Witch-Blood

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  I don’t do vegetables, Aiden, she added, snarling her nose.

  I added more ketchup and watched Georgie mop up her last crumbs. “The grand magus takes covering his tracks to a whole new level, doesn’t he?”

  “Forgot to mention that,” Joey said between bites. “Looks like Harrison’s on house arrest, or whatever you people call it.” He looked up from his lunch, found me gawking with a fry halfway to my open mouth, and shrugged. “Yeah, Helen didn’t sound too pleased. Council had a no-confidence vote after we ran—guess they saw through his cover story. All of these warrants and hit squads are their doing.”

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “Exactly. He’s not going to be able to help us, so let’s hope Rufus isn’t feeling too back-stabby today.” Joey picked up his soda cup, rattled the ice inside, and rose. “Need a refill. Georgie, honey, that’s mine,” he said, giving her a warning look as her hand crept toward the last of his burger, then walked off while I tried to make sense of the rapidly unraveling world.

  We couldn’t sit in the restaurant indefinitely—not when we had no idea what was waiting for Rufus or when he might be back—so we took a short walk across the island toward a public beach. Georgie, at least, was full and decently rested, and she was happy to flop down in the warm sand and nap while Joey and I sat beside her and fretted. I offered to keep watch if Joey wanted to sleep—the shadows under his eyes seemed to darken as the caffeine wore off—but he turned me down. There was a hotel just down the street, and we discussed our contingency plan: get a room overnight, find a car in the morning, and decide whether we could risk leaving the island with targets on our backs.

  But shortly before three, Joey’s phone rang, and he answered it on speaker. “What’s up?” he asked as I scooted closer to the outstretched phone.

  Rufus’s voice, though somewhat distorted with static, sounded almost happy. “There’s no one here,” he reported. “Not a soul. The island’s deserted.”

  “You’re sure?” Joey asked.

  “Positive. There’s a few trespassing warnings posted, but other than that, it’s empty.”

  “What about the bar? Did you check the outbuildings? And the houses—”

  “I’d have checked them if they existed. But I mean it—the place is empty. Sand, trees, sea oats and scrub, and a wide patch where the road ends. I’m standing where this bar of yours should be,” he continued, “and there’s not even a cigarette butt. It’s gone.”

  “You don’t think there’s, like, a glamour on it or something?”

  “Joey,” Rufus sighed, “give me a scintilla of credit. I’d know a large-scale enchantment if I ran into one.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “And where are you? Still eating?”

  “We’re on the beach,” I chimed in. “Straight across the island. Are you heading back? And by the way, the Fringe says the Arcanum’s going to have a hit squad on us as soon as we’re far enough north. Just putting that out there.”

  He grunted. “Delightful. Get back to the strip mall—I’ll open a gate by the Dumpsters, yes? Call me when you get there.”

  The conversation ended, and Joey stood and shook the sand off his clothing. “Moment of truth?” he murmured.

  “Looks like it.”

  He bent to nudge Georgie awake. “Then let’s get this over with. I guess there are worse places to die than Florida.”

  Half an hour later, hidden in the shadows beside the world’s most odiferous trash bin, we stepped back as a gate appeared and Rufus walked through with a clothes-wrapped bundle in his arms. “Looking a little pink, there,” he said, frowning at Georgie’s blossoming sunburn. “And here,” he continued, passing the bundle to Joey. “I’m sure you feel naked by now.”

  Joey pulled the shirts back to reveal the hilt of his sword. “What—”

  “Saw it in the trunk. Sorry about the laundry, but I’m not touching that without better gloves.” He pulled his pair from his pocket and showed us the holes burned through the fingers. “Need to buy new ones. The ones I enchant whole-cloth don’t stand up to repeated exposure.”

  I noticed that he’d wrapped band-aids around his right fingertips. “You’re burned?”

  “Not too badly,” he told me. “I’ve had far worse. But anyway,” he said, turning back to Joey, “I thought that would make you feel better. I mean, if the Arcanum drops in, at least you might stab one of the bastards before you go.”

  He passed Rufus back the clothing and quickly belted his sword on with a low, “Thanks, man.”

  “Not a problem,” said Rufus, ignoring Joey’s discomfiture. “Shall we?”

  The three of us followed him back through the gate onto a lonely stretch of white beach. Once the rift closed, the only sounds beside our footsteps were seagulls, the gently rolling waves, and the rustle of the palm leaves overhead and the long grass up the dunes. Joey stopped in his tracks and turned in a circle, scowling at the empty horizon. “Okay,” he said slowly, “the bar was there”—he pointed to an empty patch of dirt at the end of the road—“and the houses started back that way…”

  If I hadn’t previously seen the island developed, I might have thought Joey was delusional—there were no footprints but ours, no car but our rental, and no indication that East Rock Key had ever been more than a nature preserve. Even the road was partly covered with a thin layer of the ubiquitous fine white sand, which appeared to be unchecked in its re-conquest of the place.

  “So,” said Rufus, carefully sliding his injured hand into his pocket as he surveyed the island, “seeing as we have a bit of privacy, what do you say we go fishing for mermaids?”

  Procuring a boat was a minute’s work for Rufus, who rubbed his chin, squinted at the sand, and imagined a sturdy wooden rowboat into being. “Backup propulsion,” he explained as he levitated it down to the water. “In case something happens to me, I’m sure you’d rather not drift out into the Atlantic.”

  We climbed aboard, and as Rufus skimmed us over the waves, Joey directed the craft around the island to a sheltered spot and called a halt. The sun was beginning to dip, and for the moment, we were the only boat traffic in the vicinity. “This is the place?” Rufus asked.

  “As far as I remember,” Joey replied. “But even if we get a message down, there’s no way to know how long he’ll be in coming up. Hard to hurry Grivam.”

  “Well, then,” said Rufus, stretching his injured hand over the light chop, “I do a mean Chex Mix, if I do say so myself. Here goes nothing.”

  I watched as a bolt of light shot through the green water and disappeared. Rufus retracted his hand, blotted it dry on his trousers, and shrugged as he produced a plastic bottle. “And that’s that, I suppose. Who needs sunscreen?”

  After a little convincing, Georgie allowed Joey to rub the lotion onto her reddening face and arms—Tell me again why this is preferable to scales, she thought, wincing as her fine coating of sand turned to sandpaper on her tender skin—and Rufus, as promised, did his part to keep us fed and hydrated between drifting us back toward the meeting spot. As the sun set, he produced a few glow sticks—no metal parts, unlike flashlights—and Joey called up cartoons on his phone to keep Georgie entertained. I sat back on the last bench and watched the stars pop out of the indigo sky, regretting that I couldn’t turn off the bright haze from Key West on the horizon. Light pollution was seldom a problem in Faerie, but sometimes I missed Montana’s predictable stars—or at least, what little I’d seen of them.

  Joey finally allowed himself to doze after a dinner of sandwiches, and Georgie slid into the bottom of the boat beside him with the phone, her new favorite toy. I’d begun to think that a catnap might not be a bad idea when something large splashed beside us, the boat rocked, and a pair of hands gripped the side. Georgie sat up in a panic, but Rufus called a fireball into being on his palm, revealing the merrow king’s webbed gray hands and hairless, cetacean head off to port. “Who would summon me?” he asked in Fae, looking about the boat before o
ne of his black eyes settled on me. “Ah, young Aiden,” he said, flashing too many teeth in the merrow approximation of a smile. “Now, isn’t this surprising.”

  “Lord Grivam,” I said, wishing my voice would hurry up and finish dropping, “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’ve come to ask a favor.”

  “Indeed?” He gave the others a second look and paused on Joey, who had woken and sat up in the commotion. “Ah, yes, I remember you,” he said, favoring Joey with another of his predatory grins, then cocked his head at me and waited.

  I took the hint. “My companions,” I said, trying not to stutter. “These are Rufus and Georgie.”

  Grivam nodded to each but focused on Rufus, who still held his flame aloft. “I was wondering who sent the message,” he said, “in light of present company.” With that, he turned back to me and hooked his elbows over the side of the boat. “So, young Aiden, you wish to bargain?”

  I exhaled to calm my nerves. “No, my lord. I want you to honor your bargain with my brother.”

  His inner eyelids blinked slowly once, twice, as he held my stare and I held my breath. “I do have an arrangement with Coileán,” he finally replied, “but we never made the benefit transferrable.”

  “And I seem to recall Coileán giving you shelter without question and destroying the monster that was hunting you,” I retorted. “The latter of which was above and beyond the terms of your agreement. You owe him, my lord, and you know it.”

  He blinked again and briefly flashed his teeth. “Big words, young Aiden.”

  “For all I know, my brother is dead,” I said, fighting the rising urge to throttle the smile off his face. “All I ask is information. Do this for me and consider your debt to him repaid.”

  “And if he should feel differently?” Grivam asked. “If Coileán should consider you an improper substitute?”

  I thought quickly. “Then I would be indebted to you,” I replied, “for a favor in kind.”

  He considered my proposal for a moment, then said, “I cannot imagine how you could be of use to me, young Aiden. Weak, inexperienced—”

  “Anything, up to my life,” I heard myself blurt out. “If Coileán won’t release you, then…do with me as you like.”

  Grivam steepled his fingers and regarded me closely. “You attempt to take something belonging to a king,” he murmured. “You…believe so strongly that he would not object to the theft?”

  “I believe my brother would not object, no. Not under these circumstances.”

  “And you’ll stake your life on that, young Aiden? I warn you,” he added, leaning toward me over the side, “I collect on my debts.”

  “I understand.”

  “So we have a deal? I provide the information you seek, and should Coileán take offense—”

  “We have a deal.”

  He turned to each of the others and nodded. “We will let your companions bear witness. Now,” he continued, ignoring the black look Joey was shooting him, “what is so valuable to you?”

  At that moment, a very small, very soft thought popped into my head: Want me to fry him?

  I patted Georgie’s shoulder but kept my gaze on Grivam’s eyes—well, at least on one of them. They moved independently, and his far eye kept rolling away to examine Rufus. “Where’s Oberon, and what’s happened in Faerie in the last few days?”

  “Good questions. And questions I cannot answer at this time. However,” he said, raising one hand before I could protest, “I am willing to make enquiries. Quiet enquiries, naturally.”

  He smiled, and I prayed to whatever was listening that Grivam didn’t consider me a food option. “How soon?”

  “I will send an envoy tonight, but after that, I cannot say. Stay close,” he suggested, pointing to the empty beach. “Wait for my message.” He released the boat and backstroked just enough to allow his tailfin to breach. “And young Aiden?”

  I sat stiffly on my bench, willing myself not to be sick. “Yes, my lord?”

  “I do hope, for your sake, that your confidence is not misplaced.”

  With a flick of his tail, Grivam bent and dove, leaving nothing but spreading ripples on the black water. I held my breath until I was sure he was gone, then looked around the boat and slowly exhaled. “That, uh…that went well.”

  Rufus grimaced before extinguishing his fireball. “Not exactly the descriptor I’d use, but sure, if it makes you feel better.” The boat began to turn toward the island, and he said, “I suppose this means we’re making camp, doesn’t it?”

  I was never a Boy Scout. My elementary school had a troop, but it was anemic on its best days; half my classmates were the children of ranchers and farmers, the rest were Arcanum, and neither group had much use for sitting around in the mountains, telling ghost stories and tying knots. The idea of making camp on a deserted island left me feeling more than a little out of my depth, even considering that Georgie would be willing to get a fire started without making us resort to rubbing sticks together.

  Then again, “making camp” takes on a completely different meaning when the member of your party making the arrangements is fae and creative. By the time Georgie had set up a decent fire and Joey had contained it, Rufus had created a billowing pavilion of the type seen on brochures for Caribbean resort spas. The walls and canopy, little more than thin gauze to keep out the flies and admit the breeze, stretched around four plush beds and over a teak floor. Candles hung in lanterns around the tent and squatted under glass globes on low tables between the beds, casting a warm light around the room. A quartet of wooden chairs ringed the makeshift fire pit and the whole spitted pig that was coming to a crispy finish. Even more bizarrely, Rufus had erected a bathroom in a wooden outbuilding a few feet beyond the tent, complete with a hot and cold shower and sauna.

  You can try to dissect and understand magic, or you can roll with it. I chose the latter, collapsed into a chair with a huge helping of roast pork, and watched for meteors until late in the night.

  I had hoped that Grivam would return in the morning, but the sun rose with no sign of him. Rufus made breakfast, Georgie wrapped herself in white sheets against the sun, and Joey and I paced the beach, waiting for a familiar gray tail to break the surface. Noon passed quickly—as did Joey’s leftover pork barbeque sandwiches—and by dusk, even Georgie had emerged to search the sea. Rufus took a good look at her burns, set up a small enchantment to speed her healing, handed her a tube of aloe, and sent her back to bed.

  By Wednesday, we’d moved beyond restless. Joey and Rufus went so far as to spend the morning snorkeling, and when even that failed to raise a blip from the deep, Joey announced that he was going back to Key West for provisions. I thought he was just looking for a reason to get off the island, but he quickly set me straight: “If we’ve got down time, I’m building a nail gun,” he explained. “Served me well in the past, and that’s one thing Rufus can’t make for me.”

  He left at lunchtime, promising Georgie he wouldn’t be gone long, and returned mid-afternoon with two fully laden plastic bags, one from a hardware store and the other from a sporting goods shop. The first went onto a table Rufus made for the occasion, far in one corner of the pavilion, where his odds of being hit by stray iron were slimmest. The second was dumped onto my bed, and Joey divided the contents between the two of us. “Boot knife,” he said, passing me a slim blade in a black leather holster. “Bowie knife. Multi-tool. Here’s a belt to hold everything on…”

  I tried the belt and shifted under the unfamiliar gear strapped at my hips. “What, you couldn’t get another sword?” I teased.

  He looked around the tent, then plucked a full bronze blade from off his bed. “I asked Rufus to make this while I was gone. Softer than mine, but it’s something,” he said, passing me the hilt. “That’s about the size of your practice sword, right?”

  I tested the weight and balance, then nodded. “Not as useful as iron.”

  “There’s not exactly a blacksmith in Key West,” he replied with a snort. “Yo
u’re going to have to use a two-blade technique—slash with the bronze, stab with the Bowie at close range.”

  Neither of us discussed the obvious as we divvied our gear. No word from Grivam in two days could only mean bad news from Faerie—and bad news could only mean that someone would have to go over.

  I just hoped my sister didn’t get wind of it before we were on the other side. Oberon was one thing, but I did not want to see Hel angry.

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  Wednesday night came and passed without greater incident than an amateur fireworks show from a neighboring island. While Joey kept testing his gun and returning to the table for tweaks, Rufus and I sat outside, playing chess by firelight and trying to field Georgie’s questions about the game. Having taken a walk down the island at sunset, I’d realized why we had no curious boaters coming ashore: Rufus had thrown a massive sort of glamour over our spit of sand, disguising the tent, the outbuilding, and even our fire pit as scrub and shadows. Once outside, I could see the contours of the enchantment, fine pink lines stretched in an iridescent bubble over our makeshift compound.

  I’ve wondered from time to time what the world must be like for those who can’t see magic. Trying to explain what I see around me is sort of like trying to explain color to the colorblind—non-sensitives just don’t have the framework to understand what I’m saying. For instance, what does it mean to a colorblind person if I say a chair is green? What is green to someone without a conception of color? That quality of the chair simply can’t be perceived, no matter how many adjectives you throw at it.

  Telling a true mundane about the way I view the world is much the same. I look around and see the neat workings of spells, the chaotic jumbles of enchantment, and bursts and streaks of wild, untapped magic in its vibrant spectrum—which includes colors that don’t have standard names in any language. I see the ways magic is shaping my environment. My understanding is that mundanes see none of this—magic is undetectable to the vast majority, which boggles my mind. The closest I’ve ever come to knowing how mundanes go through life was that brief period in which Faerie was closed off—it was incredibly weird, like watching the world fade to black and white. Imagine growing up in Oz and suddenly finding yourself in Kansas, wondering where the hell all the Technicolor went.