Badlands Witch: A Cormac and Amelia Story

by Carrie Vaughn

  With a flourish, she removed the scarf, revealing the clay pot. He studied it as best he could at this distance and was pretty sure it was the same pot. Same shape, color, and markings.

  He started toward her, one slow step at a time.

  “Back,” she ordered. “Stay back.”

  He held up his hands. No trouble, no trouble at all. “A lot of people looking for you, Durant.”

  Ignoring him, she set down the pot and drew something out of the handbag hanging off her forearm. The bag was stuffed full of who knew what. Cormac’s heart started pounding hard; he had to work to calm himself, to not march straight over and put his hands around her throat.

  The pot drew his attention. He held his breath, listening—would he even know if Amelia was there? Could she reach him?

  Durant had taken out a piece of chalk and drew a circle on the asphalt, maybe four feet in diameter. Biting her lip with concentration, she worked quickly, marking symbols around the circle. Messed up a couple of times and had to awkwardly rub out the mark and try again. This wasn’t second nature to her. She was acting like she was following someone else’s instructions. That arcane circle—that looked like Amelia’s work. Durant only thought she was working her own spell. Cormac had never had a harder time waiting for a trap to spring.

  He tilted his head at Gregory. “What’s that look like to you?” he asked softly.

  “That’s out of my league,” he answered. “That lady’s going to blow something up if she isn’t careful. Magically speaking, I mean.”

  Nielson and her crew were probably here already, lurking. They were well hidden. Would they give Cormac the time he needed? And how much time was that. . .

  “Durant!” He walked into the street. “Why come after me now? Why come after me at all?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “A good plan takes time to pull together. Darius wanted to just kill you and be done with it. I told him he’d never succeed. And he didn’t. My plan was better. It might have taken time to learn what I needed, but I can be patient. My Lord Edgar would be proud, don’t you think?”

  Darius? Was that the vampire who’d come after him last week? And what would she say if he told her that he hadn’t thought about her, Edgar, or any of his vampires in years?

  The chalk crumbled out of her fingers, all used up. She stood. Her hands were shaking. “She’s important to you, isn’t she?” she said, taunting, glancing at the clay pot. “You’d do anything to save her.”

  “Just about.”

  “Well. Come on. Pick it up.” Backing away, she nodded at the pot, which was sitting in the middle of the circle she had drawn. Both it and Cormac would be contained within its boundaries, if he stepped up to it.

  Slowly, he approached. A sign, if Amelia could just give him a sign. . . No, he’d had plenty of signs. “How do I know this isn’t just going to knock me out again, or worse?”

  “What you think doesn’t matter. If you want to save her, you’ll do it.”

  “I’m not convinced you know what you’re doing.”

  “Quit stalling,” Durant said. “Pick up the jar.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes.”

  This was Amelia’s spell. Cormac was sure of it. Which raised a new question: how much did he trust Amelia? How much would she love to have his body without him to argue with over it? Maybe she didn’t need him. What would this spell do, really? Did he trust her? They had walked out of prison together. She had called them partners.

  He flexed his hands. Tried to settle his mind. Be calm. Imagine the valley. Build up that space. That safety.

  Durant pulled something else out of her bag. A 9mm handgun, pointed at him. “Pick it up!” she screamed.

  In the end, he had only to ask himself one question. Which of them was stronger, Isabelle Durant or Amelia Parker? No question there, no question at all. He knelt by the jar and filled his mind with the thought: Amelia, I’m here.

  He wrapped both hands around the pot.

  Now. Now now now.

  Imagine a rope and throw it to him. Cormac, grab hold. Grab hold, now!

  They were now two minds with no body, and they needed an anchor.

  He responded to her voice instantly.

  Now imagine an anchor, holding them fast. Hold on to me, hold on.

  I’ve got you, he said, and she could very nearly feel his arms around her. She almost laughed.

  Where are we, where, where. . .

  They stood in a valley, high in the Rockies. A pine forest bounded the grassy bowl through which a stream rushed and sang. Above them, blue sky. Home.

  He stood before her, gripping her arms. His eyes were closed. She clung to him.

  “Cormac,” she murmured.

  His eyes opened. They darted, taking her in, all of her, and his hand cupped her cheek. “Amelia,” he breathed out.

  She fell into his arms, laughing, and he held her tight. This was not real, this was only thought, but she felt him, a powerful embrace, full of desperation.

  “What the hell happened?” he whispered to her ear.

  “A bloody mess is what,” she answered, holding him. She didn’t want him to let go. May he never let go. . . “Where are we? Cormac, where are we?” She forced herself to pull away, but he kept his hands on her arms. An anchor.

  “You don’t know?”

  “There was a chance it could go wrong. Horribly, awfully wrong. I tried to anchor us to your body, but if I missed, if I got it wrong—” They might have ended up back in the jar. She tried to reassure herself that at least they would be together—

  But Cormac donned a slow, sly smile. A hunter’s smile. “I think it’s time we have a word with Isabelle Durant.”

  And he opened his eyes.

  No more than a couple of seconds had passed. Durant was still standing here, backlit by washed-out streetlights, pointing the gun without conviction, waiting. She might have been holding her breath. Gregory waited in front of the shop, hands clenched into fists. The burnt smell of tension in the street was the same. Everyone waited to see what the trap had caught.

  Cormac rubbed his fingers along the surface of the jar, its rough clay, the symbols in raised paint. It was inert now.

  Amelia? he queried the back of his mind.

  I’m here. Oh, I am here!

  His mind felt right for the first time in days. He chuckled softly. Do you have anything you’d like to say to her?

  Did she ever. He let her slip into control of his body, to use his voice. This was what Durant expected after all. Cormac’s body but not Cormac. Let her think she won, just for a second.

  “Hello, Isabelle.” She caused Cormac’s body to stand, the clay pot resting in her hands.

  Durant’s eyes lit up. She gasped a laugh. “It worked? It worked!”

  Amelia, through Cormac, said, “Look at you. In so far over your head you don’t even know you’re drowning.”

  Durant put her hand to her mouth, grinning. “He’s there, he’s trapped in the jar now, just like you said—”

  “Oh, my child.” Amelia shook Cormac’s head. “You’ve no idea what just happened, do you?”

  Durant’s smile fell. “What. . .what happened?”

  “Exactly what I wanted.”

  “Who are you?” Durant’s voice pushed to the edge of a scream.

  Amelia retreated, leaving Cormac back in charge of his body and his voice. The timber of his speech changed, from Amelia’s clipped aristocratic accent to his flat midwestern. “Durant? You lose.”

  He let the pot fall. It tumbled, and Cormac’s—and Amelia’s—heart lifted at the sight of it, all that trouble, the terrible trap. It smashed against the asphalt. Clay shattered. A thousand pieces, a cloud of shards and powder expanding. The cracking song of it rang out.

  Durant screamed. It might as well have been a baby’s skull that shattered, so much anguish filled the sound. Cormac lifted his hands, brushed his fingers in a show of dismissal. He smiled, victorious.

&
nbsp; “Put the gun down! Put down the weapon! Hands up!” Urgent, professional voices called out. From side streets Detective Nielson and what must have been every uniformed officer in the county closed in. “Put it down!”

  She’d waited. Thank God and all magic she had waited.

  Cormac stood very still, his hands raised and harmless. Durant looked around with the panic of a trapped animal. Then her gaze rested on Cormac, and some decision settled over her expression.

  “No!” Nielson ordered. “Drop it, drop it now!”

  He knew it would happen just as her finger tightened. Time slowed, and a strange confidence settled over him. Whatever was going to happen would happen, he could only do so much to stop it. But that little, he would do. He breathed out, watched her hand, saw the twitch. And he dropped, dodged, rolled to the side in a way that he hoped she would not anticipate.

  The gun fired, the air exploded with the crack.

  The bullet hit. Knocked back, he fell prone.

  Cops shouted. Everyone shouted. Somebody wanted an ambulance. Cormac lay still. He couldn’t tell what got hit. He blinked up at sky.

  Cormac? Cormac!

  He passed out.

  The scene was vague. Rushing water chimed nearby; birds sang. The air smelled of springtime, lilacs and warmth. He was in a boat, a small craft drifting lazily. He was unstable, but if he lay still, the soft movement lulled him, and he let himself drift. He wore a suit, something out of a Victorian movie, tailored and perfect, with a neat cravat. His mustache was trimmed. He was the dashing hero of a romantic novel. He lay with his head in someone’s lap. Gentle hands stroked his forehead. A woman, wearing diaphanous silk that frothed around her in a gown that was complicated and angelic. Her dark hair lay around her shoulders in waves. If he reached up, he could wrap a lock of it around his finger, and it would feel like satin. The woman, Amelia, pressed her hand to his face and gazed on him with such care and longing. He wanted to pull her down with him and hold her close, but it was all so impossible, and a thick haze blurred everything, and he couldn’t move, and the boat drifted on and on. Nothing here was right and yet he didn’t want to leave, this was too perfect—

  “I will be here when you wake up, my heart,” the woman breathed, and she faded, until all was white silk and rocking waves and she was gone and there were other voices—

  “Mr. Bennett? Cormac? Can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me.”

  Opening his eyes was a chore, but he did it, blinking into too much light, so that he winced and turned away. He was cold, his mouth tasted like metal, and the air smelled like a hospital.

  “What. . .what happened. . .”

  “Mr. Bennett, do you remember being shot?”

  Oh yeah. He remembered that.

  “Bullet hit your left shoulder. You’ve just come out of surgery. Everything’s fine, but you’ll be out of it for a while. Just rest, all right?”

  “Amelia. . .”

  “Amelia? Is that someone we should call?” The nurse seemed concerned that she might have missed something.

  I am here.

  He chuckled. “No. . .she’s already here.”

  “Oh yeah,” the nurse chuckled. “You’re on the good drugs, aren’t you?”

  Satisfied, he dropped back into the haze.

  Ben came in not long after he’d been wheeled into a private room. His cousin, pushing forty like Cormac was, rough brown hair, shadows at his eyes clearly indicating he’d missed sleep. Cormac tried to figure out if he’d had enough time to drive here from Colorado and who might have called him to tell what happened, but that was all just a bit too complicated right now. Ben looked him over, in the bed and hospital gown, IV bag dripping into him, monitors clicking away. He sat heavily in a chair and folded his hands in front of his face.

  “You didn’t have to come here,” Cormac said. His voice sounded kind of vague. A lot more than saline was dripping out of that bag, he suspected. He knew he ought to be in pain but he didn’t much care at the moment.

  “Jesus.” Ben looked away, chuckling through his scowl. “You almost got Kitty and the Junior League, too. I talked her into staying home. But you should call her.”

  Maybe he could just lie here a moment, not thinking of anything.

  You owe Kitty a call.

  Yeah. Okay. Later.

  “Still—”

  “Yes, Cormac, I had to come here. Practically our whole lives I’ve been waiting to get a call from the cops telling me you’re. . .that something had happened. Now here we are. It really did.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You ever going to tell me what happened?”

  “Maybe. . .maybe later.”

  “And how is Amelia?” Ben and Kitty knew about Amelia and that whole history. They practically treated her like one of the family, which was weird if he thought about it too much. Then again, they were werewolves. They knew weird.

  How are you, Amelia?

  Tell him I am doing quite well now that the trouble is past, thank you, and it’s very kind of him to visit.

  “She’s fine.”

  Cormac. . .

  “She says it’s very kind of you to visit.” Cormac shifted, trying to sit, then gave up. The needle in his arm was starting to itch. So was his shoulder, which was swathed in bandages. “Maybe it’s just as well you’re here. The cops are probably wanting to talk to me.”

  “Yeah, I already met your Detective Nielson. Sensible woman, there.”

  He chuckled. “She tell you what they’re charging Durant with?”

  “A handful of breaking and entering and theft charges for her shenanigans at the dig site. Attempted murder for shooting you, and murder one for Professor Walker.”

  “Not vehicular homicide?”

  “They started with that. Then Durant explained in great detail how she planned it out, and why. So, it’s murder one now. I expect she may not be competent to stand trial. That’s where I’d go if I were her lawyer. But I’m not, thank God.”

  “It’s my fault Aubrey is dead.”

  Ben didn’t answer right away. He couldn’t deny it—if Cormac had never come here, the archeologist would still be alive. Finally, his cousin sighed. “I don’t think you need to carry that one around with you. You nailed Durant, and that matters.”

  Woman nailed herself. If only she had just let it all go. Her Master, the man she was avenging? He hadn’t given a shit about her.

  “When can I go home?” Cormac asked. Not that he could drive. Not that he actually felt like getting out of bed at the moment.

  “They’ll spring you tomorrow if you promise not to be an ass about it and then see an orthopedist the minute you get home,” Ben said.

  That sounded bad. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

  A knock came at the door. The way both he and Ben flinched, it was like they had people with guns coming after them on a regular basis. The door opened, but instead of a nurse, Gregory from the tea shop leaned in. “They said you were awake. Up for a visit?”

  “Yeah,” Cormac murmured.

  He looked like he hadn’t gotten any sleep, ashen around the eyes, moving carefully. But his clothes were neat and polished as ever. “I am glad to see you in one piece.”

  “Mostly,” Cormac said. “This is Ben, my cousin. Ben, Gregory.”

  They shook hands, exchanged pleasantries.

  Who is this? Cormac had to quickly explain who Gregory was, the tea shop, all of it. As he expected, he sensed some faint jealousy from her—Tea on the Range was exactly the kind of place she loved. Then she said, We owe him a great deal, then.

  Yeah. “Thanks,” he told Gregory, on her behalf. “We couldn’t have got through this without you.”

  “We. You mean the Queen of Swords?”

  “Amelia. Yeah. She’s happy to meet you.”

  Gregory pressed his lips together, appearing thoughtful.

  “Takes some getting used to,” Ben observed.

  “Well, it’s worth it for
the stories.” He drew a small, silk-wrapped bundle from his pocket. “I decided this wants to live with you. You seem to have a connection to it.”

  Cormac rested the bundle on his lap, unwrapped it. The Deadwood Tarot deck. He flipped the first few cards up, the cow skulls and lightning strikes, barbed wire and six-shooters. Amelia let out a mental sigh of pure admiration.

  “Thanks. Amelia loves it.”

  “Good,” Gregory said.

  I cannot wait to explore this. But what did he mean, the Queen of Swords?

  It was a message, he told her. The card kept coming up. “Ben, my jacket. There should have been a couple of cards in the pocket.”

  Cormac’s belongings had all been shoved in a plastic bag when he’d landed in the emergency room. The jacket was ruined—big hole in the shoulder, covered in blood. But they’d cleared out the pockets before throwing it out. Ben dug through the bag, now sitting at his feet, and found the two cards. Cormac reunited them with the rest of the deck, setting them face up where Amelia could see.

  Annie Oakley. I sent an S.O.S. out to the universe. . .and this is what turned up? I am astonished.

  So were we.

  I saw her once, when I was a girl. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show came to London. I saw it. I saw her. I thought she was so beautiful.

  I think she looks a little like you.

  The Queen and the Ace. Is that what we are?

  Maybe.

  The valley was home again. Amelia was back home.

  They both sat in the grass on a lazy summer day, taking in the warmth and not worrying too much about anything.

  Amelia looked at him. “Do you have any more old enemies with deadly grudges you’d like to tell me about?”

  “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this one.”

  “You must never again mock me for spending so much time on magical protections.”

  “Never again,” he agreed. But it had been the gunshot that almost killed them this time, and what did she propose to do about that?

  She grew pensive, uncertain. He thought he knew what was troubling her. Hell, they shared a brain, how could he not know everything about her? Maybe those hidden parts, what they couldn’t know about each other—that was what kept this interesting.