“I know who it is.” Dionne’s face was grim. “His name is Murmur. Don’t throw it around, right? Don’t got to perk up his ears. He’s powerful. Got legions to call on, got a lot of control over souls of the dead who ain’t moved on. He can get stuff out of them.”
Hearing his name, after all these years, made me shudder. “Do you know what he does with people he--takes? When they die?”
“That part, that ain’t written about so much. Best I know, they say he wants some folks for their secrets. But also, a soul just set free from a body is powerful energy. There’s a lot of things you could do with one if you had a grip on it.”
“So the point is,” said Joe, “whatever he does is nasty, right? So we need to get his mitts off Vivi ASAP. Can we agree on that much?” When no one argued, he turned to Dionne. “And you can do that?”
“Came prepared for it.”
“Hey, did any of you notice something last night? In camp?” said Cherry.
“Besides demon assaults?” I said.
“Exactly.” She scooted in closer, lowered her voice. “We were all over camp for hours before we went to the gates. Other than Mari and Vivi seeing--him--what else happened? Nothing that I saw or heard about. People partied. Drank. Danced. Fucked. I didn’t see or hear one accident, one thing that I wouldn’t see at any other Morph. These wild fae guys, they’ve been wreaking havoc since Thursday afternoon, but last night they turned in early?”
“You’re right,” said Joe. “After dark, in a place where anything goes? It should’ve been their playground. They shouldn’t have been able to resist going nuts and messing with everything.”
“So they’re prepping?” I thought about that.
“I would bet all Joe’s money on it,” said Cherry.
“That checks out.” Joe poked her in the side.
Tamar leaned her elbows on the table, resting her face in her hands. “We gotta get more information. I still think tonight’s the night for a battle, but let’s chew on it. Whether we can track them down to spy on them, or--I don’t know. Anything that tells us what we’re up against.”
“Get the girl.” Dionne addressed no one in particular. “Someone find me a spot where we could have a fire and not get bothered. Might as well get done the one thing we know we can.”
Sara and I went to fetch Vivi. I nudged her as we walked. “You were quiet back there.”
“I didn’t want to get my head ripped off.”
“Fair.”
“Also, I’m just ballast with--all this.” She waved a hand around.
I stopped and faced her. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Mari, you must have thought it. I only knew about any of this because I’m Cherry and Joe’s friend who believes in airy-fairy stuff and I was also already coming to Morph. It’s not like they came recruiting.” She tried to meet my gaze, but it fell as she shrugged. “I don’t bring anything to the table here. All the rest of you, you know stuff, you have abilities. I don’t.”
I took her arms. “Listen to me, okay? You’re special enough that Rosa told me to get you for hers. You brought me to those guys in the first place--who knows how long it would’ve taken me to find all of you on my own? Look, I don’t know what roles we’re all supposed to play here, any more than you do, but when my visions told me to find ‘the others’, they didn’t specify ‘only those others with proven occult talents’. Okay? You’re part of this. And if I’m being honest? I feel a lot better about our chances because you’re here. I wouldn’t want to do this without you.”
She nodded. “Okay.” I wasn’t sure she believed me, but she slipped her hand into mine. I squeezed it.
Vivi’s tent was zipped when we found it, and I stood there uncertain, hating the thought of waking her if she was resting. I stepped close, hesitated, and called softly, “Vivi? Vivi, are you awake?”
After a moment, I called again. “I’m here,” she said behind us, and we jumped.
It caught me so off guard that when I turned around, I didn’t have the wits about me to keep my face neutral. She saw my expression and her eyes filled with tears. “Am I that bad?” she whispered, and clamped her trembling lips together.
She looked awful. Her face was drawn, her lips pale, her eyes underlined with dark crescents. Her bare arms looked frail, and her collarbones framed in the scoop neck of her shirt were pronounced. By contrast, her slender belly had a soft, distended roundness to it. Her hair was lank and dull. She carried a huge sandwich and half a bag of carrots, and when she looked down at the food, I saw shame fill her face.
I blazed with pure rage, the protective rage of a lioness whose pride has been threatened. A dozen murderous fantasies flashed through my mind as colors flared and burst at the edges of my vision. I longed to wrap my hands around the nain rouge’s neck and squeeze until I heard a crack, longed to slice and tear the demon into tiny chunks of whatever demons are made of, longed to destroy and maim and hurt them all. I felt my fingers curling, aching with the urge to punish and kill.
I wanted to hurt them for laying this curse on an innocent person for whatever stupid territorial pissing match they were using to justify it, for stealing her life in such a terrifying way that it would make her suffer as she tried and failed to outrun the inevitable. I wanted to lash back at them hard because looking at Vivi, shocking as it was, showed me in painful reality what kind of torment others here would endure if we couldn’t stop the attack and break the curse.
But there was another layer to this fury, the very particular kind of anger that a woman feels when another woman has been assaulted. This may have been a trap laid for any unlucky wanderer, and none of the otherworldly beings involved may have cared one bit about the gender of the person who tripped it, but I still felt it as an attack not just against a person, but against a woman.
Vivi was ashamed. She was dying, struggling against brutal death magic, through no fault of her own. And yet, in response she felt shame--that it made her ugly, that it made her hungry, that it made her eat unladylike amounts of food, that it made her use up too many resources or force other people to take care of her. And that shame made it an assault on her as a woman that ratcheted up my anger on her behalf.
She looked back up at me and her eyes widened. Whatever she saw in my face now, it made her afraid.
“We’re just worried about you,” said Sara.
I inhaled through my nose and tried to force myself to relax. I had all but gone rigid with anger. “I’m sorry. I just want to hurt them so much for hurting you.”
She tried to smile at me. “You don’t even know me, and--I didn’t get a chance to thank you last night for when they, you know, how you jumped on top of me to try to shield me.”
“Were you able to sleep?” Sara asked. “Tamar said you had a rough night.”
“Yeah.” She looked away, out over the field, and a light wind lifted the ends of her tousled hair. “I kept seeing them. Him. Every time I closed my eyes. Remembering when he was close to us, I had this feeling of, I can’t even describe it. Like I could sense how horrible it will be when I die. I kept thinking about it and I couldn’t sleep. And then I’d be hungry and, and, I’m just so fucking tired of eating. My jaw is tired and my stomach is upset and I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Sara touched her arm. “I know it’s hard. But we just need you to keep trying, okay? Just hold out so we have time to fix this.”
Vivi’s voice thickened. “But it’s so bad. The hunger. I can’t even think, and it hurts, and I just want to cry because it keeps getting worse.” She dashed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I managed to sleep for a while when Tamar sat beside me and stroked my hair and hummed to me. It helped, to sleep, but when I woke up I was trembling and my legs were rubbery and I was so dizzy, and my stomach hurt so badly. Tamar left food right next to my bed. I don’t know if I could have gotten up and
walked over to the kitchen tent to get something if she hadn’t.”
“Just another day or two, and then this will be behind you.” I wanted it to be true.
“Vivi, listen, maybe we should take you to a hospital today,” said Sara. “If that’s how bad you’re feeling, you should at least be able to stay in bed and be monitored. If you had an IV, you wouldn’t have to chew.”
She paled. “No. I hate hospitals. No hospital.”
Sara and I exchanged glances. After everything with my accident, I was on Vivi’s side with that. Sara gave a grudging nod. “Yeah, fuck doctors, I guess. I hate them too.” There was a story behind the tightness in her voice.
Now that the shock of seeing Vivi had passed, I remembered why we were there. “Dionne says we can help you with the demon part, at least. Do you think you can walk with us?”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “Anything, if it makes things a little better. And I want to help if I can. I don’t know what I can do, but I don’t want anyone else to ever have to go through this. Or see what I saw last night.”
I didn’t think I should point out that the stuff we’d seen suggested there was a lot more like it out there. “I promise we’ll tell you what’s going on, but you need to promise us that you’ll take of yourself this afternoon.”
“The first time you faint,” Sara warned her, “you’re getting off your feet and one of us is going to stay with you to make sure you rest. No playing martyr, got it?”
She nodded. “Fair enough. Okay. Let’s do this.”
When we got back to Free Radicals, Joe was hauling a flat of bottled water out of a car trunk as Dionne directed him to a spot where her tent bag and duffel and sleeping bag were piled. It was fancy water, in blue glass bottles. Most people just brought jugs or cheap flats of plastic bottles. “Grab a bag, will you?” She gestured to me and Sara and pointed to the car.
“What’s all this?” I hefted a reusable grocery bag full of bottles, bags, and jars in one hand, and wrapped my other arm around a stack of big empty buckets with lids. Sara pulled out another flat of blue bottles. There were still a couple bags left in the trunk.
“Supplies,” said Dionne. “We got a lot of work to do. How you feeling, girl? You hanging in?” She crossed the grass to Vivi, examining her.
“I guess,” she said. “I’m nervous about this. Whatever we’re going to do now.”
Dionne squeezed her arm, smiled, and winked at her. “Don’t you worry. I got you. Just wait, couple hours from now, you’ll be feeling better. Not a hundred percent maybe, but better.”
I set my cargo down next to everything else. “Where’s Cherry and Tamar?”
“Tamar’s scouting a spot,” said Joe. “Cherry went to get a new wristband.” He jerked his chin toward Dionne’s arm as she held it up. Cherry had peeled off her own wristband and taped it closed on Dionne’s wrist. Clever. No one would look close enough to question it, and if anyone could sweet-talk the registration people into replacing a “lost” band, it was Cherry.
While we waited for Tamar, we finished unloading the car and Joe took it back to the parking lot. Sara put Vivi in a camp chair in the shade, and she and I helped Dionne sort through the bags until we had everything she wanted for this particular working.
Tamar and Cherry got back at almost the same time. “Got it,” said Tamar. “We ready?”
“Good to go.” Dionne hefted a canvas sack over her shoulder and pointed at Joe. “You. Grab the hibachi.”
He obeyed. “We grilling this thing after we kill it?”
She stared at him. “No.”
“Tough crowd,” he muttered. I bit my lips to keep from snickering. He saw it and grinned at me.
“Bring all the glasses, everyone,” said Tamar.
Dionne shot her a look. “What glasses?”
“You’ll see. It’ll help.”
“Fine. Get them and let’s roll.” Dionne sniffed.
We walked in silence, all of us trailing after Dionne and Tamar, who led the way with a good five feet between them. There were a lot of reasons I was going to be real happy when this was all over.
Tamar guided us all the way out to the back parking lot, beyond the last rows of cars, and through the high grasses into the trees. Not far within was a clearing, well-shielded from even the most far-ranging wanderers or nosy staff. “Taking no chances this time,” she said.
Dionne nodded. “This’ll do.”
Under her direction, we set everything up. Joe and I broke branches and piled them in the hibachi, which had symbols etched around the rim. There was a thin metal spike, maybe a nail, welded to the bottom inside it. Dionne searched until she found a long stick maybe an inch in diameter. “Stick that on the spike.”
“What, are we burning someone at the stake? I thought we were the witches.” My grin died as she withered me with the same look she’d given Joe.
“Where you think the Christians got that idea? Stole it, like most everything else. They wanted to make sure nobody left behind any familiars or constructs ready to take revenge.” She pulled a crude poppet that looked like it was hand-sewn out of scrap cotton from her sack, and rummaged until she came up with a red marker. “This shit works better when the egregore was made by the person attached to it. Those people usually still got a physical item they used to create it. But we don’t, so we make do.” She handed the doll and marker to Vivi, who was sitting against a tree nearby. “Think about this vulture you saw. Think about how it connects you to--him. Draw the handprint you saw, right in the center of its body.”
“Should we cast a circle?” said Cherry.
“We can’t.” Tamar was measuring out a length of twine. “If we do, the egregore maybe gets locked out. We need that thing to get close.”
“Yup. She’s right.” Dionne and Tamar looked each other over. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it felt like a tiny bit of tension dissolved.
“So how do we protect ourselves?” Cherry looked nervous.
“Welcome to the big leagues,” said Dionne. “Sometimes you got an armored tank. Sometimes you got a baseball bat, a box cutter, and an itch to throw down.” She handed Cherry a black seven-day candle in a glass pillar and two markers. “Draw a vulture and a red handprint on this.”
Sara was tasked with stitching one end of a long strand of black embroidery floss to the poppet at the center of the handprint, and then propping it on the firewood against the stake. Tamar brought Vivi closer to the hibachi, and tied the other end of the floss to the center of Vivi’s bra. She produced a sheathed, antique-looking knife and handed it to Vivi. “When we tell you,” she said, “use this knife to cut the cord, and then stab the poppet right in the heart. Got it?”
“Okay.” She looked uneasy, but took the knife and slid it out of its sheath. It had a beautiful blade, with a shimmering, wavy pattern.
“When you cut the cord,” said Dionne, “look that poppet square in the face and yell, ‘You have no power over me’ as loud as you can. Right?”
“Wait, for real?” I said. “That works?”
Dionne looked at Vivi. “You’re a white chick. You saw Labyrinth a bunch of times, right?” Vivi nodded. Dionne held out a hand. “See? It’ll work.”
“It’s not even in Latin or Greek or Babylonian or anything.” For the first time, I was feeling doubt about this ritual.
“Sorry, are we not fancy enough for you? Shit don’t work just because it’s old. Shit works because it got meaning to the people using it.” She pointed at me with a long lighter. “Only rich white people stupid enough to waste all their money hunting down old magic crap like they’re Indy Jones. We know better.” She turned back to Vivi. “Now, I don’t wanna scare you, but you got to know. When this happens, when we’re killing it, you’re gonna hurt. It’s gonna feel like you’re on fire, like your guts ripped out, like you dying. But it’s not real, got it? I
t’s this thing trying to trick you. Making you think you’re gonna die if it dies. But you’re not. Okay? You gonna be strong and hold out for me?”
Vivi’s eyes were huge. “Um, yeah. Okay. Okay.”
“One last thing,” said Dionne. “You gotta prick your finger. Three drops on the poppet, three on the firewood, then three in the candle flame. Blood on the poppet draws that vulture into it. Blood on the firewood burns--you need to give a blood sacrifice, just not like those Christian morons who thought you had to burn the whole person. Blood in the candle calls it here, so we ain’t gotta sit around all day hoping it shows up. Now you might be the only one who feels when it’s here, right? Rest of us will try to sense it but you tell us when it’s there.”
“Nope.” Tamar held up one of the pairs of enchanted glasses. “I can do you one better on that score. We got five pairs of these, one of us ought to be able to get a look at it when it shows up.”
Dionne took them and examined them with a “Hmph.” Did she look--impressed? “All right. All right. That’s good. That helps.” She looked at me. “You get one of them. You’re the only one here ever had a tie to him. You and me,” she said to Tamar, who nodded.
“I’ll pass,” said Sara. “I can’t do much with them, so I’ll stand guardian.” She fished a small fire extinguisher out of Dionne’s bag.
“Vivi?” I said.
She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “I want to see for myself that it’s dead.”
Joe and Cherry looked at each other. “Rochambeau you for it?” she said.
“Go ahead.” He shook his head. “I’ll help Sara hold down the space.” Cherry’s face lit up and she snatched the last pair of glasses.
Dionne clicked the switch on the lighter, and a tiny flame danced at the end of the barrel. “We ready? Last chance to run.”
We looked around at each other and one by one, nodded. She touched the flame to the candle, then handed it to Cherry. Tamar held up the sewing needle and Dionne clicked the lighter again over its point. Vivi took it from Tamar, steadied her hands, and jabbed the tip of her finger. She counted under her breath as the blood swelled and dropped. One, two, three on the poppet. One, two, three on the firewood.
MetamorphosUS: Book 1 of the Mythfit Witch Mysteries Page 28