Stray Witch

by Eva Alton

  “Not just any card game, but Le Tarot de Marseille,” he said, taking the deck and shuffling it with the professionalism of a well-seasoned croupier. “Look.”

  Jean-Pierre fanned the cards, face up, over the silken tablecloth in a horseshoe shape. Then, he picked four of them and put them in the center for me to see.

  “Their Majesties, the Queens of the Tarot of Marseille,” he said with a neck bow, like a loyal page in court.

  The cards depicted four women sitting on thrones and wearing crowns, with their names in old French: Reyne de Deniers, Reyne de Coupe, Reyne de Baton and Reyne d’Epée. None of them were particularly pretty, nor especially magical looking.

  “And how am I supposed to work with... Their Majesties? Should I hold the cards in my hand as I read the spell?”

  “Ah, it’s not so easy.” He shook his finger.

  “It never is, huh?” I rolled my eyes. Somehow I had expected it.

  “These are archetypes. Most people fall into one or the other, and adult women are usually represented by queens in the Tarot. Which queen they are will depend on their traits and personality. You would need one of each to cast this spell with all its force, but one queen alone could probably use it, too. Cups are water, swords are air, coins are earth and staffs are fire. The elements are a common occurrence in witchcraft, as you would know if you weren’t a stray.”

  “I see,” I said. My knowledge of the Tarot so far had been limited to freaky-looking psychics who advertised their hotlines on late-night television. Still, I decided to be open-minded about the subject, just in case. “Sounds interesting. So, which one am I, and where do I find the missing queens so I can use the spell properly?”

  “That’s a question I can’t answer for you,” Jean-Pierre said mysteriously, putting the cards back together and wrapping them up.

  I was almost expecting him to give me yet another book to add to my long to-read list when the door to the library opened and Elizabeth stormed in, her dark and voluptuous body squeezed in a whimsical olive-green gown.

  “I hear we are getting arc lamps,” she growled, looking half-indignant, half-curious.

  “Excuse me?” I blinked, wondering what arcs she may be talking about.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know anything about it!” she shouted, pointing at me with an extremely sharp finger which vaguely resembled a claw. “Clarence just left my office and twisted my arm until I promised to allow you to bring that madness into our nest!”

  “Oh, so he’s back already,” Jean-Pierre said with a cocked eyebrow. “That was quick for him. I wonder what he caught this time.”

  “Does this mean you give me permission to start working on the electrification project?” I asked, suppressing a leap of joy. Living in The Cloister wasn’t so bad, but... hot water! I could almost feel it running down my back after days of cold showers. I was in a dire need of a normal bath.

  Elizabeth grunted like a panther, but nodded slowly. “I hope you understand that, if your project brings the outsiders’ attention to The Cloister, I will snap your neck with my own hands and hang it like a garland over the gates of the cemetery―witch blood or not.”

  A soft knock on the door announced Clarence’s arrival, and my heart skipped a beat as I tried to decide whether I was happy or mortified to meet him again after my failed attempt to kiss him.

  “Oh, garlands! I see you are already celebrating the arrival of electricity,” he said with a wide smile. With his old-fashioned haircut, he suddenly reminded me of a Jane Austen character. Which was a complete shame because I had always loved Jane Austen, and now I was trapped in a catacomb with Mr. Darcy. Or rather Mr. Bingley.

  “Good day,” he greeted me, unaware of my dreamy ponderings. His eyes narrowed and he studied me like an X-ray. Finally, he put his hand on the small of my back and steered me toward the exit. “Shall we go shopping for drills and wires, Mrs. Andersson?”

  Chapter 21

  Clarence

  Alba had been behaving in a strange way for the past couple of days, and I didn’t really need vampire senses to notice that.

  At first, I had attributed it to the abrupt ending of our last dinner, when the wine had clouded her judgment―an ending I had tried not to dwell on for the sake of my sanity, although not very successfully―but then I had also noticed that she wasn’t the only one avoiding me in our little underground community.

  Brother Mercier had kept himself questionably busy for someone who had no more pressing matters to solve than feeding himself once or twice a week and memorizing classical texts ad eternum. And there were two things I knew for sure about that sleazy old friend of mine: first, that he would never, under any condition, turn down a chance to talk about Ovid to any victim with operative ear drums, unless conscience-stricken or starved to death; and second, that he had a soft spot for long-haired warmbloods with a narrow waist, and now, we had one of those pacing the halls of The Cloister night and day. She might be slightly stinky-blooded, but still fairly pretty and at an arm’s reach.

  “Before you say anything, I don’t want to know what you are reading, and―no―don’t you dare start quoting any Romans to me right now, or I will strangle you,” I warned Jean-Pierre as soon as I crossed the doors to the library. He was sitting with a book in his lap, looking like the innocent monk he never was, and I saw his finger underlining a paragraph enthusiastically, the words ready to spill out of his lips. “Seriously, I’m not in the mood for Roman rhymers right now.”

  “Don’t insult those who are cleverer than you, Auberon.” His voice shook with the orgasmic admiration the classics always incited on him. “It’s like Ovid was writing this with a tightballocks like you in mind.” I disregarded the insult, partly because I had taught it to him in a fit of creativity. “Listen to this, mon cher crétin: We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied to us,” Jean-Pierre read from his smelly old book and eyed me from beneath those hairy owl eyebrows of his. After living with someone for hundreds of years, it became gradually easier to spot when they were lying to you, or at least hiding something. And this old, bloodsucking monk, was definitely concealing something foul-smelling beneath his Latin poetry.

  “What do you think?” he said in a mushy tone. “The only thing I still haven’t decided is what you might covet the most, mon camarade.” I didn’t miss the lascivious gleam in his eyes, nor did I think it was unintended.

  “First of all, save your camarade shite for your fellow revolutionaries. And second, the only thing I’m coveting at the moment is a straightforward answer. I was wondering what you have been hiding from me since the last time I left Mrs. Andersson alone with you for more than three minutes. And please don’t tell me it’s what I think because I wouldn’t want to kill you.”

  Jean-Pierre closed his book, a rare occurrence if ever there was one, and stood up, hands on hips, narrowing his eyes as he spoke, “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. I suspect you did something to her. With her. I don’t know. I feel the energy between you two, but I can’t read it. And I know that, otherwise, you would have been torturing me with obscene verses from the Ars Amatoria as usual. But you haven’t. And that’s bizarre. I know bizarre when I see it.”

  “I bet you do, and so does she. Let me put your mind at ease and assure you that I didn’t lay a claw on her. But she loved those paintings of yours; did she mention it?”

  I stood still. All this time, I had known that the possibilities of Jean-Pierre touching Alba were slim. He may be dodgy at times, but he was my friend―if creatures like us could ever be friends, that was. But the paintings... they hadn’t even crossed my mind. My jaw fell open as I understood what that French turncoat had done, and I took a deep breath to dispel the urge to sink my fangs in his hairy neck and dye his beard bright red.

  “Splendid. So now she thinks I’m dangerous―and demented.”

  He didn’t seem one bit sorry as he served himself a glass of wine and toasted i
n my direction.

  “Oh, but aren’t you?”

  “Not more than you, fil a putain.”

  “If you are going to swear, Auberon, at least learn to pronounce Old French properly. Or you know what? Better, don’t do it at all. It ruins that gallant facade of yours―it makes you look almost manly.”

  I punched him when he echoed my father’s words. Not as hard as I wanted to, but enough to feel slightly better.

  “The woman had a right to know,” Jean-Pierre growled. I knew he wouldn’t hit me back. I might be a sissy according to my progenitor, but I knew that behind all those layers of black velvet, Jean-Pierre was just a scrawny bookworm with the legs of a spider.

  “And I had the right to tell her myself,” I said, storming out of the library and wondering how the hell I was going to explain those paintings to the woman who had been haunting my sleepless nights since I had first caught a glimpse of her from the sky.

  DAYS PASSED BY, AND Alba kept herself busy with the electrification project. I spent my time reading and arguing with Jean-Pierre about theology, secretly hoping she would ask me to help with something. Anything, really.

  When she finally appeared in the library, all wide-eyed and excited, the last thing I expected her to request from me was to join her on a trip to a shopping centre.

  In my two-hundred-and-something years of life, I had done my best to avoid mundane human establishments, and that included home improvement stores. I would have probably never set foot in one of those foul-smelling, modular construction abominations in a couple of centuries more―or possibly never― if it hadn’t been for the craft-less witch who had finally decided I was deserving of her words once again.

  “We’ll skip the bathroom section,” she had promised, batting her absurdly long eyelashes at me and pretending she hadn’t been ignoring me for three days, “and anything with mirrors.”

  Only the devil knew how little I wished to throw myself into an enclosed space boiling with all sorts of tempting―and equally dangerous―warmbloods, but I didn’t want to deny her my help after promising to support her project. She had spent the previous days in some cafeteria―one with lots of cheap Earl Grey tea, judging by her smell, and just as many wall outlets for her laptop, mobile phone and all those shiny contraptions she carried in that glorified Father Christmas sack of hers―and I supposed she had finally devised a plan to connect The Cloister to the grid. She was in a deliciously good mood when she had finally approached me.

  I made sure to feed properly the night before, to avoid any extra trouble, and joined Alba on a taxi ride after sunset to a shopping center out of town. As soon as the vehicle pulled over, the smell of popcorn and artificial flavorings made me nearly vomit the previous night’s dinner. Thankfully, I managed to keep the floor clean of bile after some efforts―which included sniffing her hair to fill my nostrils with something more pleasant.

  “That’s where we’re going,” she said, pointing at a white and red building, which looked just like an enormous shoebox made of corrugated metal. “I’ll pick the materials myself, but I’ll need help carrying the boxes. Would you prefer to wait outside?”

  I shook my head and followed her into the store, fighting the loud buzz of electric wires and the extreme mixture of smells coming from each and every direction. Wood, asphalt, sweaty feet and armpits, car fumes and at least seventy different brands of perfume weren’t the most pleasing mixture of smells for the sharp nose of a vampire. But I had promised Elizabeth to help Alba in anything she needed and―to my deep chagrin―I had sorely missed her company―and her banter―for the few days she had mostly ignored me.

  While I fought my overwhelmed senses, I made myself inconspicuous and watched her navigate the store with professional ease. I was surprised to confirm how everybody in that place seemed to be looking for something, and not only that, they also pushed their trolleys around like they actually knew how to find it. I had to admit that retail services had changed enormously since the last time I had been a regular customer, and I currently felt like the proverbial fish out of water.

  “Do you know where I could get this?” Alba was asking a shop assistant. He was athletic and olive skinned, and wore a teal reflective vest with a plastic name tag―Diego.

  Diego’s pupils dilated to the size of Liverpool Cathedral when she smiled at him and pointed at one item on her long supplies list.

  “Of course, follow me,” he said kindly. “You and your husband got a long list there, don’t you? Building a new house?”

  Alba blushed and pressed the list against her chest. “Oh, no, he’s not my husband,” she stammered, oblivious to the deeper meaning of plastic-tag Diego’s remark. “Just my coworker. We are doing some renovations in our... office building.”

  After that, Alba and plastic-tag Diego got into a long conversation about double- and single-pole breakers, whatever they were, and I started to grow impatient as he got closer and closer to her in the process, handing her cryptic black boxes with switches as their fingers brushed casually during the discussion. Finally, when I had almost decided to come back alone at closing time and make sweet Diego part of my supper, another customer approached him, and he had to excuse himself and keep working.

  “Look, you know what?” Diego said, throwing Alba a friendly smile, “I’m giving you my private phone number. If you have any questions about your installation―just call me. I’m an electrician, so you can trust me.”

  And I’m a vampire, so you can’t.

  “Well, thank you so much!” Alba said, taking the visit card and slipping it into her jeans pocket as she turned around and pushed her trolley happily down the aisle.

  “Do we have everything we need?” I asked her, scanning the area for mirrors as we proceeded to the checkout.

  Alba nodded. “Let’s go. I’ll need a couple of things more, but I can order them and have them delivered to the house on Westside Avenue.”

  As we approached the cashier, I noticed the wide mirror wall right in front of the checkout area, and I frowned. It was unlikely that anyone would pay attention to my missing reflection, but the last thing I wanted was to attract curious stares in such a crowded place.

  “I’m sorry, Alba, I think I shouldn’t be standing here,” I said, pointing discreetly at the mirror. “Do you mind if I wait for you outside?”

  “Of course, no problem,” she said with a nonchalant wave of her hand, as I headed to the exit. “I’ll be right there.”

  As I was standing outside, two ladies passed by my side and their obvious witch smell made me frown. They gave me a sidelong glance and walked straight into the store, pretending not to notice me. With Salem just a couple hundred miles away, it wasn’t such a rare occurrence. But still, these looked different.

  At first sight, they were just two middle-aged women wearing promotional t-shirts and old-fashioned skirts, but everything about them screamed that they were no ordinary humans, and no strays either: I could feel the energy of proficient witches radiating from their skin, visible to my eyes like an armor made of gray light. An energy our Alba didn’t have. As they disappeared into the building, I caught a couple of words in a foreign language and decided to stand guard by the glass doors just in case. No, these were definitely no ordinary Salem witches.

  The revolving doors locked as soon as they stepped in, leaving a few surprised customers trapped in the middle―and me outside. The security guards rushed to the exit and tried to calm down the shoppers as they made rushed phone calls and fumbled with the buttons which operated the door mechanism. That casual malfunction stank of witchcraft to me, and I started to grow worried.

  In the meantime, the witches walked straight to Alba and started to talk to her. Trapped outside the building unless I wanted to cause a scene, I concentrated on the three women and tried to listen to their conversation through the glass doors, but I just managed to make out a couple of words.

  Danger.

  Help you.

  Back door.

&n
bsp; Damn. I had left her there, alone with the witches, and there was nothing I could do now without people noticing me. Fear and worry for her well-being reared their ugly heads in the back of my mind.

  In the store, Alba put her trolley between the women and herself, a deep frown starting to form in the middle of her beautiful forehead. To my relief, she didn’t seem to be scared―just unsure.

  I winced at my own foolishness, hesitant whether to rush to the back door to confront the witches or stay where I was and see how things developed. I could have smashed the glass door in one single blow, but there were too many onlookers to try something so conspicuous.

  Those stinky witches had come to convince Alba to run away with them. And just the thought of her leaving us―leaving me―made me want to tear the whole building apart. But still, I had no wishes to end up as a laboratory case study in human custody.

  I balled my fists and pushed away the visions which had been clouding my mind lately.

  You need to trust her, Clarence.

  She’s strong enough; she will manage.

  And she will make the right choice.

  With a growl of frustration, I stood on the other side of the glass and waited, wondering whether we were really the right choice for her and petrified I’d soon be faced with the answer.

  Chapter 22

  Alba

  By the time the two women approached me, I had already prepared the standard answer I always gave to the assorted people who used to knock on my door when I still lived in a normal house.

  “Sorry, I can’t talk―I’m running late for a human sacrifice,” I told them with a wide smile. Thus far, it had always worked well with overly religious visitors.

  “Really?” The tallest one had glasses and a bunch of white hair in a messy top knot, while the other was thinner, although just as sloppy as her friend. “That is something we would definitely love to join you in.”