by Sam Cheever
The creature flew at me again. I ducked, swinging the coil above my head as I spun away.
The searing white energy sheared off a piece of the robe, and it hit the ground with a meaty plop. The creature’s head flew up and an inhuman sound permeated the night.
Thank the goddess. It could be hurt.
Good to know.
It spun again with superhuman speed and flew at me, claws outstretched and the golden gaze glowing with renewed ferocity. I stumbled backward, no time to rise to my feet, and lifted the energy blade again, slicing it sideways.
The blade caught the thing across the chest, digging deep.
Blood, thick and dark, flowed from the wound. A feral scream filled the night. But rather than retreat, the thing lashed out, hitting me like a runaway train and throwing me across the yard. I landed hard, my head slamming into the patchy grass a beat later than my body and wrenching my neck.
Pain sliced through me. My gaze wavered and darkened around the edges. I was dimly aware of movement around me—claws skittering over the broken concrete sidewalk and fur rustling softly against my skin.
I tried to move my arms. My legs. And push myself off the ground with my hands. Nothing worked.
Then the thing was on me again. It slammed down hard, crushing me against the ground and driving a large rock into my hip.
I cried out, my vision still wonky and my brain like mush. My hand hit the thing in the chest, just above the still bleeding gash I’d created, and I shoved. But it had been all I could do to lift my arms. I had no strength.
And the magic I’d sifted from my surroundings was being siphoned off. I knew it as I looked into the brightly flaring gold eyes.
The monster was pulling my energy away. Consuming it just as I…
I swallowed hard, my brain shoving the thought away. In a last, desperate effort, I tugged the knife I kept on my thigh free and plunged it into the fiend’s side, my bloody hand sliding down the hilt with the force of my strike and the blade slicing my palm.
The creature screamed, washing my face in putrid, sulfurous air.
I wanted to twist the knife, to tear the blade through its flesh. But I was so weak. So tired. I’d just lay there and…
My eyes started to close. The world swirled beneath my lids, unreal and indistinct. I felt myself fading.
My life bleeding away like the energy I no longer had.
It was okay, I thought, as my limbs grew heavy. A soothing warmth slid through me. Peace descended.
It was okay…
I’d just rest a while.
From deep within my brain a terrifying reminder fought free of my lethargy. Boyle!
I started, my eyes snapping open. I had to protect the baby. It was my job…
But the realization wasn’t strength. I couldn’t draw on it to live. I sent out my siphoning energy and found minimal magic in the air. I pulled in what I could and reached further…to the house. My siphon hit the wall of the big Victorian and flailed. The house was densely warded against outside magic. My energy signature was too weak to compel the ward. I felt Victoria’s energy throbbing behind the barrier, a bright promise of life and strength. But I couldn’t get to it.
I was going to fail. Tears leaked from my eyes. Anger flared but had nowhere to go. I looked up into the fiend’s too-bright eyes and felt nothing. I was done.
A long, dark shape flew against the monster, slammed it sideways. The attack interrupted the thing’s feeding pattern and sliced off the energy drain.
Good, I thought. That’s good.
A shadow fell over me. A deep voice filled the silence. But I couldn’t understand the words. Fog filled my brain, thick with static sounds. I reached up and touched hard, warm flesh. “Thank…” I managed. But that was all I had.
I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me down.
Warmth.
I tried to pry my eyes open, but they wouldn’t cooperate.
Crackling sounds.
A fire.
I focused on my body and realized I was lying on something soft.
It smelled slightly musty but with a twinge of Grams’ lilac body wash scent.
My couch.
I focused on pulling breath into my lungs, filling them with slightly smoky air. The cushions beneath me shifted, and something small and warm wrapped itself around me.
“Glynnie?”
Shock brought my eyes open. “Boyle.” My arms felt like lead when I lifted them to wrap around him. “Thank the goddess, you’re okay.”
The baby snuggled against me, his little head tucked beneath my chin.
That soft tuft of orange hair tickled my nose, and I wrinkled it to keep from sneezing. “I was so worried,” I told him.
“I okays,” he said, sighing.
We lay there a long moment, the heat of the fire bathing us and warming the cold from my bones.
Then a floorboard creaked.
Alarm pierced the calm that was embalming me. I jerked upright, startling Boyle. My grip on the baby tightened. My gaze cleared under an adrenaline rush, and I saw him standing across the room. “Who are you? How did you get inside my house?”
The man stood half in shadow, half bathed by firelight. His lean jaw was shadowed with the stubble of the previous day’s beard and his full lips pressed together as he looked at me. The cheekbone I could see was sharp and high, the nose straight, with a nostril that flared wide at the tone in my voice.
I watched a thick, dark-blond brow arch and his jaw tighten. “The ’goyle let me in.”
Goddess’s galoshes! “He wouldn’t do that,” I said. Though I sounded unsure, even to me.
The man held my stare, seemingly unwilling to argue the point.
I glanced down at Boyle, finding the answer in his guilty gaze. “What did you do?”
The baby deflated, folding into himself. “He not bad, Glynnie. He saved you.”
The tiny voice was filled with tears and made me feel like an ogre. “You don’t know that, Boyle. He could be mean.”
Boyle shook his head, unusually determined. “He not bad.”
I glanced up to find the stranger’s lips curved into a wry smile.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re the man who’s been watching me.”
Since it wasn’t a question, he didn’t bother confirming it.
But he didn’t deny it either.
“Why?”
He crossed his arms over a wide chest, the muscles in his biceps bunching impressively. “I have my reasons.”
All the air left my lungs. It was him! I’d known it as soon as I clapped eyes on him. “You need to go.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Panic flared as I considered that he might not leave.
But then he inclined his head. “It was nice to meet you…Glynn.”
I blinked, shocked at the sound of my name on his lips.
Mutely, I watched him stalk toward the door, admiring the view despite my fear. As he pulled the front door open I swung my legs around, dropping my feet to the floor. “Wait!”
He turned, humor sparking in his hazel eyes.
“I…” confusion swept every thought from my head. I didn’t even know why I’d stopped him.
Those expressive brows lifted again, and he finally smiled. “You’re welcome, Glynn.” He lifted a hand to Boyle. And then he stepped outside.
Son of a bunion! My heart was pounding. Stars danced before my gaze. He’d been in my home. And I’d been… The panic deepened. He could have hurt the baby. He could have killed me.
But he hadn’t.
I frowned. What was he up to? I shoved to my feet. “Watch him through the window,” I told Boyle. “Let me know when he’s gone.”
Boyle bounded across the room, launching himself into the recliner in front of the biggest window and leaning on its back to watch through the glass. “What you doin’?” he asked in an uncertain tone.
“We’re going to talk to Mitch.”
Boyle quivered with del
ight, forgetting for a beat to watch the man.
The baby loved our resident seer. Mitch gave him ginger cookies and juice.
“Watch him, sweet boy,” I reminded. I tested my balance and discovered I was still a bit wobbly. But it dissipated quickly. “I’m just going upstairs for a minute. Don’t open the door,” I told him, a thin thread of censure in my voice.
“Yeth, Glynnie.”
He’d disappeared into the shadows across the street. But I still felt him there, like a fracture in the natural energy of the street—a rough spot.
Boyle and I went out the back of the house, picking our way across the wild and wooly back yard to a copse of enormous evergreens at the back corner of the property.
Correction. I picked my way across. Boyle bounded and bounced and skipped across the grass, just happy to be involved in another adventure.
Watching him, I sighed. He made me feel old at thirty-two.
We came out the other side of the trees and started across the ranch house’s hard-scrabble yard. I glanced toward the dimly-lit window at the end of the house that was farthest from Victoria, my hackles rising as I did. There was a shape behind the sheer curtains. A head with hair that drifted around it like a sun flare. Narrow shoulders below the unkempt head shifted slightly as I glanced her way, and my unease doubled.
She didn’t like it when I crossed her yard.
She never had.
The trees behind me shifted in a soft swing of movement and a long, dark shape trotted out.
Panic eased at the sight of him. “Are you okay, big guy?” To my shock, the big dog trotted right up to me and pressed his muscular bulk against my leg.
Remembering the glossy stains on his coat during the fight with the vortex monster, I ran my hand over his fur, searching for the damage so I could assess it. I found nothing. No wounds. Not even the dried residue of blood.
I dug my fingers into the thick scruff between his shoulders. “I knew you were magic.” I frowned. “What are you?”
His response was to snuffle against my leg, thick tail sweeping the air behind him.
Boyle bounded back to me on a soft squeal of delight. “Puppy!”
I tried to grab him before he launched himself at the enormous dog, but he managed to evade. He hit the dog’s broad chest hard and wrapped himself around the creature’s neck.
My hand shot out to grab the dog’s muzzle before it could bite.
But all it did was swipe an enormous black tongue over Boyle’s face, making him giggle.
The figure in the window across the yard twitched again. I grabbed Boyle’s hand. “Come on, sweet boy. We need to keep moving. Della’s not happy we’re in her yard.”
His face turned to the ranch house and his little face folded into a frown. “She mean,” he stated unnecessarily.
Understatement of the millennia, I thought.
I started off again, watching as Boyle bounded along beside the dog, who it appeared was coming with us. The baby was chattering as if he’d found a long-lost friend.
The sound made me smile.
5
He stood in the street, staring at the big old house from the shadows. He wasn’t wrong. An enormous power pulsed from within it. He had been wrong about the woman. She wasn’t the source of the power. At least, not all of it.
The energy he’d sniffed within the walls was unlike anything he’d ever tasted. It was both offensive and defensive. Alien but familiar. He hadn’t decided if it was centered within the bones of the house, or if something else fed it.
His research of the area told him there was a lei line beneath the home. He suspected that was what he was sensing. But he’d sniffed out lei lines before. And this one was different. A convergence maybe? A collection of energy at the crossroads of two or more lines?
He stared at the house, seeing the multi-hued lines of power rising in ripples from its walls and roof. The house might be sentient. He’d bumped against a couple of those in the past. They were rare and generally were believed to be fed by lei line magic.
But this house…this old, slightly worn Victorian home was different somehow.
That difference worried him. The people of the Body would be much too interested in it if they knew.
A shock of realization hit him. He’d wondered why they’d sent him to that goddess-forsaken little corpse of a town.
They’d wanted him to find the house and maybe the girl.
He thought of the report he’d been painstakingly writing. He’d been walking a thin line between reporting enough to keep his boss interested, but not telling him a sufficient amount to bring the man to Render.
It was a tightrope he was becoming used to. A dangerous game. But one he increasingly felt compelled to play.
Mitch didn’t have a last name as far as I knew. At least, if he did, he was as reluctant to share it as he was to reveal anything else about himself.
I didn’t even know what he was, exactly. We called him a seer because he knew things nobody else knew. Things he shouldn’t have known. Things he couldn’t have known.
I felt the sting of his magic as I stepped through the curtained door of his shack. It left a sour taste on the back of my tongue. And smelled like pickles.
A man sat cross-legged on a pile of rugs in front of a well-worn leather recliner. His form was encompassed in a purple housecoat that had once had rick-rack along the edges. Beneath the housecoat, a pair of threadbare cotton pants gathered around pale, hairy ankles. His feet were bare. His fiery red hair was neatly combed, parted on one side, and looked only slightly greasy as usual.
“Hello, Glynn,” the seer said as Boyle and I stepped through the door. Boyle ran over and hopped around in front of Mitch, his ears twitching and the little shock of hair between them bouncing manically with his movements. “Hi, Mitch!”
Mitch smiled, turning his bright brown gaze on the excited baby. “Cookies and juice are on the table over there, buddy.”
With a happy squeal, Boyle bounced toward the table in the “kitchen” which consisted of a short counter with a microwave, a small refrigerator, and two cabinets that apparently held everything Mitch needed in the way of food and utensils.
I had no idea how he did it. I’d managed to fill every cabinet in Victoria’s kitchen and still needed to put stuff into baskets.
I sat down on the floor in front of our host, crossing my legs as he had, and waited. I didn’t need to tell Mitch what was going on. He would already know. I didn’t need to ask him what I wanted to ask. He’d already know that too.
He knew everything that happened on the entire street. And I had no doubt he knew more than that.
Boyle pulled the chair from the small table, the legs scraping noisily across the curled and stained slab of linoleum Mitch had thrown over the dirt to delineate the kitchen. He jumped up and claimed his first cookie, stuffing it happily into his mouth.
“He’s a shadow in my mind,” Mitch said.
The words made my heart thump. I frowned. “What does that mean?” Maybe Mitch was speaking in code.
He shrugged, digging in one ear as he thought about my question. “I’ve been watching him since he arrived. But there’s nothing. Only a black smudge that sits across from Victoria.”
“Is he magic?”
Despite the greater world’s assumption that all the magic had been pulled into the cities, the residents of Render knew better. In our small, forgotten place in the universe, we all held our magic close, hiding it from the few non-magic humans who still resided in the dusty, broken town. And from those who would try to bend it to their will beyond the small town.
Mitch nodded without hesitation. “There’s no question. But it’s a different magic than any I’ve encountered. Either he’s really good at masking it, or…”
I waited for the “or” to be fleshed out a bit. Unfortunately, Mitch didn’t seem so inclined. Finally, I asked, “Or?”
Mitch shook his head. “I’m still working on that.”
&nb
sp; Frustration filled me. “Is he dangerous?”
“My instincts tell me, no. But he’s not of Render. So that makes him inherently dangerous, yes?”
I nodded. Leaning closer, I lowered my voice. “Boyle let him into Victoria tonight.”
“Yes.”
“He trusts him.”
That made Mitch frown. Gargoyles were natural protectors. And, though it was true that Boyle wouldn’t come into his magic for a decade or more, the roots of the magic he’d someday exhibit were already in place. His instincts were generally spot-on. Though, because he was so young, I had to believe they were susceptible to outside influence.
As if reading my thoughts, Mitch said, “The boy isn’t infallible. He could be swayed by a sweet treat or a smile.”
I knew he was right. Yet…
“I met him. I sensed magic, but it didn’t feel hostile.”
Mitch nodded. “I’m inclined to agree, Glynn. Though if you’re looking for surety and promises. I can’t give them where this man is concerned.”
I sighed. “Okay. You’ll let me know if…when that changes?”
“Of course.”
Mitch glanced at the door. “Why didn’t your friend come inside with you?”
For a beat, I was confused by his question. “My friend…” Then it hit me. “The dog?”
Mitch folded large, freckled hands together. “The dog.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t sure you allowed dogs.”
Mitch chuckled, lifting his hands to indicate the fifteen foot square shed he lived in. It had once been a gardening shed for the abandoned mansion on the property. I’d asked him once why he’d chosen not to live in the big house. Nobody would have known or cared. The house had been abandoned when the magical family who’d lived there left Render. But Mitch had just shaken his head, giving me an enigmatic smile. “This is my place,” he’d said. “It will always be mine.”
I hadn’t known what he’d meant, but I trusted he knew what he was talking about.
“What do you know about that thing that attacked us tonight,” I asked him.