Page 79 of The Fantastic Fluke

And if I’d had a knife of my own—say the kind one generally found in a kitchen—I might have been able to better defend myself.

I’d buy a whole fucking block of them if I lived, I promised the universe. All the knives. The giant square ones, the big triangle ones, and even the little bitty skinny ones with the jagged edges.

David shook off the blow, squared his shoulders, and started forward again. “Dammit Sage. I didn’t want this to have to be messy, but you’re worse than Lilly Adler.”

A muffled pop filled the kitchen, like someone had just opened a bottle of Asti, and David lunged at me, arm outstretched, but all I could see was the flashing edge of the knife aimed at my heart.

No, wait.

He wasn’t lunging at all; he was stumbling, his face gone slack, mouth hanging open in surprise. He dropped the knife before hitting his knees, then looked down at himself confusedly. At where a spot of blood was blooming on his chest, with a tiny hole in the middle.

Behind him, filling the kitchen archway, was Gideon.

Real.

Solid.

Living.

Gideon.

Gideon was always gorgeous, but I had never seen anything so perfect and incredible in my life. It took me a moment to realize that the hysterical wheezing sound that filled the room was coming from me, not David, sobbing like a baby. I was alive. And so was Gideon.

He took three long steps forward to put himself between me and David, then used one foot to shove the man’s chest, knocking him from his knees all the way to the floor.

“I knew you were no good,” he sneered, glaring at David. Still, he glanced back to me with concern in his huge brown eyes. This time when those gold flecks caught in the light from the window, I realized, it was real. When he reached out and cupped my cheek in his hand, I wanted to rub against it. Gideon was touching me. Real, live, warm, human Gideon.

“You were jealous,” I rasped.

He gave a careless shrug but nodded. “That too. But I was right about him. All that opportunity to step up, and he took years to find his balls. Only got himself together when he thought you were vulnerable from your dad dying and then that man dying in front of you.”

“You’re—you used your gun. It’s real.”

He turned his head to raise an eyebrow at me. “Did you think I carried a pop gun?”

“Who the hell?” David asked weakly, but I ignored him.

“You’re real. You’re here. You’re alive.”

At that, he got confused. “Of course I am. You didn’t do this? I figured it was you. Woke up all corporeal and alive out in the woods. Had to ride back.”

My giggle that time was slightly less hysterical. Well, very slightly. I should have known it wouldn’t be as simple as summoning him up from the ether. He must have woken in the place where he’d died. “You woke up in the woods. Of course you did. I thought it didn’t work because you weren’t here.” I blinked once, twice, then looked up at him. “Wait, ride?”

“Marron, you crazy son of a bitch. You resurrected my familiar too.” The words seemed angry on their surface, but there was a grin on his face and fierce joy shining in his eyes. I couldn’t begin to imagine losing Fluke and then having him again, so all I could do was grin back.

The massive increase in power demand at the end of the spell suddenly made sense. Marron, his familiar. Marron. A fucking horse. A fucking horse I’d never even seen, and I’d raised it from the dead.

David gasped for breath, and my attention was finally drawn back to him. Holy hell, Gideon had shot him. He’d shot a man in my kitchen.

“Is he dying?” I asked.

Were two people really going to die in my house today?

People would never stop calling it the McKinley Murder House.

Gideon shrugged. “I guess they could still help if you called an ambulance. He’ll tell people what you are, though.”

And he would, of course. He’d been watching me all along for some sign that I was the “witch.” He’d killed Lilly Adler, the poor woman from the picture in my father’s closet. But he wasn’t alone. “The others,” he’d said. “The Believers.” Others who would believe I’d made a deal with the devil, others who would murder me like Mom, like Meredith, like Lilly.

---