by Laura Bickle
He began to panic.
He needed that pendant. However he had to get it, he needed it.
He was being stupid—Petra clearly wasn’t. There’s no way the geologist would leave anything valuable in an easy-to-find place. He began looking in cereal boxes, underneath her stack of towels. He was starting to get a bit frantic—it wasn’t as if the trailer was all that big—when he struck pay dirt: a piece of wood paneling peeling off near the bed. He reached in and came up with a zipper plastic bag full of money. He turned it around, inspecting it, and he spied the gold pendant glinting in the bottom. He snatched it out of the bag and—after a moment of hesitation—returned the money.
He checked through the blinds for cops before letting himself out of the trailer. Night was falling, and he cut through the field to the edge of town. A deputy’s car was parked in front of Stan’s pawnshop. Lev circled around the back of the bar and let himself into his apartment. He had left the doors to the bar locked. A few patrons had already arrived, swearing at a hand-lettered closed sign taped to the door. Lev had taken the long way around to avoid that shitshow. There would no doubt be a run on beer at Bear’s Gas ’n Go tonight.
He felt bad for stealing from Petra, much more so than stealing from Stan. From his vantage point, Stan was a dick and deserved a little hassle, while she was suffering some shitty luck. But his son’s luck was worse than hers; he had to do whatever he could to turn it around.
“What’s happening?”
His son’s voice sounded oddly like an echo in the glass coffin. Lev crossed to the glass case and put his hands against it. “It’s all right. It’s coming together. Just . . . just hang on. I only need a few more things.
“I’m pretty scared, Dad.”
He knelt and pressed his cheek against the glass. “I know. I am, too.”
Magic had been relatively rare in Muirenn’s time, at least before she’d come to Temperance. Then, magic had been something to hide and obfuscate. She’d used what she knew of herbs to poison her husband in Ireland, had worked it to her advantage as she sang her way across the Atlantic. She practiced this art religiously, but always in secret, until she had met Lascaris. Then, she dared to work magic at noon as fearlessly as she had at midnight, finding an unparalleled exhilaration in the freedom of it.
She assumed that with Lascaris gone, most of his magic would have faded with him. She herself felt like a forgotten relic, gone underground and severely weakened. Indeed, a few decades after the Hanged Men imprisoned her, even they stopped bothering to check on her. She had assumed they, and the rest of Lascaris’s experiments, were gone, that time had drained the magic out of them.
But she’d tasted two men with magic in as many days. It had grown insidious here, unpredictable. Muirenn disliked that. Trapped in this form, she could not simply walk away, pack a bag and move to a new continent with fresh land to learn. Her body was as much a prison as the cave she’d been trapped in, and she didn’t have the power to change it. Not yet. She had to figure out how to transmute her own form, to regain a human shape once again.
She came back to her lair at dusk, gnawing on the foot of a woman who had been wading in the shallows downstream. She hadn’t been greedy; she’d just torn the leg off before the woman had seen her. She’d slipped away while the woman screamed about snakes. She spat out the glitter-painted nails, one by one, on the way. The woman had taken very good care of her feet; they were soft and uncallused.
Muirenn swam upstream, coming upon Gabriel. She had the intention of interrogating him, perhaps taking him apart, even if she couldn’t eat him. She liked that idea quite a bit, plucking him apart, tendon by tendon, and making him last for a good long while. Maybe he even knew some magic that she could use to change her shape, some secret she could use to walk out of here. But that would just be a bonus.
She paused as she approached, floating still in the water as a duck on a pond. Something had changed. She’d left Gabriel chained to the rock. But somehow he had moved, obscuring himself from view. She swam up carefully.
Tree roots had split through the ceiling of the chamber, cascading over Gabriel’s body in a thick wooden shell. As she examined them, they dripped golden light that congealed to an amber-like substance. She could make out the outline of an arm, a jaw, encased in this mass.
She reached out to touch it, only to recoil with a hiss.
Lascaris’s magic. Old, but vital. He continued to interfere with her, after all this time.
She paddled back, contemplating. She’d thrown her lot in with Owen, since he seemed to be the most powerful force in this corner of the world at this time. Maybe she’d been wrong.
She would have to find out for certain.
She sank below the water and began to swim out, out in search of Lascaris.
Muirenn knew that she was limited in her search. She could not stride out on land, let alone assemble a laboratory of magical goods and materials.
She was far from helpless, though. She swam back out to the river, into the night.
Stars spread overhead in a river. It had been so long since she had seen them. The full moon had risen overhead. Frogs twanged and crickets chirped around her. The only light generated here came from the sky, cold and distant.
Muirenn paused at a still spot in the river, behind a pool created by a beaver dam. Only insects disturbed the black mirror of water. The moon was reflected in the water, a silver coin.
She opened her arms around that orb, feeling the moonlight shimmering through her. She might not have any tools, but she still had the water.
The surface of the water grew hazy, and the image of the moon turned slowly, as if it were a paper cutout floating on the surface of the water.
Muirenn concentrated on it, allowing her vision to grow fuzzy and the water to grow misty. “Water, mirror of moon, mirror of truth. Nothing is hidden from your light, no secrets, no quarter. Show me the face of my old master.”
A face moved under the water, as if a mask moved under some viscous substance. Muirenn held her breath. That profile was familiar, sharp and foreboding, even in this thin image of it. The face turned toward her, as if he had awakened in a bed and turned over on a pillow.
“I am coming.”
Her breath caught in her throat. It was true.
Her hands balled into fists. Strong emotions warred in her. She loathed him in the deepest darkness of her soul. He had tortured her, nearly destroyed her. She wanted nothing more than to smash his reflection in the scrying mirror of the water with her fists.
“Forgive me, Muirenn.”
Her brows drew together. A plea? From Lascaris?
Her fingers fluttered to her throat. “What do you want?”
“I want to awaken the Tree of Life. Protect it for me, Muirenn, and all will be forgotten. I shall restore you as you were before.”
Her hand slipped to her mouth. “Legs? Real teeth?”
“I will give you all you ask.”
She hesitated. She wanted nothing more than to be free. But she didn’t trust Lascaris. She couldn’t. And yet . . . what choice did she have? Owen was never going to be able to fix her, and in this state, it seemed unlikely she’d be able to heal herself. She needed help.
Even if it meant that help came from the devil.
Muirenn lowered her head. “I will do this thing for you. Just this one thing.”
“I give you a token, a symbol of our bargain.” The black head in the water smiled and receded below the surface, leaving only the moon in its place.
For an instant, the moon was more golden than silvery.
Instinctively, Muirenn reached toward the reflection of the moon. An object slid through her fingers, and she followed it down, down to the silt at the bottom. Her hand closed around something cold and round. There was no sign of Lascaris here, no shadowy figure in the water.
Still, she hurried to the surface, to feel the air against her face. She swam up, back into the clear moonlight.
She looked
down at her palm and clutched the treasure close to her chest.
It was decided.
Chapter 17
Facing the Lion
The last ingredients he needed were difficult to find. But not impossible.
Under the cover of darkness, Lev had ventured deep into Yellowstone National Park, driving until he’d run out of road. He parked and wandered into the night, slipping through the stands of lodgepole pine, looking for his quarry. He’d searched for hours, sweeping the land with his binoculars, but finally had caught up with what he needed.
He lay prone on the edge of a mountain with his rifle, aiming at a bighorn sheep climbing the mountain. It was a magnificent sheep, and he regretted having to shoot it. The sheep was strong and beautiful, curling horns gleaming in the dim moonlight.
But he aimed through the sights, stilled his breath, and pulled the trigger.
The crack of the gunshot echoed through the valley. The sheep’s knees buckled and it fell, tumbling down the valley.
If he had wanted it for meat, the meat would be bruised and ruined by the fall. But he didn’t want it for that. He watched through the sight until he could determine exactly where it came to rest, not wanting to lose track of it.
He picked his way through the rubble at the bottom of the slope to where the sheep had fallen. At least it had died a clean death. Though its hide was bloodied, its eyes were closed, tongue protruding from its mouth. He’d shot it clear through the neck. The animal’s sides were still.
Lev knelt beside it, drew a saw with sharp teeth, and began to saw at the brow of the animal. It took him longer than he liked, but he finally managed to get the horns free.
He raised a ram’s horn to his lips and blew. A pure, heavy note resounded over the valley.
He nodded to himself. That was a good sound, one that would summon his son’s spirit and bring him back to the physical plane. There was nothing quite like the sound from a fresh horn; old ones, even ones that had been maintained, always sounded like the creak of death.
He only hoped it would call no more malevolent spirits than Caleb and Wilma down on his head.
“Well. That wasn’t what I was expecting.”
Petra peered into the coffee cup that had held the pearl. Nine and Maria crowded in to look, like witches around a cauldron, curious to see what their sister had just conjured up.
She reached in tentatively, with a pair of tweezers, for the thing that had been at the center of the pearl. The vinegar had done its job and had eaten away all the layers of nacre. What remained was a brownish chunk of something that would ordinarily be a bit of aragonite that hadn’t fully dissolved. Except it wasn’t. She picked it up with tweezers, and they all stared at it.
“What is it?” Nine asked.
“I don’t know.” Petra turned it right and left. “It looks like something that might have been alive . . . before it drowned in the vinegar, that is.”
It looked like some sort of sea creature, about the size of a bean. It had black eyes in an oversize head, a tail, and tiny claws. It could be an embryo for pretty much anything, but it looked most like a seahorse with sets of little T. rex arms.
“So. It’s not a pearl . . . it’s an egg?” Maria asked.
“Yeah. I guess so.” That made sense. Sort of.
The creature began to wiggle. Petra squeaked and dropped it. It landed on the table, and Pearl made to pounce on it. Maria grabbed Pearl, who struggled in her grip as the tiny creature scuttled across the kitchen table.
Petra upended a water glass and tried to trap the creature inside. She was too slow, and it ran off the edge of the table onto the floor.
Before Petra could react further, Maria stomped on it. She lifted her shoe, and there was a flattened scorpion-like creature on the floor.
“There will be no bugs in my house!” she panted. Then she glanced at Petra. “Sorry. Instinctive reaction.”
“That’s totally okay.” Petra crouched on the floor and scraped up the flattened creature with a piece of paper. She peered at it. It was pressed as perfectly as if it had been placed between the pages of a book, all the appendages intact. A small amount of black fluid leaked from its chest.
“I am not apologizing for killing that.” Maria still held the cat tightly against her chest.
“And you shouldn’t. Your house, your rules. I think I need my microscope,” Petra announced. That sounded like an eminently reasonable next step. She looked up from the critter on the paper.
“From your trailer?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Maria squinted outside. “It’s dark. I’ll take you on the back roads.”
Petra began to say something, but bit back her thoughts. Maybe Maria had guessed that Petra had been wandering about, pissing off Sheriff Owen. Maybe it was a good idea that she not say too much more about that, to avoid getting reamed out and banned from using the washing machine.
Maria looked sidelong at her. “Yeah. I know.”
Petra began. “I’m sorry. I . . .”
Maria raised her hand. “Don’t waste your energy.”
Petra closed her mouth. If Maria didn’t want to argue with her, that was a bad sign. Maria was either well and truly pissed at her for abusing her hospitality, or Maria was cutting her a whole lotta slack on account of her illness. Pissed, Petra could take. Sympathy . . . not so much. She looked away, feeling ashamed and guilty.
When Maria mentioned “back roads,” she meant a series of forestry roads that extended from the far edge of the reservation over moonlit fields. Petra couldn’t even see the tracks half the time, but Maria always seemed to know where they were. And Sig was having a good time; he bounced from window to window in Maria’s SUV, peering into the dark. That made Petra smile.
The shadow roads finally spat them out north of Temperance. Maria put her SUV into four-wheel drive, shut off the lights, and headed for the dull shine of Petra’s trailer. She parked behind the Airstream, so they wouldn’t be seen by the road.
Sig was out first, his nose to the ground, circling around the trailer. He paused and yelped.
Petra didn’t take this to be a good sign. She climbed the steps to her door with one hand on her gun belt.
Her door had been kicked in. The lockset was broken, and there was a fresh dent in the door. Both the main door and the screen door had been neatly closed, perhaps to avoid notice from the road, but up close it was all clear as day.
Dammit. She motioned for Nine and Maria to be silent, nudged Sig out of the way, and edged the door open.
Nothing moved. She flipped on the light, sweeping her gun before her.
“Fucking awesome.”
The trailer had been tossed. She groaned and scanned the kitchen. All the drawers had been emptied, cupboards rifled through. Even her cereal had been dumped in the sink. As she went to the back, she saw that her dresser drawers were open and the blankets flipped. Curiously, there wasn’t much damage to be seen. It looked as if whoever had been here was just looking for something, but had attempted to be half-assed considerate about it. Probably looking for money.
Which was when she noticed the paneling . . .
Biting her lip, she reached into the hole behind the paneling where she kept her cash. Shockingly, the money was all there. But her pendant wasn’t in the plastic zipper bag. Frowning, she reached into the hole, as far down into the void as she could, up to her armpit.
Her pendant, the one her father had given her, was gone.
She sat back on her heels, fuming.
“What did they take?” Maria asked.
“They left the money. But they took my father’s pendant. Damn it, I was stupid to have left it here.”
“You’ve had other things on your mind, to be fair.”
Petra was pissed. She’d been pissed for weeks, but things were really coming to a head. The world seemed determined to take fucking everything from her, from large to small: her life, her husband, and now a stupid memento of her father’s affection
s.
“Why would anyone want it?” Nine asked. She had poured a bowl of water for Sig, who slurped noisily.
“It’s gold. It’s worth good money.” She frowned. “Then again, if they wanted money, they would have also taken the cash.”
“Maybe they wanted it for a magical purpose,” Maria said.
That hadn’t even dawned on her. “Goddamn it.” She was getting really tired of the negative sway that magic held over her life. It couldn’t help her; all it could do was hurt her and everyone close to her.
She yanked the Locus out of her pocket and chucked it to the kitchen counter. It bounced in cereal crumbs. She grabbed a paring knife and sliced her palm open over it, ignoring Maria’s squeals of objection. She dripped blood into the Locus, muttering dark oaths.
“Show me where the fuck my necklace is,” she muttered at it. It was likely that whoever had taken it was long gone, but maybe there was a clue left behind the Locus could point her to.
The blood burped and bubbled in the compass groove. Maria snatched Petra’s hand up and wrapped it with a dish towel.
The red sloshed in the compass lazily, then turned back in a heavy clot, facing toward the door.
Petra grabbed it and stormed out. Sig was on her heels.
She and the coyote plunged into the night, down the gravel road. She heard the crunch of Nine’s and Maria’s footsteps behind her, and the ratcheting of a shotgun swept under Maria’s coat, glad the two of them said nothing. The compass led her down the gravel road, the stone bleached pale in the moonlight overhead. The moon was full, washing the color out of the world and many of the stars from the sky.
Sig trotted beside her, ears pressed forward. He seemed as intent as she was, searching for the answer. Perhaps he sensed her fury and was doing his best to be a Good Dog.
Tears blinded her momentarily, like leaded glass over darkness. She would miss him. She reached down with her dish-towel-bandaged hand to stroke his back.
