covencraft 04 - dry spells (16 page)

“Um. No.” She curled her toes up inside her shoes and tugged at the ripped sleeve of her jacket and shirt. She wanted to help, but didn’t know how. “So,” she hedged. “Uh, do we have to walk out of here then?”

Seth turned back to her and his eyes flared gold for a moment. “You’re going to do a spell.”

She shook her head automatically. “I don’t know what kind.”

“I’ll show you.”

“Will I get zapped again?”

“Yes. If you’re lucky.”

“What if…” Her eyes darted around. “What if I say no?”

“Then we’re stuck here. You and me. We can randomly pick a direction and start walking.”

Jade’s eyes roved the landscape, searching for any kind of demarcation. Something different, something that said ‘yep, go this way.’

Nothing.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“If we make it out of here, I’ll teach you to curse in Demon tongue. Much more satisfying.”

She licked her lips. Thank god she had ChapStick in her running jacket. She pulled it out and applied it, using the familiar motion to give her some time to soothe her nerves. She exhaled. “Okay. What do I do?”

“Take off all your clothes.”

“The hell?”

“Kidding, Possum.” He waved a hand. “Humans are so simple-minded. You’re going to make a type of circle on the desert floor, and then repeat after me. If all goes well, you’ll feel a strong pull in the right direction.”

“And if all doesn’t go well?”

Seth shrugged a shoulder. “You won’t feel much pain on this side. At least, not from the spell. There are still many ways to inflict pain on this side.”

Jade watched him carefully, afraid to interrupt for questions. He sketched out a rune on the desert sand and she asked some questions on the angles and the shape. He seemed pleased with her questions and answered them readily. Then, he made her repeat after him, holding onto her magic so as not to infuse the words just yet.

After the sixth time she repeated his words, he waved his hands. “Stop. You sound like some kind of immigrant sex worker, but it will have to do.” He motioned in front of him. “Have at it.”

She took a steadying breath and then drew the runes on the ground in front of her. She paused, letting her eyes flick to Seth, who was motionless. Getting nothing back from him, she continued forward, uttering the words he’d taught her.

She waited.

And then waited longer.

She was about to ask if she’d failed when a sharp, ugly sensation pulled at her innards. She felt like an imaginary hand gripped her bowels and tugged her sharply to the right.

“That way,” she gasped, lurching sideways. “We need to go that way.”

“Excellent. Gold star, Possum.”

She might possibly take a moment to feel pride at his words when her insides stopped feeling like they were about to liquefy and spill out of her body. Seth started walking, moving away from her at a brisk pace. She bent over, hands on her knees and took a few breaths. It didn’t really help. When she wasn’t as immediately terrified that she might lose control of her bowels, she followed him.

“So, um, what happens when, you know, I start dying of thirst?”

Seth stopped suddenly, making her flinch. “You won’t. I told you. Biology isn’t the same here.”

Jade had a vague recollection of him telling her that when they spoke in her kitchen, but she hadn’t understood. “I thought you meant, like, biology in general.”

“I did.” His tone was like that used on a recalcitrant and ungifted child. Slow and loud. “It’s all different here. You won’t get thirsty. You won’t get hungry. You won’t have to go to the bathroom. Your body is almost in a kind of metabolic stasis.”

“So, I wasn’t just about to shit myself back there?”

He smiled, cruel and wicked. “That was due to your use of magic. Completely different. Provided you follow the rules, you should be relatively safe.”

“Relatively?”

“Haven’t you heard? Everything is relative.”

She felt a small measure of relief. Was it weird or wrong she was more worried about finding a cactus to squat behind while walking through the desert with Seth than actually dying of thirst at the moment?

“If you’re injured, you probably won’t feel pain and you can’t die from it. But, before you start celebrating, consider this,” Seth continued. “You can still feel pain, if inflicted properly by someone on this side. And, any injuries you sustain, you take with you when you leave. So if you do manage to get yourself mortally wounded…” He raised both eyebrows, prompting her to think through his statement with his expression.

“I’m stuck here,” she realized when he trailed off.

“Bingo. Get mortally wounded here and you’re fine. You won’t bleed out, you may not feel the pain. You could break your leg and splint it up and be good to go. But as soon as you get back home, you could bleed out from a compound fracture before you have time to call for help.” He started walking again and she hustled after him.

“Is it dangerous here?” She looked around at the harsh landscape. It was beautiful or it would be if she were far away from it and safely tucked into a couch or a sofa with a glass of wine and good book. At present, it had an austere beauty - she feared it as much as she appreciated it.

“Yes.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“Possum.” His tone made her flinch and inch sideways from him, putting a bit of space between them. “Are you going to be this chatty the entire trip?”

“That depends on how long you think the trip might be.” She was curious. She wanted to stay not-dead. If that meant she needed information, then she had to figure out how to get it. Right now Seth was the only game in town.

He sighed. “I told you, time is different here. I don’t know how long it will be. I don’t know where we are. I don’t know what it will take to complete Sakkara’s errand. We could be here hours or years.”

A squeaking sound escaped her throat, unbidden consciously from her. “Years?”

“Possibly. Although if it’s any consolation, it may not be that long on the other side. Or it may be longer.”

God, she was going to be sick. She stared at the cracked earth beneath her feet, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. She was trapped here. With Seth. No Lily. No Bruce. No Paris. She pulled the ripped sleeves of her jacket and running shirt off and folded the fabric up carefully, stuffing them inside her pocket and zipping it shut.

“I can feel you emoting. Buck up. It could be worse.”

“How?” she said, her voice sounding small and timid to her own ears. “How could it possibly be worse?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll find out.”

#

Paris thought he would feel more calm and centered once he and Lily arrived at the Preserve, as though the act of doing something would allow him to feel more in control.

He was wrong.

Jade’s car sat innocuously in the parking lot, two other cars also parked. Likely other witches enjoying the Preserve for a walk, run or maybe even doing some light magic. Witches often preferred to complete their spells outside or closer to nature, finding their magic cleaner and neater when surrounded by the elements. Paris and Lily both peered into Jade’s car quickly as they walked past. Nothing was out of the ordinary. A protein bar wrapper stuffed in the cup holder. Some empty travel mugs littered the back seat. A pair of gloves was on the passenger seat and Paris had the random thought that Jade should have brought them with her. Or perhaps they were her spares. He didn’t know and that made him sad.

He followed Lily. She seemed to know the route that Jade normally took. Maybe she’d run it with Jade or maybe she knew it because it was in Jade’s mind. Paris didn’t know. There was so much about their connection he didn’t understand. Lily was a few paces head of him, her steps fueled by anxiety and fear. His own felt more driven by the need to know: what was happening, where was Jade, what had his mother done. He was still afraid; for Jade, for Lily, for himself, but it didn’t feel as harsh or sharp as the acrid tang of Lily’s fear.

“Up here. She didn’t get very far, I don’t think. This…” She looked up and around. “I mean, all the forest kind of looks the same to me, but I think it was close to here.”

Paris nodded and then, on his next inhale, paused. Black licorice tainted the air, its sickly sweet smell pressing against his soft palate. Demon magic. Sakkara’s demon magic. He swallowed, feeling the essence of it coating his throat, like a dark oil, polluting his throat and stomach.

What have you done?

Coming along the running trail, they stopped short. In front of them, burned perfectly into the ground was a circle. Although he knew what he would feel when he did, Paris sent out a tendril of magic and immediately the residual
ping
of Jade’s magic came back at him, the taste of cloves along with it, barely perceptible against the omnipresent black licorice.

“That’s hers,” Lily said, unnecessarily. “The circle.”

“Yes.”

“She used it to protect herself.” Lily moved closer to it and Paris wanted to stop her, not sure what would happened if Lily tried to cross the charred earth.

“She tried,” he corrected automatically.

Though the circle wasn’t still active, it held Jade’s magic: a spiked wheel waiting for interlopers. He needn’t have worried about Lily being hurt or injured by Jade’s circle. As soon as Lily neared the edge, Paris felt Jade’s magic open up and let her pass. Lily easily stepped inside the circle, her own lesser magic pulsing out and then retracting back inside her. Paris came to the edge of Jade’s circle and stopped, not wanting to cross the barrier as Lily had done. He wasn’t sure what would happen. Suddenly, a residual echo of Jade’s magic flared out and he felt himself encompassed in the circle of magic - granted entrance inside - even though he stood outside the blackened area. Her magic was, as always, frenetic and strong, but this time there was a keen edge of something else he’d not felt from her in some time.

Fear.

He crouched down, placing his hands in the desiccated leaves on the ground. He’d always been good with earth magic. He found the weight of it comfortable - unlike the flighty, insubstantial feeling of fire or air. Sakkara’s magic came back at him, her power saturating the earth where they stood - heavy and thick. Only the barest hint of the magic he was used to from her reverberated back at him. The sage and vanilla from his childhood. It was all overlaid with the soupy anise scent. He felt his nose wrinkle and his lip curl. He sent a pulse of magic into the earth.

“What are you doing?”

While he was getting better at telling them apart when he looked at them, when he couldn’t see Jade and Lily, their voices were identical. It was only when they continued to speak - the cadence of their speech or their word choices that he could identify with whom he spoke. As long as he didn’t look up, he could almost pretend that Jade was standing above him, looking down with that owl-like curiosity in her eyes; a blunt child asking a question.

“The earth remembers magic done. It sinks into the soil, the trees. The air will remember too, but the earth has no choice but to stay where it is, unable to be carried away.” He shifted a bit in his crouch, dropping one knee to the ground, needing to feel more connected to the soil. “Sometimes, if you ask properly, the earth will tell you what it remembers. A magical echo.”

Paris never had a real spell for it - only a sense of what needed to be done. He remembered being a child, learning to use his magic, pushing out bits and pieces of it in the Preserve when he visited with his mother. He remembered sometimes seeing flares of things long passed. He’d not done it in years - not since a horrid incident with dead and dying animals - the backlash of which haunted him for months. Tentatively, he pushed his magic out, willing the earth to show him what had transpired.

A harsh, shrieking sound had him turning his face to the sky. Ghostly images of birds circled and swooped through the air.

“Sparrows,” whispered Lily, her face upturned as well. “There were sparrows watching her. Watching them.”

Superimposed over Lily, Paris could now see the image of Jade, being held on the ground, a dark figure standing behind her. Sakkara. His mother. She wasn’t as clear as Jade: why, he could not say. Jade had an ethereal, silver glow to her, fading in and out. Sakkara was all black, more from the absence of any light than a presence in her own right. Lily stepped out of the circle, as though to get out of the way of the ghostly apparitions. As soon as she did, Jade faded. Paris felt as though the area went numb and cold with Lily no longer in the circle.

“No, go back,” Paris said, sending more of his magic into the earth. “I think it helps having you in her circle.”

Lily stepped back in and the image of Jade appeared again. Sakkara’s hand was a claw and, as he watched, blue runes flared to life on Jade’s shoulder - the essence of them showing through her running jacket.

“Look, more runes,” Lily said, drawing Paris’ attention to the air in front of her where he could see Sakkara carving symbols into the sky. Unlike the blue ones on Jade’s shoulders, these runes drawn on the air and wind were dark grey, almost black, oozing a strange transparent viscous substance.

“Do you hear anything?” Paris asked Lily. The visions were silent to him and he wondered if Lily, with her strange, intimate connection with Jade, received more of the echo than he did.

“No. Nothing.”

In the apparition before him, Jade clearly struggled and Paris saw the harsh line of magic shooting out from Sakkara’s clawed hand - her power driving deep into Jade’s cavity, tethering her to the ground. Though she wouldn’t have seen the visual representation of the magic herself, Jade must have felt heavy, anchored to the earth, unable to move. Sakkara was an inescapable force, holding Jade still, etching runes into the air and into Jade’s skin. Jade opened her mouth, her lips forming words, but the shape of them was too insubstantial for Paris to read.

Then, out of the forest came another dark shape: this one a dark brown jackal with a tail swishing as it moved. Lily recognized him before Paris did, breathing out his name with the same ease with which Jade often spoke it.