by Alex Gordon
Until it was too late.
BY THE TIME Lauren packed and returned downstairs, the others had arrived, those with whom she had weathered the battle against Blaine in the old Pyne house just off the town square. Zeke Pyne, who owned the place. Phil Beech, from the hardware store. Rocky Barton and Brittany Watt, who managed the diner and the garage and had just moved in together, finally admitting to themselves what everyone else in Gideon had known for months.
They stood chatting around the dining room table, munching cookies and drinking iced tea, like any impromptu neighborhood gathering. When Lauren entered they fell silent, looking first at her, then at the suitcase.
“Poker night won’t be the same without you.” Zeke shook a stubby finger at her. “I hope you’re not thinking of driving. It’ll lie in wait for you at every rest stop, whatever it is that called to you.” He shuffled his feet and frowned. “Not sure that flying’s any better, but at least it’s quicker.”
“Too bad that was just a hallucination and not a real doorway—you could just walk through it and be there in a flash. Save a ton o’ money.” Rocky raised his glass to her. “You’d have folks falling over themselves to learn that trick.” He dodged Brittany’s warning punch. “Well, it’s true.”
Lauren met Virginia’s eye—the woman glared sidelong at Rocky, then nodded. “I see Mistress Waycross filled you in. I know I don’t have to tell you to keep it to yourselves for now. Let me find out what’s going on first.” She took note of the downcast expressions. “I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you.”
Phil straightened with a jerk, like he had been called on in class. “We know that, Mistress. I figured something was up when I seen you walking all over town all the time. My pops used to do that, when he had things on his mind. Said that getting the blood flowing helped him think. Hope it helped you.”
“Yes. Yes, it has.” Lauren felt their collective gaze, expectant, like dogs awaiting that guiding word. “Lady keep you until I return.” As they bowed their heads, she inscribed the X-centered circle in the air, the symbol of the Lady of Endor. Struggled to find words of reassurance that didn’t sound like greeting card pap. “Maybe you should all stay out of the woods for a while.” She waited as they came to her one by one to shake her hand and wish her well. Then she hefted her suitcase and headed out to her car, a silver Outback that glimmered bright as a fish in the summer sunshine.
“Lauren?”
Lauren slowed until Virginia drew alongside.
“You will keep me informed.” Virginia had already resumed her long-accustomed role, her voice taking on that measured cadence that brooked no argument.
“Of course.”
“I hope I didn’t make a mistake telling them why you felt you needed to leave.”
“We went through a lot together. They have the right to know.”
“Rocky’s the one I’m concerned about—he does tend to blurt things out in front of, well, civilians.” Virginia popped the car’s hatch so Lauren could load her suitcase, then slammed it shut. “I will impress upon him the need to keep his own counsel, but I fear it’ll be hard. We never tried to hide before. We never had to.”
“That’s going to change.” Lauren looked across the road to the woods beyond, but the mutterings in her head told her that they were still Gideon woods. “Someone will talk, someday. For the money. Because someone they loved vanished last winter. The more I think about it, the more I’m amazed that you managed to keep this place under wraps for this long.”
“Well.” Virginia sighed, pressed a hand to the back of her neck. Then she walked around the car and opened the driver’s side door. “The important thing is keeping out whatever it is that wants in.”
Virginia wasn’t the hugging type, so Lauren didn’t even try. She just got into her car and started it as the woman slammed the door.
“Lady keep you.” Virginia inscribed an X-centered circle on the hood of the car. A blessing for the journey ahead.
“And you.” Lauren backed out of the long driveway, and watched Virginia in the rearview mirror until she rounded a corner and the woman disappeared from sight.
CHAPTER 4
Lauren spent part of the flight to Seattle staring out the window, watching the terrain grow more and more wrinkled, like a cotton sheet just pulled from the washer. The rest of the time, she alternated between pondering her rapidly worsening financial situation and worrying over what awaited her in Oregon. She had debated flying directly to Portland but realized that she had no idea where to begin her search for that particular mountain. She also knew that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate unless she took some time to sort out the mess that had become her life.
Savings. Enough to last a year, maybe two. Longer, if she continued to live with Virginia. Assuming she wants me around. Their relationship had seen some rough patches since the winter, a victim of their different personalities and ways of working, and Virginia’s chafing, despite her protests to the contrary, over her loss of position. She can have the job back—I don’t want to be Mistress of Gideon. But the title, and the responsibility, went to the most skilled practitioner, and Lauren had been the one to slay Nicholas Blaine.
New job. No luck in that regard. Her barrage of résumés to Chicago-area companies had met with canned responses, and the phone calls she had placed to local contacts had been funneled straight to voicemail and gone unanswered. Expand the search. St. Louis. Kansas City. Maybe they could work out a compromise where Virginia could serve as weekday Mistress of Gideon and Lauren could return on weekends.
A dull ache had settled behind Lauren’s eyes. She dug some ibuprofen out of her handbag and asked the flight attendant for water.
Sell something. Her condo or her parents’ home, both of which had been infested by Blaine. Not until I know they’re safe. The last thing she wanted to do was inflict any residual evil on the new occupants.
Lauren looked around the cabin at the other passengers, sensed the overlapping currents of scores of lives, their thoughts and emotions. And beneath it all, the incessant yammering, like the bass line in a recording, the beat around which all else revolved. She had hoped the aircraft rumble would drown it out. No such luck.
It won’t go away until I’m where I need to be. She looked out the window as the Cascades came into view.
LAUREN MANEUVERED THROUGH the sprawl of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on autopilot, rehearsing her answers to the questions she knew she would hear. What happened? Why did you leave? Why were you gone so long? Her answers weren’t great, but they were simple. Relatives of Dad’s . . . I wanted to meet them . . . got stuck in the blizzard . . . stayed to help out.
She soaked in the windshield-filling expanse of Mount Rainier as she merged her rental car with the incessant I-5 traffic. Tried to ignore the voices. They seemed different now—she could pick out variations in pitch and timbre, knew now that some were female and others, male. She turned on the radio, hunted for a dance station, music with a beat heavy enough to cancel them out.
Lauren knew she needed to attend to business. Assess. Make decisions. Depart for Portland as quickly as possible. Instead she bypassed her parents’ house in Wallingford and her condo in the University District for the sylvan quiet of Montlake, and drove along the wooded streets until she came to a two-story cream-and-white contemporary trimmed with pink and peach rosebushes, housewarming gifts from her late mother. She pulled into the driveway, and sat for a moment to gather her thoughts. Then she got out and walked up the short sidewalk to the front door, soft rose scents wafting round her. Rang the bell.
The light step. The click of the lock. Then the door swung open to reveal a tall, slender woman in a camel shirt and trousers, high-heeled pumps in hand, copper-penny hair twisted into a loose nape knot.
“Hi, Katie.” Lauren met her best friend’s wide brown eyes. Heard the clatter of shoes hitting the tile floor, and felt the warm wrap of summer-weight wool, the wash of soft floral perfume, and the wetness of
tears and a hug so tight it squeezed the breath out of her.
KATIE WESTBROOK STEPPED out onto the sunny flagstone patio, a steaming mug in hand. “I wish you had told us you were coming. I could have picked you up.” She handed the mug to Lauren, then sat across the glass-topped table from her.
“It was a spur-of-the-moment trip.” Lauren inhaled the bracing aromas of weighty dark roast laced with cinnamon, then drank deep.
“Well, that’s consistent with recent performance.” Katie pulled a hand mirror and packet of wipes from her handbag and set about repairing her tear-smeared makeup. Then she paused and fixed on Lauren over the top of the mirror, like a mother assessing her child. “Oh hon, you look . . .”
“Tired.” Lauren forced a smile. “I know.”
“I’d say it was more than that.” Katie shook her head. “What the hell is going on?”
Lauren hesitated. She had told Katie more than anyone else about Gideon, even as she had struggled to keep things as vague as possible. No mention of anything otherworldly, of course. “The town was devastated. I thought I could help, so I stayed. The recovery just took longer than I thought it would.”
“But was it worth—” Katie sighed, uncapped a tube of mascara, and dabbed her eyelashes. “You lost your job, hon.”
Lauren twitched her shoulders. “I’ll find another one.”
“Okay, fine. So. Are you here for good, or do you have to go back?”
“I will have to get back. First, I have to go to Portland.”
“Portland.”
Lauren nodded. Stared into her coffee for a few long moments, then looked up to find her friend regarding her with narrowed eyes.
“Paul thinks you got a job with the government. Something with a top-level security clearance, where you can’t tell anyone what you really do.” Katie sniffed, as if to say that was no excuse for Lauren to remain so closemouthed. “I mean, first you just take off, and then you get stuck in this blizzard. Then we don’t hear from you for weeks at a time other than texts. It’s like you’re some deep-cover operative or something. I won’t find out the truth until you write your memoir and they make a movie about your exploits.”
Lauren laughed. “‘Oh Hell Forty,’ where whoever plays me wonders what happened to her life.”
“Jessica Chastain plays me, or I won’t sign the release.” Katie sat back, arms folded, one corner of her mouth upturned in a sly smile. “Well, Jane Bond, you’re not the only one who keeps secrets.”
Lauren felt a tremor in the air, like the shock of a slammed door. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” Katie leaned forward, hands clasped under her chin, eyes bright as a child’s. “I’m pregnant.”
Lauren’s stomach clenched as the voices in her head intensified. “How far along?” She could hear laughter now. The buzz of excited whispers.
“Three months.” The light in Katie’s eyes flickered. “Paul and I kept it quiet until we were pretty sure that things were going to be, you know, okay this time.” She looked up at the sky, that blazing blue that reassured Seattleites that yes, they had summer just like everybody else. “So far, it’s been a nice, boring pregnancy.”
“How do you feel?” Lauren struggled to keep her voice steady.
“Great, now that I’ve stopped throwing up every morning.” Katie jerked her chin toward Lauren’s mug. “I can’t stand the taste of coffee anymore—who thought that would ever happen? And I’ve developed an insane appetite for butter pecan ice cream. Paul wants to buy an ice cream maker, before we have to take out a second mortgage to support my habit.” She patted her stomach, which showed the barest hint of rounding. “We’ve put plans for the second store on hold. And I’m having lunch with Chelsea tomorrow. She’s helping us design the nursery.”
Lauren took Katie’s hand. She tried to speak, but her voice faltered as the din in her head ramped up.
“Oh, please don’t say anything serious. I’ll get all weepy and then I’ll have to fix this crap all over again.” Katie pulled her hand away and waved toward her eyes, then stuffed her makeup back in her handbag. “I’m sorry—I need to get to the store.”
Lauren looked out over the landscaped backyard. “I have some things I have to do, too.”
“But we are having dinner here tonight. Don’t you dare try to slip out from under.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Lauren waited until Katie returned to the house. Then she walked out into the backyard. First she surveyed the shrubbery, the stands of spruce and maple. Then she followed the property line, past the birdbath and the rock garden and the overflow rosebushes that hadn’t fit in the front yard.
“I know you’re here.” She turned a slow circle as the voices in her head rose and fell. “You know I can hear you.” She sketched symbols and sigils in the air. The Eye of the Lady. Shapes taught to her by Connie that bothered demons, caused them pain and anxiety. “Leave my friends alone, or I will come after you. You know I can. You know what I’m capable of.”
For a few moments, the voices quieted to wonderful, wonderful silence. Then they flooded back, louder, more raucous, a demonic New Year’s Eve.
You asked for it. Lauren rooted through the foliage until she found a short length of dead, dried branch studded with thorns. She raked the largest across the base of her left thumb and massaged the wound until the blood welled.
“You will not cross this line.” She walked clockwise along the edge of the property, leaving a drop every few feet until she had encircled the house. As she did, the voices receded once more, their tone altering from strong and deep to whiny and complaining.
Lauren dug a tissue from her pocket and wrapped it around the wound. Blood magic had so far proved her strongest ward, and if anyone merited the heavy artillery, it was her closest friends. She had tried to find herbs or objects that could serve as substitute, but nothing she tried worked as well. Unfortunately. Virginia had once told her that if witches used blood to set wards, they soon wouldn’t have any left. So what’s the next-best thing? Animal sacrifice? No—that was where she drew a line. Taking an innocent life to save life struck her as the worst sort of bargain, hypocritical at best, evil at worst. So, her searches would continue, and, as needed, she would bleed.
She reentered the house and spotted Katie’s handbag on the entryway table. She yanked away the tissue from her thumb, caught the drop of blood before it fell, and dabbed it in one of the bag’s deep folds where it wouldn’t be seen.
Then she went back outside to the driveway, where Katie’s Audi was parked. White car, tan upholstery—Lauren smeared blood underneath the driver’s seat, a place she hoped even the most anal-retentive detailer would miss.
“Anyplace you smell my blood. Anyplace you smell my scent. That which is mine is mine forever. Where I’ve been, invade it never.” Not her best spell, but it served. The flow of words focused the mind, the power. She could have spouted gibberish and it would’ve had the same effect, but she preferred using words. They reminded her of what she was.
She shut the car door, wrapped her finger with a clean tissue. Looked toward the street, and spotted a man standing a few houses away, watching her. He wore a dark business suit and stood with his hands clasped in front of him, like an usher hanging fire at the back of a church. Even from that distance, his was a riveting face, angular and high-boned.
“Lauren? Do you have your bag?” Katie stuck her head out the front door. “I’m going to be locking up.”
“Be right there.” Lauren shoved her bandaged hand in her pocket. Turned back to look at the man, but he had gone.
LAUREN FOLLOWED KATIE to her store, using the excuse that she wanted to grab lunch at her favorite downtown place. She parked across the street and waited until her friend went inside, then hurried to the entrance, rose thorns in hand, and shed a few more drops of blood in front of the doorway.
How much is enough? Five drops? Ten? A pint? A gallon? She thought back to that horrible time two years before, Katie’s miscarriag
e and what came after. They told her the odds were that she would never have children. For a moment, Lauren’s anger boiled into something that tinged her field of vision as red as the blood she had spilled and silenced the din in her head.
Then, slowly, something else crept in, and brought the voices back with it. Guilt, because the only reason Katie would be hurt was that she was friends with the wrong person.
Lauren returned to her car, then sat quietly, hands resting lightly on the wheel. She closed her eyes until her mind settled as much as it ever did these days. Then she started the car and pulled out into the midday traffic.
The U-District proved as crowded as always, everyone out soaking up the summer sun. The familiar scenery relaxed Lauren a little, but her heart thudded as she entered her complex for the first time since the winter. She parked in the space in front of her condo instead of in the attached one-car garage, then got out of her car and paced up and down the short sidewalk, front door key in hand.
She crept to the front window and peered inside, picked out the dark shapes of furniture, the dots of standby light from the cable box. Blaine is dead. That meant she should be able to enter without fear. She unlocked the door, slipped inside, and disabled the alarm.
The stench hit her as soon as she entered, the sour stink of rotten food. “Next time we flee the scene, let’s remember to put out the garbage.” She opened the front door and the living room windows. Hesitated, then turned, and stared at the scant pile of dust in a far corner, all that remained of the large rolltop desk that had stood there. Her father had built it for her, larding it with protective wards. But they faded after he died, and dark powers had done the rest. Her first magic lesson, learned before she had uncovered what her father was, and what he had passed on to her.
She stood over the dust pile and had another of the many one-sided conversations she’d had with her father since his death. How are things where you are? It’s still a laugh a minute here. Then she hurried to the kitchen and shoved the stinking trash bin out the back door into the garage, stopping first to empty the refrigerator of solidified milk and fuzzy green things in jars and bowls. She unearthed a can of deodorizer and sprayed it throughout the place. Finally, when she could breathe through her nose again, she scooped the ashy remains of the desk into a plastic bag and tucked them in her handbag, because consigning them to the vacuum cleaner seemed the height of disrespect.