Witch-Blood

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  He had a point—I kept seeing Mrs. Cooper’s crumpled body behind my eyes, and the last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of the others. “It’s not that I’m against them dating,” I replied, forcing the raw image from my mind, “it’s just…weird. I mean, he’s my friend, and that’s great, and she’s my sister, and that’s great, but putting them together…”

  He chuckled softly. “She’s still the obnoxious big sister who bossed you around and took all the good toys, isn’t she? It’s clear that she still thinks of you as the weakling to be protected.”

  That rankled me, but I tried not to let on. “Hel’s always looked out for me. It’s not weakness—it’s a matter of being stuck with a pack of armed sadists and no access to guns.”

  “I didn’t say you were weak. I said she still thinks of you as weak.” He gave me a careful once-over and closed his eyes. “Personally, I think you’ll surprise her one day when you find your footing, but that’s going to depend on you, kid.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped as sorrow and fear morphed into anger.

  One eye cracked open, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Vivi tells me you’re bright. You haven’t said much, but I know you’ve been listening. Someday,” he said, watching the lobby, “you’re going to stop believing that opening your mouth always invites a beating, and when that day comes, I bet you’ll be amazing. But it’s not going to come until you convince yourself that you’re more than just a weakling to be protected.” He pointed to the lobby doors. “That kid’s not much older than you are. Doesn’t have a shred of magical ability, does he?”

  “No…”

  “And that hasn’t stopped him, has it?” Rufus watched me try to formulate a response to that, then said, “I don’t know everything that happened to you in that damn silo, but I’ve heard bits and pieces. Aiden…” He struggled for a moment. “Look, this is going to sound incredibly hypocritical, but you don’t need magic. Don’t get me wrong,” he hastened to add, “it’s great, and I’m glad I don’t have to do without it, but I’m the exception. Stop and consider how many billions of people there are in this realm who don’t even know it exists, who go on without it and do amazing things. Look at literature, look at art—or if you want something more concrete, look at NASA. You think magic put a man on the moon?”

  I shrugged. “It could.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. The natural gates open onto the surface of this world, right? Do we have any idea how far magic radiates? I mean,” he said, folding his arms, “in theory, you could open a gate from Faerie directly onto the moon, but I doubt it’s ever been attempted. And if something went wrong with the enchantment, poof, you’re very, very dead.” He caught my look of incredulity and began to flush. “I’ve given this some thought, all right? I lived through the sixties. But all I’m saying is that a lack of magical talent doesn’t make you weak. Mundane is such a poor term for it—there’s nothing mundane about you, or about him,” he said, jutting his chin toward the hotel, “or about my sister, or her fiancé, or that poor lady…” Rufus paused and stared into the night in silence. “I’ve known plenty of mundanes,” he said after a long moment. “They’ve been passing through my classroom for the last sixty years, and let me tell you, some of them are among the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met.” My brow creased, and he grinned at my bemusement. “American history, University of Southern Alaska. Joined up after I got my PhD and stuck around until they slapped emeritus on my office nameplate and told me I could teach whatever the hell I wanted.”

  “You?”

  “Why not? What was I supposed to do, sit around in my parents’ basement for the next thousand years? I get out, I write, I go to conferences in Cleveland—and I don’t think you’re too young to appreciate the scenic beauty of a town overpopulated by coeds.” He smiled wistfully at the deserted parking lot. “So listen to someone who’s had more experience with so-called mundanes than those Arcanum idiots ever will. You’re not weak, Aiden—you just don’t know your strength yet. And here he comes…yes, plastic keycards,” he said with relief, hoisting his duffel as Joey flashed a pair of paper envelopes. “I take it you don’t have the metal sensitivity, right?”

  “Lucked out,” I replied, wrapping my arm around Georgie to lead her inside. She had almost dozed off standing up, and she shuffled slowly around the few cars in our path.

  “Then you can’t fully appreciate the wonder that is modern hotel keys,” said Rufus. “Or any keys, for that matter. We went to keycards about ten years ago across campus—it was such a joy to not have to paint my office keys with liquid plastic. Now,” he said, glancing at Georgie, “let’s just hope this is the sort of establishment that doesn’t think twice about two grown men, a teenage boy, and a sleeping girl checking in at four a.m.”

  Fortunately for us, by the time we made it into the lobby, the desk clerk had already retreated to the back room and the taped wrestling match Joey had interrupted, leaving no witnesses but the security camera as Joey carried Georgie in and Rufus and I took up the rear. The place stank of ammonia, and the overhead fluorescents buzzed and sputtered, but no one complained. Aesthetics didn’t matter at that hour.

  Our rooms were a few doors off the lobby, and though the walls were thin, any neighbors we had appeared to still be asleep. Joey and Georgie took the first room—no one wanted to have to explain where he was if she woke in a panic and couldn’t find him—leaving Rufus and me with a bed apiece and basic cable.

  With the door locked and latched behind us and the air conditioner chugging in spite of the chill outside, I found myself at that odd intersection between exhausted enough to drop where I stood and too wired to close my eyes. I stretched out on the old palm tree–patterned bedspread and tried to sleep, but my mind kept replaying the last two hours, a pernicious highlight reel that alternated between Mrs. Cooper and the mob of dead wizards. Frustrated and still riding the adrenaline surge that had carried me through the night, I sat up and stared at the bluish twilight out our window until Rufus stirred behind me and asked, “You drink coffee, kid?”

  “Today? Sure.” I turned and found him lying on his back, gazing at the Greenland-shaped water stain on the ceiling. “I think I saw a coffeemaker in the bathroom, if you want me—”

  His finger twitched toward the cheap dresser, and a pair of steaming mugs appeared. “That was an offer, not a request. And if you’re wise, you won’t use those things,” he added. “You never know what else they’ve made besides coffee.”

  “Oh?”

  He grimaced. “A few years back, half the department went to Denver and got snowed in for three days. We had a grocery store down the street, and most of us made do with cereal and microwave dinners, you know, as one does, but a couple of my TAs got creative with the coffee pots. ‘Poached Salmon à la Ramada,’ they called it.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “No, what was disgusting was the fact that the fish had overtones of artificial orange—someone had cleaned the carafes with furniture polish. Or so I was told,” he hastily added. “I wasn’t about to get near that mess. And then the little geniuses tried it again with the department coffee pot, and there was a near riot…well, long story short, the TAs bought us an apology Keurig, and they lived to graduate.”

  “Noted.” I helped myself and returned to my bed, and Rufus sat up and waved his coffee across the room. “Feeling lazy, are we?” I asked.

  “This could be a long day. I may as well make the best of it,” he replied before drinking deeply. “Magic does have its little perks.”

  “You must have freaked out when Faerie sealed off. Having to actually get out of bed to get your food…”

  He put the coffee aside and whistled. “That was terrifying, and I thank my lucky stars our spring break is early. By the end of that week, I couldn’t hold a glamour together to save my life. Holed up in my apartment with Netflix and a mystery flu until the magic came back.” He shook his head at the memory and reached for
his mug again.

  “You seriously couldn’t get by without glamour?”

  Rufus chuckled and drank. “I did mention the ‘emeritus’ part of my title, yes? I’ve been operating under my real identity all along—had to put together a face to match, see?”

  As I watched, his dark hair thinned and whitened, his face wrinkled into crevasses and developed a crop of dark splotches, and the hands wrapped around his mug grew gaunt and bony, the skin translucent over raised blue veins. “I won’t be able to keep this identity much longer, I’m afraid,” he said in a voice suddenly raspy and weak with age, “but I hate to let it go. Starting over is going to be such a pain.” Instantly, he was young again as the glamour dropped, and he sipped his coffee while I goggled. “Come, now,” he said with a smirk, “surely you’ve seen that trick before.”

  “Well, yeah,” I replied, “but not to that extent…”

  “I suppose no one really wants to look ninety-one,” he mused. “It’s not an easy act to keep up—appearance and voice are simple, but you’ve got to remember to move slowly and at least pretend you’re brittle. On the plus side, I can ignore half of what’s said at department meetings and chalk it up to poor hearing,” he added. “I’m missing one of the damn things today, in fact. Can’t say I’m altogether sorry to be in Miami again, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

  I drank, burned my tongue, and forced the hot coffee down. “What if he won’t talk to us?”

  “Grivam?” Rufus leaned back against the headboard and sighed. “We’ll think of a Plan B, then. I’m still trying to figure out how to get a message to him in the first place.”

  “When Coileán did it, he just put his hand over the water, and a beam of light came out of his palm or something.” I blew on my drink and shrugged. “Look, if you want specifics, I’m the wrong guy to ask.”

  “No, that’s…that’s actually helpful,” he said, frowning at the ceiling. “Assuming Joey knows where we’re going and where to find a boat, I can probably do something along those lines. It’s either that or stick my head underwater and try yelling.”

  “And what if Oberon’s still there?” I asked, ignoring his attempt at levity. “Or what if he left a skeleton crew or something?”

  Rufus waited for a moment as I stewed, then said, “Cross your bridges as you come to them. As for this one…” He thought briefly, drumming his fingers on his mug. “Well, I suppose the safest thing to do would be to leave the three of you a few miles back up the road and scout out the island alone. If he does have people waiting, I won’t set off any alarms. Might even be able to get information that way without bothering with the merrow,” he added, perking up. “See? Crisis averted.”

  I drank in silence, keeping one eye on the glow in the east, then looked back to find Rufus watching me. “We have to get over there,” I muttered.

  “As soon as we can rent a car.”

  “Not the island—Faerie.” He said nothing, and I glared at the slow-rising sun. “Coileán’s in trouble. I can’t help him from here.”

  “And you can’t help him by running in blindly, either,” he pointed out. “Thirteen dead already, son—I’d rather not add to that tally, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “But I’ve got to do something,” I protested.

  “You are, and you will,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument. “And for now, drink up.”

  As I learned that day, Joey could function surprisingly well on limited sleep if given sufficient caffeine and a plate of waffles enchanted out of the ether. By nine, we were on the road south in a rented Toyota, Joey at the wheel, Rufus riding shotgun (and sporting a pair of gloves, just in case), and Georgie and me napping against the car doors. I felt bad about conking out on Joey, but without so much as a learner’s permit, I was useless. In any case, Rufus seemed to intuitively know just how much conversation to make to keep the driver conscious.

  The morning—or what little I saw of it—was gorgeous, partly cloudy and rising out of the mid-seventies, a welcome change from the last few days in Montana and Virginia. Traffic on Route 1 was light heading out of Miami, and I woke periodically to glimpses of the sea as we wove through the northern Keys. Admittedly, I missed most of the scenery, and I didn’t snap back to full alertness until Joey pulled the car to a stop in the parking lot of a little strip mall in Key West. I realized that the sun was high and warm, and then my stomach suggested that lunch might be an excellent option.

  “Oh good, you’re alive,” said Joey as he turned in his seat. “Here’s the drill: the three of us are going to get something to eat,” he explained, pointing to Georgie and me, “and Rufus is going to backtrack and have a look at East Rock. Does that work for everyone?”

  I nodded, and Georgie blinked blearily beside me. “How’re we meeting up again?”

  Joey flashed what appeared to be a black iPhone. “Rufus’ll call us when he’s heading back. Also,” he said, glancing at Rufus, “you should know that I’m keeping this. Boss may have untold power, but the best he can do is a flip phone.”

  “See, this is why TAs are useful—they make me stay current,” he replied, carefully unlatching his seatbelt. “And yes, do what you like with it. My number is programmed in already. Do you have an address for Oberon’s bar, by chance?” he asked as he pulled his own phone out of his blazer.

  As they talked logistics, I helped Georgie out and held her upright until she found her footing again. Where… she began, squinting at the cars around us, then thought, I smell meat.

  I looked behind me and found a burger joint in her sights. “Wait just a minute, okay?” I said, wondering how long Rufus’s breakfast platter of ham would hold her.

  Georgie scowled but made no complaint. A moment later, I caught her with her eyes closed and her face turned skyward, basking in the afternoon sun. “Feels good?” I asked.

  Very.

  I thought of all the times I’d caught her stretched out beside the barn with the same expression on her face and smiled to myself.

  By the time I’d guided her out of the way of the parking lot flow, Rufus had taken the wheel and was pulling onto the street. Joey stood beside the vacated space with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, watching our rental car disappear. “My sword’s in the trunk,” he said quietly.

  “That’s probably a good thing,” I replied, “considering we’re, you know, in public.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t leave that with just anyone,” he said, then gave me a long look. “We don’t know him well, and we’re trusting him with a lot.”

  My guts knotted as the lunchtime traffic passed around us. “Has he said someth—”

  “No, no,” Joey said, cutting off the question before I could ask it, “but I’d feel a lot better if our bases were covered.”

  “So would I, but in light of the circumstances…”

  A car pulled up in front of us and flashed its headlights, and we stepped away from the empty parking space. “Nothing to be done for it now, I guess,” said Joey as he steered Georgie toward the smell of burgers. “At least we can check in with Helen, right? Stop her from coming after me in my sleep.”

  I followed them toward the restaurant, skirting an errant balled-up paper sack. “Okay, I know she’s persistent, but she’s not vicious.”

  “Maybe not, but I make it a point these days to piss off as few magically inclined folks as I can. Safety first.”

  With Georgie happily devouring half a dozen hamburger patties, Joey pulled out his new phone and called my sister. “We’re alive, we’re in Florida,” he said as soon as she picked up. “No one panic. How’re things up there?”

  I timed the ensuing silence. Joey listened for a solid five minutes, adding occasional monosyllabic responses to prove that he was still on the line, then told Hel he loved her and put the phone away. “How bad?” I asked, pushing the remnants of my fries to Georgie.

  He made a face and picked at his cold burger. “Well, let’s see. Toula’s been in three t
ime zones since we parted, and there’s a squad one step behind.”

  “She can’t…disable it?”

  “Oh, no, that’s not the problem—she says she’s killed four assassins this morning. The reinforcements just keep coming. There’s a death warrant out for her.”

  “What?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he muttered, glancing at the neighboring tables, but the other diners seemed too engrossed in their meals to pay us any attention. “Vivi and her buddies have been busy moles, apparently. The Fringe hacked into the Arcanum’s network, and Vivi’s been helping herself to their communiqués all morning.”

  “Considering that half the tech crew in the silo can’t be trusted to program a VCR, I’m not surprised,” I replied, “but a death warrant? What the hell, man?”

  “I know.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “There’s a warrant out for Helen, too, and for the three of us,” he said quietly. “Arcanum’s had a crew outside the Stowes’ place for the last few hours, but no one’s breaking that standoff—five wizards out in the cold, freezing their asses off, against at least two well-seasoned faeries and Helen? If those idiots got through the door, they’d be toast.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “So they’re tracking Toula and Hel…what about us?”

  “Vivi says they got a twenty on us about an hour ago, but the current order is to hold back.”

  “Did she say why?”

  Joey smirked and bit into his burger. “Ever seen a wizard in the Keys? This is Oberon’s turf. They don’t know if he’s still lurking, and they don’t want to find out the hard way.”

  “So,” I said, raising my voice a notch as Georgie noisily sucked the burger juice from her fingers, “if he doesn’t finish us off, they’ll get us when we’re on the road?”

  “Bingo, bud.” He took another bite and grimaced. “Food’s about the last thing I want after that news, but I guess I’d better keep my strength up. You, too,” he added, pushing my half-eaten fries back toward me. “Go on, Georgie’s had enough grease without those.”