Chapter Text
"What can you tell me?"
"Mr. Osmond Parkson here died of blood loss." Joanna handed over the beige folder to the detective and gestured at the table, letting the evidence speak for itself. "His left leg was amputated just below the knee with a heavy sharp object, something like an axe or meat cleaver."
"Any signs of a struggle?" The detective ran one hand through his silver-streaked hair, smiling at her despite the morbid topic. She stared at the corner of his mouth, where some ketchup remained from the burger he'd been eating. Normally she would stare at the edge of one shoulder, but the speck of red she'd glimpsed out of the corner of her eye had distracted her.
"Detritus from his hands and under his fingernails suggests he tried to drag himself away. He was attacked from behind." The red at the edge of his mouth was definitely ketchup; she needed to stop glancing at it. She was playing with fire, she knew, but it had been nearly a year since she'd last made eye contact with anyone and she liked to think her self-control was an ingrained habit by now.
"The bruises on his neck suggest that he was strangled until he passed out," she continued. "The assailant grabbed him, choked him, and he collapsed; coming back around only as his leg was cut off. It took three blows to sever the leg. Has it been found?"
"The area is still being scoured. Nothing yet."
He was standing close to her, very close. His paisley grey tie rose and fell with each breath. The suit was a little too small for him; some of the buttons near the base of his shirt were separating to reveal a hairy belly she could definitely do without seeing.
"Okay. I'll let you know if I find anything else."
"And the – the…" He trailed off as she raised her gaze to his nose, so close to looking at him directly. It was a huge risk. A subconscious twitch, a millisecond she forgot to pay attention could cost them both everything. However, her ploy succeeded – his question got lost in the sudden silence.
"You have beautiful eyes," he said softly.
Her heart thumped. She turned away abruptly and walked back towards the safety of the autopsy table.
"I'd like to get back to work, Kyle, if it's all the same to you."
"Of course." Kyle cleared his throat, rubbed a hand across his mouth, cleared his throat again, nodded, and then left with the file. She glanced after him, watching as his left hand curled into itself, the thumb rubbing against the ring on his fourth finger. When he was out of sight, she glanced back at the corpse. His unasked question hung in the air. She glanced down at the neck of Osmond's corpse.
And the puncture marks?
There were two of them, a little over two inches apart, right above the jugular vein. Yeah, he'd died of blood loss alright. It was nothing to do with his brutally amputated leg and his death was only half to do with the strangulation, although the policeman could be left to believe that. She drew the sheet up over the cadaver and took a step back, putting her hands on her hips. She'd never expected to come across more than one vampire in her life. Her ex had been plenty. But as long as she never had to meet this one in person, she'd happily cover up for their work. Rest in pieces, Osmond Parkson. Now there was a bastard and a half. She remembered his eyes. Hazel, slightly sunken, accusing. She hadn't seen many eyes in her life, which only made it easier to remember his.
"I guess karma finally came back around, eh?" she whispered.
You have beautiful eyes.
Don't – you'll get hurt. Don't look at me.
You're so beautiful.
I know it's hard, but you have to stop. Please.
I can't stop. If you don't want to look, you can close your eyes.
"I'm never going to close my eyes again, you son of a bitch." She took a deep breath. He was dead. Osmond Parkson was dead. She realised after a moment that she was smiling.
She stepped from one room into the next, going to the computer desk and pulled out the top metal drawer. There, amidst bits of stationery, was her stash of lollipops. They were all Drumsticks, the chewy pink-and-white kind of lollipop that got stuck in your teeth the moment you succumbed to biting one. Joanna never bit. She unwrapped the Drumstick and wandered around lazily. The beginnings of a tune drifted into her brain and she started to hum along without thinking, picking up her feet a little more as she passed the drawer coolers and wondered if it was inappropriate to dance in a morgue.
"…come a little bit closer, I'm all alone, and the night is so long…" she sang, twirling in the arms of a memory before slowly shuffling to a halt, the bittersweet smile slipping from her face. That song wasn't on her playlist. Not to mention she'd turned the speaker off half an hour ago to have an appropriate ambience for the detective. And there was no radio reception down here.
The skin on the back of her neck prickled. She turned slowly towards the coolers.
A thin trail of black smoke was leaking out of one of the empty drawers.
Taking a deep breath she walked over to it, put her hand on the cold handle and pulled it out.
The corpse inside – a gothically-dressed young woman – opened her eyes.
Her heart skipped a beat. They stared at each other for a second. For once it was Joanna who couldn't look away; trapped staring at the yellow-slitted eyes of her ex. The corpse's mouth split into a wide grin. The move exposed sharpened canine teeth just before her face and whole body dissolved away into a black smoke trail, which wound its way through the morgue before reforming, cross-legged, atop the opposite counter.
"Happy birthday," said Sadie.
"I should have known," Joanna sighed.
Sadie crossed her arms. She looked almost exactly the same as Joanna remembered her; black cape, black leggings, black polo-neck jumper, and high heels sharp enough to skewer a woodlouse. Her goth flair wasn't as excessive as it had been; now it was limited to a pair of spiked leather cuffs around both her wrists and ankles.
"Is that all I get? You should have known?" she huffed.
"The old music, the black smoke, the overly dramatic entrance – wait. You –" It suddenly clicked in her head. One plus one equals a dead Osmond Parkson. "You killed him?"
Sadie smiled sheepishly.
"You killed him?"
"Once again: Happy birthday." She shrugged, briefly glancing away.
"You killed him for my – Why? No, just – How?" Joanna snapped. "You can't just –" She waved her hands in a confused flap, forgetting that she'd been holding a lollipop until she heard the soft slap of it hitting the floor. Sadie's smile dropped a little.
"You're welcome?" she offered, along with about eight pints of snark.
"You killed a man."
"I thought you wanted him dead. Now he's dead. Voilà."
Joanna jabbed a finger at the covered cadaver of Osmond Parkson. "That's murder."
"Didn't you want him dead?"
"I did, but –" Joanna cut herself off. She opened her mouth and closed it again. She gestured between them. "We broke up. Just under a year ago. You can't just come back. Like this," she hastily added. She was addressing Sadie's left shoulder by habit, but when the silence extended she remembered herself, and glanced up to meet Sadie's gaze.
That was when she saw it; the first real glimmer of hurt in Sadie's expression. A split-second later, a playful grin carefully swiped over it.
"Well I did. Ta da!" Sadie hopped down off the counter so that they were standing opposite each other. She was only taller than Joanna because of those damn heels. "But if you're going to be so ungrateful, then I'll just…leave." She waved clumsily as if brushing it off, her perfectly polished black nails catching the light. Joanna mentally cursed to herself as she looked at her. Those cheekbones were sharp enough to chisel other cheekbones. Her smoky eye make-up was literally smoking. Her glossy black hair fell down over her narrow shoulders likes waves of fuck, damnit –
"Okay wait." She held up a hand. Sadie paused. "Explain yourself. I mean – you may explain yourself."
Sadie hesitated for a moment. "You remember your last birthday?" she prompted after a moment. "Jo?"
Joanna blinked. "Yes. Yes?" It was those eyes; the familiar slitted pupils and yellow irises that she hadn't realised had faded in her memory until now. It had been so long since she'd been able to look into someone's eyes.
"You were so disappointed with that dead fox I gave you," Sadie stated, with startling self-awareness.
Joanna remembered, fidgeting a little with her sleeves. She nodded. She realised was starting to overheat in her lab coat but she would sooner be swallowed by the Shadow Realm than take it off right now.
"I thought that a fox would be appropriate – I'd killed pigeons and squirrels and cats and I felt you were always challenging me to kill something bigger."
Joanna nodded. She remembered the disappointment she'd never voiced and never realised that Sadie had noticed.
"It was only much later, after we…broke up, that I realised –" She was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing. She glanced around.
"It's not mine," said Joanna after a pause.
"It's mine. Hang on –" Sadie patted her pocketless leggings stupidly.
"Are you expecting a call?"
"Huh? Oh, no, but the moment's broken now so I might as well answer it." She shrugged. "Where's my – oh, of course." She paced back over to the cooler drawer she'd originally been resting in and pulled it all the way out to reach her handbag. Like all of her clothes, it was black. She fumbled around inside and pulled out her phone.
"Hello? Sis, hi, what is it?" She rolled her eyes. "Yes… Very funny." Her voice dropped a little. "Come on, I know you're kidding me." A second passed, then her expression and tone pulled a skid turn into serious. "You didn't. Tell me you didn't. Not in the house. Don't you remember what I told you?" She was pacing now. "No! That wasn't a joke! Listen to me, has anything funny happened in the house since? Banging cupboards, lights going off – don't laugh! Stay out of the basement until I get there, I'm heading over right now. What was that – what did I just hear?" She swept her hair back over her ear and leant forward a little, as if that would somehow put her closer to her sister's ear. "Never mind, don't move – or better, go outside and wait for me outside the front door." Hanging up, she met Joanna's eye.
"Jo, I'm sorry, I've got to go." The edges of her arms were already peeling away into smoke, the soft fabric of her cape taking on a bat-skin-like quality.
"What is it? Do you want me to come with you?"
Sadie hesitated. "I was going to take the Batmobile."
"Please tell me you don't still call it that."
"They're my powers, I can call it what I want."
Joanna sighed, shrugging off her lab coat as she crossed the morgue and reached for the backpack she'd hung on the coat rack. "We can take my car."
"Not as fast."
"Not as conspicuous," Joanna countered.
"It's smoke!"
"It's not the industrial era, it's not like there's a blanket of smog you can just–"
"I don't have time for this."
"When do you ever?" Her words cut the air and hung there. She swallowed.
"My sister's in danger," Sadie said quietly.
Joanna stayed in the doorway, blocking it as if it would make a difference as she pulled on her beige trench coat, feeling for the car keys in her pocket. "We can take the car."
"I can meet you later."
Joanna turned the keys over in her pocket and bit the inside of her lip. "Is that it, then? You kill a guy, wish me happy birthday, and leave?" Her voice cracked on the last word and she looked away, wishing the floor would eat her.
A cold thumb brushed her cheek. She sucked in a sharp breath and looked up only to find Sadie looking back at her, her expression softened. At Joanna's glance her expression dropped and she took her hand away with a wide-eyed blink, as if she hadn't quite realised what she'd been doing.
"Okay," Sadie murmured.
The car was a mess. If Joanna had had even the slightest suspicion that Sadie was going to be in it she would have cleaned it meticulously to make a point – Sadie's house had always been full of trash. What she lacked in clothes colour variation she made up for in hoarding, filling every inch of her crumbling detached house with mismatched antique nonsense. Joanna had always been the clean one. However, if in the lead up to her birthday she'd done a few too many drive-through eat-and-crys – well that wasn't her fault, was it?
The pink Citroën whirred at her as she urged it faster, pushing her heel down into the floor. She clicked her tongue twice impatiently, and heard Sadie chuckle.
"What is it?" she noted, baffled.
"It's the tongue click. I remember you said you always treated the car like a horse when you got really impatient."
Joanna felt herself blushing.
"I mean, I know I'm undead, but neither of us is actually that old."
"You're not?" Joanna asked.
Sadie cleared her throat noncommittally. "What, are you?"
"No." Joanna frowned. "I told you – sirens age normally. The horse thing is because I used to do a lot of dressage when I was younger."
"Yeah. Fancy."
Fancy. The word lit a memory, a vision of an attic room packed with lush and expensive fabrics. After her mother's modelling career had slowly declined with her age, she'd retreated more and more into that room. Joanna remembered asking her dad how she could help, and being told that her mother had loved horses when she was a girl. But her mother had been irritated by the suggestion of riding together. One doesn't go backwards, Joanna.
"I seduced the instructor," Joanna confessed lightly. "Lessons were discounted."
"Wait – how old were you?"
"Fourteen. And he was a decent man, so he never tried to kiss me."
"Must have killed him," Sadie teased.
Joanna snorted a laugh. "It didn't though – that's the point."
They smiled in silence for a moment as Joanna slowed for a red light. The town was relatively quiet at this time; most people would be at home for dinner. There were less than a handful of people walking on the nearest pavement. It was already nearly dark, damn winter. At least it wasn't raining. Joanna turned up the heating in the car. On nights like this they had used to sit in front of Sadie's fireplace, eating marshmallows.
Sadie sucked in a breath and twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "You know the impossible puddle in the basement of my house?"
"You mean the necrostatic lipid membrane?" Joanna corrected automatically.
"Whatever. The portal to the Shadow Realm."
"How many times– It's not a portal. It's produced by a multi-celled organism similar to a film of bacteria."
"I told you I mopped it and it was back the next hour. It came from somewhere. It's a portal."
"And I told you that you can't just mop it, you have to use bleach or something because if you leave even a few cells they have a very fast generation time and – wait, what did you do with the mop?"
"Burnt it, obviously."
"At least that's something."
"Bet you're a killjoy for kids at Christmas."
An odd fluttery feeling jumped around Joanna's stomach. She shouldn't – wouldn't – smile again because she'd smiled far too much already, but it felt like if she didn't she might throw up. Why did it feel so similar to the way she'd felt when they'd first met in the library, over a year and a half ago? She clutched the steering wheel a bit tighter. It was too comfortably familiar. It was uncanny. It felt like the nostalgia was swallowing her, like she was being eaten by an old photograph.
"She had sex," said Sadie, out of the blue.
"What?"
"My sister had sex in the house. She's not a virgin anymore."
Joanna indicated left and turned off the roundabout, passing the old-timbered pub that she remembered as one of the markers on the way to Sadie's house. "I…Is that a problem?"
"Oh, I don't know, why don't we ask the Shadow Realm portal?" Sadie asked sarcastically.
"Uh…"
Sadie slapped one hand on the dashboard. "It's going to curse her! And or the house! And her boyfriend! They're not even married!"
"Uh…Do…Do you…" Joanna mentally slotted her brain pencil into her brain cassette and started winding back. "Do you need bleach? To remove the puddle?" she tried.
"How's cleaning going to help? Have you ever watched a horror film where they stopped to clean?" Sadie paused. "Also, then I won't get to see what ghastly powers it gives her."
Joanna had to stare at her then, even if it meant briefly taking her eyes off the road. "You… Are you worried that your sister will get cursed, or that you'll miss it?"
Sadie threw her hands up. "Both! Curses are a really mixed bag. Like mine, for example – although I don't think it still applies… To top it off, she probably won't be able to control whatever powers she does get, at first, which could be a total disaster."
"You were cursed? When? By the puddle? Why did you never tell me about it?"
They'd left the town behind. A few country roads and one gravely driveway and they would be there. Joanna had a hundred questions.
Sadie cleared her throat. "No particular reason. Didn't seem relevant."
"Sadie."
"I don't think it still applies, anyway," Sadie repeated evasively.
The lights were on in a distant detached house just off from the next field. Joanna recognised it – it was Sadie's house. The bottom of the house looked like it had been squeezed with a corset; the top floor almost mushroom-like above the bottom. It looked like the beams would crack any moment and the whole thing would flop into a heap of splinters and dust. Joanna flashed her indicator needlessly, and turned right into the driveway.
"I don't see my sister – she must still be inside." Sadie was already unclipping her seatbelt before the car had even pulled to a halt.
Joanna turned off the engine and they both stepped out onto the gravel. Who knew how Sadie managed to stand upright on it with those heels. Joanna bit the inside of her lip as she looked around her. Her pink Citroën looked very out of place here. It always had. The time that had passed since she'd last been here had only relit the contrast.
Sadie led the way. The front door, painted black, was carved with an elaborate pentagram. Joanna had always thought it was simply part of Sadie's gothic preferences. Looking at it with fresh eyes, she now wondered if it might be more responsible for this cursing business than the impossible puddle. Perhaps the whole house was Shadow Realm material in the first place. Sadie traced the circle within the pentagram with her index finger and the door swung open with a low creak.
"Cherry? Where are you?" she bellowed.
Joanna glanced around her at the floral black wallpaper. Something scuttled over it, equally black, and disappeared into a large cobweb in the corner. She could feel the coat stand watching her. Remembering how it worked, she took off her coat and hung it up to make the sensation go away.
Footsteps echoed from the landing.
"You're back!" Cherry grinned down at them from the top of the stairs. "I thought I'd never see you again!" Her slippers pattered on the creaky wooden stairs until she was standing on the bottom step, just enough to make her the same height as them. Like her sister in that way, Joanna thought. She was a chubby, energetic teenager by appearance, the waves of her black hair tighter than her sister's. Her purple dressing gown hung open, revealing a silky nightdress.
"Has anything happened in the house?" Sadie demanded.
"Oh forget about that for a moment – Jo's here!" Cherry stepped forward and grabbed Joanna by the arms. Joanna flinched, only just realising that Cherry had been talking to her at the start and not Sadie.
"Tell me you're back for good," Cherry gushed, squeezing her.
Joanna felt the abrupt warmth of tears rise under her eyes. She pushed Cherry back gently and shook her head, keeping her gaze fixed on Cherry's shoulder. "I, uh…"
"Can I get you some hot chocolate? Would you like some cake? I was making cupcakes earlier with Jeremy."
Sadie cleared her throat. "Speaking of Je–"
"Did you like the birthday present?" Cherry asked, cutting her sister off. "Have you talked through everything? I've missed you so much – honestly, if Sadie was a pain to live with before –"
"Cherry!" Sadie snapped.
"I'm going to make a hot chocolate for myself anyway," Cherry continued regardless. She pivoted and sauntered down the hallway towards the kitchen.
Joanna looked to Sadie for a response, her mind whirring with Cherry's implications. Sadie rolled her eyes with a weary smile and headed after her sister.
The kitchen was a big space, wooden-themed in a way that might have been homely if all the wood wasn't painted black. The few splashes of colour came from the mess of objects that filled and adorned it. Any food mess was Cherry's fault, but the rest – collection of animal death-masks included – belonged to Sadie. A large tray of beautiful cupcakes lay on the breakfast bar, a sweet feast of purple buttercream and glitter. Cherry beckoned Joanna over to it.
"Come on, have one. I'll heat some milk."
Sadie turned to one of the cupboards and passed over a tin of hot chocolate. "There isn't much left."
"Have you been eating the powder again?"
Sadie didn't answer.
"You're weird," muttered Cherry, "Chocolate bars exist for a reason."
"I have so many questions," Joanna murmured to herself.
Just then, lightning flashed outside. Sadie looked to the window first. Cherry continued to put three mugs of milk into the microwave, apparently uncaring.
"Ask her, then," Cherry insisted, turning around to face Joanna and crossing her arms. She nodded her head in Sadie's direction impatiently.
Another flash of lightning lit up the sky outside. The light flashed through the kitchen like the flash of a photograph. Joanna jumped backwards away from the window, grabbing Sadie's arm and pulling her back too. There was no accompanying thunder; this lightning cracked of its own accord, a whip-like sound followed by a deep crackle.
Cherry raised an eyebrow at the two of them. Joanna took her hand off Sadie's arm.
"It's only lightning," said Sadie after a beat.
"You were the one worried about curses in the first place."
"You don't need to protect me." Sadie turned to Cherry instead and put a hand on her hip, leaning against the breakfast bar. "You knew about the impossible puddle. So why did you do it?"
Cherry rolled her eyes. "It's not a big deal."
Another lightning flash followed her words.
"Not a big deal," Sadie echoed sarcastically.
"Didn't you have your first time in the house?" Cherry accused, waving a teaspoon at her sister aggressively.
Sadie hesitated and crossed her arms. "No."
Cherry frowned in confusion. "Then how did you get cursed?"
"I…I drank some of the impossible puddle water."
"What?!" Cherry and Joanna rounded on her in unison.
Sadie shrugged in time with another lightning flash and reached over for a cupcake with false nonchalance. She took a big bite of it to spare herself from any immediate comment, getting purple icing on her nose as she did so. The microwave beeped. Cherry ignored it, still staring incredulously at her sister. Not knowing what to do with her hands, Joanna took a cupcake too.
Both kitchen windows shattered in a burst of glass shards.
Joanna belatedly flung her hands her hands up to shield herself and stumbled to the side. Blinding white light filled the room and the whole house creaked around them as if it were one giant rusty hinge. She felt a sharp heat pulsing in her right cheek. She lowered herself to the ground, blindly patting at the floor below her with one hand as she took shelter on the floor beside the breakfast bar, breathing rapidly, not wanting to move. A high, ghostly laugh echoed through the kitchen.
"You're bleeding," came a soft voice in front of her.
Joanna opened her eyes.
Sadie's eyes were nearly black, the pupils so wide that her irises were mere scratches of yellow at their edges.
"There's glass in the cut." Sadie reached up with one hand. The movement was possessed by a supernatural calm, completely alienated from the explosion. Joanna felt a sharp sting as Sadie removed the piece of glass and flicked it aside without blinking or looking away. A question rose on Joanna's tongue. Seeing blood was like a truth serum for Sadie. Joanna wasn't entirely sure how it worked; Sadie had explained it as a combination of having all her defences and inhibitions lowered and given a needle-like focus at the same time. Last time she'd asked Sadie if she thought she could ever kill her in this state. This time she had a different question.
She swallowed it back. Then she slapped her.
Sadie gasped, disoriented, raising her hand to her cheek. "Wh–"
"I'm bleeding don't look," Joanna instructed rapidly.
"Shit." Sadie half-turned immediately, training her gaze deliberately towards the floor as she stood back up. "Sorry, did–"
"Yeah, you totally spaced out."
Sadie took a few steps, looking around. "Cherry…"
A faint ghostly laugh echoed through the kitchen again. Joanna frowned as she looked from the shattered windows to the stove to the cabinets. Where had Cherry gone?
"Hey, sis. Guess who?" came the weak voice.
They both looked up to the ceiling.
Cherry was pinned to the slanted rafters upside down, arms wide as if nailed to an invisible inverted crucifix. A thin line of flames surrounded her outline, burning with a thick black smoke that spread out from her form supernaturally rather than flowing towards the window. She smiled a weak smile.
"I thought I'd just get telekinesis, like you did."
"Sis…" Sadie whispered.
"I think the Shadow Realm is calling me. Does it sound like the voices you used to hear? It sort of reminds me of whispers in a subway tunnel, you know?" Her laugh was high and shaky.
Sadie swallowed, then reached up towards the ceiling slowly with one hand, but there was still over a metre between them. Joanna felt like her feet were glued to the floor.
"Jo, give me a –" Sadie began slowly.
"No time, Elphie. I think I'm off," rushed Cherry, "Don't forget to –"
"– Hold on, I can reach –"
"– water the plants –"
"– you…" The words were lost in a sudden thickening of the black smoke around Cherry. It kept pulsing out, swirling around her and obscuring her in a dark cloud. In an instant Sadie became smoke herself, spiralling upwards to reach her sister.
There was one last flash of lightning.
The smoke curled around itself like an upside down mushroom. For a long moment it seemed that nothing had changed. Then, slowly, the black smoke spiralled back down towards the floor and reformed into Sadie. There was no smoke left on the ceiling – no fire, no nothing. Not even a single charred mark to show what had passed.
Cherry had gone.
"Shit!" Sadie stomped her foot on the floor. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" She was fuming. Quite literally. Black fumes rolled off her arms and shoulders and out of her eyes. She paced a tiny circle where she stood, going nowhere. She looked back up at the ceiling. There was still nothing. Joanna walked towards her slowly.
"Sadie…"
"She's gone. She's gone." Sadie turned her back to her, muttering.
"She'll come back," Joanna reassured.
"How do you know?" Sadie screamed, rounding on her.
Joanna flinched. Sadie suddenly looked alien to her; a year of separation suddenly stark between them as clear as a third person in the room. How had she dealt with a furious or upset Sadie before? Why had her mind suddenly gone blank? She used to know this. Didn't she?
"Sadie…"
"I told you! I told you she'd be cursed!"
Joanna bristled. "You were saying that you wanted to know what happened –"
"Well now we know – the Shadow Realm eats her. Happy?"
Her words and tone hurt. Joanna didn't know what to say – but damn it, it had been far too long for her to simply stand and listen to this bullshit. She straightened her spine. "You wanted to know, so don't turn this on me. I never even suggested that I wanted that to happen to her."
Sadie stared at her for a moment, stunned. Then she scowled. "Why are you getting angry? This has nothing to do with you!"
Joanna braced herself. "Then why are you dragging me into it? Why are you yelling at me?"
"I'm sorry for yelling at you!"
Silence fell. Sadie was breathing heavily. Joanna didn't know if she should laugh or cry. The edge of Sadie's lips twitched upwards. She exhaled sharply, then gave a short, breathy laugh.
"I'm sorry for yelling at you," she repeated, softer.
Joanna felt the beginnings of a faint smile wriggle its way loose from beneath her jangling nerves.
"You didn't deserve that. You're right, you didn't do anything. I…I'm sorry." Sadie took a step towards her, so that they were only a metre or so apart.
Joanna took a breath. "I'm sorry about your sister. I'll help if I can."
"It's okay." Sadie shrugged ruefully. "I can manage."
"I can help you," Joanna insisted. There was definitely literature on demon portals, Shadow Realm curses and the like. At the very least she could help with research. She was pretty sure that a friend of a friend was a witch, too.
Sadie exhaled slowly, and twirled a strand of hair around her finger. She didn't meet Joanna's eyes.
"Look, you were right…it's been a year. I… I've probably been an idiot, haven't I?"
Joanna didn't know what to say.
"I'm gonna… go start by talking to Jeremy. Um…Happy Birthday, though. You…can go."
Her stomach sunk inexplicably. The invisible wall rose between them again, unbreachable. She turned away slowly and walked out of the kitchen, carefully stepping over the broken pieces of glass as she headed back towards the corridor.
"Are you actually leaving?" The question rose sharply behind her, loud in the quiet.
Joanna turned. Sadie was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, arms held out in a gesture of disbelief.
"You're actually leaving right now? You offered to drive me, you came all the way here and you're leaving?"
"I –"
"I was really trying not to be dramatic. I remember you always hated that – but bleeding smokes, are you seriously leaving right now? Without saying anything?"
"You made it sound like –"
"I was just trying not to be dramatic!" Sadie threw her arms up with an eye roll. She erupted in a sudden burst of smoke, whooshing over Joanna's head and reforming in front of her with her hands on her hips. "I was being polite! I didn't mean I actually wanted you to go!"
"So you don't want me to go?"
"I – Oh my god." Sadie slapped a hand over her face.
"You're being really dramatic right now," Joanna pointed out, wrestling a smile. She expected Sadie to laugh and come back with some witty comment, but when Sadie lowered her hand her eyes were brimming with tears.
"I'm sorry," Sadie whispered. "I thought I'd changed. I really wanted to change."
She looked so young, so vulnerable. Joanna remembered how Sadie's frame fit in her arms; almost too tall for her to hold properly, but Sadie would always bend in as close as possible. She remembered the last time she'd wanted to hold Sadie: the light coming through the front room window on an autumn afternoon, Sadie's back to her as she stared into the mirror above the mantle place. With her reflection made invisible by her vampire nature, Joanna had never known what Sadie's final expression had been before she'd left the room.
"You can go," Sadie insisted, her lips trembling as she smiled weakly even as tears ran down over her cheeks. "I…I killed a guy for your birthday, and it's been a year since we broke up, and somehow I thought I was better than this but now I'm thinking about it… Please. I'm sorry."
Maybe Sadie really had changed.
Maybe Joanna hadn't.
"Ok." She nodded and gave Sadie a reassuring smile. "I'm going to go." She twitched her head in the direction of the front door, bit the inside of her lip and turned away. With a quiet breath, she began to walk back down the dim corridor. She took her coat off the coat hanger and felt it pulse its discontent at her as she put her coat on. Her heart was pounding, but no question followed her this time.
She opened the front door, stepped out, and closed it behind her. For a long moment she leant back against the hard wood, just breathing. Eventually, she started back towards the car.
She was going to research the hell out of saving Cherry.