by Sam Cheever
The door opened and Hawk stood silhouetted by the moonlight behind him. His eyes glowed briefly and then dulled. He held up both hands, palms outward. “I’m a friend,” he told us.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I answered. Power throbbed in my voice, turning it husky as it sliced the air between us.
Hawk shoved his hands into his pockets. “Glynn, I didn’t lie to you. What I told you was true.”
Art’s energy dissipated, and he stared at Hawk as if he was seeing him for the first time. “Are you him?”
Hawk’s face tightened. He stepped inside and the night thickened behind him, horking an enormous black dog into Victoria’s living room. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Hawk said.
I looked from one man to the other. “Is he who? What’s he talking about, Hawk?”
“An urban legend. Nothing more.”
“You’re saying he doesn’t exist?” Art asked, looking almost angry.
“No.” Hawk bit off the word in a tone that brooked no further discussion. “We need to talk about where we go from here.”
“Go?” I asked. “I can’t go anywhere. I’m not leaving the portal unprotected.”
“Can you move it?” Hawk asked.
I felt my eyes go wide. “Have you lost your mind?”
To my surprise, he chuckled, the sound almost a growl in his throat. “A long time ago, yes. But that has nothing to do with this.”
Nicht trotted over and shoved his enormous head into my belly, nearly knocking me off my feet. I scratched his big ears and he tilted into the caress, one of his big feet whacking the air near his belly.
Goofy dog.
“How about closing it down?” Hawk asked.
I frowned, the enormous black head still pressing into my stomach. Years ago, I remembered reading something about that in my Grams’ journals, but I couldn’t remember much about it. “It’s been theorized about. But I don’t believe it’s ever been done,” I told him. Because I did remember that.
“But, it’s possible?” His expression was hopeful. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he really did want to help us.
“I don’t know. I’d need to research it.” I fixed him with a hard stare. “But that will take time. If Martin acts quickly, we might not have that much time.”
Hawk scraped a hand over his chin, the crackle of his stubble filling the silence. “I’ll get us some help in case the Body attacks. But we need to convince your neighbors to leave.”
Art and I shared a look. His eyes were as big as mine felt. “They’ll never leave,” I told Hawk.
“These people,” Art added, “─have been here all their lives. They’ve gotten really good at hiding…at giving up everything but the bare necessities, to stay below the Body’s radar so they don’t have to leave their homes.”
“You need to help me convince them,” Hawk said, his gaze locked on mine. “Or they’ll be killed.”
I finally gave in to the twin pressures of shock and Nicht’s big, hard head, and dropped onto the couch. What he was asking for was impossible. But watching all of them die…all my neighbors…friends…people I’d known all my life.
I suddenly found it hard to pull air into my lungs.
There was movement across the room and Hawk was suddenly crouching down in front of me. “We need to make them understand, Glynnie.”
I blinked at the sound of my nickname on his lips. I stared into his handsome face for a long moment, a mixture of emotions roiling through me. The battle between the divergent feelings made me dizzy. For a long moment, I couldn’t speak. Then he reached out and placed a hand on my knee.
It was firm and hot and comforting.
And I didn’t want that comfort. Not from him.
I placed my hand over his, hesitating only the briefest of moments as his eyes widened, and then shoved the hand away. Nicht lowered himself to his belly with a long sigh.
“You lied to me. Again!”
Hawk didn’t look away. He didn’t deny. He didn’t try to persuade. He only looked into my eyes and showed me the pain in the wide hazel gaze. “Glynn, I want to help.”
I could see the sincerity in his eyes. In the tightness of his shoulders. In the proud lift of the square jaw. “Did you really bring people out of Indy? Release them?”
“I did.”
“Then why did the Magistrate…?”
“Like I told you, I haven’t burned that bridge yet. I’m trying to keep my job for as long as I can. Once they know what I’ve been doing…”
“You won’t be able to save any more people,” Art said softly.
Hawk’s gaze shot to my brother and settled. “We need to know whose side you’re on in this.” he told Art.
My brother didn’t hesitate. “Glynn’s.” But his gaze fell, and a new tautness found his shoulders.
Hawk stood, moving to stand slightly in front of me. “But?”
Artur slid me a look. “But, I might be compromised.”
Hawk’s hands curled into fists. “Compromised how?”
“He’s talking about the portal,” I said when Art merely glowered back at Hawk. “He has no memory of trying to open it.”
Hawk swore softly at the confirmation. “Who’s been in your head?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
“How are you going to do that,” I asked.
Art glanced my way. “Sissy can do a scan, can’t she?”
Hope flared. “She can.”
“The witch?” Hawk asked, his brows lowering. “Does she have enough juice to pull that off?”
Art and I shared a look and, for the first time in what felt like days, shared a real laugh.
We’d pushed all the furniture against the walls and rolled the ancient oriental rug away from the center of the floor. Art, of course, took the opportunity to tweak me about my housekeeping when we uncovered what looked like a few years of debris beneath the rug.
“It’s not my fault,” I told him after slugging his arm. “Boyle shoves dirt under there so I won’t make him clean it up.”
“Uh, huh,” Art said with a smile.
I slugged him again.
He was sitting cross-legged in the center of the room, surrounded by a chalk circle Sis had drawn on the hardwood floor.
Sis worked around him, placing candles in strategic spots and arranging an array of crystals between the candles.
Boyle rode the hellhound through the house, one arm waving above his head like he was a bronco rider. “What is that on my baby’s head?” I asked my friend.
Sis glanced up and grinned. “It’s a cowboy hat. He’s a cowboy.”
I arched a brow in her direction. “It has pictures of fish all over it.” I was pretty sure the hat had been Sissy’s fishing hat when she was ten years old. The wide brim drooped over Boyle’s tiny face, the shock of orange hair between his ears sticking out the front like a bright, silky arrowhead.
Sis shrugged, her lips twitching. “It was the only one I had with a wide brim. He likes it.”
I didn’t tell her my brother had brought him a cowboy hat. She thought she was making the baby happy and tweaking me at the same time. Why should I spoil her fun?
Hawk was bent over the kitchen table, talking strategy with someone on the phone. I assumed he thought it would be useful should we end up in a confrontation with the Body. I had no idea what he was planning. There was no strategy which would allow us to win that battle.
We simply didn’t have enough firepower.
Sis caught me staring at Hawk. I must have been scowling.
“Judging by the glower on your face, I’m guessing you haven’t found any magic bullets in Grams’ journal?”
Sighing, I ran a hand over the yellowed pages, my fingers mapping Grams’ large, curlicued handwriting and feeling the occasional indentation where she’d pressed too hard with the pen. “It’s not that I haven’t found any bullets,” I told my best friend. “It’s that I could be looking at a whole six shooter full of
the things and not know it.”
Sis raised her brows. “A bit rusty in your Latin?” All trace of Sissy’s amusement fled her pretty face, replaced by a decidedly “I told you so” glint. I’d always hated Latin when we were growing up. Sis had excelled in it. She’d nagged me incessantly during our years at Render High, explaining over and over again how important Latin was. It was the language of both magic and science. Which made it more important than anything.
“It’s not the Latin. I can read Latin,” I told her, narrowing my gaze in defiance. “But Grams used a shorthand type of Latin that completely eludes my deciphering abilities.”
Sissy shook her head and returned to her task.
Hawk disconnected and strode into the living room. He looked at me. “Have you found anything?”
I felt my glower deepen. “This will take some time,” I told him.
He held my gaze for a moment, and I thought he was going to call my bluff. Then he nodded. “I’m going out to meet someone. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Who are you going to meet?” I asked.
He shook his head, sliding his phone into his pocket. I envied him that phone. I hadn’t had one since we’d gone into hiding over three years ago. Like electricity, phone service was too easy a trail to follow. “I don’t have permission to tell you that. Hopefully, when I get back, I’ll be able to fill you all in.”
I didn’t respond. He wanted us to trust him, but he seemed unwilling to trust us.
“Glynn?”
I resisted looking up. “Yeah?”
The floor creaked and I felt him moving close. My head jerked up when he crouched in front of me. “What?”
He fixed his intense hazel gaze on me. I felt oddly unwilling to look away. “It’s not my information to give. This person has a lot to lose by joining our fight. It’s not that I want to keep secrets.”
I looked for any sign of evasion in his expression and found none. Though, to do what he did, he’d have to be really good at lying. I shrugged.
He stayed there for a moment longer and then brushed my bare ankle with a feather-soft touch—just the tip of one finger. The contact happened so quickly I might have imagined it. And then he stood.
I watched him leave and glanced at Sis. “How much longer until you’re ready to perform the spell?”
“Twenty minutes. Maybe more. This is complex.”
I made a sudden decision. “I’ll be back.”
Sis didn’t ask me where I was going, but I could feel her gaze burning a spot between my shoulder blades as I left. I climbed the steps to the third floor of the big house. Boyle’s bedroom door was open, his room cluttered with toys and strewn with discarded clothes. With everything that had been going on, I hadn’t had time to tidy it up for a couple of days.
It was amazing the amount of mess one small gargoyle could make in just two days.
I sighed, grabbing a muddy pair of shoes near the window and dropping them into the laundry basket. I hung up a few shirts and folded some shorts, settling them into a drawer in Boyle’s long dresser.
I knew I was putting off the inevitable. I also knew why. Some things were just uncomfortable. I wouldn’t do what I was about to do if I had any other way. But my world was tilting on the edge of a dangerous precipice. And I was going to need some help to save it.
Finally, when I’d delayed as long as I dared, I settled cross-legged onto Boyle’s bed, closing my eyes. I rested my hands on my knees, palms up to give the energy an open space within which to move. With a final, deep sigh, I pulled the energy I needed forward.
The first thing I noticed was her scent. It had always been distinctive, a combination of vanilla, Lavender, and clean sweat.
Grams had worked hard all her life. She’d worked with her hands, bending her back into every task. She’d never sought out the ease of machines to do her work. As far back as I could remember, she’d washed her clothes by hand and had done every job in Victoria without the advantage of electricity or mechanized tools. Where Grams had grown up, electricity hadn’t been a thing. And she’d clung to those early experiences until the day she died.
Grams eased into view. The familiar sight of her, rocking back and forth in her favorite wooden rocker, nearly made me smile. The light played over her slender form, indistinct and wavering. The diffuse illumination stole a dozen years from her face and softened the droop in her narrow shoulders as she worked at something in her lap.
“Hello, Grams,” I said, the hands resting on my knees burning slightly as the calling magic oozed through my palms.
She turned as if surprised, her wiry gray hair falling into her eyes with the sudden movement. She shoved it away, favoring me with a wide, sweet smile. “Child. What a nice surprise.”
In my mind, I unfolded myself from the bed and walked over to her, bending to kiss her soft, crepey cheek.
Her touch slipped over my face, rough with callouses and dry from spending too much time in soapy water. Beyond her usual scent, her skin held the familiar aroma of portal magic.
I always wondered if mine held the same scent. I suspected it did.
“You’re looking well,” I said.
She barked out her familiar laugh. “Liar. But things are not nearly as difficult here as they were. I’m getting the rest I need.” Her gnarled hand cupped my chin with fond tenderness. “How is your brother?”
I didn’t stop the impulsive roll of my eyes because it had always made her laugh. Most adults found sibling bickering tiring. Grams had always been amused by ours. “She used to say it was a sign that we were forging our own ways. And that, in the end, we’d be all the better for it.
But her sharp features folded into a frown. “What’s wrong, Glynnie?”
The fond nickname in her voice nearly brought me to tears. She’d always called me that, never using my full name, Glynneth. I hated that name. And with her usual intuition, Grams had known.
I wrapped my fingers around her warm, calloused hand. “We have trouble, Grams. I need your help.”
“Of course, dear. What can I do?”
“Tell me about the portal. How does Victoria protect it?”
24
I descended the stairs to the living room a half-hour later, my mind spinning. I found Art still in a cross-legged position in the center of the circle, eyes closed.
He was levitating a foot above the floor.
A painful pressure clogged my ears and made my skin feel tighter than normal. The candle flames flickered in an unnatural rhythm, their light a dancing golden glow against the walls. Between the candles, the crystals glowed steadily, their illumination throwing fractured light that bathed Art in geometric patterns of silver, purple, and green.
Sis stood at the apex of a triangle she’d drawn around the circle, its curved lines bisecting each of the three “walls” of the triangle at their exact center.
My friend’s eyes glowed with an eerie yellow light. Matching yellow energy sifted through the air above her raised palms.
As I stepped down onto Victoria’s living room floor, the glow left Sissy’s eyes. The candle flames rose a dozen inches above their waxy columns, and the clogging pressure popped.
Art’s body slowly dropped to the floor and his eyes opened. He looked dazed, his eyes blank. He stared straight ahead, but I got the impression he wasn’t seeing what was in front of him.
Sissy walked over to me as the light slowly died from the crystals. She looked tired. She dropped heavily to a step and rubbed her temples in small, tight circles. “He’s definitely under the influence of someone.”
The weight of worry in my gut grew heavier. “Can you tell who?”
“No. I wish I could.” She frowned. “But it’s someone powerful. And the foreign energy has been building for a while, slowly accumulating at his core.”
“Like how long? Are we talking weeks? Months?”
“Years,” Sis told me, looking worried. “At least three years.”
The implication
of that hit me hard. Art had left Render three and a half years earlier. He’d been at the Body for most of that time. “It’s someone at the Body,” I told my friend.
She nodded. “Most likely. Or, at least, someone in Indy.”
I contemplated her words for a moment, considering the possibilities. “A friend?” I asked, thinking about what Art had told me about the other ten assistants he trusted with his secrets.
Sissy thought about it for a beat. Finally, she shook her head. “Hopefully not. To do this to someone is…” She frowned. “This is the worst kind of invasion, Glynn.”
I thought about that. “It would be someone he spends enough time around to create a deep, slow layering of the intrusive energy.”
She nodded.
“Can you sever the connection,” I asked, my voice hopeful.
Sissy’s expression was sad, touched with pity. “No. I’m sorry. If I knew who’d placed it…maybe.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Art has very little magic.”
Sissy’s eyes went wide. “You’re wrong, Glynn. Your brother is brimming with magic.”
“That’s impossible. He’s never shown any signs of it,” I objected.
“That might be,” she told me. “But he’s very powerful.”
My gaze slid to my brother, who sat unnaturally still, his gaze blank. “Why would he hide it from us?”
Sissy shrugged. “He might not know how to access it. Or he might not have wanted to access it.” Her gaze held mine, filled with unspoken meaning.
Memories slid through my mind. Artur resisting Grams’s instruction, disappearing to play with his friends, messing up his portal homework so badly it didn’t seem possible. His almost gleeful declaration that, since I was so obviously better suited to protecting the portal, he was going to go to Indy and find something else to do.
I’d supported him then─even been happy that he was taking his lack of magic so well. If I’d known…
Anger burned hot in my breast. He’d left me to bear the full weight of our family’s legacy because he hadn’t wanted to be tied down. He’d wanted to go sow his wild oats. Enjoy life. And he’d thrown me to the wolves to gain his freedom from responsibility.