Devil's Bargain

by R. L. King

  But when he spoke, his voice was calm and even. “I can’t do that, Madame Minna. I’m sorry, but I can’t. And I think you know if it comes down to a fight between us, you won’t win.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps not. But if you think you can get yourself, the woman, and the three children out of here without losing any of them, you are mistaken. Tell her that. You owe her honesty in this, if you have set yourself as her protector.” Her gaze flicked between us. “And know this: even if somehow you do manage to get everyone out safely, unless you kill me you will never be free of me. The promise was lawfully given and binding, and therefore I am within my rights to do whatever is necessary to see it fulfilled.”

  I looked at Stone. He stood stiffly next to me, a step ahead, his attention laser-focused on the old witch. He raised his hands, and the blue energy flickered around them. “Let’s have a go, then,” he growled. “If killing you is what it will take to be rid of you, then so be it.”

  “No!”

  It took me a moment to realize the voice was mine. I grabbed his arm and pulled it down, and the blue glow around his hand faded.

  He looked at me, confused. “Ms. Huntley—”

  I swallowed. “I…I can’t do it…” I said, hot tears pricking at my eyes. “I can’t put any of them at risk. I can’t let you be a murderer for me.” I met his gaze. “Is she telling the truth? Will she treat Emma well?”

  With great reluctance, he inclined his head. “I see no reason to believe she won’t. She didn’t harm you or your children, even though she easily could have done—she only frightened you. But you can’t—”

  “I can,” I said. I felt dead inside, and my voice shook with a sob. “I’m terrified, Dr. Stone. If you fight her, you might win—but she might still kill Max and Mel. If something happened to them because of all this, I’d—she’d just have to kill me too, unless I did it first.”

  I straightened my shoulders and tried to sound calmer than I felt. “Can you—make her promise? Can you make her swear one of those oaths so she’ll have to do what she says? Make her promise to take good care of Emma, to love her and do what’s best for her?”

  “Ms. Huntley—”

  “Can you?”

  He bowed his head. “Yes. I can do that, if she’s willing.”

  Madame Minna, calm as ever, nodded, her black eyes glittering. “Of course I will, dear. It was my intent all along.”

  Tears crept down my cheeks as I gazed down at Emma’s soft hair. “This is wrong…” I whispered. “This is crazy…I can’t be considering this…” I glared at Stone. “How can this even be? How can you even make an oath to promise a person to another person? It’s—it’s like slavery! It’s like kidnapping little kids and selling them for sex! How can she have the right, even if she is a witch?” I sagged, nearly slumping to my knees, cold despair settling over me like a heavy blanket.

  I’d failed. I was out of options, out of choices: in order to save my own children, I’d have to give up Emma—baby Emma, my dead sister’s only child—to an old witch, and only hope Stone was right and she’d keep her word to take care of her. I remembered the letter Susan had written and sent me only hours before she’d died: Please don’t let her have Emma!

  I couldn’t even honor her final, desperate request. For one last time I’d failed Susan, as I’d always failed her the whole time we were growing up.

  “I’m sorry…” I moaned. “I’m sorry…”

  “Please, dear.” Madame Minna stepped forward, reaching out her short arms toward Emma. “It will be easier if we don’t draw this out. Give me the baby, and take your children home.”

  “No.”

  This time, it wasn’t my voice. It was Stone’s. And I’d never heard anybody sound more resolute or certain.

  “What?” Both Madame Minna and I spoke at the same time, with equal astonishment.

  I turned to look at him, confused, and was surprised to see a glimmer in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, along with the tiniest hint of a cold smile.

  “No?” Madame Minna’s brow furrowed again, and her thin lips pursed. “Dr. Stone, you—”

  “Ms. Huntley is not handing this child over to you, because you have no claim to her.”

  “What?” Again, both of us spoke in unison.

  “And how have you arrived at that conclusion?” Madame Minna asked. She looked a good deal less grandmotherly now. Her eyes were steely. “I thought we’d settled this.”

  Stone put a hand on my shoulder and gripped tight. “Ms. Huntley here is as mundane as they come. She barely believes in magic even after she’s seen it, and I’m certain she’d like nothing better than to return to her normal, conventional life and forget that any of this nonsense ever happened. She’ll probably have it all safely rationalized as some kind of odd dream before the month is over.”

  Madame Minna started to say something, but he held up a hand. “But just because she’s mundane in every sense of the word doesn’t mean her brain doesn’t work. She’s a sharp lady, Ms. Huntley—sharper than she knows. Because she’s just reminded me of something I’d forgotten.”

  “And what is that?” the old witch asked. I didn’t miss the edge of dangerous tension in her tone.

  He gestured toward Emma. “That this baby is not a mundane. She carries magical potential, and you knew that.”

  I blinked. What was he getting at? We all already knew that. How was it relevant now?

  But Madame Minna shifted on her tiny feet. “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, but it does.” Stone removed his hand from my shoulder and began to pace between us, much as he had during the talk in Palo Alto. “It matters a great deal. Because, as Ms. Huntley reminded me, that renders the oath her mother swore null and void.”

  I gasped, not daring to hope.

  “Absurd,” the old witch said. But her voice held less certainty before, and her expression clouded.

  “Not at all. Emma here is a practitioner, or will be when she’s older. You said it yourself—you checked, and I’ll take your word for it since you seem to care a great deal about honoring your promises. You even said you suspected it when Ms. Huntley’s sister first entered your shop seven years ago.”

  “Yes, and—”

  “And,” he said, rounding on her in triumph, “you know as well as I do that a practitioner can’t be promised away to another practitioner with an oath. Emma would have to have sworn as well, which would have been difficult given that she wasn’t even born at the time. So essentially you lured her mother into a fraudulent contract, on the hope that no one would catch on and the child would end up with magic so you could take her. You took a big chance, assuming that since her mother knew nothing of the magical world, she’d never call you on the false oath. But I am calling you on it, Madame Minna. You either find a way to get Emma’s consent—and I’m fairly sure none of us here speak Baby so that will be difficult—or renounce your claim on her, release Ms. Huntley’s children, and give up this ridiculous vendetta.”

  He planted himself between me and Madame Minna, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s it going to be? Best decide quickly—these children should all be home in bed.”

  I sidestepped so I could see Madame Minna, holding my breath as I stared at her, watching her glittering black eyes. Would she back down, or would her pride and anger force her to attack us even if Stone was right? My mind spun, trying to make plans for how I’d get all three of the children out of the shop if things went south.

  For several moments, she didn’t say anything. She locked gazes with Stone as if daring him to back down, but he neither moved nor spoke.

  Finally, she let loose a dramatic sigh. “Fine,” she snapped. She waved at us as if the words were of no consequence to her and she’d washed her hands of the whole matter. “Take them, then, and get out of my shop.”

  I released the breath I’d been holding, but Stone still didn’t move. “Not yet. That’s not the end of this.”

  “W
hat else?” She looked less dangerous now, and more like a peevish old woman who’d been kept up past her bedtime.

  “There’s the matter of kidnapping Emma, and of killing her parents. Murder’s murder, Madame Minna, regardless of whether it’s committed in the magical or the mundane world. Especially since it was done under fraudulent circumstances.”

  She glared at him. “What will you do, then, Dr. Stone? Will you kill me?” She cackled. “I doubt you’ll have any success having me arrested. What will you tell the police—that a witch killed two people using long-distance magic, and kidnapped a baby she wasn’t anywhere near? Do you honestly think that will work?”

  “No. I don’t.” He took a step forward, and she took one back. “I could kill you. I’d be within my rights to do it, and no one would ever find your body. What do you think, Ms. Huntley? I’d say it’s your call.”

  I swallowed. Part of me did want her dead—it was the only way I’d be sure she could never come after me, or Emma, or my children again. And, if I was being truly honest with myself, some of it was sheer revenge: she’d murdered people I cared about, so why shouldn’t she bear the punishment for that?

  Would Stone actually do it, if I gave the word?

  I bowed my head. “No. I don’t want you to kill her. She’s not worth making you a murderer. I just want her to…leave us alone.”

  Stone turned back to the old woman. “You heard her—is that a bargain? You agree to leave her and her family, including Emma, alone and never come near them, physically or magically, again?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said with a snort. “I don’t want anything to do with them anyway. You have my word—I’m done with them. Now I’m tired. Go away and let me go to bed.”

  “We will. But there’s one more thing.”

  “What is it?” she snapped. “You’re trying my patience, Stone.”

  “Join the club, then. I want you to wait an hour, then make an anonymous call to the police and tell them about Mrs. Bond and her secret room. Call Mrs. Bond first and tell her she’s not to disturb it in any way, or attempt to hide the evidence that Emma was there.”

  “You—want them to arrest Mrs. Bond?” I stammered. I wanted that too, of course, but I could hardly hope it would be possible.

  “Oh, she’s a wily old bird—I doubt she’ll hang about long enough for them to do that. But I want them to get a good view of how the mad old neighbor lady had kidnapped baby Emma and was holding her in a carefully prepared secret room in her home. Cracked, she did—wanted a baby for herself so badly she stole one.” He glared at Madame Minna. “Your word. Do it, and you’ll never see me again. Unless I hear of you stealing any other children from their parents, at least. Understood?”

  “My word,” she snapped, but I could see in her face that she’d given up. “Go.”

  “Gladly,” I said. I thrust Emma into Stone’s arms before he could protest, then ran past Madame Minna to where Max and Melanie still lay sleeping, oblivious to anything around them. I shook them, but they only mumbled and changed positions.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Stone said. As before, he held Emma in a secure but awkward grip, as if she were a bag of smelly socks. “I’ll bring the car ’round and we can take them out.” He sniffed her, then wrinkled his nose. “Here, come and take her. She needs a nappy change, I think. I’ll face magical threats all day long, but some things are absolutely off the table.”

  18

  Alastair Stone looked up from his desk and smiled when he saw me. “Ms. Huntley! It’s good to see you. I hoped you might stop by to let me know how everything worked out.”

  “Sorry I took so long. These last two weeks have been a little hectic.”

  “An understatement, no doubt. Please, sit down.” He waved me toward one of the guest chairs in his small, cluttered office.

  “I probably should have called ahead, but the department secretary said you were here, so—” I pushed Emma’s stroller into the office ahead of me. She glanced up at Stone, babbled something, and then dropped back off to sleep.

  “No, it’s quite all right. I had my two o’clock cancel on me, so it’s perfect.”

  He looked no different sitting behind his desk at Stanford than he had all the other times I’d seen him: he wore another black T-shirt, this one with the logo of some band called “The Adicts,” and his long black coat hung on a hook near the door. I wondered if his bosses ever objected to him teaching classes dressed like that, but I supposed he didn’t give a damn.

  “I saw the story of Emma’s discovery on the news. Everything going all right for you otherwise?” He closed a folder and shoved it off to the edge along with a stack of books. “No illusionary crows, or sightings of Madame M. lurking about?”

  “No. Nothing like that. Everything’s been…good.” I remained uncomfortable about the whole thing, feeling like both the old witch and her accomplice shouldn’t have gotten off so easily, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it. At least she’d been as good as her word: the police had gotten a warrant, searched Mrs. Bond’s house, and found Emma inside the hidden nursery. Mrs. Bond had been long gone when they arrived, of course—she was already gone when Stone and I had returned, sneaked Emma back into the room, and waited nearby under a disregarding spell until the cops showed up and found her there. “At least I’m finally starting not to panic every time I let the kids out of my sight.”

  “I can see that.” He looked pointedly past me, emphasizing the fact that Mel and Max weren’t with me.

  “Yeah…they’re at school now.” The kids had barely been fazed by the whole adventure, waking that night only enough for Stone and me to herd them into the backseat of the Jaguar and then into their beds. The only thing they’d suffered had been a couple days of restless sleep—a fair tradeoff, given what had almost happened to them. “I need to go pick up Max soon, so I can’t stay long.” I flashed him a wan smile and indicated the stroller. “I think they’re going to let me adopt her. Just a few more legal hoops I have to jump through, papers to fill out, and a couple more home visits from the social worker. Chuck was an only child, his parents are divorced, and his mother doesn’t want to take her, so she really doesn’t have anybody else.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be in the best possible hands, Ms. Huntley.”

  I nodded, still looking at the sleeping baby. “I hope so. It’s a little scary, starting over with another baby when I thought I was done with that stage of my life, but…I feel like I owe her, you know? Like…I fought for her, and now I don’t want to let her go. I want to give her a good life, like Suze would have wanted.”

  “No doubt you will.”

  “Dr. Stone?” I glanced up at him without raising my head.

  “Yes?”

  “I—well—” I swallowed. “I didn’t just come here to fill you in on the latest news. I wanted to ask you something.”

  “What’s that?” He leaned back in chair and regarded me with curiosity.

  I truly wanted to forget the whole thing. I would have been grateful if Stone’s words back at Madame Minna’s had come true: that I’d rationalize away the whole magic thing, convincing myself it was nothing but an elaborate dream. I might have done just that, except for one little thing—a little thing that lay peacefully sleeping in the stroller next to me. “It’s Emma. If that witch was right and she does have the potential to be…like you…How do I deal with it?”

  He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know what I mean. That’s why I’m asking you.” I rubbed my face. “I mean—is she going to start making her mobile spin in circles above her crib? Putting hexes on the other kids when they throw sand at her in school?” I let out a loud sigh. “What I mean to say is—how do I handle her? Do I need to…do anything?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry, Ms. Huntley. Magical talent doesn’t tend to express itself at all until puberty, and magical apprenticeships don’t generally start until age eighteen. So you’ve got a while to decide what
you want to do.”

  “Do I…have to tell her? You said before that some people go through life never even knowing. It sounds like Susan did.” I stroked Emma’s head. “Would I be…somehow failing her if I didn’t tell her at all? Just let her grow up…” I let that trail off, glancing quickly up at Stone.

  “—Normal?” His tone was even as he filled in the word I had stopped before saying.

  “Well…yes. I’m sorry…”

  “It’s all right.” He rose from his chair and walked around the desk to crouch next to Emma, peering into her face. “I’d say you’ve got a while to decide that as well. Watch her—see how she copes. She might make the decision for you, if you truly want to have her best interests in mind.”

  It wasn’t a satisfying answer, but I suppose it was the best one I was going to get. I stood. “Anyway, thank you for everything, Dr. Stone. I don’t know what I’d have done—what Emma would have done—without you. If I hadn’t spotted that flyer for your talk that day…”

  “Some say everything happens for a reason,” he said. “Perhaps the universe, or the gods, or whatever you believe in arranged to put that flyer in front of you that day for precisely that purpose.” He gently patted Emma’s head, then rose from his crouch and held the door for me. “Be well, Ms. Huntley. And if you do decide to share the family secret with Emma, look me up in a few years. I can probably recommend a teacher for her.”

  “I’ll…do that. Goodbye, Dr. Stone.”

  As I walked back across the campus toward my car, Emma babbling away in her stroller, I wondered if I really would do that, or if I’d end up taking the easy path and embracing “normal,” whatever the hell that was.

  “Well, Emma,” I said, reaching down so she could grasp my finger in her strong little hand, “At least now I’ve got some time to make up my mind, don’t I?”