Kicking It Read Online Free PDF Page B

The clock said it was four in the morning.
    “She’s ready.”
    —
    I have to admit, this one was hard. Harder than most, because I knew Portia, at least slightly. She was an overweight, kindly lady who’d been vain about her dyed hair and her skin; she’d been obsessive about skin creams and wrinkle prevention, and given that she was lying naked, pale and still on the table, all her faults and flaws laid bare, it seemed a very sad memory to be holding. I tried to think about other things, like the way she laughed, shy and quick, as if afraid she might be caught at it.
    This body didn’t hold the wounds of her death; it was her in the moments before the damage was done, as close as could be achieved.
    Now for the hardest part.
    Andy let me take the lead, because he’d done the tough work of making the shell, but he stayed close, in case of trouble. I opened Portia’s mouth, poured in the potion, whispered the words, and then sealed it with the kiss of life—infusing the potion with my own breath, my own will, my own energy. And through it, reaching through the other side to Portia.
    I felt it when we connected; it was a physical shock, like grabbing hold of a hot wire. I felt myself spasm all over from it, and only long experience kept me there, my lips touching hers, as I felt her spirit traveling through the dark, writhing and clawing and fighting and screaming and then
present
, sinking into that silent form.
    Her lips warmed beneath mine, and she took a breath like a sob, and I tasted death flooding out of her and into me, a taste like rancid meat and grave dirt. It was a natural part of the spell. That didn’t make it any better, and I swallowed convulsively, my eyes pressed shut, to make it pass faster.
    By the time I’d managed to control myself, she was breathing normally, and her own eyes were fluttering open.
    I helped her sit up. She was as clumsy as a newborn, and just as confused; the colors and sharp edges of the world sat hard on those resurrected.
    I glanced at Andy, and he moved forward with a warm, soft blanket that he wrapped around her. She tried to help him, but her hands were still too weak to grip things firmly, so I took charge and held it for her, tucking it into a tasteful approximation of a toga.
    “Portia,” I said then, as I took both of her cold hands in mine. I could feel her pulse. It was racing fast, very fast. I could also feel the magnetic pull of the dark inside both of us—a pull that would draw her inexorably back to it. There was no such thing as cheating death, in the end; there was only a way to fool it for a while. As a witch, she knew that as well as I did. “Portia, honey, do you know who I am?” Often they didn’t, even if I’d known them before. They had to be reminded, over and over. “It’s Holly Anne Caldwell.”
    She licked her pale lips and said, “Resurrection witch.” Her dark eyes shifted focus, to Andy. “Mr. Toland.” That was a very good sign, I thought. I kept holding on. Physical contact helped, in the early stages. “Am I dead?”
    That was a question they all came to, eventually. It usually happened right before the memories rushed in—the ones that death held back, at first, out of kindness.
    “Yes,” he said. “I’m right sorry, Portia. Do you remember?”
    That was the trigger. I felt it hit her through the link we shared. You can’t keep yourself truly separate in this kind of business; it’s messy and sweaty and intimate and personal.
    I not only felt her remember it.
    I
felt it.
    A crush of terror, blind and unreasoning terror. The smashing impact of a crystal ball on my upraised arm, shattering bone. Then again, on my shoulder. My ribs, breaking like glass. My skull cracking, then bursting.
    And then, as life ebbed, the hot line of the cut across my throat. A sacrificial bloodletting, unnecessary except for ritual, because he’d already done enough damage to kill me. No,
her.
Portia.
    She was staring at me with huge eyes,