by Jory Strong
Did she dare tell the witches what Abijah had said about her father? Or about the being who appeared as an urchin and claimed to give her a piece of himself? Did she dare reveal the cold blossoming in her chest, the tingling warmth in her fingers that had preceded the appearance of the rat?
Rebekka’s stomach tightened into a knot. The Wainwrights offered an elusive promise that she might become a healer who could make those Weres trapped in an abomination of form whole, but she couldn’t bring herself to trust them.
She might be gifted, but she’d lived among Were outcasts since she was sixteen and had absorbed their suspicion of witches. She might be human, but a childhood among prostitutes had set her apart from all society but that of the brothels.
The back of her fingers brushed against folded paper, the pages she’d torn from an old journal on the Iberá patriarch’s desk just before her escape from the estate. The pages held an account of urns said to hold trapped demons in them, and except for her soul, her life, and her gift, they were the only thing of value she could use in a bargain with witches.
Desperation kept her from turning away. And when she felt cold blossom in her chest like a hand unclenching while at the same time warmth spread through her fingers, fear for those in the brothel made her take a step forward.
She opened the sigil-inscribed gate and entered the witches’ domain. The sense of cold and warmth vanished, as if the wards set in place prevented her from drawing the sick to her.
On the porch she grasped the ring held in the mouth of a brass gargoyle. Used it to announce her presence.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught the red flash of the cardinal taking flight. She turned her head slightly, in time to see a thin boy of eight or nine running down the street.
He had the look of a street child instead of one who belonged in the area set aside for the gifted. For an instant he reminded her of the child she’d seen the previous night, shortly before she and Levi were attacked near the brothels.
The door opened and there was the familiar crawl of magic over Rebekka’s skin. Rather than usher her into the house, Annalise’s attention remained on the boy until he disappeared around a corner.
“The Church has watchers posted now,” she said. “Father Ursu still hunts for you in the hopes you’ll lead him to the others.”
Not the Weres she and Levi had helped free from the maze, but Araña and, through her, Tir, a being Rebekka now knew was more than human, just as she knew the Church sought him because they believed his blood healed and with it they could perform miracles to strengthen their hold on Oakland.
Fear tightened its grip on Rebekka at the thought of ending up in the Church’s hands. But better theirs—where death would come after torture proved her worthless to them, or they discovered she could bring plague to the city—than to learn the vice lords who ran the gaming clubs and had profited from the maze were after her.
Annalise stepped back out of the doorway. “The matriarch will wish to see you. There are allies we can call upon on your behalf, beings who can turn the Church’s attention away from you.”
The knots in Rebekka’s stomach grew worse. She made no response as she followed Annalise down a hallway lined with prewar artwork.
Paintings of glorious color and celebration hung on the walls. Depictions of naked men and women dancing, coupling in ancient rites of fertility and worship.
The sound of a baby crying loosened the bindings of fear and worry. It filled Rebekka with soft, impossible longing.
Unable to resist, she stopped at an open doorway and looked inside. A girl, no more than seventeen, picked up a tiny infant and quieted it with the offer of a nipple.
“My grandson,” Annalise said. “Born yesterday.”
There was love in her voice. Its presence and the sight of the baby held against its mother’s breast sent an ache through Rebekka’s heart.
She wanted a child of her own, a family that included a husband at her side, a helpmate and partner to share her life with and serve as a safety net so no son or daughter of hers ended up living in the street or selling themselves to survive.
It was a dream she rarely allowed herself. The human men she encountered regularly were those who visited the brothels. She’d never accept one of them.
Among the gifted humans, she doubted her talent would help overcome the stigma of being the daughter of a prostitute, of growing up in a brothel and then continuing to work in them, caring for Were outcasts.
And the Weres who called the red zone home . . . Marrying one of them was to be trapped between worlds, just as they were. It meant hardship not just for her as a human, but for any children who might come.
There was a time, at the very beginning of their friendship, when she might have considered such a thing with Levi, but . . .
She thought about the wedding bands that so often glinted in the subdued lighting of the brothels. Even Levi, who routinely slept in Feliss’s room and intended to buy out her contract, took what was offered free by the prostitutes.
Hopelessness settled like a heavy weight in Rebekka’s chest. She knew there was a difference between intimacy and sex, believed the act itself was meaningless for those who visited the brothels. But she wasn’t sure a man was capable of being faithful to only one woman over the course of a lifetime together. And she didn’t think she could handle that kind of betrayal by someone she’d given her heart to and created children with.
“Would you like to hold him?” the girl on the couch asked.
Rebekka moved forward in answer, looked in wonder at tiny fingers. Prostitutes rarely carried their children to term. And those who did—
She knew she’d been lucky in so many ways. To be born at all had been the first stroke of it. And it had been followed by so many more, including being gifted.
Her mother hadn’t abandoned her on the street or in the forest, leaving it up to fate whether she survived or not. She hadn’t ended up in an orphanage or been sold.
Even in the red zone, those who trafficked in children didn’t operate openly. But it was common knowledge, especially in the brothels, that unwanted pregnancies could be turned into profit in any number of ways.
There were men whose sexual fetishes involved pregnant women. And after the baby was born, there were brokers willing to sell to those with sexual perversions, or to dark mages looking for sacrificial victims, or to supernatural beings with an appetite for human children.
“He’s beautiful,” Rebekka said, taking the boy into her arms and inhaling the baby scent of him, knowing this child would never fear the fates waiting for so many others in Oakland, not just those born in the red zone, but for the poor who scraped and struggled to survive.
“He’s gifted,” the girl said, pride in her voice. “The matriarch said one day he’ll have the strength and skill to call upon the ley lines. She’s never wrong when she does her scrying using fire.”
Mention of the matriarch reminded Rebekka of what had driven her here, forced her to turn away from a dream that always brought with it the ache of hopelessness. She handed the infant back to his mother, noticing the loss of his warmth before closing her mind to it.
Rebekka turned away from mother and son, followed Annalise to the parlor where the Wainwright matriarch sat draped in black, hunched and bony, her eyes made sightless by cataracts.
A tremor of fear went through Rebekka, deep and instinctual.
Annalise took a seat on the couch next to the old woman. Rebekka sat across from them, separated by a coffee table, though the distance wasn’t enough to keep her skin from crawling.
If Annalise’s magic felt like a hundred spiders pouring over her, the matriarch’s felt like a thousand of them, blanketing her as if they sought to measure what she was made of.
Darkness formed at the edges of Rebekka’s consciousness. She swayed, on the verge of passing out, combatted it with the same determination and focus required in healing.
As quickly as the shroud of power
had covered her, it disappeared, leaving her breathing fast, sweating, but less afraid than when she’d stood in front of the witches’ house. She’d be dead now if the matriarch had wanted it. She knew it with absolute certainty.
“It’s done then,” the matriarch said. “The maze is destroyed and Araña has set Abijah free.”
Rebekka’s pulse sped up at confirmation of what she’d guessed was the witches’ true goal. It was only while being held prisoner at the Iberá estate that she’d learned demons could be bound to urns. She’d thought at first the Wainwrights meant to gain possession of the urn the maze owner had stolen from the Church, so they could command Abijah. Only later had she thought otherwise.
A suspicion slithered into Rebekka’s thoughts. She wondered if the witches had originally sought her out, ensuring her path crossed Araña’s because somehow they knew a demon’s blood ran in her veins.
Despite the pounding of her heart, she asked, “Why did you involve me in this?”
The matriarch answered, “Because your father is like the one Araña freed.”
Rebekka felt the cold drenching of fear. The same she’d felt when Abijah found her, tasting her blood and claiming to know her father.
Denial screamed through Rebekka once again. She argued internally against believing without further proof, without speaking to her mother. She reminded herself witches couldn’t be trusted. The Wainwrights had their own agenda and had already used her once in achieving their goal, arranging for her to meet and help Araña, who in turn became a tool to free the demon Abijah.
But already Rebekka felt cut by shards of truth that left the life she knew bleeding away and a terrible acceptance seeping in. As soon as she’d gone to live and work in the Were brothels, her mother left the red zone for a life among the Fellowship of the Sign, a religious group that had carved out a community in the forests beyond the Barrens.
In desperation Rebekka latched onto the purpose that had driven her to cross the Wainwright wards and enter their home. Through the fabric of her pants the folded pages in her pocket seemed to burn, like a hint of the fiery hell promised to those the Church condemned. Her throat went dry even as her palms grew slick.
She had no confidence she could bargain with the witches and come out ahead, but she had no choice but to try. Her hand shook as she pulled the pages from her pocket and set them on the table. Her voice trembled as she said, “There were other urns, like the one Araña destroyed. They may no longer exist but they once did. These pages came from an old journal in the Iberá patriarch’s possession. He showed them to Father Ursu.”
Ice slid down her spine at the memory of how hard the priest had pressed the Iberá patriarch, urging him with each visit to the estate to turn her over for questioning—a questioning that would surely have ended in her death. With its public face, and solely for political purposes, the Church might accept those humans having supernatural gifts, but it hadn’t truly turned away from a doctrine it’d carried with it from its inception and through all the different names it had called itself. Those humans with unnatural powers should be killed, just as the Weres were deemed abominations with no right to life.
Annalise picked up the pages and carefully unfolded them, her eyes scanning the text and studying the drawings. To the matriarch she said, “The names on the urns are those you heard whispered by the flame.”
“The hunt for them begins soon, then, with the aid of a Finder.” The matriarch’s milky, sightless gaze returned to Rebekka. “You’ve come here seeking the deepening of your healing talent.”
“Yes.”
“It is not a gift I can bestow on you.”
Bone-white hands appeared from beneath her shawl. The subtle jangle of amulets hanging from bracelets sounded as the matriarch’s skeletal fingers opened a cloth-wrapped package on her lap to reveal a necklace.
Strung on leather with knotted black beads along its length was an amulet that reminded Rebekka of dream catchers she’d seen in history books. It was made of supple wood and woven string. At its center were two red beads on either side of a small black feather that seemed to shimmer and cast off a thousand different colors.
“The pages you brought have value. It’s fair you be given something in return. This amulet offers a measure of protection for one with your gift. Blood is required to bind it to you.”
Rebekka rubbed damp palms against her pants. She couldn’t trust the witches with the remembered encounter with the urchin, or how the rat had come to her in the alleyway, and yet she also couldn’t afford to turn down the amulet and what protection it could offer. “I accept.”
Annalise drew a silver athame from a sheath on her belt. Rebekka’s stomach cramped at the sight of the sigils running the length of its blade. She held out her hand anyway.
Annalise leaned forward, making a shallow cut across the lifeline on Rebekka’s palm. Blood welled up quickly, unnaturally.
“Take the amulet now,” the matriarch said.
Rebekka did. She gasped as fire streaked through her, going from her hand to the center of her chest. And when she opened her palm, she found the cut completely healed, the red beads woven into the weblike design of the amulet darker, dry, as if they’d absorbed her blood.
Hands shaking slightly, she lifted the necklace and tied it around her neck. At some hidden signal, Annalise rose and helped the matriarch to her feet.
“Come,” the matriarch said, “Annalise and I will escort you to the back door. It’s hidden from the Church’s watchers. Do you wish for us to intercede on your behalf?”
Rebekka licked suddenly dry lips. “At what cost?”
“A favor owed.”
Rebekka only barely suppressed a shiver at the thought of being in their debt. She’d brave a return to the Iberá estate and ask for the patriarch’s intercession with the Church before she promised a favor to witches.
“No,” she said, and on the heels of her answer came a stirring of hope that they’d lied about her father being demon. It would serve their purpose to make her believe it, to pull her deeper into their elaborate web.
“As you wish.”
Levanna Wainwright allowed her granddaughter to support her as they slowly left the room. Rebekka’s refusal of help brought a stirring of worry, a tiny measure of pity. So many children of the Djinn died during their testing.
It was only afterward, when the fullness of the pattern was revealed, that the choices, the places where failure originated or might have been averted, could be identified.
Not that it mattered to those administering the tests.
A waste, the matriarch thought, her hand tightening slightly on her granddaughter’s arm. A terrible waste.
In this she was glad she was born human and gifted, and when it came to those of her family, her will—Anna’s will—ruled. Occasionally magic took one of them, or they died at the hands of their enemies, but their testing was meant to make them stronger, to determine position in coven hierarchy, not to separate out the weak, often at the expense of their lives.
Theirs was a harsh world, one where everything came at a cost. She’d learned the lesson well enough when she was in her teens, on the fateful night of her initiation ceremony.
She’d thought to show herself powerful enough to one day become not just matriarch of the Wainwright coven in Oakland, but of all those covens bound to the Wainwrights. And so she had. But at a price that altered not only the course of her life, but the destiny of the covens.
How foolish the girl born Anna Wainwright had been. Proud and headstrong and overly confident.
She’d thought to free a demon contained in an urn and command it. Instead she’d died at the hands of a female Djinn.
If it hadn’t been for the quick action of those gathered, she’d be in the ghostlands, her spirit bound to that of the Djinn who killed her, her body nothing but a collection of ashes in the Wainwright burial vaults.
She and the Djinn were still bound and, ultimately, when the thread tethering the
both of them to the mortal plane—as Levanna—was finally and irrevocably broken, she and the other—Levaneal en Raum of the House of the Spider—would enter the spiritlands as one, their souls forever tangled unless the battle they prepared for was won and the Djinn once again claimed Earth as home, ruling it with those allied to them.
As they stepped out of the house and Rebekka passed them, the matriarch felt only a coldness of purpose in the other, Levaneal. A ruthlessness tied to ancient memories of friends slaughtered or made prisoner by the alien god’s army of angels.
Rebekka’s death would mean nothing to the Spider Djinn. The healer was only important if she proved herself worthy of her Djinn parentage, if the thread of her life strengthened the fabric of a future that had been in the weaving for thousands of years.
“Take the path through the thornbushes,” Annalise told Rebekka, drawing the matriarch from her thoughts. “It leads to the other side of our garden and onto the next street. If you change your mind and wish us to arrange for the Church to stop pursuing you, come back.”
With a thank-you, the healer hurried off. Shades of brown and a swirl of gray in the matriarch’s mind, offset by a flash of red just beyond the fence marking the warded boundary.
The emotionless resolve defining Levaneal’s spirit presence gave way to a burning, hungry desire to be among the Djinn again. A face rose from ancient memory, spilling the image of a sharp-featured man into the matriarch’s mind. Torquel en Sahon of the House of the Cardinal.
Surprise at his continued presence flickered though the matriarch, the emotion echoed by the other. In the eyes of the Djinn, Levaneal was tainted, feared.
This was the first time Torquel had approached directly, risking what few of his kind dared. It made the matriarch wonder if perhaps he had grown tired of losing the daughters he created with human women.
Few of his kind managed more than one or two children, either in this world or in the Djinn kingdom deep in the ghostlands. But since shortly after the initiation ceremony that left Anna’s soul bound to Levaneal’s, five of Torquel’s daughters had come to this house before Rebekka. All of them had failed their testing and died.