Touched

by A. J. Aalto

  “Who is it?”

  Harry's exhale was forced, unnatural and medically unnecessary, but it made his point: I should know when it's him. I cracked the door. A plucked yellow orchid blossom slipped in through the crack, pinched in his well-manicured fingers. “For Her.”

  “Ah! Thanks.”

  “You're welcome. The phalaenopsis on the kitchen window ledge is now naked.” I felt a wash of unexpected heat from him and he cleared his throat. “I had better check on my scones.” He shut the door and I relocked it.

  Heat? From my Cold Company? I hadn't had a chance to feed Harry yet since I'd come back from the hospital. Where was he getting warmth from, if not from blood? Then I remembered: the freezer in the boathouse. Harry had told me about the O-negative supply. At the time, I wasn't sure he was telling me the whole truth, but it sure felt like he'd just fed so it must be true.

  Using Earth magic to strengthen myself against the negative energy that could very well be lurking like a rabid toad in Kristin Davis’ fumigated skull would require His blessing. When a psychic of unknown practices is after you, you take any and all precautions available.

  I removed the gold votives from the pentagram's points, cut the athame over it to break the fledgling circle mounting there. Listlessly, it dissipated. There was a low mirrored bowl on the shelf beside my desk. When I set it in the center of the tree I tucked the orchid in it, placed the silver candle at the spirit position and put match to wick. A slip of dried white sage came from my top drawer but my hand faltered; where had I left my bolline?

  The boathouse. I hadn't cut herbs since November and the bolline was still out on the potting table with the old clay herb pots and bags of triple-mix. I let out an annoyed moan. Did I really want to get dressed, trudge out to the back yard in the calf-deep snow with a flashlight in my mouth to search the unheated boathouse for a curved knife, then come back here and strip down again, just so I could cut some damned sage? Could I just this once use the athame for cutting herbs?

  I glanced down at the pentagram and felt a ripple of apprehension. I knew better than to screw with procedure when everything else was already iffy.

  Half way to the boathouse I cursed myself for not grabbing a coat and my gloves. I was vulnerable to all sorts of things with my hands “out” in the world like this. The boathouse doorknob was frosted. I wasn't used to touching surfaces with my skin, and definitely not wintry metal. Inside, the boathouse was still and hushed. The potting table was beside the freezer under a shaft of light populated by colonies of swimming dust motes. I steadied myself with a hand on the freezer's grimy top, reached up high and—He hasn't touched it—took down the bolline from its hook, staring in wonderment at the impression I Groped from the freezer.

  Harry hadn't been out here. The dust coating its lid only reinforced this. If I lifted the top, I would find no bags of O-negative blood. He lied to me.

  That couldn't be. Ashamed, I was about to march right back to the house but my feet stayed rooted to the gravel floor, daring me to check again. Taunting me with the possibilities of betrayal. Could it be? I put my bare palm out to taste the air, naked fingers flickering out in an ever-growing circle. My scalp prickled. Nothing felt like my Harry. The whole place lacked his familiar energy, his signature. I moved deeper into the boathouse, back behind his carefully-stored, covered sports car, then back to the door. Cobwebs in the corner of the door added visual proof that I resented.

  But he's fed. He's felt warm, on and off. I refused to even think the question that was burbling in the back of my brain, and focused on the angry realization: Harry had lied at the hospital and was, today, still lying to me. He was taking directly from the vein. And not mine.

  I opened the freezer and fished around. No blood. I sunk a bare hand into its frigid depths and touched the ice. I knew the feel of my own signature and the last person to touch this was definitely me. I spread both palms flat, hovered them in the space just above the freezer. Under my hands the Blue Sense tingled, and I let it fall again, licking at the chilled air. Nothing but traces of myself in the freezer.

  If I was honest with myself, I had known he was lying to me back in the hospital. I'd known, deep down, that he intended to feed on some warm body. A blinding red wave of fury rose in me; I squelched it carefully. This would have to wait. I shoved the bolline in the waistline of my pants, careful of the bandages around my middle. My back ached, a dull throb threatening to go to full roar unless I took some of those expensive painkillers I'd been given a prescription for.

  I shouldn't need painkillers. I shouldn't be injured. Harry shouldn't have needed to drink deeply from someone else's veins. I should have ignored her call. I should have hung up in Danika's ear. Next time someone begged me for help, I'd let them fend for themselves. And as for Batten, he could fend for his own stupid career. My path back to the house was tromped: The Red Wrath Shuffle. I kicked snow out of my way harder than was necessary, as though it had fallen to offend me and I had to show it the error of its ways. It was official. I hated everyone and everything. The first person to get in my way was going to be real sorry.

  Batten waited just inside the back door, leaning one lean hip against the washing machine in the mudroom. He pushed away with a frown.

  “What the hell is taking you so long? I've had to explain to three different services—”

  I grabbed him by the face with both naked hands and pulled him into a rough, open-mouthed kiss. For a moment, his spine went rigid. I dug my fingernails into the back of his head and forced him to remain in place. Not that he was fighting it. He should have been. Ask ask, fraternization, I thought. Screw it. Fraternization was delicious. I sank into the kiss, fed off it, drawing sudden sexual heat into my belly and letting it spread in all directions through my body, overwriting the rage. Under my bare palms, I felt things stirring in his cheek, budding impressions of his morning shave, the filling in his left molar, the sweetness of the French toast he'd had for breakfast. Actual impressions from the blank face. Heady with need, I let the sensations ride through my brain, welcomed them.

  In a rush up against the washing machine, Batten melted into my body and his tongue slid across mine hungrily. Backing me up against the machine, he eagerly pressed his hips against my core, his knee finding the spot between mine and parting them.

  I broke the kiss and gave him a good hard slap across the face. He gave me the silent, glazed beware-of-lunatic assessment for the hundredth time.

  “Gonna have me arrested for assaulting a federal agent?” I asked. He shook his head, no. “That's a shame. Three hots and a cot sounds real good right about now.”

  He found his voice. “You okay?”

  “Don't pretend you give a shit. I'm a tool to you. You're using me. Maybe I'll feel better about it if I start using you back.” I pointed into the meat of his broad, immovable chest. “Parasites: you, Chapel, Harry, all of you, every last one. Now leave me alone while I prepare myself.”

  “I was wrong, Baranuik,” he called to my retreating back. “You are half-cracked.”

  “You have no idea, Agent Batten. No fuckin’ idea.”

  Harry was in my path through the kitchen and I breezed by him, letting him taste a dollop of my pain at his treachery, releasing a mere trickle of it from my control so it could lash him. Startled, his eyes went large and he drifted silently back against the kitchen counter.

  Showing the wisdom of his age, the revenant said nothing.

  SIXTEEN

  My heart still jack-hammering, I took a deep breath into my lungs to settle down. The fresh-cut white sage dropped into the mirrored bowl atop the yellow orchid blossom.

  “Hail Aradia, Queen of Light/ Stand I naked in Thy sight/Through You all things take their flight/In the darkness of the night.”

  I relit the silver candle, feeling the rise of arcane power ride up my arms. I dropped cautiously to my bare knees in the middle of the circle. After inviting the four guardian elements of the Watchtower inside a tight saltwater cir
cle, I focused my intent on their blessings.

  The Watchtower responded. The essence of the divine swelled, palpable under my touch. There was always a point in casting where I was distinctly aware that I was no longer alone, when the Four rushed in towards the circle to fill a void, to pave the way for a visit from the goddess. I meditated on the small bending flame of the silver candle and banished all the negative feelings I'd been having. Any time an ill thought cropped up I slapped it back down into silence. Gruesome murder? Nope, down ya go. Jealousy? No thanks. Justice? Okay, maybe a little of that would be nice. Infidelity? Deception? My stomach rolled sickly and I pushed that away. No negative thoughts would touch me right now. I willed radiant thoughts to overwhelm the shadows in the corners of my mind: comfort, safety, love, devotion. Things would be better. I'd help them be better. I'd focus on the good. Unworthy as I was, I'd shepherd in the light.

  The flame licked hard towards me, then steadied. I was ready.

  “Hecate hear Your humble slave/ Grateful for the life You saved/ I ask of You a simple wish/ accept the offering from my dish.” It was clumsy, but it was hurried off the top of my head. I put match to wick on another gold candle and set it in the center of the circle next to the silver.

  “Lady, I call thy Consort underground/Cernunnos, Horned One, Wild Unbound/ Hunter and Hunted, stand for me/ An’ it harm none, so mote it be.”

  The flames flickered once, violently to the south. “I call Thy consort, Mother of the Sky,” I breathed out hard from my nostrils. Nothing. I hopped to my feet to fetch my Book of Shadows, a small leather-bound grimoire bound with twine. A bundle of dried Vervain was tied to it. I used the bolline to carve an upward arrow in the side of the silver candle, anointed it with consecrated oil and rolled it in powdered rue before re-lighting it and returning it to the pentagram.

  “Goddess of Power,” I invited. “I depend upon the grace and blessing of Your consort. Will You call to Him on my behalf?”

  Nothing. “I knew it. The Green Man hates me.” I took a break, remaining in the circle, gently stretching my torn and battered self, rolling my shoulders, turning my stiff neck from one side to the other. For good measure, I cracked my knuckles, trying to give the impression of Serious Business. I leaned over to scan the grimoire for hints as to how to improve when the gold candle licked up into the air, hitting me directly in the nipple.

  “Motherfucker!” I shrieked, slapping a hand to cup protectively. Crawling away from the candle, I tasted the air.

  There was a change inside the circle, then, an invasion of sun-warmed fur and fresh air, hinting of sweet thick blood, of dark crumbling earth and fecundity, of gritty pitted limestone and fat spitting in a fire. I was not alone.

  “The Big Dog's up in here, hunh? Showing me how it's done?” I pulled myself to my feet, tentatively drew aside the bandage on my belly. “That was my tit, Sir. Apparently flowers aren't Your thing. This what You were looking for?”

  One of my fingernails swirled around the edges of my wound, fingering its edge. As His blessing curled up my spine I welcomed it, a pound strike to echo my slamming pulse. I opened my arms and felt filled, channeled it towards the earth point. The currents swam under one of my palms and I let my hand ride the new heat in the air, playing along its waves like a palm frond in the ocean breeze.

  “Why so shy?” I murmured, crooking my hip at the flame invitingly. “Ok, I admit I've been bitchy with the penis-people lately. I've been relying strictly on girl power.” I nodded as ideas began flashing through my mind, seeing things from different perspectives, as though the lens of my mind were refracting energy in fresh directions. “That's not accomplishing anything, is it? I'm running on half power. I've got big troubles, and today I see that You're the one I need. Let's make nicey-nice, whatever it takes.” I took the athame and slid it along the far edge of my belly wound, drawing fresh blood. For a minute the feeling of its warmth running down to my hip bone was almost sensual, made me writhe. I dipped a finger in, approached the gold candle.

  “Green Man, Sun God, Might of Earth and Strength of Righteousness, accept this offering from Your supplicant.” I fed the fire a cautious taste. “God of War, hear me. General of the Sky, stand with me. With blood I call You from the Forest. With blood I call You from Cave and Chasm. With blood I call You from the Edge. Everlasting One, brace me with Your resilience, shelter me with Your undying power. Hear me, mighty Consort, and be satisfied.” I dropped my bloodied fingertip into the tongue of the flame.

  Heat spiked through my spine and I jerked with a gasp. Pouring into my veins, the Green Man invaded, laid claim, exploring my wounds and not gently. He discovered and roamed like an experienced lover's eager hands, finding strengths and weaknesses, calculating, measuring. He knew me. I felt overrun. Swaying, I put one hand out to seize the desk but it was just out of reach and I pitched, listing near the edge of my circle. Fortified by the spirit of the Green Man, I reveled in the molten-stone surge of potency and supremacy that burbled now just beneath the surface of my being.

  It was, in a word, breathtaking.

  “With gratitude and grace/ I mark Thy ancient place/Welcome Thy ward upon me, Mighty One/and in a blink the spell be done.”

  Quickly I blew the candles out, broke the circle and pressed the bandage back tight to the leaking wound. Wham, bam, thank you Sir. In and out. Probably I should learn from Him, and keep all my dealing with the savage sex swift and sweet.

  When I came out of the office tucking my shirt into my pants, Harry was at the table spreading raspberry jam on a quarter of scone for Batten. They both glanced up from what might otherwise be a lovely afternoon tea, if the guest was James Dean with a badge, and the host was the bulletproof love child of Fred Astaire and Martha Stewart.

  “Blood magic,” was all Harry said, but his eyes spoke conflicted volumes; appetite, desire, worry, disapproval. I knew that, secreted away behind his tense lips, his fangs were extended.

  I glared until my companion looked away. “Agent Batten, there's a head waiting for me?”

  He didn't look like he was interested in showing me anymore, but he got up from the table and zipped his jacket halfway. I knew this was to leave access to his gun, though he couldn't believe that Sherlock was still out there with the yard full of cops and now a K9 unit, the dog straining at the leash and lifting its nose in the direction of the house.

  “Are you sure Chapel cooked all the beetles?”

  The last of the scone popped in his mouth. “We'll find out.” He dusted the crumbs from his lip and nodded thanks at Harry.

  “On this single matter we may be in complete agreement, Agent Batten,” Harry called to us as we stepped onto the porch. “She might, in fact, be quite mad already.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Bending in half to tie a double knot in the shoelaces on my Keds hurt my stapled gut like a motherfucker, but Batten was watching, so I had to keep a stiff upper lip. While I exchanged my light gloves for heavy tan fur-lined lambskin ones, I heard the impatient shuffle of standard issue boots behind me. I realized too late that there was still a mushed-up newt eyeball in the right front pocket of my jeans, making a conspicuous wet smear, but there was nothing I could do about it in front of Agent Batten. Twisting into my puffy pink parka, I was an acrobat twisting on the trapeze, and zipping it up right to the hood made me feel like a gladiator strapping on armor. I'd put the innerpants holster in my jeans and the Beretta Cougar mini was now tucked near my butt-crack. Look out, Sherlock, Marnie Baranuik has gone badass. I turned to face Batten, all business.

  His eyebrows were puckered hard with dismay, as if he were witnessing a ridiculous act that both aroused him and hurt his head. I jerked the ties on my hood, which nearly swallowed my head in a perfect padded pink circle.

  Batten folded his arms across his chest. “You look like a marshmallow Peep.”

  “If she's out there, I don't want her to see me,” I explained from within.

  “You're the only five-foot female who would be at t
his cabin fondling dismembered body parts.”

  “Don't say the word dismembered, it's major blech. And I'm five-foot-three.”

  “In three-inch heels, maybe. You're not fooling anyone with the hood.” When I opened my mouth to object he waved me quiet. “What the hell is that?”

  He reached around me like he was playing grab-ass, and jerked the gun out from behind my back. I nodded at it. “Right. That. I thought I should pack heat.”

  His lips twitched with a barely-contained smirk. “Is it loaded?”

  “Only if the bullet fairy did it when I wasn't looking.”

  “Put it away.”

  “But what if she's out there?”

  “She's not out there,” he said tiredly. “Even if she is, there are nearly twenty law enforcement and emergency personnel out there trained to use firearms. Loaded firearms.”

  “Do you honestly think a nutcase would leave a severed head in a mailbox and not hang around to watch the fall-out?”

  “They're long gone. It's possible the mailbox and the murder wasn't Sherlock at all,” he reminded me. “No proof yet that she murdered Davis.”

  “I'm sorry. You're right.” I swallowed hard and shook my head, passing the Beretta butt-first to Harry, who verified that it was unloaded before returning it to my bedroom. “I'm letting my anger affect my work.”