A Last Gift

 “I’m sorry.” The doctor spoke in low tones as we stood in the hallway outside my apartment. “There’s nothing else I can try. Nothing’s working any more. Your only chance is one of them.”

My throat tightened and my fingers fisted at my sides. I nodded. “Thanks,” I said. “For trying.”

He gave a curt nod by way of farewell and headed for the stairs – up, not down; clearly he had other patients to attend to in the building.

I let myself back into the apartment and bowed my head against the closed door, allowing the despair and exhaustion to flood over me for a slow count of ten. At ten, I straightened, shook myself off, and headed to Gabrielle’s room.

“Hey,” I said from the doorway when I saw she was awake.

She twitched her lips, approximating a smile. “Hey.” Her dark face stood out against the pale lemon pillows, hair frizzing around it in an untamed mess.  I needed to wash it. Maybe she’d let me cornrow it later on. “Any news?”

I shook my head. “Nothing works any more. The ‘corns have destroyed it all.”

She bit her lip fretfully and looked up at me, eyes wide.

“It’s okay,” I said, hurrying to perch awkwardly on the bed next to her. “We’ll find one. I’ll take you to one if it kills me.”

Gabrielle’s wide-eyed stare became a hard-edged glare. “No you won’t. Don’t say stupid things like that.”

I sagged. “I know. I’m sorry. You know what I mean.”

She nodded.

“Tomorrow then,” I said, patting her hand. “We’ll try first thing.”

Gabrielle closed her eyes, and I stroked her fingers until she fell asleep.

As it turned out, moving Gabrielle was pretty impossible; she was just too far gone to be able to tolerate me bumping and bashing her about, even though I tried to be as gentle as I could. In the end, I stood back, looked at her with grief squeezing blood from my heart, and told her I’d go alone. It was a measure of how desperate she was—we both were—that she agreed without a fuss. I left a couple of days’ worth of food and water within her easy reach (easy, as though anything was easy for her any more) and set off.

From the outside our building looked even worse than from the inside. The buildings in this part of town hadn’t been that great to begin with, concrete crumbling at the corners and paint flaking off in layers, but now they looked downright demolition-worthy.  For whatever reason, there hadn’t been many  ‘corns in our district, so for the most part they were still standing –but only barely. The business block at the corner of sixty-fifth and ninth had come crashing down last week, and odds were better than even that it was just the first.

Our building had stood up this long; that was great. And having few to no ‘corns in the area meant that we at least still had a steady water supply, and that the food we’d all frantically stockpiled in the first few days of the disaster hadn’t suddenly perished.

But on the other hand, it meant I had no clue where to start looking for one for Gabrielle.

It occurred to me as I reached the outskirts of our area that I’d both underestimated and overestimated the damage the ‘corns had done to the rest of the city, and consequently was terrifically underprepared. I hadn’t brought food or water—not that either would survive if I actually found what I was after—and I had no cash for buying, nothing to trade for bartering.

I ran a hand over my head and inhaled deeply. Never mind. Half the city had nothing left anyway; what difference did one more vagabond drifting with the wind make?

Back in the first few days when the news reports had still been functioning, it had seemed as though the attacks were centred downtown, so when I finally reached the junction with Main I turned right, walking on the road when the sidewalks became too cracked and uneven.

All around me, chaos rippled like an alligator’s pond. Everything concrete was decaying, crumbling, melting or just strewn in chunks all over the ground, exposing wood or metal beams where walls had once stood. Sidewalks cracked and crumbled, overtaken by tufts of knee-high grass and weeds as tall as my hip. The roads hadn’t faired much better, asphalt split and gaping, cars scattered hither and thither like those abandoned after toddler’s play—or a tornado. Most of them were rusting out, plastic dashes melted into garish shapes, synthetic upholstery already nearly weathered away.

Someone honked behind me and I glanced back in surprise. A little [car], one of those new-fangled solar-powered cars that couldn’t top more than [speed] but were supposed to be totally green. Figures they’d be able to survive, although as it wove its way closer I noted it no longer had its original plastic dash, and the seats had been replaced with bare wood benches.

The driver, an older lady probably in her sixties, pulled the car up beside me and wound down her window. “Need a lift?”

I shrugged. “Got no money. No goods for trading.” I held out my hands, indicating that all I had was what she saw.

She smiled, a warm fuzzy thing that seemed far too genuine for the circumstances. “I’m Frankie. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”

“Jayla,” I said, nodding. “Thank you.”

Frankie had been a nurse, back in the days before, just a year or two away from retirement. She’d spent the intervening weeks since the ‘corns arrived driving up and down any roads she could find that were still passable, helping out as she could. She was more than happy to drop me off in the centre of town, waving me farewell and wishing me luck. “You’ll need it, Ducky,” she said as she shoved the car back into gear and reversed away. “They don’t grant wishes.”

I knew that all too well.

The centre of town was, contrary to expectation, quiet as a rural meadow—or a graveyard. It gave a passable impression of either, knee-high grass rippling through the square, an unbroken blanket of green, building rubble sticking up at odd angles like headstones laid by a drunken mortician. For twenty, thirty, forty minutes I walked, through ways that used to bustle and hustle but now only rustled in the breeze. My hopes fell with my shoulders and stomach. I sat on a stray boulder that looked suspiciously like it had once been a granite head and considered my options: continue on my probably-futile quest for a ‘corn indefinitely, or head home empty-handed and concede defeat to Death.

A shout off to my right drew my attention: a short, black-haired fellow came running into view, waving his hands frantically. “Make way!” he shouted. “Move out of the way!”

I jumped to my feet, staring at him.

“Move!” he shouted again, hands flapping.

“Where?” I called back, gesturing at the lack of cover around.

“Anywhere!”

An instant later, I realised why: not one, not even two, but a small herd of glorious ‘corns burst into view, long white limbs stretching, pastel manes and tails flying like streamers, sharp-tipped silver horns glinting in the cold sunlight. Adrenalin shot through my body. I scooted behind some nearby rubble and slammed my back against it. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for sanity as the herd thundered past.

Hoof beats began to die away and I let out a cautious breath. It appeared I’d escaped unscathed. I dared a peek over the rubble mound and froze, a scream in my throat. In the second it took to convince my body to work again I realised what I was seeing: not a second herd as I’d feared, but a single, lavender-maned creature being driven by three or four men on horseback. I ducked back behind my rubble, took a few steadying breaths, and peeked out again.

The ‘corn frothed at the mouth, saliva a pale purple that matched its mane and tail. Patches of its cloud-white fur had worn thin on its flanks, and a silvery-steel liquid seeped through. And although the ‘corn still ran, it stumbled and staggered, not at all surefooted like its cousins.

One of the men on regular-horseback threw something at the flagging ‘corn. It hit the ‘corn’s rump and exploded in a puff of dark green powder. The ‘corn screamed and bucked, gathering itself up as though to try for greater speed. Instead, it tripped and fell.

As it slammed chest-first into the ground I realised I was running towards it, and stopped. The hunters were closing in, the ‘corn screaming furiously, but I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t. Everyone knew the stories: ‘corns hurt more than they helped, and through their rabid mission to ‘purify’ the world they were utterly destroying it. If I went close to it while it was angry  and hurting, who knew what it might do.

The hunters launched another powder puff. It exploded over the unicorn’s withers; the unicorn screamed. I clapped my hands over my ears and winced at the agony. It tore at my chest and for a moment I couldn’t tell if the agony was mine or the ‘corn’s.

I couldn’t let it suffer like that alone. I darted forward, sprinting hard to make it to the ‘corn before the hunters dismounted. “No!” I threw myself in front of them just as they launched a third powder puff. It hit my shoulder and burst. I cringed, expecting pain, but instead was enveloped in a spicy, herby smell. I frowned at the green mark, confused.

Behind me, the ‘corn screamed again and I whirled towards it, ignoring the hunters striding towards me with murder in their eyes. I dropped to my knees by the unicorn’s head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Can I do anything?”

A rough hand grabbed me by the shoulder. “What in the blazes do you think you’re doing?” The man spun me around to face him.

“You’re hurting it!” I said.

“Of course we’re hurting it! It’s a bloody unicorn!”

I glanced around at the creature writhing on the ground. “I know. I know it is.” I tugged at my hair. I shot the hunter a desperate glance. “Just… give me one second with it, will you?”

He shrugged and tossed a powder puff in his hand. “Your funeral. You got sixty seconds before I lob this at its nose. That’ll finish it off, and you don’t want to be within blasting range when that happens. You seen what the ‘corns do when they’re happy?”

I nodded, remembering the first time I’d seen one parading down the street, radiating light that cleansed everything in its reach. It sounded great in theory: magical unicorns that appeared out of nowhere, cleansing and purifying the world. The problem was, their definition of clean and pure was pretty darn strict. Synthetics? Gone, and that included building materials, clothing, food—and medicines. Sure, disease and sickness was also purified, but there’s a difference between a cancerous tumour suddenly disappearing, and whole chunks of ‘faulty’ DNA being ripped from someone’s cells. The former you could survive; the latter not so much.

“So you can imagine what will happen when one dies, then.” He stared me down.

I stared back, determined.

The hunter nodded. “One minute.”

I knelt by the unicorn’s face as the hunter retreated to talk with his partners. It whinnied softly and I reached out, fingers trembling. I hesitated right before I touched it. “What are you going to do to me?” I asked, uncertain why I felt so much sympathy for this creature of destruction as it died. Maybe that was part of the power of the ‘corns, luring me in on its deathbed. Maybe it was hope.

I let my fingertips rest against its cheek, pure white hair impossibly soft, like down, or superfine velvet. Heat seared my fingers as energy shot up through my arms and into the base of my skull. Waves of colour and sound shot through my mind, hot, cold, loud, soft, crimson, magenta, viridian, gold. I tried to pull back, but the current of energy held me tight. It poured into me, filling my fingers and toes, hands and feet, wrists, ankles, legs, arms… Warmth suffused me and lifted me to my feet, off the ground, and spun me gently so I scribed a golden circle in the air. I couldn’t tell if the warmth was pleasant or if it hurt; it straddled that strange boundary between pleasure and pain and all I could do was try to breathe through it.

With a sudden burst, the connection severed and I dropped to the ground. I blinked, disoriented, then realised the dark shape in front of me was the hunter, standing over the unicorn’s body as dark green powder dispersed into the air. “Ow.”

The hunter glanced at me. “You okay?”

I looked down at my arms. A frisson of fear travelled through me as I realised my arms were glowing. I stretched, wriggled my fingers, and looked back at the hunter. “Yeah. I think so.”

Another man laughed behind me. “We thought you were a gonner.” He clapped me heartily on the shoulder. Energy sizzled through me and stung his hand. He snatched it back and stared. “What the hell?”

I looked at my fingers again and wriggled them. Energy sparked from fingertip to fingertip. I met the second man’s eye and smiled. “Your skin. It’s perfect.”

He lifted his hands to his face and dragged his fingers slowly down his cheeks, eyes wide. “You,” he said.

I didn’t give him the chance to finish. Who knew what that powder might do to me now? All I knew was that I had to get home. I might not be able to take Gabrielle to a unicorn, or take one to her, but this? This I could take home. I laughed into the wind as I ran. “I’m coming, Gabbi. I’m coming.”

Aftermath

“Are you all right?”

I snorted. “Oh, yes. Absolutely.”

Cran gave me a sidelong look. “I was only asking.”

“And I was only answering.” I shifted so’s he couldn’t see my face, and stared out the window. “Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? It was only a small demon, after all.” My jaw twitched as I tried to hold back the sarcasm.

Silence for a moment, then I heard the rustle of cloth as he stood.

He left without saying a word.

I was glad.

I waited a while to be sure he wasn’t coming back, then I went to the sideboard and poured myself a few too many finger heights of lemon vodka. I glanced away so I didn’t have to see my hands tremble.

I was fine. The demon was gone. It had needed barely any prompting, even; just a splash of holy water, a garlic sandwich and a quick prayer – and gone.

A tiny demon.

Insignificant.

So why did I feel so damn messed up? Violated, even.

I gulped down the alcohol, ignoring the burn in my throat, and slumped back down on the lounge. I stared out the window, smiling half-heartedly as Molly, the insane labradoodle, chased the neighbour’s cat across the lawn.

Yesterday, if someone’d told me what was going to happen, I’d’ve called them insane. Actually, I’d’ve prob’ly called them a bloody idiot, get out of my way now, thanks very much. But whatever.

I closed my eyes and draped a hand over my face. The sunlight seemed extra bright and shiny today, and it hurt my eyes to look outside for long.

Something moved behind me and I jumped, whipping out the crucifix from down my shirt. “Dammit, Cran,” I said. “Did you have to come in so suddenly like that?”

He looked abashed. “Sorry.”

Cran never said sorry. My grip on the crucifix tightened and I found myself wishing I could switch my alco for water – the holy kind. “What did you say?”

He glanced up at me. “I said sorry. I know you’re pretty jumpy still. I’ll try to make more noise.” He tried on a grin.

I narrowed my eyes. Was it just that my recent freak-out had put me on edge, or did something about him seem different to normal? A tightness around the eyes, a twitch of the lips, something in the carriage of his shoulders.

The crucifix dug into my palm. I set the drink down and shoved my hand into my pocket, looking for the last stray clove of garlic. It came up empty. Hell.

I edged towards the kitchen. “So, uh, big plans for today?” I asked.

Cran shrugged. “Game’s on tonight, I was thinking of heading over to Mickey’s to watch.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said with deliberate casualness. The demon was good, very good. I could almost believe I was just making the whole thing up. If it hadn’t just possessed me yesterday, if I hadn’t seen its tics and mannerisms up close and personal, I’d’ve missed the whole exchange going on on Cran’s face: demon versus man, the internal struggle for control.

“Yeah,“ the demon said with Cran’s voice. “You?”

I stuck my bottom lip out nonchalantly. “Nothing much. Still, you know.” I held up my free hand and stared at it, transfixed for a second by the shaking. Bastard, I thought. You did this to me and you know it. I’ll kill you this time. What was it that killed demons for good, again?

Cran gave me a sympathetic look. “Yeah. That. Not much fun, I reckon.”

I shrugged and made it to the kitchen, sliding in behind the bench and pretending I was rummaging for something to eat. “I lived,” I said. You won’t, I added in the privacy of my own skull – which, thank God, was private once again.

Bastard demon. First me, now Cran. It wasn’t going to get away with this.

Stakes, that was it. Like vampires, their cousins. One big happy life-stealing family. I ground my teeth.

Cran moved toward me. “So how long do you think it will take? To, you know, recover?”

I fished around in the utensil drawer for the big bamboo chopsticks. A stick was nearly a stake, right? Near enough was good enough, or at least I bloody well hoped it would be. “No idea,” I told Cran. “S’pose it depends.”

“Yeah?” He – the demon – responded. “On what?”

I shrugged again. “Things.”

“Can I help?”

Hell, he was right behind me. I could feel him breathing down my neck. I shivered. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, you can.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “How?” His mouth was right next to my ear. His breath was warm.

F—ing bastard. Why Cran? Why the only man who’d ever loved me in my entire miserable life? Bloody, bloody hell. “Like this,” I whispered.

I twisted around, one clean movement, but too quick for him to react. The crucifix slammed into his forehead, the bamboo stake into the side of his neck.

His eyes went wide. “What the—“

He gurgled.

I pushed him off me and he crumpled to the floor, and I tried to pretend I wasn’t crying. “You bastard,” I said through the tightness in my throat. “I name you Azazel.”

The air shimmered in front of me. “You rang?”

I blinked, regained my senses, scrambled backwards. “What the hell?”

The faint outline of the demon lifted an eyebrow. “You called. I appeared, despite the warmth of your reaction last time. To what do I owe the honour this time?”

My gaze flickered between the hazy demon, hovering in the middle of the kitchen, and the crumpled, broken body lying beneath it. “You possessed him. You bastard, you possessed the only man I ever loved!”

The demon glanced down. “That hunk of meat? Hardly. So few brain cells it would be like ingesting water to stave off famine. And the few that he has – had – were far too good to be pleasant.” It shuddered. “No, thank you. I have better taste than that.”

I stared. “No. You possessed him. I saw you!”

The demon huffed. “If you think, even for a second, that I would possess something like that...” It trailed off, head tilted, staring at the bamboo skewer in my hand.

I followed its gaze and stared horrified as the blood trickled down to meet my fingers.

“Oh, you didn’t. You didn’t!” The demon cackled. “Oh, my precious, that is just too lovely.” It cackled louder. “Well done!”

I drew in a shaky breath. “Get lost,” I said.

It clutched its sides, laughing uproariously.

“Now,” I said, anger hardening in my chest. I stood, took aim, threw the stake and the crucifix all at once.

The laughter cut off. The shimmer snapped out with a shriek.

I stared at the body lying glassy-eyed on the floor. The demon was gone.

Shallow Grave

Another vignette from the Miami Witch universe. Darius Kendall, scion of the powerful Kendall family, is being targeted for assassination. To make matters worse his ex-girlfriend wants to talk. 

Other stories in this universe:
WISHFUL THINKING  (high school Ember)
DANGEROUS AND BRIGHT (graduation night with Ember and Darius)

***

Darius slammed his phone down and stared out the window at the palm fronds gently swaying in the ocean breeze. It was a great night: full moon, white sand beaches, the surf’s gentle song, the local PD was cooperating with the operation, and no one had tried to kill him in nearly a week. That had to be it. Everything was too perfect. So the universe tried to throw a wrench at his head and conspired to give his ex-girlfriend his phone number.

“Someone hates me.”

“Obviously,” came the dry reply from across the room. Ember Li was the Miami police department’s liaison with Miami Society – a magic users who lived in around the South Florida city – and when the death threats came in he’d been given the choice of working with her or her boss. Since Miss Li answered to a dragon he’d gone with the one option that didn’t risk getting his head literally chewed off.

Which meant working in close confines with a woman he’d known since they were pimply teenagers.  She’d been easier to deal with then, tall and gangly and prickly as a cactus. If there was such a thing as a time travel spell he would have gone back and warned himself that the quiet ones were always the deadliest.

She leaned over the map spread out on the table, trying to pin down a time line of the assassination attempts, and her white shorts molded to her perky rear end. Darius pulled his eyes away, only for his gaze to snag on the gold ankle bracelet glittering over her bare foot. Long, milk chocolate legs sculpted to perfection, curves, black hair with hints of cinnamon, a creamy white shirt that left one shoulder bare... A groan escaped his lips.

Ember shot him a quizzical look over her shoulder. “What?”

“I’m hungry.” That had to be it. Low blood sugar was the only reason he was thinking about licking her like an ice cream cone.

“Fridge is over there.” She pointed off to the left in case he’d forgotten in the last ten seconds. They were in a private resort suite used by Miami PD on the very rare occasions they needed a safe house no one had heard of. Or so Ember said. He strongly suspected her draconic boss owned the property and was letting him hide here because there were magic wards strong enough to make even a fae high lord think twice about invading.

Darius rummaged around and found a salad left over from lunch. Popping the lid off the container he decided to dump his problems on his unwilling companion. “That was my ex on the phone.”

“Does she want you dead?” Ember asked as she made another mark on the map.

“She wants me to get back with her.”

“So, this is a pointless conversation and you’ll stop yammering now?”

He stabbed at his salad. “I guess. I... do your exes pop back up from time to time?”

“Nope. I don’t dig shallow graves.”

The clock ticked in the following silence. Darius stood frozen, fork full of lettuce half way to his lips. “Um...”

Ember froze, then slowly thawed, her back arching with sensual grace as she stood up. “Did I say that out loud?”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh. Awkward.” She turned with a little half-smile. “I was joking. I hardly ever kill my boyfriends.”

“Hardly ever isn’t the same as never.”

She pressed her lips together and batted her big, black eyes. “Nobody missed him?”

He took a bite of his salad. “Did I know this guy?”

“No! He was a college boyfriend, not someone from Society.”

“You don’t date anyone in Society.” He’d checked. Regularly. Ever since their paths had crossed one night in Atlanta he’d felt a desire to keep tabs on her social life. Once she moved back to Miami he’d taken their working relationship as an excuse to ask around. For security reasons.
Ember wasn’t ranked as a sorcerer and so in Society she was seen as a minor player. Having seen what she could do with Earth magic, Darius privately ranked her as one of the top ten deadliest people in Miami.

He waited for her to explain. “You’re not trying to kill me, are you? This isn’t some elaborate ruse?”

“Are you dead?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not after you.”

He finished his salad in silence and when she still hadn’t divulged any more information he went and sat on the table. “Spill.”

“What? You’re my confessor now?”

“I’m the enforcer for Miami Society. Eventually, I’ll find out. Why not explain why you’re ex is six feet under now and save us both time?”

She frowned at him, a delicate look filled with disapproval and mild disgust. “He’s not buried. He was cremated.”

“By you?”

“By the state of Louisiana.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “You aren’t going to give up, are you?”

“Nope.”

Ember pulled a chair over and sat back. “So, my sophomore year at Tulane there was a serial killer in the area. He drugged his victims, raped them, and then gave them an overdose of one of the more popular party drugs. Everyone thought it was bad parties until one of the girls found dead was a known anti-drug activist and lesbian with a long-term girlfriend. Since she clearly would be having sloppy sex with boys during a drug rage people started asking questions.”

His stomach twisted. “You didn’t tell anyone at home about this?”

“His targets were all white girls. I thought I was safe. And I’d just met this really nice guy. We had biochem together. We studied together a few times. Ate dinner out once. And then he asked me to go see the local theater production of Guys and Dolls. I thought it would be fun, and it was.”

“But?”

Ember shrugged. “During the intermission he brought me back a water he’d already opened. I didn’t think anything about it, but it tasted a little bit off. Almost stale, like it’d been sitting in a hot car all day. I drank a little, but not much. On the way home he kept nagging me to drink more water. Telling me I’d get dehydrated or whatever. So I drank it.”

Darius’s fists balled up. “What’d he do to you?”

“He walked me into my apartment and started groping me. I told him to knock it off and threw a hex at him. A little one. Used a little bit of alder powder. It should have made him run off. It killed him.” Her lips twisted in a studious frown. “The drugs he slipped in my water upped my natural powers.”

“Fear does that too,” Darius said quietly.

“So I’ve heard.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I called my friends, we drug him to the car, drove across town, and dumped him in a bad part of town. The police found the body in the morning, wrote it off as an overdose, and when the DNA test came back matching him to the rape victims no one mourned his passing. I’m a little more careful now.”

“A little?” Darius smirked. “Have you dated anyone since then?”

“Nope.” She turned back to her map. “Can’t seem to find anyone who interests me.”

He walked around the table to peek over her shoulder. “Liar,” he whispered in her ear.

The look she tossed over her shoulder was heated, seductive, and promising. “You wish.”

Darius reached out and caressed the thin gold chain hanging around her neck until he caught the pendant, a small gold seahorse. It had been a graduation present, an apology for the four years of hell he’d put her through. She’d worn it that night in Atlanta when he finally stole a kiss. And she’d worn almost every day he’d seen her since her return to Miami. “Sometimes, I think you like me more than you’ll admit.”

“Sometimes, I think you’re right.” She pulled a picture from the suspect pile. “But right now, I’m going to worry about arresting your would-be killer. Guess who?”

Purity

The parking lot is covered in a foot of storm water, and the wind whips up waves like it’s a sea. I’ve no idea how we’re going to get to the service station—or what we’re going to find once we’re inside.

Beside me, Reg shifts, his lined face twitching and flickering like it has a life of its own. “Think we should do it?” he mutters.

I jerk my head in a nod that feels precariously like falling. “Of course we should do it.”

He rearranges the shotgun under his trench coat, and we set out.

The dark concrete of the parking lot turns the water inky grey, and oil slicks float on the surface. It seeps into my boots, icy cold fingers that set me shivering even through the garbage bags I’m wearing under my trousers as waterproof knee-high socks. The wind cuts through my thin coat—it doesn’t help that one sleeve has nearly been torn off and the buttons are all missing—and all that, combined with the hunger gnawing in my stomach, is almost enough to make me wish we hadn’t set out on this foolhardy adventure in the first place. Sadly, when you’re hunting a unicorn, there’s no stopping till it’s dead—or you are.

Reg trudges resignedly on, heavy steps sloshing and splashing the foul water, and I follow. All over town is like this now: half submerged, water leeching oil and tar and carbon monoxide and other cloying chemicals from the buildings. It’s only been a week, but already the southlands are crumbling; their concrete was cheap, sand-filled stuff, the bricks half-backed clay, and none of it is strong enough to withstand the onslaught.

One of Reg’s splashes catch me on the cheek, and I reel for a moment as the water zaps me like electricity. I wipe it off with the back of my sleeve, knowing that where it’s gone, my skin will be left glowing and fresh. I can totally understand why the first victims fell willingly, bathing themselves in water that seemed to create perfection. Thank heavens I have goggles.

The wind brings steel-coloured clouds that boil overhead, and I prod Reg in the back. “Storm’s coming,” I say.

He glances up, exhales through his nostrils, and carries on.

A downpour will be the end of us if we don’t find shelter—but we’re close now, touchingly close, and we couldn’t break away even if we tried.

The service station looms ahead, casting a shadow even in this dim, directionless light. It’s a toad hulking in the corner of its pond, waiting for a fly to mistake it for a boulder, ready to dart out its tongue and consume the unwary. Light radiates from windows that are crystal clear, dripping sludge marks below their panes the only remnants of their former dirt-and-oil coatings. Somewhere in there, working to purify the whole damn world, is the unicorn.

We duck under the shelter of the awning right as the rains begin. As usual, they’re torrential, a flash downpour that blocks the senses: everything is grey, rushing water, the smell of wet concrete and oil.

I cock my head; underneath the roar of the water, something else is groaning. I glance up. “Look out!” I tackle Reg to the ground and roll, and the collapsing roof misses us by inches. We’re stuck between the wreckage and the building now, and all I can see is the pitted, metal girders that have twisted and torn.

“You right?” I ask Reg, offering him a hand.

Muttering under his breath, he ignores me and shoves himself to his feet. He resets his bucket hat on his greying head, adjusts the shotgun, and tightens the sash on his trench coat.

Once I’m sure he’s okay, I pull my own coat tighter around me and fold my arms to stop it flapping. The comforting weight of the frabah powder weighs down my pocket.

Our eyes meet. It’s time to go in. With a deep inhale, I place my palms against the sparkling glass door of the service centre.

Reg stands shoulder to shoulder with me. “Go on, then, lass.”

I push. Sweet, fresh air wafts out to meet us; the unicorn must have been here a while.

We ease ourselves through the door and stand staring at the aisles. Water covers the floor here too, though not as deeply, and instead of deathly grey it’s brilliant: rainbow hued, swirled like a Paddle Pop of old—though in a strange way that twists the mind, ‘of old’ is only last week.

On the shelf next to the door, just to our right, a chip packet has survived unscathed. Halfway down the aisle in front of us, a packet of Tim Tams seems intact. I wade over to the ice cream freezer and peer in. It’s a riot of colour from the plastic and the ice creams, and chocolate sludge coats the inside. The glass that covers it, though, is pristine.

I push my goggles up and wipe my hands up my face then back down over my eyes. I’m tired. This has to end. Maybe if we’d been out bush this wouldn’t have mattered so much; if we hadn’t lived in a jungle of concrete and steel, artificial chemicals and preservatives that pervade all the food we have, maybe the unicorn wouldn’t have mattered.

But we don’t. If we’re purified, we’ll die.

A noise sounds behind the counter. Reg and I whip around in the same instant, and light, blinding, glorious, perfect light, streams out from the unicorn and burns my eyes. I throw up my arms to shield them against it and the shotgun barks beside me, once, twice, and again.

That’s my cue. I dart my eyes open for an instant to check that the way is clear, and then running blind I sprint towards the counter—towards the unicorn that is our death. I wrap my hand about the pure hemp bag holding the organic herbs that, crushed together, make frabah powder. I can feel the unicorn’s power burning me; my tatty, filthy clothes fall away, first the coat, then my shirt and pants, the garbage bags, and finally my elastane-blended sports bra. Thank heavens I went for cotton undies. But I’ve no time to be embarrassed (and I’ve nothing that’ll bounce anyway), because the light is burning my skin now—though at least if I come out of this alive I’ll be unicorn-bathed, my skin flawless and glowing.

But I’m at the counter, and I launched myself over it, scrabbling on the little shelves that once held chocolate bars. I’m kneeling on it and the unicorn, blindingly white, pure bliss, perfection incarnate, stands before me, eyeing me with one glorious golden eye before swinging its deadly point towards me. I reach into hemp bag, grab a handful of powder, and as the unicorn stabs I toss. The powder sticks to the unicorn like glue.

It freezes, death-point half an inch from goring my stomach. My heart’s pounding in my ears so loud I can’t even hear the rain any more. The unicorn’s glow turns gold. All over it, hairline cracks run likes spiders, faster and faster and faster until—

The unicorn shatters like crystal. The chime of it sounds through the air and I cringe, hands over my ears. A sharp pain pops in my left air and my hand comes away wet with blood. Crystal shards rain down, slicing into my skin.

Something sweeps over me and I struggle wildly, but it’s Reg, covering me with the coat he’s stripped out of, and the noise I can here in my good ear is just the alarm system of the building as he helps me down off the counter.

I stand beside him, shivering. The ceiling drips, rainbow water swirls around our feet, and outside the rain has stopped. Something golden burst through the window and my heart stops for a second because it looks like the last light of the unicorn—but it’s just sunshine, and already the window it shines through is grimier, and the water in the parking lot’s clearing.

Reg grunts and hands me that last chip packet. “Okay, lass?”

I nod, accepting it. “Okay.”