Another deep breath. Square my shoulders. Have a backup plan in mind. March my butt to the exit as fast as I could.
Too bad the exit was gone. And the buffet. And the trashed-up hallway. I was in a tiny windowless room with no ventilation and no way out. Once again the only constant was the twinkling star that seemed to hang high above it all, even though the ceiling was so low it grazed the top of my head. The walls were pressing inward and I was starting to feel like a panini when something soft brushed against the back of my neck. I managed to turn around in this hideous little vertical coffin and saw the most magnificent handknitted shawl imaginable clinging to the wall. It shimmered like diamonds scattered across a field of moon-washed snow.
I instantly realized there were no purl-back resting rows involved in this design. It was pure lace technique, long row after long row of yarn overs and beadwork mixed with intricate, perfectly balanced decreases.
Maybe you had to be a knitter to understand but my whole life was about manipulating whisper-fine yarn into something beautiful. I dreamed in stitches. The love of fiber was woven through my DNA as far back as you could trace.
All of my attempts to keep my mind a total blank went up in smoke when I touched that mind-blowing shawl. It was like holding a cloud of dreams in my hands. Diamondlike crystals had been handknitted into the shawl at precisely calculated intervals. The level of workmanship was far beyond anything I had ever dreamed possible. I was good but, as far as I knew, nobody was this good.
That should have been my first clue but I was too in love to think straight.
Oh, the spiderweb fineness of the silk yarn! Oh, the dazzling sparkle of the crystals!
Oh, the thousands of hairy silver spiders leaping from that intricate web of beauty and onto my head, my shoulders, my arms.
I opened my mouth to scream and two of the fuzzy monsters perched on my lower lip, leaking acrid juices that dripped into my mouth and launched me into the dry heaves. The room was the size of an old-fashioned phone booth. The walls were covered with arachnids. The shawl was completely obliterated by the sheer number of them. They smelled musty and hot and the more I slapped them off my body and picked them from my hair, the faster they swarmed back to take me out.
My legs were covered from my ankles to my thighs with fat hot crawling hairy spiders. I felt the sting of their bristles as they slid under my jeans and crawled up up up. I swatted, smacked, screamed, smooshed myself against the spider-covered wall in a crazed attempt to kill as many of them as I possibly could before they did a Star Trek move and crawled into my ear and burrowed through my cerebral cortex.
The magick side of my brain knew these spiders were illusions courtesy of the Fae but the human side was in control. For the most part my brain entirely shut down and I was reduced to a state of shrieking mindless primitive terror. If I’d been behind the wheel of my Buick, I would have driven off a bridge to escape these hideous creatures. Anything to escape them.
They were inside my T-shirt, crawling into my bra, slithering around the curve of my left ear, moving across my cheek toward my nose, gliding over my knees and up my thighs until I was reduced to nothing but one long scream.
They were on the button of my jeans, the zipper pull, along the stitching on the pockets. One dived into my ear and a wave of fury rose up inside me and I knew I had my answer.
I battled to push fear aside and let rage take its place. And the angrier I got, the more my fingertips began to tingle, and the more they tingled—
Here’s some unsolicited advice. If you’re ever trapped in a room with seven million spiders, embrace your inner rage. Sometimes a bad temper is the only thing separating a girl from a total meltdown.
The flames shot from my fingertips, crisscrossing in midair, turning spiders into charcoal briquettes at an amazing rate. Sizzle! Sputter! The stink of burning arachnid in that small airless room was stomach turning but I could live with it. The more I killed, the more disappeared of their own volition. For every one I blasted with firepower, another twenty fell from my body and disappeared.
I let out a whoop of triumph when the walls pulled and the room expanded, growing wider and deeper as more spiders met their maker.
I zapped the last one and watched it shrivel into a dried-up spider patty. A moment later the ceiling lifted up and away but the solitary star remained in position and I laughed out loud in a combination of exhaustion, glee, and amusement.
Old magick? Old technology was more like it.
The Fae had a surveillance camera watching me!
They could watch me all they wanted. It wasn’t like I was about to stage a strip show for the camera unless dead spiders had a thing for lap dances. Now there was an embarrassing way to make a buck. In fact, anything that even remotely included dancing was way out of my comfort zone. The thought of lap dancing anytime, anyplace, for anyone, brought on a wicked case of the giggles.
Great. Now the Fae could observe the rightful leader of Sugar Maple dissolve into helpless laughter like a five-year-old in church.
“Stop it!” I ordered myself. Nerves, that was all it was. A bad case of post-traumatic spider syndrome. Relief was pouring out of me in gales of laughter. Nothing wrong with that as long as I managed to keep my focus on Sugar Maple while I rode it out.
A door opened up where the beautiful shawl had been and I dashed through it before it could have second thoughts.
Instead of the desolate main lobby with the crumpled paper cups and bent straws, I found myself in a narrow whitewashed hallway punctuated every ten feet by doors right and left. The ceiling had been replaced with a dome of glass. Brilliant sunlight flooded the space, bouncing off the highly polished hospital-white tiled floor and back up to the sky.
I waved at the twinkling surveillance camera, hoping I looked casual and not at all concerned about this latest turn of events.
The camera didn’t wave back but then I didn’t really think it would.
I don’t know how you feel about closed doors but they were giving me the creeps. In fact, I would put closed doors right up there with circus clowns and hockey masks. My heartbeat accelerated painfully as I passed a pair of doors then by the time it even considered returning to a normal rate, it leaped up again in anticipation of more doors. My chest actually started to hurt and I was thinking 911 and who the heck would give me CPR.
The only thing that kept me putting one foot in front of the other was the hope that each step brought me closer to bringing Sugar Maple and the friends I loved back home where they belonged.
I kept a sharp eye out for runaway spiders but so far, so good. Every now and again a shiver ran down my spine that felt uncomfortably like phantom legs dancing across my skin. Every inch of my body screamed for a week or two under a hot shower where I could wash away the traces of sticky spider residue. A lobotomy wouldn’t be bad either if they could just remove the part of my brain that held memories of being trapped in that upright casket with wall-to-wall spiders.
Thinking about the spiders almost took the edge off all those closed doors.
Almost but not quite.
Gunnar hated horror movies, too.
I refused to think about my best friend, who had died saving Luke.
Luke was so vulnerable that night, so terribly mortal—
I wasn’t going to think about Luke either. That would be like opening my heart, my dreams, my hopes to them.
No.
Absolutely not.
The hallway ended at a T intersection where I could turn right or left. A faint buzz of apprehension moved along my skin like the hum of bees. The decision took on epic proportions. Beads of sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I stood there, unable to choose. I wished I had a coin to flip, some way to avoid making the decision myself.
My inclination was to go right so I went left. At the time it made a kind of loopy sense to me.
This hallway was identical to the last. Stark white. Blindingly brilliant sunshine reflected everywhere. The s
urveillance camera twinkling from on high.
And those doors. I hated those doors. Blank faces staring out at me, shielding secrets I didn’t want revealed.
Terrible things hid behind closed doors. Stolen goods. Dead bodies. Murderers with cleavers the size of legs of lamb.
Stop it! Don’t give them any more ammunition.
Think of bluebirds in spring. Think of crackling hearths on cold winter nights. Think of a truckful of Malabrigo wound into center-pull balls and ready to knit.
I made it past the first two pairs of doors without incident. This was old magick so it figured they would trot out the haunted house scenario. Why mess with success? Haunted houses had been scaring the Halloween costumes off kids for as long as anyone could remember. When it came to thrills and chills, it was a golden oldie.
And I hate to admit it but it worked. The unknown scared the crap out of me. The doors were probably props that led to nowhere but they still managed to give off a malicious vibe.
I forced my shoulders down from my ears and kept walking. If I was going to convince the talisman, wherever it might be, that I was the right one to lead Sugar Maple, I had to exhibit both courage and resolve. Not to mention the ability to kick a little ass when necessary.
This was one of those times when a girl just had to act as if.
I strode down the hallway, head held high, a confident spring in my step. First the spinning wheels, then the spiders, and now these ominous closed doors. If they wanted to play childish parlor games, that was fine with me. I could handle whatever they chose to dish out and keep coming back for more.
At least that was what I thought until I reached the next-to-last door on the right. It swung open and a black-robed giant leaped out, grabbed me, and pressed the sharp edge of a dangerously curved sword against the soft part of my throat.
The steel was cold and I stopped breathing. The slightest movement and I’d be sliced like a Christmas ham.
I couldn’t tell if the creature was male or female. The only thing I knew for sure was that it wanted me dead.
Up until that moment I had labored under the belief that everything I saw, everything I was experiencing, was the result of an elaborate series of illusions created by my very inventive Fae opponents. But this time I knew that wasn’t the case.
Magick knows magick. We recognize each other in a crowd without saying a word. There was definitely magick in the air but the sword that nicked the tender skin of my neck was of this world and meant to kill a half-mortal sorceress.
32
CHLOE
I gasped as the blade pierced the skin of my throat. The warm trickle of blood made me shiver as it moved slowly down my neck and inside my shirt. Except for that, I felt nothing. No pain. No discomfort. Just amazement that I’d been cut, maybe seriously, and felt nothing at all.
The black-robed figure repositioned the sword until the tip of the blade rested against the soft vulnerable spot below my earlobe, next to my jaw. I saw a flutter of lime green glitter spin slowly across my line of vision.
Sugar Maple is already gone. Build your life out there with your human and leave this world to us.
I heard the voice from somewhere inside myself. Light, melodic, undeniably female, but laced with the kind of determination that never ended well for anyone.
“This is my destiny,” I whispered. “This is where I belong.”
You belong with your human. That is your destiny. The world of humans will welcome you.
The blade angled down, pressing harder against the vein throbbing beneath the skin.
“I belong here.”
Sugar Maple is gone. Its day is done. We will rebuild stronger than before on the land our ancestors claimed.
I wasn’t about to get into an argument about the relative merits of Salem versus Sugar Maple with someone who was itching to run me through with a sword the size of a two-by-four.
“There is room in this dimension for all of us. Rebuild your community in Salem and we’ll restore our community here in Sugar Maple. We’ll coexist in peace.”
Wrong thing to say.
I heard the pop as the blade broke the skin and dipped into the rich vein below, felt the quick rush of blood, the sense of release that was almost sexual. Was this it? Was this the way my time was supposed to end, the way the Hobbs legacy was supposed to end?
I felt like I was trapped in a dreamworld, drifting away from all that was familiar. Was this how my father felt when his life was ebbing away on an icy road one dark winter’s night? This fuzzy, distant feeling as if everything that had happened before was nothing more than a dream, as if nothing mattered but giving in, giving up, giving over to the inevitable that faced all humans sooner or later.
I loved my human side. I loved that my blood ran warm inside my veins and that I was a link in the long chain of human history, but I wasn’t that girl any longer. I couldn’t go back to the time before magick. My powers were part of me now. They informed every move, every choice I made. The mortal world—Luke’s world—had so much to offer but Sugar Maple had my heart and soul and I wasn’t ready to leave it all behind.
My shirt was soaked with my blood. The narrow hallway spun crazily as I struggled to remain conscious. I tried to cauterize the wound with flames from my fingertips but I had waited too long. The flame was nothing more than a sputter.
I let out a cry of frustration or at least I tried to. The creature in the dark robe suddenly released its hold on me and I slipped to the blood-wet ground. The saber glittered in the reflected sunlight and for a moment I thought I saw Penny the cat watching me with sad golden eyes.
The twinkling surveillance camera silently watched it all.
I was dying. I knew that. I waited for the past life parade but except for Penny and the dark-robed creature, I was alone.
Or was I? I felt strong arms around me, holding me close. A whisper of softness in my ear. A practiced touch at my throat. The faintest smoky haze of purple that was there and gone.
Janice, I whispered in my mind. Are you here? Was that you?
But the only sound was the beat of my heart growing stronger, steadier inside my chest. The pool of blood beneath me vanished. No bloodstains on my T-shirt.
And maybe a handful of seconds before the saber-wielding creature tried again.
I’m not exactly an athlete but when your life is on the line even a couch potato like me could qualify for the Olympics. I didn’t know where I was running and I didn’t care. Anyplace without a crazed lunatic with a sharpened sword was good enough for me.
The ground shook beneath my feet as the creature lumbered after me. I reached another intersection and veered right this time. A door on the left swung open and what seemed like a thousand knitting needles—size 15s, 35s, and greater, in lengths I’d never seen before—flew out like a convoy of fighter planes and buzzed my head.
I swung at them and took out at least three pairs of wooden 17s with points sharp enough to puncture a paint can. I didn’t want to think about what they could do to my carotid artery.
The knitting needles split up into two separate flights, diving at me from different directions. One pierced my right forearm. Another scraped the left side of my face. The faster I knocked them down, the faster they came back like crazed mosquitoes looking for blood.
The creature in the robe was having trouble keeping up with me. If I could manage a little more speed I might be able to put serious distance between us.
The hallway curved sharply to the right then to the left. I skidded against the wall, regained my balance, and kept running. Doors swung open and closed, deflecting the flying knitting needles that seemed locked on me like lasers. Another intersection loomed and a crazy thought leaped into my head.
Why turn right or left?
Why not break through the wall.
I’m not sure if it was magick or adrenaline or a crazy combination of the two but I went through that wall like it was made of paper and exploded into a winter wonderland
.
Walls of snow everywhere. Mountains of it. All sparkling beneath a pale winter sky. Ribbons of ice cut through the accumulation, carving pathways to nowhere.
Keep moving. You have to keep moving.
I dove for the nearest pathway, slipping and sliding on the ice, pushing relentlessly forward.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind me.
I heard a whoosh as the creature’s sword slashed the air.
Maybe the Olympic track team wasn’t an impossible dream after all. For a gawky, clumsy girl who couldn’t walk through a room without knocking something over, I was really hauling ass.
Still I couldn’t seem to gain traction. At one point I was pretty sure I was hydroplaning but I was moving too fast to worry about it. Normally navigating ice makes me sick to my stomach. I hate that out-of-control feeling, that one-step-away-from-disaster sensation that filled my stomach with something close to panic.
But I’d rather be skidding on the ice than going mano a mano again with a giant saber-wielding maniac.
The pathway narrowed. I turned a little bit sideways, balanced myself with my hands, then kept going and I was going to keep going until there was a reason to stop.
Which happened about thirty yards later when I burst into a clearing that looked strangely familiar.
The world had fallen silent again. No more footsteps pounding behind me. Just the cushioned white noise of a snow-covered world.
I was standing along the curve of a half-plowed two-lane country road at dusk. Here and there a deer poked an inquisitive nose into the clearing then retreated back into the shadows.
The temperature was dropping. My skin felt like it was freezing from the inside out. I considered magicking myself a down-filled jacket and some handknitted mittens but five seconds from now I could be standing on a beach in the blazing sun. No point in depleting my stores of magick until I knew what was around the next corner.
I started down the icy roadway, arms held wide for balance. There was barely enough plowed road for me, much less two cars going in opposite directions.
Spun by Sorcery Page 21