by Lila Dubois
Now, to deal with the others.
There was a coffee shop two blocks away. Moira could see café tables shaded by umbrellas perched on the sidewalk. The monsters rarely attacked if she was surrounded by humans. If she could make it to the coffee shop she’d be safe.
Moira took off at a run, limping slightly from her damaged heel. If she let herself think about what was happening fear would overwhelm her, so she didn’t think about it.
She ran in the shadow of her enemies.
As she crossed a side street, not stopping to look for oncoming traffic, something long and sharp brushed her back, and the force of it nearly knocked her down. She stumbled across the street, leaping onto the opposite sidewalk and ducked into a bus hut, pressing herself into a corner where it would be impossible for anything winged to get her. She heard the grind of concrete on concrete and looked down to see the sidewalk below her feet rippling like water. She leapt onto the bench as ten small ribbons of concrete separated from the sidewalk, leaving foot-long troughs. They swarmed around the bench, circling the metal legs.
Claws screeched over metal, and the roof of the bus hut buckled. Four long furrows pressed down as her invisible attackers raked their claws across the metal. Moira crouched on the bench, dividing her attention between the dangers from above and below. She curled her hand into a fist and cast again and again, but she was dry, empty of magic.
Running was the only option.
There was a single city block between her and safety. She could make that.
Grabbing one of the round metal columns that supported the now mangled roof, Moira swung herself out, crouching as she landed. The breeze from her attackers’ passage ruffled her hair. She looked back to see the concrete snakes slithering out from under the bench.
Moira pushed herself up and started running. She ran full tilt, head down, one hand holding her bag tight across her body. The air rushing past her ears masked any sounds her attackers might have made, and she couldn’t risk stopping to look back.
She was half a block away when a busboy carrying a tray of silverware came out of the café. He looked at her, raised a hand to his eyes to shield them from the sun and watched her approach. The sight of a pretty girl running for her life unburied a long denied sense of chivalry. He rushed out to meet her, his ankle-length apron flapping around his legs.
There was a final hard knock against her back, the faintest hint of scraping against her shoulder. Moira stumbled, hit a crack in the sidewalk and fell on hands and knees. She flipped onto her back, checking the sky and sidewalk. There was no sign of her attackers. She squinted at the sidewalk ten feet back, where a few uneven bumps in the concrete marked what remained of the snakes.
She heard the pounding of footsteps. The busboy would be here any second. She’d need a convincing excuse as to why she’d been running.
The busboy dropped to his knee beside her, and Moira stammered out a story about a road-raged driver who’d chased her after she accidentally banged his car with her bag.
A voice, faint on the wind, whispered, “Why do you run from me?”
Chapter Two
The spell was cast under a blood-black sky. Sleep was fitful and nightmare-plagued for those who acknowledged no magic. But for practitioners, the dark workers of man's oldest tool, sleep never came.
Her wards were strong, stronger than any she’d cast before, for the magic she worked was rich, rooted in the deep places of the Earth. She could not stop the world from knowing that old magic was being drawn, but she could hide the knowledge of who, and where.
Desperation lent her strength while determination fueled her skill.
“God and Goddess bless me for what I do this night.”
Moira cradled a chalice in one hand, gripping a sword in the other. Arm straining, she held the sword aloft, blade angled to the ground. Raising the chalice she tipped it so the blood-laced wine slid down the blade, from hilt to tip. Drop by drop, the mixture landed in the cauldron at her feet. The spice of heated wine and the cloying copper scent of blood perfumed the night.
When nothing remained in the chalice and the blade was dry, she lowered her shaking arm and knelt, placing the sword and cup on the cold earth. Clad only in a homespun robe of purple cotton, cold leached into her body where her toes and knees rested against the unforgiving ground.
The blood and wine bubbled, turning to steam. As the first tendril rose, Moira reached out and curled her fingers around the smoky tendril. The cool steam solidified in her hand, forming strands of silver filament. She drew the steam from the air, spinning it to thread as a weaver would turn wool to yarn.
Drawing the steam with her right hand, she gathered the thread she created with her left. The steam continued to rise and she continued to spin it, turning vapor to thread, converting the magic from one physical form to another. Soon nothing remained but dried patches in the bottom of her cauldron.
Quickly now, she lifted the warm cauldron and set it to the side. The fire, which was burning cheerfully in the small pit she’d dug, she doused with dirt. Tilting her head back she raised her words to the black sky.
“My will is strong and my need is stronger. By my magic do I call The Wild. Bound to me by the call of my blood, by chalice and blade, by smoke and fire.” She lifted the hand that held the thread, baptizing it with moonlight.
“A being of The Wild into bondage I do call, mine to command while the need is here. God and Goddess hear my plea. Neither lightly nor with joy do I bind The Wild, but what is at stake is my life.” She blinked back tears. She would not weep.
Magic was a raw force, and working it stripped away defenses and façades. Panic, fear and anger, emotions Moira worked to suppress, bubbled to the surface as she cast. She told herself that if the spell failed she’d find another way, another solution. But she was tired of running, and fatigue was making her sloppy. If this didn’t work…she wouldn’t evade them long enough to find plan B.
“My will is strong and my need is great.” Her shouted words rang clear in the night. Taking the end of the string she wrapped it once around her right wrist and tied it in place, using her teeth to help form the knot. With her left hand she took the trailing thread and began to wrap it around her wrist, laying the string close on her skin so that she created an ever-widening bracelet of silver.
“Bind and weave,” she chanted. “Bind and weave.”
The air rippled. Outside her circle of protection the forest came alive. Those beasts that should sleep in the night took flight, a flock of crows rising and crying out dire warnings. Howls and yips echoed from the forest. Panic rose in her breast, though the night could not touch her. The only thing that could breach her circle would come at her bidding, and would not leave until she willed it.
“Bind and weave, bind and weave.” Her voice contained a tremble she could not still. She was reaching the end of the thread. The string now wrapped halfway up her forearm.
“Bind and weave, bind and weave.” She breathed the words, her voice growing quieter as the beasts around her grew louder. Something low to the ground darted across the edge of the clearing.
“Bind and weave.” With a final turn she finished, carefully tucking the end under so it was secure.
“I call you now to my command. Old magic made you and old magic will bind you.” The Earth shivered beneath her knees, but the witch was strong, and a child of power. Deep in the magma core of the Earth magic stretched awake, shooting tendrils through layers of granite, diamond and coal, through the bones of creatures long dead and the ghosts of spells. Breaching the Earth’s surface, the spell spread like water, filling every crevice in search of a creature to fulfill the witch’s request.
“Bind by magic and blade. My will is strong and my need is great.” The Earth’s trembling escalated, twigs and leaves bouncing on the ground. “I call The Wild into bondage.” Trees creaked as they leaned towards the casting circle, dawn by the growing vortex of magic that swirled above Moira’s head. Arms of branches
, tipped with knurled fingers, scraped against the impenetrable circle.
Moira looked to the sky, her eyes unfocused as the spell consumed her, “My will is strong and my need is great.”
On the last word she raised her right arm, the string armband glowing with dark light, like the luster of a black pearl. Pricks, as if from needles, stabbed into her arm where the band lay. Biting her lip against the pain, she remained steadfast in her resolve, her arm high. She would not yield.
With a final wrench the pain disappeared. A harsh blue light engulfed her arm, forcing her to turn her head away. When the light faded the string was gone.
Deep in a forest, far from the one where the witch stood, a being of The Wild jerked to a stop as the scent of magic grew strong in the air. Blue light, dark against the bright daylight he stood in, surrounded his right arm.
“No!”
It hadn’t worked.
It had been over an hour since she completed the spell. The forest was quiet. Moira wrapped her arms around her chest. The night air was cold, too cold to be clad in nothing but a homespun robe. Both to ease the chill in her body, and to postpone the moment she would have to face her failure, she rose and walked across the circle, her toes curled against the cold earth. Her green and pink gym bag lay within the circle, the glaring neon at odds with the solemn forest. Smiling at the absurdity, she opened the bag and pulled out her jeans and a thick knit sweater.
She drew off the handmade robe. From spinning the wool, dying the thread and weaving the cloth, the garment was one entirely of her making, and at each step of the way she had worked magic into it. She could cast spells while wearing store-bought modern clothing, but they never had the potency of those cast while she wore this robe.
She drew the chilly jeans up her legs hissing out a breath. She fastened them before yanking the sweater on over her bare chest. The thick cotton instantly formed a warm cocoon around her upper body, even as her legs prickled with cold inside the denim. Balancing, brushing dirt from the sole of one chilled foot, she drew on a sock, switching feet and repeating the process before slipping into soft boots.
She began to pack her tools. Folding her robe she put it in a velvet pouch and then into her gym bag. She scooped up the chalice and wiped it clean, then sprinkled salt in the bottom of her cauldron to nullify any remaining magic. Occupied with her cleanup, she didn’t see the change in the darkness.
The spell ripped him from the sunlit forest of his home. He fought it, fought the magic that pulled at him, with all he was. When he could not break the spell, he was more shocked than angry. It had been a long time since a witch had drawn enough magic to perform a spell that could bind one of The Wild. He was sucked into an endless night, a darkness where he was blind and deaf. Swirling in this ether, his anger grew as shock faded. A change in the density of the dark warned him of the end, that the origin of the spell was approaching.
Before the magic released him, as the darkness lifted, there was a shocking pain in his right arm.
Sunk as she was in a brown study, Moira did not immediately notice the change. At the center of her circle the night condensed, darkness and shadow loomed in the vague outline of a massive beast.
The spell was complete.
The night shivered, and the darkness snapped into focus. The blurred outlines became sharp, the blackness drawing back to reveal the color and texture of the being it contained.
The quiet of the night was rent by an enraged bellow.
Moira sucked in a breath and whirled as the terrifying sound echoed in the clearing. Unsure what to do, she remained motionless at the edge of the circle, unsure if the creature, which she couldn’t yet identify, had seen her.
“Who has done this? Who?” The creature’s voice boomed like a tolled bell, anger lacing each syllable. It, no he, for the voice had been masculine, twisted his head side to side, but didn’t turn far enough to see Moira.
What was he? She couldn’t tell. His massive outline told her he was no sprite, and he had at least four legs, so he was not a faun. When he repeated the question, demanding to know who had cast the spell, Moira drew in a calming breath.
“I have,” she answered coolly.
He turned, and the ground shook from his weight. A space of ten feet separated them. Even at this distance he loomed over her, a full four or five feet taller than she.
“You have bound me?”
“Yes.
Without warning he charged her. Moira turned to run and tripped over her bag. Pounding foot beats slowed, then stopped, beside her. Moira looked at the massive hoof beside her face, then rolled to her back. Sprawled on the ground, braced on her elbows, Moira stared up at the enraged centaur.
He took a step, bringing his hoof within inches of her shoulder. She scrambled back. He kept coming, each of his pie-plate-sized hooves hitting the ground hard enough that she felt the vibrations through the earth.
He could not hurt her, that was part of the spell, but faced with the reality of a centaur, Moira didn’t trust it. If the shopkeeper had been wrong, and he could hurt her, it would only take a single stomp to snap her bones or crush the breath from her chest.
With her eyes focused on the huge hooves, she didn’t notice her sword until she put her hand on it. The hard column of the hilt dug into her palm.
Moira came up onto her knees and jumped to her feet, holding the blade out before her. Stretched out at shoulder height the blade was pointed at the beast’s front, directly below the place where his human torso joined his horse body.
“What do you think you are doing, human?”
She darted a glance at his face, and he ripped the sword from her hand, the slightest movement of his finger sending the blade whipping across the clearing where it hit the barrier of her circle and fell to the ground.
“You enslaved me.” The centaur held up his right arm. A dark metal cuff, covered in scrollwork and runes, inlaid in red, wrapped midway up his forearm.
“My spell,” Moira whispered, stunned to see what the thin string had become.
“Yes, human witch, your spell.” He loomed over her. Moira checked herself as she began to retreat, not wanting to show weakness. The centaur brought himself within inches of each other. Moira’s nose nearly brushed the defined muscles of his human stomach.
“Release me,” he purred, cajoling rather than demanding, his silk tone slipping over her like lover’s hands.
“Release…” she whispered, confused. She couldn’t think through the pleasure coursing through her as phantom hands brushed her breasts, cheek and back.
“Yes, release me.”
“Release The Wild… No!” Moira jerked back, putting space between them. She opened her right hand, a small ball of fire flicking to life. Moira held the fire against her chest, and the centaur’s magic flared green as she burned it away.
“I said release me,” he bellowed and reared up. His landing caused the earth to jolt beneath her.
“I need you,” Moira said. She couldn’t believe she’d been so easily seduced by a simple trick. Then again, it had been over a year, and she had needs. Sex, lots of good sex, was at the top of her to-do list when she regained control of her life.
“Your needs are so great that they are worth my slavery?”
Moira gritted her teeth as his words stabbed directly at her own reservations about what she’d just done. She wanted to apologize, wanted to make him understand why she’d done this, but she had nothing to give.
“I am a follower of the old ways, a believer,” she said, speaking in the archaic pattern of grimoires to give her words weight. She deliberately backed up, putting distance between them rather than retreating. “The God and Goddess granted my cast.”
His head cocked to the side at her words. Moira wished she could see his face, but it was hidden in shadow.
“The act of casting and success of a spell do not inherently make them right. I will not suffer to be bound.” His tone changed, losing the deep and terrifying resonanc
e until it was simply a pleasant speaking voice, lower than most, tinted by a faint accent.
“I can’t release you,” she told him with genuine regret, speaking from her heart. “I need you.”
There was a beat of silence, a moment of settling, before he asked, “Why have you called me?”
Now was not the time to explain. “I’ll explain, but right now we have to go. This circle has been up for nearly twenty hours.”
“And where is it that you think we will go, witch?”
“Moira, my name is Moira.”
“Answer my question, witch.”
Abandoning that argument, Moira said, “I have a safe place.”
Moira retrieved the sword, slid it into the scabbard and slung the long strap across her chest. She hoisted the duffle bag over her shoulder and grabbed the cauldron in one arm. Weighted down like a pack animal, she looked over at the half-horse/half-man who was her new companion.
Her centaur stared at her, arms folded across his chest. Motionless he was massive, and when he moved his size was overwhelming. If not for the spell, Moira had no doubt he could easily kill her.
With her one free hand Moira drew out the bag of salt she’d tucked in her pocket. She awkwardly opened the bag and started walking the inside of her circle, sprinkling the salt and murmuring as she went.
“What is worked is done, magic called, magic released. No harm to this place and no memory left of the magic worker. Parted and done. Parted and done.”
When she reached the starting point she upended the bag, pouring out the last of the salt. With a sound like a struck gong, the circle fell. Wind whipped through the clearing as the atmosphere equalized. Moira closed her eyes as long tendrils of her hair lashed her face before the wind died.
