Tobias reached for their hand. Selene grabbed hold, and felt his aura shift sideways, seeking outward. Their own aura flared, then subsided. They should really distract the Alchemist.
The chaos magicians, Moss, and Cassiel must have had the same idea, because they were moving swiftly, banners flapping against their legs as they moved toward the shimmering sphere next to the elephant, and faced outward, stretching the banners tight. That was good: the elephants blocked the western view of the Alchemist’s circle, and the banners would keep people away from north and east. The magicians and witches had left the southern quadrant of the circle open, so Selene and the others could do their work. That included Quanice, whom Selene really hoped had gotten a bead on the servitor.
As if he had heard, Quanice stepped to Selene’s other side.
“Tobias scoping things out?” he asked.
“He’s trying to figure out why the ointment isn’t killing the Alchemist. How did you guys do with the tobacco servitor?”
Quanice rubbed his chin. “Since we figured out the connection yesterday, we should be good to go whenever you and Tobias are. And Lucy knows what to do, too. As for the space-time shit, we can definitely get you in. Just let me know when, and we’ll open the path.”
Selene nodded and licked their lips. The Alchemist paced, agitated, around his sphere, pushing outward with his hands. The witches and magicians swayed, and then grew still again as he passed. He must be trying to push them out of his way. They responded by rooting more deeply in the earth. He clearly had never encountered anyone who knew how to work actual magic, instead of just going through the motions.
“We’re ready to go. So are Raquel and Brenda and the rest.” Quanice gestured toward Tobias, who stood preternaturally still, eyes closed. “How long do you think he’ll be?”
“I’m back.” Tobias rolled his head and rotated his shoulders. “As far as I can tell, you’re right, the ointment he’s using has less nicotine in it than the samples he gave away. Enough to form a connection, but not enough to cause real damage. I think we need to go ahead. That guy on the ground is already flying. Shit’s happening on the astral, big time.”
Selene raised their voice, just slightly. “Arrow and Crescent?”
The coven gathered closer, so did the rest of the Chaotes.
“Tobias and I are going in. You all ready to back us up?”
Raquel stepped in front of Selene, dark eyes searching Selene’s face, Alejandro right beside her. Selene could tell he was reading their aura. That was fine. In situations like this, coven members knew they always had permission.
“How do you want to proceed?” Raquel finally said.
“I want to bust through that damn sphere and wrap my fingers around his neck. But what we’re going to do is get up on the astral and disrupt his operation before he hurts anyone else. Just as planned.”
“Good,” Raquel said.
“Shall we?” they said to Tobias. He nodded, and they both sat down on the grass.
“May I?” Quanice asked.
Selene nodded. He placed his warm hands on their temples, then spoke.
“I’m going to show you the image of a door. It’s up to you to take Tobias through.”
Selene slowed their breathing down, and turned their attention inward for a moment, one hand holding the moonstone pendant. The horns of the silver crescent pressed into their hand. I feel you, Mother. Then they allowed their gaze to shift again, opening out, widening their perspective to include the astral planes, the æthers.
There it was, a shimmering, golden doorway.
“Let’s go, Tobias.”
“Ready,” he said, slipping his hand into theirs. And, lifting slowly from their bodies, they both flew toward the door.
Selene barreled through it in a rush, Tobias trailing just behind. A sonic boom flung them backwards. They cheated left, so they wouldn’t be blown back through the doorway, and fought to stabilize their ætheric body and slow the trajectory down.
Quanice hadn’t been joking. Things were literally blowing up on this plane. What in the world was the Alchemist even trying? Shrapnel flew by. Pieces of what looked like a snake’s body, bird feathers, shards of glass. Selene dodged as best as they could. There was no telling what sort of effect the objects would have on their astral form. And how any injuries on this plane would affect their body on the ground.
Speaking of, they really hoped someone was guarding them and Tobias. That had been Joshua’s job.
:Tobias?: Selene sent the thought out toward their coven mate.
:Here.: The thought returned, and Tobias zoomed up next to them. :You okay?:
:Fine. What next? Is everything set with the roses?:
:Yes. Brenda and Raquel have them. They should deploy them any time now. We’ll feel it when that happens.:
Selene nodded, and took stock. In order to trap the Alchemist, the coordination between physical plane and the astral was going to have to be almost seamless. Add in whatever Lucy was going to need to do, and this whole operation felt…
Like the stakes were too damn high.
:We just need to move.: Selene sent the thought toward Tobias. A witch could only plan an operation like this so far, then it was off script, using nothing but skill, intuition, and whatever tools they had on hand.
They had to trust that it would be enough.
38
Joshua
Joshua could tell by the look on their face that Selene was pissed off, but they’d stopped with the rest of the coven before getting close enough to even talk. And then Moss and Cassiel, and a couple of the chaos magicians had rolled past with their big banners, stationing themselves around the weird space-time sphere, leaving a gap in the south.
Things looked ready to go down.
“What do we do now?” he asked Legis. “Do you think we can still break through the sphere?”
The Thelemite considered. “Maybe. The real question is, should we? Now that Selene and Tobias are here, is it going to mess things up? Make things worse?”
“I’m still hoping we can stop this thing before it starts.”
Legis gestured toward the man on the ground, who had begun trembling, as if he lay on top of his own private earthquake. “I think it’s already started, man.”
So what were they supposed to do? Joshua keenly felt his lack of discipline and training. He could have been training for this moment for years. Instead? He’d been wallowing in his own particular brand of self-pity and avoidance.
Well, damn it, he was going to show up now.
Capricorn, devil, whatever you are, if you want me to harness my will to my desire and set myself free, help me now. I desire this more than I have anything in the last five years. I desire magic. And responsibility. Give me what you’ve got. See me through.
A burst of energy filled his limbs. The aches and pains from the poisoning and punching the Alchemist were still present, but they didn’t matter anymore. His head cleared. He knew what he had to do.
Taking in three deep breaths, he fortified the edges of his aura, making them as seamless and strong as he could. Then he turned to Legis.
“Let’s go,” Joshua said, and barreled toward that wide open southern quadrant. Extending his aura outward like a wedge, he slammed into the shimmering edge of the sphere.
39
Selene
Selene held the image of the tobacco servitor in their head, and calibrated their vision again, trying to tune out the static. That was all the booms and astral debris were: static. Something to keep them occupied while the Alchemist did his nasty work.
How Selene knew this, they wouldn’t be able to explain. They began to move, rising on the planes, using the magical hook he’d placed in them—likely way back when he’d roofied their drink—to track his location on the astral.
There. A cul de sac just off this second ætheric plane. Selene realized now that the first plane they’d passed through had been a construct, which was some pretty crafty m
agic. It wasn’t on the actual astral at all, but a psychic airlock, designed to keep people out. It must have been a safety set into whatever lock he’d put on the space-time magic, and when Quanice punched a door through, it had brought them to a place that was no place at all.
Got you now, bastard. Selene knew the astral like the back of their well-manicured hand. They stepped out into a rolling, light gray fog, Tobias right behind them, and walked with certainty toward where they felt the Alchemist to be. He tugged on them the way a lover might, and that just pissed Selene off. He had no right to their body, no right to their mind, no right to their soul.
Selene walked through the misty veil, and there he was. He towered here, his astral image as inflated as his ego. But instead of the peacock colors he’d clothed himself in, here, his aura was filled with shades of brown and gray. A miasma of tobacco juice and uncertainty.
Well, well, well. Wasn’t that funny? He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, did he? He had just convinced the greater part of himself he did. And convinced other people, too. Because otherwise, he would collapse in an insecure heap on the floor.
Selene smiled. They knew that feeling all too well, that sense of insecurity and not knowing. So they could use it as a weapon and a curse.
And magic was the one thing Selene never felt insecurity about. Their Goddess had made sure of that. Waxing or waning, crescent or full, Selene’s magic was always there.
The tobacco servitor scuttled back and forth, back and forth. It seemed agitated. Unhappy. Skeins of brown radiated from its stumpy torso, heading off in all directions. Selene was surprised it could even move, there were so many threads feeding off of it.
Or feeding back into it. That was why it was agitated. It was taking in life force from all the people it was connected to. It was an over-capacity battery, almost full to bursting.
Selene’s moonstone began to glow, beaming a soft radiance outward. Tobias’s aura must have been glowing, too, because a wash of green tinged the air. They didn’t want to risk a look, holding their gaze steady on the Alchemist and the servitor.
The Alchemist’s head snapped toward Selene and Tobias, attracted by the glow. He grinned his sick grin.
“You’ve come,” he said. “And you brought a friend.”
Selene was glad he spoke instead of sending thoughts, because they really didn’t want his oily voice inside their head. They felt a tug on the connection, and allowed themself to be drawn toward him.
The trap had been set, so carefully, by Tobias and Selene.
And Selene was the trap.
40
Joshua
Smashing into the Alchemist’s sphere was like barreling into plate glass. It shattered around him, loud as a car crash. The front edge of his aura tore away in ribbons. He felt as if his skin was on fire. Head pounding, skin screaming, he rolled inside the sphere, slamming to the grass. Legis bounced beside him, groaning.
“Fuck,” the big magician said.
Joshua staggered to his feet, pressing his hands to his head.
The Alchemist stood beside the half-naked man. Eyes closed, his hands gestured, making sigils in the air.
“Hold the sphere!” he shouted. His minions scurried, panicked, trying to shore up the broken container. One of the men moved toward Joshua and kicked outward. Joshua dodged. The man’s boot passed his knee.
As if on cue, the chaos magicians began skipping in a circle around the elephants and the people holding banners and the now-shattered sphere.
“Ring around the rosy! Pockets full of posies! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!” On and on they went, skipping, cackling, and singing in a sunwise circle. The power they raised bowed outward, containing the broken sphere, and edging another layer of protection outward. They were keeping the crowd safe.
Joshua sensed Selene flying on the æthers, and sent a distracted thought upward. The man closed in and threw a roundhouse punch, telegraphing the move from a mile away. Joshua blocked the punch with an outward wave of his arm.
Wax off, he thought.
“Ring around the rosy! Pockets full of posies! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!”
The man was sweating, face a sickly red that edged toward purple. His fist snapped toward Joshua’s chin. Joshua deflected again—Wax on—before throwing a punch of his own.
From the corner of his eye, he caught Brenda walking, counterclockwise, scattering something on the ground. The rose petals.
“Ring around the rosy! Pockets full of posies! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!”
Legis appeared behind the man and clocked him on the temple. The man fell like a stone.
Drumming started up nearby, laying down a beat over at the far edge of park near Burnside. A brass band began to play, syncopating with the beat. Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Starting Something.”
People began moving toward the band. The march must be starting.
“Ring around the rosy! Pockets full of posies! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!”
Brenda finished her circuit with the roses, and threw a last handful into the air. It flew into the center of the circle, showering Joshua and Legis, the Alchemist and his minions. Petals stuck to the gleaming ointment on the supine man’s chest.
As the Alchemist flung his hands skyward, Joshua and Legis sprung toward him. Legis crashed into the man’s chest, arms wrapping around his torso. Joshua aimed low, and slammed into his thighs. They all fell in a whoosh, crashing down onto the man on the ground, then rolled and smacked the grass. Hard. Joshua’s teeth snapped together.
“Ring around the rosy! Pockets full of posies! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!”
A huge crack! split the air before the excited crowd and the brass of the band drowned it out again.
41
Selene
Selene heard a cracking sound and felt the astral shift. The Alchemist stumbled and fell. The servitor stopped its frenetic back and forth. For the first time, it looked directly at Selene.
:Come here?: Selene thought.
:Why should I?: it beamed back.
:I can free you.:
And Selene could. They were certain of it.
The Alchemist rolled and shot a twining brown cord at Selene. They grabbed for it with their right hand and it snapped against their palm, leaving a stinging welt. Selene hissed, closed their astral fingers, and held on.
:I just felt Brenda deploy the roses: Tobias sent. :I’m ready, too.:
:As above, so below,: Selene responded, then turned their attention back to the servitor.
:Ready?: they thought, and threw an image into the servitor’s head. A twining. A binding. A shattering.
A plan.
:—: They felt an affirmative from the servitor. :Then free?:
:Then free.:
:Tobias, stand ready.:
Selene tightened their grip on the thick brown cord and touched the moonstone amulet with the other hand. The Alchemist’s magic. Their magic. One of those would prevail.
They tuned into the astral essence of the moonstone, then called upon the power of the moon, and its twin, the sun. Selene was ready.
They would stand now, exposed in all their power, in all their glory, without shame. Everything aligned within them and around them, resonating through all the worlds.
They raised their arms—“Now!” they shouted into the churning mist—then sliced them downward.
The servitor ran in rings around the Alchemist, binding him with the brown tobacco cords.
The Alchemist struggled against his own creation.
“What are you doing? You little shit! I gave you life!”
Tobias linked to Selene, feeding energy into their aura, filling them with extra power.
Selene drew the fat cord in their hand toward them, fist over fist, sending a thread of their own magic back toward the Alchemist’s astral form, using Tobias’s energy to help reel the man in. The servitor ran and ran, binding the Alchemist like a Yule tree being roped to the roof of a car.
&nb
sp; “You. Must. Stop. Bending. People. To. Your. Will.” Selene said, every word another jerk of the rope. Every word a magical injunction.
“What do you know about power?”
Despite being bound so tightly he couldn’t use his hands to cast, the man could still sneer. Arrogance meant he didn’t know he’d already lost. Selene felt it in their bones. Arrow and Crescent and the magicians had done their work, and done it well. They could almost feel the magical sphere falling, replaced by the joy of the day.
“I could have given you so much…” he gasped. “I still can.”
“No!” Tobias screamed. “Eat your words!”
The Alchemist choked, face purple, flailing in earnest now.
With one mighty yank, Selene pulled the Alchemist in and the servitor snapped the small brown cords.
The Alchemist’s ætheric body shattered into one hundred pieces.
“Be you inert,” Selene said, voice tolling like a bell on the astral plane. “Be your power stripped from mind and body. Be your soul diminished unto death, until you learn the lesson of life itself. That those who seek to eat the world shall eventually be eaten themselves. You are no alchemist. Your magic is stripped from your aura as flesh is stripped from bone. Be you gone! Be you gone! Be you gone. To harm. No. More.”
The ragged, tattered scraps that had once been a man fluttered weakly, then, one by one, they slowly disappeared.
Until there was nothing but gray mist, and a small brown servitor. And Selene. They looked down at their palm. The red weal was fading. But they would feel the scar of it for a long, long time.
:Come: they thought at the servitor. It toddled over to them on its stumpy little legs.
:What shall you do when I free you?: Selene asked.
:Return to serve my mother,: it said. Selene saw field upon field of tobacco, clacking in the summer sun. They smelled the earthy, oily scent of it. That was good.
By Moon Page 18