Soul of Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Tell me, brownie. Would you oversee these Extended Courts in my name and under my word? Ensure that all within adhere to my pleasure and my whim?”

  The brownie should have looked staggered at the level of trust she granted him, but instead a crafty expression crept into its eyes, calculating the offer against its own plans. Nalith had once thought these supernaturals were placid, ambitionless creatures, but every day in this realm taught her otherwise. The creature thought to use her? She was amused and saw no reason to not let it continue, for a while at least. Ambition could be molded into useful things, after all.

  “My lady, it would be my honor and my privilege to serve you in such a fashion,” the creature said now, finally coming to a decision.

  “Then all we need are courtiers to fill these houses, West and East.” Nalith smiled, catching sight of herself reflected in the window, her lips pale and her cheeks blushed high under dark blue eyes. Beauty, as humans saw it. Danger and power to the supernaturals. A weapon to bring her what she most desired. “Courtiers suited to my whim. And that shall be my pleasure....”

  Placing the pencil on the ledge of the easel, she strode past the artist, still waiting on her command, and went through the front of the house, stepping through the door and onto the porch that wrapped around the structure. The brownies had painted the house white on her orders, a glamour of her own making stirred into the paint, and it glistened in the sun with a faintly metallic aspect, enough to draw glances but not so much that any would know why they could not look away.

  Nalith rested her hands on the railing and considered the lands around her domain. She had chosen well, for all that the area surrounding was not so well served with amenities as she might have wished. The road in front of the house was wide and well repaired, the trees rising in front of her tall for this area, if nothing at all like the great trees of the other realm, whose leaves chimed in the breeze and whispered in the night air.

  Still, the leaves here, while silent, had turned from green to gold and scarlet since she had taken residence, and that, too, pleased her. Soon enough the cold season would take hold when, her court had told her, the leaves disappeared and white rain limned their branches. She had never seen such a thing herself, but this, too, pleased her: a new experience to anticipate.

  Not barren, this place. She could feel it within the elements, carried on the breeze, stirred in the water, growing in the soil. Warmth—not the painful glare of the sun but the sudden crack of lightning, the molten flow of lava—filling her with promise.

  The only things that did not please her were the other structures on this street. Her lip lifted in an elegant sneer. Beings not of her choosing lived in those structures, filling them with their noisy, useless selves. She would have only the finest near her, those who filled their days with performance and creation, not slovenly behavior and consumption.

  But if they were to avoid a repeat of the last attempt to build a court, where she had moved too swiftly and drawn attention before she’d been ready, then slow steps were the best. In this, the old ways were still the best, to lure rather than take. Slower but safer. Start outward and bring her grasp in, clearing the way steadily but without notice. Capture them all without a shout. Humans and supernaturals alike.

  Then, when she was ready, when the fire within her was ready, they would all know who ruled in their midst.

  Chapter 7

  Jan hated road trips. Her ass was numb, and her shoulders ached after two hours in the same position, the door handle digging into her on one side and the space between her leg and Tyler’s almost as painful.

  “Pass me the soda?” Martin said, holding out his right hand.

  “All gone,” she said and held the empty bottle upside down to prove her point.

  The sodas were long finished, the licorice and chips nothing but memories, and all three of them were sick and tired of being in the car, and probably sick and tired of each other, too. On the plus side, after an argument over what radio station to put on that had ended in the radio being turned off entirely, Tyler had started taking more part in the conversation. He still didn’t sound like “her” Tyler, but it was a start.

  She still thought him going anywhere near a preter was a crap idea, though.

  “We could pull off and look for a convenience store,” she suggested, hoping for a break to stretch her legs.

  “No.” Tyler shook his head. “He’s already jittering too much. No more caffeine for him.”

  “Who’re you, my mother?”

  “Don’t,” Jan said, warning them both. “I swear, I’m half-tempted to bitch slap you both.”

  “Don’t slap the driver,” Martin warned, and a sound came from Tyler that made them both look at him, Jan worried, Martin confused.

  “I’m sorry.” He was biting his lips hard, staring straight ahead. “I just... We’re in a pickup truck driven by a kelpie, heading to find a witch, driving up the Interstate to stop an invasion from another realm by elves, people, and...”

  He started to laugh. It was a hiccuping noise, more than a little hysterical, but it was real laughter, and the tension that had built up around the three of them during the drive faded a little.

  About forty-five minutes later, in the middle of a contentious discussion about music from the 1950s that was mostly Ty and Martin arguing over Elvis, she spotted the sign for their exit and breathed a sigh of relief. One more rendition of any Elvis song, and she was going to push them both out of the truck.

  “So, this is Albany.” Martin came to a pause at the end of the exit ramp and checked his window, then pulled into city traffic. “Never been here before.”

  Tyler looked out the windshield at the buildings around them and made a face. “It’s...”

  “It’s a city. Stop being such a small-town snob,” Jan said. “Turn left here. No, the next street, not this one.”

  It was nearly dark by now. The truck trundled through the city, following the directions on Jan’s phone to a neighborhood of old houses and almost-as-old trees. Kids were playing on the porch of one house, and teenagers leaned against a parked car, drinking something out of a brown paper bag, their shoulders hunched against the colder night air. If she’d ever had to say where a witch would live, she wouldn’t have picked this street. Then again, why not?

  “See?” Jan said to Tyler as Martin maneuvered the truck into a parking spot by the curb. She lifted her chin in the direction of the teenagers, who were studiously ignoring them while taking sideways looks. “Get away from the highway, and it’s just like back home.”

  “Not really,” Tyler said, getting out of the truck after her and stretching his arms overhead until she could hear his back crack into line. “But yeah, okay, it’s not all depressing.”

  Jan smiled and looked over at Martin. He looked as if he would rather be anywhere else.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know. I just... I don’t feel good here. Being here. It’s probably nothing. Which house?”

  “That one.” Jan pointed at the gray two-story building with darker trim on the porch. The house was somewhere between “old” and “really old,” but even in the dusk she could tell that the paint was reasonably fresh, the small patch of grass was neatly trimmed, and there were planters on the porch filled with herbs and flowers, giving it a cared-for appearance. And the number painted on the left post matched the one in her email.

  This was where the witch lived.

  “Time to get this over with, then, I guess,” the kelpie said.

  Jan led the way up the stairs, Tyler behind her, Martin a few steps behind him. Before ringing the doorbell, she looked back. Despite his words, Martin was visibly tense, and that was making Jan tense up, as well. Only Tyler seemed unconcerned.

  The doorbell was a sweet-voiced chime, repeating three tim
es. The heavy wooden door opened, and a woman looked out at them with polite interest. “How may I help you?”

  Jan wasn’t sure what she had been expecting—a wild-haired hippy-dippy type maybe, covered in tie-dye and magical charms, or a New Age type, or even a goth chick in black and satanic symbols. It certainly wasn’t a thirtysomething woman with a neat, professional-looking haircut, wearing jeans and a USAF logo T-shirt.

  “Um, Elizabeth Pasteur?”

  “That’s me.” Her gaze met Jan’s easily, then she flickered to Tyler, and something in her face changed. “Oh. Oh, dear.” She pushed open the screen door and stepped back. “Come in, please.”

  Jan crossed the threshold, Tyler behind her. Martin hung back, and Elizabeth waited. As he stepped onto the porch, the witch blocked him. Not aggressively, not barring him, but forcing him to pause. Not quite a standoff, but the tension crackled in the cool air. Tension and something else that made Martin back up a step, the heavy clunk of four hooves audible on the porch.

  Some kind of barrier, Jan realized. Magic? Enough to make him uncomfortable, even outside her property, on the street. It was obvious the woman knew he wasn’t human. Jan cursed, annoyed that she had become so used to supers she hadn’t even thought that might be a problem. Witches didn’t like supernaturals, Martin had said. They had history.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “He’s a friend.”

  She either didn’t hear Jan or didn’t care, still blocking Martin from entering. “What is your intent here?”

  Martin looked at her, then let his gaze move to where Tyler and Jan were already inside the house. “I am here to seek aid and information, not to cause harm or mischief to any within this house.”

  The words, oddly formal, seemed to satisfy her, and she stepped back, letting him pass.

  The kelpie met Jan’s gaze with a bland expression, but she could read him now: he didn’t like witches, either, didn’t trust them. But they needed this woman’s help, so he would deal.

  Inside, the house had a definite New Age vibe, Jan decided. Not that there were crystals and smudge sticks perched everywhere, the way she’d seen in some of the shops and coffeehouses she’d wandered into over the years, but there was a large crystal globe set in the middle of the coffee table, and the herb planters outside were echoed by pots set in all the windowsills and nearby floor. She might have dismissed it all as stage setting, except for what had happened out on the porch.

  Jan still wasn’t sure she believed in witches, but she’d learned to recognize power.

  “Please, have a seat.” Their hostess gestured at the sofa and chairs grouped around the coffee table. “How may I help you?”

  The wording, repeated, struck Jan: not “what do you want” or “can I help you” but “how may I.” They taught that to phone operators, she knew from a college job, but this sounded...warmer. As if she really meant it.

  “What makes you think we need help?” They did, of course, but Jan didn’t like being put on the defensive when she had planned to take the offensive.

  “An elf-shot human and a water-sprite come to my door, I assume they’re not trying to sell me Mary Kay products.” She tilted her head and looked at Martin. “Are you?”

  At a loss, Martin looked at Jan, whose lips twitched despite herself. Not a preter, she reminded herself. Human. “No,” she told the woman. “We’re not. Your name was given to us as...” She hesitated, not quite sure how to phrase it.

  “You need a witch,” Elizabeth said easily. “And here I am. How may I help you?”

  They’d talked about this during the trip up here. Or rather, she and Martin had; Tyler had remained quiet on this topic, never volunteering an opinion.

  Now Ty sat next to her, his knee not quite touching hers but closer than it had been in the truck. She wanted to put her hand on his leg, run her hand across his hair the way she used to when they were curled up on the sofa, watching the rain hit the windows.

  She was afraid if she did those things, they wouldn’t feel the same.

  “We have reason to believe that the elf-queen is here,” she said instead. “In the sunlit lands.” The phrase sounded stupid to Jan, but Martin had insisted. Remembering the weird twilight skies of the preter realm, it did make sense and was apparently the traditional description.

  After the way Elizabeth had reacted to Martin on the porch, Jan had been afraid the woman would react badly to their needs or maybe throw them out. Instead, Elizabeth blinked and drew back a little, leaning against the back of the chair she had chosen. “Indeed.”

  “You’re not surprised,” Martin said, his earlier tension gone but replaced with something new, more anticipation than worry.

  “No. I wish I were, but...no.” The witch shook her head and fiddled with a beaded bracelet on her left wrist, rolling the beads under her fingers like a rosary. “There have been things recently, vibrations in the world, out of order. Vibrations I could not recognize, did not understand. And in the past few months, they have become...more disturbing. If what you say is true, that would explain a great deal.”

  “Could you, can you identify where those vibrations are coming from?” Jan didn’t want to let herself think it could be that simple, that easy. Then again, why not? Most things were simple, once you understood what to look for.

  But not people, she reminded herself. People were complicated. Don’t trust her too easily; you don’t know anything about her, and even if she knew Martin wasn’t human, that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

  Not everything in this world thought elves were a bad idea.

  “I could identify them, I suppose. Why should I?” Elizabeth raised a hand to stop any objections that might come. “I’m not saying I won’t, but the spell is not without risk to me. So why should I?”

  “Because otherwise, her court will come to find her,” Martin said. “Soon. Now. Her original court, all the lords and ladies of the sunless lands. They have access now, access they control. And they will not leave, after. They are changing, abandoning tradition. They plan to claim this land and all who live within it.” Martin’s voice dropped, an intimate, convincing tone. “You dislike me. But we share this world. We both belong. You know they have no true love for humans—and a human with a touch of magic they will love even less.”

  Jan still didn’t understand how a human could work magic, and Martin hadn’t been able to explain it to her; but clearly, from the way Elizabeth’s face tightened, the preters knew about it, too, and didn’t like it.

  Supernaturals, preternaturals, and witches, oh, my. Every time Jan thought she’d figured out her new reality, another twist showed up.

  “And if you find her first?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We can stop whatever games they want to play. We can block their access.” Jan said it as if she believed it, as if it was a done thing, and all they had to do was go through the paces. The fact that it was all bullshit and hope-so and best-case scenario didn’t make it sound any less impressive.

  Elizabeth didn’t look impressed. But she did look a little calmer and stopped playing with her bracelet. “All right.” She seemed to be talking to herself, though, not them. “All right.”

  Jan didn’t know what to expect. For all that she’d spent the past few weeks living with werewolves and trolls and winged things and god knew what else, the idea of witchcraft had kind of freaked her out, when she thought about it. Which she’d been trying not to do. Maybe because this was a human thing, apparently, and until now she’d been able to keep “human” to mean “normal.”

  Normal might be a meaningless term now. The New Normal was Weird. Jan was aware that she was skirting dangerously close to hysteria and dug her nails into the palms of her hands, concentrating on the pain until she felt the hysteria subside.

  The other woman got up off the sofa and went to the console table against the
wall, picking up a wooden box about the size of her hand. The wood gleamed as if it was old and well cared for, and as the witch brought it back with her, Jan could see that something had been carved into the sides and lid. From where she sat, the design looked like endlessly twining vines, or snakes, but she wasn’t going to get up to look more closely.

  She’d been spending enough time with the New Normal to remember Pandora’s box.

  “Unfold that map on the table, please,” Elizabeth said, not to anyone in particular. Tyler reached over to pick up the map—just a basic AAA road map of New York State—and opened it, laying it carefully on the coffee table in front of the witch.

  Elizabeth placed the box on her lap and lifted the lid. Jan had enough of an angle from her seat to see that the inside was lined in dark green, and it contained more crystals, although much smaller than the monster on the table. The witch lifted out several of the stones, dangling from chains and cords, and considered them, then let all but one drop back into the box. From the soft thump they made, Jan figured the lining was probably velvet, like that in a jewelry box.

  The crystal she’d kept out was clear, about the size of a thumb, and strung on a thin silver chain that let it swing easily. The overhead light caught at it, casting tiny rainbows across the map.

  “There is magic everywhere,” the woman said, and it wasn’t quite a conversation and not quite a lecture voice but fell somewhere in between. “All a witch does is listen for it, listen to it, and then...ask it to move.”

  “That’s all?” Tyler’s voice was amused, dry. Jan looked over at him and saw that familiar, long-missing expression on his face—partially amused, partially disbelieving, and totally engaged. Her eyes prickled with tears, because she had missed it and because someone else had caused it to appear. She squinched her lids shut until the prickling stopped and then opened them again.

  “The difficult part is shutting up enough to listen,” Elizabeth replied. “Most—human and non—have trouble with that part.”