Marie remained silent. She could not say. She knew only that in the end she didn’t need a powerful god to work miracles for her. She could work miracles herself through Voodoo. And terrible curses too. In the end, she just needed a god that might forgive her for both.
It was Sanite who spoke now. “I’m going to set things right, Jon.”
“Set things right,” he echoed. A small smile touched his lips. “Tell me, Quarter Queen, do you like things the way they are now?” His eyes went to Marie. “Doyou,beloved? Because the rest of our kind sure as hell don’t.”
Marie shut her eyes, hating herself. Some part of her did, she could admit that. Power. The freedom she wielded was not lost on her. But Jon’s alternative was not the only path, was it? There had to be another way. There simply had tobe.
“You are going to hurt our daughter.” Marie sucked in a rattling breath. “Our daughter,Jon.”
“I’ve hurt plenty on this path. And I’ll hurt plenty more before the end of it.”
And I will hurt you again if it makes you stronger.
“And Jacques? Did you hurt him too?”
“I do as I am bid, Marie. I serve only—”
So that was it then—he had caused her husband’s death, somehow. When Jacques had said he would join the revolution, she had no idea that it wasJon’s.And when she had sought him for help for the magic to bring him back, the Conjurer had always known that he was going to make a fool of her. Oh, what a fucking fool for love she’d been.
“You serve only yourself!” Marie hissed.
“You would know a thing or two about that, now, wouldn’t you, Marie?”
A low, bitter laugh worked its way from her throat. Despite it all, he had still found a way to hold her to blame. Equals, she supposed,to the end. “Tell me something. Was our child always meant to be the sacrifice?”
His dark eyes fastened on her, unflinching in their honesty.No lies,they’d promised each other at the beginning of this. “Yes.”
It surprised her to hear the pain in his voice, that he was still capable of it. If only it were truly that simple. And maybe for a man like Jon it was. Maybe he’d lost the part of himself that could distinguish his own evil from another long ago in a forgotten lifetime, and the Jon she’d gotten was merely the cold husk, bitter and stripped of all feeling.
“Give me the child, Marie,” said Jon. “And I will do it quickly.”
“I won’t let you sacrifice her, Jon. I won’t.” How easy it was to cast aside his own family. How easy it had been for her own mother.
“Better me”—his eyes moved to the windows, to the chaos outside—“thanthem.”
Did he not know she would kill them all? Him. The Brotherhood. Even this church, her beloved sanctuary. She’d see the whole fucking city burned to ash, the earth scorched to dust, before she’d allowthemto have her child.
“What about our family, Jon—”
“What about my family?” Jon bellowed. “My wife? My sons? My—my…daughter.” His voice cracked, his face splitting with soul-consuming despair. “I have lost everything on this long, long road of death and misery.Everything!The gods demand sacrifice of us all. And to this rule you are no exception, Marie!”
Marie knew he had lost everything. And still it was not enough to sway her. How could it be? They had a child of their own, flesh and blood, as real and true as the gods they both served.
Sanite stepped into his path.
“Out of the way, old woman.” His eyes flashed. “We’ve done our dance.”
“No.” Power radiated from the Quarter Queen in searing waves. “I don’t think we’ve quite finished, young man.”
Marie realized then that Sanite had been stalling. The air stirred, constricting itself back and forth as she pulled the water from it. The water La Sirene blessed her with for her vision, the same water thathad baptized Marie, cleansed her of her sins. Marie coughed. She felt Sanite pull it from her too, from her hair, her skin, the tears that had caught on her lashes, even the fountain of holy water that was erected near the cathedral’s doorway. La Sirene’s wrath became the Quarter Queen’s wrath, and in one terrible burst of magic, it exploded.
Dark water surged forth from the air, swirling around Sanite in a dreadful hurricane that surged higher and higher, reaching even the cathedral’s rafters, until Sanite thrust her arms forth and those dark waters engulfed everything, even Marie. There was hardly any time to hold her breath. She sank along with Jon, plunged into the cold water of the priestess’s destruction. But Sanite would not let her drown. Sanite, still caught in that wind of swirling tide, flung an arm out, and the water goddess mimicked her, moving to encase only Jon in a sphere of churning water.
He thrashed and thrashed inside, but now Sanite was constricting her hand into a fist. The sphere of water grew smaller and smaller. She was going to crush him as a hurricane might.
Sanite smiled. But then something darted along the rafters—astreak of black—and Aram came shooting out from the dark, directly for Sanite. His beak found purchase against her left eye, and she howled from the pain. He might have gone for the other too, but Marie called Ogoun’s fire into her hand and thrust it at him. The crow screeched, taking off toward Jon.
Marie whirled, realizing the water had dispersed. The floor was soaked but empty. It had been only a diversion.
