by A C Spahn
The blonde woman stopped and studied me. She frowned and reached toward my shoulder. “You’re injured.”
Instinct took over. I recoiled and pushed her arm away. “Don’t touch me!”
Maribel’s hand flew to her gun, but she didn’t quite draw it. “Calm down, woman.”
I fought to control my breathing, to act as if nothing was wrong. I couldn’t let them see. If they saw my chest, they might understand. And word might get back to the wrong people. “I don’t like to be touched,” I said. “Hands off. Please.”
Maribel rolled her eyes. She jerked her chin toward my shoulder. “You should get that looked at.”
I glanced down. My arm was grazed with scrapes and bruises where I’d fallen on the gravel road. My paint-spatter shirt was smeared with dirt and the shoulder had ripped, revealing a purpling bruise. I raised a self-conscious hand toward my hair, which felt wild and loose, its ribbon lopsided. Heat crept into my cheeks. I looked a mess.
Maribel backed away from me and waved to her team. “We’ll leave a guard here until the enchanter shows up.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said. “In fact, it might scare him off.”
“And what do you suggest, then, witch?”
“Language,” Kendall muttered.
I raised my chin. “Before you courageously ambushed us, I set a trap inside the barn. I was about to enchant the door to let me know when someone comes in.”
Maribel signaled one of her men toward the stable. “Go inspect what she did.”
I didn’t bother telling him what to look for. If he couldn’t find it, he deserved to get caught. Maybe I’d leave him in the trap while I set up another one. A moment later the guard returned. “Got a bunch of enchanted creatures in there. Two human. A rabid dog-man and what looks like a failed merwoman.”
Maribel’s eyes blazed at me, as if her gaze could burn me alive. “And the alleged trap?”
The guard gave me a grudging nod. “She was telling the truth. It’s there, and it’s subtle. Be hard to see in the dark.”
“Adrienne is on our side,” said Desmond.
Kendall cleared her throat. “So is Kendall, FYI.”
“Her enchantments give us the best chance of catching this guy, before he hurts anyone else.” Desmond’s eyes were dark gems, glinting gold in the waning sun that turned his light brown skin to amber. His teeth flashed as he put on a smile. “That’s the goal, isn’t it? Protect the innocent from the things in the dark?”
Maribel stared at Desmond for a long while before she ground her teeth and turned away. “A Void is vouching for you, Enchantress. Don’t make him regret it.” She studied the ranchland sprawling out around us. “We’ll leave a sentry there, in the field. He won’t be seen, and he can alert the Union if someone manages to get past the enchantments.” She glanced at me over her shoulder. “We wouldn’t want this criminal to clean up after herself and disappear, would we?”
Nothing I could say would convince her I was innocent, so I stayed silent.
Kendall said, “Do you get vertigo riding a horse so high?”
I’d have to slug her for that later. And then buy her lunch.
The squad of Voids began to leave. Maribel launched one last parting shot. “Don’t return here without Void supervision, Enchantress. Our sentry might get the wrong impression. It’d be unfortunate if a misunderstanding led to your death.”
“Yeah, your face is unfo—” began Kendall.
Never mind. I slugged her now.
The Voids retreated down the dirt driveway. Halfway to the main road, one of them broke off and loped into the field, crouching to hide in the tall grass. In seconds I lost track of him. The others began dragging the dog-thing corpses into the field, where they’d be out of sight.
Tension bled out of me, and I sighed in relief. Kendall and Desmond seemed to relax, too. “I’m sorry,” said Desmond. “The Hunters who work full time for the Union can be a little ...”
“Douchey?” offered Kendall.
“Sure, that works.”
“It’s fine,” I said, rolling my shoulders to relax them. “They didn’t shoot me. That’s really all I want out of a Void encounter.”
A second later I realized what I’d said, and I turned in time to see Desmond’s face fall. “I didn’t mean that,” I said. “Not about you.”
“It’s fine,” he said. He started walking down the road. “I’ll go help them bury the bodies. Set up your alarm. Then we can all go home.”
Cursing myself, I watched him go.
Kendall looked at me. “Aren’t you gonna—”
“No.” I turned to the stable door. “No, it’s better this way. I wasn’t willing to take a chance with him as a normal. That goes double now. It’s too risky.”
“Some risks are worth it, girl,” said Kendall quietly.
I pretended I didn’t hear as I studied the door, deciding what to use as focus and channel, and trying to ignore how much my heart ached.
Chapter 9
I WENT WITH A SET of horse reins as a channel and my cellphone as a focus. The enchantment, if it held, would make my phone vibrate when someone opened the stable door. Kendall tested it a few times, but there was no guarantee it would continue working long enough for our mystery enchanter to return. Just a chance we had to take.
Desmond drove us back to Crafter’s Haven. We had to roll the windows down to combat the grass, dirt, and manure smells radiating off us. “The Union will make sure those prisoners have food and water, in case the enchanter takes his time coming back,” Desmond said. “I suggest we all stay away until then. Everything needs to look normal, like we haven’t discovered it.”
“I know,” I said softly. In the backseat, Kendall was being oddly quiet. No doubt to give me time to talk. I cleared my throat. “Desmond, I—”
“It’s been a rough day,” he said. His tone wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t exactly inviting either. “Let’s all go home and get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning, Adrienne. I promise.”
I sighed and decided that was probably for the best. I needed time to sort out my own feelings as well. Today changed things, not only between Desmond and me, but in my life in general. I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted to do about it.
He dropped us in the parking lot. Kendall went to her beat-up tan pickup, its camper shell bedecked with bumper stickers. My comfy little sedan beckoned me from beneath the solitary streetlight in our part of the lot. The other end of the shopping center had two restaurants and a karaoke bar, and their lot was always packed at night, but Crafter’s Haven and its neighbors, a mattress store and a pet shop, closed at nine.
I settled onto the plush striped seat cover I’d made for my car, welcoming the inviting fluffiness. Other personal touches marked the vehicle as mine. Embroidered headrests. Rows of art-related buttons on the rear deck. Bobble-head wizard on the dash. I shook off the worries of the day. I’d done what I could. No magic was currently pestering me. It was time to relax.
As I stuck the key in the ignition, I glanced in the rearview toward the alley adjoining the store. No sign of movement. My skin prickled anyway. Calm down, I told myself. Nothing is watching you. I turned the key and felt the engine rumble to life. Music blasted out of the speakers, the drums and flutes of cumbia music swallowing the car. A little yelp escaped me, and I scrambled to turn down the volume.
I was about to shift to drive when the clouds scudded aside and let a ray of pure moonlight bathe the alleyway entrance. A pair of amber eyes reflected there, marking me from the shadows. They receded instantly into the darkness, and clouds quickly cloaked the sky once more.
My heart thudded like a tambora drum in my chest. I breathed slowly, forcing myself to relax. Just a cat, I reminded myself. Desmond said strays get left here. And the eyes did look feline. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling they were far too big and too high off the ground for any ordinary house tabby.
On the way home I picked up a fat burrito from my favorite taco s
tand and splurged on extra guacamole. The owner was an older Mexican man who gave everyone free cups of pineapple juice and teased me for ordering my food with no spiciness whatsoever. He’d tried to get me to speak Spanish with him, but after a few reluctant conversations he didn’t press.
I carried the takeout bag and my purse up four flights to my apartment in the suburban sprawl. It was an efficiency unit—a polite way to say tiny—but it was home. Half the space was devoted to artwork and littered with half-finished canvases, wire sculptures, and random bits of junk I’d found on the side of the road and brought home to use as materials. I dropped the rusty horseshoe in one of the piles beside a bike chain I’d fished out of the neighbor’s trash and an ugly Christmas sweater from a garage sale last spring.
Occupying the center of my worktable stood my current favorite item—half a tire, its edges cleanly severed. It hadn’t spoken to me yet, but I suspected it would become the base of a bookshelf, or maybe an end table.
That was, if I stayed here.
Memories of my past rose up, engulfing me with as much force as the strongest magic. I quickly stamped them down, locked them away inside a mental closet I never opened. There were too many skeletons in there.
I stuffed my face with burrito, washed it down with two fingers of amaretto, and fell into bed determined not to dream.
My phone was buzzing. Blearily I swiped it from the nightstand and checked the time. Who the hell called at two am? And why was my phone on silent?
I sat bolt upright as I realized what was happening. My phone continued to vibrate, but showed no incoming calls. The trap. Someone had set it off.
With frantic movements I rushed to my dresser, trying to access speed dial at the same time. My toe struck the base of the dresser, and I yelped. Slow down, Adrienne. Don’t kill yourself before you even get to the battle.
Finally I turned on a lamp and opened a drawer to fetch clean clothes. I called Kendall while I changed. When her phone went to voicemail, I sighed, but wasn’t surprised. Kendall had once slept through her roommates doing some drunk cooking and setting the kitchen on fire. She only woke up when they shook her awake because the fire department told them to evacuate for an inspection.
Instead I called Desmond. His phone rang, and I finished donning jeans and my shoes before his voice spoke. “You’ve reached Desmond Desoto. If you’re calling about a Crafter’s Haven order, please instead call the store number at 415-470 ...”
A chill slid through my chest. Kendall not answering, I understood. But Desmond ignoring me, too? Something wasn’t right.
Through all of it, my phone continued to vibrate. The stable door was still open.
Maribel’s warning played through my head. If I went alone, I risked the Void Union killing me as a suspect. If I didn’t go, I risked the real enchanter getting away. He might fall for one trap, but once he broke free of my enchanted circle, he’d disappear in a heartbeat.
It wasn’t just about clearing my name. Yes, I wanted the Union to know I wasn’t behind these attacks on normals, but enchantment was a beautiful art. I hated to see it desecrated like this. There were many injustices in the world that I couldn’t fix with my magic. This was not one of them.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled a black sweatshirt over my head and headed for the door. Bright colors suited me better, but dark activities deserved dark attire.
I just hoped my choice kept the Void on guard duty from seeing me while I did the one thing I wasn’t supposed to do.
On the drive to the farm I left messages for Desmond and Kendall. I also ate my burrito leftovers to quiet the nervous writhing in my stomach. Was I being a fool? What did I plan to do if the enchanter was loose when I arrived? My magic might be better channeled and controlled than his, but based on the bits of his power I’d seen, he was stronger. Not to mention that as a fleshwriter, his power would be stored on his body, while mine was kept in trinkets that had to be touching my skin before I could use them.
Moonlight barely illuminated the country road leading up to the ranch. There were no streetlights out here, and I killed my headlights a mile out. I parked on the side of the road and studied the overgrown fields, the open wooden gate, the metal K rusting on the entryway. No sign of movement. But a prickle in my skin told me that magic lingered nearby. It could be the normal ambient magic in the air. It could portend something worse.
Ten minutes crept by while I waited, checking my phone every few seconds to see if Desmond would call. He didn’t. The vibrating had stopped during the drive over, indicating that the stable door had been closed. I didn’t know if that meant the enchanter had left, or had shut himself inside for a long night’s work.
Only one way to find out.
Before heading up the dirt and gravel driveway, I took some time to prepare. I couldn’t just wear all of my enchantments at once. Each one weighed on me when it touched my skin, its magic clamoring to be loosed. It took concentration to use one without activating all the others. Six was the maximum I could keep track of at one time, and then only if they were stored on different parts of my body. One ring per hand, one bracelet per wrist, one necklace, and one other. I liked to use an anklet, but few enchantments were useful so close to the ground. Instead I settled on a hairclip, wearing a blend of offensive and defensive enchantments. The rest I left in my purse, which I zipped shut and slung over my shoulder. Then I ventured onto the ranch.
I kept low, using the tall grass as cover. Hopefully whoever the Union had stationed here wouldn’t see me. If I was lucky, the sentry was already inside, holding the fleshwriter captive. Usually I had to make my own luck, but there was always hope.
My heart beat faster with every step I took. Past the field, past the posts for tying the horses, past the rusting water troughs. Past the open stalls, until I stood before the peeling wooden door of the stable. I took a deep breath and placed my hand on the door. My alarm enchantment was on the doorpost, not the door itself, so I didn’t feel any magic in the wood.
I realized I was about to waltz straight into an unknown situation. Stop, Adrienne. Think. Straightforward confrontation was not my strong suit. There was a better option.
Abandoning the door, I crept over to the open-air stalls. I bent horizontal and slipped between the metal bars of fencing, then crawled forward until I was up against the wooden half-door separating the stall from the inside of the stable.
My breath sounded like thunder as I strained to hear beyond the door. Faint coughing came from inside, probably from one of the enchanted captives. Nothing else stirred. Either I’d missed the enchanter, or he was keeping quiet.
I checked my phone once more. Still no calls. If it started vibrating it might alert the enchanter, so I turned it fully off. With a deep breath, I pushed open the half-door, just wide enough to slip my slender frame through.
Inside I could barely see. Milky light snuck through cracks in the wood, but murk dominated. I fought to control my breathing, my steps, the rustle of my clothes. Creatures stirred inside the stalls, but I didn’t hear anything in the main area. I crept forward, sliding my feet slowly, my hands out, testing the dark.
I guessed I was halfway down the stable when my toe struck something. A scream lodged in my throat and ballooned there, trying to escape. I swallowed hard and clamped my mouth shut. Kneeling, I felt the object. It was soft, but with some structure to it, like wood wrapped in a blanket. When no sound came for another minute, I decided to take a risk. I pulled my phone from my pocket, turned it on, and used the light to illuminate the ground in front of me.
My captive scream burst free and echoed around the wooden rafters.
It was a body.
Not just any body.
The body of the Void sentry left behind by Maribel.
I scrambled back, gasping for air. I’d seen corpses before, but never a human I’d seen alive just a few hours before. My heart stuttered against my ribs. Every muscle was taut, from my curled toes to my paralyzed tongue.
In the shadows on the far end of the stable, something moved.
Everything went still. The world seemed to halt for one terrified instant. Then instinct kicked in and I reached for my magic, tapping the shield enchantment on my lavender-beaded ring.
A wall of shimmering purple light appeared before my chest, just in time. A heartbeat later, a smoldering fireball flew from the inky shadows and splattered across my shield like a burst of fireflies.
“You’re cornered!” I shouted with bravado I did not feel. “Whatever enchantments you’re using, they aren’t going to be enough. Give up and walk out into the light with your hands—”
A shadow sprinted from the corner, barreling toward me like a portion of the wall had detached and taken off. I moved to block the person, but my phone screen chose that moment to turn off and leave me sightless. Someone rushed past me, knocking me out of their way. I fell sideways in the dirt, though the blow wasn’t as forceful as I’d expected. I rolled over just in time to see the stable door open. Dim moonlight filled the doorway, and I caught a glimpse of a human silhouette before it disappeared into the night.
Shaking, I pushed myself to my feet. I had no doubt I’d just encountered the enchanter behind all this. He was fast, much faster than me, but not as large as I’d expected. I wouldn’t put his height and weight too much higher than mine. Maybe it wasn’t a “he.” Or maybe he was small.
I crossed to where I’d set my enchantment trap. My phone was vibrating again now that the stable door was open, and between the screen and the moon I saw the smudged edges of my dirt circle. Apparently the trap had worked. The enchanter had just managed to break out of it. That explained why the door had been left open for so long. He’d stepped in and been caught before he closed it. The Void sentry must have come after him and shut them both inside.
Unnerved, I returned to the dead sentry. No enchantments on his body, of course. As my eyes adjusted, I made out his cause of death. He’d fallen and hit his head on a jagged nail sticking from one of the rotting wall boards. I turned away from the gruesome sight.