Blasting wasn’t going to be the answer, though. I’d been trying to fight Clay and his patron with brute force all along, and they kept coming back stronger than before. I had to be canny because I was only going to get one shot at this.
I could do slow and careful. I’d done it with my ward circuit at the coffee shop, after all. And when facing off against Dorothy tonight. No motion involved, just lots of concentration and attention to detail.
Concentration was going to be hard if I kept watching Beth hanging on Clay as he dragged her deeper into this festering pile of lies and hate. I exhaled slowly, trying to force myself to relax. As I did, I heard the wind that I could not feel here on the roof, and on the wind, I heard notes of music, the ode to Terpsichore that the Lung dragon had played in the T stop. Not violin notes this time, just simple humming — no, humming, but there was nothing simple about it. Each vibration, each note, drew me closer and held me, threw me into the memory of kissing Haris, of spiraling emotions breaking free. The muse might not be able to move either, but he didn’t need to touch me to inspire me and lend me strength.
I sank into the music, drawing my anger and magic around me into a cloak, sheltering me, giving me time to see where and how to strike. I wanted to rush, to strike out and send Clay flying from the rooftop. Surely that would kill him and end this madness!
But he was still holding and being held by Beth. I was here to save her, not kill her, so I must bide my time, even if it felt as though we were approaching a point of no return.
Clay and Beth knelt on the roof. He took a Sharpie from his pocket and began to mark her wrist. Sharpie wasn’t permanent. It wasn’t a tattoo; it was merely a design.
“Ooh, I like that.” She traced it with her finger, and I felt a shiver across the rooftop. Haris’s music paused, then picked up again, imbued with more urgency.
I took that power, and began not a pulse but a careful seeking, probing outward to find a path leading to Beth. If I could use my magic to separate her from Clay, I could strike without fear of what would happen.
“This might sting a bit.” I couldn’t see clearly what Clay was doing, but a glint of light made me catch my breath. It was time.
I took my power, my desire to throw Clay away, my anger, my fear for Beth — took it all and shoved it through the path I’d cleared, lacing a dome over Beth that separated her physically and magically from Clay. He swayed backward.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he snarled. “I’ve already won.”
He clapped his hand over the design he’d drawn on Beth’s wrist, and feedback pulsed across the roof, setting my teeth on edge as he tried to reverse the polarity of my magic. Beth pushed at him with her other hand, and he fell, off-balance, the feedback snapping back against him. His head hit the roof.
Life would have been simpler if this were a movie and that was all it took to knock him unconscious so the magic would fade. This wasn’t a movie, though.
“You’ll pay for that.” He pushed himself upright and reached for Beth. This time, the magic kept him at bay.
Eyes narrowed, he got to his feet and stalked toward me. Fear choked me, and I almost dropped the magic I was using to protect Beth. The problem was that I could only shield one of us.
As he got closer, I saw that he held an art knife in his hand, wicked sharp. A dark spot at the tip showed that he had at least nicked Beth with the blade.
“Tiamat prefers crushing deaths,” he said, “but she will take your death as an offering regardless. You will bleed out here on the roof with no one to help you.” His sneer made my heart rate jump. “And then I will have Beth anyway because you tried to take her away.”
I still couldn’t speak, couldn’t ask why, couldn’t ask when he’d found Tiamat, who she was — I vaguely recalled the name as Mesopotamian, but that alone wasn’t enough to act against her. I couldn’t even ask how long he’d been a witch or how he hid it from me — so much I wanted to know, but even if I could speak, the only question I would ask was why. Since I couldn’t speak, I’d have to live with ignorance for now. But only for now — I was going to beat Clay.
The coils tightened around me once more, but I knew that Clay hadn’t lied. He didn’t want me crushed to death; he was going to cut me over and over, probably carving some of these hex marks into me as he did so to get maximum power from my death.
Power from my death, like he was the frigging Highlander. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work. When this was all over and Carole got back into town, she and I were going to sit down and have a long talk about all the things she hadn’t told me when I was in college. Mostly because I was an insufferable know-it-all, but not all of it.
The knife was inches away. Beth was going to have to fend for herself for a moment. If I died, we were both lost.
I pulled the magic back into me, filling me once again with the heat that had boiled off watery coils of hate. Rather than simply using it for defense, though, I shoved it into Clay’s face, fiery and intense, searing his eyes, and making him drop the art knife as he jumped back in surprise, hands flying to his face.
“You bitch! You don’t know when to give up, do you?”
“Never.”
It took a lot of effort to get the single word out, pushing against the coils and bands, but his reaction was worth it. He took his hands from his face and peered at me as if he could not see me clearly.
His fists clenched, and the bindings around me tightened once more. It didn’t matter. I knew their pattern now, knew how to weave my magic between them. Tendrils crept out, dancing like boxers ready to jab at Clay. He moved side to side, shifting, trying to avoid the danger that was all around him.
He was on the defensive, but I needed a decisive move. Just keeping the shield up was exhausting, and I was going to run out of magic soon.
Death. It was the only solution the other witches had offered.
I thought of sparks and arcs, current and transformers. I had the power within me to light up the entire block this building was standing on. That meant I also had the power to to electrocute Clay where he stood in the mystic brine. Saltwater was a good conductor, after all.
A tendril arched out. It felt like forever that I held it to him, although it couldn’t have been more than a second. His heart stopped.
I’d seen enough hospital dramas on TV — I recognized the graying face, the shock, the way he clutched at his chest. And then he fell.
Air snapped in to replace the magic — cool winds, rushing to clear Boston of all that had been wrong. I could breathe and move. I shook myself, and Haris’s hand steadied me from behind. I drew strength from that contact, but this wasn’t over.
Green glimmers flashed on the art knife Clay had dropped, and I nodded. I would need that.
“See to Beth,” I told Haris as I knelt next to Clay.
A trickle of magic current restarted his heart, sluggish, quiet. I didn’t want him waking up yet, but I wasn’t going to leave him dead.
Awake, though, he was going to come after me again, going to go all megalomaniac villain. I could already feel the prickling along my arms that said I was in the presence of another witch, weak, but not as muted as it had been at the reunion dinner. He would use that power if he could. We couldn’t have that.
I needed to bind him, to ward him with the magic outside and him inside, unable to touch it, preferably unable even to remember it. I wished I had Lashonda here to ask about bindings.
I pushed up his shirt. His chest had a large pink welt where I had sent the current into his heart. It would scar eventually, which made it perfect for me to use — a permanent mark that would be with him. I picked up the art knife and traced a disk in the center of the red area surrounded by — and separate from — an enclosing circle. I scraped lightly to raise the skin, repeating over and over, and finally cutting so that his blood would seal the ward.
Magic fell silent around us. I could feel Haris on the other end of the roof, and an off-tone echo next to
him. Beth had been changed by this encounter, had been at least partially bound to this Tiamat when she traced the design Clay had drawn, but that was a worry for another day. For now, we had victory — Beth was safe, the anger and hate of Tiamat wasn’t flooding Boston, and Clay wasn’t going to be causing any more trouble. That was enough.
Chapter 37
Tuesday, I decided to enjoy the perks of being manager and take a day off from work, although it meant a last-minute juggling of the schedule. I’d put in a full day on Monday after being out half the night saving Boston, and I needed a break. Besides, with the dispersal of the ghosts, Ximena was alert and wanted to become assistant manager for the daytime shift. I was eager to see what she would do.
I curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee — I would drink one cup of Carole’s tea a day, but I really preferred a heavier drink — and the first of the journals I’d taken from Clay’s house. It started about a year post-graduation with an analysis of different possible patrons and the pros and cons of different choices. I shook my head. I could just imagine what Maggie — or Dorothy — would have to say about that method. Granted, Dorothy was at the other extreme from Clay, making a single emotional choice and refusing to examine it or even consider that other choices might be preferable. Frankly, I didn’t think either of them were examples to follow.
Missing from this journal was any discussion of how he had learned about witchcraft or where he learned of patrons. Why, though — oh, there were whys. Lots and lots of whys, mostly of the small petty kind that always made people shake their heads when they came out in murder trials. “He dated the girl who should have been mine,” “She said she wanted to be friends,” “They got higher grades than me even though I worked harder.”
I ran into whole pages where he ranted about me. He had wanted me to turn to him for comfort after the truth about Brian’s two-timing came out. When Beth and Brian kept dating and I seemed okay with that, it enraged Clay. I wouldn’t have thought I could inspire feelings like that.
But then — Matt. I sighed. He had been livid when I’d arrived home in the wee hours with both Haris and Beth in tow. He expressed concern over Beth, but he kept glaring at Haris, and I’d had to wonder again about the effect of the wine that Matt had drunk.
The doorbell interrupted my musing, and I went to the speaker to see who it was.
“Registered mail. You need to sign.”
That was unusual. Something for work, maybe? But no, Kendall had had me do all the paperwork the day before, what little there was. I headed down.
I frowned at the return address as I signed. Why would Matt need to send me anything via mail, let alone registered mail? I almost stepped into the restaurant to ask Wei if she knew what was going on, but I’d know soon enough.
After thanking the mail carrier, I turned the envelope over in my hands a couple of times, trying to guess what it might contain, but there were no hints. I put my finger under the flap and tore along the crease as neatly as I could as I headed back up. There was a single sheet inside.
Dear Pepper,
I’m petitioning for full custody of Gavin and Tina. I felt I should tell you before I did it, but if I told you in person, I was afraid there would be a scene. I have no objection to your choices in life or your beliefs, but the children need a more stable environment than you are giving them. I’m sorry it’s come to this.
Matt
The paper slid from my fingers, and I sank onto the stairs. Matt wanted to take the kids away from me.
I picked up the paper again and scanned it, but the words hadn’t changed. I snorted when I read again that he had no objection to my beliefs. I was certain that trying to insulate the children from magic was one of the ways he wanted to provide “a more stable environment.”
How stable did he think their environment would have been if Clay had had his way and Boston became the feeding grounds for Tiamat? Stability and safety meant knowing what was out there. But no, Matt wanted to bury his head in the sand. Fool!
A door above me opened, and Wei’s mother, the twins’ Ama, stepped out. She saw me and asked, “Is everything all right? You should be more careful. You’ve been doing so much lately.”
“True enough.” I folded the paper so she couldn’t read it and stood up. I couldn’t ask Matt’s family to side with me. I didn’t think there should be sides, but I couldn’t ignore the line he’d drawn between us. “It may have cost me more than I expected.”
“Almost everything does, child. Almost everything does.”
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Pepper and Matt’s Family Trees
Acknowledgments
This book was written with much encouragement from all the writing communities I am a part of, including Forward Motion for Writers, Codex, SFWA, and 5Writers. I want to thank my valuable first readers, Bonnie Schutzman and Trevor, both of whom pointed out areas where the book could be stronger, as well as Margaret McGaffey Fisk and Dawn Bonanno. Or where I just plain screwed up. Remaining errors, of course, are my own.
About the Author
Erin M. Hartshorn did her graduate work in fish olfaction (and yes, she’s heard all of the jokes about how fish smell) before turning to words to make her living. Her freelance business makes others’ words look good through copyediting, proofreading, and indexing. Her fiction has appeared both online and in print, placed in the PARSEC short story contest, earned honorable mentions and semifinal status in the Writers of the Future contest, and been shortlisted for the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Award for science-fiction novellas. She currently serves as Vice President for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). She also publishes mysteries under the pen name Sara Penhallow. Erin lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and their two kids, who are gradually being inculcated in the joy of all that is science fiction and fantasy.
Keep in touch:
@ErinMHartshorn
www.erinmhartshorn.com/blog
[email protected]
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