by Ann Aguirre
“I think so, yeah.”
“What else can you do?”
“I can make breakfast.” Sadly, I found only instant oatmeal in the kitchen. In sealed cartons, it kept better than milk or eggs.
But it was sustenance, so I made it and doctored the bowls with packets of sweetener and instant milk. The time in the jungle with Kel had reduced my standards on what constituted a meal. We ate in silence.
“Are we just hanging around here all day until they get back?”
I was torn. “If I’m going to practice, I need supplies.”
“Like what?”
“An athame and a chalice, for starters.” I paused, sighing a little. “If my mom had lived, or if they had managed to save more of her things, I’d have hers.”
“I’m sorry,” Shannon said softly.
“For what?”
“Judging you.”
“It’s understandable.” I didn’t like the path I’d chosen any more than she did, and sometimes only the fact that Kel had endorsed it made it bearable. Which spoke volumes—once, I’d thought him crazy as bedbug; now I considered him a moral compass. Surely his archangel wouldn’t give him orders that resulted in a gross loss of innocent life. Would he? No. I shook my head, trying to reassure myself.
“Not really,” she said. “I mean, I have my own regrettable shit. I left my dad, knowing he felt guilty, when it would’ve meant everything to him if I’d given him some hint I didn’t blame him for the Kilmer clusterfuck.” She bent her head, so that black hair hid her face. “But the truth is, he was supposed to protect me, you know? And I don’t know if I’ll ever trust him again.”
Wow. I didn’t know how to respond since I tended to hold a grudge. It took a fair amount to get me riled, but once somebody landed on my list, I almost never changed my mind. Yet I didn’t feel comfortable preaching the Dead to Me philosophy when Jim Cheney was Shannon’s closest relative.
“I guess you give it time. When missing him outweighs the anger, then you go see him.”
She pushed her bangs back, blue gaze steady on mine. “What if it never does?”
“Honestly, I try not to think about the future when it’s hard enough to get through a single day.”
“Carpe diem.”
“Exactly. Do you have your laptop?”
In answer, she got it out of her backpack. I waved her over to the desk, where there appeared to be a cable. I plugged in, booted up, and found we had Internet. Shannon must’ve discovered that last night; I remembered her saying she was going to check e-mail.
“What’re you doing?”
While Shan watched, I pulled up Area 51, a hidden bulletin board that pretended to be full of conspiracy theorists, when gifted humans—those with weird abilities, like Shannon and me—actually populated it. I skimmed the general posts, more curiosity than anything else. Telepath looking for love in Atlanta. White witch new to Chicago seeks coven. Palm reading and tarot, first session free—Newport Beach. Then I moved to the business listings, which was why I’d pulled up the site. Seeing her curiosity, I decided to make this a teaching moment. I was supposed to be her mentor, even if I hadn’t offered her much worth learning lately.
“In most cities,” I explained, “the true witch stores run quietly. They don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages or put their information on the Net for the general public. So if you find a ‘New Age’ place that way, chances are they sell fakery stuff, gewgaws and worthless inventory. Nothing you could really use to cast a spell.”
“So you’re looking for a real one.”
“Yep. Looks like there’s a place downtown.” I finished reading the description and then added, “Between Popeyes and a store that sells knockoff designer handbags.”
“I’ll get dressed.”
After taking staggered showers, we headed out. I had to risk removing the amulet during my three-minute toilette; otherwise a thorough drenching might ruin it. Escobar hadn’t included a care manual. It was unlikely that the sorcerer would be able to get a lock on us in the time I had it off. Even so, I didn’t like driving the Forester in broad daylight, but Laredo was a decent-size city. Since they didn’t know where we were right now, the gain should be worth the risk.
It was no trouble to find the store. Parking proved a little more difficult. I circled the block twice before sliding in when a van left. We walked two blocks to where the storefront advertised, ORIENTAL HOME FURNISHINGS. A bell tinkled as we came in, and a small shock sizzled through me.
To my astonishment, as I spun, I saw runes laid on the doorframe. They pulsed a pale, sickly green; I’d never been able to detect that kind of thing before. It was just a discouragement spell, old and faint, making random patrons feel like there was nothing they wanted in here.
A true practitioner would shrug it off, if he even felt it through his shields. I wasn’t sure I had any, though Jesse said he couldn’t feel me anymore. I’d either developed rudimentary shields or what happened with Kel severed our tenuous emotional connection. Damn, I had so much to learn—and fast.
The store offered a few rugs and fans, enough to satisfy a cursory glance, but I glimpsed a back room, where the real merchandise must be kept. A grandmotherly woman stepped out through a wispy lace curtain, clad in black. She stood just under five feet tall, willow slim, with a surprisingly unlined complexion.
“Since you’re still here,” she said, “I must conclude you ought to be. Come along.”
I followed her into the back room, a wonderland of fantastic items. Shannon split off to poke around on her own. A rack on the far wall held hand-carved wands in cherry, rowan, willow, and oak. I passed those by in favor of the daggers displayed in a glass case. Some had curvy blades, others serrated edges. Some were silver, edged in black leather, and graven with arachnids and runes, while others carried pictures of serpents or dragons. They all possessed different glyphs.
“Your first?” the old woman asked.
I nodded, still studying the collection. Intuition told me I needed to touch them all to learn which one was destined for me; at least, my foretelling gift should still function even with me as the prospective buyer. I’d never tried to use it this way before. But I didn’t look forward to the pain.
Maybe I could start with the ones that spoke to me aesthetically. “Would you get those three out for me to look at?” I indicated the spider knife, the dragon one, and the one with the serpent coiled around the bone handle.
“Excellent choices.” She told me a little about them, but I didn’t need the histories. I’d see it all soon enough.
I curled my hand around the first knife, accepting the pain as price of knowledge. It had never been used; a smith in Ireland had crafted it. It told me nothing about its prospective buyer, which I took to mean nobody would be coming for it anytime soon. Including me. With some regret, as I liked it best, I put it back down.
“An untaught witch with the touch,” she said with a raised brow. “Oh, but you are a rare one.”
“Apparently.” I took up the dragon blade. It felt unbalanced in my hand because of the jagged edge, and it burned like a low fire with old magic.
Closing my eyes, I read this one too. The pain lanced all the way up to my elbow as I saw a young woman casting the same spell over and over again: a would-be love charm. My mother had warned me that there was nothing so desperate or so hopeless. If it succeeded, the spell twisted the target and filled him with mindless obsession, not love. Never love. True love could not be compelled.
Panting with the pain, I let the knife go. Not this one either.
That left the serpent athame with the bone handle and the wavy blade. Mustering my nerve, I curled my branded palm around it, sealing the flower pentacle against the runes. A burst of lightning ran through me, as if a series of doors on a shared timer had all opened at once. In a bizarre reflection, I saw myself handing over the money for this one, and the old woman smiling.
“This is it. I’ll leave it here while I finish shopping.”
“Take your time, my dear.” Her tone gave me the creeps, and I remembered what Jesse had said, so long ago: Be careful when you meet a gifted person you encountered online. Ability doesn’t make them trustworthy.
If I didn’t need this stuff, I’d throw the money at her and make a run for it. But as long as I watched her, she couldn’t call anyone. So I kept one eye on her when I went to look at the chalices. This was less important than the athame, at least according to my mother. A chalice was merely a vessel, whereas the athame functioned as an extension of your will. I grabbed a simple silver one and then went to the counter to pay.
“Since it’s your first time, I’ll throw in a starter pack of herbs for you, the good ones. I know you’ll be back once you see how well they work.”
“Great, thanks.”
Shannon put an amulet on the glass case, a leather cord with a silver pentacle, but unlike most Goth accessories, the item bore the unmistakable stamp of real magick. “What does this do?”
“Oh, that’s a nice one. I made it myself, a simple protective charm. The world is a dangerous place.” Was I going crazy, or did her words contain a warning?
“We’ll take that too,” I said.
Despite the fact that she freaked me out, her prices seemed reasonable, so I didn’t try to haggle. We didn’t have time anyhow. It worried me to be out in the open like this, no backup, but I could hardly deal with Vicente if I didn’t try to wrangle my mother’s power—mine now, I supposed—into submission.
She bagged up the athame and chalice, a weird smile playing on her lips. Her gray eyes turned an awful citrine not normally found in human irises. “Run along now, darling child.”
The endearment froze me in place. “. . . Maury?”
That wasn’t his true name, of course. If I knew it, I could bind him. He’d been careful to prevent that, even before I earned the honorific Binder. Since he wasn’t physically present in this realm, like Caim had been, I couldn’t touch him and learn his name, either. So I had to deal.
“Not at first,” the demon said. “But this old she-witch has had far too much truck with the netherworld over the years. There’s practically a swinging door in her head.”
His appearance could mean only one thing, and it wasn’t good. “You’re calling payment due.”
“You owe me a favor.”
“What do you want?” Hell, I needed another chain saw to juggle.
“Is this the thing from Kilmer?” Shannon asked. “What did you do? Did you make a deal with it?”
Aw, crap. Well, no. Not intentionally. That technicality wasn’t going to make her like my answer any better. I motioned her to silence, because I didn’t want Maury paying attention to her.
“Nothing too difficult,” said the demon dressed in oldwoman skin.
“I’m listening.” I found it hard to imagine what I could do that it couldn’t. Of course, the human mind balked at certain boundaries.
“You will sacrifice your firstborn child to me.”
Shannon’s breath came and went in a shaky hiss. She put a hand on my arm, as if imploring me not to agree. Jesus, her opinion of me had really gone down the shitter in the past few days.
“Relax,” I said. “He’s fucking with me. Aren’t you, Maury?”
“Alas, you know me too well already. But look on the bright side—whatever I do ask for won’t seem so bad by comparison, will it?”
“You’re stalling.”
“I had almost forgotten how tiresome you can be.”
“I’m a real demon downer, all right. Spill it or I consider this conversation repayment in full, because you’re wasting my time.”
“Very well, no more games. Which is a great pity because I love them so. You, Corine Solomon, will summon my mate for me.”
I said, “You’ll have to give me his or her true name.”
“I am aware of how it works,” he said dryly. “You will, of course, pledge on your mother’s immortal soul that you will never use it to my bind my love to your will.”
Since I wasn’t sure anything of my mother had survived to see the afterlife, I didn’t consider that a powerful vow. Best not to tell the demon.
“And if I refuse?”
“I consider our bargain broken and you will die.”
Kel could not have foreseen this. He wouldn’t have left me to face this if he’d known it was coming. In a horrible way, that knowledge gladdened me. He had no dominion over the dark spaces, whereas I lived there. Shit. I didn’t want to do this, but I could, if Maury told me the particulars. If I did this, everything would change. From tales told at my mother’s knee, I understood that no white witch would help a dark practitioner; therefore I could find only training in the dark arts henceforth. And this act would leave a scar in the astral, so anyone who viewed me there would know I summoned demons.
“That’s not a cake-or-death choice,” Shan said softly. “It’s more of a disembowelment-or-death choice.”
Was I prepared to dwell in darkness in exchange for my life? Yet the alternative was worse—fall now and spend my afterlife in the demon realm. A bad choice and worse coming: At this point, that seemed like a too-familiar tune. Maybe this choice didn’t mean I was damned; perhaps I could do enough good, somehow, to make it up, no matter what other practitioners thought of me. Really, there was only one call; otherwise Shannon must watch me die. I couldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t.
“Before I give my answer, can I ask a question?” It was best to make sure of such things, though I knew the outcome was inevitable.
“Indeed,” Maury said. “But let that be the only one, lest I accuse you of, as you put it, stalling.”
“Recently I ran into a Knight of Hell.” Out of respect for the demon I’d bested, I didn’t name him. No telling what Maury could do with such information. “He’d been summoned by a sorcerer, but not in spirit. He crossed over fully. Is that what you want me to do for your mate?”
I read real surprise in the old woman’s face. “Truly, a corporeal manifestation? It takes an incredible amount of energy to create such a gate.”
“I figured.” Binding and banishing were different because when you returned a summoned creature to its natural place, the universe wanted to help restore order. Pulling things where they didn’t belong—that took juice.
“No, of course that’s not what I require. I merely want her here, as I am. It will be great fun for us to find a couple of hosts and . . . play for a while.”
I shuddered to envision what Maury considered “play.” “Like a vacation.”
“Precisely.”
“If I consent to this, we’re square. No more favors. No more debt.” A glorious new life, down a very dark road. I suspected I couldn’t see how bad it would get from here, and that was probably best.
“Agreed.”
I couldn’t help but haggle, though he held all the cards. It was the pawnshop owner in me. “I’ll do it under one condition.”
“You’re hardly in a bargaining position, but I’m willing to listen.”
“You promise not to take unwilling hosts. Find a couple of coma victims or something. Stage a miraculous recovery and go about your business.”
Whatever that might be. Don’t think about it. Don’t.
“Done. Such hosts are typically easier to control anyway. Most of them have no brain function to interfere with my driving.”
Gross.
“Will she remember what we’ve talked about?” I nodded at the old lady. Her skin had turned a sickly shade, as if his presence made her queasy.
“No. They never do.”
“Good.” Before I could change my mind, I recited the address where we could be found. “Find a proper body and then come to us tonight. I’ll need some time to study my grimoires. I want to make sure I do this right.”
Because I’m sure as hell not doing it again, no matter what other witches think. One scar doesn’t mean I’m evil. It doesn’t.
“Until tonight, my darl
ing child.”
The old woman slumped to the counter, and it took a couple of minutes for her to rouse. We stuck around to make sure Maury hadn’t cooked her brain. Other than being groggy, the witch didn’t seem to have taken permanent harm.
“Are we finished here?” she asked in bewilderment. “I seem to have lost track of time.”
“Yeah, we paid up. But we’re still waiting for you to get that starter pack of herbs you mentioned.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I’ ll be right back.”
She gave me a pretty wooden box with ten compartments inside. Each one held a different herb, wrapped in fabric. I didn’t know what any of this stuff did, but my mother could tell me, through the grimoires. I waved as we went past the curtain and out the front door.
Shannon broke the silence halfway to the SUV. “What didn’t you tell me about what happened in those woods?”
Remembered pain rendered my words staccato, choppy. “Cooper killed me. Or the wound would have. The demon plugged the hole.” Knowing it sounded incredible, I took her hand and pressed it to my side. Since I was thinner, the metal felt more obvious, a hard spot where the blade went in.
“I can feel it. That used to be a knife?”
I nodded, leading the way to the SUV. My gaze cut back and forth and over our shoulders. Nobody seemed to be paying us any particular attention, but I wouldn’t feel safe until I had Shannon behind locked doors again.
“I have a murderer’s weapon inside me,” I said, hearing the despair in my voice. “It’s no wonder I can give such orders. I’m afraid of what I’m becoming.”
That was the first time I’d articulated the fear aloud: that I was filthy and demon touched. I had allowed whispers and doubts along the way, as I went farther and farther from the light. God, the one in the village had called me its queen. Maybe I was wretched and damned, and it would be better if Montoya exterminated me. I increased the pace, trying to escape the doubt. In no time at all, we reached the Forester.
Shannon touched me on the arm. “I may not know much, but it seems like if you’re worried about it, then you’re okay. Evil people don’t question right or wrong. They just do what they want.”