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No, he agreed in a musical drawl. You aren't. But you are mine, my doll, my animate effigy. You gave yourself to me.
It had been written as a binding spell, designed to tie the spirit to an object, specifically, the black sapphire. “The spell,” I muttered. The stone had acted the conduit to tie my soul to this, this thing’s.
Lies can be written as well as spoken, my dear. Zakar settled back on his haunches and yawned. Let's deal with the dead, now, shall we? His slender neck craned toward Winnie and the child. Corpses tend to run off the reservation. Minds of their own, so to speak. When you haven't got your hands in there, wandering souls slither into the vacancy.
I sat in stony confusion, cradling my useless arm.
If the cat could've, he'd have rolled his eyes. Instead, his nose twitched and he sauntered back around me. He curled into a tight ball and settled his chin across my ankle. You unknowingly used the dead to chase off that nasty, nasty reaper. Imagine how easy it’ll be once you’ve learned how to tether. I'll help you this time, as familiars—which I am, by the way, in loose terms—are wont to do. Shut your eyes now. Feel the pull, reach into the cold eternal as it flows along.
I closed my eyes. Even shut, Zakar was there, in the shape of the low-slung cat but now one with fire burning beneath the dark fur over its heart. In a monochrome vision of my imagination, I didn't hurt here in the grey, frosted cold.
I saw Winnie and the child beside the tunnel.
A thread connected me to them, a thin seam of light running from their feet to mine. I gathered the strands in my hands, a soft rush of creation and bliss; pliable energy rather than malevolence.
You can cut, and you can keep; and if you are quick sometimes you may even mend.
When I wound the string around my fist, the wolves came forward. I thought about the crows; their lupine eyes fell at once on the gathering birds.
Zakar hissed from the leaden grass. The blazing cat slashed through the lines. The werewolves dropped dead.
I opened my eyes to the world of life, color and sound.
Regrettably, we don't have time to fool around.
“We?”
I have fallen in love with you, the cat declared in a matter-of-fact tone. For all the distrust I had in a demon, I couldn't sense anything disingenuous in his odd statement. I care about your wellbeing. Your body needs help. I have spent lifetimes searching for the bright potential inside of you.
I touched the sticky tooth impressions on my arm. “Well, tough. I'm not any better than Rhetta now.”
There followed a long pause and a curiously cheery, We'll see.
“I won't help you.”
You have that choice, he conceded. You won't resist forever, mon amour. We are the outcome of Hades and Persephone. He loved her the moment he laid eyes upon her; but she did not feel the same until they were already bound. It isn't love you have for me, yet, but you feel it, don't you? You’ve wreaked havoc to reach me. Zakar licked his shoulder. One green eye winked. I'm blushing under this fur coat.
“I didn't—”
But you did. And you'll harvest more souls for your bridal bouquet. The voice grew colder, deeper, a roar on my inside. My heart squeezed as if a hand of darkness massaged my pulse. Then the cat stretched his umber toes and rolled onto his feet. He ducked beneath my hand. The feeling subsided; my heartrate dropped. You are my other half, âme sœur, he panted. The sweet spring to my winter. I will have you, as lightning has thunder, as birth has death. We are inevitable. Your name sits in the place of honor in my collection, Mirele Pavlou. You are a bride of death. Embrace my night or be strangled by it.
Zakar, the wendigo, the demon, my familiar—whatever he was—lifted his head. His form dissolved on the cold wind.
The chill retreated from my body.
Right arm hanging painfully, I made my way to Cal. It was then I saw Caelan, dumped in the moat, his dark fur covered by two of the night’s deceased. Crows perched around them. Shooing the birds, I walked around to his front and grimaced. The mangled flesh and dislocated jaw made me sick, but I was too drained to throw up, too horrified. I couldn't help him.
One amber eye blinked.
“Hey,” I said quietly. I would've bent to touch him, wanted to throw my arms around him, but my arm was already too strained.
His tail thump-thumped.
“Cal's in worse shape. I'll be back,” I promised.
He started to claw himself free.
The closer I got to the alpha, the more I realized there wasn't anything I could do for her. With my right arm indisposed, I didn't have the strength to do more than make her comfortable.
