Arc 2

by RoAnna Sylver

  “No business?” An indignant line appeared between Eva’s eyebrows. “Are we or are we not a part of this?”

  “You are. A very important one.” Letizia’s shuffling grew faster, louder, the taps between a little more insistent. “But now you must see reason, instead of insisting on coming into a dangerous situation where you can do no good, and may be hurt, or worse.”

  “Don’t you think that’s our decision to make?” Eva retorted. “So instead of letting us decide like grown-ups, you’re just making this—this unilateral decision, just giving us a kiss-off now that the feast is done instead of serving the thing all together like—ugh, forget it,” she shook her head. “This metaphor sucks. And this whole thing sucks! I gotta say, I’m feeling a little used here.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Letizia said, as her hands and cards moved so fast Eva could barely follow them, the tap-shuffle speeding up to a frantic rhythm. “But there’s nothing I can do. As I said, your part is over. I want you as far away as possible from the circle, and me, when the time comes.”

  “Really, Letizia?” Eva stared at her. “After all this, it’s just ‘okay, that’s all, you’re dismissed?’”

  The aggressive shuffling stopped. Abruptly, the Witch slapped her hands together, then the cards down on the table, pile haphazard and lopsided.

  “You’ve done enough already,” she said, now holding perfectly still. She still didn’t meet Eva’s eyes, but her distress was obvious enough. “And now you’re done. You need to stay out of this, as far away as you can get.”

  “Well, that’s too bad,” Eva said, folding her arms and gave the Witch a defiant glare. “You can’t always get what you want.”

  Now Letizia did look up, eyes narrowing until she was glaring right back. “What makes you think you could help me with the actual spellwork itself? You’re not a Witch. You’re not even a vampire. You’re a human, fragile, breakable, and to have you there would be begging for disaster. Leave the wielding of arcane forces to the professionals.”

  “I—you—” Eva sputtered, face beginning to flush. Then she stopped for the space of a breath, only to point a finger directly at Letizia’s face. “I know what you’re doing. You’re doing the—the Spiderman 2 thing!”

  Letizia’s iron-resolved face went blank, and she gave a surprised blink. “The Spider…?”

  “You’re trying to push me away by making me angry, so I decide that I hate you and don’t get mad when you run off and do something really dumb and really dangerous, because you think your superpowered ass is the only who can save the day or some shit like that! Yes, I said shit, I’m tired of keeping my mouth shut, and I’m tired of you acting like you’re the chosen one who needs to keep secrets and do everything by herself, because us puny humans could never handle the big scary magic! Give us some credit, get over yourself, and let us help!”

  “…Are you finished?” Letizia asked when Eva broke off, panting.

  “Yeah,” she said with a jerky nod. “Yeah, I’m done.”

  “Yes, you are. Glad to hear we finally agree,” Letizia said, and turned away, beginning to pick up the fragments of bone that ringed the mirror, and slipping them into a small velvet pouch that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Go home, Eva.”

  Eva opened her mouth to argue further, then shut it, throwing up her hands and turning away. “Fine. You know what, fine! Be like that. Say you need our help, and then push away the people trying to help you right after you’re done with them. See if I care. Good luck with your big important magic.”

  With that, Eva stormed out the apartment with a full head of steam. She thought she might have heard her name, but it was hard to hear over the slammed door.

  When Jude got home, the sun was nearly down. Almost nightfall, the ritual just a few hours away. But that was an anxious buzz in the back of his mind, and he had more important things to do first, like check the oven mitt where he’d left Pixie. He frowned upon finding it as quiet as Jasper’s, the bedroom door closed, and Pixie presumably inside. He must still need some space, which Jude well understood and respected.

  So, realizing that he couldn’t do anything useful here, Jude shifted his thoughts to another important subject—the spell and its requirements. His work wasn’t quite done.

  It was a quick project, but he’d only just finished when Pixie came out of the bedroom, still looking chagrined, and Jude put his work aside, folding it up and sticking it into his jacket pocket.

  “Hey,” Pixie said, still sounding sad and tired, but at least a little less so. “I’m sorry again, about earlier—at the motel.”

  “You still have nothing to apologize for,” Jude said. “I know why you did it. I can tell you that you don’t have to worry, but you’re still going to. Just like you’re still going to have feelings about Jeff, and grief, and you don’t have to give that up or get over it for me to care about you and want you around. I always want you around.”

  “Thanks. I mean it. But I’m still sorry. I… won’t let it get to that point again.” Pixie gave an awkward shrug, hands in his pockets. “So, um, I kept thinking about the spell, and found something else that might work.” He reached into a pocket and pulled something out that was bigger than a postcard but smaller than a poster. A sticker, reading “THIS BASS KILLS FASCISTS.”

  “That was his, wasn’t it?” Jude asked quietly, looking over its weathered and scratched surface. It wasn’t ripped, though; Pixie must have removed it as carefully as possible.

  “Yeah,” Pixie said. “I was gonna use his summer shirt, but… well, I figured this would work just as well. It’s, uh, a memory of happiness. Rose-tinted. Not because it’s pink, but because I know it’s easy to look back and think everything was perfect when it wasn’t, and to forget the good things you have now. And you have to know when to let that go. So I’m trying to let it go, and stop messing up—sorry. I’m gonna stop talking now.”

  “Don’t stop,” Jude said. “I want to hear what you think. Even if it’s sad, or messy, or anything else. It’s when you hold back that I start to worry.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ll try to share my sad messiness more—that was a joke!”

  “I know. But I’m serious. I’m here for a reason, I want to be part of your life like you’re part of mine.” He cleared his throat, and pulled the paper he’d been working on from the inside of his jacket and unfolded it. “I was thinking about my part of the spell too, and I think I figured it out. And hopefully it’ll convince you that I meant everything I just said, and I’ll keep meaning it.”

  He handed the paper to Pixie, whose eyes grew wide and round as he accepted it. It was the poster from earlier, the one with Pixie’s name and picture on it—but the bolded “MISSING” had been scribbled out, and above it, one word written in red sharpie: “FOUND.”

  He heard Pixie make a soft, emotion-stricken noise, and his heart ached and felt warm at the same time.

  “A dream of happiness, with eyes wide open,” Jude explained, voice wistful. “Because I know we’re not there yet, but… I want to be.”

  “Jude…” Pixie said softly, and Jude looked over, waiting. But no more words came. Pixie’s eyes were squeezed shut, and his shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep, habitual breath. “I want that too. More than anything. You’re—I don’t know how I ended up here. I never thought I had that kind of luck in my life. And I guess I didn’t. But even after everything, even dying, even all the stuff after that? It’s okay. I’m here now. With you.”

  Jude thought about his own journey, how he’d died too, felt the sun and heard the ocean waves, and come back to find everything different. All the pain and loss and adjustment, everything he’d do all over again if he had the choice. “I feel the same way.”

  Pixie smiled at him, and Jude sucked in a breath—it was another of those moments, those kisses-in-a-perfect-world moments, but this time Jude felt a flutter of hope and excitement instead of fear, something pulling him forward instead of paralyzing him. He took a
step forward, hand coming up to reach out for Pixie’s face and draw him closer, when—

  Ding.

  It wasn’t Mozart’s Requiem, but the standard text noise from the phone Jude had never bothered messing with much was just as jarring. Sighing, he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. Anyone else and he would have put it right away again, but not this time.

  EVA: L says it’s time to go. Meet us at the mall at 9, same place as last time.

  “I guess everything’s ready,” Jude said reluctantly, and gave Pixie an apologetic look. “We should go—and I don’t want to rush through this. But we’re coming back to it later.”

  Pixie only looked disappointed for a moment, before brightening and grinning at him. “I can’t wait.”

  The dark and empty mall was strangely peaceful, almost beautiful in its own odd, liminal-space kind of way.

  “Are we really ready for this?” Jude asked as he, Pixie, Letizia, and Jasper stood before the heavy metal door that led to the mall’s sub-basement and the network of tunnels beyond. The last time they’d been down here, it had been to rescue Pixie and confront a monster. This time, at least, Pixie was standing safely at Jude’s side, though he looked more than a little apprehensive. Jude could relate.

  “I am more than ready,” Letizia said, her voice harder than usual. Oddly, she’d looked annoyed to see Jude and Pixie’s approach, and now she stood unwavering and fixing the door with a level stare, as if she could see beyond it to her goal. Maybe she actually could. “The door should be open. Eva unlocked it earlier.”

  “Speaking of, where is Eva?” Jude asked, looking around, half-expecting her to emerge from a darkened storefront. He’d feel much better if she did. “We got her text, so I figured she’d be here before us. We can’t do this without her.”

  “I asked her not to come,” Letizia said, tone cool and steady as she was. “She would be much more helpful away from this place. As would you.”

  “What does that mean?” Jude asked, not liking something about the Witch’s phrasing, or the hard edge to her voice.

  “It means what I said. The preparation of the spell was for all of us. The casting of it is for me alone. I told Eva this, and asked her to stay far away.”

  “And she listened to that? That’s unlike her,” Jude said, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Letizia gave a slight nod, but said nothing more. “Also, what the hell do you mean, the casting is for you alone?”

  “That’s exactly what she said,” the Witch sighed with a roll of her eyes. “And you weren’t supposed to be here either. I meant to tell you all beforehand, but Eva had sent word to you before I could stop her. As I told her, I am truly grateful for all you’ve done, collecting the necessary ingredients, but we are working with very dangerous forces. The kind that you should not be exposed to.”

  “Well, you’re right about one thing,” Jasper cut in before Jude could, and more gently than he would have. “It would have been nice to know that earlier. But we’re here now, and I believe we’re all committed to seeing this through together.”

  “I didn’t come this far to back out now,” Jude said. Still, he suddenly felt much less sure of this entire business. He turned to look around, then back at Jasper, who stood nearby. “Is Felix not coming either?”

  “Not tonight,” Jasper confirmed in a flat voice, and Jude was disappointed again despite himself. He hadn’t quite expected Felix to venture out of Jasper’s apartment again, especially not this far, and would have been surprised to actually see him. Still, his heart sank a little too. Jasper himself seemed not so much calm as controlled. He didn’t like this either, Jude could tell. “This place is a little too... relevant.”

  “No kidding,” Pixie muttered, looking unusually dour. It was the first time he’d spoken since leaving Jude’s apartment, and now he watched the door like it might suddenly come to life and attack them.

  “You really don’t have to do this,” Jude said to him quietly. “Everyone would understand.”

  “I know I don’t have to,” Pixie replied, sounding determined, if not encouraged, and not bothering to whisper. “I want to. Kind of. I mean, no, I don’t really want to, but I feel like it’s important to do. Prove the place didn’t kill me, if that makes sense.”

  “It definitely does,” Jude said with a nod. “Reclaiming is important. So, are we—”

  “No, ‘we’ are nothing,” Letizia said in a raised voice. “I am ready to proceed. All that’s left for you to do is give me your prepared items, so I can—”

  Deee-deedle-deeee-dee.

  Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor was back, echoing off the shining floor and interrupting the near-sacrosanct atmosphere like disturbing a crowded movie theater.

  “Aaargh!” Letizia snarled as she pulled her phone—or an identical one, since the last time Jude had seen it, it had been very much on fire—eyes flaring briefly as her arm flew out in a blur, flinging the ringing phone against the nearest wall, where it shattered into a dozen pieces.

  “Was that a good idea?” Jasper asked, eyebrows raised and tone magnanimous.

  “It’s fine. It’ll be back.” As Letizia spoke, the pieces of the phone began to move, springing back together as if someone had hit ‘rewind’ on its destruction. Seamlessly repaired, it sprung back into her waiting hand. She sighed, shook her head, and stuck it back in her pocket, muttering irritated Italian under her breath.

  “So, like I was about to ask,” Jude said, watching Letizia steadily with a deadpan expression. “Are we all ready?”

  “As we’ll ever be, I think.” Jasper nodded, and Jude stepped up to the heavy door and pushed. It opened with a whining of hinges and grinding of metal, but it did open.

  “Wait,” Letizia called, before Jude could continue into the dark, and he looked back to see her and Pixie still standing on the mall side of the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Jude asked. “I thought we were the ones who were supposed to stay here.”

  “You,” the Witch said to Jasper, seeming to choose not to dignify Jude’s barb with a response. “You I did ask here for a reason. You have to invite us in. Both of us.”

  “What?” he exclaimed with a bark of nervous laughter that made Jude jump a bit. “Why me?”

  “This was Cruce’s old lair. With him dead, ownership reverts to the next available power,” Letizia explained, sounding a little exasperated, or maybe embarrassed.

  “Probably the mall’s parent corporation,” Jasper shrugged. “Or maybe the city of Portland, if eerie catacombs aren’t included?”

  “On paper, perhaps,” Letizia said, shifting impatiently. “But in spirit, I would call Eva the guardian of this place.

  “Eva, who isn’t here for some reason?” Jude asked with a narrowed gaze.

  “Yes. And in her absence, the title would go to one of you.”

  “I don’t own the mall,” Jasper said, looking dubious. “And I certainly don’t own miles of caves underneath it.”

  “No, but you own a shop here, and quite a special one at that. Magic responds to magic.” She glanced around at them as if daring anyone to challenge her impeccable logic. “As the sole magician-in-residence of this place, that makes you an authority, and therefore a guardian.”

  “Really, now? A guardian?” Jasper said with a slowly spreading grin. Jude could see him warm to the idea, which warmed him in turn. “I must admit, that does have quite a nice ring to it. Well, then! Come inside! Welcome to my domain.” He ushered them inside with an elaborate, hand-waving bow, and Letizia and Pixie stepped over the threshold without incident.

  “Thank you,” Letizia said to him with a gracious nod. “And now, your part is truly over.”

  “My dear, I believe we both know that isn’t true,” he said in a calm and level tone Jude recognized as the one he used when Jude was being particularly negative or stubborn. It wasn’t smug or gloating, but it was the one that meant Jasper was right, he knew he was right, and the sooner everyone else caught up, the bette
r. “As Jude said, we’re all in too deep to bow out now. And if the forces at work are as dangerous as you say, then you’re asking us to let a friend walk knowingly into that danger alone. Does anything about us, or our history—filled with questionable decisions as it is—suggest that’s something we’re about to do?”

  “I could send all of you to sleep right now,” Letizia said, with a quick glance around at all three of them, voice growing louder and more commanding with every word. “Do you know the witch you’re dealing with? I could turn you to frogs. Or human statues. I could simply teleport there and be done with it!”

  “Then why haven’t you done any of that?” Jasper asked in that same, infuriatingly reasonable voice.

  “Because…” Letizia let the word and its slight echo hang in the air. With her intense eyes darkening until they appeared completely black, she did indeed seem capable of wonders and horrors. Then she let out a sigh and shut her eyes, letting her head drop until her long hair formed a slight curtain in front of her face. “You’re my friends, who I love. Of course I want you with me. Of course I want her with me. But it would be selfish to ask, and irresponsible to allow.”

  “Then it seems you’ve got a choice,” Jasper said. “Do something unpleasant to us so we can’t follow you, and risk us breaking out of whatever it is, following you down, interrupting your carefully-crafted spell and ruining everything… or letting your friends help you. Which I do actually know isn’t always easy—but if I’m being honest, I’d much rather assist in a dangerous spell than be a frog.”

  Letizia didn’t answer. Jude got the impression that she couldn’t. But the corner of her mouth did turn up in a slow, crooked smile, and she headed into the tunnel before them without another word.

  “Nicely done,” Jude said to Jasper as he moved to follow Letizia.

  “I try,” he returned, a chuckle under his breath.