Grim (26 page)

Michael took a few more strides toward his older brother, and Gabriel answered them by retreating even farther. Michael laughed.

And then, without warning, Michael ran.

He tackled Gabriel and pinned his arms against the cold marble.

“You wouldn't kill me, would you, Gabriel?” he whispered.

Gabriel forced himself back up, but in doing so, he lost his grip on the knife, and it skidded out of his hands. Michael scooped it up and leaped back to his feet. He cradled the blade between his hands. Carefully. Lovingly. He held it up.

“The one mirror in our family's entire Kingdom,” he said. “Remember the legend? That the dead always see their reflections in it before they give up their souls?”

Erika burst through the doors at the end of the hall.

When she saw Michael with the knife, she froze.

“The muddy little whore is here,” Michael announced. “Tell me, Jeremiah, what did you
do
to make her seem so like your own mother? Or do all sluts just look the same?”

“Leave, Erika,” Jeremiah ordered.

“No,” said Michael. “Stay, Erika. Since this is all about you and your battered soul.”

Erika took a cautious step forward.

“Don't,” Jeremiah said, desperate.

“Ignore the rogue, dear,” Michael said. He retreated a few paces, giving Erika a wide berth for moving into the room.

She darted forward.

Jeremiah groaned.

“Don't be so distraught, Jeremiah. It's only because she loves you.” Michael chuckled. “But that's right, isn't it? You can't love. How ironic that your own mother's curse would come back to you. But with a bit of a downgrade, if I might say so.”

“I can love,” Jeremiah said. “I loved you, Michael. Or have you forgotten that we used to be brothers?”

“Brothers,” Michael spat. “Wipe your mouth, Jeremiah. It's bad to lie on judgment day.”

“Michael,” Gabriel said. “Put down the knife. Please.”

“Oh, shut
up
, Gabriel. You've ordered me around plenty enough. You were lucky to be the firstborn. Your soul's too haughty for anything but.”

The doors opened again, and the Stripling children came in, looking wary.

“What a pretty little party,” Michael said. “Come on, then. Join the grown-ups.”

The children started forward, more because they saw their mother than because they were listening to Michael. Shawn set Megan on her feet next to him. His first mistake. He let her run along ahead, arms open to their mother. His second.

Michael scooped her into his free arm and knelt down beside her.

Rebecca screamed.

Shawn saw the glint of the knife and knew better than to try anything. He grabbed Rebecca by the arm and dragged her on to the cluster of princes. Erika took Rebecca into her arms and pressed her, shaking, to her chest.

“What do we have here?” Michael breathed, his cheek close to Megan's. “A little dead girl.”

He spun her around and ripped open the top buttons of her dress, showing them the clean cut through Megan's back. Off to the side, Selaph flinched and looked away, as if wounded himself. Erika tightened her grip on Rebecca. The world disappeared around her and she felt herself going limp, her knees beginning to buckle. “No,” she moaned. “God, no. Oh God,
no.
”

Rebecca gripped the front of her mother's blouse and sobbed into the black silk. “I'm so sorry, Mom,” she said. “We didn't know. We came so far, but we didn't know.”

Erika heard the voice of her eldest daughter, but couldn't process the words. She was focused on Megan's pale skin and the thin line that went down into muscle. Down into her spine. The room was spinning.

Michael twirled Megan back to face their audience.

“You see,” he said to Jeremiah. “I needed to get to you, and so I had to get to her.” He pointed the tip of the knife over Megan's shoulder at Erika. “Has it worked, Erika?” he said, with a smile. “Do I have your attention now?”

Erika buried her face in Rebecca's hair.

“And you, Jeremiah,” Michael went on. “Do I have yours?” He twisted his free hand through Megan's hair and jerked her head toward him. Skin stretched white across her throat and eyes forced to look at the city of stars, Megan began to cry.

Selaph and Jeremiah stepped forward in the same instant.

“Please, Michael,” Selaph begged. “Some time to think. There is no turning back from where you are going.”

The second prince looked at his little brother as if charmed by his innocence. “There has never been any turning back,” he said. “That's the best part; I can't lose ground.”

“Stop speaking to me like that.” Selaph's voice had grown bitter. “Don't send me off to kill a child and then act like I'm still one myself.”

Jeremiah stepped ahead again and Selaph turned away, knowing his moment was lost.

“Trade places with her, Jeremiah,” said Michael.

“What?”

“It's you I want, not the little brat.” He put the edge of the knife to Megan's throat. “She's gone if I press at all. I'll drink her up like breakfast. But I'm not even hungry. Give yourself over, Jeremiah. You saw Father go. It isn't hard.”

“Don't,” Jeremiah said.

“Don't
what
?”

“Don't be stupid.”

“I don't think that label applies to me of all people, Jeremiah,” he said. “After all, it's you who just keeps trying and trying and trying and falling on your face every time. Aren't you damaged enough by now?”

Jeremiah jerked forward. “Michael —”

“Ah, tsk, tsk, tsk.” Michael clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Let's not be rash anymore. Go slow.”

Megan's face was damp and flushed, but the skin of her bare neck was stretched pale. A bubble of spit formed on her lips. “
Please
,” she whispered. “I'm
sorry
.”

“Oh, darling,” Michael crooned. “It isn't your fault. It's
his
.”

Jeremiah asked the question that had haunted him since the first day Michael had turned on him: “Brother. Why do you hate me?”

“I don't hate
you
, Jeremiah. I hate your worthless mother. And, unfortunately, I could never live happy with you alive. With you keeping
her
alive. So don't blame me for this. Blame her.”

He brought the blade down, with all his strength, and dropped Megan's body on the floor.

“Michael, no!” screamed Uriel. “What have you done?”

Erika was too devastated to make a sound. She collapsed to the ground, choking on her own breath. Rebecca went down with her, hitting the marble hard with her knees.

“Mom, what's going on?” The panic was thick over Rebecca's voice, but Erika couldn't bring herself to answer. Clean as morning mist, Megan's soul rose from her slashed throat. Erika watched, helpless, as Michael opened his mouth.

Jeremiah dove. Michael fell backward as his brother tumbled over him. The knife clattered from his grip and skidded across the polished floor.

Michael struggled to his feet, dragging Jeremiah up by the shoulders, and slammed his brother against the wall. “But now,” he said, “all the Striplings have come through the gate. And all it took was one little cut. Why didn't you think of
that
, Jeremiah? They always said that you were the clever one.”

The room fell silent. All eyes were on the two brothers, and on Uriel, who drew up behind them. His footsteps came soft on the marble, so quiet that Michael was surprised to feel his little brother's breath against his ear.

“You said that it was just politics,” Uriel said. His voice trembled on his tongue, teeth, lips. “A game.”

Michael felt the prick of the ritual knife through his jacket, against his spine. He tried to slow his breathing. “Kingdoms don't always have to battle for power, Uriel,” he said. “We can fight for family too.”

“No one should die over it. No one should die for blood ties.”

“And they should over a chair?” Michael laughed. “A chair and a title. Don't be so superficial, Brother.”

Uriel punched forward with the dagger, but Michael had already twisted away.

Jeremiah's eyes widened as the blade sank into his own stomach, pinning him against the wall.

Uriel's mouth fell open and he stumbled back, frightened.

“Uri —” Jeremiah gasped. Shock gleamed in his green eyes — his mother's eyes — and, worse, his mouth twisted with panic. “Uri …”

Uriel trembled. “Jeremiah,” he said. “Jeremiah, I'm sorry. Jeremy. Jeremy, forgive me.”

Jeremiah's hands went to the hilt of the knife, but he didn't try to pull it out. He looked frightened, like a wounded animal, but he could tell that the terror of the moment would be nothing next to the pain of his end. He'd been running for so long. Running and running and running. He didn't know what to do when cornered.

Uriel dropped to his knees in front of his youngest brother and bowed his head, shaking hands shielding his face. He couldn't look at what he'd done. At the mistake he'd made. He was breaking down. “Jeremy.” Each word tumbled out with a sharp gasp. “I'm … so … sorry.”

“Uri,” Jeremiah whispered, forcing out the last breath his spirit could manage. “It's —” He shivered, his body spasming. “It's — okay.” Jeremiah's head tipped forward, a line of spittle creeping toward his chin. His soul seeped out through the handle of the knife, pulling his body with it. He seemed to peel away from the wall, sucked forward into the fountain of pale smoke that rushed out in a column.

It hovered above the crowd, as if unsure, and then shot toward Erika and streamed a clean spiral around her curled and devastated body before erupting through the open ceiling and exploding, like a single blue-white firework, with a blast that knocked everyone off balance.

 

The knife clattered against the floor.

Michael was the first to pull himself back onto his feet. He was laughing. He staggered to the podium and settled his weight against it, looking down at Gabriel, who was just sitting up.

“I give you the keys to the Kingdom, Brother,” he said. “Bless you.”

“You killed him,” Gabriel said. “He was your brother and you killed him.”

“That bastard was no brother of mine,” Michael said. “He was an accident. A slip. I only cleaned up Father's mess, since he could never be bothered to do it for himself.”

“The Furies will come for you,” Gabriel said. “Tisiphone will come.”

“Tisiphone is myth.”

“What else is myth, Brother?” They all turned to look at Jegud as he spoke. “Furies are legend. That does not make them lies.”

Michael laughed. “I'm not so superstitious as you.”

They watched, puzzled, as Selaph stepped up behind Michael and leaned in close to his ear.

“Take my hand, Brother,” he said. “I think you may be dying.”

Once more, Michael could feel the knifepoint through his clothes. “I always loved you best, Selaph,” he whispered. “Is this your idea of loyalty?”

When Selaph pressed forward, Michael didn't fight.

It no longer mattered.

In the years since my car wreck, I've learned more about living, and more about love, than I ever knew existed. I can tell you now, without flinching, that I
am
dead. That my children buried my body with flowers and cherrywood and that a desperate prince pulled me from the wreckage he'd created. He did it for his own neck, I know now, but I've seen enough to move past that. We all have to fight for the things we love most, and, in the end, Jeremiah wasn't fighting for himself any longer.

I saw his face when they pinned him to that wall, and I've never felt so lost. He was terrified and trapped, and I felt that knife in my own stomach, taking away all the things I'd ever learned to love. But there was no regret in his eyes when he looked at me. He was born into war, after all, and not from it. He'd always been a lover.

He saved my little Meg.

Gabriel did also, to give credit where it's due. He pushed her soul back into that delicate, broken body and carried her to me. He said that she was mine now. I cried because I didn't want her.

I didn't want her like this.

She was supposed to go home, with Shawn and Rebecca, supposed to grow up.

She was supposed to live again.

Shawn told me that when he first woke in the hospital, he thought that he was dead. The doctors were thrilled that he'd come out of the coma. Smoke inhalation, they said. He hates how Judy-Garland-in-Kansas it was.

When they thought that he was well enough, they told him: His sister Rebecca had just opened her eyes in the next room. His sister Megan hadn't made it.

Matt was there, God love him.

John stayed away from Meg's funeral. In the weeks he left the kids to grieve, Shawn had his eighteenth birthday. He and Rebecca found an envelope on the porch, propped up against the storm door. Inside were the house title, signed over and witnessed, and a card with a watercolor rowboat. Rebecca went off to college and Shawn kept the house until he did too. Now it's gone to some family with a baby and a dog that barks too much. Or this is what Shawn tells me, when I see him. I slip in, sometimes, when he's sleeping, and so far he accepts it. Though I think the dreams of dying have begun to get a little old.

He's grown now. He's beautiful. He used to tell Rebecca how I was, but she's too afraid to hear it. She says that she's trying to forget, and I can't blame her. I only hope that she thinks of me sometimes, and smiles.

Megan doesn't talk to either of them, though she asks me how they are. I know that she remembers what those dreams are like. I see her through her open bedroom door, sometimes, staring out the window as Simon clips the hedges. Rakes the leaves. Trims away the dead. I wonder what she's thinking.

When she comes to me at midnight, slinking under the covers that, by now, I'm used to sleeping in alone, I know that I should teach her to let go, even if I can't, and wash away her body and the face that she's too old for. No one should be trapped at the age of eight for so many years.

But I also know that I'm greedy, and that she's smarter than her round cheeks and big eyes can tell you. These days, she creeps into my bedroom not because she's frightened, but because I need her. She's turning into a little rogue herself.

Sometimes I think that I should just let go and leave my crooked mother love behind, but, honestly, I'm afraid to. “Better the devil you know” and all that.

At least I've seen what death means.