by K.N. Lee
"I guess that's what they call it," Keton agreed. "It's powerful. They say of the 8, Love is the fourth, the first born among humans."
"The Eight?"
"The Eight Immortals. Time. Life. Death. Love. Conflict. Disease. Chance. Knowledge." Keton ticked them off on his fingers. Time existed before there was anything or anyone to keep track of it. Then came Life followed closely by Death. Love or Connection came when there were two creatures capable of it. Conflict or War, depending on the translation; again, gotta have at least two. It's questionable which one out of Disease and Chance came first, some say they were born together. Knowledge comes last. Some say there are actually 9, but the 9th doesn't actually have a name."
"So you're telling me that magic is real?"
"Yes. And our family is tied to it. Always has been. The Ring of Love has been in the family and sort of guiding its destiny for a long time. I guess Mother Skya had already picked you out when she suddenly passed away and was just waiting for you to get old enough."
"Old enough? How old was she waiting for me to get?"
"How should I know? I'm not her and she's not around to ask."
"Sorry, Dad."
"Thank you, use your head." He changed lanes headed for the airport. "All that matters now is that you have the ring and we've got to get you back home. So tell me about last night."
"I was dreaming and the fairy came, she was screaming at me to wake up. I opened my eyes and there was this woman, she was beautiful, Dad, so beautiful but I knew she wasn't supposed to be there. She was trying to kiss me. I rolled out of bed and ran for it knowing she was just behind me, had to be. I hit the hall stairs at a dead run and then I was barreling down the fire escape." Everything was still crystal clear in his head, though it didn't make any more sense now than it had at the time it happened. Who was that woman and why the sense of danger and foreboding that went with her? He crossed his arms over his chest and sat back in his seat, turning the mess over in his mind. The car jerked to a sudden stop at a stop sign Keton had apparently nearly missed on the airport property.
"I'm going to guess the ring brought you then. Teleportation is not something you've exhibited before."
"You're saying I have magical powers?"
"You should, but I don't know for certain. All Jamesons' have them. Me. Your Uncle Max. Your grandfather Thomas. Your cousin Lucy. We all have some kind of ability. It's one of the things your Mother and I don't talk about."
"Explains why she freaked so much about the idea of me dating a witch."
"Listen, that is not a reputation you want, so I'm going to suggest you stay away from her as well. Don't hurt your chances of getting along by allying yourself with the wrong people. Besides you don't know if she's a real witch or just someone dabbling in things better left the hell alone. Magic is impersonal. It doesn't care about outcomes. People care about outcomes, but they use magic like a sledgehammer when they need a fly swatter."
"What can you do?"
"I charm people. It's pretty standard. I can make people believe me when I want to."
"Why can't I do that?"
"I don't know if you can or not. It might be a question of concentration. It might be that you're blessed some other way. I don't know. You've never really shown anything."
The rental car lot was full of cars, but no people save for one lone attendant in the process of cleaning out a maroon station wagon. He was running a vaccuum listlessly over the carpet, his mind probably anywhere but in the car itself. Keton put the car in the spot assigned to it by the badge on the keys and turned it off.
"We're going to have to drop this for right now, but I will say this, just because you haven't shown any abilities before doesn't mean you don't have any. Sometimes it takes longer for them to show up or they only do once they're really needed. Just keep an eye open for strange occurrences around you, okay? Things you can't tie to the ring."
6
Where There is Smoke and Fire
Cassandra pulled her hair away from her face and stared at the quaint house across the street behind its gray chain-link fence. It was one of a dozen houses of exactly the same make and model, built to fit into the space where houses hadn't been 50 years ago. Each one had a small front yard where one could put a dog or a very small outdoor toy for a child, the front door up a set of stairs from the street, and no driveway. Cars were sporadically placed along the - street in front of the houses, but there wasn't one in front of this home. This particular man didn't get out much as Cassandra knew. Perhaps that was why she had chosen to come after him next.
The Kumon spoke to her, whispered the name and details of this bearer as it had with each of the others. Finding them didn't appear to be the hard part. Catching them and getting their rings was apparently the more difficult.
She had failed to capture the ring of Death, even with the help of that idiot human Patrick. The ring of Love had also managed to elude her. A puff of smoke escaped her lips as she thought of how that boy, that stupid boy, had managed to get away when she was so close. The rings had to be removed in the moment of Death. Love had gotten away because Canenda was too late, thanks to that girl. Yet to have it escape again, when she had been so near? According to the Kumon the ring of Time and of Knowledge were not on the mortal plane, which meant having to find them among the Immortals. Life was still around, but he was spry and canny. Canenda was searching for him. That left Disease, Chance, and War.
Her left hand stroked her right and the small silver ring etched with what looked like arrowheads. The ring of War had been easy, it was after all, the right ring of the father.
Across the street, the brown door opened, followed by the glass and mesh screen door. A man came out, walked laboriously across the lawn with a black plastic trash bag and dropped it in a metal container slamming the lid back down on it with a clang before he made his way back to the house. His left leg dragged, just slightly, a man trying to hide a limp.
Cassandra smiled.
Disease, like all the others, was capable of moving place to place at a thought and even becoming invisible so long it stayed out of contact. It could strike one down with any number of sicknesses with a touch, or even cure them if it was so inclined, a true rarity. But Cassandra was finding out that among the ring bearers there were those who were prepared for the power of their ring and those who were not. This one, she hoped, was not.
The screen door slammed home and the brown door behind it shut as well before she made her move, casually walking across the street. She tapped lightly on the door and waited.
"Who is it?"
"Magazine seller."
Her time among humans had taught her a thing or two, like have a reason to knock on a door when you couldn't just climb in a window.
"Go away. Don't need no magazines." The shuffling footsteps began to recede.
With a huff, Cassandra put her hands against the door and willed it inward. The fire started at the level of her hands, eating into the doors. The glass held, though the mesh couldn't keep the flames away from the wooden door behind, it caught. The hinges on both doors gave and she pushed them out of the way. Fire was already crawling up the walls.
Thomas Carey, bearer of the ring of disease, was not a well man. Not so sick as one would think he should die from it, but certainly not well. He carried gout in his left leg, the one he often dragged completely when alone. Outside of the house, he tried to walk with some semblance of normalcy, but then he didn't go out much so it didn't really matter. His house was starkly empty, no family photos or momento-s, just the basic needs of living: a television, one chair, a frayed rug to rest his feet on, a kitchen with a hot plate and a mismatched set of dishes some of them piled in the sink. He was in the kitchen, grabbing the fire extinguisher as the alarm squealed to life. He stopped, half astonished, when a woman walked through the flames toward him, all semblance of humanity gone save for her shape.
"You have something I want."
He threw the fire extinguisher at her and tu
rned to run. His weak leg crumbled beneath him, throwing him against the wall, but he kept moving. Behind him, smoke billowed and overcame the air, the smell of burning paint and wood and metal destroying the peace of this arid home.
Cassandra pounced on him, bearing him to the floor. Thomas turned over as best he could under her weight, taking a hold of the wrists above the hands at his throat. Her hands were hot, his skin blistered then blackened, his throat closed. He struggled to breathe even as his eyes rolled up in his head. Before he could fully expire, Cassandra grabbed his right hand and slipped the ring off his finger. It flashed a spiteful green at her before returning to the plain silver. She slipped it on her own hand.
"HEY!"
She turned to see the Bearer of Death standing in the smoky hallway covering her mouth and nose.
"Well well, maybe a two for one."
Cassandra leapt at her.
The school day had dawned sunny and quiet. The Coven house had been nearly empty by the time she headed for school, others gone their separate ways. Pauline and Patricia hadn't been back that she knew of. Phoebe was worried about it, but Melina had her own problems. Like what to do about that boy, Lester. When she got to class and he wasn't there, she almost had a moment where she thought she'd simply dreamed him. The entire day had been nothing but some late night pizza induced nightmare, but then his name was called on the roll and Mrs. Rawl's looked confused he didn't answer.
Why she always looked as if the person were playing some kind of trick on her when they didn't answer the roll, Melina had never figured out. The thought was there and gone almost immediately, taken up by the wondering of where was he? Kids didn't usually transfer in and then disappear. It defeated the point of transferring to a new school.
Lunch found her sitting by herself on the school field, lunchbox in front of her crossed legs, looking at the other children in the distance scattered in patches like flowers over the grass. When she didn't have to talk to them, they could almost seem pretty. Except she did have to talk to them and that spoiled the illusion.
The sudden intense pain followed immediately by the sense of being surrounded by heat jerked Melina out of her thoughts of flowers and into the awareness she was leaving now. There was no time to find a hiding spot, the ring was summoning and she had no choice but to obey.
The cramped hallway was full of fire. Ahead, through the smoke, she could make out a figure.
"HEY!" she cried.
The shadowy figure leapt in her direction and Melina had a moment to notice it was Cassandra before the body hit her full force. She hit the hallway floor with a thud that threw the breath from her body, but she didn't think, just turned, trying to get from beneath the woman above her. Outside, sirens screamed into the day announcing their approach. Melina could hear them only barely above the sound of the house crackling like kindling around her.
"I want your ring!" Cassandra declared, grabbing at Melina's hand. The ring had other ideas, turning deep black, and then converting Melina's hand along with it. Before she knew it, her entire body was nothing more than a shadow against the floor.
"Damn it!" The woman cursed and backed away.
The sirens were much closer now and voices were screaming over the din, calling for Thomas who laid dead, his eyes bulging, and his clothes aflame, on the floor.
Cassandra, crouched on the floor, looked past Melina to the doorway where her own eyes could truly see the people outside gathered around.
"I will have that ring."
She took off running through the house, disappearing before she reached the end of the short hall. With her gone, Melina's thoughts were captured by the pure need to escape, but warring with that was the duty, the duty to the dead. She cast her eyes about the ceiling, looking for the blue-gray smoke, the leftover life force, the soul of the bearer of the Ring of Disease. It was hard to distinguish from the smoke of the fire, but its presence called to her, just as it had brought the ring to it. The keeper of the dead.
There it was, coiled into a ball, near one corner of the hallway. The flames slipped through it without touching. Melina slid beneath it and despite the smoke, sucked in deep, gratified when it came at her call, sliding down her throat. With him now warmly tucked away inside, the smoke sought to overcome her and Melina croaked,
"Get me out of here." The ring, satisfied, obliged.
The flames were still swirling about when she moved and sucked as they were by her teleport, they appeared in the Sun City High School building as she reappeared in a halo of flame in the school hallway. Several students, immediately around her, caught fire, their hair and clothes providing ample fuel.
With the change, the sprinklers began as the fire alarm at the school joined its brethren from another place in wailing at the catastrophe. In the middle of it all, Melina had hit the floor and covered her head with her hands. She was no longer on fire. Never truly had been. Students were screaming and running around her. Teachers were attempting to restore order as best they could and Murphey walking about yelling orders, a general in the midst of a retreat as the building was evacuated.
Outside, students, some wet, some graciously spared the indignity, were already starting to talk. Whispers from those who hadn't really seen but thought they saw it all were moving from ear to ear wilder than the fire in the building. By the time the fire department arrived to ascertain whether or not there was more fire inside the building, Melina's name was on the lips of every person who had come to school that day.
Parents arrived to take their children home, the rest of the school day canceled in light of the circumstances. Three students were taken to the hospital with severe burns.
Melina was left sitting on the steps, her knees drawn up to her chest. Murphey dropped down beside her.
"I didn't start a fire," she explained.
"I didn't say you did." He sighed. "There are those who say you did though, so I suppose I can see where that is coming from. Do you need a ride home?"
"I'll catch the bus."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I'll be fine. I just need the time to think. I appreciate it, Uncle Murphey."
She almost told him that there was no one to come get her. Almost told him that her aunts were missing. Almost told him about the weird red thread which was gone today because Lester wasn't there. Almost told him and didn't. He didn't need more stuff to worry about with her.
Walking off the school grounds, she shivered, not because it was cold but because she already knew someone had called Phoebe. There would be no escaping talking about this at home and that meant having to come clean.
Dusk was settling in, deep purple on one side, the gold of sunset on the other, one of the two times when Day and Night were asked to coexist peacefully, passing the scepter of ownership over the world gracefully. Phoebe was not so peaceful. The house phone had drawn her away from her painting and the news it brought shattered her mood. Now she sat at the kitchen table, drawing patterns in the condensation from a cup she had long since ceased to pay attention to.
Murphey had called to let her know that Melina was taking the bus home and she shouldn't worry if it took a while since it was quite a walk from the last stop to the house itself, so she waited.
How had this happened? How was it that Melina was caught in the middle of a fire in the center of a hallway? Those kinds of things didn't just happen. They had to be orchestrated somehow. She was going to have to ask, and actually demand an answer.
Others came and went through the house, but she still knew when Melina cracked the door and walked across the living room floor.
"Melina," Phoebe called to her.
The young woman entered the kitchen and stood in the doorway.
"You heard."
"Yes, I did. Do you want to tell me what happened or should we argue first so you can yell at me about how I don't understand where you're coming from first?"
Melina's shoulders slumped and she slipped into a chair across from Phoebe.
> "Honestly, I don't really know what happened."
"Murphey told me some strange things have been happening at school. Want to tell me about those?"
"Not really, but since you've asked, I still have Death's ring, you know that. The ring has been summoning me out of school to go deal with certain things, certain deaths." Her hesitation said everything her tone did not.
"Deaths."
"Yes, whenever powerful magical people die, the ring summons me to witness their deaths. I have to consume their soul. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it yet, but I know I'm supposed to do it. That's all I really know anymore. So today, the person who died, his name is Thomas Carey, was in a burning building. When I came back from the building, the fire followed me. Other people caught fire and that whole mess started at the school."
She leaned down until she had laid her head on her arms on the table.
"I'm sorry."
"So the fire was completely not your fault?"
"Well, not completely, but I didn't start it."
"Several people are under the impression that you did. In fact, the story I was told was that you had intentionally and maliciously set several classmates on fire while they were unaware."
"Why would I do that?"
"I have no idea, Melina, how can I possibly know? This is the first I've heard of any of this."
"I'm sorry," Melina sighed the words out onto the table.
"Sorry doesn't really fix anything at this point, dear. Now we have to figure out how to keep you in school." Phoebe got up from her place and shook her head. "I wish you would have told me about all of this sooner, I might have been able to help you."
"There really doesn't seem to be anything that anyone can do about it, Phoebe. The ring does what it wants. I'm just along for the ride."
Melina watched Phoebe walk away then stop at the kitchen door.
"You might find it interesting to know I heard from your aunts. They decided to take a little trip together and they'll be back soon, bringing the book with them. Maybe we didn't have anything to worry about at all."