Minutes to Midnight

by Phaedra Weldon

  "You're awake…sort of. Got a headache?"

  I nodded, and that was a bad idea. I winced at the bowling ball moving with the motion of my head, smashing forward and back against the inside of my skull. Even the sound of his voice was fingernails against a chalkboard.

  "Sorry about the accommodations, but I'm sure you don't have a complaint since you've been through worse." He put his hands to his mouth and ducked his head. "Oh…but that's right. You don't remember, do you? I heard you lost this entire last year. What a shame you can't remember what they did to you."

  I cleared my throat. "They?"

  "Rodriguez."

  I frowned. "Who?"

  "Francisco Rodriguez. He kidnapped you as ransom to get the Grimoire from that Witch?"

  I swallowed. So…I'd been used as bait? Was that why she put the book inside of me?

  He laughed. "That is so weird that you don't remember any of it. So, nothing about being tortured?"

  I stared at him with what I knew was a blank expression.

  "Nothing about me shooting you?"

  Oh? Well, that explained the weird starburst scar on my chest.

  "But you're still alive. That's what I'd like a few answers about because some of the elders of my order can't seem to get their stories straight."

  "Stories…" I paused so my teeth could chime in, chattering against each other. "You're going to have to give me a little context."

  "I can't tell if you're naturally addled or the bars are doing their job. They're preventing you from using that book." He touched the bars. "Iron. Best damn defense against your kind, did you know that?"

  My kind? What the hell was he talking about? I tried to recall the spell for fire. It was one I used a lot. And there was one for open so I could open the cage. But…what were the words? I couldn't focus on the intent, and without the intent, the spell was meaningless.

  "Who knew you actually had the blood of God Mother running through your veins? Do you know who that is, Darren? The Mother? But you're not full blood, so the iron can only keep you fogged and incoherent. Can't conjure, can you? No spells?"

  I stared at him.

  Jack pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the padlock holding the bars together. I watched as he stepped in and knelt down in front of me. I shifted, but not far. I'd been leaning on my left elbow and my shoulder was asleep. "You really don't remember, do you?"

  I shrugged. That hurt. "No."

  "You don't remember what you did to Bonville before then?"

  I frowned. It was less painful than shaking my head. "No."

  Jack was a little on the creepy scarecrow side. Skinny. Straw-like hair. And here was something not right with his eyes. I didn't think anything was overshadowing him. Nothing like that Djin. I suspected his crazy was all his own. And when he held up his hands, I saw the tattoos on his palms. They were the same style as mine hand been, but his had subtle differences. "You see these? They're just like Lei's and Rayne's. Just ink slipped under the skin. Nothing special. No real power. But yours? Yours have power. And I wanted that power. Rodriguez was going to give it to me."

  "Jack, I don't—"

  He struck me in the face. And because I couldn't really move my head away, I took the full brunt. Stars danced in front of my eyes and I felt something trickle over my upper lip then down my cheek toward my ear. The ache pounded against my sinuses. I was more aware than ever of my predicament. Captive to a crazy person.

  Score.

  Something else happened seconds after the punch—my thoughts sharpened because of the pain.

  "See…you don't talk. You listen so I can tell you what happened. Bonville screwed up that night, and I lost what menial power I had after he put these tattoos on me. So did Lei and Rayne. We were normal again. So I went to see you. You know, see if the same thing happened to you. But I saw you use it, Darren. I saw you use this power you had against some weird Shadow creature. We didn't have that power. But you did. When I confronted Bonville and told him, he was angry. Very angry. He wanted you back so he could finish the ritual he started. The one where we were going to bring his dead wife back. She had something he wanted."

  I sort of remembered fighting Shadow People in the loft of the Livery in Roswell, Georgia where I used to work. Had Jack been watching?

  Jack shifted and squatted, staring at his hands. "He stupidly yanked you into that circle that night—just bam!—and there you were. I was awed by his power. He'd actually made you materialize in front of us all. But you weren't alone. That woman had come with you. The tall one we'd seen you with. She screwed up the ritual we were going to do. Went all batwings and nasty and then we were all back in our homes with rough hangovers and nightmares.

  "Except for me. I remembered what happened. I remembered seeing Bonville's wife and his lover, that Maureen Lafferty, hovering over you." He looked at me and narrowed his eyes. "You don't remember them either?"

  "I never met Mrs. Bonville," I said in an even, calm voice, even though I wanted to scream for help and cry. I'd been trying to come up with an escape plan in my head, but it hurt so bad I couldn't concentrate hard enough to open the Grimoire. The pain from my nose was helping a lot. At least now I could focus on the word.

  The word…is…iso…

  "Maybe you didn't know his wife, but you knew Maureen. Hell, everyone wanted to know Maureen. Do you know Bonville killed her?"

  "Maureen's dead?"

  He laughed. Short staccato noises at first. But then it became this deep, guttural roll as he leaned back against the bars. I waited, patiently, as I focused the pain into the intent I needed.

  Isa…tim…

  When he finished, he sat on the wet concrete with me and crossed his legs Indian style and faced me. "You don't know where they went?"

  "They?"

  He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. I just regret Bonville never saw what that witch did with the Cruorem Grimoire. You blinded him. Burned his eyes out. It was quite entertaining, and I must say—" he leaned in close "—quite the accomplishment all on your own, without the book."

  The news stunned me. I didn't have any real sympathies for Allard Bonville. He'd been a bastard. What did bother me was that I was capable of that kind of destruction. Me? I didn't know the circumstances that led to me burning out his eyes. Hell, I wasn't even sure I believed Jack. But I sensed he believed it. "You're lying."

  "'Fraid not. There are witnesses, Darren. They saw what you did before that witch shoved Bonville's Grimoire into you. I figure with that book in your soul, I'll have enough power to complete my spell and carve a new window into the Worlds."

  Isa…tum…

  "Your spell? Are you the one making the pentagram?"

  "Not just me. I've got a good teacher. It was so easy to catch you, you know. They told me you were in Savannah. Looked you up, set up house nearby, and watched you. I figured…the best way to catch you was to dress someone up like that witch. So…easy."

  My shoulder and arm were completely cold now, and I needed to lean up. Moving was awkward, but I did manage a semi-different position and hissed as the blood rushed back into my shoulder. I tried building up enough energy—Great Electron Willing—to blast this asshole into the wall of his own hell. Jack seemed to think the bars would stop me. I honestly didn't know. I'd been around iron before and it never bothered me. So I didn't think my difficulty in focusing came from that.

  Or did it? Had something changed? "What are you planning on doing?"

  "I know about a place the other witches don't like to talk about. And I know how to get to it."

  "Where?" Please don't let it be the Peripheral, please don't let it be the Peripheral, please don't let it be the Peripheral…

  "Faerie."

  I narrowed my eyes at him and swallowed. "Faerie?"

  "Yes. See, that's my spell. The Cruorem split up into two camps. Their side, Lei and Rayne's, want to make you join them. They want to use you. But the rest of us…" He chuckled and that crazy in his ey
es looked a whole lot…crazier. "We want me to make a stationary gate into a different world. A big fucking gate."

  "Jack…" I shifted to a better but not a more comfortable position. "You don't want to go into Faerie. You have no idea the weirdness that's in there."

  "Oh, I don't want to just go into it. I want to own it. I want to turn this house into a Cairn, a place for the Faerie to come and go and call me king…"

  All at once the pieces—the pentagram, the bodies, the banishing ritual—fell into place. I'd read about this kind of thing in the BBOE. "You're making a gigantic Coyote Flame."

  "Hell yeah, I am. Only I'm making it big enough to cover this entire house!"

  Cairns were the doorways into the Peripheral, but they weren't the actual world. They were tiny foyers, anterooms where anything trapped in them could wander for days, weeks, or even years. People lived out their lives in Cairns, never realizing their dreams of seeing the Alfheim of legend never really happened.

  And this ass-puppet wanted to make one the size of a house?

  Dear God…this asshole's the conductor on the Stupid Train, and he's dragged me along for the ride. All aboard!

  FAERiE BLOOD

  I had to derail this act of insane stupidity as quickly as I could. Coyote Flames were portals hand-carved between the Worlds. They were the used car of transportation, the drunk bus driver commute, the derailing roller coaster. And they could not be directed. It was easy to make one with a little blood and a little hermetic alchemy.

  But the ending point couldn't be determined. Someone could build one of these things and wind up in space. Dead. The idea of making one as big as a house was horrifying. Because whatever World you landed in could use the Coyote Flame to travel back through. Meaning, if he nailed the Peripheral, then every manner of nasty inside of it would be given a free ride back here as long as that thing was open. True, Raven had said a lot of the things in the Peripheral couldn't exist here without wearing a living creature—but what if there were things that could? Things she didn't know about?

  Or worse…what if people went into the house, thinking it was just a house, and got a sidekick riding them out? No…I had to stop this before it started. Once it was built…

  …how in the hell would I close a Cairn that big?

  This was bad.

  "And this is your idea?" I asked.

  "Yes. You know how we're always nodding to the Fairy kingdoms in our rituals? What if I could bring them here? Or even better, go there? If I were there, she said I could have power."

  "She….who's she? Who's telling you to do this?"

  "Wouldn't you like to know?" He stood and stepped out of the cell. "She's also told me the iron might not work, so the only way to be sure your magic was nullified was to keep you drugged. So…" He came back with another syringe. I had to do something. If he got that back into me, I'd be out like a light, unable to warn anybody about the boneheaded thing this idiot was gonna do.

  "Qitrubu gisig!" I said under my breath, and the door to the cell slammed shut before he could get back in.

  Jack wasn't paying attention and slammed face-first into it. He dropped the syringe and it fell between the bars and into the cell. I lifted my legs and put my foot on top of it and pulled it closer to me.

  "You bastard," Jack hissed as he yanked on the door repeatedly. "Open this door. Now."

  "Isatum!" I felt the heat on my wrists and ankles but the fire didn't burn flesh, just the ropes. My shoulders and elbows did ignite with a fire of pain all their own as I moved them. I managed to move myself into a defensive position but my thoughts were fogging again. Damn…were the bars really making magic hard for me?

  "Damn that bitch," Jack hissed as he stepped back from the bar. "She said you had enough Fae blood in you that the iron should make you weak."

  I was weak—every muscle was shaking—but I wasn't going to let him know that. But there was something more pressing here. "Who told you I had Fae blood in me? I'm not part of Faerie, Jack."

  He narrowed his crazy eyes at me. "She said you drank the blood of a Faerie Queen!"

  I couldn't do anything but stare at him. He was right—I had tasted the blood of Maab, the Obsidian Court's Queen. But not because I wanted too. Mike's daughter Brendi had forced that blood into my mouth when she kissed me.

  But who…who told Jack Klinsky? And what relevance did it have to any of this?

  "I see it in your face, Darren. It's true."

  "Who told you?"

  Jack took a step closer to the cell. "Then the bars are having an effect on you."

  "No…"

  "You closed the doors. Open them. Fight me."

  I didn't have time for this. "You have no concept of the stupidity you're about to commit. Don't you realize if you try and make that kind of door, you're going to draw the attention of things that'd rather have you dead than care?"

  "Like I'm gonna listen to an amnesiac like you."

  "I remember everything else, you dumbass!" I moved to the bars but didn't touch them. I didn't know why…I just felt that I shouldn't. "You can't do this. By killing all those people to make the pentagram, you've committed the worst in magical crimes. You're going to draw the attention of the Ethereals and trust me, you don't want that."

  Jack took a step back from the bars. "Bodies? What bodies?"

  "The mutilated bodies the police found in each square. Come on, Jack. I saw the pattern. You started with Chatham to make a banishing circle, only with the blood it'll have the opposite effect."

  "I didn't mutilate any bodies." Jack backed up further. "What is wrong with you? I was going to use that pentagram to open a door. I didn't kill anyone."

  "Then someone else did, Jack. Who's helping you?"

  He looked away. "I can't say."

  "You've got to tell me, Jack. Who is helping you? Who told you I drank Faerie blood? You can't trust them because they're playing a dangerous game and framing you for it."

  I thought he was listening to me. I did. He looked like he was. But looks were deceiving and so was he. He turned from the bars and moved to a table in the corner. "I won't believe they'd destroy me, Dags. I can't. You're just jealous because she's mine now." He turned and lifted a rifle in his hands.

  A tranq gun.

  "Jack, don't!"

  I heard the ppfft and yelled when the ampule with the red pom-pom on the end struck my chest, just to the left of the bullet wound. The drugs in this thing worked fast—faster than the syringe—and as I fell onto my side and closed my eyes, I hoped like hell he hadn't overdosed me.

  Or I'd never wake up.

  OVEN MiTTS

  I needed a vacation in the worst way. I told Mike for weeks I wasn't getting enough sleep. Can't say that anymore.

  When I came to this time, I wasn't as coherent as before. The drug hung onto everything like thick soup dumped over my head.

  See? That was a bad analogy.

  I was on my back, my arms and legs pulled out to my sides and held there pretty tight. My hands had something on them—could be oven mitts, or at least that's what it felt like. Either way, I couldn't move.

  And I couldn't talk because there was something shoved inside of my mouth. Tasted like…sweat socks.

  I could see…sort of. Though everything looked as if I were watching through a rain-soaked window. I blinked several times but couldn't clear the fog. My hands and feet were ice, and I felt a breeze brush against my skin. We were outside, but we weren't in the Square. The sun wasn't down yet but it was getting there, and by the look of the sky, we were in for some serious rain. I had no idea how long I'd been in that cell but I suspected it was late afternoon of the next day. I had to get Stella out of the 'Pheral by midnight. And here I was playing sacrifice with a bunch of wanna-be Satanists.

  Bad choices.

  I looked around and noticed I had an audience. Maybe five of them in all. Black robes. Hoods. Oh Christ, it was the Cruorem all over again. Junior style. I tried to say something but that just brou
ght everyone's attention to me. I did recognize Jack, dressed in a gold robe, just like old Fafner—aka Allard Bonville—used to wear.

  "You're awake—or as awake as the drug will allow," Jack commented. "Rest assured, you won't feel a thing when I cut it out."

  Cut it out? Cut what out?

  "Jack." One of the black robes to the right said. "You are kidding, right? 'Cause he looks like he's really drugged."

  "He is really drugged, Syl. And don't call me Jack. In the Circle I am Agamemnon."

  I'm gonna be sick.

  I had sensed a bit of apprehension in that voice that could be used to my advantage. Maybe. So I started struggling and tried to scream through the gag. A few more of the robes looked around and backed up.

  "Stay were you are." Jack's voice was stern. "I assure you, he's agreed to this. I saw his hands. He's one of us."

  "I didn't see his hands," a woman's voice said. A familiar voice. A robed figure moved from the others and came closer. She reached out and touched one of the mitts.

  "Don't do that!" Jack yelled.

  Too late. The mitt came off and whatever held my wrist was cut free. I held my hand out and thought, Emuqa! Whatever usually took over to wield the sword was now wielding the word.

  The force summoned in the word struck Jack in the chest and shoved him into the altar behind him. It didn't take long for the others to scatter, tossing off robes and beating the hell out of there.

  The other mitt came off and the ropes were cut. A taller person in a robe freed my ankles as Mike pulled and yanked at the gag. "Mike…that was too close." My voice was harsh and I had to spit the bad taste out of my mouth.

  "Yeah. Next time, don't make the damn text so cryptic." He threw the hood back. "Don't get up just yet." He shined a penlight in my eyes. "Your pupils are dilated. He drugged you?"

  "Yeah. Twice that I know of. After that, I'm not sure." I tried to raise a hand for someone to grab and help me up off the ground. Or I thought I did. In reality, nothing happened. Whatever had taken over was gone again. Oh Gawd, what the hell did they do to me?