Anna Dressed in Blood - Kendare Blake [3]
“Cas?”
I look up into the mirror and see the sleepy reflection of my mom, holding the black cat in her arms. I put the athame down on the counter.
“Hey, Mom. Sorry to wake you.”
“You know I like to be up when you come in anyway. You should always wake me, so I can sleep.”
I don’t tell her how dumb that sounds; I just turn on the faucet and start to run the blade under the cold water.
“I’ll do it,” she says, and touches my arm. Then of course she grabs my wrist, because she can see the bruises that are starting to purple up all along my forearm.
I expect her to say something motherly; I expect her to quack around like a worried duck for a few minutes and go to the kitchen to get ice and a wet towel, even though the bruises are by no means the worst mark I’ve ever gotten. But this time she doesn’t. Maybe because it’s late, and she’s tired. Or maybe because after three years she’s finally starting to figure out that I’m not going to quit.
“Give it to me,” she says, and I do, because I’ve gotten the worst of the black stuff off already. She takes it and leaves. I know that she’s off to do what she does every time, which is to boil the blade and then stab it into a big jar of salt, where it will sit under the light of the moon for three days. When she takes it out she’ll wipe it down with cinnamon oil and call it good as new.
She used to do the same thing for my dad. He’d come home from killing something that was already dead and she’d kiss him on the cheek and take away the athame, as casually as any wife might carry in a briefcase. He and I used to stare at the thing while it sat in its jar of salt, our arms crossed over our chests, conveying to each other that we both thought it was ridiculous. It always seemed to me like an exercise in make-believe. Like it was Excalibur in the rock.
But my dad let her do it. He knew what he was getting into when he met and married her, a pretty, auburn-haired Wiccan girl with a strand of white flowers braided around her neck. He’d lied back then and called himself Wiccan too, for lack of a better word. But really, Dad wasn’t much of anything.
He just loved the legends. He loved a good story, tales about the world that made it seem cooler than it really was. He went crazy over Greek mythology, which is where I got my name.
They compromised on it, because my mom loved Shakespeare, and I ended up called Theseus Cassio. Theseus for the slayer of the Minotaur, and Cassio for Othello’s doomed lieutenant. I think it sounds straight-up stupid. Theseus Cassio Lowood. Everyone just calls me Cas. I suppose I should be glad—my dad also loved Norse mythology, so I might have wound up being called Thor, which would have been basically unbearable.
I exhale and look in the mirror. There are no marks on my face, or on my gray dress button-up, just like there were no marks on the Rally Sport’s upholstery (thank god). I look ridiculous. I’m in slacks and sleeves like I’m out on a big date, because that’s what I told Mr. Dean I needed the car for. When I left the house tonight my hair was combed back, and there was a little bit of gel in it, but after that fucking kerfuffle it’s hanging across my forehead in dark streaks.
“You should hurry up and get to bed, sweetheart. It’s late and we’ve got more packing to do.”
My mom is done with the knife. She’s floated back up against the doorjamb and her black cat is twisting around her ankles like a bored fish around a plastic castle.
“I just want to jump in the shower,” I say. She sighs and turns away.
“You did get him, didn’t you?” she says over her shoulder, almost like an afterthought.
“Yeah. I got him.”
She smiles at me. Her mouth looks sad and wistful. “It was close this time. You thought you’d have him finished