Ishtar Bound

by Natalie Gibson

  “The camel means that she has many responsibilities and burdens. She has the potential for handling big problems and carries them on her shoulders.” Libby defended her Abbess' animal symbol.

  “It also means that I need to be more conservative, as you've said many times. I hold on to my emotions. It's one eyed, because”

  “We THINK it's one eyed because...” Jolie stressed the interpretive nature of her dreams.

  “I refuse to accept another viewpoint. I've a very one sided way of thinking when it comes to men, we think.”

  Maeve had stopped laughing. If that was what one eyed camel meant, Jolie's dreams were very accurate indeed. Nathalia had a hard time admitting any males had value or a good side. She saw them as the embodiment of evil to varying degrees. She hadn't strayed from that belief in over a decade, even though there were good men all around her.

  “But the dreams I had last night were less interpretive than usual. Libby thinks it's because the power was drawn from a mated pair. It's happened in the past with Animaverto. Our power gets stronger with a mate.”

  “Okay, Jolie. Go ahead.” The Abbess took up her previous place by the Renuntio's shoulder.

  Jolie closed her eyes and tried to see the vision again. When she started speaking, Libby started writing. “We're all dancing in the sanctuary. It's a ceremony but I don't recognize it. Maeve and Nathalia are in the center and they're dancing and kissing.”

  Maeve couldn't suppress a gafaw. “A cat and a camel making out?!”

  “No, it was actually you and the Abbess. We were in the sanctuary – the one right out there.”

  Libby and Nathalia exchanged a glance. This dream wasn't just a little more literal than usual. Jolie always had her visions in symbols. This could be very good for the sisterhood; an Animaverto Primo who could actually see the future would be very useful. “Maeve, she needs to concentrate. Details can be everything. Go on Jolie; we were dancing and kissing in the middle of a ceremony.”

  “Then something changed. I move a little to get a better look at them, because I realize it isn't Nathalia and Maeve at all. It's... a man and a woman. There's blood everywhere, circles like ripples coming out from them. There's also these symbols drawn in blood within each circled line, a person beside every one. I look down at the one to my right and I am so afraid. It's a Chinese word or maybe Hebrew or runes written one right on top of the previous. They made these markings that I knew were names, but I couldn't read them. The two people in the center are cutting at the air, slicing it, hacking through something. I try to leave; something horrible is going to happen. I can feel it, but I can't move. I'm trapped by the lines of blood. Light, brighter than anything I've ever seen comes streaming through the lines the priest and priestess have cut in the air. A feeling of euphoria washes over me, but it doesn't last. I can tell my ability is being stolen. The light isn't shinning on us, it's pulled from us. It's horrible. Then something steps through. I must have been screaming because JD woke me up.”

  Libby and Nathalia had stopped writing. They all three stared at Jolie, who had started to shake. Maeve put her arm around her, hugging her tightly and Jolie started to cry.

  SOFE?

  Maeve nodded. It could be. “Everything is going to be fine, Jolie. Abbess will keep this from happening. Your ability allows us to see what could happen if we don't do something to change the outcome. It's not set in stone.”

  “That's right. The gift of prophesy is a hard one to bear, but good can come from this. Maeve and I are familiar with this horrible magic. We can keep this from happening.”

  Jolie shook her head no against Maeve's shoulder. She spun to face her Sister Superior. “That's just it. You can't. You won't. You'll be dead. It's your blood they use to let that thing out.”

  Chapter 5

  After Jolie went back to the outside world to be with JD and Libby went back to the library, Maeve stayed to talk to Nathalia, but neither spoke for several minutes. Nathalia absentmindedly rubbed the scars on her arms while Maeve chewed her already too short thumb nail.

  “The SOFE are here in Austin.”

  “Apparently. Eddie showed me pictures that looked every much like a SOFE pentacle of evocation. The symbols were all marred to keep anyone from identifying them, but I knew right away. They didn't just take some blood; they killed a virgin for it. That's the murder that the capacitors felt. She was a match for one of my marks.”

  Nathalia came to sit by Maeve in the window seat. The sun felt good on their backs. It had always burned away that feeling they had after an encounter with SOFE. They had dabbled in it in high school. It was just play acting; slumber party tricks. It was fun and rebellious and exciting. They tired of it quickly. Michael saw something in Nathalia. He came for her blood on a regular basis, even when it wasn't needed for a ritual. He liked to hurt her. She didn't tell her friend until years later after the two were lovers. She could hardly hide the scars of his years of abuse while they were intimate. The small thin white scars started at her ankles and looked like tiny ladders up and down her body. They were so prevalent that most of the Daughters thought they were purposeful scarification, a body modification type thing.

  “It's just a coincidence that she was linked to us.”

  “I don't think so. Michael's involved. I can feel it.” This was what Margaux was warning her about. Nathalia loved Maeve above anyone else in the world. She would gladly give her life to keep Maeve safe from Michael and SOFE. That was a sacrifice worth making. “We need to know what they're up to. If he's involved, neither you nor I could get very far. I wish we had somebody on the inside.”

  Maeve took something small from her pocket and put it in Nathalia's hands. “I think we already do.”

  ***

  The industrial size kitchen was thick with the sweet steamy smell of canning fig preserves. Jarring and canning might be a dying art form even in the south where it was once commonplace, but not with the Daughters. Every Ingenium learned. From novice to Primo, the potion makers canned and jarred everything from hot sauce and pea relish to pickled okra and jelly.

  Today the kitchen was not busy as it would normally be on canning day. It was just Ingenium Primo Ingrid and her top apprentice responsible for each step from slicing the figs to labeling the cooled filled jars. Making the sacred fig preserves was not a hard job, nor did it take great skill, but it was tradition that only the top two herbalists participated in it. Several batches were going at the same time as increasing the recipe and cooking it all together makes the jam inconsistent.

  Tara Kay was the sophomore closest to ascending to Primo, therefore she was handling the figs. It was the most important step to the quality of the jam, followed closely by the actual recipe, which Ingrid did herself. Tara sliced the ones with thin skin, but pealed off the thick or ugly skin. Nothing but the best made it into the pot.

  “We need to speak with both of you when you have a stopping point.”

  Ingrid greeted Nathalia and Maeve, “Certainly. We should be able to take a break for a bit in just a sec. Let us get this last batch boiling and these jars filled and in the water bath. Here, you've never tasted nothin' till you've had 'em fresh.” She served them still warm preserves on freshly made bread with tea and then got back to it.

  Tara Kay put the last of the ripe figs into the pot and Ingrid began adding the sugar, lemon, water, salt and a secret ingredient while Tara moved on to jars. The Mason glass jars, sterilized by a boiling hot water bath, now must be removed with ordinary kitchen tongs, and placed on a waiting towel. Their extreme heat quickly evaporated any water left after draining. Tara dumped all of the lids and bands into the boiling water pot and Ingrid put the funnel into one of the waiting jars.

  Then their paced quickened. They moved like a team well practiced at synchronization. Tara, with her oven mitts on, held the jars and moved the funnel from one to the next. Ingrid filled the jars to the top lip with her soup ladle in rapid fire succession. Then, when all had preserves, they both went
back and used the back end of the lid lifter to remove any bubbles. Tara made sure no preserves remained on the lip of the jars and Ingrid used the magnet side of her lid lifter and placed the lids squarely on top. They both twisted the bands closed tightly on each and then used the jar tongs to place them back in the boiling water bath.

  The last one in, Ingrid gave a sigh and wiped the sweat from her head with the back of her hand. She gestured to the sliding glass door. “Let's take our break outside. I need some fresh air and a smoke.”

  The air outside was cool, a welcome relief from the hot kitchen. They sat on a couple of concrete benches that faced each other around a smoking area. The Ingenium on one, Maeve and Nathalia on the other.

  “So, what's up? We've got 15 minutes.” Ingrid set the kitchen timer beside her where it ticked away. She gestured to Tara Kay with two fingers to her mouth. She needed a smoke.

  Tara took a gold cigarette case out of her pocket. Without looking, she flipped it open, retrieved two hand rolled smokes and closed it all with one hand. She put the cigarettes to her mouth and lit them in one graceful movement. She's obviously been smoking a big portion of her life. Ingrid took the one closest to her after Tara had them lit. They each took a big drag and let it out slowly.

  “We know Tara's been dealing to outsiders.”

  “Don't call me that. I am not dirt. I'm special. Special K to be exact, or Kay if you prefer, but not Tara.”

  Ingrid didn't hear the denial she was hoping for from her apprentice. “Kay, you didn't! After all those talks we've had about our sacred abilities, not to mention it's against the Daughters' rules.” She took another puff, shaking her head no as she blew it out.

  The smell of her smoke told Maeve and Nathalia that the cigarettes were a combination of herbs, not just tobacco. Tara Kay still hadn't said anything about their accusations, so Nathalia held out the vial to show her their evidence.

  She shrugged. “So what? I'm out, just like that, for breaking your ridiculous rules?”

  “Are you at least making something useful for others or just getting them high?” Ingrid asked, hoping to put a positive spin on the situation.

  Tara Kay ignored her. “You're wrong, you know. She uses her matchmaking ability on all kinds of outsiders. The healer goes to the hospital on a regular basis. You sit in on court cases to make sure they come out just right. I'm just following our rede, just like the rest of you. I use my ability to bring good to every deserving person I meet. I use my one life to do magic for the benefit of humankind. You are trying to keep me from doing that. I can't spend my life making jam and hiding my real talent.”

  “You're selling to the wrong people.”

  “There are no wrong people. What we do is just an extension of nature. Every feeling humans have, every experience, is chemically driven or caused. Love is just a certain mix in the brain that gives a particular feeling. There is nothing else besides what happens in our own bodies. I make the mixtures that tell the brain to feel a certain way. I give people control over themselves.”

  “I disagree. Use of the substances you make should be restricted or they could be abused. Do you remember making this?”

  The Ingenium sophomore signed 'gimme' with her hand. Nathalia passed the vial to Tara Kay, who unscrewed the lid and smelled it. She nodded and shrugged at the same time and then flipped the vial up in the air and back to Nathalia.

  Nathalia held it up at eye level. “Who did you make this for and what's it do?”

  Tara Kay took a long drag and blew it out slowly, thinking. A girl named Liz had come to see her at the club a few months ago. She said she'd heard Kay was the person to see about getting tailor made drugs. She wanted something that would 'thin the veil between this world and the next'. She wanted to commune with the old forgotten gods. Tara Kay rolled her eyes at the memory and chuckled. She hated when people tried to attribute religious meaning to physical highs. Liz had said there were 7 of them, some men, and some women that would all take it at once, so Kay added a little something that would dissolve the separateness of self. They asked her to tweak it a few times, which she did, and eventually came up with something they really liked.

  Tara Kay decided she wouldn't tell the Abbess anything. Nathalia and Maeve were always so high and mighty. They had no idea what she was capable of. They might never find out. She sat staring at them as her anger grew. She smoked but said nothing.

  Maeve jumped in, “We already know you made it for a group of SOFE. They are incredibly dangerous, Ta...Kay. They use blood magic, for goddess sakes!”

  “Yeah, well, guess what Maeve?” She said the Vinculum's name like a curse word. “SO DO I! Every potion you've ever gotten from me involved blood magic. I speak to the Great Mother Earth and she hears and answers me. Who are you to question the language we use, Sex Witch?!” She addressed Maeve as if she were a filthy street walker, barely deserving of life, much less respect.

  That their highest ranking Ingenium Sophomore was using blood magic came as quite a shock to Maeve and Nathalia, less so to Ingrid. They looked at her. She had to have known, working so closely training Kay. She'd kept it from them.

  Ingrid nodded to them and spoke softly. “She's right. The Great Mother of us all answers whenever she makes an offering of her own blood. It's never more than a drop of two and there's no violence so I didn't see any harm. We all must find our own way in this world.”

  She was right. Ingrid was in charge of the Ingenium and if she knew and thought it was acceptable then it was. Nathalia was slow to accept any blood magic in her congregation though. Her past with the SOFE made it almost impossible. She would have to deal with that later. “You need to be talking to your Primo more. She should know what you're making and who you're selling to. Do you want to stay with the Daughters?”

  Tara Kay lifted her shoulder and dropped it. “Yeah, but I won't stop using my ability. You know, maybe Ingenium don't belong here. Our magic isn't based in sex, but the earth. Maybe we would fit better with elemental witches. Maybe with the SOFE is where we belong.”

  “Maybe, but you don't know what they're up to or capable of.” The egg timer rang. “Time's up. What'll it be, Kay? Are you in or out?”

  A flash of defiance in her eyes, Tara Kay threw her roach down on the stone pathway and ground it out with her flip flop as she stormed away. Ingrid took a last hit and then ground out the ember on the underside of her concrete seat. She looked at Nathalia expectantly and the Abbess gave her a slow nod of the head. Ingrid bowed her head in acceptance and took off after Kay. She looked a little green to Maeve.

  ***

  “What was all that ominous head nodding about?” Maeve asked. She was face down on her lounging lawn chair and her brown nipples, hard from the cold, peaked from between the strips of material that made up the back of her chair.

  Nathalia was lying on her back, with her face turned to Maeve. She longed to reach out and touch her friend’s comically curvy body, even if it was covered in goose bumps. She didn't. They hadn't been lovers since the night Maeve ascended to Primo. After that, sex was all business for Maeve.

  Nathalia was somewhat of an enigma for all Vinculum. She was immune to their magic, a black void to their magical eye. Maeve was special to Nathalia and they often discussed the reason behind her apparent blind spot existence to matchmakers. Nathalia hoped it was because her match was Maeve, a matchmaker prohibited from taking an exclusive lover. Sara practiced with Nathalia now and she confirmed it. Nathalia had no match in the world.

  Nathalia turned her face up to the sky, closing her eyes. “Tara Kay is stubborn. Even more than you. She doesn't take orders and she doesn't follow rules. Ingrid and I have known for a while that she was dealing to outsiders. We decided to let it slide but that was before I knew the SOFE were in Austin.”, she said quietly.

  “Then, she'll go to them?”

  “Maybe. She'll lead us to them.”

  “But they'll KILL her if they think she's betrayed them!”

 
“Don't worry. That's what the nodding was about. A while ago Ingrid found an old spell and she's been perfecting it in secret. It allows her to trace a person’s location. She will be able to feel where Tara Kay is. Tara won't even know she's betraying them, but we'll be able to follow her right to them.”

  The sun felt good on their skin, but the wind did not. In December most people would have gone to a tanning salon, but that was a solitary way. Nathalia and Maeve needed time together and so it was to the roof with them. It was cold, even in Texas, though not freezing. They had goose bumps but it was more like October in the North. Freezing precipitation was scarce in south Texas; it was so rarely cold enough. They'd had hail, but hail could happen no matter what the weather. It was just as likely in the summer as it was in the winter. Neither woman had seen snow or ice since they were children.

  Thinking of their childhood made Nathalia smile. “Remember when it snowed that time when you were at my house?”

  “I was only supposed to spend half the night.” That's what they called it when their parents had gone out to dinner and a movie and picked them up late after they'd gone to bed. Maeve and Nathalia always made a pact to beg their parents to let them stay the whole night if either of them woke when being taken from bed. They always woke up separate in their own beds. They tried to hold hands while they slept so that it would wake them up when the other was pulled. “The roads were so bad that Mom and Dad actually changed their minds and let me stay.”

  “Then in the morning, we were so happy to wake up together but we really didn't have any plans past that. We'd won, but we were bored. Momma made that sled for us and the rest of the day was a blur.”

  “Oh, shit. That thing was awesome. It was just a scrap of old linoleum with a bit of rope to hold on to. I can't remember ever laughing that much.”