“Again!” Tor said. “Ah shit!”
They all laughed and strolled toward the bench, the cooler, and me.
“Hey, look!” Red-head said. “The beer’s attracted prey.”
“That’s not prey,” Tor said. “That’s my girlfriend.”
Everyone laughed but Tor. Shaved Head raised a hand like a warning and made a face at Red-head, who ignored him.
“Dude! You’ve got the luck, wizard,” Red-head said. “Gonna introduce us?”
Tor stopped walking, turned toward him, and gave the red-headed guy a narrow-eyed look so cold that Red-head stepped back fast. Before either could say anything, Shaved Head moved in between them.
“Tor,” he said, “no one’s going to try to mess around with your lady. Okay?”
“Sure.” Tor arranged a normal-looking smile that I read as false as a pair of drugstore eyelashes. “Sorry.”
“My bad.” Red-head turned to me. “I apologize. I disrespected you, and I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you,” I said. “I’ll put it down to the thrill of victory.”
More laughter, a little bit strained, this time, but at least it was laughter, not shouting. Tor made introductions like a gentleman. The redhead was Billy, another computer person like Aaron, though without the Asperger’s. It turned out that he worked for the same company as Cynthia’s husband Jim, just on a different shift, a coincidence that got everyone grinning. The last of the tension eased up. The African-American guy was JJ, who was doing a PhD in linguistics. His thesis, he told me when I asked, explored semantic issues in the construction of theoretical computer languages for artificial intelligences. I couldn’t even begin to understand it.
“They keep telling me,” JJ said with a wave at Billy and Aaron, “that if I keep working on AIs I’ll get rich.”
“Practically guaranteed!” Billy put in.
“It’s sure not my thing,” I said. “I’m getting my BFA with a painting emphasis. I’m doomed to be broke all my life.”
Billy and JJ both groaned. Tor sat down next to me and put an arm around my shoulders. “That’s why you’ve got me,” Tor said. “Your doom’s been cancelled.”
“Whoa!” Billy said. “This is serious, huh? Between you guys, I mean? I apologize again for my big mouth.”
“I don’t get it.” Aaron was a couple of beats behind the tune. “Some painters make a lot of money.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but they’re all men.”
“Oh.” Aaron considered this statement. “Y’know, I’ve read about that.”
JJ hunkered down and pulled the cooler out from under the bench. “Who wants a beer?” he said.
“None for me,” I said. “I’m driving.”
“Since I’m not,” Tor said, “I do.”
“Always you do.” JJ grinned at me. “It’s the Nordic genes. These white guys, they drink like fish.”
We stayed at the schoolyard for maybe a half an hour more while the guys finished the beer, only a tall can apiece, nothing extravagant. When Tor decided we should leave, the others came with us to admire the new car. Everyone made the appropriate noises of envy and approval. As we drove off, Tor asked me if I wanted to go out to lunch.
“Though I bet I need a shower first,” he said.
“Yeah, you do if we’re going out. But you smell totally sexy to me.”
“Oh yeah?” He grinned at me.
“Yeah. We could eat lunch later.”
“Later? After, you mean.”
“Do you mind me asking for sex?”
“Hell, no! Do you think I’m crazy or something?”
“Only a little bit. Not about the things that really matter.”
We both laughed. I pulled up at a red light.
“JJ,” I said, “he’s the guy who prevents trouble, huh?”
“Yeah. He’s the oldest of five kids. His dad worked as a security guard, and he got shot and killed during a robbery. His mom worked two jobs after that, and JJ kind of ran things at home. Shit! Sometimes I realize how lucky I am.”
“ I see what you mean. Did he get scholarships to go to college?”
“You bet. His high school teachers saw to that.” He hesitated briefly. “Never tell him this, okay? But I set up a grant to pay for that doctorate. I hope he never suspects who it comes from.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. I did it out of guilt, y’know, because I’ve got so much.”
I could think of nothing to say to that. The light changed, and we drove on home.
The cleaners had long since finished and left. We went upstairs, and Tor paused to arm the security system. I went straight for our bedroom and began taking off my clothes. There were times with Tor when I turned into a female animal in heat. He followed me, but he stood by the door and watched me strip before he strode over, caught me by the shoulders, and kissed me with all his usual intensity. We made love once, as good as ever. I was expecting we’d do more, but he only kissed me a couple of times, then lay still.
“Don’t you want to do something else?” I said.
“I’ve got to save it for tonight.” He let go of me and moved a little away. “The energy, I mean. For the ritual. I’ll need it if I’m going to find Nils.”
I stopped being the animal in heat and began to think again. I finally understood one strand of the arguments between my parents. Since we’d lived in apartments, I’d overheard way too much as a kid, not that I’d understood what I was hearing. They made sure to keep any sexual noises hidden from me and my brother, but the fighting was too loud to hide.
“I’m sorry.” Tor raised himself up on one elbow so he could look me in the face. “Are you mad?”
“No, not at all. God, Tor, I’m not insatiable or anything. You just make me feel like I am.”
He laughed and lay back down.
“My mother used to fight with my father about this,” I said. “I heard them talking about rituals and channeling sex energy. She thought it was really unhealthy.”
“It is if you do it wrong. Hey, how much do you know about ritual magic, anyway?”
“More than I thought I did. I didn’t understand much when I was a kid. I just soaked up what I overheard. Y’know?”
“Kids do that, sure.” Tor considered me for a moment. “Then you know what chanting sounds like?”
“Yeah. We got kicked out of an apartment once because my dad was practicing it, and the people downstairs complained about the noise. The vibratory formula, he called it.”
“That’s it. Okay, then it won’t freak you out when you hear me tonight.”
“Not the sound of it, no.”
The memories it might bring up were another matter entirely.
Tor got out of bed, picked up his T-shirt from the floor, and made a sour face. “I’ve got to go shower,” he said.
When he went into the bathroom, I stretched out luxuriously and stayed in bed. It felt so good to rest, to just lie still and rest without worrying about money and school and whether the car would die and all the other things that had tormented me for years. By the time he returned, all damp and clean, I’d nearly fallen asleep.
“Do you want to just have lunch here?” Tor said.
“Yeah.” I paused to yawn. “If that’s okay with you.”
“No, it’s fine. I need to do some preparation, anyway.”
I found out that evening what he meant by preparation. Once the last of the sunset faded away, we went downstairs. Tor had vacuumed out the room with the magic circle and scattered a mixture of herbs around in the corners. The place smelled like fruit as well as flowers, because he’d also put out a peeled and segmented orange for the nisse, then tossed the peels into the herb mix. We went into the room with the cabinets and drawers, where we both stripped off our clothes. He handed me a clean white T-shirt to wear, one of his, which fit me like a draped tunic. He put on a pair of loose white boxer shorts.
We returned to the magic circle. He sat me down outside of it
against the western wall and told me to stay there, then lit four thick candles on earthenware plates. He walked clockwise around the circle and placed the candles, scented with cinnamon, at each cardinal point. By then I felt half-drunk from the smell in the room and wondered exactly what those scattered herbs were. Not marijuana—I would have recognized that—but something powerful was scenting the air. Tor, however, looked intensely focused and fully in command of himself.
He walked into the circle and took up his stance at the point where the arms of the cross met. For a moment he stood in a relaxed pose with his arms hanging loosely at his side while he looked off to the east. He drew a deep breath and seemed to grow taller. He began to chant a long but simple string of vowels. It was a good thing I knew what he was doing, or the sound might have driven me out of the room and ruined his working. His normal voice deepened, slid lower in his chest somehow, growled and hissed and vibrated the vowel sounds until they sounded like nothing a human being could ever make. They came from deep within him, from the root of his soul and his body both. I turned icy cold, felt the hair rise on my neck and arms, felt my own breathing come in gasps to match his.
As he chanted, he turned to face the different cardinal points, one-quarter turn at a time, always moving clockwise. He returned to facing east, then made a half-turn to look in my direction. When he fell silent, I felt as if he’d been holding me by the throat but had suddenly let go. He never moved, simply stared off to the west while the candles guttered and threw more shadows than light around the big room. The scent of herbs strengthened in the warm night air. Thinking, even remembering, became impossible. I’d always existed in this room, in this ritual, in Tor’s powerful grasp upon my soul.
He tossed his head and chanted again, on and on until I began to sway from side to side with the rhythm of his chanting. He stopped, stood silently, then sat down on the floor with a motion graceful enough for the dancer. He looked at me out of the pools of shadow that had become his eyes.
“Maya,” he said. “Undress and come here.”
I knew what he wanted from me. I knew this ritual, not that I could have told him how I knew. My father never would have talked about such things in front of me.
I got up, took off the T-shirt, and walked into the circle. He lay down, then arched his back and pulled down the shorts. I knelt next to him and slid them off the rest of the way. He was already erect. I straddled him and felt him enter me, but he lay without moving his hips. I leaned forward to put the pressure on the part of my body that counted. He raised his hands and cupped my breasts. I gasped at the touch, but he never noticed. For a long time we stayed that way, silent, still, while I felt the pleasure mounting inside me. I must have climaxed several times, but he never moved. His eyes stayed wide open, staring at the ceiling. The herb scent wrapped us around like the heat from a fire.
Someone watched us. I knew it, looked up toward the east, and saw a shadowy form, just a patchwork of light and shadow at first. It became slightly more distinct, like a figure seen in mist or clouds. I saw blue eyes gleaming through the smoke-mask of its face.
“What do you see?” Tor whispered.
“A mask. Some kind of image of a face.”
The smoke began to coalesce into a likeness: the man I’d faced down in the mall.
“Nils,” I whispered.
The face turned solid, a real face attached to a ghostly pale body. The eyes glittered with sheer hatred.
“You broke him,” the face said. “You ruined my captain and my friend.”
“Who?”
The face sneered. It began to speak in a language I didn’t know, then stopped with a choking, gasping sound.
Tor spoke one word.
The face started to speak, then choked and spat. Tor never moved or spoke again, but he smiled, the icy, deadly smile of a warrior who raises a sword against an enemy. I heard a scream of sheer terror. The figure disappeared.
“He’s gone,” I whispered.
“Good.”
He raised his hands to my shoulders and pulled me down. I bent at the waist and lay against his chest. He began to move and released his sexual tension. I wouldn’t call it pleasure, just a release, because his fixed warrior’s smile never changed. Élan swept over me as he dispersed the life force he’d summoned to work the ritual. I gobbled it shamelessly, fed on the élan he was tossing away like garbage. My mind cleared, and I could think again thanks to the flood of raw energy. I felt the ecstasy of feeding, so different from sexual ecstasy and so glorious. We lay still, just briefly, until he smiled normally and patted my back. I rolled off him.
“Sorry,” Tor said. “I should have brought some kleenex down. Hand me those shorts, will you?”
The ritual mood broke—deliberately shattered on his part, I figured. I handed him the shorts. He sat up, wiped himself, handed me the sticky cloth so I could so I could clean up, too. He got up and turned on the floor lamp in the corner, then walked around the circle counter-clockwise and pinched the candles out.
“Was that really Nils?” I said.
“Who else? You know what? He’s crazy, completely over the edge. Do you remember when I did that reading with the nine runestaves? And I told you I was missing something?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“That’s one of the things I was missing. That he’s nuts.”
“That makes him more dangerous, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know yet.” Tor frowned and looked away. “It might just make him sloppy. In the way he works, I mean.”
He sounded as if he doubted it. I wondered if Nils had seen me the way I could see him. I shuddered when I remembered the eyes shining through the face made of smoke.
“Who do you think he meant, when he told me I ruined someone?”
“Björn, probably. I think I know who Nils was, the second at the duel. The guy who lied to me. The first mate on the whaling ship.”
I felt as if the normal world around us had just cracked open. Through the crack I could catch a glimpse of the past, see a man with mutton-chop whiskers saluting another man with a glass of liquor. The crack healed itself. The sight disappeared.
“How can he blame me?” I said. “And for what? The affair, I guess. Björn won the duel.”
“If anyone was broken, it was you,” Tor said. “I told you. Nils is one damaged guy. Crazy. Let’s get dressed. I’ve got to vacuum up the herbs. I don’t want the nisse eating them. He could get sick.”
“Uh, what are they?”
“Marjoram, dried lavender, laurel leaves, and dittany of Crete.”
“Isn’t that dittany stuff dangerous?”
“Poisonous, yeah. That’s why I don’t want the nisse eating it.”
But it was, or so I hoped anyway, okay for us to breathe its scent. I went upstairs to shower away the smell of the herbs that lingered in my hair and on my skin. I’d just finished when a fully dressed Tor came back up and joined me in my bedroom. I could smell cinnamon wafting around him with the last traces of the jettisoned élan. When I breathed in both, the room seemed to grow larger.
“Everything cleaned up?” I said.
He nodded and wandered over to look at the decoupage on the writing desk. I put on my jeans and joined him there. The green lion and the shrimp had disappeared. In their place stood a hermaphrodite: half-man, half-woman, joined down the middle, but with two heads, each wearing a crown. They stared out at us blankly with thin little lines for mouths. Tiny red lions made up the decorative circle around it or them, whatever you’d call that figure. Tor frowned and laid a forefinger on one of the lions.
“Is something wrong?” I said. “You looked worried.”
“These lions should be something else.” He took his hand back and looked at me. “We might have revved things up a little high. Released too much power, I mean. I’ve never done this before, used sex like we did. You’ve got real talent for sorcery, Maya, but still, I’m kind of surprised it worked.”
I had to steady my voice o
ut of fear of those words, talent for sorcery. “Well, it did work. That’s good, right?”
Tor shrugged as if he wasn’t sure. “I’ve been thinking. You know, maybe I never should have asked you to—well, uh, join in. I’m sorry. I ran up against his defenses and couldn’t break through, and when I’m working, hell, I can’t think of anything else. I’ll do whatever I need to. So I invoked you, and maybe I shouldn’t have.”
He’d grab any weapon he could find, even me, was my take on the matter. “I could have told you no,” I said. “But I don’t know if I ever want to do it again.”
“I hope I won’t need to ask you. I scared the hell out of him, and he didn’t have a partner to help him out. I bet he leaves us alone for a while. I only wish I could scare him off once and for all.”
We spent all day Saturday at home while Tor worked his minor sorceries downstairs. He came up late in the afternoon and told me that he’d been casting the runestaves.
“Look, we know that Nils hates me,” Tor said. “Probably because he was left out of the will. We know he’s gone off the deep end. But that’s not reason enough to do what he’s doing.”
“Hatred makes people act like real dorks.”
“Yeah, but he’s studied the runes. He’s a vitki. He should know better.” Tor smiled briefly. “Dorks yell at people and turn into trolls online. They don’t use magical energy to attack their enemies. They don’t blame them for things that happened in past lives. They usually don’t try to run them off the road. Nils has played car games twice now.”
“You’ve got a point.”
“He wants something from me. It’s not you, and I’ll thank Tyr for that. I don’t think it’s the rune set I was so worried about. It can’t be cash, because he must have money of his own. So what is it? I keep getting Fehu and Othala showing up in the staves when I cast them. Family something, family wealth.”
“Well, you don’t have any cattle.” I’d been reading about the basic rune meanings. “And the only land you own is this house. What does that leave? Gold?”
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