The Undead Pool

Page 21

“Wild magic?” Al whispered in a sudden horror, and I yelped when he yanked me to my feet. “You little bitch!” he shouted, shaking me so hard I lost my hold on the jar and it fell, breaking. “I told you to leave the wild magic alone!”
“You’re hurting me!” I shouted, and Newt turned, her dancing stilling to a cold silence.
“He is an elf!” Al raged, his grip becoming even tighter.
“I haven’t done anything!” I protested. “Al. Let me go!” I couldn’t do magic. Not with the wave still over us.
“Let her go! You’re hurting her,” Trent said, and the demon’s grip tightened, his eyes almost black in the sun.
“And you’re going to make me?” Al said, each word drifting into existence with the sound of falling dust.
Grim faced, Trent stood before us, the hair falling into his eyes as sparkles seemed to dance between his fingers. Al shoved me from him, and I lurched to keep my feet. The demon was hunched like a bear, his feet easing deeper into the ruined earth. Don’t do this, I begged them silently as I backed up. Please don’t do this.
“Right now, I probably could,” Trent said.
“I’d like to see you try,” Al taunted.
“Stop it!” I shouted as Trent made a fist. I could feel the wild magic streaming into him. Al took an eager breath, and I dove for Trent, plowing into him and knocking him down. The red earth slammed into us. My shoulder twinged, and I flung a hand out. “Rhombus!” I screamed, cowering as Al’s magic slammed into the barrier.
My heart thudded. Beside me, Trent rolled to a crouch. He was pissed.
“I will not be bullied,” Trent snapped as he pushed me into my circle and the barrier fell, tingles of magic exploding into cramps until the force ran back to the line. And then he was gone as Al physically grabbed him, yanking him up and away.
“Stop it! Both of you!” I shouted as I rose. They were grappling, waves of energy sparkling in the ever-after sun. He wouldn’t be bullied. Damn it, I was the one who taught him to stand up to bullies, ages ago at camp. And now it was going to kill him.
Trent screamed in pain, and then Al flung him away, his own cry of agony lost in the gritty wind. Magic exploded in a white-hot flash of silence between them, and I cowered, hands over my head.
An eerie stillness fell. Ten fingers, ten toes, I thought, lifting my head at the moan of pain.
“That is quite enough,” Newt said, and I looked up to see her back to what passed for normal for her. Lips pressed, she walked through a field of open jars, hesitating to frown at the one I’d broken. “Are you okay?” she asked as she extended a hand to help me up.
I looked at it for a second, and after tightening my grip on my energy balance, I put my hand in hers, wondering if it was the first time I’d ever voluntarily touched her. I didn’t think so, but she looked at her hand before hiding it in a wide sleeve when I let go.
Al was on his back, choking. Trent looked about the same. They were both breathing though, and I stifled a shiver. That last blast had come from Newt.
“Rachel, love,” Newt said softly, pulling me so I couldn’t see them. “Remind me why Gally is trying to kill your familiar?”
My arm hurt, and I rubbed it. “I’m not sure.”
Newt looked over the jars, sad when her gaze came back to me. “Sometimes it’s better to not remember.”
From the dirt, Al choked out, “He’s teaching her wild magic! She’s already sensitized to it. Waves of it are coming out of her line. He’s going to enslave us again. He needs to die. Now!” He was enraged, staring at the sun as if it was all he could do to speak. Slowly he turned himself over, grunting from the effort. “Oh God,” he moaned, his words making puffs in the dust. “I’m going to die.”
Newt blinked her black eyes at him. “Not today” was all she said as she looked at Trent, silent but unmoving. I jumped when she put an arm over my shoulder and turned our backs on them. “Rachel, dear, we need to talk.”
I looked over my shoulder at Trent. “But . . .”
Newt waved a hand, and I froze, terrified, when both Al and Trent vanished. “Just us girls.”
“Newt! Where are they!” I cried, and the crazy demon sniffed.
“Somewhere safe.”
Eyes wide, I stared at her. “Tell me before you forget?”
Again, the demon seemed annoyed at herself, and she tapped the butt of her staff into the dirt as she thought that over. “Perhaps you’re right,” she muttered, and I breathed a sigh of relief when they popped back into existence. Al was white as he sat on the dry earth, and Trent’s eyes were wide, but at least they could move now.
“Behave yourselves!” Newt said, clearly ticked. Nose wrinkling, she looked over the rain-starved ground. “I feel wild magic. Who pulled this? You?”
She was talking to Trent, who was currently wedging a rock out from under himself. “No,” he croaked, hand to his throat. “But I intend to find out who did.”
“He lies!” Al raged, then slumped back when Newt glared. “He’s going to seduce her and enslave her, and us with her!” he added.
“Nonsense.” Newt gazed at Trent, the elf still preoccupied with trying to breathe. “You’re not going to have sex with Rachel, are you?”
Trent’s head came up, and I could do nothing when his eyes met mine. “Ah, what does that have to do with it?” he said.
Newt spun fast enough to make me jump. “There, see?” she said triumphantly to Al, her psyche beginning to slide back toward instability. “He doesn’t know the only way to enslave her is with sex. Now sit there and have your demon-to-elf chat. We’ll be right back. Behave, or I’ll put you back somewhere safe until we’re done.”
Numb, I stayed pliant when she linked her arm in mine and began picking her way through the rubble to one of the larger slumps of rocks.
“Rachel, love,” she murmured as she caught sight of the glass jars. “What on earth are you and Al doing up here with all these jars?”
I gave her a sidelong glance. “Collecting fireflies for when the sun turns black. Your words, not mine.”
Her pace bobbled, and then she renewed it with a firm determination. “Would you care for some tea?”
The idea of eating anything out here in the baking sun and gritty wind was repellent, but I nodded.
“I’d suggest something with a lot of rosehips,” she said, grimacing as she elegantly sat on the wire-rim chair that suddenly appeared. “It masks the taste of grit.” A matching chair misted into existence, and then a white cloth-covered table and sunshade. The billowing shade was a relief, and I sat, shifting my chair so I could see Al and Trent, both of them staring at me in anger as they got to their feet and brushed the ever-after dirt from them. If the only common ground they could find was anger at me, then so be it.
“Now,” Newt said primly, reminding me of Ceri as she poured out the tea into red-dusted cups. Tea in the Sahara. “It’s high time we talk about the birds and bees. Lovey, have you had sex with Trenton Aloysius Kalamack?”
Startled, I reached for the cup. “No.”
Newt eyed me, making no move to her cup. “You have had that elf as your familiar for over a year, and he’s not put the sparkle in your scrying mirror even once?”
Embarrassed, I took a sip, then spit it back in the cup. “I didn’t even like him until recently.”
“Like?” Newt waved a hand in the air, and hair spun down from her head in a wave. “When does like ever enter into good sex?”
“Why does everyone assume I’m having sex with him?” I said, exasperated.
“Because he’s an elf, love, and elves are very good at it.” Newt eyed Al and Trent across the distance, her brow creasing when Al shoved Trent, pinning him to a rock as he whispered threats into his ear. “Why do you think Al spent all that time with that elf? Ceri, wasn’t it? It wasn’t because he loved her. Oh, wait a moment, it was . . .” Her eyes unfocused, then cleared. “The tea is rancid. Have a cookie.”
I looked at the plate of cookies that shimmered into existence, lips parting when I realized they were still soft—almost warm—and that I could smell a faint hint of chocolate under the heavy burnt-amber stench.
Newt took a cookie, waving it about as she talked. “It’s not the sex, it’s the magic. You’ve tasted it. I can see it in you. I pray that you’ve not drunk so deep you’re caught.”
Alarmed, I looked across the broken earth to Trent, standing defiantly under Al’s harangue.
“Elven magic is a sweet, sweet addiction.” Newt said the words softly, hardly breathing, watching Trent with a scary longing. “You think it has no cost because there’s no smut, but she always wants payment.” Her black eyes came to me. “Their Goddess is a trickster. You align yourself with her, you may as well end your life now. It will be nothing but misery and betrayal upon betrayal until the bitter end, where she laughs and collects your soul to make new eyes for herself.”
I thought of my dream of a thousand purple eyes with wings. Slowly I took a bite of the cookie, wondering where she’d gotten them. “You, ah, know about the Goddess?”
“Of course I do. I was there when we killed her.”
Leaning forward, I brushed crumbs from myself. “Then she’s real?”
“Oh, she’s real. The only reason we beat the elves off was because we convinced them she wasn’t.” She pointed her cookie at me. “An elf who doesn’t believe in his magic can be bested. One who believes will always survive. That’s why Al is upset that wild magic is being pulled from your ley line. Coupled with belief, it’s stronger than demon magic, though none would admit it.”
I thought about that as she put the cookie in her mouth and bit down. She cringed, as if having not wanted to do that, and then she froze, actually tasting it. Fingers trembling, she ate another bite. “This is a good cookie,” she whispered.
“Then my line is leaking wild magic,” I said, looking at it.
“No.” Blinking fast, she reverently took another bite. “Someone is pulling wild magic from between the spaces, and your line is small and remote. Easy to manipulate. What are you going to do about it?”
I thought about the world she lived in where a chocolate chip cookie was grounds for reverent tears. This had to end. “Find out who and why and tell them to stop.”
“Good.” She pushed the plate at me. “Have another cookie.”
“You have them,” I said, and she smiled at me.
Her black eyes lost their focus as she gazed out over the broken ever-after, the wind kicking up dirt devils from under the rocks. “You know why Al kept Ceri for so long? Taught her everything he knew?” she said as she watched Trent and Al.
“She was a showcase for his talents as a maker of fine familiars,” I said, knowing it was false even if it was what he’d once told me.
“He was trying to find a way to give her children,” she said, lost in a memory. “He’d never admit it now. Kill you for even mentioning it. He was delirious when he told me, dying from that aura burn he got from Ku’Sox. The fool looked for the better part of a thousand years through magic and science, knowing it might be the only way that he could have her as more than a slave. I suspect if he had succeeded, he would have fought us all to the grave rather than let her go, but when he failed, he simply . . . walked away.” Newt fixed her black, unblinking focus to me, and my breath caught at the sudden glint of lucidity. “It took that long for his hope to die. We are a stubborn people.”
Uneasy, I looked away. I’d loved Kisten knowing that there’d never be children between us. It hadn’t seemed to matter, but I suppose when your species was barren, children would carry a lot of weight. Enough to end a war, perhaps.
“Elves are dangerous, Rachel,” Newt said, and I pulled my thoughts from Kisten’s smile. “Wickedly clever. Powerful. Alluring. And in a moment of weakness, trust comes ill to the unwary. When they practice, their magic seeps into every corner of their soul, able to lift you up beyond what you ever imagined. Are you sure you’ve not had sex with your elf and just forgotten?”
Unhappy, I shook my head. “He’s going to be married by the year’s end.” And then, it wouldn’t matter.
“To you?” she said, shocking me.
“No, another elf.”
Newt settled back, dragging the plate of cookies closer to her. “More elves. I don’t understand this. You free us from Ku’Sox only to enslave us again.”
I shook my head, wondering what it might have been like to have Trent between my sheets, his hands on my skin, the feel of his muscles under my fingers. Sighing, I shook the image from me, hoping Newt couldn’t see the goose bumps. “He knows how to free you from the curse.”
“And yet he won’t,” she said, voice soft. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think we could leave our prison now even if we tore the walls from space itself. We’re like fireflies in a jar.” Head tilted, she picked up a nearby jar, eyeing it. “What are you doing with all these jars, anyway?”
Concerned, I looked at Trent and Al, and she tapped the table. “I’m watching them,” she said sharply. “What are you doing with the jars?”
Feeling pity, I said, “You were the one with the jars. Trying to catch fireflies.”
She slumped in her chair, mood distant. “I don’t remember,” she breathed, handing it to me. The glass seemed to tingle in my fingers, and she pulled herself together when it left her. “I’m so glad we had this chat.”