Riviera held up her hands. “My people have been watching the house; the children were never in any danger. We have foster parents lined up to take care of all of them in an emergency, and I was prepared to negotiate for your release if it came to that.”
“But no guarantees that you’d succeed, right?” I replied.
“And who were you planning to hand my baby brothers over to?” Cooper asked sharply. “They’re more than just a handful; they’ve got full-blown magical powers.”
I leaned forward toward Riviera. “I’m pretty sure ol’ Benny would have locked them up like they were all just a bunch of demons; how were you planning to do right by those kids?”
“That’s the most important thing we have to talk about here today,” she replied, nodding vigorously. “Obviously it’s crucial that the Marron brothers be placed in loving, supportive homes where they can safely learn to control their powers. It’s equally important that they get as much psychological care as they need to overcome any evil tendencies they may have picked up in the hell—”
“I don’t want them dosed with magebane,” Cooper said, his voice carrying a threat that made even me nervous. “They’re way too young; it could hurt their brain development.”
“It wouldn’t be my first choice, either,” Riviera replied gently, “but I can’t guarantee that wouldn’t happen.”
“If my brothers get hurt—”
“The safety of the foster families has to come first, you know that,” Riviera replied, her voice rising to match his. “I think we can both agree that blunting the boys’ powers would be better than locking them away should they become violent.”
“No.” Cooper’s face was red, his hands clenched against the edge of the table. I hadn’t seen that kind of sudden fury in him in a long time, not since his days of waking from bad nightmares to go drinking and looking for fights in dive bars.
“I won’t let them near anyone who would even think of giving them that poisonous shit.” He rose from his chair, scowling at Riviera. “I won’t see my brothers turned into obedient little half-mundane zombies just for some country-club Talent’s convenience! I can take care of them myself!”
“Cooper, please,” Mother Karen said. “I’m against the magebane, too, but we don’t have the resources to care for them all properly. It’s been just a few days and I’ve barely slept, and my other kids are starting to wonder where I’ve gone. No offense, but I’ve been doing most of the heavy lifting for you so far, and I just can’t keep doing it. I know you have the best intentions, but I really don’t think you can do this all by yourself.”
Karen turned to the Warlock. “Not unless you have other ideas?”
The Warlock shook his head, looking uncomfortable. “I want to help my brothers, honest I do, but my house just isn’t a place for human babies. Opal ain’t ready to be a momma.”
Riviera met Cooper’s furious glare with collected calmness. “You have my word that I will personally make sure that your brothers get the best care possible. As Circle head, I must also say that while your desire to protect your family and raise your brothers yourself is honorable, I am convinced the boys will be better off with more experienced parents, at least until they’re a little bit older and you have a stable living situation.”
Cooper sat down, reluctantly conceding her point with a noncommittal nod. “So which foster families did you have in mind?”
“My cousin Sylvia and her husband, Nikolai, have offered to take one of the boys; they have teen daughters at home who can help with child care. Rowland Nachtcroft from the Governing Circle has offered to take another; two of his young sons have hereditary lycanthropy, so his family already has a nanny at the house who’s skilled with special-needs children. Chione Gastaphar and her sisters have offered to take another, and Horatio Fox and his wife, Acacia, have also offered to serve as foster parents.”
“Isn’t Horatio a little old for fostering a baby?” Mother Karen asked. “He turned one hundred and fifty recently, didn’t he?”
“One hundred and seventy,” Riviera replied. “He still spends his weekends camping and running up and down hills at Civil War reenactments, so he seems to have the energy for it. Acacia is considerably younger, and a skilled healer; I’m willing to give them a chance if you are.”
“How will you handle psychological counseling for the children?” Karen asked.
“All the prospective foster parents have agreed to bring the children in for regular therapy sessions; we’re planning to use one therapist for all the boys, but we haven’t decided who’ll be handling that yet.”
“I’d recommend Dr. Aboab Hopkinson,” Karen said. “He’s done well with my kids when they’ve been troubled.”
“Dr. Hopkinson is high on our list, but he isn’t sure yet if he can take on the Marron brothers without diminishing the care he gives to his other patients,” Riviera replied. “The other candidates are equally qualified. No matter which families the boys go to, they’ll get frequent play dates, and if they do well, we may be able to bring them back together in the same household after a while.”
“I want unlimited visitation rights,” Cooper said. “If I get a notion that I want to see my brothers at 3 A.M., I want to be let into the house to see them, no arguments from you or the family they’re with or anyone.”
Riviera pursed her lips. “The foster parents have a right to privacy that I won’t see violated frivolously. I’ll agree to your terms, if you promise not to abuse your visitation privileges.”
Cooper nodded.
Riviera set a quill pen atop a set of papers and pushed them across the table to him. “The details of our foster care proposal—such as have been worked out—are all here, including the full list of potential therapists. If this looks like a workable arrangement to you, please sign, and after the meeting we can introduce the boys to their new homes.”
Cooper frowned as he studied the proposal, then passed the papers over to Mother Karen so she could take a look. They exchanged glances; Karen pushed the papers back to Cooper with a hopeful nod.
“I guess I can live with this,” Cooper finally said.
“I don’t suppose you had people falling all over themselves offering to become foster parents, did you?” Karen asked.
“There wasn’t an overabundance of volunteers, no,” Riviera replied.
“There never is when there’s a real need, is there?” Karen shook her head as Cooper signed his name on the dotted line.
“Well, now.” Riviera looked from me to the Warlock. “Does this meet with you folks’ approval as well?”
“If Coop’s okay with it, then I am, too,” the Warlock said.
“I don’t know any of those people, but if Mother Karen thinks they’re good parents, then I’m fine with them taking care of the kids, too,” I replied.
“Did you have any more questions for me?” Riviera asked.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “There’s the little detail that your nephew burned down Cooper’s shack and took all our spellbooks and guns.”
“The house in Athens County is being rebuilt; the confiscated books and weapons will be put back where they were found once construction is complete. And you’ll be compensated for any other damages.”
She pulled another paper from her stack and pushed it across the table toward me and Cooper along with a quill pen; it appeared to be a list of everything that had been taken or destroyed by Benedict Jordan’s agents. “Does that seem to be an accurate account?”
“It looks like it, yeah,” I replied. The Governing Circle’s accountant had totaled the damages at ten thousand dollars, partly to compensate for my lost job and garnished final paycheck, withheld by my boss because he thought I’d stolen from him.
“Will you take a direct bank transfer?” she asked.
“I’d kinda prefer cash,” I replied.
“Cash, definitely,” Cooper agreed.
Riviera gave us a look. “Given everything that’s happened recently, are y�
��all absolutely certain that y’all want to be walking around with a great big wad of greenbacks in your pockets? If y’all lose physical money, I’m afraid the rules say I can’t replace it, but if the electronic transaction fails or gets hijacked, we can fix it.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out an iPhone. “I can show you the transaction right here.”
I looked at Cooper. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “I guess imaginary money will spend just the same in the end.”
I signed the document, then passed it to Cooper. After he inked his name, Riviera logged into what I supposed was the Circle’s Ohioana Bank account, and then showed us that she’d transferred the money to Cooper’s checking account.
“What about my surprise criminal record, and our eviction?” I asked.
“The eviction has been remedied, and the fabricated conviction has been removed from the mundane criminal justice records,” she replied.
“Any ideas about what to do about this?” I raised my left hand, still gloved. Thin tendrils of smoke wafted from the cuff.
“I myself am no expert on curse removal, so I have arranged for you to meet with Madame Robichaud next Wednesday at her parlor.”
I knew Madame Robichaud by reputation; she was an accomplished Santeria priestess who’d moved north from New Orleans to help take care of her grandchildren. “Sounds good. What about Pal’s overseers, and the Virtus Regnum?” I asked.
“Since Friday night, we have sent several messages to the Regnum concerning you and Palimpsest, but they have not replied to or even acknowledged our communications.” Riviera looked solemn. “I will surely put in a good word for the two of you if I have the chance, but I don’t know if that will happen.”
That wasn’t a good sign. But if they weren’t talking to her, they weren’t talking to her. I believed what Riviera had been telling me so far; I guessed I would just have to wait and see what the Virtii had in store for me.
chapter
eleven
A Hole in the Sky
It felt wonderful to step back out onto the damp earth of the cornfield, to feel the sun on my skin. I took a deep breath of the summer air and turned around. The scarecrow was once again just an old black suit and a straw-stuffed burlap sack head hanging on a couple of old rake handles.
“Well, thank God that’s over,” I said to Pal.
An unseasonably cool breeze wafted across my shoulders, and I shivered, looking upward. The sky was darkening. A late summer storm?
“I’m sorry, dude,” the Warlock said to Cooper. “I … I just didn’t know what to say in there. I don’t know how to raise anything that can’t live in an aquarium, you know?”
“It’s okay.” Cooper gave the Warlock a brotherly slap on the shoulder. “It’ll work out. The kids’ll be fine. You’ll do better with the whole big brother thing when they’re a little older.”
“All the people Riviera mentioned will be very fine foster parents,” Karen added. “I don’t think you need to worry.”
The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck prickled as the wind rose, turned downright cold, rattling through the cornfield. Sudden scudding clouds blotted out the sun, and my heart dropped when I saw four pavement-gray spirals begin to twist down from the overcast.
“Guys, look at that!” I said.
“Tornadoes?” said the Warlock. “What the hell?”
“No, I don’t think they are,” Cooper replied.
The tips of the descending spirals crackled with lightning, opened like the burning eyes of vast gods to reveal a blinding brightness behind them, and from them descended huge creatures that looked like crystalline orreries circling pulsing magma hearts.
“Shit, it’s the Virtii!” I hollered. “Y’all get in the car and get the hell out of here!”
I slung both my arms through the backpack straps, hiked up my skirts, and pelted down a corn row, running as hard and fast as I could away from the Warlock’s Land Rover.
“What are you doing?” Pal demanded inside my head.
Leading them away from you guys. I hope, I thought back, shielding my face from the lashing corn leaves.
“But you can kill these creatures!”
I killed one. With great difficulty, if you remember. I take on four, I’m dead.
“But we have Cooper and the Warlock to help us this time.”
They’d be good if there were one or two Virtii. If we fight four, there’ll be nothing left of us but scorched teeth and bad credit. Get everyone in the car and get them out of here.
“What are you planning to do out here on your own?” Pal sounded genuinely angry.
Planning to try to stay alive, first. I think I see some trees I can hide in for a little while. I’m betting there’s a back door to the Faery Tavern floating around out here someplace.
“They’ll enslave you if you go back there uninvited!”
Still better than being dead, right? If that happens, tell Cooper he better come back here and break me out.
I ran out of the cornfield onto a dirt road and promptly tripped over a muddy rut. As I tumbled forward onto my hands and knees, I felt the zipper and fabric at the back of my ball gown pop and rip. Swearing, I got to my feet, held my smirched skirts up with my flesh hand, and started running toward the trees again, my bodice slipping ominously downward.
A Virtus loomed above me like a manta ray preparing to suck up a shrimp.
“Surrender or be expunged,” it thundered.
Crap, I’m gonna die, I thought, still running. I’m gonna die in a prom dress in a stupid cornfield out in the middle of BFE.
I heard calliope music behind me, and suddenly Pal scooped me up underneath my arms and whisked me off toward open sky.
“Dammit, Coop, move, you’re on my nuts,” the Warlock complained from somewhere on Pal’s back.
“Dude, there’s no place for me to move to—” Cooper began.
“Christ, guys, why didn’t you get out of here like I told you?” I hollered back at them.
“I wasn’t just going to leave you out here!” Cooper sounded indignant.
“Nor was I,” added my familiar.
“Warlock, what’s your excuse?” I yelled.
“I didn’t want to get stuck changing diapers!”
Pal’s clawed fingers were digging painfully into my armpits, and my backpack was crammed up against the back of my head and neck; I couldn’t turn to see if our pursuers were gaining on us or if we were making good our escape.
“Where are the Virtii?” I yelled against the wind.
“The closest one’s, oh, a couple hundred yards back,” the Warlock replied hoarsely, a faint tremor in his voice. “It’s getting kinda glowy … that’s bad, right?”
“Very bad, yes!” I stripped the glove off my flame hand just in case we were forced to fight. “Pal, if you can get us away from them any quicker, do it!”
“I know a teleportation incantation—” my familiar replied.
“Yes! Teleportation would be double-plus good!”
“—but I can’t sing more than one spell. I’d have to land us first. They’d be on us before I could finish.”
I swore. “Fly faster!”
“I’m trying!”
We rose higher in the air, and a sudden choppy crosswind caught my skirts. I felt the zipper give entirely and my bodice slid down to my hips. The way Pal was carrying me, I couldn’t reach down to grab it. I tried for a charm but my adrenaline-soaked brain wouldn’t come up with anything useful.
“My dress! Guys, help!” I spread my legs to try to keep it from flying away; the heavy fabric flapped between my knees like a sail, jerking my legs back against Pal’s thorax. The wind whistled bracingly through my thin underwear.
“It’s too much drag!” Pal exclaimed. “It’s slowing us down; let it go!”
“I’m gonna be naked!” I wailed.
“And we’ll be dead if they catch us!”
Pal’s logic was unassailable. I clo
sed my legs and felt the fancy green satin-and-crinoline ball gown flap away toward the fields below. Stupid fucking dress. At least I still had my boots on. “Are we losing ’em, or are they gaining on us?”
“They’re gaining!” Cooper yelled. “Hey, where’s your dress?”
Christ on a cracker. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes to keep from screaming in frustration. And suddenly realized that my ocularis was itching like someone had rubbed my eye socket with poison ivy.
I opened my eyes, blinked to the door-sight gemview, and began to scan the sky. And just a few hundred feet in front of us, I saw the faint outline of a wide oval, big enough to admit one of those flying Pringles cans they call regional jet planes—but maybe too small for a Virtus—hanging in the sky.
“Whoa! There’s a portal! Go up, to the left!” I shouted.
Pal obeyed.
“What’s a portal doing here?” the Warlock asked.
“I don’t know; it’s big,” I replied. “Pal, stop, we’re on top of it.”
“They’re coming fast, we can’t stop long,” Cooper said.
I fervently wished that I could turn my head to see behind us. “Let me try this.”
I reached out to probe the edge of the portal with my flame hand. The moment I touched it, the portal sprang open with a pop, revealing a circle of bright jet-stream blue within the cloudy sky. A wind rose from the difference in pressure, dragging us toward the portal, but Pal was strong enough to resist it. I was too low to see the ground that lay beyond the portal, but it was disorienting to see the sun twinned in the second sky.
“Something’s not right—” Pal began.
The Warlock and Cooper swore and shouted. A burning plasma pseudopod whipped through the air, perilously close to my head.
“Fuck it, go through, go through!” I screamed.
Pal went through.
And suddenly we were falling.
part
two
Shotgun Sorceress Page 10