“There is nothing that can be done for your phoenix or the man,” she said. “The body is dead in one, and the soul in another. They cannot exist without each other. Much like you and your parasite god.”
“You lied then!” Bebe shouted.
“I did not lie,” the Alchemist said, and for the first time her expression took on an emotion, regret. “I promised what advice I could give. And there it is. What was done was not alchemy. If you try to separate them, you will lose both.”
It was Isela’s turn to draw Bebe away. Bebe shook with fury, her face mottled with an uneven flush. Isela leaned her weight on her sister-in-law, more to hold her back. Isela had never seen her in a rage. “You will find cold hearths among the witches for what you’ve done here.”
The Alchemist’s mouth strained downward. “You think that hurts me, witch? I have never been welcome at any hearth. And yet I survive.”
Tariq met Isela’s eyes over Bebe. His expression was clear. Time to make their exit. Isela bodily pulled Bebe toward the door.
“Beryl gave you her friendship and alliance,” Bebe shouted.
“Your high priestess was the first to dare my friendship in years,” the Alchemist agreed. “And then she demanded favors of me as though I were one of hers.” She waved at Tariq. “Tell her she is no longer welcome here. She nor her coven.”
Bebe sucked in hard breath, and Isela felt her tremble. She blinked furiously for a moment. Bebe who loved so freely and joyfully, with no reserve, had loved this woman in whatever way they had known each other.
Then it was as if grief fell away and left only cold anger in its wake. “All will know that you are not to be trusted. Die alone and cold in your greenhouse.”
“So be it, witchling.” The Alchemist bowed her head. “Now leave me to my fate. And I give you to yours. Attempt to unravel what was done to that phoenix, and more than it will die.”
Outside the greenhouse, the cold struck Isela, robbing her of scent and stability for a moment. The thicket was gone. Now a pitted farm road led from the greenhouse down to long fields. The rumble of an old tractor came from a barn, the voices of the farmworkers rising and falling around the noise. Tariq took a good look at both women, assessing them for visible damage and, finding none, led the way. Arms around each other, Bebe and Isela followed.
The late sunlight cast long shadows, but it seemed not enough time had elapsed between when they entered the greenhouse and their departure.
“How is that possible?”
“She has a peculiar effect on time.” Bebe gave her a squeeze in reassurance. “I’m okay. Thank you for holding me back. I don’t know what I would have done—or tried to do—but it wouldn’t have ended well for me. She’s too powerful to take on alone.”
Isela hugged her back. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
“Always,” Bebe said fiercely. “We weren’t born sisters, Isela. But we’re family. Are you okay?”
“She was looking for something in my bloodline. Gold seemed to think she found it. You have to warn Mom.”
Bebe nodded. “She won’t be pleased about how today went. It’s not true, Isela. Your mom asked for nothing without offering a favor in return—an enormous debt to owe to a creature like her. She made no demands. I didn’t know—none of us knew she felt the way she did about Beryl’s alliance with Azrael. I mean, there’s been some rumbling…”
“What kind of rumbling?” Isela tried to keep her voice pitched below Tariq’s hearing. She’d heard the avarice and mistrust in the Alchemist’s voice.
“It’s nothing.” Bebe shrugged. “I think. Witches are social, but we don’t always agree or follow very well outside our individual circles. And we’re not all the same in our practice. It’s hard for us to operate under an umbrella even if that does offer us freedom and protection. There’s some talk about Beryl being chosen to lead us.”
First human resistance, now witches were unhappy with the alliance Azrael and Beryl had made. And the Alchemist, whatever she was, seemed to be on their side. She would have to warn Azrael, but her first concern was for her family’s safety. If Beryl’s position put her—or any of them in danger—Isela would not stop until she’d destroyed everything that threatened them. She’d promised her father, and if there was any comfort in this transformation, it was that she’d be able to do that in ways neither of them could have imagined. Bebe squeezed her again, bumping her with one hip.
“It’s just talk,” she said. “Everybody knows what we have here with Azrael is nothing short of miraculous. It’s to be protected and defended. And temporary. We understand that.”
Temporary. Was it? That had been Azrael’s hope. That eventually others might follow his lead. But how long would that take? Witches could not attain the immortality of necromancers. Temporary could be a century or more. Necromancers had all the time in the world to decide whether or not to allow witches to exist in their territories. And Isela knew that kind of arrangement would grow stale.
Uneven ground forced them to split up. Isela fell a few steps behind, letting her thoughts turn over the possibility that Azrael might be threatened from within and from without. The god’s continued silence troubled her.
Gold?
The response came after a long, heart-stopping minute. The voice sounded ragged and worn, as if from a great distance. And the pain shot into Isela’s right eye.
I’m here, Issy.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose in a futile attempt to relieve the pressure.
Sorry, Issy. I’m still… recovering. She’s very powerful.
Isela knew she should let the god rest, for both their sakes. But curiosity needled her. Why did you resist her? She’s so powerful, and she knows how to use it. She would have made a better host than I am, I assume.
Warmth slid from her breastbone along her back, reminding her of the sensation of Bebe’s arm wrapped around her in comfort and support.
She still hasn’t given up trying to take things by force, no matter what she says. You’re different, Issy. Even after what I’ve done, you treat me like… a friend. Now, let’s talk again later if you want. I can’t keep from hurting you right now, and we both need to rest.
Isela stumbled in a pit in the dirt, and when she looked up, they had rounded a bend where the farm road rejoined the main road. A familiar two-door coupe sat in the long shadows on the roadside about a quarter of a mile away. Bebe and Tariq were speaking about her. Their voices were pitched low but mostly counting on the assumption that she would not be paying attention.
“…and that has fallen to neither you or your sisters?” She could hear the frown in Tariq’s voice.
Bebe said, “I’ve taught her a few things, but she’s not a witch. We assumed Azrael…”
“He’s assigned her combat training to his Aegis.” Tariq shook his head.
“Combat?” Bebe gasped. “What does he expect she’s going to have to fight?”
“The world is an unpredictable place,” he said. “It would serve you all to learn to do more than just defend yourselves—”
“The pack will—”
“And your children,” he finished firmly.
Bebe was silent. Isela could picture her lips pursed together in thought. Bebe was easygoing about everything but her children.
“Azrael…,” Bebe said finally.
Tariq’s head shook once, firmly. “As far as I can tell, nothing. He insists on protecting her himself, with his Aegis, and now us. She wasn’t ready for what happened in there today, and she won’t be. In truth, she’s not a necromancer either.”
“But someone…,” Bebe said. “And she’s capable of powerful geas. She must be taught. The codes at least. I’ll talk to Beryl.”
“That would be good,” Tariq said.
The lights flashed, and the soft sound of the door locks releasing ended their conversation. Bebe opened the passenger door, but Isela slipped behind her to take the cramped back seat.
“Go ahead,” she sai
d, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “I don’t want to interrupt your conversation.”
Why did it always come back to those fucking pigs? The Alchemist sighed. Of all the things she’d done… everything she’d accomplished.
When the car was well away, she whispered an incantation of the oldest kind, peering into the plastic tub of runoff repotting water. She waved her fingers over the still surface, and water rippled but remained dark. She tried again.
The image began at the outer edges and then dissolved. She swore. The god riding the dancer had been stronger than she expected for a little psychopomp, and the Alchemist had wasted too much energy trying to separate the two. A mistake—the dancer and her god were bound not just by pact. It went part of the way to explaining why the dancer survived the deity’s presence. But even the Alchemist was not immune to a little greed. So much power for one so small. Who could blame her for trying? Even the promise of a stronger, more capable host had not lured the deity. Interesting.
The Alchemist knew she should have stopped when she’d gotten the dancer’s full bloodline. When she’d been contacted—recruited, she realized fully—she’d thought it a dead end. All godsdancers were grace-blooded. It was why their dance had succeeded when language had failed—the gods heard the blood in their veins when the dancers moved, recognized it as their own , and came to give grace. This one’s bloodline would be no different. That her mother was a witch was proof enough.
At the third attempt to open a connection with no success, the Alchemist reached for her phone. No doubt it would reveal her to Azrael’s thugs, but by then it would be too late. She would be long gone.
“Our bargain,” she announced when the procession of attendants gave way to a silk-clad voice on the other end.
“You dare question the vow of the Lioness of Petra?” Iron behind the silk for all that.
Kadijah’s face, kohl-lined eyes and serene as a goddess sculpture, appeared in the water. She was smiling. A dangerous sign. But the Alchemist was old enough to remember when Kadijah was a young desert chief’s daughter, cast out for calming a sandstorm and stoned nearly to death when the Alchemist found her.
“I have not stayed alive so long through blind trust, my precious one,” the Alchemist announced. “And you threaten the woman who gave the cub water that she could survive to become the lioness.”
Kadijah was too regal to look petulant, but the slight lowering of her eyebrows gave her away. “My sanctuary is yours, great Circe.”
“Good. I grow weary of the cold and wet in this country.” The Alchemist honored the use of her oldest name with a sniff, though her eyes cast mournfully around the sanctuary she had built for herself amid the hothouse flowers and green things. “I long for the lands of my youth.”
“They are yours.” Kadijah slipped into comfortable benevolence again though Circe recognized the edge to it. “Your home is prepared. Liwa awaits.”
“You banish me to the desert?”
“The greatest oasis in the world,” Kadijah said. “Deep in my territory, where my protection is complete. Your greenhouse is awaiting your touch… Mother.”
“This barren womb is immune to your flattery, necromancer,” Circe said dryly.
Kadijah’s lashes lowered in supplication. “You just have to say the words to fulfill our vow.”
Circe paused. She had no love of necromancers, though she had entertained Kadijah’s affections for long enough to wonder if they might not be pure flattery. She thought of the young witch, Bebe, so like herself in her youth. Even with a litter of her own, she was fearless and impertinent, traits Circe admired in a woman of any age. No flattery there, even in her awe.
The image of the young witch’s glare, cast over her shoulder as she supported the dancer out of the greenhouse, colored her vision for a moment, blotting out even Kadijah’s immortal majesty. Done was done.
“I have the answer to the riddle of your dancer, and the tracking geas is in place.” Circe sighed, sealing her exile with a brief pause. “But you will wait until the little witch is no longer in her presence, or your riddle will go the way of the Sphinx.”
Kadijah’s cheek twitched. A fidget. Circe wondered briefly what made her so eager to prick Azrael’s ire. She certainly wasn’t strong enough to face him alone. So she must have an ally then, and the confidence it gave her.
“Be careful, my beloved one,” Circe murmured. “This game is too dangerous, and I fear you will become fodder in another’s war.”
“Mind your peace, old woman,” Kadijah snapped, all semblance of deference gone. “This is my game to play.”
Circe did not flinch. “I’ll have your word.”
The mask slipped for a brief moment. Beneath it, Circe recognized the same expression looking up from a naturally formed oubliette in red desert stone. Circe had expected pain and defeat in the child’s battered face. But the blood in her bared teeth told a story of rage and a desire for vengeance.
Circe knew now—as she had understood then—that showing compassion or a lack of confidence would be deadly.
“I’ll have your sanctuary and give you everything I have learned about the riddle of Azrael’s dancer,” Circe repeated firmly. “And his allies.”
The mask returned in a wash of avarice. “I, Kadijah Nafisi, vow my protection to your body and soul.” She paused. “And the safety of your witch.”
A spark of jealousy there? Kadijah was too old not to see loyalty or affection. Both were, after all, powerful bargaining tools, or weapons. Perhaps Circe had endangered the young witch more than if she had trusted Tariq and Isela to protect her. Ah well, the die was cast and could not be withdrawn. Bebe was out of her hands now. And Circe must protect herself. Azrael’s wrath was not to be played with.
“I was right then,” Kadijah said. “The dancer is something special.”
Circe sighed. “Yes and no.” At Kadijah’s upraised brows, she continued. “I will show you exactly what I mean.”
Kadijah nodded. “Be ready. You will not have much time. And travel light, old woman.”
Circe did not look at her plants. She would not have been able to hide the pain of their loss. She made her face careless and shrugged. “I am ready.”
She closed the phone as the image disappeared from the water. She overturned the plastic tub, watching the rivulets make their way along the floor, leaving behind streaks of mud and potting detritus. So much built, to be lost. Her fingers trailed the soft petals and waxy leaves, nails scraping beds of moss and soil. She whispered her love and her grief as she went, feeling every year of her age weigh upon her like stones.
The door clattered against the frame behind her as she started up the hill toward the house. She would rebuild. She always did. That was the key to immortality—being able to start again no matter how many times you must. It would be a shame she wouldn’t get to see that phoenix with her own eyes. But one also learned to live with disappointments, big and small, when one survived as long as she had.
Like Orpheus, she was unable to resist casting her gaze over her shoulder one more time. She imagined the horror and grief in his breast rising as it did in her own at the sight of the crumbling structure behind her, taking in the broken glass and mangled frame and the dried remains of abandoned plants and long-dead flowers. Her very own Eurydice, dissolving into the ether of the underworld. She turned her back to go.
Silence dominated the car as Tariq pulled up in front of the building between the Vltava and Vyšehrad Park. The Vogel compound indeed, Isela thought as she peered through the triangular back glass. Tobias descended the front steps at a jog. His shoulders were tight with tension and his hands fisted at his hips. Markus followed more slowly but was no less threatening. Beryl and Evie crowded the doorway with matching expressions of exasperated concern.
Tariq opened the door and put a finger to his lips before either man could shout. “Peace, vlkodlak. Your lady is fine. But she’s earned her rest.”
At the sight of Be
be’s sleeping face, Tobias hesitated. He opened the car door as Isela reached forward to unbuckle Bebe’s seat belt. The look he gave her froze her in her seat. With more tenderness than she had ever seen her middle brother display, he scooped his sleeping wife out of the front seat so deftly she barely stirred, just shifted to a more comfortable position against his chest. Her fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt, and a little smile lifted her mouth. Isela hurried out of the back seat as Markus’s trajectory continued around the front of the car toward Tariq.
“Mark,” she said, placing herself between them. “Tariq is our ally.”
“How dare you turn up with another one of Azrael’s goons,” her brother growled.
She glanced at Tariq for his response, but his expression remained implacable and even submissive. He made no move to come out from behind the door, keeping one foot in the car.
“Markus.” Evie’s voice floated across the distance. “He’s made his vow.”
Markus halted in his tracks, but Isela could almost see the hackles bristling on the back of his neck. Isela turned her attention to Tobias, jogging to keep up with him.
“She’s just tired,” she whispered. “It was a long day. I promise I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.”
Tobias turned on her with an expression that made her shrink away. “I love you, Issy, but if you ever drag my wife into one of your crazy necromancer errands again, I swear to whatever god is currently steering your wheel, I will—”
“Tobias Vogel, shut your damned mouth,” Bebe whispered from his chin. “Right now.”
He looked down, startled, at the woman in his arms. Bebe fought her way free until he was forced to release her or risk toppling them both, slipping to her feet and staring up at her husband.
“Don’t you dare go alpha male on me now,” she said. “I am not your possession.”
Tobias blinked at her, then up at Beryl. “Mom should have—”
Bebe snapped, “You don’t get to tell me where I can and cannot go. Issy is family. And if she needs me, I’m there.” She sucked in a breath and calm, collected Bebe emerged in the space between exhalations. “You’re in charge of bedtime tonight. I need a hot bath and a glass of wine. Night, Issy. Nice to meet you, Tariq.”
Dancer's Flame (Grace Bloods Book 2) Page 15