by Ash Krafton
The last thing she remembered was sitting in his car, watching him go into the store for a new pack of cigarettes. Then her mother's face beside her own, an arm around her neck, a yank that made her feel like she left a piece of her soul back in the car—
Then nothing. A brief light, then blackness, then she woke up on the bed in the other room. No indication of time, or place, or what would happen next. All she could do is sit, and stare across the room at the full-length oval mirror that stood in the corner opposite. She sat and watched the reflection of herself huddled in the spindly-legged chair, eyes wide and worried, looking very much like a war orphan.
But that wasn't for whom she was most worried.
What happened to Simon? Was he okay? Was he here somewhere, looking for a way out, thumbing through each of the charms on that key ring of his, discarding each failed attempt before launching a new plan? He would be hard at work, looking for a solution. A man of action, he was.
But that didn't comfort her as much as she wanted. She knew he had a tendency to get…emotional about his decisions, when he wasn't acting on pure impulse. Simon would get a solution, one way or another, and wait for the bill to arrive later.
Normally, it would land him in his usual type of trouble. This was completely new territory. He didn't know who was behind all this.
And she didn't know if he was here in a similar prison, or back at her home, or even alive.
She hugged her knees a little tighter and rocked. Which would be the worst of the three?
So, she waited. Waited for something to change, and wondered what she'd say to her mother when the wait was over.
Simon spent three days working in the same particular fashion, days, nights, everything in between. Mapping, scouting, chanting, dousing. When he'd finally made his way back to the city center, he destroyed the dousing rods and scattered the pieces. Either they were broken, or he was.
Nothing. Not as much as a blip. It was like the whole world had finally gone light side up. And he felt utterly defeated about it.
Lighting a cigarette, he leaned against the front window of a coffee shop, swirling the dredges of a coffee regular. He lipped the cup, one last taste of the now-cold coffee before he chucked it into the barrel. This was just a city. A quietly boisterous city that stood up to evils far worse than demonic possession.
Still, there was one place he hadn't scouted. One street uptown. One house in particular.
Hers.
Somehow, he'd managed to circumvent it on each of his rounds. Maybe that was the problem. He hadn't been ready to face her house. If she wasn't there, he'd have to admit that she was really gone.
He sucked hard on his cig, spitting out a lungful of smoke. He'd gotten pretty good at facing shit these last few weeks. How hard could looking at a building possibly be?
Deep down, he expected to find nothing more than a beat rat-trap three decker, empty to the rafters. Her suite had travelled wherever she'd went. If she wasn't here, it wouldn't be here, right?
He'd started walking without realizing it. Maybe it's what he should have done in the first place. Litmus test, right? If her suite wasn't there, neither was she. It would have eliminated half a week of demonic detective work.
He was almost there when he got a lump in his throat and a pain in his chest and he suddenly couldn't hear the street noise over the racket of his heartbeat. Chiara's place was around the corner and four doors up. And then, the wondering would be over. All questions would be answered.
He needed to know. He just didn't want to.
The row house looked no different than the ones off to either side, other than the general disrepair. Not decrepit, per se, just not quite as unabandoned. No curtains fluttered in open windows, no flower boxes or folding chairs on the stoop. He could see a discoloration above the door, pieces of old board. Once, a weathered sign that read ROOMS TO RENT had hung there. As he climbed the last step, he saw the broken remnants of it laying in front of the door and tried not to think about it. He shouldered the sticky door open and slipped inside.
Everything was the same. The leaves and old pizza shop flyers, yellowed and brittle in the corners. The dim, oily lights. The smell of stagnant, musty disuse. But it was quiet. Quiet, still, and empty. He felt it in his gut.
Up the steps.
The door stood slightly ajar at the end of the upper floor. For a moment, his plan seemed to crumple up like a used paper towel. That gap in the doorway made the apartment look less than occupied. Would it hold nothing but littered floors and yellow stained walls, cracked windows and graffiti?
He rubbed his nose and shook his head. Made it this far. Might as well have a look see and put it to bed, once and for all.
He slid down the wall toward the apartment and place his palm of the door. Holding his breath he pushed it in, hard enough to bang it against the inside wall. It made a vacant, hollow sound. He grimaced and tapped his mouth, hesitating.
What the hell, he thought. He could stand out here and wonder, or he could step in—
Something grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him around the corner into the room. The door slammed shut on the empty hallway.
He shook himself free of the invisible grip, swinging blindly at the empty air. Nobody. Nothing. Nothing he could see, at least, in the dimly lit room. The only light came from cloudy windows, streaking down through a thin haze of dust motes.
He straightened his shirt, deflated. Just as he feared. Ugly, old, empty apartment.
Or was it?
With the door shut behind him, things began to slowly change. The fireplace roared awake, hungrily devouring the logs within. Color seeped out of the fireplace like molten lava as the firelight flashed across the floor, stretching up to the high ceilings. The palatial apartment came alive, renewed, as the fire grew.
He looked down at his shirt where he'd been grabbed. A faint glimmer of opalescent sparkles faded like an evaporating stain. They were the same hues of Chiara's chrism.
Her magic. Her wards.
The wards had known he was outside and drew him in, yanking him the last few steps when he'd hesitated. Thinking hard, he realized he’d felt a tiny drain on his energy, like a moment of weak knees. The wards didn't want to disable him.
The apartment needed him. It needed him to exist.
Which was probably a bad sign. Why would it need him if Chiara was all right?
He stooped to light a cigarette at the fireplace. By now, the apartment had reached full glamour, looking every bit like he remembered. It pained him to see her junky couch, looking more abandoned than ever.
He needed to find her. Just so that her junky couch could be appreciated by someone. What a terrible existence, to live alone after losing the only person that cared.
"Stupid couch." He dragged deep on his cig and stared at the dilapidated sofa. "So. What do I do now?"
The couch said nothing. Which was a good thing. Last thing he needed now was possessed furniture.
Lipping his smoke, he sat down on the couch, feeling it creak beneath him. "If I were her, where would I go to look? Where is my strength? She stayed down here, right? Didn't like to roam the place. Bit of a grudge against her dad. But he's powerful big stuff, yeah?"
Not like she’d ever dropped more than a hint. She didn't like to talk about her divine heritages. Chiara preferred her mortality to the infinite power of her mixed blood.
He puffed out a smoke ring, watching it waver, musing. "But it wasn't her dad that hauled her off, was it? It was someone bright. And if there's anyone who'd be willing to help me get her back…"
He glanced up the staircase, pondering the upstairs floor with its impossibly long hallway, its collection of eclectic and luxuriously hedonistic rooms. By his measure, anyhow; any bedroom with an actual bed had to be designed for sin, even if only the sin of laziness. He didn't much consider beds for sleeping. There were more like sporting goods.
But the room at the end of the hall…that room didn't have a b
ed. And when she had been in danger of bleeding out from a should-have-been mortal wound, that was exactly where she'd wanted to go.
The creepy pool.
He was on his feet and halfway up the stairs before he was aware he'd gotten up from the couch. His hand was on the doorknob to that last door before he even had a plan.
And what little plan he threw together last minute was a pitiful weak one.
The sulfuric smell assaulted him the minute he stepped inside. No point in holding his nose. The odor overwhelming, creeping into his pores and smothering him from the inside out.
Monstrous iron braziers burned with sullen glows in the corners of the grey-lit room, the ceiling hung up in shadows too deep to pierce. And yet, a light hung sullenly over the center of the room, reflected by the odd silver sheen of the pool's surface.
He shuddered, remembering that pool. He'd watched Chiara shove herself in and sink beneath the surface. He'd sat for a chunk of forever, watching the still water, not knowing if she was ever going to come out.
Glancing around him at the stone floor, he pulled a salt bag out of his pocket and scratched the back of his head. This was as good a place as any. If he was going to get the attention of Chiara's father, might as well do it from the room that felt most like a vortex of dark energy. Honestly, if he were deaf and blind he'd swear he stood in the center of a tornado, the power pulling at him like a vacuum and the pressure making his ears hurt. And his tattoo—
That tingled beneath his sleeve like there was a glob of minty pain liniment slathered on the bend of his arm. Never a good thing when the tat was sore before he'd even had a chance to use it.
Time to get this circle up before other things started to hurt.
He compass-drew his salt circle, using the two-foot length of jewelry chain he kept for his pendulum. Last thing he wanted was to take a chance. A wobbly border could weaken the protective circle. And considering what kind of power he was about to go calling upon—
Maybe a second ring of salt wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Standing up straight, he ground his shoes against the stone tile, wanting as solid a connection to the earth below him. Another slight problem if one mentioned that technically this floor didn't exist but, meh. No time for quibbling.
After a brief debate, he proceeded with a classic Alpine circle chant. The Alps were pretty much all stone and water. And beer, he thought in a flash of irreverence. Well, the celebratory drinks could come after he got Chiara home. This room was nothing if not stone and water. And fire. But that last part was definitely not the image he wanted for this circle.
"Stein und Wasser." He summoned his deepest mental magic and sank into the rhythm of the German verses. "Hören Sie auf meine Stimme. An meiner Seite stehen. Mich vor Schaden zu schützen."
Stone and water. Listen to my voice. Stand by my side. Protect me from harm.
He bit his tongue, hard enough to taste blood. Carefully, he dropped a thin stream of pink-tinged saliva onto his right index finger.
"All righty-roo," he said. "Raise the circle, old boy."
Leaning, he curled his thumb and flicked his fingers at the salt ring.
When the droplets of blood hit, the salt took up an eerie luminescence, a pale green glow that rippled along the thick white line until the head met the tail. When the circle completed, a pulse ran around like a neon heartbeat. A good, solid connection. This circle would hold even in a windstorm. He would be safe in here.
Now, to ring the demon's doorbell and to try not to run.
He closed his eyes and counted his breaths. Ten, nine, eight—
Hard to focus on a summons when a guy wasn't sure exactly who he was trying to call. All he could do is meditate on Chiara, who she was, what her dark side felt like. He'd gotten to know it well when they'd first met; she'd done this little peek-a-boo into his brain that left a sooty stain on his mental workings for a few days afterward. She hadn't meant to hurt him. It was just what it was. She didn't flaunt her divinity, not either brand. Still, it was a little disturbing just how comfortable she was with using that power when she needed it.
So. Chiara's face. Her power's feel. Somewhere dark. Over and over he repeated simple chant, sinking deeper into a meditative trance, sending out a beacon. Six, five—
Hear me. Talk to me. For her.
Three.
Two.
One.
He pushed out a breath and opened all his senses, physical and metaphysical, drinking in the energy around him. It rose, like water in a glass. Building. Something was coming.
Something big.
Something way too fricken big. He cracked his eyes.
Water had seeped out over the edge of the pool, toward him. Don't get wet, she'd said. Warily, he eyed the silver stream as it oozed toward him, like sentient mercury. When it reached the salt, it bounced back slightly, as if repelled.
He leaked out a breath of relief.
The metallic liquid circled around, testing the salt circle even few inches. Each time it touched the line, it recoiled briefly and slid along. Like it possessed an intelligence.
When it had travelled all the way around, it joined in a gooey blob of coherence, a moat around his fortress.
"Ok," he said. "You know I'm here. I know you're here. Just crawl back into your pool and we'll get along famously."
The liquid swelled a little, like a button mushroom, looking at him.
"Go on." He waved his fingers at it. "Shoo."
The button-blob sank back into the thin stream of mercury.
He smiled, self-satisfied.
Suddenly, the ring of silver water grew, stretched up in a cylindrical sheet, forming a tube around him. No spell could stop it. He knew nothing about that water, its nature, its properties, its alignment. All he knew was he had better not touch it.
But the water slowly rose around him. Higher, up to his knees, his waist. He couldn't jump it if he had to. As long as his circle held, as long as he stayed inside—
Then it occurred to him. He'd never explored the complete dimensions of a salt circle. Was it more than a two-dimensional thing? How high would its protection reach around him?
The metallic sheet rose higher, eddying and swirling against his invisible fortress. Up to his chest. His neck. Over his head.
He watched the silver walls stretch taller and taller. Would he be trapped? Would the air run out?
When the water curled overhead and came crashing down on him, filling his so-called protective space, scalding him with a freezing heat he couldn't comprehend, he didn't have time to ask the really important question.
Could he survive?
All he could do was scream. Scream and let the blackness take him.
Chiara had dropped into a light trance, the stillness and the constant soft light dimming her wary alertness.
Motion and a soft, hollow ringing sound from the other side of the room caught her notice, jarring her into action. She snapped forward, scanning, straining every sense. The surface of the mirror shimmered and fractured the light, its glinting catching Chiara's attention.
Glass didn't move that way. Chiara chewed her lip. The mirror wasn't made of glass, then.
The ripples rolled wider and wider until they filled the frame of the long mirror. A moment later, the surface split. A figure emerged.
She was tall, easily six feet in height, and every inch was graceful, lithe. She stepped through the mirror as if she stepped off a curb and paused, hand on her hip, angling her body to provide a good look.
Her blazer was an expensive cut, tapered at the waist, wider at the shoulders, reminiscent of the 90s executive look. Long, slim legs beneath a knee length pencil skirt, ending in stilettoed pumps. An iron-grey power suit, paired with vicious heels. The wardrobe was engineered to be intimidating.
Golden hair was swept back and coiled into an elegant roll, leaving a short angle of smooth fringe. There was nothing to distract from the porcelain beauty of her face: the icy blue eyes that held n
o heat, the red-lipsticked smile that carried no warmth.
Beautiful, severe, completely in control of all she considered to be hers. Chiara included.
"Darling," the woman said, spreading her hands in a prim parody of welcome. "So glad to see you've settled in."
Chiara uncurled herself and stood, not remembering if her mother had outgrown her longtime preference for curtseys. Well, it was the twenty-first century. There would be no curtseying here. "You could have just called, Mother."
"Would you have answered?" Luminea sighed. "Mothers and daughters never get along. Everyone knows that. That's why we have sons, to heal the wounds our daughters leave."
"Sons—" Chiara cocked her head and stared intently at her mother. Just how much had she missed out on during their time apart? "Do I have brothers?"
Luminea huffed out a scornful sound and brushed her lapel. "I have no sons. You were my first and, as it turned out, my only. I just—I don't know, imagine sons are easier than all this."
"Talking is easier." That was something they rarely did, if at all. Hard to converse with someone when viewpoints were so dramatically skewed. And, anyway, it looked like there wasn't going to much of anything except talk, not with those wards. "Let's begin with you telling me why you brought me here, and when you will allow me to leave."
"Really, as if I can keep you here." Luminea pouted a moment before abandoning the feint. "Oh, wait, I can. You have come up against the wards, I imagine. Too curious for your own good. It's better if you stay here in your suite. Other places are…less hospitable."
"There are other prisons less hospitable?"
"If I had you in a prison, you would know it." Luminea cleared her throat and visibly relaxed herself with a shrug of her shoulders. "I wanted us to have a chance to catch up. I know how much you prefer your independence. I needed a way to persuade you to stay."
Chiara tried to assume an impassive expression. Very difficult for a person who didn't bother to disguise her feelings around mortals, not even Simon. But Luminea was different. She was a keen observer, as well as an opportunist. Best to not give her anything she could use against her later on. "What is wrong? Something has changed again. I can tell."