by C. E. Murphy
Or not, given that it was her throat and airtight would make her suffocate to death.
Shut up and concentrate, Joanne.
“You’re gonna be okay,” I whispered again.
The knife stuck when I tried to pull it out in one swift motion. Not badly, but it was harder to remove than I thought it would be. I wondered, very briefly, if removing the sword from my lung back in January had been as difficult, and then I slapped my patch into place, layer after layer of cellular rehabilitation.
And encountered resistance.
The “glue” I’d imagined, edges of cells and skin and muscle softening to be melded back together, refused to stick. The silver-powered patch slid away like I’d never held the idea, leaving the bloody gash in Faye’s throat spilling red wetness over my fingers. I jerked my eyes to hers and met a gaze of hard determination and ultimate victory.
“Faye, no.”
She took the last air from her lungs and spat a mouthful of blood at me. Then her head rolled to the side and I felt, with sickening clarity, the life leave her body. A clammy chill swept over me, like I’d stepped from the muggy Seattle heat into shadow sixty degrees colder. I looked up so fast it made me dizzy, honestly expecting to see Faye’s spirit slipping away into the sky.
Instead I saw the serpent, bellowing like a bull elephant gone mad. The sound hit me like a wall, as if my hearing had been shut down while I concentrated on Faye and now was playing catch-up for everything I’d missed in those few seconds.
The coven had gone absolutely insane. Marcia and the Elder had their hands locked together and were screaming at the tops of their lungs. I could see it in the mottled color of Thomas’s face and in the strain in Marcia’s throat, but I couldn’t hear them over the sound of the serpent’s trumpeting to save my life. Roxie and Sam were both on their knees beside me, Roxie shrieking so loudly that I could hear her, tears streaming down her face as she reached for Faye’s body, then stopped, then did it again. Sam didn’t move, just sat there staring at Faye without comprehension. I knew exactly how the poor kid felt.
I could only see two others. Garth was trying to reach Colin, who still stood with his head flung back and his arms spread wide, gaze of ecstasy on the serpent as it reared up, towering above the trees in the Hollidays’ front yard. And Duane was only a few yards away, helping Mel. Everything else was blocked by the serpent’s huge body rising higher and higher until it seemed to blacken the whole solstice sky.
Holy sweet Christ, I had fucked up.
I shoved the thought away as violently as I pushed to my feet. There was still no time for it. It seemed that there was no time for anything, anymore. I needed to see clearly, and I needed to do it right now.
I’m not any good at this, a little voice inside my head protested. I crushed it, not with anger, but simply because I had no time for a crisis of faith. The last time I’d deliberately looked at the world with two sets of eyes had been back in March, when Morrison asked me to. I’d barely been able to hold on to the power then, but the world as I knew it hadn’t been about to end. Desperation brought out the strength in me.
I was going to have to work on that.
But not right now. Right now I set my teeth together and reached for the coil of energy inside me, all too aware of its lack of response lately, and the reasons why it had failed me. But the sky behind the rearing serpent was hot summer blue and the monster itself gleamed black the way it had in the Dead Zone, which boded well for seeing clearly. I closed my eyes, feeling the sting of windshield wiper fluid washing over them as I fell back on my car analogies.
When I opened them, I could see in two worlds. The physical world was almost a distraction, but I didn’t want to let it go. The other world was translucent and made of astounding colors that meshed and melded and slammed against one another.
Mel was okay. I could see her life force entwined with the baby’s, both of them much stronger than I’d feared. Mel’s good-natured personality shone through, butter yellow that deepened to an intransmutable golden core. The little girl she carried inside her glimmered with the color of dark pink roses, soft and sweet and probably hiding thorns. For a moment it was all I could do to keep my feet as relief staggered my heartbeat.
Only for a moment. There still wasn’t time to relax. I turned my Sight on Thomas and Marcia. Power roared off them, pulled up from the earth and drawn down from the sky to mix together into a spell. Marcia’s power was graying out, the color blanching, as if she was drawing too much too fast. I grabbed Roxie’s arm and pulled her to her feet. “Take your place! Everyone! All of you! Get in place around the circle! The elders need you!” My own voice thundered through the racket the serpent made, sending Shockwaves of sound bouncing around the overheated air. Roxie stumbled away, but Sam gave me a look of despair.
“We can’t. We can’t do anything, we don’t have a full coven. Faye’s dead.”
“Go!” I yelled. “It’ll be all right!” I had absolutely no freaking clue how it was going to be all right, what with missing the Maiden, but I couldn’t tell Sam that. His eyes widened with trust and he ran for his place.
I could see through the serpent’s bulk again, though it was no longer because the creature itself was only partly manifested. It was my own power lending semitransparency to solid objects and giving my vision depth. On the monster’s other side, coven members were tottering into place, strength seeming to come to them as they reached their points around the pentagram. Only Garth was still trying to get to his brother. His movements had a viscosity to them, as if he tried to slog through tar in order to reach Colin.
And Colin, a few feet beyond Garth’s reach, was wrapped in black. There was no hint of life to his aura, no neon glow that made him beautiful and unique and one of many, but matte and flat and deadly, pressing in to him without the slightest protest from the slim blond boy. The snake I’d brought back from the spirit realm tightened around his shoulders and began unfurling like a cloak, becoming Virissong’s strong, slender spirit. I wondered if anything I’d done in the spirit worlds in the last few days hadn’t been wholly orchestrated by one Virissong aspect or another.
Images flashed behind my eyes, the icy Upper World and the astounding thunderbird. Big Coyote in the desert. The cheerfully warring spirit animals and the tortoise that had returned with me to lend Gary his strength. I hung on to those memories, taking them for the lifeline they were. I’d screwed up monumentally, but not everything I’d done had been tainted by the dark sorcerer who now settled into Colin’s body. There seemed to be things out there that still had faith in me.
Clinging to the scraps of hope that I hadn’t fucked up beyond redemption, I wove my own power together into a silver-blue net and swung it toward Garth, not so much to capture him as gain his attention. He wrenched around toward me, rage and fear in his eyes. “Get in place, Garth,” I said as gently as I could. “We’re going to fix this. But we’ve got to work together.”
“But Colin!” His voice broke, youthful terror, and my heart clenched at the sound.
“I know.” My stomach hurt around the power centered there, sorrow and pain that touched the net I’d woven and rode out to tell Garth that I understood and shared some of his agony. “But the coven needs you if there’s any chance of making this right.” There was a peculiar ring to my words, like they’d been processed through bells made of pure silver. They sounded as if they carried inexorable truth, and for a dismayed moment I hoped I wasn’t going to get stuck having to tell the truth all the time. I’d never be able to speak to Morrison again.
But Garth seemed to hear the truth in my words as well. He reluctantly broke away from trying to reach Colin, his steps coming easier as soon as he moved backward instead of toward the blond boy. I could feel power growing as the coven members each offered up what they had, and slowly their voices began to lift over the sound of the serpent’s bellowing.
“Joanie.” A hand touched my elbow, startling me. I turned to look down at Mel, who glow
ed so brightly I had to squint to see her clearly. “You’ve only got twelve.”
“I’m trying not to think about that.” I was pretty sure that we needed a full coven in order to vanquish the serpent and Virissong, but taking my place in the circle and harboring doubts would only sabotage the whole attempt.
“Joanie,” Mel said, more urgently. “Your maiden’s dead and I don’t think any of those girls is old enough to be the Mama. You’re playing with a shit hand and you need a full house.”
“One of them must still be a maiden,” I said doubtfully, and turned to glance over the girls, wondering if my Sight could verify that. Mel put her hand on my arm again before I’d figured out how to figure it out.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“What?” I stared down at her again, watching her colors flex with agitation.
“The baby.” Mel’s voice showed none of the twists and flaps of frustration that her aura danced with. “Is it a boy or a girl? Can you tell?”
“Oh. It’s a girl,” I said as if announcing such a thing was an everyday activity for me. Mel took a deep breath.
“Then I can be both.”
My double vision was doing nothing to help me understand her. I shook my head, feeling especially slow and dull. “Both what?”
“Mother and Maiden,” Mel said a bit impatiently. “I told you, Joanne. My grandmother was a witch. This isn’t entirely new to me.”
“Mel, you don’t have to—we’ve—I’m—” I had never once in my life said out loud that I’d had children. Plenty of people back in North Carolina knew, but no one in my life since the day I left Qualla Boundary had any idea.
Except maybe Morrison, depending on just how much digging he’d done. The idea made a knot in my stomach.
“You need thirteen,” she said, long before I could find a way to break through more than a decade of self-imposed silence and admit I’d been playing the role of the Mother. “The baby and I make twelve. You’re the thirteenth. The focal point. You’re the one with the power, Joanie.”
“You’re the one who’s pregnant! Mel, this could be really dangerous—”
“You won’t let anything happen to us.” She smiled, full of serene confidence, and that was it. I’d lost the argument. I could tell, because she walked over to take a place in the circle and folded her hand into Marcia’s. As soon as she did. Thomas left Marcia’s side and darted around the serpent to clasp hands with two other coven members.
I was the only one left outside the circle. The coven had gathered into four groups of three, one at each cardinal point of the compass. Power swept off them like a river in flood, their concentrated, trained efforts blowing away the magic that the cops had helped me call up back in January. There was more than just good will and hope behind their power. I could feel their spellcrafting, words chanted above the muggy wind and the serpent’s howls, and knew if I could harness all that power I could set straight the things I’d messed up, and send Virissong back to the Lower World he’d been so long accustomed to.
But I couldn’t do it from outside the circle. I stared up at the serpent, screwed my courage to the sticking point and walked into the center of the pentagram.
Unexpected silence assailed my ears, so loud I stumbled and put a hand on the gigantic serpent to steady myself. I was much, much too small for it to notice, yet it hissed and twisted at me, spitting venom. I didn’t have time or enough presence of mind to duck, but the acid spattered against a silver-blue sheen instead of burning my skin to the bone. I blinked at my arm in astonishment, then blinked again, looking more carefully with the Sight I’d called up. Filament-thin power sparkled over my skin, like a shield made of sparkling lame. I wondered where it’d come from, and thought Coyote would be proud of me if I’d had the foggiest idea how I’d done it.
The coven’s spell was reaching a crescendo. I could feel it in the bones of my ears, even if I couldn’t exactly hear it, and despite the hissing serpent above me I spread my arms wide, listening with all my being.
And then I knew what to do, like instructions were being poured into me. I couldn’t borrow the coven’s power the way I’d done with the cops in January. Theirs was much too focused, the spell they were casting meant to do a specific thing: translocate the serpent somewhere less dangerous than the Hollidays’ front yard. They could create the spell, but I needed to provide the power boost that would force a creature this massive into motion.
I dug down into the core of me, reaching for the bubble of power that spent so much time lying dormant thanks to my refusal to use it, and which had not unreasonably stopped answering when I called. It wasn’t exactly sentient, but I found myself asking it to respond, instead of bludgeoning my way into using it like the proverbial bull in the china shop.
It responded with joy, as if I’d finally, finally taken the right approach. I lifted my hands up, feeling the need to actually push the serpent away, and discovered I could see through my skin. Networked vessels carried blood that glowed with life, bone caressed by the warmth of muscle and sinew against it. I could see the serpent through my own hands, and felt a surge of confidence. Last time I’d gone transparent on myself things had turned out all right. I wondered if my eyes were the wrong color. Morrison’d watched me last time I’d done this and said they’d turned gold.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was focusing the coven’s spell and protecting the Hollidays and their home.
I laid my hands on the serpent and everything went horribly, critically wrong.
CHAPTER 32
The serpent snatched the power I was bringing to bear, draining it from me so fast that black thunder pounded through my skull. Spikes of light shattered behind my eyelids like unhealthy warnings that my life was in the balance. I dug my hands into the edges of the serpent’s scales, struggling to keep my feet as I began to feel stretched thin as taffy. I had one frivolous moment of sympathizing deeply with Bilbo Baggins, and then knowledge began slamming into my mind with each of those bright bursts of lightning, and I had no more time for superficial thoughts.
It wasn’t some great epiphany on my part. It was that in opening itself to take my power, the serpent also revealed itself to me. Memory assailed me, flat and eager and hungry.
I waited restlessly in a place where fragile human conceits like time had no meaning. There were constants in my world: there was power, and with power, temptation. Time meant nothing when I had these things, because the creatures who had birthed me with their fears and petty dreams were endlessly weak. There would always be those willing to sacrifice anything for power, and I waited for those ones, secure in the knowledge that they would come.
Sometimes others came, traversing the dark places that belonged to me and my kind. Those ones could be tempted but rarely caught, their purpose at opposite ends to mine. They led the weak out of darkness, slipped them from my grasp and turned them back to light. I always knew them when they came into my place, because they were touched by the Enemy.
I shifted, scales sliding over one another in comforting hisses. Darkness cradled me, and I waited, for time meant nothing when I had power and temptation and most blessedly of all, the Enemy to rise against and fight again someday. So it was and so it would be until the small things that had given life to me and the Enemy no longer had life of their own. I did not think I would fade away then. I had been brought forth from nothing and believed I would continue in darkness so long as there was light. It was the way of things. If meaningless time ended, then perhaps so might I, but I belonged to something larger than mere life and death.
A shard of blackness, bright against the dark. A path, leading out. A man, youthful and arrogant and strong, untouched by the Enemy. Better still, I could see the mark on him, blazing black in endless night: rejected by the Enemy, his power tainted with the need to make himself a hero, to be beloved of his people and to stand above them all as their god-king.
I wondered, at times, why the Enemy did not fold ones such as this under
its wing, choosing to reject rather than to guide and protect them. Should one of the Enemy’s fall so far as to walk my path, I would welcome him with sweet words and gentle teachings, until his power was so corrupt and so great that I could break free of my waiting place and into the Middle World forever. Surely the Enemy could use one of mine so well as that, to burnish and embrace such aspirations until its dream was the one dreamed by all the creatures of the world.
But perhaps the Enemy can only squint at heat illusions and bright horizons, blinded by too much sunlight. Those who dwell in dark must learn to look farther than we can see, depending on the imagination of ambition to free us from our cages.
He is so easy, this newcomer. His people freeze and starve and he believes without hesitation that it is the spirits who are to blame. That there is a great and terrible battle waging in this other world he walks in now, and that the creatures who fight here are so powerful that their war spills into his world. And his people are hunters, so it is very easy to convince him that the dark things must be brought into his world in body, so that men might slay their physical forms and thus weaken them in this, the spirit world. Then his people will be safe and warm once again, with food in their fat bellies and no more thoughts of darkness in their small minds.
He agrees, with all the naiveté and arrogance of his kind, and never understands what he will be giving up to me. For this one has power, an unusual power, and my bargain this time will cost him everything, at a price he will think a gift: time. Meaningless, endless time.
The serpent shifted, its scales cutting into the palms of my hands and yanking me out of memory and into my own mind again with a flare of pain. Panic sickened my stomach, a foreboding feeling of awareness that I should have understood more from the brief moment of sharing the monster’s memory than I did.