipped down low over her cold fire eyes. Her sheathed sword leaned against the porch rail.
“I made cobbler,” I said, leaning against the open door. “If you want to come in.”
Raina unfolded from the swing and then cocked her head as though listening. My heart was pounding in my ears so loud that at first I didn’t hear it.
“Train’s coming,” she said.
“Train’s always coming. There’ll be another.” I held the door open and backed up over the threshold.
“You sure?” Raina said, and I knew though she was eyeing the physical distance between us, it was a different kind of space she was minding crossing.
“Come on in,” I said.
Raina dropped her hat onto the swing and shook down her hair, inky waves falling in shining curls that glinted ebony and silver in the sunlight. Then she stepped across the threshold and into my arms.
FIRE HAZARD
