Three Witches and a Zombie

by Maggie Shayne

  She pulled the power into her, centering it, feeling the pulsing golden glow of it in her solar plexus. And then she took Nathan's hands away and turned to her aunt. She lifted her hands, palms down, and moved them slowly, hovering a hair's breadth above Flora's small body, head to toe, feeling her aura, searching for the invader that was making her aunt so ill.

  And finding it. A red throb, pulsing against her palm from Flora's left ankle.

  Quickly, Aurora grasped Flora's ankle, pushing up the leg of her pants, bending closer.

  "Aurora?" Nathan asked.

  "Snake bite," she whispered, and she spotted the tiny marks and the red swelling around them.

  "But...we don't have any venomous snakes around here. Are you sure it's—"

  "Rattlers. We have rattlers. Not many, but every once in a while..." Her senses told her she was right. "Aunt Merri," she called, louder now, and her aunt poked her head in from the kitchen, the phone still held to her ear. "Tell them to get some antivenin. It was a rattlesnake. And then come to the hospital. We have to hurry." As she spoke she was yanking the silk scarf from Flora's head and twisting it around the leg, above the bite.

  "Get her to the car, Nathan," she said softly. "You drive."

  #

  He didn't believe it. Okay, he'd told her he did, but he'd only said it... hell, he didn't know why he'd said it. To snap her out of her momentary panic, he supposed. To give her some kind of strength so she'd do what needed doing.

  And oddly enough, it had worked. When he'd picked up the phone after she'd stormed out of his apartment—when he'd heard her aunt's frightened voice on the other end— he'd had this feeling that he should come over here. That Aurora...needed him. Stupid. Ridiculous, really.

  But then he'd touched her, and it was almost as if she really had. As if his hands on her shoulders, his being there with her, had helped her somehow.

  He shook his head and paced the waiting room some more. He'd driven like a maniac to get here while she'd worked on the snake bite in the backseat. He'd slowed down once—only once, and she'd snapped at him for it.

  "The light's red, Aurora. I have to—"

  She'd glanced over his shoulder, waved a hand toward the light. Green. It had turned red two seconds ago, but when she did whatever the hell she'd done, it turned green. "Don't worry about the lights," she'd told him. "Just drive."

  He hadn't hit another red light all the way to the hospital. Just roared right up to the red ones without even slowing down, and every last one turned green before he got to it.

  He frowned slightly, glancing toward the doors to the treatment room where Aurora and her aunt Flora were. "Weird," he muttered.

  Merriwether and Fauna came running in, rushing up to him, wide eyes full of questions. He opened his mouth to tell them he didn't know anything yet, wishing he could say something more reassuring, but before he spoke, the treatment room’s door opened. Aurora stepped out, leaned back against the door she had closed behind her, and met their eyes one by one. She nodded and smiled tiredly to reassure them of dainty Flora's well-being.

  God, she looked wiped out.

  "She's going to be okay," she said. "You can go in..."

  She never finished. Her two aunts rushed her, nudging her gently aside and hurrying in to see their sister, the door banging closed behind them.

  Nathan took a step toward Aurora. "What about you?" he asked her gruffly. "Are you going to be okay?"

  She smiled weakly, nodded once, and sank toward the floor as if her legs had just melted beneath her. Nathan lunged, grabbing her before she landed and pulling her into his arms to keep her upright. She leaned against him as if she was made of water, so he turned her and scooped her up, carried her into the first empty room he came to, and lowered her to the bed there.

  She didn't pass out. She was conscious, shaking her head, blinking. "I'm okay. Really, I'm—"

  "The hell you are." He kept her from sitting up by gently pressing her down to the pillows. "Just lie down for a minute and tell me what happened."

  She did lie down; she closed her eyes, then closed them tighter, and a tear slipped from beneath them to run slowly down her cheek. "I almost lost her. For the love of the Universe, Nathan, I almost lost her."

  The tears came then, fast and furious, and she sobbed so hard it broke his heart to see it. He sat on the edge of the bed, gathered her small body close to his, held her hard against him, and felt her trembling in his arms. "But you didn't. She's okay, Aurora. You saved her life. I've never seen anything like what you did today."

  Her arms crept around him and she clung there, crying. "But if...if I hadn't known what was wrong..."

  "You did know," he said softly. "I don't know how, but you did. And she's going to be okay now."

  "I know," she whispered. "I know, but..."

  He straightened away from her, but she clung. "Hold me, Nathan. I need you."

  He held her. He couldn't believe what she'd just said, but he'd heard it, loud and clear. She needed him. Holy crap. She was so soft, so vulnerable, so tortured right now. And Nathan was overwhelmed with the need to make it better.

  God, how had he ever thought he disliked Aurora Sortilege? Right now, he didn't think he'd ever want to hold anyone else.

  I need you.

  "I'm here for you, then," he told her. "Aurora, I'm right here, okay?" He stroked her hair. "Anything you need, you just say the word and I'll do it."

  She sniffed, sat up a little straighter, wiped at her eyes, and stared into his. "I hope you mean that." Her voice was hoarse.

  He smiled gently at her, as he reached up to brush his thumb over her tear-stained cheeks. "Hell, Aurora, it surprises me as much as you, but I do. I mean it."

  "You don't even like me."

  He shrugged. "You were never my number one fan, either, as I recall." She lowered her gaze. He hooked his forefinger under her chin, lifting her head until she looked at him again. "But what if we just decide to forget about all that?"

  She frowned, searching his face. "Can we? Can we really do that?"

  "Hell, Aurora, I think we already have." He smoothed her hair away from her face. "I like you now."

  She closed her eyes, almost as if she felt guilty. "You saved Aunt Flora's life," she said softly.

  "All I did was drive. You're the one who—"

  "No." She opened her eyes and looked right into his. “You did it, Nathan. I was standing there falling apart, and you...you helped me. You knew it. You felt it, too, didn't you?"

  Nathan battled a shiver. "I felt...something. I still don't know what it was."

  Aurora nodded, but said nothing. After a moment, she pushed herself up straighter. “I should go, see about Aunt Flora."

  "I want to see you, Aurora." He blurted it without even realizing he was going to. And then he added, "Tonight."

  She bit her lower lip. "I don't know..."

  "Because you still don't like me?" he asked, only half kidding.

  "No," she whispered, and she reached out and touched his face, her palm rubbing gently over his bristly cheek. "Because I do."

  Chapter Six

  Aurora paced the house, wringing her hands. This whole thing would have been easier if she just could have kept on hating Nathan. But now ...

  Now, she liked him. And maybe she always had. And maybe it was a little more than like that she felt for him, and had been all along.

  And so she was going to use him. Sleep with him for the sole purpose of preserving her powers. She felt like a slug.

  But what choice did she have? Suppose something like this happened after tonight, after she lost the gift? Suppose she was unable to help one of her precious aunts when they needed her? Or one of her patients?

  Oh, what was she going to do?

  She couldn't eat. Aunt Flora was spending the night in the hospital, just as a precaution. Aunt Merri and Aunt Fauna refused to leave her side. They insisted on spending the night with their youngest sister. Aurora wasn't worried about them, n
ot even Flora. She was fine. The three of them were probably organizing a senior slumber party and ordering pizza by now.

  Tonight was Halloween. At midnight she would turn twenty-seven. She had to make a decision, and make it fast.

  Looking skyward, Aurora whispered, "I need help. I don't know what to do."

  And like the whisper of a breeze, she heard, "Yes, you do."

  "Yes," she said softly. "I do."

  An hour later, Aurora sat outside bathed in moonlight. The circular clearing in the center of her aunts' flower and shrub garden labrynth was sacred ground. They'd made it so, and so it was, surrounded by blossoms—this late in the fall, mostly oranges and yellows, sunflowers, marigolds, and daisies. She reclined on the grassy ground in the center, near the large flat stone of dark granite that they used as an altar. She lit the candles she'd placed on the stone, then the incense. And then she rose and lifted her arms out to the sides, head tipped back. Slowly, she drew her arms in again, crossing them over her chest, lowering her head.

  Aurora stood still for a moment, feeling her energies gathering, ready to do her bidding. Holding her palms, cupped in front of her, she visualized a tiny sphere of pulsing white light swirling in her hands. A sphere of purity and goodness and power. A sphere within which only positive forces could abide, and where time and space did not exist. A meeting place between the worlds. When she could feel it there, when she could see her ball of light, she parted her hands and let it fall to the ground. And when it hit, it exploded. The bubble of white light expanded on impact, filling the tiny spot in the center of the garden, and surrounding Aurora completely, above and below, continuing beneath the earth's surface, around and about, creating a place of magick. A sacred circle.

  Aurora sat down. "And now," she whispered, "Ancient and Shining Ones, tell me what I must do."

  #

  Nathan got no answer at the front door. He hadn't really expected to at this time of the night, but he couldn't sleep. He was worried. Not about Flora. That eccentric old Witch would be just fine. He hadn't left the hospital until he'd been assured of that. He wasn't even all that worried about Aurora, though he had been for a short while. Falling apart in his arms wasn't exactly typical behavior on her part. Then again, neither was offering to sleep with him.

  He couldn't quite get that part off his mind, could he?

  That figured. He was nothing if not obsessed.

  Well, he'd tried the door, and she hadn't answered, so either she was sound asleep or she didn't want to see him. He turned to go, then paused as a stray breeze carried a whiff of something smoky and exotic to his nose. He inhaled, frowned. There it was! A thin tendril of smoke, and it almost seemed to crook like a finger, beckoning him to follow. Dumb idea, of course, but as it receded around the corner of the old house, he followed it anyway.

  And then he came to a stop in the backyard. Because there was a glow coming from the hidden center of that mysterious shrub garden garden. A flickering dancing glow, as if of candles...and something else.

  He walked closer, slowly, and for some reason he couldn't even begin to understand, he followed the path that had frightened him as a kid—followed its twisting, snakelike course, to a place at the center, a clearing amid the greenery, in the shape of a perfect circle. And he stood there, frowning at the sight of Aurora in its center. She wore some sort of robe, hooded and black and gleaming like satin. She'd been sitting when he'd first spotted her, but she was standing now, moving in graceful patterns that seemed almost like a dance. The moonlight beamed down on her. But the light was more than that, as well. It seemed to surround her—a shimmering, surreal kind of opalescence bathing her like the glow of a spotlight. Or was it radiating outward from somewhere inside her?

  She went still, head tilted as if she were listening to something. Or someone. And then she turned, and she saw him there.

  He held those eyes of hers, unable to look away. And he could have sworn someone gave him a shove from behind to get his feet moving. He walked up to the very end of the path through the flowers, and stopped at the edge of that circle of light that surrounded her, not quite sure why, not even sure it was real.

  She smiled very softly, as if she approved of something he'd done. She didn't say a word, just came forward and crouched down, pointing her finger at the ground near his right foot. She rose, tracing an arch in the air, up one side of him, over his head, and down the other side. And damned if it didn't seem to him that the odd glow, the one that couldn't be real, vanished in the spot she'd outlined. It was like a...a doorway.

  She took a step backward, still not speaking. He swallowed hard, not quite sure what he was getting himself into. A little bit afraid.

  This time he was sure someone shoved him. A hard hand seemed to slam into his back, and he lurched through the imaginary doorway, swinging his head around to see who was back there. But there was no one. And the hairs on his nape were beginning to stand upright and bristle with electricity.

  Aurora seemed unperturbed, though. She moved past him to the spot he'd just come through, knelt again, and drew with her finger...a line this time, right to left, along the bottom of that doorway that wasn't really a doorway, and the glow filled the area once again. Nathan blinked and rubbed at his eyes, but it wasn't going away. This spot, this one circular area, looked different from everything else around it. And it felt different, too. Warmer. Even a hint stuffy. Like he was inside instead of out.

  Impossible.

  "Take off your shoes, Nathan," she whispered, and her voice was soft and deep. "This is sacred ground."

  Sacred ground. Right. Okay, he'd definitely entered the Twilight Zone. But he took off his shoes, all the same, and peeled off his socks too, just for good measure. He tossed them without thinking, expecting them to sail right on out of this unearthly glow and into the darkness of the garden beyond. But they didn't. It was as if they hit a wall and stopped, falling soundlessly to the ground.

  He stared at them. But Aurora was moving again, and that drew his attention back to her. And then he was pretty sure that his heart stopped for a second. Because she was slipping that black satin robe down off her shoulders, and it fell to the ground like a pool of black water. And she wasn't wearing a single thing underneath, except for a mystical-looking pendant and a pair of emerald earrings.

  The ones he'd given her? He glanced away from her, toward the flat stone, and saw a bit of paper lying there, with the candle flames on either side casting shadows that danced over the pencil sketch of a face, a man's face, remarkably like his own.

  He looked back at her again, a little chill dancing up his spine. "Aurora?"

  "I needed you, Nathan," she said softly. "So I brought you to me."

  He stared at her, still far too unsettled by the nude work of art standing before him to give his full attention to her words. "Brought me," he parroted.

  "Manipulative magick is not something I'd normally use. But I was careful," she said, explaining herself to him as calmly as if every word she said made perfect sense— which, of course, they didn't. "I made sure the words I composed couldn't interfere with your free will," she went on. "I said, 'If he wants me, let him come to me now.' "

  "I see." But he didn't. All he saw were a pair of perfect breasts, as round and firm as his fondest fantasy. And a waist he could fit his hands around. And a triangle of curls between her legs that was a golden shade darker than her hair.

  "And you came."

  He swallowed hard, thinking, not yet, I haven’t. But maybe he would before the night was over. He just hoped there wasn't going to be an earthquake or flash flood within the next hour or so. His gaze slid upward, meeting her eyes, seeing the mystery he'd always noticed there, the darkness, the night itself, glimmering back at him. Okay, then. Make that the next several hours.

  She said nothing—just looked back at him, slowly turned, and from the big flat rock in the center, reached for a jeweled dagger that looked as deadly as it did beautiful. Facing him again, she pressed it
s hilt into his hand, with the blade pointing downward. She squeezed his fist tight around the weapon, then drew his other hand to close on it, as well.

  Turning again, she picked up an ornate goblet with jewels around the rim. And when she faced him she held it cupped between her palms, as if she were offering it to him.

  But she wasn't, because his hands were both occupied with holding the dagger. He didn't know what he was supposed to do.

  "Your ancestors performed this rite for centuries, Nathan," she whispered. "Close your eyes and open your heart. Listen to the power that still lingers in your blood. The voices of your ancestors. They're here tonight. They live...in you."

  Something made him close his eyes. And he didn't feel like Nathan McBride, owner of a chain of pharmacies and frustrated sex maniac. He felt... different. Liberated. Strong. Fierce. Powerful. Male.

  "As the chalice is to the Goddess," Aurora said softly, "so the athame is to the God." Nathan blinked his eyes open, saw her holding the goblet out to him, saw the dagger in his own hands, blade pointing down at it. Heard her whisper, "And together, they are one...."

  Very slowly, he lowered his arms, gently plunging the dagger into the chalice, knowing somehow that this was what he was supposed to do. And as he did, Aurora's head tilted backward and her eyes fell closed. There was something ...some surge of energy shooting through him. It entered his palms, where they held the dagger's hilt, then rushed up his arms and infused his body until he felt as if he must be glowing.

  He lifted the blade again, blinking his eyes open, seeing the stars and the moon above in a way he never had before. They were brighter, clearer. They seemed...alive.

  Aurora took the blade from him and replaced the cup and knife on the stone table. Nathan couldn't take his eyes off her. It was as if he'd wanted her all his life. As if being with her was suddenly a force of nature raging inside him—something that could neither be denied nor controlled.