The New Improved Sorceress

by Sara Hanover

  A string of the red cord parted, snapping through the air, and I could inhale again but lost it in a gasp as Devian’s yank propelled me headlong toward the archway.

  My world exploded. Something big and bulky hit me hard, twirling me away, and I caught sight of Hiram’s body hurtling past and colliding into Devian. But something unseen had already hit the elf, spinning him about and tearing the doll from his hand, leaving him open to Hiram’s tackle. The doll drifted toward my feet even as I began to collapse in a truckload of hurt. Devian and his attackers disappeared into the elven archway, fog boiling up, and the autumn lands disintegrated with a loud hiss.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  HOW MANY FINGERS . . .

  “. . . AM I holding up?”

  Vision fuzzy, I glared at the hand hovering over my face. “None,” I answered triumphantly as Scout nudged the hand away and moved in to lick my nose. He whuffled at me anxiously. I sat up slowly, duly noting that I had meant to be kickass, not get my ass kicked. We were definitely short on supporters—I counted only Brian and Carter, plus myself. Dwarves had gone as silently as they’d appeared. And the drop-dead archers were nowhere to be seen, although about a half dozen of those lethal arrows were stuck in the driveway around us. Impressive, sunk into the stonework. I saw crimson leaking from Carter’s left bicep where he’d tied a strip of cloth about it tightly.

  “What’s that?”

  “Flesh wound. What about you?”

  “Did we win?” I sat up groggily. I so wanted a win, for once.

  “Not quite.”

  “No?”

  “You didn’t get dragged in, but we lost Hiram.”

  “And Steptoe,” I muttered.

  “Steptoe?”

  “We stalled long enough that he found his tail. Didn’t you see him flash it at us? He hit Devian first, knocking the doll away. Then Hiram clocked him. And seriously? Do you think I would lower my head and charge in like a bull in a china shop unless I’m stalling for someone?”

  “I’ve watched you play field hockey.”

  “Really? When?”

  “More often than you know. If you played on ice, you’d be called an Enforcer.”

  Brian stood with his head to one side, considering, and patted himself all over as if searching for the professor inside him. “Hmmph. She’s right, he’s retrieved his tail.” He scratched an earlobe at that. “Inside Faerie or not, he’ll be fine as long as he’s intact. He’ll have many of his powers restored.”

  “But is he still bound to the church?”

  The professor stared down at me. “The lad has been mighty chatty.”

  “He has to talk to someone.” I didn’t let the professor off the hook as Carter reached down and gave me a hand up. “Doesn’t he? And is he?”

  “Bound for the moment.” Brian turned his back on both of us, head down, pretending to study one of the elven arrows. He bent over to pull one out and as his fingers grazed it, the lethal missile dissolved into ashes, much as the ruby had when Carter touched it, tiny particles drifting away on the wind. “Hmmm,” he said and reached for a second as if performing a scientific experiment, and the next arrow disintegrated harmlessly as well.

  I wobbled over to the doll lying on the bricked way and kicked at it. It did not disperse. In fact, it kicked back. I clutched at my stomach. Scout lurched into a bracing position at my knees as I gulped.

  That got Brian’s attention. He pointed at the fetish. “I believe your skill will work best on that.”

  Carter obliged by aiming his hand at it, and a gout of flame ate the doll in a split-second, incinerating it into oblivion. I felt a moment of heat graze me and then nothing. Staring in amazement, I murmured, “I thought he said no nuking earlier.”

  His scar-cleft deepened as he looked embarrassed. “That was just a tap. With great power comes . . .”

  “I know, blah, responsibility, blah.” My body still in rebellion, I pivoted and headed back to Hiram’s car. “Anyone have the keys or did Hiram take them with him?”

  They trailed after me, searching pockets uselessly, trying the vehicle’s doors (locked), and then Carter reached under a forward fender and found one of those little magnetic boxes affixed to the undercarriage of the SUV. The key would open the doors and start the ignition, but we couldn’t pushbutton the accessories.

  As we settled inside, I passed around a bottle of water I’d found in the door’s side pocket. We all drank deeply and I made a cup out of the palm of my hand for Scout. He drank messily and not nearly so deeply, but at least he wouldn’t drop dead of dehydration before we got home.

  If home we went. I leaned forward between the front seats and said, “So, we can track Steptoe if he’s still bound, right?”

  No one answered for a very long minute. Carter cut Brian a look. “You should have known that.”

  “As should you. But she is indeed right. Simon’s whereabouts can be traced.” He pulled on the flaps of his coat, unsettled. “Right, indeed.”

  “Will he know it, or will they be alerted if we did?”

  “Yes, and probably not, sounds appropriate.”

  Carter pulled smoothly away from the curb and down the street. “You sound uncertain.”

  Brian scratched the side of his nose. “Information is still hazy and has unfortunate gaps in it. Huge gaps.”

  “As it will be as long as you’re half-baked.” I felt Scout settle down beside me and put his head across my thigh. “Carter, you’re still bleeding.”

  “Am I?” He didn’t spare a look, but I could see the makeshift bandage on his upper arm leaking blood. A lot of it. “I’ll take care of it later.”

  “Half-baked?” Brian repeated.

  “Until you finish your ritual.”

  “I wouldn’t quite refer to it in that manner. Sounds a bit flippant.”

  And he sounded a bit petulant, making me ponder if Steptoe had indeed been correct with his little theory. He hadn’t exactly stepped in to help me very much, but then we all knew his skills were nowhere at the level they should be. But cowardly? I didn’t like thinking of the professor that way. With that thought came the distinct feeling that he wasn’t sharing with me anymore, if he had been in the first place. Exactly what was our late great wizard up to these days?

  The stone in my hand warmed slightly beneath my glove, and I peeled it off to see if the battle had harmed it in any way. I didn’t expect to see it changed, and I didn’t. Stone is stone, after all, or marble, or whatever material comprised this one. I thought of it as marble, with the colors of ivory, caramel, and obsidian swirled together with flecks of gold. It had its beauty. Could I compel it to give up the dark arts book as ransom for Hiram and, possibly, Steptoe? It hadn’t exactly swallowed the whole book, not in the way it had the professor’s cursed ring. Was I a sorceress because it had absorbed a bolt of power and shared that with me, or had it transferred it, meaning that if a day came that I lost the stone or had it taken away from me, what would that make me? Plain old Tessa, as before? Not that I’d become so spectacular now, not understanding most of my so-called abilities or knowing how to use them. But it was the feeling, I suppose, that I walked around with this untapped potential and I could snap it into use and—I don’t know—slay dragons or whatnot.

  I curled my hand into a fist, hiding away the enigmatic stone. The professor used to like to tell me it all came from the will. Seemed to me that one had to know what they wished for, have the determination to reach for it, the guts to ask for and pay the price for it, and the strength to take it when magic offered it. And I’m sure there were a half dozen other conditions I couldn’t begin to guess at. There were no magic wands in my world.

  I put my head back against the seat and watched the countryside unspool around us, the sun dipping low in the sky, and the edge of a storm cloud rolling in from the west. I didn’t like leaving anyone behin
d.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mom came out to meet us when we parked. She had a pencil tucked behind one ear, so I knew she’d either been writing or working on students’ tests, and she made a face as she saw the car didn’t hold as many of us as it had when we’d left.

  “What happened?”

  “Operation unsuccessful.” Carter held one hand cupped over the wounded arm. “Have you hydrogen peroxide and bandages?”

  “Good lord—who shot you? Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”

  “It would be difficult to explain, and it wasn’t a gun, and no, I don’t think they can help me.” Carter looked to Brian. “Surely you have something?”

  “Mayhap. Elven wounds can be tricky, that I do recall. If the arrowhead was magicked with everbleed . . . you’d be best off headed to your Society friends and see what one of them can do for you.”

  Carter’s forehead crinkled. “They will be asking questions.”

  “I should hope so—oh. Yes, I see what you mean.” Brian ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll take a look at my Remedies book, see if I have the herbs.”

  “Appreciate that.” He trailed after my mother into the kitchen, and I took Scout out back to hose him down quickly and get a better look at his ruff. Something about the thought of seeing Carter Phillips bleed made me a little queasy.

  Scout danced around a bit under the cold water, but the lab in him came out and he eventually started enjoying it. My phone buzzed insistently until I deigned to answer it.

  “OMG,” said Evelyn. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

  “Him who?”

  “Hiram!”

  “I . . . didn’t think he was your type?”

  “How could he not be?”

  I had thought it rather obvious, but held my tongue.

  “Or are you interested?” Evelyn poked at me.

  “You know me better than that!”

  “I know. Carter’s the one you lust after. But Hiram . . . wow. Is he the kind of guy who won’t call you back? Tell me he’s not. I can’t take ghosting. I can’t get a hold of him, but he said he had a meeting and then errands to run, so I can’t keep calling, but I wanted to hear his voice again . . . so low and powerful . . . like that singer who’s dead now, but your mom and my mom loved him . . . Barry White? And such a gentleman!”

  “Barry White?”

  “No! Hiram.”

  “He is, that. And busy tonight, so if you can’t reach him, don’t worry or be insulted. I’m sure he’ll call you soon.” Soon as we break him out of Faerieland. I cradled my phone between my ear and my shoulder while I toweled Scout dry. It was almost dark, and the wind had come up with a chill in its touch. Scout nosed at me as I worked carefully about his wounds. They weren’t awful, but they weren’t good either. Bastard must have kept him tied up and tightly. As for that nonsense about being some kind of hound of the dreadful Huntsman . . . who did Devian think I was? Some country bumpkin who just fell off the turnip truck?

  “Don’t you think? Tessa! Are you listening?”

  “Of course I am.” I hadn’t been, though.

  “Oh. Okay. It’s just that he’s in business and I’m still taking classes, but I didn’t think he was that much older.”

  Oh, Evelyn, you have no idea. And neither did I, frankly, but I had come to the conclusion that Iron Dwarves probably had a life span of about two hundred years, give or take, dependent on wars and bad magic and other problems. The family enterprise would meet her father’s examination, though, and Hiram himself presented well, even if he could shake the foundations of any building he walked into. Should I encourage her or not? Undoubtedly, Hiram and his family could handle a mild infatuation. On the other hand, his father had married a harpy and nearly started a war.

  I let her babble for another few minutes, reminded her to ice that leg off and on, and that it was nearly dark and I was trying to finish giving the dog a bath. She signed off reluctantly.

  I stowed my phone in a pocket. Had I ever gushed like that over Carter? Probably not. He’d come into my life as an investigator on my father’s disappearance and although he’d decided for himself quickly enough that neither me nor my mom were ax murderers who’d done away with Dad, he couldn’t not consider us suspects that quickly. He had protocol to follow. And, in the months after, he’d dropped by periodically as things kept spiraling downward. So I’d noticed him. Crushed on him. And avoided him whenever I could because he was, after all, an authority figure and a reminder of a very traumatic time period. And significantly older. But he wasn’t anymore.

  So, no. No gushing. Maybe a longing sigh now and then. What I hoped we could have between us had definitely looked up.

  Maybe I could spare a little gush.

  I returned to the house to find two strangers flanking Carter as he sat at the kitchen table. Mom shot me a be quiet look as she finished filling two glasses of sweet tea for them, a man and a woman, both dressed a little formally for an autumn evening just after dusk. If I hadn’t suspected otherwise, I’d peg them as Bible thumpers but because of their interest in Carter, I decided they were likely Society.

  The man, hair slicked back like a New Yorker, not old but not young, cashmere sports coat over dark brown pants and light tan shirt, asked, “How long has it been bleeding?”

  Ah. Explanation seemed the professor had given up and reinforcements had come in.

  “Not long. Just before sunset.”

  “Long enough,” the woman remarked as she shrugged off her light cardigan and accepted her drink. “My thanks. Is it all right if we tend to him here? There shouldn’t be any contamination. Or do you have a downstairs bathroom big enough to hold three people at once?”

  She offered a tentative smile as if in apology for dissing our house. “Here is fine,” Mom told her. “Shall I leave you all to it? I have classes to prepare for.” She didn’t; she was extremely organized as a professor, but I sensed the new people made her uncomfortable. She looked back over her shoulder, once, but I just gave a tiny shake of my head. I wanted to leave as well but couldn’t think of an excuse and thought I should really stay, in case they tried to make off with the family silver or something.

  I nudged Carter lightly. “You’re not going to bleed to death, are you?”

  “Not this time.” He pointed to the man and woman. “This is Raymond Bialy and this is Natalie Chandler, both of the Societas Obscura.”

  “Catchy name. I’d be a tad more excited if it was Societas Lucida, but you work with whatever you’ve got, I guess.”

  “And you must be the young lady who has such an unconventional way with magical relics.” Bialy took his gaze off me long enough to watch Natalie clip off the old bandage and then scissor away the shirt sleeve to look more closely at the wound. Blood wasn’t spurting alarmingly or anything, but it kept welling up determinedly no matter how many times she blotted it dry. It did look like a slice mark across his bicep.

  “Definitely everbleed.” Natalie seemed to have decided to ignore me, for whatever reason. Maybe she had more designs on Carter than simply attending to that wound. She snapped open her purse and brought out a purplish vial. “Should I ask how? And would you tell me if I did?”

  “Arrow.”

  “All right.” She blotted some liquid onto a new gauze pad and began to briskly attack the wound with it, wiping it back and forth, while I watched Carter’s lips tighten rather than admit her ministrations were less than tender and appreciated. When she finished, she said, “That might sting a little.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Carter returned dryly and relaxed on his chair.

  Quickly and efficiently, she wrapped the bandage and tied a neat little knot to keep it fixed in place. “If it starts bleeding again, let me know. You may need a second application.”

  “Now that’s done,” Raymond Bialy leane
d forward. “How about letting me have a look at you.”

  “Me?” My gaze met his.

  “I’ve heard a rumor that you’ve bonded with a maelstrom stone.”

  “There’s more than one?”

  He chuckled. His brown eyes had crinkle marks at the corners and, frankly, he looked like an okay person. “I hope not, but there’s always a possibility. Willing to let me examine it?”

  “No.” Carter answered for me.

  “It would be better here than formally in front of the Society.”

  “That would give you a leg up on preparing.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  I looked back and forth between them. Scout, who’d been lying quietly on my feet, gave a short and very soft growl. “I’m not interested in the Society.”

  “Ah, but we’re interested in you.”

  “I suppose the two of you teach at Silverbranch?”

  “Actually, no.”

  “Good because at this point, the academy is a deal breaker.”

  “Judge Parker?” asked Bialy.

  “Judge Parker,” I confirmed.

  “He’s on suspension.”

  “Guarded suspension,” Natalie added to Bialy’s statement.

  “Meaning?”

  Carter opened his mouth as if to object to the conversation and shut it when I glared his way.

  “Meaning,” Natalie said, as she cleaned up the first aid supplies, “that we put him under guard until his suspension is served. We don’t just let a magic user run around willy-nilly once they’ve gone rogue.”

  “Was that before or after he abducted a harpy?”

  Bialy leaned forward even more avidly. “Are you the one who breached the campus and let her loose?”

  “I think it’s your turn to answer.”

  He let out a short bark of a laugh. “By gods, Carter, she’s a live wire. Actually, as we had it explained to us, the harpy had entered into a partnership with Parker and into an agreement she later reneged upon. He held her pending a change of mind and cooperation.”