Familiar Spirit

Chapter Fourteen

How long she might have remained like that, weeping and helpless, Sarah never knew. Why didn’t Jade take her? Why didn’t he destroy her? He must be strong enough now, and she too weak to resist. She wished that he would take her, that he would snuff out her consciousness so she wouldn’t have to remember. She was roused from her miserable stupor by a pounding that rattled the back door.

Mechanically Sarah rose, found that her legs would hold her this time, and wiped her eyes and nose with a tissue. Then she walked slowly back to answer the door.

Valerie was there, looking thinner and paler and madder than ever.

“What’s happened?” she demanded, pushing past Sarah into the house. She looked around, almost sniffing the air like a wild animal. “What happened? What did you do?”

Sarah shook her head. “Nothing.”

Valerie glared at her. “Don’t lie to me! Do you think I don’t know? Something happened; I could feel it. I knew it. For the first time I could—I was free, he wasn’t controlling me. For the first time I could think, I could see what he’d done to me. He left, he actually left, and I was myself again. And I knew then—I won’t, I won’t be his anymore; I won’t let him control me anymore.”

Sarah stared at her blankly, unable to follow the torrent of words.

“Tell me,” Valerie insisted, her voice becoming a childish whine. “You don’t trust me, but it’s true—I’m not his anymore. I want to help you, I’m on your side. Look, look what I did. This will prove what I say; look what I did.” She reached into her large leather shoulder bag and pulled out a handkerchief. She held it out, unfolding it almost under Sarah’s nose.

The once-white handkerchief held a squashed, messily slaughtered toad. The remains of Lunch. Repulsed, Sarah staggered back. She looked at Valerie and saw that the other woman had tears in her eyes, and her forehead was beaded with sweat.

“You see?” said Valerie. “I am free. I killed my own, my little Lunch . . . I had to kill a part of myself, but I killed a part of Jade as well. And he doesn’t own me anymore. And I’ll help you.” Suddenly she frowned and looked more sharply at Sarah. “What happened to you? What did he do?”

Sarah shrugged. She wouldn’t admit to anyone what had just happened to her, but at the moment she lacked the energy even to think up a plausible story.

“Tell me, you have to tell me. Tell me and I’ll help you. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Oh, go away,” Sarah said wearily. “I don’t need your help; you can’t help me. If you’ve escaped from Jade, so much the better for you. You’d better run for it—isn’t that the advice you gave me, once? Run for it, before he calls you back?”

“He’s done something to you, oh, what’s he done?” Valerie stared wildly around, and a faint, warning pang struck through Sarah’s haze of misery. Get her out of here.

“Just get out,” she said to Valerie. “It’s not your problem. You can’t help me. I was safer here alone—don’t you know he could use us against each other?” She had a sudden, vivid image of herself, out of control, attacking Valerie, killing her, and she clenched her fists. No. She had succumbed to Jade sexually, but that did not make her his creature. She was not his instrument, she would not kill, and she would not bring him any victims. She would not.

“We can help each other,” Valerie said. “Two of us have to be stronger than one.”

“Not against Jade.”

“Yes. Why not? He’s not invulnerable—I realized that when I killed Lunch.” She sniffed, and blinked, and rewrapped the toad’s remains, placing the small bundle carefully back inside her purse. “We can draw a new circle to protect ourselves, and say all the spells just right, and—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarah interrupted. Valerie’s presence was rubbing at her tender nerves. She moved away from her, but Valerie came after, once again standing too close, pressuring her.

“Spells and magic circles won’t work,” Sarah said. “Jade isn’t a demon, and it doesn’t make any sense to act as if he were. That sort of thing is just a joke to him.”

“What do you mean? What do you know?”

Where was Jade, Sarah wondered. What was he waiting for? When would he strike? She decided to tell Valerie the truth. Jade could try to stop her if he wanted.

“He’s a man,” she said. “Or at least he was. He was a magician who didn’t die when his human body did, because he had managed to imprint a part of his personality into a carved stone. And as long as it survives, he survives. So the reason we can’t kill him by killing the cat or the toad or whatever animal he’s lodged in is that another part of him, his essence, is still preserved in a piece of jade.”

“Jade,” said Valerie, wonderingly. “But . . . I called him up, out of nothing. I recited an invocation to spirits, and he came. He must be a spirit.”

“Oh, he’s a spirit, but not the sort he made you think he was. And you didn’t call him up out of nothing . . . he was using you, getting you to focus your will by reciting spells and all that nonsense. Where do you suppose you first got the idea of using witchcraft?”

Valerie shook her head dumbly. “It was . . . after I moved into this house.”

“That’s right. And it was Jade who put that idea into your head. You must have been especially susceptible . . . and he was trapped, and he needed someone to help him escape. You were the focus for his powers.”

“But how do you know this? Did Jade tell you? Why should you believe what he says?” Suddenly her face sharpened, like that of a dog who has caught a scent. “You found it. You found that piece of jade. Where is it?”

Sarah shook her head swiftly, feeling it imperative not to let Valerie know. “No. I didn’t.”

But Valerie had pushed past Sarah into the next room, where the shattered wall told a story. “Where is it?” she asked again.

Sarah hurried after, to the jade figure where it lay among the rubble. She looked at it, afraid to touch it, afraid of bringing it to life again.

“That?” Valerie leaned down, reaching for it, and Sarah had to swoop and scrabble to get there first. Her fingers closed around the slightly sticky stone and she ground her teeth, repressing a shudder. At least she had rescued it from Valerie.

When she straightened up, she saw that Valerie was staring at her, a frightened look on her face. “You’re his now,” Valerie said in a low voice.

Sarah shook her head in a hard, nervous negation. Her body prickled with goosebumps; for a moment she seemed to feel invisible hands stroking her.

Panic flared in Valerie’s eyes and she backed away. Then, with an obvious effort of will, she stopped. “You tried to help me,” she said. “I didn’t think there was any hope, and I didn’t care. But you did. You wanted to fight, for me as well as for yourself. And . . . now it’s not fair if I’m free but Jade’s got you.”

For the first time Sarah felt she was seeing the person Valerie had been once, before the madness and the slavery inflicted by Jade. The emotion in Valerie’s voice reached her, seemed to cut through the fog in her mind. She shook her head. “No, Jade hasn’t got me,” she said. And, although it was an effort, she managed to laugh. “In fact, you might say that it’s the other way around. I’ve got Jade.”

She extended her hand and opened the fingers slowly to reveal the small, carved figure. Before she could say or do anything else, Valerie had snatched up the little object.

Then, with a cry of fear, Valerie flung it away from her. She was trembling violently. “It is,” she whispered, her terror-stricken eyes fastening on Sarah’s face. “It is Jade—I could feel him! Oh, what are we going to do?”

“It’s his immortality,” Sarah explained. “As long as it exists, he can’t die. It’s what allows him to go from body to body. It’s why killing the bodies doesn’t kill him. If we destroyed the statue—”

“He’d die,” Valerie said, her voice soft and gloating. “Oh, yes.” She looked around the room. “What can we use? We’ll smash it to bits.”

But Sarah was having second thoughts. “Wait a minute. What if we’re wrong? What if by smashing the thing we actually set Jade free, release his power?”

Valerie considered this, then shook her head. “Can’t be. If that was what he wanted, he would have gotten me or you to smash it long ago. It’s been hidden away just to keep him safe.”

Yes, of course. And Jade wouldn’t have tried so hard to keep her from smashing it when she found it. Another sensual memory made her shiver. Valerie was right, she told herself. The statue must be destroyed.

But still she was reluctant. She saw Valerie pick the hammer off the floor and, feeling drawn against her will, Sarah crossed the room and picked up the carved figure.

Holding it made her feel better, stronger, and more secure. Power throbbed within the stone, but it was a muted, quiescent power, no threat to her. Jade was waiting. For what?

“Sarah?”

Sarah turned to face Valerie. The hand holding the figure pulled it close to her breast, protectively.

“Let’s not do anything too quickly,” Sarah said. “There might be a way we could use this power for ourselves. And we can’t afford to make any mistakes. After all, even if the stone is destroyed, Jade will go on existing in some animal body somewhere, and it could be difficult to find.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Valerie said. “Anyway, how much harm can one little rat do? Rats don’t live very long, do they? Wherever else Jade is now, his real power is in that stone, that thing you’re holding.”

Sarah stood still holding the statue against her breast, trying to put her uneasiness, her reason for hesitating into words that would convince Valerie.

“Give it to me,” Valerie said. She stared at Sarah, a trace of the old madness in her eyes. “Oh, I see. You don’t want to destroy him at all, do you? You’ve made some kind of deal with him. What did he promise you? It’s all lies, you know. You won’t get anything from him—you’re better off without him—I know.”

“Of course I haven’t made any deal,” Sarah said firmly. “I just . . . don’t think we should do anything rash. We know so little about Jade, after all.”

But Valerie went on staring. “No,” she muttered. “Not a deal, but something else, something else . . . You’re different. It wasn’t like it was for me, was it, for you? You want Jade.”

It was true. Once again Sarah felt her body charged with desire, and she knew who could satisfy it. The thing in her hand changed: she held Jade’s power, Jade’s immortal soul, Jade’s sex throbbing against her. And she wanted to feel it inside her again. Sarah started to smile at the delicious memories which filled her mind, and then she saw the uncomprehending horror on Valerie’s face. That look cut right through her moody, sensual daze and she realized what was happening to her.

“No,” Sarah said hoarsely as disgust and self-hatred rose up in her. She opened her numbed fingers, letting the jade figure drop away from her. Pleasure was just another trap, far more dangerous than pain. But she could still think, she could still make decisions, no matter what her flesh wanted. She turned her self-loathing instead against Jade. It was Jade she hated, and always had. Jade was her enemy. She made the decision to save herself.

“Give me the hammer,” she said to Valerie. “I won’t be his slave.”

A low, eerie howl close by froze them both.

“The cat,” said Valerie. “It’s him.” She put the hammer in Sarah’s hand and strode towards the front door.

“No,” said Sarah, suddenly alarmed. “Valerie, don’t!”

But she was too late. Valerie had the front door open, and something came flying in. Something moving so fast it was scarcely more than a blur, aimed straight at Valerie’s head.

Valerie screamed. Lines of blood streaked her face. A black cat hit the ground, recovered itself immediately, and again launched itself at Valerie, this time trying to claw its way up her leg.

“Kill it! Get it off me!” Valerie shrieked. She kicked her legs wildly, trying to dislodge the animal, and began to bash at it with her heavy purse.

Sarah hesitated. There was something wrong here, she thought. Was it only another distraction, to keep them from destroying the figure? But if the cat was Jade’s other form, then here was the chance they had hoped for.

Wishing for gloves or a blanket to protect herself but aware that she had no time to get anything, Sarah dropped the hammer and jammed the stone figure into a pocket of her jeans and stepped forward. She grabbed hold of the animal by the scruff of its neck and the bony ridge of its back and, although it twisted and writhed in her grasp, it could not reach her, and she was able to dislodge it from Valerie’s thigh.

“Get me something,” Sarah said. “A blanket or something—I don’t know how long I can hold it.”

The cat was possessed, howling again and writhing madly.

Valerie dug into her purse. The blood flowed freely down her face, staining her blouse with bright red flowers. She looked up, tossing her head back in an impatient movement to clear both blood and hair from her eyes. She withdrew a curved, shining knife from her purse. The sight of it made Sarah’s stomach lurch and she almost thought she remembered the knife from some other time, or perhaps a dream. A dream of blood and carnage. Holding the knife seemed to calm Valerie. She smiled, and the mad, tense face relaxed beneath the stripes of blood.

“This time he won’t get away,” Valerie said.

Sarah looked down at the cat, realizing that it had stopped struggling and was silent. When she looked down at it, it twisted its head within her grasp to look up at her, and Sarah saw that familiar golden stare again.

As those golden eyes burned into hers, she felt her nostrils stop up, her mouth become sealed, and she realized that she had stopped breathing. She couldn’t remember how to breathe.

“Don’t look at it; you idiot,” Valerie said harshly.

With a gasp, Sarah broke away.

“I thought you knew so much,” Valerie said contemptuously. “I thought you were being so careful. He’s got you, doesn’t he? You’d never have been able to break away or smash the statue if I hadn’t come over. You’d be helpless by yourself. You still have the stone?”

Sarah nodded, staring at Valerie.

With the hand not holding the knife, Valerie caught hold of the cat’s throat. The tips of her fingers met the tips of Sarah’s through the smooth fur. She was smiling.

“Shall we make it watch while we smash the stone?” Valerie asked, her voice heavily playful. “Teach it about impending doom. Let Jade know we’ve won—that he’s trapped inside one very scrawny cat until we decide to end all his lives with this very sharp blade.”

The cat lay as still in their shared grasp as if already dead. Sarah longed to look at it, to look at its eyes and see if Jade was still there, but she controlled herself. That would be foolish. He could still destroy her, if she let him. But all the same, she could not shake the disturbing thought that Jade might have fled this limp body for a safer one.

“Do you want to hold him while I kill him?” Valerie asked. “Or do you want me to do it all? A little more blood won’t make any difference to my clothes.”

Sarah did not like the idea of holding the cat while it was slaughtered, but she did not relinquish her grasp. “Valerie,” she said urgently. “We need to think this through. There’s something wrong here. Why did he come to us? He must have known what we were planning, so why did he come running straight into a trap? We should wait—”

“You wait,” said Valerie. The hand that had encircled the cat’s neck pulled away; the hand that held the knife swung in close. The sharp blade bit into the furred throat and there was a sudden, thick rush of blood—bright and oddly beautiful against the sleek blackness.

Sarah stared at the limp, warm mass in her hands. Then, as the blood began to crawl down her arm, she threw the cat away, crying out her disgust.

She turned to Valerie, then, meaning to curse her furiously, but the words died unspoken. Something was terribly wrong.

Valerie’s eyes had rolled up so that only the whites showed beneath fluttering lids. Always pale, she was now so dead white that the welts on her face stood out lividly and seemed to pulse. The muscles in her neck were taut and corded, and her lips stretched back from her teeth. Her chest labored; she was breathing, but seemed unable to draw a breath deep enough to satisfy.

Jade.

For a moment Sarah was frozen, staring, and then she remembered what she had to do.

She had to destroy the statue.

Trembling, she pulled it from her pocket, feeling as if she had been carrying a venomous snake in her jeans. Why had she waited so long? Why hadn’t she destroyed it when she found it? Was she so weak, so controlled by Jade?

Still she paused, holding the thing in her hands, looking carefully at it. It was oddly beautiful, and yet undeniably disturbing. A naked woman carved with great skill from a piece of jade, with such attention to detail that the lines and hollows that made up the tiny face became an expression of gleeful, individual evil. But it did not move as she stared at it, and she was aware, as she held it, that Jade had left only the faintest trace of himself in the stone, only an anchor. He must be focusing all his power on Valerie, struggling with her for possession of her body, hoping to win after all.

Sarah backed away from Valerie, recovered her hammer, and crouched on the floor, setting the stone figure carefully down. She gripped the hammer with both hands, then, and raised it high, and brought it down with all her might.

The hammer struck the wooden floor, the impact sending a teeth-jarring shock through her body. Sarah stared down in disbelief, but she knew she had seen it. As the hammer descended, the green stone had seemed to become pliable, semi-liquid, and it had squirmed to one side, just far enough to avoid the blow.

Valerie screamed.

Sarah looked around in time to see Valerie rushing at her, knife raised and threatening, her eyes wide. No time even to stand. With Valerie nearly on top of her, Sarah tackled her legs and leaned sharply to one side, toppling Valerie to the ground. Fearful of the knife, the blood pulsing loudly in her ears, Sarah managed to push Valerie onto her back without losing hold of the hammer.

“Valerie!” Sarah said sharply. “It’s me, Sarah. Don’t hurt me—I want to help you!”

Valerie’s face was contorted, confused, her eyes unfocused. Sarah imagined she could see Jade’s mastery coming and going, first one persona and then the other flickering out of Valerie’s eyes.

Sarah left her and scrabbled desperately on the floor to find the figure. Again she raised the hammer and brought it down. She heard Valerie behind her, but did not waver. The hammer landed hard and unerringly on the stone and cracked it in two, severing the head from the body.

Valerie screamed again, and Sarah felt a painful wrenching at her left shoulder, then a burning sensation in her upper arm. She whirled around and saw Valerie tottering and waving a bloody knife, her eyes glittering.

A quick glance sideways and down told Sarah that she had been cut; blood was soaking the blue cotton of her sleeve. She didn’t stop to think about it—time enough to hurt later. She could still use her arm, and she needed it. She took a firmer grip on the hammer, hoping she would not be forced to use it against Valerie.

But Valerie was no longer attacking. The deadly glitter had gone out of her eyes and she was terrified again. She still clutched the knife, but the arm that had held it aloft dropped to her side. She began to back away from Sarah, whimpering quietly. Sarah wondered what she saw.

The figure was in two pieces on the floor. Sarah bent to her work again, determined to pulverize it, to leave Jade no safe harbor. Her next blow knocked off another piece of stone. She pounded again and again, reducing the finely wrought figure to sharp fragments of stone amid a pile of pale green dust.

Her arm ached with a sharpness that brought distracting tears to her eyes. Sarah set her teeth and concentrated on each hammer blow. When she paused, she could hear Valerie’s breathing, loud and painful even from across the room. She risked a glance to see that Valerie was crouched on the floor behind the front door, her back to the wall, her eyes closed, her body hunched and tense. She was no threat.

Where was the head? The body was rubble, but the head was missing. After a moment’s fear she found it where it had rolled a few inches away, and brought her hammer down hard on it, wiping out those evil features forever. It was gone. Destroyed utterly.

She paused then, and let herself savor her triumph. She was weak and sweating and weary, and her arm ached intolerably, but she had won. Jade was gone. Holding the hammer in her right hand and letting her left arm dangle, throbbing, by her side, Sarah turned towards Valerie.

She was still in the corner, curled almost into a fetal position, her breathing shallow, her face closed.

If Jade won, after all this—

She couldn’t stand to be inactive, passively awaiting the outcome of the battle between Valerie and Jade. There had to be some way she could help, some way she could tip the scales and add her strength to Valerie’s. She remembered Pete’s battle with Jade, and how she had tried, desperately ignorant of how, to help him. And she had helped; Pete had said so. She had been like an anchor, Pete had said. She had kept him from sinking.

Sarah crossed the room and crouched beside Valerie. She touched Valerie’s shoulder and leaned close. “Valerie, this is Sarah. I’m here with you, right beside you. Can you hear me? Can you understand? I want to help you. Let me help you.” Valerie’s eyes opened and she stared at Sarah. Then the bloodshot, grey-green eyes focused, and Sarah knew that Valerie was seeing her. Her heart leaped up in hope.

Then Valerie’s eyes narrowed and her teeth showed in a snarl. She let out an inarticulate growl and her hands came up, grasped Sarah’s arms, and threw her away with astonishing strength.

Sarah cried out in pain from her injured arm. She scrambled to her feet and, feeling dizzy and sick, approached Valerie again, but more cautiously this time.

It all happened very quickly after that.

As Sarah watched, wary of the knife Valerie still had, she saw Valerie go very still and stiff, and then her body shuddered, as if a current had passed through her. When it passed, Valerie rose from the floor and looked at Sarah, smiling.

The smile, broad and gloating and cruel, was not Valerie’s smile.

Her eyes had a hard, yellow gleam which Sarah recognized and which chilled her. It wasn’t Valerie looking out of those eyes anymore.

As Sarah watched, waiting in agony for what would happen next, trying to plan her own escape, the yellow light flickered in Valerie’s eyes and went out.

“No,” said Valerie, her voice firm.

Sarah held her breath, hoping.

Valerie raised the hand that held the bloodstained knife. She was looking straight at Sarah. Very little space separated them; in a step Valerie could be upon her, slashing and stabbing. But Sarah did not move. She did not even breathe. She concentrated on Valerie, trying to read those flickering, changing eyes; trying to reach the Valerie who was fighting for existence. She did not dare move, afraid of tipping the balance the wrong way. She could only watch, and hope, and concentrate as hard as she could, hoping her thoughts had some power. Valerie, she thought. Don’t let him have you. Hang on. Kill that bastard!

“Kill you,” said Valerie.

And her arm came up and around in a gentle, perfect curve, and the knife bit deeply, surely, irrevocably into Valerie’s own throat.

And as her life’s blood spurted out, in the seconds before she died, Valerie, most improbably, smiled. It was her own smile.