by Shona Husk
He said he would.
Mylla pointed to the note in his hand.
He nodded and mimed writing, which she took to mean he’d write her something during the day. That would have to do. This would be so much easier if they could talk. Five minutes and everything would be in the open. But for that, the necklace had to be off.
With a last smile, she turned and walked away. Her stomach knotted. Part excitement, part fear, and part hope. She felt reckless and happy and worried and things she hadn’t known she could feel in so long. Freedom was so close. And yet she knew she had to hide it all in case it was snatched away. She had to pull up the mask and shutter the light so the fog could draw closer.
When Mr. Quigley looked at her, all he’d see was her blank face and the fog. She was sure he could see the fog. A man who could bind her will must be able to read thoughts. He must also be in league with the devil. She suppressed the shudder and slipped inside of herself. He must not see.
Oskar read the letter as he lay on his bed. It was too early to be up and working in the garden, dawn had barely broken and the sky was dull and grey. Mylla had written what Thomas had done in the margins of a piece of Shakespeare, the bit where Romeo and Juliet killed themselves before they could save each other. Deliberate? He shuddered and hoped not. Not that he was in love with Mylla. No, he was just helping her, like any good witch would do. Like any decent man would do.
And the sex was necessary.
He winced, not even believing his lie. He’d tipped and fallen straight into what she was offering without even blinking because he was so desperate for a screw. Using magical research to justify it had been a tissue-thin excuse last night, and in daylight he could see straight through the tears.
While he wanted to hate himself, he couldn’t. Not when she’d grinned like that and pressed against him, and all he’d wanted to do was hold onto her. Not being able to talk had the upside of no awkward morning-after chat. No, instead there was the pulsing blood ritual that bound her. He’d have rather had the chat. He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to be sure she was willing to go the full way with the magic, as there were no half measures.
If what the Morrigu was suggesting was true—and for all that She was a shifty bitch at times, She didn’t outright lie and deceive. In fact he was hard pressed to find a time She had ever deliberately mislead a follower. Her way was usually to offer a deal and hope no one read the fine print. Most people didn’t. Most people ended up paying far more than they wanted. When making deals with Goddesses or Gods, it was always a good idea to have the contract checked by a witch, preferably one who’d studied law.
Of course, most people either didn’t believe or didn’t want to believe, or chose to believe witches worshipped the devil. Some did, but the devil burned through people like cigarettes. You could tell a satanic witch as they looked like junkies seeking a magical fix—they died young and often tragically, but that didn’t stop more from trying to take the easy way to magical greatness.
It would almost be easier if Thomas was into that kind of magic.
He re-read Mylla’s note again.
From the blood taking, the words she remembered—including the binding that would make her forget him if he spoke. That made an unexpected lump form in his throat. He tried to imagine her looking at him as if he were a stranger instead of her eyes sultry like summer dusk, full of promises neither of them could keep, but happy to play anyway.
He sighed, he was more than happy to play, but was he ready to pay the consequences? Would Mylla be? Fuck, he didn’t even know if he was able to do what was expected. He crunched up the note and hoped he’d have more luck than Romeo.
By the time he made it to the kitchen for breakfast, Mylla was gone. He had to remind himself it was for the best. He had yet to figure out how to respond to her note. And yet he had to say something. And that was the crux of his problem.
He was going after the necklace first, for the simple reason he needed to cover a lot of ground with Mylla and he couldn’t do it in notes. Writing her a little letter saying he was a witch hoping to bring down Thomas wasn’t the way to go. And that was the easy part.
Words first.
Plot second.
Curse breaking third.
Yeah, not the way the Morrigu wanted it done, but ‘let’s make a baby using magic to destroy my evil great uncle’ was never going to work on paper. It barely worked in his mind, even though he could see why it should work…if he’d had a coven backing him up and helping channel the energy.
He shook his head and cleaned up his breakfast dishes. Sex with an audience was not really his thing, even though it would be less like sex and more like ritual. Trouble was, he didn’t even know her that well, and she wasn’t a witch. No, but she was familiar with Thomas and his creepy brand of magic. At least if he failed he wouldn’t be a statue, he’d be dead and he would’ve died trying the way a warrior should. Wasn’t that the plan he came here with? Mylla had changed that. She’d changed everything. Including him.
Life wasn’t about preparing to die; it was about living the best you could.
Three weeks ago he’d been resigned to his death—he still was. It was her ongoing hell that unsettled him. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his army surplus cams and walked outside.
The morning hadn’t improved; it was dull and heavy. The clouds pressed close and threatened rain. As he stood in the doorway they seemed to thicken and darken. The storm energy traced through the sky. Not magic, but a force that could be tapped into. Would Thomas be tapping in?
Aside from prolonging his own life, what magic was Thomas doing?
The question had been bugging him. What was the point in becoming powerful enough to theoretically live forever and then doing nothing with it? The Morrigu’s words echoed around him, something had changed after Thomas had fought in the war. Oskar knew it was World War One. It wasn’t unusual for witches sworn to Her to join the defense force or become cops. It fitted with what She wanted: warriors who would do Her bidding when required. Men who followed the old ways.
What was unusual was for one to fall off the path. Or had Thomas been pushed?
People didn’t just stumble onto death magic and decide it was a good idea to kill people to draw power. That buzz that serial killers got was them touching power for a second, but they couldn’t harness it. Had Thomas realized during the war what was there, untapped as millions had died? Is that how he’d survived and why he was broken when he came home?
Oskar leaned against the wall and pictured a battlefield, and Thomas surrounded by dying soldiers. He was almost certain the Morrigu had called to Thomas and he’d turned away. Had he already been using death as a power source or had that come later?
Rain pattered onto the ground near his feet and Oskar opened his eyes. It didn’t matter how it had happened. Nothing justified it.
He changed point three in his plan to tell Mason what he’d learned about the curse so that if he failed someone else would have a better chance of success. Someone who’d been initiated and was qualified to wield magic—unlike him.
Point four was now break the curse.
At least he had a plan, something he’d been lacking when he’d first arrived, and he still had almost two months until his birthday. He smiled despite the rain.
As he had no intention of spending the day trapped inside the house, he jogged to the shed. He was fairly damp when he got there. When he turned to look at the house, it was swathed in rain, giving the impression that it might not really be there, and if he blinked it would vanish. A ghost house. He shivered and blamed the rain.
The shed was water tight and there were worse places to sit and watch the weather than on a stool at the work bench. Stashed in the shed he’d found a couple of sixties pulp sci-fi novels, the ones who predicted computers and robots and takeovers by aliens and machines. One gardener had been less interested in the garden and more in reading. Oskar was also enjoying the paranoid notes writte
n in the back about Thomas.
The gardener had discovered he couldn’t leave the property as he’d start choking. The maid was giving him the creeps. She’s a robot sent to spy on me. The statues are watching me. I’m waking up with cuts on my arms. He’s going to kill me.
The weed that had been pressed between the pages had long given up and crumbled away. But if he closed his eyes he could almost smell it. If not for the coven, he might’ve slid from joints to something heavier after his mother’s death and the revelation about his own death. Magic and drugs didn’t mix, though, and he’d made his choice. It hadn’t been a hard one. He’d been a kid crying out for attention and a family, and that’s what he’d gotten. Along with a pay check.
Even then they’d put him in the library hunting down information. A knack for it, Mason had said. Maybe he did, he was certainly more perceptive than some and his meetings with the Morrigu were intense. He was there, he heard Her. He didn’t just get impressions. He frowned. Was he already tapping into more magic than he realized?
He placed the book face down. The spine was already cracked with use, so one more crease wouldn’t matter. Mason had deliberately kept him out of the innermost coven workings while still making sure he got trained. An insidious thought crept up. Perhaps Mason had taken him in because it was better to keep one’s enemies close and Quigley blood needed watching.
But that would mean the friendships he’d made were built on lies, too, and he couldn’t believe that. No one would live a lie for over a decade. They could’ve ignored him, not every youngest son served the Morrigu these days. And not everyone could be trained in magic, although using magic wasn’t a prerequisite for being part of the coven. However, some people had trouble believing witches could use magic without all the trappings modern witchcraft books told them they needed.
He picked up the book again, but he wasn’t really reading the words. His mind was searching for connections in his thoughts, waiting for something to click and drop into place. Two chapters later he had it.
He didn’t have a coven, but the objects new-age witches used had a purpose—to focus will. While he’d trained not to need them, perhaps the act of simply creating them in his mind would be enough. Something that would stop him from being concerned about the amount of magic he’d be wielding to break the curse and kill Thomas. He stopped himself—that wasn’t the intent he should have.
Was he ready to twist the intent the way the Morrigu had said?
He needed to create life out of death. He let the thought settle for a moment, listening for the ring of magic about it. It wasn’t tuned correctly, but already it was a sweeter note than thinking of destruction and killing. He’d work on it.
And he needed to do some work. He re-hid the book and pulled out his blades and tools. They needed cleaning and sharpening. And nothing eased his mind like weapons preparation. He was halfway through when he sensed her. Was it morning tea already? The rain hadn’t let up. He was almost out of his seat to help her when he felt the presence of someone else. Thomas was with her.
He sat back down and pretended to be surprised when they both entered the shed.
“Mr. Quigley. I didn’t expect to see you here.” That was the honest to Goddess truth. While he’d have loved to greet Mylla, he didn’t. He wanted to make sure that he didn’t slip and make her forget him. That would put him back to the start, and while he had weeks until his birthday, the garden would be done by then. Maybe he was working too fast.
“No. I expect you didn’t. Still, I couldn’t have Mylla walking through the rain.” He shook out the umbrella and left it by the door.
Oskar doubted it had anything to do with Mylla’s wellbeing and more like checking to see if the spell had worked. He glanced at Mylla but she looked straight through him. Knifing him between the ribs would have hurt less. He hoped the bastard hadn’t done something else to her. He needed to act, to make life where none existed—the thought rung true this time, that was the focus he needed—sooner rather than later. The longer he dawdled, the greater chance he’d be found out. He’d rather risk an early, slightly unprepared spell than an ambush where he was fighting for his life. He had to pick the time and place.
Thomas seemed to be the kill-first-ask-questions-later, as in never, type.
His great uncle surveyed the shed, and Oskar felt like he was waiting for permission to carry on. “Good to see you working despite the rain.”
“An opportunity to get organized for the next part.”
“Hmm. When do you suppose you’ll be getting to the orchard?”
“After I’ve finished the pergola.” That had been his plan, anyway. Although with the rain shielding the house and disrupting magical energy, perhaps today might be a good day. “I was thinking of taking a cloth to the statues this afternoon. Let the rain do some of the work.” Oskar shoved his hands into his pockets. “If you have a deadline let me know and I’ll do my best to get everything done, I just thought…”
“No deadline. I just enjoy seeing everything cleaned up.”
“If you had a regular gardener—”
“I don’t want people living off me,” Thomas snapped. Then he inhaled and recovered his usual calm tone. “I much prefer a spring clean to a leech who gets paid for doing very little. Why pay someone day in day out for what you have done in weeks?”
“True. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Well think on it. There is no permanent job here for you, Mr. Clark.”
Oskar kept his face neutral, but that confirmed his suspicion that Thomas had listened to his phone call to Mason. He wouldn’t risk calling again, even though he wanted to pass on what he’d learned.
Thomas picked up the umbrella and beckoned to Mylla, who had been standing near the bench like a shadow. She flicked her gaze at Oskar and for a moment he saw a glimmer of her behind the blank expression. Then it was gone as she turned away and joined Thomas under the umbrella. It was enough to re-assure him she was alright, for the moment.
But if Thomas hadn’t been with her there would have been some note passing, and maybe a kiss or three that had nothing to do with research. He still had to work out a way to respond to her note, but that might be a job for this afternoon. Then he could give it to her while they did the dishes.
Yeah. That was sounding like a good idea. And his body made the next jump to having Mylla in his bed again. As tempting as that was—really tempting—it was a risk he didn’t want to take on a regular basis. He finished his coffee and ate the biscuits while he stared out the window at the statues.
The sky was still heavy and thick with low-slung clouds. It wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. On the other hand, the drizzle hadn’t become a down pour, just a steady patter. He could give himself a couple of hours in the rain before lunch. The ultimate cold shower.
Chapter 12
Spread over the dining table was the silverware. It was dull and tarnished, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in…cleaned in ten years, since the last gardener. She wiped her cloth carefully over the butter knife. Her reflection clear, the necklace visible. Yet she still hadn’t mastered touching it. However, seeing it and remembering it was there was progress.
From the other end of the table, Thomas read his newspaper and glanced up occasionally. The order to clean and polish thrummed in her body and she let it take over, as if she were obeying him perfectly and unquestioningly. Her body worked while her mind spun. Keeping fog on the outside and her thoughts on the inside near the shuttered light seemed to be working. This morning she’d made sure to act like she didn’t see Oskar. And he’d made sure to address only Mr. Quigley. Did he suspect that she and Oskar were playing him, waiting for a moment to escape?
Or did he think Oskar had said something to her and enacted the spell? It would be best if he did think that, as then he would assume there was no danger.
She started on the next knife, rubbing on the paste and then wiping it off until it shone, light catching on the metal. It rem
inded her of his little knife. The one he used to cut her. That was silver. Her necklace was silver.
Not a coincidence. But did it matter?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know enough about what was going on. At night she dreamed of shadows coming to eat Mr. Quigley and the smell was everywhere. Well, most places. Downstairs and outside the air seemed cleaner and lighter, even today as the rain fell obscuring most of the yard from the house.
Next piece of silverware.
The newspaper rustled and was placed on the table. “I want you to do a roast beef on the weekend. I think the gardener will be done by then. I will ensure you have everything you need to make my favorite pudding, too.”
She nodded as expected, her hands cleaning the knives. Knives. Silver. Dinner. The three words chased around the lamppost in the middle of her mind, like stray dogs trying to catch the thought. Even as she thought it, they became dogs—she could see them clearly. They stopped and howled as a statue appeared next to the post.
An Oskar statue.
Mr. Quigley was preparing for Oskar’s last dinner. Her heart hiccupped and her hands almost stilled. The butter knife gripped tight in her hand.
How easy would it be to get up and shove the knife through his neck? She could see the blood spilling the way hers had so many times. Then the thought was gone and all she was left with was the stain of red on silver. What had she been thinking?
“Is something the matter?”
“May I be excused?” The words slid off her tongue by rote.
He flicked his hand at her, dismissing her. After delivering morning tea, he’d given her the direct order to sit and clean. He’d also been angry. Oskar seemed to annoy him just by existing. Perhaps he’d been too calm, or maybe Mr. Quigley hadn’t been able to catch Oskar slacking off. He was always busy and acting like he was doing what was expected, nothing more, nothing less. It was another reason to like Oskar. He knew how to fool Mr. Quigley. If she was alone, she’d have been smiling. Instead her face remained carefully blank as she placed down the silverware and stood up.