Chapter Nineteen

" G ood evening, Kevin. Is Marina with you?"

"No! And she's not answering her phone. It's almost seven. I'm trying not to be one of those controlling asshole partners that needs to know where his girl is every second, but I'm freaking the fuck out. This is Mr. Minegold, right?"

"Right. We were expecting you around six-thirty."

"I know! And Marina was going to cook. But she hasn't been home."

"I took the liberty of calling Onyx Farms. She left work at three."

"Shit."

I've been saying that word for the last hour and a half. I called Marina. Texted. She didn't answer. This afternoon there was a crazy heatwave, so I figured she might have been taking a longer swim. Maybe she needed to wait until it was dark for the air to start to cool. Maybe she stopped to help someone. Maybe she was at the gym applying for a lifeguard position. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

"That's a word that sprang to mind. I'm afraid something has happened to her. We have many members of the Night Watch out looking for her. Calder is swimming in the river and heading to the lake at White Pines to ask the other water dwellers to help. Do you know if there is anywhere she might have gone?"

"Her houseboat?"

"Calder will head there after alerting the others who live in the lake."

I'll ask about lake people later. "I don't even know where the hell that boat is, she's never— Hang on." I put the phone on my chest, wondering if the vampire can hear how hard my heart is beating as I storm to the bathroom and rip the clanking metal box free.

"Marina brought something from her houseboat to the apartment the other day. She told me not to open it, but she said it meant something to her, that it was the only thing worth bringing. It's still here. If she was going to leave me—"

"She will not leave you. She would not have made her vows to you if she were going to leave you," Minegold says sternly. "Open the box."

"But she said—"

"I think she will forgive us if there are clues to her whereabouts inside."

"Good point." I put the phone down on the tile floor and lift the lid with both hands, frowning at what I see inside. Coins. Lots of coins. Chains. Rings. A bracelet. A heart-shaped necklace. It's not the little boxy pendant that Minegold gave her, the "emergency battery" that stores up sexual energy. That's still lying on the nightstand.

Shit, is this stuff from her victims?

Fuck it, I don't care. And half of it looks feminine. And old. Could be hers from decades ago. Centuries, even.

"What is in the box?" Minegold demands.

"Coins and some jewelry. All green and tarnished."

"Ah, yes. Probably trinkets she's found in the water. I wonder why she told you not to open it?"

My stomach relaxes with his explanation. "I don't know. This is kind of her bank account in a box if that's the case. Maybe she didn't want me to know how much—more like how little—she has?"

"Possible."

"Y'all are magical! Can't someone whip up a spell to find her?"

"Yes. Ordinarily. We need an item of hers, preferably some of her hair, a nail clipping, a bit of blood—"

"Who the hell has—wait, I have a brush with her hair in it."

"Bring it with you and come to the magic shop in town. I'm already there with the books I believe may be important to understanding Koshchei's demise."

"Magic shop in town? I... I think I know that place. It's all purple and black, right?"

"It does stand out, doesn't it?" I can hear a grim humor in his voice.

"Be there in five." I grab the box (just in case) and the brush, and sprint for my keys.

"I did say ordinarily. Sometimes... Sometimes very powerful beings can block scrying."

I'll ask what "scrying" is later; I'm already pounding down the hallway. "Powerful like—"

"Like Koshchei."

"He's not up yet. Not awake. There's no moon, I thought it was all about the full moon!" I sound panicked and whiny. I want to call my mom and dad, and I don't give a fuck that I'm closer to thirty than thirteen, too old to want my family to hold me together.

"I know, so did I. I... I don't know what to tell you, only that I am very concerned."

Fuck this. I'm calling my mom. "Be right there."

I hang up in one push and hit the number for my parents' house phone in the next.

Mom picks up. "Kevin!" Her voice injects straight comfort into my veins.

"Mom, put me on speaker and get Dad to listen. Marina's missing."

"Marina? The girl you just met?"

"Yes, the girl I just met. She didn't break up with me. I'm talking ‘missing person' stuff."

Dad's voice comes on, serious and low. "Are the police involved? Are you a suspect? Want me to get you a lawyer?"

"What? No! The town is like... putting together a search party, and I'm going over there with her hair brush so they can see if they can track her."

"Like with dogs?"

Werewolves, maybe. And maybe searching is the normal people word for scrying. "Yeah."

"Son, you better be careful. They always suspect the boyfriend and—"

"No one suspects me. This town isn't like that. This town is... It's full of the best people, Dad." My voice thickens up as I peel off a layer of tire, zooming out of the parking lot.

"You want us to come up there? We're coming up there. We still have our suitcases out from visiting Carter."

"Work..."

"You need us. You and your brothers have always come before work."

"No... No, it's okay. Let me get in touch tomorrow morning. We had some really hot weather today and you remember how I told you she works part-time at a local orchard? She might have gotten dehydrated and fainted. You know what, let me call the hospital. I'll keep you posted."

"We're still packing our bags. I haven't seen my baby boy in a month. We'll be up this weekend, either way. Okay?"

"Yeah, Mom, sounds good. Sorry to panic. But um... I'm panicking. Praying would be good, you know?"

"We'll be praying, son."

Does prayer work on demons?

Maybe not most demons, but for Marina, for the people in Pine Ridge who I can already see filing into the magic shop as I careen up down quaint little streets?

Yep. I'm going to bet it works.

"I gotta go. I'm at the meet-up for the search party."

"Text us, call us, day or night, you hear?"

"Love you, too, guys."

I CAN HEAR WATER. SENSE it all around me.

Then why don't I feel it caressing me? Why am I so weak? Why do I hurt everywhere? How come my skin feels like it's literally peeling from my body?

Long, sharp things jab at my neck and snarling noises fill my ears.

My eyes fly open, and I see—the definition of hideous.

The Bone Lord is made of black bones that gleam with sickly wetness in the dim light. His face is covered in hanging strips of flesh, round red orbs of eyes glaring at me with poisonous disgust. His tall form is folded and bent, long legs crouched at the knee, towering rib cage curved under his knobby spine so he can peer down at me.

"At least you're well-fed," he hisses, jaws clacking. Long bony spindles of fingers rake across my chest—but don't poke through. He snarls, disappointed. "Well-protected, too. You're no longer a handmaid."

I hold my tongue. Appealing to reason doesn't work with mad demons.

"You're useless... like this."

"Like what?" I whisper, throat so raw that I taste blood when I talk. I wonder how long I've been out. What's he done to me while I was sleeping? I flex my sore body, but the pain is only surface, a magnification of what I've felt before when I went too long without water. I don't think he did anything but steal my energy. Even though I'm terrified, I'm thankful for that small mercy.

"You've given yourself to a human to thwart me."

"No one uses words like thwart anymore," I spit back, blood dotting my lips. While he paces in front of me, I take in the surroundings. Small dark room. Water around us. Under us. I can tell by the way it laps at the surface under me and behind my head.

Boat. A nice, modern boat by the feel of the fiberglass walls against my back—but I'm trapped in an interior room. No windows.

"You pretend to live in the mortal world. I do not. I know ancient words that will cause you much pain—but not until you've borne me a new crop of handmaids to harvest souls."

"I believe the term you want—in this modern world—is ‘shit out of luck,'" I say with a defiant smile that makes my lips split.

"You are the only rusalka left. As such, you are not my handmaid, you are my queen . The rules will be different. You will be as the first bride I ever bred."

My skin crawls, and my legs involuntarily press together. "But... You said I was useless."

"Like this. Given to a worthless one, a soul vessel."

"A human." A human that I love.

Wait, what does that mean? Why is he mentioning my human, my Kev? My hands flex, and I realize that I'm not bound. That's a good and bad thing. It means I can move but that Bony thinks I'm no threat. Well, maybe I'd better let him think that for a little longer—especially since I can't really prove otherwise right now.

I scoot away from him and realize that any good the dip in the water did me has been stripped away by his relentless feeding. I'll end up like Darya and the others if he's not careful. While he couldn't feed from me before, that's no longer the case, probably since he's here, in this realm, able to physically touch me and not simply relying on some parasitic soul-bond.

"Yes, a human. Another human to kill, how delicious."

"Another?" My mind is a spiral of fear. Which human did he hurt? Oh, God! Carrie Onyx? Someone sitting near the river? Janet??

"You don't think the owner of this boat just handed it to me, do you?" He smacks his jaws together. "I had not tasted one directly in over four hundred years. Such... memories . And once I kill the one who owns your soul, then I can take you, not as a handmaid, but as a queen."

Panic makes me talk. "You can't take me from him. Even if he dies, our souls are bound for eternity. Heaven, Hell, or in between, we are going to be together. You're not the only one with powers—and you are friendless. I am not." I lift my chin—and smile.

The angry red glare turns molten, and black claws rake across my skin, dragging down, raising red rivulets that make me hiss. But not scream. I will not scream for this monster.

Kev is right. I'm not a monster. Koshchei is.

Again, he goes for my chest—and his pointy fingers tap harmlessly.

Soul. He wants mine, wants to stab it right out, but it won't come. It's not his to take. And I'm not so easy to kill as a mortal.

"Well. It's worth a try. I'm fairly certain that if he's dead and you're still living, your body will at least be usable again." Koshchei leans down closer, hands gripping my knees as he pulls strength from me. The strips of skin on his face knit themselves together in front of my eyes—eyes now too weak to keep open.

"He even tried to breed you, didn't he? Doesn't he know that as long as I own you, you'll be barren to all others?"

Words slur. Tears drip, or at least try. "Loves me anyway. He loves me."

"He loves fucking you. Using your holes. It's the same way a fish loves the worm, right before he feels the hook slice through his flesh."

"You're. Wrong. And if you keep... taking my energy... you'll die when I do. I'm okay with that." Exhaustion wins. I sink into unconsciousness as I hear Koshchei cursing and stomping from the room, the sound of locks bolting into place.

There's no easy escape.

And I hope Kev doesn't try to rescue me, even though I want him so bad it hurts worse than any other pain I'm feeling—which probably would break records if pain was a thing that could truly be measured.

His face is the last thing I see as my mind fades. Stay safe, sweetheart. I'll see you soon... One way or another.

"THERE'S A BAD DISTURBANCE . Big enough and evil enough that wards didn't stop it."

Oh, that's real comforting. I clear my throat and feel out of place, the lone "normal" person in a room full of big, ancient books and jars on the shelves that are labeled things like "Saber Grass" and "Pickled Black Widow Thoraxes."

"I have Marina's brush."

"Scrying probably won't work," Madge says, taking it from me with a grim expression. "Something bad is in town."

I swallow down the retort I want to make. "Koshchei. The Big Bad K. Can we just stop talking and go kill him? Is that not something you guys do?" Maybe all their big plans about knights and horses were just talk.

The room falls silent for a second or two. Mr. Minegold clears his throat. "We are perfectly comfortable dispatching the killers in our midst—but following his path is hard. He was strong enough to rise, but I imagine he's weak by an elder demon's terms."

"So let's do this the old-fashioned way. Dogs? Cell phone pings? What do you do when there are missing people?" I'm trying to be calm. I tell myself screaming and cursing out all the people standing by a big round table while my Marina could be dead is not going to help her.

She's alive. I know she's alive, because I'm still up, moving around.

That's what I tell myself.

Can't live without her. My soul would know if something was wrong.

Overdramatic? Crazy?

Yes—but only where she's concerned.

"Drink this. It'll brace you."

A ginormous green orc shoves a flask in my hand. He's the father of the bride from that wedding I went to—and that makes him Farrah Fenclan's hubby, I guess. "I need a clear head." I hand it back.

There's a flash of tusks and a dangerous light in bottomless eyes. "Drink it, laddie. It's my wife's finest healing drought, mixed with my best winter mead—the very last of it."

What the hell? I take a swig.

Fire and pinballs and Molotov cocktails explode in my throat and up my sinuses—and then the fire goes out and the ashes in my head settle.

I'm calm. Dangerous.

"Where's the knight? The police officer?" I ask, voice slow and low, the kind of voice meant to cut through clamor.

"Ardy's already out on patrol, looking for her," Madge says.

"Who's got good hearing?" Half the room raises their hands.

"Vampires and wolves do," Minegold explains.

"Didn't someone say the cop could turn into a horse?"

"Yes, he is a pooka, so that's one of his forms. But—"

"Cars can't go where Marina went on foot. I'll bet you a million bucks that she went in the river, and that's where he got her—and that's why no one saw him in town itself. He got her between Onyx Farms and town, and caught her on the outskirts. But a horse can run the riverbanks and even go in the water, right?"

"True. Calder is already leading volunteers in the water," Farrah soothes.

"I have Marina's cell number, and I know the route she takes when she walks home from her job at Onyx Farms." I take a second, much tinier sip. "Ask the cop to saddle up so we can run her route and listen for the phone ringing. The guys in the water can listen, too."

"We can scry her phone, if not her! That would be a good place to start," a woman with a delicate face that reminds me of a sugar skull remarks.

"Good idea, Sera. Can you tell if she's..." Tess, the redhead with the giant baby bump asks.

"Sera is a morrigan," Mr. Fenclan whispers.

Like I know what the hell that is.

"As far as I know, she lives. And I know I would be called to collect her soul if she died in my region—I take any souls who lose their battles," this Sera chick says to me, big eyes luminous and beautiful, out of place in the mass of carved bones and flowers that make up her skin. "She is still fighting."

I'm relieved—and hurting worse than ever. My baby is fighting, and I'm not there to save her. Protect her. Help her. Hell, just cheer her on. I put my hand over my mouth and nod, unable to speak for a second.

"Tess and Alban will work on breaking down whatever defenses allow him to hide from us," Minegold suddenly snaps his fingers and the "troops" fall in. "Farrah, Madge, and Sera—you scry and stay in touch. Ian, Kevin, and I will hurry to rendezvous with Ardy, and we'll see if Janet can help us locate Calder to get any news from him. Everyone keep your phones handy. Text when you have updates. Come on, young man. I'll add you to the Night Watch messages."

Like pigeons scattering when someone throws a whole bag of birdseed, everyone rushes and talks, a cacophony that's better than the screaming in my head. See? Action. Action is good. We're going to find Marina.

And she'd better be in one piece, or demon immortal or no, I'm going to kick Big K's ass straight back into Hell.

WATER. SLOSHING RIGHT by my head. Coolness presses against my healing skin, still sore and feverish.

My eyes open and then slam shut. I don't want to see the spiky black shards of bone that make up Koshchei's hands—or the glass that he holds.

"We're playing a dangerous game, you and I," he whispers, something sinister in every syllable.

I'm silent, listening.

"I've drained so much of your energy—and you were already not as strong as you would've been if you'd been obedient and taken souls instead of mere life force. And I'm weaker than I should be—feeding so poorly, rising so early. I think I have... oh, a week, perhaps? Yes, only a week before I'm no more."

A single drop of water falls from the moisture condensing on the glass and lands on my arm. My skin sucks it in desperately, but it's nowhere near enough.

"But I've drained so much of your energy," he circles back with a dark chuckle, "that you'll die long before me. I'd say you have a day—perhaps two. I can feed by force, little rabbit, now that I can touch you. But if you should renounce your human lover, start feeding properly again..." Another splash of water, this one enough to make my lips part with a shaky gasp. "You and I could live for years. Centuries."

I sit silent for a long time, and the fiend hovering over me keeps talking, luring, tempting... Idiot. That is my game, not his. Clearly, he thinks he's getting somewhere, but all I'm doing is waiting for the condensation to slip off the glass and kiss my skin.

Maybe I can make him mad enough to throw it at me?

At long last, he falls silent, the allure leaving his voice, impatience winning. "Well? Well, worthless little rusalka, so soon doomed to die? Take my offer and live forever. A queen."

Eyes slit to peep at him from under my lashes, I give him a faint smile. "Yes. A queen."

"Yes?" Bony hands begin to lift me. There's a note of trembling excitement in his voice, so desperate that I can hear the rustle of desperation in the single syllable.

"But not yours. I have a king. I have a knight. Several, actually, a force. Your servants are gone—but my army stands."

Oh, he rages. He screams and shakes and slashes, but when you're so tired, fading fast—the pain barely registers.

Let him tire himself out. Let him end us both, sooner the better. Kev is young. He can find another—at least for this life.

"Your army? Of what? Pathetic mortals? Humans?"

There's a hard thump, and Koshchei collapses.

Every time he attacks, he gets weaker. And if he's weak enough, he'll feed from me. He'll feed until there's nothing left, and then... He'll die.

There's a strange satisfaction in knowing I can beat him, even if it means sacrificing myself.

Hands remain balled into spiny fists in his lap, and his foul breath comes in harsh gasps when he speaks again. "Your mortals won't be able to reach us here, my dear. We are already heading out to sea."

CALDER AND JANET SIT in a boat that looks way too big for the tiny river that it's on.

And I'm pretty sure it's a ghost boat. It doesn't look... substantial.

Then again... I'm currently riding around on a cop who turned himself into the biggest black horse I've ever seen, something roughly the size of a bulldozer with glowing red eyes and mist rolling off its body.

In Pine Ridge, when they say spooky season—they mean it.

"This river flows past the Chenango and meets up with the Mohawk River. If he wants to take her out to sea, he'll have to take the Mohawk to the Hudson, then out to the Atlantic."

"But he's a demon. Why wouldn't he just poof the boat right over to the Baltic Sea or the North Siberian Sea or whatever?" I demand. Underneath me, Cop Horse whinnies in agreement. At least, I think it's an agreement.

We've been running the riverbank all night. We found Marina's phone bag by the river, halfway between town and Onyx Farms. Knowing that she didn't head toward town, we followed the river in the other direction.

I know that it'll be morning soon, and I'm in the middle of nowhere with a horse that used to be a dude, a vampire who's probably going to burst into flames when the sun comes up, and other assorted human-looking and not-so-human-looking people. Oh yeah, and the kraken and his lethal weapon of a girlfriend on a ghost boat.

"There was a drowning at the Mohawk Yacht Club just before sunset, and a small "weekender" yacht was stolen. It belonged to the dead man. Koshchei may be too weak to use all of his powers, or he may not have them when he's in this mortal realm. I'm not sure why he put Marina on a boat."

Janet speaks up. "I am. Keeping her near water is essential to her survival—but not letting her access it gives him power. If he stays on land, he's stationary and can be caught. If he heads out into the open sea, he can disappear in a yacht that size."

Calder beams. "She was an army strategist, you know."

How the hell would I know, man?

I don't say that.

"So we need to reach them before they get to the sea. Everyone get on board!" Calder flails his tentacles in a come hither gesture.

The horse under me shimmies and shrinks, and I jump off just in time. "That thing doesn't look stable."

"It's fae-made! It was left for us in front of Country Pines," Calder insists.

"Someone want to tell me what a fae is?" I demand, already charging the boat.

"I'm fae. Well, on my dad's side," Ardy says, following me.

"Fair folk. Fairies. But there are literally hundreds of kinds, and many are unkind or mischievous where humans are concerned. The ones that run Country Pines Motel are rarely seen and seldom spoken of. However, you can usually find what you need there," Minegold stands on the bank, hesitating as he looks at the sky.

"Yes. I met my Janet there," Calder explains. "Marina met some fae nobility there a while ago—but that was before you."

"Jakob! In or out?" I shout from the deck, which glimmers like silver and does funny things to my throbbing head. I feel like I'm standing on air.

"Is there a spot out of the sun? It'll be dawn soon."

"There's a little space below. I think you'd fit," Janet says.

People pile on. Leo the werewolf, Ian the Orc, Renaldo, Madge's boyfriend—and about six other people I don't know. Is people the right term when some of them are very clearly non-human? I'm gonna go with it.

"Will this slow us down? What are we going to do when we get there?"

Janet bends, grunts, and lifts something that looks like an anti-tank gun off the sparkling starlight deck. "I think we ram his boat—or sink his boat with this. It's a MANPAT!"

"Where the fuck—whoa!" I collapse on my back as the boat takes off so fast that my feet zoom out from under me like I'm in a bad cartoon.

"It came with the boat!" Janet screams as I haul myself upright. "Man-portable anti-tank system. And no, the boat doesn't seem to get weighed down, either."

"If we shoot his boat, won't that endanger Marina?" We have to shout over the rush of the boat against the water. Behind us, the water moves and heads and tails lift and fall in its wake, just about keeping up.

"She can breathe underwater! Getting her in the water will probably help her!"

"I don't like this plan!"

"Do you have a better one?" Minegold demands.

"Only a knight and his great horse can kill Koshchei according to the legend."

Jakob nods and then comes over to me, walking steadily, like the choppy jumping motion of this freaky made-of-mist-and-magic boat doesn't even affect him. "Horse, hmm? Manny!"

Manny turns out to be an honest-to-God Frankenstein's monster. His skin is gray-green and scarred like a patchwork quilt, but he trots over with a concerned face and his arms outstretched. One lands hard on my back and one thumps down on Mr. Minegold's shoulder. "What's up, fellas? What can I do?"

"Manny is a mechanic, and he owns a used car dealership in Pine Ridge. Manny, could you hazard a guess at how much horsepower this fae-craft has?"

"Oooh. Well. I mean, a small weekender yacht—like Janet mentioned—would have about 500 horsepower."

The boat skips over a boulder and waterfall like it's nothing.

I try not to barf. The only reason I'm not on my knees is because the monster mechanic is still holding me upright.

"This is moving way faster than any normal boat!" Minegold shouts over the rush of the waterfall we're speeding away from.

"Are you saying we can take out his boat with our boat? We'll all get thrown in the water with a big-ass demon!" I argue.

"Our boat won't crack—I don't think. But it's certainly got the power of many horses. I think if the prophecy mentions the Lord of Bones can only be stopped by a great knight and his horse—the power of 500 plus horses wins. Between this boat and the little blaster that Janet's packing, I suspect we can free Marina." Minegold looks grave as he turns to me. "But I think you will be the one to finish him."

"I'm not a knight!"

"I'm not sure anymore. Ardy protects everyone—but you alone were chosen by Marina to protect her. As far as I know, she has never given her heart and soul to another to keep safe. I cannot think of anything more knight-like."

I shake my head as the soft pink glow starts to cover the boat. Jakob needs to get below, but I don't think he's right. "She told me I'm her king. Not her knight. She picked me. Married me, even if it wasn't a normal wedding."

"And aren't we foolish to think that there can be warrior queens and kings who lead their troops into battle, but that a man who would lay down his life for his beloved is not a knight?" He blinks at me, something far away and sad creeping into his eyes. "My Magda has been gone so long now—but I became what I am, gave my life to take this form, to make sure I could free her and our children." He pats my shoulder and slips away. "I know a knight when I see one."

He leaves. The sun rises. The boat chases it, sailing into orange and pink waters at breakneck speed, slipping and shifting past other boats like we're invisible. Maybe we are.

I'm not going to worry about that right now. I have to think about what Jakob said.

I know a knight when I see one.

But I've never been a fighter, I've always been a healer, a helper.

What if it is my job to save Marina—and I can't deliver?