Sorcerer's Spin

by Anise Rae

  “I’ve got this, firefly.” He cast the words to her ear. “Trust me.”

  The only person she’d ever trusted to ensure her freedom was herself. Anyone who did otherwise had never had their freedom taken away.

  Seth reached for her. Mara jumped back as he pulled her spindle from its sheath. “Can’t let you keep this, sweetheart.” He pointed its end toward her.

  That decided it. He thought to disarm her, but her mage power wasn’t helpless. She wasn’t helpless. She didn’t need her spindle to fight. Gregor might have a plan for later, but she had one now.

  “Come on, Juliet. Climb on behind me.” He nodded toward his motorcycle.

  She reached for her power twirled up on her inner spindle. She could do it. There was no other choice. She just had to relax.

  Suddenly, the wind blew hard, her curls stretching across her face.

  “Vibing shite!” Houston hollered as the tarp blew off the wagon’s load from the force of the hot wind, revealing its contents. Spinning wheels.

  Mara gasped.

  Over a hundred of them were piled high, precariously balanced. One wrong move and they’d tumble over. They must have been spelled to stay in place. Toward the back of the load, one large wheel circled around and around on its shaft in the breeze. It was a Standish Walking Wheel. Mara had one too.

  Evil’s clutch. The prophecy jumped through her mind. The outlaws surely qualified as evil. Power United might have the monopoly on that in the East. But there was another player in the West.

  She looked around the mowed fields to the bales of green hay beyond.

  The Black Skulls had wheels and they had hay, which meant somewhere they had sorceresses spinning copper.

  14

  Gregor read the dusty, rotting sign as Rickie bounced the motorcycle over the railroad tracks into a ghost town.

  Fort Prower. Est 1902.

  Every school kid learned about the late Douglas Prower, the third son of the then-senator. Prower, a charisma mage, had led a group of disgruntled citizens into the Wild West, dissatisfied with the government policies of the times. The truth was that the thrice-removed heir to the senate seat had wanted his own territory.

  Apparently, Prower and his followers had been more successful than history reported, establishing a town. In the Republic’s version, the story had ended quickly and tragically. The entire group—men, women, and children—had been taken under by fairies. Judging by the size of the town before Gregor, the fairies would have needed an army to defeat the mages who’d lived here.

  There hadn’t been a fairy army in the history of the Republic.

  Rickie guided his bike into the crumbling town, leading the parade of outlaws. As they passed the only building on the street that still had glass in its windows, Major Stanford Madding stomped out the door. Now known as the Mad Prophet, he was a former Republic army officer, founder and leader of the Black Skulls and, apparently, the first victim of the fairy needle.

  Gregor eyed the man as the sidecar sped past, his driver circling around and then coming to a stop.

  The Mad Prophet watched the parade move in, hands on hips, legs spread, fat cigar clenched between his teeth.

  Keeping the man in his peripheral vision, Gregor scanned the street, top to bottom in one sweeping glance.

  Approximately fifty men stood on the street or lounged against the buildings. More men hustled out doors and windows along the dilapidated row of businesses that bracketed both sides of the street, at least doubling the crowd. Three leaned out the upper windows on the north side. They were armed with mage rifles. An additional three snipers hid on the roof of the western-most building, each with a mage-automatic twelve and one-half in his hands.

  The s-shaped grip was a giveaway even from this distance. It could hold twelve and one-half different types of bullet spells, the half being the most dangerous since it held a mix of poisons that immobilized but couldn’t kill, no matter how much its victim longed for death.

  He calculated the odds and came up with a tiny number.

  Rickie vibed off his engine, and Gregor hopped out of the sidecar.

  “Where ya going?” Rickie called.

  Gregor pointed at Mara in the midst of all the other vehicles and kept moving. He shouldn’t have listened to her refusal of his don’t look. He should have cast it, stashed her away, and retrieved her when he had his answers.

  Seth stepped in front of him just before he got to Mara. He poked a finger into Gregor’s chest. “One wrong move, and it’s my bullet and everyone else’s.”

  Gregor held out his hands, peaceful but confident. The idiot hadn’t even searched him for weapons. Stupid. If he were the Mad Prophet, he’d hang the man out to dry. “No worries. Just looking to stand next to my girl.”

  Mara swung her leg off the bike. Her lips were flat as she looked around, taking on everyone’s stare with narrowed eyes and a courage that made him wonder if she had her own twelve and one-half tucked away. He took her hand.

  At least there weren’t any fairies.

  The Mad Prophet strode over to Seth through the dust the vehicles had stirred up. A crowd closed in behind him.

  The former army man still had the build of a soldier—posture straight, eyes focused, vibes alert. He towered over Seth even though the other man was above-average height.

  His shoulders had lost little of the muscle he was once known for. His leather vest exposed the tattoos on both arms—black skulls. Another one marked his chest. His buzzed hair had gone gray, and he sported a scar on his cheek that hadn’t been in his army image spells.

  Gregor did another calculation. The Mad Prophet must have survived the needle’s prick for twenty or thirty years. That was the good news. The bad news? The mad part of his title hadn’t been there before he’d been pricked.

  “Well?” the Mad Prophet demanded around the cigar between his teeth.

  The town went quiet. Everyone listened.

  “Some success, Prophet,” Seth reported. “Houston’s on his way with the wheels. We turned three shipyards onto our side and most of the holdouts along the river and the western blocks. They all support the take-over.”

  He took the cigar from his mouth. “Including the whore?”

  Seth took a deep breath, his lips tight. “She isn’t hearing the message at the moment. She’s all about being in charge of her own destiny and isn’t interested in being tied to anyone. Most especially…you.” He dropped the last word softly, like trying to lower a grenade potion to the ground without it exploding.

  Prophet tossed his cigar away. It bounced twice in the dust. He exhaled between clenched teeth, a steam engine on the verge of exploding. “What the fuck?” His shout echoed against the empty buildings, his body jerking with every word. “Above all else, get the whore to sign. Those were your orders.” He stepped up nose to nose with Seth. “That woman is everything! Sign her and everyone else falls in line. The city loves her. She is the linchpin to our success.” He held his hands wide. “How can I fulfill my destiny if we can’t woo one measly woman to our side? We rule the West! She does not!” His volume grew louder. “We rule the West!”

  “We rule the West!” The crowd echoed the cheer.

  Gregor raised an eyebrow at the insanity. If this is what the needle had done to the man, his own future looked grim. How the hell did Prophet think he would bring the entire place under his command? The Wild West was a sparsely populated, wide expanse of land with few paved roads.

  Prophet tipped his head back. “And conquer the East!” he howled.

  What?

  Was the Mad Prophet so off his vibes that he thought to invade the Republic? That didn’t add up. The Black Skulls would be nothing more than a speck of dust to the Republic’s army.

  Next to him, Mara went as still as a little rabbit. He squeezed her hand.

  The High Councilor’s eyeballs were going to pop right through her stitches at this. Equally baffling was that the Republic was in the dark about the former Maj
or Madding’s anticipated destiny.

  The crowd repeated the mind-boggling words with enthusiasm over and over.

  Gregor dragged Mara closer to him while the outlaws pumped their fists to the mindfucked rhythm pulsing through them.

  Madding raised his hand for silence and the chant faded away.

  “We’re roasting the whore out as we speak,” Seth explained. “She won’t be able to stay in business without electricity. ’Specially not when her competitors are blowing nice, cool air conditioning.”

  From the other side of Seth’s bike, Paulie snickered. “That ain’t all they’re blowing.”

  The Mad Prophet gave him a hard look, the kind that Gregor had learned early in his army career that he didn’t want from his commanding officer.

  “We’re subsidizing the merchandise of the ones who’ve signed on,” Seth continued. “They might as well be giving it away for free with the dancing girls they got left. Your madame won’t have any choice, sir. We’ll get a percentage of her girls too and start them spinning copper. We’ll have this land strung in no time, electricity flowing, and the people will owe it all to you.”

  “I don’t want a percentage. I’m taking all her girls!”

  Next to him, Mara took a sharp breath. She’d been right. The hay fields were for copper. The Black Skulls had become farmers and future utility providers, all in one. This had to be the biggest scheme the Wild West had ever seen. He glanced down at Mara and caught her gulping surprise. Her dark brown eyes were wide. He squeezed her shoulder.

  “Rule the Wild West!” a man hollered across the street. Another cheer erupted.

  The Mad Prophet held up his hand for silence and then gestured toward him and Mara. “And them? She from one of the houses? Why didn’t they fix her eyes?”

  “She’s no whore,” Seth said. “Yet.”

  And she damn well never would be. Gregor silently vowed that whether or not Mara would have approved.

  “They’re citizens,” Seth continued. “Found ‘em twenty miles back. I’m guessing they got kicked off the train for not having a ticket.”

  Sure. They’d go with that.

  “Fucking shit, Seth. I didn’t ask for the Republic’s stowaways!” He craned his neck and hollered back, “Summon my assimilators, Goddess damn it!”

  Assimilators? That sounded like all kinds of new fun. Mara must have agreed because her rapid, fearful breathing pushed against him.

  “Goggles on!” Seth yelled, loud and long. “Fairies coming in! Goggles on!”

  Ah, fuck. He should have known. He couldn’t seem to escape the creatures. His lungs picked up their pace, matching Mara’s and then surpassing it. Cold sweat dripped down his back.

  All around them, the Black Skulls donned the goggles that hung around their necks or rested on their heads.

  The black circles in the middle of the goggles suddenly made sense. They blocked out their direct vision. It was protection from the silvery hypnotic gaze of fairies. Not exactly perfect. It almost blinded the wearer.

  “Glister. That’s how they initiate people,” Mara whispered.

  “It’s all right,” he offered. But it wasn’t. He was quaking in his combat boots.

  Seth laughed. “You sound scared.”

  “Fuck you.”

  A group of men, tall and lean, strode down the middle of the road. Ten fairies…no, eleven…eyed him and Mara like they were supper on a stick. The man in the middle was the one exception. Gregor caught glimpses of him as they moved forward. He was bald. His only clothes were a tattered pair of shorts. His feet were bare and his bones stuck out beneath his skin.

  Seth pulled his gun. Goggles on, he pointed it at Gregor, blind except for his side vision. It almost didn’t matter to Gregor. He’d face down a gun over a fairy any day of the week.

  “Don’t resist. Keep your eyes open or I’ll blow off your head,” Seth ordered.

  “With those goggles, how can you see whether my eyes are open or not?” Gregor’s words tripped over each other. Fear permeated the tip of his tongue and every other inch of his body.

  Seth pressed the gun against Gregor’s temple. “How’s this, friend?”

  “Not feeling that’s much more accurate.”

  The mass of fairies stopped just before them. Their expressions varied from indifferent to disgusted to smug. Three months ago, whoever had pricked him with needle had probably looked just like them. But at least then there’d only been one. He’d never seen so many fairies at one time.

  A cyclone of fright swayed right and left inside him, scooping up every vibe of his energy. He couldn’t catch a breath.

  Shit. Not here. Not now.

  Panic was all-consuming. He knew this from experience. It had happened three times since the incident for nowhere near as good a reason as this was. Once it got a good grip, stopping it was impossible.

  Mara stepped in front of him.

  Goddess, he could not cower behind her. But he had a gun to his temple and his feet were iron blocks. The distance to her side was one step but it might have been a hundred miles.

  “Does Daegan know you’re here?” Mara didn’t sound a bit intimidated.

  He was her guard. He had to protect her. He yanked on that dark sea that the needle’s power had churned up, the one that Daegan had dared him to swim in. He wasn’t even sure what the fuck was in there, but anger, fury, even grief was better than panic’s grip.

  “Who’s Daegan?” Prophet demanded, turning his head to see her through the corner of his goggles.

  None of the fairies reacted to her comment.

  “A glister friend.” Mara’s chin was high, her voice steady. Gregor took a breath and a hint of her courage slipped into him.

  “Glister?” Prophet laughed. “The glister are no one’s friend. Get to work, boys.”

  The group parted to let the bald guy forward. His gaunt face was pale. His head hung down. If he weren’t a fairy, Gregor would have deemed him no threat.

  One of the fairies shoved the pathetic creature from behind. “Do it!”

  The beleaguered fairy lifted his head. One long blink and his eyes swirled with silver, his obedience as instant as the stark terror that flooded through Gregor. The fairy leaned toward Mara with his hypnotic gaze. “You belong to the wild, lost man who rules the tribe here. You follow his edicts. His wish is your command. Yes?”

  “Yes. Sure.” Mara’s soft, steady reply was carefree. Gregor hardly believed it, and yet it offered an anchor against his fear, a tiny hum of hope. But he wasn’t sure Prophet believed it either. The man looked askance at Mara from his goggles’ edges.

  The fairy shifted his alien gaze to Gregor, moving like the gears in his neck were insufficient to move his fucked-up head.

  Goddess protect him, he thought. It was his turn. He gritted his teeth, his temple moving against Seth’s gun barrel. But he was weak, and the fairy’s silver swirl sucked him in. A sense of nothingness washed through him, eclipsing the terror, smothering his panic. Empty, wandering, desolate…waiting to be filled.

  “And you, consort of the lost man’s girl—”

  Gregor wanted to shake his head at the words. What the hell did that mean? There wasn’t enough of his mind left to understand.

  “Wait!” The Mad Prophet shouted. “What the still-hells is on your neck?”

  The words were far away, muffled and stilted.

  Prophet yanked off his goggles, strode forward, and squatted until he was eye-level with Gregor’s neck. “You have the needle’s scars. You are glister-marked!” He belted out a laugh, bending over, hands to knees. It reminded Gregor of Daegan.

  “Glister-marked and you came to me! This is a sign.” The Mad Prophet addressed the crowd, his fists to the sky. “Praise the Goddess and her forgiven consort for they have sent a sign,” he shouted. He turned to the fairy. “Leave. Now. I want him untouched. Remember. You’ll get yours when I have mine,” he added.

  The gaunt fairy’s eyes went blank, emptying of the silv
er swirl, leaving a hollow, pale blue. All the pieces of Gregor’s mind and soul that had scattered away slammed back. He stumbled under the onslaught while the fairy marched off with the rest of his kind as if he hadn’t just momentarily erased another’s essence.

  Mara caught his hand, studying him as if he looked as strange to her as he felt inside.

  Prophet moved Seth’s gun away from Gregor’s face with a flick of his finger. “Who the hell are you?” Like Mara, Prophet inspected him with a searching stare.

  Gregor was as wrung out as an old dishrag spell. He willed his strength to flood back, but it was a no go. He was going to have to get through this on the fumes of his vibes because that was all he had left. A trickle of sweat danced down his cheek.

  Seth yanked off his goggles. “He cast a shield spell faster than any mage I’ve ever seen.”

  Prophet spun around to him. “And you thought it was a good idea to bring him into our camp? Never trust a citizen mage!” he shouted.

  Poor Seth was having a bad day.

  “I thought that was never trust a fairy,” Gregor said. His voice was faint and rough. He cleared his throat. He needed to get this situation under control and find out what he came for…answers…before the fairies came back. “Gregor Whitman, Major Madding. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Call me Prophet. What brings you here, boy?”

  “He’s here because of his girl,” Seth interjected. “She’s an incomparable.”

  Gregor tilted his head at that. “An incomparable?” He squeezed Mara’s hand.

  “Wayward.” Prophet spat on the ground at the word and then he scowled at his lieutenant. “You, fool! He’s here because he’s an incomparable.” He held out his hand, palm up. A young lackey scrambled over with a cigar. The kid held up a flame, balanced on his finger, a fire mage.

  Prophet lit his cigar with it and then puffed, smoke drifting out. “The needle has given me a beautiful life.” His eyes brightened, glowing a pale yellow as his power brushed them. “I didn’t think so at first. But look what I’ve got now. Prophecies spill from me. Men flock to me—mages, Normals, fairies. I’m about to have a land twice the size of the Republic under my control.” The excitement in his voice grew with each pronouncement. “And then I will take the Republic too. The old bitch will wither next to me. I will pluck her out and take what should have been mine.”