Out in the hallway, she waited while Katharine locked the bolts, and then looked her friend in the eye when she turned around. “And I suspect a lot of it has been twice as crazy as you’ve said.”
Katharine only nodded. How was she supposed to tell Margot about all that Allistair had shown her? How was she supposed to describe how Zachary had cried this morning as he pleaded with her? He had looked and seemed so sincere, so worried. But she didn’t know what was real anymore.
She changed the subject. “Zachary said he hadn’t left me any messages.”
Margot frowned just as the elevator made its soft ding to let them know it was there.
“On my mirror,” she clarified.
“Oh, so the messages all came from Allistair?” That seemed to surprise her.
“If Zachary wasn’t lying.” Neither of them knew how big that if was. Or even if one or the other of the men would lie to her. Allistair had said he couldn’t. But what if that was a lie? Her head hurt from all the possibilities, and her chest ached from the strain of the constant hum of fear.
They climbed into the car and headed out into the perfect L.A. day, only to get mired in traffic. The surface streets were all clogged and so were the freeways. As they sat there, they tried to reason out some of what they had.
“I got the translation on that last message, too. It’s pretty interesting.”
“Oh.” Katharine wasn’t sure how any one of them could be more interesting than the others. They were all pretty weird. “How so?”
“Listen to this: I’m pretty sure it said, ‘I’m sorry, but I love you.’”
If she hadn’t already been stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Katharine would have likely slammed on the brakes. She’d been afraid that it was something like that. “He loves me? Allistair? Loves me?”
Margot didn’t get a word in edgewise before Katharine’s brain took off with her mouth again. “Or is this just another lie? God, what am I supposed to do with that?”
“Deep breaths.” Margot’s hand touched her shoulder, and it did help, just that someone was there. “It may take us some time, but we’ll figure it out.”
Did she have enough time? The game was escalating. Zachary had told her she’d have to choose soon, and she did not want to end up like Mary Wayne.
Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Margot spoke. She didn’t turn to look at Katharine, but she didn’t have to. “That’s what we’re headed across town for. We’re going to buy you some time.”
At least the thought made her want to laugh a little–the idea that buying a roll of some kind of infused and blessed fabric tape would actually buy her time. But if the binding worked, it just might gain her a while to figure a few more things out.
The store had the tape waiting, as Margot was just a common-sense genius and had put it on hold. They were in and out in less time than it had taken them to pay the parking meter and walk the block over to the store. In just a few minutes, they were sitting in traffic again.
There wasn’t enough time to go to Margot’s and do the binding spell, not if Margot was going to make it to work on time. So they decided to stop along the way and each lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen just a few blocks off their path.
While she sat and ate her pasta, Katharine took stock. She had on cute and comfy sneakers, no pinched toes. Her jeans were soft; there was a mild breeze and a blue sky. And in spite of the pollution she knew was there, the air seemed fresh. The restaurant was full of colors and the chatter of people talking about everything from jobs and babies to apartments and movies. It was so different from the sterile, stifling environment of the office.
She had been here before, had been to loud and boisterous parties, had walked barefoot on the beach. But somehow, she’d never really felt anything before. If she died from all this, at least she had learned to enjoy the taste of good food and the presence of a close friend.
While they ate, they chatted about Liam. They couldn’t talk about the rest of it in here. If someone overheard, they could be … well, they’d be thought clinically insane, that’s for sure. And the simplicity, the normalcy of the conversation was soothing in itself.
Her phone rang halfway through the meal, and Katharine picked it up to check the number. She held the phone up and showed Margot, then hit the button to ignore the call. “My father.”
“Oh.” Margot paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. “That’s gonna likely mean he got your resignation.”
Katharine nodded solemnly and sighed. “I’ll call him back when I get home. Then I’ll do the binding.”
“By yourself?”
“Yeah. I need to do it soon.” Doing the binding all alone would be a nuisance–she was used to having help–but the blood spots on her carpet said she needed to forgo the ease and get it done. Returning her father’s call could wait.
“Here. You need these.” Margot pulled a handful of small sheets of paper from her purse and handed them to Katharine. “I did a color copy of the painting and cut out two of each. I tried to get ones that were whole, where one body part wasn’t obscured by something else.”
In her hand, Katharine held two tiny demons and two tiny, evil-looking beasts the artist said were angels. There was a part of a foot missing on one and a hand missing on another. Margot kept talking.
“I read through the … instructions and it seemed like it might work better if they were stiff. So I laminated one of each.”
Katharine turned them over; the un-laminated copies were already beginning to curl. She’d read the spell, too, and it didn’t say anything about whether the drawing should be on paper or cardboard, or even how it was done. It had suggested a photo, but there was no way Katharine was going to get that. The pictures should work as well as anything. The backs were plain white paper, but that wasn’t addressed anywhere either as far as she knew. “It makes sense. We’ll just see if it works.”
Katharine tucked the little drawings into her purse as the server came up to give them the check. They paid the bill and made their way back to Katharine’s, where Margot gave her a brief hug before climbing into her car and heading into work.
Katharine didn’t see Zachary on the way up to her apartment, but now she knew to be just as wary opening the door. Clearly, either of them could get in at any time they wanted.
Her living room was clear. No men, no beasts, no new soot. Her mirror was empty, too. So she took a deep breath, sank down on her couch, and called her father.
Sharon put her straight through–not a good sign. She barely got a hello out before he steamrolled her. “Katharine, is this a joke?”
“No, Dad. It’s not. I’m resigning.”
“Why on earth would you do something like that?”
Her mouth quirked up at the edge.
This was why she had lived the way she had. She could have chosen her own friends, her own job, felt all the things around her. But before she could really do it, there would be hell to pay. She was starting her payments now.
It was all there in his voice, the implied idea that “why would she do something so stupid?” There was only his way, and he saw nothing beyond the borders of his own vision. As she was learning, there was much beyond his borders, beyond hers, beyond any she had known. And he was right too in asking “Why on earth?” Because she was on earth, and she needed to really be here, in a way she had never been before. She needed to belong to herself.
But there was no way to say any of that to him. He would never understand. “Because I need to build my own career. I need to make my name in my own right.”
There was silence. No, he didn’t understand that either.
At least she’d tried.
“You’re convinced of this?”
“Yes, Dad.” It wasn’t like they were going to miss her at Light & Geryon. She only did everything … and nothing.
He was muttering. “You’re just like your mother. Stubborn as hell sometimes.”
That statement nearly made
her head snap back, and she thought maybe it was a shame she hadn’t done this in person, where he could see her. “Mom was less stubborn than a piece of silk, Dad. What are you talking about?”
“Every once in a while she got some idea … and she just wouldn’t let it go.” He was clearly still miffed about these perceived slights by a dead woman, and by Katharine continuing the tradition.
“You mean that once out of a hundred times she wanted something done her way?” Her heart hurt. Maybe she’d never been anything to the man other than a chess piece. She suddenly realized something, and she spoke it before it got away. “I want you to be proud of me, Dad.”
“Well, I …”
“I need to make my own way. I think you’d appreciate that if I were your son, Dad.”
“But you’re not!”
Clearly. “No, Dad, I’m just me.”
“Well, you can leave any time you need. You don’t have to worry about staying the two weeks.”
She wanted to believe the gruff tone in his voice meant he thought he was being helpful. But it didn’t help her at all to know that he thought she was as expendable as she did. Katharine said good-bye and hung up the phone.
Part of her wanted to curl up into a ball and cry for a while, but a bigger part of her realized she didn’t have that luxury. So she dried her eyes, rolled her shoulders, and worked the kinks out of her neck, then rummaged through her purse for the little cutouts Margot had made for the binding spell.
She took the special tape out of her purse and peeled off the paper wrapper it had come in. She turned the little spool over in her hands for a moment. It looked like normal silk ribbon, in a near blinding shade of white. She’d probably been ripped off. On a hunch she smelled it, and her eyes instantly began to water. It was potent, so maybe she hadn’t been totally ripped off. She unwound the whole spool and cut it in half, laying the two pieces aside.
She pulled out her white pillar candle and the paper Margot had photocopied with the chant on it. After setting it all out on her table, she closed all the blinds in the room. In the back of her mind, she wondered if the spell would work if the names she used weren’t their real names, but there was nothing she could do about it now. And the spell was too simple not to give it a try.
Sitting at her dining table with her back to the kitchen, she looked out at her darkened living room and took a deep breath. She agreed with Margot; the laminated pieces looked like they’d hold up to a binding better, and besides, they were the ones that were whole–no nicked off hands or feet.
After one deep breath, she forced herself to start. She picked up the inky black demon drawing first and began the chant. “I bind you–”
But she came up short. She didn’t know what to say. Which one was it? She needed the picture for the spell to work, but could she just say “I bind you” and not use a name? It seemed the spell was linked to the name and the picture.
She breathed deep and started again. Katharine folded the white ribbon around the demon drawing and tucked the loose end in. Then, as she wound it round and round, she chanted. “I bind you, Zachary, from doing harm against me and others. I bind you, Allistair, from doing harm against me and others, I bind you …”
She felt silly, but she kept going. Maybe it would work. The protection spell had seemed to. Zachary had commented on it. Or he had seen them doing it and wanted to mess with her. Sadly, that was entirely possible.
The ribbon was long enough to get tangled, and she stopped winding for a moment to free the knots, thinking she could have cut it shorter. But she kept up the chant.
She was getting the first knot out when she heard the footstep. She faltered in her chant as she heard another. The sound had come from right in front of her, on the other side of the dining table. After the third footstep brought the sound around near the end of the table, she struggled to make her shaking hands and voice work again.
Katharine spoke a little louder this time. “I bind you, Allistair, from doing harm …”
The steps continued, though she couldn’t see anything. She strained to see behind her as they passed just beyond the kitchen countertop. The sound of her own voice blocked some of the footfalls, but it sounded as if it walked right up to the kitchen sink and passed clean through the half-wall that separated the kitchen and dining area.
As she chanted, the footfalls came around behind her, beyond the wall just on her right. A little faster and heavier now, they completed a counterclockwise loop around her and kept going.
Becoming more afraid as she went, she raised her voice just a touch, and her determination more. The steps kept getting louder and faster and began to be intermingled with the sound of a deep and raspy breath.
The shaking in her hands tangled the stupid ribbon again, and the trembling in her fingers made it that much harder to get the twists out. But she didn’t stop. Even when she finished the binding, she merely picked up the picture of the silvery creature, trying not to wince at the mouthful of fang-like teeth it too sported. She tucked in the ribbon and started over with the winding, even though her words continued on the same, both names interlaced in the spell because she had no idea who was who.
But she did believe it was the demon moving in ever-tightening, counterclockwise circles around her. And she wondered if the circles were some kind of spell of their own.
The ribbon tangled more as she went, rather than less. The breathing turned into growls, and it kept circling. She no longer turned as it passed behind her, just kept her head down and her eyes on the mass of ribbon that had obscured the little picture about fifteen loops ago.
Now the demon was passing through the table where she worked. Still she couldn’t see it, but the surface rocked a little as it went by, making the flame dance just a tiny bit. She felt the air move as it passed, and any doubt about where it was had been eliminated; the growling noise had turned into something that sounded like the earth opening up to swallow her.
She was nearing the last small bit of ribbon, the end unbearably short now. What was she going to do when it was done?
She kept up the chant, partly so she could block the sounds from all around her now. It took three tries to tuck in the stray end. When it was tight, she stopped at the end of the phrase.
The demon was right behind her.
She didn’t dare turn, too afraid of what she might see.
The noise, like the bowels of hell were yawning open, came from just in back of her head. Only this time her hair moved with its breath.
Though she sat very still, clutching the tiny, silk-bound pictures, tears escaped from each eye and rolled in fat, desperate silence down her cheeks.
The noise became deafening, and her hair blew forward with it, and she knew she was likely living her last moments. Thoughts of Mary Wayne’s shredded corpse froze her from any action.
And just like that, it stopped.
The roar moved backward at a tremendous speed, though it still howled in anger. Another sound moved with it, overlaying the depth with a keening pitch. She finally moved–dropped the bindings and clapped her hands to her ears–but the sound didn’t fade. She wasn’t hearing it through her ears at all.
For several minutes, screams of pain and bellows of rage came from all around her. The building shook, tiny tremors that California residents wouldn’t even consider an issue. Though she knew it was useless, her body turned toward the sound each time it moved–a quicksilver reflex for protection against things of her own realm.
Eventually, the noises faded, but she stood behind her table shaking like a leaf. Several of the chairs had been overturned, but when, she didn’t know. She hadn’t seen anything, and that was probably good. The knowing alone had been petrifying.
Katharine didn’t know how long she stood like a zombie in her own home, only that when she came around to being cogent again, she had scrambled to gather the bound images. The spells said to keep them in a safe place. But she knew of nowhere that she could hide them from the creature
s she’d bound. Keeping them with her at all times seemed the only option, and she carefully tucked one into each back pocket.
She needed a drink. A good stiff … something. But the last thing she needed was dulled senses and the chance of being caught unaware or slow. And she didn’t dare risk the possibility that the alcohol would open some of her senses, making it easier to see things in the reflections or make sense of the swirling shadows in her life. Water was probably all she could handle right now.
She had turned, weak legs finding some strength to carry her the last stretch into the kitchen, when she heard a new noise.
Crackling and popping sounds came from behind her, across the living room. She didn’t dare look, but her body was wired to jerk around at this new perceived threat. It turned, regardless of the message from her brain.
Electric currents arced and curved back in on each other, moving and changing as she watched. And while she looked on, frozen in place, a man emerged.
At last the cluster of small lightning strokes subsided and she could see him more clearly.
Her heart pulled her across the room, her mouth worked like a fish, but she couldn’t get any sound to come out.
Deep gashes marred him everywhere and bright red blood oozed from every cut.
His chest bore four deep symmetrical cuts, and his hands looked like he had given as good as he got. He looked her in the eye, and her heart leapt into her throat.
He swayed once … twice … before collapsing on her carpet.
Katharine found her voice as she rushed to him.
“Allistair!”
CHAPTER 24
Allistair took a deep breath and looked up at her from where he lay crumpled in the middle of her living room.
Her instinct was to run to him, to put her arms around him and keep him safe.
But she didn’t do it for several reasons.
Katharine knew she couldn’t trust those same instincts: they were flat-out lying to her about at least one of the men, and possibly both.
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