“Your guests, mistress.”
A figure rose from the bed and drifted to us. And by that, I mean no feet on the floor.
“Ah, the one and only Tessa Reddick and her partner, Qyll Toutant.” Antaura wore a black kimono-style robe cut high on the hip and low on the chest with nothing underneath but a very large pair of breasts barely concealed by the flimsy fabric. The sheet of white cornsilk hair stood out against the dark fabric. Sharp teeth glittered in the gloom. “Come in, get comfortable. Let us talk.” She made a grand gesture with a taloned hand. “Now, I hear you have made short work of my door sentinels. I could do with more people like you working for me.” The extended sibilance of her speech was lulling and alarming at once.
“Uh… yeah… sorry about that…” I muttered.
Qyll and I sat before the fire on a ridiculously comfortable sofa. She lounged on an identical one across from us, smiling with polite interest. Mohini, Vishna’s lookalike, appeared to stand next to her twin.
Antaura looked at us like we were Lunch and Dessert.
“What brings you to darken my door?”
“I want my blood back. Something came to my house this morning and took some.”
She laughed. “And what makes you think we have it?”
I grabbed Qyll’s hand and held it up to show her the compass. “This. I did a spell and it led me here.” As I looked at it, the hand blurred. “It was you, wasn’t it? Or, at least, by your orders?”
The Demon looked at me, considering. She tilted her head slowly. “May I see your talisman, Elf?” She reached a hand out, with fingers just a shade longer than normal, with scary-sharp nails. “I promise I will return it unharmed.”
She took the compass from Qyll and turned it over in her hands. She smelled it. Then, she stuck out a forked tongue and tasted it. “A blood spell,” she said with something akin to approval. “I thought you resisted such magics,” she purred, batting her eyelashes.
Beside her, Mohini and Vishna hovered like statues, black eyes boring holes in us.
Antaura offered the compass back to Qyll, who took it gingerly between two fingers. I pulled a handkerchief out of my bag and carefully wiped it clean of demon spit.
We sat that way for a long while, the Demon queen appearing deep in thought, the girls doing their statue thing, and Qyll looking relaxed and composed. I scratched my neck. Smoothed my jeans. Picked off the lint. Prepared to launch a volley of spells, just in case. I had a particularly good saltwater spell I was itching to try.
Finally, I rose and said, very clearly, “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on here. But you’re going to give me back my blood, or I will bring the pain, lady.” I pointed at Qyll. “We will. So you either ‘fess up, or we’ll bring down this house faster than you can say ‘hell in a handbasket.’”
I firmly rooted myself to the spot, arms crossed and staring down the Demons. Fake it ‘till you make it, right? I felt Qyll gave me an exasperated sidelong look.
After what seemed like hours, the trace of a smile crossed Antaura’s face. Then she began to laugh, a deep rumbling sound. “I extend my apologies, Witch Reddick.” She stood up with a languid inhuman grace. “I have no doubt of your and your Dark Elf companion’s prowess.” She drew a fingernail along Qyll’s arm as it rested on the couch. “It seems, however, there is a traitor in House Abyzou.”
The next few moments moved fast.
In the span of a lightning strike, Antaura was atop Mohini, wrestling her to the floor, digging at her throat. No longer the white-haired humanoid woman, the Red Queen had shifted into her Demon form. Dark purple-red scales covered a long, hairless, muscular body.
The Queen screeched and let out a garbled mess of sounds. Demonspeak.
“Traitor!” She roared in English. “What is the meaning of this?” Antaura suckerpunched the Demon beneath her, holding her down with webbed seven-fingered claws. A double set of jagged fangs dripped over Mohini’s quaking form.
“She speaks your tongue so you might know and understand what you have done,” Qyll whispered.
Mohini started shapeshifting.
Basilisk.
Manticore.
A bearlike beast.
Huge scorpion.
A tentacled something.
But her Queen held fast. Finally, Mohini shifted into her own true Demon form, a wiry brown-scaled creature with a face full of black beady eyes and a pincer mouth. She screeched in anger and shoved herself up, forcing them both to stand. Their hooves clattered on the stone floor. Dry batlike wings unfolded from Mohini’s back.
“You are not fit to be queen of the Abyzou!” Mohini creaked, hovering in the air.
With a snarl, Antaura jumped like a cat after a bird and brought her former assistant down. Mohini swiped claws at her tormentor, slicing four deep lines through the scaly skin. The Queen screamed and responded in kind. Viscous black Demon blood spattered the floor and columns.
Not taking my eyes off the action, I moved to stand behind the couch. Qyll did the same. Vishna watched with a stony face.
The Demons rolled and tumbled around the cavernous room, squalling and slashing. Mohini fell from a leaping arc when the Queen severed one of her wings with a neat slice.
“You should never have been allowed to become queen.” Mohini gasped, panting. “I was meant to rule. It is my birthright.”
“You are weak,” Antaura said. “The only reason I took you in was because I owed your parents a debt. They were so embarrassed by you.”
They spun and dove, writhing and thrashing. Mohini was clearly a worthy foe, but she was smaller than her mistress and with her damaged wing, she was soon overpowered.
“I would have given you whatever you asked,” Antaura moaned, almost sorrowfully, right before she ripped out Mohini’s throat with her razor teeth.
The student challenged the teacher, and the teacher defended herself.
Staggering away from the still and gruesomely bloodied Mohini, Antaura shifted to her human shape and collapsed on the couch. Breathing heavily, she regarded us. She hadn’t put her black robe back on and instead, sat there naked. She might have had a nice rack, had it not been dripping with Demon innards.
“It seems you have done me a great favor, Earth Witch.”
I sighed. “It would have been nice to know who she worked with before you killed her.”
“Do be still, Tessa, for once,” said Qyll under his breath.
The Queen snarled, but it was more bark than bite. “I have no patience for traitors. As Mohini’s queen, I had a duty to dispatch her. Thanks to you.” She smiled. “Another reason to consider joining us. Those who can do blood magic so skillfully are rare.”
“No thanks. But I will just take my blood back, if you don’t mind. And my cat.”
With a gesture, she offered me the body. It was a hard thing not to slide around on all the goopy Demon bits, but I comported myself admirably as I went to pick up Mohini’s clothes, which she’d shed as she turned forms.
After a thorough rifle, I said, “It’s not here.”
The Red Queen was just closing the black robe around herself. She clicked her tongue. “Vishna, go and see if the Witch’s blood and her furry friend are in the traitor’s quarters.”
While we waited, I got the photos out. She took them with mild curiosity. “Do you know any of these people?”
“This one has been here before.” Antaura pointed to Cara Courtland. “She came many times with a group. Lots of little Humans, prowling around. I love Humans. They are simply fascinating.”
She kept looking at the photos then nodded, her serpentine face intent. “This man and this woman,” she pointed to another photo, “were here asking after Mr. Koby.” She pointed to a picture of a middle-aged man looking surly and sunburned in a motorcycle vest and t-shirt. “He was one of my associates.”
“What did he do for you?” Qyll asked.
“He was my bodyguard on your side of the Rift.”
“Is he Ot
her? Or Human?”
“Like your Witch friend here, he straddled the line. He was born Human, but he made a deal with us. He dwells with the spirits now.”
Qyll continued. “Do you know anything about their deaths?”
Vishna returned, followed by Dorcha, who ran full-throttle into me with a throaty purr. While we had ourselves our little reunion, Vishna whispered in the Red Queen’s ear. “She says the animal was locked in a cage, but there is no trace of your blood,” translated the Queen. Her emerald eyes went wide. “I imagine the traitor knew what you were after and has secreted the vial out. Likely due to your rather reckless entrance, Miss Reddick.”
Damn. “Could Mohini have cut through the veil? Easily? As in, could she have made a slit and shoved the blood through without us noticing?”
The Red Queen nodded. “It is possible. She is wily. It’s partly why I kept her close. I see I have made a serious mistake.” She looked like she was working something out in her mind, then she turned back to me. The servant brought a smoking glass and passed it to the Queen. “I have slain the traitor, but if word of this reaches the lower Demon hierarchies, I will appear lazy. Easily duped. And by a much lesser opponent. It may inspire insurrection. Desertion.” She came toward me, her snake-like grace both hypnotizing and terrifying. “You have saved my House today, Reddick. But if you do not find Mohini’s contact in three days, I will send someone for you. I do not relish the thought, but I will have your soul and service, to protect myself and my House.”
“Come on, Tessa.”
“Wait, what?” I shook Qyll’s hand off my arm. “I just saved your scaly lizard ass and you’re threatening me? And what about her?” I pointed at Vishna. “How do you know she wasn’t in on it too?”
Antaura ran her faintly iridescent fingers down the other woman’s skin. “Vishna is my consort. She was with me the night of those murders.” They held hands for a moment and shared what I assume was a loving glance but to me, looked vaguely horrifying.
“As for my request. It is merely business, as the Humans say.” She sipped her drink. “Don’t look at me like that. I will make it worth your while.” She drew close and said in a very quiet voice, “If you bring me the name of the one Mohini conspired with, I will tell you what we know about the fire that killed your kinswomen.”
My blood turned to ice. “What do you know about it?” I demanded.
She shrugged languidly, smiling. “You will not find out unless you bring us a name, my little witch. And if you don’t, you’ll be ours anyway.”
I gritted my teeth. This is what I get for dealing with Demons.
“Let’s go,” I snapped at Qyll who was all too happy to oblige.
“I haven’t forgotten about you, Elf,” she called after us. “You can’t hide in Earth forever.”
Before I could get a breath, I saw his face. It was in that moment I encountered a little of what the old books called the Dark Elves’ athraigh. It’s like you can see their magical selves. Their soul or essence, or something. When an Elf shows athraigh, it is beautiful and terrifying, but it’s also a warning to back off. There’s no good way to explain it if you haven’t seen it. Thank all the tiny gods he only did it for a fraction of a second. I think I would’ve wet myself if he’d carried on too long. I didn’t ask what Antaura meant.
We made our way back through the woods in silence.
Intense silence
As she walked in the room
Her black robes trailing
Sister of the moon
And a black widow spider makes
More sound than she
And black moons in those eyes of hers
Sister of the Moon, lyrics by Stevie Nicks, Copyright: Welsh Witch Music
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
hat night, I sat in the library working on spells. Dorcha lolled on the chair, grooming herself. From what I gathered, Mohini set a trap for her that included a sleeping potion, carted her off to her rooms, and tricked me with her shapeshifty juju. I think Dorcha was madder at herself for being careless. As I tinkered with a spell that would charm something I had on to throw up a defensive shield on my behalf, should I fail to realize in time something was about to go kaboom, I told her over and over I was just glad she was okay. As yet, neither the spell nor Dorcha’s on-the-spot psychological counseling were meeting with wild success.
Iron strong
Shield of will
I scratched out “will” and wrote “grill/till/mill/hill.” Little balls of paper littered the floor. I had come up with a couple of other good ones. My invisibility spell was cleaned up and ready, as was my evaporation spell, which comes in handy should one find oneself locked up. All I was missing was the part of the automatic protection spell that made it automatic.
When you write spells, you want to use words that mean something to you. Words that evoke something. I have a list of words I don’t use because they outright make my skin crawl, including belly, hole, nuptials, and anything with –ipple. My favorite words are, admittedly, difficult to work into everyday conversation, much less a spell. I end up sounding like practice sentences in a foreign language book. “Hey, scofflaw, did you see that ominous ocelot by the obelisk? He is in cahoots with the copacetic falcon. They nearly came to mysterious fisticuffs.” One day, I vow to work those into a spell.
If you’re a beginner, you need to have your spells written down and spellspeak them loudly while focusing your energy like a laser. In time, you memorize the spells, make them part of you like breath or thought, so you don’t have to do so much hand-waving and fancy incanting. To the untrained eye, a Witch just throws off a spell with a flick of her wrist or a blink of an eye, but she’s just a well-trained practitioner of the craft. This is not to say that, in times of extreme need, you can’t just come up with something on the fly. That happens and you improvise your way through it, and you realize it will never be as strong as the ones you’ve been practicing with. Even for very powerful Witches, it’s like trying to play a brand new violin that hasn’t been tuned. You can do it, sure, but would you want to?
My wealth of grimoires isn’t much help in this department. I need spells that are personal. They’ll work for someone else, but not as good as they will for me. It’s like having an entire wardrobe of custom-made clothes in colors that look perfect on you. That’s why spells you “buy” from shady online sellers aren’t very good. One look at my fourth-grade class photo and you’d know a spell advertised in the back of Which Witch magazine will not give you a sleek, shiny mane of golden blond hair like the princess of my fourth-grade class Sandy Miller’s. It will, however, give you a very poufy and unevenly trimmed shock of frizzy orange ringlets.
Dorcha slunk over and began to bat the paper balls around. “Hey! You leave those alone, you silly cat,” I said. She purred and jumped back on her chair, an amused look on her face.
My spellbook was heavily charmed so no one could steal or use it, but I didn’t want those junked papers floating around. I collected all the little crumpled-paper balls and took them to the cauldron in the corner of the living room where I burned them to ash with my super-handy insta-ash (trademark pending) spell.
I tidied up and locked all the doors and windows (spiritual and corporeal) and hopped into bed. Dorcha leapt in beside me, turning three circles like a dog and curling into a huge cat-puddle.
Instead of sleep, a hubbub of thoughts intruded my brain. Like the ones about being framed for murdering my coven. In the haze of Lakeland, it was too painful to dwell upon. The emotional wounds took so long to scab, I had already made a firm habit of ignoring them by the time they made an ugly scar. Maybe, I told myself, it was better to just look forward.
I lay awake for hours, willing myself to sleep, and finally gave up. I got out of bed long before dawn, pulled on my running shoes, and lit out for a jog. Dorcha got up too. She didn’t want to let me out of her sight after her recent catnapping. Cardio is an important part of being a Witch, even if you are a Witch with
a huge gash on her arm and a goose egg on her cranial container. Since my freedom from the hospital, I had not quite gotten back on track with my exercise regimen. Before that, I ran a couple of miles every day and lifted a little weight while watching TV. Occasionally my mom and I had impromptu dance parties, and she would do the pony and the Freddy, while I worked a passable cabbage patch.
You just never know when you’ll need to run like hell.
My legs stretched, and the sharp morning air flowed into my lungs. I hadn’t been allowed much exercise at the hospital and still felt nearly every jarring step in my bones. Dorcha loped silently along beside me. She wasn’t even breathing heavily. Showoff.
My mother called me “BeeBee,” shorthand for “Beltane baby.” A child conceived at Beltane is considered a gift from the gods, especially a girl-child. It never embarrassed me that my father could have been one of three men with whom my mother celebrated May Day. The term “bastard” didn’t mean anything to me until I was much older, and by then I didn’t care anyway.
Living in the big house near Central Park, with vast expanses of hardwood floors and wavy glass in the windows, meant hell of a lot more. It was drafty and creaky, and the electricity hadn’t been updated since probably the Roosevelt administration (either of them), but it was home. We lived with my aunts and cousins and a revolving cast of close friends and relatives, so many that we were automatically a blood coven, since we were all related in some form or fashion. The cousins from Ireland with their flaming hair, my great-great Aunt Corinna from eastern France who entertained many a politician and statesman in her time. A trio of old Canadian aunts who I firmly believe were the inspiration for Shakespeare’s weird sisters.
And of course, my mother. Mama had the most glorious black hair that hung straight to the middle of her back. She had dimples and pale skin and purple-blue eyes. It was no wonder, really, she had a Beltane baby. The wonder was she didn’t have more, given her beauty and charm. The one photo I have left of her shows us on our porch, her laughing into the camera and me, arms folded and staring at the lens defiantly, my own hair a blaring red briar patch, as though I dared the camera-machine to just try to take my soul.
Muddy Waters (Otherwhere Book 1) Page 18