by Joey W. Hill
Then she let out a shriek, as something hurtled through the opening, straight at her.
Chapter Thirteen
Early on, she’d learned that Ben had an almost superhuman hypervigilance when it came to her well-being. As fast as the object was moving, his hand, his arm and part of his torso were in front of her before it made contact.
Which was why he was the one who caught the lop-eared, wriggling rabbit against him.
As he shifted with a surprised curse, Marcie caught the next one that came somersaulting through, end over end. Black and white speckled, with enormous back feet.
Apparently, it was raining rabbits. A quick glance around the room showed at least a dozen, scattered on the floor, the coffee table, the couch.
She would have expected the one she was holding to scratch the daylights out of her, but the female seemed nearly as perplexed as Marcie. The speckled creature gazed up at her with wide eyes, her nose twitching at high speed. Ben’s was gray with white feet. It was currently trying to work his way up his chest and sniff at his neck, making him squirm in a way that Marcie had to admit was more than a little adorable.
Raina had two in her arms. The witch appeared remarkably calm about being pelted with small mammals. She adjusted and cradled the two bunnies like newborn twins against her ample bosom and stepped closer to the opening to another world, time, dimension. Marcie wasn’t going to limit the possibilities.
“Ramona, what are you doing?” the witch asked. “Where are you?”
“And where is our son?” Ruby added. Derek had a baby rabbit sitting on the toe of his boot. It was sitting up on small haunches to wash its furry face. Ruby stood at her husband’s side, her hand on his arm.
“Raina? Ruby?” the voice came from a muffled distance, and then a woman with long, straight red hair appeared in the opening, blinking at them with lavender grey eyes. She’d emerged from behind a stack of old books, topped with what looked like an unstable miniature tree made of peacock feathers.
“Oh, there you are. I couldn’t figure out how I was hearing your voices, but the rabbits kind of interfered with the portal hail. ‘Hail’ as in greeting, not balls of ice. Hellfire…hold on a sec. Silas, can you…he’s headed for the…oh, okay, he’s got him.”
“Who is headed where?” Derek asked tersely.
“The rabbits,” Ramona assured him. “One of them was headed for the door of the shop, and I had it propped open, though with a baby gate up, don’t worry.” Reaching down, she lifted Jeremiah into view, which relaxed the line of Ruby and Derek’s shoulders almost simultaneously.
The child curled his hand in her crimson hair and chewed on it thoughtfully, reaching out his other hand toward the portal. Ruby lifted her hand, and Marcie saw a tendril of that colorful energy reach through, touch him, since apparently they couldn’t physically reach through, rabbits notwithstanding.
While she’d said the baby didn’t laugh and rarely smiled, there was no doubt how he reacted to his mother and father. That touch of familiar energy gave him an instant ease of expression that conveyed pleasure. A tentative happiness.
“He’s been helping me with the inventory, haven’t you, Jem?” Ramona said.
“Why all the bunnies?” Ruby asked. “And why is your hair red?”
“It’s normally gold,” Raina murmured to Marcie.
“Oh, you know how it goes. I just wanted a change. On the hair, that is. As far as the rabbits, I’m doing a top hat display, each top hat decorated a different way, and I started thinking you know, to connect to the magic shop side of things, I’d put stuffed bunnies around the display. So I’d ordered this box of them in different sizes and colors, and Jem was so taken with them. I thought about how much he’d like it if I could turn just one of them into a real bunny for a few moments. Oh crap, sorry…”
This time Derek intercepted, neatly catching the next pair that jumped through. The baby bunny on his boot had hopped off to places unknown. Mikhael studied two more at his feet, one nibbling at the cuff of his tailored slacks.
“Communication portals aren’t supposed to allow corporeal passage, just sound and image,” he said.
“I know that,” Derek told him, with a touch of annoyance. “You think I’m capable of upending the laws of portal protocols that have been set in magical stone for millennia? Only a chaos witch can do it.”
“Inert,” Mikhael said. Suddenly, all of the rabbits in the room were stuffed animals again. However, since he’d issued the command while the one at his feet was in mid-nibble, it was now fixed to the cuff of his pants like it had been sewn there.
Raina hid a smile behind her hand when he raised a baleful gaze to her. “Serves you right,” she said. “Marcie was enjoying cuddling hers.”
“And getting way too attached,” Ben said. “I’m grateful.”
“Rabbits can be litter trained you know,” Marcie said, waving the floppy ears of her now stuffed black and white rabbit at him.
The mysterious Silas came on screen, so to speak, though Marcie wasn’t sure that was the best description. It felt like they were only a few feet away, where she could reach through the opening and put the rabbit down on the worn-to-silk wood counter of the shop’s checkout area. She could even smell the mixture of scents from the place. Paper, silk flowers, velvets and candy. Except for candy, she’d never noticed the aroma of such things, or realized she’d recognize them when they touched her nostrils. And of course, she smelled rabbits. The warm body in her hands had had such a rapid heartbeat
Silas was a tall man, his height emphasized by his leanness, but Marcie wouldn’t consider him slight. He stood straight and had a dense strength to him, like a gray tree in a forest, a conifer of some type, maybe a fir, whose needles made a rushing whispering noise when the wind blew through them. His eyes matched that same silver-grey-green color that would have tinges of blue-green in the right light.
When those eyes turned their way, he paused over each one of them. Marcie swayed, for it felt as if the universe took a breath when his attention was on her. Something in him reached out, touched, held and examined her, before easing back. But not before giving her a reassuring push of warmth to let her know the probe had not been done with any harmful intent.
His gaze passed over Ben, but Ben’s hand rose, a warning, and his expression hardened.
Silas’s brow raised, but he inclined his head. He brought his attention back to Ramona, where his gaze dwelled with a different type of focus. His regard was no less distracting to the subject. When Ramona looked at him, the woman seemed to lose her train of thought and forget they were there at all.
Marcie noticed Raina and Ruby exchange a significant look. Raina’s full lips pursed, and the concern in her expression matched Ruby’s. The two witches obviously had some sisterly trepidation about the woman’s relationship with Silas.
But since now clearly was not the time to address it, Raina brought them back to the matter at hand. “Ramona. We need your help.”
“Yes. Of course. Anything.” Ramona pulled out of her absorption with Silas. Giving Jeremiah an extra squeeze, she put him back down on the floor, pausing a moment to ensure whatever he was doing would keep him properly occupied. Then she squared off with the portal, a smile crossing her face that lacked self-consciousness of any kind.
“Sorry. Silas has the oddest look sometimes. Like a puzzle he’s trying to solve, and it’s me. Not really sure if he’s looking for a response. I don’t want to be difficult for him, but I don’t think he’s going to figure it out from looking at me, you know.”
“Have sex with him. Then he won’t care if he can’t figure you out,” Raina said dryly. “In the meantime, New Orleans is having a bit of a crisis.”
Ramona’s gaze widened, then sparked with female annoyance at the other witch. Silas coughed and turned slightly away. Marcie was pretty sure he was hiding a smile. But from the way he’d gazed upon Ramona, she didn’t think he’d oppose Raina’s plan. At least the first part. He looke
d like a man who enjoyed figuring things out.
“Someone here who calls herself a chaos witch is in the middle of it,” Ruby said in her no-nonsense way. “The bad thing under the river is the work of a creation spell she rendered.”
Instantly, Ramona’s demeanor changed, her expression hardening. “Tell me what she said. Exactly.”
Raina spent a couple minutes relaying the Elagra meeting details, throwing in some terminology Marcie expected meant something to the Guardians and witches, since they seemed to be following the conversation without questions. She got the gist of it, though.
A movement in her arms drew her attention. Her bunny was once again alive. Ruby cut her gaze toward Marcie and gave her a quick wink before tuning back into the discussion with Ramona.
Ben was close enough her elbow brushed his upper abdomen. Marcie looked up into his face to find he was gazing thoughtfully down at her and the bunny.
“We already have three feral cats, who are about as feral as goldfish in a bowl, thanks to you feeding them, getting them fixed and vaccinated,” he reminded her in a low voice. “I left my office window open the other day, on the second floor I might add, and came back to find the black and white one curled up in my chair. He hissed at me. In my own home.”
She smiled, looking down at the rabbit, smoothing back the floppy ears. She felt Ben’s hand do something similar to the hair along her temple. “Tired, brat?” he murmured.
“Yeah. But like a kid at a macabre kind of Disneyland. Too much to see to go to sleep, but I think I’m going to have to crash for a few hours before we keep at it, unless they have some hocus pocus way of removing the human need to rest.”
“Hmm.” His arm settled around her shoulders, encouraging her to lean.
During the briefing, Ramona took a seat on a stool by her cash register, crossing her ankles and folding her hands in her lap. Her lavender eyes were still, her attention on them now unwavering. Silas had moved behind the counter and leaned on it, his elbows on the wood and interlaced fingers in a loose knot. When Ramona took a hand out of her lap and rested it on the same surface, they were almost close enough to touch. Marcie could see the thread of energy connecting them. Either they were already involved, or it was going to happen a lot sooner than later.
When Raina was done, Ramona closed her eyes. She didn’t say anything for a few moments. Because it was obvious that she was turning over some pretty weighty thoughts, no one else said anything, either. Until she did.
“He’s right,” Ramona said. She pointed at Ben to indicate who she meant. “Absurdly handsome man with dangerous eyes. She meant born. It is a child, of sorts. It’s best to relate to her as a child.”
“How do you know it will be a girl?” Mikhael asked.
“Because Elagra has no respect for males. She has a deep loathing and fear of them. It matches her equal hatred of women. She’s an island, isolated by her evil, evil simply being a word that means cutting yourself off from all good, so you have no empathy, no connection to balance.”
“But she’s a chaos witch, like you?” Marcie asked. “She seemed to refer to herself like that.”
Ramona cocked her head, taking her in at a glance. “Hello there. Yes and no. She’s a witch, but Elagra is an agent of destructive chaos. I’m creation chaos. We’re two sides of the coin, somewhat like Derek and Mikhael, only an agent of destructive chaos is typically only dedicated to the destruction, if they let themselves forget the balance. They’re the child that forever tears down the building blocks of another child to see the reaction, the tumult. She particularly exults in her victims who fall so deep into her darkness they lose their own way to the light.”
“Sounds like her,” Ben commented in a flat voice.
“An agent of destructive chaos feeds on the pain and despair of others and takes no pleasure in the ability of the spirit to overcome and rebuild,” Ramona agreed. “She seeks the silence of the void, not the stillness of peace.”
Her tone took on an urgent note. “But defeating Elagra isn’t the focus here. She’s a distraction. She’s evil, but what she created isn’t. It doesn’t have a malicious intent to destroy the city. The egg just got too big, was nurtured too close to a populated area.”
Derek glanced at Mikhael. “That explains why we didn’t detect it, even though it’s been growing all this time. A natural event like childbirth wouldn’t register as a problem.”
“So that means whatever Elagra is doing to prepare for the ‘birth’ is what set off our radar,” Mikhael agreed. “She’ll want to make sure the event is a violent one, capable of disrupting the ley lines and creating the destruction she craves.”
Ruby frowned, thinking. “So if what was created could be contained…”
“Not in the prison sort of way. And calmed, not contained.” Ramona waved a hand and then blinked as she found herself twirling a pair of handcuffs. She laid them down on the counter without missing a beat.
“I’m thinking we should consider a way to cocoon her, so she can be transported to a dimension and place where she has room to grow and be. In order for that to work, we need to figure out how to make her birth a calm, happy experience.”
Ramona’s eyes turned to Ben. “Getting her attention when she first emerges is key.”
Ben glanced at Mikhael. “Why is she looking at me when she says that?”
“Because you have the only direct link to her,” Mikhael said. “She will recognize the connection, much as Jem does with his parents.”
Ramona’s attention shifted. “You’re worried about nothing, Ruby. Jem’s okay when I tell him you’re coming back soon, but he wants me to remind him that’s the case about every other hour.”
“He’s talking?” Ruby said, startled.
“No, of course not. But ninety percent of language is nonverbal. For babies like him, ninety-nine percent.” She hopped off the stool, circled around behind the counter, to a wall of cabinets. “Okay, what’s the perfect book…the perfect book…”
“Wait,” Ben said. “Elagra’s assertion that I helped create this isn’t the same as saying I’m the giant monster’s dad.”
“Yes, it actually is,” Ramona said. “But fortunately for all of us, Elagra is definitely not her mother.”
Silas obligingly moved over as she bent to rummage in the cabinets directly behind him. Her voice was muffled, but they could understand her. Ben had tensed, his eyes fastened on the portal opening.
“It was your seed that fertilized the egg,” Ramona continued. “Elagra created the egg out of dark magic, but she couldn’t give it the life spark without actual life. Creation magic that draws from the natural way of things. You can only leave nature and balance out of the equation to a certain point. It’s why everything seemingly evil has a backdoor, a way in, to call it back to balance.”
As she began to drop handfuls of various things on top of the counter, Silas’s quick reflexes kept them from rolling off. She sent him a distracted smile, put down a fistful of neon-colored plastic spiders. They instantly became animated, scuttling off in every direction.
Marcie stepped back. “If those come through, I’m not catching one. I don’t do spiders. How on earth does she pass as normal when she gets customers?”
She directed all that to Ruby, keeping her voice low, since she didn’t want Ramona to think she was being rude. The chaos witch seemed absorbed in her hunt beneath the counter, however.
“It’s partly a magic shop.” Ruby smiled. “The customers think it’s parlor tricks and sleight of hand when things like that happen. But it’s more than a magic shop, too. There’s a little bit of everything in it. If you need a picture to make your living room feel cozier, you’ll find just the right thing there. It will project a welcoming energy to those who come into your house. It will never hang straight, and may occasionally seem to rearrange itself, the picture that is, though you can’t clearly remember the original arrangement, so you doubt not only your eyes, but your mind.”
“O
f course.” Ramona was back with them. She had a small book cradled in her hands. “People think chaos is random, but it never is. It just gets to where it’s going in an unpredictable way. Ha! I knew it wasn’t only about the top hats. The rabbit thing, that is.”
She lifted the book, which had two rabbits on the front, a bigger one bent attentively to a smaller one, suggesting parent and child.
“It’s a children’s book, somewhat your typical bedtime story, talking about how much the parent loves the child, but it’s uniquely charming and rhythmically repetitious. It’s the perfect structure for the spell craft. I can use the physical book as the focus. See? It’s one of those hard page ones, and shiny, so it will be resilient to water. Until it gets really doused.”
An amused smile crossed Derek’s handsome mouth, but his gaze was thoughtful as he considered it. “An attraction spell. It activates and gets the beast’s attention with the first line. As each subsequent stanza is called out, the power builds, layer upon layer.”
“Exactly. We won’t use the actual words, only the spirit of them, since we have to use words that align with the essence of the one executing it. As that power builds, it also builds the chaos spawn’s sense of security, so that as we wrap her up to move her, it will feel like we’re wrapping her in a blanket, not binding her in ropes. It’s no different from you and Jem.”
Ramona’s gaze slid to Ruby. “There’s an instinct for that connection with our parents. A parent can destroy that connection, as your mother did with you, but the initial bond was strong enough that you stayed with her, long after you should have, right?”
“Without a doubt,” Derek said. Ruby shot him a glance, her mouth tightening.