“Okay, I promise.” My thoughts swam with memories of everything we’d done together in this short time. Sitting together at the water battle, drawing on the temple walls--“Vivi, just one thing I need to know--what did you draw on the temple when we went there after the water battle?”
She tipped her head and squinted. “What do you mean?”
“The temple, you know, the big ziggurat thing? We wrote on the walls in marker. What did you put there?”
“I don’t remember that.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I wrote anything.”
Her eyes were curious, but confused. She really didn’t know what I was talking about, and there was no time for me to nudge her memory along. “Never mind.”
She looked around at me, and Joe, and Tamar, and Dionne, and Sara. “Thank you all.” She had to force each word out. She managed one more smile. “We’ll see each other again.”
I hugged her. She could barely lift her arms, but laid her head on my shoulder. “I love you,” I whispered in a rush of emotion. “Come back.”
“I love you too,” she said. “My good friend.”
Everyone hugged her. There wasn’t enough time for the goodbyes we wanted, so we clung to the goodbyes we could have.
Boden nodded to us. “I will look after her.”
“A year and a day,” I said. “Please try to have good news.”
He nodded and lifted Vivi. She had given Tamar the knife but still cradled the figurine in her hands. The other fae waited inside the circle. Boden carried her past the dying heather into the circle, and his form changed one last time from the smooth-faced human to the strange lumpy creature with the blank white mask over his odd features.
Vivi’s eyes opened and looked back at us. I saw another face reflected over hers, like a film projection. It was lean and ancient and lonely as a rocky island in the sea, but there was a quiet determination and wisdom in those sad and distant eyes. Somehow, I felt I understood a little better why Vivi wanted to go with him.
Boden’s companions went first. And then he and Vivi passed through the white heather as well.
We watched the fronds rustle and settle back into stillness.
“Let’s close it,” said Joe.
And just like that, it was done.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I wanted to stop into Science Faction on our way back. The sooner I got Vivi’s phone out of my hands, the better, and then I could check on Teo, and put all my attention on stopping Murmur before he got any stronger.
As we came up on Science Faction’s camp, I saw Dove and Chris sitting outside. I was going to pretend I didn’t see them and hope they didn’t notice me as I veered around a couple of tents to get to Vivi’s, but Chris caught me looking their way. I raised an uncertain hand. “Hey, how’s it going?”
He came stalking over to us. The easygoing hippie was gone. His face was red and he held his arms out to the sides. “Any of you know what the fuck happened in the yurt last night?”
Dammit. In all our rush to check on people and make sure the camp was clear before we collapsed into bed, no one had thought about cleaning up the yurt. I scrambled to think of an apology that would help even a little bit, but before I could say anything, Sara stepped in front of me. “No idea. All of us were out partying together all night. What’s going on?”
“It’s like rock star levels of trashed. Nothing is working. I think the generator blew.” He was fuming. “I don’t even know what people did in there. If I find out who did this--”
“There’s been a lot of troublemakers here this year,” said Dove, rubbing Chris’s back. “All kinds of stuff went to hell last night. I don’t remember half of it. I think someone slipped something in my drink.”
“Who fucking ruins something like Morph for everyone like this?” Chris set his jaw, his eyes burning.
Shit. I couldn’t blame him. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die of shame--and fear. I didn’t know a lot about generators but I was quite sure I didn’t have the money to replace one. “I’m so sorry,” I said. Tamar shot me a ferocious look. “I mean--I’m so sorry someone did this. Look, we’ve got something we need to do, but we could come back a little later and help clean everything up?” More than anything, I wanted us to get in there without him so we could get the ritual stuff out before he suspected us.
“Nope,” he said. “Don’t bother, it’ll be too late. I’ve got a talk to give in there in an hour, and as it is I’ve gotta figure out how to do it if I don’t have the AV I was going to use. Thanks, though.”
“We’ll rally our folks. It’ll get done,” said Dove.
Dionne caught my eye and I had a feeling she was thinking the same things I was. “Sara, maybe you and Joe could help Cherry out? The three of us could stick around and pitch in here.”
“Sure.” Tamar got it, too. “I might be able to help with the generator. I’m pretty handy. I have some tools in my car, I could run and grab them and take a look.”
Chris took maybe a half step back from his outrage, but he looked suspicious. “That’s--really nice of you. All things considered.”
Time to tap dance. “I, uh, I was telling everyone at Radicals how great you and Dove were to me, giving me a ride and all. That you were cool and we should all hang out together. Consider it an olive branch?”
“That’s in the burner spirit, right, Chris?” Dove poked him and he swatted her hand away.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.” He didn’t sound all that grateful. “Hey, you guys seen Vivi? She didn’t do her breakfast shift and someone said she was hanging out with you all.”
I held her phone behind my back and put my other hand on my waist, hoping I looked innocent. “She went off on her own a little while ago. Said she had something she had to take care of.”
“Hmph. Well, if you see her, ask her to check in, all right? We’re concerned. Remember, we’ve only got an hour to clear things up.”
Tamar herded him toward the generator. “Let’s take a look at this and see what’s going on.”
Dionne and I tackled the interior of the yurt while Tamar went to work on the generator and kept Chris busy. When we walked in, I winced. It really did look like shit in there. The floor was a mess of tangled twine and tiny rock fragments and dust. The chalked sigils were mostly smudged, but the ones on the canvas walls looked a little dark, and I was afraid they’d be scorched into the fabric. Things had been knocked over by the final blast of energy, and there was stuff fallen and scattered. Burned-out candles littered the floor. Without the fans blowing on the melting ice blocks, it was humid and just warm enough to be unpleasant.
We worked in silence, sweeping and picking things up, filling most of a trash bag with debris, righting the furniture. I got water from the spigot and rubbed at the canvas walls with a sponge. After a while, Dove joined us with a few other Science Faction folks. She studied the scene, but didn’t comment. Fortunately, the sooty-looking marks weren’t permanent and came away with some persistent rubbing. Midway through, the string lights blinked a couple of times and then came back on, and I heard the roar and purr of the generator. I wanted to cry with relief.
Tamar joined us. “Took a couple of us figuring it out, but we got it going.” She put a dirty hand on my arm and squeezed it. “Don’t worry, it’s all gonna be all right.”
“Yeah.” It contained my boundless gratitude.
When we were done, I swallowed hard and went out to find Chris. He was studying his presentation notes. “Just wanted you to take a look and see if it seems like everything looks all right. I think everything’s working.” I tried to seem natural even though I felt about three inches tall.
He looked over the space and nodded. The others had turned the fans back on and it was getting cooler inside. “Looks pretty good. Maybe if we just move the camp chairs from outside in here facing the chalkboard, and that should do it.”
I could tell from his voice that he was still suspicious of us. I didn’t blame him. It occurred to me that I felt awkward asking him and Dove for a ride out of here tomorrow, and even more so if they started asking questions about Vivi. Shit. Dammit. Well, I was just going to have to add that to my growing list of “stuff I couldn’t afford to care about until tomorrow” and hope that I could sort it out somehow.
I took Vivi’s phone to the Lost and Found and slipped it onto the table without anyone noticing. It seemed less suspicious than dropping it in or near her tent, since her campmates had noticed she hadn’t been there in a while.
After that, it was time to check on Teo. I found him at Free Radicals, sitting by himself and staring into space as my friends kept themselves busy at a respectful distance. I went to them first. “How is he?”
“Wrecked,” said Cherry. “He hasn’t really wanted to talk, but he asked where you were.”
I dragged another chair over to his. “Can I sit with you?”
He shrugged. I put my chair beside his, facing the same direction. Joe brought us over two mugs of coffee. Teo took one, but held it in his lap in both hands like he’d immediately forgotten it was there. We were silent for a long time. “Your friends said you knew I was in trouble. How?”
“My spirits.” I gauged his reaction. He seemed to think about it, then nodded. I sipped my coffee. “Have you always come to Morph to visit your brother’s grave?”
One corner of his mouth lifted, the smallest bit. “Pipi and Puto. You figured that out, huh?”
“Not until I saw you there by the grave.”
“How did you know it was a grave? Your spirits again?”
“Not exactly.” It seemed silly to be worried about sounding crazy, after what we’d just been through. “There was a curse put on the grass there, a curse that could only be laid on an unconsecrated grave. Vivi--the woman you were fighting--stepped on the grass and got cursed. We were all working to try to fix it and help her.”
“Did you?”
“I think so. At least, the grass is clear now. Now it’s your brother’s resting place, nothing more.” I studied his face. “Why did you go out there today? What happened before we got there?”
He looked down and discovered his coffee, lifting the mug in both hands to take a drink. “I’m not sure. A lot of it is a blur.”
“You can tell me, Teo. I want to help you. And it might be important for me to know.”
At first I thought he was just going to shut down, close me out. After another long silence, he sighed. “I didn’t feel like myself when I got up today. Or like--an old version of me. I just kept thinking of Tomas--my brother--and feeling so guilty for being alive. So lonely. So--messed up. You know? Not long after you came over this morning with your friend, looking for sign language help, I made up my mind. I couldn’t take it any more. I was gonna go out there one last time, and take Tomas’ knife, and just.” He pressed his lips together. “You know. End it.”
I rubbed the ghostly scars on the inside of my wrist with my thumb. “Yeah. I get it.”
“I don’t know why I felt like that today. I got a pretty good life now. Working on getting my green card, friends, making a little money for me and maybe to bring more of my family over someday. Plans. A place to live. I miss him, you know? But I haven’t been so dark in a long time. And then I got out there, and it was like my head went crazy all the sudden. Like this voice was telling me to do stuff I would never do.” His jaw worked and he sipped his coffee again. “Like kill that girl for lying on my brother’s grave.”
“A voice,” I said. “Like, a voice you’ve heard for a long time? The voice of a man without a face?”
He shot me a startled look. “Yeah. Yeah. The man with the red hand.”
“Has he been with you a long time, Teo?” I took a chance. “He was with me for years.”
“Since after Tomas died, when I was all alone, yeah. A long time.”
I touched his arm. “My friends and I, we can help you get free of him, if you want. Take away all his power over you.”
To my shock, he pulled back and sank deeper into the chair, shaking his head. “I can’t.”
“You can. We know how to do it. And you remember last night? The ritual we did? He’s weak because of it. This is the best time for us to get you free, before he gets strong again.”
“No. I don’t know. I mean...” He trailed off, and snuck a quick glance at me. “I don’t know if I should. I hate him, but he gave me the things he promised. Jobs and a roof over my head, good luck. Maybe it’s too late for me. Maybe I just need to get what I can. For my family. I’m going to Hell anyway, right?”
“Teo, no.” It’s not like I could prove he wasn’t, but--“You didn’t sell your soul. He preyed on you like he did on me. You don’t have to suffer anymore.”
He stared out over the camp again. “I’ll think about it, okay? I can’t think real clear yet. You know what’s funny, though? I had a feeling everything was gonna change this weekend. Right from the start. Usually I get here, I set up my tent, and I go straight out to visit Tomas. This time I got distracted. I tried to go out there, but there was someone else there.” It dawned on him. “That girl. So I left. And I didn’t get out there at all again till this morning. Part of why I felt so guilty when I got up.”
I remembered meeting him when both of us were putting up our tents. He’d been going somewhere when I asked him for help. Shit. What if he’d been Murmur’s victim all along, the intended host for the Hungry Man, but Vivi had gotten there first?
“Think about it.” I got up from my chair. “I have to go figure some things out.”
I’d accidentally diverted Teo from the grass. We’d severed Murmur’s bond to Vivi. I’d damaged his realm. We’d turned his allies on him, destroyed his bogeys, weakened him, put the Hungry Man far out of his reach. A reckoning, he’d called it. More like vengeance, swift and brutal, as soon as he was able.
Dionne sat in the shade, ankles crossed, reading a novel. I took it out of her hands. “You need to walk with me. Now.”
I was already on the road toward the center of camp when Dionne caught up to me and grabbed her book back. “The fuck was that all about?”
“You know how to stop him.” I kept walking. “You need to tell me.”
“The hell I do.”
I stopped and faced her. “So you do know.”
“You don’t wanna mess with any of that.”
“Rosa said he could be stopped if I have his true name. I’m going to go find it. If you won’t help me, I’ll just go back to Rosa and ask her and do it myself. Is that what you want?”
“Mari, let it go. I’m not kidding here.” Her eyes were pleading, not fierce or angry like I’d expected.
It subdued me. “I thought you were supposed to be the reckless one.”
She stared at me a moment before it clicked. “You mean Cherry? Shit. You know what piece of that story you didn’t hear, because I never told no one? I put extra protections on her before we went in to do that job. That child is fearless and wanted to jump into everything with both feet. I knew I could handle that job, but I also knew it’d show her she wasn’t as ready for everything as she thought. Scare her straight, right? Tamar busted in and pulled her out before anything could go too far south, but if she hadn’t had done it, Cherry would’ve been in a bubble, shielded from any shit. You think I’da let her get hurt for real right out the gate? Shit.”
“I’m sorry,” I said at last. “I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Tell me, Dionne. Tell me why you don’t want to do this or let me do it. I can’t just let it go. He’s furious now, Dionne. He told me he’s going to go after all of you. Hurt everyone I care about. Please help me. You’ve never lived with him in your head, but I have. I know how much damage he can do, and he’s way m
ore motivated than usual. ‘Burn your world to ashes’, that’s what he said.” I blinked back tears.
She started walking, toward the center of camp. “Okay. Let’s go see this temple and if we even got what we need.” I fell into step beside her and she went on. “I’m not making no promises, right? I just want you to understand better.”
“Okay.”
“So there’s a working. I learned about it back in the day, but I never did it. It’s supposed to be a last resort, right? My mentor only taught it to me and her other closest students when we swore we wouldn’t never use it unless there was no other way. It’s a trap for demons and devils and spirits like that. Once you get ‘em in there, could be they’re stuck forever. Or at least more than your lifetime. Point is, it’s real hard to get them out again.”
My heart was speeding up. “That sounds exactly like what we need.”
“Okay, hold the phone there, all right? First of all, taking a piece off the board like that, that’s serious shit. You don’t know who might come looking for him, who his other allies are. Okay? These things got blowback. Everything’s connected. Second, and more important, it’s not like you can just shove a demon in there and lock the door. You gotta lure him in and make sure he’s in there long enough to get obsessed with it, too much to be able to try to get out.”
“Lure him in--you mean someone has to go into this place, whatever it is?”
“Exactly. And Mari, I see you chomping at this, but this ain’t like going poking around some dead place where he’s hiding. You gotta listen to me. It’s so dangerous. Reason being is, the same things that get that demon obsessed? You could get obsessed too, and forget to leave. You could get lost. Forget there even was a world outside. That place could make you crazy, so that even if you do find your way back out, you could be checked out for the rest of your life, or just raving. Frothing at the mouth, seeing things that no one else can, that people ain’t supposed to see.”
MetamorphosUS: Book 1 of the Mythfit Witch Mysteries Page 46