I’m not at home; can you bring me some clothes? Just a few things, I can buy more.
I didn’t need to tell her that I’d heard everything. There would be plenty of time to talk on the way to New Orleans.
Kk. See you soon. Just waiting for the sun to drop.
Maia sent me back a crescent moon emoji, and while I couldn’t help but smile, it also sucked. That was how my friends and I had signed off all our text messages... Ugh. Why did the past have to hurt so damn much?
“No. No fucking way, that is not happening. Why didn’t you tell me?” Ophelia’s voice echoed through the apartment again. She was talking to Eli, I could tell by how irate she sounded. They’d been fighting a lot since we’d come home from Spain. Ophelia was just different... but I couldn’t quite figure out how. More pressing was how I was going to get out of my curtains, and grab some of Maia’s clothes without giving everything away and then getting out of the apartment without Ophelia asking me any questions. She always knew when I was lying, and I was way worse at it when I was upset. I chewed my lip anxiously, tasting the coppery tang of blood as I bit down harder than I’d meant to.
“I’m on my way,” she snapped. I could hear her boot heels thudding across the hardwood, and then the apartment door slammed again, jolting me out of my misery for just a moment and almost making me drop my phone.
Did she just leave?
That would make this way easier.
Suki meowed from outside the curtain and then poked her head inside. I peeked out into the living room through the space she’d made in the velvet material. Sure enough, the coast was clear, and the sunlight had faded just enough to let me pass.
“I always know that you’re on my team, Suki,” I said, reaching down to stroke her midnight black head. She rubbed her face against my fingers in response and followed me into the kitchen.
Maia’s duffel bag was stuffed under the couch she slept on. I frowned as I knelt to yank it out. Ophelia should really get her a foldout bed; this was just pathetic. No wonder Maia was cranky all the time. Even I had my own bed, and I was just a freeloading vampire.
I reached into the duffel and grabbed a few things. A shirt, some shorts, a jacket... I didn’t know what she liked to wear. I was worried that Ophelia would come back at any moment and then there’d be even more questions to answer that I didn’t want to deal with.
I pushed the duffel back under the couch and stood up. The table was covered in candles and dried herbs and a large black marble bowl sat in the middle of a sea salt circle. I shivered and rushed past the table, I didn’t like the feeling I was getting from it.
I’d have to ask Maia what all of that was about when I met up with her. I opened the apartment door and paused.
“Bye, Suki,” I said, turning to wave at Ophelia’s familiar as she jumped up on the table and sat next to the bowl. “Don’t drink any of that,” I warned, pointing at the water in the stone bowl. “It seems a little sketchy to me. I’ll be back in a few days... ” I wiggled my fingers at her and blew her a kiss before closing the door behind me.
“At least, I hope I’ll be back,” I muttered. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I got off the bus in New Orleans.
Maybe I’d like it there.
Maybe I’d find some Laudans who would be willing to teach me what I wanted to know.
Maybe I’d stay.
I swung my backpack over my shoulder and rushed down the stairs.
You didn’t leave a note.
I hesitated with my hand on the art deco knob of the front door. I looked over my shoulder and up the stairs.
She’ll live.
The streetlights were just starting to come flicker to life. I didn’t have time for this crap. The bus was leaving soon, and I had to get to the bus station to meet Maia. I took a deep breath and then pushed through the door and ran for the park.
Maybe I’ll send her a postcard from the French Quarter.
7
Ophelia
The apartment door slammed as Maia ran out. The sound of her heavy boots echoed in the hallway and I winced slightly as I heard the front door of the building slam open and closed.
Teenagers. Why were they always the goddamn same?
I peeled off my jacket, threw it on my bed, and stared into the kitchen. Literally every single thing I’d told Maia not to touch without my supervision was spread out over the kitchen table. Candles I’d dipped myself for special occasion castings were smoking and dripping onto the painted wooden surface. Incense I hadn’t burned since the last eclipse was spilling out of a burner I’d had since the turn of the century. I let out a furious breath and marched over to the table.
“What a mess,” I muttered, running my finger through the ring of salt that Maia had hastily scattered around the bowl. “You couldn’t keep anything contained in that.” I shook my head and look at Suki who had jumped up on the chair Maia had occupied.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. You’re a conspirator in all of this,” I said sternly. Suki didn’t seem worried, and she began to wash herself, ignoring my annoyance.
As I picked up the candles and scraped at the wax on the table, I grudgingly admitted that Maia hadn’t done a terrible job of her setup. Sure, she was missing a few key ingredients, and she had used garlic salt instead of sea salt in more than a few places… was that marjoram?
She’d gotten water on my grimoire. Water. I could handle a lot, but for some reason this was too much. I brushed my fingertip over the spots of wet ink and curling paper and I gritted my teeth. It’s just water.
But it was more than that. This book had taken me years to fill in, all of my memories of my childhood lessons at my aunt’s knee. Lessons I’d tried so hard not to forget in all the years that they’d been gone. Ruined by some careless splashing.
I bit my lip furiously as I scooped it up and rushed to the kitchen counter, dabbing at the pages with a tea towel. I knew that Maia didn’t understand what she was meddling with, but this hurt.
I kicked a cupboard door closed and grimaced as I remembered that Lacey was asleep in the next room. I’d never asked her if anything I did woke her up, I just assumed that she slept like the dead. Eli never moved when he stayed over and spent the day occupying space in my bed, but I’d never bothered to ask him either.
I gritted my teeth harder as I noticed another cupboard door ajar. Had she been in my wine stash too? I reached in and took out a bottle.
Half empty.
That little shit.
I shoved the bottle back inside and slammed the door shut. I was going to have a serious discussion with that kid about boundaries—magical and personal—as soon as she decided to drag her ass back to the apartment. Maia didn’t stay angry for long, and as soon as she got hungry, or ran out of cash, she’d be back.
My cell phone began burbling the happy ringtone that David had pre-set for me and I groaned. Maybe when Maia had calmed down I could get her to fix that for me too.
Eli’s name flashed across the screen.
I looked out the kitchen window to check the level of the sun. It was way too early for him to be awake.
“What.”
No time to beat around the bush. I had work to do here, and these days it seemed like every tiny distraction was enough to set me on edge.
“I need you to come to Spiral,” Eli’s voice sounded thin and far away. He was obviously holed up in Bishop’s office, or the underground recording studio the Laudan boss had installed in the bowels of the ancient club.
“Why? I just got home from work and I have a giant mess to clean up—“
“There’s a bigger mess happening down here. Bishop wants to talk to you.”
Shit.
I don’t know who had decided that I was some kind of Laudan sounding board, but Bishop had been far too interested in my opinion lately, and I didn’t like it at all.
“It’s Lacey,” Eli said when my pause dragged too long.
My mouth went dry at th
e mention of her name.
“What about her?” Which really meant, what has she done now?
“I can’t explain it over the phone; you just need to come down at talk to Bishop. He’ll be able to answer your questions.”
I knew what that meant, it meant that Eli had done his very best to make sure that he knew so little about what was going on that he wouldn’t have to take any responsibility for the outcome. Typical.
I threw the tea towel into the sink with a smack. “Fine,” I snapped. “I don’t have time for this shit, so it better be serious, or you’re both going to wish you’d died again.”
I ended the call and shoved my phone into my pocket before grabbing my jacket off the bed.
There was a rustle from the living room, and I peeked through the doorway at Lacey’s curtained sanctuary. It was almost sundown, but she liked to sleep late. I took a step into the room and readjusted the curtains that covered the high windows, blocking out the shaft of sunlight that had rested over the entrance to her section of the living room.
“Lacey?” I said softly, not expecting a response. Suki was seated near the edge of the curtain, staring up at me with her emerald eyes. “I know, I know. I have to go. You know I love cleaning up other people’s messes,” I muttered to my familiar. She yawned and blinked at me slowly before worming her way under the curtains and disappearing under the heavy velvet.
Summarily dismissed by my own cat, I turned and strode out of the apartment; the door opened without my touch, and flew closed behind me, a cloud of purple vapor flipping the tumblers in the lock as I started down the stairs.
Since I’d met Maia my powers had seemed to be growing steadily. Or maybe I was just noticing their manifestation more. The magic in my veins that used to be dormant now seemed to boil and shudder with every heartbeat. I’d lived so long as a “normal” person that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have powers.
“Hiding in plain sight is one thing,” my aunt had said. “But your magic wants to be seen. Hecate is proud of the gifts she has given her Daughters, the more you use it, the more it will present itself to you. If you forget it, if you push it away, the goddess will turn her three faces from you, and your magic will forget you too…”
As a child, that thought had always terrified me. Every time I couldn’t perform a spell, or I burnt the pottage, my sister would tease me saying that my magic had forgotten me… When I was nine, I didn’t want to be forgotten. I was desperate not to be forgotten. But as the years had spun around me, all I wanted was to fade into the background. I was safer that way.
The apartment building door slammed open as I approached it, and I stepped through the remnants of the faintly purple mist that had flipped the deadbolt.
It didn’t feel like I had a choice now.
I’d felt different since we’d been in Spain. Magdalena had done something to me while I was under her power, and it felt like she’d gotten into my bones. I hated hearing her name come out of Maia’s mouth because it meant that I had to think about her. That ancient witch in her ancient dusty bedchamber with her ancient leather books. Plotting and murdering and cackling away to herself.
It made me sick that she had used me, and it made me sicker still that I couldn’t seem to get her out of my head.
A group of teenagers on the subway watched me carefully and obviously as the train shuddered towards my stop. One of them was Laudan, and he wasn’t trying terribly hard to hide it. His teeth glinted in the hollowing light of the subway car and his moonshined eyes followed me as the group pushed and jostled around the railings. The girls laughed, too loudly for the jokes that were being told, but who was I to judge.
Hitea.
I barely heard the whispered name the Laudan’s had for my kind. Most of the time it didn’t bother me, but this time it was whispered like a curse and I narrowed my eyes in the group’s direction. If they weren’t already on my shit list, the only Laudan’s who were brave enough to call me within earshot were lucky enough to already be double dead. I didn’t recognize this punk.
He saw me looking at him; the smile that spread over his face was liquid and charming, and I could see why he’d been turned. He looked like the kind of guy who didn’t need to try very hard to get what he wanted. A smooth criminal, a fast talker, a panty dropper.
A piece of shit, no doubt about that. Laudan’s had trashy taste when it came to their pets. I’d have to mention that to Bishop when I saw him.
“You like what you see?”
The girls clustered around the Laudan snickered and looked me up and down with judgement in their eyes.
Great. As though tonight wasn’t off to a shit enough start.
He moved closer, clearly annoyed that I wasn’t taking the bait. “I’m talking to you, hitea.”
I glared at him and tightened my grip on the metal bar I was holding. I didn’t have time for this shit.
“I heard you,” I said quietly. “I just don’t talk to little Laudans who don’t know their manners.” He blanched a little bit, surprised that I knew what he was. My glance flickered to the girls hovering behind him. “Do they know you’re planning to feed on them tonight? Were you going to take them to Spiral and show them a ‘good time’ before getting some takeout?” His eyes widened, and the girls behind him began to talk amongst themselves, they’d heard enough of what I’d said to be wierded out.
“They might not know what you are,” I whispered, my words only for him. “But I do, and I know your boss, and he’s not going to take kindly to you fishing for strays…”
The Laudan opened his mouth to say something, but the next station echoed over the loudspeaker and I held up my finger to silence him, pretending to listen intently to the announcement.
“Good talk, I’ll be sure to bring you up when I see Bishop.”
The subway car lurched to a stop and the doors slid open.
“You… you know Bishop?”
Welcome to the conversation, boyo. I winked at him and stepped through the doors, flipping up the collar of my leather jacket as I turned.
I heard the Laudan’s roar of anger at the same time my magic reared up to pull me around to face his charge.
With barely a blink, my hand was around his throat, and I had lifted him off the ground. The screams of the girls he’d left behind on the train echoed briefly before the doors closed and the train zipped away down the track.
“I should have just let you bite me, you little shit. Then you’d know why the Laudan’s treat me with respect. Obviously you’ve just been listening in doorways and trying to pick up the lingo so you don’t look like such a fresher. But it’s not working.” I tightened my grip on his throat, allowing my magic to add a little pressure to my fingers. The Laudan struggled, clawing at my hand, but it made no difference to me. My magic was doing all the heavy lifting here, and that included the protection it offered my flesh.
“So, what we’re going to do, is you’re going to apologize to me, and then you’re going to drag your ass back to whatever flophouse you crawled out of tonight and you’re going to think about how best to explain to Bishop that you were trying to bring innocents into his club. And you’d better think about it fast… because I’m on my way to meet with him right now.”
“You’re full of shit,” he spat, his teeth cutting into his lips as he thrashed.
“Do you really think so?” I said calmly, feeling my palm heat up just a little as my magic swirled in my stomach. The Laudan yelped as his flesh began to burn just a little.
“Fine! Fine! I’m sorry!”
I relaxed my hand and took a deep breath, pulling my power back. He fell to the platform like a sack of wet dirt and lay there groaning. I poked him with the toe of my boot.
“Get up and get the fuck out of here.” He scrambled to his feet, wiping at the blood that had spattered over his cheek and chin. “Whoever turned you is fishing in the wrong end of the pool,” I said with a snarl. “Now, go on, scat. I can hear the next train coming,
and I don’t want to have to explain to Bishop why I had to throw you in front of it.”
The young Laudan’s lip curled, and I knew that he was fighting the urge to attack me again. I knew who had turned him. He was Meridian’s type; that much was clear.
The train pulled into the station and people spilled out onto the platform. If he attacked me now, he would risk having the cops called on him, and that wasn’t even the worst thing that could happen.
I waved as he turned and ran for the train, pushing through the crowd to get into the car. The doors closed, and I turned for the stairs, following the stream of people heading for the exit. I didn’t need to watch the train pull away. I knew he was making threatening gestures at me through the window and making a fool of himself in front of the other passengers.
The last time a Laudan had tried to take a bite out of me, he’d been blown through a wall. I should have let him bite me. That would teach him a lesson, and if he really was Meridian’s krŭvno dete, it would hit them both where it hurt.
I could see the muted red glow of Spiral’s neon sign in the distance and I tried to shake off the worry I felt for Lacey. It was more of an annoyance that anything, I wasn’t her babysitter, that was Eli’s job, and the fact that he was pushing all of the responsibility for her flailing around back onto me was starting to get on my nerves.
Whatever I was here for, it better be really fucking serious.
8
Maia
I don’t know how I expected that I was going to get any sleep on that bus ride. 12 hours with Lacey while she was wide-awake should have been a dead giveaway that sleep shouldn’t have been on my agenda.
“What are you trying to find in New Orleans? What did you see in the scrying bowl? You’re so lucky that Fee shows you all these cool things, I was really hoping she’d show me too, or let me try but I don’t think it would work out the same way. Do you think I’ll be able to find the Laudans who live in the city? Where do you think they’d be? Definitely not the cemetery, that’s just silly—“
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